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Robert Pattinson On The Lonely Life Of A Teen Heartthrob

2009-11-02T16:11:21Z

"Twilight" heartthrob Robert Pattinson graces the December cover of Vanity Fair. Inside, the brooding Englishman talks about auditioning for his star-making role, his lonely life, and his costar Kristen Stewart, with whom he's been linked in the tabloids.

The press release is below, and more pics from his VF shoot are here.

NEW YORK, N.Y.--Robert Pattinson tells Vanity Fair contributing editor Evgenia Peretz that the rumors of his secret relationship with Twilight co-star Kristen Stewart are untrue. "It doesn't make any difference what you say [to the tabloids]. I've literally been across the country [from Kristen], and it's like 'Oh, they were on secret dates!' It's like 'Where? I can't get out of my hotel room!' " As for Stewart, she sounds significantly more fed up about the whole thing: "It's so retarded," she tells Peretz. "We're characters in this comic book."

For the record, Pattinson insists that he and Stewart are really just "good friends," and that he deeply admires her. "I think she's the best young actress around," he tells Peretz. "She's influenced how I've done all the Twilight stuff. It's quite nice to have someone who is genuinely indifferent to the whole spectacle of everything."

Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke tells Peretz that the young co-stars shared major chemistry while filming. "What Rob and Kristen had is a multitude of feelings for each other. Complex feelings for each other. It was what we needed. Complex, intense fascination."

Before his Twilight audition, Pattinson tells Peretz, he had never read the Twilight books, had been "getting drunk for a year," felt like a blob and dreaded having to take his shirt off, which the audition required of him. Having nothing to lose, he went in "a little more brazen than I would have been in a normal audition." Recalling one of the scenes he did with Stewart, on Hardwicke's bed, in which he and Stewart have a passionate but aborted kiss, he says, "I was still in the mode thinking, I've got to make this really, really serious. This is not just a sexy thing.... I was slamming my head against the wall and kind of going nuts." He was sure he had made a complete ass of himself. "I remember calling my parents and saying, 'That's it. I'm not doing this anymore.' And then hearing, 'O.K., fine,' which was not the answer I wanted to hear at all."

Hardwicke tells Peretz that people at the studio had their doubts about casting Pattinson as Edward Cullen. "They called me up and they literally said, 'Catherine, do you think you can make this guy look good?' So I said, 'Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to get his hair back to a different color, do a different style. He would work with a trainer from now on. My cinematographer is great with lighting. He will study the cheekbones, and I promise you, we'll make the guy look good.' "

Of his newfound fame, Pattinson tells Peretz, "I'm trying not to drown." He continues: "I guess I'm not the type of guy cut out to do a franchise. I'm not much of a crowd person."

Peretz describes Pattinson as self-conscious and self-deprecating, constantly apologizing for being boring, for telling you a story you might have read somewhere else already, or for the mess in his hotel room. "I'm unbearably self-conscious about stuff," he admits. He tells Peretz that he thinks he resembles "a cartoon character," and that one of his legs is longer than the other, which makes him look "like an idiot." Of his brief stint as a model, he tells Peretz, "I was such a terrible model. I was really tall but still looked like a six-year-old."

Pattinson tells Peretz that there was a point before Twilight where he almost gave up on acting. "I was going to all these auditions and telling everyone how I got fired [from a play in London's West End] because I stood up for my principles, and making up all this bullshit.... I kind of went nuts for a while." He couldn't land another job, stopped talking to his agent, and began performing with a guitar in bars. It was a scene, he recalls a little ruefully, in which "no one gave a shit when you got up onstage."

As soon as he decided to put acting behind him, another role came his way and changed his mind: a BBC thriller called The Haunted Airman, in which Pattinson got to be in a wheelchair and act like "a weirdo. I just changed my whole opinion about everything." The role was one of many out-there characters--or "weirdos," as Pattinson says--that the actor has made something of a specialty. When you play a weirdo, he explains, "you can always have an excuse.... He's a weirdo!"

The December issue of Vanity Fair hits newsstands in New York and Los Angeles on November 4 and nationally on November 10.

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Leslie Goldman: The Naked Truth Behind Binge Eating Disorder

2009-10-28T18:57:04Z

Here in the blogosphere, we talk a lot about body image and eating disorders. About wildly airbrushed models and glamourized anorexia and bulimia and post-baby bods. But one topic we haven't lent much word space to is binge eating. Despite the fact that BED (Binge Eating Disorder) is America's most common eating disorder, affecting more people than anorexia and bulimia combined (1 in 35 women struggle with it, and those are just the ones who are diagnosed), the disease doesn't generate the kind of media coverage it deserves. Because it's messy. It's scary. It's complicated. Anorexia is nearly lionized by our society, representing the ultimate in strength and control. And the result is a thin woman which let's face it, is what grabs headlines these days. BED (and bulimia, to some extent) is pushed aside and ignored, like a suspicious-looking mole that we might pretend isn't really on our shoulder because if it was there, it might be cancer, and cancer is horrible and we just can't deal with such a thing right now.

But just because you ignore something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. That's where Sunny Sea Gold comes in. For you magazine devotees, her name will look familiar because she's the health editor at Glamour magazine. But what you likely don't know is that for years, starting around age 14, when her parents began the kind of fighting that ultimately ended in their divorce, Sunny struggled silently with BED. The kind of struggle that led her to sneak into her family's kitchen late at night, where she'd quickly slather multiple pieces of bread with butter and peanut butter or pile a plate high with chips and cheese for makeshift nachos. One night, she found herself perched on top of her "German shepherd's doghouse in the middle of the night, a can of frozen orange juice concentrate in one hand, a spoon in the other, crying and scooping the syrupy stuff into my mouth until it was almost gone." As she recalls on her new website, HealthyGirl.org, "I thought I was a pig, and a freak, because I couldn't stop this weird, secret, uncontrollable eating. I started wearing big, baggy sweaters or sweatshirts over leggings to hide what I thought was an unacceptably fat body. When I ate seven candy bars in a row one afternoon, I knew there was something desperately wrong. That's when my mom sent me to Mitch, the family counselor both she and my dad had been seeing throughout their divorce. He gave a name to what I had been doing: compulsive overeating-what's now also known as binge eating disorder."

Sunny was kind enough to answer a few questions for Huffington Post readers; check out her answers below, then bookmark her website for your new go-to source for support and information if you have battled or are currently battling BED. If nothing else, I hope her bravery in stepping forward to break the BED silence opens your eyes to the fact that you are not alone in your struggle, and you absolutely can -- and deserve to -- get better.

You've written that you don't believe looking at skinny models caused your eating disorder, as you were sneaking cookies and wondering if you were fat before you even knew what a model was. Now you work for Glamour, a major fashion and beauty magazine. What is it like now, as a real woman working in an environment where models are constantly walking by your office?

