VF Daily

The Decade in Covers: Pick the Best V.F. Cover of 2005

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:01:32 -0500

Nicole Kidman on the July 2005 cover of Vanity Fair. Four years ago, the words “Exposed! Watergate’s ‘Deep Throat’” appeared above Nicole Kidman’s head on the July cover of Vanity Fair. As the aughties give way to the teens, VF.com asks you to vote for the magazine’s 10 best covers of the decade, one for each year. Today, pick your favorite among the 12 covers of 2005. See a slide show of covers after the jump and vote for your favorite.

The Duchess of York Hasn't Started Holiday Shopping Yet

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:27:45 -0500

On Wednesday night in New York City, Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York held court on the 57th Street flagship of whimsical home-furnishings store Mackenzie-Childs, which was holding a kid-friendly holiday fête to benefit Anthony Kennedy Shriver's Best Buddies, an organization that helps volunteers develop one-on-one relationships with the developmentally challenged. And what a court it was. Guests of all sizes were greeted with royal fanfare played by two trumpeting heralds while jesters in fantastic costumes roamed the party and finger food (from cute pigs-in-a-blanket to an all-grown-up tuna tartar) was circulated. When in the U.K., the Duchess is involved with a comparable organization called MacIntyre. We caught up with Sarah, who was looking modest in a skirt suit, and she told us a bit about her involvement: "I made a documentary. I took eight mentally challenged people up the Himalayas. They were going to be locked up—you know, institutionalized—and I said, 'That's not right.' We went 28,000 feet up without oxygen. Sorry, no, that's not right. Twenty-eight thousand is Everest. [It's 29,000 feet, but who's counting after the first 25,000?] We went up 22,000 feet without oxygen." She paused. "You know, we all have our own physical challenges."

Art Rocks Rocks the Downtown Benefit Scene

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:17:28 -0500

The ambiance at the Bowery Hotel. From PatrickMcMullan.com. Hipsters who no longer have a place to congregate thanks to the death of the Beatrice Inn and the Jane Hotel reunited last night at the Bowery Hotel for Art Rocks, what’s fast becoming a staple on the downtown fall benefit circuit. Only in its third year, Art Rocks has become a must-buy ticket for artists, media types, and fashionistas wearing skinny black jeans and designer headgear. Founded in 2007 by Nicole Berrie, a Vanity Fair alum, Art Rocks’s mission is to raise money for the pediatric programs at the Berrie Center at Columbia University Medical Center. Combining her keen sense of art and New York nightlife, Berrie’s event pairs the normal trappings of a benefit—free drinks and tottering girls—with a silent auction curated by Emmett Shine and James Cruickshank of LOLA New York. This year’s auction showcased up-and-coming artists such as Tim Barber, Leo Fitzpatrick, and Brendan Lynch displaying wares that ranged from tie-dyed canvases to black-and-white photographs.

The Met's Apollo Circle Benefit Funds Important New York City Causes

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:02:09 -0500

The ambiance at the Apollo Circle gala. From PatrickMcMullan.com. Last night around 9:30 p.m., had you been strolling by 960 Fifth Avenue, one of New York City’s “A-plus” apartment buildings that, to quote a 1997 New York Times article by Monique P. Yazigi, signifies “that you are wealthy and social, that you have made it to the pinnacle of what many consider world society,” you would have seen dozens of Manhattan’s prettiest young things and their handsome dates stream out of the building’s Georgian Suite space onto 77th Street for a quick smoke break. And had you glanced back after passing these strangers in the windy night, you would have seen the flowy-gown-clad girls stomp out their cigarettes with the red soles of their Christain Louboutin shoes before they, along with their bowtie-accentuated companions, hopped into a fleet of black Escalades and town cars whose G.P.S.’s were programmed for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, five blocks north. The reason for the pre-party? The revelers were getting their champagne swill on before ascending the Met’s 13-and-a-half-feet-high, 154-feet-wide staircase for the museum’s annual Carolina Herrera–sponsored Apollo Circle dance, which is perhaps the most important event on the junior social set’s fall calendar. Apollo Circle is the Met’s young-patrons organization, and the gala benefits the institution’s Fund for Art Conservation. But a bit of investigative journalism reveals that the party also benefits four other major New York City causes.

Going Rogue

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:00:59 -0500

Have a newsworthy cocktail hour with our weekly current-events-inspired concoctions. Mixed up by the New York restaurant Japonais (111 East 18th Street; 212-260-2020), this week's cocktail honors the debut of Sarah Palin's new memoir. We're still wondering how she learned to write so fast! Going Rogue 1 oz. sake 1 oz. Mathilde pear liqueur 2 oz. pear juice 1 slice of Asian pear Shake liquid ingredients with ice, and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with a pear slice.

