"Never miss a good chance to shut up!" said that wise 1930s Depression-era philosopher Will Rogers.

***

Several years ago I was in London at a cocktail party given by the Blackstone financier John Studzinski. MPs and VIPs were everywhere one looked and I started chatting with a beautiful, serene-looking, ladylike blonde who said her name was Alyce Faye Eichelberger. I inquired what she did. She said, "Oh, I’m nobody. I am married to the actor John Cleese." I expressed my admiration for the man who has been such a Monty Python star for so many years and was unforgettable in the film classic "A Fish Named Wanda." Mrs. Cleese concurred; he was a great talent.

Now I see in the British papers that it pays to marry a successful entertainer. In their divorce, Alyce Faye gets eight million pounds in cash and assets plus 600,000 pounds a year for the next seven years. In U.S. terms, it means this lady is exiting matrimony with the equivalent of about $70,000,000.

If I miscalculated this, somebody correct me.

***

I see that New York City went out on a limb and bought a lot of little tables and chairs and umbrellas for the new city project in Times Square, where traffic stops for tourists and some people just like to sit there in the middle of Broadway while traffic whirls around them. Reports in the New York Post are that the city paid $840 apiece for the Tuuci brand umbrellas.

Hmmm, just this week I paid about $200 for fabulous umbrellas on sale via the Home Furnishings catalogue. The city got gypped! And maybe there shouldn’t be any umbrellas in Times Square anyway.

***

Coming any minute! The film that sizzled at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and is a riveting 88 minutes of life in the fast lane when Vogue magazine was doing its massive 2007 September Issue. In fact, I told you back on July 1 that the documentary "The September Issue" was coming and would be a sensation. This was a high point for Vogue magazine, warts and all, before the economic doldrums arrived.

I still don’t see how editors and publishers can be blamed for the descent of magazine revenues. And I don’t see how the firing or replacements for them can change economic facts. Replacing Anna Wintour or Graydon Carter or Paige Rense won’t solve a thing. None of these depression-era economics is their fault. But some people just can’t rest until these top dogs are led to the guillotine and blamed for what has happened to publishing and print media.

In any case, if you want to see how history was taking place in the great moment before the downturn, don’t miss this documentary, bowing on August 28. It’s all about the excesses of Anna Wintour. (If one can call them that; excesses used to work wonders!)


Anna Wintour/Image: Wikipedia

As I said before, this film supposedly makes "The Devil Wears Prada" look like an episode of "The Care Bears." Personally, I am all for Anna Wintour as empress, dictator and avenging angel of her own vision. She is one of kind and we need her!

***

Unless director Lars von Trier gives a good explanation as to why his movies – such as the outrageous "Antichrist" – make some kind of point about a woman forced to endure a series of hideous tortured ordeals … then I don’t see any reason for putting up with such anti-female sadomasochistic films.

The plot of "Antichrist"? A husband and wife suffering from the death of their toddler son go to the woods and perpetuate tortures on one another until he strangles her and sets fire to her body. And the point?

There are always misguided sociopaths and psychopaths living among us.