Media-Whore D'oeuvres

"For much of the first half of 2012, Rupert Murdoch struggled with a decision he knew would affect his legacy as a media mogul: to split or not to split the far-flung entertainment and publishing empire he had built for six decades. Investors, analysts, bankers and some of his own executives repeatedly had pitched the idea as a way to unlock the value of Murdoch's TV and film assets without the drag of his cherished but more challenged newspaper businesses. After the 2011 phone-hacking scandal at his U.K. papers, which the mogul called "the most humbling [experience] of my career," voices grew louder. But Murdoch, 82, wasn't ready to chop up a family business he grew from an Adelaide, Australia, paper he inherited from his father into a conglomerate with a market capitalization of about $75 billion -- especially when critics would link it to the scandal. Then, after revisiting the idea during a May 2012 visit to his ranch in Carmel, Calif. -- sources say News Corp. president, COO and deputy chairman Chase Carey and CFO David DeVoe were key advocates -- Murdoch finally changed his mind. On June 28, News Corp. will be cleaved into 21st Century Fox, which will hold the film and most TV businesses, and a new News Corp (no period), home to newspapers, books, education services and Australian TV channels. Wall Street observers say the fate of the new companies will help define Murdoch and his closest lieutenants in the wake of the hacking scandal, which Murdoch called 'a major black eye.'" (TheHollywoodReporter)

"At this very early point in the 2014 race for the U.S. House, small Republican gains — as in, less than five seats — look likelier than a similarly small gain for Democrats. That’s because the Republican targets just look a little better than the Democratic ones. While it would be foolish to rule out any outcome, there is no indication at this point that the Republican House majority is in jeopardy.  That’s obvious from our recent tweak of our Crystal Ball U.S. House ratings. Chart 1 shows the changes we’ve made since our last update (April 4), and Chart 2 shows the ratings overall. The House, which after last week’s special election of Rep. Jason Smith (R, MO-8) is now at full strength, has 234 Republicans and 201 Democrats. That means Democrats need to pick up 17 seats to grab the majority." (CentyerforPolitics)

"I went down to Michael’s for the Wednesday mass-lunch. Star Jones was at the table just inside the door, lunching with Dr. Holly Philips; next door Deb Shriver of Hearst was lunching with writer Pamela Keogh (news hadn’t got out yet about the window washers getting stuck on the 44th floor of the Hearst Tower when their scaffolding collapsed — rescued by the NYFD — everyone was reportedly very calm throughout). I was lunching with Laura Slatkin, founder and CEO of the fabulously successful Nest Fragrances (100% increase in sales, five years in a row). NEST’s client list includes more than 50 world class brands such as Ralph Lauren, Christian Dior, Restoration Hardware, Estee Lauder, Anthropologie, Tory Burch, D. Porthault, Jonathan Adler, Vera Wang, Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus. In the bay at Table One Diane Clehane was lunching and interviewing Kelly Lynch and Mitch Glazer who are in town promoting Magic City, the STARZ hit show created by Glazer and starring his wife (Ms. Lynch). Next door: Gerry Byrne of Penske Media. Next to them Terry Allen Kramer with Alana Stewart, and just beyond Nikki Haskell and Catherine Saxton. Next to them: Charles Grodin and Sandi Mendelson, literary publicist (Hilsinger-Mendelson). Moving on: Alice Mayhew of Simon & Schuster with political pundit Joe Conason who must be writing a book; super-agent Boaty Boatright with Jay Cantor ..." (NySocialDiary)

"In this excerpt from his upcoming memoir, Mo’ Meta Blues, the Roots drummer and Jimmy Fallon’s bandleader shares the albums that defined him, from his years growing up in a musical—and increasingly religious—family, to the day he landed his first record deal ... 1971:
Sly and the Family Stone, There’s a Riot Goin’ On My sister was giving me a bath, and soap got in my eyes. I went running downstairs, and it just so happened that 'Just Like a Baby' was playing in the background. Anytime I hear it now, I wish I had Johnson’s No-Tears ... 1981:
The Time, The Time / The Jacksons, The Jacksons: Live There was a kid in sixth grade whose mom allowed him to bring his boom box to the cafeteria. When 'After Hi School' came on, I tripped over the cord and knocked his boom box over. 'You owe me money,' he said. I knew that my dad kept at least $4,000 hidden in the library. I figured I’m just going to take a twenty. I took $25 instead. I had gotten whippings throughout my life, but when he found out I had taken the money, it was that and then some. That set the course for our relationship. If Joe [Jackson] hadn’t given his kids all those whippings, then they never would have made the record, and I never would have gotten my whipping." (NYMag)

"Ethiopia's initiation of a dam project on the Blue Nile has quickly drawn the ire of Egypt, which is critically dependent on it as a source of much of the country's freshwater needs. As Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr said June 9 following Ethiopia's refusal to halt construction of the dam and ahead of his trip to Addis Ababa to discuss the project, Egypt will not give up a 'single drop of water from the Nile.' 'No Nile, no Egypt,' he said.  While Egypt has struggled to attract diplomatic intervention on its behalf to thwart Ethiopia's dam construction, tensions have reached the point where Egypt has suggested the use of force to keep the dam from potentially lowering the Nile's water levels downstream to unacceptable levels. There will be serious international pressure to keep the dispute over the dam in the realm of diplomacy, but there are also fairly significant constraints on the physical possibility of an Egyptian military solution." (STRATFOR)

"Art.sy co-founder Dasha Zhukova hosted a dinner at the Kunstmuseum Basel during Art Basel last night, to honor Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates. The event was co-hosted by Daphne Guinness and Tina Brown, who interviewed Gates at the event. Guests included Vladimir Doronin, Larry Gagosian, “homeless billionaire” Nicolas Berggruen, Stephanie Seymour, Simon and Michaela de Pury, Vito Schnabel, Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld and Jean Pigozzi. Spies at the Credit Suisse-sponsored bash said many Basel VIP attendees were worried about getting out of town because of an Air France strike, and had booked private jets to fly the coop from Switzerland late last night." (PageSix)

