The Daily Transom | The New York Observer

DJ Cassidy's 28th Birthday Party Was Last Night—and He Still Hasn't Slept!

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:44:27 -0400

On the night of Wednesday, July 8, DJ Cassidy celebrated his 28th birthday at the New York Public Library with guests Funkmaster Flex, Jay-Z,
Estelle, Doug E. Fresh and other hip-hop heavies. Bobby Brown and Rakim put on special performances, and the DJ-to-the-president got an
extra-special cake from his father. Due to an embarrassing fall and subsequent busted knee, the Daily Transom missed the festivities, but
we caught up with the birthday boy the next...

Desperate Restaurants? Semi-Annual "Week" Will Probably Ooze, Like a Molten Chocolate Cake, Past Labor Day

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:39:26 -0400

At the Time Warner Center on the afternoon of Thursday, July 9, the cast of Hair will serenade New Yorkers in an attempt to drum up excitement for Restaurant Week—which is increasingly seeming like a misnomer for a semi-annual promotion that last January was extended a full four weeks past its initial run.
This season, the “week” is slated to last 19 days, with an option allowing participants to extend their runs until Labor...

Madonna Paid $32 M. for Mansion, More of a Bargain Than We Thought

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:13:37 -0400

Two deeds filed in city records Wednesday morning show that Madonna's very weirdly located new mansion officially cost $32 million. She bought the 12,000-square-foot house--where there’s a 38-foot-wide drawing room overlooking a garden; a formal dining room off a garden terrace; three pantries and two kitchens; two libraries and a sitting room; a parlor-floor dry bar and a “wine cellar/grotto” in the basement; plus, of course, a gym--last month, through a limited liability corporation...

From Hendrix to Intermix: Bleecker Retail Exits the '60s

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:46:41 -0400

“Think Jimi Hendrix, think Bob Dylan,” a man walking with a small cluster of tourists last week up Bleecker Street told his camera-toting followers as they continued northwest past Seventh Avenue.

“Think Marc Jacobs,” seems far more accurate today.

And now think LTJ Arthur, as the sleepwear company opens its third New York City location – the others are on Madison and in the Plaza Hotel – joining Intermix, Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs, and other...

Basic Blake

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:46:33 -0400

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Men's Health Columnist Saved by Bimmer; Kristen Johnson Gets Crafty

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:24:01 -0400

In one year, Mark Millhone’s younger son almost died from birth complications; his father was diagnosed with prostate cancer; his mother died from a heart attack; his dog bit his older son's face, leaving a scar; and his marriage to his wife, Rose, was slowly falling apart.

He bought a 1994 BMW on eBay: an attempt to escape from the life he was living.

Mr. Milhone—a filmmaker, screenwriting professor at NYU and columnist for Men’s Health—just...

Griffou's Wilde Past: West Village Restaurant's Ghost Guests Included Oscar, Twain, Tarbell

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:13:38 -0400

Faux classic is the New York restaurant flavor du jour, but partners in the new Hotel Griffou at 21 West Ninth Street hit authenticity pay dirt with a history-buff neighbor’s fortuitous tip.

Johnny Swet (former general manager of Bowery Bar, Balthazar, Pastis and Freeman’s); Larry Poston Jr. (formerly front-of-the-house manager at Town, Pastis and the Waverly Inn); Jonathan Hettinger (who had run a private-equity fund before managing Cafeteria in South Beach, Fla.); and Jesse...

Royal Chilblains? Baby, it’s Qu-qu-quogue Out There on Set of Hamptons Doc Dramedy

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:04:25 -0400

The new USA network series Royal Pains is all about the cool life of a concierge doctor serving the sun-splashed Hamptons. Emphasis on cool, astute viewers have noticed. Or put more bluntly: freezing cold.

Shooting began on location April 20. Malibu it wasn’t. “When we showed up at 6 or 7 in the morning, it was in the 30s and 40s,” said Jace Alexander, a director and producer on the show. “Actors had to...

