JPS Gets Kempt
 Nov.
23, 2007 -- Apologies once again for the extremely
sporadic postings of late. We're working on it - seriously. In the
interim, however, you can now get a daily dose of JPS at Kempt, the new men's style blog from
the folks at UrbanDaddy.
In addition to the "Man of the
Hour" feature photographed by Patrick
McMullan, you can read JPS' musings on topics such as Aston
Martin's new convertible, American Gangster, The
Hives, Bob
Richardson, Agent
Provocateur and Savile Row legend Sir
Hardy Amies. Check it out now....
Dunn About Done at Snooze?
 June 3, 2007 -- Is Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman
shopping for his own ethically-challenged Brit editor to give the New York Post a run for its money?
The "Spectator" column of London's Independent on Sunday is
reporting that ousted News of
the World editor-in-chief Andy Coulson (right) was recently
offered the top spot at the Daily
News, which is currently occupied by "limp-wristed"
limey Martin Dunn.
Coulson, 38, a former gossip columnist for the London Sun, resigned from News of the World in January
after one of the paper's editors was jailed in the wake
of a Royal
phone-tapping scandal. The "Spectator" does not elaborate on
details of Zuckerman's offer, but Coulson turned it down in favor
of a
top public relations job with Britain's Conservative party last
week.
News of
the Coulson gambit, which has not yet been reported Stateside, calls
into question Dunn's continued tenure under notoriously mercurial
Snooze boss
Zuckerman, who's famous for blindsiding his editors. Of course, since
no-one else was hired folowing the departure of former News EIC Michael Cooke in 2005,
it's just possible Coulson was invited to work under Dunn -- for now.
Interesting to note that Coulson's replacement at News of the World, Rupert
Murdoch's trashiest and best-selling tabloid, is former New York Post executive editor
Colin Myler.
What
Goes Round... [The Spectator, fourth item]
Return to Gin Lane
May 11, 2007 -- Gin is
the new vodka. That is to say, having done every damn thing possible to
the humble spirit of the Russian muzhik, the liquor barons are
turning their attentions to the Mother’s Ruin of the English peasantry.
There are two notable new gins which we’ll assess in the confidence
that summer is in fact going to put in an appearance soon.
 For starters we have
“G’Vine” (left), the first gin to be distilled from grape vine flowers.
To begin with, the stuff is distilled in small batches with a blend of
nine botanicals: ginger root, licorice, green cardamom, cassia bark,
coriander, juniper berries, cubeb berries, nutmeg and lime. It’s then
blended with the flowers of the Ugni Blanc grape
(from France’s cognac region) and distilled again, resulting in a
“unique floral flavor.”
We’re not sold on this one, partly because of the unfortunate name and
bottle. But it might have appealed to Gerald Murphy, Scott Fitzgerald’s
friend and model for Dick Diver in Tender is the Night. When asked
what he p ut in his cocktails,
Murphy would reply, “just the juice of a few flowers.” The line was
later appropriated by writer Philip Barry (The Philadelphia Story), a frequent
guest of the Murphys at their Villa America, for Holiday (1938), spoken by Cary
Grant.
More appealing is Tanqueray’s new Rangpur gin (right). On travels to
India when they still owned the place, the British learned to “smooth
the edges” of their gin with a squeeze of fresh Rangpur lime. The
Rangpur, which resembles a tangerine, is as juicy as an orange but as
zesty as a lime. Add the requisite botanicals and you have something
worth sampling indeed. Bottoms up.
'Pop' Stars in Glass Houses
April 3, 2007 --
Looking through photographer Christopher
Makos’s beautiful new book “Warhol
/ Makos In Context”
(PowerHouse), we were struck by this snap of Warhol at
architect
Philip Johnson’s birthday party in June 1981. The setting is Johnson’s
famous Glass House
in New Canaan, CT. Warhol brought Johnson a birthday present, Makos
recalls: one
of his paintings wrapped in pages torn from Interview magazine. Katherine
Graham, Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein were also at the bash. 
The figures in the background of the image are somewhat reminiscent of
one of my favorite pictures: British photographer Bill Brandt’s Drinks in a Surrey garden (1938,
detail below).
 The juxtaposition of the famous pop artist and the icon of
modern architecture in its pastoral setting make it so compelling:
Warhol, in Brooks Brothers linen blazer, button-down oxford, foulard
bow tie,
jeans and a nautical-motif ribbon belt,
set against Johnson's architectural marvel in glass and steel.
The picture is particularly topical as the Glass House is soon to open
as a museum
under the auspices of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Johnson used the New Canaan property as a sort of architectural
laboratory; there are eleven structures on the site in all. For more on
what has been called an “industrial age Monticello,” pre-order a copy
of Toshio Nakamura’s lavish $100 tome “Glass
House," due out in May from Monacelli.
