robert isabell

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Was the Real Estate Bust to Blame for Robert Isabell's Death?
Media Still Talking About Partying in 1999
Tina Brown Eulogizes Her Party Planner, His Bombass Parties, And Herself

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Uncle_Billy_Slumming
10/12/09

In reply to Was the Real Estate Bust to Blame for Robert Isabell's Death?
Molly Ringwald is gorgeous! Molly, Sarah Silverman stood me up for breakfast this morning. Call me!
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Dr. Nick
10/12/09

In reply to Was the Real Estate Bust to Blame for Robert Isabell's Death?
First Robert Isabell. Then John Hughes.

Anthony Michael Hall, now would be a good time to get your blood pressure checked. And if Molly Ringwald offers you a drink, politely turn it down.
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greengrey
10/12/09

In reply to Was the Real Estate Bust to Blame for Robert Isabell's Death?
Well. I'm not surprised. Party Planning is a very stressful job.
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FormerEnglishMajor
10/12/09

In reply to Was the Real Estate Bust to Blame for Robert Isabell's Death?
Yes, this is far more sad than the thousands upon thousands of people who had big plans, and the market had other thoughts. And who are now being evicted from their homes, with children or medical issues or no job, and with no place to go.

I guess I have less sympathy for a high-end party planner trying to reno and flip a $50 mil building that required always-finicky and slow landmarks approval. Just Googling you can get a sense of what he would have had to go through despite any market issues.

[www.thevillager.com]
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Edited by FormerEnglishMajor at 10/12/09 11:34 AM FormerEnglishMajor was starred

Foster Kamer
08/03/09

In reply to Media Still Talking About Partying in 1999
Five. Dollars. A Word. I mean, listen: I know it's semi-inexcusable for me to be shocked by that number, but it's like looking at what a one bedroom loft costs in downtown Omaha: you simply can't believe people are (or were) living like that. Adjust for inflation and holy shit: the only way a writer could pull that kind of con now is if he's taking money for every word he doesn't write [bidding starts at $0.45].
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snugbug
08/03/09

@Foster Kamer: I too refuse to buy such a thing. They're all wildly hyperbolizing or have their pants aflame. No way in hell did that transaction ever happen in the world of print journalism. Copywriters for Microsoft or Apple product, on the other hand.. They prolly get paid $500,000/word.
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elinorwhyme
08/03/09

@snugbug: Hmm, more like $4 a word, but it happened. Just not for most of us. That rate was for the famous authors/essayists who would write one 3000-word feature a year at two or three mags tops.
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Cynical Media Bitch
08/03/09

@elinorwhyme: Even not-so-famous niche-media types (such as yours truly) could get $1/word a few years ago. One could (sort of) scrape by at that rate.

Today, at 10¢ a word, I can no longer afford to write. I know that I'm supposed to suffer for my art, and that I should feel awful for being unable to keep my creative fires burning, but I don't.
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Foster Kamer
08/03/09

@snugbug: Oh, no, the thing is, I know it happened. I'm just still shocked by it. Tina Brown paying $5/word in '99 = Tina Brown paying upwards of $250/feature at The Daily Beast in '09.
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BlinkyMcChuck
08/03/09

In reply to Media Still Talking About Partying in 1999
Open bar is my idea of unconditional love.
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Iwillnotauditionforastar
08/03/09

@BlinkyMcChuck: Only way to get me to show up.
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snugbug
08/02/09

In reply to Media Still Talking About Partying in 1999
Cajun garçon, you made my day with this post.. Cookie for you!

That party sounds like major fun, actually, all Prince song puns and David Carr boo-hoo-ing aside. Aww.. Talk was really good and fun, people. Like The New Yorker for smart people who love to get trashed and then comment on Gawker! Once Talk got the obligatory cover celeb suckup outta the way, each issue was a treasure chest of awesomeness. As a Tina Brown freak (shoot me!), I like what she's doing with The Beast, but it's not even in the same galaxy as Talk.
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Edited by snugbug at 08/02/09 11:47 PM snugbug was starred snugbug was unstarred

The Cajun Boy
08/03/09

@snugbug: There was a time when I was a chocolate chip cookie kind of guy, but these days I'm partial to oatmeal raisin. Just so you know.
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snugbug
08/03/09

@The Cajun Boy: Coming right away, though I'm more of a savory-snack gal..

BTW, and sorry for the thread-jacking comment, but the Next Food Network Star is unfolding right now on my sat cable, and I'm in a maelstrom of emotional turmoil. If Jeffrey Saad, aka my real estate dad crush who just made a harisa-splattered merguez sausage sandwich doesn't win, I will weep. =( Where are MisterHippity and the Wednesday nite Gawker Top Chef crew to hold my hand?
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belltolls
08/02/09

In reply to Media Still Talking About Partying in 1999
Guess every generation must wax poetic about some great party but it wasn't The Black & White Ball now was it, and no great novelist thought to include it as a touchstone in a magnificent book now did they. I would rather have talked to Capote than Brown so you can see my prejudice. One was a celebration of the accomplished and one was a product launch.
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skahammer
08/03/09

@belltolls: Wow, so you read enough of Kurt Andersen's Turn of the Century to find out that this soiree wasn't in there? Better man than I.
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Sigerson
07/12/09

In reply to Tina Brown Eulogizes Her Party Planner, His Bombass Parties, And Herself
The enduring successes of Tina Brown just proves that an English accent in New York will excuse multiple sins and consistent mediocrity.
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raincoaster
07/13/09

@Sigerson: She was great once. That was before she became the monster in order to write about the monster.
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NigelAstydameia
07/12/09

In reply to Tina Brown Eulogizes Her Party Planner, His Bombass Parties, And Herself
I love how she puts the destruction of the Twin Towers next to the folding of her silly little magazine (not to mention poor Salman and Padma!), as if they hold equal weight in the annals of history.
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Foster Kamer
07/12/09

In reply to Tina Brown Eulogizes Her Party Planner, His Bombass Parties, And Herself
When all's said and done, I will say: that picture of Brown is pretty great. And even though only, like, nine people are interested in this kind of thing, they enjoy it greatly. I did. I still think Brown's treatment of it was still a little self-involved, though.
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VoxPopuli
07/12/09

In reply to Tina Brown Eulogizes Her Party Planner, His Bombass Parties, And Herself
After the "purple rain" reference, I read this in Prince's sad yowling mode. It really brought something extra to the parade of dead celebrities that Tina trots out here.