Isn't it Quidditch? Son of Parks Commish Reenacts Rolling Caper

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:59:41 -0400

“Two ferocious teams have gathered here today, on this field, to compete in the greatest sport in history,” announced Alex Benepe, son of Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, at a muddy McCarren Park in Greenpoint last month as an MTV camera circled around him. After a dramatic pause, the young Mr. Benepe—looking like an old-time carnival barker in a black suit and striped tie, with a scepter in his hand and a squat black...

Holy Lolita! Hefner Hoovers Up First Serial Rights to Nabokov's Last Novella

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:46:27 -0400

Hugh Hefner’s Playboy has acquired the first serial rights to The Original of Laura, the final, unfinished novella of the late Vladmir Nabokov.

For years, Nabokov’s son Dmitri indicated that, per his father’s dying wishes, Laura would never see the light of day. Then last spring he had a change of heart and entrusted the super-agent Andrew Wylie to find a publisher. Knopf secured the rights for an undisclosed sum, and a publication...

No to Rachel Zoe: Budgets and Patience Shrinking, Stars Jettison Fame-Grabbing Stylists

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:39:58 -0400

Blake Lively, the tall, shapely, 21-year-old actress, wore a white, backless Roberto Cavalli dress to the opening of the Swarovski Crystallized store last week; a neon-pink strapless Michael Kors dress to the CFDA awards; and a fitted turtleneck dress to the Ralph Lauren show in February. These, everyone agreed, were good choices.

Her baby-blue, low-cut romper at the CW upfronts in May; the backless, one-sleeve, high-slit teal Versace number at the Met...

Bon Jovi Croons, Stahl Snoozes, Cristal Pops in Hoppin' Holiday Hamptons

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:29:46 -0400

To visit the Hamptons over Fourth of July weekend in 2009 was to enter a state of denial about any “global financial crisis.”

On Friday, July 3, business was booming at Savanna’s restaurant in Southampton—a favorite of effusive Real Housewife Ramona Singer. “The people that are running it are from T-Bar in the city, which I love,” she said. “The food, just so everybody knows, is great food now, and great service. Because that...

The Pretty Boys of Hollywood Snip Their Feminine Bangs

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:30:40 -0400

Two weeks ago, the Observer wrote about the New Male Beauty, a strange cultural shift initiated (in all likelihood) by the Hollywood image factory that has made many of our young leading actors practically indistinguishable.

With their wide-set eyes, narrow noses, rounded jaw lines and carefully placed strands of layered hair, these faces, we said, have become eerily feminine. (See Chace Crawford, Zac Efron, and Ian Somerhalder in our slideshow.)

And because these actors have an...

Nora Would Be So Jealous! Apthorp Slashes Condo Prices

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:39:45 -0400

The 32 condos available at legendary Upper West Side apartment house the Apthorp now start at $1,575,000—practically a steal!

Nora Ephron, the subject of an Ariel Levy profile in this week’s New Yorker and one of the building’s many famous former tenants, once reminisced over the magic of paying $1,500 per month for a rent-stabilized apartment at the Apthorp. The post-condo conversion prices may not be as big of a bargain, but they do...

Justin Timberlake Out With a Book Proposal on Golf

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:25:58 -0400

Justin Timberlake wants to write a book about golf! Sources say lit agent David Vigliano—who has recently repped books by celebrities like Shannon Doherty and Clay Aiken—sent editors a short proposal by the singer last month. Mr. Timberlake has been a golf fanatic for years, getting his first taste of the game as a boy and later playing it with a group of roadies during the last *NSYNC tour. Today, he regularly competes in...

Meghan McCain Visits New Museum Party

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:40:11 -0400

On Tuesday, June 30, a young woman in what looked like an off-the-shoulder slinky black jumpsuit and tall patent leather heels drifted into a party at the New Museum celebrating "The Generation: Younger Than Jesus," the triennial exhibit featuring 50 international artists under the age of 33 that ended on Sunday, July 5.

Other guests thought she was "nice" and "pretty" and "friendly." Then someone pointed out that the peroxide blonde in question, who was...

