Inside Out at the YouTube Space NY #InsideOutYouTubeSpace

How do memories work? This questions as old as Philosophy itself, but the time it is asked by a turn of the millennium animation studio.

Last night the YouTube Space NY in Chelsea opened its doors to an interesting crowd for a preview of the new Pixar/Disney film Inside Out. As with any Disney/Pixar collaboration, the film has as much to say to kids as it does to the adults who bring them to the film. This film, in particular, is about the mystery of emotions. John Lasseter, the Pixar genius, according to the director and the producer of the film who conducted the informal talk, demands a lot of research to go into making these works. There was also an exhibition after the talk of the artwork that made the film, which is on display at the YouTube offices.

The talk given by producer Jonas Rivera and director Pete Docter veered around emotions, memory, childhood, the history of animation, the magic of Disney World, Pixar's history, and how they got so many big names to do the voiceovers. There was also a brilliant 6-minute clip of the movie that made me very, very excited to take my nephews and niece when the film comes out on June 19th. Further: Amy Poehler, who plays the emotion "Joy" is utterly and completely amazing as a "voiceover." I have a feeling Poehler is finally, deservedly, going to become a bona fide movie star this summer. There is also -- as always -- a touch of sadness (this time an actual character in the film) that gives Pixar films a patina of a beautiful bittersweetness that I always slightly associate with Schoolhouse Rock of Saturday mornings in the 1970s.

It occurred to me during the talk that the evergreen quality of the films and their continued relevance to kids as they grow up and view Pixar movies as formative life experiences/influences is because of this ability to speak simultaneously to the child and adult in us all. Doctor and Rivera repeatedly talked about how Disney films were a transformative experience for both of them and how they hope that these new Pixar films speak to the child in all of us.

Also among the crowd: Brandon Santoro, Alex E. Kang, David Barish, Yuki Nakamura, Jess Rudder and Ash Reid.

Media-Whore D'oeuvres

"Don't think of corporations, the term has been bastardized to the point where it means anybody or anything that has risen above and solidified an audience. That's who and what rules in the internet age. And it's harder than ever to get there. That's the untold story of the past five internet years. How we went from a free-for-all to solidification, how barriers to entry have been established that you may not be able to codify or see, but that are there nonetheless. The audience is overwhelmed with choice/input. Just think of TV. You've got the five hundred channels on cable plus Hulu, Amazon and Netflix. You can't see everything, you can't even try. It's overwhelming. So we gravitate to that which everybody else does. He or she who rises above becomes ever more popular. So a curator can be a brand. That's what's wrong with the playlists on Beats and Spotify. We have no idea who created them, and until we do, it's hard to pay attention. A curator we believe in will take us places we didn't previously choose to go, because we have faith in them. You know, a friend whose taste you trust who tells you to listen to something, which you don't like at first, but you slog through, because they said so. When a newspaper tells you to do something, you don't. That's what papers have lost, their credibility when it comes to the arts. They're in bed with the purveyors and have blown our trust. But now we've got a plethora of people trying to gain our trust online. And most are doing it for the money. Which turns us off, because so many of us are broke or challenged. We want like-minded people, in bed with us, to tell us what to do. This is the essence of the problem with the Tidal press conference, it was them versus us, no matter what they were trying to say. Curation is a nascent field. It's still being sorted out. In article curation, we've got Jason Hirschhorn, Dave Pell and the Skimm women. But Pell is a one man band, can he compete against Hirschhorn and the Skimm without investment? Just watch 'Shark Tank,' there's a tsunami of orders after you appear on the show, can you fulfill them?" (Bob Lefsetz)

The view from JH's purview on the Upper West last night at 7:30 PM. The rain clouds threatened but the rain never came.

"This is the time of year when the social calendar begins to let up because a lot of the denizens have left town. They’re headed for palmier, briskier places such as the East End or Newport or the woods and the lakes or Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire. And that’s just for starters.  I like all of that although I’m less interested on weekends in being in the company of others. I mainly like to read, work around the house (I’m an amateur hoarder — cleaning up always), to think, to write, to go to Zabar's and have dinner with friends, or no dinner with friends. It’s like a vacation. This is clearly an age thing. Fifty years ago I was on every plane, train, car, boat, that came my way. Fifty years ago I had to be entertained meeting the world, or my world. Now I’m back to the childhood boy: I like to entertain myself.  I like New York in summertime for just that reason. When the town empties out, it’s easier to move around by foot, bike or motor vehicle, and it’s easier to see the city which is full of its mesmerizing, hodge-podge, architectural polyglot of history that has been talking to us every day since the Dutch landed.On Sunday, I decided it was that time of the year to get a little garden of flora and fauna for my terrace. This is left over from my California life when they were everywhere and beautiful. I go down to the flower district on 27th Street and Seventh Avenue. The prices are very good; it’s very basic, and they have everything, most of which I don’t have space for. Besides I’m not really a gardener. I like the miracle of watching them grow, and feeding them, but a real gardener gets into it. It’s meditative and has many other restorative qualities." (NYSD)

Harry FitzRoy, the 12th Duke of Grafton, photographed at Euston Hall, in Suffolk, site of his Red Rooster music festival.

