Zeitgeist yesterday

Looking across the Hudson towards the The Erie Lackawanna Railway in Hoboken. 4:30 PM. Photo: JH.

January 14, 2009. Yesterday in New York. Not so cold, half-grey, half-sunny. Lunch was cancelled but I stopped by Michael’s to drop off the DVD of Milk to the friend who lent it to me. Peggy Siegal was occupying my regular seat. She’d just got back from Europe where she had some kind of hip surgery in Belgium and then went over to London to visit the Queen. Well, not quite, but in that direction. She ran through her itinerary so quickly with the big names pouring out so rat-a-tat-tat that my memory couldn’t keep up.

I remember the Astors. She saw the David Astors on the weekend. And of course there were movie stars around and directors and producers because Peg sees them all. She has her very own boldfaced name tour of the world. Both tour guide and sight-seer, she’s thrilled by the whole thing, and it sounds it.


	Director Danny Boyle writing down a number for Eric Eisner and Stacey Bendet.

She invited me to a dinner for the producer, director and writer of the hit film “Slumdog Millionaire” (Christian Colson, Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy, respectively) at the Four Seasons restaurant at 7:30. Jane Fonda was to be “host” along with Warren Hoge. Dinner at the Four Seasons, Jane Fonda, Golden Globe winning filmmakers. A dinner at the Four Seasons is never something to pass up, movie stars or no.

After I left Michael’s I went over to Brooks Brothers to exchange a gift shirt for another size. I ran into Mr. X, a man who runs one of the largest and most venerable institutions in New York. I withhold his name only because I didn’t ask him if I could quote him. I’d asked how things were.

Never a pessimist but a serious executive and an influential member of the cultural community, he said: “Six months ago we were talking about expanding and six months later we’re talking about contracting.” That’s how things are. We discussed the zeitgeist briefly. He said he and his wife just celebrated an anniversary and after talking about it and thinking about it, they decided not to treat themselves to any kind of gift. “There is nothing I need. I don’t need to buy anything.”

On the other hand ... business needs support. From there I walked up the avenue and over to Hermes on Madison and 61st to exchange a necktie. On my way, I ran into Mr. Y, a very prominent real estate broker here in New York. We had a conversation similar to the one I had with Mr. X. He told me about a multi-million dollar apartment that recently sold, a rare sale these days. The bid was a little more than 60% of the asking. The seller’s broker counseled them to take it. They did. They were happy. Not all clients can take that so well. Some complain that to counsel that is being “negative.” The zeitgeist again.

I never go into Hermes. First of all I’m not a shopper and second of all I can’t afford their prices. That said, it’s a beautiful store, beautifully designed and full of beautiful things; impossible to ignore. It’s one of those places where I find myself wishing. Temptation-ville.

There were several Asian customers, all very well dressed and inspecting the merchandise seriously. There was a well-furred blowsy/frowsy-ish blonde (American) of a certain age and a certain look going through the different items with a trained eye being followed around by a slender, somewhat wan-looking youth who might have been her secretary or her decorator’s secretary, offering his yea or nay at the things that caught his leader’s eye. Soon a much older man, tall, rangy, craggy and grey, but beautifully turned out in a well tailored grey plaid chesterfield, white silk scarf and hat (he’d just arrived), dashing in to meet the lady, no doubt his wife, no doubt her banker. I was surrounded. I found myself browsing, just taking in the atmosphere, a distinctly distant, other part of the zeitgeist. A welcome, if only brief, relief.

Last night. I got to the Four Seasons a little after eight. The invitation called for cocktails at 7:30, dinner at 8. No. By 8:30 most people were seated (placement). I was getting a few pictures. I got Ms. Fonda who looks great. I got Joel Grey and Warren Hoge. I got Olivia Hoge. These parties are fun. They’re mindless entertainment for me and also offer the possibility of an interesting conversation. I look around to see who to photograph. Roger Waters of Pink Floyd with his girlfriend. Ghislaine Maxwell. I don’t know all of these people although of course I know who many of them are. And I don’t know who many of them are. But I do know a lot of them are leading interesting lives, often very worldly and far-flung lives. This is New York.

Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy and Producer Charles Colson waiting behind Mr. Boyle as he speaks to Eisner and Bendet. I was going to take a photo of the film's troika but it didn't work out.

I was put in the place with the namecard Rajendra Roy. Lesley Stahl was two places away. “Oh, you’re Rajendra Roy ...” she said. Yeah, that’s me. On one side of me was a young woman whose husband is head of NBC News. On the other side of me was Christian Colson, the producer of Slumdog.

Mr. Colson is a Londoner. This is his fourth producing venture. We talked about what it’s like to put together a movie from scratch. This one, with a $25 million dollar budget wasn’t easy because it wasn’t a film a studio would make or even necessarily be willing to back. So to win the Golden Globe for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay was a great thrill.

Then Warren Hoge spoke briefly and introduced Jane Fonda who spoke briefly and glowingly about the director. Then Mr. Doyle spoke. It was all a love fest. Everyone who’s seen the picture loves it. There’s triumph all around despite ourselves.

In the mix last night: Blythe Danner, Tovah Feldshuh, Jean Doumanian, Stacey Bendet and Eric Eisner, Pepe Fanjul, Lisa and Jim Kelly, Aaron Latham and Lesley Stahl, Amanda Foreman, Susan Lyall, Charles and Clo Cohen, Boykin Curry and Celerie Kemble, Joel Grey, Roger Waters and Laura Durning, Dave Zinczenko, Alexandra Shiva and Jonathan Marc Sherman, Rachel Roy, Rajendra Roy, Dan Abrams, John and Nizza Heyman.

