Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



(image via nysocialdiary)

"I went down to Michael’s to lunch with Alexandra Lebenthal and her pa, Jim. Alexandra wanted us to meet because we share the experience of living in Los Angeles and working in/around The Industry. Jim Lebenthal went out there after college and worked as a photojournalist for the old LIFE magazine, back when was the most popular magazine in America. That and Time, which was also a Luce publication .. Michael’s was teeming yesterday. And noisy – all these New Yorkers getting all their words in under and above the din. It was Wednesday – always, it seems, the busiest day of the week -- but yesterday it was really cooking .. At the table next to us Andre Leon Talley was entertaining three friends in from Los Angeles - Damon Warwick, Marilyn Crawford and Shawn (Mrs. Larry) King. On the other side of us Terry Allen Kramer was entertaining her daughter, granddaughters and Margo Nederlander. Terry and her husband Nick Simunek have just returned from their annual six week sojourn to St. Tropez where their last houseguest for the season was the irrepressible international interior designer Nicky Haslam .. Next door to the Kramer table was Showtime’s Matt Blanc, and next to him Leonard Lauder was lunching with Alan Patricof." (NYSocialDiary)



"Billed as one of the most exclusive fashion events of the year with a veritable who's who of 'chicsters' to attend, the premiere of the Vogue documentary The September Issue was held last night at the MoMA. While New York was still busy cleaning up the 'war zone' of downed trees in Central Park from the storm on Tuesday, Wednesday was all about summery frills and florals and cheery colored frocks. When 'the' limo pulled up, Bee Shaffer, Anna Wintour's lovely daughter, was the first to step out, and knowingly posed perfectly for a few seconds before moving on in careful choreography NOT to spoil the thunder that belonged to MOM! That took place when Sienna Miller arrived simultaneously with Anna. Responding to the screams of adoring papparazzi and gathered fans, Sienna flitted about, posing with Anna amid many a request to pose alone. Her fear was visible. P. Diddy arrived in a Lamborghini, and even paused to pose sitting provocatively on its hood." (Papermag)



"The September Issue, R.J. Cutler's much anticipated new documentary about the making of the biggest installment in Vogue magazine's history, finally had its official premiere at New York's Museum of Modern Art last night—and the turnout was suitably stellar. Marc Jacobs, Sean Combs, Renée Zellweger, Donald Trump, and the issue's cover girl, Sienna Miller—along, of course, with Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour and her cohorts (and now costars) like André Leon Talley and Grace Coddington—were just some of the boldfaced names who showed up for the sneak peek." (Style)



"The carpet was getting crowded now. Editor-at-large Andre Leon Talley arrived in giant shades and peep-toe purple slippers. Designers Carolina Herrera and Oscar de la Renta walked arm in arm. And Tom Florio, Vogue's publisher, scurried around the red carpet saying hellos and glancing at the reporters, seemingly hoping someone would ask him a question. No one seemed interested. When Bee Shaffer, Ms. Wintour's daughter, walked in a royal blue, belted dress and stood to the side, Mr. Florio put his arm around her. 'It was so embarrassing!' Ms. Shaffer said of her appearance in the film, in which she tells the camera that she has no plans of going into fashion despite the fact that her mother would probably like her to. 'It’s funny because that was two years ago and I wanted to go to law school then and that’s basically all I’m talking about and now I don’t want to go to law school at all so …' So she's decided to join Vogue, then? 'No. Still don’t want to work in fashion, that was never a possibility. Now I’d like to work in theater,' she said." (Observer)



"Just back from an 11-day trip to Africa and before meetings with Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and the White House and then heading off for vacation on Martha's Vineyard, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton swore in her close ally, former Rep. Ellen Tauscher, as undersecretary of State for arms control and international security Monday in the State Department's eighth floor Ben Franklin room. In attendance were National Security Advisor Gen. Jim Jones and his wife, long-time friends of Tauscher (whose new groom, Jim Cieslak, is, like Jones, a former Marine), along with Clinton's special advisor on arms control and international security Robert Einhorn, Assistant Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance and Implementation Rose Gottemoeller, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns, and Assistant Secretary of State for Political and Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro. Now that Tauscher's in, she is expected to work closely with Clinton. 'The fact that Secretary Clinton personally swore in the new Undersecretary is a testament to the very close relationship between these two veteran female politicians, a connection that goes beyond any formal bureaucratic lines of authority,' a nonproliferation hand in attendance said. It's also 'a reflection of the personal importance Secretary Clinton places on the broad issues of arms control and nonproliferation. Indeed, for all the recent musings over where Hillary Clinton can make her mark in this administration, forging progress on strengthening the global nonproliferation regime and securing Senate ratification of such key agreements like the START follow-on treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty can lay the foundation for a very strong [Clinton] legacy.'" (ForeignPolicy)



"LOUIS Vuitton designer Marc Jacobs is planning to marry his boyfriend in Provincetown, Mass., this weekend. One source told us that Jacobs and his Brazilian lover, Lorenzo Martone, want the nuptials to be a private affair with a guest list of zero. But like everything in the fashion world, no matter how exclusive the event, 'there will be an after-party,' according to our insider." (PageSix)



