Mlle. Sylvia Plath and her kikay New York summer

They kept going back to that photograph, passing it hand to hand. Taken 50 years ago this month, it shows 20 young women from across the country who came to New York in 1953 to work as guest editors at Mademoiselle magazine. Chosen from 1,500 applicants, they were dressed identically in tartan kilts, and were shot from above in the formation of a star. The woman at the very top of the picture, at the very top of the star, was Sylvia Plath, who immortalized the guest editor program in her autobiographical novel, "The Bell Jar."

The Bell Jar was Plath's foray into kikayness. Mademoiselle's guest editorship was like winning the lottery for college girls. A whole month spent in New York, running around covering fashion shoots, interviews, living the life. But she stood out like the sore thumb whose top skin she cut off: "an Ivy League snob" as one of the other editors called her.

While others from the team of '53 went on to lives of their own--finishing school, marrying their sweethearts, running a baby factory--Plath lived the writing life and then put her head inside the oven by age 30. While all the other editors have withered life, Plath will eternally fixed as the brilliantly talented poet and writer, eyes ablaze before the ravages of mental illness finally took her life.

I have two copies of that novel. In college I devoured all the books I could find about her. I had two fixations then: Plath and Dylan Thomas, he who "rage[d] against the dying of the light." Sometimes you outgrow the angas, sometimes you don't. Putting your head inside an oven is something that beckons you, and must muster enough courage not to do.

There will be a film about Plath in August. "Sylvia" will be essayed by Gwyneth Paltrow. Pag naging biglang sweet at likeable si Sylvia dun, delubyo na.