Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"It took about all of two minutes after Pope Benedict XVI announced his impending resignation today for the speculation about his successor to begin, and so far, overseas bookmakers are picking two black cardinals, Ghana's Peter Turkson and Nigeria's Francis Arinze, as the front-runners. Ladbrokes and William Hill have both put Turkson and Arinze in the top two spots, odds-wise, while PaddyPower has them tied in second behind Quebec's Marc Oullet. Obviously, the selection of the first black pope, following about 2,000 years of nonblack popes — for comparison, Obama broke a streak of a mere 220 years — would be a momentous occasion for the Catholic Church, and for racial progress in general. But don't get too excited just yet. The bookmakers don't really have any idea what they're talking about. If the name Arinze sounds familiar, it's because he was also a top pope prospect during the last papal vacancy, in 2005. Along with Italy's Dionigi Tettamanzi, Arinze had the best odds of becoming the next pope according to PaddyPower. Experts at the time pointed out that Africa was Catholicism's fastest-growing region, that the reign of the Polish John Paul II — the first non-Italian pope since 1523 — had set a precedent for geographic diversity, and that Arinze had the relevant experience of being the Vatican's liaison to the Muslim world for nearly two decades as the president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. And yet, when the white smoke appeared fifteen days later, it was Germany's Cardinal Ratzinger who had been elected pope. PaddyPower's initial odds had placed Ratzinger in fifth. The rationale for electing a black pope in 2005 is as valid today as it was eight years ago." (NYMag)

"To paraphrase Shakespeare, nothing became the papacy of Benedict XVI like his leaving it. I mean that as more than a backhanded tribute. How much suffering has mankind endured at the hands of leaders who could not bear to relinquish power, either because they feared the personal consequences of letting go or because they genuinely considered themselves indispensable? How rare are the big men who accept the verdict of time? In the Catholic Church they are once-in-six centuries rare. I have a soft spot for powerful people who know when to step down, and Benedict deserves respect for that. The first reaction will be, understandably, to search out the back story, the real story – the undisclosed carcinogenic time bomb, the incipient Alzheimer’s, the impending next wave of scandal that pushed him from the pontiff’s chair. Dig away, but I will not be surprised if his own straightforward explanation holds up: 'in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of the faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me…' Given the bookish, precise intellectualism of this pope, I would bet it was the 'strength of mind' more than physical infirmity that convinced him he could not, at 85, keep up with the challenges." (Bill Keller)

"Sir Roger Moore told the Sunday Telegraph that he enjoys the slow pace of life in Switzerland. As do I. One cannot have too much of a snowy peak under a blue sky any more than one can have too much of Schubert. Looking out from my bedroom window all I can see are pine forests, rock cliffs, and snow. Not a bad scene for the winter blues. Yes, nature has been degraded, with chalets being built ever higher in the mountains, but I can take it. After a heavy snowfall everything is still and serene. Greed takes a back seat, and the only sounds one hears are those of the skis beneath him. I cross-country ski during February, the worst time to be in Gstaad because the 'chic' people arrive en masse ready to party. After 55 years as an Eagle Club member I am putting my name up for the committee to try and stop the barbarians at the gates. I am a long shot, as some of my views are considered extreme. Such views include banning non-skiers, or at least not giving them access to the good tables on the terrace. I also would like to see the old and the ugly banned from the club on weekends, but as someone pointed out, that would be self-defeating. Oh, well; I can always start my own club, which I am seriously considering." (Taki)

"From the Ayse Wilson opening I went back uptown to Michael’s where Michael and his wife Kim were celebrating their birthdays. Both born on February 10th. Michael has a few years on Kim and this year was what some people think (when they’re younger) was a milestone year. The evening was a big dinner for sixty in the Garden Room (the dining room was very busy too, very cozy and intimate with the candlelight and the new menu). I couldn’t stay for the dinner but the hors d’oeuvres were being passed generously and guests were arriving. Michael introduced me to Blythe Danner. The McCartys have a wide array of good friends whom they see on both coasts. Michael, of course, is a gourmand, to put it mildly. His idea of a good time is a feast with great wines, lots of things to savor and indulge in, capped off by some guitars jamming. Everyone feels right at home as a result. I had to go off to another dinner (a birthday too, for my old — but very young looking — friend Marianne Harrison, but I know I left a wonderful dinner and party behind." (NYSocialDiary)

"Even in the dead center of a Paris winter, when the sun hasn’t been out for hours, if not days, Olivier Zahm’s eyes are all but invisible beneath the Coke-bottle-thick prescription amber lenses of his Ray-Ban aviators. Seeing him in public without them would be like spotting a unicorn in the Jardin du Luxembourg.'I like the look,' he explains. 'I also have a problem with migraines. I’m sensitive to the light. But the world is much more beautiful in color.'Zahm is sitting at his desk in his office on Rue Thérèse, a few blocks from the Palais-Royal and just down the street from the apartment he shares with his girlfriend, designer Natacha Ramsay-Levi, and their 6-week-old son, Balthus Billy. 'I’m not a baby fan,' he says, 'but when you have one, it is very joyful. I change diapers. It takes two minutes.' From a desk drawer he pulls out a rainbow assortment of other glasses. He removes the amber ones, and his eyes are momentarily visible. He squints. 'Do you like purple?' he asks, quickly slipping on a violet pair. 'It helps. You have to protect yourself from the ugliness and vulgarity all around us.'At 49, Zahm, with his sunglasses, bed-head, and motorcycle jacket (today, a Rick Owens), is a glittery, grungy subspecies of celebrity editor. And unlike his more famous peers—Anna Wintour, Joe Zee, Anna Dello Russo, Grace Coddington—he has achieved this status despite never having had a reality show, run a Condé Nast title, or trotted around with a pineapple on his head, as Dello Russo is wont to do. As editor and creative director of Purple Fashion magazine, a 75,000­circulation biannual publication (only available on import for $40 an issue in the U.S. at specialty newsstands), he has established himself as one of fashion’s more influential taste­makers by relentlessly promoting sex in fashion, and fashion as sex. If many women’s fashion magazines almost seem to decouple sex from libido, Zahm can’t stop thinking of ways to fuse the two." (NYMag)

"Essence axed its fashionable editor-in-chief, Constance White, the first day of Fashion Week, Page Six can reveal. The Time Inc.-owned magazine, which recently laid off 500 people in a cost-cutting move, dismissed White on Thursday after two years at the helm, we’re told. White’s staff drew some controversy during her tenure — a white male managing editor was reassigned to another division after his Facebook page revealed racially charged comments about the Rev. Al Sharpton. And Australian-born fashion director Ellianna Placas, who was the subject of protest when she was hired at the African-American-targeted mag in 2010, was let go a year after White took over. On Friday, an Essence rep confirmed White had left the company and said executive editor Vanessa Bush would serve as acting managing editor." (PageSix)

