Pungent Details: All It Needs Is an Atomizer

Who could ask for more?

There's also an article titled "Totally Blonde," which reveals an important new trend in American life -- the trend toward putting beautiful blond women on TV shows. "To turn on the tube these days," Details reveals, "is to be blinded by blondeness." This article makes no sense; when has TV ever eschewed the beautiful blonde? But it does provide Details with an excuse to run pictures of those already overexposed platinum blond bimbos who hang around with Hugh Hefner. Details shows them frolicking in tiny bikinis, sucking on popsicles and sprawling across the pavement of the parking lot of a store called, believe it or not, "Dong's Drugs." Clever, huh?

There are some real articles in Details -- a profile of a young Marine killed in Iraq and a piece on the ne'er-do-well American son of former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor -- but they seem out of place, as if they'd accidentally wandered in from another magazine, one that doesn't have quite so many cologne ads.

But I don't want to be totally negative. Details isn't all bad. It'll come in handy when you need some cologne for your next hot date. Just open to any page and rub it all over your body.

How Convenient

Back in October, I wrote a column on the weird trade magazines that people peruse while exercising at a local gym. After reading the column, Jeff Lenard, publisher of NACS, the official magazine of the Alexandria-based National Association of Convenience Stores, sent me a few back issues. The July issue contained a masterpiece -- the definitive history of the portrayal of convenience stores in American cinema.

The author, Michael Klein, provided a rich textual analysis of convenience store scenes in "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" and "Thelma & Louise" and "Booty Call" and "Raising Arizona" and "Grosse Point Blank" and "Clerks" -- plus TV shows ranging from "Seinfeld" to "Mad About You" to that classic "Simpsons" episode in which Apu, the lovable owner of the Kwik-E-Mart, sells a 29-cent stamp for $1.85.

Such rigorous cinematic scholarship would be enough for a lesser magazine, like Cahiers du Cinema, but Klein doesn't stop there. In a sidebar story, he asks the writers and directors of these shows to reveal what they bought the last time they went to a convenience store.

"I walked up to the counter [with] a bottle of moderately priced chardonnay, a bottle of Scope mouthwash and a pack of condoms," says Bill Grundfest, a former "Mad About You" writer. "And the lady behind the counter just looked at me over her glasses and said, 'Well, somebody's got an interesting evening planned tonight.' "