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Hmm. Wethinks the lady doth protest too much. Hannity gets a mention, as does Colmes, but Charlie Rose is conspicuously absent from Tina Brown’s column on her “round table discussions rather than solo interviews” talk show. So who’ser daddy? “Solo interviewer” Larry King, of course. Tina’s gleanings from the master:

“mastery of the lowbrow”

“iron-butt stamina”

“a toddler-like short attention span”

“Everyman questions that defy the danger of Deep Thoughts”

“[I am] on a crusade to make every bore interesting.”
Bonus 1: The artist Daniel Bozhkov created a giant crop circle of Larry King. His exhibit about the project (including on-air discussion of the project by Larry and his guest, the art critic formerly known as Matthew Perry) closes at Andrew Kreps Gallery this weekend [Where’s the website, Andrew?]
Bonus 2: Talking Points Memo has hilarious-but-painful-but-true commentary on Larry’s interviewing style. Required reading for new talk show hosts. You will be graded on this.

Forget duct tape. We have people for that kind of thing.
A quick turn around the neighborhood reveals what’s really standing between me and preparedness:

Elaborate jacket for my toy dog

Toy dog

Silver-tipped walking stick

Mink “driving coat.” Sorry, dude, it’s a swing coat. You know how, even though you call’em clamdiggers, they’re still capri pants? Same thing.

Minions

A close reading of VH1’s hilariously detailed countersuit [at The Smoking Gun, naturally] against David Gest and Liza Minnelli for sabotaging production of their “reality” show with (mostly his) obstructionist diva behavior yields an obvious, all-too-NYC explanation: Gest simply doesn’t know how to deal with a co-op board.
Sure, Gest’s demands that VH1 put up his LA stylist in a nearby apartment for the scheduled duration of the shoot (6 months: $60K), that a VH1 staffer “stick her head inside the oven” to see if it’s clean enough to shoot, and his refusals to appear when “he wasn’t looking his personal best” get the media attention. But all VH1’s real dealbreakers–the hours- and days-long delays getting into the couple’s apartment; abruptly imposed shooting limits (from 30 shooting days per 10 episode cycle to 10 days per year [italics in original]); and constraints on their crew (restricted numbers, limited drilling/installation of equipment, etc.) can be traced back to the co-op board. Or more specifically, to Gest’s failure to get the co-op board on board before signing the deal with VH1. How is this possible?
Co-op boards wield a lot of power over many New Yorkers’ lives, most notably when they bare their lives (and financial statements) to be approved to buy an apartment. But boards also regulate a lot of how and what we do “in our own homes.” Under the grandfathering clause, the dowager on the third floor is the only one allowed a dog. Construction work–even drilling a hole–can only be done in the summer, when the neighbors are in the Hamptons. Remodelling taking longer than five months? No problem, the $2,000/day fine meter is running. The oven thing sounds like pure Gest, but David’s demand that a VH1 gaffer installing lighting vacuum the dust up immediately sounds like ducking a “no construction” clause.

Is this another example of “show business people” running afoul of co-ops? Maybe, if Liza’s building was a serious co-op, on Fifth, Park, or CPW. But apparently, the only pre-req the Imperial House–on 69th between Lex and Third (Third!)–has for celebrity residents is bizarrely crafted eyebrows. Joan Crawford lived (and died). Kay Thompson lived there, with Liza. And before she took that, um, sublet in Riverhead, Lizzie Grubman lived there during her starter marriage.
A Google search of the building’s address doesn’t turn up any co-op board horror stories. But what it does turn up makes one wonder if David Gest had a reason to think video shoots in the building would be okay. According to the last search result on this Google page, an outfit called Regular J o e V i d e o also operated out of 150 E 69th (Sorry about the spaces; you’ll have to Google it for yourself. Not the the kind of site traffic I’m after, thanks). A quick visit to RJV’s (not work-friendly) site offers a distinctive genre of “reality” programming (I believe the industry term is “amateur”), one which involves digital video, the delivery guy, and the guest room. (No pun intended, I swear. These people’ll sue anything that moves.)
Did Gest, who moved into Liza’s apartment with his collection of Judy Garland memorabilia, get some neighborly advice that, “Hey, shooting video’s no problem; I do it all the time. Wanna see?” Who knows? One thing is clear: A co-op board’s power doesn’t extend to pre-nuptial veto. for better or worse (and it’s certainly debatable at this point), when Liza decided to marry again, her fiance didn’t face a grueling co-op interview. But once he moved in and fell under their purview, the co-op board made it very clear who was wearing the pants in the Gest/Minnelli house.

