Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen

I do at least get what Ashley Olsen was going for here...

[Photo: Splash News]

... but I can't help feeling like she might have pulled off the whole female-tuxedo thing better if she'd, say, washed her hair. And removed and replaced last night's eye shadow. And not worn the cummerbund. And hemmed the pants. And picked a blazer that fit. Or, say, not picked a blazer at all. She seems to be aiming at business-chic, but jerked her arm at the last minute and hit the "exhausted blackjack dealer at The Champagne Pit" spot on the target instead.

But, you know, she's an Olsen. Should she get points for having a clear intent that doesn't involve evoking the homeless? Do we give points for that sort of thing? Personally I don't like grading on a curve. But I know a lot of people who'd have flunked freshman chemistry without one, so let's give it a whirl here.

ASHLEY: People will get this, right? That I'm going as a superhero's VICTIM? With the ripped clothes?

CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN: POW!

MARY-KATE: You know who'd have loved this? Frankie Sinatra. Oh, he was a card.

ASHLEY: What?

LOUBOUTIN: ZAP!

M-K: It all reminds me of the time I did Carson with a lit cigarette in my hair. How McMahon did laugh! He was all hands, that Eddie. And what a tongue!

ASHLEY: I don't understand.

LOUBOUTIN: KER-BLAM!

M-K: Somebody get me a scotch, neat, and make it a double. God, that reminds me of that night with Carol Channing and the Hardy Boys. I've got stories about that hussy that would make your toes curl.

ASHLEY: How is it that we're related? Sometimes I think this whole thing is a bizarre accident.

LOUBOUTIN: WHAMMO!

M-K: It's like Bette Davis used to say: "If you can't take off your clothes, then it's not worth having dinner." Or was that Paris Hilton?

ASHLEY: The worst part is, people might think you're ME. Clearly I have to dye my hair again.

M-K: You want to talk about buying new drapes? Let me tell you about the day Phyllis Diller came over for canasta and absinthe -- we'd both been having these WICKED hot flashes, see, and...

LOUBOUTIN: SPLAT!

ASHLEY: Time to go.

In our absence last week, an immense number of e-mails arrived in our Inbox claiming that Mary-Kate Olsen threw caution to the wind and wore something totally deranged.

I can't figure out what those people meant. Caftans and velvet inner-tubes are all the rage in my house.

Somewhere amid the blurry flurry of Fug Madness voting, Mary-Kate Olsen snuck past me in a satin shorts-suit and a purse longer than femur.

It's as if she's getting ready to go on safari in Sharon Stone's closet. Which... yeah, I'm going to need to go with her.

Oh, MK. When first I saw this, I thought, "Oh, MK. Why are you wearing a high-fashion version of the beach over-up my Great Aunt Doris bought in San Juan in 1986?"

I mean, no offense to my Great Aunt Doris -- she was awesome, and used to buy me acid-washed Guess jean jackets and other items deeply coveted by junior high school students without regard to what my mother would allow -- but she was a sun-worshiping, chain-smoking septuagenarian. And MK is...well, 21.

And then I realized that this is not merely the high-fashion version of my Great Aunt Doris's 80s Puerto Rican Vacation Cover-Up, but it is also A ROMPER. Did you hear me? I said it was A ROMPER! This moves her from the realm of Something Your Elderly But Still Sassy Relative Would Wear on a Tropical Jaunt and into What The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man Wears On Summer Vacation.

You know, if he were taking strip class there. That's quite a pair of shoes.

Oh my god, M-K. Take a seat, so we can chat. You know I kind of love you now -- I loved your Harper's Bazaar cover, I love that you're not a lazy dilettante, and everyone loves a twin, right? -- but you concern me sometimes. No, no -- I'm not worried about your weight or your love life (I have my own weight and love life to think about, after all). I'm worried about your lip stick, gloss, stain or colorant of your choosing:

Namely, where is it?  I'm not wild about the shroud you're running around in either -- it's inching toward the city limits of Blandsville-- but you do love a nice long frock and it does seem very Calvin Klein-y minimal-y and who doesn't love the whimsical use of an elephant belt, am I right? If only the rest of you didn't look so bedraggled, like your car broke down and you had to walk thirty blocks to the event in really painful shoes, and now you FINALLY made it and you're EXHAUSTED and SWEATY and you chewed off all your lip gloss trying to hail a cab and oh my god, yes, fine, it's true, this dress WAS made from a window treatment, but it was a very SUBTLE and CLASSIC window treatment, so shut up and take the picture already.

And yet....somehow, someway, part of me feels like you almost make this work. Have I accidentally brainwashed myself from reading multiple articles about how you work really hard and aren't all fame-whorey and whatnot? And if so, how do I get deprogrammed? Do I have to lock myself in the bathroom with a pile of Atlantic Monthlys? Because, honestly, that would probably do me some good.

But, seriously, while I'm incarcerated, you've got to get some Revlon on up in there.

I was noodling around at the Borders last night night -- I love the section of the newsstand featuring all the super obscure publications, like, I don't know, Pants and Periscopes Monthly -- and this cover caught my eye:

I gotta admit, I think she looks kind of adorable and great here. Lately, I've sort of been taken by the Olsens. Do they often look as though they're wearing something they've been composting? Yes. But they seem to take their (multitude of) jobs seriously, and they're rarely vomiting out of the side of a limo and, I don't know, I just think they're sort of charming all of a sudden.  Which is why it's nice to see M-K modifying her traditional pouty fish-face into sort of a charming smirk and looking all clean and sort of glamourous, and yet relaxed and grown-up and confident. So, although I am not wild about HB's headlines layout (I know they're going for "uncluttered" but it looks sort of like the cover of Blush, the magazine on Just Shoot Me! -- which, seriously, doesn't Just Shoot Me! sound totally like a made-up show now, like a television show from a chick lit novel about a harried but charming 20-something television producer who eventually finds love with the guy who owns the bodega downstairs? I blame the punctuation), I have to give them a well-played for this one. Maybe on the next cover, we'll even see her teeth.

I've become kind of fascinated by Mary-Kate Olsen (no offense, Ashley [ed note: oops: see below]; I'm sure you're really interesting, too, but since you never got to be The Tragic Olsen, well, it's not the same). I don't get Showtime, so unfortunately I can't watch Weeds; ergo, I don't know how M-K is doing on it, making New York Minute the only time since Full House that I've seen her speak. But she went through something awfully private in a very public way when we all found out about the anorexia thing, and she seems healthier now. If she's gotten up to any other mischief, she hides it pretty well from the press. And love her clothes or hate her, at least she's consistent with her message.

[Photo: infdaily.com]

That message -- when it's not something along the lines of, "Double, double, toil and trouble" -- is clearly that all her blood circulates in her feet and nowhere else. How else to account for the fact that it's warm enough for open-toed shoes, yet freezing enough for a giant sweater and trenchcoat? You're witnessing a biological marvel, people. That she's a miracle of science should ratchet up New York Minute DVD prices by at LEAST ten cents.

** Apparently there was a snafu with the photo captioning, and this is in fact Ashley despite the photo being labeled MK. Do you know what this means? Do you? It means... that I have a reason to be fascinated by BOTH of the twins now, instead of just one. Thank you, Jesus, for loving me. THANK YOU.