The Worst Bond Movie Ever?
 March
28, 2007 - There's been a lot of debate about which James Bond
movie is the best of them all. But what about the worst? Our vote goes
unreservedly to 1983’s Never Say Never Again, Sean
Connery’s last appearance as 007. The project was ill-conceived from
the start; a remake of 1965's Thunderball, it was also an
"unofficial" Bond flick, hence none of the classic characters (Q, M)
are played by the actors famous for those roles in the series. Connery
is a bit long in the tooth and seems somewhat self-conscious of the
fact, though he does manage a bit of the old panache. However Kim
Basinger as Domino Petachi is a pretty lame "good" Bond girl; Barbara Carerra as Fatima
Blush is a much better "bad" one, but her sequined harem pants are
distracting as all hell.
Bond doesn't get to drive a cool car,
just some dumbass motorcycle that can’t even shoot stuff, and his big
high-tech gadget is a Montblanc pen that fires an exploding bullet
(yawn). Much better is the special suitcase (right) Bond packs when
he’s forced to undergo a diet regimen at a health clinic – it’s full of
vodka, caviar, quail eggs and foie
gras, and we even spotted some tins of Gentleman's
Relish. He seduces a nurse with the aid of these luxury comestibles.
 We actually like Klaus
Maria Brandauer as the villain Largo, even if he is frequently
dressed in Yohji Yamamoto knockoffs (originally the part was supposed
to go to Orson Welles, who did play a Bond villain in the 1967 spoof Casino Royale). And Rowan Atkinson makes his
big screen debut as Small-Fawcett, the simpering British Foreign Office
man in Nassau (left). When Bond asks him if he's met Largo, Atkinson
replies, “Oh yes, he's charming.... I mean, foreign, but charming nonetheless."
 Blofeld, the SPECTRE
leader, talks and dresses like an inebriated Freudian psychologist,
though we like his skull video phone. As usual, the bad guys steal some
nukes and threaten to blow shit up. There's a goodish bit when Bond
strolls around Largo’s top-secret control room in a bathrobe while
sipping from a martini (right), though there's an unfortunate hint of
the retiree in his manner.
 There's a lamentable tango scene at one point between
Basinger and Connery, and at the end she appears in an emetic
tiger-print bathing suit that's supposed to be sexy because the tiger's
mouth is over her crotch. Carrera easily bests her in the scene where
she water skis up to the dockside bar where Bond has just ordered a
cocktail (left). "How reckless of me, I made you all wet," Fatima says
after careening into Bond's arms and mussing his linen. "Yes," he
replies, "but my martini's still dry."
Later they do it in the hold of a ship and then she tries to shoot him
in the nuts; unfortunately he gets her with the trick Montblanc first.
Too bad she didn't put him out of our misery.
Back in BlackBook
March 24, 2007 - My good
friend Steve Garbarino is really hitting his stride at BlackBook. The travel-themed
April / May issue (below), Steve’s third since he was brought on to
revamp the mag, is about to hit stands, and it’s a doozy.
 He's
breathed new life into the once gloomy glossy, to say the least. The
images, ads, buzz and especially the text – he’s brought in great new
writers like rocker/author Mike
Ruffino and the New York Observer’s
Spencer Morgan and George Gurley (who did the cover story on gorgeous Grindhouse star Rose McGowan) –
easily outstrip glossies that operate on ten times
the budget. When you pick up a copy you'll remember what it's like
to actually read a magazine
instead of just flipping through it.
The best part: yours truly is BlackBook’s
Literary Editor. Check out my monthly books column “One Night Stand”
and my review of Dana Vachon’s brilliant new novel Mergers & Acquisitions in the April issue. Also don’t miss
Steve’s epic quest in search of elusive To Kill A Mockingbird author Harper
Lee, and ex-Pulp star Jarvis
Cocker’s mordant back page “Black List” of the things that irritate him most in life. We’ll
never shop for broccoli the same way again….
Bruce Wagner Does It Again
 Jan
1, 2007
— Followers of this admittedly sporadically-updated site know I’m a big
fan of Bruce Wagner. His brilliant L.A.-centric oeuvre is an antidote
to an industry town that takes itself far too seriously. Wagner is an
acid-penned Virgil guiding us through the inferno of Los Angeles in
brutally lustrous, lusty and luscious style.
I’m only partly through his latest opus, Memorial
(Simon & Schuster), and once again I’m blown away by Bruce’s
brilliance. If Nathanael West had lived to see 50 he’d have counted
himself lucky to produce as much incandescent prose as Bruce has. He
and his pal James
Ellroy are single-handedly keeping L.A. interesting
and alive as a cultural entity in a landscape blighted with Tom Cruises
and Paris Hiltons.
