Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



"My best friend Tatiana von Furstenberg was honored last night for her work for the Henry Street Settlement at a dinner/dance in the ballroom of The Plaza Hotel. Mayor Bloomberg spoke and Tatiana, a resident of the LES, gave the perfect speech, urging guests to help support the needy people that the Henry Street Settlement aides. I chatted with so many of my favorite glamorous gals, like Lydia Fenet, Maggie Katz, Serena Nikkhah, Lesley Schulhof, Fernanda Niven, Bonnie Morrison, Seema Mehta, Francesca Gregorini, Zani Gugelmann, Tara Subkoff and my cousin Gigi Mortimer. I also got to meet 26-year-old fashion star Jason Wu -- who totally Wu-ed me with his charm." (Papermag)



"Many have blamed Conrad Black for the troubles of Sun-Times Media Group. But as the company he built declares bankruptcy, Black, writing from prison, tells how he was prevented from selling the company at a price that, in hindsight, looks very rich." (TheDailyBeast)

"Based entirely on speculation and anticipation, among the biggest names on our current Cannes Film Festival wish list are Jane Campion with her new biopic about John Keats, 'Bright Star,' Ken Loach and his comedy about French soccer star Eric Cantona, 'Looking for Eric,' Todd Solondz’s long awaited 'sequel' to 'Happiness,' 'Forgiveness,' and Michael Haneke’s 'The White Ribbon.' Though once speculated to be joining the Cannes line up earlier in the year, Jim Jarmusch’s 'The Limits of Control' seems unlikely for this year’s event afterall, with distributor Focus Features moving up the film’s U.S. release date recently to before Cannes begins May 13." (IndieWIRE)



"Beauty Sharon Stone tried out life on the other side of the camera at the opening of Gordon Ramsay's new Maze restaurant in South Africa. Shazza, 51, snuck up to snap Mariah Carey, then joined A-listers including Robert De Niro, Clint Eastwood and Matt Damon to tuck into Gord's delicious scoff." (3AMGirls)

"Like London and Paris, two cities I’ve lived in and loved, New York has given birth to many a myth. Mostly in one’s imagination. Novels, plays, essays, and poems by giants such as Whitman, Wharton, James, Fitzgerald, Dos Passos and Wolfe have confirmed the myths I have imagined, and cocktail parties with superannuated WASPs, lunches with ethereal creatures, and dinners with mysterious Transylvanians confirm it even further. New York is the grail we’re all seeking." (Takimag)

"Back to the real world. Here’s a real, confirmed tie-up between Twitter and Google: The search engine is giving marketers the chance to turn their Twitter messages into ads. AdAge reports that Google (GOOG) is now packaging tweets into an AdSense campaign and that Intuit’s (INTU) Turbo Tax is the first company to sign up. Unlike a similar campaign that publisher Glam Media just launched, the ads only aggregate tweets from a specific Twitter account. So in this case, the ads will be composed of the five most recent tweets from twitter.com/turbotax. AdAge doesn’t spell out whether or not Twitter is an official partner in the offering, and I’m not sure the company would need to be since Twitter doesn’t make any copyright claims on its users’ messages. But hard to imagine the Twitter folks haven’t at least given this one a tacit approval." (AllThingsD)



"Mel B's show is so hot she sets off fire alarms. The 33-year-old former Spice Girl was sizzling in a collection of raunchy outfits as she teased her way through a steamy routine at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. The show - called Peep Show - had already been delayed a couple of times, with producers blaming its 'scale and complexity' for pushing back the opening night twice." (Thisislondon)



"Last night, the Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn hosted a book party for I Am Because We Are, a companion to Madonna’s documentary of the same name about the AIDS epidemic in Malawi. Guests like Olivia Palermo and boyfriend Johannes Huebl viewed a series of powerful photographs by photojournalist Kristen Ashburn which accompany stories in the book of children suffering through the AIDS epidemic." (Guestofaguest)

"Hamas and Fatah have announced that their talks in Cairo on a government of national unity have ended without agreement, to be resumed (perhaps) in three weeks. While some Egyptian sources are trying to spin this as a simple pause, with no deeper implications, few Arab commentators are buying it. Combined with the failure of the Doha summit and the formation of an extreme right-wing Israeli government, the suspension of Palestinian unity talks signals a rather depressing end to months of feverish diplomacy. Some brief thoughts: Who is to blame for the failure of the talks? Hamas blames Fatah for being subservient to foreign influences (i.e. the U.S. and Israel), and Cairo for being too nakedly pro-Abu Mazen in its mediation. That's almost certainly right." (ForeignPolicy)