Meredith Bryan

Behind The Bedroom Door:
Getting It, Giving It, Loving It, Missing It
Edited by Paula Derrow
Delacorte, 334 pages, $25

In her introduction to Behind the Bedroom Door, Paula Derrow bemoans “how little the women I know [talk] about the awkward couplings and surprising urges, the long dry spells or messy, mind-blowing encounters that make up a person’s sexual history.”

Hmmm. Ms. Derrow must know some women I don’t know.

But she may have a point when she goes on to assert that the media, post–Sex and the City, has given us a warped view of what others are up to, making us insecure about our own “less than HBO-worthy experiences.  read more »

If these Walls could talk! The yappy intelligentsia rushes to fill the over-medicated silence on Wall Street as the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council stages scholarly lectures in architecturally significant “temples” of finance, exploring how that pariah of a profession not only stole our grandparents’ retirement but made entire swaths of architecture in this city big, hulking, Pret A Manger–littered eyesores! Architectural historian Carol Willis, proprietress of an institution called the Skyscraper Museum, will speak at One Wall Street in what she called “a spectacular Art Deco room. It really has an incredible, posh period aura to it, with fantastic Art Deco detailing.  read more »

The snooze or the sitcom? If you like naps, Nobel Prize–winning economist and Times columnist Paul Krugman stoops to appear at the 92nd Street Y discussing with the avuncular Bill Moyers how the aforementioned soon-to-be Bodysurfer in Chief can cure what’s ailing us, financially speaking. For those who prefer a more immediate jolt to the system, Darren Star (he of Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place and Sex and the City) joins saucy sitcom writer and novelist Maria Semple as she reads from her saucy new satire of L.A., This One Is Mine, after which they banter about that elusive grail, writing for television.

[Paul Krugman at the 92nd Street Y, 1295 Lexington Avenue, 8 p.m., www.92y.org; Maria Semple and Darren Star, the Strand, 828 Broadway, 7 p.m., 212-660-6643]

mbryan@observer.com

An ‘Ommmmm’ rises! From Donna Karan’s cavernous Urban Zen Foundation in the West Village, where things are always swimmingly yogic, as the tan and towering Ms. Karan hosts a book party for Dr. Frank Lipman, author of Spent: End Exhaustion and Feel Great Again. “There’s an epidemic of people feeling fatigued, exhausted, running on empty, feeling older than they should be. Western medicine doesn’t deal with it. … We’re living at a pace and rhythm that are completely foreign to what our genes are used to,” said the good doctor. “Our modern lives has thrown these rhythms off, and we feel like we’re swimming upstream.  read more »

You know it’s a frigid month if The New York Times is the hottest thing happening today. The Gray Lady presents indefatigable rock goddess Patti Smith, our idol, as well as a panel of the paper’s White House reporters, all wearing jodhpurs and discussing what to expect in the early days of the Obama Administration. (More topless bodysurfing photos from Hawaii, please, Mr. President!)

Times Arts & Leisure Weekend, www.artsandleisureweekend.com for schedule]

mbryan@observer.com

Look on the bright side! Early signs point to actual artists reclaiming condo theme park Williamsburg as hipsters move back in with their parents: Brilliant abstract painter Eleanna Anagnos opens a show at Cameo, a new gallery on North Sixth Street—currently home to burlesque and American Apparel. Expect unshaven M.F.A. candidates. (Now that capitalism is dead, we may have to suck it up and flirt with a trust-funder!) And in cultural happenings further uptown, New York City Opera holds a symposium on Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra—which was first performed in 1966 at Lincoln Center—featuring actors, singers, art historians and, naturally, Egyptologists! (Say, here’s a career change we haven’t yet considered!)

[Eleanna Anagnos at Cameo, 93 North Sixth Street, opening 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., 718-302-1180; Antony and Cleopatra Symposium, Miller Theatre at Columbia University, 2960 Broadway, www.millertheatre.com]

mbryan@observer.com

Check us into the Bates Motel! The luscious Kathy Bates, who like Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio appears in both Titanic and Revolutionary Road, sits down with former addict and breakout memoirist David Carr, after which we hope to join them for hot toddies!