"Honestly, I wish every single woman could spend a few days behind the scenes at a magazine like Glamour. Sure, I see lines of models walking in on casting days. And sure, they're beautiful. But I've learned that it's really just a job. Those girls are like any freelancer with a talent, trying to hustle up enough gigs to make ends meet in NYC. In other news, not all of the models who come through our office are super-thin -- I'm sure you've heard that we're including lots more sizes of models in the magazine these days! As someone who helps girls and women who overeat and as an advocate of body love, I'm so excited. But I won't pretend that it wasn't a bit hard when I first walked through the doors of Glamour magazine as a twentysomething girl with binge eating disorder. Surrounded by successful, interesting, smart women, I thought that I was certainly the only one who struggled with food this way. But the "glamorous" women who work here turned out to be just normal, nice girls with real bodies and issues of their own. "

What was it like working for the magazine responsible for introducing model Lizzie Miller to the world?

"Fabulous! I was so proud of Glamour. We were all in love with that photo of Lizzie, so we weren't surprised that the readers loved that image. But we were surprised at just how strongly they reacted. That photo being in an iconic magazine like Glamour really hit a nerve -- and like our editor in chief said, the magazine is responding to what the readers want from us. What they need. Which is to see a wider variety of body types in magazines and all media."

Recent research has shown that binge eating disorder is actually twice as common as anorexia and bulimia combined. Why do you think it still receives so little attention in the media?
"I've got a couple of theories. One is that, let's face it, stuffing your face and gaining weight isn't glamorous. We're accustomed to seeing people who are disciplined and thin as strong and self-controlled. But there's a stigma about over-eaters and those who are overweight, as if they just "don't have enough will power" or are lazy. That is so not the case of course. There is a lot of emerging research which suggests that binge eating has a genetic component. Beyond that, emotional eating is a coping mechanism that some people develop in response to difficulties in life -- just like people pick up alcohol or drugs, obsess over relationships, or overspend. Throwing yourself into food makes you numb for a while, and can actually help some of us get through trauma. Gratefully, I don't need those binge behaviors anymore. They started hurting me more than they helped and I've replaced them with healthy coping tools like Pilates, group support meetings, writing and even a little meditation. And I've dropped 30 pounds in the process. That's why I started HealthyGirl.org, to help other young women get the support they need to start healing their minds and their bodies."

What kinds of emotions used to fuel your binge eating? And how did you feel during/after the binge? Did the eating ever provide relief, or just continued the cycle?
"For me it was mostly anxiety. I'm a driven person, and have high expectations of myself, care a lot about my work and my friends and my family -- I want to do everything right and be a good person. That means pressure. But it wasn't like something tough would happen at work and I'd immediately dive into a bag of miniature Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. The binges would sneak up on me. The little things would build up for a few days or even weeks until BOOM, I found myself eating frosting out of a can. (For real.) Right before a binge, my mind would sort of go blank, and I'd eat quickly and mechanically. I literally felt like an eating machine. After, I was too full and tired to feel much of anything except some heartburn and guilt. And that was the point: I used the food to delay feeling my real emotions. But eventually, the binging stopped working and I'd feel my emotions anyway, plus the queasiness and disappointment. I had to do something about it."

Do you believe people can fully recover from eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia or binge eating disorder, or is it more like alcoholism, where you can abstain from the unhealthy behavior, but it's always, in a sense, ingrained in you?

"I absolutely consider myself recovered from binge eating disorder, which by definition means binging on a large amount of food twice a week. But I'm still, by nature (and genetics I believe), an emotional eater. Sometimes when I'm stressed, tired or anxious, something deep inside me still cries "EAT!" But now I have the tools to be able to abstain from that unhealthy behavior -- and most of the time I use them. I will literally pick up the phone and call a friend or read a few passages in an inspirational book. Or spill my guts to my new husband! (We just got married five months ago.) Once in a great while, I do still slip and misuse food, but it's not destructive anymore. Just two weeks ago, for example, I was nervy about something or other and had a few errant spoonfuls of peanut butter straight from the jar. I didn't beat myself up over it -- but I also didn't throw my hands up in the air and say, "Oh, I slipped up, so I'm going to just go all out and binge now!" A few measly spoons of pb is nothing compared to what I used to consume during a real binge. When I was a hardcore binging teenager I used to dream about the day when I'd be at peace with food and my body. For the most part, I'm there -- and I am so incredibly grateful."

To read more about Sunny and her HealthyGirl.org site, click here.

For a list of Sunny's top picks for the best emotional eating or weight loss books, click here.

For help with BED:
Binge Eating Disorder Association
National Eating Disorders Association
Overeaters Anonymous

Lucy Danziger, Self Magazine Editor, Trades Car Service For Bike

2009-10-26T08:46:35Z

Conde Nast has cut back, closing four magazines and asking the surviving ones to slice their budgets by about a quarter. So Lucy Danziger, the editor in chief of Self, has taken a step unlike any other editor and -- horreur! -- given up the car service that has been a longtime perk of senior management.

As the editor of a fitness magazine, Ms. Danziger chose to bike to work instead.

Isaac Mizrahi: "Fashion Needs To Be More Fetishistic"

2009-10-26T08:34:19Z

Isaac Mizrahi's clothing line may be getting ... kinky.

Joanne Lipman: The Mismeasure Of Woman

2009-10-24T09:32:43Z

For the first time, women make up half the work force. The Shriver Report, out just last week, found that mothers are the major breadwinners in 40 percent of families. We have a female speaker of the House and a female secretary of state. Thirty-two women have served as governors. Thirty-eight have served as senators. Four out of eight Ivy League presidents are women.

Great news, right? Well, not exactly. In fact, it couldn't be more spectacularly misleading.

Lesley M. M. Blume: Grace Coddington Talks Unconventional Beauty, Too-Skinny Models, And Her "Unpopular" Wardrobe

2009-10-22T10:50:33Z

As the creative director of Vogue, Grace Coddington might have the best job in fashion. While Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour has been making the magazine powerful over the last two decades, Coddington has been making it beautiful.

When The September Issue - a documentary about Vogue - recently came out, fashionistas were thrilled that the spotlight had finally swung around to highlight Coddington, who, unlike her boss, is famously publicity-shy. Yet since 1987, Coddington has been the mastermind behind some of the magazine's most definitive, lavishly imagined photo spreads -- many of which resemble luxurious "dreamscapes" and visual fairy tales.

Do you recall the fantastical 2003 Alice in Wonderland spread, featuring model Natalia Vodianova as Alice and designer John Galliano as the wild 'Queen of Hearts'? That was Coddington's baby. Or that divine Brassai-inspired 1920s-in-Paris spread? Coddington again.

'Little Red Riding Hood,' Vogue, September 2009. Photograph by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott; edited by Grace Coddington. Courtesy of Vogue.

This week, Coddington spoke at an event held in her honor by the New York Public Library's Council of Conservators. Although she appeared endearingly nervous when she first took the stage, Coddington's well-known resolve ("Usually Anna has the good ideas; I just interpret them and try to change them") shone through as she discussed her life's work.

Below is an edited transcript of her comments, in which she discussed the genius of photographer Irving Penn, weighed in on the recent Ralph Lauren photo-shopping controversy, and deliberated how celebrity culture may be changing the fashion industry forever.

* * *

On her earliest contact with Vogue, while growing up on a remote Welsh island:

"As a young girl, the one thing I looked forward to beyond anything was going to the bookstore to buy a copy of Vogue. It arrived three to four months old. I always looked at the pages and dreamed. I used to sit on the rocks and look at the sea, and it was good to think there was a life after this."

