Hot and cold

Washington Square Park. 2:00 PM. Photo: JH.

July 22, 2010. More heat. You can find yourself thinking it’s going to stay like this.

The news of the World (I know you’ve heard it). Yesterday evening they let his lordship Conrad Black out of the clink on bail – something like a coupla millyun has been reported – and he returned to his palatial Palm Beach mansion to the waiting arms of his loyal wife (we’re talking about the real world here).

Whew!


	Lord Black and his Lady when Knighthood was in flower.

I never followed the Black case very closely. I was always somewhat dumfounded by his theatrically presented arrogance and the fact that he evidently was always a cheater. In little ole New York it’s still called chutzpah.

I know that makes me sound like a moralist. May be so. Or maybe not. I’ve cheated. And lied. Who hasn’t? I stole bubble gum (Fleers Double Bubble) as an eight-year-old from Eddie’s Newspaper store where my father got the daily New York tabloids (and introduced me to a life).

I don’t think everybody does (lie, cheat, steal), but I know an awful lot of people who do. And so do you, even if you don’t know it. At this point in my life I even know a lot of people who have helped themselves to the hard earned assets of those who are not in the know. Mr. Madoff, anybody?

The crimes which sent Lord Black to jail did not affect me personally. They did affect personally several well known and well-heeled and well-connected New Yorkers. They affected the investors in his companies in a negative way. Ironically, the man who started the entire case against him, a vigilant mutual fund owner named Christopher Browne, died of a heart attack earlier this year – and so will not be around to protest, (as I’m sure he would have – and he’d have been heard too).

Conrad Black pulling up to his Palm Beach home last night.

When I heard the news a number of people around me, people who travel in the world that Lord Black travels in (outside the penitentiary, that is) – there was outrage in their voices.

The problem seems to be one of perception. There seems to be the idea that the well-fixed and billionaires who helped themselves and lived it up on their (now perceived to be) ill-gotten gains, are immune to punishment and penitence. So immune, in fact, that you could assume they never thought there was anything wrong with what they did. Business is business, you know; and all that. Politics, you know.

Well, I’ll bet Lord Black is very happy to be back in his own luxurious seaside mansion down among the sheltering palms. I’ll bet he’s still probably so relieved he can’t even believe he’s been sprung.

Conrad, home at last.

Meanwhile, little Lindsay Lohan turned herself in and went to serve her 60-day sentence in a Los Angeles jail. The blogs and gossip sites, as well as the tabloids and their commenter/readers seemed jubilant that the young woman is going to do time behind bars. I don’t get that.

I don’t know Lindsay Lohan. Never met her. I’d guess a lot of the millions of people who have an opinion about her never met her either.


	Little Lindsay

I only know, knowing her world, that it’s been a terrible life for that very pretty young woman. She’s worked all her life, to the advantage of her parents, her agents, her producers and what have you. Her love life has been tempestuous and uneven and probably lonely in that way it often is for those of us who have been used and abused.

As the late auteur director Paul Bartel used to say about these Hollywood situations: “that bed of roses is no life.” In fact most of the time, it’s a terrible life especially for a child. And because both of her parents have been so impressed by their ability to get public attention for themselves, it is easy to assume they basically used this child to their own (dead, ironically) ends.

The girl is very alone in her odd world of glitter and tawdry bubbles. God knows if she has the inner wherewithal to dig herself out of it. I don’t see that as any reason to be applauding her punishment anymore than I see a reason for applauding Conrad Black’s release on bail.

Onward. Will and Laura Zeckendorf hosted a booksigning last night for their friend Susan Fales-Hill and her new novel, One Flight Up, at their building (which Will developed and built with his brother), the Robert A.M. Stern 15 Central Park West. For those of you who are not familiar with the address, this double building, which covers the entire block between 62nd and 63rd Street and Central Park West to Broadway, is a condominium for only the very rich, often compared as the 21st century version of 740 Park Avenue.

One of the reception rooms at Susan Fales Hill's booksigning last night. The tall man with the blue tie toward the back of the room is the author's husband, Aaron Hill.

