Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



"Russian President Dmitry Medvedev raised doubts Tuesday that he and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin were working together to determine who will run for president in 2012. Speaking at the Valdai conference of Russia experts in Moscow, Medvedev responded to Putin's comments last week, when the prime minister told attendees, 'We're people of the same blood, with the same political views,' referring to the president. 'When it comes to 2012, we'll work it out together.' 'We'll have a test to see whether we have the same blood type," said Medvedev, indicating that he might not be a fan of Putin's aspirations to seek a third term so soon. Georgetown University scholar Angela E. Stent, who attended both speeches, said that Medvedev's comments introduced even greater ambiguity into the process and were a clear signal that the two Russian leaders were not on the exact same page. 'One comes away with the impression that anything could happen in 2012,' she said in an interview with The Cable from Moscow. "It's definitely an open question.'" (ForeignPolicy)



"Say the words 'eco fashion' and most people think of hugging trees in tame, soft-hued, hippyish garb. We don’t buy into this stereotype, of course, but here’s something we definitely did NOT see coming while checking out the GreenShows shows during New York Fashion Week: Ashley Dupré, best-known as the call girl who brought down Eliot Spitzer’s governorship, walked the runway at Bahar Shahpar’s fashion show on Tuesday afternoon. It’s a rare rare thing when the tabloid world crosses into the world of eco-fashion, and one that might bring a little more attention to Bahar’s already-provocative line than would normally have been the case." (Ecoterre)



"This past weekend, Arianna Huffington was in San Francisco for a little tech tour. On Friday, she visited Twitter’s home base, where she noshed on tacos and vegan cheese with co-founder Biz Stone. Later, she palled around with Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg at the social network’s Palo Alto headquarters and discussed HuffPo Social News, a new feature on her 'Internet newspaper' that allows users to connect with Facebook friends and see which HuffPo articles they’re reading and commenting on. On Sunday, Ms. Huffington popped into the birthday soiree of Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, where ladies in LBDs kicked off their heels and danced. Ms. Huffington made her trip around town with Jose Antonio Vargas, the former Washington Post national political reporter who recently moved to New York to edit the Huffington Post’s new technology section, set to launch on Sept. 21. After their weekend of shmoozing, Mr. Vargas wrote in a blog post on the site that the new vertical (to use Web parlance), titled HuffPostTech, will cover 'technology as anthropology.'" (Observer)



"Howard (Stern) came back and had Michael Strahan come in. He was there to promote his new TV show 'Brothers' which premieres later this month ... Howard asked Michael about the pranks they used to pull on each other while playing football. Michael said a lot of the stuff they did involved nudity and stuff. He said that there have been times that a guy is talking to another guy in the shower and one of them is peeing on the other guy. He said he doesn't get that kind of stuff. Michael said that one time one of the guys, Shawn O'Hara, took a picture of his balls and made it his screen saver. He said that's just not cool. He doesn't want some white guy's balls on his screen. Howard said he read that one prank was the center cutting the crotch out of his pants and when the quarterback goes down there, his balls are hanging down there. Michael said that guy is the same guy who put his balls on his computer. He said that guy has problems." (Marksfriggin)



"Last night Peggy Siegal staged a New York premiere screening hosted by Chanel, of Sony Classic’s 'Coco Before Chanel' (or, en francais 'Coco Avant Chanel') ... It was a big fashion and fashionable audience at the Paris Theater last night (the film opens in New York and Los Angeles on September 25th – a week from Friday). Among those on the guest list were the stars, Tautou and Nivola, as well as the director Anne Fontaine, a very chic and American looking (to these American eyes) young woman looking hip in a black leather jacket. In the crowd: Candice Bergen and Marshall Rose, and her daughter Chloe Malle, Eleanora and Michael Kennedy who were seated in a banquette with Sony Pictures’ VP in charge of the Classic, Michael Barker and his family. Serena Boardman, Johnny Theodoracopulos .." (NYSocialDiary)



"The Bank of New York Mellon and the Russian government have agreed to settle a $22.5 billion lawsuit relating to a 1990s money laundering scandal, with the bank paying the government’s legal fees of about $14 million, Russia’s finance minister said Wednesday. That was far less than the $1 billion that lawyers for the Russian government had sought and seemed to bring to a close the bank’s strange odyssey through the Russian legal system. The Bank of New York also agreed to revive a $400 million line of credit to Russian state banks to finance import and export business, the finance minister, Aleksei L. Kudrin, said in testimony to Parliament. The loan, though, would be an 'act of goodwill' not formally linked to the settlement, Mr. Kudrin said. 'It has nothing to do with costs of the court case, and is not an admission of guilt.'" (NYTimes)



"The real end of New York Fashion week is tomorrow, but as far as this young market editor is concerned, the big bang came yesterday with the Baby Phat show. Before you judge me, I need you to understand this: each season Kimora Lee Simmons knows how to put the s-h-o-w in fashion, and her Spring/Summer 2010 show last night was no different (she even had it broadcast live in Time Square). But I digress... 'Power couple' Ice and Coco-T, Toni Braxton and... Tinsley Mortimer? All sitting front row at the Baby Phat show." (Papermag)



