By the end of the eighteenth century, not just novel readers but most novel writers were women, too. And most historians, along with their readers, were men. As the discipline of history, the anti-novel, emerged, and especially as it professionalized, it defined itself as the domain of men.
...Maybe the topics that have seized professional historians’ attention—family history, social history, women’s history, cultural history, "microhistory"—constitute nothing more than an attempt to take back territory they forfeited to novelists in the eighteenth century. If so, historians have reclaimed from novelists nearly everything except the license to invent . . . and women readers. Today, publishers figure that men buy the great majority of popular history books; most fiction buyers are women.
Is “history at risk”? If women barely read it at all, and if men mostly read books with titles like “Guts and Guns,” it just might be.
It is hardly original or controversial (or male, really) to observe that the noblest and most important goal of history is to learn from the mistakes of the past and thus avoid repeating them.
The next time there's a genocide, I hope it is the "historical truth" historians who get to the scene first, because it's going to be a lot harder to refute the inevitable genocide deniers with a historian who dabbles in "fictional truth."
When the U.S. Congress debates the federal budget in the next cycle, I likewise hope the discussion is informed by studies of past deficits and tax schemes conducted by historians with some allegiance to the idea of objective accuracy instead of to insanity like "a reader can find the same truth in a history book and a novel."
If many women aren't buying history in the strict sense, the solution is not to change the definition of history or standards of historic study, it's to convince more girls and women there's a point in preparing for a time when they have a good deal of power and need to use it wisely.
I will now conclude this stern and dry and probably boring rant and return to my attempts to entertain with blog posts based on information of often uncertain accuracy, since I am not a professor of history at Harvard University.
"Battlestar Galactica" is going back to where it all began.
Nearly two years after the idea was first a glimmer in a galaxy far, far away, Sci Fi Channel announced Tuesday that it...
Full episode: NBC
Larry Birkhead said he knew Daniel Smith was sneaking his mom's methadone and that Anna Nicole Smith gave him Ecstasy to take at home.
Meanwhile, Howard K. Stern was saying, "Huh?"...
Arthur C. Clarke was a man ahead of his time. By 33 years, to be precise.
Clarke, the prolific author and noted futurist who, with filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, helped grow up the science-fiction...Of course international media still got reports out:
Al Jazeera:
Police harass a British journalist:
Meanwhile, there are many ways to break through the Great Firewall of China and bypass all its filters, including the YouTube block.
So no, blocking the Internet and trying to hide massive protests from reporters isn't much of a demonstration of power if you can't pull it off.
Full video: Sex at Harvard
1. Death Cab for Cutie, "I Will Possess Your Heart"
Never mind the four-minute instrumental intro in which Ben Gibbard (sort of) rocks out — once he starts singing, it's still the same sad, mopey glum rock that made Zack Braff (and us) fall in love with him in the first place. [Stereogum]
2. Spiritualized, "Soul on Fire"
Not to be outdone, Jason Pierce returns — with his first new single in five years — to confirm that Paxil didn't work for him either. [Deaf Indie Elephants]
3. Fuck Buttons, "Ribs Out"
The experimental English duo reaffirm their unending commitment to never becoming popular, by recording this track which sounds like zoo animals singing along to an Autechre record. It's actually not bad. [It's Hard to Find a Friend]
4. Vampire Weekend, "Mansard Roof" (live at SXSW)
If you, like us, were unable to attend this year's South by Southwest festival over the weekend, here's the next best thing: a pretty excellent version of our favorite VW track, recorded during the band's first-ever non-sweatered (it was too hot) performance. [Deaf Indie Elephants]
5. Lou Reed feat. Moby, "Take a Walk on the Wild Side" (live at SXSW)
What's sadder than Lou Reed's being trotted out to perform his biggest hit with Moby at a corporate-sponsored music-business schmoozefest while no one pays attention? Nothing. [Stereogum]
Photo: Getty Images
Wait, but didn't they get divorced seventeen years ago? Who cares, we said to ourselves, because by the way, Ethan looks good. He proceeded to sing a ditty that included lyrics about "not caring if [he] ever saw New York again," "the lawyers," and — most telling — "my wife." Uma! "My wife hates me," he sang, adding something about how she would call him a prick, how he longed to send for his children, tralalala singing stuff. We were intoxicated, both with beverages and with memories of Dead Poets Society. And then! "My wife is a big fat beast," he sang. We gasped, along with the rest of the audience. He called Uma fat! In public! Sheepishly, Hawke broke his musicianly stride: "Yeah, I was very upset at the time." And still is, we suspect.