"On a Thursday night in April, Sydney Reising hosted a party at the W Hotel, 57 floors above Times Square. Solange Knowles was deejaying, and in a back room, girls in heels danced on the beds until the pillows exploded, tiny feathers pluming out of their cases. Other attendees hoisted phones to Instagram and tweet about the scene. It was a bunch of downtown kids partying in the heart of Midtown at a big-brand event. But as long as the barrage of social media mentioned W Hotels, it was perfectly fine to trash the suite. W Hotels is not the first serious client to partner with Sydney Reising Creative, the 25-year-old publicity star’s newly founded company. Supreme, Everlane, Illy Coffee and, as of last month, Toyota have all placed their fates in the hands of Ms. Reising in exchange for her edgy cachet. To her clients, Ms. Reising represents a bike lane toward hip-dom, as she translates stale slogans and corporate-speak into new-school language, promoting each brand with a torrent of often hilarious, ever-charming blasts across social media feeds. 'I’m so glad you could make it,' Ms. Reising told The Observer when we arrived at the W. There was an intimidating line outside the suite, but Ms. Reising simply sashayed down some strange corridor. Like magic, we were inside. Cam’ron was now performing while the model Hanne Gaby Odiele shot video of the rapper and his Dipset entourage. Chelsea Leyland, the deejay and socialite, danced nearby. We asked Ms. Leyland for a quote. She snatched our notebook, ran to a corner and began writing." (Observer)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Monday night, the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) and the FIT Foundation hosted their annual gala at Cipriani 42nd Street. They honored longtime supporter George Kaufman (chairman, Kaufman Organization), Kay Krill (president and chief executive officer, ANN INC.), and Stefano Tonchi (editor-in-chief, W magazine). This was a fashion affair – obviously – and the women dressed for the occasion. The annual gala benefits the FIT Educational Development Fund, which provides scholarship, technology, and student services support, among other priorities. This evening raised $1.2 million ... Tony Bennett, a longtime family friend, presented George Kaufman with his award. Supermodel Karolina Kurkova presented Ms. Krill with her award. In her acceptance she announced that ANN INC. has committed to endow a full year scholarship that will be awarded annually to a student with a passion for designing fashion for women. Actress Jessica Chastain presented to Stefano Tonchi his award. The gala also showcased a video installation titled Orbit Art Work by Jennifer Steinkamp. The evening’s chairs were Pamela Baxter, president and CEO, LVMH Perfumes and Cosmetics; Joy Herfel Cronin, group president, menswear and children’s wear, Ralph Lauren; Julie Greiner, chief merchandise planning officer, Macy’s, Inc.; Yaz Hernandez, trustee, FIT Board of Trustees; Jane Hertzmark Hudis, global brand president, Estée Lauder; and Liz Peek, chair, FIT Board of Trustees." (NYSocialDiary)

"The first thing you notice when you walk into the Electronic Entertainment Expo—E3 to those in the know—is the volume. It’s an eardrum-rattling, goose-bump-inducing, I-hate-my-neighbors sort of noise. It’s the noise comes from a thousand video games played all at once and at full volume: soldiers spraying clip after M16 clip, kung fu masters battling to the death, genetically altered monsters marauding through post-apocalyptic cities. There are less grating, almost pleasant sounds, too—a touchdown cheer in a football game, for instance—but you really have to listen for them. Video games, especially those big-budget commercial releases for the Sony Playstation and Microsoft Xbox, are famously (some would say notoriously) violent. But, of course, the on-screen fighting is all make believe. It’s in the boardrooms and cubicles of the $60 billion video-game industry where you find the real carnage. Case in point: Titanfall, a sci-fi shoot-’em-up,that was shown off for the first time yesterday morning at a Microsoft press conference. The release is among the year’s most hotly anticipated, and it represents an end to a bloody corporate battle that pitted the brash C.E.O. of the world’s largest video-game publisher, Activision Blizzard’s Robert Kotick, against two of the industry’s most successful game developers, Call of Duty creators Vincent Zampella and Jason West. The fight, which would ultimately involve allegations of corporate espionage, intimidation, and fraud, was all the more strange because Kotick’s collaboration with West and Zampella, who founded Respawn in 2010 after leaving Activision, had been one of the most lucrative in the game industry’s 40-year history. West and Zampella’s last title for Activision, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2—a military simulation that takes players through Russian gulags, Brazilian favelas, and a besieged Washington, D.C.—went on sale at midnight on November 10, 2009, and within 24 hours had sold nearly five million copies. Its first-day gross, $310 million, easily topped that of any movie, book, album, or other video game that went on sale that year. In a triumphant press release, Kotick, their boss at the time, called it 'the largest entertainment launch in history.' By January, Modern Warfare 2 had surpassed $1 billion in gross sales." (VanityFair)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"There is a point where three great powers -- Russia, Turkey and Persia -- meet: the Caucasus. At the moment they converge in a country called Azerbaijan. That fact makes Azerbaijan a battleground for these three great powers, which have competed with each other along various borders for centuries. Until 1991 Azerbaijan was part of the Soviet Union, as was the rest of the South Caucasus. But as the Russian border moved north, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan were once more unveiled by history. Of the three, Azerbaijan won the geopolitical prize of bordering the three great regional powers. It also emerged as a major energy producer. At the end of the 19th century, half of the oil in the world was produced in Azerbaijan, whose oil fields around the capital, Baku, were developed by the Nobel brothers, famed for dynamite and prizes. This is where they made their fortune. I had the pleasure of dining at their mansion a few years ago, a guest of government officials. Whatever others might have thought in that elegant house, I thought of Hitler urgently trying to reach Baku and its oil, and the fact that his disaster at Stalingrad was actually part of his attempt to seize Azerbaijan's oil fields. Azerbaijan was once the prize of empire. It is now independent in a very dangerous place." (STRATFOR)

"As the world waits to see if Yahoo will succeed in bringing Hulu into the Sunnyvale fold, it’s worth asking a long-term question about Yahoo and video. That question is this: Could Yahoo ever become the next major TV network — alongside ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC? I think the answer is yes. And it’s especially likely when you throw Tumblr and Yahoo’s potential big mobile acquisitions into the mix. To understand why, let’s start with the big changes in TV. If you’ve only skimmed the latest literature on where TV is headed, you’re familiar with two major trends. The first is the growth of cord-cutters: People who part ways with pay TV in favor of online and other video sources, like Hulu and Netflix. Cord-cutting numbers are heading north of a million viewers; there’s also a healthy population of cord-nevers — viewers who enter adulthood without ever getting pay TV at all. The second major shift is in the TV experience itself. Simply put, the TV experience is growing closer to the online experience every day — between TV sets that easily integrate with social media and apps and the rise of addressable TV ads that target viewers directly, the way many online ads do. The upshot is that we’re heading into a world where the Web and TV basically merge into a single premium video channel — or, at the very least, into two channels that overlap and interact tremendously." (AllThingsD)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"As the twenty-first-century American middle class gets squeezed, with little relief in sight, liberals are wistfully remembering something about the postwar era that they had energetically forgotten. That age of suburban conformity and institutionalized sexism and racism was also a time when big business believed in government and worried about the common good, and was willing to pay for both. Reminding us of that era, and documenting the engagement between the corporate class and the state during the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, is the most valuable contribution of The Fracturing of the American Corporate Elite by Mark Mizruchi. The University of Michigan business school professor, who has written three previous books about the practices and culture of the American corporation, offers a compelling history of how the American corporate elite reconciled itself to the New Deal, and then, in the aftermath of World War II, signed on to a vision of America in which government played a muscular and essential role in steering the economy and underwriting the well-being of the middle class.The business heroes in this narrative are the leaders of the 'moderate, pragmatic corporate elite [that] had emerged, based primarily in the largest American corporations' by the end of World War II. This elite and its views were 'epitomized' by the organization whose history forms the backbone of Mizruchi’s narrative, the Committee for Economic Development (CED). Formally incorporated in 1942, the CED brought together engaged, moderate businessmen from across the country and advanced their views in the major national debates of the subsequent decades. They were an illustrious group: As of July 1945, the CED’s trustees included a senior partner at Goldman Sachs, the chairman of Coca-Cola, the president of General Electric, and the presidents of the Federal Reserve Banks of Boston and St. Louis. The CED, in Mizruchi’s telling, thought the days of untrammeled free-market capitalism were gone, and that both private and government-led economic management would be necessary for a market economy to survive. In order to maintain the system from which their privileges derived, they believed it would be necessary to attend to the welfare of the broader population. This meant supporting a high level of employment, the alleviation of poverty, the amelioration of racial disadvantage, and the provision of sufficient purchasing power in the population to consume the goods that American business was so proficient at producing. This was the creed of the nation’s most influential corporate leaders, a group that supplied Cabinet secretaries to both Republican and Democratic Administrations. Today, with so much of the national economic conversation consumed by the budget deficit and which middle-class entitlements need to be cut to reduce it, that platform would place you on the left wing of the Democratic Party, and no leading business organization would advocate it." (Chrystia Freeland)

"Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) accepted almost 15,000 bottles of fine wine as loan collateral from a former high-ranking executive, according to a regulatory filing last month. Andrew Cader, a former senior director at Goldman Sachs’s specialist-trading unit, pledged a secured interest in the wines, which are primarily from the Burgundy and Bordeaux regions of France, the filing showed. Goldman Sachs’s move stands out because private banks that lend money to wealthy clients against assets such as artwork and real estate have been less willing to extend loans backed by fine wines, said four specialty lenders and attorneys. While investment-grade wines have outperformed the stock market over the past decade, the asset class has been prone to fraud, prompting billionaire William Koch to file a series of lawsuits to deter counterfeiting.  'There are a lot of very highly valued wines here,' said David Parker, the head of Benchmark Wine Group in Napa, California, adding that the collection cited in the filing had an estimated market value in the low-seven-digit dollar range. 'The Bordeaux are all first growth and other classified-growth and the Burgundies are all grand cru and top premier cru.'" (Bloomberg)

"Patrons at Primola remembered the restaurant’s late regular Sen. Frank Lautenberg on Friday. The New Jersey pol and his wife, Bonnie S. Englebardt, were spotted frequently at the Upper East Side eatery. While diners reminisced at the bar, talk-show pioneer Phil Donahue and actress Marlo Thomas were spotted at one table, while CNN’s Chris Cuomo and his wife, Cristina, sat at another. Cuomo’s in-laws, Rainer and Regina Greeven, held court at yet another four-top with Pia Lindström and Jim Mitchell." (PageSix)

"Rain, and more rain; sometimes heavy, sometimes light  but steady, with temperatures in the 60s. Meanwhile, rain or shine, New Yorkers do not stay home if there’s a good party on the horizon. Last night up in Harlem at the legendary Apollo Theater, Chaka Khan was inducted into the Apollo Legends Hall of Fame at their Annual Spring Gala Benefit Concert and Awards Ceremony. Wayne Brady hosted the evening, with performances by Patti Labelle and Mary J. Blige." (NYSocialDiary)

"A Saudi royal didn’t quite get the red carpet treatment he expected in Hollywood. The prince descended on the Sunset Tower Hotel’s Tower bar Saturday with 10 bodyguards. Already seated at separate tables were Anjelica Huston, Bradley Cooper, John Mayer, Jason Reitman, and Jason Sudeikis with Vince Vaughn. Betsy Bloomingdale was dining with Barbara Davis. A diner tells us the royal’s people 'insisted on four tables in one area for the guards to watch the prince.' But famed maître d’ Dmitri Dmitrov delicately said he couldn’t move others as, 'The prince wasn’t the only royalty in the room.' He also told the guards they couldn’t stand behind the prince, as, 'that looks tacky.' They wisely did as they were told." (PageSix)

"The other major benefit this week was The Gordon Parks Foundation Awards Dinner and Auction Celebrating the Arts, held last Tuesday at the Plaza. The evening’s honorees were Peter Beard, Swizz Beatz, Donna Karan, and Carrie Mae Weems. Bryan Stokes Mitchell was the honoree and also the evening’s Special Musical Guest. The auction was conducted by the incomparably droll Hugh Hildesley from Sotheby’s. This particular benefit has a quite different flavor from the Botanical last Thursday night. It is also a fairly new entry to the gala benefit scene. I can’t remember when I went to the first one but it was only several years ago. Mr. Parks died only six years ago (at 93). By then he was long regarded as a Master Photographer, famous for his photographic essays for LIFE and for directing the 1971 hit film “Shaft.”  He is rightfully regarded as one of the seminal figures of 20th century photography but also a great humanitarian with a deep commitment to social justice." (NYSocialDiary)

Billy Bragg: No One Knows Nothing Anymore

Have Men Lost Their Charm?

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Fashion designer John Galliano, in his first-ever sober interview, tells Vanity Fair contributing editor Ingrid Sischy that, in spite of his words, he is not an anti-Semite or a racist. 'It’s the worst thing I have said in my life, but I didn’t mean it. . . . I have been trying to find out why that anger was directed at this race. I now realize I was so fucking angry and so discontent with myself that I just said the most spiteful thing I could.' Galliano tells Sischy that he has been sober for over two years now and that theirs is the first interview he has ever given sober. Of his drinking and drug use in the years leading up to the outburst, Galliano says, 'I was going to end up in a mental asylum or six feet under.' Sischy reports that Galliano has spent the last couple of years learning about what he has to do to keep his illness at bay, facing up to what went wrong in his life, and taking certain steps to atone, including reading books on the Holocaust and Jewish history, meeting with Jewish leaders, and reaching out to members of the larger fashion community, including retailers, as part of the process of making amends and possibly returning to work. Reflecting on his last two years of sobriety and struggles to come to terms with his words and actions, Galliano says that he knows 'it sounds a bit bizarre, but I am so grateful for what did happen. I have learned so much about myself. I have re-discovered that little boy who had the hunger to create, which I think I had lost. I am alive.'" (VanityFair)

"Naomi Campbell is still fuming months after her breakup with Russian mogul boyfriend Vladimir Doronin — and she’s now apparently trying to get his new girlfriend, Luo Zilin, fired by her Chinese modeling agent. Luo — who as an aspiring model was mentored by Campbell on her reality show 'The Face' and was even on 'Team Naomi' — was seen frolicking on Vlad’s yacht and canoodling at his villa in Ibiza, and was promptly fired by her management firm in Europe for alleged 'unprofessional conduct' and an 'unacceptable work ethic.' Now a source tells us, 'Naomi has been calling colleagues in the industry to try and stop Luo’s career. She is trying to take this woman out for no reason other than dating her ex-boyfriend. 'Luo was fired by her management firm, and her Chinese agent has been asked to drop her. Naomi is trying to wreck her career. She has a lot of power in the modeling world,' our source said.Page Six exclusively revealed Naomi, 42, and Vlad, 50, broke up earlier this year. We hear they split in January and finalized the break in March. The source explained, 'They broke up because there were too many ups and downs, and you can only deal with that for so long. Vlad wishes Naomi well. He just wants to move on with his life, but she won’t let him.' The source said Vlad was surprised to see paparazzi shots of himself with Luo at his secluded villa in Ibiza, adding, 'Only a few people know the location of that villa. It’s hard to find, and he suspects she told the paparazzi.'" (PageSix)

