Reading at the Movies
There was a screening of Stephen Daldry’s The Reader, starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes, last night and there was a hushed silence in the theater through the entire film, broken only by the sniffles of people crying towards the end. Though superficially about the Holocaust, The Reader is really about history, memory, dignity and […]
Brooke on the Brain
The Daily Beast remains fixated on the Brooke Astor affair. Barbara Goldsmith chimes in today with a thoughtful take on the subject and why we are so riveted by its revelations of the dysfunctional rich. “Admit it,” she writes, “it wouldn’t be tabloid fodder unless there were a complicitous audience waiting to read all about […]
Lawyers, Guns and Money
In today’s edition, New York Social Diary comments on my contrarian take on the Brooke Astor affair and the new book, Mrs. Astor Regrets. That book portays a case that’s been painted so far in tabloid black and white as something more properly rendered in shades of gray. NYSD’s David Patrick Columbia apparently thinks the […]
Did the Butler Buy It?
Can the Brooke Astor story handle any more twists and turns? Well, here’s a hairpin. And if anyone knows where it leads, I’d be thrilled to hear about it. A friend reminded me today about a story that appeared in the New York Observer in July about the sale of the late art gallery scion […]
Correction: Infanticipation at 740 Park?
Turns out there may be an issue with Cityfile’s post (linked below) about plastic surgery memoirist Alex Kuczynski and 740 Park co-op board president Charles Stevenson‘s connubial bliss going pfft. Erstwhile society chronicler David Patrick Columbia says that in fact La Kucyznski is pregnant. “Also in the speculating ‘split’ category, as ‘reported’ in a couple […]
The Book on Brooke
I made my debut on The Daily Beast this morning with a piece about the new book on Brooke Astor. You can read it here.
Campbell in the Soup
The blogger Culturgrrl ran an odd item yesterday, telling her readers that Thomas P. Campbell, the director-elect of the Metropolitan Museum, had been written up in a newspaper, but declining to name it or link it because it is in his home town of Ossining, New York — a curious omission. Culturgrrl nonetheless borrowed the […]
Playing Footsie
The latest in my series of Bergdorf Goodman Conversations, featuring shoe-loving humorist Amy Sedaris and the very funny footwear designer Manolo Blahnik, inspired an item on Page Six today. You can read it in its entirety (in pdf format) here.
Splitsville at 740 Park?
Cityfile says that 740 Park’s co-op board president Charles Stevenson and Alex Kuczynski are on the verge of divorce. The former New York Times style reporter is, at least for now, the hedge fund mogul’s fourth wife.
2 Good 2 B True
I missed this while in Rome for Halloween, but caught up thanks to unBeige: The next Party of the Year (aka Anna’s Party) for the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art takes place May 4th, eight days before the publication of my “much anticipated” (per unBeige) new book, Rogues’ Gallery: The Secret History […]