NONFICTION - Feb. 2, 1992

BOOBS, BOYS AND HIGH HEELS by Dianne Brill (Penguin: $10; 191 pp.) Brill is a model, actress and fashion designer, but the adjectives don’t begin to do Brill justice, if such a word is even applicable to a self-described “curvy, buxom blonde in those ultraglam gowns.” Brill has been a fixture on the New York night-life scene for years, a New Wave Mae West who espouses a philosophy that could best be described as push-upism. She stacks her blonde hair high on her head, regularly maneuvers her cleavage to somewhere above the high-tide line, and wears stiletto pumps, the better to line up said cleavage with the average eye height of the American male. As an individual attitude, it is either humorous or appalling, depending on how charitable you’re feeling. As a prescription for living, it is a hoot--and not entirely a pleasant one. If Brill really thinks she has advice for the distaff half-plus of the population, then too much hair spray has pulverized some of her brain cells. If, as the publicity copy suggests, this is all in good fun, then why does she take so much care in explaining exactly how to get into a rubber dress? Why is there a graphic description of the “Hair Brush Trick,” which sounds disturbingly like an outtake from an old movie? The lurking fear is that Brill does, in fact, believe in practicing at least some of what she preaches, which is what prevents her book from being a camp classic. It stands, instead, precariously close to being an insulating nuisance.