Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



"UP-and-coming actor Liam McMullan is not shy about the colorful crowd he hangs around with. At an exhibition of photos by his legendary father Patrick Mc-Mullan and Patrick's crackerjack staffers at the Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn, Liam told Nicole Brydson of BrooklyntheBorough.com about being cast in 'Twelve,' a movie based on Liam's real-life pals. 'It's the sheer irony that I know the drug dealer ['White Mike'],' who's played by Chace Crawford in the film. 'My friends [went] to the fancy Upper East Side high schools . . . White Mike is [programmed] in my phone.'" (PageSix)



"On a March morning in Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City on the Persian Gulf, a red flame shrouded in black smoke shoots into the haze from a 650-foot stack. The burst of fire is burning off excess fuel as workers rush to finish equipment that will help the nation, already the world’s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, more than double output in the next two years. An hour away in Doha, amid the glass and steel skyscrapers turning this desert capital into a modern metropolis, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al-Thani will invest as much as $20 billion a year from the gas bonanza. Sheikh Hamad, Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister, wears a third hat: chief executive officer of the Qatar Investment Authority, which was founded in 2005. A latecomer among nations with sovereign wealth funds, Qatar formed the QIA to preserve its oil and gas wealth. Last year, the Connecticut-sized emirate -- best known as a staging ground for the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq -- earned more from LNG than oil for the first time. That milestone followed a 15-year, $120 billion spending binge by the country on its gas, petrochemical and other industries. Gross domestic product has surged to $101 billion, or $101,000 for each of the 1 million men, women and children on the thumb-shaped peninsula -- among the highest per-capita GDPs in the world." Bloomberg)



(image via JH/NYSocialDiary)

"Last night I went over to Lincoln Center to the annual Literacy Partners gala which was held at the David H. Koch Theater (formerly the New York State Theater) .. Barbara Walters read from her 'Audition: A Memoir' (she read an excerpt about growing up with her sister who had serious learning disabilities). Barbara – as she is known to one and all who come in contact with her, is very glamorous .. Christopher Buckley read from 'Losing Mum and Pup: a Memoir.' This was about the deaths and cremations of his parents – William F. and Pat Buckley -- who died within a year of each other .. After the readings, Liz Smith introduced the two Student Readers .. They raised $1.1 million last night." (NYSocialDiary)



"The late Pat and William F. Buckley’s $24.5 million duplex maisonette at 778 Park Avenue is a very proper co-op (it includes a 'staff changing room,' according to a listing), with a very proper provenance (he the blue-eyed patriarch of conservatism, she the 6-foot-tall society doyenne), in a very proper apartment house (Brooke Astor’s old duplex is upstairs). Yet selling the co-op hasn’t been smooth." (Observer)



"It is impossible to think or talk about Sam (Huntington) without thinking about the power of his mind. He would ask the biggest questions he could think of: What are American politics all about? Where does democracy come from? As Americans, who are we? He would then proceed to devour and digest all of the literature on every aspect of the human activity relevant to the question and, by the pure force of his mind, weld an answer. It was a powerful, inductive mind. It was not a mind satisfied with giving perfect answers to petty questions. It was the mind of a Darwin." (ForeignAffairs)



"Glenn McQuaid’s 'I Sell the Dead,' the opening night movie from this year’s Slamdance Film Festival, has scored a slew of deals with IFC taking U.S. rights for a theatrical and VOD release, Blockbuster making a home entertainment pact, Anchor Bay lining up Canada, U.K, Australia and New Zealand, and Screen Media taking all other rights to the horror film. IFC is planning an August ‘09 theatrical and on-demand release for the movie, which co-stars Larry Fessenden, Dominic Monaghan, Ron Perlman, and Angus Scrimmand. It was produced by Fessenden and Peter Phok under Fessenden’s Glass Eye Pix outfit. A multiple award winner at Slamdance, the film will sceen next month at the Los Angeles Film Festival. In 'I Sell the Dead,' in the words of description, '18th century justice has finally caught up with two of the craftiest grave robbers in town. With only a few hours to go before his date with the guillotine, body-snatcher Arthur Blake (Monaghan) tells his life story to the peculiar Father Francis Duffy (Perlman). Before long, Arthur spills the beans on how he got started in the grim corpse peddling business with seasoned ghoul Willie Grimes (Fessenden). As the whisky flows Arthur’s tales get stranger and stranger.'" (IndieWIRE)



