As Tessie Tura, the veteran stripper who offered career advice to Gypsy Rose Lee famously advised, "You’ve gotta have a gimmick, if you wanna get applause!"

In one year, the dream and drama of wOw has alot to show for itself, but there’s still plenty of layers to shed and woman-flesh to reveal.

(After all, there’s no point being modest, here — wOw’s meant to be woman-candy.) Perhaps this tantalizing glimpse was just a tease. It would be sad to see it all wind up as just an empty gimmick, after all.

As an early-comer, posting and reading while wOw was still in beta-stage, I’ve had a front-row seat to all the site’s hot and sweaty bumps and grinds. I’m grateful for this opportunity and treasure the best moments I’ve shared here on wOw. Among you fabulous, devoted women, I reaped immense pleasures and invested a bit emotionally, intellectually and energetically in return. With the first anniversary passing, I’m attracted less and less. So now, it’s either let it go or kick in my two cents about what I have observed.

I have some, as they say - pushy questions.

A website by women for women should carry punch and be provocative by women’s standards, not by the inchoate standards of old-boy’s publishing. One wonders: is this site constrained by a hidden ‘mandate?’ Or rather, ‘manifesto?’ For the past several months, Quantcast analytics I’ve watched reveal that men comprise a close minority or the majority of viewers. (She places chin on fist and gazes toward the door.) Huh?

The wOw intern program sounds promising, what will result? Webmaster Tom jumped ship from Fast Company to come to wOw. He bravely switched gender-spheres, and the site has run darn smoothly since it’s start. But why a guy as Webmaster? Not to mention as fashion and media editors? Is wOw meaning to say there’s not a single female techo-wiz, or culture-maven, or femme fashionista to be found in all of Manhattan, LA or perhaps, Marble Falls? With all the ruckus raised about Liz being ousted from the NY Post, it’s disingenuous not to assign ALL these posts to talented women. As for the mysterious Mr. Wow? It’s real swell when gals want to keep their special guy-pals employed, but…hello?

I don’t, um, usually blog, so this was a new thing for me: the early format was pretty compelling and it all felt long overdue. Finding a semblance of dignity and propriety here, I tiptoed into a ‘relationship’ with the people onboard. The efforts of all the contributors here, from staff to founders to contributors has been awesome and inspiring. But it has gradually become trickier to weave through wOw, to maneuver around the personal attacks, disguised identities and insidious trolling we find on the site. How anyone could muster the protons to argue with someone online, when they have no way of knowing who or where they really are, is beyond me. Until recently, flamers and trollers have gone largely unchecked, and this has been a scene-changer. Bit-by-bit, the dialogues on wOw are not focused on rational discourse, not a discussion of the news, but on personal attack. It appears a community director has been appointed recently to deal with this. But so far: no explanation of how this will be handled. If that early sense of propriety would take firm root in this site’s management, we might avoid this buzz-killer and reclaim our ranks.

It’s time to stop conforming and build an original, womanist ethos into the site. No one expects wOw to work as a private club for privileged doyennes who amuse themselves by eavesedropping on the ‘help.’ Sure, The Ladies Who Lunch are rocking - but in retirement homes. Times have changed, since yesterday. We’re now in an era of emerging social media - where go-getters grapple with reality on the fly. Liven it up. Flatten the editorial hierarchy. Bring on more user-generated content. How about a women’s film or comedy festival? Readers might submit YouTube videos or links to favorite clips to share each week. For that matter, some may have their own comedy bits to share. There are at least five women on the masthead who are world-class comedians. We should be laughing our asses off every day. How about a user-generated art/lit forum? This audience has buckets of creativity to contribute. If it gets too wild, well, there’s a cure in curating.

In a more perfect wOw, we’d all be able to read, save and add editorial content. Expert contributors would be enlisted to revisit the Western canon with a woman-built wOw-Wiki. Liz could loll in bed, if she felt so inclined, munching mint bonbons and updating us with live reports on Twitter. Community members could deepen their connections on Ning. Apps and links could tie this all together. Many advanced social features could be built right into the wOw platform. Classes by interesting smarties could be offered on various topics and scheduled in advance, and we could chat live during these sessions and ask questions and offer responses - all by adding a free Gabbly app.

Women here often talk about how too much time is spent on the Web doing nothing, together. Inertia, in the form of infotainment, militates against change. Wow could reclaim and remake the power of the medium. Did Joan of Arc suit up and straddle her mare just to go gallumphing right back to England? This ought to be a place for ideas, not rancor, to spread. Embrace science, design breakthroughs, nanotechnology, human ecology, new literature, art, music and poetry, psychic exploration and depth psychology. Wow followers crave this exchange of ideas more than anything. Concepts that arouse our own adventure and innovation. How many times have readers asked for more forward-focused, think-y stuff? Why not beseech Jane Wagner to guide some mind-expanding editorial, until she passes the baton? By then, a wonderful template would be in place.

