Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



"I saw with great interest the full page ad taken out last week by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations to mark Jerusalem Day, excerpting a 1995 speech by Yitzhak Rabin about Jerusalem's importance to him. I was especially attracted to the lengthy quote by the late Prime Minister, congratulating the American Congress for its resolution to relocate the U.S embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In the first week of May in 1995, I happened to be sitting next to Mr. Rabin when he first heard the news about the new bill. It was in a private meeting, a few hours after he arrived in Washington DC for an address he was giving to the annual AIPAC conference. The Prime Minister didn't hide his rage. He accused Benjamin Netanyahu, then leader of the opposition, of attempting to sabotage the negotiations with the Palestinians. It was clear to Rabin, as well as the right-wing Israeli politicians and their supporters in AIPAC, that any attempt to change the status of Jerusalem would jeopardize the peace process. Rabin was willing to bet that the legislation would not actually change the American policy on Jerusalem or the embassy's location. He told me that in the early 1970s, when he was the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Congressmen Gerald Ford had promised him that if he ever became president, one of his first decisions would be to move the American embassy to Jerusalem. A few years later, he said, after both men had become leaders of their respective countries, Rabin visited the White House to remind President Ford of his promise. 'He smiled at me and said my dear Yitzhak, I do remember, but I have realized that life looks completely different from the Oval Office'". (ForeignPolicy)



(image via mediabistro)

"Michael’s was buoyant. Ralph Lauren came in looking gentleman farmer-ish. Horse farm that is ... In the bay, the Imber-della Femina-Kramer-Greenfield-Bergman gang were at table, and a photographer (from the NY Times, Dr. Imber later told me) was busily getting copious shots of the gang. The Times is doing a piece on the doctor and his book and presumably his distinguished and highly successful career. Dr. Imber is always in suit and tie at these lunches while some of his cohorts even go jacket-less and almost all tie-less. But Imber’s style is so offhand that his suits almost seem like he wears them to relax. Dr. Imber is another one of those guys who tends to look gentleman farmer-ish even in town ... Hoda Kotb was there. Silda Wall Spitzer who was lunching with Lisa Caputo whom the world once knew as First Lady Hillary Clinton’s assistant ..." (NYSocialDiary)



"During his visit to Washington last week, Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai allowed that he and U.S. President Barack Obama had discussed the problem posed by his notorious half-brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, and that the issue had been 'resolved.' This last part is highly unlikely, unless President Karzai meant something like 'we agreed to disagree.' The 'AWK problem,' as it is known in Kabul and Kandahar, not only isn't resolved between Washington and Kabul; it isn't even resolved inside the Obama administration. AWK is widely believed to be paying off the Taliban, skimming money from drug dealers, stealing government land, running private militias, threatening and even murdering his critics. He is a warlord's warlord. But he is also, and perhaps even more ruinously, using his position as head of Kandahar's provincial council to undermine tentative efforts at good governance emanating from Kabul." (James Traub/ForeignPolicy)



"Pennsylvania, the center of the political universe this week, will again garner outsized attention in this fall’s midterm elections. Though Tuesday’s House primaries were greatly overshadowed by the nationally significant victories of Rep. Joe Sestak in the Democratic Senate primary and of Mark Critz (D) in the 12th district special election, they did set up some key November matchups in the quintessentially competitive Keystone State. Roll Call’s current House race ratings include 10 of Pennsylvania’s 19 districts as among the 104 districts that will hold competitive elections this fall — the most in any state." (CQPolitics)



"When I met Naomi for the first time I was in New York with Gianni. He was there to receive an award and to shoot an advertising campaign with Richard Avedon. Christy Turlington was the model for the campaign, and she asked me if she could bring a friend of hers on set, to introduce her to Gianni and me. She told me that girl was only 16 but that she was really beautiful and that she had just done her first show for YSL. The next day, we were all on set with Richard and Christy, but Naomi didn’t show up. Finally she arrived very late. She was so young but she was already showing her strong and rebel personality! And this is one of the reasons why I loved her right away. She was already a trouble maker! Naomi became a real muse for my brother Gianni. I still remember Gianni and I working on the fashion shows. All the girls at that time use to have around four looks each to wear on the runway. Naomi had seven! She could change nearly twice as much as the other girls in the show yet still looked perfect. In fact, after the rehearsal her stand would become bigger and bigger during the night. On the eve of the show she would turn to me showing an outfit on a hanger and ask: 'Who is wearing this?…I want that one!'" (TheDailyBeast)



