Wednesday, February 01, 2012
RIP, Don Cornelius
Soul train creator Don Cornelius died this morning, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He will be remebered for bringing African-American youth culture in the 70s to the forefront. He did it his way. Love, peace and soul. RIP, Don Cornelius
Soul train creator Don Cornelius died this morning, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He will be remebered for bringing African-American youth culture in the 70s to the forefront. He did it his way. Love, peace and soul. RIP, Don Cornelius
Media-Whore D'Oeuvres
"The members of the UN Security Council are girding themselves for what will likely be a contentious debate on Syria. For all the empassioned rhetoric that will be deployed, there is one simple reality: if Russia doesn't like what's on the table, it will veto. And that noxious outcome will no doubt revive the perennial debate over whether the veto power is worth having. The most straightforward response is that the debate is entirely academic. The veto's not going anywhere. Amending the UN Charter requires the assent of the veto-wielding permanent five and none of them would contemplate shedding their privileges (least of all the United States). Absent a new world constitutional moment--which would not benefit the West or the cause of human rights at all--the veto is here to stay. That said, there are a few things worth noting about the veto power and its use. First, contrary to the conventional wisdom, Russia and China are not the most profligate in their use of the veto. Since the 1970s, that distinction has belonged to the United States (usually on draft resolutions containing criticism of Israel). Second, overall use of the veto has declined markedly since the end of the Cold War. The threat of the veto has important shadow effects on Council deliberations, of course, but the historical trajectory is toward greater consensus on the Council and against the casual use of the veto. Perhaps the most fundamental point about the veto is that you could not have a Security Council without it. Major powers will simply not grant an international body binding legal authority on matters of peace and security unless they are certain that it will not prejudice their interests. So the alternative to the Security Council veto is really no Security Council, or at least not in a recognizable form. As maddening as the likely Russian nyet will be, that's a tradeoff that few would be willing to make. As frustrating as it is, the Security Council is still an enormously useful body, not least because it institutionalizes the practice of great-power security consultations. If jettisoning the veto power is both impractical and ill-advised, there is an alternative for those convinced that the world must put an end to the Syria violence, through forceful means if necessary: pretending that the veto power doesn't exist." (ForeignPolicy)
"Mitt Romney snapped back from South Carolina with a Florida primary victory that took advantage of a more diverse electorate, re-established his image of electability and economic leadership, and demonstrated his organizational firepower in attracting – and retaining – early-deciding voters.
Far fewer voters made up their minds in the Florida campaign’s closing days than in any previous GOP contest this year – and Romney won his largest share of those who did. His final barrage of ads may have helped both to limit the number of late-deciding voters, and to stem defections in this group.The exit poll, analyzed for ABC by Langer Research Associates, found that Romney had other advantages – much more positive personal appeal than his top competitors; a sharp gender gap for the first time this year, with far greater support among women; fewer evangelicals, a group in which he’s struggled; lots of seniors; and, in another first for the GOP in 2012, a substantial number of minority voters. Mainly Hispanics, they backed Romney by more than double his margin among whites. Yet, while the result pulled Romney back to his strong New Hampshire showing, there was enough in the results to give Newt Gingrich a continued source of ammunition. A substantial 41 percent of Florida voters described Romney’s positions on the issues as 'not conservative enough'; among all non-Romney voters, 67 percent said so. Gingrich, indeed, won 'very' conservative voters by 42-30 percent, won the strongest anti-abortion voters by 15 points and won strong supporters of the Tea Party political movement – more than a third of all Florida primary voters – by 12 points.
In a more general kvetch (and possible nod to ex-Gov. Jeb Bush), nearly four in 10 voters said they’d like to see someone else run for the nomination." (ABCNews)
"There was a booksigning last night at Doubles for George Gurley and his new book – maybe his first book. It’s called 'George & Hilly; The Anatomy of a Relationship.' As perceived in the oontext of couples therapy. George is a young guy but already a seasoned journalist in New York. He’s one of the best interviewers I’ve ever met, because he’s interested. That doesn’t sound like much but it’s rare and it’s everything. He’s got a quirky kinda Midwestern style, farmboy hayseed; and sharp as a tack. It’s not the kind of book (title-wise anyway) that would interest me in the least. First of all, I’ve been there, and done that. So long ago it’s a distant, immaterial memory ..I’ve had quite a bit of therapy in my adult life. Nothing to compared to a lot of people I know including my ex-wife; but enough to know what it is and what it can/could do for me. I liked it for what it delivered ... He started this as a column a few years ago in the Observer about the two of them going to couples therapy. So I figured George had found a way to capitalize on his relationship with Hilly. After all, a writer writes about what he or she knows. It probably could make a good series. Or a movie. If you’re in your twenties, it’s probably an eye-opener, aside from being funny. Male or female; you get both sides. If you are in your 50s you might also fall off the chair laughing at what strange birds we are. George has got something here. The party started at 5:30 and I got there a little after 7. Wendy Carduner was at the door – the place was packed. She told me George had just “proposed to Hilly” on bended knee (surrounded by photographers). This was no accident, of course; this was New York playing itself in the world of authors and artists and actors and such .... They’ve been together for so long now, we’ll have to concur that Hilly is a partner on this voyage. Full partner." (NYSocialDiary)
"Comedy Central’s newest sketch series, Key and Peele, premieres tonight. The show is the creation of Mad TV alumni Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. I should acknowledge a bias — a friend of mine, Peter Atencio directed the show’s first season. OK, now on on to the facts: Key and Peele is truly one of the most original, subversive and howl-inducing shows I’ve seen in the last decade. It’s a smart and robust sketch series that that manages to satirize politics, movies, black culture, and white culture, without condescension or pandering to one group. In all truth, it may be that I find the show so sensational because I got to visit the set when Ty Burrell was dressed up like Nazi playing a scene that was spiritually somewhere between Inglorious Basterds and The Producers. Or because I saw Peter stay up for 48 hours straight editing a 45 second single take sketch about the Tea Party, choreographed to perfection like a Gene Kelly dance number. Or I could love the show so much because its just, really, really good." (Natasha Vargas Cooper/Splitsider)
"Long before a well-known French shoe designer immortalized women’s feet with red soles, the red Valentino dress had deified the women who wore them for several decades. Renowned couture designer Valentino Garavani practically had 'red' named after him. 'Valentino Red' is a source of reference among those in the know. According to the designer, the inspiration came to him when he was 18 at a Barcelona theater. The opera was La Traviata and everything he saw was red, from the theater’s interior to the flowers to the dresses. He decided it would be his signature color.For roughly five decades, Valentino has been creating some of the world’s most exquisite clothes. A serious wardrobe, the likes of which women such as Jackie Onassis or Elizabeth Taylor possessed, always has one of his dresses among the heap. All the most glamorous celebrities, socialites, and grande dames have worn him. He is up there among the greats with Dior, Saint Laurent, Chanel, Balenciaga, and Schiaparelli. Four years ago the Italian designer announced his retirement. His company had already been sold for almost a billion dollars. But his work continues online. Garavani and his longtime collaborator Giancarlo Giammetti launched the Valentino Virtual Museum late last year. While the concept might not mean much for people who don’t care about clothes or for whom women’s fashion holds little meaning, Valentino’s Virtual Museum is as worthy of admiration as any other exhibition room. It is the first of its kind, and like Valentino himself, rather exceptional ...Garavani and Giammetti live privileged lives surrounded by exceptional beauty. Their houses in Italy, France, England, and Switzerland betray the fact that they are true aesthetes." (Mandolyna Theododoracopulos)
"Hollywood’s latest health craze is — wait for it — human growth hormone. Alana Stewart tells the new March issue of Vanity Fair: 'I had started noticing a few gray hairs coming in. But I noticed that when I was taking it — no gray hairs.' Stewart, the leggy model and former wife of George Hamilton and Rod Stewart, was the sole H.G.H. user who agreed to be identified in the piece by Ned Zeman. The drug costs as much as $10,000 a year, and is described in celebrity circles as 'a fountain of youth in a syringe.' 'People talk about H.G.H. the way they talk about people who get Botox or Viagra,' says a movie producer. Another filmmaker reports he uses it to perk up his sex life. The results: 'My internal organs got healthier quickly. And I could feel it . . . It very much imbues you with a sense of clarity and confidence.' Dr. Andre Berger, a Los Angeles-based H.G.H. expert, said, 'People are going to be living longer. This is about preventing the chronic diseases and all the ravages that affect your quality of life.' While the Mayo Clinic lists side effects including carpal tunnel syndrome, swelling in the limbs and enlargement of male breast tissue, Dr. Uzzi Reiss tells Zeman, 'I’ve been taking H.G.H. for many years. I have the energy and vibrancy of a man half my age. I don’t get sick, don’t get jet-lagged.'" (PageSix)
"It's official, I am completely obsessed with openly gay socialite Peter Brant II and his (potentially gay) younger brother Harry. Screw Glee's Kurt Hummell, every gay teen on earth pretty much wishes they were either of these kids. They're just spectacularly amazing. I want to write a young adult novel series based on these two called Gossip Gays about them being young and attractive and rich and just downright awesome as they flutter from St. Bart's to New York to Paris, attending all the best parties and sneaking champagne on the sly. (All lit agents out there, that is a serious pitch.) The pair are the progeny of billionaire Peter Brant Sr and supermodel Stephanie Seymour. They will one day potentially be worth worth billions on their own—if they don't spend all their money on clothes first. We met Peter Brant II (he's way too luxe to be a 'Jr') last year when pictures of him getting close to his mother on the beach surfaced. We instantly fell in love with him after he told everyone in the media they were 'gross' for insinuating that he had an inappropriate relationship with his mother." (Bryan Moylan/Gawker)
"For ten years, the Sidaction gala has closed the spring Couture season in Paris. The evening has evolved into a highly successful fundraiser for AIDS education, research, and treatment, but the personality of the actual event is contingent on a couple of other features. One, it's something of a fashion showcase, not quite to the extent of New York's Met ball, but designers do make the scene with a 'muse,' like Giambattista Valli arriving with Bianca Brandolini d'Adda, Peter Copping dressing Clémence Poésy, or Dita Von Teese sporting Alexis Mabille on her bod and Alexis Mabille on her arm. Jean Paul Gaultier and Grace Jones also made a logical pair, even if she was actually with The Other JPG (Jean-Paul Goude). Another characteristic of the gala is the lengthy speechifying that precedes dinner." (Style)