"After the break Howard (Stern) came right back and said Jason Bateman has been around Hollywood for like 100 years. Howard said he started acting at 12 years old. Robin said he's a good looking guy. Jason said he wishes he was a great looking guy. He said Howard is. Howard said Jason is in good shape ... Jason said there are so many things to do in New York and it's not the same out in Los Angeles. Howard said he knows how insane he became going to other cities when he was starting out. Jason said that fueled his ambition though. Howard said Jason knew he had talent though. Jason said he appreciates it now and he works so hard.  Howard asked Jason if he was rejected from movies that would have revived his career. Jason said nothing comes to mind. He said there were some things he almost said no to that he's glad he didn't. Juno was one of those things. Jason said that he read the script and he was in a weird mood at the time. He said no but then they went to another actor and they got 2 weeks away from shooting and that actor sent a text message to Jason Reitman saying he was out. Howard asked who that was. Jason said he can't say who it was. Howard said that guy has to be kicking himself. Jason said he'll write it down. Jason said that Jennifer Garner told him to go back to Jason and see if he would reconsider. Jason said she wanted him to play the part so he reread the script and what sealed the deal was his daughter being colicky and screaming crying so when they told him that the shoot was 3 weeks, he said he was in. Jason said that Juno was a great thing for him. He said that it made like $150 million and they shot it for $7 million. Jason said he got a taste of the gross on that. Howard said he still gets a check from that. Jason said he does. He said he's very grateful for that." (Marksfriggin)

"On Feb. 1, a Turkish national named Ecevit Sanli walked up to the side entrance of the U.S. Embassy in Ankara like many others had done that day. Dressed inconspicuously, he waved a manila envelope at the man inside the guard booth as he approached the entrance. The security guard had no reason to distrust the man approaching the checkpoint; the entrance is used to screen packages, and perhaps the guard assumed Sanli was dropping off a document or was a visa applicant at the wrong entrance. What the guard did not know, perhaps, is that Sanli was a person of interest to the Turkish police, who suspected that he was plotting an attack. The guard opened the door of the access control building -- the outermost door of the embassy compound -- to speak to Sanli, who took one step inside before detonating the explosive device that was strapped to his body. The explosion killed Sanli and the security guard, seriously wounded a journalist who was visiting the embassy and left two other local guards who were manning the entrance with minor injuries. The embassy's local security personnel, as designed, bore the brunt of the attack. They are hired and trained to prevent threats from penetrating the embassy's perimeter. The low casualty count of the Feb. 1 attack is a testament to the training and professionalism of the local guards and the robust, layered security measures in place at the embassy -- factors for which those responsible for the attack apparently did not sufficiently plan." (STRATFOR)

"Lawmakers have been demanding to see the Obama administration's justification for the use of armed drones on Americans suspected of terrorism for more than a year, but the administration wouldn't even acknowledge that the documents exist until last night, when President Obama finally directed the Justice Department to make them available to the Congressional Intelligence Committees. An administration official explained that this is just 'part of the president’s ongoing commitment to consult with Congress on national security matters.' It certainly had nothing to do with members of Congress threatening to hold up the confirmation of John Brennan as CIA chief. The controversy escalated this week after a white paper outlining the administration's legal rationale for targeting Americans in drone attacks was leaked by NBC News. On Thursday morning, the committees will receive a longer and more detailed memo from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel that justifies the killing of New Mexico–born Al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in 2011, just in time to grill Brennan about it." (NYMag)

"Yesterday, Wednesday, Michael’s. Interesting Table One right next door in the bay. I noticed first because there were a couple of models at the table of six or eight. I knew they were models because ... duh... they don’t look like real people: they look like photographs. Or something like that. And they’re very tall and very thin. But not like they were underfed; more like they were stretched extra by God. And they were fully made up. By which I mean, no other woman in the room looked like they had just come from a makeup artist. I don’t mean any of this sarcastically. I mean they looked different, something extra, glamorous, sensational. What I didn’t know because I don’t know these things, until Diane Clehane, who was lunching with them, told me: they were famous too. Karolina Kurkova and Coco Rocha. But also at the table, and whom I didn’t see until she strode by on her way out after lunch was -- Naomi Campbell. I’d never seen her in person before. No photograph tells you: she’s sensational looking; long, tall, gorgeous, splendidly dressed in black that almost sparkled. More than all that, it’s the energy. She walks by and you go, Who Is That?! She looks like a movie star – the kind they used to call legends, not the kind like you see today who look like they just got off the bus from anywhere (after a long overnight ride). She was beautiful unlike any other. And pow! Also at table, Nigel Barker, the famous fashion photographer and television celebrity. Why were they at Michael’s? A stop on their media tour for their new show on Oxygen, The Face, a supermodel competition. At the table next to them (and next to mine) was Richard Belzer. On the other side of me, Cornelia Guest lunching with Jason Binn, the publisher of DuJour. There was another great beauty in the room yesterday too, whom I almost forgot in my aria about table one: Melania Trump. Also, like Campbell, one of those disarming beauties whom the camera can never capture perfectly." (NYSocialDiary)

"The 2014 midterm elections are a long way off but one thing is already fairly clear: Democrats face an uphill battle in trying to win back control of the House of Representatives. Thanks in part to their control of redistricting in a large number of key states, Republicans easily managed to hold on to their House majority in 2012. Despite losing the national House vote by well over a million votes, the GOP suffered a net loss of only eight seats in the House. So Republicans will go into the 2014 midterm election with 234 seats to 201 seats for the Democrats. This means that Democrats would need to pick up at least 17 seats to regain control of the House. In order to win back control of the House in 2014, Democrats would have to overcome one of the best known regularities in American politics — the tendency of the president’s party to lose House seats in midterm elections. Since World War II, that’s what has happened in 15 out of 17 midterm elections, including eight out of nine midterms under Republican presidents and seven out of eight midterms under Democratic presidents. In the nine midterms under Republican presidents, the GOP has lost an average of almost 21 House seats. Democrats have done even worse in the eight midterms under Democratic presidents, losing an average of almost 33 seats, including a postwar record 63 seats in the 2010 midterm election. There are several reasons why the president’s party almost always loses House seats in midterm elections. One is that opposition party voters are usually more motivated to turn out to express their discontent with the president and his party than voters from the president’s party are to turn out to express their support. In addition, House candidates from the president’s party no longer have the benefit of whatever coattails the winning presidential candidate had two years earlier. Finally, if the president’s party made substantial gains in the presidential election, they have to defend those seats, including some that may typically lean toward the opposition party, in the midterm election. Given the historical pattern of midterm losses by the president’s party, is there any reason for Democrats to be hopeful about the outlook for 2014? The answer, surprisingly, is yes." (CenterforPolitics)

"President Obama has embraced a series of proposals to advance gay causes in his second term, highlighting his changing views on gay rights. Three weeks ago, Obama became the first president to mention gay marriage in an inaugural address, citing the 'Stonewall' riots in New York City as a major landmark in the fight for civil rights. Since then, he has offered an immigration proposal that would give the same benefits to heterosexual and same-sex couples, called on the Boy Scouts to open its membership to gays, and seen the Pentagon announce it would offer certain benefits to same-sex couples. The transformation of the president who just 15 months ago said he was still evolving on the issue is remarkable — so much so that it caught even gay rights activists and supporters by surprise.
They’re now hopeful Obama will make history again by appointing the first openly gay Cabinet secretary, which would 'be an important milestone,' said Denis Dison, the vice president of communications for the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund and Institute. 'I don’t want to say I find it surprising,' said one top gay rights activist and Obama donor." (TheHill)