"On Monday, June 3, the New York Public Library held its Spring Dinner for Education at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, with cocktails at 6:30 p.m. and dinner and the evening's program at 7:30 p.m. The event honored NYPL trustee Abby Milstein and her husband Howard. The event featured remarks by Brian Williams and a performance by musician Diana Krall. Co-Chairs were Katerina and Andreas Dracopoulos, Lisa and Richard Plepler, and Merryl and James Tisch. Vice Chairs were Barbara and Evan Chesler, Elyse and Michael Newhouse, and Loren Eng and Dinakar Singh." (NYSocialDiary)

"I don’t want to get Jonah Lehrer in any more trouble than he’s in already, but I felt like I needed to come forward and warn Simon and Schuster about something that’ll piss them off royally if they hear about it later. You know that book proposal he was shopping where he wants to write about love and stuff? A lot of what’s in there, as described in The New York Times, is taken straight out of the notes, texts, and emails he sent me in high school, when he had such a big crush on me that my friends started calling him The Boner With Rimless Eyeglasses. Jonah was a cute kid but not my type: a quiet, shy, tiny, freshman nerd. I was a senior, and I was… hmmm, what’s the best way to put this so I don’t sound stuck up? I’ll start by quoting something interesting the school principal said to me once. 'Rikki,' he said, 'you are the toughest, roughest, sexiest, dirtiest-looking bitch in this entire school.' Obviously, that comment was not appropriate coming from a school official, but, in fairness, it was said during a stressful moment for Mr. Thayer. He had just caught me beating the shit out of a Coke machine that took my money, and in the middle of yelling at me about that, he 'lost it' and tried to mack on my neck. Still, I like to believe the old fucker was speaking from the heart. I often had that effect on people, which is why I was unanimously voted in the yearbook as Girl Most Likely To Be Slut-Shamed by a Gym Teacher. Make no mistake: I was not the 'prettiest' girl in our school. Nor was I 'the most popular,' 'the most athletic,' or 'the smartest.' But I was the one who had sex with all four of those girls’ boyfriends, and they knew that if they said anything about it, I would kick their asses. Back to Jonah. The first time he saw me, I was striding down the hallway full thrust, wearing jeans that made my ass look like something that could start a war between rival Starfleet Federations. He took one glance, banged his locker door into his forehead, and started making chipmunk noises." (TheAwl)

How Citizen Journalists Are Changing the Game

Broken Social Scene: Almost crimes

via TheAwl

George RR Martin on GoT

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"The Naval Update Map shows the approximate current locations of U.S. Carrier Strike Groups and Amphibious Ready Groups, based on available open-source information. No classified or operationally sensitive information is included in this weekly update. CSGs and ARGs are the keys to U.S. dominance of the world's oceans. A CSG is centered on an aircraft carrier, which projects U.S. naval and air power and supports a Carrier Air Wing, or CVW. The CSG includes significant offensive strike capability. An ARG is centered on three amphibious warfare ships, with a Marine Expeditionary Unit embarked. An MEU is built around a heavily reinforced and mobile battalion of Marines." (STRATFOR)

"Meanwhile down at Michael’s it was back-to-back, and belly up to table. Super-agent Boaty Boatwright was at Table One with Christine Lahti. Micky Ateyeh was right next door with Reem Acra, the brilliant fashion designer. And next to her Mayor-a-Michael’s Joe A was lunching with David Zinczenko who’s off and running with his new media firm Galvanized Brands. Across from them, Da Boyz, Imber, Della Femina, Kramer, Bergman and Greenfield; Peter Solomon with Rich Rail; Diane Clehane with Liz Vaccariello of Readers Digest; Bob Friedman with Michael Gross who has just completed his next book about -- 15 Central Park West, due out next March; Jimmy Finkelstein with George Green; Chris Meigher of Quest with real estate exec Howard Lorber; Debra Shriver with Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, Stan Shuman of Allen & Company; Jack Kliger of TV Guide; Carol Mack with Annette Tapert; Anne Fulenwider, the new Editor-in-Chief of Marie Claire; Wednesday Martin with Kelly Klein; Ed Herlihy Esq, of Wachtell Lipton." (NYSocialDiary)

"After winning one of the biggest settlements of all time in her child-support battle with François-Henri Pinault, supermodel Linda Evangelista doesn’t need to rely on her Hard Rock billionaire boyfriend Peter Morton. The pair have split up, sources exclusively tell Page Six. Morton stuck by Evangelista through her bitterly contested child-custody battle with billionaire baby daddy Pinault, which was settled in May 2012. Details of Evangelista’s settlement with French luxury brand mogul Pinault — now the husband of Salma Hayek — were not released, but a source close to the model said that she wound up getting nearly $50,000 per month in child support from Pinault for their son, Augustin James. Evangelista had reportedly demanded $46,000 per month to cover expenses including nannies, chauffeurs and bodyguards. When Morton and Evangelista began dating in 2006, she was pregnant with Pinault’s child — but the father’s identity remained a mystery until it was revealed by Page Six and when Evangelista later took Pinault to court, in 2011. Morton and Evangelista — famous for coining the phrase 'We don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day' — split once before, in 2010, after a string of arguments, and patched things up months later. Whispers of the latest rift with Morton came at the same time Evangelista attended the CFDA Awards this week as a presenter, and walked the carpet solo. She’s also been seen out and about without Morton in New York." (NYPost)

"Time’s latest issue features one hell of a cover. The illustration was created by the Chinese dissident/political activist/artist, Ai Weiwei. To produce the absolutely stunning art, Ai used traditional Chinese paper cutting. 'The image represents Ai’s acknowledgment of the country’s centrality in the world, while at the same time challenging China’s leaders to make the future a freer and more democratic one,' wrote Rick Stengel, Time’s managing editor." (FishbowlNY)

Mad Men at the Paley Ceter

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"A heckler hath heckled First Lady Michelle Obama! At a Democratic National Committee fundraiser yesterday evening in Washington D.C., a gay rights activist interrupted Obama’s speech with heckles demanding that the president 'issue an executive order barring federal contractors from discriminating against employees based on sexual orientation or gender identity.' And what fate awaited this hot-headed heckling heckler? A heckle from the be-heckled herself!" (VanityFair)

