A Little of the Old In and Out



(image via artnet)

In: Gore Vidal. The Corsair finished the Michael Gross' meticulously researched and perfectly gossipy 740 Park, and, afterwards, Voltaire Almighty, and now we are on to The Lessons of Gore Vidal published by Duke University Press.

Something tells me that the infinitely witty, urbane and learned Gore Vidal, who'se political career calls to mind Tom Paine (With a dash of Somerset Maugham by way of Suetonius), would approve of this whole blogging-as-the fifth-estate phenomenon (Why, o why isn't he on the HuffPo?). From Carlin Romano of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

" Vidal, the grandson of U.S. Sen. Thomas Gore (D., Okla.), remains the patrician, elegantly groomed, acerbic commentator who for decades turned up on the nation's talk shows from David Susskind to Dick Cavett, dispensing urbane wit and battling the likes of Norman Mailer and William F. Buckley Jr., before disappearing back to his privileged life in Italy.

"Now Marcie Frank, an English professor at Concordia University, offers up Vidal as one of the first literary figures to grasp the need for novelists and intellectuals to leapfrog the print/TV gap. To her, he's the writer who 'more ably negotiated the shift from print to screen' than any of his contemporaries, who exemplified 'successful management of literary fame in the age of TV,' who still "seeks the broadest audience that he can access.'

"Frank cites Vidal's own pronouncements as part of her evidence. Once, she reports, when assured by an interviewer that he was still a famous novelist, Vidal replied, 'There is no such thing anymore.'

"What he meant, Frank explains, is that by the mid-20th century, 'one could be famous and a novelist but not famous as a novelist.' As Vidal put it in his book Screening History, 'Today where literature was, movies are.'"

Let's hope the blog figures prominently somewhere in there, shall we? The Lessons of Gore Vidal is available here.



The bitch-face, triumphant. (image via rp-online.com via AP Photo/Joe Cavaretta)

Out: Jacko. We don't really want to know what "Booger Sugar" was doing in Michael Jackson's underpants -- underpanties? --where, to be frank, his blotchy wenis ought to be nestled, snugly; but if the British press says it is allegedly so, then we'll take their word for it.

Perhaps Jacko's over-surguried waifer-thin nasal cavity is unable to handle the "volume"? We can only speculate idly as to why residue of Bolivian Marching Powder found its way onto his the crevices of his groin region.

We love to cover, though, the Felliniesque atmospherics that surround Jacko's universe (Complete with an eerie Nino Rota soundtrack of electric noise and an ancient, sarcastic laughter). What, when Jacko is not allegedly mourning the post-coital assasination of his pet monkey, Bubbles, or -- better yet -- lounging about with his personal court jester, Majestik Magnificent, or even when he is, ehr, "regurgitating all the way to the bank," like, well ... a freak without warning. (Exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment)

Now, according to Emily Smith of TheSun:

"TRACES of cocaine were found on Michael Jackson�s underwear during a police raid, it was revealed yesterday.

"The discovery emerged as the troubled singer faced shock new claims that he is abusing and trafficking drugs.

"Cops are secretly investigating allegations by former aides that Jacko, 47, is hooked on anti-depressants and painkillers.

"They say he pops up to 40 pills a day � and was seen falling flat on his face after injecting himself with a mystery drug."

WTF?!



(image via edge.org)

In: Lunch at Michael's. Pouty lipped media scribbler Michael Wolff is still MIA at Michael's. Oh, Michael, really, just accept the flowers and rejoin The Chattering Classes at Table 5, already; sheesh. According to our favorite social chronicler, David Patrick Columbia, who according to the intrepid Page Sixxies, is going to "host a party tonight for Julie Baumgold's new book, 'The Diamond,' at Graff's Madison Avenue store," and writes in NYSocialDiary:

"Michael�s, now resplendent with its holiday decorations of swags of evergreen and big red bows decorating the rooms, drew a big luncheon crowd including ... New School president, former US Senator Bob Kerrey; uber-editor Alice Mayhew talking shop probably with uber-agent Binky Urban. A table away, former uber-editor/literary agent Joni Evans probably talking some kind of shop with National Television Academy (Emmy Awards) Peter Price ... Marc Rosen holding forth at a table of eight, Broadway producer Fran Weissler; mag editors, Good Housekeeping�s Ellen Levine and Newsweek�s Dorothy Kalins; Lorna Graev, Mike Strohl, Beverly Camhe; former Paramount exec and film colony scion John Goldwyn; Bway producing partners Terry Allen Kramer and Liz McCann; Manolo Blahnik president George Malkemus with the Times� premier fashion critic Cathy Horyn; Barbara Walters at the corner table ... and at the table next to mine, the queen of 'Can We Talk?' that glama-puss herself, Miss Joan Rivers."

The full, unexpurgated list here.



(image via usatoday)

Out: Google. Ann Mather's ascention notwithstanding, newly minted millionaire Jason Calacanis has some interesting things to say about Google and the possible impending bubble bursting. According to Reuters:

"Shares in Web-search leader Google Inc. slid 4.7 percent on Tuesday, their biggest decline in a year, as analysts expressed concern that its stock was overpriced after soaring 40 percent in two months.

"Merrill Lynch analyst Lauren Rich Fine said in a research note on Monday that Google needs to develop new sources of revenue beyond its booming search advertising business to justify the current valuation on the stock.

"But she also pointed out that as Google enters new businesses and becomes increasingly dominant on the Web, it was starting to get negative publicity, which could dampen some interest in its shares."