(Molly Simms via fashionweekdaily via patrickmcmullen)

"Amy Sacco has plenty of experience presiding over rowdy crowds, but at last night's 10th Annual Free Arts NYC art and photography auction, even the nightlife impressario had her hands full. The party, sponsored by Calvin Klein Collection and held in a street-level gallery at the brand's HQ on West 39th Street, felt more like a rock-and-roll gallery opening than anything else .. Longtime Free Arts NYC supporters Sacco and Mary Alice Stephenson joined Italo Zucchelli and Francisco Costa to draw a gorgeous crowd--including the evening's offical co-hosts Michelle Monaghan and Kevin Bacon. Yvonne Force Villareal, Hilary Rhoda, Kevin Carrigan, Glenda Bailey and even an incognito Ed Westwick enjoyed passed hors d'oeurves and tunes from DJ Donna D'Cruz while putting down a few bids on silent-auction works. 'I just bid on a Kiki Smith!' exclaimed Molly Sims. 'I really hope I win--I guess I should go back and check.'" (Fashionweekdaily)



(Jann and Yoko via Guestofaguest)

"Last night, John Lennon’s friends celebrated the life, music, and art of the late Beatle at the opening of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Annex NYC’s 'John Lennon: The New York City Years' exhibit. The show, created by Yoko Ono and curated by Jim Henke, boasted a guest list of musicians, journalists, and artists, including Bette Midler, Jann Wenner, and Bing Bang designer Anna Sheffield." (Guestofaguest)

"One of the arguments I made in All Politics Is Global was simple -- when it comes to writing the rules of the global economic game, power could be defined as internal market size. Governments that preside over large markets are rule-makers and not rule-takers. The United States and European Union were the two large market jurisdictions in the book, but the obvious question to ask now is how long it takes before China is thought of a co-equal of those great powers. In this context, the Wall Street Journal's China blog has a small item showing that on at least one dimension, Beijing is about to make its voice heard." (ForeignPolicy)



"Handsome photographer Matt Albiani spent a few years trekking from beach to beach photographing lifeguards. 'I don't think there is such a thing as an ugly lifeguard,' my favorite menswear designer, Michael Bastian, said to me at the party he threw with Tommy Fazio at Bergdorf Goodman for Albiani's book Lifeguard on Duty. Whitney Port was there with a TV crew from The City in tow, but the standout chick was Bastian's PR dynamo Eugenia Gonzalez Ruiz-Olloqui who makes this gay want to go straight. I also spotted: Derek Blasberg, Erin Fetherston, Anisha Lakhani, Jim Shi, Linda Fargo, Samantha Swetra, Ashley Wick, Brooks Thomas and Roopal Patel. Help! Lifeguard! I'm drowning in chicness!" (Papermag)

"The decline and fall of financial centres used to be determined by war and peace. Today, it is more a matter of relative levels of regulation and tax. So the European Commission’s proposed directive on alternative investment fund managers, with its cumbersome registration and disclosure requirements for hedge funds and private equity, raises a serious question about London’s position as an international financial centre. The draft legislation is not devoid of logic. Its declared aim is to address systemic risk. And, in the fluid modern financial world, it is important that all institutions, whether banks or non-banks, should be properly regulated if they have the potential to torpedo the system. That said, it is questionable whether any private equity manager poses a challenge to the system. The number of hedge fund managers with such potential is much smaller than the number the draft legislation would capture with its current size thresholds. Some argue that this will give US alternative investment fund managers an advantage over their European competitors and that London will lose out." (FT.com)