"On April 7, 2011, a day after his 33rd birthday, Henry Oliver Charles FitzRoy became Britain’s youngest duke, upon the death of his grandfather Hugh, His Grace the 11th Duke of Grafton. The distinction lasted just 22 days. 'I was gazumped by [Prince] William!' he says with mock indignation over the heir to the throne’s wedding-day creation as Duke of Cambridge. Still, Grafton remains England’s youngest nonroyal duke. Known as Harry, he presides over Euston Hall, a stupendous Palladian house in Suffolk, stocked with paintings by Van Dyck, Reynolds, and Stubbs, and set on 10,500 acres. Now Harry has become host of one of England’s most buzzed-about summer music festivals. Red Rooster, which debuted last year at Euston Hall, is back June 5 through 7 with another beguiling slate of R&B, blues, bluegrass, and country acts. Grafton became enamored with American music during the two years he lived in Nashville (2002–2004), where he worked at a music-management firm and hosted a weekly radio show. An 18-month stint on the Rolling Stones’ A Bigger Bang world tour followed. 'It was work hard, play hard, all the way,' he says. Now settled down with his wife, Olivia, an art historian, and their two-year-old, Alfred (another child is due in July), the 12th Duke of Grafton is currently consumed with a massive two-year renovation of the estate. 'I had to step up and get on with it,' he says." (VanityFair)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"It’s as good as it gets; a light rain is falling on a soft May evening and I’m walking north on a silent Park Avenue hoping to get into trouble. 14,000 yellow taxis have turned Manhattan into a Bengal hellhole, blasting their horns non-stop, picking up or disgorging passengers in the middle of traffic clogged streets, speeding and failing to yield to pedestrians, as the Big Bagel law requires. But on the Upper East Side, on a balmy evening, the yellow devils are causing havoc downtown, so I almost find myself singing in the rain as I head north far from the madding crowd. (Both puns unintended.)
Nicola’s is an Italian restaurant that used to be very much in fashion back in the Seventies and Eighties. I hadn’t been there for many years, but Michael Mailer insisted we go down memory lane, so we did. Nothing had changed. Nicola was the headwaiter at Elaine’s, until he told the fat lady to shove it, got fired and opened up his own place two blocks south. Nicola was no fool, except for his terrible coke habit, and he continued Elaine’s custom of showering attention on writers and journalists, back in those halcyon days the Hiltons and Kardashians of the time. Hacks covered Elaine’s and Nicola’s like a rash, and even the late great Nigel Dempster would ring from London and chat to the proprietors when stuck for a story. Nigel posed in front of Elaine’s for a cover story whose title was 'The Scum Also Rises.' Elaine used to put pictures of her regulars up on her walls – yours truly was between Hunter Thompson and Jack Richardson – so Nicola did one better. He put up book covers inside glass bookcases and sat the authors underneath them. My first book, published in 1976, got placed in the same glass case as Norman Mailer, something that didn’t exactly displease me enough to sue. Norman’s reaction was typical. He thanked Nicola for including him next to the great Greek writer no one had heard of." (Taki)

Lily Vonnegut, Oliver Sacks, and Jill Krementz in 2006. Photos Jeff Hirsch

"I spent a good part of the weekend finishing a book I’d started a week ago: 'On the Move; A Life' (Knopf, publishers) by Oliver Sacks. I don’t know Oliver Sacks and I’d only read a couple pieces he’d written for the New York Review of Books. As well as a neurologist, scientist, he’s written several books about his interests and his work, one of which was made into a film starring Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams, 'Awakenings.' Another book of his, 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat,' was on the New York Times bestseller list for 43 weeks. I was well aware of it but I never read it. I do not have an abiding interest in matters of science, be it medical science or any other area. Do I appreciate their discoveries and progress? Yes. Am I amazed? Yes. But in terms of personal interest, I would rather read a history of the men and women who built New York in the 1920s, the Jazz Age, as I did in the book I just finished — 'Supreme City; How Jazz Age Manhattan Gave Birth to Modern America' by Donald Miller.  Or Balzac. When I got to the last 50 of Miller’s 580-page book, for example, I wished it would just go on for another 500; more to learn. It must have been “The Man Who Mistook ...” that made me aware of Dr. Sacks. It’s also a solid name in sound, and even visually on paper. More than ten years ago, JH and I saw him a couple of times, in passing, at parties that Jill Krementz and Kurt Vonnegut occasionally gave in Jill’s studio. There were always a lot of artists and especially authors present. Dr. Sacks stands out in a crowd with his solid bearing — white hair and beard and his thick barrel chested and muscled physique. Under those circumstances — a cocktail party — he appeared to stand alone, not really engaged in conversation. I wondered about his personality but wouldn’t approach him. He was a kind of genius in my book — with great knowledge in an area where I am almost knowledge-less — and a scientific one as well. Ironically, I learned from reading his memoir that he and I share a similar social diffidence — a not wanting to intrude, or to bore. It’s also often more interesting just to observe." (NYSD)

Gallery assistant Sandra Handley poses for photographs with a lock of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s hair, contained in a 19th-century gilt locket at the Sotheby’s auction house in London on

"Auctioneer Sotheby’s is selling a lock of hair from the head of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, resting in a gilt locket.Taking composers’ hair as keepsakes was common in the 18th and 19th centuries.
After Mozart died in 1791, aged 35, his widow gave the hair to the mother of German composer Karl Anschutz. It was acquired by the late British composer Arthur Sommervell and is being sold by his family. The hair is up for auction Thursday with an estimated price of 10,000 pounds to 12,000 pounds ($15,400 to $18,450). The sale also includes a lock of Ludwig van Beethoven’s hair and an invitation to his 1827 funeral, together valued at 2,000 pounds to 3,000 pounds ($3,100 to $4,600)." (P6)





"Below is the email that was sent to basically everyone with a blog this weekend about Isaac Lee, the CEO of Fusion, by what seems to be a former employee. (It was sent from what looked to be a throwaway Gmail address.) The email is about a layer of men in upper management at Fusion called the “Friends of Isaac Lee.” This phrase was included in this weekend’s rather critical New York Times article about Fusion—but seems to then have been removed from the story. (I did see the phrase’s inclusion myself; I read the story immediately after it was posted and remember laughing about it.)
Every media reporter in New York (of the very few that remain!) will be assessing these claims, so why shouldn’t we all know what’s being said? So here’s the whole email—with one redaction.
Links in the email include this story about Lee’s magazine Loft, this bad review of This is Not a Ball, this Kickstarter page for Gabriel Leigh film, and this al-Jazeera story about Didziulis’ 'right-wing' 'war propaganda' documentary on Iran. Do you have something to add or clarify? Let us know!" (Choire Sicha/TheAwl)

"Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, marked two decades at the country’s oldest weekly magazine with a voluminous 150^th anniversary edition that paired watershed pieces from the archives with fresh features.  The 268-page magazine opened with a reflection on The Nation’s roots in the abolition movement and its evolution through political and journalistic movements. Vanden Heuvel said The Nation’s legacy remains pertinent, pointing to a 1966 article by James Baldwin that described the 'No Knock, Stop and Frisk laws' in Harlem, as well as a video on the policing technique that was presented to the judge who deemed stop and frisk racially discriminatory. Vanden Heuvel spoke with City & State reporter Sarina Trangle about the magazine’s history, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s national platform and whether she plans to run for office." (CityandState)

