Media-Whore D'oeuvres

"When I was a young and odd child, one of the oddest things I did was collect Entertainment Weekly. Our family, like so many middle class families, had always had a subscription to Time, and one dayEntertainment Weekly began arriving with it. In those early days, it was called entertainment weekly, and in many ways, it resembled many of the entertainment websites (The A.V. Club, Grantland, Vulture) that dominate the field today. There were long, industry-oriented cover stories, buttressed by surprisingly non-banal interviews with stars, producers, directors, musicians, and authors. The second half of the magazine was divided by medium: Movies, Television, Music, Books and Video, each with its own colored tab. Delightful. I'd read each issue from cover-to-cover, deciding on its predominant 'themes,' and record this data in an elaborate database program on my Apple IIe. As a finishing touch, I'd give each issue a "grade," emulating EW's own, then-novel system of affixing a grade to the media products it reviewed. In my North Idaho town of 30,000, we had three movie screens and I wasn't allowed to watch cable. But EW's approach to media appealed to me in the way that all broad, detail-oriented taxonomies appeal to children: It provided me with a field to master and the tools to do so. Eleven-year-old me was an expert on the Weinsteins, Sundance, and the phenomena of sex, lies, and videotape and The Crying Game—without ever even seeing the movies, or really even knowing what they were about. The early and mid-90s Entertainment Weekly was a trade magazine for the masses: A publication that promised to make consumers, whether 11 or 45, into near-experts. It took a while to figure out the format—at first, it was a little too snobby New Yorker and not enough Henry Luce-style middlebrow—but by the mid-90s, it had hit its stride. But doing what its readers liked and doing what its parent company Time Warner needed did not always, or even often, coincide." (TheAwl)

"Immediately before the presidential election in 2012, Fox News viewers were certain of one thing: Mitt Romney was going to win. It didn’t matter that poll after poll had President Barack Obama winning by a comfortable margin. Conservative pundits Michael Barone, George Will and Dick Morris all expected Romney to earn more than 300 electoral votes. Even after Obama's victory was certain on election night, Karl Rove wouldn't admit defeat. For those of us reading Nate Silver and other election forecasters, those conservative predictions were laughably bad. And election night proved us correct: Obama won with 332 electoral votes. The millions of Republicans who were shocked and disappointed on election night were not let down by their hubris, although it undoubtedly played a role. The real fault lies with conservative media system, which had become an echo chamber of right wing talking points that did not reflect the national landscape." (TNR)

The late Jimi Hendrix, the electric guitarist Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis

"Last night, Chelsea Hotels hosted an opening for Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis’ Come On Darling, Don’t Be Mad at the Hotel Chelsea Storefront Gallery. Guests such as, Gloria von Thurn und Taxis , Ed Scheetz, Aby Rosen, André Balazs, Andres Serrano, Antonio Homen, Boaz Mazor,  Calvin Klein, Carlos Mota, Carmen D’Allesio, Cheryl Dunn, David Kuhn, Edward Cavendish, Lady Liliana Cavendish, Eric Shiner, Francesco Clemente, Genevieve Jones, Glenn O’Brien, Jeff Koons, Jeffrey Deitch, John Derian, Juan Carlos Fernandez,  Kalup Linzy, Laura Eastwood, Lex Fenwick, Maripol, Maury Hopson,  Nur Khan, Paul Mathieu, Peter Marino, Richard Pandiscio, Sir John Richardson, Sante D’Orazio, Sally Singer, Sofia Barrenechea, Susanne Bartsch, Tiffany Dubin, Todd Eberle, among others, were treated to the premier viewing of the portrait series drawn by the artist, containing familiar faces from past and present, all of whose history intertwine with the bohemian hotel. The lively space was punctuated by festive margaritas and sangria compliments of Qui Tequila. Long known as the 'punk princess,' Gloria has long been an influential patron and supporter within the art community. An icon of the 1980’s, Princess Gloria frequented the Hotel Chelsea. As she recalls, 'I went to the Chelsea Hotel, not to sleep, but to look at who is there all the time when I was young.' The Princess witnessed a revolutionary art scene at the Chelsea encountering Jasper Johns, William S. Burroughs, Donald Baechler, Francesco Clemente, Julian Schnabel, Charles Bukowski, among many others." (GloriasPortrait)

Caroline Schmidt Barnett and Amanda

"The American Federation of Arts (AFA) held its 2014 Spring Luncheon on Wednesday, June 4th. This year's speaker was acclaimed fashion designer, photographer, and passionate collector and patron of the arts, Reed Krakoff. He was joined in conversation by Margaret Russell, editor- in-chief of Architectural Digest ... Event décor was provided by Matthew Robbins Design. Proceeds from the luncheon support the research and development of new AFA exhibition projects. 
Approximately 140 guests were in attendance, including AFA Board President and 2014 Spring Luncheon Co-Chair Clare McKeon, Co-Chairs Elizabeth Belfer, Ashleigh Fernandez, Stephanie La Nasa, Merrill Mahan, Capera Ryan, and Shirin von Wulffen; Vanessa Cornell, Cacho Falcon, Elisabeth Holder, Sloan Overstrom, Frank E. Richardson, Robin Zendell, and AFA Director Pauline Willis." (NYSD)