Media-Whore D'Oevres



(Christiane Amanpour and her bike via JH/NYSocialDiary)

"Another beautiful early autumn day in New York yesterday. Amazing day down at Michael’s. A madhouse of social and media in New York. Quintessential and full explanation of why the New York Times review of the restaurant missed the boat. At table 5 in the front room Laura Bush was with two gentlemen and three women, all of whom looked like personal friends. At the table next to them Ron Perelman was lunching with Vernon Jordan. Next to them Joe Armstrong was lunching with Paul Fribourg, chairman of Contigroup." (NYSocialDiary)

"Oh, and there was a little party in the back thrown by Peggy Siegal celebrating the premiere of Lifetime's Living Proof which brought out the film's stars Harry Connick Jr. (totally charming), Amanda Bynes (who texted throughout lunch), Renee Zellweger (who exec produced the whole shebang). I chatted with Cosmo editrix Kate White (looking every inch the power gal in red) while I watched Bernadette Peters, Lynn Whitfield, Christiane Amanpour, Karen Duffy, and Trudie Styler file in. Worlds collided when Sharon Bush, who was at the lunch, stopped by on her way out to say hello to Laura. A little birdie told me she didn't get the warmest reception." (FishbowlNY)

"Children in Congo risk their lives digging cobalt and copper ore with their bare hands for Chinese companies .. Katanga, a region of green rolling hills that's bigger than California, is home to 5.5 million people. The province in the south of Congo contains 4 percent of the world's copper and a third of its cobalt reserves, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The minerals Adon and children like him wrest from the red, hard earth find their way to smoky smelters on the edge of impoverished towns near the mines. Most of these rusting, hand-fed furnaces are owned by companies based in a faraway country, one that was founded on an ideology that exalts the rights of workers: the People's Republic of China. 'My life is hard,' says Adon, wearing black rubber boots, a hooded sweatshirt and ripped jeans that sag on his skinny frame." (BloombergMarkets)

"MARK Cuban and Andrew Murstein, rivals in the $1 billion Chicago Cubs bidding war, lunching at Nobu 57." (PageSix)

"...(W)e all know that Entourage's Ari Gold is based on Ari Emanuel. And that Emanuel's client Mark Wahlberg is the exec producer of the series which HBO recently picked up for a 6th season. Now life is imitating art because Endeavor has just signed Adrian Grenier, aka 'Vince' who right now is cold as ice in Hollywood. But I gotta ask: does Adrian really have that big of a career ahead of him?" (NikkiFinke)

"Personally, I have always operated by instinct when it comes to finance. It was instinct that made me invest with Charles Fix after my father died. The Fix Family Fund served its investors well for close to 20 years; 20 per cent per annum. In June 2007 I began feeling creepy about the markets. Too many nightclub characters dropping names of hot hedge funds and all that. I rang up Fix and told him I wanted out. He agreed. But I waited awhile, and only got out in October, which meant March of this year. I had taken big losses but, still, I consider myself very lucky. What is interesting is that last spring I shopped around New York for hedge funds to replace Fix. It was like being in the Führer’s bunker with Hitler posting phantom divisions on his maps in order to defend the Fatherland. The hedgies were all young, very tightly wound, looking non-stop at screens while promising to make me richer than Croesus in no time. I stayed away. The investments they were hawking around were less real than Hitler’s divisions, and my s*** detector, as Papa Hemingway called it, was ringing non-stop." (Takimag)

"Charlize Theron ... when asked whether she’d be interested in returning for another go-round in the superhero-savvy world of 'Hancock,' she had no shortage of good things to say about the project and its star, Will Smith. 'Riding the Will Smith train is a really nice train to ride.'" (MTVNews)