The Boys Who Cried "Fort Hood Terrorist"

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:40:12 -0500

The pundits’ swift verdict, before any real investigation has been conducted, that Major Nidal Hasan’s homicidal rampage at Fort Hood was an act of terrorism is at best poor journalism, not that they trade in the stuff at all, and at worst a mockery of the victims that uses their bodies as mere political cannon fodder. I expect this conduct from talking heads but not from elected officials. Senator Joe Lieberman’s suggestion that we consider Major Hasan's actions at Fort Hood an act of terrorism is brazen politicking with a very awful tragedy. Writing off the actions of Major Hasan as an act of terrorism avoids having to deal with some very big problems and answering some very hard and important questions. Hopefully, a thorough investigation into Hasan will be conducted with the greatest care and capacity. Such an investigation is anathema to some politicians and many pundits, as it may uncover too much awful truth involving things like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the effects on a human being of professionally listening to men and women detail unimaginable horror and atrocity for several hours a day, year after year. Such an investigation might bring up the fact that prolonged wars like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan produce many casualties, often in unlikely places. And it might have to account for the upward spike in suicides in the American military, or even the suicide rate at Fort Hood. (There have been at least 75 soldier suicides since the Afghanistan war began, in 2001.)

Annals of Political Advertising: The Dirty, Low-Down Blago-Hair Smear

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:34:25 -0500

I was in Illinois the other day, having a beer at a tavern, when my attention was captured by a surreal commercial playing on the TV above the bar. It was the debut political ad of Andy McKenna, a businessman who recently resigned his position as chairman of the state G.O.P. so that he can run for govenor. It's a remarkable spot, in that it uses Rod Blagojevich's toupee-like mop as a symbol of all the corruption that has bedeviled Illinois for the last three decades. Three governors who were earlier convicted of crimes, Otto Kerner, Dan Walker, and George Ryan, are pictured with Blago wigs Photoshopped onto their scalps. In other words, McKenna’s team is trying to tar all of Illinois machine politics with the same Blago hairbrush, or smear it with the same grooming pomade, or—er, whatever tonsorial metaphor works for you. Even the dome of the Illinois statehouse has a Blago wig plopped atop it, making it look alarmingly like a giant penis-puppet. And what I saw at the bar was just the 60-second spot. In the long-form version, viewable online, the state capital, Springfield, is not unlike the spooky dystopia depicted in Apple's infamous “Lemmings” commercial from 1985, only the businessmen and -women marching in zombie lockstep are not falling off cliffs to their doom but wearing uniformly full, fluffy, black, and (by implication of the lugubrious voice-over and ominous lighting) scary Blago wigs. “Too many in Illinois have just become accustomed," the narrator says, “to the culture of ‘The Hair.’”

Does Warren Buffett Know What He's Talking About?

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:58:55 -0500

Nobody I know who is smart and rich (albeit much less rich than they used to be) thinks the economy is patched up and ready to roll—except, apparently, Warren Buffet (who I don’t actually know), who announced yesterday that “the financial panic is behind us.” But then he is also a man who believes the future is railroads. The view of my personal focus group of the smart and the rich is a basic one: Their own businesses continue to really suck; some 17% of the country is unemployed or under-employed in an economy built on consumer spending; every bank in the country is still hiding underwater assets which won’t rise until consumer spending does, and consumers can’t spend if they’re unemployed. And then the Dow: It’s going strong precisely because so many companies have fired so many people that their results are looking surprisingly better than expected, so, likely, they keep firing people. Of course my personal focus group of the smart and rich didn’t much see the collapse coming either, so no reason to necessarily think they’ll be the first to glimpse the dawn. CONTINUE READING at Newser.com �

Sarah Palin's Rogue Memoir Neutralizes "The Washington Read"

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:40:22 -0500

Of all the capital city’s quaint and tribal customs, none may be more singular than the phenomenon known as “The Washington Read.” This is the process in which buyers (or browsers) of the latest books about politics and government turn instantly to the index, and read first—and perhaps only—the parts about themselves. True to form, Sarah Palin has confounded the Washington political establishment yet again: Her new memoir, Going Rogue, is being published next week—without an index! So people who want to find whether Palin has praised or buried them will have to read the whole thing, or at least skim its 413 pages. The excerpts leaked to date are interesting, but hardly shocking. We learn that Palin felt muzzled by the McCain campaign, and would have liked to be herself with the press. But we knew that more or less in real time, didn’t we? We learn that she blames the top McCain aide Nicolle Wallace, at least in part, for her disastrous interviews with Katie Couric, but then insists the campaign did not actually consider them so disastrous. We learn that she was uncomfortable at the cost of the high-end wardrobe the campaign purchased on her behalf. We learn that she did, indeed, want to deliver remarks of her own on Election Night and was blocked by the McCain campaign.

Could Supreme Court TV Make America Smarter?

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:37:30 -0500

The very sight of Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) makes me drowsy so the notion that he is spearheading a drive to bring live television coverage to the public workings of the United States Supreme Court is downright laughable. But yet there he is, calling out the Justices for their media tours, introducing “Sense of the Senate” resolutions, all in the name of trying to shed light on an institution that has successfully sought for over two centuries to avoid it. What’s new about his latest effort is that he finally has some great ammunition to fire at the recalcitrant and slightly haughty Justices. Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia both went on television recently to hawk their books. Can they really claim that the same cameras before which they preened now shouldn’t be allowed to view them working their day jobs? The same goes for Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice John Paul Stevens, both of whom appeared on Primetime which, last time I checked, gleefully avoids any talk of the doctrine of laches or the Clean Air Act. Of course, the Supreme Court’s oral arguments ought to be televised. The law, even the technical explanation of it, doesn’t just belong to the Justices. It belongs to all of the rest of us as well. And a clear majority of Americans have declared that they would like to see how the Justices handle their chores from behind the bench. The most recent Justice to leave the Court, David Souter, famously said that television cameras would come into the gorgeous old room over his dead body. Is anyone on the current Court willing to take his place and bar the doors? I hope not.

