born 30 May 1970

Carl Steadman, Richmond, California, erstwhile suck.com editor

David Dukas, Virginia, South Africa, actor

Dominic Nardini, Inglewood, California, musician

Eric Kaye, Livingston, New Jersey, composer

Ferrell Barron, Dallas, Texas, animation producer

Jason Vail, Chicago, Illinois, actor

Jeffrey Sebelia, birthplace unspecified, American musician/“Project Runway” winner

Jodi Lawaich, Hackensack, New Jersey, short filmmaker

John Tague, Chatham, New Jersey, actor

Ron Kennell, Stratford, Ontario, actor

Sam Rogers, Pontiac, Michigan, NFL football player

Savin Yeatman-Eiffel, Paris, France, animator/great great grandson of Gustave Eiffel (what relation he consequently bears to this person I cannot say)

Thomas Pietrucci, Paris, France, sound mixer

I guess this post is as good a place as any to pause to acknowledge the massive popularity that competitive reality TV shows of the serial elimination pageant variety have achieved in the culture at large. When Today’s Winner had his first, abortive encounter with fame, as bassist for the LA bubblegrunge band Lifter, the pathway to fame he would later blaze as a “Project Runway” designer had yet to be invented. However well your own system may tolerate these kinds of programs, they have proven themselves more than a passing fad. They have ignited the ambitions of literally millions of yet-to-be-discovered adolescent designers, cooks, decorators, and so on.

Though I’m skeptical about the soon-to-debut “Work Of Art”. It will be interesting (or, not) to see how they negotiate the whole matter of radical subjectivity. That, and the fact that the act of artmaking, like writing, seems inherently counterphotogenic. I’m sure they’ll get some cute contestants, though, which I suppose is the point. A more accurate name for that program will likely be something like “Statuesque Sculptresses and Picturesque Painters”.