"I was always being told to cross my legs when I sat down; well, now I’m gonna take my pants off. The blog was an opportunity to try on a totally different persona. I just invented this name and this life and ran with it. I never had a big audience in mind when I started writing it, but then a lot of people started reading it and getting in touch with me -- some normal, some totally creepy and disingenuous. Luckily, the guy who wound up being my manager and producing partner was the real deal. That’s Mason Novick, who I still work with. At first I didn’t trust him at all. I ignored his first few emails. When you are representing yourself in the way that I was, you can’t really trust anybody who contacts you. It’s like, they’re probably a pervert or just not trustworthy. But he was so professional and all business. He just wanted to make movies. I said, Screenwriting is not that interesting to me. To be honest, I was enjoying the kind of gonzo sex writing that I was doing. But he said, No, writing a movie is easy. If you can pull this off just once, you won’t really have to work anymore. You can sit outside and write every day. And I thought, that doesn’t sound so bad. I’ll take a crack at this. I had nothing to lose. By the time I started writing 'Juno' I had quit stripping and started working as a temp at an insurance company, processing insurance claims over the phone. And my lunch hour would roll around; there wasn’t really anything else to do. I was like in this industrial office park in the middle of nowhere, so I would just work on “Juno” every day on my lunch hour. It was pleasurable to me." (Diablo Cody/TheWrap)




"MALCOLM Gladwell, the big-haired author of 'The Tipping Point' and 'Blink,' is said to be an 'epic ladies' man.' But he won't share secrets. 'Since moving to New York in 1996, he's cast his net wide and deep to amass a staggering tally of conquests,' Sean Macauley reports on TheDailyBeast.com. 'There's been the poetess, the psychotherapist, the photographer, the filmmaker, the fact-checker, the writer at The New Yorker, the bisexual literary siren . . . the tall blonde he took to Bar Blanc last December was so smoking hot, an eyewitness wrote that Gladwell 'made all the guys in the restaurant want to write their own New York Times best sellers.' But Gladwell refused to spill. 'This is utterly ridiculous,' he said. 'I write books. I'm a private person . . . I don't think I want to participate in this at all.'" (PageSix)



(Sue Naegle via Observer)

"Not long ago, in the spring of 2009, Colette Burson and Dmitry Lipkin, the husband-and-wife writing team, were running late on a crucial project. In a few short weeks, their half-hour series, Hung, would be premiering on HBO. At the time, they were busy cutting the all-important title sequence. On the morning it was due, the final product still needed more polishing. The deadline came and went. It was around then that they got an email from Sue Naegle, HBO’s president of entertainment. Ms. Naegle had a lot riding on Hung, which was the first thing she’d purchased upon joining the premium cable channel roughly one year earlier. People were watching, ready to judge her first contribution to the lineup. Any misstep would be magnified by a curious press. Prior to working on Hung, Mr. Lipkin had created a scripted series called The Riches, which ran on FX for two seasons. During that time, he’d learned to dread much of the communication from network executives, whose advice was frequently less than helpful. But as Mr. Lipkin was quickly learning, he had less to fear from Ms. Naegle, who operated strangely for an entertainment executive. She was supportive, not undermining; attentive, not didactic; calming, not scary. Sure enough, when Mr. Lipkin opened the email, it contained a simple query—was there anything she could do to help?" (Observer)



"Best overheard: Rachel Bilson raps to Outkast while in her car." (Refinery29)



(Amanda Scoledes, Gali Barraza, Jessica White via guestofaguest)

"Have you seen the Ron Arad retrospective at MoMA? It’s awesome. Linda Evangelista, Josh Hartnett, Hamish Bowles, Bar Rafaeli, Erin Lucas and Mary J Blige all checked it out last night, at a party celebrating the exhibit on the sixth floor. DJ Paul Sevigny was spinning, and the crowd was so fashionable it was hard to decide whether to look at the art on display or the art people were wearing." (Guestofaguest)



"Once upon a time the John Varvatos store reeked of rat poison, sweaty skinheads and Iggy Pop's low-hanging balls. But last night, the scent was decidedly sweeter for me, because I totally partied on a tour bus with Perry Farrell. Yeah, I know that it's been three years since Varvatos transformed the skuzzy CBGB space into a tasteful showcase for his high-end suits, leather jackets, and rocker boots, but last night's 'Free the Noise' concerts was the first time I had seen live music there since I was a 14-year-old punk at a hardcore matinée headlined by Agnostic Front. The sight of scarily-tattooed L.E.S. tough guys nearly made me poop my Pampers back then, but this time around I'm almost old enough for Depends. Or at least I enjoy wearing them on weekends! Last night's show was a battle of the bands between three unsigned acts. The winners were local favorites Reckless Sons, who scored a record deal with Island/Def Jam and a Varvatos ad campaign." (Chris Wilson/Gawker)