Francis Rivera     

"Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is penning a memoir, covering his experiences as a child growing up in Alabama and his expansive career in civil service. "It's hard for me to believe it's been four decades in politics," McConnell, 73, said in a Tuesday interview with The Associated Press, which first reported news of the memoir. The book's working title, The Long Game, alludes to the legislator's endurance in the Senate. Last year, McConnell, who was first elected to the Senate in 1984, faced a difficult primary challenge against Matt Bevin, a conservative businessman, followed by a much-buzzed-about general election bid from Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes. McConnell told the AP the book would be a 'candid assessment of the people I've worked with and negotiated with and some of the challenges and opportunities we've had over some 30 years in the Senate.' That suggests McConnell will also write about some of his political rivals in recent years, such as President Obama and Sen. Harry Reid (Nev.), his Democratic counterpart who currently serves as minority leader." (TheHill)

Book Launch: The Knockoff with Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza

Yesterday evening Doubleday celebrated the launch of The Knockoff with Lucy Sykes Rellie and Jo Piazza at the Mulberry. The book is about the media world we live in, particularly print media in this digital age. Also the themes of ambition and rivalry -- two major themes in the workplace in a competitive city -- are explored when a magazine editor returns from a vacation to find she is replaced by her tech-savvy assistant, a nightmarish scenario that almost any print editor experiences regularly. Lucy and Jo handle it with breezy humor and it should be the most talked about beach book of the summer as it already is getting a lot of chat on Twitter.

It is astonishing how many media players showed up to support the two, who, between them, must know everyone in the New York fashion, banking and media worlds. Among the crowd: Yahoo! Travel editor Paula Froelich, Peter Davis, Dany Levy, Brana Dane, Richard Johnson, Mandy Stadtmiller, Caroline Waxler, Stacy Horowitz, David Barish, Vijay Pandurangan and DJ Chelsea Leland spinning with excellence.

Afterwards there was a dinner at Da Silvano's to celebrate the book. In many ways this was the start of Summer, a week or so away from Memorial Day, which is always a little bittersweet as so many people in media-fashion-banking travel to their various getaways. It was significant to assemble such a crowd at Da Silvano's on a perfect late Spring evening before everyones schedule becomes complicated. Euan Rellie, always the perfect host, needled me about the things I once wrote many years ago about him and his wife on this very blog. Over ten years ago -- yes, this blog is that old -- the New York blogosphere was under the thrall of snarky writing about the powerful and I regret to say that I was one of those voices. I had never met Euan or Lucy and wrote snarky things about them. I was young(it) and foolish and it should serve as a cautionary tale to writers everywhere in this digital age. Don't throw digital spitballs if you live in a glass house, or, better yet, you don't know someone until you meet them face-to-face and talk to them. So -- get away from the computer screen and meet the people and the influencers in the space that you are covering.

Betty Draper Francis Deserved A Better Last Scene

I made an embarrassing digital era mistake on social media last week. With so many things to remember/keep track of -- internet week, upfronts/newfronts, design week, Life in general -- I thought that last week's episode of Mad Men was indeed the series finale and wrote "Farewell Mad Men" on my Facebook page.

Quite the contrary. I was quickly jolted back to reality in the digital form of instant messages and reprimanding comments on my Facebook account. This week's episode of Mad Men was, they said, the last, the previous week's was the penultimate. With egg on my face I corrected myself and pitched forward into the usual media hair-splitting of the last episode.

I was generally pleased with the closer -- Don "Mr. Anxiety" Draper got a good ending, and so did Pete, Peggy, Roger and, to a degree, Joan. One thing though greatly disturbed me: Betty's last scene. Diane Cleheane, one of the most passionate commentators on the Mad Men phenomenon, got it pitch-perfect with a comment on Facebook, "If (series creator Matt) Weiner was driving home the point of the randomness and the cruelty of life, mission accomplished."

That ending didn't sit well with me either. It seemed to me a particularly cruel way to kill the unpopular suburban housewife, while, at the same, time venerating the shows go-getter career women. "Mad Men Gives Way to Strong Women" -- or somesuch take on that narrative idea -- was the general critical takeaway. Peggy gets it all -- love and a career; Joan gets most -- the high powered career that has always eluded her on the other side of the glass ceiling; Betty, however, is resigned to her dark fate, smoking unto an early Death, while Sally washes the dishes in the still of the suburban home.

Last week -- the week I mistook for the last -- presented a better Betty. In many ways the penultimate episode presented the better end for Betty Draper Francis; in many ways the penultimate episode would have been the best way, even without the resolution with Don, to sunset her character. This was the Betty Draper who has evolved from slightly spoiled housewife wholly dependent upon her husband's status and her looks for her identity to the mature woman, tempered through the fires of her father's decline as well as the unravelling of Don Draper's deception. The Betty Draper of last week was the Betty that stood up to Don, all iron festooned with lace. But the tone in the discussion of her impending Death with her daughter Sally was almost beyond beautiful, thanks to an soft, understated but amazing performance by January Jones. This is the Betty Draper I and untold others have come to love over the course of Mad Men.

This is how January Jones wants us to remember Betty, according to her Instagram account:

I prefer to remember Betty from her speaking to her daughter about her impending Death, just before giving the final instructions. "I watched my mother die. I won’t do that to you. And I don’t want you to think I’m a quitter, I’ve fought for plenty in my life. And that's how I know when it's over. it's not a weakness. it's been a gift to me. To know when to move on."

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

George Stephanopoulos Photo: Getty Images

"Network honchos at ABC are scrambling to keep their George Stephanopoulos scandal from becoming a Brian Williams disaster. Insiders at ABC News said higher-ups were blindsided by Stephanopoulos’ hefty undisclosed donations to the Clinton Foundation, saying the contributions may have made damaged goods of their biggest star. 'This is a bigger crisis than ABC will admit,' a source told The Post. 'George is the centerpiece of their 2016 coverage. By donating to the Clintons, he has blown his credibility in one catastrophic move. How can he moderate a debate or question a Republican candidate without questions over his impartiality?' Stephanopoulos is ABC’s chief anchor and chief political correspondent. The 'Good Morning America' anchor admitted last week that he has donated $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation since 2011. After apologizing on air Friday during the morning show, he repeated the mea culpa Sunday on ABC’s 'This Week,' possibly under threat of suspension. 'ABC is hoping this doesn’t spiral into a full-blown Brian Williams-style disaster,' the source said. 'If more information comes out about George’s ties to the Clintons, things could get worse.'" (PageSix)

Regis Philbin.

