Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Evi Quaid called from a pay phone in Vancouver to say that she and her husband, Randy, the actor, had tried to drive to Siberia, but they 'couldn’t figure out how to get there.' She said, 'We’re running for our lives.' She wanted me to meet them the next day in Vancouver’s Chinatown—which couldn’t be arranged any other way, as the Quaids don’t use cell phones anymore, because, Evi said, 'they’re tracking us.' 'They' were 'the Hollywood Star Whackers' the couple had been talking about in television interviews ever since they arrived in Canada in October, seeking asylum. The 'Whackers,' they said, were the same people who may have 'killed' David Carradine and Heath Ledger, possibly set up Robert Blake, and could now be targeting Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan. 'Are either of you mentally unstable, schizophrenic, or on drugs?,' Andrea Canning asked on Good Morning America. 'Do you think we are?' demanded Evi. 'No!' said Randy. I found the Quaids sitting in their car outside a Chinese tearoom on a block glowing with red and yellow neon lights. Nobody was around. It was night. Their car, a black Prius, was crammed with stuff—clothes, coats, shoes, papers, a pillow, blankets, and an excitable Australian cattle dog named Doji, who was hoarse from barking while he was in the pound when his owners were being detained by Canadian immigration. The car smelled of fast food and dog pee and Randy’s cigars. I asked the Quaids if they were living in their car. 'Only on nights when we’re too terrified to leave our stuff or don’t feel secure,' Evi said." (VanityFair)

"There was a time not too long ago when Snoop Dogg was persona non grata in England because of a little airport scuffle he had back in 2007. Well, the ban has since been lifted, and now the Doggfather could be all the way back in on the British isles thanks to a track he's recorded in honor of Prince William's upcoming bachelor party. England's Daily Mirror reports that William's younger brother, Prince Harry, is trying to lock down Snoop and UK rapper Tinie Tempah to perform at the upcoming stag party for Will, who announced his engagement to longtime girlfriend Kate Middleton last week. Snoop didn't waste any time in stepping up to the plate, dropping the song 'Wet' on Tuesday as his gift to William. The racy tune, which the rapper says is a sequel of sorts to his funktastic 2008 hit 'Sexual Eruption,' was produced by the Cataracs, best known for their work on the Far East Movement smash "Like a G6.''When I heard the royal family wanted to have me perform in celebration of Prince William's marriage, I knew I had to give them a little something,' Snoop wrote in a statement announcing his gift to the Prince. 'Wet' is the perfect anthem for Prince William or any playa to get the club smokin'.'" (MTV)

"Ballet has been mourned as a dying art so often in recent years (even by its devotees—dark ash weeps from the sky at the demise of Jennifer Homans’s monumental dance history, Apollo’s Angels) that it’s a real boot when a movie comes along whose heroine believes that ballet is still an art worth passionately dying for. Or even killing for, should a drastic casting change be required. The history of film is feathered with ravishing ballerinas whose longing for transcendent flight sends them high-diving into borderline dementia, virgin brides for whom the stage is the sacrificial altar of Beauty. But none has gone as singularly ballistic as Natalie Portman’s Nina Sayers in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, whose obsession to be the perfect Odette/Odile in Swan Lake is self-devouring. Aronofsky’s previous film was The Wrestler, where Mickey Rourke’s battered carcass was the meaty battlefield. The flesh is leaner here, but even more besieged. So militantly locked-on-target are Nina’s (and Portman’s) will and focus that the movie could be nicknamed 'Full Metal Tutu.' Or perhaps 'Full Mental Tutu,' since the tunnel through which Nina careens toward opening night is rigged with trick mirrors, paintings whose features leer and melt, and eerie doppelgängers—shock-cut snapshots from the prism of a mind going crackers." (JamesWolcott)

"Halston had decided to have a drag party. It was top-secret; he didn’t want it in the news. We all spent hours getting ready in our “costumes.” I went as a man in a leather jockstrap, leather vest, beautiful black-and-white striped, silk robe, my riding boots, hair pulled back with a fake mustache and manly makeup. Absolutely no one knew who I was or even that I was in drag! All the boys thought I was another cute boy. Andy went as Dolly Parton with a big, blonde wig. Catherine Guinness went as Andy. Halston wore high heels and walked magnificently in them. A lot of people used costumes from Liza Minnelli, and Steve Rubell came in a huge, red ball gown à la Scarlett O’Hara. Steve’s dress caught on fire from one of the many candles Halston had around. We were all rushing, trying to put out the fire. Of course it was in the papers: 'Page Six' and even The Washington Post. My mother called to ask me what I was doing." (Barbara de Kwiatkowski)

"The irony is such that the word itself loses meaning. The ultimate Afghan con man, an oxymoron if there ever was one, is someone Hollywood couldn’t make up. A catch-him-if-you-can type of script wouldn’t make it past the first rewrite. Even 'based on a true story' wouldn’t help. If it weren’t for the dead and maimed-for-life, I’d be laughing my pants off. Just as funny was the timing, at least for myself. I’d gone up to Connecticut to spend the weekend at Graydon and Anna Carter’s, he being the supremo at Vanity Fair. Once there I was given a Robert Harris book, Selling Hitler, about the con man who convinced everyone but David Irving that the Hitler private diaries were for real. That particular fiasco saw a hell of a lot of self-important people end up with lotsa egg on their faces. It began on April Fool’s Day 1983, when the London Times telephoned the distinguished historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, by then Lord Dacre, to tell him of the greatest historical discovery ever. He flew to Switzerland to inspect the findings, which were in a bank vault and guarded like Fort Knox. We all know the rest. Trevor-Roper fell for the con, as did everyone else involved, meaning Rupert Murdoch, Newsweek, Stern magazine, and most journalists with the exception of David Irving." (Takimag)