"Back in the late '80s, the French government was planning to run train tracks for the high-speed TGV right through the middle of the historic vineyards of Vouvray, and Gaston Huet, as mayor of the town and its most important vintner, was leading the fight against the plan. When the writers Don and Petie Kladstrup went to interview Mr. Huet about the controversy, they asked him in passing about the greatest wine he'd ever tasted. Not surprisingly, he said it was a Chenin Blanc from his native Loire Valley, but he couldn't remember the maker or the vintage. He had tasted it as a prisoner of war in Germany, and the wine, a thimbleful in a mustard jar, was underripe and short on the finish. But it had the characteristic pear, apple and honey flavors of his beloved Loire Chenin, and it was the first wine he'd tasted since his capture some two years before. A railroad tunnel was excavated under the vineyards of Vouvray in the late '80s and Mr. Huet passed away in 2002, leaving his winery in the capable hands of his son-in-law Noël Pinguet, while the Kladstrups published a very fine book called "Wine and War" that was inspired in part by Mr. Huet's story. What hasn't really changed all that much is the relative obscurity of Loire Chenin Blanc. Sauvignon Blanc, the other white grape of the Loire Valley, gets more recognition, particularly when it's grown in Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé. But to my mind, Chenin is a much greater and more versatile grape." (Jay McInerney)
"The members of the UN Security Council are girding themselves for what will likely be a contentious debate on Syria. For all the empassioned rhetoric that will be deployed, there is one simple reality: if Russia doesn't like what's on the table, it will veto. And that noxious outcome will no doubt revive the perennial debate over whether the veto power is worth having. The most straightforward response is that the debate is entirely academic. The veto's not going anywhere. Amending the UN Charter requires the assent of the veto-wielding permanent five and none of them would contemplate shedding their privileges (least of all the United States). Absent a new world constitutional moment--which would not benefit the West or the cause of human rights at all--the veto is here to stay. That said, there are a few things worth noting about the veto power and its use. First, contrary to the conventional wisdom, Russia and China are not the most profligate in their use of the veto. Since the 1970s, that distinction has belonged to the United States (usually on draft resolutions containing criticism of Israel). Second, overall use of the veto has declined markedly since the end of the Cold War. The threat of the veto has important shadow effects on Council deliberations, of course, but the historical trajectory is toward greater consensus on the Council and against the casual use of the veto. Perhaps the most fundamental point about the veto is that you could not have a Security Council without it. Major powers will simply not grant an international body binding legal authority on matters of peace and security unless they are certain that it will not prejudice their interests. So the alternative to the Security Council veto is really no Security Council, or at least not in a recognizable form. As maddening as the likely Russian nyet will be, that's a tradeoff that few would be willing to make. As frustrating as it is, the Security Council is still an enormously useful body, not least because it institutionalizes the practice of great-power security consultations. If jettisoning the veto power is both impractical and ill-advised, there is an alternative for those convinced that the world must put an end to the Syria violence, through forceful means if necessary: pretending that the veto power doesn't exist." (ForeignPolicy)
"Mitt Romney snapped back from South Carolina with a Florida primary victory that took advantage of a more diverse electorate, re-established his image of electability and economic leadership, and demonstrated his organizational firepower in attracting – and retaining – early-deciding voters.
Far fewer voters made up their minds in the Florida campaign’s closing days than in any previous GOP contest this year – and Romney won his largest share of those who did. His final barrage of ads may have helped both to limit the number of late-deciding voters, and to stem defections in this group.The exit poll, analyzed for ABC by Langer Research Associates, found that Romney had other advantages – much more positive personal appeal than his top competitors; a sharp gender gap for the first time this year, with far greater support among women; fewer evangelicals, a group in which he’s struggled; lots of seniors; and, in another first for the GOP in 2012, a substantial number of minority voters. Mainly Hispanics, they backed Romney by more than double his margin among whites. Yet, while the result pulled Romney back to his strong New Hampshire showing, there was enough in the results to give Newt Gingrich a continued source of ammunition. A substantial 41 percent of Florida voters described Romney’s positions on the issues as 'not conservative enough'; among all non-Romney voters, 67 percent said so. Gingrich, indeed, won 'very' conservative voters by 42-30 percent, won the strongest anti-abortion voters by 15 points and won strong supporters of the Tea Party political movement – more than a third of all Florida primary voters – by 12 points.
In a more general kvetch (and possible nod to ex-Gov. Jeb Bush), nearly four in 10 voters said they’d like to see someone else run for the nomination." (ABCNews)
"There was a booksigning last night at Doubles for George Gurley and his new book – maybe his first book. It’s called 'George & Hilly; The Anatomy of a Relationship.' As perceived in the oontext of couples therapy. George is a young guy but already a seasoned journalist in New York. He’s one of the best interviewers I’ve ever met, because he’s interested. That doesn’t sound like much but it’s rare and it’s everything. He’s got a quirky kinda Midwestern style, farmboy hayseed; and sharp as a tack. It’s not the kind of book (title-wise anyway) that would interest me in the least. First of all, I’ve been there, and done that. So long ago it’s a distant, immaterial memory ..I’ve had quite a bit of therapy in my adult life. Nothing to compared to a lot of people I know including my ex-wife; but enough to know what it is and what it can/could do for me. I liked it for what it delivered ... He started this as a column a few years ago in the Observer about the two of them going to couples therapy. So I figured George had found a way to capitalize on his relationship with Hilly. After all, a writer writes about what he or she knows. It probably could make a good series. Or a movie. If you’re in your twenties, it’s probably an eye-opener, aside from being funny. Male or female; you get both sides. If you are in your 50s you might also fall off the chair laughing at what strange birds we are. George has got something here. The party started at 5:30 and I got there a little after 7. Wendy Carduner was at the door – the place was packed. She told me George had just “proposed to Hilly” on bended knee (surrounded by photographers). This was no accident, of course; this was New York playing itself in the world of authors and artists and actors and such .... They’ve been together for so long now, we’ll have to concur that Hilly is a partner on this voyage. Full partner." (NYSocialDiary)
"Comedy Central’s newest sketch series, Key and Peele, premieres tonight. The show is the creation of Mad TV alumni Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. I should acknowledge a bias — a friend of mine, Peter Atencio directed the show’s first season. OK, now on on to the facts: Key and Peele is truly one of the most original, subversive and howl-inducing shows I’ve seen in the last decade. It’s a smart and robust sketch series that that manages to satirize politics, movies, black culture, and white culture, without condescension or pandering to one group. In all truth, it may be that I find the show so sensational because I got to visit the set when Ty Burrell was dressed up like Nazi playing a scene that was spiritually somewhere between Inglorious Basterds and The Producers. Or because I saw Peter stay up for 48 hours straight editing a 45 second single take sketch about the Tea Party, choreographed to perfection like a Gene Kelly dance number. Or I could love the show so much because its just, really, really good." (Natasha Vargas Cooper/Splitsider)
"Long before a well-known French shoe designer immortalized women’s feet with red soles, the red Valentino dress had deified the women who wore them for several decades. Renowned couture designer Valentino Garavani practically had 'red' named after him. 'Valentino Red' is a source of reference among those in the know. According to the designer, the inspiration came to him when he was 18 at a Barcelona theater. The opera was La Traviata and everything he saw was red, from the theater’s interior to the flowers to the dresses. He decided it would be his signature color.For roughly five decades, Valentino has been creating some of the world’s most exquisite clothes. A serious wardrobe, the likes of which women such as Jackie Onassis or Elizabeth Taylor possessed, always has one of his dresses among the heap. All the most glamorous celebrities, socialites, and grande dames have worn him. He is up there among the greats with Dior, Saint Laurent, Chanel, Balenciaga, and Schiaparelli. Four years ago the Italian designer announced his retirement. His company had already been sold for almost a billion dollars. But his work continues online. Garavani and his longtime collaborator Giancarlo Giammetti launched the Valentino Virtual Museum late last year. While the concept might not mean much for people who don’t care about clothes or for whom women’s fashion holds little meaning, Valentino’s Virtual Museum is as worthy of admiration as any other exhibition room. It is the first of its kind, and like Valentino himself, rather exceptional ...Garavani and Giammetti live privileged lives surrounded by exceptional beauty. Their houses in Italy, France, England, and Switzerland betray the fact that they are true aesthetes." (Mandolyna Theododoracopulos)
"Hollywood’s latest health craze is — wait for it — human growth hormone. Alana Stewart tells the new March issue of Vanity Fair: 'I had started noticing a few gray hairs coming in. But I noticed that when I was taking it — no gray hairs.' Stewart, the leggy model and former wife of George Hamilton and Rod Stewart, was the sole H.G.H. user who agreed to be identified in the piece by Ned Zeman. The drug costs as much as $10,000 a year, and is described in celebrity circles as 'a fountain of youth in a syringe.' 'People talk about H.G.H. the way they talk about people who get Botox or Viagra,' says a movie producer. Another filmmaker reports he uses it to perk up his sex life. The results: 'My internal organs got healthier quickly. And I could feel it . . . It very much imbues you with a sense of clarity and confidence.' Dr. Andre Berger, a Los Angeles-based H.G.H. expert, said, 'People are going to be living longer. This is about preventing the chronic diseases and all the ravages that affect your quality of life.' While the Mayo Clinic lists side effects including carpal tunnel syndrome, swelling in the limbs and enlargement of male breast tissue, Dr. Uzzi Reiss tells Zeman, 'I’ve been taking H.G.H. for many years. I have the energy and vibrancy of a man half my age. I don’t get sick, don’t get jet-lagged.'" (PageSix)