In the cover story of today’s Post, columnist and decorated war veteran Steve Dunleavy visits a military cemetery in France and proceeds to excoriate the French for “forgetting the sacrifice we (the US)” made in WWII. Never mind that he doesn’t talk to a single French person in his journey, he does quote some Americans there, who say, unfortunately for Dunleavy, “surely they remember.”
Although Souvenir (November 2001) is about a search for a WWI memorial, and although the French people in the film can’t give directions to the British monument, they absolutely have not forgotten WWI, much less WWII. What does seem to be forgotten, though, is the goodwill and sympathy the world extended to Americans during the period in which Souvenir is set, the goodwill that has been squandered.
Dunleavy quotes an American student giving the simplistic advice that has served backpackers well for years: “We have been told that if we face any kind of a threat, we should say we’re Canadians, not Americans.” That’s the fifth time in a week I’ve seen this tactic mentioned in the media. That’s something worth writing home about.

It is still feasible to have hope that the US won’t start a war.

A major threat, one that goes unacknowledged by the US administration, arises from the global precedent set by a US “pre-emptive” war. [cue: North Korean claim of “right to pre-emptive strike”]

Met with one of the key players in the real-life international crime story which forms the basis of the Animated Musical script. We talked about it a bit; gonna talk about it a bit more.

Bill Clinton only drinks Diet Coke from a can, BYODC.

Admittedly, I do that on Amtrak and United, but because they’re Pepsi-zone, not because the Secret Service tells me to.

Guernica, Pablo Picasso’s painting of the horrors of war
At the UN today, Colin Powell’s PowerPoint deck is expected to pull back the curtain, not on the alleged threat Iraq poses, but on Iraq’s defiance of various Security Council resolutions. One thing you won’t see, however: the tapestry version of Picasso’s Guernica, which hangs at the entrance to the Security Council’s chamber. A gift of Nelson Rockefeller (who also donated the land for the UN headquarters), the paintings iconic protest imagery says “Abandon war all ye who enter here” to UN participants. According to the Washington Times, when Iraq is being discussed, Guernica is covered by a UN-blue curtain and clusters of flags. [Thanks to BoingBoing, who reads the WT for me. The NYTimes has a brief report, too. For pinkos.]

Not Afraid of Love, 2000, Maurizio Cattelan, image: artnet.com
Of course, simply throwing a sheet over it doesn’t make it go away; the message can still come through loud and clear. Picasso captured public outrage at the beta-test of the Nazi’s then-new concept, aerial bombing, which destroyed a Basque village in a three-hour rain of terror. From that v0.9, we’ve moved to “shock and awe,” the Windows XP of aerial bombing tactics, which, according to Pentagon leaks, would shower 3,000+ missiles on Iraq in the first 48 hours of war. The elephant is still in the room, no matter what it’s covered with.
As it turns out, UN spokesmen in both Times reports say they’re covering Guernica, for logistical, not political reasons, no. According to the WT, when Colin Powell faces the throng of cameras outside the chamber, it appears there’s a horse’s ass behind him when he talks.
[update: If you wonder why your day went badly, check and see if you wrote the same thing as Maureen Dowd. If she didn’t include references to Maurizio Cattelan, there’s still hope for your night. (via Travelers Diagram)]

Carson Headroom, image:ap/nytimes.com
The Axis of Radio Evil, Clear Channel, has assembled a Carson Daly database of sound clips, phrases, jokes and gossip, from which they construct city-customized versions of “Carson’s” top-10 radio show. Put down the vacuum cleaner, Mr. Astaire, and come out with your hands up.
Read David Gallagher‘s fascinating/creepy article in the NYTimes.

Here are the movies I’ve been gorging myself on this week as I go back to finish the script for the As Yet Unannounced Animated Musical (AYUAM). Discussion to follow, but one correction in the mean time: you know how I said the AYUAM is like Sound of Music meets Aeon Flux? What I meant was, it’s like West Side Story meets The Matrix. Short answer: (WSS, SOM, and Star Trek I (!!) director/Citizen Kane editor (!!!)) Robert Wise ROCKS.
Here are the inputs:

West Side Story

Akira

Ghost in the Shell

The Matrix
Note: Seeing Lost in La Mancha made me want to revisit a script, the script I’d imagined for years would be my first film. At some point, it grew several Don Quixote-like elements to it. It also made me want to bitchslap the producers on Terry Gilliam’s film. I can’t believe how much was not done/in place before they started, and while they were going along. Unconscionable. Also, seeing Confessions of a Dangerous Mind made me hate Chuck Barris and like George Clooney, so, mission accomplished.

