热身词语

　　coy: cute but like you are about to do something naughty

　　pert: active, happy

　　effervescent: very happy and cute

　　tune out: cease being aware

　　I do whatever kind of products anyone wants. This week I had a job for some South American product. They said, "We want you to be sexy, coy, pert, but not too effervescent." It always means the same smile and open eyes. For forty-five minutes they tell you what they want. They explain and explain and you sort of tune out and do the same thing.

　　ad agency: the company responsible for making an advertisement

　　studio: the company responsible for taking the photography

　　stylist: person in charge of the model's make-up, hairstyle, dress

　　pose: place in a certain position

　　insecure: unsure about themselves, not confident

　　There are a lot of people there: the person who has the product, the man from the ad agency, a couple of people from the photography studio, the stylist, who poses your dress to make sure it hangs right... suddenly there are a dozen people standing around. Each is telling you to do something else. You know they are even more insecure than you. You pretend you're listening and you do what you'd planned to do in the first place. When you've worked before a camera long enough, you know what they want even though they don't.

　　hairdo: a style of a woman's hair

　　high-fashion model: person who poses with a product for an ad (usually clothes)

　　overt: open, unhidden

　　At first you work very hard to try to discover different looks and hairdos. After a while, You know them all. Someone once asked me, "Why do high-fashion models pose with their mouths open? They look like they're catching flies." This look has been accepted for a long time. They want everything to be sexy, subtle or overt. After a while, it's automatic.

　　in: popular

　　posed: your body set in a fixed way

　　costume: all the clothes you have on, one set of clothes, which together creates a certain feeling

　　phony: fake

　　Now the natural look is in. Jumping up and down or staring out there ... What's natural about looking into space? They want you natural but posed. How can you feel natural with three pounds of make-up, in some ridiculous costume, standing there and looking pretty? What they think of as being natural is very phony.

　　basket case: a helpless, hopeless, distraught person

　　Someone will call you at seven in the morning and say be ready at eight thirty. Can you be there in forty minutes? You're a basket case trying to get your wardrobe together and be there on time. You'reshavingsa cup of coffee, suddenly the phone rings and you have to run. It's terrible. Somehow you manage to make it on time. I'm very seldom late. I'm amazed at myself.

　　on call: they can call you whenever they want and you are expected to be ready to work

　　pampered: everyone and everything in the way you want

　　I'd like to say I'm sick and can't make it, but I seldom turn something down unless I think it's really awful. Usually I'm just rushing and do the job. I feel guilty if I say no. When you're working for one agency, they expect you to be on call. Otherwise the client may think you're too pampered.

　　closetful: everything in your clothes closet

　　wig: fake hair

　　block: a measure of distance, about the same as one bus stop to the next

　　cab: taxi

　　tipper: someone who gives a service person (waitress, beautician, taxi driver) a small bonus of money for doing a good job

　　You go out of your house with your closetful on your arm. Different colors and shoes to match and purses and wigs. Every time I get a taxi, they think I'm going to the airport. They're upset when I'm going ten blocks away. I've never found one to help me in or out of a cab. And I'm a good tipper. So I've developed these very strong muscles with one shoulder lower than the other from carrying all the wardrobe about.

　　puff: use air to make larger

　　cheekbone: the bone under your eyes, at the top of your cheeks

　　Most people have strange feelings about standing before a camera. You have to learn to move and make different designs with your body. Some girls know how to puff their nose in and out to make it change or their lips or cheekbones. They practice in front of a mirror.

　　cattle call: many people are asked to come in and apply for a job (usually for modeling or acting)

　　Usually you're competing with anywhere from thirty to sixty girls. They're cattle calls. Sometimes they take you in ten at a time. You wait from forty-five minutes to an hour before you're called. They narrow it down and ask for three or four to come back. It's like going out on a job interview every day. Everybody is very insecure. You walk into a room and see thirty beautiful girls and say, "What am I doing here?" Immediately you feel you should leave. But you think you might get three out of fifteen jobs, so ...

　　charm school: a school that teaches you how to stand, walk, talk and act in a way that is socially pleasing

　　There's no training needed, no kind of background. People spend thousands of dollars going to charm schools to learn make-up. It's ridiculous. They just take money from young girls. You learn while you're working. I didn't think it was funny the first few years because I was so nervous. After you relax, you see how absurd it all is.