On her early days as an aspiring model:

"I used to hang out on the King's Road [in 1960s London] in bare feet and hope that someone would notice me."

On her preference for unconventional beauty in models:

"I was never your average pretty girl. I'm not blonde. And I guess one always goes for people of your own type. I like models with personality, that are as different as can be. Like Penelope Tree ...[or] Kristen McMenamy [or] Stella Tennant."

On a recent photo spread she directed, depicting a couple whose life is drearily dominated by technology:

"At one point, I got obsessed with Twittering and texting ... I'm very passionate about life and want people to focus on what they're doing. People [today] have the attention span of about ten seconds. There's so much to see in life. I like to sit on the subway and look at the people. Every day it's different; every day there are different people ... You just have to keep your eyes open all the time."

On how she draws pictures at runway shows instead of taking notes:

"I'm not very good with words. I'll write down 'red dress' and then later I can't remember what it looked like. So I draw everything I see coming down the runway. It helps me remember the show. But when I used to go to couture shows [while I was] at British Vogue, you were not allowed to do that ... it was against fashion law. There was a release date on which all pictures of the show would come out, and you were not allowed to draw let alone photograph the clothes on the runway. But I somehow got away with it."

On the famous Helmut Newton shot depicting model Nadja Auermann acting out the myth of 'Leda and the Swan':

"Helmut ran the [idea of the picture] past Anna, and I kept thinking, "They're never going to run it." Helmut told her, "Well, I'll need a swan," ... and we went ahead with it and [at the shoot] unpacked the swan. Nadja said to Helmut, 'What do you mean, you want me to lie in bed with this swan?' So Helmut showed her how: he lay on the bed and spread his legs, and told her, 'Hold the swan here.' It is the only time I've ever wished that I had a camera with me."

On photographer Irving Penn:

"It was one the great joys of my life to work with him. He had a tiny, tiny studio, minimal lights, minimal people. Everyone was very focused and he produced these extraordinary pictures. I don't know how he did it ... He was the last of those great photographers like Avedon and Helmut and all those guys; I'm sad to see them go ... It's our challenge now to find more and more and something different [and] I know we'll find another way, but there will never be another Penn."

Grace Coddington. Photograph by Didier Malige. Courtesy of Vogue.

On photographer Bruce Weber:

"He taught me so much about America, [and gave me] a whole new way of looking at things. He was really responsible for scrubbing everyone's faces, for fresh-looking women who you could touch, making them look vulnerable."

On photographer David Sims:

"He's much younger than me, and it's a challenge. I have to keep on my toes and be modern and keep up with him. He'll talk for three hours about a white background and I'm trying to go along with him and understand, and then we end up with a white background. But I could do the same shot with a different photographer and it wouldn't look the same. He has that undefinable modern edge."

On the eras she most likes to re-create:

"I love the fifties, forties, and thirties. I like the periods before I stared my working days. As soon as I was living that period, I wasn't interested. I hate the '70s and loathe the '80s."

On her predominantly black wardrobe:

"I'm not popular for that. I want a clean palate. I don't want to think about what I'm wearing in the morning; I want to put all of my focus on the clothes I'm shooting. It's like a uniform. You don't have to make a decision about it. I spend my whole life making decisions."

On the recent Ralph Lauren controversy, in which the company retouched a photo of a model that made her torso look narrower than her head:

"Most of Ralph Lauren's models are not super skinny: this is an isolated situation and I think that it's unfair that he's getting bad publicity for it ... You ask, 'Can't [models] just be normal sized people?' They have to be thinner than you and I, because you always photograph a little fatter ... [But] it is a big problem. I remember when I was modeling and I put on some weight, and they said to me: 'Lose weight or you don't do the show.' I'd spend the week not eating anything and just drinking coffee. I was eighteen or nineteen.

"But these days, the problems are coming with kids that are very young and very vulnerable ... you don't have to go to the extremes they go to. And because they're kids, they take it too far, and they can't regulate their lives, and next thing you know they're anorexic, and it is tragic. And I don't know what the answer is, except to keep on it, which we're all trying to do ... Personally we're not allowed, at Vogue, to work with girls who are very thin, but you never know, because you could book them and think they're a certain size, and they turn up on the shoot and suddenly they've spun into this anorexic situation. And you're on the spot and you have to get the job done and you have one day to do it, and what do you do? But you try to be responsible."

On how celebrity culture is affecting the fashion world:

"I have the reputation of not working with [celebrities] ... I just feel more comfortable working with models because I can push them around. But I do work with them; I took Keira Knightley to Africa and you have to like someone to do that. [However,] I hope it doesn't go completely to the celebs because it will kill off the models, but it's not my call. It's all your call. It's what you all are asking for."

On the fashion world in general:

It's a crazy world we live in. It's so fun. I hope it goes on forever. Or at least as long as my lifespan, anyway.

The transcript above is an edited conversation between Grace Coddington and Vogue editor Jay Fielden at a New York Public Library event ("Close-Up on Grace Coddington") on October 20, 2009.

Adam Lambert Goes Hetero, Tongues Girl For Details (PHOTOS)

2009-10-20T15:32:07Z

***Scroll down for photos***

Adam Lambert is on the cover of Details, and inside he impersonates a heterosexual in an awkward photo shoot.

He also talks about coming out, losing his virginity and having an acid-fueled epiphany at the Burning Man Festival. Here are some highlights:

You can read the whole Details interview here.

On kissing women:

"I am gay, but I like kissing women sometimes. Women are pretty. It doesn't mean I'm necessarily sleeping with them."

On his "Cajun" 24-year-old mystery boyfriend:

"I like 'em smaller and younger."

On connecting with his fans:

"A lot of times I'll pick up a bra and play with it during a song. It's a way to connect. It's like, 'I threw my bra up onstage and you're spinning it around. Cool. Yay.'"

PHOTOS:

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Conde Nast To Sell Magazine Issues As iPhone Apps

2009-10-20T15:25:25Z

Conde Nast is introducing a slick platform for selling, displaying and enhancing its titles' regular print issues on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Issues rendered for the iPhone screen will sell as apps, starting with this December's issue of GQ, priced at $2.99 in the app store.

Michael Henry Adams: The Black Elite Meet Uptown

2009-10-20T10:06:09Z

Mounting the serpentine stair, emerging into the dimly lit cavernous hall, one was embraced by the ever louder sonorous sounds of Sonatas by Chopin. Billed as Collections, Spring Season 2010, Harlem's Fashion Row, the showing of creative apparel I attended Thursday night was extraordinary! There surely could not have ever been a lovelier or livelier paced event held in the city.

Nor for that matter, is there a fiercer rebuke to Lara Stone and French Vogue's insensitive defamation of people of color via the notorious blackface skit, masquerading as a fashion spread, in the journal's October issue.

Held at the Gatehouse, a late Victorian industrial building-turned performance space, the show featured the elegant work of Dinna Soliman, wildly experimental offerings for men by handsome Haitian native José Duran, design-team-sisters, Lialia, and the incomparable Epperson.