"The London School of Economics Growth Commission, a panel of academics, former government officials and business leaders, has just published a report on how to improve Britain’s economic performance. “Investing for Prosperity” is a notable piece of work that deserves to be widely read, and not just in Britain. The report emphasizes policies on human capital, investment and innovation, and the limits of standard measures of prosperity. The latter takes up a theme recently discussed by Bloomberg View -- the failings of gross domestic product as a metric of economic success. The authors urge governments and the news media to pay as much attention to median household income as they do to GDP, arguing that it gives a better reading on living standards as experienced by most citizens. Good advice. I was especially struck, though, by the panel’s recommendations on infrastructure, because these draw attention to a broad and difficult issue that dwells just beneath the surface of many policy debates: What is the proper balance between democracy and technocracy? On infrastructure, which the panel considers a high priority, it advises the U.K. to create a 'new institutional architecture' that would 'dramatically reduce the policy instability that arises from frequent changes in political personnel and priorities, particularly in transport and energy.”The commission suggests an Infrastructure Strategy Board to advise parliament on broad priorities; an independent Infrastructure Planning Commission with new planning powers; and an Infrastructure Bank to help provide finance and counsel on the management of risk. As the report documents, the management of public-infrastructure projects has been lamentable. No private firm could survive the errors that governments have made with taxpayers’ money. One multinational review of infrastructure projects, which I warmly recommend, is aptly called “Survival of the Unfittest.” The author, Bent Flyvbjerg, a professor of project management at the University of Oxford, found that nine out of 10 transport-infrastructure projects (across 20 countries and five continents) suffered cost overruns; benefits, on the other hand, were systematically exaggerated." (Bloomberg)

"Rick Scott is preparing to defend his Florida governorship with the most expensive reelection campaign in state history, drawing up plans for a battleship-sized political operation aimed at overcoming the Republican’s deep personal unpopularity. The anticipated price tag, according to sources familiar with Scott’s plans: $100 million. Scott is no stranger to heavy spending; the former hospital care executive put some $73 million of his own money into an insurgent 2010 primary campaign and a narrow general election win. His TV ads saturated the Florida airwaves for months.
But Scott’s 2014 campaign — possibly pitting him against party-switching former GOP Gov. Charlie Crist as the Democratic candidate — won’t just be a jacked-up version of the 2010 version, knowledgeable Republicans said. In addition to darkening the sky with paid media, Scott’s team is looking at the possibility of creating a state-specific data and analytics division, either within the campaign or at the Republican Party of Florida. The idea would be to replicate President Barack Obama’s success in targeting and turning out Sunshine State voters — though sources cautioned that no final decisions have been made about the project. The RPOF has already done some deeper voter-file work, and GOP Chairman Lenny Curry spoke out after the 2012 election about the need to catch up with Democratic data-gathering and turnout operations." (Politico)

"For high-ranking public-sector officials with significant economic experience, selling out to the private sector once you're out of office is about the easiest thing in the world. Most Wall Street banks, private equity firms, and white-shoe law firms love hiring former government muckety mucks through the revolving door — it gives them a prestigious name to put on the firm letterhead and access to a world-class Rolodex, and all that's required for them to dish out is a fat salary and a ceremonial job with little actual responsibility. It was widely assumed that former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner would follow in this well-trod path, despite his repeated insistence to the contrary. (Last month, in an interview with New York's Jessica Pressler, he called the idea that he would end up on Wall Street 'extremely unlikely.') Geithner has never worked at a bank, but his deft handling of the 2008 financial crisis and his deep involvement with all of the major players would make him an instant hire at any major firm he applied to. So it's notable that instead of taking a seven-figure salary from a Wall Street firm immediately upon retirement, Geithner's first moves as a now-former cabinet member are taking a position as a 'Distinguished Fellow' at the Council for Foreign Relations and shopping a book proposal." (NYmag)

"Few things are as cool for a 27-year-old as getting to participate in the most important film of the year, let alone being the person responsible for making it happen. This year that film is Zero Dark Thirty, from the Academy Award-winning team of director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal, about the killing of Osama bin Laden. And the producer is Megan Ellison. Although distributed by Sony, it isn’t a studio picture. Bigelow and Boal weren’t interested in financing that had even the barest strings attached to the military, as has been the case with some studio films. Instead the couple made the rounds of independent financiers, many of whom found the project appealing. But Megan, the daughter of Larry Ellison, the co-founder of the Oracle software company and the third-richest man in the country, with a net worth of $41 billion, was ready to write a check for the entire budget, which would eventually reach $45 million. In the space of a year, the young Ellison has become the most talked-about independent financier in Hollywood. Pretty but a bit overweight, with hunched shoulders, she has a slacker vibe. She drives a gray ’89 Aston Martin or rides one of her motorcycles, often has a Camel cigarette in hand, and rarely wears makeup. Partial to butch, grunge chic, she usually wears a uniform of army boots, denim jeans, and a hoodie pulled over the T-shirt of an old-school rock band, like Led Zeppelin or AC/DC. She can come across as well read and shy, but then might say something strangely blunt and uncomfortable and laugh at it. She talks extremely fast, especially when trying to make a point, with her words getting caught up in one another, or slowly and deliberately, especially when she’s upset. 'Megan reminds me a little of John Grady Cole,' says director Andrew Dominik, referring to the 16-year-old cowboy who rides into Mexico in Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses. 'She is not going to argue with you, but she’s going to do what she wants.'" (VanityFair)

"The death of Gore Vidal in July of 2012 removed a steady mentor from my life—though, as with so many people who live long lives, afflictions other than death effectively removed my half-brother from me several years earlier. Gore and I shared the same mother, Nina Gore (Vidal Auchincloss Olds). She married my father, Hugh Auchincloss Jr., after having Gore with her first husband, Eugene Luther Vidal. I have no memory of ever seeing my mother and father together—they were divorced after five years of marriage—but my first memory of Gore was in my father’s house, Merrywood, at the top of the second-story stairs. I must have been three or four years old. He was in his bedroom, molding a huge clay head of our mutual maternal grandfather, Thomas Pryor Gore, a Democrat and one of the first two U.S. senators from Oklahoma. The next time I remember Gore was in the late 1940s. He had come to Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C., to visit our maternal grandmother, “Tot,” Nina Kay Gore. He was unshaven, in a three‐piece suit, sitting in the middle of Tot’s couch close to a clean‐shaven younger man. It was Howard Austen, with whom he would spend the rest of his life. After our mother and my father’s divorce, both Gore and I left Merrywood; I went to live with our mother, and Gore, after graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy, joined the army. During the autumn after my 1957 marriage to Newton Steers, I wrote Gore: “I’m pregnant.” By then I was 20 years old. The baby was to be the first of three sons: Ivan, Hugh, and Burr. Gore at the time was under contract with MGM and was said to be one of the highest-paid screenwriters in Hollywood. As such, he was frequently out of the country—mostly in Europe—working on scripts on location. Gore responded to me from London on blue Claridge’s stationery, playing the role of avuncular Gore, rather than English professor Gore. He started by declaiming on subjects not normally associated with his work: marriage, working motherhood (with or without a man), pregnancy, and advice on how to live a fulfilling life." (VanityFair)