　　I've always had a problem gaining weight. I told a photographer I had gained two pounds. I was happy about it. The agency said, "She's too fat, tell her to lose weight." They wouldn't have known if I hadn't told them.

　　show business: entertainment (singing and acting)

　　wallflower: a very shy person who does not feel comfortable going forward to talk to people, usually the person stays in a seat close to the wall, not in the center of the room, so the person is called a wallflower

　　feel at ease: feel free from anxiety or constraint

　　I think the shyest people get into show business or modeling. They were wallflowers in their classes. You never really feel at ease and you force yourself to do things not natural to you. It's always something that you really aren't, that someone else wants you to be.

　　hanger: a triangle-shaped object you hang clothes on

　　You feel like you're someone's clothes hanger. One day someone will say you're great. In the next studio, they'll say you're terrible. It changes from minute to minute: acceptance, rejection. Suddenly it doesn't mean anything. Why should you base your whole day on how you look in the morning?

　　ambivalent:shavingsopposing feelings towards

　　file: put papers in a certain place for storage

　　degrading: insulting, something that makes you feel bad about yourself

　　look down: think someone is a lesser person than you

　　My feelings are ambivalent. I like my life because it does give me freedom. I can have half a day off to do things I like. I couldn't do that if I had a normal job. I could never be a secretary. I make as much money working three hours as a secretary makes in a week. If I had to sit in an office for eight hours a day filing, I would find that more degrading than modeling. I don't look down at secretaries. Most are talented women who could do better jobs than their bosses probably, but will never get the chance―because they're women.

　　lib: short for liberation

　　comparable: another thing of the same value; that can be compared

　　in the next breath: say something and then right away, maybe as the next sentence, say something completely different

　　I'd probably join women's lib, but they don't believe in make-up and advertising, so I couldn't very well go to their meetings as I am. At school, where I'm studying photography, they said if I had any interest in women's lib I wouldn't be modeling. I was trying to tell them women are so underpaid that I couldn't earn a comparable wage at any other job. They disagreed, but in the next breath they were talking about something they'd seen advertised and wanted to buy the next day.

　　I feel guilty because I think people should do something they really like to do in life. I should do something else, but there is nothing I can do really well. I'm established and make a steady living, so it becomes pretty easy. It's not very fulfilling ... but I'm lazy, I admit it. It's an easier thing to do.

　　nervous energy: the energy you feel when you are uncomfortable...

　　You stop thinking when you're working. But it does take a lot of nervous energy because the camera goes one, two, three very fast, and you have to move very fast. There's a kind of thinking about what you're doing. If your left knee is at the right angle…

　　actuary: someone who adds up statistics for an insurance company

　　connotation: idea or feeling attached to something

　　stripper: a person who takes off her or his clothes for the entertainment of others

　　whore: a woman who sells sex for money; hooker

　　I usually don't tell people that I model. I say I'm an actuary or something. You're a celebrity because your picture is in a magazine or there's the negative connotation. If strippers or whores are arrested, they usually say, "I'm a model." There's also the thing about models being free . and easy. I've never had the problem of men making passes at me. I've always managed to maintain a distance. I would never have become a model had I known ...

　　turn sb. off: depress sb.

　　Mrs. Paley―what's her name? Babs Paley―said the greatest thing is being very thin and very rich. I'm afraid that turns me off. I don't like to look at my pictures. I don't like to ride by and see some advertisement and tell everyone that's me.

　　at one crack: at one time

　　Most models, after one or two years, can't be very interested in it. But they get involved with money, so it's difficult for them to quit. And there's always the possibility of the commercial that's going to make you twenty thousand dollars at one crack. You can work very hard all year on photos and not make as much as you can on two television commercials.

　　streak: a few repeated lucky events (like winning the lucky draw twice)

　　beach boy: a guy who used to surf and stay at the beach or a lifeguard at the beach

　　fast buck: easy money

　　Male models are even worse. They're always talking about that lucky streak. They're usually ex-beach boys or ex-policemen or ex-waiters. They think they're going to get rich fast. Money and sex are the big things in their life. They talk about these two things constantly. Money more than sex, but sex a lot. Dirty jokes and the fast buck. You see this handsome frame and you find it empty.

　　go off into (my own world): not talk or exchange much with other peopleplay it safe: not do or say anything that would be socially unacceptablegossip: stories about other people

　　I go off into my own world most of the time. It's difficult for me to talk with the others, because most people I work with are very conservative and play it safe. I usually get emotional, so since I'm not going to change them and they're not going to change me, we sort of talk about everyday gossip. You end up smiling and being nice to everyone. You can't afford not to be.