"Bill Clinton loves to shop. On a March day in an elegant crafts store in Lima, the Peruvian capital, he hunted for presents for his wife and the women on his staff back home. He had given a speech at a university earlier and just came from a ceremony kicking off a program to help impoverished Peruvians. Now he was eyeing a necklace with a green stone amulet. Standing all by himself, the former president of the United States moved his eyes methodically across shelves of wooden carvings, jewelry and sculptures as he searched for something distinctive to bring his wife. 'She used to look forward to me coming home from wherever I’ve been,' he mused with a laugh. 'Now I’m afraid I’ll be second fiddle to whatever world leader she’s just met.'" (NYTimes)
"Mel Gibson and his estranged wife, Robyn, have been separated for two-and-a-half years, so maybe it’s his business that he’s expecting a baby with one of three Oksanas that he’s been linked with in the press in recent weeks. But Gibson has been popping up on the talk-show circuit, appearing on Jimmy Kimmel in February and joking with Jay Leno on Monday night about the fact that baby No. 8 is on the way with Russian musician Oksana Grigorieva. 'I guess I’m Octo-Mel now,' he said. The line got a courtesy laugh but behind the appearance is a serious motive. Next year Warner Bros. will release Edge of Darkness, Gibson’s first starring role since M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs in 2002. The British thriller has a good pedigree in that it’s directed by Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) and written by William Monahan (The Departed). The question is how Gibson now plays to the public." (TheDailyBeast)
"The town is still coming back from the long holiday weekend respite. If they were anywhere last night it was over at the Museum of Modern Art for their 41st annual Party in the Garden. Cocktails at 7, dinner at 8 and after-dinner reception (more guests) at 9 ... Yesterday afternoon I got an email from my friend Paige Peterson about her son Peter Cary Peterson’s part in another BRAVO 'reality show,' NYC Prep. The workaday world’s version of rich kids. Then later in the afternoon we received Washington Social Diary’s Carol Joynt column writing about BRAVO’s plans for a Washington, D.C. Housewives reality show, and who she thinks could and would." (NYSocialDiary)
"The map’s new seamlessness can be seen in the Pakistani outpost of Gwadar. There, on the Indian Ocean, near the Iranian border, the Chinese have constructed a spanking new deep-water port. Land prices are booming, and people talk of this still sleepy fishing village as the next Dubai, which may one day link towns in Central Asia to the burgeoning middle-class fleshpots of India and China through pipelines, supertankers, and the Strait of Malacca. The Chinese also have plans for developing other Indian Ocean ports in order to transport oil by pipelines directly into western and central China, even as a canal and land bridge are possibly built across Thailand’s Isthmus of Kra. Afraid of being outflanked by the Chinese, the Indians are expanding their own naval ports and strengthening ties with both Iran and Burma, where the Indian-Chinese rivalry will be fiercest. These deepening connections are transforming the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Indian and Pacific oceans into a vast continuum, in which the narrow and vulnerable Strait of Malacca will be the Fulda Gap of the 21st century." (ForeignPolicy)
"Chicago businessman Chris Kennedy, a son of the late New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, appears likely to launch a 2010 Senate bid in Illinois. This candidacy would make him the latest in the famed family's 'second generation' to enter the political fray. It also would lengthen the list of Democrats who are either certain to run or are thinking about running in the February primary for the seat held by interim Democratic Sen. Roland W. Burris, whose appointment to the seat Barack Obama vacated to become president has remained controversial and unpopular. The Chicago Sun-Times has reported that Kennedy could announce his plans this week." (CQPolitics)
"Last night John Demsey, Chairman of MAC Cosmetics, threw a party at his Upper East Side townhouse in honor of Page Six gossip writer Paula Froelich’s new book, 'Mercury In Retrograde.' 'Mercury In Retrograde' sounds a bit like a mix between 'Sex in the City' and 'Friends,' apparently telling the story of three successful and, of course, social New York ladies who all reside in a Soho building together. We’re sure Froelich’s own experiences and her years observing the women out on the town will no doubt provide for some entertaining reading .. Guests at the soiree included Adam Lippes, Constance Jablonski, Emanuela De Paula, Richie Rich, Katrina Bowden, Alice and Olivia designer Stacey Bendet, Cornelia Guest, and Hoda Hotb among others." (Guestofaguest)