Ouch, It Hearst! Lydia Skips Her 4th of July Party; Gallstones Blamed

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:15:24 -0400

The door at the Social Life Estate party in Watermill on Saturday, July 4, was airport-security strict, allowing only 150 people inside. Guests circulating under the Art Deco–style lanterns strung around a large pool included Real Housewife Kelly Bensimon, clad in a white, floor-length dress; actors Parker Bagley and Nick Stahl (of The Terminator); editor Devorah Rose, wearing vintage Maggie Noris Couture, and publicist Kristian Laliberte. But there was one very noticable absence: hostess...

Marisa Noel Brown's Madoff-Tainted Townhouse Gets A Deal: $9.75 M.

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:40:21 -0400

"The five Noel women have made a name for themselves by shoring up the virtues of a nearly extinct aristocracy," said a 2002 Vanity Fair piece on Fairfield Greenwich Group founder Walter Noel's pristine daughters. "They’re well educated and well married, and they’re raising a pack of well-behaved, multi-lingual children while keeping their string-bikini figures intact ... with not a divorce or scandale among them." The scene was a lawn party thrown for youngest...

Are Danes and Dancy the New Tinz and Topper?

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:14:21 -0400

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Inside Nicholas Cage's Museum Tower Condo

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:25:47 -0400

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By Sheer Force of Wills, Brit Clothing Company, Silent Disco to Invade Hamptons

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:05:47 -0400

We may be celebrating our independence from the Brits this weekend--but no so fast! In a few weeks, an English brand called Jack Wills, sort of the Abercrombie and Fitch of the UK, will arrive in the Hamptons.

Over the weekends of July 24 and August 7, the company plans to throw so-called "Silent Disco" parties--those strange occurrences, born out of noise complaints and prevalent at music festivals and certain Williamsburg bars--during which everyone sways...

Nicolas Cage's $9.75 M. Museum Tower Condo Comes Back on the Market

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:56:15 -0400

Last November, Nicolas Cage put his 3,550-square-foot, 48th-floor, five-bedroom, two-unit apartment in the Museum Tower on the market for exactly one day: The $9.75 million condo was pulled once a reporter called the actor's broker to ask about it.

Eight months later, his apartment is back on at the same price. Its interior photographs are insanely great: The master bathroom, which has a tub and steam shower, is caked in lights and what seems to be...

Tinsley Mortimer's Hamptons Plans Include 'A Lot of Meat'

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:36:29 -0400

At Tinsley Mortimer and Elizabeth Meigher’s pre-4th of July party at the Samantha Thavasa boutique on Wednesday, July 2, socialites admired Ms. Mortimer’s handbag designs while discussing weekend plans for the forthcoming mass exodus out of the city.

“I’m either going to to Bridgehampton or my place in the Adirondacks,” Ms. Meigher said. “We have a small family island with no phone and no TV in the Adirondacks. If I go to the...

A Farewell to Hermes? Luxury Retailers Test Waters in Hamptons

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:24:53 -0400

As Manhattanites pack up their cars and zoom east on Friday, July 3, they will find Hamptons streets rather spiffed up, despite dire economic predictions.

According to real estate broker Faith Hope Consolo's retail newsletter, a branch of Michael Kors has opened at 55 Main Street in East Hampton this season. A couple of doors down, Hermes has moved in at 63 Main; a few more doors down, at 69 Main, Tommy Hilfiger has opened...

But of Corps! Marines, NYPD, Air Force Re-create 1920 Bacchanal

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:49:44 -0400

On Tuesday, June 30, members of the Marines, New York Police Department, Air Force and other guests gathered at the New York Athletic Club for Mess Night, the annual re-creation of an event held on Saturday, March 20, 1920, by the 9th ( Scottish) Division at Oddenino’s Imperial Restaurant on London’s Regent Street that was attended by Winston Churchill.

Guests started to arrive around 6 p.m., soaked by the unsurprising...

They'll Fly Away! South West Porch Opens in Bryant Park, Courtesy of Airline

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:10:37 -0400

Last night, jet-setting guests stood in the southwest corner of Bryant Park to celebrate the launch of the South West Porch, a new spot for hanging around and drinking and snacking, sponsored by South West airlines. Manhattans and ginger margaritas were served against a backdop of pedestrians and park-goers, waiting for Gold Digger, the Monday night movie, to start.

Tim Zagat (of the Zagatsdining guide) sat on a stool eating a hamburger,...

