Anthony Haden-Guest goes to Art Basel in Miami and finds commerce! "It was here in the lounge that a clean-cut fellow from Cartier exulted that 'art is at the heart of Cartier.' It was also here that I was told that 12 brand-new Audis had been flown in from Stuttgart for the fair—'Each has a team of five'—just for promotional purposes. You realize just where you are—at the center of an Art/Media/Marketing complex." [Radar]
Down in Miami, Art Basel and its retinue of smaller art fairs are gradually destroying that city's sun-addled stale-air mind. Here in New York, however, it's just another reason to party. Gawker videographer Alex Goldberg (not the horrendously messed-up NoLIta child Alex Goldberg) was there to ask why the assembled art lovers had taken the time out of their busy schedules to attend a party called Bazel Shmazel.
Are the Miami art fairs, going on now, doing something bad to Miami? "'You've got all these new Miami collectors who used to be happy shopping at Neiman Marcus,' says Wynwood gallerist and Basel exhibitor Kevin Bruk. 'They went to Basel for the novelty of it, saw all these beautiful people down from New York going crazy for art, and now they want in.' Dealers and collectors now prowl the halls of the city's two art magnet high schools like NBA scouts." [NY]
• The reports from New Year's in Miami are predictable: Lohan hospitalized, Mischa Barton and Cisco Adler fight over Mr. Bongjangles, Vin Diesel acts hetero, and Nicole Richie awkwardly poses for "promotional purposes" with ex-fiancé DJ AM. What, exactly, were they promoting? The dangers of celebrity engagements? [Page Six]
• Enrique Iglesias spent New Year's entertaining the sons of Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy, but the feds were too busy tapping your phone line to notice. [R&M]
• Cutbacks at the Times leads to the close of the nurse's office. Alas, no more Snoopy band-aids for Punch. [Page Six]
• After calling in Kabbalah ghostbusters to cleanse her "haunted" London home, Gwyneth Paltrow is diagnosed as officially retarded. [Scoop]
• Amanda Peet flips off a smiley fan in the East Village. Just like any native New Yorker would, really. [Lowdown]
