Turn On:
Choose between the 100th episode of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" on CBS or a "Primetime" interview with Bill Clinton on ABC, both on Thursday night at 9 p.m. ET. Then you may want to click over to the Oxygen channel at 10 for "Conversations With Carrie Fisher," in which Fisher interviews her wayward father, Eddie.
Morning Briefing:
Jay McInerney ... going, going, gone? Today is the last day for you to bid on the remarkable items in an auction being held to benefit the Paris Review. Winning bidders can strike a blow for literary excellence by sitting through a New York Knicks game with Jim Carroll (current bid, $700; estimate, $1,500) or sipping the vino with Jay McInerney (current bid, $400; estimate, $500). You could drink and discuss politics with "polemicist extraordinaire" and Harpers editor Lewis Lapham (current bid, $1,600; estimate, $2,500), have two characters based on you and a friend written into an episode of "Prairie Home Companion" (current bid, $1,900; estimate, $5,000), have drinks at Elaine's with Charlie Rose (current bid, $700; estimate, $2,000), have your voice mail message recorded by Alec Baldwin (current bid, $300; estimate, $1,000), or take a bird walk for six with Peter Matthiessen (current bid, $375; estimate, $7,500 -- come on, people). The auction's organizers would like to remind you that the "items make for great holiday gifts" -- though some of them might be a wee bit difficult to hide under your tree. (The Paris Review Charity Auction)
Whoopee for Whoopi? Or no? Whoopi Goldberg has brought her one-woman show back to Broadway 20 years after she first strolled onto the Great White Way. So what do the New York critics think of "Whoopi," which opened last night? A sampling of their reviews:
"Occasionally her comments are fresh ... But much of the tirade seemed recycled from The Longest Campaign ... She has a lot of jokes about menopause, which includes a whole sequence on flatulence. Tastelessness, I'm afraid, is not as novel or funny as it seemed 20 years ago." (Howard Kissel, N.Y. Daily News )
"'Whoopi' will surely delight Ms. Goldberg's most ardent fans ... But as anyone who has observed her eclectic career knows, Ms. Goldberg [who had no director on the show] is perhaps not always the best judge of material -- hers or anyone else's. How else to explain the bewildering speed with which she rappelled from Oscar winner to Hollywood Square?" (Charles Isherwood, N.Y. Times)
"Twenty years ago, a young and unknown comedian with the unlikely name of Whoopi Goldberg stormed Broadway ... Last night at the Lyceum Theatre, an older, possibly wiser and certainly very much better-known Whoopi returned to retrace those fledgling steps. Happily, she didn't trip." (Clive Barnes, N.Y. Post)
"This show ... should not be ... leaning so heavily on complaints about the aging female body. If a Martian were to come to Broadway this week and see 'Whoopi' and Eve Ensler's 'The Good Body,' the alien would conclude that at least half the earthling population cannot see beyond their own butts." (Linda Winer, N.Y. Newsday)
Also: O.D.B.'s estranged wife and the mother of three of his seven children, Icelene Jones, is fighting to keep the late rapper's mother and four other children from snagging any part of his estate, though the rapper's manager says he specifically requested that all his children be taken care of after his death (Lloyd Grove's Lowdown) ... Jude Law has been selected as People's "Sexiest Man Alive." In the "Sexiest" issue's biggest surprise, the magazine's editors are all fired up about Donald Trump, noting, "These women of 'The Apprentice' don't agree on much, but they all say Donald Trump is one hot mogul." Um ... OK (People via Reuters and N.Y. Daily News) ... Robert De Niro and the wife with whom he spent years warring, Grace Hightower, are renewing their vows on Saturday -- and rumors are rampant that the couple is expecting another child (Rush and Molloy)
Money Quote:
Prince Charles getting royally incensed about young people today who have "ideas above their station," in a memo to one of his staffers: "People think they can all be pop stars, high court judges, brilliant TV personalities or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having natural ability. This is the result of social utopianism which believes humanity can be genetically and socially engineered to contradict the lessons of history." (The Scotsman)
-- Amy Reiter
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