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Ring a ding ding | Lisa Scottoline

It’s supposed to distribute light evenly around your face, making you look younger, thinner, or prettier, or all of the above, which is supposed to be our collective goal.Not mine.

You want to know what’s cool?

I’ll tell you.

The answer is ring lights.

Ring lights are the cool new thing.

All the kids are talking about ring lights.

The Insta and selfie crowd has had them for a long time.

For Zoom and Cisco Webex and every other platform.

By the way, a platform isn’t something you stand on anymore.

It’s software on your computer, which you use to see and speak with other human beings, who get on their computers with their platforms.

But you can’t do any of this without a ring light.

Or at least you shouldn’t.

I say this because I have a new book coming out in March, titled Eternal, and I’m very excited. It’s historical fiction, which is new for me, and it’s a story about a love triangle.

I wrote a sex scene from memory.

It was great.

That’s how you know it’s fiction.

Anyway, Eternal is set in fascist Italy, and I did the research in Rome.

Tough job, but somebody has to deduct it.

And when I was there, I took lots of videos of various places, which I wanted to show online to promote the book.

Also for fun.

I mean, don’t you want to go to Rome right now?

I sure do.

Even if you’re going with me?

There’s worse company.

I’m fun, except on the plane, when I clutch the armrests and try not to cry out.

So every Tuesday night at 7:30 p.m., I’m on my Facebook page showing my video from Rome and then talking, which necessitated a ring light.

A ring light is a normal light, shaped like a ring.

It’s supposed to distribute light evenly around your face, making you look younger, thinner, or prettier, or all of the above, which is supposed to be our collective goal.

Not mine.

I just want you to be able to see me.

And I had noticed that a normal lamp doesn’t provide enough light. Unless you’re filming about the bottom of a well.

Now everybody on TV has ring lights. You can tell because if you look hard enough, you can see a glowing white ring reflecting off their glasses or a picture hanging on the wall.

It’s either a ring light or a UFO.

So I went online and got a ring light, picking from approximately 50,000.

I was excited until I noticed it came with an instruction manual.

You know how I feel about instruction manuals.

The same as you.

And really, should a lamp require an instruction manual?

Turn it on, and there’s light.

Turn it off, and there’s darkness.

Yes, I have an advanced degree.

Yet I still cannot understand this light, which is so unbelievably complicated that I want to throw it out the window. It has a big ring and in the middle, a holder for my phone above a little black box, which has a numerical display that says Color Temperature.

Huh?

What temperature do you like your light?

I don’t know, not too hot?

You don’t want to burn your tongue.

When you lick your lamp.

Then there’s a button with a plus sign and one with a minus sign, and since I’m no dummy, I figured if you hit the plus sign enough, the Color Temperature will increase to 88 degrees, and if you hit it low enough, it will go down to 33 degrees.

I’m guessing it doesn’t go down to 32 degrees because then the light would freeze.

Is that even possible?

I never took physics. Does it show?

I tried to lower the temperature as much as possible, but the ring light was still as bright as the high beams on a Buick and I was squinting like a mole.

So I had to put it across the room, but then I couldn’t see my phone and I looked like a tiny little author, far away in another state, talking too quietly to be heard and addressing someone slightly offscreen.

So I had to move it closer and blind myself.

You get the idea.

My home studio is a work in progress.

My video series is homemade.

But I can’t let that stop me.

Every Tuesday night I wash my hair, then put on makeup and sometimes pants for the Superbright Lisa Show.

Tune in.

But wear sunglasses.

Look for Lisa’s first historical novel, “Eternal,” coming on March 23. Also look for Francesca’s debut novel, “Ghosts of Harvard,” on sale now.