"People who know Robert Rubin say he never thought that it would end this way. In a span of about 10 years, the former Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton pulled off an amazing feat—going from the man who saved the economy to one of those responsible for its demise as a senior executive and board member of the hopelessly troubled banking giant Citigroup. It is an amazing about-face for someone who has wielded so much influence and achieved so much success in the power centers of New York and Washington over the past four decades. Before becoming Treasury secretary during the economic boom of the Clinton presidency, Rubin served as CEO of Goldman Sachs. Since leaving Washington, he spent the last 10 years as a board member and senior executive at Citigroup, which for a time was the prototype of the modern Wall Street firm, with its financial 'supermarket' business model that offered every banking and brokerage service imaginable. In time, however, Citi became the poster child for the financial crisis that has plunged the country into one of history’s steepest recessions after its massive and costly bet on toxic real-estate debt." (TheDailyBeast)



"A third European country has been identified to ABC News as providing the CIA with facilities for a secret prison for high-value al Qaeda suspects: Lithuania, the former Soviet state. Former CIA officials directly involved or briefed on the highly classified program tell ABC News that Lithuanian officials provided the CIA with a building on the outskirts of Vilnius, the country's capital, where as many as eight suspects were held for more than a year, until late 2005 when they were moved because of public disclosures about the program. Flight logs viewed by ABC News confirm that CIA planes made repeated flights into Lithuania during that period. The CIA told ABC News that reporting the location of the now-closed prison was 'irresponsible.' 'The CIA does not publicly discuss where facilities associated with its past detention program may or may not have been located,' said CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano. 'We simply do not comment on those types of claims, which have appeared in the press from time to time over the years. The dangers of airing such allegations are plain. These kinds of assertions could, at least potentially, expose millions of people to direct threat. That is irresponsible.'" (ABCNews)



"Robert Zemeckis is negotiations to direct a remake of "Yellow Submarine" for Disney. Submarine was a 1968 animated feature based on music by the Beatles. It was produced by United Artists and King Features Syndicate. Disney had no comment on the dealmaking, which is in the thick of trying to acquire the rights to the music to the film, which included the title track as well as classics such as 'Eleanor Rigby,' 'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,' 'When I'm Sixty-Four' and 'With a Little Help From My Friends.' Like all Zemeckis productions, 'Submarine' would be done in performance capture and would also be a digital 3D endeavor." (THR)



"An exclusive invitation last night to former PAPER cover girl Kelis's birthday party was what 'About Last Night' is all about! Kelis looked sharp and showed us all photos of her adorable newborn Knight, who is almost a month old. The party was held at the underground labyrinth that is the mysterious Hotel Griffou, in a room that is peppered with murals of gigantic wolves and monks (the religious kind, not a nickname for an animal) on bikes. One of Kelis's friends caused quite a stir by gifting the birthday girl a copy of Taschen's The Big Penis Book!" (Papermag)



"Want to watch NBC's hot new comedy pilot 'Community' right now? No problem -- you'll just have to pay the Peacock in Facebook friends. In the latest example of networks using social networking to market their fall shows, NBC has quietly launched a campaign giving Facebook users exclusive early access to the full pilot for 'Community,' the Thursday sitcom starring Joel McHale (E!'s 'The Soup'). Fox, too, is using sites such as Twitter and Facebook to drum up interest in its new show 'Glee,' turning fans into pimps for the show. Potential viewers who become a Facebook fan of 'Community' are given access to a clip of the show. If they then agree to then forward the clip to five of their Facebook buddies, NBC lets the user watch the whole pilot." (TheWrap)



"Perez Hilton stopped by to promote his new record label and denied becoming too chummy with the celebrities he covers: 'I'm friendly with Lady Gaga and there's all these rumors lately about her being a hermaphrodite. I wrote I was going to go to her hotel room and suck her hermie dick..I told her, 'If you have a sex tape or naked photos coming out, you better believe I'm gonna post them.' Howard went down Perez' enemies list, starting with Page Six's Richard Johnson. Perez shrugged: 'I don't view him as competition...I'm doing my own thing.' Perez also weighed in on the Black Eyed Peas ('The beats and the music are just so repetitious and boring.'), including Fergie ('She probably took offense to the times I called her fugly ... she's a butterface, for sure.') and the altercation he had with will.i.am: 'I definitely regret speaking back to him...I regret using those words. I regret making that video. I regret Twittering about the incident.'" (HowardStern)

"Online video has given web advertising a lift over recent years. Could the same be true for magazine video? No, that’s not a typo. In a first-of-its-kind deal, Entertainment Weekly will include an interactive video player in its Sept. 18 fall TV preview issue, featuring a 40-minute promotional ad for CBS’s fall lineup as well as a spot for Pepsi Max soda. The lithium battery-powered player will use technology from Americhip, a Los Angeles company, which says that the video quality will be akin to an iPod. When the video insert is opened, it begins to play. Viewers are given a choice of five previews, either all four of CBS’s Monday night comedies or one for the network’s dramas. They can push a button to determine which promo they see. The video insert will be limited to magazines mailed to subscribers in New York and Los Angeles; it will not appear in the newsstand issues." (Medialifemagazine)