"It's official, I am completely obsessed with openly gay socialite Peter Brant II and his (potentially gay) younger brother Harry. Screw Glee's Kurt Hummell, every gay teen on earth pretty much wishes they were either of these kids. They're just spectacularly amazing. I want to write a young adult novel series based on these two called Gossip Gays about them being young and attractive and rich and just downright awesome as they flutter from St. Bart's to New York to Paris, attending all the best parties and sneaking champagne on the sly. (All lit agents out there, that is a serious pitch.) The pair are the progeny of billionaire Peter Brant Sr and supermodel Stephanie Seymour. They will one day potentially be worth worth billions on their own—if they don't spend all their money on clothes first. We met Peter Brant II (he's way too luxe to be a 'Jr') last year when pictures of him getting close to his mother on the beach surfaced. We instantly fell in love with him after he told everyone in the media they were 'gross' for insinuating that he had an inappropriate relationship with his mother." (Bryan Moylan/Gawker)
"For ten years, the Sidaction gala has closed the spring Couture season in Paris. The evening has evolved into a highly successful fundraiser for AIDS education, research, and treatment, but the personality of the actual event is contingent on a couple of other features. One, it's something of a fashion showcase, not quite to the extent of New York's Met ball, but designers do make the scene with a 'muse,' like Giambattista Valli arriving with Bianca Brandolini d'Adda, Peter Copping dressing Clémence Poésy, or Dita Von Teese sporting Alexis Mabille on her bod and Alexis Mabille on her arm. Jean Paul Gaultier and Grace Jones also made a logical pair, even if she was actually with The Other JPG (Jean-Paul Goude). Another characteristic of the gala is the lengthy speechifying that precedes dinner." (Style)
"Back in the late '80s, the French government was planning to run train tracks for the high-speed TGV right through the middle of the historic vineyards of Vouvray, and Gaston Huet, as mayor of the town and its most important vintner, was leading the fight against the plan. When the writers Don and Petie Kladstrup went to interview Mr. Huet about the controversy, they asked him in passing about the greatest wine he'd ever tasted. Not surprisingly, he said it was a Chenin Blanc from his native Loire Valley, but he couldn't remember the maker or the vintage. He had tasted it as a prisoner of war in Germany, and the wine, a thimbleful in a mustard jar, was underripe and short on the finish. But it had the characteristic pear, apple and honey flavors of his beloved Loire Chenin, and it was the first wine he'd tasted since his capture some two years before. A railroad tunnel was excavated under the vineyards of Vouvray in the late '80s and Mr. Huet passed away in 2002, leaving his winery in the capable hands of his son-in-law Noël Pinguet, while the Kladstrups published a very fine book called "Wine and War" that was inspired in part by Mr. Huet's story. What hasn't really changed all that much is the relative obscurity of Loire Chenin Blanc. Sauvignon Blanc, the other white grape of the Loire Valley, gets more recognition, particularly when it's grown in Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé. But to my mind, Chenin is a much greater and more versatile grape." (Jay McInerney)
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Media-Whore D'Oeuvres
"Having written a fair bit about the pros and cons (mostly the latter) of a war with Iran, I feel compelled to offer a brief comment on Ronan Bergman's alarmist article in yesterday's New York Times Magazine. I say this even though I think the article was essentially worthless. It's a vivid and readable piece of reportage, but it doesn't provide readers with new or interesting information and it tells you almost nothing about the likelihood of an Israeli strike on Iran. First off, the article is essentially a reprise of Jeffrey Goldberg's September 2010 Atlantic Monthly article on the same subject. The research method is identical: a reporter interviews a lot of big-shots in the Israeli security establishment, writes down what they say, and concludes that that Israel is very likely to attack. Bergman doesn't present new evidence or arguments, pro or con; it's just an updated version of the same old story. Second, the central flaw in this approach is that there is no way of knowing if the testimony of these various officials reflects their true beliefs or not. There are lots of obvious reasons why Israeli officials might want to exaggerate their willingness to use force against Iran, and this simple fact makes it unwise to take their testimony at face value. Maybe they really mean what they say. Or maybe they just want to keep Tehran off-balance Maybe they want to distract everyone from their continued expansion of West Bank settlements and other brutalities against Palestinians. Maybe they want to encourage Europe to support tougher economic sanctions against Iran, and they know that occasional saber-rattling helps makes sanctions look like an attractive alternative. Maybe it's several of these things at once, depending on who's talking. Who knows?" (Foreignpolicy)
"The 1997 attempted coup by House Republicans against then-Speaker Newt Gingrich has been thrust into the spotlight of this year’s battle for the GOP presidential nomination. The topic is sparking questions about what happened 15 years ago, why House Republicans wanted Gingrich ousted, why so few support him now and what role Rep. John Boehner, now Speaker, played in the botched attempt. The story of the secret plot, first reported by The Hill’s Sandy Hume, rocked Washington. And although Gingrich survived in 1997, he was politically maimed, resigning in 1998 after Republicans lost seats in the midterm elections. Boehner (R-Ohio) was also removed from his No. 4 leadership post. For this article, The Hill interviewed Republican lawmakers and aides who served in the House during that tumultuous time." (TheHill)
"After a 10-day, post-South Carolina slog characterized by relentless attacks on Newt Gingrich from Mitt Romney’s forces, Florida on Tuesday will vote in its 2012 Republican presidential primary.
With Romney and his associated super PAC outspending the Gingrich teams by a nearly 5-to-1 margin and blanketing the state’s airwaves with negative TV ads, Gingrich never found his footing here, careening from one message to another without gaining traction. Here are POLITICO’s five things to watch from Florida as the polls close, at 7 p.m. local time in both the Eastern and Central Time Zones: 1) Mitt’s margin Gingrich needs a close race more than Romney needs a blowout victory. For the former House speaker, finishing a respectable second means he can explain away a loss by arguing that he was outspent and out-organized by a superior Romney organization that was already in place and had a 2008 run under its belt. If Romney wins by a lot — say, 12 percentage points or more — it’s likely to negate Gingrich’s victory in South Carolina, making that win about as useful a yardstick as Rick Santorum’s Iowa caucuses triumph." (Politico)
"Last week, a friend of mine asked me over to watch the season debut of a television show called 'American Greed.' We were interested because the opening segment was based on the life and crime of an accountant named Ken Starr, who had a prosperous business punching numbers until he got too big for his britches and started playing at the Big Casino and making off with a lot of clients’ moneys in nefarious ways. One of those clients was our friend Jane Stanton Hitchcock and her late mother Joan Stanton. And Jane was the one who ultimately put him behind bars. Somebody had to, thank you very much. You may remember the story, which broke about two years ago. I wrote about it here. Jane broke the story because it personally concerned her: Ken Starr had illegally removed millions from Jane’s mother’s portfolio for his own enhancement and poured other millions into highly speculative, junky investments. It’s called fraud, and as you may recognize, it’s epidemic. At one point there was concern that there would be anything left to even support Joan. As it happened, she died as everything was coming to the fore ... In the beginning of his professional life, Starr had been a hardworking, small time New York accountant. Then he made the most fortuitous connection in his life -- meeting Paul Mellon, the heir of Andrew Mellon and one of the richest men in America. Mellon was not only rich but distinguished, and highly regarded as a philanthropist, art collector, horse breeder and venture capitalist. He and his wife Bunny lived luxuriously in several residences. Jane Hitchcock, then married to a cousin of Paul Mellon, Billy Hitchcock, heard about how good he was and recommended 'Paul Mellon’s accountant' to Arthur Stanton. Well .... Great minds think alike. Or would like to think so. That is how it works in the world of money: someone recommends because money was made by someone, etc. That was the whole secret to Madoff’s success. By the mid-90s, Ken Starr had a blue chip client roster through the Stanton connection, and a big Third Avenue office. He was never the kind of guy you’d associate with a grandee like Paul Mellon, ironically." (NYSocialDiary)
"Here’s a foodie tip: Do not go into a meal with Travel Channel star Andrew Zimmern if you’re hungry. Even if you’re at such a delectable West Side eatery as The Spotted Pig, and the host of Bizarre Foods provides some of the most interesting dinner conversation you’ve ever had, you will hardly be able to eat a bite. And that’s before he starts talking about Miss Manners dilemma of whether or not to eat human foreskin if it’s offered as a dish of honor in Africa. (Apologies to our very sweet dining companion, who groaned 'This is a publicist’s nightmare!' when the topic was brought up.) Over a dimly lit (and thank goodness for small favors) appetizers of pickled herring, chicken liver toast, and bacon-wrapped dates, Mr. Zimmern boasted of the Spotted Pig’s bravery. “They were on the pig thing before everyone was on the pig thing. They were one of the first gastropubs in New York that weren’t afraid to roast a pig’s head!” the big man exclaimed. (And he is larger than life: Mr. Zimmern stands at 5’10 and is amply wide enough to prove that he doesn’t just peck at those weird dishes we’ve watched him eat over the past six seasons.) Over the course of 100 episodes, Mr. Zimmern has devoured everything from jellied moose nose to cane rat; raw goat scrotum to fresh cow blood obtained by shooting a hollow dart into a bovine during a trip to the Ngorongoro Crater." (Observer)
"It wasn’t Italy’s finest hour. Not even Gabrielle D’Annunzio—poet, patriot, propagandist, and proto-fascist—could spin this into a maritime Titanic-like drama. Once the Costa Concordia hit a rock off the Tuscan coast, the passengers and crew acted like cowards. This much we know. But knowing Italy—a country that successfully switched sides in both World Wars—the truth will never emerge. Human nature’s eternal glories and failings have always played a leading part in Italy’s long and magnificent history. Heroes turn into baddies, defeats into victories, burlesque into opera. They say Italy is more of an idea than a country. Where else would a benevolent dictator’s innocent mistress be shot and hanged upside down by men who pride themselves as protectors of the weaker sex? When I first heard the news of the Costa Concordia’s sinking off an island I have sailed around more times than I can remember, I thought it was a joke gone wrong. Surely the reason was bella figura, the Italian male’s unique style of pride, all show and no substance. Since it is the centennial of the Titanic’s sinking, for one sick moment I imagined some show-off captain had tried an impossible maneuver to impress his friends ashore. As of this writing, it seems that is why he went 300 meters off the mainland rather than the required 1,500. Still, at least 17 people are certified dead. Even in Italy, Captain Schettino risks going down in history as a man who not only ran his boat aground—modern equipment notwithstanding—but one who was in the bar with two female companions and who jumped ship long before his passengers." (Taki)
