Revenge? Ellen Barkin? Never!Neither the auction she held to sell off the gifts her ex gave her or her new TV pilot were motivated by revenge against ex Ron Perelman. Also: Guess who Michelle Tractenberg is dating?
Ex–Martha Stewart CEO Is Out and LunchingRecently freed Martha CEO Susan Lyne may have a gig lined up already, Realtors claim the ‘Sex and the City’ movie has done for property what the show did for shoes, and New York judges finally get a pay raise, in today’s roundup of media, real-estate, law, and finance news.
company town
Hillary Clinton Dismays Anna WintourMEDIA
• Anna Wintour took Hillary Clinton to task for backing out of her Vogue photo shoot because she feared looking “too feminine.” Wintour: “The notion that a contemporary woman must look mannish in order to be taken seriously as a seeker of power is frankly dismaying.” Ouch. [WWD]
• The Directors Guild showed up the writers in striking, heh, fashion: After just one week of negotiations, the directors struck a deal with the studios that includes the all-important online-video money. The writers are cautious, though, since the last time they followed the directors’ lead they got screwed on the home-video market. [WP]
• Wal-Mart, responsible for 20 percent of all “newsstand” magazine sales, announced it would dump more than 1,000 titles from its shelves. Shocking twist: The New Yorker stays, but Boar Hunter Magazine is out! [NYP]
gossipmonger
Neal Boulton Wants, Doesn’t Want AttentionFormer Men’s Fitness editor and Jann Wenner paramour Neal Boulton calls up “Page Six” to tell them that he is getting harassed for being “too straight.” Harvey Weinstein said he uses Vogue and Anna Wintour to help style his films. The Box is about to implement a security system designed by Safir Rosetti, which is run by former police commissioner Howard Safir. 50 Cent may perform at Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Salman Rushdie dressed up as Darth Vader on Halloween and had to fend off chicks with his light saber. Fox News correspondent Chris Wallace complained that only 39 American soldiers died in Iraq in October 2007, the fewest deaths in a month since 2004.
gossipmonger
Here’s … Billy?Billy Crystal is looking to take over a late-night talk show. Jimmy Fallon proposed to longtime girlfriend Nancy Juvonen. Brett Ratner won’t make as much money from Rush Hour 3 as he could have because it didn’t meet expectations at the box office. A White House staffer didn’t recognize David Beckham and asked if he was a friend or relative of the president. Val Kilmer dropped out of playing Adolph Hitler in Hebrew Hammer 2 because he was either scared or too bloated. Staffers at now-defunct Green Stone Media are complaining that the site won’t file for bankruptcy because founders Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem don’t want to be embarrassed.
gossipmonger
The Soho Grand Is a WonderlandRumors of the demise of the John Mayer–Jessica Simpson relationship may be greatly exaggerated; the two spent Sunday night together at the Soho Grand. (Mayer is also still doing the stand-up comedy thing). Today show correspondent Jill Rappaport owns eighteen acres in the Hamptons. Johnny Damon hung out till 4:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, but he still hit a two-run double later in the day. Ivanka Trump and Zach Braff exchanged numbers. (Uh-oh. Does Jared Kushner know about this?) Warren Buffett, David Remnick, John Kerry, Ted Turner, and Jann Wenner, among others (ahem), were all rejected from Harvard. After asking for $5.5 million, Stone Phillips sold his penthouse on West 72nd Street for $4.35 million. Times managing editor Jill Abramson is suing the truck driver who ran over her foot.
company town
Former Goldman Sachs Head Scoffs at Street SalariesFINANCE
• John Whitehead, the former chief of Goldman Sachs, blasted the firm for leading Wall Street’s “outrageous increase” in salaries. [Bloomberg]
• John Edwards earned a paltry $480,000 while studying poverty at Fortress. [DealBook/NYT]
• Should the SEC investigate claims of stock manipulation at Apple? The company shares were down 3 percent yesterday after the tech blog Endgadget published a false tip reporting product delays for the iPhone and a new Mac operating system. [DealBreaker]
grub street
It’d Be Better With Oompa-Loompas
Looks like Max Brenner, the nonexistent “Bald Man” of high-concept choco-bar infamy, has started a trend: Call it the Willie Wonka–fication of the coffeehouse experience. The weirdness continues at the Roasting Plant, where freshly roasted coffee beans are sucked out of transparent vessels through overhead pipes and into a souped-up espresso machine. We’re as baffled as anyone, but we also have to grudgingly admit that the shop’s main attraction, a Rube Goldberg–meets–H.R. Giger device, looks pretty damn cool. And, who knows, perhaps the beans do stay fresher this way. We’ll let Rob and Robin provide further explanation over at Grub Street.
The Roasting Plant’s Coffee Beans Dance Overhead [Grub Street]
gossipmonger
If Wolcott Did It…The owner of former meatpacking S&M club–cum–celeb hangout the Vault is shopping a dishy tell-all. James Wolcott got his hands on the O.J. Simpson book, wrote about it in Vanity Fair. Naomi Campbell is leaving her agency to join IMG. (She was also named ambassador to Rio by the Brazilian city’s mayor.) Being Anna Wintour’s assistant really is as difficult as Emily Blunt made it seem in The Devil Wears Prada.
