Monday, March 17, 2014

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Andrew Sullivan, the peripatetic columnist, polemicist, and former editor of The New Republic, was one of the first adventurers to untie himself from the masthead and answer the Internet’s call of the wild. He ported his popular blog the Daily Dish from Time to The Atlantic to the Daily Beast before striking out on his own in 2013, establishing the Dish as an independent principality that would reject advertising and rely upon subscriptions ($19.95 a year) to remain solvent. In an earlier incarnation, Arianna Stassinopoulos strode the unworthy earth in goddess sandals as an anti-feminist scourge (The Female Woman, her answer to Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch) and splashy biographer of Maria Callas and Pablo Picasso; following the dissolution of her marriage to Congressman Michael Huffington, she evolved into the czarina of the Web site that bears her name, the Huffington Post, a news-and-opinion super-aggregator that grinds up the urchin bodies of interns and unpaid freelancers into journalistic soylent green (don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan). Fareed Zakaria accomplished an equally impressive feat in journalistic branding, managing to make foreign-policy analysis seem dashing as he catapulted from print (Foreign Affairs, Newsweek, numerous books) to television (an omnipresent news analyst on panel shows and now host of his own series on CNN, Fareed Zakaria GPS) to perhaps, someday, his own orbiting space station where he can benevolently gaze down upon us as Sandra Bullock floats by. The brandmaster of flash is Malcolm Gladwell, who has parlayed his platform as a social-trends reporter for The New Yorker into a series of popularizing best-sellers (Outliers, The Tipping Point) and princely sums on the speakers’ circuit. His face was planted on the sides of New York buses to publicize his latest book, David and Goliath, a fitting place for the Carrie Bradshaw of Starbucks intellectuals." (VanityFair)


"Former Sen. Scott P. Brown, R-Mass., announced Friday he is preparing to run for Senate in New Hampshire, kicking off a nearly unprecedented bid to represent a second state in the Senate. Brown’s decision, unveiled in a speech at the Northeast Republican Leadership Conference in Nashua, N.H., comes 16 months after he was defeated for re-election in the neighboring Bay State by Democrat Elizabeth Warren.If he wins the Sept. 9 GOP primary and can defeat Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, Brown would become just the third person in history — and first since the 1870s — to have represented more than one state in the Senate, according to the Senate Historical Office."(RollCall)






"Last Thursday night, more than 600 attended the 15th annual Young Fellows Ball, themed the 'Celestial Ball' at the Frick Collection. The theme for the ball took its inspiration from the special exhibition Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Hill Collection and from the Frick’s holdings, many of which depict celestial and mythological themes. Guests filled the Garden Court and Music Room for cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and dancing. They could also enjoy the special exhibition or step back in time into the galleries that were once the private residence of Henry Clay Frick and his family. Mr. Frick carefully assembled an amazing group of masterpieces including paintings by Degas, Fragonard, Goya, Manet, Rembrandt, Turner, Vermeer, Whistler, and others, as well asd Renaissance bronzes, Limoges enamels, and French and Italian furniture. " (NYSD)




"It was a Saturday night in Hell’s Kitchen, and the usual swarm of pretty young women were out in force at a Fashion Week event, sipping Prosecco cocktails and nibbling dainty purple cupcakes. But among the posse of dolled-up 20-somethings, one person stood out even more than the girl with the mismatched handbag — a middle-aged guy from Queens.It was Peter Hargrove — jowly, balding and bespectacled — loading up his goodie bag before turning to the sample racks crowded with free dresses and jackets. He pounced on three frocks, then nearly got into a brawl with a fashionista over who’d be walking out with the gowns. 'I don’t need women’s clothes,' Hargrove, 51, told The Post. 'I was shopping for my sisters and nieces, looking at what was there.' Two weeks later, he was at it again, hauling two overstuffed bags from a nutrition expo at the Times Square Marriott Marquis. A Post reporter observed him flit from table to table, wolf down canapés and collect swag with the determination of a squirrel gathering acorns before winter." (NYPost)



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