Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



"Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson had their second major spat in a week at the extravagant launch of a Dubai hotel last night. Sam took to the decks at the afterparty but left Lindsay in tears after they had yet another row. An onlooker said: 'At one stage Lindsay approached Sam in the DJ booth and screamed at her, How many more songs? How long is it going to take for you to pack up?'.'" (Thisislondon)

"CNN's Christiane Amanpour receives the National Press Club's Fourth Estate Award tonight in Washington. Part of the evening's program will be a 'roast' by colleague Wolf Blitzer, as well as Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen and former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright." (TVNewser)

"With thousands of sold-out shows because of pre-sales, Summit Entertainment field teams weren't expecting any massive lines for Thursday's midnight screenings. As a Summit distribution exec reminded, 'The days of lining up hours before are gone due the Internet. ' Boy, was he wrong! I'm told that in Phoenix, Arizona, 4 major local TV news crews did live evening broadcasts because of the long lines for the midnight shows for Twilight at the Harkins Tempe Marketplace. And footage was even shot of the massive audience sitting in the sold-out Cine Capri, one of the largest theaters in the city. In Cincinnati, Ohio, the crowd began forming over four hours early for the midnight screening at the Showcase Florence, which sold out two houses for the midnight screening and were working on a third. I'm told almost everyone attending had some kind of store bought or homemade Twilight T-shirt." (DeadlineHollywoodDaily)

"SOME New Yorkers were disappointed Michael Bloomberg opted out of running for president, but the mayor's daughter, Georgina, 25, isn't one of them. 'Was it something I wanted? Absolutely not,' she tells Page Six Magazine in Sunday's Post. 'I don't think anyone my age wants to be the president's daughter.' The accomplished equestrian, now training for the 2012 London Olympics on her farm in North Salem, owns nine horses and drives a BMW, but says pop instilled in her the value of the dollar. 'I'm not rich, my father's rich. When I go shopping, that's my own money,' she says." (PageSix)

"'The first thing is, we don't all live here,' director Andrew Jarecki explained while introducing a short talk by his brother Eugene to the small crowd gathered in his mother Nancy's Upper East Side apartment on Wednesday night. The celebration was in honor of Eugene's recently released The American Way of War, a book about the American military-industrial complex ..During a brief question and answer session, the actor Danny Glover observed, 'We’re going to have to make a new step despite ourselves ..It's too soon to judge. (President-elect Obama's) just starting,' he added. 'You can't speculate about the content of a man’s soul. It's like a black hole, you can't see what’s there, but you can see the asteroids and all that stuff shooting out from the side.'" (Observer)



(Gail Lumet Buckley via NYSocialDiary)

"Meanwhile, back to the night before last. The National Book Awards evening at the Cipriani Wall Street was an evening of talk .. Martin Garbus in introducing the now legendary Barney Rosset (of Grove Press who brought Tropic of Cancer and Lady Chatterley’s Lover into print in America), gave us a sense of America’s passionate literary history .. Kiran Desai spoke about Maxine Hong Kingston who was receiving the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters .."(NYSocialDiary)

"One by one, guests came up to the red carpet to ask who was set to arrive, because the line to get into last night's Art Rocks! event benefitting the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center was insane! Well we knew Alexandra Richards was one of the featured aritsts... but what about the rumor that David LaChapelle might be bringing Pam Anderson!? While that rumor turned out to be false .." (Papermag)

"Designer/celebrity collaborations and designer/charity projects are nothing new, but in its own luxe way, Gucci has managed to merge all of the above. Frida Giannini's Tattoo Heart collection of handbags and accessories is part of the 4th annual Gucci campaign to benefit UNICEF. It's the first of such collection to earn its own ad campaign--featuring Rihanna, even." (Fashionweekdaily)

"For the New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), generous dividend payments are almost as sacred as sophisticated news coverage. Now, the paper has finally given in to the realities of the declining newspaper industry and the wider economic turmoil. Capping weeks of speculation, the NYTCo’s board announced that it was lowering its quarterly dividend to $.06 per share on the Company’s Class A and Class B common stock, down from $.23 per share in Q3. While some of the family members who were previously getting $25 million on the $.23 per share dividend will likely complain, many analysts will surely argue that the cut doesn’t go far enough." (Paidcontent)