The Buzz Board
Picks from the Inner Circle
Monica Crowley
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Monica Crowley is a radio and television political commentator based in New York. Since 2002, she's had her own nationally syndicated radio show, The Monica Crowley Show and is a regular commentator on The John Batchelor Show. She is a panelist for The McLaughlin Group, and she blogs at MonicaMemo. Polical commentator, blogger and host of The Monica Crowley Show |
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 Karl Rove's new memoir, Courage and Consequence, is simultaneously a page-turner of a political history and an intensely personal reflection on a life in the arena. Love him (as I do) or not, you won't be able to put this book down. |
R.J. Cutler
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A producer and director of non-fiction films and television, R.J. Cutler most recently directed and produced The September Issue about legendary Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. He began his career producing The War Room, the Oscar-nominated documentary about Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign for the presidency directed by D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus. Director of The September Issue |
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 For those of us who care about the New York Knicks and long for the days before the Dolans and Isaiah Thomas decimated a once-proud franchise, Dan Klores' documentary Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks on ESPN is a joy to behold. Relive all of the pain, the joy, the frustration, the exhilaration—and remember that yes NBA basketball was once a beautiful thing to behold in the land of the City Game. |
Michael Idov
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Michael Idov is a contributing editor at New York Magazine and has covered Russia for The New Republic. His debut novel, Ground Up, has just been released. Contributing Editor at New York Magazine |
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Real-life accounts of WWII spy games tend to obviate the need for fiction, especially in the hands of Ben Macintyre. I've been reading his Agent Zigzag and the followup, Operation Mincemeat, that will come out in May. (It involves Brits floating a dressed-up corpse with a sackful of forged documents off the coast of Spain.) More than a chronicler, Macintyre has an exquisite feel for spydom's balance of the noble, the tawdry and the absurd. |
Model, Designer |
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 I have long admired DIFFA’s funding of vital HIV/AIDS education and services. Being from the fashion industry, I know many people whose lives have been affected by HIV/AIDS and it’s important to do what you can to support their fight. Dining by Design brings together creative talent to support awareness and raise funds throughout the U.S. This Sunday, for only $60 at diffa.org, guests can view the amazing dining installations and savor culinary treats from New York’s top restaurant and gourmet food purveyors all while helping a great cause. |
Isabel Gillies
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Isabel Gillies, known for her television role as Detective Stabler's wife on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and for her cinematic debut in the film Metropolitan, graduated from New York University with a BFA in film. She is the author of Happens Every Day: An All Too True Story, which will be out in paperback this spring. She lives in Manhattan with her second husband, her two sons, and her stepdaughter. Actress and Author of Happens Every Day |
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 Last week, my husband surprised me by taking me to Carolines for some good old fashioned, two-drink-minimum comedy (I had never been to a comedy club). The headliner was Louis C.K., who is tear-streaming hysterical. He talked about his kid's school cafeteria, and honestly, I thought I would have an accident from laughing. The other excellent, smart comedians were Ted Alexandro and Kurt Metzger, who made us howl with their blunt social commentary and sheer hilarity. All these guys had us in stitches for an hour. It was more fun than a barrel of monkeys. |
Eric Alterman
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Eric Alterman is a professor of English and journalism at Brooklyn College and a professor of journalism at CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. He is the author, most recently, of Why We're Liberals: A Handbook for Restoring America's Important Ideals. Journalist, author, and professor at Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate School of Journalism |
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The Lincoln Center Film Society’s Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2010 began on March 11 and runs for 10 days. Even if you are one of those jerks who eats “Freedom Fries,” you would have to admit, if you saw these films, that they are almost always more stylish, more intelligent, more emotionally perceptive, and have more topless women than does almost everything coming out of Hollywood. This year’s opener, which already has a commercial opening planned, was Christian Carion's Farewell, about a KGB colonel. It’s a first-rate piece of commercial filmmaking and a damned important history lesson. |
David Furnish
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David Furnish is a Canadian filmmaker, producer, and the civil partner of Sir Elton John. He directed the documentary Elton John: Tantrums and Tiaras and is currently producing Next Fall on Broadway. Filmmaker and Producer |
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I think Next Fall goes to the heart of the great divide that everybody's feeling in America right now. There seems to be a lot of anti-gay sentiment, an increasing amount. Religion seems to be playing a stronger and stronger role in dividing the country rather than uniting it. I think the strength of the play is that it starts off basically making it look like we're all this far apart but when you actually boil it down and you get it down to a level of humanity, the play does it brilliantly, and not in a confrontational way, in a way through humanity. It disarms you. You realize we're this close together and we all have the same fears. We all have the need to believe in something higher than ourselves. We all need to be loved. We need to be allowed to love who we want to love. And it's about a universal acceptance and tolerance and allowing people to be who they are. It absolutely appeals to everybody. |
Eric Pape
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Eric Pape has reported on Europe and the Mediterranean region for Newsweek Magazine since 2003. He is co-author of the graphic novel Shake Girl, which was inspired by one of his articles. He has written for the Los Angeles Times magazine, Spin, Reader's Digest, Vibe, Courrier International, Salon, and Los Angeles from five continents. He is based in Paris. Follow him at twitter.com/ericpape |
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Folks at Austin's South by Southwest Film Festival should check out the premiere of A NY Thing this week. The full-length feature romantic comedy is a charming, scruffy, funny and touching indie film—yes, a few authentic ones still exist—about a brooding but funny French guy who spends 72 hours in New York City trying to convince the woman he loves that she should be with him. I found the French-American production to alternate gracefully between quirky, sweetly sexy, funny, melancholic, and strikingly plausible in its peculiar New York-ness and in the way that it captures some of New York’s expatriate French. After SXSW, the film will likely hit other festivals around the U.S. and then some of the cooler theaters. |
Paul Begala
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Paul Begala is a CNN political contributor and a research professor at Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute. He was a senior strategist for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign and served as counselor to President Clinton in the White House. Author, political consultant, commentator, and former adviser to President Bill Clinton. |
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Just finished John Cassidy's How Markets Fail. It is a careful but readable journey through the philosophical and theoretical framework that caused the economic collapse. It's essential reading for those of us who are already sick of right-wing hacks claiming sensible regulation of the casino economy is an infringement on liberty. Conservative economists, theoreticians, and politicians ruined the economy, period. Cassidy explains the failed theory they used to do so. |
Sir Elton John
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Sir Elton John is an English singer-songwriter, composer, and pianist. In his four-decade career, John has sold over 200 million records. He has won five Grammy awards, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Tony Award. John was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. He has been heavily involved in the fight against AIDS since the late 1980s, and was knighted in 1998. He is a producer of the current Broadway show Next Fall. Singer-songwriter |
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 I love the new Hot Chip record. It's called One Life Stand. It's just a great album by a British band. I really love it. It's my favorite album of the moment. |