"Howard (Stern) asked Russell (Brand) if he went out with Katy (Perry) the first night she asked him out. He said he didn't go with her. He didn't want to be out of control of the evening so he asked her to go out to dinner the next night. Russell said she looked amazing that night they went out. Russell said he wore one of his belly shirts that night. Howard asked Russell if there were a lot of photographers out that night. Russell said there really weren't. Howard asked where they went after dinner. Russell said that they just went home after a kiss. He said they just kissed. He said that was very odd for him. Howard asked if he went for the tittie. Russell said he was filled with confusing feelings so he didn't go for that. He said he was very confused. Russell said that he had this weird feeling for her and he didn't know what to do.Russell told Howard that he almost yelled out 'I love you!' to her on that first date. He said that's the way he was feeling that night. He said he knew that he was going to marry her that night. Howard asked if he was doubting himself thinking it was just a crazy thought he was having. He has OCD so it could have had to do with that. Russell said that he does have that but he's doing Transcendental Meditation now and that's helping. He said that's a great thing. Howard said he's been doing TM for 36 years and that's helped him too. Russell said he thinks that it's helped him out with women too.Howard asked Russell how long it took to get into Katy's pants. Russell said now that he cares so much for her that he's not sure he wants to give out that information." (Marksfriggin)



"They had made a movie about us. The movie was based on a book written by someone we knew. The book was a simple thing about four weeks in the city we grew up in and for the most part was an accurate portrayal. It was labeled fiction but only a few details had been altered and our names weren't changed and there was nothing in it that hadn't happened. For example, there actually had been a screening of a snuff film in that bedroom in Malibu on a January afternoon, and yes, I had walked out onto the deck overlooking the Pacific where the author tried to console me, assuring me that the screams of the children being tortured were faked, but he was smiling as he said this and I had to turn away. Other examples: my girlfriend had in fact run over a coyote in the canyons below Mulholland, and a Christmas Eve dinner at Chasen's with my family that I had casually complained about to the author was faithfully rendered." (Brett Easton Ellis/Esquire)



(image via harpersbazaar)

"No more sneaking around. French intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy and British brewing heiress Daphne Guinness are increasingly public. They've had lunch at media-centric Michael's twice in the past month and were also spotted, along with Charlotte Sarkozy, at the recent opening of designer Rick Owens' furniture exhibit at Salon 94. Levy has been dragging his feet leaving his third wife, Arielle Dombasle." (PageSix)



"By ever more measures, November is going to be Armageddon for the Democrats. At this point, avoiding disaster would probably take something of the magnitude of a 14,000 Dow and a drop to a 5% or 6% unemployment rate. (If you’re betting, a more likely next chapter is the collapse of Europe, which will put the US back into recession.) The question more and more is not about the outcome of the November election but about how weird it will be. Tuesday’s son-of-Ron-Paul victory fortifies not only Tea Party campaigns across the country, but the ambitions of almost every would-be politician who is passionately aggrieved. It could be that anybody who is weird has just about the best chance in modern history of getting elected in November. It could be that the weirder you are—the angrier, the more self-righteous, the more certain of grand conspiracies and of our current era’s historic apostasy—the more likely it is that you’ll run, and, depending only on the relative badness of economy, win." (Michael Wolff/VanityFair)



"Howard (Stern) said he heard that Woody (Harrelson) plays cards with Willie Nelson. Woody said that's how they pass the time out there. Woody said they play for sometimes 20, 50 or 100 bucks. He said they even play dominoes or chess at tines too. Howard asked if they ever drop 10 grand in a night. Woody said it's never that much. Woody told Howard that he's hanging out with his buddy there. It turned out to be Willie Nelson. Howard said it sounds like they're pretty wasted. Willie said they might be at a 9.5 out of 10 on the wasted scale." (Marksfriggin)