Photo: Getty
You can go ahead and add "arrest warrants" to the list of smoking-related ills.
Just ask Shia LaBeouf.
Thanks to his nicotine habit, the rising star is wanted by the cops...
Photo Courtesy Copyranter
1) Where is, exactly, the Tribeca Grand in this picture?
2) Are we to infer, from the sheet this woman is wielding, that your massage therapists at the Grand will be naked?
3) And seductively Asian?
4) Who in Tribeca is driving a wood-paneled Buick station wagon, like the one on the lower right?
5) And is she barefoot on cobblestones downtown? Ew!
TriBeCa Grand Hotel apparently offers Naked Turndown Service. [Copyranter]
We suggested back in December that Cooper might be the next Zac Efron, with this summer's Mamma Mia! being 2007's Hairspray. Like the High School Musical star, he'll show off his singing skills (though he says they're not great), and — how to put this politely? — History Boys' Dakin does appeal to both men and women. (Advantage over Efron: He's legal!)
But, speaking of Dakin, Cooper could turn out to be the smart, seductive, attention-craving leader of the pack we fell in love with in Bennett's play and movie to begin with.
Then again, he could be the brooding British intellectual, à la James McAvoy; later this year, he'll star in the period piece The Duchess opposite — shocking, we know — Keira Knightley.
Or maybe he's the witty, shy guy next door! After all, he's appearing in Brief Encounters With Hideous Men, the David Foster Wallace adaptation directed by Office cutie John Krasinski.
So many heartthrob possibilities! When you Scotch Tape a photo of him to the inside of your locker, just remember: We called him first. —Lori Fradkin
Earlier: ‘Mamma Mia!’ Trailer: Surf, Sand, and a Sun-Kissed Meryl Streep
A look from Margiela's fall 2008 collection. Photo: Getty Images
Since opening his design house in the late Eighties, Margiela has kept a low profile "in a decade characterized by extreme narcissism where designers gained superstar status," Debo said. She pointed out that Margiela never sits for portraits, answers interview questions in the first person plural (for his house, as opposed to for him as a designer), puts a blank label in his garments, and keeps his models anonymous by blocking their faces with paint, masks or rectangular sunglasses that look like "don't" protection.
Also, "almost all surfaces of his stores and headquarters are painted white — up to and including the hangers and catsup bottles in the cafeteria," according to WWD. Guess the perfume bottle's going to be minimal and, er, white.
The Fame Paradox [WWD]
Eau D'Invisible Man: L'Oréal Signs License to Do Margiela Scent [WWD]
Photo: Getty Images
• 1923: Bear Stearns is founded as an equity trading house by Joseph Bear, Robert Stearns, and Harold Mayer with $500,000 in capital. According to the inflation calculator, that's about $6.1 billion dollars today.
• 1969: At a New York bridge tournament, future Bear Stearns CEO Alan "Ace" Greenberg meets a 35-year-old Jimmy Cayne, then a professional card player. Impressed by Cayne's stage presence, pluck, and no doubt, bridge skills, Greenberg offers him a job as a Bear stockbroker on the spot.
• 1985: The bank becomes a publicly traded company.
• 1998: Bear Stearns, now under the watchful eye of Jimmy Cayne, is the one investment-bank holdout in the Wall Street–led rescue of collapsed hedge fund Long Term Capital Management. This move (along with Cayne's comment that they ought to "let them fail," as recorded in Roger Lowenstein's When Genius Failed) will prove ironic later.
• March 2002: The New York Sun announces that Bear Stearns CEO James Cayne will be writing a bridge column for the paper.
• June 2007: Bear Stearns ponies up $3.2 billion to bail out two hedge funds created to invest in subprime mortgages: the High Grade Structured Credit Strategies Fund and the High Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund.
• July 2007: Bear Stearns writes to inform clients that the two hedge funds now contain "very little" or "effectively no value" for investors. By August, both funds file for bankruptcy.
• October 2007: Cayne reassures investors: "Most of our businesses are beginning to rebound." Later that month, state-owned Chinese lender Citic pays $1 billion for a 6 percent stake in Bear, giving the firm an approximately $20 billion valuation.