"Last night at five o’clock, I went up to El Museo del Barrio on Fifth Avenue and 105th Street to see the debut of Karen LeFrak’s new ballet composition 'Bark! In the Park' performed by members of the New York Ballet Theatre. I wrote about the 'preview' I saw a couple of weeks ago at Susan Frank’s apartment on afternoon ...  left right after the performance but got a couple of shots of the room where the kids were joining their parents for the “buffet dinner” (so that everyone could be home and getting ready for bed by 8:30). I went down to Verdura where Ward and Nico Landrigan were hosting a cocktail reception for Michael Feinstein (for whom they also imported a beautiful Steinway grand)." (NYSocialDiary)

"It was fun! Of course it was at the Beverly Hills Hotel, in a pink bungalow. A legend hews to tradition. But what I was not prepared for was how nice Clive (Davis) was. I've written some awful stuff about him in the past. That's why he wanted to get together. To give me his perspective. Now let me define 'awful.' I didn't use expletives, and I said nothing I wouldn't stand by today, but it's tough to be on the receiving end of criticism. I know, they're beating me up on Twitter as I write this! So I was somewhat trepidatious. These honchos can get on their high horse and dominate. But that's not what Clive did. First and foremost, he was wearing sneakers. Running shoes, to be specific. Not that there was any brand in evidence. Maybe they're custom. But these endeared me to him more than anything else, because they normalized him, they illustrated that it wasn't all about image, that comfort, reality, took precedence. And the first thing I told Clive was that he had to be on Howard Stern. You see on the way down the hill I heard Jewel perform a song Howard wrote when he was in the sixth grade. Because that's what we did back then. We wrote, we played, we wanted to be a rock star. Not what's called a rock star today. Someone who's rich, someone who plays the game, someone who's separate from his audience, but an artist, who speaks his truth to his audience and listens to and takes guidance from no one. That's the way it was. These musicians practiced for years. There were no short cuts to stardom. Sure, there were some teenybopper acts, but we didn't take them seriously, unlike the way the industry and the media fawn over today's TV stars, made famous overnight by 'Idol, ' 'The Voice"' and 'X Factor.' A rock star of yore literally rose from the streets, there was almost never an overnight success. And your audience never made fun of you, they loved you, they were thrilled by you, you were the reason they kept on living. And 'marketing' was a term unknown to the hoi polloi. You either could play or you couldn't. No one's tweeting and Facebooking eclipsed their tunes. And there was a strict dividing line, between those who were signed and those who were not. Professionals and amateurs. Now we're all in it together and chaos reigns. I told Clive I got it. He had to make money for the company. He didn't have the luxury of signing only cutting edge acts. He wanted to impress this upon me. He walked me slowly from Columbia to today, all his choices, all his victories. And I'd be dishonest if I didn't say it was somewhat akin to Steve Jobs's legendary reality distortion field. It would be hard to exit the bungalow without believing Clive Davis truly was Mr. Music, that he was the preeminent leader, a beacon pointing the way. But I still don't like Ace Of Base. But that's not a criticism of Clive. He understands commerciality." (Bob Lefsetz)

"'We don't really like boring art shows,' says Superchief Magazine's 23-year-old co-editor William Dunleavy. He's explaining the ambition behind the 65-piece group show that inaugurated Superchief's year-long residency at Lower East Side bar/gallery Culturefix, where Dunleavy and his editorial and curatorial partner, Ed Zipco, 37, have resolved to host a new exhibition every week. He's also getting at the youthful energy behind their regular performances and parties (so many kids packed into their opening party last month that they reprised it, impromptu, three nights later) and the curatorial vision behind Superchief's shows. 'We've been cultivating this art community amongst our friends for years,' says Dunleavy, 'so we kind of feel like we know everybody who's on our aesthetic.' That aesthetic derives from the Bushwick punk scene and the international anarchist movement -- 'You should just seize all the assets of public life and make something better, I guess' is how Dunleavy describes his philosophy -- and draws on tattoo art, DIY show flyers, underground comics and graffiti. From Zoo Lion's pornographic collages (link very NSFW) to Metro Zu's Day-Glo doodles, the work is occasionally grotesque, undeniably puerile and far removed from the froideur of so many new L.E.S. galleries. The Superchief Gallery owes some of its distinctiveness to its setting, which isn't simply a gallery but a licensed bar. The business model -- based around selling drinks, not paintings -- allows for more stability than in Superchief's previous location in Williamsburg, which operated from May to December 2012 despite a skeptical landlord and inimical neighbors." (Papermag)

"In the 31st-floor offices of SWW Creative, the walls are beige, the carpet is gray and the cabinets are standard-issue wood-grain. There’s no Eames armchair, no runway stills splashed across the walls, not even a lucite coffee table with a copy of Grace Coddington’s memoir. There’s not a flower in sight. While fashion professionals are known to obsess over the color of their pens, SWW Creative’s offices are about as splashy as an insurance agency’s. Stephanie Winston Wolkoff is not concerned.
Ms. Wolkoff, who orchestrated Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week’s Lincoln Center expansion, isn’t in it for Smythson notebooks or a pair of Céline fur sandals. She is an executor first and a fashionist somewhere further down the line, finding more satisfaction in a spreadsheet than an Avedon. Though she’s a front-row fixture and a special-occasion catwalker, she doesn’t scour the runways for her own closet. Instead, Ms. Wolkoff, who stands a statuesque 6-foot-1, prefers the simplicity of a uniform—Ralph Lauren is her everyday." (Observer)

"The controversial John Galliano may be returning from fashion banishment with a bigger flourish than anyone could have guessed. Sources are buzzing that style king Oscar de la Renta may anoint the disgraced designer as his sartorial successor. Galliano, who recently completed a stint in rehab following a drunken anti-Semitic rant, was spotted smiling as he worked from De la Renta’s atelier in the days leading up to Fashion Week. The affection sounds mutual. 'We love having John here in the design studio,' a De la Renta rep told Threads. “He is full of ideas, energetic and a pleasure to work with." But insiders say the 'audition' (officially confirmed as a three-week stint but possibly stretching longer) was orchestrated by the woman-behind-the-curtain herself, Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour. 'This is totally an Anna-mandated thing — everyone thinks it’s puzzling,' a source told Threads. 'Anna really wants to get John back on the horse.' While the industry buzzed that Jason Wu will take over De la Renta’s line, sources told us that the designer’s CEO and son-in-law, Alex Bolen, has been speaking of Galliano as a potential heir to the brand, and that the collaboration is a test to see if the fashion public will accept him back into the fray." (Alexa)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

 

 

