Meghan Lamb’s ‘Love, Jennifer Jason Leigh’

                The CW Network is real. The show is real. I am shocked. Apparently the show ‘Secrets’ is for women ages 18-30 who feel they live a double life. CW calls it a ‘documentary’ though it is something far crueler than that. The entire first half of the zine deals with the show ‘Secrets’. 

                Meghan Lamb shows off the disturbing nature of what ‘Secrets’ wants. In this zine the network is a bit pickier, wanting women ages 18-27. I reckon those three extra years, from 27 to 30, must be particularly double-life inducing. When you go from 18 to 27, your life is pretty exciting. By your late 20s you start to make stuff up. That is Jennifer Jason Leigh’s take. 

                Every day Jennifer is polish. She eats cocaine. I think this email is real. For the person answering it is a real human being, who must have read it. Aimee is totally fine with Jennifer’s style, and advises her to apply through the website. Or this may be a way to get the weird person to stop emailing her. Jennifer fills out the online form. We get a sense of her wealth from her many marble items. Maybe Jennifer’s husband and wife are unable to trust her, which may explain why she is mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes is Jennifer’s ultimate secret. It may be from all that cocaine she ingested. 

                In the second half of the zine a marriage agency contacts Jennifer. This is the attention she craves! The sender attaches several photos, of a lovely woman of what I assume to be Eastern European descent. Jennifer’s heart goes aflutter upon viewing these pictures of a woman clearly knowledgeable with computers. Jennifer adores Olga’s shine. Jennifer wants to become her hand in marriage. I am happy Jennifer can transform herself into a holy sacrament. 

                Olga’s writing grips me like a lover or creepy person on a crowded subway car. The clarity of her vision is mystifying. Life is meant for division according to Olga. She wants to divide the other half of her life into pleasure and happiness. I wonder what she did with the first part of her life. Jennifer is happy Olga said that about the dividing! We never learn what happened with the first part of Olga’s life. 

                We do discover more about Olga. She is 32 years old (or as she eloquently puts it ‘To me 32 years’). She lives in a city called Surok which is not city type. In Russia, divorces don’t happen. No, according to Olga, when one divorces in Russia, one is dissolved. Eventually Olga’s molecules came together once more to create this radiant beauty. The correspondence continues.

                This is terrific. I greatly enjoyed it. I think about all the random internet conversations that go nowhere. The sole purpose of those conversations is to find other lonely beings. That is what the show ‘Secrets’ is about, to have someone pay attention. The second part ‘Marriage’ deals with it on an even more personal scale, how random spam claims to be affectionate, to want you. It may not be properly spelled or even make sense, yet there is something comforting in affectionate, broken English. 

                Meghan isn’t a lamb, she’s a lion. 

                JenniferJason Leigh, shine shine shine!