Hey, ladies who love flavored liqueurs -- good news! Pharrell Williams announced that he's releasing a vanilla-flavored spirit called Qream, and launched the female-friendly beverage at a giant Beverly Hills party last weekend. He doesn't explain the creative spelling, but he does give a bit of insight into why, as of late, he's focusing on Read More
Financial troubles at the iconic porn mag Playboy have led Hugh Hefner to invite ten strangers into his famous mansion. In an effort to increase sales of the magazine, which plummeted 34 percent last year, Hefner is hosting a Willy Wonka-esque contest in which ten "golden tickets" will be randomly distributed in Read More
It’s been three years since Nell Freudenberger quieted most of her critics with a sharp collection of short stories, Lucky Girls. And yes, it speaks to the unique pettiness of the literary world that she already had critics, despite the fact that her publishing history consisted of one short story in The New Yorker’s 2001 Read More
It’s been three years since Nell Freudenberger quieted most of her critics with a sharp collection of short stories, Lucky Girls. And yes, it speaks to the unique pettiness of the literary world that she already had critics, despite the fact that her publishing history consisted of one short story in The New Yorker’s 2001 Read More
If I Can Make It There …
To the Editor The allegedly influential people who were razzle-dazzled by Senator John McCain’s not-so-secret Regency Hotel pep talk [“Senator McCain Worked Blue on New York Stage,” Jason Horowitz, May 29] might want to pay attention to the rowdy crowd who booed and heckled him at the New Read MoreThe New Ride
“If it wasn’t for this snowstorm, we’d probably have more of the Beverly Hills crowd flying in, and it’d be even sicker. But it’s always pretty wild,” said Matt—he didn’t give a last name—the men’s-room attendant at the nightclub Marquee. He was dressed in a white three-piece suit for work, and his Read More
Bill Murray has two expressions: bored and cynical. He uses them both all the time, looking like an old baby spitting up sour milk, and the critics call it acting. Jim Jarmusch is a low-key, independent writer-director with one style—truncated vignettes like esoteric short stories, strung together with no narrative coherence and passed off as Read More
I will remember 2004 as the year I went on a date with Colin Farrell and got scorched by the inferno of his white-hot charisma. Our liaison, an epic tale of bleach, blood and bisexuality, proved to be every bit as emotionally draining as the tabloids had led me to believe it might be.
We had Read MoreThe Hollywood maxim should go like this: When your agent laughs at you, leave town. I know it firsthand. The place: Nate 'n Al's in Beverly Hills. The setting: an early-morning strategy session between me and my partner, Levien, and our agent. But the conversation never gets going. Each time the agent starts to talk Read More
Wednesday 18th
More proof that Manhattan-with more than 100 Starbucks, guys with thumb rings, swampy summer sunshine and bottle-blond publicists wielding German S.U.V.'s-is becoming just a more humid version of Los Angeles: This morning, fashion designers Bonnie Cashin, Oscar de la Renta, Giorgio di Sant'Angelo, James Galanos, Charles James, Donna Karan, Anne Klein and Pauline Read MoreA letter from the other coast: Your diarist is filing this dispatch from Los Angeles, where-to embellish a thought first voiced by the great S.J. Perelman-the entertainment industry celebrates our nation's most sacred Thanksgiving holiday by serving up a whole flock of fresh turkeys on movie screens across America. Wait a minute. Cynical? Did I Read More
When you're deciding on a restaurant, it's not unusual to get the urge for Chinese, say, or Japanese or Italian–or even something a bit more esoteric, such as Lebanese or Indian. But it's not often that one is overcome by a craving for Korean food (unless one happens to be Korean, perhaps). Yet Manhattan has Read More
Robert Bierman's A Merry War , based on George Orwell's 1936 novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying , turns out to be a labor of love that fails to capture the paradoxes and peculiarities of Orwell's uncannily prophetic vision. Even so, Mr. Bierman and screenwriter Alan Plater are to be commended for making the effort at Read More
There seems to be something of a Greek revival going on in midtown. I am referring not to architecture, but food. Hot on the heels of Molyvos, a rustic taverna that opened down the block a few months ago, comes Milos, all white, marble and high-tech, with ceilings 26 feet high.
"Very Beverly Hills," remarked my Read More