"This past Saturday, PAPERMAG headed out to Chinatown chic spot Pulqueria, where we celebrated artist Sandro Kopp's gallery opening from a few days prior. Being that this was one of the first soirees we've attended since 2011 came to a close, we wondered if everyone had been keeping up with their New Years' Resolution, or if they, like us, had been spending more time at Rubirosa then the gym (we can't help it, we love pizza). 'I didn't have a New Years' resolution, but I had a resolution I started mid-year,' Bill Powers told us. ' This is really boring, but it was to go to those Apple Store classes.' And how's that working out for you, Bill? 'I'm still going!' What an overachiever -- leave it to the dapper Half Gallery owner to make us feel more lethargic/bloated then usual. It wasn't soon before we bid adieu to Cynthia Rowley's hubby that Terence Koh's all-white-everything aesthetic caught the corner of our eye ... We continued to calmly make our way around the packed party, running into familiar faces like Johan Lindenberg, Waris Ahluwalia and Vladimir Restoin-Roitfeld, but soon enough all hell broke loose as man-of-the-hour Kopp entered the space with the goddess almighty Tilda Swinton wrapped around his arm." (Papermag)
"Sandro Kopp paints his portraits differently: namely, via Skype from Scotland. And perhaps for that reason, his New York friends and famous sitters (often one and the same) have been overjoyed to have the 33-year-old artist in town—although it doesn't hurt, of course, that his plus-one is Tilda Swinton. "It's been, like, Sandro week. I think all of his friends have been throwing him parties," David Maupin said on Saturday night, where his gallery, Lehmann Maupin, hosted a dinner in celebration of Kopp's new exhibition, There You Are, at its Chrystie Street space. 'I think part of it is an extension of his charm and his personality and being an artist—to do this type of work, you have to kind of relate and open up some kind of conversation with your subject,' Maupin mused, as Michael Stipe (who'd thrown Kopp a dinner party of his own the night before) arrived with gold, letter-shaped balloons that spelled out K-O-P-P. Meanwhile, Frances McDormand was taking her co-hosting duties seriously: 'I'm the hostess; do what I say,' the actress said, cutting a swath through the cocktail area. 'We're moving to the back room. My name's Fran.'" (Style)
"Having written a fair bit about the pros and cons (mostly the latter) of a war with Iran, I feel compelled to offer a brief comment on Ronan Bergman's alarmist article in yesterday's New York Times Magazine. I say this even though I think the article was essentially worthless. It's a vivid and readable piece of reportage, but it doesn't provide readers with new or interesting information and it tells you almost nothing about the likelihood of an Israeli strike on Iran. First off, the article is essentially a reprise of Jeffrey Goldberg's September 2010 Atlantic Monthly article on the same subject. The research method is identical: a reporter interviews a lot of big-shots in the Israeli security establishment, writes down what they say, and concludes that that Israel is very likely to attack. Bergman doesn't present new evidence or arguments, pro or con; it's just an updated version of the same old story. Second, the central flaw in this approach is that there is no way of knowing if the testimony of these various officials reflects their true beliefs or not. There are lots of obvious reasons why Israeli officials might want to exaggerate their willingness to use force against Iran, and this simple fact makes it unwise to take their testimony at face value. Maybe they really mean what they say. Or maybe they just want to keep Tehran off-balance Maybe they want to distract everyone from their continued expansion of West Bank settlements and other brutalities against Palestinians. Maybe they want to encourage Europe to support tougher economic sanctions against Iran, and they know that occasional saber-rattling helps makes sanctions look like an attractive alternative. Maybe it's several of these things at once, depending on who's talking. Who knows?" (Foreignpolicy)
"The 1997 attempted coup by House Republicans against then-Speaker Newt Gingrich has been thrust into the spotlight of this year’s battle for the GOP presidential nomination. The topic is sparking questions about what happened 15 years ago, why House Republicans wanted Gingrich ousted, why so few support him now and what role Rep. John Boehner, now Speaker, played in the botched attempt. The story of the secret plot, first reported by The Hill’s Sandy Hume, rocked Washington. And although Gingrich survived in 1997, he was politically maimed, resigning in 1998 after Republicans lost seats in the midterm elections. Boehner (R-Ohio) was also removed from his No. 4 leadership post. For this article, The Hill interviewed Republican lawmakers and aides who served in the House during that tumultuous time." (TheHill)
"After a 10-day, post-South Carolina slog characterized by relentless attacks on Newt Gingrich from Mitt Romney’s forces, Florida on Tuesday will vote in its 2012 Republican presidential primary.
With Romney and his associated super PAC outspending the Gingrich teams by a nearly 5-to-1 margin and blanketing the state’s airwaves with negative TV ads, Gingrich never found his footing here, careening from one message to another without gaining traction. Here are POLITICO’s five things to watch from Florida as the polls close, at 7 p.m. local time in both the Eastern and Central Time Zones: 1) Mitt’s margin Gingrich needs a close race more than Romney needs a blowout victory. For the former House speaker, finishing a respectable second means he can explain away a loss by arguing that he was outspent and out-organized by a superior Romney organization that was already in place and had a 2008 run under its belt. If Romney wins by a lot — say, 12 percentage points or more — it’s likely to negate Gingrich’s victory in South Carolina, making that win about as useful a yardstick as Rick Santorum’s Iowa caucuses triumph." (Politico)
"Last week, a friend of mine asked me over to watch the season debut of a television show called 'American Greed.' We were interested because the opening segment was based on the life and crime of an accountant named Ken Starr, who had a prosperous business punching numbers until he got too big for his britches and started playing at the Big Casino and making off with a lot of clients’ moneys in nefarious ways. One of those clients was our friend Jane Stanton Hitchcock and her late mother Joan Stanton. And Jane was the one who ultimately put him behind bars. Somebody had to, thank you very much. You may remember the story, which broke about two years ago. I wrote about it here. Jane broke the story because it personally concerned her: Ken Starr had illegally removed millions from Jane’s mother’s portfolio for his own enhancement and poured other millions into highly speculative, junky investments. It’s called fraud, and as you may recognize, it’s epidemic. At one point there was concern that there would be anything left to even support Joan. As it happened, she died as everything was coming to the fore ... In the beginning of his professional life, Starr had been a hardworking, small time New York accountant. Then he made the most fortuitous connection in his life -- meeting Paul Mellon, the heir of Andrew Mellon and one of the richest men in America. Mellon was not only rich but distinguished, and highly regarded as a philanthropist, art collector, horse breeder and venture capitalist. He and his wife Bunny lived luxuriously in several residences. Jane Hitchcock, then married to a cousin of Paul Mellon, Billy Hitchcock, heard about how good he was and recommended 'Paul Mellon’s accountant' to Arthur Stanton. Well .... Great minds think alike. Or would like to think so. That is how it works in the world of money: someone recommends because money was made by someone, etc. That was the whole secret to Madoff’s success. By the mid-90s, Ken Starr had a blue chip client roster through the Stanton connection, and a big Third Avenue office. He was never the kind of guy you’d associate with a grandee like Paul Mellon, ironically." (NYSocialDiary)
"Here’s a foodie tip: Do not go into a meal with Travel Channel star Andrew Zimmern if you’re hungry. Even if you’re at such a delectable West Side eatery as The Spotted Pig, and the host of Bizarre Foods provides some of the most interesting dinner conversation you’ve ever had, you will hardly be able to eat a bite. And that’s before he starts talking about Miss Manners dilemma of whether or not to eat human foreskin if it’s offered as a dish of honor in Africa. (Apologies to our very sweet dining companion, who groaned 'This is a publicist’s nightmare!' when the topic was brought up.) Over a dimly lit (and thank goodness for small favors) appetizers of pickled herring, chicken liver toast, and bacon-wrapped dates, Mr. Zimmern boasted of the Spotted Pig’s bravery. “They were on the pig thing before everyone was on the pig thing. They were one of the first gastropubs in New York that weren’t afraid to roast a pig’s head!” the big man exclaimed. (And he is larger than life: Mr. Zimmern stands at 5’10 and is amply wide enough to prove that he doesn’t just peck at those weird dishes we’ve watched him eat over the past six seasons.) Over the course of 100 episodes, Mr. Zimmern has devoured everything from jellied moose nose to cane rat; raw goat scrotum to fresh cow blood obtained by shooting a hollow dart into a bovine during a trip to the Ngorongoro Crater." (Observer)
"This past Saturday, PAPERMAG headed out to Chinatown chic spot Pulqueria, where we celebrated artist Sandro Kopp's gallery opening from a few days prior. Being that this was one of the first soirees we've attended since 2011 came to a close, we wondered if everyone had been keeping up with their New Years' Resolution, or if they, like us, had been spending more time at Rubirosa then the gym (we can't help it, we love pizza). 'I didn't have a New Years' resolution, but I had a resolution I started mid-year,' Bill Powers told us. ' This is really boring, but it was to go to those Apple Store classes.' And how's that working out for you, Bill? 'I'm still going!' What an overachiever -- leave it to the dapper Half Gallery owner to make us feel more lethargic/bloated then usual. It wasn't soon before we bid adieu to Cynthia Rowley's hubby that Terence Koh's all-white-everything aesthetic caught the corner of our eye ... We continued to calmly make our way around the packed party, running into familiar faces like Johan Lindenberg, Waris Ahluwalia and Vladimir Restoin-Roitfeld, but soon enough all hell broke loose as man-of-the-hour Kopp entered the space with the goddess almighty Tilda Swinton wrapped around his arm." (Papermag)
"Sandro Kopp paints his portraits differently: namely, via Skype from Scotland. And perhaps for that reason, his New York friends and famous sitters (often one and the same) have been overjoyed to have the 33-year-old artist in town—although it doesn't hurt, of course, that his plus-one is Tilda Swinton. "It's been, like, Sandro week. I think all of his friends have been throwing him parties," David Maupin said on Saturday night, where his gallery, Lehmann Maupin, hosted a dinner in celebration of Kopp's new exhibition, There You Are, at its Chrystie Street space. 'I think part of it is an extension of his charm and his personality and being an artist—to do this type of work, you have to kind of relate and open up some kind of conversation with your subject,' Maupin mused, as Michael Stipe (who'd thrown Kopp a dinner party of his own the night before) arrived with gold, letter-shaped balloons that spelled out K-O-P-P. Meanwhile, Frances McDormand was taking her co-hosting duties seriously: 'I'm the hostess; do what I say,' the actress said, cutting a swath through the cocktail area. 'We're moving to the back room. My name's Fran.'" (Style)
Monday, January 30, 2012
Media-Whore D'Oeuvres
