Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Media-Whore's D'Oevres



Adrian Grenier at his Project Greenhouse Party. (image via danshamptons via patrickmcmullen)

"“Welcome to the club of mad people and mad things but people who believe in what they do,” said a microphone-wielding Diane von Furstenberg as she balanced herself in her stilettos while propped up on a cushion on the second floor of her Meatpacking District studio ... Reed Krakoff, who hosted the new members bash in 2003 at his Upper East Side townhouse, also recalled a memorable experience. 'That was the year Puffy was inducted and we had so much security present,' he said. 'He had guys with guns come that I wouldn’t let into the house.'" (*Fashionweekdaily)

"I'm no foreign policy expert, just a humble teacher of college journalists, but I knew a WMD marketing ploy when I saw one. I recognized that Saddam Hussein was a two-bit thug like Charles Taylor of Liberia, not Osama bin Laden. And without a day in the United States -- or even the Illinois state -- Senate and having never attended a single World Affairs Council luncheon, I had read enough about the tribal culture of the Arab world to understand we couldn't spread individual-liberty-loving pluralistic democracy in a state where Islamists demand a rigid theocracy. So why didn't a woman with all of that self-proclaimed international affairs wisdom know enough not to vote for this war? And why can't she bring herself to say she was wrong?" (Politico)

"'The girls have come out with their shopping 'A' games today,' declared Kelly Ripa, co-host of the Super Saturday designer garage sale in the Hamptons hamlet of Water Mill .. But that was just the cocktail hour of the arts center's 'wild chic' benefit. As dinner began, attendees were treated to the sight of Dita Von Teese suspended on a high swing at the center of the tent. Perhaps as an incentive to get the gawkers to sit down and be silent, the host promised that one guest would win a kiss from Von Teese in the live auction. 'I usually give them away for free, so I wonder how much a single one might be worth,' mulled Von Teese. Quite a lot, as it turned out. The smooch fetched $100,000. (It also came with a Robert Wilson plasma portrait of the burlesque diva.)" (Style)

"The state polling, as usual, has been all over the map, so don't read too much into it. But ARG has a couple of interesting ones out today: Obama tied with Hillary in New Hampshire, and up for the first time (according to ARG) in South Carolina." (BenSmith)

"In July 2001, long before Pitt started making babies with Angelina Jolie and poor Jen found herself dating sketchy British models, the couple paid a reported $13.1 million for a big Wallace Neff-designed house in Beverly Hills. Pitt, a wannabe architect and design aficionado, spent the next couple of years and many millions of dollars redesigning the nine-bedroom, eight-bathroom house with truckloads of pedigreed and, apparently, not very cozy furniture. (In a Vanity Fair article after the couple's separation, Aniston was asked what she was looking forward to in her single life and she responded, 'A comfortable couch.' ) The couple first put the house on the market at $28 million, but later it was reduced to $24.95 million before an anonymous foreign businessman came along and paid a reported $22.5 million for the privilege of living in a home once occupied by Hollywood royalty." (RadarOnline)

"Despite how long Mr. Murdoch has wanted The Journal, he may not have a set playbook, according to interviews and more recent conversations with several people in Mr. Murdoch’s camp, who spoke on the condition they not be identified. 'There’s a very low probability that there’s a grand plan,' said one person close to Mr. Murdoch. But based on his history, there is little doubt that Mr. Murdoch will directly aim at luring both readers and advertising away from The New York Times and The Financial Times, The Journal’s closest rivals." (NYTimes)

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