The beauty of Dolly is her look has always been pretty plastic, so continued surgery isn't so jarring

This is a good point, but doesn't explain Joan Rivers.

Thank goodness for internets at the office, mine at home has been down since yesterday morning after I foolishly cancelled a service call last week.

I am an only child, so I actually don't have the sibling squick much. One of my favorite books is Hotel New Hampshire. Although since reading one of his more recent books, I sort of wonder if John Irving was molested in some way .

Only child here as well, and while I'm not very squicked by stories of sibling incest (parent/child is always going to be horrible to me), I found out that I really got creeped out when a blind date had a too-strong resemblance to my best friend, who occupies the "brother" slot in my mental relationship map (we've been fast friends since the first day of 2nd grade in 1976).

My love for "Brandy" is sort of unholy at this point, though. "At night when the sun goes down, Brandy walks through a silent town, and loves a man who's not around ..."

It's one of two songs that I sing along with when they come on the car radio!

[various choices for the Hell's Tp 40 rotation]

Pfft! Like they'd ever give the residents a respite from the continuous loop of "It's a Small World."

Which gets me to Islands in the Stream, and musing about how Dolly aged much more gracefully than Kenny.

That's not so much gracefully as ferociously beating Father Time into submission with every technological advance available to modern science. But Dolly is sufficiently awesome that I won't criticize if she ends up like Lady Cassandra O'Brien.Δ17 from Doctor Who as long as she can still sing "Rockytop" beautifully.

This is a good point, but doesn't explain Joan Rivers.

I think she really has dysmorphia. I mean, there are several points here where she clearly should have stopped. [link]

I think Dolly being Dolly makes up for a lot, whereas Joan Rivers is just icky.

Fingers crossed that I can keep Brandy in my head for the rest of the day...

I do think Dolly also looks a little creepy, for what that's worth. But still way better than Kenny!

Maybe I'm the strange one, but the #1 song in my hell is Three Dog Night's "Joy to the World."

I'm also surprised that the discussion hasn't gotten around to "You Light Up My Life," which is too schlock even for me.

Also, agree with Amy on Dolly Parton. Dolly is a very talented singer who has no pretensions to being anything other than who she is. Her kind of cheery authenticity makes it easy to forgive a lot.

Sibling incest is squicky to me, but parent-child incest has a ton of power issues making my squick response even worse.

My sister (a teenager in the 70s) had a piano book with both "Billy, Don't Be a Hero" and "One Tin Soldier" in it. Both got a lot of play.

I think you're right, Fred Pete. It's the authenticity within the fakeness that makes it manageable. It's interesting though because Joan Rivers is no shrinking violet about admitting to her plasticity.

Maybe it's the difference between faux urbane and faux country?

re: theatre performances with no way to leave? Oh, I'd find a way to leave if I needed to. If you think you have to keep your audience captive, you're on very shaky footing. The middle-aged female bladder knows no social constraint.