"Over at the indispensable Cable, word comes that the White House is now pushing the line that President Obama eschews the notion of 'American decline,' and has even become a devoted reader of Bob Kagan. As presidential reading lists go, this is a welcome development. If present trends continue, perhaps the White House communications shop will soon issue a story noting that President Obama is also a reader of Shadow Government? [ed. Dream on! Are you just saying this to bait the anonymous snarky responses that will soon appear in the 'Comments' section? Or are you in denial that the President is much more likely to read Dan Drezner's blog? Who, by the way, is funnier than you -- and also doesn't believe in American decline.] All kidding aside, this is a serious issue that merits some scrutiny. On the one hand, President Obama's rhetorical rejection of American decline is significant and welcome, precisely because presidential rhetoric plays a role in forming a nation's character and actions. As I have commented before, if a nation's leadership and citizens start believing the nation is in decline, it risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy and infecting the nation's actions." (Foreignpolicy)
"President Obama and Mitt Romney are statistically tied in 12 key battleground states that will be critical in determining the outcome of the 2012 general election, according to a USA Today-Gallup swing-state poll released Monday. Romney leads Obama 48 percent to 47 percent in a poll of registered voters in those states, although the survey has a five-point margin of error. Newt Gingrich trails the president by 14 points in the swing states, according to the poll. In the same survey in December, during the former House speaker’s brief surge to the top of the GOP pack, Gingrich held a three-point lead over the president in those 12 battlegrounds." (TheHill)
"Sunday’s New York Times Style section ran an article by Brooks Barnes on the first page, 'Hollywood Fixer Opens His Little Black Book' about Scotty Bowers, a man who worked out there from the 1940s through the 1980s as a 'bartender, prostitute and handyman' and has now written the memoir with Lionel Friedberg: 'Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars' (Grove Press). I knew Scotty. Although in all the years I knew him and knew about him, I never knew his last name. I knew about his occupations also, although I never thought to identify one of them as the Times did, as prostitution. 'If,' the reporter added, his stories are 'true.' As if Scotty were the kind of guy who made things up about other people’s sex lives. I laughed at that one ... One late weekday afternoon somewhere in the mid-1980s, I happened to be taking the dogs out for their walk when across the road from my house, I saw Scotty packing up his battered pick-up, after a day’s work pruning the olive trees of my neighbor, a retired dancer named Bob Street. I stopped and was having a chat with him, when he suddenly looked at his watch and said: 'Whoops, it's almost five. I gotta ball a couple over in Brentwood at five o'clock.' I thought I heard him say: balling a couple...but did he really? What?! I had never heard anybody ever say something like that." (NYSocialDiary)
"A pair of U.K. tabloids report that a handful of U.S. networks are in a battle to secure the first stateside TV interview with Pippa Middleton, the sister of Princess Kate, and sister-in-law of Prince William. Middleton is about to start promoting a new book about party planning, so the race is on. While the tabloids all hint that a payout is in the works, another option that networks will put on the table is that of reach. NBC could offer an interview on 'Today,' an appearance on 'Ellen' and perhaps a primetime appearance. ABC could offer a primetime hour, as well as a slot on 'Good Morning America,' etc. For what it is worth, an ABC insider says that the idea of Walters pushing for a 6-figure payout is 'absurd.'" (TVNewser)
"'Oh, my God, leave me out of that story,' exclaimed Judy Taubman, the super-social wife of the shopping-mall-and-auction-house tycoon Alfred Taubman, when I told her I was writing an article on 'the Ladies Who Lunch.' 'People don’t do that anymore. Everybody’s too busy. Today I made a date with a friend, and I said, ‘Do you mind if we skip lunch and go directly to the Neue Galerie?’ 'I was never part of it,' insisted Mica Ertegun, the society decorator and widow of music-business king Ahmet Ertegun. 'I was always blessing the ceiling that I had work to do, because the thing I loathed the most is having lunch with a bunch of women—even if they’re good friends.' But what about the countless photographs from Women’s Wear Daily in the 1970s of Ertegun and her late business partner, Chessy Rayner, dashing out of fashionable East Side restaurants with Pat Buckley and Nan Kempner? 'Well, we had to eat,' the pencil-slim Ertegun explained. 'But I never organized women’s lunches.' 'First of all, I don’t classify myself as a lady who lunches,' snapped Lynn Wyatt, the wife of Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt and a veteran of the New York-London-Paris-Gstaad social circuit, with a tinge of anger in her drawl. 'I never have liked ladies’ lunches that much, because even in Houston I don’t like to waste my time.' 'I never went to lunch,' said Aileen Mehle, pointing out that she had to make deadlines for her 'Suzy' column in the New York Post and, later, W magazine." (VanityFair)
"I have always been a foreigner among foreigners in a foreign place. When one has a mixed background such as mine—my father is Greek, my mother is half-Austrian and half-Colombian, and I was born in New York—this is hard to avoid. America was a good place to grow up for someone like me. Being an immigrant among immigrants isn’t bad, though I imagine having a true homeland trumps all ... I think we have done quite well in the Swiss village my parents call home, though some of the indigenous folks might disagree. Regardless, I am grateful to the Swiss because I feel very much at home when I am there. Living among the Swiss, Spanish, Italians, English, Belgians, Germans, Arabs, Greeks, and others is only a microcosm of a greater reality, however distasteful this might be for purists. Processing current human migratory patterns isn’t easy. Many of us are still adjusting to our ancestors’ moves. With the exception of Africans living in Africa, we might all be considered migrants or children of migrants." (Mandolyna Theodoracopulos)
"President Obama and Mitt Romney are statistically tied in 12 key battleground states that will be critical in determining the outcome of the 2012 general election, according to a USA Today-Gallup swing-state poll released Monday. Romney leads Obama 48 percent to 47 percent in a poll of registered voters in those states, although the survey has a five-point margin of error. Newt Gingrich trails the president by 14 points in the swing states, according to the poll. In the same survey in December, during the former House speaker’s brief surge to the top of the GOP pack, Gingrich held a three-point lead over the president in those 12 battlegrounds." (TheHill)
 |
| NYSD via Stephanie Diani/NYTimes |
"Sunday’s New York Times Style section ran an article by Brooks Barnes on the first page, 'Hollywood Fixer Opens His Little Black Book' about Scotty Bowers, a man who worked out there from the 1940s through the 1980s as a 'bartender, prostitute and handyman' and has now written the memoir with Lionel Friedberg: 'Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars' (Grove Press). I knew Scotty. Although in all the years I knew him and knew about him, I never knew his last name. I knew about his occupations also, although I never thought to identify one of them as the Times did, as prostitution. 'If,' the reporter added, his stories are 'true.' As if Scotty were the kind of guy who made things up about other people’s sex lives. I laughed at that one ... One late weekday afternoon somewhere in the mid-1980s, I happened to be taking the dogs out for their walk when across the road from my house, I saw Scotty packing up his battered pick-up, after a day’s work pruning the olive trees of my neighbor, a retired dancer named Bob Street. I stopped and was having a chat with him, when he suddenly looked at his watch and said: 'Whoops, it's almost five. I gotta ball a couple over in Brentwood at five o'clock.' I thought I heard him say: balling a couple...but did he really? What?! I had never heard anybody ever say something like that." (NYSocialDiary)
"A pair of U.K. tabloids report that a handful of U.S. networks are in a battle to secure the first stateside TV interview with Pippa Middleton, the sister of Princess Kate, and sister-in-law of Prince William. Middleton is about to start promoting a new book about party planning, so the race is on. While the tabloids all hint that a payout is in the works, another option that networks will put on the table is that of reach. NBC could offer an interview on 'Today,' an appearance on 'Ellen' and perhaps a primetime appearance. ABC could offer a primetime hour, as well as a slot on 'Good Morning America,' etc. For what it is worth, an ABC insider says that the idea of Walters pushing for a 6-figure payout is 'absurd.'" (TVNewser)
"'Oh, my God, leave me out of that story,' exclaimed Judy Taubman, the super-social wife of the shopping-mall-and-auction-house tycoon Alfred Taubman, when I told her I was writing an article on 'the Ladies Who Lunch.' 'People don’t do that anymore. Everybody’s too busy. Today I made a date with a friend, and I said, ‘Do you mind if we skip lunch and go directly to the Neue Galerie?’ 'I was never part of it,' insisted Mica Ertegun, the society decorator and widow of music-business king Ahmet Ertegun. 'I was always blessing the ceiling that I had work to do, because the thing I loathed the most is having lunch with a bunch of women—even if they’re good friends.' But what about the countless photographs from Women’s Wear Daily in the 1970s of Ertegun and her late business partner, Chessy Rayner, dashing out of fashionable East Side restaurants with Pat Buckley and Nan Kempner? 'Well, we had to eat,' the pencil-slim Ertegun explained. 'But I never organized women’s lunches.' 'First of all, I don’t classify myself as a lady who lunches,' snapped Lynn Wyatt, the wife of Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt and a veteran of the New York-London-Paris-Gstaad social circuit, with a tinge of anger in her drawl. 'I never have liked ladies’ lunches that much, because even in Houston I don’t like to waste my time.' 'I never went to lunch,' said Aileen Mehle, pointing out that she had to make deadlines for her 'Suzy' column in the New York Post and, later, W magazine." (VanityFair)
"I have always been a foreigner among foreigners in a foreign place. When one has a mixed background such as mine—my father is Greek, my mother is half-Austrian and half-Colombian, and I was born in New York—this is hard to avoid. America was a good place to grow up for someone like me. Being an immigrant among immigrants isn’t bad, though I imagine having a true homeland trumps all ... I think we have done quite well in the Swiss village my parents call home, though some of the indigenous folks might disagree. Regardless, I am grateful to the Swiss because I feel very much at home when I am there. Living among the Swiss, Spanish, Italians, English, Belgians, Germans, Arabs, Greeks, and others is only a microcosm of a greater reality, however distasteful this might be for purists. Processing current human migratory patterns isn’t easy. Many of us are still adjusting to our ancestors’ moves. With the exception of Africans living in Africa, we might all be considered migrants or children of migrants." (Mandolyna Theodoracopulos)
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Media-Whore D'Oeuvres
"France took the lead in the EU approval of the latest round of Iranian sanctions. The move is a low-cost strategy for France, which, in light of the European financial crisis, needs to reassert itself alongside Germany as Europe's co-leader ... The European Union agreed Jan. 23 to implement a new round of sanctions against Iran, including an unprecedented embargo on Iranian crude oil. In the past, Europe generally has acted in concert with U.S. punitive measures against Iran -- with varying degrees of enthusiasm. While most EU member states have publicly supported the latest round of sanctions since talk of such measures resumed in November, France has been the most vocal proponent -- a move in keeping with Paris' perceived foreign policy leadership role in the European Union. Indeed, Paris has several political and geopolitical reasons for supporting the sanctions.Ever since Germany emerged from reunification as a major political and economic player, France has tried to manage Europe based on a perception of Franco-German parity. France understands it cannot surpass Germany as an economic leader, so Paris often has assumed the role of Europe's unofficial diplomatic leader. Indeed, Paris in many instances has served as Europe's diplomatic hub, serving as the Continent's primary point of contact for other states that interact with Europe collectively. Berlin acquiesces to this perception so that it can take a less prominent role in international affairs. This suits the rest of Europe, which is still wary of a Germany with unchecked power. Thus, France and Germany benefit from the arrangement." (STRATFOR)