"Last night the Irvington Fellowship Program of the Cancer Research Institute hosted its annual “Through the Kitchen Party” at the Four Seasons Restaurant. This is the brainchild of Lauren Veronis who started it more than twenty years ago. It is always a Sunday night affair and Mrs. Veronis --  and now joined by her daughter Perri Peltz -- bring out a big crowd of prominent New Yorkers. It is quite a feat to gather any group together on a Sunday night in May when they could home settled in to their Sunday night TV shows or even still in the country. But it’s a great idea – which is part of the strong attraction. Guests have cocktails first in the Grille Room, served with delicious hors d’oeuvres for the first hour. Hundreds fill the room and the bar. Then at 8 everyone moves into the kitchen where they are each handed a chef’s apron, this year with the theme – which was 'Divine Obsession'. This year even Bill Cunningham was there catching the donning of the aprons. Once in apron, each guest is handed a large plate while entering the kitchen area – which is vast – where all the tables and counter space are filled with dishes and pans of all kinds of wonderful items. It’s one of the moments when I’m reminded of that term I used to hear when I was a kid looking at a table full of desserts where 'your eyes are bigger than your stomach.' You’d be surprised how even the slimmest and the slightest among us can’t resist, and start loading their plates with all kinds of salads, steamed vegetables, meats, fish, pastas, sauces, sushi; taking a little bit (and sometimes a lot) of everything, and even returning for more." (NYSD)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Hollywood has been an overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly male business for almost a century, but recent years have sparked a vibrant conversation about diversity behind the camera and in front of it. That discussion reached a new pitch this week: On May 12, the New York Times reported that American Civil Liberties Union is calling for federal and state-level investigations into the way directors are selected for movie projects, targeting in particular the extremely small number of women who are tapped to helm important films. But it would not be wise to use the ACLU’s campaign, or the success of showrunners like Shonda Rhimes or even a smash hit like 'Empire' as evidence of an imminent revolution in the entertainment industry. Hollywood has discovered women and people of color before, whether it was cultivating a limited number of black stars in the thirties and forties, coopting women’s liberation in the 1970s and early 1980s, or shoring up wobbly television ratings with shows about African-Americans in the 1990s. The Times notes that even if the ACLU is successful in pursuing some sort of an agreement with studios, there have been previous efforts to try to boost minority shares of employment in the industry. Through it all, white men have managed to retain enormous power as the creators of Hollywood’s products, and as the subjects of film and television. So why is it so hard to make the very engine of America’s fantasies and aspirations look much like the country Hollywood hopes to inspire?" (WashPo via Redef) 

"A couple of weeks ago, NPR and two of its most influential member stations, WNYC and WBEZ, invited a large group of media and marketing people to Le Poisson Rouge, a nightclub in Greenwich Village, for an event called 'Hearing is Believing.' Its purpose was to persuade brands to advertise on public media podcasts. Onstage, some of the most listened-to podcasters—Jad Abumrad, Guy Raz, Glynn Washington, Brooke Gladstone, Lulu Miller—presented public radio’s offerings: an intimately engaged audience, a unique narrative platform, a chance for 'Mail Kimp'-level virality. Later, after an indie band performed, Ira Glass, the host of This American Lifeand producer of Serial, told a reporter for AdAge, 'My hope is that we can move away from a model of asking listeners for money and join the free market.' He added, 'Public radio is ready for capitalism.'  ... 'Podcasts are not donated airwaves. They’re podcasts,' Erik Diehn, the vice president of business development at Midroll Media, a podcast media company, told me over the phone. 'There’s no exchange happening where the broadcaster has to agree not to take ads because they are being given this grant of a public good.' Midroll Media produces original shows like WTF with Marc Maron and Comedy Bang! Bang! and sells advertising on nearly two hundred podcasts, including shows from Public Radio International (an NPR rival), like Studio 360 and Science Friday. The company’s ads—'integrated, native, often host-read spots'—are hugely effective compared to most internet advertising, so businesses pay good money for them. Podcasts, which tend to run one or two ads before the show and two or three ads during the show, can earn around three hundred dollars per ad if they average at least ten thousand listeners. For the elite circle of shows with over four hundred thousand listeners—generally the iTunes Top 50—a single ad spot can net over ten thousand dollars. While there are a few legal hurdles facing public media’s entry into the free market, for the first time, U.S. public radio will be able to broadcast commercials.1 And because hosts and producers aren’t just offering ad space, but effectively branding content, they are threatening a long-protected public trust." (TheAwl)

"When it comes to new digital-media entities, I find Quartzone of the most consistently interesting. BuzzFeed is huge and growing and clearly understands how content works in a viral age, and so does Vice Media, and there are a number of other smaller players that are doing interesting things, but Quartz stands out for a number of reasons. One of those is that it’s an ambitious effort by an existing entity, namely 158-year-old magazine publisher Atlantic Media. The other is that Quartz thinks very differently about what its role is in the media landscape and how to achieve what it wants to achieve. Zach Seward, who is the head of product for Quartz (a title that in itself is unusual for a media company), wrote about this in a recent post for the Nieman Journalism Lab, which is well worth reading even if you aren’t in the media business. In it, Seward says that the way that Quartz behaves and the way it looks at the media landscape is driven by the fact that the company sees itself 'as an API.' What does that mean exactly? " (Fortune via Redef)

"And things have been honky dory over in these shores, also. At lunch with Harvey Weinstein and Michael Mailer at Harvey’s Tribeca Grill, the purpose of it being a film version of the greatest book ever written except for the Bible, Nothing to Declare. I was flattered but quoted Deborah Ross: 'Only Taki can play Taki.”'This she wrote while reviewing the greatest movie ever made, Seduced & Abandoned. The trouble is that Taki no longer looks so good. And who could play young Taki now that Mickey Rooney’s dead. But Harvey Weinstein is a generous man besides being the only producer who makes films without non-stop car chases and zombies blowing up their innards. What about a documentary, he suggested. My best buddy Michael Mailer, a very successful filmmaker in his own right, is facing a Sisyphian task in trying to sell Taki. People go to the movies to watch violence and horror. My life is as easy to film as reading Finnegan’s Wake. Andy Warhol once made a movie of a man sleeping for thirty hours straight. Some modernists even liked it. Filming Taki reading, training, and pursuing the fairer sex unsuccessfully would be almost as thrilling as Warhol’s Sleep. Let’s call “Nothing to Declare” the greatest movie never made, and leave it at that." (Taki)

Addiction, the professor explained, is a "disease" and should be addressed as such and conceivably can be "cured" as such.