• December 2007: Bear Stearns posts fourth-quarter loss of $854 million on massive mortgage-related write-downs, the first quarterly loss in its 85-year history.
• January 2008: Cayne is more or less forced to resign as CEO in the wake of a Wall Street Journal article detailing his recreational pot use, monthlong vacations to play cards, and other high jinks at 383 Madison Avenue. The board kept Cayne on as chairman, and Alan D. Schwartz takes over as CEO.
• March 10–13, 2008: Amid rumors that Bear is teetering and has liquidity problems — and the small matter of $46 billion in mortgages and other questionable "assets" on its books — new CEO Schwartz goes on the public-relations offensive, appearing on CNBC on Monday (via live feed from the Breakers Resort at Palm Beach). "We don't see any pressure on our liquidity, let alone a liquidity crisis," he says. As if to prove it, ex-CEO Cayne closes on a $28 million pad at the Plaza. But to little avail: The perception of trouble quickly becomes a reality as hedge funds and other financial parties engaged with the firm take their money and get out. Enough people decide, all at the same time, that they don't want to be within 200 feet of Bear, and by the evening of Thursday, March 13, Bear finds itself, unquestionably, in the midst of a liquidity crisis. It was kind of like the "run on the bank" at the Bailey Brothers Savings and Loan in It's a Wonderful Life, only no one was wearing fedoras.
• Friday night, March 13–14, 2008: In a desperate scramble to avoid having no funds to operate its businesses, Bear executives pull an all-nighter trying to figure out how "fix this thing." At 5 a.m., they wake Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and a bunch of other dudes to discuss the matter, and ultimately decide to secure an emergency agreement with JPMorgan and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the largest-ever bailout of a U.S. securities firm. The Fed had to invoke a little-used securities law to lend funds through JPMorgan, in order to avoid having Bear Stearns disintegrate and threaten the (remaining) stability of the U.S. financial system. Bear Stearns shares tumbled 47 percent to close at $30. Jimmy Cayne, showing courage in the face of great difficulty and the potential collapse of the 85-year-old firm, takes part in a bridge tournament in Detroit. Using humor as a coping mechanism, Bear employees joke nervously about not bothering to come in on Monday, since the firm will probably be bought over the weekend. They are a prescient bunch.
• March 16–17, 2008: On late Sunday, after forcing a bunch of bankers to work over the weekend, JPMorgan decides it will buy Bear Stearns so that BSC can avoid bankruptcy, but only with the Fed's backing. The going price? $2 a share, which puts the valuation of the once giant firm at $236 million. Remember that $6 billion estimate at the beginning of this timeline? Ouch. JPMorgan, meanwhile, gets the Federal Reserve's protection for some of Bear's potential (and manifold) liabilities, plus a $1.2 billion building. Morgan also gets the firm's viable businesses, like its prime brokerage, for practically nothing. CEO Jamie Dimon looks like a genius (also he's quite handsome, we'd never noticed!), and the Fed looks like a hero.
• Moving forward: Divisions like Bear's investment bank, etc., are probably on their way out, including the employees manning the desks. Conservative estimates regarding the carnage range from a third to half of all of Bear Stearns's 14,000 employees. Everything that just went down is what's known in the business as "not good" for anyone working for Bear right this second, i.e. the people holding 33 percent of the now-devalued stock. The market is placing odds that Lehman Brothers, also a big mortgage player, is next to be taken out and shot. Like Bear did last week, Lehman puts the word out on Monday that they are awash with liquidity, though it doesn't stop the stock from falling to a six-year low. The Fed, in basically backing JPMorgan's rescue of Bear, is setting a dangerous precedent for itself in saving Wall Street's tuchis. There's also the question of who would be willing to play JPMorgan to Lehman's Bear Stearns, should it come to that. —Bess Levin, editor, DealBreaker.com
Courtesy of Atlantic Records
In an e-mail we just got from Gnarls' publicist, the band explain their reasoning, sort of: "With the shifting seasons, furtive romantic entanglements and fierce college basketball rivalries, the latter half of March can be confusing. People need to be soothed and inspired now." In any case, we're sure glad we aren't the poor Warner Bros. executive who now has to explain to Jack White the unfeasibility of releasing his album yesterday.
Earlier: Jack White Shocks the Recording Industry — by Actually Paying Them a Cut!