"As the Sabbath evening approached on Jan. 13, Ehud Barak paced the wide living-room floor of his home high above a street in north Tel Aviv, its walls lined with thousands of books on subjects ranging from philosophy and poetry to military strategy. Barak, the Israeli defense minister, is the most decorated soldier in the country’s history and one of its most experienced and controversial politicians. He has served as chief of the general staff for the Israel Defense Forces, interior minister, foreign minister and prime minister. He now faces, along with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and 12 other members of Israel’s inner security cabinet, the most important decision of his life — whether to launch a pre-emptive attack against Iran. We met in the late afternoon, and our conversation — the first of several over the next week — lasted for two and a half hours, long past nightfall. 'This is not about some abstract concept,' Barak said as he gazed out at the lights of Tel Aviv, 'but a genuine concern. The Iranians are, after all, a nation whose leaders have set themselves a strategic goal of wiping Israel off the map.' When I mentioned to Barak the opinion voiced by the former Mossad chief Meir Dagan and the former chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi — that the Iranian threat was not as imminent as he and Netanyahu have suggested and that a military strike would be catastrophic (and that they, Barak and Netanyahu, were cynically looking to score populist points at the expense of national security), Barak reacted with uncharacteristic anger. He and Netanyahu, he said, are responsible 'in a very direct and concrete way for the existence of the State of Israel — indeed, for the future of the Jewish people.'" (NYTimes)
"Bin Laden raid heroes SEAL Team Six pulled off a dramatic hostage rescuethis week in Somalia, putting special operations forces back in the news. (Not to mention the major attention they received in the president's State of the Union address.) With stabilization and counterinsurgency now out of favor, the White House and Panetta are counting on special operations forces to hunt terrorists and assist in suppressing threats posed by weapons of mass destruction. Less discussed, but a large part of Panetta's strategy, will be the use of special forces and other adviser teams to maintain training programs that build the military capacity of allies in Europe, Latin America, and Africa, areas that have been downgraded by the new strategy ... Electronic warfare, drones, and cyber operations. Panetta repeatedly emphasized the need for the U.S. military to maintain its technological superiority, to compensate for its reduced numbers and stretched geographical responsibilities. Even after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan end, the Pentagon intends to keep its ability to maintain continuous drone surveillance over 65 spots on the globe, with the capability to surge that to 85 if necessary. Advanced radar and electronic jamming are high priorities. Generous new funding for cyber operations reflects the Pentagon's concerns about the vulnerability of its networks and its interest in offensive cyber capabilities in the post-Stuxnet era." (ForeignPolicy)
"STRAIGHT actors who wanted to pay for sex in the 1990s had Heidi Fleiss. Gay ones during the late 1940s and beyond apparently had Scotty Bowers. His story has floated through moviedom’s clubby senior ranks for years: Back in a more golden age of Hollywood, a guy named Scotty, a former Marine, was said to have run a type of prostitution ring for gay and bisexual men in the film industry, including A-listers like Cary Grant, George Cukor and Rock Hudson, and even arranged sexual liaisons for actresses like Vivien Leigh and Katharine Hepburn. 'Old Hollywood people who have, shall we say, known him would tell me stories,' said Matt Tyrnauer, a writer for Vanity Fair and the director of the 2008 documentary 'Valentino: The Last Emperor.' 'But whenever I followed up on what would obviously be a great story, I was told, ‘Oh, he’ll never talk.’Now, he’s talking. Mr. Bowers, 88, recalls his highly unorthodox life in a ribald memoir scheduled to be published by Grove Press on Feb. 14, 'Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars.' Written with Lionel Friedberg, an award-winning producer of documentaries, it is a lurid, no-detail-too-excruciating account of a sexual Zelig who (if you believe him) trawled an X-rated underworld for over three decades without getting caught. 'I’ve kept silent all these years because I didn’t want to hurt any of these people,' Mr. Bowers said recently over lemonade on his patio in the Hollywood Hills, where he lives in a cluttered bungalow with his wife of 27 years, Lois.'And I never saw the fascination. So they liked sex how they liked it. Who cares?' He paused for a moment to scratch his collie, Baby, behind the ears. 'I don’t need the money,' he continued. 'I finally said yes because I’m not getting any younger and all of my famous tricks are dead by now. The truth can’t hurt them anymore.'" (NYTimes)
"I went over to the Park Avenue Armory for the Young Collectors Night which also benefits The East Side House Settlement. I wasn’t wildly enthusiastic about leaving the house – the weather and all. But it has been such a quiet January (a 'dreary January' wrote one friend in an email today). I agreed. It has seemed especially quiet this year on the social calendar. Someone suggested it was because more and more people go to Florida and stay there for weeks (even months). I thought about that; maybe. The younger people are all in town. We’re just not the younger ... I did see a number of people I knew but it was interesting to see how this younger crowd were checking out the booths, which are full of treasures. I had gone through the aisles last Thursday night when it opened, so this time I tried to concentrate on things that looked especially to interesting to me. On prominent display at Kenneth Rendell (one of my favorite spots in New York for window shopping) was a page from Ayn Rand’s original handwritten manuscript of 'Atlas Shrugged.' A lot of crossing-outs on this page, number 394. She wrote it by hand! I asked the price and learned that it was still part of the entire manuscript! But, I was told, a page like this by an author of that rank/popularity/history, etc. usually starts at about $20,000." (NYSocialDiary)
"The most important moment in what may prove the most important debate of the Republican presidential nomination fight came right after the first commercial break, when Newt Gingrich went after the only opponent he detests more than Mitt Romney: whoever is the moderator. In Jacksonville, Florida, Thursday night, that man happened to be Wolf Blitzer, who asked Gingrich whether he was 'satisfied right now with the level of transparency as far as [Romney’s] personal finances.” Gingrich, eyes gleaming, shot back at Blitzer, 'This is a nonsense question,' to hoots and hollers from the audience. 'Look, how about if the four of us agree for the rest of the evening, we’ll actually talk about issues that relate to governing America?' The MSNBC host Alex Wagner has likened Gingrich to an angry teddy bear, but in this case of ursid-on-canid action, the wolf got the better of the scrap. Instead of backing down, Blitzer calmly pointed out that Gingrich himself had made an issue of Romney’s Swiss and Cayman Islands bank accounts. Gingrich tried once again to intimidate Blitzer, but the moderator stood firm—and when Gingrich then sought to squirm away, Romney dove in for the kill, challenging him to put up or shut up. The crowd turned on Gingrich, laughing and jeering; for the rest of the night, he behaved more like an overfed, declawed, zoo-dwelling panda than a ferocious wild grizzly. Although Gingrich’s attack-the-moderator gambit did not work out so well in Jacksonville, it’s easy enough to understand why he tried it. Time and again, his mau-mauing of the media has earned him big points, and not just from the GOP base but the press corps itself. Just a week earlier, Gingrich’s deboning of Blitzer’s CNN colleague John King had been praised to the skies by the commentariat as a brilliant display of headline-stealing strength—as well as Meryl Streep–level thespianship and Al Pacino–esque scenery-chewing. And among the assembled journalists in Jacksonville, there was palpable disappointment at Gingrich’s failure to pull off a similarly galvanizing performance. All of which highlights a larger dynamic that’s at once curious, ironic, and of no small long-term import: that the very 'liberal media' that Gingrich delights in excoriating are, in fact, in his corner in his battle with Romney." (NYMag)
"Karl Lagerfeld understands decor as well as he knows fashion. The premises for his new signature collection Karl are an opulently minimal series of salons in an hôtel particulier on the Left Bank, so it made sense that the food for the dinner party he hosted on Wednesday night to launch the line should also focus on the bare opulent essentials: caviar, foie gras, and lobster, with a logo-fied iPad as a takeaway. One of the T-shirts in his Karl range features a fanciful self-portrait with the handwritten message 'I Love Gossip.' Plenty of that in a room full of fashion people, though I spent much of the night talking about obscure Eastern European films with the encyclopedically informed Anja Rubik. How often do you get the chance to have a real talk with anyone about Dusan Makavejev's scatological Sweet Movie? Especially while chunks of foie gras are drifting back and forth under your nose." (Style)
"We meet at Teatro Goldoni, one of Washington’s best Italian restaurants, located on the infamous K Street, home to many of the town’s lobbying groups. It is also a block from the Center for Strategic International Studies, one of DC’s biggest think-tanks, where (Zbigniew) Brzezinski, national security adviser to Carter from 1977 to 1981, is a trustee. I get there a few minutes early to fiddle with my tape recorder. Brzezinski strides in on the dot of our agreed time and grips my hand firmly. Dressed in a low-key suit and tie, Brzezinski is leathered and lean and still has almost a full head of hair. He talks in paragraphs, virtually without pause. Though I have known Brzezinski for years – and received news tips from him by email and fax – I still feel unsettled by his piercing gaze. Many of his Soviet interlocutors and White House colleagues were reportedly kept off balance by his hawkish manner ... When talking about the state of the world, Brzezinski, who still has traces of a Polish accent, chooses his language more forensically. His father was a Polish diplomat and Brzezinski, who was educated at a British prep school in Montreal during the second world war, had spent most of his first decade at diplomatic compounds in France and Hitler’s Berlin. Brzezinski Sr must have done something very right, or very wrong, to get posted to Canada after that. “In those days, the British still referred to it as BNA,' Brzezinski says. 'British North America.' Brzezinski attributes his verbal skills to his prep school. 'I entered the school not knowing a word of English and at the end of the first year in June I picked up a prize for literature,' he says. It must also have been there that he acquired his knowledge of food, I think to myself. I spent the previous night reading through Brzezinski’s new book – Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power. 'That must have been a sad evening,' says Brzezinski, chuckling. I had no difficulty staying awake, I reply. The book offers a bracing portrait of a “receding west” with one half, Europe, turning into a 'comfortable retirement home', and the other, the US, beset by relative economic decline and a dysfunctional politics. In this rapidly changing new world, America’s growing 'strategic isolation' is matched only by China’s 'strategic patience' in a challenge likely to strain the electoral horizons of US policymakers." (FT)