Audrey Smaltz and Epperson

Every bit as chic and arresting as anything viewed in these collections, was the raiment of the fashionable, diversely-multicultural and inter-generational audience.

Such hats and coiffures, such precious paste jewelry, such fabulous frocks and marvelous shoes, all made one optimistic, for a change, that allure and glamour are not yet extinct!

And, as if one needed for that notion to be underscored, at the very end, as all of the show's models formed a tableau vivant, a bouquet was thrust at high-fashion-icon Stephen Burrows, smiling shyly, as the crowd stood to pay respectful tribute.

What strides this masterful man made in the 1970's, dressing Cher, Diana Ross, Lauren Bacall, Liza Minnelli, Jerri Hall, Lauren Hutton, Barbara Streisand and Farrah Fawcet.

What a moment of triumph, for the entire nation, occurred in 1973. During a benefit fashion extravaganza at the Palace of Versailles, which juxtaposed French and American designers, deploying a lithe contingent of black models who stepped down the runway in his sensuously diaphanous sheaths to a disco beat, Burrows stopped and stole the show! Providing opportunities to models that were heretofore overlooked or underutilized, Burrows helped to boost the careers of Norma Darden, Pat Cleveland, Alva Chinn, and Bethanne Hardison.

Mr. Burrows was accompanying our mutual friend Veronica, whose Harlem boutique from the 1990's is sadly missed.

Fortunately Montgomery, who was seated nearby, still presents the latest in hot-high-style from her shop on Seventh Avenue to satisfy the discerning.

"Where are Michael Mc Collom, Emil Wilberkin, Ludget Delcy, Malcolm Harris, Tyson Perez, Lloyd Boston, Kirk Shannon-Butts, Gordon Chambers or Andre Leon Talley," I asked that ultimate fashion authority Michaela Angela Davis, about a group of well known style-stars? Michaela, whose denunciation of American Vogue's virtual "black-out" and French Vogue's blackface monkeyshines are so admirable, answered, "I don't know! I think Michael is under the weather, but they are really missing out. This is a memorable evening."

Nodding in agreement I marveled at the 'magical' element of it all, striving to make a mark in New York. No matter who one is, even afforded the most ideal circumstances, it's usually a challenge to succeed here. But, all in all, is that struggle automatically greater if one is an African American?

"Often life is harder if you are black," said my friend Senait Asfaw, a comely and cultured woman who is quite unassuming, despite being an African princess. "But then, at other times, like tonight, being black can be quite beneficial!"

Senait was referring to the serendipitous way in which I had secured our invitation to the presentation. Heading home on Convent Avenue, last Saturday I was stopped by a young man. "Mr. Adams, I don't know if you remember me? I had dinner at your house with our friend Kevin Bright a few years ago."

Some well organized host may recall every stranger brought to dine, but ordinarily, I do not. But, as it had been a small gathering, with my artist friend Kevin, of whom I'm so fond, I did recall Randal Jacobs. A stylist/ designer from the small parish of Gadsden, Alabama, he politely, but annoyingly, always addresses older people like me as "sir, or, "Mr. Adams." "I've been trying to reach you, so that you can come to our show," he said with an earnest grin.

Embossed on the thickest Crane paper, his invitation was impressive enough, except in New York, one frequently takes such niceties for granted. Hence the pleasant, reoccurring miracle of the city, when something expected to be indifferent, turns out to be spectacular!

Here in diminished black Harlem was the best event in town. It is enough to make one wonder aloud if blacks were better off when segregation here was more straightforward and blatant? "In some ways, yes," said my friend Sophie Jonson as the princess and I listened engrossed !

"One better knew where one stood and if we were excluded from white magazines, clubs, stores or fashion shows, we had our own. But no," she continued, and we agreed, "Equal opportunity; that's the promise of America! Moreover, when one competes, one must compete with everybody -- that's the only true way to access excellence."

Biding Sophie a good night, tiring momentarily of such serious talk on a cold drizzly corner, jumping into a taxi, we raced uptown to feast on Cuban sandwiches and chicken soup. Refortified, we then went next door to No Parking, to flirt with the charming barman and dancers and to marvel at our good fortune.

Foodies Mourn Loss Of Gourmet

2009-10-19T08:57:11Z

NEW YORK — Foodies noshing on jerk riblets and carrot cake macaroons at a Manhattan fundraiser Sunday paused to mourn Gourmet magazine, which is closing after nearly 60 years of publication.

"It's a terrible tragedy for the food world to have squashed this very important voice," said Kemp Minifie, who was Gourmet's executive food editor until Conde Nast announced that the magazine's November issue would be its last. "We were tackling some of the hard issues in food, and now there's just fluff."

Thomas W. Carroll: Mayor Bloomberg's Record on Schools Key Issue in Campaign: "Portfolio" Approach is Central Feature

2009-10-15T11:04:51Z

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's record as an education reformer continues to be a central issue of the New York City mayoral campaign, a race in which his challenger is Bill Thompson, the president of the New York City board of education in the pre-mayoral control days.

One of the central differences in how the public school system is run now under Bloomberg with mayoral control (vs. how it was run under Bill Thompson under the old board of education) is the concept of viewing the school system as a "portfolio" of schools rather than as monolith of schools run centrally.

The idea of a "portfolio" of schools was popularized by Tom Vander Ark and Jim Shelton, both formerly the architects of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's education grant-making. Vander Ark, now a partner in Vander Ark/Ratcliff, remains an influential force in educational circles; Shelton joined the Obama administration to run the Education Department's $650 million competitive Innovation Fund, known by the shorthand i3.

A new study by the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington highlights New York City as the purest form of portfolio management among the four cities it studied: Chicago, New Orleans, New York and Washington, D.C. The study was funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Joyce Foundation.

The concept, borrowed from the private sector, had obvious appeal to Bloomberg. But it is hard to underestimate the tremendous psychic break it signaled from the prior way of doing business, which was widely viewed as overly political and too often corrupt.

The study, lead by Paul T. Hill, explains:

Creating a portfolio district requires a big and often wrenching change, from an emphasis on controlling inputs to an open search for better ways to use teacher skill, students' time, technology, and money. Many things traditional school districts were originally built to do (for example, centralize control of spending, hiring, and teacher assignments and make lifetime commitments to staff; and standardize instruction in all schools) are at odds with operation of schools by diverse providers and replacing schools and staff that do not perform.

Some critics of Bloomberg and Klein, most notably education historian Diane Ravitch, have faulted the dynamic duo for an almost obsessive focus on management reforms (to the exclusion, Ravitch would argue, of important curricular decisions). But, such critics underestimate the power of the paradigm shift that Bloomberg and Klein have executed.

The cornerstone ideas inherent in the portfolio approach embraced by New York City, according to the Hill study, include:

* The school, not the district, is directly responsible for instruction and must therefore have the freedom of action necessary to adapt its use of time, money, talent, and instructional materials to meet the particular needs of its students;

* Differences among schools are good and necessary as long as they represent efforts to meet distinctive needs of groups of students, take advantage of special teacher talents, or represent disciplined efforts to try out new ideas; and

* Schools' existence and freedom of action are contingent on performance, so that every school is under pressure to improve and the district as a whole is constantly searching for a mix of schools that will better meet the needs of the city's population.