"JODIE Sweetin, who played lovable Stephanie Tanner on 'Full House,' will bare her past as a secret drug abuser in a new tell-all. In 'UnSweetined,' coming from Simon Spotlight Entertainment, the pixie-faced blond star describes how she began doing methadone, cocaine and ecstasy as well as developing a booze habit. Spinning 'a web of lies,' she secretly continued to use drugs while she toured the country giving anti-drug speeches at colleges. She finally straightened out after she discovered she was pregnant." (PageSix)
(Eva Herzigova and Claudia Schiffer via fashionweekdaily)
"'I'm still saving up for the boys' fabulous night!' quipped Dita Von Teese at 2 a.m. on Thursday night, the evening (or morning?) before Dolce & Gabbana's usual Cannes bash. And Teese meant it--she understood that the guests at the sixth annual affair weren't expected to sit around and nibble on cheese and crackers. Instead, the dance floor awaited. With the guest list at Le Baoli reduced significantly from last year--and the VIP room completely abolished--there was no escaping the music for those invited by the duo to close out the Festival Friday night. 'This has truly become our favorite little party of the year,' smiled an elated Domenico Dolce. 'We come here and spend time on Stefano [Gabbana]'s yacht, see friends, and really leave happy and relaxed.' Carine Roitfeld, son Vladimir and Anna Dello Russo immediately hit the metallic dance floor, with Claudia Schiffer and Eva Herzigova joining them immediately after." (Fashionweekdaily)
"Marc Jacobs: 'My husband-to-be and I will be buying a house together. And he and I want children. And we are very much in love. One other thing I can tell you is, I won't wear white.'" (CindyAdams)
"Memorable for its in-your-face sensationalism, the 62nd Cannes Film Festival opened with the 3-D computer animation Up, saving the 'Yours' for the final minutes of the competition's penultimate movie, Gaspar Noé's 'psychedelic melodrama' Enter the Void. The sad, tawdry, monstrously inflated tale of two traumatized club kids adrift in the neon wilderness of downtown Tokyo, Enter the Void climaxed, so to speak, with a wide-screen, simulated vagi-cam mega-close-up of a Brobdingnagian penis, thrustin' atcha." (VVoice)
"President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor -- born to a Puerto Rican family in the South Bronx -- to be the next associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States may be the kind of political master stroke that puts Obama on the glidepath to reelection. How? By locking in Florida, a state without which any hopes of a GOP comeback in 2012 dwindle virtually to nothing .. Barack Obama became the first non-Southern Democrat since Franklin Roosevelt to carry Florida's 27 electoral votes, winning the state by 236,450 votes in 2008 .. Given the apparent popularity of recent Obama Administration policy moves with regard to remittances and travel to Cuba, it appears at least possible, if not likely, that Obama can hold and possibly even expand his reach into the Cuban-American community during his expected reelection campaign in 2012." (CQPolitics)
"There is a deep connection I will never be able to make with a person who actively dislikes The Big Lebowski." (Cinematical)
"It's been long in the works. But now the executive shuffling and pinkslipping may be finally coming down this week -- as soon as Thursday? -- as Steve McPherson consolidates his power as head of ABC Entertainment Group overseeing both ABC Entertainment and ABC Studios. Here's what sources are telling me: Channing Dungey is leaving ABC Studios as SVP of drama development, to head drama at ABC Entertainment. She'll replace Suzanne Patmore-Gibbs, who currently is EVP of drama development at ABC Entertainment and is being elevated to No 2 under Steve McPherson to oversee comedy and drama." (DeadlineHollywoodDaily)
"For a man slowed by health issues, Clinton still stays up late at night chewing cigars and playing Oh, Hell, a card game Steven Spielberg taught him in 2000, recruiting Giustra, Band and anyone else he can get to play. He obsessively works the Times crossword puzzle, enlisting others to figure out clues. After getting stuck one night on 'big catch of 2003' ('Hussein'), he handed me the completed puzzle the next morning." (NYTimes)
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