"No one can put a precise date on when ABC News started. But it was in 1962 that the network established an assignment desk and newsgathering capabilities: the guts of a TV news organization. And so today, ABCNewsers celebrated 50 years of providing news and information to American homes (and now workplaces and mobile devices). Employees packed ABC’s TV Studios 1 (former home of “'Who Wants to Be Millionaire' and 2 (current home of 'The Chew') which were festooned with images of ABC News anchors and reporters past and present. In addition to hundreds who packed the studio, employees from bureaus around the country and the world were patched in for the celebration. ABC News president Ben Sherwood was the emcee and was joined by two former ABC News presidents: Bill Sheehan (1974-1977) in Washington, DC and David Westin (1997-2010) in New York. Kaycee Freed Jennings, widow of Peter Jennings, also attended.The celebration included a video lookback, as well as the first (and probably last) Meatball Awards, presented by Lara Spencer. (The award for tightest t-shirt worn during a natural disaster was a three-way tie going to David Muir, Jeffrey Kofman and Matt Gutman.)" (TVNewser)
"France took the lead in the EU approval of the latest round of Iranian sanctions. The move is a low-cost strategy for France, which, in light of the European financial crisis, needs to reassert itself alongside Germany as Europe's co-leader ... The European Union agreed Jan. 23 to implement a new round of sanctions against Iran, including an unprecedented embargo on Iranian crude oil. In the past, Europe generally has acted in concert with U.S. punitive measures against Iran -- with varying degrees of enthusiasm. While most EU member states have publicly supported the latest round of sanctions since talk of such measures resumed in November, France has been the most vocal proponent -- a move in keeping with Paris' perceived foreign policy leadership role in the European Union. Indeed, Paris has several political and geopolitical reasons for supporting the sanctions.Ever since Germany emerged from reunification as a major political and economic player, France has tried to manage Europe based on a perception of Franco-German parity. France understands it cannot surpass Germany as an economic leader, so Paris often has assumed the role of Europe's unofficial diplomatic leader. Indeed, Paris in many instances has served as Europe's diplomatic hub, serving as the Continent's primary point of contact for other states that interact with Europe collectively. Berlin acquiesces to this perception so that it can take a less prominent role in international affairs. This suits the rest of Europe, which is still wary of a Germany with unchecked power. Thus, France and Germany benefit from the arrangement." (STRATFOR)
"Bin Laden raid heroes SEAL Team Six pulled off a dramatic hostage rescuethis week in Somalia, putting special operations forces back in the news. (Not to mention the major attention they received in the president's State of the Union address.) With stabilization and counterinsurgency now out of favor, the White House and Panetta are counting on special operations forces to hunt terrorists and assist in suppressing threats posed by weapons of mass destruction. Less discussed, but a large part of Panetta's strategy, will be the use of special forces and other adviser teams to maintain training programs that build the military capacity of allies in Europe, Latin America, and Africa, areas that have been downgraded by the new strategy ... Electronic warfare, drones, and cyber operations. Panetta repeatedly emphasized the need for the U.S. military to maintain its technological superiority, to compensate for its reduced numbers and stretched geographical responsibilities. Even after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan end, the Pentagon intends to keep its ability to maintain continuous drone surveillance over 65 spots on the globe, with the capability to surge that to 85 if necessary. Advanced radar and electronic jamming are high priorities. Generous new funding for cyber operations reflects the Pentagon's concerns about the vulnerability of its networks and its interest in offensive cyber capabilities in the post-Stuxnet era." (ForeignPolicy)
"STRAIGHT actors who wanted to pay for sex in the 1990s had Heidi Fleiss. Gay ones during the late 1940s and beyond apparently had Scotty Bowers. His story has floated through moviedom’s clubby senior ranks for years: Back in a more golden age of Hollywood, a guy named Scotty, a former Marine, was said to have run a type of prostitution ring for gay and bisexual men in the film industry, including A-listers like Cary Grant, George Cukor and Rock Hudson, and even arranged sexual liaisons for actresses like Vivien Leigh and Katharine Hepburn. 'Old Hollywood people who have, shall we say, known him would tell me stories,' said Matt Tyrnauer, a writer for Vanity Fair and the director of the 2008 documentary 'Valentino: The Last Emperor.' 'But whenever I followed up on what would obviously be a great story, I was told, ‘Oh, he’ll never talk.’Now, he’s talking. Mr. Bowers, 88, recalls his highly unorthodox life in a ribald memoir scheduled to be published by Grove Press on Feb. 14, 'Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars.' Written with Lionel Friedberg, an award-winning producer of documentaries, it is a lurid, no-detail-too-excruciating account of a sexual Zelig who (if you believe him) trawled an X-rated underworld for over three decades without getting caught. 'I’ve kept silent all these years because I didn’t want to hurt any of these people,' Mr. Bowers said recently over lemonade on his patio in the Hollywood Hills, where he lives in a cluttered bungalow with his wife of 27 years, Lois.'And I never saw the fascination. So they liked sex how they liked it. Who cares?' He paused for a moment to scratch his collie, Baby, behind the ears. 'I don’t need the money,' he continued. 'I finally said yes because I’m not getting any younger and all of my famous tricks are dead by now. The truth can’t hurt them anymore.'" (NYTimes)
"I went over to the Park Avenue Armory for the Young Collectors Night which also benefits The East Side House Settlement. I wasn’t wildly enthusiastic about leaving the house – the weather and all. But it has been such a quiet January (a 'dreary January' wrote one friend in an email today). I agreed. It has seemed especially quiet this year on the social calendar. Someone suggested it was because more and more people go to Florida and stay there for weeks (even months). I thought about that; maybe. The younger people are all in town. We’re just not the younger ... I did see a number of people I knew but it was interesting to see how this younger crowd were checking out the booths, which are full of treasures. I had gone through the aisles last Thursday night when it opened, so this time I tried to concentrate on things that looked especially to interesting to me. On prominent display at Kenneth Rendell (one of my favorite spots in New York for window shopping) was a page from Ayn Rand’s original handwritten manuscript of 'Atlas Shrugged.' A lot of crossing-outs on this page, number 394. She wrote it by hand! I asked the price and learned that it was still part of the entire manuscript! But, I was told, a page like this by an author of that rank/popularity/history, etc. usually starts at about $20,000." (NYSocialDiary)
"Karl Lagerfeld understands decor as well as he knows fashion. The premises for his new signature collection Karl are an opulently minimal series of salons in an hôtel particulier on the Left Bank, so it made sense that the food for the dinner party he hosted on Wednesday night to launch the line should also focus on the bare opulent essentials: caviar, foie gras, and lobster, with a logo-fied iPad as a takeaway. One of the T-shirts in his Karl range features a fanciful self-portrait with the handwritten message 'I Love Gossip.' Plenty of that in a room full of fashion people, though I spent much of the night talking about obscure Eastern European films with the encyclopedically informed Anja Rubik. How often do you get the chance to have a real talk with anyone about Dusan Makavejev's scatological Sweet Movie? Especially while chunks of foie gras are drifting back and forth under your nose." (Style)
"We meet at Teatro Goldoni, one of Washington’s best Italian restaurants, located on the infamous K Street, home to many of the town’s lobbying groups. It is also a block from the Center for Strategic International Studies, one of DC’s biggest think-tanks, where (Zbigniew) Brzezinski, national security adviser to Carter from 1977 to 1981, is a trustee. I get there a few minutes early to fiddle with my tape recorder. Brzezinski strides in on the dot of our agreed time and grips my hand firmly. Dressed in a low-key suit and tie, Brzezinski is leathered and lean and still has almost a full head of hair. He talks in paragraphs, virtually without pause. Though I have known Brzezinski for years – and received news tips from him by email and fax – I still feel unsettled by his piercing gaze. Many of his Soviet interlocutors and White House colleagues were reportedly kept off balance by his hawkish manner ... When talking about the state of the world, Brzezinski, who still has traces of a Polish accent, chooses his language more forensically. His father was a Polish diplomat and Brzezinski, who was educated at a British prep school in Montreal during the second world war, had spent most of his first decade at diplomatic compounds in France and Hitler’s Berlin. Brzezinski Sr must have done something very right, or very wrong, to get posted to Canada after that. “In those days, the British still referred to it as BNA,' Brzezinski says. 'British North America.' Brzezinski attributes his verbal skills to his prep school. 'I entered the school not knowing a word of English and at the end of the first year in June I picked up a prize for literature,' he says. It must also have been there that he acquired his knowledge of food, I think to myself. I spent the previous night reading through Brzezinski’s new book – Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power. 'That must have been a sad evening,' says Brzezinski, chuckling. I had no difficulty staying awake, I reply. The book offers a bracing portrait of a “receding west” with one half, Europe, turning into a 'comfortable retirement home', and the other, the US, beset by relative economic decline and a dysfunctional politics. In this rapidly changing new world, America’s growing 'strategic isolation' is matched only by China’s 'strategic patience' in a challenge likely to strain the electoral horizons of US policymakers." (FT)
"No one can put a precise date on when ABC News started. But it was in 1962 that the network established an assignment desk and newsgathering capabilities: the guts of a TV news organization. And so today, ABCNewsers celebrated 50 years of providing news and information to American homes (and now workplaces and mobile devices). Employees packed ABC’s TV Studios 1 (former home of “'Who Wants to Be Millionaire' and 2 (current home of 'The Chew') which were festooned with images of ABC News anchors and reporters past and present. In addition to hundreds who packed the studio, employees from bureaus around the country and the world were patched in for the celebration. ABC News president Ben Sherwood was the emcee and was joined by two former ABC News presidents: Bill Sheehan (1974-1977) in Washington, DC and David Westin (1997-2010) in New York. Kaycee Freed Jennings, widow of Peter Jennings, also attended.The celebration included a video lookback, as well as the first (and probably last) Meatball Awards, presented by Lara Spencer. (The award for tightest t-shirt worn during a natural disaster was a three-way tie going to David Muir, Jeffrey Kofman and Matt Gutman.)" (TVNewser)