Georgica on Our Minds: Wainscott Road Restaurant Welcomes Sedate Set (And, Er, Sims)

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:48:22 -0400

The nightlife scene in the Hamptons has been strange so far this season. Southampton's Pink Elephant has filed for bankruptcy. Dune has turned into Axe Lounge as part of a disturbing summer-long sponsorship deal. Lily Pond hosts humongous sponsorship parties with the Hilton spawn. And Surf Lodge, while hip and crowded on weekends, can be intimidating.

One newcomer that sounded somewhat promising was the Georgica Restaurant and Lounge. Located on the Georgica Pond—a.k.a. land of...

Unreal Estate: Stalking Exotic Quarry in $24.5 M. Marble House

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:25:12 -0400

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Twelfth Night Premieres in Park; Theater Crowd Kvells for Its Summer Darling

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:52:04 -0400

On Thursday, June 25th, celebrities basked in the early evening sunshine at the opening night of Twelfth Night at Shakespeare in the Park. Playwrights Tony Kushner, David Hare and Suzan-Lori Parks; actors Candace Bergen and Patricia Clarkson; comedians Steve Martin and Martin Short; and broadcaster Diane Sawyer were just a few of the stars who showed up to the pre-performance dinner in support of one of New York City’s most beloved summer institutions.

Cowles and Consonance: On Eve of Retirement, Glam Gallerist Recalls a Lovely Life

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:36:02 -0400

On Saturday, June 27, Charles Cowles will close the art gallery he has owned for 30 years. “I joke with my friends that I better start learning to play solitaire,” he told the Transom in his signature growl during a recent visit to his immaculate, light-drenched, 9,000-square-foot Soho loft.

Mr. Cowles has covered one long wall of the loft with photographs, arranged “semi-biographically,” he said rather than in any kind of linear narrative. They...

Dishin' About Finance: Jonathan Adler Celebrates Brilliant Brother David's Book at Madison Avenue Store

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:36:29 -0400

On Thursday, June 25, revelers piled into Jonathan Adler's Madison Avenue store to celebrate the launch of his older brother David E. Adler’s new book, Snap Judgment (FT Press). The book is about our instincts with money, and when we should obey them or avoid them at all costs, no pun intended! "I could probably be a poster boy for the book," said 6-foot-4 Sopranos actor Alex Corrado, who seemed to feel a tad...

Celebrating Michael Jackson Online

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:08:22 -0400

Some highlights of Michael Jackson features, photos, videos, games and mixes—all available online.

- AP's interactive timeline of Michael Jackson's life.

- Time's Top 10 MJ Moments.

- Life covers featuring Michael Jackson.

- Rolling Stone's Michael Jackson covers.

- People's covers.

- An online archive of his magazine covers from all over the world.

- NYTimes.com's Michael Jackson Legacy Interactive Feature. Tributes from readers around the world.

- NYTimes.com's Michael Jackson's Billboard Rankings Over Time.

- A soundboard of his quotes.

- A...

Reed It and Weep: Legendary Lou, Velvet Underground Singer, Greets Groupies at Book Signing with Schnabel

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:54:44 -0400

Lou Reed, legendary frontman of the Velvet Underground, and Julian Schnabel, noted artist and filmmaker, were sitting at a rustic wooden table inside the Steven Kasher Gallery in Chelsea on the evening of Thursday, June 25.

The two longtime friends were there for a book-signing and cocktail party celebrating the forthcoming release of Berlin, a new collection of photographs taken during Mr. Schnabel’s filming of a tour Mr. Reed did in 2007 to revive his...

Socialites Shop For Opera; $125 Chanel!

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:26:08 -0400

By 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 24, a Divas Shop for Opera Shopping and Cocktails benefit for the New York City Opera, held at a "pop-up" shop on Madison Avenue, had turned into a fashion frenzy. Ravenous shoppers sprawled two floors, prowling the racks and grabbing Manolos, Louboutins, Dior frocks, and more. A dressing room even collapsed.

“This is always one of the best parties of the year,” said socialite and event co-chair...

