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Shield your eyes, delicate readers, because this week's edition of the Look Book features EXACTLY the sort of person that makes you choke on your tongue. Fredrica S. Friedman, President of Fredrica S. Friedman, Inc., is a literary agent who lunches at Michael's, wears blue tights, and believes a Fendi bag goes with everything. To each their own, but Intern Alexis has nonetheless rounded up the testosterone team of Evan Hughes, Lucas Hanft, and Jim Burke to help Fredrica and her Fendi. Their illuminating commentary after the jump.

Evan Hughes, bookish editorial assistant

Describe Fredrica's style:

You can take Holly Golightly out of the country, but you can't... Fredrica (can I buy a vowel?) is dressing significantly below her age. Hey, maybe it's working: I double-taked l the fact that her daughter already has a real job. My mother is much more unforgiving of the turn-back-the-clock-with-fashion approach, but then my mother is a wise woman.

What is Fredrica's guilty pleasure?

Watching Babe on DVD with a highball and a Parliament. But seriously, folks. She's the agent for books about women's political demands, but she totally TiVos Desperate Housewives and TBS reruns of Sex and the City, where the women wouldn't touch a grungy ballot box with a ten-foot cigarette holder.

How can we make Fredrica less dead cow and more dead poet's society?

Um, lose the coat? Makes sense in a bag. I actually like it in a bag. But O Bergdorf, my Bergdorf... The tights will draw some critics, too, but I like them. If we must, we'll call it flair.

Faulkner Shmaulkner, what is Fredrica's favorite book?

101 Dalmations. Total cheap shot.


Lucas "Hatred" Hanft, Radar's resident St. Bernard

Describe Fredrica's style:

Lactose love. It s unclear if any cows were actually slaughtered in the production of the coat and so you can t say whether she tolerates lactose or not. She
might be a cow fascist. Regardless of her feelings toward the cow s corpse as such, it s clear that she fetishizes its skin it s a creepy kind of love, but a love nontheless. I hope the coat is plastic. Not because I m some freak-flag-waving environmentalist. The only way that coat is redeemable is if it s some sort of raincoat or poncho. Then it might be kind of funny and cute. Cow skin faux or actual seems like a budget leopardskin print. Ultimately, it s a pattern better left for South Beach thongs and the carpets of mafia kingpin champagne rooms.

What is Fredrica's guilty pleasure?

The sweaty taste of human flesh. In certain circumstances, either for sport or out of necessity or for filthy revenge, cows have been known to take a bite out of one another. The same goes for certain members of the human race. Perhaps Mrs. Friedman is trying to indicate some deep spiritual bond she has with the cow — perhaps they're connected by some primal urge,a shared, subdued need for the flesh of its own kind (see Communitarianism).

How can we make Fredrica less dead cow and more dead poet's society?

The Dead Poets Society was composed of a bunch of fugazi transcendentalists, inspired by the feepy whining of an uncoked and hence, unfunny Robin Williams. I can prepare a kit for Mrs. Friedman that will let her go hardcore into the woods, Thoreau style. A small suitcase, containing a hatchet, a hammer, a selection of lathes, a box of matches, 15 nails, 12 lengths of denim, 20 yards of twine, 2 caskets of lime and a burlap sack filled with hair. It s for her benefit.

She ll need to know those barter skills come winter in Massachusetts. It s pretty much the perfect time for her to head up north, into the domain of the Dead Poets. Spring is here, and if she starts now, she might be able to prep herself for the winter. There s a chance she might even happen upon the ghosts of Melville and Hawthorne ferociously petting in the shadow of some arch gothic tree. There s a better chance though she ll pay a guide $10 to point her to a plaque where they think Thoreau might have chilled so long ago.

Faulkner Shmaulkner, what is Fredrica's favorite book?

This is a difficult call, because I can t really tell what her relationship with the cow is truly about. Does she love it, hate it love it and hate it? Does she want to harm it? Bring it pain? If she s loving and hating, does she do both simultaneously, or consecutively? Does Radio Rahim haunt her dreams, listening to a blasting boom box playing Public Enemy while Danny Aiello forces him at gunpoint to squeeze an udder? Instinctually I feel something barbaric in this woman s soul, but of course I might be projecting. Nonetheless, I m going to go on feeling. I bet she s a Cormac McCarthy fan, maybe even a Mailer fan she likes corned books, beef and steam, chewy prose. Lots of grunts. I don t really read much contemporary fiction, so I couldn t suggest a book precisely. She probably gets off on Palahniuk something. Or maybe she s remembering on some fine authors lost, reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or Henderson the Rain King, funny, fearless, piercing trips into an American heart of darkness.


Jim Burke, paralegal-cum-critic-at-large

Describe Fredrica's style:

It pains me to say such things, but if I had to describe her style, I think I would have to say that she looks cobbled together from equal parts Cruella DeVille and some nightmare version of Mary Poppins. Nightmary Poppins.

What is Fredrica's guilty pleasure?

Name-dropping. A lot. We could also call it unabashed self-promotion. Using the phrase the "First World." (Who's #2, and who's assigning the rankings? U.S. News & World Report?) Making synonyms out of two words that have no ungodly relation to each other: "...A sense of humor. We could also call it flair." Yeah, we could, and we could also say that "Britney Spears" is a "superstar pop talent," but that doesn't make it okay.

How can we make Fredrica less dead cow and more dead poet's society?
 Well, I think she'd have to be a male prep school student, but if you can't pull that one off, then maybe you can also further the transformation by giving her even the slightest interest in something that requires the milk of human kindness.

Faulkner Shmaulkner, what is Fredrica's favorite book?

Hm. I think she'd go for something like, "Farm Animal Prints and their Application," by Le Corbusier. Just to lighten things up.