'Public Enemy of All Mankind' Sharon Stone Regrets Mixing Human Rights With Geology

STV — Thu, 29 May 2008 16:45:00 EDT

Mere days after scientists assured her that "karma tectonics" was most certainly not responsible for the devastating May 12 earthquake that killed nearly 70,000 people in China, Sharon Stone revised her earlier geological lecture to include a direct apology to the Chinese people for suggesting as much in the first place. "Due to my inappropriate words and acts during the interview, I feel deeply sorry and sad about hurting Chinese people," Stone said in a statement released through Christian Dior, which is dropping the actress from its ads in China. "I am willing to take part in the relief work of China's earthquake, and wholly devote myself to helping affected Chinese people."

The comments came a day after China's official Xinhua News Agency named Stone the "public enemy of all mankind"; a government spokesman reacted to her apology with the "hope that as an actress she should contribute to our two peoples' mutual trust, understanding and friendship." And just like that, Basic Instinct 2 disappeared from every video store in Beijing. Apology accepted!

[Photo Credit: AFP]

Sharon Stone apologizes for remark on China quake [AP]

'Black Book' Editor's Hurricane Love Affair Ends In Wedding

Joshua Stein — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 11:50:42 EDT

Steve Garbarino, the sorta Jeff Daniels look-a-like editor in chief of Black Book magazine, met his new wife when on "a snowy night in March 2005, at Hudson Bar and Books, in Manhattan, [he] was holding court with friends and drinking a dark and stormy." Garbarino, says the Times, "made some ridiculous drolleries, told some tales, bragged a bit about the HBO [show]—which did not come to fruition." Really, this sort of thing works? On some women apparently.

Her name is Maddy Simpson. She's an ex-model and, although it went unmentioned in the writeup, she has been a stylist, sittings editor and photography editor for Black Book. The story of their love borders on farce, a parade of romcom clichés you swear you've seen in some movie with Andie McDowell but can't find on IMDB.

A week after their first date:

[S]he visited him at his pied-à-terre behind the Chateau Marmont hotel in West Hollywood.
"Maddy fell in love with my place as much as me," Mr. Garbarino joked.

As for his feelings, he said: "Maddy had this cool that felt right, not trendy pretensions. And she had these one-liners....."

Mr. Garbarino soon abandoned his pied-à-terre. "I decided on the Fourth of July to pack up, and move back to New York, at first to her little apartment, then to our own place," he said.

Cut to a medley of packing. Steve is in his underwear. Some styrofoam packing peanuts have gotten stuck in his virile chest hair. Maddy gingerly picks them out. They both laugh uproariously and start throwing peanuts at each other by the handful. Later they make love on a bed of them. It is ill-advised. Later Maddy develops a yeast infection from an errant piece of foam. Belle and Sebastian's "I'm A Cuckoo" plays in the background.

Later, the couple tears off to Hunt Slonem's Louisiana plantation in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Childhood dreams of the life of Scarlett O'Hara ran through my imagination," Ms. Simpson said. "It was our romantic respite before we had to go face the reality of what we were about to see of New Orleans." They fastened the shutters and "waited for the roof to be blown off," Mr. Garbarino said. When the electricity failed, they lighted candles and ran through the cavernous rooms, laughing....
As the storm howled, he proposed on the grand staircase. "It was love in the ruins," Mr. Garbarino said.

"Shelter From the Storm" plays as the two make love on the staircase. What the...?

Maddy Simpson and Steven Garbarino [NYT]

Gawker: natural disasters

'Public Enemy of All Mankind' Sharon Stone Regrets Mixing Human Rights With Geology

'Black Book' Editor's Hurricane Love Affair Ends In Wedding