The Paris Review

At the risk of, um, tweeting our own horn, this month’s Paper Magazine singles out our own Thessaly La Force and Sadie Stein, plus Daily contributors Maud Newton and Emma Straub, as New York's most “influential, fun, and fabulous” Twitterers.

But you knew that ...

This is the second installment of Hastreiter's culture diary. Click here to read part 1.

DAY FOUR

11:05 A.M. Hop over with Drew and Jacob to Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills to catch the Gus Van Sant show as well as the Ed Ruscha garbage paintings. The guys were drooling over the Van Sant homoerotic boy paintings. They were just okay in my book and forty thousand dollars each. And the exhibition was sponsored by Gucci. (So LA). I liked the Ruscha garbage paintings, although I wouldn’t have bought any of this art even if I were a zillionaire.

12:15 P.M. I dropped off the boys at the hotel and headed up to Laurel Canyon to visit my friend, the artist Adele Lutz. Within five minutes of Hollywood Boulevard, I was completely in nature. We hung out drinking diet cokes in Adele's lush backyard looking for mountain lions (one walked through her yard just the week before!).

2:45 P.M. Starving. Adele and I head down to a wonderful new spot I heard about called Tinga, on La Brea and Second Street, where they make the most yummy Oaxacan street food. Boy, did we have an outrageous lunch. The food is ridiculous and the folks who run it are sweethearts. They kept giving us stuff to try. Crazy good¹. They gave us a salsa made from toasted grasshoppers. Yikes.

6:30 P.M. Head downstairs to the Standard pool to check out the setup for our "Beautiful People" party we’re throwing with Guess. It starts at seven. Everyone is running around. Madness. Meet Josh Madden who is deejaying for us and bond with him immediately. He is cute, smart, and a true-blue Paper fanatic. His brothers are famous: Joel and Benji Madden of Good Charlotte. Josh is more into being a regular guy. The party is full blast by eight. My posse arrives: the Brunettis, Press and Gefter, Cameron Silver and Jeff Snyder, and my old friend Debi Mazar decked head to toe in Isabel Toledo with her cute husband, Gabriele, in tow. Their Cooking Channel show Extra Virgin is a hit, so bulbs are flashing. It's fun. Cobrasnake comes with his mom, who I adore with the hilarious Johnny Makeup! Paper fans are everywhere. Four identically dressed chefs from Norway introduce themselves, as does Jesse Williams, the gorgeous guy who plays one of the Grey’s Anatomy doctors. Turns out he’s a big Paper fan! Beautiful person Keri Hilson sings fiercely. It’s a success so I breathe a sigh of relief, run upstairs, and pack, as we have to be at the airport at five A.M. the next morning to catch the first flight back to New York to be back in time to throw our East Coast "Beautiful People" party that night! Oy vey.

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DAY ONE, Los Angeles

9:00 A.M. Arrived at LAX late last night. Woke up shivering cold to gray skies in my mod jumbo suite at the super friendly no-fuss Hollywood Standard Hotel on Sunset. After a week of torrential rain, LA was damn cold. I was there for a quickie four-day stint¹ and had fish to fry, so I dragged my ass out of bed, hiked across the street to Enterprise, grabbed a rental Camry and headed to my friend Robert’s Los Feliz craftsman bungalow for brunch and a catch-up.

10:35 A.M. Heading east on Beverly, I stopped in to check out my friends Robin and Cathy Petrovic’s fabulous Heath Ceramics store just past Fairfax. This extraordinary shop is filled with the wonderful dishes and tiles² of Sausalito-based pottery-maker Heath, as well as great collaborations with other like-minded artists and artisans.

11:30 A.M. After turning left on Avocado Street³, I passed Little Doms, the Los Feliz watering hole, and drove in circles looking for parking. I finally pulled up the steep hill outside my friend’s house and cracked hard into the car in front of me. Thank God for bumpers.

5:00 P.M. Back in Hollywood to meet up with my dear friend Ford Wheeler, a production designer, who’s in LA for twenty-four hours scouting for the new David Chase film he’s been working on. Funny how it takes coming to LA to see friends from New York. We hung out at the hotel for a few hours catching up on life and excitedly checking out an early copy of the spring design issue of T Magazine⁴. His art-filled homes are featured on a six-page spread.

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