Even by New York City standards, the public disturbance that broke out Saturday was unusual. It was serious enough that the Internet Movie Database referred to it as a “riot.” According to the Associated Press:
Three people were arrested and six others hurt Saturday after bedlam broke out while they waited to audition for “America’s Next Top Model,” police said.
Police didn’t know what prompted the chaos involving hundreds of people outside the Park Central New York hotel in Manhattan. The panic left the street outside the hotel littered with shoes and clothing, according to news reports.
“It was pretty scary,” Jessica Paravati told WNYW-TV. She said she was caught up in a stampede after waiting on line overnight, hoping for a shot at stardom on the reality show.
At least one would-be contestant in the New York throng said the tumult wouldn’t stop her from trying again.
“This is my dream, so I’m not going to give up,” Gifty Asika told WNBC-TV.
Well, it’s part of her dream, the other part of which is a name change for her next birthday and the public flogging of whoever bestowed that moniker on her. But I understand that right down the street, there was another instance of civil disorder even more serious. According to the New York Harold-Tribune:
Heidi Klum and Christie Brinkley were among the wounded when a group of women proclaiming themselves “fashion terrorists” attacked a crowd waiting for the first public sale of Elizabeth’s Taylor’s new perfume, called “Serial Monogamy,” at Bloomingdale’s this afternoon.
The terrorists, members of a previously unknown group called the “Red Eyeliner Army Faction,” peppered the crowd with stud earring buckshot, mascara applicators sharpened to resemble arrows, and homemade bomblets made up of mashed together lipstick and fertilizer. Eight people were injured, including a male passerby who was taken to the hospital with a mascara applicator lodged in his right ear, who said that he was “only looking for a men’s room.”
“Serial Monogamy,” a perfume that features the scents of thrice-used wedding dresses, old photograph paper, and best man vomit, was actually designed by a divorce lawyer friend of Ms. Taylor’s. He said he came up with the idea from his clients, who unaccountably kept memorabilia of their previous marriages, and wanted a perfume to remind them of “the happy times.”
Ms. Klum and Ms. Brinkley were unavailable for comment. Through their publicists, they issued a joint statment denouncing fashion terror unless it was practiced by Tim Gunn, Ms. Klum’s sidekick on “Project Runway.” “Even then,” the supermodels declared, “there are very limited circumstances in which it is justified, as in the case of that twerp who cheated during Season 3.”
Officers on the site were baffled as to how the militants were able to infiltrate the sale. The lead detective investigating the incident said, “That one woman with the green-tinted hair was wearing a dress that looked like it was spray-painted on her. How she managed to smuggle an Uzi in here under it is anybody’s guess. What I’d really like to know is how she got it to fire mascara applicators on full auto.”