"When it comes to love, put it all on paper. It might not sound romantic, but getting everything — and we mean everything — in writing before you tie the knot may save you heartache down the road.
Pre- and postnuptial agreements are the standard for anyone with assets (or history). But lifestyle clauses — like weight requirements between partners, ultimatums addressing infidelity and even guidelines about the frequency of sex — are the newest trend in wedding planning ... Infidelity is the most common lifestyle clause, according to (a leading love contract lawyer). Jessica Biel reportedly has an agreement with Justin Timberlake that would net her $500,000 if he cheats. Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones reportedly have a similar clause — not only would Zeta-Jones receive $2.8 million per year of marriage if they divorced, she would get a $5 million bonus if Douglas, an alleged sex addict, were caught cheating. Clauses aren’t just punitive, they can be used as a deterrent. Keith Urban, a former cocaine addict, won’t get a penny of wife Nicole Kidman’s fortune if he uses illegal drugs. ove contracts can get plenty specific: Newlywed Priscilla Chan is said to have made Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg commit to spending at least one night and 100 minutes of quality time with her per week. For the Web mogul and round-the-clock worker, this could be a challenge." (NYDailyNews)

"Does Michael Bloomberg want to be the next Michael Arrington? His company, Bloomberg LP, just announced the creation of Bloomberg Beta, a $75 million venture capital fund based in San Francisco. The fund will invest in some of the same companies covered by Bloomberg News, another division of Bloomberg LP. While it is a potential conflict of interest (in the ethical sense, not the SEC sense), this kind of arrangement is not unheard of in Silicon Valley, where Mr. Arrington started a venture capital fund while still editor-in-chief of the tech blog Techcrunch. Of course, Bloomberg insists that Bloomberg Beta and Bloomberg LP are 'separate legal entities,' which is true, though Bloomberg LP is the only investor in Bloomberg Beta." (Observer)

"In 2006, Jim VandeHei left a prestigious position Washington Post in 2006 for an unknown start-up called Politico. Today, the publication is a fixture of the political reporting establishment — so much so that a reporter on House of Cards joins a fictitious start-up  because: 'Six months from now, Slugline will be what Politico was a year and a half ago.' How does Politico plan to stay fresh while also making money? Executive editor VandeHei, who has an intense stare and speaks a bit like a character from a Christian Slater movie, shared some thoughts last week from the publication’s office in Arlington, Va. Here’s some highlights (our conversation has been edited for length and clarity).
Politico shook up the Washington media establishment when it launched in 2007. Do you feel as relevant now? JV: We’re still in the middle of the great media disruption. Anyone who thinks that because they have success today, they’ll have success tomorrow I think is a fool. We’re constantly evolving our content and our technology to the ways that people are actually consuming information rather than the way we wished they would consume it. One of the things that makes me most proud about Politico is that six or seven years into this, we’re as restless today as when we launched the publication. Every media executive has to think that way or you’re just going to get your clock cleaned. Who scares you the most? JV: Our core competition journalistically is the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times. Financially, our competitive sets are different. On issue advertising, it’s everyone from the Post to the Atlantic to Roll Call. When it comes to selling high-end subscriptions our competition is Bloomberg’s BGov and, to a lesser extent, CQ and National Journal. Who scares me the most? The entity that should worry media companies the most is Bloomberg because they have huge ambitions and huge cash reserves and they clearly have an appetite for more Washington coverage." (Paidcontent)

"A beautiful sunny day, yesterday in New York. Temperatures in the low 70s, and a soft breeze passing hither and yon. All that rain in the days before, and very cool Spring weather has left us with a lot of rich, fresh green bursting all around us in the city’s streets, as well as many tree-shaded Upper East Side and West Sides. Memorials and New York nights. I took that opening shot about 7:30 last night, over at the Franklin Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park Conservancy’s Sunset Garden Party at the Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island ... Getting closer to the entrance of the park, I could hear wonderful music in the distance – American songbook mixed with rock, and a woman singing – and the sound of voices chatting at an outdoor party. Reaching the tent at the foot of the grandsteps, I passed it by on my way up to the monument, figuring that if there were any official activities going on, they’d start there. The party had started at five. I arrived almost two and a half hours later and learned I missed Bill Vanden Heuvel’s welcoming speech about the monument and what Roosevelt’s speech to Congress in January 6, 1941 stood for ... The music in the distance was so steady you could feel like dancing. At first I thought they had an excellent DJ spinning a lively, sophisticated background and maybe some dancing. But it was too lively, sophisticated to be a recording. It turned out to be Peter Duchin and his orchestra and his songbird Roberta Fabiano (my favorite interpreter of Cole Porter, the Beatles and the Gershwins) ... On arriving there I saw Bill vanden Heuvel going up to the bandstand where Peter Duchin and Roberto Fabiano were doing their upbeat rendition of 'Happy Days Are Here Again' (an almost- anthem of the first Roosevelt Administration after the Market Crash – which turned out to be 'not really' that “happy”)." (NYSocialDiary)

"Vera Wang celebrated her CFDA Lifetime Achievement honor with a dinner for 200 at The Four Seasons Restaurant after Monday night’s awards. Wang, who spent nearly 20 years at Vogue and designed for Ralph Lauren before striking out on her own, was toasted by fashion luminaries including Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, Zac Posen, Tommy Hilfiger, Dennis Basso, Hamish Bowles, Karolina Kurkova, CFDA Awards host Andy Cohen and 'House of Cards' star Kate Mara. " (NYPost)

Lunch at Michael's

I just returned from a wonderful birthday lunch at Michael's with David Patrick Columbia. Talk was about ranged from everything between the current political situation to gossip to World War II and Gore Vidal. It is always interesting catching up with David.

The reworking of the menu at Michaels has turned out to be a very smart idea, it would appear. Now Lunch at Michaels -- usually media-heavy on Wednesdays -- is media heavy, according to David, pretty much every weekday. If today's crowd is any indication -- media, fashion, socialites -- that is indeed the case.

Spotted in the crowd: Deborah Messing, Lally Weymouth, Jamie Gregory, Jann Wenner, "Mayor" Joe Armstrong, Julie Macklowe, Sigorney Weaver, Cheryl Tiegs, Michael Kors, Jamie Tisch, CNN's Alina Cho, Aerin Lauder and the gorgeous Iman.

Do TV Ratings Still Matter?

We are now in a golden age of original series television. This is a time that video content creators havedreamed about since, well, since way before they even thought of themselves as video content creators, let’s put it that way. Netflix, we cannot fail to note, has a $2 billion dollar annual content budget and has spent $100 million to make the critically praised House of Cards. Further, Amazon announced on Wednesday that they are launching their first original series pilots. Amazon Studios, which launched in November 2010, currently has 24 movies in development. Finally, the conversation – on Twitter, on Facebook -- nowadays regarding original video content is actually intelligent and about the quality of the content and not about the ratings. Are we living in Bizarro world? How did the TV geeks essentially turn the television business on its head?