Storytelling - it’s everything. Less romance-novel, more real-news. Reports from women in the Congo, Uganda, Iraq and Darfur have generated great discussions, enriched and educated us and delivered us to the present moments of women across the globe. If wOw regularly presented actionable information, this sounding board could be a lifeline. It would also be great if you vetted your sources. Just in case certain contributors are running PR for hidden political or religious agendas.

If this global economic meltdown has proven anything, it’s that we women were very nice to give the guys their chance to run the show for so long, and frankly, they’ve messed up. Who’s been in charge on Wall St., in media, in the Beltway? It’s transformation-time. Let’s rally our world’s big thinkers on social reform, sustainability, human rights and a caring-based economy as regular, respected contributors. Some of the clearest klaxon calls, warning of the coming mortgage meltdown came from female economists who were all but ignored. Ask the wOw audience who they’d like to hear from, and put out the call. Wow could be a force to be reckoned with, by consciously yanking the conversation out from the clenches of a rabid, petty, sexist, conflict-feasting status-quo. If it’s too much to expect wOw to provide a moral compass, at least it can offer some reasonable ground - and traction for moving ahead.

Is all this practical? Doable? Realistic? Well, whatever happened to the dream of putting the Golden Years in the black? Women stay younger longer and older longer than ever before. Is wOw’s content attracting mature women from a balance of economic and racial sectors? The advertising here might well come from tech - as well as Tiffany’s. When it comes to monetizing all these elements, make new rules. (If a radical-fringe publication from the late 1800’s like The Nation can figure out how to accept ads without compromising editorial, so can wow.) Wowsters need groceries, toothpaste, apparel, insurance, sports and fitness equipment, office and art-supplies, finance and real estate tips, PDA’s, gizmos and telephony, books and music, parenting and grandparenting help, health and beauty products, home furnishings and green products, pet supplies, cooking and garden tools - it’s endless. And we all know women comprise a consumer majority. Wasn’t that the biz plan?

And please, finally - Talk to Her. Embrace the women here. They are a mighty tribe. Their connecting threads form wow’s umbilici. If the mast-headers don’t wish to mingle with their smartmob, what’s the point of publicly attaching themselves? Why not act as financial angels, hoping to ‘make billions,’ as Mary Wells put it? Wow ought to make billions, and everyone should benefit. How is it possible to decry the effects of the professional glass ceiling and raise a personal glass partition here? Can founders expect the site to be a game-changer without jumping into the action with the team’? The daily fresh content in new posts by founders comes straight off pushy questionnaires filled out in advance, weekly or monthly - and sometimes, begrudgingly. As if that’s all that Marlo, Candice, Mary, Liz, Peggy, Julia, Jane, Joans and Joni, Cynthia, Leslye, Sheila, Judith, Whoopie and Lily are capable of! It’s become evident that these women are bored or disenchanted to varying degrees, with the goings on at wOw. And it’s no wonder: in their lives, they’ve all defied some norm and carried some flag or another. They are capable of real risk and collaboration. May these talented women rise to meet the expectation laid out in wOw’s early days, and answer the 3 a.m. call! Their aggregate power has yet to be exerted.

The promise of wOw is a new format for feminine fusion. It reminds me of something Robin Morgan once wrote (and I can only hope to paraphrase): When all is said and done, the best possible spending of women’s lives is on our felicity - our joy.

Tessa Tura’s axiom is true, but Gypsy knew how to deliver the goods. This time, let’s do the act for our eyes, first and last. The stage is lit, the gloves have slowly inched off…now, luscious ladies…how about really working it?

You mean the game? http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1590

Sure, it’s a little dated, but it’s good, clean fun. My pa invented it, way back when only the experts thought they knew what they were doing.

And you hate when that happens.

In my case, it’s a glass eye that loosens when I’ve had a tich too much Courvasier. 

In elegant restaurants, if it pops out, it invariably lands on the tine of a salad fork, projecting it further and deeper into the room.

Searching for your eye is a futile exercise (a little like betting on the bank.) That’s why I never book dinner in the Polo Room with Mike Wallace…Marcia Wallace, maybe.

JJB,

In a sea of sentiment, yours is one remembrance of Natasha that gets to the heart of the person we have lost. It reveals her wry knowing, which she fashioned out of an unbelievably rich legacy. When I think of her mother’s pain, a woman whom Natasha described as "Heartbreakingly generous and vulnerable…"

Yes her death reminds us to value each moment with loved ones - but more than that - her life reminds us it’s possible to redouble our gifts.