I'm a model… Photo: Courtesy of Esquire
‘Esquire’ Escalates Chef-Fashion War with ‘Maxim’ [Grub Street]
Ang Lee is New York’s most ambitious and versatile director, even if he is rarely credited for it. Who else can say they’ve ranged nearly as far? A gay western (Brokeback Mountain), a comic-book franchise (The Hulk), the most-successful martial-arts film of all time (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), three seminal Asian-American dramas, and, oh, yeah, this classic on suburban-Connecticut dysfunction, now available on a spiffy Criterion DVD. Bonus features include new interviews with almost all of the principals (Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver), plus commentary by Lee and his longtime collaborator and enabler James Schamus.
Photo: Patrick McMullan
The Look Book: Eglantina Zingg and Elisa Estrada, Travelers [NYM]
'Lesbian' Paris Pic on Web [London Sun]
Coming soon: GshowerPhoto: Courtesy of blogs.fashionweekdaily.com
Thomas Hampson (in suit) and Sondra Radvanovsky in the Met's ErnaniPhoto illustration: Everett Bogue; Photos: Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera, AFP/Getty Images
This viral attack was not singling out the revival of Pier Luigi Samaritani's 1983 production — though it would have had good reason to have it in for a staging already suffering from the virulent eighties strain of operatic gigantism. The current production of Tristan und Isolde lost both of its box-office draws when tenor Ben Heppner pleaded flu before opening night (and has yet to return to work) and Deborah Voigt was sidelined by stomach problems halfway through a performance last Friday. With its subterranean rehearsal rooms and antiquated ventilation, the Met acts as an efficient distributor for germs that itinerant singers import from other opera houses around the world. Spending one’s workday at the Met is like living in an intercontinental airplane in which all the passengers are phlegmophobic divas who can be felled by an ordinary cold.
Once upon a time, renovating the Met’s backstage and modernizing its ventilation system were part of Lincoln Center’s vast plans to overhaul itself. The Met’s part of that project has been indefinitely postponed so for now it’s back to the old cough, croak, and curtain call until flu season finally ends. —Justin Davidson
Photo: Courtesy of Thenewenthusiasm.com
This photo, on the other hand, along with others on a rather clandestine Website called the New Enthusiasm, isn't by Teller. We think. The series of photographs, called "Mr. Teller's Borg + McEnroe," spoofs the MJ ads, though no one thought to jump into a bag like Posh. Considering the sporty duds and tennis gear, we're assuming they're referring to the historic Wimbledon tennis match between Björn Borg and John McEnroe. The site says something is coming in 2008. We'll guess a photo exhibit. At least no one used Dakota Fanning this time.
Mr. Teller's Borg + McEnroe [New Enthusiasm]
Obama's looking for a new foreign-policy adviser, and he could do far worse than Columbia's superstar economist, that rare critic of the Bush administration and the global power structure who deigns to offer actual solutions. His latest, eminently accessible volume describes exactly how an outlay of 3 percent of global income can curb global warming, world poverty, and population growth for generations to come. Then, of course, comes the hard part — creating the political will to aim for multilateral solutions.
Devorah Sperber’s Spock 1 (2008)Image courtesy of Caren Golden Gallery.
Broadway-Flushing: As landmarking honchos drag their feet on protecting this enclave of pretty early-1900s homes, locals wonder if it's more evidence that city pooh-bahs care more about Manhattan and Brooklyn brownstones than they do historic Queens cribs. [NYDN]
Brooklyn Heights: How will the city get Brooklynites to the hard-to-get-to Brooklyn Bridge Park? It will bus them! [Brooklyn Paper]
Harlem: Some folks are protesting the move of Alexander Hamilton's Colonial house from a cramped street to St. Nicholas Park because — get this — it won't be facing the same way. [Curbed]
Midtown: One supporter of the proposal for the critically acclaimed MoMA-adjacent Nouvel tower has a gripe with community-board activists: "I was the only person under the age of 80 and not in a cruise-ship blazer and bow-tie … community boards are overrun by the retired … the only people with the time or desire to get involved …" Ageist, bitter words — but if you've ever attended a community-board meeting, kinda true, right? [Curbed]
Ridgewood: The Ridgewood Theater, the only cinema here — or in neighboring Bushwick, for that matter — is dead dead dead. [BushwickBK]
Williamsburg: The next time you're here, play Miss Heather's "gentrification bingo." Get a Thai restaurant, a Karl Fischer building, a stop-work order, a Corcoran office, and a "self-absorbed twentysomething" babbling or texting on a cell phone diagonally across your card and you win! [Newyorkshitty]
As word of Anthony Minghella's untimely death spread Tuesday, expressions of grief poured in from Hollywood's elite.
