The New York Post announced this morning that I’ve left Bergdorf Goodman magazine after seven-plus years as its editor, having “aggressively transformed the once-catalog-like publication into an eclectic cultural forum.” It also went from a money-loser to a profit-making machine for the store after I replaced fashion-magazine-like promotion pieces on designers and merchandise with what I called “a commerce-free zone” of articles and portfolios designed to entertain the store’s sophisticated customers rather than sell stuff. The Post listed a few of the magazine’s contributors, but they all deserve a shout-out: So in no particular order, thanks to writers Jay McInerney, … Continue reading →

The updated paperback edition of Rogues’ Gallery will be launched May 5th at the Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn. Read about the event here.

The magazine rack next to the checkout line at Whole Foods in Columbus Circle has been replaced by a mountain of ale. Is this a message in a bottle to magazine writers and editors?

“Don’t you realize we’re just typists for plutocrats now?” — a 24-year-old reporter at one of the world’s largest news organizations, yesterday.

Tom Hoving makes a posthumous appearance on Page Six today with his new BFF and successor as Metropolitan Museum director Guy-Philippe Lannes de Montebello, who was known as Mr. Five Names when he ran an art museum in Texas. A nugget concerning Montebello’s appearance (above) at Hoving’s memorial early this month, it’s the first leak from the new afterword to the paperback edition of Rogues’ Gallery (out May 11).

I think books should have theme songs. This one’s for Rogues’ Gallery. Thanks to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

A note last night from Avatar co-star Stephen Lang‘s PR woman informed me that my much-publicized upcoming appearance on May 20th (at 6:30 PM) at the Katonah Museum and Katonah Village Library’s CrossTalk series, featuring two experts talking on unrelated topics, will not be with Lang, but with Academy Award nominee Patricia Clarkson. (All CrossTalk events begin with a wine reception at 6:30, followed by the program. Proceeds support children’s programs at the Museum and the Library, which will be the site of the talk. Prepaid reservations required; please call the KMA for reservations — $20 in advance; $25 at … Continue reading →

The updated paperback edition of Rogues’ Gallery will be published on May 11th. But there will be a sneak preview on May 5th, when PowerHouse Arena hosts the paperback launch party from 7 to 9 PM. Michael M. Thomas, the author, acerbic journalist and former curator of the Metropolitan Museum, will match wits with Michael Gross in a discussion of the book and the controversy it created. Join the fun at 37 Main Street, Brooklyn, NY Also, on Sunday May 2, 2010, Michael Gross will speak at the Arts Abloom festival, a benefit for the Briarcliff Library and Community Center … Continue reading →

In a provocative post on his literary web site, The Valve, William Benzon compares Shakespeare’s King Lear to the tragedy of Brooke Astor and her son, Anthony Marshall, both former trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art who experienced what can be gently termed image issues in old age. “In the end Anthony Marshall was sacrificed in a magical effort to maintain the Astor myth at face value,” Benzon concludes. “It’s as though Whomever was trying to deny Brooke Astor’s mortality, and her dementia, by insisting [that] Marshall did her in — there were, for example, unsubstantiated rumors [of] urine-stained … Continue reading →

Eleven months into the life of a book, surprises are usually hard to find. But Rogues’ Gallery earned two this week. One of New York’s finest book stores, Rizzoli on 57th Street, has put it in the front window (above, lower left) for the first time, and the Albright Memorial Library serving Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, PA, the hometown of the late Metropolitan Museum trustee Charles Wrightsman’s first wife, has recommended it on its blog, calling it “the compelling true story of the coupling of art with commerce (and mystery).”

No snark today. I’m just back from Tom Hoving’s memorial at the Temple of Dendur and it was a touching and happy event from the moment his daughter Trea Hoving (who organized the whole thing with her mother Nancy Hoving) stepped to a podium in front of one of those marvelous sprays of flowers (donated to Hoving’s Met in perpetuity by Lila Acheson Wallace) and said “Morning! I had the coolest dad!” In fact, I was touched even before I went inside by the honor guard the Parks Department placed out front, and another as guests walked through the doors … Continue reading →

Justin Force Lazard has been arrested and as of last Saturday was being held at Riker’s Island pending extradition to California. The son of ABC foreign correspondent Sidney Lazard and allegedly a descendant of the founder of the Lazard Frères investment bank, the former actor and Calvin Klein model failed to show up for his trial after he was arrested and had his mug shot (above) taken on July 4, 2006 for allegedly “exposing himself in front of numerous witnesses who were attending a public fireworks display at Library Park,” in Lakeport, California, the Lake County News reported last week. … Continue reading →

Google has changed its name. Happy April Fools Day.