{"id":9680,"date":"2011-02-17T20:44:23","date_gmt":"2011-02-18T01:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/?p=9680"},"modified":"2015-01-12T23:32:09","modified_gmt":"2015-01-13T04:32:09","slug":"on-the-town-huffington-and-didion-at-columbia-spectator-dinner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/on-the-town-huffington-and-didion-at-columbia-spectator-dinner\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Town: Huffington and Didion at Columbia Spectator Dinner"},"content":{"rendered":"

I work on a lot of non-jewelry and non-blog projects, but I don’t always write about them here. One of those — which I alluded to in this December post<\/a> but didn’t name — is my chairmanship<\/a> of the board of alumni trustees of the Columbia Daily Spectator<\/a>, my alma mater<\/a>‘s student newspaper. I was the arts and entertainment editor at Spectator in 1988. As one of the trustees, I now advise the students on a variety of issues and promote the newspaper’s long-term interests.<\/p>\n

Every February, Spectator has a big alumni dinner. The students and I started working on this year’s dinner last spring.\u00a0 There were a lot of changes: a new name for the dinner, a new emphasis on fundraising, new prices, and a new venue. It was hectic! I’m thrilled to say it was also a huge success. The dinner took place last Saturday at the Columbia University Club of New York<\/a>. Our keynote speaker was Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post<\/a>. Arianna is smart, successful, beautiful, and charming.\u00a0 She’s also funny. Those of you who have read my blog for a while know how I feel about Family Guy. Imagine my joy when Arianna appeared on the show in November<\/a> to trade insults with talking dog Brian Griffin, referring to him derisively as “Snoopy” while he mocked her accent and called her “Zsa Zsa”!<\/p>\n

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In addition, Arianna has spectacular timing — she sold the Huffington Post to AOL for $315 million <\/a>mere days before the Spectator dinner. We were nearly sold out before that announcement but that news put us over the top.<\/p>\n

Here is a picture of me with Arianna and two handsome gentlemen before Arianna’s speech.<\/p>\n

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From left: Arianna Huffington, Ernie Brod, WendyB, MrB.<\/p><\/div>\n

That’s my husband, MrB, on the right, of course. Ernie Brod, standing next to Arianna, is a Spectator alum and one of my fellow trustees. (Coincidentally, his son Jon<\/a> is a senior executive at AOL, so Jon and Arianna have spent a lot of quality time together lately.) Ernie, his friend Bernie Nussbaum, and other members and friends of their Spectator board and Columbia class joined together to raise $25,000 to digitize Spectator’s archives. Spectator was founded in 1877, so that’s a lot of content! I’m looking forward to giving people access to all the fascinating information Spectator has on the university and New York City itself. Thanks again to Ernie, Bernie & Co. for helping to make that possible.<\/p>\n

Another special guest we had that night was famed author and essayist Joan Didion<\/a>. Joan is the mother of Quintana Roo Dunne, who was the photography editor at Spectator during the year I was arts and entertainment editor. Quintana died much too young in 2005. (Joan’s prize-winning<\/a> book, The Year of Magical Thinking<\/a>, deals with her grief over the loss of her husband, John Gregory Dunne<\/a>, who died while Quintana was hospitalized for the serious illness that eventually led to her death.) Ever since Quintana’s death, I wanted to find a way to memorialize her at Spectator. Last year, I finally approached Joan and we created the Quintana Roo Dunne Award for Visual Achievement. The inaugural award, presented by Joan, went to online editor Neel Patel for creating a new Spectator website<\/a>, with a front-page blog called Spectrum, that led to a massive increase in traffic.<\/p>\n

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Joan Didion, presenting the Quintana Roo Dunne award. Photograph by Zara Castany\/Columbia Daily Spectator.<\/p><\/div>\n

Evan Schultz, another Spec alum, captured Quintana so well in an email he sent to me last week that I quoted him in my introduction of Joan:<\/p>\n

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“Whenever she came to Spec, she came sophisticated.\u00a0 She came elegant. \u00a0She came glamorous.\u00a0 Most important, she came kind.\u00a0 If we chatted, instead of coaxing a story from my broken keyboard up in Spec\u2019s disheveled perch, suddenly I was along for a ride in her world of art, and polish, and charm.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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John Gregory Dunne's book of essays. Click to buy used on Amazon.<\/p><\/div>\n

Thanks again to Arianna, Joan, the students, parents, trustees, alumni and other guests who made the event such a success. And here are a couple of press links about the dinner:<\/p>\n