"President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad traveled to Cairo on Tuesday, the first visit by an Iranian leader to Egypt since the two countries broke off diplomatic relations three decades ago and a barometer of the shifts in regional dynamics underway since the start of the Arab uprisings.  Relations between the two countries have warmed since the toppling of Egypt’s former president, Hosni Mubarak, who was deeply hostile to Iran’s leadership and portrayed himself to his allies, including the United States, the Persian Gulf monarchies and Israel, as a bulwark against Iranian influence. Lately, though, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been promoting the idea that the recent Arab revolutions were inspired by the Iranian revolution of 1979. 'Egypt is a very important country in the region and the Islamic Republic of Iran believes it is one of the heavyweights in the Middle East,' Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, told the state Islamic Republic News Agency in Munich on Tuesday. 'We are ready to further strengthen ties.'   While the Egypt’s relations with Iran remains limited, the scene on the tarmac at the Cairo Airport on Tuesday — Egypt’s new president, Mohamed Morsi, greeting Mr. Ahmedinejad warmly in a red-carpet ceremony — would have been unimaginable under Mr. Mubarak, and seemed likely to alarm the Obama administration. " (NYTimes)

"Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency embarked on a highly classified program of secret detention and extraordinary rendition of terrorist suspects. The program was designed to place detainee interrogations beyond the reach of law. Suspected terrorists were seized and secretly flown across national borders to be interrogated by foreign governments that used torture, or by the CIA itself in clandestine 'black sites' using torture techniques. Globalizing Torture is the most comprehensive account yet assembled of the human rights abuses associated with CIA secret detention and extraordinary rendition operations. It details for the first time what was done to the 136 known victims, and lists the 54 foreign governments that participated in these operations. It shows that responsibility for the abuses lies not only with the United States but with dozens of foreign governments that were complicit. More than 10 years after the 2001 attacks, Globalizing Torture makes it unequivocally clear that the time has come for the United States and its partners to definitively repudiate these illegal practices and secure accountability for the associated human rights abuses." (Globalizing Torture)

"With the announcement on Monday that Richard III had been dug up from the spot where he was buried in 1485, his bones gave up many of their secrets to the world. DNA from his marrow and teeth confirmed his identity; his twisted spine proved that his hunchbacked stance was no myth; a ragged hole in his skull jibed with recorded accounts of of the king’s death. Photographs of the bones were released to the media, including a close-up of the skull, and reporters were allowed to see them but not to shoot photos of their own. The New York Times explained the rules: 'No cameras were permitted, in accordance with an agreement reached with Britain’s Justice Ministry when it issued a permit for the skeleton’s exhumation, and, university officials said, with the dignity due to a king.' A Roman Catholic priest sat with Richard’s remains as the reporters filed past. That sense — of 'dignity,' and perhaps squeamishness — is peculiar. We know that it’s acceptable to exhibit a corpse, royal or otherwise, if it’s ancient: Pay your admission to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and you can see dozens of Egypt’s pharaohs. Same for the Silkeborg Museum, in Denmark, which exhibits Iron Age people who were buried in peat bogs and were thus uncannily preserved, down to the fingerprints. (You have to wonder how much business the museum’s snack bar does.) We also know that it’s not okay to exhibit a recent royal figure: Nobody thinks it would be acceptable to dig up the Queen Mum or Princess Diana and send out pictures of her. Somewhere in between those extremes, a mysterious ethical switcheroo takes place. It turns out that archaeologists and museum directors have thought about this quite a bit, especially in Great Britain. The British Museum has its own eight-page set of guidelines, in which it sets forth a few standing principles. Human remains more than a thousand years old are okay to show." (NYMag)

"Senate Democrats will huddle behind closed doors on Tuesday and Wednesday as they seek to mend divisions within their caucus on gun control, immigration reform and taxes.The retreat at the Westin Annapolis comes at a critical time, with Senate Democrats preparing to do battle on issues that have splintered them in the past. They will meet with President Obama on Wednesday to coordinate strategy. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) wants to achieve as much unity as possible to boost his negotiating leverage against Republicans. He knows he’ll suffer defections, but infighting must be kept to a minimum to move Obama’s agenda through Congress. 'What the Democrats have to do is find common ground in their own party, No. 1, or recognize there will be some issues where you won’t get the whole caucus,' said Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist. 'Once they find that common ground, they need to see how far they can get with the Republicans.' A Democratic aide familiar with the agenda for the retreat said immigration reform, gun violence and finding a way to pay for the automatic spending sequester would be the main topics of conversation. Sequestration will be addressed as part of a broader discussion about tax and entitlement reform, according to a senior Democratic aide. Senate Democrats feel they are in a better position than they were two years ago, when they held a multiday retreat at the Boar’s Head Inn. Then, Democrats had just suffered what Obama later acknowledged was a 'shellacking' in the 2010 midterm elections and were scrambling to regroup." (TheHill)

"'SO, WE were in Munich and there was this old woman helping with the costumes. Everything she did for me had shoulder pads. But the movie is set in 1933, and shoulder pads didn’t come in till the 1940s. But she was determined to give me shoulders. Finally, I said, ‘Forgive me, weren’t shoulder pads after the war?’ She paused and looked at me and replied, totally deadpan, ‘Vat war?’' That was Liza Minnelli, the other night at the Ziegfeld Theater, reminiscing about making her classic 1972 movie 'Cabaret.' Minnelli’s 'Vat war?' brought down the house. She is a divine, natural born story-teller. (Well, she always says, 'I don’t consider myself a singer so much as a story-teller.') Liza, Michael York, Joel Grey and Marisa Berenson all sat down with TCM’s Robert Osborne for a little Q&A before the film began. (TCM and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment hosted the night, celebrating the 40th anniversary of 'Cabaret’s' premiere at the Ziegfeld itself.) Liza and her co-stars were in fine, merry fettle, as was the audience. Let me say I have attended many premieres at the Ziegfeld. But I have never in my life seen the huge theater as crowded as it was for the screening of this four-decade-old movie. Not only was there literally not a seat to be had, but hundreds had to be turned away outside. This was indeed a special event and Miss Minnelli retains her star power, that’s for sure. (The crowd was so great it was almost scary as they exited after the film ended. It is said the old Roman Coliseum could empty 50,000 spectators in 15 minutes. No such luck at the Ziegfeld! For a few pressed-together seconds I regretted not having watched a gladiatorial combat rather than a Bob Fosse movie.) " (NYSocialDiary)

" André Leon Talley is aiming to bring his larger-than-life persona to the small screen. The voluble Vogue contributing editor has inked a deal with production company Electus to develop a late-night talk show. Electus, a partnership between former NBC Entertainment cochairman Ben Silverman and IAC Corp., has coproduced 'Fashion Star,' 'Mob Wives,' and 'Teen Wolf.' Silverman has also been an executive producer on 'The Office,' 'Ugly Betty' and 'The Biggest Loser.' Talley will serve as executive producer of the potential chat-fest, along with Electus. He said his goal is to create “a show that blends Dick Cavett’s approach to eloquence and sophistication with unparalleled access into my international fashion lifestyle. A forum where unique stories will be told and inspirations shared.' Marc Beckman of DMA United brokered the deal between Talley and Electus. Beckman said the show was still in the early stages of development but would likely be geared towards a cable network. “We think a television platform is an ideal showcase for André’s personality to shine and bring together his amazing network of personal contacts, ranging from designers to musicians to politicians,” he noted." (WWD)