Jonathan Marc Sherman and Alexandra Shiva

Amanda Foreman

Ariadne Calvo-Platera

Celerie Kemble and Boykin Currie

Stacey Bendet and Eric Eisner

Jim Kelly and camera shy dinner partner

Julian Niccolini

Olivia Hoge

Rajendra Roy and Clo Cohen

Charles Cohen and Dave Zinczenko

Danny Boyle and Peggy Siegal

Jane Fonda

Warren Hoge and Joel Grey

Ghislaine Maxwell and Roger Waters with his girlfriend, Laura Durning

Pepe Fanjul, Peggy Siegal, and Dan Abrams

Meanwhile, down among the sheltering palms, our intrepid reporter Clemmer Mayhew, architectural historian that he is, got some shots of the North Lake Way Driveway of Robert Jaffe, the Palm Beach go-to man for Mr. Bernie Madoff.

Mr. Jaffe, as you may know, was expected to be in Boston today to meet with Secretary of State William Galvin. Secretary Galvin oversees securities sales in Massachusetts and had subpoenaed Mr. Jafee to testify about Madoff’s alleged Ponzi scheme. Mr Jaffe was a no-show. They are now claiming that and officials have agreed to a postponement because Mr. Jaffe happened to be “under doctor’s care” yesterday.

Tuesday, 2:25 p.m. The Jaffe's elevated secluded North Lake Way house is described as Georgian-styled with corner quoins, a formal portico entrance and a slate roof, just steps north of Mr. Madoff's house and around the corner from Walter Noel's Tangier Avenue house, now under renovation.

Tuesday, 2:29 p.m. A black Lincoln Navigator makes its way through the upper-level English-styled gate, the Jaffe's house is double-walled, screened with thick vegetation and trimmed along North lake Way with an assortment of at least six hedges.

Tuesday, 2:30 p.m. A black Lincoln Navigator leaves the Jaffe's 444 North Lake Way house while a news cameraman sets up to shoot.

And more along those lines. I got this email from a reader responding to my questioning why Alexandra Penney drew so many negative responses to her current blog on The Daily Beast.

Dear Mr. Columbia,

I am writing to comment on the piece you wrote about your friend Alexandra Penney and the response to her blog on the Daily Beast.

Although I don’t know her, I was really shocked when I read her first post. I am a successful, self-made business woman, and the thought that everything I have slaved for could vanish overnight is the ultimate nightmare come true. I was so shaken by her story and I felt so sorry for her that I forwarded the link to my sisters and a couple of girlfriends.


Alexandra Penney

I have now read the other two installments and my feelings ... have changed. In fact, I stopped reading the third installment .... The reason is that she has morphed from a decent, hardworking, down-to-earth, sensible woman in the first piece, into a vacuous, spoiled and not-too-smart bimbo by the third. I started out thinking she was someone who had made an honest mistake that anyone could make, but came gradually to think, as the segments progressed, that she was actually quite stupid and had been changed by her success and money into an airhead à la Paris Hilton .... That is when it occurred to me that, what had started out as an honest account had become fiction, gussied up and over-dramatized the better to heighten the shock and sell books. That’s how her story feels now: dishonest, fake.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I think this is why people have been so vicious. Then again, blogs bring out the worst in those who contribute, so maybe it’s just the nature of the beast ...

It must be horrible for her, coming on top of what’s happened ...

Best regards,

My response to the reader:

That's interesting. I haven't read all of Alexandra's posts. I've known her for about twenty years. When I met her she was running SELF. I was impressed with her because I was getting started (a long long start) and she was very encouraging and helpful and there was never an inkling of disinterest in someone she really didn't know well.

Then she became what for me is "wealthy." She has a big apartment in one of the better buildings of New York, a house in the Hamptons, a little house in Florida, a loft to paint in and a very nice boyfriend, also a painter, with whom she shared a (to me) rather nice life. Then the bottom fell out.

I don't know quite what it's like to have that kind of bottom fall out because I've never been that high up in the rat race called success .... So when Alexandra lost and began swimming again, I took it as just that. I remain confident that she will find a way to rescue herself ... although the rescue results could likely be NOT as comfortable or luxurious ...

One of my oft-repeated phrases is: Money changes people, and often changes them immediately. Losing it, especially for those who were changed by it, can be very misleading, confounding, blinding, and even fatal (hence people making the big leap). I ... think that Alexandra is now at that part of the process. Yes, she has been spoiled, and yes, maybe we're getting a dose of just HOW spoiled she was. The rich are spoiled. I've been around them long enough to know that first hand. Perhaps you do too. Even being around them can be a "spoiling" ... where we forget just how difficult "getting by" is.

Being spoiled is not a crime although maybe a moral hazard. Nevertheless …. in some very real ways, many ... Americans are very spoiled ... living at a time where the threat that has encumbered Alexandra Penney is upon us all in one way or another.

It is easy to speculate how we would behave under similar stress but speculating is not the same as experiencing. If I were to "lose everything," or be threatened with that kind of loss, I have much much less to lose than she, but I don't even want to imagine how hard it would be mentally, and what fears I would be faced with .... So I prefer to let her let it all hang out and to watch her restoration and transitions and maybe transformations. I have a feeling we will see all of that and perhaps in a most inspiring way in Alexandra Penney. That's my bet, and in that way I'm a gambling man.

Happy New Year!!

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