You may be planning to stay home this holiday season with a bottle of vodka and a fistful of Xanax and have little more to look forward than the soft glow of the Yule Log on WPIX, but needless to say other people have more exciting plans in store. A totally random (and occasionally jealousy-inducing) roundup of vacation destinations after the jump.
How many times today has a coworker of yours looked out the window and shrieked "IT'S SNOWING!"? Everybody's flipping out. Check out the snow-gallery and remember how pretty it was before the sleet started.
• NYC will be the last stop for Chanel's space-like mobile art pavilion. [WSJ]
• DKNY is the latest brand to bow out of Fashion Week in February. [WWD]
• Narciso Rodriguez's second fragrance debuts this spring. [WWD]
• Rodarte designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy love Pasadena, miss their record collection. [SF]
• Bergdorf Goodman's holiday windows: grotesque or genius? [Racked]
Bernie Madoff won't be seeing much sunlight for the forseeable future. A judge modified Madoff's bail conditions late this afternoon and ruled that unless he has to make an appearance in court, he'll be subject to round-the-clock home detention in his Manhattan apartment. He'll also required to pay out-of-pocket to have a security firm keep watch in order "to prevent harm or flight" (which may be tough for him to do considering his assets were frozen earlier today), and "video monitoring" of his apartment doors was also imposed. He is, however, still free to sit in front of his TV set. And, naturally, he's more than welcome to call us if he's in the mood for Chinese food.
New tidbits about the Jeremy Piven-destroys-Broadway story keep coming. "Mercury-filled sushi made him sick!" "Wrong! He quit early because he parties too hard!" Etc. Now an insider with the show, Speed-the-Plow, has provided some details.
Still searching for a place to stay during the inauguration next month? New York Philharmonic director Lorin Maazel's country house in Virginia is available in exchange for a modest $50,000-a-night donation to his charitable foundation! Maazel's Castleton Farms has room for 40-50 guests and comes with indoor pool, bowling alley, "commercial-sized movie screen," Turkish steam room, and petting zoo. Unfortunately, one thing it doesn't offer is close proximity to Washington, which is still a 90-minute drive away. [Chateauville via Luxist]
• A handful of top NYC chefs recount their favorite meals of 2008. [Metromix]
• Chinatown's HSF dim sum house is no more. [Zagat]
• The Standard is supposedly opening for friends and family on Sunday. [Eater]
• Only a holiday miracle will keep Via Delle Zoccolette in business. [Eater]
• Free sliders at Morton's tomorrow from 5-6, if you're interested. [GS]
• Boqueria is now serving lunch; breakfast at the Oak Room begins 1/1. [GS]
• A few food trends you can look forward to in 2009. [Gourmet]
Perhaps Digg really is the future of the news business. The headline-discussion site, once an icon of the Web 2.0 movement, is losing millions of dollars a year.
You know this Madoff thing is out of control when you have socialites huddled outside Bernie's apartment waiting for him to make an appearance. Peter Davis (Tinsley Mortimer's honest-to-God half-brother in law!) reports that he's "obsessed" with the case—"It's all I can read or think about"—and says he turned up at 8:45 am, coffee in hand, hoping to get a glimpse of Bernie leaving his building when his 9 o'clock curfew expired. Unfortunately, he came up empty, but he did get a chance to talk to the owner of a local newsstand, who revealed to Davis that Madoff occasionally stopped by to pick up a copy of Forbes. (We're sure the staff of Forbes will be thrilled to hear the news.) Davis also says that he plans on "staking out" Madoff's building "all weekend." So if you have nothing better to do, you can head over there yourself. You might get lucky and meet both Peter and Bernie in person! [Paper Mag]
Some people dream of owning a castle; Calvin Klein wants to tear his down. Five years after the designer paid nearly $30 million for a gaudy 50,000-square-foot Southampton estate known as Dragon's Head, Klein filed an application this week to demolish it so he can replace it with a more modest (and much more minimalist) 17,500-square-foot number. To lend credibility to the plan, Klein had neighbors Ian Schrager and Aby Rosen write letters to the Southampton Village Board of Historic Preservation and Architectural Review on his behalf. We're not exactly sure how having someone who was in trouble for destroying an endangered bird habitat on his property this past summer bolsters his cause, but we'll keep a good thought for you, Cal! A few more photos of what's been described as "Disneyland on LSD" after the jump.