"'Platinum' tables went for $100,000 and 'gold' for $50,000 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s sold-out Art + Film Gala in late October, and even at those prices, tables were packed so tightly into the mammoth tent set up in the museum’s central plaza that waiters had a hard time serving guests their Filet of Beef Wellington—not to mention the Laurent-Perrier champagne. The black-tie affair was co-chaired by Leonardo DiCaprio and Eva Chow, the wife of restaurateur Michael Chow and a member of the museum’s board, and underwritten by Gucci. It honored the artist Ed Ruscha and the late film director Stanley Kubrick, whose epic career was the subject of an exhibition opening to the public the following week. Hollywood royals were there in force, including Jack Nicholson, Jane Fonda, Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, Diane Keaton, Ryan O’Neal, Tom Hanks, Cameron Diaz, Salma Hayek, Robert Pattinson, and Steven Spielberg, along with a clutch of industry insiders who sit on lacma’s powerhouse board—CAA partner Bryan Lourd, producers Brian Grazer and Steve Tisch, and journalist Willow Bay, accompanied by her husband, Disney chairman Robert Iger. Pomegranate-juice queen and longtime board member Lynda Resnick—who, along with her husband, Stewart, gave the museum $55 million in 2008 to build the Renzo Piano-designed exhibition pavilion named after them—air-kissed Elaine Wynn, the bejeweled ex-wife of casino king Steve Wynn and one of the board’s newest members. Most of California’s greatest artists were there, too, from conceptualist pioneer John Baldessari to video maestro Bill Viola. Alacma board co-chair Terry Semel, the former C.E.O. of Yahoo, led off the speeches, boasting about the museum’s agreement with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to have Renzo Piano and Zoltan Pali convert the former May Company department store at the west end of lacma’s campus into the largest film museum in the world. Then came lacma’s director, Michael Govan, in a Gucci tuxedo, to shout out even more good news: 'This has been our best year ever! Attendance is up to 1.3 million! To borrow a phrase from Ed Ruscha, ‘Los Angeles County Museum is on fire!’ 'But that’s not what people really wanted to talk about that night. They wanted to talk about—almost couldn’t stop talking about—moca, the Museum of Contemporary Art, lacma’s troubled rival institution, 10 miles away in downtown Los Angeles. Was its controversial director, Jeffrey Deitch, the New York art dealer, installed only two years ago, staying or going?" (VanityFair)

Goodbye, Tina Fey

Alec Baldwin Interviews Jill Abramson of the NYTimes

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"When the moment of danger came, Ali Imam Ben Essayouti knew just what to do. The delicate, unbound parchment manuscripts in the 14th-century mosque he leads had already survived hundreds of years in the storied city of Timbuktu. He was not about to allow its latest invaders, Tuareg nationalist rebels and Islamic extremists from across the region, to destroy them now. So he gingerly bundled the 8,000 volumes in sackcloth, carefully stacked them in crates, then quietly moved them to a bunker in an undisclosed location. 'These manuscripts, they are not just for us in Timbuktu,' Mr. Essayouti said. “They belong to all of humanity. It is our duty to save them.'  The residents of Timbuktu suffered grievously under Islamic militant rule. Almost all of life’s pleasures, even the seemingly innocent ones like listening to music and dancing, were forbidden. With the arrival of French and Malian troops here on Jan. 28, life is slowly returning to normal. But the city’s rich historical patrimony suffered terrible losses. Timbuktu is known as the City of 333 Saints, a reference to the Sufi preachers and scholars who are venerated by Muslims here. The Islamic rebels destroyed several earthen tombs of those saints, claiming such shrines were forbidden." (NYTimes)

"In the summer of 2011, when the'Grand Bargain' on deficit reduction failed, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner accused President Barack Obama of “moving the goal posts” -- shifting his demands to the left.  After Boehner objected, Obama quickly moved the goal posts back and said he wanted to keep talking. But the speaker thought it was too late and the deal collapsed. Goal-post shifting is back in style. Behind the soaring rhetoric of the inaugural address and his announcement of a bold immigration plan, the president is engaged in a carefully calibrated effort to move the debate away from the right side of the field. In their interactions over the last two years, a chastened Obama started in the center and the Republicans started on the right, and the never-found compromise lay on the center-right. Since winning re-election, Obama is starting on the center-left and the Republicans are moving toward the center-right. With any luck, they will find compromise in the center. The real center. Of course, they won’t get there until they move beyond the bad blood of their end-of-the-year failure to do anything significant about the budget. The House leadership says Obama delivered boring “I won”lectures to the speaker and doesn’t have a clue about how to negotiate; the White House says the speaker can’t deliver his own caucus. " (Jonathan Alter)

"Deposed Gawker Editor in Chief A.J. Daulerio had the last laugh at a party thrown by his ex-boss Nick Denton Thursday night. As Daulerio’s replacement, John Cook, made a speech at the literati-filled bash at Denton’s swanky SoHo loft, spies say, two masked men sneaked in to spray graffiti in the hallway outside Denton’s pad. The words 'AJ Daulerio' were scrawled in dripping black spray paint along the pristine white wall. 'It was during Cook’s speech while everyone was distracted,' a spy said. 'It was pretty inspired.' 'Nick Denton’s hallway just got bombed,' a guest tweeted, with a picture of the artsy damage. Sources say the taggers were from notorious graffiti-artist group Peter Pan Posse. Denton apparently took the vandalism in stride — and sources said the stunt was a surprise to Daulerio. 'Nick was very cool and didn’t seem pissed,' a spy said. 'He was quite amused.' Denton announced Daulerio’s departure in January after a year on the job, calling him 'bold, infuriating, unpredictable . . . and often brilliant.'" (PageSix)

"This being the month of Aquarius (January 20 – February 18) in the zodiac, some of us seem to be surrounded by them – Aquarians, I mean. You read about Liz Smith’s birthday lunch at Michael’s last Wednesday ... Then there’s Anne Ford who had a birthday party last week for members of her family (which is a small crowd in itself), and then again co-starred in a birthday fete for her and her friend Tina Sloan McPherson, the actress. They were celebrating a similar (number) birthday. I say Anne 'co-starred' because it turned out to be that kind of a party. Sort of like theater-in-the round. Or in the library of a local private club. It began with a cocktail reception and canapes at 7:30. Black tie for the men. About eight-thirty we moved into the dining room. I noticed after everyone was seated that Anne was missing from the table. And so was Tina from her table. About ten minutes later, they appeared – surprise surprise! – got up as airline stewardesses. They explained (with their script in hand) that this was about stewardesses having the passengers they wanted on a flight, and also deciding where they would sit – first class or economy. They then explained that we, the guests were going to be 'the passengers.' And then between the two of them, they told the passengers where they were going to sit and why? Let’s put it this way: it was a roast – of the guests. And a funny one, even belly laughs, or ... er ... guffaws." (NYSocialDiary)

