Lily Burana’s Memoir Is Not the Fake KindLily Burana, the author of stripper travelogue Strip City and the novel Try sold a third book today to Weinstein Books, a Diablo Cody–blurbed memoir called I Love a Man in Uniform. Described in the press release as “a memoir of an unlikely Army wife with a punk-rock past,” the book is about Burana’s marriage to her husband, a lieutenant colonel on staff at West Point, and her subsequent “extraordinary personal transformation from bohemian East Villager to resident of the ultimate conformist community of Army culture.” But since so many “extraordinary personal transformations” have been debunked these days — what with Misha Defonseca and James Frey and most recently Margaret Jones a.k.a. Seltzer — Burana has preemptively stocked her MySpace account with pictures and documents of her punk-rock days to back up her story. Or, rather, she writes, in Diablo-ese, with “moldy-oldy pics in hopes of establishing a soupcon of cred.” But seriously: “It’s hard out here for a memoir-pimp,” she writes. “What with all these fakey-fake hucksters stinkin’ up the track. I hate that there’s so much b.s. in memoir-ville that we have to read through a scrim of doubt, but I’m doing what I can to hatch some trust.” Well, thanks, silly Lily! The last thing the literary world needs is another Fraud Maude!*
Lily Burana [MySpace]
Related: Army’s Fashion Fatigue [NYT]
*Okay, seriously? Is writing like this going to be the new thing? Because if so, we might have to become strippers or something.
gossipmonger
Chace Crawford Must Really Love ‘NSyncFormer ‘NSync member J.C. Chasez and Gossip Girl’s Chace Crawford hung out with a bunch of cute boys at Elton John’s Oscar party. Javier Bardem lip-synched to “You Shook Me All Night Long” at the No Country for Old Men after-party at Bar Marmont. Ben Affleck and Jimmy Kimmel needed ten takes to film the “almost kiss” scene in “I’m Fucking Ben Affleck,” because they couldn’t stop laughing. Diablo Cody refused to wear Stuart Weiztman’s $1 million diamond-encrusted heels at the Oscars when she figured out it was a publicity stunt. Donald Rumsfeld and Mayor Bloomberg both ate dinner at Café des Artistes, but didn’t say hello to each other.
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Giants Player Has ‘Abandonment Issues’New York Giant Osi Umenyiora, who is dating Victoria’s Secret model Selita Ebanks, says he’s a difficult guy to love because he has “abandonment issues.” Andrew Giuliani, son of Rudy, was arrested for doing 39 mph in a 30 mph zone in Florida. An upcoming reality show on the Mojo Channel forces a handful of semi-prominent New Yorkers to survive without their cell phones and computers. Julia Stiles sat down and ordered a bunch of food at Indochine but requested that it all be doggy-bagged so she could take it home. CNN has been getting better daytime ratings than MSNBC over the past two months, though Fox News still does better than both. Georgina Chapman on fashion: “I’m like a magpie. I like anything that sparkles.”
party lines
National Board of Review Awards Lacked Writers, BrevityIf ever there were a case to be made for ending the WGA strike before the Oscars, it was last night’s lengthy National Board of Review awards gala at Cipriani. The WGA let the awards go on as planned because the NBR isn’t televised or otherwise connected with “money-grubbing moguls.” But that also meant no TV time limits on speeches. About an hour in Juno’s Ellen Page and screenwriter Diablo Cody became heroes for their quickly mumbled acceptance speeches (they were the fifth award of twenty). “We felt bad for just going up and saying a couple of ‘awesome’s,” Cody said during a break around hour four, “but now we realize we were being merciful.” Josh Brolin accepted award No. 7 (for Best Acting by an Ensemble) on behalf of the No Country for Old Men cast. “I’m going to take soooo long, because everyone before me took so friggin’ long,” he threatened, as the crowd let out a great cheer. But the baiting didn’t stop introducer Mike Wallace from talking so long he actually had to ask: “Now why am I up here?”
The only other hero was an animated George Clooney. Introducing the Coen brothers, he cracked: “These guys hate this kind of shit. They are the worst people you could have seen at this kind of event. It’s like March of the Penguins. Ethan won’t even talk.” Sure enough, Joel and Ethan Coen shuffled up to the stage, grabbed their award, muttered “Thanks” into the mike, and shuffled off. The bit got a big laugh, and suddenly the crowd seemed to get a second cocktail-fueled wind. Which only lasted two speeches of the remaining sixteen. —Jada Yuan
Hear more from George Clooney, Diablo Cody, and Ben Affleck at our complete coverage of the National Board of Review awards.
