Eliot Spitzer and Victoria Floethe Celebrate the 'Good Book'
By Amanda Gordon
Slate recently hosted a party to celebrate the transformation of one of its editorial projects, a blog about reading every page of the Bible, by the Web magazine’s editor, David Plotz, into “Good Book,” published last month by Harper. Since Plotz more or less summarizes the Bible in a 21st century vernacular, we thought it’d be fun to summarize his book party with the Bible in mind.
In the beginning there was a man with a clipboard, in a Tribeca lobby, near the banks of the Hudson River, directing the wanderers to the home of Slate Group’s chairman and editor-in-chief, Jacob Weisberg. There, they found the door ajar, ready for Elijah (a no-show, but he’s expected at Passover), and dozens of media folk.
These craftsmen of words came together and supped well in the home of Jacob. They ate grilled cheese with truffle oil and meat rolled up in leaves of arugula. They drank white wine, water and beer. Most of the guests coveted the décor of the home, which Jacob shares with his wife, Deborah and their two children. This Deborah is not the Israelite prophetess, whom Plotz describes in his book as an “awesome role model because of her “courage” and “skillful manipulation of weak men” but rather Deborah Needleman, the American editor who created the magazine Domino, which was shuttered a couple of months ago.
As for commandment-breakers at the party, former New York governor Eliot Spitzer talked with Victoria Floethe for several minutes. Floethe, a writer, has recently found herself in the gossip pages, for her romance with an older, married man, journalist and entrepreneur Michael Wolff. The response has been harsh: one commenter on Gawker even likened her Ashley Dupré, the prostitute with whom Spitzer notoriously cavorted. But Floethe has fought back, something Spitzer himself didn’t have much leeway to do. In a piece in Britain’s Spectator, published the day of the party, she wrote that New York has been “reduced to a horrifyingly captious and moralising small town” worse than Atlanta, her hometown.
While there were a few twitters about the Spitzer sighting, Rachel Sklar refrained from gossip with a tweet at around 8 p.m.: “At Slate book party for David Plotz’s ‘Good Book,’ from his ‘Blogging the Bible.’”
Fellow guest A.J. Jacobs didn’t twitter about the book; he blurbed it. An excerpt: “Trust me, thou shalt enjoy.” His credentials: he is the author of “The Year of Living Biblically,” a book about the one year he spent trying to follow all of the biblical commandments. To which journalist Edward Jay Epstein replied, “You know, if Spitzer had followed [the Ten Commandments], he’d be in Obama’s cabinet right now.”
Writer Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, meanwhile, had thoughts to share about being fruitful and multiplying. She has a book coming out in a few weeks that is a personal and journalistic examination of a woman’s fertility. “In Her Own Sweet Time” includes interviews with many doctors and women. If only she’d been able to interview Sarah, who, had Isaac when she was 90. Plotz’s “Good Book” take on this episode, by the way: “Since three wise men came to Abraham and Sarah and told them she would get pregnant, “the story of the Nativity is a rip-off…. The big difference: We Jews do not have any good songs about this incident.”
Spitzer on Rye
By Marissa Brostoff
Out-saucing the sauciest New York Post headlines, Eisenberg’s Sandwich Shop, an age-old establishment across Fifth Avenue from the Flatiron Building, brings us…
March 11, 2008, 12:43pm
Eliot Spitzer as Alexander Portnoy
By Daniel Treiman
The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber writes:
I’ve been racking my brain for a character profile that would shed light on what the hell happened with Eliot Spitzer, and the only thing I’m coming up with is … Alexander Portnoy, the Assistant Commissioner of Human Opportunity for the City of New York (and anti-hero of Philip Roth’s famous novel). Like Portnoy, maybe Spitzer felt simultaneously driven (by stultifying parents) to be a good Jewish boy and rebel against his good Jewish boy-ness, and so you get the weird spectacle of the most upright guy in the world acting out some pretty deviant urges.
I’m not sure I accept the “most upright guy in the world” bit. Remember this? Spitzer’s also known to be casually belligerent.
March 10, 2008, 5:33pm
Spitzer Scandal’s Israeli Connection, Etc.
By Daniel Treiman
The man who is accused of being the ringleader of the prostitution ring that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer apparently patronized was found with an Israeli passport in his apartment, the Associated Press reports. Mark Brener, 62, of Cliffside Park, N.J., is being held without bail after the passport and $600,000 in cash were found in his apartment.If Spitzer steps down, he’d be the third governor in the Tri-state area to resign in the past four years due to a scandal. And Spitzer’s scandal wouldn’t be the only one with an Israeli connection.
Miscellany:
Of Albany’s Big Three — Spitzer, State Senate leader Joe Bruno and Assembly leader Sheldon Silver — Silver, a kippah-wearing Lower East Side powerbroker, is the only one not currently ensnared in a federal investigation.
Huffington Post’s Rachel Sklar speculates on how the Jewish media will cover the scandal: “Oy, such a nice Jewish boy, on his way to becoming the first Jewish President! What’s this girl’s name, Kristen? Sigh. To think he threw it all away for a shiksa.” (Hat tip: Romenesko)
My colleague Anthony Weiss notes that the Jewish community had been one of the last redoubts of support for Spitzer, who even before this scandal broke had been having a rocky first year in Albany. According to a February poll (PDF), Jews were the only New York demographic group with a majority viewing the Governor favorably — 53% to be precise.
Politico’s Ben Smith writes:
Spitzer’s announcement briefly galvanized a political world that has been singularly focused, for months, on the presidential contest. It has no immediate consequences for the 2008 race, though it seems to render more distant a prospect long floated by Spitzer’s circle: that he could become the first Jewish president.
It could also affect the fortunes of another prominent Jewish pol: Some have speculated in the past that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg might be interested in the job of governor at some point in the future.
Advertisements
Advertisements