None of the four cities studied have implemented these concepts perfectly, each making accommodations for local conditions and political constraints.

These four cities are not the only ones pursuing a portfolio approach. Other smaller cities include Denver, Hartford and Oakland. And Los Angeles, when it voted to put 250 schools out to bid to nonprofit charter operators and others, moved decisively in this direction as well.

The implications of the portfolio approach are significant. For example, a portfolio approach is not consistent with standardized master union contracts that limit flexibility and variability.

In New York, the "school-based option" within the master contract allows the faculties of individual schools to opt out of work rules of the master contract, but this is an imperfect and limited solution to a much broader problem with standardization, especially in a public school system as large as New York's.

Frustration over New York's union contract has fueled a dramatic growth in nonunion charter schools in the City. Because of a charter's greater flexibility, founders of new schools are more likely to pursue the charter-school option than the unionized alternative-school model birthed in the 1970s in New York City.

Klein has been especially aggressive, as part of his overall portfolio approach, in courting the highest quality nonprofit charter operators to open new schools in New York City. He also has encouraged highly successful operators of stand-alone charter schools to replicate their success within the City.

Mayor Bloomberg recently upped the ante by calling for a doubling of the number of charter schools in New York City and an ambitious goal of 100,000 charter-school seats by 2013. The Bloomberg administration has yet to figure out a mechanism to finance the construction of enough seats to meet that target, but few doubt Bloomberg's and Klein's determination.

Inevitably, a portfolio approach leads to controversial school closings -- it's not an approach for timid mayors or school chancellors. Swapping a lower performing school for a higher performing school is at the core of the portfolio approach -- but, as New York Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is intimately aware, often prompts intense union and neighborhood opposition.

The Hill study, largely descriptive of the new portfolio approach in the four studied cities, does not suggest the evidence is in yet on whether this approach will assuredly lead to higher results system-wide. And, in New York City, where the frenetic mayor and chancellor are implementing multiple improvement strategies simultaneously, it's hard to disaggregate the discrete impact of each reform.

Grade inflation in New York state tests has allowed critics to claim that the Bloomberg/Klein reforms have not made the advertised progress, especially with NAEP scores suggesting the state's overall progress is essentially flat.

But, statistical comparisons of City schools to public schools in the rest of New York State make clear that New York City's schools increasingly are outpacing schools in the rest of the state, and by widening margins.

What's indisputable is that increasingly school reformers are looking to New York as an example of the possibilities of change, instead of as an example of a big-city school system bogged down in political meddling and corruption. The shift to a portfolio model -- a paradigm shift often unremarked within the City -- is a big reason why.

Vogue Layoffs: Conde Cuts Hit Fashion Magazine

2009-10-15T01:14:31Z

As expected, Conde Nast executives are swinging the layoff ax around the fabled magazine publisher. Today's cuts are at Vogue, where I'm told at least six people have been let go from one of the company's best-known titles.

New Yorker Hires New Senior Editor While Conde Cuts Elsewhere

2009-10-14T14:00:13Z

Nick Trautwein, an editor at Penguin Press, has just been hired as a senior editor at The New Yorker.

Stephen Gyllenhaal: Patriotism, Wall Street, You and Me

2009-10-13T14:28:49Z

I have just finished reading a quite amazing piece in Vanity Fair: "Wall Street's Near Death Experience," by Andrew Ross.

An astonishing piece if only half of it's true, and I suspect much more than half is correct. It chronicles in a very personal way what happened with the key players as the markets were melting last fall. It sheds a harsh light on the absolute entanglement of Wall Street and the government. All the players in that story are still fully in charge under Obama and fully bonused out to boot. No changes whatsoever have hit their part of the world. Not one.

What is perhaps most chilling about Ross's piece is both how human these people are and how inhuman. They call themselves patriots at one point and it's such a strange term to use as they openly pilfer the US Treasury to sort out their own horrific mistakes. But I believe they believe they are patriots. I believe that Geithner, Paulson, Immult, Hoyt et al believe they were (and still are) doing the right thing. I believe they were (and are) in real pain, like humans are, like I find that I am when facing complex decisions.

They were familiar to me in Ross's article in every way as humans except that they were talking about billions and billions of dollars - lost, stolen, and found. Billions of dollars that they were trading for others and then - when that failed - taking from the taxpayers, demanding those lost and stolen billions from the taxpayers representatives (former - and now in many cases, again - players on Wall Street). They ultimately got those billions from our government.

Actually, they got trillions.

But nothing has changed in that system that lost those trillions because these guys are just humans like you and me. They failed then, as we too often fail. They're going to fail again soon because they didn't fix the engine, they just covered the car with a very expensive coat of paint and they're telling themselves - like they told themselves they were patriots - that the car can go back on the road and do 120 easy, that the Stock Market can go back over 10,000 again (thanks to all that taxpayers still unaccounted for cash) even as places like California sink into the sea for want of that cash.

Is this patriotism?

It's well worth reading this piece to experience that it was all about saving their faulty companies (and their own soft skins), not saving the United States. And I guess we aren't patriots either if we stand by as these frail and frightened humans continue to visit tyranny on this Republic that our forefathers set up with such skill, bravery and humanness.

Marshall Fine: Interview: Nick Hornby gets Naked about Education

2009-10-13T08:34:21Z

Compact, wearing jeans and a gray t-shirt, Nick Hornby admits he knows a thing or two about a fan's obsession with an artist's work.

"When someone says they've read your book 15 times, you think, well, you should read something else," he says, discussing a theme of his newest novel, Juliet, Naked. "That's partly where the book came from. I started getting confused. But I realized that, in saying that, you're denying someone their emotional connection."

Hornby, 52, is sitting in a Manhattan hotel suite, ostensibly to discuss An Education, the Lone Scherfig coming-of-age film that opened Oct. 9 in limited release, for which he wrote the screenplay. But he's also got a new novel, one that touches on some of his favorite topics and some new ones: rock'n'roll, the problems of romantic love and the demands of family relationships, the push/pull between artist and fan, the role of the Internet in helping to promote the obsessive dissection of one artist's work.

Juliet, Naked focuses on a couple, Duncan and Annie, living in a dreary British seaside town. Approaching middle age, Duncan spends all his spare time focused on an obscure rocker from the late 1970s, Tucker Crowe, who disappeared in the early 1980s. When a collection of solo demo recordings of the songs from Crowe's seminal album, Juliet, is released - called Juliet, Naked - Duncan posts a gushing review on the Crowe website. But Annie, by this time fed up with Duncan, posts a review of her own, saying the opposite - and winds up in an email correspondence with Tucker Crowe himself.

One of the book's running jokes is that, while Duncan and his fellow "Croweologists" endlessly discuss and analyze every wild rumor about Crowe's activity, they haven't a clue what his life is really like. And they're obsessed with a paparazzi photo of a wild-haired man - obviously angry at having his photo taken - that they believe is Crowe, when it's not.