The Oscar-winning director died from a fatal hemorrhage following...
Courtesy of Nintendo
With every single movie, TV show, and album falling short of already-diminished expectations these days, how is it that video-game companies can still convince people — in ever-increasing numbers — to cough up $50 for shiny plastic discs? Is it because they're harder to pirate? Just more fun? The fact that Brett Ratner has never made one? In any case, Hollywood is already worried about next month's Grand Theft Auto IV hurting box-office sales for Iron Man (which comes out the same week), and, well, it probably will.
'Smash Bros.' breaking records [Variety]
Photo: Getty Images
"I thought [the speech] was a culmination of tough-minded, tender-hearted and a clear vision," Jackson told the Huffington Post. "It really was warm, filling, captive, reconciling and comprehensive and it displayed real true grit. He was forthright not evasive and used it as a teaching moment in American history: America's struggle to overcome its past and become a more perfect union. And once he made the case about the past and the complexities of Reverend Wright's life or [Geraldine] Ferraro's for that matter, he made the case that we are here now, but this time we will go forward by hope and not backwards by fear."
Jackson added that he thought "American saw an even deeper and more profound view" of Obama today. What he may mean is that Americans saw Obama, finally, as a large step in the long climb toward civil rights in the country. It was a role Obama had been reluctant to adopt, but it seems as though he's finally accepted it.
Jesse Jackson: Obama Just Turned Crisis Into Opportunity [HuffPo]
Earlier: Jesse Jackson Does Not Give 'Free Advice' To Barack Obama
Heather Mills may have scored a hefty settlement from Paul McCartney, but it's safe to say she didn't win any fans in the process.
In his ruling issued Monday, Judge Hugh Bennett called...Totally batshit Catalan architect Antonio Gaudí created some of the nuttiest cathedrals, casas, and lampposts this side of Alice’s Wonderland — and Japanese auteur Hiroshi Teshigahara was his perfect match, as his 1984 documentary proves. Out on a DVD from Criterion, the film isn’t so much a sober tour of the turn-of-the-century surrealist's most-famous sites (including the Sagrada Familia), it’s a playful, rhapsodic, and formally adventurous artwork of its own, every bit as weird as one of Gaudí’s baffling structures.
Photo: Tony Nelson / Retna
The album has a really vintage feel. Is that reflective of your tastes?
Deschanel: I sort of always liked everything antique — it always just felt like a treat, like a little treasure. Compared to old music, new music just felt, by and large, sort of soulless. Though I’m sure there are tons of horrible old records I know nothing about.
Ward: I don’t really hate modern culture or anything, but if we’re talking about music, I just think older music is recorded better. Stuff that allows the listener more room to breathe and dream is more involving for me than the way most records sound on the radio, which is…
Deschanel: Loud.
Ward: Yes. Extremely loud.
You both grew up playing instruments — have you found similar songs you were attached to early on?
Ward: It was especially cool to realize we’d covered a lot of the same songs growing up. There’s that Beatles song that’s on the record, “I Should Have Known Better…”
Deschanel: I had done an a cappella version of that, and you actually already had it recorded, just the pedal notes.
Ward: It was a very pleasant surprise, having Zooey say, “I want to cover this song,” and I’d wanted to produce it for a very long time. It was…
Deschanel: Totally awesome!
Ward: You took the words out of my mouth.
Do you exchange music when you’re apart?
Deschanel: What was that guy’s name you sent me that amazing recording of…
Ward: Washington Phillips?
Deschanel: Yes! That was awesome.
Ward: He sings folk gospel songs with an instrument that nobody can identify. Zooey has reintroduced to me so many artists I love. Darlene Love sticks out.
Deschanel: This is opening up a can of worms that could go on for days. You sent me Roger Miller … and I sent you Jim Ed Brown and the Browns.
Ward: And I had never heard Jim Ed Brown and the Browns.
Deschanel: And I love Roger Miller!
Ward: Zooey’s very much an encyclopedia of great American music.
Have you found a similar work philosophy?
Ward: I could tell immediately Zooey was someone who sings and gets involved with music for the right reasons — not to get obsessed over the minutiae, which is what so many musicians are. With her, it felt very natural and easy.