"I went to the annual Women & Science Spring Lecture and Luncheon at Rockefeller University which is only a fifteen minute walk from my apartment. It was a good day to walk. It was not a good day to be in a car on York Avenue which was jammed with traffic because of all the activity from the hospital buildings south of 72nd Street ... esterday’s lecture and luncheon is one of those showcases. I don’t know the names of the volunteers, but Sydney Shuman, who is a member of the university’s Board of Trustees, has been inviting me to attend for several years, so she surely is one of them. They get a big turnout of several hundred; mainly women but a number of men also. Among those men yesterday was Henry Kissinger whose wife Nancy is a trustee emeritus." (NYSD)

Azteca TV Upfronts

    

           

Of all the upfronts this season Azteca TV, one of the last, was the best. Azteca, the second largest producer of Hispanic programming on the planet, had good news to present. Last night at their annual upfronts at the Best buy Theater in NYC, they presented an ambitious slate of programming including music, dancing, competition, telenovelas and, of course, futbol. Also, <strong>Manuel Abud</strong>, President, CEO, Azteca America announced a season-to-date primetime are up 33 percent in the adults 18-49 demo in prime time over last year. Further, the network, which reaches over 21 million viewers, also increased its Friday night primetime performance by +48% in the 18-49 demo over last year thanks to 'Viernes Fútbolero' (Friday Night Fútbol).


Also announced was their Hispanic Audience Platformfor advertisers, the media news of the night.

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"THE protesters who have overturned the politics of Ukraine have many aspirations for their country. Their placards called for closer relations with the European Union (EU), an end to Russian intervention in Ukraine’s politics and the establishment of a clean government to replace the kleptocracy of President Viktor Yanukovych. But their fundamental demand is one that has motivated people over many decades to take a stand against corrupt, abusive and autocratic governments. They want a rules-based democracy. It is easy to understand why. Democracies are on average richer than non-democracies, are less likely to go to war and have a better record of fighting corruption. More fundamentally, democracy lets people speak their minds and shape their own and their children’s futures. That so many people in so many different parts of the world are prepared to risk so much for this idea is testimony to its enduring appeal. Yet these days the exhilaration generated by events like those in Kiev is mixed with anxiety, for a troubling pattern has repeated itself in capital after capital. The people mass in the main square. Regime-sanctioned thugs try to fight back but lose their nerve in the face of popular intransigence and global news coverage. The world applauds the collapse of the regime and offers to help build a democracy. But turfing out an autocrat turns out to be much easier than setting up a viable democratic government. The new regime stumbles, the economy flounders and the country finds itself in a state at least as bad as it was before. This is what happened in much of the Arab spring, and also in Ukraine’s Orange revolution a decade ago. In 2004 Mr Yanukovych was ousted from office by vast street protests, only to be re-elected to the presidency (with the help of huge amounts of Russian money) in 2010, after the opposition politicians who replaced him turned out to be just as hopeless. Democracy is going through a difficult time." (TheEconomist)





"My first husband, the painter, and I and our Persian cat traveled from Fire Island to New York City, we were headed to visit my mother-in-law at her place on East 62nd Street. The boat we motored from our little dock to the ferry quay sank, with all of our possessions, including the husband’s paintings. I saved our cat stuck in her carrier with its front grill quickly filling with water. She clung to my head, welded there with claws sunk into my skull. Just before all our bags slipped beneath the waves, I saw my purse, and I snatched at it, figuring if we lived we would need it. Luck was on our side and the tide swept us to shore. Watching us, though powerless to help, were a platoon of firemen who escorted us to their firehouse. They dried our cat with a towel and gave us cups of coffee and then drove us to the mainland, dropping us at a train station. We rode the train to Penn Station and there we transferred to the subway. The lady at the booth refused our wet dollar bills. But we explained we had just seen death face-to-face and begged her and eventually she relented and sold us two tokens. When we got to my mother-in-law's apartment we found her having tea with a handsome gentleman. Like a Vaudeville duet the husband and I, still hyped, recounted our story, each filling in details as we went. We spoke hysterically, our look was that of refugees, and our cat had an Afro from the seawater. Meanwhile the good-looking gentleman merely yawned, thoroughly unimpressed.

He introduced himself as Peter Beard ..." (Christina Oxenberg)

Danielle Lauder, Eliana Lauder, Myra Biblowit, Tony Bennett, Elizabeth Hurley, Sir Elton John, and Rachel Lauder

"At the BCRF, they  honored Leonard Lauder with the 2015 Roslyn and Leslie Goldstein 'Sung' Hero Award. The room was designed in pink and gold to reflect the grandeur of Mr. Lauder’s incredible achievements, including his irreplaceable guidance in growing BCRF to become one of the largest private funders of breast cancer research in the world. Elizabeth Hurley, a longstanding advocate and Global Ambassador for The Estée Lauder Companies’ Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign, hosted the evening with the annual appearance by Sir Elton John, the event featured a moving performance by eighteen-time Grammy Award winner Tony Bennett. Noteworthy guests included Judy Glickman Lauder, William Lauder, Laura and Gary Lauder, Aerin Lauder, Jane Lauder, Jo Carole and Ronald Lauder, Sir Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley, Tony Bennett, Neil Patrick Harris, Tory Burch, Donna Karan, Zac Posen, Vera Wang, Amy Robach and Andrew Shue, Kinga and Edward Lampert, Alexandra Richards, Jamie Tisch, Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch, Alison Wright, Miss USA Nia Sanchez, Victor Cruz and Elaina Watley, Denise Bidot, Carmen Marc Valvo, Tom Arnold, Eric Decker and Jessie James Decker, and Caroline and Sidney Kimmel. " (NYSD)








"King Lear à la française? For the past month, this question has hovered over the family drama now engulfing France’s extreme right-wing party, Front National. First breaking onto the political stage in early April, the struggle between the party’s octogenarian founder, Jean Marie Le Pen, and his daughter Marine, the party’s current leader, now appears to be climaxing with Le Pen père’s recent suspension from the party. The father may well soon find himself, like Shakespeare’s Lear, alone on a blasted heath, far from power and relevance. But for Le Pen fille, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Lear’s power-hungry daughter Goneril, the great question is not so much whether she will survive but how much stronger she will emerge. There are, of course, Shakespearian echoes in American dynastic politics, ranging from the Macbeth-like tensions between Bill and Hillary Clinton to George W. Bush’s effort to turn himself from young Prince Hal into Henry V. But as in the United States, far more than literary parallels are at stake for the Le Pen dynasty, whose fate is entwined with French politics writ large. For years, a critical obstacle in Marine Le Pen’s quest to transform the 42-year-old FN into France’s leading political party has been the very man who made the xenophobic and anti-Semitic party what it was—and what he insists it must remain. When Jean-Marie Le Pen gave his daughter the keys to the FN kingdom, he did not expect that she would change not only the furniture but also the foundations. Should she succeed in her remodeling, Marine Le Pen may finally become a force that not only France but Europe and the United States must reckon with. How is it that a party long decried for its extremist views suddenly seems poised for such newfound power, just as its founder is losing it?" (Politico)

