March 18, 2010. Another beautiful very early Spring day in New York. No luncheon appointment, I stayed at home and it was a luxury considering the melee in green that hits the pavements of Manhattan on St. Patrick’s Day.
It was also a beautiful evening. I went to dinner with my friend Peter Rogers (see HOUSE) who has been living in New Orleans for the past several months and is in love with the town and plans to live there full time. In the meantime, he’s got his house in Connecticut on the market. I’m not covetous by nature but if I had the money I’d buy the house and probably have to tear myself away from it. It’s a lair ... on a hilltop with fantastic views of ridges of hilltops in every direction, gets lots of light, has a swimming pool, guest rooms and bathrooms, a big kitchen, not too big, not too small, seventeen acres and an impressive winding driveway. Peter wants to live in New Orleans. Peter grew up in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and New Orleans was his first version of the city. New York was mine.
Stuff. The paperback version of Michael Gross’ Rogues' Gallery, a history of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is coming out in the next week or so, and as you can see it is a far juicier cover than the one for the hardback. It probably reflects the author’s sensibility more accurately also.
Michael Gross loves research and loves details but mostly he loves the characters in his books. They’re all out of a movie or a novel for this guy who has the perspicacity to dig the tales out from under the rocks that make the characters what they are.
This talent (and/or habit) does not endear when it comes to the real-life characters themselves and Michael can really annoy with his reporting. He said diplomatically. Nevertheless, he does have the eye and the ear for the background and the detail and Rogues' Gallery more than annoyed some of the main characters in the story to the point of provoking letters from lawyers and all that.
I understand both sides of the issue. Nobody likes to be mischaracterized or misportrayed. And very often we see ourselves (sometimes quite honestly, other times quite delusional) from a different perspective than that of others. This is almost always so with all of us. Furthermore today’s reporters/writers, looking for their own self-embellishment, often get heavyhanded and even nasty, and even snarky with their portraits.
One of Brooke Astor’s great talents was to present a public image that was grande dame-squeaky clean in its integrity. She wrote a couple of books about herself and had presented a fairly honest and thoughtful (and therefore sensitive) self-portrait. And she was those things. And she gave all that money away (as she was directed by her husband’s will). She was also other things that were less attractive or admirable. This emerged in her wake, ironically, at the direction of those who were trying to protect her. That is the nature of life and of history. And that is who we are.
I ran into Tom Hoving, one of the Met’s great directors, at Georgette Mosbacher’s last year at the book party she had for Michael. I asked him what he thought of the book. I didn’t know Tom Hoving but knew from a couple of encounters with him that he was forthright and even outspoken. He told me thought Michael “got it right,” and then added, “I came off like an asshole, but I am an asshole.” God love him.
The story of how a great institution comes together is always a story about politics and personalities. The Met is rich and its history is full of insights into our society and its condition. Its leaders and directors, past and future, including those who’ve felt misjudged, misunderstood, or maligned by Michael Gross’ portrait can remain assured that their objective is being carried out: it is one of, perhaps the greatest museum in the world. That is more coincidence than accident.
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| Tinsley Mortimer, star of High Society. |
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Last night after dinner, I got an email from JH reminding me that the Tinsley Mortimer reality TV show was on, along with the web address so I could take a look.
I don’t know Tinsley Mortimer. I’ve never had conversation with her, although I’ve taken her picture dozens of times so we are aware of each other. Someone off-handedly told me recently that she didn’t like me. I hadn’t brought her name up with this person (someone I never met before) so it was someone making a point. It was kind of funny to hear but it wouldn’t surprise me since it is common for some people to dislike people they don’t know.
I do have an impression of her, however, and I have written about her a number of times. She represents a kind of New York girl that has always existed in different eras. She embodies ambition and desire of the metropolis updated by Candace Bushnell. She’s a working girl. She is out of the mould of Paris Hilton, however, a career borne of the digital camera. She developed a career out of her presence. However it came to be, it worked very well for her. She also has an ambitious mother. I know that word irks people, especially women, but there’s nothing wrong with it; it’s a fact of life.
Like Paris, Tinsley’s developed her image by posing for party pictures and most prominently on the NYSD of the last ten years. We made sure to post her pictures because we could see that this was a developing matter, that it is all part of the trend toward “reality” entertainment.
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| Tinsley Mortimer and Dabney Mercer. |
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| Dale Mercer. |
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| Tinsley Mortimer and Alexandra Osipow. |
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| Paul Johnson Calderon. |
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There are a lot of girls on the social circuit who have sought that attention and recognition from the lens a la Paris Hilton for the same reason. Tinsley was easily, from the get-go, a star in that department. She’s very pretty in a conventional white girl way and with her long blonde Alice in Wonderland hairdo, she looks just innocent enough to be social rather than notorious. It has been very effective image for her. Look at how many girls (and even some boys) cross their ankles when they pose. That’s the Tinsley Mortimer pose. That sells handbags.
So. Last night. We were introduced to the characters. Poor Marie Antoinette had nothing on this crew, and to think that she eventually went to the guillotine. The show is supposed to be about “society” in New York, and this is definitely a “society” in New York but it’s not the society in the popular notion of society. It’s more like the inhumane society.
This is not what “society” is all about in New York. This is about the riff-raff. This is the pre-quel to the Valley of the Dolls; same time, same station. In terms of “reality,” I’ve met Jules Kirby, and Dabney Mercer as well as Tinsley Mortimer. Off-camera, they’re very nice young women. None of them seemed as craven and idiotic and spoiled as they seem in this show. The stock gay guy, Paul Johnson Calderon is so odious and obnoxious a character that it’s only a matter of time for He Who Gets Slapped. And that can’t be the real person either. It’s the 21st century version of the 1930's musicals and comedies. Ernst Lubitisch on Ritalin. Astaire and Rogers with two left feet.
The idea of being paid to play a fake version of yourself is intriguing. I know actors are paid to do it and so these are now actors. I guess. By the time the show was over I realized nothing much had happened except a glimpse at whom you’re going to get a look at every week. There were some censored words. Some physical violence. Some sex (boys kissing boys). Amidst the champagne cocktails. Tinsley had a confrontation with her mother about divorcing Topper and dating a European princeling (See NYSD 8.18.09). Then we had the mother telling the camera that she hoped the couple would get back together. Watching her I wondered how surprised her friends back in Virginia would be to see her on this gig. Probably not very, would be my guess.
What Tinsley thought was hard to determine. Except we could see her mother upset her when talking about her “separation,” leaving her defenseless the way mothers can. What the audience will learn about the real Mortimer marriage they will not be learning from any of the characters in a TV show. So what we have here is one of my favorite themes for a good laugh: Lives of poor people as told by rich Hollywood stars. Or in this case, Lives of rich people as told by poor Hollywood stars. Until they sign on for the second season. |