Deschanel: I think we both agreed that perfection isn’t making something perfectly symmetrical.
Ward: In terms of music, if you can express that, then maybe you can start to convince other people this mistake is sort of interesting. I think that’s how a lot of my favorite jazz artists are able to work.
So what do you now get out of working with each other that you don’t out of your usual day jobs?
Ward: Well, I love being able to sit back and watch Zooey take over the vocal side of things. I love not having to sing lead!
Deschanel: Making movies, you’re like an independent contractor — you come in, you have a specific job, and a lot of what you do is completely manipulated, which is good and bad. It’s really great to have a creative partnership, to be totally involved in something I can take full responsibility for — if somebody doesn’t like it or loves it, I’m to blame either way. It’s empowering.
Projects involving singing actresses aren’t typically well received — were you worried?
Deschanel: Honestly, I don’t want to live my life being influenced by anticipating other people’s reactions to what I do. The moment you sense someone is making something because they think people are gonna buy it or like it, it’s just so phony! The public has a nose for phony like nobody else.
—Rebecca Milzoff
Photo Illustration: Everett Bogue; Photos: Getty Images
If you didn't get up at sunrise to shiver on the sidewalk with the out-of-towners all morning to see her Today segment, fret not! Catch her in person when she appears with Simon Doonan in a Barneys store window tonight at 6:30 to acknowledge the arrival of Versace menswear to the sales floor. She'll be behind glass, so who cares? It's Donatella, people! It's not clear what she and Doonan will do in there, but it should be entertaining. So go and bow down before her.
Photo: Getty Images
Seliger recently photographed the entire Schnabel family for a L’Uomo Vogue spread. Papa Schnab, he said, had insisted on wearing his own clothing. “You can count on him wearing pajamas, that’s for sure,” he said.
And then, as if he were a rotund, benevolent Beetlejuice, at the sound of his name, Schnabel appeared.
He was puffing a cigarette outside in the downstairs grotto. So, we said, had he ever discussed his pink palazzo with his neighbors? He looked at us askance. “No. I never talk to them about it," he said, puffing on a cigarette.“ Right, we said nervously. Why would he? "But it’s not really pink, that color," he explained. “It’s a lot of different colors. It’s not really one color." We asked about the L’Uomo Vogue shoot. The clothes were indeed his own, he said, although he made some concessions. “They wanted me to wear this fur coat. I said, ‘I’ll wear it if we can wear our surfing trunks.’ Which we did, Vito and I.” Trunks with a fur coat? “It seemed only right,” Schnabel said. We nodded mutely. He held up his cigarette. “I’m going to put this out," he said. “I don’t smoke anymore." —Bennett Marcus
Dateless designer Malan BretonPhoto: Getty Images
Related: Tim Gunn: Christian Siriano Is the Next Marc Jacobs
Mariah Carey, hurting.Photo: Getty Images
Cultural note: We see that the warbler Mariah Carey, who has already tied Elvis Presley as the second-place holder of the most No. 1 records, will soon, if her new hit ditty goes to the top of the charts, tie the Beatles as the first-place holder of the most No. 1 records ever.
Man.
That's — that's just wrong.
On so many levels.
Why, exactly, is it wrong, you guys? Because you're a bunch of mostly white old people who don't understand R&B? If you'll recall, your parents thought Elvis and the Beatles were trashy, too. We won't defend Mariah Carey's cultural relevance in comparison to those musical giants — though we do love her. But from now on, you're no longer allowed to wonder why young people think your newspaper is irrelevant.
Off the Charts [NYDN]
Wentz likes tight girl jeansPhoto: FilmMagic
"Technically they will be hanging in the young women's area, but personally I make these clothes as if they are unisex," Wentz said. "I mean, some of the clothes are clearly just for girls, you won't see me wearing a dress or anything, but I do like to wear a slimmer jean."
Before anyone raises an eyebrow, we confess we know a few guys who wear ladies' jeans (okay — some of them may even be sitting near us). And instead of just sharing hoodies, now Wentz and girlfriend Ashlee Simpson can share pants! But, seriously, Wentz has been at the design thing for a while. Last fall, he did a limited-edition Clandestine Industries line for DKNY Jeans. Since then, Clandestine Industries has been sold online and in Wentz's Chicago boutique.
