Tastemaker

From Page Six June 16, 2006 -- "ALL artists are prepared to suffer for their work, but why are so few prepared to learn to draw?" - British graffiti artist Banksy in his book "Wall and Piece" (Century)

Microsoft's Gates to End Day-to-Day Role in 2008
By ALLISON LINN, Reuters

REDMOND, Wash. (June 15) - Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates announced Thursday that he will transition from day-to-day responsibilities at the company he co-founded to concentrate on the charitable work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Gates will continue on as the company's chairman after transferring his duties over a two-year period.

"This was a hard decision for me," said Gates, who founded the world's largest software company with childhood friend Paul Allen. "I'm very lucky to have two passions that I feel are so important and so challenging. As I prepare for this change, I firmly believe the road ahead for Microsoft is as bright as ever."

I mean...how many boats does one man need? Give that money away!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pop princess Britney Spears, whose marriage and parenting skills are under a media microscope, tearfully admitted being "an emotional wreck" in excerpts of an interview aired on Thursday.

Intermittently weeping and chewing gum throughout, Spears denied she is estranged from her husband, Kevin Federline, saying on NBC's "Today" show that Federline is helping her weather the hormonal ups and downs of her second pregnancy.

"He helps me. He has to. I'm an emotional wreck right now," Spears said. "Not in a bad way. Just, just, you know, I'll start laughing hysterically and then I'll just start crying, like just because ... . It's my hormones.

She called paparazzi images of her driving with her infant son, Sean Preston, on her lap "cheap shots" and said that as a small child, she sat in her father's lap as he drove.

Spears said she has wept on occasion over allegations that she is a bad mother, and wished only that paparazzi would leave her alone.

"You have to realize that we're people and that we need, we just need privacy and we need our respect," she said. "And those are things that you have to have as a human being."

Apparently, I am just as guilty as the rest of our inane country for posting this news-less, insipid blurb. What is wrong with me? The only thing that separates Britney from the millions of sheep across our country is her big fat bank account. She said it herself, "we're people"...she ain't that interesting, y'all....

Infinite players understand the inescapable likelihood of evil. They therefore do not attempt to eliminate evil in others, for to do so is the very impulse of evil itself... - James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games

Today is the "Museum Mile Festival!" The special day that 9 of NYC's finest art establishments open their doors to the public for free!! Start at the MET and continue 23 blocks up 5th Avenue getting inspired by De La Vega's group-created chalk murals outdoors as well as the world's great masters housed indoors!

Water lifting up tree trunks can climb 150 feet an hour; in full summer a tree can, and does, heave a ton of water every day... A tree stands there, accumulating deadwood, mute and rigid as an obelisk, but secretly it seethes; it splits, sucks, and stretches; it heaves up tons and hurls them out in a green, fringed fling. -Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Lindsay Lohan infuriated Vogue editor Anna Wintour at the Council Of Fashion Designers Of America (CFDA) awards last Monday - because she made too many trips to the toilet. The Mean Girls star, who arrived with Chanel boss Karl Lagerfeld, was a guest of Wintour at the bash. But after her lavatorial antics, the fashionista insists she will never associate with her again. An insider tells PageSix.com, "She got up to use the bathroom to powder her nose six times in two hours. Wintour leaned over and whispered to a Vogue staffer: 'Tell her, if she gets up one more time, she will never be invited to one of my events again.' Lohan's date, Karl Lagerfeld, was then told, 'Karl, this is your guest, control her!'" -IMDB

Ohhhh, you do NOT want to be on Wintour's bad side. This is delicious, really delicious. I can't wait for Lohan to respond. My prediction: Lohan is going down, battered to death by Wintour's sharp tongue and big sunglasses.

This is especially funny, as just last week Lohan was reportedly talking up the Paris fashion boutique she wants to open. C'est la vie...

So it was rainy, windy, and very un-June-like on Saturday afternoon in Livingston Manor. But even so, the Trout Parade kicked so much ass! What really surprised me is how many people turned out to watch. Main Street was lined with kids and strollers and dogs and huge puppets and weird hooa-hoopers and three or four bands, including the Williamsburg Brooklyn's own celebrated Hungry Marching Band, and a trout puppet as big as a Chinese dragon, and fish hats and a someone dressed up as a giant purple sea snail! Wheee!

We missed the music in the bandstand on account of the rainclouds, and the line for funnel cakes was too long, but I am now determined to march in next year's Trout Parade. it really was the Mermaid Day Parade of the Catskills!