The intense media interest regarding how well or how not so well original shows like “Arrested Development” and “House of Cards” have performed has led to some serious questions as to whether or not ratings in fact even still matter. Or maybe this is all just mental jiu-jitsu on the part of Netflix and, to a lesser degree, Amazon. If President Obama was “no drama” during the 2008 campaign, video streaming service Netflix is becoming “no ratings.” Just as the now-President refused to let his missteps become a part of his skillfully presented narrative, Netflix doesn’t like to talk about the ratings of its original programming. In so doing, Netflix is making the strongest possible public argument against television ratings while at the same time diverting our attention form, yes, ratings. Ten years ago not talking about ratings, now, however, it appears to be the way of all original programming going forward.

There are obviously several advantages to changing the conversation regarding the ratings. Money, for one thing: Netflix and Amazon are gambling big and throwing tremendous sums of money to make stunning original content. It is to the advantage of those companies not to get into whether or not they are getting their money’s worth – at least not so early in the process. To be fair, the conversation about the ratings, in this era of video content streamed across all manner of screens, is not nearly as urgent as, say, the total subscriber numbers, or hours viewed or even the social media conversation surrounding the video content . And yet … Netflix isn’t really forthcoming about that data either.

What constitutes a flop at Netflix? Apparently nothing, as they are not releasing their data. “A company propelled by consumer data, Netflix releases nothing about the number of streams for a particular show; or hours viewed; or deeper dives indicating how much a single series contributes to a subscriber bump,” writes David Goetzl on Mediaposts TVBlog. That having been said, the argument that the emphasis on ratings is a mistake is really quite extraordinary. It flies in the face of all previous ways of doing television.” It has been a mistake for [pay-TV] companies to talk about ratings, it creates performance pressure around these shows which is very unnecessary," Ted Sarandos argues in The Guardian. Wow.

John Herrman, in Splitsider in 2011, made a solid argument against the inaccuracies of Nielsen. I have argued, elsewhere, that Nielsen will probably one of the last old media gatekeepers to fall. It would appear that we are in the middle of a great questioning as to whether or not ratings reign supreme or are just a part of a complex new formula that measures the success of original video content. Are TV ratings irrelevant? Do TV Ratings still matter? Are social media conversations better metrics for the success of original programming? If not, then what the best ways of gaging the success/ failure of an original series? The jury is still out. However, it seems that so long as the conversation is about Neilsen, it is not about the tremendous amounts of money that Amazon and Netflix are throwing at brilliant creative types to make just the sort of television that TV geeks have yearned after for decades. And that, quite frankly, suits the suits at Netflix and Amazon quite just fine.

Howard Stern interviews Katie Couric

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"The sushi chef was leaving his apartment when he noticed the stranger outside. He could tell by the man's suit—black and badly made—that he was North Korean. Right away, the chef was nervous. Even in his midsixties, the chef is a formidable man: He has thick shoulders, a broad chest; the rings on his strong hands would one day have to be cut off. But he'd long since quit wearing his bulletproof vest, and the last time a North Korean made the journey to visit him in Japan, a decade ago, he was there to kill him. The chef's name, an alias, is Kenji Fujimoto, and for eleven years he was Kim Jong-il's personal chef, court jester, and sidekick. He had seen the palaces, ridden the white stallions, smoked the Cuban cigars, and watched as, one by one, the people around him disappeared. It was part of Fujimoto's job to fly North Korean jets around the world to procure dinner-party ingredients—to Iran for caviar, Tokyo for fish, or Denmark for beer. It was Fujimoto who flew to France to supply the Dear Leader's yearly $700,000 cognac habit. And when the Dear Leader craved McDonald's, it was Fujimoto who was dispatched to Beijing for an order of Big Macs to go. When he finally escaped, Fujimoto became, according to a high-level cable released by WikiLeaks, the Japanese intelligence community's single greatest asset on the Kim family, rulers of a nation about which stubbornly little is known. We don't know how many people live there. (Best guess: around 23 million.) It's uncertain how many people starved to death during the famine of the late '90s. (Maybe 2 million.) Also mysterious is the number of citizens currently toiling their way toward death in labor camps, places people are sent without trial or sentence or appeal. (Perhaps 200,000.) We didn't even know the age of the current leader, Kim Jong-un, until Kenji Fujimoto revealed his birth date. (January 8, 1983.) What we know of North Korea comes from satellite photos and the stories of defectors, which, like Fujimoto's, are almost impossible to confirm. Though North Korea is a nuclear power, it has yet to build its first stoplight. The phone book hasn't been invented. It is a nation where old Soviet factories limp along to produce brand-new refrigerators from 1963. When people do escape, they tend to flee from the countryside, where life is more dangerous. Because people rarely defect from the capital, their stories don't make it out, which leaves a great mystery in the center of an already obscure nation. Which is why Fujimoto's is the rarest of stories." (GQ)

"President Obama made a secret deal to support Hillary Clinton when she runs for president in 2016, campaign sources say, payback for the support her husband gave him in 2012. Bill Clinton’s animosity toward Obama is legendary. A year before the last election, he was urging Hillary to challenge the sitting president for the nomination — a move she rejected. According to two people who attended that meeting in Chappaqua, Bill Clinton then went on a rant against Obama. 'I’ve heard more from Bush, asking for my advice, than I’ve heard from Obama,' my sources quoted Clinton as saying. 'I have no relationship with the president — none whatsoever. Obama doesn’t know how to be president. He doesn’t know how the world works. He’s incompetent. He’s an amateur!' For his part, Obama wasn’t interested in Bill Clinton upstaging him during the presidential campaign. He resisted giving him any role at the convention. But as last summer wore on, and Democrat enthusiasm waned, chief political strategist David Axelrod convinced the president that he needed Bill Clinton’s mojo. A deal was struck: Clinton would give the key nominating speech at the convention, and a full-throated endorsement of Obama. In exchange, Obama would endorse Hillary Clinton as his successor. Clinton’s speech was as promised; columnists pointed out the surprising enthusiasm in which he described the president. It also lived up to Obama’s fears, as more people talked about Clinton’s speech in the weeks following than his own. But after his re-election, Obama began to have second thoughts. He would prefer to stay neutral in the next election, as is traditional of outgoing presidents. Bill Clinton went ballistic and threatened retaliation. Obama backed down. He called his favorite journalist, Steve Kroft of '60 Minutes,' and offered an unprecedented 'farewell interview' with departing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The result was a slobbering televised love-in — and an embarrassment to all concerned." (NYPost)

"The political world is mourning the loss today of a New Jersey icon, U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), who died at the age of 89. The fact that it is an election year has the same people eager to know what will happen to the seat that Senator Lautenberg held. There are competing statues.
According to the state Office of Legislative Services, the federal Constitution and N.J.S.A.19:3-26 allow the Governor of New Jersey to make a temporary appointment to fill the vacancy if it is the result of a cause other than the expiration of the term, in which case the appointee is to serve until a general election is held. Championed by Democrats, who want the U.S. Senate contest on the same ballot as the gubernatorial contest, the statute gives Gov. Chris Christie the power to appoint a replacement for Senator Lautenberg, who would then run specifically in November to fill the late Senator’s unexpired term. But Republicans are citing 19:27-6, which provides that if the vacancy occurs within 70 days before the next preceding primary election, it too is to be filled by election at the second succeeding election, unless the Governor decides to call a special election to fill the vacancy. The GOP is citing the statute as a way for Christie to schedule a a special election at a time different from the general election, thereby avoiding the complication of having to run against a ticket that might include, for example, Newark Mayor Cory Booker." (Politicker)

