Sad Ruth Madoff Can't Afford Her Luxuries Anymore
Have you ever had a moment where you wonder exactly how bad you should feel for Ruth Madoff and the specific things you should feel bad about for her? Don't worry: the New York Times did it for you. Today's Times Styles section piece pretty much encapsulates everything that's wrong with them: Why We Should Feel Bad For Ruth Madoff. Seriously. It's called "The Loneliest Woman In New York." This one writes itself. The piece's byline belongs to one Lynnley Browning, a Times Business reporter who clearly wanted to get close to the Madoff action. And here she is, face pressed against the window that is Ruth Madoff's life right now. It's a fascinating portrait, really: she's stuck in her Upper East Side apartment! She can't go anywhere and she can only spend money on food! Which sounds like a really nice Saturday! Browning has a different kind of opening, though: She used to get foil highlights every six weeks - her shade is Soft Baby Blonde, and she was religious about color - but the last time she called her Manhattan salon, Pierre Michel on East 57th Street, she was told not to return. "I understand," she said, according to the salon's co-owner. Browning then proceeds to do a rundown of the other people who've ostracized Madoff and the things that've become out of reach to her: a florist in Amagansett, her kids (who have started referring to their parents as "Ruth" and "Bernie"), the gym she can no longer work out at, the Italian restaurant down the street they owe a tab to, the other Italian restaurant she used to frequent but can't (because Bernie swindled too many regulars there), etc. She paints Ruth as having a lonely, solitary existence, one in which the walls are closing in on her: Even in her exile, Mrs. Madoff's world is rapidly getting smaller. Victims of the scheme are pushing the bankruptcy trustee and federal prosecutors to sell anything they can, including the couple's penthouse, which was used to help secure Mr. Madoff's bail; it could be seized after Mr. Madoff's sentencing, which is scheduled for June 29. And there's a vague element of culpability placed on Ruth in the article, but clearly: not enough. Anything that paints Ruth as lonely and sad in any regard in utterly insane. Her husband took thousands of organizations, non-profits, and families, and absolutely hosed them, and she was right there by his side, knowingly doing his bidding. So when the Times counts off all the different concessions Ruth has had to make over the last few months, even down to what she's wearing... Before the scandal, Mrs. Madoff radiated an understated sense of taste. She favored slim black pants, fine-gauge white cotton crew necks, Susan Bennis Warren Edwards crocodile-leather flats and classic gold jewelry, according to a friend of the family who saw her regularly at gatherings. Now Mrs. Madoff spends her days largely confined to the two-story four-bedroom penthouse on 64th Street near Lexington Avenue, dressed in jeans and an Oxford-style shirt,... MORE >>
'Very Short List's Been Sold To Jared Kushner, We're All Fired.'
A source writes in: ink on the long-rumored deal selling IAC property Very Short List to Jared Kushner and The New York Observer's dry. VSLers have been fired, and the property's clumsily fallen into the Observer's hands, now. Update: confirmed. The deal slinging Barry Diller's attempt at reaching for some of that Daily Candy scrilla, Very Short List, was officially finished around Thursday night, we hear. Brief history: Diller, pissed on missing out on some of that email-blast money that he thought would be a shoo-in for solid ad sales with Daily Candy, decided to form a literal, cultured, once-a-day mailer for high-minded consumers to read. Diller, ever fond of his media buddies, got Spy-founder Kurt Andersen to jump on board. And it was highly enjoyable! But then they didn't make any money off of it, and had to find an easy mark to unload it on. Enter New York Observer boy wonder Jared Kushner, stage left. Cut to: Thursday night. Six full-time VSL employees are given notice to pack their boxes, and get their shit out, as Friday would be their last day. After a messy, messy ordeal. A (now former) IAC employee writes in: Timeline: We get a bunch of emails Thursday morning. At 10AM, the GM said he might have news (at 6PM, that news would finally be delivered). Someone else said that the deal had already gone through, and that it was finally over. And yet someone else said that we still had assignments for the next week, so it would stretch for another week. And then we heard that the person who was supposed to take over at the NYO had been fired the week before in their bloodbath. So nobody knew anything. Thursday night, the news came through. Our last day was Friday, after SIX WEEKS of being told we were going to be laid off. The worst part: some of us were on the phone with the NYO's people on Friday, trying to teach them how to do our jobs. Very Short List recently won a Webby Award! :) But now Observer staffers - who're probably a little overworked since a grip of their most able colleagues were fired - are going to be running Very Short List. :( So who knows what's actually going to happen to the mailer, or what the Observer plans on turning it into. Most people familiar with the deal are pretty shocked by it, and by how easily Kushner was rolled on this one. The fact that the young mogul thinks he can make money off of VSL where Diller - with all of his resources - didn't is pretty incredible, and rather audacious. Lesser so is the fact that Kushner just fired a stable of some of the most able writers in New York, possibly capable of turning the Observer's web presence into a viable product. Right before acquiring VSL, something - again - actually proven not to make money. Among other problems IAC had with Very Short List: the only people who have time to look at some bullshit emailer telling them what to read are broke writers like me, who don't have the money to spend on advertisers' products. Besides which, I already know what book... MORE >>
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