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Media-Whore D'Oeuvres
"Michael McCarty, the man behind the power lunch spot Michael's, recently launched a new Korean-influenced bar bites menu and seasonal cocktail list that's drawing younger media types to the bar after work. His 27-year-old executive chef, Kyung Up Lim, has developed delicious snacks like spicy beef tacos, fried oysters and Korean-style, fried chicken drummettes to go along with Michael Flannery's creative, seasonal cocktails. McCarty took some time out to talk after a hectic Wednesday lunch, the day when bold-face names often converge. Papermag: I have to ask you about the devastating review Frank Bruni gave Michael's in 2008. Michael McClarty: That was a completely ridiculous review, the dumbest thing I ever read. There might have been a few clunkers on the menu, but it was an insult to my restaurant, to my chef, to my industry. He was mad because he got sat in what he thought was Siberia. Go fuck yourself, buddy." (Papermag)
"The Wednesday’s Michael’s lunch was predictably jam-packed. Just inside the door Michael Douglas was lunching with Ari Emanuel, the Hollywood mega-agent, founder of the Endeavor Agency, whose brother is the Mayor of Chicago. Next to them Star Jones was lunching with a distinguished looking gentleman. In the bay at Table One Bonnie Fuller was hosting her monthly confab which included Gerry Byrne, Enka Slezak, Mallory Andrews, Tommy Hilfiger, Amanda Foreman, Ben Sherwood, Ramona Singer, Lisette Sand-Freedman, Carlos Lamadrid. Next door, PR honcho, Richard Rubenstein. Next to them William Lauder, Cindi Lieve and Bill Wackermann; and next to them Michael Mailer." (NYSocialDiary)
"If you read Condoleezza Rice's books, she has exhaustively explained how the U.S. worked with Benazir Bhutto and General [Pervez] Musharraf to form their own type of puppet government. Now this government is responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians and soldiers who have been killed in [the war on terror]. With the extent of corruption that this government has been indulging in, it was inevitable that they had this clash with the Supreme Court. The day the Supreme Court had called the NRO [National Reconciliation Ordinance] government unconstitutional, it was decided right then that this government couldn't have survived a good relation with [the Supreme Court]. Sadly, we have had no genuine opposition in this country. [There might have been] an opposition within parliamentary members who could have stood up and questioned the government, but that did not happen. The government did not resign, and everyone else was busy trying to save democracy -- while of course the government was trying to save their corruption. The Supreme Court of any state [is the institution that should have] the highest reliance and authority. Such an institution in a democratic state has no [ground for] military intervention and has the highest power to launch a control system for the corrupt actions, or a corrupt state. If and when any other democratic institution fails to perform, the Supreme Court can control them and make them accountable. No one can challenge the Supreme Court. Our government, on the other hand, is a corrupt government." (Imram Khan/Foreignpolicy)
"Midway through our visit to the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, your blogger decided it would be a good time to stop and assess the slushy, star-studded scene on Main Street and beyond. Ahead, the most notable films, festival-goers, and swag in Park City so far this year. Be warned: your opinion of Lil Jon, agency parties, and 'meal-soup chalets' may never be the same ... Best star sighting in Park City: Sean Penn, in town to promote This Must Be the Place. Most diverse celebrity crowd: A three-way tie between Friday night at Tao, the club that entertained both Paris Hilton and Harvey Weinstein simultaneously; Saturday night at the Bing Bar Drake concert, which was attended by William H. Macy, Anthony Mackie, Quincy Jones, and Melanie Lynskey; and every day at the Bertolli Meal Soup Chalet, which has fed the likes of Seth Rogen, Andie MacDowell, and Casper Van Dien. Funniest public putdown: After Cuba Gooding Jr. stormed the Bing Bar stage during Aziz Ansari’s underwhelming comedy set on Saturday night to quiet the inattentive audience ('Have some respect for the black men onstage!'), the Parks and Recreation comedian—who, it should be noted, is not black—cracked, 'Y’all would be paying more attention if we were showing Boat Trip up here!'" (VanityFair)
"Edmund Wilson was America’s premier man of letters during the middle of the 20th century. The Wound and the Bow, To the Finland Station, and Memoirs of Hecate County are still in print, as are his journals about the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. He was a literary critic par excellence, a friend of both Scott Fitzgerald (whose death at 44 shook him greatly, as Wilson was only a year older) as well as Hemingway, who counted Wilson as one of the few men he would not bully. Wilson was often married, his third wife being the beautiful Mary McCarthy—as good a writer as he was—whom he divorced in 1946 for champagne heiress Elena Mumm Thornton. I admire Wilson’s prescient thoughts on Greeks back in 1945, when he flew into that tortured country reporting for The New Yorker. One of the first Americans he met on the ground asked him whether the war between Sparta and Athens was still going on. Wilson does not comment on the breadth of the man’s ignorance. He lets it stand by itself, which does the job perfectly. Uncle Sam’s foreign policy has always and will always be based on total ignorance of history. Mind you, there was a war going on back in 1945. It was a civil war, but Athens and Sparta were not the protagonists; nationalists versus communists were on center stage. But at least the poor ignoramus who asked the dumbest of all questions long before George W. asked about Sunnis and Shi’ites had an excuse—he was a simple military adviser, not president of the United States." (Taki Theodoracopulos)
"Luckily, your Daily got just that at last night's second Cinema Society screening of W.E. at the Ziegfeld. This time, The Cinema Society paired up with the diamond purveyors at Forevermark for a second go at premiering Madonna's directorial debut, followed by a bash at the Boom Boom Room (do Vita Coco cocktails make for a lesser hangover? The jury's out on that one....). What was different this time around? The lady of the eve—well, she's the lady of any eve!—brought out another starry coterie, including co-stars like James D'arcy and Andrea Riseborough (decked out in a marvelous Marchesa number, andpeppered with Forevermark gems, like a number of other glittering, bauble-d starlets), Martha Stewart, Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld, Helena Christensen, Lou Reed, Julia Stiles, Ewan McGregor, Gina Gershon, chef Alain Alegretti, and Andre Balazs. Also in attendance: a bunch of serious fashion stalwarts—Donna! Calvin! DvF!—plus a large number of runway successes, like Proenza's Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, Cynthia Steffe, Rachel Roy, and Zac Posen (avec a dramatically crimson-clad Crystal Renn). 'I can't remember if it was at the DJ booth at the Palladium, or at Studio 54,' reminisced Klein of his first encounter with Madonna. Why did the dynamic duo strike up a friendship amid the glammed-out zenith of the clubbing days of yore? 'Um...we were both looking for the same thing! We all were.'" (Fashionweekdaily)
"Michael McCarty, the man behind the power lunch spot Michael's, recently launched a new Korean-influenced bar bites menu and seasonal cocktail list that's drawing younger media types to the bar after work. His 27-year-old executive chef, Kyung Up Lim, has developed delicious snacks like spicy beef tacos, fried oysters and Korean-style, fried chicken drummettes to go along with Michael Flannery's creative, seasonal cocktails. McCarty took some time out to talk after a hectic Wednesday lunch, the day when bold-face names often converge. Papermag: I have to ask you about the devastating review Frank Bruni gave Michael's in 2008. Michael McClarty: That was a completely ridiculous review, the dumbest thing I ever read. There might have been a few clunkers on the menu, but it was an insult to my restaurant, to my chef, to my industry. He was mad because he got sat in what he thought was Siberia. Go fuck yourself, buddy." (Papermag)
"The Wednesday’s Michael’s lunch was predictably jam-packed. Just inside the door Michael Douglas was lunching with Ari Emanuel, the Hollywood mega-agent, founder of the Endeavor Agency, whose brother is the Mayor of Chicago. Next to them Star Jones was lunching with a distinguished looking gentleman. In the bay at Table One Bonnie Fuller was hosting her monthly confab which included Gerry Byrne, Enka Slezak, Mallory Andrews, Tommy Hilfiger, Amanda Foreman, Ben Sherwood, Ramona Singer, Lisette Sand-Freedman, Carlos Lamadrid. Next door, PR honcho, Richard Rubenstein. Next to them William Lauder, Cindi Lieve and Bill Wackermann; and next to them Michael Mailer." (NYSocialDiary)
"Edmund Wilson was America’s premier man of letters during the middle of the 20th century. The Wound and the Bow, To the Finland Station, and Memoirs of Hecate County are still in print, as are his journals about the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. He was a literary critic par excellence, a friend of both Scott Fitzgerald (whose death at 44 shook him greatly, as Wilson was only a year older) as well as Hemingway, who counted Wilson as one of the few men he would not bully. Wilson was often married, his third wife being the beautiful Mary McCarthy—as good a writer as he was—whom he divorced in 1946 for champagne heiress Elena Mumm Thornton. I admire Wilson’s prescient thoughts on Greeks back in 1945, when he flew into that tortured country reporting for The New Yorker. One of the first Americans he met on the ground asked him whether the war between Sparta and Athens was still going on. Wilson does not comment on the breadth of the man’s ignorance. He lets it stand by itself, which does the job perfectly. Uncle Sam’s foreign policy has always and will always be based on total ignorance of history. Mind you, there was a war going on back in 1945. It was a civil war, but Athens and Sparta were not the protagonists; nationalists versus communists were on center stage. But at least the poor ignoramus who asked the dumbest of all questions long before George W. asked about Sunnis and Shi’ites had an excuse—he was a simple military adviser, not president of the United States." (Taki Theodoracopulos)
"Luckily, your Daily got just that at last night's second Cinema Society screening of W.E. at the Ziegfeld. This time, The Cinema Society paired up with the diamond purveyors at Forevermark for a second go at premiering Madonna's directorial debut, followed by a bash at the Boom Boom Room (do Vita Coco cocktails make for a lesser hangover? The jury's out on that one....). What was different this time around? The lady of the eve—well, she's the lady of any eve!—brought out another starry coterie, including co-stars like James D'arcy and Andrea Riseborough (decked out in a marvelous Marchesa number, andpeppered with Forevermark gems, like a number of other glittering, bauble-d starlets), Martha Stewart, Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld, Helena Christensen, Lou Reed, Julia Stiles, Ewan McGregor, Gina Gershon, chef Alain Alegretti, and Andre Balazs. Also in attendance: a bunch of serious fashion stalwarts—Donna! Calvin! DvF!—plus a large number of runway successes, like Proenza's Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, Cynthia Steffe, Rachel Roy, and Zac Posen (avec a dramatically crimson-clad Crystal Renn). 'I can't remember if it was at the DJ booth at the Palladium, or at Studio 54,' reminisced Klein of his first encounter with Madonna. Why did the dynamic duo strike up a friendship amid the glammed-out zenith of the clubbing days of yore? 'Um...we were both looking for the same thing! We all were.'" (Fashionweekdaily)
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