Is Fox Business Network a Lost Cause?

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0500

Photo illustration of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes. By Hamish Robertson. When the Fox Business Network launched, on October 15, 2007, its executives were perfectly clear about their ambitions. “I’m not interested in anything short of a revolution,” Roger Ailes, chairman and C.E.O. of both Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network (FBN), said at the time. Rupert Murdoch made disparaging remarks about CNBC, and comparisons to the Fox News-CNN rivalry were rampant. Once again, Murdoch and Ailes’s brash upstart was challenging the entrenched leading network that had basically invented the form. More than two years in, however, FBN has barely made its presence felt, let alone threatened CNBC’s dominance. Fox Business is not a full-service client of Nielsen, so its ratings are not available to the public; but it’s fairly safe to assume that the reason it is not a full-service client is that most of its shows fall short of attracting 35,000 viewers—the threshold below which Nielsen can’t accurately measure audience. By comparison, according to Nielsen, last week two of CNBC’s staples, Squawk Box and Power Lunch, had average daily audiences of 303,000 and 279,000, respectively. (The figure for Squawk Box is for the three-hour program’s most-watched segment, from 8:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.; for the entire period from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., Squawk Box's average viewership was 182,000.) The executive vice president of Fox Business, Kevin Magee, says he’s happy with the network’s performance so far. “We’re where we think we should be,” he tells V.F. In particular, Magee cites the success of FBN’s simulcast of Don Imus’s radio show, which debuted earlier this month and has an average audience of 133,000, according to figures obtained by V.F. Imus “has brought a whole bunch of people to the channel who sought us out,” says Magee, “and once they found us they seemed to like us.” Indeed, Opening Bell, which airs right after Imus, has seen its viewership increase by 217 percent.

The Decade in Covers: Pick the Best V.F. Cover of 2004

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:01:30 -0500

Viggo Mortensen on the January 2004 cover of Vanity Fair. Remember Legally Blonde? How about Lord of the Rings? Five years ago, their stars (Reese Witherspoon and Viggo Mortensen) got the Vanity Fair treatment. As the aughties give way to the teens, VF.com asks you to vote for the magazine’s 10 best covers of the decade, one for each year. Today, pick your favorite among the 12 covers of 2004. See a slide show of covers after the jump and vote for your favorite.

Another Birther Suit Bites the Dust

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:05:48 -0500

It always strikes me how patient most federal judges are when they are confronted by frivolous lawsuits. Take the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A three-judge panel of the Court Thursday afternoon took a full nine pages of carefully reasoned analysis to dismiss another one of those silly “birther” lawsuits brought to challenge President Barack Obama’s qualifications for president. I probably would have accomplished that mission in about a paragraph—the “Kenyan” argument is just that lame. I know that judges are supposed to be patient and to dispense their varying forms of justice with a lack of passion or hostility to the litigants before them. In nearly 13 years of covering the highest-profile cases of our time, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard a judge yell at a defendant (or plaintiff). But the utter lack of scorn and condescension on the part of the judges in this particular “birther” case was particularly impressive and comforting. For example, here’s one passage from the ruling in Berg v. Obama, et al:

Zara Phillips Unwinds at a Spa as British Veterans Get Wound-up Over Armistice Day

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:55:11 -0500

Sweden's Queen Silvia has been going to bat for her future son-in-law. In a Swedish television interview, the monarch predicted Daniel Westling—the gym owner engaged to wed Princess Victoria—will make a successful, helpful addition to the royal family. The Queen also brushed off the notion that her daughter ought to marry a Swedish aristocrat. "I hope he can share his experiences [of running his own business] and help bring modernity to the court," she said. We're sure the Queen's husband, King Carl XVI Gustaf, would be quick to agree, seeing as he has been happily married to a commoner for more than 30 years.

Izod Gets Even Sportier

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:38:17 -0500

The term "sportswear," widely used in American fashion these days to describe what seems like everything excluding eveningwear, rarely refers to actual sporting apparel. After all, when was the last time you threw on a Michael Kors mini for your Saturday-morning run? But one American label has discovered a new way to embrace its athletic roots without regressing to nylon mesh and quick-wicking cotton. Izod, the golf-and-tennis-inspired label with both denim and performance lines, announced last week that it will be the title sponsor of the IndyCar Series, henceforth the Izod IndyCar Series. “Izod, I think, saw the opportunity to take this great, American-inspired sportswear brand and associate it with what they felt was an emerging sports property with a lot of similar attributes—speed, diversity,” says the president of Indy Racing League’s commercial division, Terry Angstadt.