"Partly I was thinking of J.D. Salinger, the greatest recluse of all," Hornby says. "I think of that famous photo of Salinger, which was kind of frightening because of how disturbed he was. And then it came to me: What if that wasn't really him?"

The book was also inspired by a 2007 Vanity Fair piece, in which writer David Kamp tracked down musician Sly Stone, long MIA from the rock'n'roll wars. Having tried for years to arrange an interview with the reclusive Stone, Kamp actually met up with him in Vallejo, Ca., for a long talk.

"He' d been a fan for a number of years and that was the narrative thrill of the piece," Hornby recalls. "Sly didn't show and didn't show and suddenly there he was. Someone appears in front of you who has disappeared - that's definitely an element of this book."

Does Hornby - who has written extensively about his own rock'n'roll passions in novels like High Fidelity and the nonfiction Songbook - have a Tucker Crowe of his own, someone whose work he's pored over to glean every last microbe of meaning and goodness?

Continued...

For the rest of this interview, click HERE to reach my website: www.hollywoodandfine.com.

Brian Alexander: An Elegy for Magazines

2009-10-12T16:00:31Z

Surely many other people made some mental link between the recent deaths of Irving Penn and Gourmet magazine, and the general doomsday atmosphere surrounding the magazine world. No doubt many of these people are smart and have eaten many more lunches at Michael's than I have eaten (zero), but I can't help butting in now because Penn was something of a personal hero to me and because, though I don't think I have ever held a copy of Gourmet in my Spam-stained fingers, I thought of it like I think of Paris' Hotel Crillon; I've never stayed, but I'm glad it's there.

I love magazines. Not all magazines, I suppose, but the good ones. My magazine love is not rooted in the fact that I write for them, the fact I write for them is rooted in my love for them. I love them because they are both more ephemeral and immediate than, say, Michelangelo's "David" or Welles' "Touch of Evil," but art just the same. As the New York Times obituary reported, Penn's first cover for Vogue was of a still life featuring a cigarette holder and various accessories arranged just so. How about that. Gourmet's editor Ruth Reichl once hired David Foster Wallace to write for her and he came up with 6,000 words (!) on lobster death. She ran it, God love her.

A good magazine is a combination of stories, photos, drawings, opinions, reporting, whimsy, humor. It is an art that is not reproducible nor replaceable by any other medium. At their best magazines are not "content," they are objets.

Yet they cost just a few bucks a piece. Imagine that. Imagine what you get for your money. You can travel to places you aren't likely to visit, meet people you are not likely to meet, learn about some topic you may never have wondered about but there you are, reading about it, because a magazine has delivered it to your eyes and packaged it in such a way that you wind up enlightened or amused or outraged. I have never, not even once, worn a formal gown. But the image of Lisa Fonssagrives in her black dress, holding some roses, speaks volumes about beauty, aspiration, possibility, desire.

Many people seem to think that anybody can do these jobs. I suppose this is true. Any literate person can write. Anybody with a point-and-shoot camera can take a picture. What magazines pay for, however, are voices. Irving Penn had a voice. Gay Talese has a voice. Ian Frazier has a voice. When I see the photographs taken by a friend, Bill Abranowicz, in a magazine, I can almost always tell it's one of Bill's images because he has a voice. When I see one of my wife's images in a magazine (yes, we're a two media career family; you'd think one of us would have had the sense to marry an M&A lawyer) I know it's hers before seeing the credit line because I know her voice. Magazines deliver such voices better than any other medium.

Yet magazines have been committing a slow-motion seppuku because they've lost confidence in their voices. The Internet and celebrity culture have intimidated them into draining some depth from their craft then throwing it out into the digital universe rather than treating it as the special form it is. They have abandoned much of what makes magazines great by trying to compete with the instantaneousness of the Internet and by reflecting the culture back at itself rather then creating it.

Take a look at past issues. I have a small collection from about 1930 through the late 1970s and taken as a whole, the art and writing were, generally, better than what readers are being offered today. There was much less caving to minor celebrity, much less dependence on cover lines to sell newsstand copies, much longer pieces inside, more story telling. Modern editors and publishers all say they love Gay Talese's "Mr. Sinatra Has a Cold," but who would assign such a thing today, to say nothing of running a novella-sized article? Could Irving Penn find enough assignments to stay afloat today? I wonder.

The Internet does some things well, but the best magazines are simply not translatable to the Web because they lose their essence when they are sliced and diced. A magazine is not just the one story you might want to read, it's the story and the images you didn't know you wanted to read, but that thing is in your hands and you're flipping pages and you are arrested by a picture, or a headline or a first sentence.

Yet magazines have been giving much of their best craft away for free on the Internet because gurus -- including Conde Nast's own Chris Anderson -- say everything is supposed to be free now. Well, tell that to the bank that holds my mortgage. Work deserves compensation and putting out a good magazine entails a helluva lot of work.

I have never understood this subservience to the Internet. Maybe this is why I've never lunched at Michael's, but I am increasingly convinced I am not wrong about this. If you make Vogue, or Esquire, or Outside, or Harper's Bazaar or any other magazine worth the price by collecting the best, most intriguing, most artful voices you can, and presenting them artfully, you have created a thing worth possessing. So by God charge that price. If you think you're creating the best magazine you can make, then treat it as the precious thing it is and people will come to you because they'll want to hear the voices they can't hear anywhere else. Advertisers will return. On the other hand, if you don't think your craft is worth paying for, then don't put out the magazine. Go make shoes or bullets or a cell phone that opens your garage door.

Beverly Wettenstein: No Women Featured in NY Comedy Festival! No Joke!

2009-10-11T13:38:57Z

We're With The Banned: Cracking The Crass Ceiling

The New York Comedy Festival ad features ten men and no women.

Broadly speaking, comedy is, obviously, still a male-dominated bastion within the entertainment business. The Primetime Emmy Awards showed that women writers on a comedy or variety series are a rare and endangered species. Only seven of the 81 writers were women. There are no women writers on Leno (of 19), Letterman (of 14), and O'Brien (of 16). Colbert has two women of 14 writers. The Daily Show has one of 16. Samantha Bee is a busy worker bee and a "correspondent." "Saturday Night Live" has five women of 22 writers.

LOL: Larry Summers School for the Advancement of Women

Historically, some men have difficulty accepting women comedians. The Larry Summers School for the Advancement of Women should hire Tom Shales, Christopher Hitchens and Jerry Lewis, to teach "Why Women Aren't Funny." The three wise men opined as much in the Washington Post, Vanity Fair and at the Aspen Comedy Festival, respectively.

Shales, Washington Post TV critic, wrote that ex-SNL "Michaela Watkins may have been just too classically pretty to be hilarious." Lewis told the Aspen audience in 2000, "I don't like any female comedians" and couldn't think of one who was good. He only viewed women as baby-making machines.

SNL announced two new women for the 35th season to much press attention: Jenny Slate and Nasim Pedrad. Just hours later it was reported that Casey Wilson and Michaela Watkins were gone. Does SNL have a female quota? Is their comedy calculus: addition = attrition? The two new women are "featured performers," rather than full repertory players.

Kristin Wiig was SNL's MVP Iron Man last season, earning the most screen time of any cast member, with 124 sketch appearances. She is currently the only official woman cast member.
Plus, she has seven feature films in development. And she is beautiful. Please explain, Mr. Shales.

