· This afternoon in the Conde Nast cafeteria: Anna Wintour, eating what looked like a hamburger at a table just a few feet away from where Jenna Bush was sipping a Diet Coke with a Conde Nast intern (and fellow UT student)
· Yesterday at 6 pm, I saw Chris Noth near Washington Square Park looking disheveled and confused.
From a reader: "The Observer is way behind the curve on the staring thing. Call it further proof that Willyburg is so 5 minutes ago. The staring contest craze started not on the PATH, but in my hometown of Pensacola, Fla...Some guys even made a documentary about it recently. This from staremaster.com: StareMaster: The Making of a Big Deal About Nothing (documentary, 2003) dramatizes to absurdity the final night in a weeklong tour by the StareMaster project - a live-action game show in which combatants attempt to stare one another down through a barrage of distractions. The action unfolds in the sleepy southern town of Pensacola, FL, where the filmmakers follow eight participants as they compete against one another for the title of StareMaster2002. 'The film is about watching, what watching means, and as such, it gets to the very heart of cinema. It's also very funny.' —Rick Moody" [UPDATE: Another reader points out that the directors are from Brooklyn.]
· Unholy alliance: Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein and ex-Sony Music boss Tommy Mottola are collaborating on projects. [NY Daily News]
· The Village Voice's Michael Musto 16 months ago on the Liza Minnelli/David Gest wedding: "The future Hollywood Babylon chapter should have been stopped and everyone there arrested for enabling it...This was dysfunctional overkill at its tawdriest. Dominick Dunne turned up, cementing one's suspicion that this was a crime scene...I left when Joan Collins arrived with her young beau and said she hopes Liza and David will be as happy as THEY are." [Page Six]
· Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein, on the Atkins diet, brings his own carrots to lunch at the Four Seasons. [Page Six]
· Sean Penn, overheard outside the Mercer Hotel Monday, yelling into his cell phone, "Why is Colin Farrell getting all the movies that I should be getting?" [Page Six]
· Liev Schreiber was spotted "taking off his trousers in the men's room at Pangaea and having them brought outside to a pal who couldn't get in wearing shorts. Liev and his pants were reunited in a few minutes when his friend gained entry." [Page Six]
In the white rooooom with black curtaaaains near the statiooon. Blackroof couuuuntry, no gold paaaavements, tired staaarlings...
The rules of the "staring contest": "The rules are simple: You cannot smile, you cannot break eye contact, you can only stand up to take off an article of clothing. After five minutes, the contest is sent into a sudden-death round of sorts, in which neither contestant is allowed to blink." A bunch of Williamsburghers (surprise, surprise) have reinvented your favorite third-grade pastime as a party game. These are the depths to which Williamburg parties have suck. Sunk. I meant sunk.
Blink [Observer]
Columnist James Lileks on Madonna's new Gap ad campaign: "So Madonna will be the Gap spokeshag this fall. She's part of a campaign to make everyone wear corduroy. Apparently the new management of Gap has bet the farm on corduroy, a fabric noted for making a skirr skirr skirr sound when you walk - if your legs are too big, which they won't be, because Madonna will not let fat people wear clothes she's promoting. She will show up at your house and say 'toike 'em awf, naw' in that Long-Island / English accent she has these days." I find Madonna in a Gap ad incredibly depressing. They should all be captioned, "This is what I've been reduced to! This and writing children's books! For the love of god, someone help me before I agree to do a Pier 1 commercial and have to watch myself grinning like a madwoman over faux-Etruscan vases on network TV! Help meeeeeee!"
The bleat [Lileks]
The Mob Project has been turned into a dot com. A website called Flocksmart will allow users to organize mobs online and disseminate information via automated listservs.
Flocksmart I guess it's useful, but it sort of sucks the romance out of showing up in a random spot via email that's been forwarded to you because you're, like, an insider, and if the cops show up, you don't know nuthin'. Now it's all about, like, convergence and centralization and shit. Fuck that, man. We're, like, about hardcore underground [McSweeney's/Harpers/Tinkle] old school email forwards.
Flocksmart.com
Gothamist has a friend whose cousin is the kitchen manager at Rocco DiSpirito's new restaurant/reality TV show. (That means that, like, if he were on Friendster? He'd be, like, one Friendster away from Gothamist?) He says that he asked not to be filmed. Clearly they didn't listen. Or didn't comply.
Gothamist talks to Rocco's kitchen manager [Gothamist]
· Federico Castelluccio aka Furio Giunta holding court at an al fresco 8 top 9:00 PM Monday evening 28 July at Da Silvano. He was more interested in the passing skirts as well as making eye contact to all in appreciation of recognition.
· 8 pm, 8th St. and Broadway (going east)— Meg Ryan, in cargo shorts, a rock t-shirt, sandals and sunglasses. Her hair was chin-length and wavy, and she had a get-the-fuck-away-from-me expression on her face, which only delighted the crowd of at least 50 people who were stopped and staring on all sides. She looked very macho and was walking like a Hell's Angel.
· Kimora Lee, mocking bidders at husband hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons' charity auction: "You can't afford my shoes." [Page Six]
· Restaurateur Rocco DiSpirito is running want ads for cooks, waiters and management positions at Rocco's. [Page Six]
· Barbara and Jenna Bush spotted hanging out at The Deck with bands from Lollapalooza. [Page Six]
· Page Six writes, "[Designer] Oscar [de la Renta] is totally in love with Miss Universe and wants to make her the star of his show,' an insider told us.'" That insider wouldn't be calling from Trump International, would they? [Page Six]
· Uber-flak Lizzie Grubman is now dating restaurateur David Sherman and was heard asking friends if he was "hunky enough." [NY Daily News]
Yes, we do! Do so! Shut up. Dwell editor in chief Allison Arieff: "I go to New York a lot, and we have contributing editors there. But I think the only people who are mad we're not in New York are the PR people, because we can't get to enough of their events...I lived in New York, and I know New York tends to get kind of New York-centric, thinking there's nothing going on outside of New York. People in San Francisco are very sensitive to being not provincial, so you make sure not to always focus on San Francisco." [Ed.When I think "San Francisco," I definitely think "non-provincial."]
So, what do you do, Allison Arieff? [Mediabistro]
The New Yorker's Ben Greenman goes to hear 80s hair band Cheap Trick [Ed.Here, I'll save you the email: They are not a 'hair band'! Are too! Are not! Are too!] play at the Times Square Virgin Megastore and records the inquiries of the remaining diehard Cheap Trick fans. ("When you mentioned kiss in 'Surrender,' am I right in assuming it was sarcastic, and, if so, was it taken that way at the time?")
Wanting you to want me [New Yorker]
· Bruce Willis bought two four-bedroom condos in the AOL Time Warner Center in Columbus Circle for $30 million. [NY Daily News]
· The mayor disses Chinese acrobats. [Page Six]
· The Advocate's editor-in-chief tries to block distribution of a new novel because she's furious over its depiction of her. [Page Six]
· Celebrity-owned nightclub Man Ray is shutting down. [Page Six]
· LIZA MINNELLI & DAVID GEST: In a post titled, "Good luck dividing the shoe collection," blogger "Dong Resin" says it best: "I guess it was only a matter of time until Dave gave up hope of ever finding Liza's penis." As Ozzy Osbourne's son Jack astutely noted a long time ago, "[David Gest] is a fuckin' psycho. You know his deal, right? He was the biggest Judy Garland memorabilia collector. And then he gets the daughter. He gets the biggest prize out of the lot." Yes, Jack. David Gest is a fuckin' psycho.
Liza & David: the inside story [NY Post: Cindy Adams]
