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Ben Weitzenkorn

By Ben Weitzenkorn and Benjamin-Émile Le Hay 5/31/12 8:15am

Charity Events

7 Photos

Out at sea.

Hitting the High Seas (Well, New York Harbor) with Sailing Heals

In the grand reception room of a storied and opulent New York City nautical club, the Florence, Italy-based watchmaker Officine Panerai kicked off its North American Circuit of the Panerai Classic Yachts Challenge season with an event to honor the non-profit Sailing Heals and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The summer-long racing series, which began on May 23, is the largest international circuit of regate for classic yachts.

Sailing Heals, a philanthropic organization, backed by Panerai, creates special sailing experiences for patients by taking them on sails with professional yachtsmen and women. “At the very crux of it, we offer a day of sailing for cancer patients and their caretakers,” said Mylissa Tsai, a Sailing Heals board member and cancer survivor who is regrettably once again a cancer patient. Read More

By Ben Weitzenkorn 3/22/12 2:45pm

Party Report

NY Special Screening of BULLY

Meryl Streep Hosted an Advanced Screening of Bully

On Tuesday night Meryl Streep hosted an advanced screening of Lee Hirsch’s new documentary, Bully, at the Paley Center for Media. Bully is a film that follows the lives of six families and children for whom taunting, teasing and violence has been an unlivable problem. Celebrity anti-bullying advocates sounded off on the MPAA’s controversial R rating for the film, how the film resonated with their own experiences and how Dhuran Ravi’s conviction of a hate crime, in the death of Tyler Clementi, is raising questions about the line between youthful pranks and serious criminal acts

“I was really upset when I saw it,” Ms. Streep said of Bully. “When I watched it, it brought me back to New Jersey in ninteen fifty. . .—a long time ago. I was eight years old and up a tree and a group of kids was below me and my nemisis, this one bully, was hitting my legs with a stick until they bled,” she said. “It was very lord of the flies—a very nice Republican community.”

We’re not touching that last one. Read More