“She [Paris] has a cameo [presently uncredited, -ed.] in Cat in the Hat with MIKE MYERS. She called me yesterday from Universal at 11 and said: `Mommy, I’m tired. I’ve been here since 6:30, I think they’re going to keep me here till 1.’ She’d worked one half-hour all day. She said, `I’ve read two JACKIE COLLINS books, do you know who she is?’ I said, `Sure I do.’ `Is she nice? ‘ `Yes.’ Paris said, `I want to meet her.’ I said, `All right.’ “

-Kathy Hilton, mom, quoted in the NYTimes.

William Pfaff wins a free screening tape of Souvenir (November 2001) for his column in the Int’l Herald Tribune

American commentators like to think that the “Jacksonian” frontier spirit equips America to dominate, reform and democratize other civilizations. They do not appreciate that America’s indefatigable confidence comes largely from never having had anything very bad happen to it.
The worst American war was the Civil War, in which the nation, North and South, suffered 498,000 wartime deaths from all causes, or slightly more than 1.5 percent of a total population of 31.5 million.
The single battle of the Somme in World War I produced twice as many European casualties as the United States suffered, wounded included, during that entire war.
There were 407,000 American war deaths in World War II, out of a population of 132 million – less than a third of 1 percent. Considering this, Washington does not really possess the authority to explain, in condescending terms, that Europe’s reluctance to go to war is caused by a pusillanimous reluctance to confront the realities of a Hobbesian universe.

Puppy, Jeff Koons, $1,650
Jeff Koons just walked by in his overcoat and sweats (!), with a cute little white dog. (No, a live one.)

“Them buttons wuz shot off when I took this town, sir.” (image: pstripes.com)
GI cartoonist Bill Mauldin dies the day Donald Rumsfeld apologizes for setting the value of drafted soldiers at zero (“no value, no advantage, really”).
Then, Rumsfeld zeroes out “Old Europe,” (i.e., France, Germany, the 75% of the population which doesn’t want war), which sets off a firestorm of criticism.
When I began Souvenir November 2001 a year ago, it was an attempt to underline a feeling of unity–of empathetic understanding, painfully-earned through suffering, destruction, sacrifice–that I sensed was on the wane even then. By making a movie of a New Yorker visiting a battlefield in France, seeking to learn from a war in which one in ten British men were killed (draftees, except for all the volunteers); where French, British and German soldiers died in horrific numbers, for no justifiable strategic or military purpose; where freshly dedicated WWI memorials served as shelter and vantage points in WWII assaults; where the psychological weight of the violence can still be felt, eighty years later; I imagined it could somehow be a sign, a marker, something even slightly useful for recovering and progressing from the September 11th attacks. As the chasm between the US and the civilized world widens, though, I sometimes feel like a naive, idealistic idiot.
Then I read, of all people, Brian Eno’s comments in Time, and figure I’m not entirely alone in seeing a better way: “There’s a better form of security: reconnect with the rest of the world, don’t shut it out; stop making enemies and start making friends. Perhaps it’s asking a lot to expect America to act differently from all the other empires in history, but wasn’t that the original idea?”

Charlotte Higgins writes about art (theater, mostly) as a “powerful force for peace” during the Vietnam War and wonders if it can happen now:

We don’t know everything about the Iraq situation; in fact, judging from the past, one of the few certainties is that we are being deceived. And yet to amass facts about the past is to find a framework from which to assess the present, and the future. And, now, surely this is what really matters.
And so does art: I am the last person to doubt the transforming nature of drama, or the power of theatre as protest. But what I want, now, this moment, is not plays, not poems, not mythology, not art – but facts.

Higgins’ hook was “US Revisited,” screenings and discussions of Peter Brook’s 1966 play, US, which set off a firestorm of debate over British indifference to Vietnam. Another Guardian article quotes Brook:

To use a play to fight a war is taking a taxi to the Marne…We recognised that no finished, formed work of art about Vietnam existed: we knew you can’t go to an author, give him a sum of money and say, ‘We order from you, as from a shop, the following masterpiece about Vietnam.’ So either one does nothing or one says, ‘Let’s begin.’

In his memoirs, Kissinger credits US and similar works for hastening the end of the conflict, which ended just nine years later, in 1975.

Whatever’s wrong with San Francisco, you gotta admit: they know how to throw a protest. Check out Tenny Press’s gallery of protest signs from last weekend [via MSNBC’s Jan Herman, aka The Juice]

to Greggy from the blog.