Suzanne Lerner, Maria Bello, and Blythe Danner

"...(T)here are other things going on in New York. Like booksignings/book parties. On a Sunday night for example Ashley McDermott hosted a book party for her sister-in-law (or is it ex-sister-in-law – I’m not sure about this detail) the actress Maria Bello, who has written a book about her life today. As Ashley explained to me: 'Maria's book is the result of a Modern Love piece she did for the New York Times last Thanksgiving about the questions that arose after she fell in love with Clare, her best friend. It's about the labels women put on themselves, and her journey as a successful actress through this life changing stage of her personal life. It's about resilience and forgiveness and love and acceptance. 'Whatever, Love is Love' is the response her teenage son (my nephew) gave her when she told him about Clare.' Mariska Hargitay and Mario Batali who are also long time friends of Maria co-hosted the evening with Ashley.  To put everything in perspective, it should be noted that in the days of Diana Vreeland, Pat Buckley, Nan Kempner and their Met Ball, there would be not book parties given by a sister-in-law for her brother’s wife who fell in love with her best (lady) friend and wrote a book about the whole transition ... Wednesday night, there was a book signing/book party at the Four Seasons restaurant hosted by Jeanne and Herb Siegel for Richard Farley who has just published 'Wall Street Wars.' Richard Farley, whom I had met previously, is a young lawyer, a recognized expert in global high yield bond and leveraged loan transactions, among the “highly valued” lawyers who specialize in both 'bank' and 'bond' financing. These are the lawyers who do the work – put in the real time, researching, ingesting, learning, as well as facetime with clients. I’m telling  you this to indicate that he’s been at the center of it, and to write a book about it in the meantime is an awesome achievement, probably the child of passion. He is also known professionally as an exceptional legal writer -- his articles on matters of law have appeared in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times. What separates him, in my book from the legions of hardworking lawyers or any other professional category, is that he is also on the board of directors of Herbert G. Birch Services, New York State’s largest non-government provider of education and related services to children and adults with autism and other mental disabilities. He is also the Chair of the Board of Directors of Love Heals, the Alison Gertz Foundation for AIDS Education, the leading provider of HIV/AIDS education to the young people of New York City. A man of his time.So. He has written this history of the financial world’s response to the great Stock Market Crash of 1929 and who and how it affected their future and our present." (NYSD)









"If any of you see Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, walking around with a begging bowl in his hand, it’s because he took me to dinner recently and I sort of went a bit nuts with the wine and the VF chief ended up with the bill. We went to a new (NYC) restaurant, Chevalier, a futuristic marvel with great food and wine and even grander prices. New York is no longer elegant, and there are no longer society types dressed to the nines sitting on the banquettes and downing Manhattans. The Jewish ascendancy that downed the Wasps was as elegant as the one it replaced. William Paley and John Loeb, and others like them, dressed at Anderson & Sheppard, were shoed by John Lobb, and had their shirts made by Sulka. They had exquisite manners and aped their predecessors. Now it’s slob time, and men dress the way I used to dress when I left the locker room for the playing field. Sweat pants, a hoodie, and trainers. But on the night I went to Chevalier, there were at least five tables with suited men and women that didn’t have 'tart' etched on their forehead. In order to celebrate I got drunk and Graydon paid for the damage." (Taki)

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"David and Samantha Cameron enjoyed a post-election celebratory meal last night at an exclusive private members club in Mayfair, London. The Conservative leader and his wife arrived at Mark’s Club, Charles Street, yesterday evening after Mr Cameron’s party secured an unexpected – if incredibly slim – majority. The club is highly rated by respected Zagat restaurant guide, which notes members reportedly claim 'if you have to ask how much it costs, you can’t afford to eat here'. The Prime Minister will have enjoyed the privacy offered by the club, which prohibits photography and 'the use of mobile telephones on its premises, for any purpose.' However, Mr Cameron appeared to flout the club’s dress code, which stipulates 'Gentlemen are required to wear a suit and collared shirt as well as a tie at dinner', appearing in an open necked shirt. Mark’s, acquired by entrepreneur Richard Caring, is among London’s most exclusive clubs and is described as offering members an environment 'discreetly insulated from the hectic pace of the city outside.' The Mayfair townhouse also offers members 'a quiet spot to enjoy a postprandial cigar'. The membership, presently at 2,500, is due to shrink come 1 July to just 1,500 under the new joint management of American Charles Price. Mr Price, who plans to 'gently update' the London establishment, claimed in a Vanity Fair interview in February: 'You can’t just have a name or money to get in; the main qualification is, you have to be interesting.'" (Independent)

Anna Wintour on Late Night with Seth Meyers

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

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"It’s decision day in the UK, as voters go about the business of electing a new prime minister on an Election Day that’s widely expected to produce very little in terms of a clear mandate for anyone to actually govern. Amid the blizzard of speculation, pontifications and predictions of a muddled and confusing outcome, what should arm chair analysts be watching for in the final hours of voting and as returns start to come in?It’s good you asked – here’s five things to watch for as the day and night (and day and night . . . ) roll on.Will there be a big enough party or coalition to govern?
Current polls show neither the Conservative nor Labour Parties likely to command a majority. This means another coalition or a minority government backed by smaller parties that together can vote out any alternative government is the result the parties are planning for. And that means the race is now more about the aggregate numbers candidates can put together rather than who comes in first.
What matters is not percentage of the vote, but the number of seats, and there are few in particular that really matter. The result will be determined more by the quirks of the first past-the-post electoral system than any of the parties’ share of the vote. Since 1945 less than 30 percent of seats have changed hands on average in an election.This has led to hyper-focus on so-called marginals. The outcomes of the 100 most marginal constituencies in England are decided by a small number of volatile voters inside them – maybe as little as 135,000 voters." (Politico)





