Star Struck Style

Back in the day, I was a huge fan of “America’s Next Top Model.” I started watching the show regularly during Season 3, just as the producers began to understand how ridiculous the show was. I was working for big names in the fashion business at the time, so I held no delusions about the show itself. I knew I was watching a reality show, not a documentary about the industry.

Yesterday, I watched “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model” on Netflix. The documentary was okay: it brought back fond memories of just how ridiculous the show could be. I found it to be insightful in some ways because I didn’t really know about the interpersonal relationships between Tyra Banks and the other stars of the shows. That was revealing.

What wasn’t revealing was the “scoop” that the producers were exploiting the contestants to make compelling television. That’s what reality TV was at the time. Singling out this show in retrospect seems foolish to me. Even some of the contestants would agree with me. To paraphrase a few of them, “it was a different time back then.”

I guess that I’m old enough to have that sort of perspective. In fact, I believe that I have perspective to spare. I was recently asked to use two words to describe myself on an application to a reality show, and “perspicacious” was one of the words I chose. Perspicacity is one of my hallmark traits because I not only possess both hindsight and forethought, but intuition. While it’s great to have the first two qualities, they are nothing without the third. My intuition has kept me out of trouble for my entire life.

Intuition is indicated in my natal chart. I have a triple-cardinal “big three” with my natal sun in Capricorn, my natal moon in Cancer, and Libra rising. Only Aries is missing, which makes the current, once-in-a-lifetime conjunction between Saturn and Neptune in Aries significant. The planet of reality meeting up with the planet of delusions in one of the intuitive cardinal signs marks a time when those opposing influences come together. I should be able to use my innate perspicacity to avoid being bamboozled by anyone who is trying to rewrite history in order to set an agenda for the future, like the people who view “America’s Next Top Model” as a scar on history instead of a ridiculous TV show that was fun while it lasted.

My intuition is telling me that this Saturn/Neptune conjunction is going to be revealing a lot of similar situations where people who believe that their shit doesn’t stink will find out that it does stink. It’s lucky for me that my perspicacity was written in the stars, and that I can understand that we can move forward while acknowledging the mistakes of the past. At some point in our lives, we’re all going to use the excuse that “it was a different time back then,” including all the critics of “America’s Next Top Model.”

The old person has spoken . . .