"Octogenarian supermodel Carmen Dell’Orefice didn’t show any evidence she was recovering from double knee replacement surgery at the opening of Brasserie Cognac East on East 70th Street the other night. The catwalker, 81, gracefully glided into the new restaurant and declined a chair to sit in when offered one by a staffer. Spies said even photographers went crazy over Dell’Orefice. 'It was as if they were tired of the young and mesmerized by Carmen,' said one. Arie and CoCo Kopelman, Sandra Ripert, François Payard, Ramona Singer and Harry Dubin were among those at the event, which kicked up a notch after Cognac chef Florian Victor Hugo sprayed Champagne on guests." (PageSix)

"Last Wednesday noontime, the National Audubon Society’s Women in Conservation celebrated the legacy of female leadership in conservation at its annual luncheon benefit at the Plaza. They presented two life-long conservation champions with the Rachel Carson Award. The prestigious Audubon award, launched in 2004, recognizes visionary women whose dedication, talent, and energy have advanced environmental and conservation positive change locally and on a global scale ... CBS anchor Anne Thompson opened the event and introduced historian Douglas Brinkley. The very prolific author is finishing up a book on Franklin Roosevelt (“Forrester in Chief: Franklin D. Roosevelt, the CCC and Wild America”). He told us how Rachel Carson worked in FDR’s Administration, and that it was there that she first wrote about the Sea (as part of her job), where she began made the kinds of discoveries that eventually led to her seminal study, 'The Silent Spring.” (She also wrote 'The Sea Around Us,' and 'The Edge of the Sea.')  Allison Rockefeller who is the founding chair of the Rachel Carson Awards Council, presented Marian Heiskell with the Rachel Carson Award in thanks for her numerous accomplishments as a lifelong conservationist and leader in numerous public and philanthropic activities focused on making the neighborhoods of New York City green. Mrs. Haskell was born a Sulzberger of the New York Times family, sister of the Times’ late publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, widow of Orvil Dryfoos, also a publisher of the Times, and widow of Andrew Heiskell, Chairman and CEO of Time, Inc., She herself is a former newspaper executive." (NYSocialDiary)

"For reasons beyond my control I was raised in the rain prone United Kingdom, so I am partial to the rain. I love the rain even more so here in the tropics, when the sun is lost in watery clouds and all recognizable sounds of life are replaced by the clattering downpour, meanwhile the air is sweetly spiced and warm. I was at home, lolling in my white armchair, watching the hypnotic storm outside my windows and I was lulled asleep. I know I fell asleep because I recognized my dream, more a recurring nightmare that I have traipsed through for decades where I am in a vaguely familiar house, it is dusk and the place is consumed by shadows. I am afraid of the dark, especially in this dream, and I rush from room to room flipping the switches on the walls, trying the lamps, but no lights illumine. Occasionally a lamp will light momentarily, like a sneer, before turning off, leaving me in a darker darkness, and filling with anxiety and scurrying in the encroaching night. Waking me with a thrum was Martha sending a text, asking if I would like to housesit the mansion by the sea for a few days. Yes, I replied. The mansion is two miles from my home, but I had no intentions of leaving once I got in. I cancelled my plans for the week, stopped in at the grocery store for provisions, and drove over." (Christina Oxenberg)

"At MSNBC they view it as rooting against death and destruction: the last thing the channel wants is more months like the last two, filled with terror bombings, tornadoes and plant accidents. It’s not all altruism. The destruction MSNBC also wants to avoid is the havoc such news has been wreaking on its competitive standing.In May, MSNBC, which generally runs second to the dominant leader, Fox News, among cable news channels, plunged all the way to fourth place, dropping behind not only its closest rival, CNN, but also that network’s sister channel, HLN (formerly Headline News).       

At a time of intensely high interest in news, MSNBC’s ratings declined from the same period a year ago by about 20 percent. The explanation, in the network’s own analysis, comes down to this: breaking news is not really what MSNBC does. 'We’re not the place for that,' said Phil Griffin, the channel’s president, in reference to covering breaking events as CNN does. 'Our brand is not that.'" (Bill Carter)

"More and more embarrassing stories of keep leaking out of the SEC, which is beginning to look somehow worse than corrupt – it's hard to find the right language exactly, but 'aggressively clueless' comes pretty close to summing up the atmosphere that seems to be ruling the country's top financial gendarmes.    The most recent contribution to the broadening canvas of dysfunction and incompetence surrounding the SEC is a whistleblower complaint filed by 56-year-old Kathleen Furey, a senior lawyer who worked in the New York Regional Office (NYRO), the agency outpost with direct jurisdiction over Wall Street. Furey's complaint is full of startling revelations about the SEC, but the most amazing of them is that Furey and the other 20-odd lawyers who worked in her unit at the NYRO were actually barred by a superior from bringing cases under two of the four main securities laws governing Wall Street, the Investment Advisors Act of 1940 and the Investment Company Act of 1940. According to Furey, her group at the SEC's New York office, from a period stretching for over half a decade through December, 2008, did not as a matter of policy pursue cases against investment managers like Bernie Madoff. Furey says she was told flatly by her boss, Assistant Regional Director George Stepaniuk, that 'We do not do IM cases.'  Some background is necessary to explain the significance of this tale." (Rolling Stone)

Beyonce's Fortunes

Beverly Hills: Recession? What Recession?

Media Whore D'oeuvres

"May was a busy news month, led by a devastating tornado in Moore, Okla., the Jodi Arias trial verdict, and a string of political scandals coming out of Washington, D.C. As we noted earlier this week, all the cable news networks except MSNBC were up for the month. Fox News had the top 13 cable news programs in total viewers, and the top seven programs in the key A25-54 demographic. HLN’s 'Nancy Grace' and CNN’s 'Anderson Cooper 360' also made the top 10 in the A25-54 demographic. 'The O’Reilly Factor' was the top program on Fox News and in cable news for the month in total and demo viewers, averaging 2.37 million total and 439,000 demo viewers. The 10 p.m. edition of 'AC360' was the top program on CNN in both total viewers and A25-54 viewers. Placing 19th overall in total viewers and ninth in the demo, 'AC360' averaged 803,000 viewers and 304,000 viewers, respectively. MSNBC’s top program was 'Rachel Maddow,' which averaged 717,000 total and 210,000 demo viewers. Maddow placed 23rd overall in total viewers and 25th in the demo." (TVNewser)

