Turn on. Tune in. Drop … off your dry cleaning and head to a demonstration!

No, seriously, I am having such a totally tumultuous ’60s moment! My life has gone from light and fluffy to totally heavy, man. Everything’s coming up protests and peace signs. It’s a freaky scene. When I’m not on some crazy demo, I’m slapping counterculture slogans on Barneys’ windows and cramming them with Woodstock-abilia. Don’t get me wrong: I’m hardly Hanoi Jane. Call me Weatherman-lite. I am really more like Streisand in The Way We Were, only without that diabolical frizz.

What’s brought on the Barbra moment? Oh, just the quest for my civil rights, that’s all.  read more »

Barack Obama
President-elect
3,075,248 supporters
Fun facts: Favorite movie, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; favorite book, Parting the Waters; favorite TV show, Sportscenter.

Joe Biden
Vice-president-elect
175,776 supporters
Fun facts: On Aug. 28, Joe Biden added the Obama function.

Rahm Emanuel
Appointed White House chief of staff; Illinois rep.
2,984 supporters
Fun facts: Yoni Leviatan of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., wrote on his wall Nov. 7, “Michael Corleone is about to take over.”  read more »

Janet Napolitano
Democratic governor of Arizona, possible attorney general
2,493 supporters
Fun facts: She enjoys playing the guitar, is a Lyle Lovett fan and loves any movie with Sean Connery in it.]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/politics/facebook-administration#comments Politics Barack Obama Rahm Emanuel Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:07:00 -0500 Gillian Reagan 78637 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/2008/o2/bargain-basement-basquiats

On the evening of Wednesday, Nov. 12, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich will attempt to sell his prize Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, Untitled (Boxer), at Christie’s for $12 million to $16 million, despite rampant speculation that the Big Art Sales of recent years are over, thanks to continuing tumult in the financial markets.

“It’s art-historically important, but it’s also a wham picture,” said Brett Gorvy, Mr. Ulrich’s longtime advisor at Christie’s, of the massive canvas, which leaned against a wall one recent afternoon at the auction house’s Rockefeller Center headquarters, waiting to be hung for presale viewing. “It’s got so much war power.  read more »

In mid-October, about three weeks to go before election night, Barack Obama found himself in the classy old Metropolitan Club on 66th Street with a group of his top New York fund-raisers.

He told them there was “extraordinary expertise” in the room. “Who knows?” he said. “There might be some of you who decide that you want to spend a little time in government.”

Perhaps. But there’s something better: The New Yorkers who had the prescience and stamina to support Mr. Obama when Hillary Clinton was the dominant Democrat now carry Barack Platinum Cards; if he wins on Nov. 4, their credit limit will be high.  read more »

On a recent Friday afternoon, Terry Betteridge, owner of Betteridge Jewelers (est. 1897), was discussing the state of business on sun-drenched Greenwich Avenue in Greenwich, Conn., as the world at large continued to gasp and gawk at the loop-de-loops provided courtesy of the Dow and S&P.

“Our business was still up a month ago over the previous year, and the previous year was record stuff,” said Mr. Betteridge. “It’s the last couple of weeks when it got really quiet, because everyone is shell-shocked. It’s a lot like it was on 9/11, when you’d think the door is locked.”

Outside on the avenue—an almost mile-long stretch of luxury storefronts—distinct breeds of shoppers were in motion: young moms in yoga pants pushing double-wide strollers; squealing packs of teenage girls in tank tops; and dignified older women with immovable bobs striding purposefully into Saks Fifth Avenue or local high-end department store Richards.  read more »

Q: For years now, shows like Meet the Press have been broadcasting clips of an SNL sketch, a spoof of political reality, to have a conversation with their audience about the actual political reality. How are you getting to the core ingredients of what’s going on in a way that people like Tom Brokaw can’t seem to articulate?

A: I think they’d like to make sarcastic comments about candidates, but their role as news people prevents that, so I think showing our clips permits them to let us make the point.

I think it would be awkward for even some of the people on cable to be as out-and-out mocking as we can be, and I also think it sort of makes their shows more entertaining—they can do it for free.  read more »

These hitherto anonymous purveyors—butchers, farmers, fishmongers—are the new stars of a New York food scene consumed with carefully “sourced” ingredients.  read more »

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t know Paul Newman. But I spent a few weeks with him in 1983, when I went down to Florida to watch him direct a father-and-son picture he had also co-written and produced, Harry and Son, with himself, Robby Benson, Wilford Brimley, a young lop-smiled actress named Ellen Barkin and Joanne Woodward. Movie sets, as you might know, are excruciatingly boring places where time moves slowly, really underwater, and the director asks for the same thing over and over until whatever he or she wants revealed shows up.

Paul Newman’s set was a happy set. The weather was good, the actors were kind to each other and every day at 3, three or four giant Hefty bags of popcorn made by the director showed up.  read more »

“I really believe I’ve known two saints in my life, maybe three,” said writer-director Robert Benton via telephone from his office on Monday, three days after the death of his longtime friend Paul Newman. “William Sloane Coffin, who used to be head of Riverside Church and was a chaplin at Yale when the civil rights movement was won. And the other was Paul Newman. He was, I think, one the best human beings I’ve ever known … one of the most decent, the most honorable. He was extraordinary.” He laughed. “Of course, he would be appalled if he could hear me calling him a saint.  read more »

On Sept. 17, just as his late mother Brooke Astor’s $46 million duplex co-op was coming back on the market after a summer hiatus, and one day before a court appearance, Anthony D. Marshall slouched in his white living room armchair, one hand resting on his neck. The senatorial 84-year-old, unsmiling and handsome in his gold-buttoned navy blazer, blue-checked white shirt, pressed gray-striped pants and black loafers, said he had regrets. “Oh, yes. But that’s awfully…” He paused. “To be retrospective about anything is being retrospective.

“You can’t change the past.”

Nearly a year after pleading not guilty to a 16-count criminal indictment that accuses him of stealing millions from his mother while she was suffering from Alzheimer’s, American-born but Victorian-voiced Mr.  read more »