But let's tally up the recent spate of celeb lines: All three Hills girls, Avril Lavigne, and Rachel Bilson have all gotten into the design game. For Pete's sake, this has gotten out of control.
Wentz to Do Nordstrom Exclusive [WWD]
FINANCE
• JPMorgan Chase will probably move its investment-banking unit to Bear Stearns' smokin'-hot headquarters on Madison Avenue. The building is valued at $1.2 billion, which is just one-fourth of quadruple the price JPMorgan paid for the firm itself. [NYP]
• JPMorgan Chase's valuation of Bear Stearns shows that financial institutions are significantly overvalued. Speaking of which, many employees had their life savings wiped out. [NYP, WSJ]
• Meanwhile Goldman Sachs' earnings are down but beat analysts' expectations. [DealBook/NYT]
MEDIA
• Fox News's newsroom has … bedbugs. [NYT]
• Could Katie Couric finally get to moderate a presidential debate? [NYO]
• In a particularly timely announcement, Slate is launching the Big Money, a Website that will report on Wall Street and financial affairs. [Reuters]
LAW
• Wow, that was fast. Bear Stearns shareholders file a suit against the firm, alleging fraud by the bank's top execs. [Bloomberg]
• The Bear Stearns collapse could affect law firms such as Latham & Watkins, Skadden Arps, Cadwalader, and Wickersham & Taft. [Law.com]
Photo: Imaxtree
Photo: Getty Images
Barack Obama just finished his big address on race and politics in Philadelphia. This was a big one for him, as he's been forced to address many racially charged issues in the past week because of his friendship and affiliation with the controversial Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Wright is Obama's pastor and officiated his wedding with Michelle Obama. He's also blamed the United States for 9/11, the AIDS virus, and "creating a racist society." In the lull before the Pennsylvania primary on April 22, this has become the main political plotline of the Democratic contest. Today, he addressed these issues and the broader scale of racial tension in America. It was strikingly reminiscent of Mitt Romney's much-touted "Faith in America" address. Beginning with a discussion of the Declaration of Independence and a nod to Obama's mixed heritage, it honestly bared the anger and confusion (and roots thereof) that black and white people still face in America today. Some highlights:
• "For as long as I live I will never forget that in no other country on earth is my story even possible," he explained, referencing the slave ancestry in his wife and daughter's heritage.
• He exclusively referred to Reverend Wright as his "former pastor." He also conceded that he had heard him sermonize controversial ideas but compared it to the many Americans who have heard similar things from their own priests, rabbis, and religious leaders. He called Wright's opinion "a profoundly distorted view of this country."
• But he added that "[Wright's church] embodies the black community in its entirety." He read a passage from his book, Dreams From My Father, that explained his first experience in the Trinity United Church.
• "As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith," Obama explained. "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can disown my white grandmother, a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who pass her on the street." [OMG! That's just like our white grandmother!]
• He explained the roots of the quiet anger still simmering in middle-class black families over the social injustices of the twentieth century and compared it to the frustration of similar white families. "The anger is real, it is powerful," he said. "And to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, serves only to widen the chasm of understanding between the races."
• Obama also reminded listeners of his main campaign message: "The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about profound racism in our society, it's that he spoke of our problems as if it was static." After a long pause, he continued. "We know, because we have seen, that America can change. What we have already seen has given us hope, and the audacity to hope."
• He closed by challenging voters and the press not to defer discussions over race to a later date, but to face them now in order to come together to solve larger problems. "The children in America are not 'those people's kids,'" he said, raising his voice. "They are our kids."
What did you think? Was all this honesty and difficult subject matter the right thing for Obama to bring up right now? Or will it change the way people view his candidacy for the worse? Let us know in the comments.
Photo: Getty Images
Gunn was also good-humored about the Saturday Night Live's Project Runway sketch, in which he was parodied. "I loved it," he said. "But Amy Poehler's Christian! I was thinking, 'Maybe Christian is there. Maybe he's doing it — is it really Amy Poehler?' She was amazing."
But back to the real Siriano, not Poehler's version: Gunn doesn't think he will fall off the runway any time soon. "He's bound to show at September Fashion Week," Gunn said. Oh, joy! We hope we're in for more Big Bird dresses. — Bennett Marcus
Related: ‘SNL’ Spoofs Christian Siriano With ‘Fierce Hot Mess’
Anthony Minghella, the Oscar-winning director of films including "The English Patient," "Cold Mountain" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley," has died. He was 54.
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