Tuesday
On Sunday night, Vietnam’s HTV9 aired the Miss Universe Pageant’s National Costume Contest live on national television. As mentioned in the first of this two-part Update1 (the link takes you back to yesterday), this is my favorite ninety seconds of the aired pageant strung over ninety whole minutes. I’ve never had the opportunity to see the whole costume show before--nay, I never even knew it existed. I assumed the speedy parade at the beginning of the Miss Universe Pageant was all there was to it. Man, what I’ve been missing. Sometimes, my interest in these things stems from the infectiousness of Sunshine’s excitement, but not on Sunday night: eighty international beauties gussied up in outfits mostly garish and ridiculous is my kind of masquerade parade. We hurried home after dinner to watch TV. This year’s costume contest wasn’t disappointing. Some highlights (fair warning: candidate names below link to video footage, loading may take a minute): the real show-stopper of the night happened immediately when Miss Albania stepped onstage dressed as a bouffant Hammer vampire (ahem) and skulked about peering over her flapping high-collared cape. Any footage from the first eight contestant shows her continuing to vamp Vladly about in the background, turned backward so the audience can see her gothic two-headed Albanian flag. She had none of the imperious severity of Miss Kosovo. Misses Uruguay and Korea were well-matched opponents, showing equal ineptitude with the weapons they brought onstage (boleadoras and a sword, respectively), and neither would have stood much of a chance against Miss Thailand’s badass martial arts. There’s a whole lot more, of course.* But let’s skip on to the personal: here Miss Sunshine can be seen, fourth photo down, dressed-up as a facilitator and hanging-out in the doorway of some building in Nha Trang. [Cavin]
this had happened to Mr. Cavin by 11:47:00 PM
Then, a 1 sided conversation ensued...
* Some extra notes on candidates who were edited from the Update above: Miss Venezuela showed considerable dedication to her Amazon tribal theme by showing up with a bone in her nose (though she still looked more like an exotic Dr. Seuss thing in her red puffball outfit). Miss Aruba was the best Vegas showgirl by far, Miss Bahamas had the most comfortable-looking pajamas, and Miss Mexico was the most glamorously Apocalypto. Miss Honduras had the heaviest hat, a whole Thanksgiving cornucopia of tropical fruit and fowl. Miss Serbia was a bellicose Brownie Scout. Miss Finland came barefoot. The most ridiculously sublime had to be miss Miss Dominican Republic in her spangled major league baseball uniform, which she topped off quite literally when she flung her glittering cap to the crowd. Spunky. Among the worst were Miss Egypt’s cheap and sparkly Party City Cleopatra rental, Miss Trinidad and Tobago’s dancing sailor show outfit, and Miss Netherlands Xanadu Flashdancer. Certainly the most awful of the night was Miss Australia, wearing a wavy and fattening empire ring of sheer ridiculousness, allegedly to evoke the barrier reef (her boomerang necklace was obscured by the sash, happily). But probably the most offensive was Miss New Zealand, who was dressed as the whitest little aboriginal mascot ever. Here is a really convenient place to browse photos of all the contestants at once. Once you have your own favorites, here you can see which ten Misses made the finals. Supposedly, you will soon be able to vote for your favorite online, à la American Idol.
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