A Little of the Old In and Out

In: Broken Models. The Page Sixxies have taken to chronicleing the fragility of our favorite endangered species, namely, fashion models, a subject that warms the cockles of our snarky telltale hearts. Models are lovely, delicate underweight specialty creatures bred in captivity on a diet of sushi, crudites (their primary food source being: low-hanging vegetation) and champagne (occasionally candy as well) for their exotic beauty. Their natural habitat is generally Brazil, so cold New York winters can be traumatic to their systems.

Those sexy little ruffage-eaters are breaking like China dolls left and right all over the hippest neighborhoods in Manhattan. Especially in this Arctic cold front. The past two days have been "A Very Special Page Six," rife with model smashing incidents. First, spastic ex-rugby freak Javier Bardem broke model Jill Marshall's beak yesterday. Today:

"-- K.A.I. of the hip downtown design collective As Four was ejected from the Darklight Friday night after he took a wild swing at a bartender. The resulting ruckus sent one leggy model to the hospital for stitches after a glass globe fell off the ceiling and cut her leg."

Which reminds me of Nabokov's forgotten Poem, Model, which goes, "Ballerina, black-masked/near a parapet of alabaster/'Can one' - somebody asked - rhyme 'star' and 'disaster'?" And what not. People, take it easy at the bar or on the dance floor at the cooler establishments during the holidays, you might wind up breaking a model.

Out: The Nijinsky Awards. Is Monaco, like, Vegas with an only marginally less oily clientele? Because sometimes it seems like the duty of the long-suffering Caroline and the "House of Grimaldi Posse" is to host overhyped trade shows, some being top drawer, and others (Averted Gaze) at the lower end of that spectrum, according to Hello!Magazine:

"Princess Caroline played host to some of the dance world's most talented movers and shakers at the weekend, when the Nijinsky Awards were staged in Monte Carlo. Many of the finest performers and choreographers from all over the planet made their way to Monaco for the glitzy event. But the guest list wasn't limited to the high-flyers of ballet, because fashion guru Karl Lagerfeld and Hollywood actress Neve Campbell were likewise seen mingling in the majestic Salle de Princes."

Hmm, we'll defer on Lagerfeld, but is Neve Campbell really a "mover" and "shaker" or is she just an ex-dancer that "oscillates wildly"?

In: Kate Moss' Lucien Freud. We are not a fan of Lucien's fleshy surfaces (we prefer flesh chiaroscuroed on our paintings, if you must know) although we are deeply awed with his grandfather Sigmund's application of a unified field theory to neuroses (we're a bit of a social science geek), but, apparently, the Brits like Lucien fine, according to British Vogue:



Above: Eew

"LUCIAN FREUD's portrait of Kate Moss, which he painted in 2002 when she was pregnant with daughter Lila Grace, is expected to sell for as much as ($6.7 million) when it is auctioned in London in February. According to Christie's International the painting is being sold by a private collector, who bought it soon after it was completed, as part of a sale of Post War and Contemporary Art on February 9. Freud, who painted a group portrait in the Eighties which sold for ($5.7 million) in New York in 1998, asked Kate to pose for him after she admitted in Dazed and Confused magazine that it was one of her ambitions."

In: Bolivian Marching Powder. According to Ananova, Sir Elton got all nostalgic in a "Remembrance of Drugs Past" kind-of-way with, of all places, the German press (we would've often to share this with an Amsterdam paper, they understand these things):

"Sir Elton John says that when he sees snow-covered Alpine mountains it reminds him of wilder drug-fuelled days as a young musician.

"'When I fly over the snow-covered Alps, all I think about is the snow that I once took,' he told German magazine Neon, explaining that the word snow is often used as a synonym for cocaine.
The 57-year-old pop star said he took 'a lot' of cocaine when he was younger.

"'Somebody once calculated that I spent 70 million dollars every 20 months in the 80s. What for? Amongst other things cocaine.'"

We shudder to ask him what the "Hanging Gardens of Babylon" call to mind ...

Out: Mike Tyson. Sure, he could probably take our lights out without even trying as he is in possession of "the rib-busting ox strength", but he has no elan, no -- how does one say it? -- "sangfroid," like The Corsair. According to Oanmedia, who caught up with him, an unlikely guest, at the Guggenheim Young Collector's Ball:

"But the guest who really had the socialites shocked was Mike Tyson, who was in town for a court appearance on disorderly conduct charges. We asked the boxing champ if he, too, was wearing Dior, and he replied, 'Deodorant?'"

In: The Beastles. You put your Beasty Boy in my Beatles ... (Thanks to Stereogum for the link)