High life
Fun is there for the taking
Taki
h dear! According to Tina Brown's organ, the Big Bagel's media, journalists, arts and literary crowd no longer have any fun. James Atlas, one of Tina's minions, wrote the story a couple of weeks ago and Manhattan has been buzzing ever since. 'When was the last time you had any fun?' bemoaned the not so muscle-bound Atlas.
For starters, last Sunday, at a marvellous Mortimer's lunch for 16 given by William and Olga Shawcross. There is nothing like lunch at Mortimer's on a Sunday. Talk about diversity and a gorgeous mosaic. Big Al Taubman from Detroit (and more recently of Sotheby's), Valentino (not the sheikh, but the one who dresses the chic), Carolina Herrera (who robes the truly chic), Mrs William Buckley, George and Lita Livanos (he is to shipowners what Jason was to argonauts), Nan Kempner, the original social X-ray, Elle Macpherson and Arkie Busson ... you get the picture.
The Shawcross table consisted of media and striped-trouser types, including a Big Bagel Times writer, a famous literary edi- tor, a tycoon's widow who prefers writers to decorators, a UN diplomat who actually does some work, the only man outside yours truly to get drunk at Brighton during the Referendum Party's conference, even a few children.
Needless to say, among the hunchbacks of notre rich and the avatars of fashion, we stuck out like Mimi Papandreou's bristols. Later that night, the fun continued at Elaine's, a place so packed with celebrities even J.D. Salinger would be made to feel like a groupie. So, what's all this about hacks not having any fun? Easy. People like Atlas and his ilk — nice guys but wimpy as hell — obviously do not, but the poor little Greek boy knows a few that do. Take, for example, my old friend Anthony Haden- Guest. Last week at his book launch down- town — actually I hate book parties, but Anthony does owe me a five-figure sum so I thought every little bit helps — Haden- Guest passed out just as the first sweet young things were arriving. (My little girl was covering the event while she waits to go to Brown University, ergo the real rea- son why I attended.) Morgan Entrekin, the publisher, and his best friend Jay McInerney, of Bolivian marching powder fame, may have slowed down a bit but they're out and about almost every night. George Plimpton, a tal- ented writer who has practised his craft for Close to 40 years, has not missed a party since he started writing, and ditto Jim Har- rison, the Legends of the Fall legend, who drank me under the table at Elaine's last year and then proceeded to take on a cou- ple of Irishmen at the bar. (Jim walks with two sticks.) Brett Easton Ellis, Candace Bushnell, Fran Lebowitz (the celebrated lesbian writer who has not written a word in two decades) and countless other noc- tambules who'd rather write than fight in Wall Street make the Bagel the exciting place it undoubtedly is. Not to forget Sunny and Gita Mehta, the editor-writer couple who have joined my Pantheon of heroes by smoking in the most exclusive parties and venues of Noo Yawk. And, boy, do the Mehtas smoke!
The other reason Atlas wrote what he did is that indiscretion has disappeared in the Bagel. If one can't gossip, one can't have any fun, and gossip in New York is now considered unprofessional. Gossip is used for making a living, not for amuse- ment. Power is attached to gossip, so every- thing has an implication. If you give it away the way we do in England, you're seen as a loser. PC does not help. It gets worse. The people to whom Atlas was referring go out professionally — char- ities, promotional shindigs, film openings and so on — not in order to have fun. The embodiment of such people is Anna Win- tour, the big cheese at Vogue, skeletal, bespectacled and desperately respectable. These are the people who will not accept anything said publicly or privately against them because something negative is likely to make an impact on their pocket-book. Thus no one who works for Graydon Carter, Tina Brown, Wintour and other such self-promoters dares crack a joke. Mind you, it was only one man's opinion. All he had to do was go to a place called Chaos last Friday night and see for himself. Atlas shrugged indeed!
Previous page