Having joined as a staff writer in 1997, Tina Fey's term as SNL's first woman head writer (1999-2006), coincided with the most women cast members in regular performing roles in its history: Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph and Rachel Dratch. Much to her credit, Fey teamed with Poehler, to create the groundbreaking "Weekend Update" all-women anchor team in 2004. The dynamic duo proved they were not "Mean Girls" and sparked no cat-fight messages in the media. When Fey started on "Update," there hadn't been a woman anchor since Jane Curtin in the late 1970s and she was not afraid to promote her BFF Poehler. In fact, the two newest women are troupers from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, co-founded by Poehler.

Kudos to Fey and Poehler for empowering women, following decades of male-dominated sketch comedy. Fey and Poehler know that women succeed when they are responsible for their own material. They play comedic roles, perform standup and write and direct films and TV shows. Fey's "30 Rock" was nominated for a record 22 Emmy awards. She was named the AP Entertainer of the Year in 2008 for the greatest impact on culture and entertainment. Poehler is the lead star on "Parks & Recreation."

Timing is everything in comedy and in life. SNL mirrors the advances of women in society. In 2002 Ana Gasteyer was their first on-air pregnancy. The TV management "suits" have matured since the 1950's when the word "pregnant" was forbidden and Lucille Ball was asked to hide behind furniture, which she refused to do. The fact that nine-months pregnant Poehler posed as Hillary Clinton was a non-issue. Her absence and baby's birth were announced on "Update."

Now that SNL has accepted the pregnant pause, perhaps they may consider hiring a Black woman to play Michelle Obama and other women newsmakers and celebrities? Do they think it adds to the levity to dress men in drag or is there a women shortage? I don't communicate with Eleanor Roosevelt very often. But I do think of her and her personal equal opportunity employment act when I see a man playing a woman on SNL. Upon learning that women reporters were not admitted to the National Press Club where newsmakers spoke, Roosevelt held regular news conferences exclusively for women reporters and photographers, thus creating jobs for women. You go, girl!

Actually, in the first season in 1975, the original SNL cast was equal with three women (Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman and Gilda Radner) and three men (John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and Garrett Morris) and Chevy Chase was promoted to "Update" anchor from writer. By 1993, the ratio was three women to eight men. Janeane Garafalo quit halfway through the '94-'95 season because of the male writers who "didn't write for women."

Chicago's Second City improv-sketch troupe, an SNL talent feeder incubator, only allowed two women on a six-person improv team into the '90s. Fey and Poehler are alumnae.

This is Wanda Sykes' banner year. Her HBO special just aired and "The Wanda Sykes Show" will debut in November, at 11 PM, against SNL. Sykes was the featured entertainer this year at the White House Correspondents Association dinner. This annual event honoring the president is a prestigious gig with the nation's dignitaries.

Traditionally, even though women were fully-accredited White House reporters and members of the association, they were barred from attending the dinner. Prompted by Helen Thomas, for the first time in 50 years, women were finally admitted in 1962 when President John F. Kennedy agreed not to attend unless the women did. Thomas was inducted as the first woman WHCA president in 1975.

The old boys club network is alive and, well, begrudgingly coming into the 21st century at The Friars, the premiere club for professional comedians and entertainers. Founded in 1904, Liza Minnelli was admitted as the first official woman member in 1988. This followed the Supreme Court upholding a New York City statute that barred discrimination at large private clubs. Previously, women couldn't join or enter the Townhouse before 4 PM to attend the notorious stag roasts.

Sally Jessy Raphael was the first officer (Prior) in 1999. Previously, women were honored but could not join. Sophie Tucker was the first woman roasted, in 1953; followed by Martha Raye, 1954 and Lucille Ball, 1961.

Joy Behar was the first woman Roastmaster, at a tribute for Danny Aiello in 1997. Rita Rudner was the first woman performer at a Roast for Chevy Chase in 1980. Phyllis Diller, dressed as a man in a suit, wig and mustache, attended the 1983 Sid Caesar Roast, because women were not allowed. She was outed at the end of the event and honored at her own roast in 1985. Diller was the first woman inducted into the California Friars Wall of Fame in 2001. Last year, at the behest of Behar, the Friars named one of its chambers for a woman, Lucille Ball. Currently, women comprise 20 percent of the Friars membership.

Women need to showcase their talent to survive and succeed in the comedy business. Barbara Walters first saw Joy Behar at a benefit for Milton Berle's 89th birthday at the Waldorf Astoria. Walters then invited her to audition for The View. Behar just debuted her nightly talk show on HLN. Her co-hosts on The View include comediennes Whoopi Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd, who stars in her own show on Lifetime. Goldberg was the first woman and fourth honoree to win the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2001; Lily Tomlin won in 2003.

More Than Chick Shtick: "Seinfeld" Without Elaine? Get Out!

Imagine Seinfeld without Elaine. Get out! Actually, Elaine was not in the first show but executives insisted they add a woman to the cast by the second episode. Would an all-male cast have become the same audience success story without her? Not!

Liz Lemon told Oprah on 30 Rock that she hates her feet. Nora Ephron told the world that she hates her neck. It took Elle Woods' life experience in Legally Blonde to solve the murder case. Her Harvard Law colleagues didn't have a clue about women's hair treatments. Chris Rock parlayed that message into a feature film. Maybe the sexes can learn to live together and better understand each other through humor and women comedians?

One of the challenges for women comics is that society expects good girls to be well-behaved and to act lady-like. Comedians have to be aggressive and take control of the audience. The boys who were the class clowns and spent more time in the principal's office than the library are now making big bucks for their antics. Not to pooh pooh Winnie-the-Pooh, but the first new authorized female character believes that everyone should follow the correct etiquette. Lottie the Otter will be more like Martha Stewart than Martha Raye.

It's easier for women to get to the moon than to get a network late-night talk show. Conan O'Brien and Craig Ferguson had no experience as late-night talk show hosts when they were given their shows. Ferguson had not performed stand-up for ten years and had a strong Scottish brogue. O'Brien was an unknown SNL comedy writer with little performing experience. Joan Rivers was the first and only permanent host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. When Rivers learned that she wasn't on the list to replace Carson, she accepted the offer to host her own late night talk show to launch the Fox Network in 1986. She was fired six months later.

The talk show format is a cheap alternative to scripted TV and yields self-contained YouTube-friendly takeout promos. As viewers migrate away from appointment network TV, cable should create new opportunities for women. But the old boy network ways persist. The Daily Show was co-created by Lizz Winstead and Madeline Smithberg in 1995. Winstead was also the head writer. Then host Craig Kilborn made an offensive remark about her in Esquire in 1998. He was suspended for a week. She left the show soon after. Chelsea Handler has her own late night talk show on E!

Only two women comedians were listed on the Forbes "100 Celebrity" list: Ellen DeGeneres, Power Rank #40, $35 Million Pay and Tina Fey, #86, $7 Million Pay.

