Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Following his fiery interview on CNN, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was interviewed by Neil Cavuto on his Fox News show. In this interview, CNN came up as a topic of discussion. As 21st Century Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch looks to acquire Time Warner, in which case CNN would have to be spun off, Cavuto asked the finance and media mogul if he’d be interested in buying CNN. 'I can’t think of why we would be interested in buying CNN. We’ve got a business, we’ve got to reinvest in our business and work very hard. I just did an interview in the same building with Wolf Blitzer on CNN. A lot of people like CNN, a lot of people watch it. Ted Turner had a great concept when he started it.' 'You never say never, but in this case I can say probably never.'" (TVNewser)

FROM POLARIS.

"Now some of the most revealing exchanges—culled from 3,700 hours’ worth of conversation captured on a set of Sony TC-800B open-reel tape recorders—are collected in The Nixon Tapes (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), to be published this month. Although the transcripts of hundreds of excerpts of Watergate-related conversations have been released in the past two decades, many tapes connected with other topics have remained overlooked. While scholars, journalists, and the general public have been able to listen to the recordings by going to the National Archives, long sections of those discussions have been muffled and, at times, indecipherable. But over the last several years, the tapes have been cleaned up, pored over, and painstakingly transcribed. The result is that Luke A. Nichter (a historian who helped digitize six terabytes of audio data from the archive’s cache) and I have been able to compile a verbatim narrative of the early pivotal period of Nixon’s presidency: his action-packed first term, in which he set up much-heralded summits with his Chinese and Soviet counterparts, initiated plans for reducing America’s and Russia’s nuclear arsenals, escalated the war in Vietnam—and handily won re-election. The tapes reveal Nixon the geopolitical strategist (90 percent of the encounters are devoted to global affairs), Nixon the crisis manager, and Nixon the duplicitous paranoid—bad-mouthing colleagues and fretting about whether he would have to abandon his plans to run for re-election because of the debilitating conflict in Southeast Asia. Nixon had always assumed the recordings belonged to him. But in July 1974 the Supreme Court—in an 8–0 decision that proved to be a significant check on the powers of the executive branch—compelled the president to turn over the tapes. He would resign within 15 days. Richard Nixon is very much in the ether four decades later. An HBO special about him will air in August, and new books are appearing by former White House counsel John Dean, scholar Ken Hughes, and others. Most revelatory of all, however, are the tapes themselves. Herewith are highlights from recordings that were made during Nixon’s most influential period as president, before 'Watergate' became synonymous with political scandal. —Douglas Brinkley." (VanityFair)

"LongHouse Reserve—legendary textile designer Jack Lenor Larsen’s not-for-profit sculpture garden, art museum, and educational organization— hosted its WHITE HOT + Blue 2 summer benefit on July 19th. Taking place on the foundation’s beautiful 16-acre East Hampton grounds, LongHouse Reserve honored acclaimed photographer, filmmaker and social commentator Cindy Sherman with the LongHouse Award, and Agnes Gund, philanthropist, patron, collector, President Emerita of MoMA, and founder of Studio in a School with the LongHouse Art Leadership Award. More than 500 guests attired in their finest white and blue were treated to a frisky and festive reception where they were greeted by larger-than-life Cindy Sherman photographs hung among the trees. Partygoers also had a rare opportunity to mingle amongst Fashion Institute of Technology’s ‘Fowl Play’ exhibit as the students’ spectacular bird ensembles flourished in their natural habitat. Seen on the BLUE CARPET were Kim Cattrall, Cindy Sherman, Agnes Gund, Nicole Miller,  Laurie Anderson, Eric Fischl, Robert Wilson, Fred Wilson, Mary Boone, Arne Glimcher, Dorothy Lichtenstein, Lyle Ashton Harris, David Maupin, Ralph Pucci, Mariyo Yagi, Toni Ross, Barbara Goldsmith, Kim Hierston, Joe Pintauro, Alexandra Munroe, Lisa Phillips, Jack Youngerman, Newell Turner, LongHouse Reserve President Dianne B., and Executive Director Matko Tomicic, Newell Turner, and famed New York photographers Bill Cunningham, and Patrick McMullan." (NYSD)