As an added bonus, Memorial
is beautifully designed. This picture
does not do it justice – the tactile pleasure of it can only be
appreciated in 3D. If you have any sense at all you will buy it now.
[link to
this story]
Delicate Dance-ing with the Times
May 23, 2006 —
Reading the New
York Times Clinton story today – the one about how he tomcats
around with his fluffer Ron Burkle - we thought something sounded
familiar. Turns out the headline is a real old chestnut, as a
little research shows.
Here’s a list of alarmingly similar NYT headlines over the years. The
Times has employed the phrase some 85 times in articles since 1981.
We’ve heard of “dirty dancing,” but what the hell is a “delicate dance”
anyway? Like “Swan Lake” or some shit? A headline sampler:
(Pictured below, Slick Willy & nubile NYU-er Rachel on
board Burkle's private jet, "consulting" on Yucaipa)
 For Clintons, Delicate Dance Of Married and Public Lives (5/23/2006)
Delicate
Dance for Bush in Depicting
Spy Program as Asset
(1/23/2006)
For Muslim Women, Marriage's Delicate Dance (1/8/2006)
Delicate
Dance For Musharraf In Nuclear
Case (2/8/2004)
Gadgets as Gifts: A Delicate Dance (11/21/2002)
A Delicate Dance of the Interventionist and the Reluctant
Internationalist (10/12/2000) [say
that five times fast]
The Long, Delicate Dance With Chinese Leaders (10/7/1999)
P.S. – we’re sure this
headline was written as “Delicate Dance” originally also, but no
doubt it was
just that one word too long…
Welcome to Yesterday
 May
21, 2006 — Our
good
pal, and former Page Sixer, Ian
Spiegelman's new book Welcome to Yesterday is finally
on sale. Publisher's Weekly calls it, "A searing look at the world of
professional gossip." We call it damn good, and not only because the
character based on us has more than his fair share of great lines.
Hurry on over to Amazon,
laggards and get reading. (
Also check out his hilarious interview in Ad Age.)
Skull & Bones by Jared Paul Stern
 May
5, 2005 -- We have a
new venture. Skull & Bones by Jared Paul Stern is devoted to making
high-quality clothing for men and women in adventurous colors with a
unique prep-punk sensibility. We pay attention to detail, and place an
emphasis on fit, creating clothes that are subtle yet eye-catching. We
believe in being well-dressed but never boring. Visit the site and check
out pics from our Skull & Bones tie collection preview party.
"Body" Building
November 29, 2004 --
Heidi Klum has thanked us, in a roundabout way, for putting her on the
map back in 1997 when she was just another big-titted Teutonic
temptress trying to make the scene. We were working at Page Six at the
time on the model beat (and are still, for our sins) and had been
getting calls from Desiree Gruber, publicist for Victoria's Secret,
about their hot new girl.
 She
sent us some pictures and we had to admit Heidi had a certain
something, namely physically impossible proportions. Hence, "The Body".
We wrote it up. Once she made Page Six the rest was history, as
recalled by Heidi in her new book, Heidi Klum's Body of Knowledge.
There was actually no screaming 20-pt. headline, but call it creative
license.
[Link to this story]
Brooke Astor and Little Black Sambo
November 9, 2004 -- We
just got our copy of photographer Mark Peterson's brilliant new book, Acts
of Charity (PowerHouse).
Peterson has a gift for capturing the look
of diabolical
merriment, the satanic gleam of insidious privilege on the mugs of
so-called "high society" types, that eludes most photographers who
cover charity balls.
Check out this photo of frosty Vogue editrix Anna Wintour, and her big
bucks beau Shelby Bryan, with Isabella Rossellini in 2001.
And this snap of a fellow with a drunk girl over his shoulder at one of
those Bridgehampton Polo bacchanals. Buy the book to see the rest; as
you can tell, it's well worth it.
Don't skip author Phillip Weiss' intro, either, which contains a
hysterical anecdote about Peterson’s profile of Brooke Astor for the
Times. Peterson accompanied the grande
dame to a public school in
Harlem where she presented a check for $5,000 before a group of kids in
the library. Then she asked the kids if they'd read her childhood
favorite, Little
Black Sambo. Whoops.
[Link to this
story]
Archives
© 2004 Three Martini Publications Ltd.
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Shelf
Life
Riviera
Cocktail by Edward Quinn (TeNeues). Remember when movie stars were
still truly glamorous? Remember when Cannes didn't suck? When Hitch,
Cary Grant and Grace Kelly made To Catch a Thief in Monaco and
she
ended up marrying that prince? Now we've got Jennifer Aniston and Vince
Vaughn. What a rip.
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[Archive]
Porn
stars Paris Hilton and Tera Patrick at the Svedka Vodka Erotica Reading
Series at Cain, Tues. Nov. 23 & other party pics