Gawker: snobs

Soho House Too 'Artsy' For Plastic Surgeons

Hamilton Nolan — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:57:33 EDT

Andrew Klapper, a New York plastic surgeon, applied for membership in Soho House, the private Meatpacking District club. But he was turned down, because Soho House said it prefers to cater "to an 'artsy' clientele." Uh, pretty loose definition of "artsy," Soho House! The membership manager there said "We would rather have a great person from IMG versus a plastic surgeon." Perhaps they're looking for a new angle; spies have said the club has been rather dead on recent weekends. (Disagree? Email us). Doree Shafrir once memorably said the club's pool "when not filled with children and their pee, is filled with money managers, mortgage brokers, and Eurotrash." Which sounds like a fairly accurate representation. And how can they say Dr. Klapper isn't artistic when he not only invented the Klapper Breast Scissors, but also pioneered the use of the Davinci (artist name!) Robot system?:

I'd like to see someone from IMG do that!

[Intelligencer]

N+1 Movie Critic Sick of All Those Movie Stars

ian spiegelman — Sat, 17 May 2008 13:49:21 EDT

A.S. Hamrah, film critic for blah-blah-ing lit journal N+1, is stuck at the glamorous Cannes Film Festival but it's not as glamorous as it was when it was new, and that makes him sad. "It’s not just that celebrities are dull. More and more, there’s also something about them that fills us with revulsion. It used to be that a celebrity sighting was cause for celebration. You’d phone the wife and kids: 'Hey, I just saw Robert Stack walking into the Automat!' Now it’s more an occasion for jeering. Or, more accurately, a chance to feel a deep queasiness about what’s happened to our culture. The celebrity is quickly becoming a harbinger of nausea, a delivery system for Weltschmerz, there to remind us that things, actually, are what they seem: pathetic."

Whenever I’m in Los Angeles, I experience this unease. I don’t have a name for it. I go out to lunch and worry Sinbad’s going to be sitting across from me. I wait in line at a hot dog stand and hope I don’t spot Carmen Electra.

A celebrity sighting can really ruin your day. At night it’s even worse. Not too long ago I was eating in a favourite restaurant when Mike Myers walked in with a large group I hesitate to call an entourage. As the loveable star of the Austin Powers movies sat down with his people, you could see on the faces of the other diners that their wine had just turned to vinegar. What’s he doing here, their expressions said. What’s he doing in this part of town? Why isn’t he in his own area?

Increasingly, that’s where we want them: away from us. The Bible suggests that the poor will always be with us. Today it’s the rich who will always be with us. If they’re famous on top of it, that makes their presence all the more galling, not to mention disruptive.

Whole neighbourhoods of our cities have turned into ghettos of the celebrated, and there’s nowhere we can go to escape. They will always be with us. Who wants to live across the hall from the breakout star of Survivor: Guatemala? Riding the bus is bad enough without Ashton Kutcher taking the last seat. [TheNational]

Snootastic 'Metropolitan Diary' One-Liners

Maggie — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 14:28:29 EST

Oh, New York Times Metropolitan Diary, how we do love thy exceptionally pretentious and mildly prejudicial ways so far this year, and really, every year.

'My 3-year-old, John, went to his Italian class on the Upper West Side early last month.'
'One morning, I returned to the building after walking my 10-pound shih tzu-poodle, Humphrey.'
'I took my car from our upper West End Avenue apartment house garage.'
I ended up in the wilds of the South Bronx. At first I thought the street I was on was deserted, until I noticed a group of rather burly youths...'
'My response was: “You are one of the smartest supers in New York. I know you’ll understand it.''
'Some years ago, two very tall N.B.A.-looking men stood face to face, talking, on the narrow New York sidewalk near Macy’s, as I, a petite 5-foot-3, approached.'

Burly Bronx youths! N.B.A.-looking men! Gasp. Let's hear some other Diary one-liners. You can make them up; it's not as though these things are fact-checked.

Gramercy Park, Bastion of Manhattan Snobbery, Just Got a Little More Nauseating

Doree Shafrir — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 14:40:30 EST

In a city of snobs, could there be anywhere snobbier than Gramercy Park, where residents of selected buildings near the park are given keys for entry? It's unlikely, as we learn from yesterday's Times. Now that guests of Ian Schrager's Gramercy Park Hotel may enter the park, longtime residents are pissed that the hotel guests are supposedly leaving the gate open, in which case, "hordes of people may come in." Yes, a trustee of the park actually said that:

An open gate may not seem a terribly pressing issue, but keys to this kingdom are highly prized. The hotel keeps its six keys for guest use on giant silver rings, each about the diameter of a Frisbee and decorated with a showy gold tassel.

Arlene Harrison, a park trustee, says she thought that hotel guests occasionally left the gate open because it was too heavy to close, or simply because they didn't realize that according to park rules, it must be closed and locked even when visitors are inside.

And anxiety about the open gate may have less to do with the presence of guests at the hotel, where prices start at $525 a night, than of other people. "The terrible threat," Ms. Harrison said, "is that with the gate wide open, hordes of people may come in."

We can't wait for the first report of marauding hordes in Gramercy Park. Bring on the hordes!

With the Gate Ajar, a Kingdom in Danger? [NYT]