"If there is a poster child for new-media success—especially when it comes to attracting a valuable millennial audience—Vice Media arguably has ­­more of a claim to that title than anyone. The company, which started as a free music-and-culture magazine in Montreal in 1994, is now a behemoth: According to remarks made by CEO Shane Smith at the so-called 'NewFronts” for advertisers, Vice will have revenues of $1 billion this year, and a recent financing round valued the company at $2.5 billion. Even BuzzFeed, the other company that often gets mentioned as a new-media success story, is a relative pipsqueak by comparison: It raised $50 million in a financing last year, one of the largest rounds in the media industry, but that values the company at just $800 million. Vice is more than three times that size and still growing rapidly. One crucial question that Vice’s success raises for other media companies—assuming they can get past turning green with envy­—is whether the company is in some sense a “unicorn.” In the technology industry, that term has come to mean any startup that is valued at more than $1 billion—see Fortune‘s soon-to-be-updated Unicorn List—and Vice fits that description. But the traditional meaning of the term is more important here. Can Vice’s success be duplicated by others, or is it somehow as rare as a mythical creature with a horn on its head? As my colleague Erin Griffith described in her recent feature story on the rise of Internet video companies, much of Vice’s growth and revenue comes from its investment in video, both through gritty news features on subjects like the Islamic State as well as its lighter coverage of youth culture." (Fortune)

     

Artists Andy Warhol (left) and Jean Michael Basquiat (right), photographed in New York, New York, on July 10, 1985. Michael Halsband /Landov Photo: MICHAEL HALSBAND/Landov

"In a theater seating a few dozen on a stage crowded with spare canvases and Campbell’s Soup cans stuffed with paintbrushes, Andy Warhol, played by actor Ira Denmark in all black and a white wig, argued with Jean-Michel Basquiat, played by Calvin Levels in a slouching suit. 'You kept avoiding me like I was some kind of street urchin,' Basquiat tells his idol turned mentor of his early days selling postcards in the East Village and haunting the Factory lobby. Thus begins a depiction of their famous art-world bromance, brought to life in a recent in-progress rehearsal of Levels’s play Collaboration: Warhol & Basquiat, a dramatic reimagining of the working process between the two artists as they created a series of collaborative canvases that mashed up Warhol’s slick Pop imagery with Basquiat’s neo-expressionist brushstrokes in the mid-1980s, just as the younger artist’s notoriety was peaking and the older one’s influence was waning. Levels’s play was inspired in part by photographs taken by Michael Halsband (who is also a producer on Collaboration) in 1985, recently on display at the National Arts Club, of Warhol and Basquiat decked out in boxing gear, throwing wan punches at each other, suggesting a certain artistic combat that was at least in part staged for the benefit of the cameras and mutual mythmaking. It’s this competitive conflict that provides the driving force of the play, which I attended a reading of recently. It explores the full arc of that decade, from unbridled creativity to crippling drug addiction, the difficulties of fame, and both artists’ eventual deaths: Warhol, in 1987, at age 58, of complications from gallbladder surgery, followed by Basquiat, in 1988, of a heroin overdose, at only 27. 'Andy fulfilled a father figure role for Jean. Jean was very bright and very childlike at the same time. He was a big kid in a way. Though he had another side, too, that people talk about, that I encountered once,' Levels tells me. (As an actor, he’s known for his role as a car jacker in Adventures in Babysitting, which came out the same year Warhol died.) It was Levels’s only face-to-face interaction with Basquiat, and he never forgot it: 'When he did a show down at the Boone gallery, I went to see it. I took in the entire show, turned into a back room to see the last paintings, and Jean was standing there,' Levels says. 'I said, ‘Oh, Jean, Jean, I love your work, thank you very much. I’d love to talk about doing a movie about you.’ He just coiled like a cobra, and he struck. ‘No, no, nah, I’m not interested.’ It was this side of him, that he could just eviscerate you. He did it to almost everyone at some point, even Andy.'" (Vulture via Redef)

Karen May, Commissioner Mitchell J. Silver, Anne Harrison, Marty Cohen, Michele Cohen, and Doug Blonsky

"Does anyone still wear... a hat?! All of this weather business mattered especially up 105th Street and Fifth Avenue yesterday late morning where the Women’s Committee and the Board of Trustees of the Central Park Conservancy were hosting the 33rd annual Frederick Law Olmsted Awards Luncheon – or what is popularly known as the “Hat Lunch” (or 'Luncheon' if you insist) – held in the park’s Conservatory Garden. It was sold out. Twelve hundred attended. They raised  $3.5 million for the park. The luncheon, catered by Abigail Kirsch Catering Relationships was completely underwritten by the Benefit Committee, so that the entire ticket sales figure went to the work in the Park. The event began with a Champagne reception under the pergola and tours of the Conservatory Garden at 11:00 am. I missed that one (too early for me). JH and I were both there by 11:45 with our trusty Canons and Panasonics, to get the hats. His photos lead the way through the Diary page. The reception was followed by the luncheon and awards presentation under an elegant white tent.  Karen May, the new President of the Women’s Committee, was joined by luncheon Chairmen Patricia Fast, Tracey Huff, Alexia Leuschen, and Amelia Ogunlesi. JP Morgan represented by Kelly Coffey, CEO of the U.S. Private Bank, was Corporate Chair. This year the committee honored Michele and Marty Cohen and former Women’s Committee President Anne S. Harrison." (NYSD)

Martha Stewart and Gillian Miniter

"There was an informal competition among Manhattan’s ladies who lunch on Wednesday at the Central Park Conservancy’s annual Frederick Law Olmsted Awards Luncheon — known simply as 'The Hat Lunch' to those in the know. 'I thought of this six months ago,' said ABC News correspondent Deborah Roberts, who had a fascinator with a colorful pile of French macarons on her head. Vanity Fair’s Amy Fine Collins wore a hat designed by Stephen Jones in the shape of a brocade handbag. Martha Stewart arrived in a black wide-rimmed number, and New York’s first girlfriend Sandra Lee was in an oversized white floral one. Lela Rose wore a 'milkmaid’s braid' headpiece with a long braided tail, and trustee Gillian Miniter told us her hat’s designer, Eric Javits, didn’t get her yellow beehive-shaped bonnet to her until Tuesday night. But 'I always have faith in him,' she told Page Six. 'I know it’s going to be good.' Top milliner Kokin, whose clients include Daphne Guinness, Sophia Loren, Ivana Trump and Joan Collins, said one wife of a top financier called him in a panic on Tuesday to beg for a chapeau to match an Oscar de la Renta ensemble and Harry Winston jewels." (P6)

Gérard Biard, editor of Charlie Hebdo, James Goodale, Toni Goodale, and Jean-Baptiste Thoret of Charlie Hebdo.