Leggy Mormon Kristina Stewart Ward Sells Society Tome

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:30:26 -0400

Kristina Stewart Ward, who has covered society for Harper's Bazaar, Vanity Fair and Hampton Style, has sold a book to Harmony (an imprint of Crown Publishing), according to Publisher's Marketplace.

Described as "equal parts memoir and rollicking narrative of New York's 'end of the party,' charting Manhattan's recently ended 20-year run as a glittering boomtown and the glossy magazine world that covered it," the book is titled HI, Society.

It is the latest example of socialites cashing...

Gen Art Benefit Co-opted by MTV; Is No Party Safe From 'Reality' Cams?

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:15:39 -0400

Although Gen Art's 15th Anniversary benefit on the spacious 11th floor of 7 West 34th Street was admittedly thrown as a last-ditch effort to save the floundering organization, the mood was hardly desperate!

First to arrive was lovely New Zealand native Rebecca Taylor, with father in tow. The designer was wearing one of her own creations, a blue jumpsuit—“It covers all your sins! You don’t shave your legs—put on...

Child Cancer Movie, Premiering on Upper West Side, Bravely Faces Off Against Robots

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:44:03 -0400

There were plenty of sniffles at the premiere of My Sister's Keeper, a movie about a family affected by their only daughter dying of leukemia, at the AMC Lincoln Square on Wednesday, June 24.

Cameron Diaz plays the mother; Sofia Vassilieva the daughter.

“I know what it is to love very deeply,” Ms. Diaz said, wearing a white dress with a strap over one shoulder, “to the point where I would do anything...

Franco, My Dear: Literary Ladies Lapham Actor Up at Quarterly Reading

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:35:02 -0400

A few weeks ago, longtime Harper's editor Lewis Lapham's newish literary magazine Lapham's Quarterly invited its friends and subscribers to the Hungarian Culture Club in Soho on Wednesday, June 24, for a reading by the poet Frank Bidart and the actor James Franco from the magazine's new Travel issue. The appointed hour was sometime between 6 and 9 p.m. But after the event was featured in Page Six yesterday morning, and later picked up...

The Observer 100 Speak! Voices From the Party for the Most Powerful People in New York Real Estate

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:52:58 -0400

Just a random sampling of the boldface names that turned out on Wednesday evening at the Four Seasons for The Observer 100 party for the Most Powerful People in New York Real Estate: Paul Massey, Robert Knakal, Robert Tierney, Michael Bloomberg, Sheldon Silver, Donald Trump, Stephen Ross, Marc Holliday, Bill Rudin, James Cooper, David Arena, Amir Korangy, Jonathan Miller, Howard Lorber, Pam Liebman, David Walentas, Jane Walentas, Daun Paris, Peter Hauspurg, William Zeckendorf, Veronica...

Beautiful Boys

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:15:21 -0400

This week, we wrote about The New Male Beauty, an eerie new product of the Hollywood image factory. Our young leading actors have become increasingly indistinguishable--a series of slightly feminized faces flitting through romantic comedies and franchise action flicks. And there is a precise science to this face: the wide-set eyes, the narrow nose that flares up at the tip just so, the childish puffy cheeks and the not-too-rugged jaw lines, topped with carefully...

Beware! Bungalow Bungler is Back

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:27:17 -0400

We were a tad disturbed the other day when we picked up the phone at the old headquarters and heard a menacing, vaguely familiar voice on the other end.
“It’s Giovanni Luciano,” said the legendary Bungalow Bungler, whom I visited in prison upstate last year. “Yeah, I read the article you wrote about me. Yeah. I got out. I’m just down the block from The New York Observer.”

I...

Tad Friend Builds Buzz for WASP Memoir

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:57:32 -0400

On the evening of Tuesday, June 23, women costumed in Lilly Pulitzer coral and men in pink button-down shirts gathered at Elaine's to celebrate New Yorker writer Tad Friend’s memoir-cum-WASP history, Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of WASP Splendor, which will be published by Little, Brown in September.

Mr. Friend was clad in a distinctly non-WASP-y faded brown blazer paired with Vans. He described the book to The...