Joan and John Jakobson and Wendy Carduner.

Yanna Avis and Robert Couturier.

Nanette de Gaspe Beauvien, Sasha Galantic, and Joon Kim, friends of the author who came from Montreal, Connecticut and Korea, respectively, to attend.

Robin Verges and Audrey Bernard.

Gillian and Sylvester Miniter.

Kevin Buckley, Kara Hollis, Alexandra Schlesinger, and Gail Buckley.

Susan is one of those remarkable New York women who stands out by force of personality, intellectual bravado, beauty and a willingness to participate.

She grew up in the city, the daughter of the late Broadway musical star Josephine Premice and a New England scion named Fales. She went to Harvard. She had a successful career in Hollywood as a writer on Cosby, Suddenly Susan, A Different World.

She wrote a memoir about her amazing mother, Always Wear Joy (Mom’s advice was solid). She’s married to businessman Aaron Hill and they have a young daughter.

Susan signing Jay Snyder's book.

Susan is also very active on the charity/philanthropy circuit with diverse interests. She has lots of friends and although I got there an hour into the reception and many had already come and gone, the place was filled with some of Susan’s friends. I haven’t read the book yet but it could just be a roman a clef. She knows everybody, as they say. New York is her hometown.

I was trying to get a shot of Susan and her book. I saw her signing and so I thought I’d use that but everytime I pressed the shutter she happened to be suddenly distracted from the book – so much going on. Finally ...

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Click to order [4] One Flight Up.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, at Swifty’s, the place was packed with people escaping the heat. At one large round table Arlene Dahl and Marc Rosen were entertaining several people including Carol Channing, Liza Minnelli and Tommy Tune. Also on hand was the best friend of millions of TCM devotees, Robert Osborne.

I asked Mark if I could take a picture of his famous guests. I didn’t assume that I could because even stars like to be left alone. And not a few aren’t that nice about it. However, Marc said it was fine, and so here you have it.

Robert Osborne, Liza Minnelli, Marc Rosen, and Carol Channing.

Liza looked really great, slender and paietted in black, so did Carol, all in white. I was lucky enough to attend the second night of “Hello Dolly” when it opened at the St. James Theater in mid-December 1964. It was a big, colorful razzamatazz show, thoroughly engaging but when the lady with the platinum blonde cotton candy coif came down that staircase with the “Hello Dolly” number, there was enough electricity in the audience to light Manhattan, not to mention our seats.

It was one of those amazing moments where you’re swept away by a single performing individual. It’s the magic and it’s a thrill.

Wendy (Carol Channing's assistant), Tommy Tune, and Arlene Dahl.

So last night, as entered she entered the dining room, the still hardworking-like-a-trouper Miss Channing, who will be 90 next January, greeted everyone with that husky voice that you can always hear with the elastic inflection in your mind’s ear. Liza’s face lit up like a Liza and everyone was so happy to see each other.

Also at the table were Miss Channing’s husband and high school sweetheart, Harry Kullijian, his three daughters including Louise Hirschfeld, Miss Channing’s assistant Wendy. They are in town promoting the Carol Channing Harry Kullijian Foundation for the Arts to fund art education in high schools. They’ve provided scholarships to 23 schools in California and now they want to take it national.
http://www.carolchanning.org/Foundation.htm [5]

Mary T. Browne and Carmen looking at some pictures of our mutual friend Larry Ashmead's birthday this past July 4th in Stuyvesant, New York.

In the crowd: Charlotte Ford and Richard and Diana Feldman and friends; Libba Stribling and Guy Robinson with Frances Shelton and Bill Bruder; Marge Rubin, Judith Hope, Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel and Carl Spielvogel; Carmen (as you can see) with Mary T. Browne (Mary is a famous psychic among the rich and famous), Boaz Mazor and with old friend Estelle Greer, who’s known the boy since he first came to America; June Dyson, Mimi Stafford, John Loring and Linda Buckley, Chuck Bullock, Alison Mazzola, her sister Amy Flynn and Lisa Fine; Robert Turner and Peter Speliopoulos, and scores more just like ‘em.

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