Ghoul-ery

What's a poor Fashionable to do nowadays?

Animal furs are verboten. Can't wear ivory jewelry. Silks might be made by prison labor in China....

Well Kary Mullis, the definitely odd surfer/Nobel laureate, wants you to wear genes. No not Guess?, Calvin K., or Armani jeans. Real genes cloned from bits of DNA taken from snippets of hair left behind by Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Abraham Lincoln, Elvis, George and Martha Washington, and others who worked hard to be - or would be horrified to be - celebrities.

Mr. Mullis plans to float the invisible DNA molecules in a milky liquid and embed it in jewels to be worn as earrings, necklaces, etc. He claims such celebrity DNA ghoul-ery is potentially a $100 million business.

In an age when celebrity and notoriety sell as never before, he may be right.

But if any of your friends are tempted to fork out major money for celebrity gene accessories, you might remind them that, since Napoleon's and everyone else's DNA is invisible, they may find they're wearing the emperor's new genes.

Why not just dig into the back of your closet and find one of those old T-shirts with Einstein's frizzy hair or Beethoven's scowl silk-screened on it. If you want to make a statement about your favorite hero, make it visible.