[Times Arts & Leisure Weekend, www.artsandleisureweekend.com]

mbryan@observer.com

Don’t believe what they tell you about luxury brands giving up the ghost! Louis Vuitton and its oft-naked artistic director, Marc Jacobs, host a tribute to graffiti artist–designer Stephen Sprouse at the Louis Vuitton studio on Greene Street to coincide with Mr. Sprouse’s opening at Deitch Projects nearby, complete with an after-party (soooo 2007!) at the Bowery Ballroom featuring entertainment by Debbie Harry. Later, silky voiced if decidedly strange singer Cat Power performs for skinny-jeaned editorial assistants at a book party (sooooo 1997!) in Williamsburg for William Van Meter’s new tome, Bluegrass: A True Story of a Murder in Kentucky. (Bonus dirty excerpt!  read more »

Wake up, suckers! Two thousand eight was not in fact just a bad dream! To recap: First the investment bankers lost their jobs, and then, while we were busy enjoying some harmless schadenfreude (not to mention ridiculous sales!), the rest of us did, too! Meanwhile some nice old man named Bernie Madoff stole billions of dollars from a blond family in Greenwich once featured in Vanity Fair! The social wasteland that is January kicks off with obscene Arctic temperatures (expect a speech from dear ole dad recounting that Michael Crichton book he read a while back about how global warming is a liberal hoax) and an unsettling lack of socialites mugging it up for the camera (recuperating from holiday dermatological procedures, duh).  read more »

At the New York Film Critic's Circle Awards on Monday, Jan. 5, NYFCC Best Actor honoree Sean Penn offered early clues as to how he'll approach this year's awards: He hammed it up for the cameras with Milk co-star Josh Brolin before blowing off a lengthy line of eager journalists. (Interestingly, Mr. Penn is something of a journalist himself these days, penning an eager travelogue for The Nation in December about his self-initiated chats with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban President Raul Castro).

Wall-E director Andrew Stanton, the Best Animated Film honoree, was far chattier.  read more »

This winter, the female shoppers of New York will have a hard time finding the traditional bit of wool or cashmere to pull over their heads before venturing into the cold. Why? Because to walk into any retail store nowadays is to observe that the traditional entry point for sweaters no longer exists. Essentially two sleeves and an amorphous jumble of fabric, the sweater du jour circles the waist and ties to itself, or cinches with a belt. Occasionally, it buttons. As often as not, it doesn’t fasten at all, draping instead like a benevolent curtain over a holiday-augmented waistline or held tightly in place by the wearer herself in a sort of modest, self-swaddling posture (lest a gust of wind expose her midriff, perhaps).  read more »

Lithe brunette socialite Jennifer Creel arrived on Tuesday, Dec. 9, at the meatpacking district showroom of British handbag designer Anya Hindmarch wearing a puffy coat, black spandex and a tank top. She was there to participate in a holiday gym class Ms. Hindmarch was holding for fashion industry types.

“I exercise regularly,” said Ms. Creel, a mother of three, having breezed through a series of squats and leg lifts that extinguished several other participants before the hour was up.

How would she assess the current holiday mood?

“I think everyone’s kind of taken a step back,” Ms. Creel said.  read more »

2009, Save Us from ourselves Options for “celebrating” include trancelike band Blonde Redhead and the hard-bodied New York Road Runners’ Emerald Nuts Midnight Run in Central Park (they don’t call it nuts for nothin!), featuring fireworks, dancing and thousands of people more motivated than you are exercising in costume. … Yep, maybe we’ll take 2009 after all. Haaaaaaappy New Year, New York, you big sucker!

[Blonde Redhead at Terminal 5, 610 West 56th Street, www.terminal5nyc.com; Emerald Nuts Midnight Run, Central Park Bandshell just south of 72nd Street Transverse, 10 p.m.]

mbryan@observer.com

The Rockettes kick up their tired legs (at the spa!) as the Radio City Christmas Spectacular winds to a close and we’re left to face recession economics without the diversion of tinsel.

[Radio City Music Hall, 1260 Avenue of the Americas, ticketmaster.com]

mbryan@observer.com

Just as you thought 2008 had already dished out all the pain it had up its sleeve, here come the plucky, rising young socialites of New York society to remind us that even when Daddy’s hedge fund has gone belly-up, WASP-iness lives! The 54th Anniversary of the International Debutante Ball and dinner dance at the Waldorf features 40-some nubile teenagers in multi-thousand-dollar designer dresses and their awkward, pimply escorts, not to mention military cadets hoisting flags. … Don’t tell this to the actual military …

[International Debutante Ball, Waldorf-Astoria, