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Zen and the art of plastic surgery

Zen and the art of plastic surgery
Penny Ditch  |  by www.canada.com. All rights reserved. 19.01 | 3:50

Zen and the art of plastic surgery

A week at a rejuvenating spa retreat is nice, but it's even better when accompanied by the latest season of Nip/Tuck

Shinan Govani, Neither nips nor tucks are normally included in the Zen in the City package they have at Toronto's Cosmopolitan Hotel, but that is exactly what I got with mine.


Zen in the City? How divine. But Botox with one's detox?

Well, sort of.
Recently, when I decided to retreat myself, I booked into the weekend deal currently offered at the downtown Cosmopolitan (www.cosmotoronto.

com), a hotel carved into a surprisingly intimate rue right in the smack of busyville. And though the wonder- package we speak of throws around such keywords as "rejuvenation" and "relaxation" and includes a roll at their destination Shizen Spa, my own stay turned out to be a bit more customized.

Font: You see, I spent my weekend holed up in the hotel, catching the entire, latest cycle of Nip/ Tuck.

(Mind. Body. Soul.

Did I mention body?)
Long a subversive and absurdist treat for me -- what with its black-as-tar humour, and sneak-up-on-you pathos -- I am a confirmed obsessive. You can take your moony, preening, self-actualized interns on Grey's Anatomy; I prefer the soapy, twisted, deeply fraught surgeons on Nip/Tuck!


But maybe I'm revealing a little bit too much about myself. And being a little more zealous than I am Zen.
The fourth season of the dramedy -- which, of course, revolves around a plastic surgeon's office in South Beach, and is led by those two melodrama-drawn docs played by Julian Mc Mahon and DylanWalsh -- runs on FX in the States, but has yet to air in Canada.

CTV, which has dibs on it here, says it has plans to do soon. In the meantime, some nice folks over there sent me some tapes to keep me going.
Not sure, precisely, what this did for my chakra, but it did wonders for my zeitgeist.

Five thoughts, as I sat in the Cosmo minding my p's and om's, and which I'll take the liberty to share with you now: 1. It is quite true what they say -- this show has such a range of weird and cool guest stars that it really is The Love Boatwith- lipo. Think: Jacqueline Bisset, Larry Hagman, Richard Chamberlain.

Think also: Alanis Morissette and Rosie O'Donnell. Think, even, of Peter Dinklage who plays the man nanny to a newly disfigured baby born to Walsh's character and his wife, played by Joely Richardson. 2.

If there were an Emmy for choreography, I think Nip/Tuck would take it every time. About once an episode, the docs perform what can only be described as a surgical ballet, literally cutting up their clients to what is always a killer soundtrack. It would be gross if it weren't deeply evocative, funny and sometimes melancholic.

Skin being shed to reveal metaphoric layers of what is so often guilt, vanity, longing --all that philosophical stuff that comes along with scalpels. 3. Does going to the sauna make you Scientologist?

In the latest season, a Barbie Doll they call Kim -- the kind of woman they used to call wanton back in the old days -- gets involved in a certain, stripped-from-the-headlines Church. At the same time, she lures in a young man, who we thought was the son of one plastic surgeon, but was actually revealed a little while ago to be the seed of the other. As the two characters get ever-deeper into the sect, they spend a lot of time in a sauna to free themselves of their worldly concerns.

When they're not in their towels, the characters "audit" each other, rail against prescription drugs, and discuss the beauty of "havingness." 4. Speaking of prescription drugs, has Brooke Shields ever been as good as she is on this show?

Many, many fries short of a Big Mac special, she plays a character named Dr. Faith Wolper who is Christian Troy's (MacMahon) new psychiatrist and puts forward the theory that Christian might, maybe, possibly, be gay. Shortly after she tells him this, they, of course, have sex.

5.Speaking of gay, is Alanis angling to become a career onscreen lesbian? Half-way through this latest season, she joins the show as the sweetie of a female anesthesiologist.

This, some years after she played a gal-pal on Sex and the City and laid a wet one on Carrie Bradshaw. But, oh, yeah, she also played God once -- in the movie Dogma.

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