"Gérard Biard, the editor of Charlie Hebdo on winning the Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award : 'Jean-Baptiste and I are very proud to be here and to receive this prestigious award. Thank you so much. I would like to say a few words about us, about Charlie Hebdo. Before the 7th of January, we were a team of journalists, columnists and cartoonists. Producing a little satirical newspaper most parts of the world ignored – except when the prophet Mohammed jumped out of news – a little newspaper with less than twenty thousand readers and only eight thousand subscribers. Our concern was finding a way to survive and to go on while facing continual accusations of being provocative and offensive – but it's the function of satire, being provocative and offensive, is it not? We even were portrayed as racists, although Charlie Hebdo has always fought all forms of racism since the very beginning. Suddenly, in one half an hour of blood-splattered violence, we became a global symbol, the incarnation of freedom of expression and freedom of conscience. We became acclaimed heroes. I can tell you this: it's pretty hard to deal with it. Because, before this slaughter, we felt quite alone. And because our job is not to be a symbol, it is to write and draw, to give our readers, each week, a newspaper full of laughter and thought. We can't be the only ones to symbolize values that belong to everyone. Besides, it's dangerous. It's dangerous for us, because we are in the front line, and it's dangerous for democracy. Each citizen of the world must adopt these values and stand up for them, against political and religious obscurantism. The more we are, the weaker they are. Fear is the most powerful weapon they have. We must disarm them. They don't want us to write and draw, we must write and draw. They don't want us to think and laugh, we must think and laugh. They don't want us to debate, we must debate. Being here today, we contribute to disarming them ...'." (NYSD)

Sydney Holland (left) and Manuela Herzer with Sumner Redstone at a gala honoring Al Gore and Lyn Lear, in Beverly Hills, on March 5, 2013. © Billy Bennight/UPPA/ZumaPress.com

"Few questions loom larger in American media than the fate of 91-year-old Sumner Redstone’s estimated $6.4 billion empire—comprised mostly of his controlling interests in CBS and Viacom. And though Redstone is fond of professing that he will live forever, in Vanity Fair’s June issue, contributing editor William D. Cohan investigates rumors of the mogul’s mental and physical decline, and the Shakespearean power plays at work in Redstone’s kingdom as he nears his 92nd birthday. Redstone, who seems to be off limits to outsiders these days, tells Cohan via e-mail that his routine hasn’t changed much: 'I still get up at 4:30/5 a.m. every day I ride my bike and go to the pool and get a haircut. I’m really into watching sports.' But according to someone who recently visited with him, things sound far worse: 'Sumner (a) cannot speak and (b) hasn’t had a meal since Labor Day other than tubes. I think there’s a big charade going on that Sumner’s doing fine. . . . I think he’s pretty out of it. . . . He can’t speak, and I don’t know how much he knows what’s going on.' Viacom designated C.O.O. Tom Dooley and Carl Folta, longtime head of communications, to address questions about Redstone’s health. According to Dooley, 'His memory—you talk about remembering stuff? He would remember what we said two weeks ago, word for word. That’s one of his most amazing skill sets over time is his ability to remember everything.' Dooley does concede that “he’s lost some of his mobility in his jaw,' adding that Redstone has been working with a speech therapist. He does not walk well or easily and has round-the-clock staff to help him move. 'He can’t run out of a building,' Dooley explains. Adds Folta, 'He doesn’t want to fall, like most people his age, and break something. He has somebody around him that can make sure that he doesn’t slip.' Regarding the question of Redstone needing a feeding tube, Folta says, 'We are not going to comment one way or the other because we respect Sumner’s desire to keep private specific information about his health.'
While Dooley says, “He’s sharp as a tack,” another source tells Cohan, “He’s not. He really is not. It’s a sham.' Redstone’s friend Robert Evans tells Cohan, 'Like everybody else, Sumner has good days and bad days,' but the legendary producer can’t get off the phone fast enough when asked about Redstone’s health: “I really don’t want to talk about him.' A person who visited with Evans recently broached the topic. 'He looks like he’s dead,' he told Evans, who is said to have replied, 'Well, you should see him in person—he looks even worse.'Redstone’s 43-year-old live-in girlfriend, Sydney Holland, and his close friend and former girlfriend, 50-year-old Manuela Herzer, insist that Redstone is thriving." (VF)

Model Candice Swanepoel with Fox & Friends’ co-hosts Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck in December 2014.

"Since 1948, TV networks have hosted an annual schmooze-fest called the Upfronts, where executives in suits sell a year’s worth of advertising all at once. It’s a martini-soaked, star-laden affair that feels stuck in the Mad Men era. But the Upfronts endure, even though Web advertising—where algorithms, not alcohol, drive the buying and selling—is now into a $40 billion business. Data-driven digital ads are the exact opposite of the handshake deals that fuel the Upfronts.But a funny thing happened on the way to the future: Digital media companies saw the value in all the schmoozing and created their own version of the Upfronts, called the NewFronts. What started with a handful of tech companies in 2012 has expanded to a two-week digital video festival that’s as flashy and boozy as any broadcast event. Last week at the Lincoln Center in Manhattan, Yahoo served champagne and miniature lobster tacos to attendees wearing purple glow sticks as renowned disc jockey Steve Aoki spun beats. This year, 33 companies are participating in the NewFronts. That includes YouTube networks such as Maker Studios and digital media startups such as BuzzFeed, as well as newspapers (The New York Times), magazines (Condé Nast and Fortune publisher Time Inc.), and classic media conglomerates (Time Warner and News Corp.). The businesses have little in common. But they are all competing for the same ad budgets.As they create ever more videos to attract those dollars, the media companies are learning the same lesson that newspapers and magazines learned about text in the late 1990s: You can’t just port analog content to the Web. The Internet is its own weird beast, and the predominantly youthful audience that is devouring online videos is suspicious of clinically professional content. Web audiences can smell someone trying too hard from a mile away; they recoil from the clownish makeup and stiff hair helmets of TV talk-show hosts. There’s nothing wrong with classic television content per se. It just doesn’t feel quite right in the context of the Internet, where animated images of cats ricochet around Twitter, six-second Vine videos have a narrative arc, and your Aunt Sue douses herself with a bucket of ice water on Facebook." (Fortune via Redef)