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MargotheDoeEyedFMachine
07/12/09

@VoxPopuli: She could have actually interviewed his associates, other party planners, etc., to get an idea out there to the public about what RI was really like. But Tina Brown cannot see past her own flat tits these days. Jesus, she just sucks.
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BookishLookish
07/12/09

In reply to Tina Brown Eulogizes Her Party Planner, His Bombass Parties, And Herself
Well, this sucks big-time. Robert Isabell was a darling. He once gave me some work when I really needed it, and he did it with honor and grace. A gentleman. He was not just a party planner. He also created some amazing perfumes that the general population was too idiotic to appreciate, but which I treasure. Now every dumb celeb who can hire someone to make a perfume for them shoves tuberose and gardenia together without any subtlety or style. Ahead of his time, as usual. RIP.
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Baroness
07/12/09

@BookishLookish: A very nice remembrance, Booky. Isabell seemed like a class act, a gent of the old school, someone whose taste and style and drive took him far- from modest beginnings in the provinces to the metropolitan glamour of his dreams.

Wealthy society ladies and intensely creative gay men: an old story. I wonder if that will survive; they don't make them like Vreeland or Nan Kempner anymore. Nor discreet aesthetes quite like Isabell, gone too soon. (And yes, his perfumes were delightful.)
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If_I_Had_a_Poodle
07/12/09

@BookishLookish: jo malone, not so much

i was somewhere the other day and some youngun was going on about vanilla scentz and i wound up teaching about how we put it on straight from the vanilla extract bottle back in the day god help me

xxoo
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raincoaster
07/13/09

@BookishLookish: He was also far better looking than any of the people in the photo above.
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contains_hot_liquid
07/12/09

In reply to Tina Brown Eulogizes Her Party Planner, His Bombass Parties, And Herself
This is just like the time my grandfather died and I got one less birthday present.
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Baroness
07/12/09

In reply to Tina Brown Eulogizes Her Party Planner, His Bombass Parties, And Herself
"I suddenly felt deep empathy with the late Princess of Wales, for the hundredth time. Here I was at my crowning moment, my coronation as queen of cafè society, and I understood her deep loneliness amid the glory. But like Diana, there were sinister forces amassing against me, unwashed masses at their PCs, sans-culottes preparing their digital tumbrils and had never considered the deep fascination of Bianca Jagger. (Did I say Diana? I meant Marie Antoinette as well. Watching Bernard-Henri Levy scarf a hot dog was a transcendent pop hi-low culture moment, the zeitgeist in action.) Where was I? Oh yes- little could I know that Robert's arrangements would become fleurs de mal, and this glorious temps would soon be perdu."
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Edited by Baroness at 07/12/09 12:56 PM Baroness was starred Baroness was unstarred

If_I_Had_a_Poodle
07/12/09

@Baroness: pitch perfect on the diana stalking in particular and the name dropping in general

she's not dumb, and she has a lot of drive, and she has somehow continued to fail up and spend more of other people's money for a long time now

i was surprised that the daily beast is such a right reactionary fox style piece of crap; vanity fair is firmly center/rich and considers conservatism to mostly be boring ... the daily beast i think chewed off three of its own feet out the gate by trying to run with the fox crowd.
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saintjim
07/12/09

@if_i_only_had_a_heart: Your last sentence prompted me to take a first-time-ever look at The Daily Beast.
So. There are pieces about "The GOP's Young Hatemonger"; [Senator] "Ensign's Childish Affair"; and a schadenfreude wallow in Rupert Murdoch's wiretap scandal. The site also appears to be quite LGBT-friendly, with a guest editorial from Anderson Cooper and pieces about gay history after Stonewall and Don't Ask Don't Tell.
I've been suspicious about Tina Brown's politics ever since the notorious Vanity Fair Ron & Nancy "We're Outta Here" cover, but this website doesn't appear to lean to the right. Tina is too much the front-runner to allow that.
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momof3wildkids
07/12/09

@Baroness: Poetry, Baroness, poetry.
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Edited by momof3wildkids at 07/12/09 6:15 PM momof3wildkids was starred momof3wildkids was unstarred

Foster Kamer
07/12/09

@Baroness: Yo, B: well played. I promoted your comment to the frontpage, and I'll be featuring more from the comments from here on out. This, folks, is how you earn your star. Nicely done.
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BookishLookish
07/12/09

@Baroness: Brill, as always, 'Ness.
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Baroness
07/12/09

@Foster Kamer: Humble thanks, Foster. Drinks at noon pay off, people! I left out a scene where Tina's in the Bastille and Barry Diller's the guard waggling the keys indecently near his crotch. I actually like Tina, she's a trip. Someone ought get to work on an operetta about her climb.
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raincoaster
07/13/09

@Baroness: That last line deserves another star. Have you read "Tina and Harry Come to America?" It's up there with "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People" but on a higher level. It's the VIP circle Toby Young was trying to crash, told from the inside.
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Was the Real Estate Bust to Blame for Robert Isabell's Death?

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