"Clive James is weak on health but very strong on intellect, and it’s good to read his pithy television criticism for the Telegraph. Clive recently praised Richard E. Grant for pointing out in his program on the Riviera’s history of pictures that not many people nowadays know how good a painter Gerald Murphy was. Murphy was the model for Dick Diver in Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night. He was the owner of Mark Cross, a luxury-goods store on 5th Avenue back when luxury goods were beautiful and owned by people with good taste. Gerald and Sara Murphy invented the summer Riviera of the 1920s. Their Villa America near Antibes was the social center for expatriate American writers, musicians, and artists. Sara was blonde and beautiful and supposedly had an affair with Picasso. I think it was just gossip by those who couldn’t get her into their beds. No matter how much she might have admired Picasso’s crappy art, upper-class American ladies did not sleep with dirty Spanish painters back then—not even now, although there is no more upper class left in America, alas. The new plutocrat poseurs-billionaires pretend to be old money, but they’re crude and still have to think for a split second before picking up their forks and knives. “The new plutocrat poseurs-billionaires pretend to be old money, but they’re crude and still have to think for a split second before picking up their forks and knives. The Murphys were tragic heroes. They lost both their beautiful sons to sickness and slowly saw their fortune disappear." (Taki) "Twenty five years ago I quit a job on Wall Street to write a book about Wall Street. Since then, every year or so, UPS has delivered to me a book more or less like my own, written by some Wall Street insider and promising to blow the lid off the place, and reveal its inner workings, and so on. By now, you might think, this game should be over. The reading public would know all it needed to know about Wall Street, and the publishing industry would be forced to look to some other industry for shocking confessions from insiders. Somehow this isn't the case. The inner workings of our biggest financial firms remain obscure to the general public, and their outer workings still promise to shock. To writers and publishers at least, our financial system has become the gift that keeps on giving, like one of those trick birthday candles that, no matter how hard you blow on it, flickers back to life. Enter Greg Smith, in the latest attempt to extinguish the eternal flame. Why I Left Goldman Sachs began last year as the most e-mailed and talked-about opinion piece that The New York Times had published in a long time. Here the author recounts how he spent most of the six months leading up to last March working at Goldman by day while writing up his deeply felt grievances against Goldman by night. When he finished he had a 1,500-word counterblast but no place to put it: he e-mailed it to the general address for blind submissions to the Times op-ed page. He heard nothing for a month, and so finally dug out the e-mail addresses of four Times editors, and sent his piece to all of them. The next morning the Times got in touch with him. (There's a lesson here for aspiring Times op-ed writers.) Skeptical that a Goldman Sachs employee was prepared to break ranks, the Times sent a reporter over to Goldman's London office—where Smith worked—to confirm his existence. The day before the paper finally published his piece Smith went into Goldman, cleared out his stuff, and caught a flight back to New York. When the piece hit the Web, he appears to have been somewhere over the Atlantic. It and he were instant sensations." (TNR) "Last week, Gawker Media's swank SoHo office had no water. Today, the employees that actually come to the office to work on a Monday morning discovered that they had no Internet. That's rough, for an Internet company. (BuzzFeed's internet was also out this morning, though now restored, not that really anyone there would have known, because who could face their awful, slow, impossible elevators on a Monday morning?) But really the question is: What will the third cataclysm of Gawker Media be?" (TheAwl)

Is Iran Responsible for Lockerbie?

An interesting article in the NYTimes magazine hints that novelist Gerard de Villiers, a man with extensive spy contacts, thinks that Iran -- and not Libya -- may have been directly responsible for the Lockerbie attack that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 killing all 243 passengers and 18 crew members:

"I asked de Villiers about his next novel, and his eyes lighted up. “It goes back to an old story,” he said. “Lockerbie.” The book is based on the premise that it was Iran — not Libya — that carried out the notorious 1988 airliner bombing. The Iranians went to great lengths to persuade Muammar el-Qaddafi to take the fall for the attack, which was carried out in revenge for the downing of an Iranian passenger plane by American missiles six months earlier, de Villiers said. This has long been an unverified conspiracy theory, but when I returned to the United States, I learned that de Villiers was onto something. I spoke to a former C.I.A. operative who told me that “the best intelligence” on the Lockerbie bombing points to an Iranian role. It is a subject of intense controversy at the C.I.A. and the F.B.I., he said, in part because the evidence against Iran is classified and cannot be used in court, but many at the agency believe Iran directed the bombing.

Persia, one cannot fail to note, is where chess began. But why would Quaddafi do such a thing? Take the blame -- for years -- for something he did not do? Reputation among the evil forces in the world? It boggles the imagination (then again, he was quite mad). The payouts alone were astonishing. And the fallout led, indirectly, to his liberalization with the West and the destabilization of his rule which collapsed in the Arab Spring. Is this another case of Persian gamesmanship?

Is this why the neocons -- many, in the Senate, are on the intelligence committee -- are so intense about Iran? If this is the case -- and it may not be -- imagine how the Lockerbie families will rally to pressure the Obama administration to get even tougher on Iran ... and how we will be even more hard pressed by the neocons to not agree to diplomacy with the Persians. And what effect will this have on the confirmation hearings of hagel, who is pro-diplomacy on Iran?

Hillary Clinton's Legacy

Katie Couric on her Date with Larry King

The Koch Documentary

RIP, Ed Koch, 105th Mayor of NYC. From Indiewire:

Neil Barsky's first feature-length film as a director is a documentary on one of the most enigmatic politicians in New York history: Mayor Ed Koch, who is remembered as both plucky and cowardly, a man willing to fight for what he believed in but unsure how to have a conversation about his disagreements. Yesterday, as "Koch" was set to debut in New York, news came that the former mayor died at 88 of heart failure. In their obituary for the mayor, The New York Times describes him by saying the late mayor is "as opinionated as a Flatbush cabby, as loud as the scrums on 42nd Street, as pugnacious as a West Side reform Democrat mother.

Indiewire chatted with Barsky yesterday, as he was headed to do Q&A's at the film's opening night screenings in New York, about his experience making the film and dealing with the man.
The film is in New York now at the Angelika Film Center and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas; the film will play at several Jewish festivals in the near future and opens in Los Angeles, Portland, DC, and Miami in the coming weeks.

What brought you to telling the story of Ed Koch?

I was a New Yorker. I was a reporter in my twenties. I think the 1980's was a critical turning point for New York. This is the fall and rise of New York. Ed Koch himself was a great character. He was funny, he was mean. His personal life was always speculated about. When we started filming him in 2010 and 2011, he had a lot more going on than I could have ever imagined. It ended up being a much more personal look at him than I ever could have expected. He had an interesting life a very full life and a lonely life.
 

More here.