"Dear David, In the 1990s, when I went to work for Random House, there were still many employees who had worked with Truman Capote, most importantly editor Joe Fox.Truman was part of the Random House legend. Bennett Cerf, the founder, was long gone but his widow, Phyllis, was still around and she was protective of her place as Truman’s friend and champion. We proposed an actual "Breakfast at Tiffany’s" to announce the trust and the award which would be the largest in American Literary Criticism. Eleanor Lambert helped, as did Fernanda Gilligan(also old friends of Truman’s like Leo Lerman). Joanna Carson generously lent some of Truman's things including his credit card, scarves, pens, and letters. Tiffany displayed them in their second floor vitrines. The guest list was remarkable. We asked many of Truman’s friends, even those who had deserted him (this prompted a particularly nasty phone call from Jerry Zipkin). Authors came of course. So did actors and actresses — Patricia Neal, Mary Tyler Moore and Robert Wolders among them." (NYSocialDiary)

"The most influential woman in Italian fashion is also one of the smallest. In fact, when she enters Cipriani Downtown, the Italian restaurant that is effectively a New York outpost of Harry’s Bar in Venice, I don’t even see her until she is just in front of me, saying hello in a surprisingly throaty voice. Yet twice during our lunch various fashion folk stop by to pay obeisance, and just after she sits, two complimentary Bellinis materialise on the table. Word has got out that Franca Sozzani, the 63-year-old editor-in-chief of Italian Vogue, is in the house, and a lesson in soft power is on the menu. Sozzani is celebrating her 25th year at the helm of Italian Vogue, which makes her one of the two longest-serving editors of any Vogue ever. The other is US Vogue’s Anna Wintour, who was hired the same month as Sozzani. However, while Wintour was elevated to artistic director of Condé Nast US this year, Sozzani has been editorial director of Condé Nast Italia since 1994, and also has direct responsibility for L’Uomo Vogue and Vogue Gioiello. Though Italian Vogue’s distribution of 120,000 is small when compared with US Vogue’s 1.3m, it has an outsized influence that is, ironically in the age of the end of print, growing. Thirty per cent of the readership is non-Italian, while the website has 1.86m users, with half the traffic coming from outside Italy. Alone among Vogue editors, Sozzani has a daily blog, which she writes herself. The blog, on Vogue.it, has taken on everything from eating disorders to the Italian government and the fashion world itself (recently deploring its tendency to gossip and spread rumours about who is taking over what house)." (FT)

"An ex-wife of Harold Robbins, once the world’s most-popular author with 750 million books sold, has written a book of her own dishing on his highly sexed demands for an 'open marriage' and affairs from Beverly Hills to Cannes. Robbins ... told third wife Grace Robbins as he wrote his 1971 best seller 'The Betsy,' 'I gotta have sexual gratification, especially when I’m away from you,' she writes.Grace recalls Harold telling her he’d need to travel for weeks on end for 'research.' 'These will be brief meaningless affairs,' she recalls being told. 'You know, sort of research.' But, her husband added, 'Now, darling, I don’t believe in double standards. While I’m gone, if you want a man to replace me, that’s OK,' she says. In 'Cinderella and the Carpetbagger' (Bettie Youngs Books) Grace writes that when Harold returned from his 'research' trips, 'He told me several stories I didn’t want to hear, very clinically, with all the sordid details, as if he were a doctor describing his latest surgeries.'
Grace details Harold’s subsequent affairs with a St. Tropez baroness married to an Interpol agent, and with the wife of an ABC television president whom Grace caught coming out of the shower at her husband’s office. Harold even invited a former junkie he met on the beach, whom Grace describes as a 'filthy little vagabond that resembled a drowned rat,' to live with them, she says. Grace had her own brief affair with Sammy Davis Jr. that began at a surprise birthday party for the singer. 'I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,' Grace recalls Davis telling her, and 'I did not have time to answer, for suddenly he whipped it out and was indeed showing it to me.' Harold was by then hosting orgies at home and coaxed Grace into bed with two more women, and was using 'pharmaceutical cocaine from his chiropractor.'" (PageSix)

"'Did everybody have a chance to put their data points in the ice bucket?' It was happy hour at the Thompson hotel on the Lower East Side, and Rachel Sklar — entrepreneur, networker, relentless promoter of women — was hoisting herself onto the bar. In one hand, she held a silver ice bucket; in the other, a glass of Champagne and an iPhone. About 40 women had gathered on a cool April evening to celebrate TheLi.st, an e-mail listserv and Web community that Ms. Sklar founded three years ago to help women in tech help one another. Thanks to an infusion of cash from the Knight Foundation and some angel investors, TheLi.st was about to become an actual for-profit business, a would-be cross between LinkedIn and Facebook for women who will pay for the chance to connect with others like them. Think binders not just full of women, but assembled and read by them.       

Throughout the evening, Ms. Sklar, 40, had asked the women to submit written notes on how TheLi.st had helped their careers, for a chance to win prizes (like bags full of cosmetics or T-shirts).

'TheLi.st helped me realize the significance of my company’s progress at an important time,' Ms. Sklar read from a torn bit of paper. 'Claire! Oh, Claire went for dinner. But she won a beauty bag.' In the world of Ms. Sklar, all women working in tech (or media, or politics) are winners, even if they have a problem with her. As long as they are succeeding, she can use them as evidence — data points, she might say — that women deserve to be more frequently hired, funded and featured on the supposedly meritocratic tech scene. 'All I need is for you to be awesome,' she said in a telephone interview." (NYTimes)

"The only man I know who belonged to more gentlemen’s clubs than Eddie Ulmann was the late Bobby Sweeny of amateur golf fame, who once pleaded poverty to me while signing checks to something like twenty clubs spread around the Western world. Eddie was the quintessential clubman. He cherished his clubs, took part in club activities until the very end, and was as popular with the members as he was with the staff of the various establishments he frequented throughout his life. Before I go into his sporting accomplishments, I want to take the time to tell you about Eddie’s “secret” life, that of a writer. I’d also like to pat myself on the back for discovering him. It was about fifteen years ago, and we were having lunch at the old Mortimer’s, and Eddie was criticizing some article that had appeared in 'Taki’s Top Drawer,' a section of the New York Press, a weekly that has since bitten the dust. As editor of the section, I realized that he was right. “So why don’t you write it?” I asked him. 'Oh, no,'  he said, looking shocked, 'my dear fellow, it simply wouldn’t do; club members might suspect me of being a secret ink-stained agent.' That’s when I had the most brilliant idea since Leopold Mozart sat his son Wolfgang down on a piano stool. Use a pseudonym, I said. If it was good enough for Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle), it’s good enough for you. Eddie was delighted by the comparison, and after couple of more stiff Bloody Marys, he agreed. So began a long run of more or less wonderfully droll and sophisticated essays by  'Classicus,' a name he plucked from the Greeks in my honor, or so he said. The owner of the New York Press, Russ Smith, a very good writer himself, soon wanted to know 'Who the hell is this guy?' I was not at liberty to divulge." (Taki)