Julian Schnabel’s paintings of bones (used in the credit sequence of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) are on view at Gagosian Gallery, with a preview party last night. Schnabel’s at work on his next film, because he evidently needs no sleep.

Tilda Swinton, Lauren Hutton, Ben Silverman, the Weinsteins, Brett Ratner, and Diane Keaton were sighted.

Fashion icon Lisa Eisner (she owns Sammy Davis Jr.’s wardrobe) and Nicky Hilton both looked great but not together, naturally.

We said hi to Roger Friedman but didn’t recognize David Carr from the NY Times. (We don’t seem to be the only ones.) Gabe Snyder took a smoke break with Schnabel, but we were too busy feeling inept.

We were just about to snap John Waters with our Speed Graphic camera disguised as a phone, when the official photog hissed at us to get out of his way. Waters told us he never watches The Wire, as it’s too depressing, and that he’s delighted for Patty Hearst and her show dog, but no, he’s not making a movie about dog shows.

Outside, the paparazzi were getting soaked.

Slate’s Jacob Weisberg read from his new book The Bush Tragedy at a Domino-sponored shindig in Brentwood. 300 guests stormed Arianna Huffington’s mansion house. (Or home, as the invitations read.)

Adrian Grenier, sporting a beard that would have been a bushy tragedy on anyone else, Tracey Ullman, who does a wicked Arianna herself, and Christine Lahti represented SAG; Dale Launer and Stephen Gaghan were the WGA/DGA guys, and producers were thick on the ground with Lawrence Bender, Mike Medavoy, Irina Medavoy, Sam Goldwyn and George Stevens. Matt Groening had the animation arena all to himself.

Jim Ledbetter gave Arianna a copy of his new collection for Penguin–Karl Marx’s Dispatches for the New York Tribune, stopping her as she was enroute to her office. Gabe Snyder got the story behind her distracted expression: book deadline! (Who else was in the study, anyway?)

Usual coterie of LA media types–Mickey Kaus, Carla Hall, Kevin Roderick, Nick Goldberg, Kim Serafin, Ruth Shalit, Rob Barrett, Roman Genn–let’s move on, shall we?

Weisberg’s clever wife, Deborah Needleman (she edits Domino) brought her Conde Nast cohorts along–Clemmy Closson and Beth Brenner.

Oscars were discussed perfunctorily, Obama enthusiastically (Rachel Sklar’s cries of plagiarism! were dismissed as business as usual which means those dissing her didn’t read very closely. Or else they were drunk.) Plenty of food and drink, which is unusual for book parties–and lots of copies of the book which looks like a fast read. No need to send it out for coverage.

(photos by Stefanie Keenan for Patrick McMullan)

In the January W Gabe Snyder gets director Larry Charles to talk about life BB (before Borat) and AB (after Borat).

When it was clear that Borat was going to be a giant hit, Charles was deluged with studio offers to direct what he calls “big-budgeted bad comedies.” He sent all the scripts back. “I have a moral qualm with a $100 million movie,” he says.

Snyder thinks Charles looks like a missing ZZ Top member, which isn’t exactly original.
Full disclosure: we’ve worked for him; we think he looks like a runaway rabbi; we think he’s a genius, too.

(photo by Daniel Hennessy)