"The pesky rumor that Mayor Bloomberg wants to buy the New York Times just won’t go away. The multibillionaire isn’t ready to disappear after three terms as New York’s mayor, reports The Post’s Richard Johnson. 'He’s going to need something grandiose that puts him on the national stage,” said a source, “and philanthropy won’t cut it.' Bloomberg — like fellow billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett — is committed to giving away the bulk of his $25 billion fortune. He has also been aggressively growing his media company with acquisitions. 'Bloomberg would consider the Times the ‘jewel in his crown’ after he relinquishes the mayoralty,' said our source. A Times spokeswoman told us: 'The New York Times is not for sale.' But a veteran media watcher said, “That rumor has come around a few times. One of these days, it will be right.'" (PageSix)

"There is darkness aplenty in his latest work, a 13-episode adaptation for Netflix, a subscription video service, of the 1990 hit BBC series House of Cards. Fincher’s version stars Kevin Spacey as a Machiavellian politician in a role first made famous by the late Ian Richardson. The action has been transposed from London to Washington, names have been changed – Spacey is Francis Underwood, rather than Urquhart – and the politics are American, not English. But the central theme of House of Cards is the same: spurned by his leader after being promised a more senior role, Underwood embarks on a relentless and ruthless quest for revenge. With this in mind, we are eating in a fitting venue: short of dining in the West Wing staff canteen, it would be difficult to be any closer to the White House. Built in 1927, the Hay-Adams is a stone’s throw from the seat of political power and its basement bar is a favoured hang-out of journalists, lobbyists and members of Congress. Its walls are hung with framed caricatures of leading political figures: one has a studious Barack Obama mimicking Rodin’s 'The Thinker'; in another a perfectly coiffed Mitt Romney looks admiringly in a hand-mirror only to see Paul Ryan staring back at him. Fincher, wearing jeans, a grey cardigan and dark open-necked shirt, has arrived before me and is nursing a ginger ale. He has flown in from California for the glitzy Washington launch of the series in a few hours, when various political bigwigs will see the first two episodes of the show. He stifles a yawn. 'I only had two hours’ sleep last night,' he says, explaining that he was up late working on a video. 'So there’s a chance I might be interesting.' A waiter in a waistcoat appears at our table and we study the menu. Fincher demurs when I ask if he will have a glass of wine, saying he has a headache. I happen to have some paracetamol with me and offer him one, which he accepts. He orders a Cobb salad 'but without the blue cheese'; I choose steak salad and mineral water, and the waiter glides away." (FT)

"Now, however, (Biz) Stone’s circumstances are somewhat different. Twitter is valued at more than $9bn, after a fund managed by BlackRock in late January offered to buy stock from early employees. That rapid value-creation has allowed Stone, Williams and others to not only buy bigger houses, but also put more money into 'pro-social' goals. After parting ways with Twitter, in mid-2011 they rebooted Obvious Corp as an investor and incubator in downtown San Francisco. Stone also took on a start-up closer to home. His first child, Jake, is now just over a year old. 'Balancing family and work is a top priority for me and I treat it as such,' he says. 'Meaning, I actually put specific family time and events in my calendar, so that precious time is dedicated and properly blocked off from any work that may try to sneak its way into my schedule. Nevertheless, I also think it’s important that my son grows up knowing that dad works hard.'  That work-life balance has not slowed Obvious’s pace of investments. It has backed several companies, including Neighborland, a website that encourages local civic participation; Lift, an app that helps people to set and achieve personal goals; and Beyond Meat, a plant-protein substitute for chicken that actually tastes like chicken. Stone, a vegan, hopes that Beyond Meat can become 'a market leader in the protein industry itself'. 'Beyond Meat will not be the only investment Obvious makes outside the digital space,' says Stone. 'We are not making many investments, but those that we do are based on philosophically aligned ambition, not necessarily on products or services traditionally in our comfort zone.'" (FT)

"For someone who has said that 'Star Wars' was 'the first movie that blew my mind,' you'd think that the chance to direct 'Episode VII' would have been a no-brainer. But J.J. Abrams wasn't so easy to convince. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the 'Lost' creator and 'Star Trek' director needed some cajoling, and in the end, it was left to new Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy -- the woman handpicked by George Lucas to run his beloved empire -- to seal the deal. Late last week, word began to leak out of Hollywood that Abrams was in discussions to take the helm of 'Star Wars Episode VII,' which is currently slated for a 2015 release, and which would be just the first in a new trilogy of films meant to be sequels to the original 1977 to 1983 trilogy. Yet despite Abrams' known affinity for 'Star Wars,' many noted the potential oddity of having someone so closely tied to the 'Star Trek' universe taking over the reins of 'Star Wars.' Nevertheless, late Friday evening, Disney -- which bought Lucasfilm in October for $4.05 billion -- announced that, indeed, Abrams will direct 'Episode VII.' The 59-year-old Kennedy is no stranger to big-time Hollywood wheeling and dealing. She's earned seven Oscar nominations producing and working on films for the likes of Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, and others. And she'd even known Abrams since he was 14, according to the THR article, when Spielberg read about his victory in a Super 8 filmmaking competition and hired Abrams to come and restore his family's Super 8 collection. In its in-depth interview with Kennedy -- the first she's given since assuming the Lucasfilm gig -- The Hollywood Reporter noted that Abrams had been asked last November if he was interested in directing the next 'Star Wars' movie. He 'quickly shot the idea down,' THR reported. Kennedy, however, 'was not so easily deterred.'" (THR)

"In late 2010, Jesse Pearson was putting the finishing touches on his final issue as editor in chief of Vice magazine. The cover featured a photo of a car crash; the back page an image of James Joyce’s death mask hovering above the author’s supposed last words: 'Does nobody understand?' That issue, along with 94 others Mr. Pearson oversaw during his eight years at the top of Vice’s masthead, is now sitting in a closet in the Lower Manhattan one-bedroom apartment he shares with his wife, the artist Tara Sinn, and their two cats, Pickles and Schwepps. 'I haven’t looked at it since I left,' Mr. Pearson said of the magazine during an interview recently in his home office, a cozy nook between the living room and kitchen that is partitioned by two large Ikea bookcases. 'The best way to break up with somebody you’re in a relationship with is to break clean,” he said of his departure from Vice. 'And that’s what I did.'  Mr. Pearson left Vice just as the Williamsburg, Brooklyn-based publication’s parent company, Vice Media, was transforming from an irreverent brand for twentysomethings with trust funds and trucker hats into a sprawling content empire and surprising bedfellow for media titans like CNN, MTV and HBO. His new venture is decidedly less corporate: A quarterly literary magazine called Apology that became available by mail order this month and is beginning to arrive at some independent bookstores, boutiques, museums and hotels. The name is partly 'a reference to the classical idea of apologetics,' Mr. Pearson explains in his editor’s notes. 'It’s my apologia against what I see as the problematic state of magazines today, both big and small,' he writes. 'Am I being coy by not naming names? Yes. And I apologize for that.'  But it is also a tongue-in-cheek mea culpa for what Mr. Pearson sees as his role in having popularized a certain type of ironic and insouciant aesthetic.'It’s me apologizing for having been a part of this culture that rose up around Williamsburg in the early 2000s,' said Mr. Pearson, who is 37 and bearded, with scattered tattoos accentuating his low-key ensemble of khakis and a light blue oxford-cloth shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He sucked down the last drag of a Parliament Light before crushing it out in a ceramic ashtray. 'It’s me wanting to move away from that,' he said. 'To kind of make amends for what it was all about.'" (NYTimes)

"The Parkinson's Disease Foundation held its annual CARNAVAL at Slate (54 West 21st Stret) this past Wednesday evening. There was live entertainment by DJ Brenda Black, as well as Samba dancing and a silent and live auction and buffet dinner. They honored Peter Dorn, a longtime member of PDF's board and a creator of CARNAVAL. Co-chairs were Stephanie Goldman-Pittel, Sharon Klein, Amy Sole, Doug Stern and Jeffrey Zygler. The Parkinson's Disease Foundation (PDF) is the first national not-for-profit organization to focus on Parkinson's Disease. It was founded by William Black, founder of Chock Full O'Nuts." (NySocialDiary)