Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



"'It used to be Diane Keaton with me — she always used to tell me, I’m terrible, I’m awful, I can’t do it, you should get someone else. And she was always brilliant. Well, Larry is like this,' said Woody Allen via telephone from his Upper East Side apartment last week. The 73-year-old director was discussing his new movie Whatever Works, which stars Larry David, and will open the Tribeca Film Festival on April 22 before hitting theaters in June." (Observer)



(image via observer)

"‘Lock up your daughters! Is the world ready for Taki Jr?’ This was the New York Observer headline, followed by: 'Meet the only son of the world’s naughtiest Greek playboy.' Under any other circumstances, I’d be blushing — who the hell wants to be called a playboy aged 72 — but when it comes to JT, or my daughter Lolly, the old boy will welcome anything, and smile about it to boot. JT’s grand marriage in the summer of 2006, with Countess Assia Baudi di Selve of Rome, lasted only two months. He couldn’t keep his you know what in his pants, so Assia and him had a boy, Taki Tancredi, and a girl, Maria, and now live apart. He has been very generous with them, which I suppose is easy to be when one doesn’t give a damn about the root of all envy. I remember talking about my boy to an ageing socialite by the name of Serena Doorman, who now sells apartments to the rich. She was appalled that the boy wanted to be an artist, and that I had encouraged him to be one. She was even more appalled that he would be a bike messenger. Mind you, that’s how many people think. They worship the cheap, the vulgar and the nouveaux riches and understand nothing about values. Money is all." (Takimag)

"WHICH singer/talk show hostess should be more careful where she shops? She was taken recently to a downtown storage facility where she bought $10,000 worth of luxury designer goods of dubious provenance -- not fake, but fallen off the truck" (PageSix)



"This is one of the first pictures of Madonna's new 'London-style' townhouse in New York. The Material Girl splashed out a reported £27m ($40m) on the mansion on Manhattan's trendy Upper East Side. Friends of the 50-year-old singer said the four-storey, 13-bedroom home with 3,000 sq-ft garden was 'perfect' for her. One said: 'She's trying to recreate London in New York City.'" (Thisislondon)



"Last week's hullabaloo over Barack Obama's seeming bow before King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia centered mainly on the question of whether it was appropriate for a U.S. president to pay obeisance to a foreign dictator. But the real problem lies deeper than that. King Abdullah's alliance with the United States, combined with his oil wealth, has allowed his radical breed of Islam, Wahhabism, to flourish, poisoning the Middle East. With so much at stake, is it irrational to yearn for a world in which the Saudi regime just miraculously ceased to exist and there was no King Abdullah to bow to (or not) at all? The House of Saud affects the world in three main ways: It is the world's largest producer of oil and holder of most of the market's spare production capacity; it acts as custodian of Islam's holy places and the religious center of Sunni Islam; and it maintains Wahhabism as a state-sponsored sect." (ForeignPolicy)



"The stars of the highly anticipated indie flick American Violet reunited on the red carpet Monday night for the premiere held at the Pacific Design Center’s Silver Screen Theater in Los Angeles. The film’s star, Nicole Beharie headed over to the West Coast from New York City where she refined her talents at Julliard before making only her second appearance on the big screen where she has been wowing critics with her American Violet performance. She joined fellow cast members Erica Hubbard, Alison Elliot, and Alfre Woodward accompanied by her husband Roderick Spencer. The film’s director Tim Disney, screenwriter Bill Haney, and producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr. were also in attendance for the premeire of this powerful film which centers around the real-life struggles of Regina Kelly, an African American single mother wrongfully arrested and accused during a Central Texas drug bust in 2000." (Guestofaguest)



"So (City Harvest has) this lunch every year. I’ve written about it a few times. Someone speaks and is either informative or amusing or both. I take it that’s what’s expected of me which makes me very nervous. However, it’s for the cause and not for my nerves .. My subject as Honored Speaker will be Society at the Dinner Table (as well as the lunch breakfast and supper) and most of it will be conducted with a Q & A format so people can ask me about people’s private lives and marriages. Gossip is the only confection that you can OD on and never gain an ounce." (NYSocialDiary/Susanbelle@bellevents.com)



"Mark Kostabi calls himself the World's Greatest Con Artist and who's to argue. Con Artist, a docu directed by Michael Sladek is slated to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, an event that will surely give Kostabi another 15 minutes to let the world know that he's really a game show host who lets others paint his pictures save for a signature he dashes off at the end. He's been laying claim to this title for more than 25 years to anyone who would listen and to all who tuned in to his cable show -- whose latest incarnation is called Name That Painting. The format is simple: a Kostabi art work is presented to a panel of judges who then compete to name the piece and to win the $50 Kostabi doles out to the name he likes best. Senior Editor Carlo McCormick recently invited Kostabi to be the guest artist in Paper magazine's April issue." (Papermag)



"'Madonna doesn't have an altruistic bone in her body,' states a friend of mine, flatly. 'She's the most use-people-and-spit-them out type of driven manipulator in history.' Point taken--but let's be uncharacteristically kind for a second. Maybe that was the old Madonna. Perhaps maturity and longtime success, mixed with her spritual awakening, have brought the half-clad superstar to a place where she actually longs to use her fame to make a difference in world affairs. Lord knows she's not backing down in the face of her latest failed adoption attempt. Couldn't Madge be sincere in wanting not only to snatch another black baby and take it to a pampered lifestyle, but also to shine a spotlight on the woes of Malawi (and all of Africa) for their own good? Couldn't she be righteously appalled at the poverty and disease rampant in the dark continent, finding herself 'burning up' with an urge to force attention onto the plight of the underprivileged?" (Musto)

"Former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) officially launched a primary challenge against Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) on Wednesday, setting in motion a rematch of their bitter 2004 fight. Toomey’s announcement of a campaign website ends a process that began more than a month ago when he announced that he was rethinking his decision to spurn the Senate race. He cited Specter’s votes on spending and other issues, which have often put the incumbent to the left of his GOP colleagues .. In 2004, Toomey came surprisingly close to upending Specter, losing by less than two points." (TheHill)



(image via away)

"Anderson Cooper, being all posh and incognito in front of the Chelsea Hotel, NYC, casually hangin' around the David Barton Gym. Hey, isn't that the barbell hang where all the dudes are seen sideling up to the humpy CNN dude at the urinal? Yep, believe so. (Don't hear anybody's ever disappointed in that endeavor, either. Is that tacky of me to let on?) Coop-babe was alone this time, but perhaps he was trying to amend that sitch? Andy was rapidly texting on his phone." (E!online via Cityfile)



"Unless you were at Norwood last night, definitely make a note that fighting gender inequality in ski jumping is a magical combination for Tuesday night fun. Lisa Anastos, Chessy Wilson, Rachel Dratch, Bettina Prentice, Hudson Morgan, Rachelle Hruska, Gillian Hearst-Simonds, Peter Davis, Kipton Cronkite, Keith Lissner, Emma Snowdon-Jones and Abigail Lorick were among those showing support for Olympic ski jump team members Alissa Johnson and Jessica Jerome at the first event put on by Bettina Prentice Communications company." (Guestofaguest)