She Who Laughs, Lasts: "50/50 in 2020"

Last month more than 200 women met to hear a panel address and outline a "50/50 in 2020" initiative to advance women in the theater business. Three sponsors are taking the lead: the League of Professional Theatre Women, the New Perspectives Theatre Company and the Women's Project.

In 2007 Oxygen presented the "50 Funniest Women Alive." There are women who are ready, willing and able to perform at comedy festivals. They can turn the world on with their smile... and spunk.

Stand Up For Women In Comedy! Parody and Parity Proposals

1. Action! Organize a meeting during the New York Comedy Festival, November 4-8, to focus on "The State of Women in Comedy Today," to become part of the media coverage and raise public support. Since there is no professional organization for women comedians, create one or develop a Comedy subcommittee of the "50/50 by 2020" project or another industry-related association.

2. Produce a counter "Funny Femme Festival" during the New York Comedy Festival to showcase talented women comedians, become part of the media coverage and raise public support.

3. Distribute this treatise and contact the New York Comedy Festival.

4. Submit your comments and suggestions here.

5. Stay tuned. Watch this space for announcements and progress reports. Thank you.

See Beverly Wettenstein's PBS interview on youtube.com.

See Beverly Wettenstein's Letter in the NY Daily News, Sept. 4, 09
nydailynews.com/opinions/

See Beverly Wettenstein's Letter in the NY Times Science Times, July 21, 09

_________________________________________________________________________

"Celebrate Women Every Day!"

October 13

B. 1901 Edith S. Sampson First Black woman elected judge, in Illinois, 1962.
First Black woman named UN delegate.

1905 English suffragists Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney arrested.
Women over 30 got the vote 12 years later; all women in 1928.

B. 1925 Margaret Thatcher First woman Prime Minister in England and Europe, 1979-1991.

B. 1969 Nancy Kerrigan Olympic silver medalist, 1964; Oksana Baiul, 16, won gold medal.

1986 Rita Levi-Montalcini earned Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Source: Beverly Wettenstein's "Women in History and Making History Today
- 365-Days-A-Year Database"

Marissa Bronfman: Phenomenal Photography: Vanity Fair , Steichen and Leibovitz

2009-10-09T18:50:35Z

Toronto has been blessed with two new wonderful exhibitions offering a photographic feast for the eyes: the Royal Ontario Museum's Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913-2008 and the Art Gallery of Ontario's Edward Steichen: In High Fashion, the Conde Nast Years, 1923-1937. Ensconced in the ROM's dazzling new addition, the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, Vanity Fair Portraits showcase iconic images from Steichen's work as the magazine's chief photographer from 1923 to 1936, as well as from famed photographer Annie Leibovitz's work as Vanity Fair's principal photographer, a role she has occupied since 1983. The AGO, recently redesigned by famed architect Frank Gehry, is displaying over 200 Steichen photographs from the 1920's and 30's that forever influenced fashion photography and immortalized leading writers, artists, actors, dancers and politicians. These unique exhibits are not-to-be-missed delights.

(The Art Gallery of Ontario)

(The Royal Ontario Museum)

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Vanity Fair's modern-era magazine and the 95th anniversary in 2008 of the magazine's founding, Vanity Fair Portraits is the first major exhibition to unite the magazine's historic archive of rare vintage prints with its contemporary photographs. Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair said, "I'm especially proud that the Vanity Fair Portraits will be making a stop in Canada, and at the Royal Ontario Museum, no less. It's a wonderful institution -- a place I remember fondly from my childhood." The ROM is the only Canadian venue to display the exhibit, and this is the first showing in all of eastern North America.

(Vanity Fair Portraits Exhibit in the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal)

The mixed-media approach at the ROM is particularly successful in representing the trajectory of the magazine and illuminating just how much work goes into creating a beautiful and iconic photograph. Vintage and modern editions of Vanity Fair are displayed alongside three short films showing behind-the-scenes footage from photo shoots directed by Steichen and Leibovitz. The Leibovitz films are particularly interesting to watch, as she is known for her elaborate, expensive and painstakingly composed shoots, however I felt disappointed (and naïve) to discover the extent to which she uses Photoshop and frankly, a little less impressed with her photos.

(Julianne Moore)

(A Vanity Fair Hollywood Cover)

The AGO's Edward Steichen exhibit is showcased on dark, royal blue walls that can't help but show off Steichen's brilliant photographs from the 1920's and 30's, including one short film of the playful yet exacting Steichen at work. As a chief photographer at Vogue and Vanity Fair during these decades, Steichen chronicled the collections of many great designers, including Poiret, Chanel, Lanvin and Schiaparelli, and captured many of the era's greatest figures from politics, literature, fashion, Hollywood and more.

(Edward Steichen, Self Portrait; Katherine Hepburn)

What I find so remarkable about Steichen's photographs is the meticulous attention to detail, the gorgeous geometry of the lines and shadows, the force with which the images command your attention. To create such photos without the assistance of modern computer technology speaks to the genius of Steichen and his unbridled passion for the art of photography. Another interesting fact I learned came care of Sophie Hackett, assistant curator of Photography at the AGO. She told me that Steichen never believed he was capturing the essence or soul of his subject, as some photographers claim to. Alternatively, he asserted that his images simply represented a moment of vitality. The ROM's Vanity Fair Portraits describe Leibovitz's work as oscillating between "painstakingly composed mini-dramas" and "stripped down documentary photos that reflect the souls of her subjects", however I'm with Steichen -- how could anyone's true soul be captured in a photo, much less the soul of a celebrity who does nothing but act?

(Joan Crawford; Dancers)

The Vanity Fair Portraits and Edward Steichen exhibitions complement each other beautifully and do an excellent job of narrating a history of glamour, elegance, personality and celebrity. Taking a cue from Shakespeare who famously proclaimed, "all the world's a stage/and all the men and women merely players", I urge you to visit the ROM and AGO to see famous figures captured at play, you're sure to like it.

***

Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913-2008 and Edward Steichen: In High Fashion, the Conde Nast Years, 1923-1937 will be open until January 3rd, 2010.

To find out more about the Royal Ontario Museum and the Vanity Fair Portraits exhibition go here, for more about the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Edward Steichen exhibition go here.

Photos courtesy of the ROM and AGO. Building photos of the ROM and AGO from Food Court Lunch and the Thomas Mayer Archive.

Toronto Fashion Week is around the corner! Follow me on Twitter and check back here for your up-to-the-minute coverage of the most glamorous week of the year (October 19-24)!

Conde Nast Launches Dating Site

2009-10-09T17:07:54Z

TRULYMADLYDATING.COM is Conde Nast International's first dating site, supported by GLAMOUR.COM and GQ.COM, and created to unite glamorous girls with fashion-conscious GQ-reading boys to create matches made in style heaven.

Conde Nast May Lose $1 Billion In 2009

2009-10-09T09:25:12Z

After months of speculation, the carnage came to Conde Nast earlier this week. The company, one of the nation's three biggest magazine publishers, announced it would close four magazines, including Gourmet, one of the industry's most iconic publications.

A NEWSWEEK analysis of industry data provides new evidence of the financial toll that drove that decision: based on estimates of publishing data, Conde Nast could see its ad revenue drop by $1 billion in 2009.

Read more: Conde Nast, Magazines, Media News