Did Dolly Lenz Do $522,473,436 Last Year? Maybe So, But Serena Boardman Is No. 1 [Updated]

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:58:35 -0400

Is Dolly Lenz, the only broker in the world with her own BlackBerry commercial, the single biggest real estate agent in the nation? Or is the quieter 39-year-old Serena Boardman?

Ms. Boardman, a Sotheby's senior vice president, takes the top spot in the annual list of the nation's top brokers that a group called Real Trends publishes in The Wall Street Journal. Ms. Boardman, whom other agents seem to actually like, which is rare, sold...

High Voltage, Couric's Fitness Buddy, Zaps Varick Street With 60th Birthday Party

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:10:26 -0400

The fitness guru High Voltage celebrated her 60th (!) birthday on Tuesday, June 24, at the eco-conscious Greenhouse nightclub on Varick Street. Ms. Voltage, born Kathie Dolgin, has run a program encouraging American girls to be active and healthy for eight years.

Children from the program performed a dance, then filed out as fresh fruit and Skyy Vodka bottles were laid out on tables.

“We work on bringing healthy foods into the schools for kids...

Eloise Is Other People: Parents Sneer as Plaza Pushes Thousand-Dollar Slumber Parties Themed to Its Mini-Mascot

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:34:11 -0400

Last week, the Plaza announced a pair of special packages in honor of their most famous fictional resident: Kay Thompson’s Eloise.

The Live Like Eloise Slumber Party Package accommodates six guests and includes a suite, a copy of The Eloise Guide to Life, Eloise DVDs, Eloise postcards, Eloise snacks, rollaway beds, and a trophy party for elementary schoolers, or, the hotel hopes, a “girls night” for adult women. It starts at $3,595.

The regular Live Like...

Deutsche Know? No We Didn’t! Bank Blindsides Would-Be Buyers of Worldwide Plaza

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:45:19 -0400

Deutsche Bank blindsided real estate investors George Comfort & Sons and RCG Longview on Monday, June 22, when they learned—just hours before the Wall Street Journal ran an item leaked by Deutsche through their broker Eastdil Secured—that the bank was backing out of its deal to sell a controlling interest in Harry Macklowe’s old Worldwide Plaza. Sources involved said even some Deutsche players were taken aback.

George Comfort and his partners had already made a...

The New Male Beauty

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:27:28 -0400

When Paramount Pictures decided to remake Footloose, the 1984 teen romance that made a young, lanky actor named Kevin Bacon famous, the studio looked to Zac Efron of the High School Musical trilogy. He could sing. He could dance. And most importantly, he could summon the teenage girls to theaters with one strategic toss of his swoopy hair.

But then Mr. Efron abruptly ditched the picture. He didn’t want to be typecast as the...

Achtung, Baby! Soho-cialites Palpate Pillows of Decor's New Damsel From Munich

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:50:17 -0400

Designer Zac Posen was peeking out from under a red-carnation-adorned brown fedora, trying to pick out his favorite item in the new design boutique Haus Interior on Elizabeth Street at an opening party on Monday, June 22. “It’s hard to see anything with so many people!” he said.

The store is the brainchild of Nina Freudenberger, 29, an alumna of the design firm Costas Kondylis and Partners (responsible for outfitting Lindsey Lohan’s luxury high-rise...

Gal-ographer Sheila Weller Scraps Michelle O. Bio, Sells Another on Power Broadcasting Trio

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:42:37 -0400

According to sources at HarperCollins, the author Sheila Weller has decided not to write a planned biography of Michelle Obama for the Collins division.

Ms. Weller, a contributing editor at Glamour and author of six other books (including one about the marriage of O. J. Simpson and Nicole Brown and a best seller called Girls Like Us, a three-way biography of Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon) was able to back out of the...

Leggo My Eggers: Author Snatches Back Wild Things Novel From HarperCollins Corporate Jaws

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:36:53 -0400

In late 2006, the Ecco Press imprint of HarperCollins acquired a novelization of the classic Maurice Sendak children’s book Where the Wild Things Are, by McSweeney’s editor Dave Eggers, conceived as a companion piece to the forthcoming Wild Things movie that Mr. Eggers co-wrote with Spike Jonze. The deal was announced a year later, with much fanfare, at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Talking about the project, Mr. Eggers seemed a little squeamish about having...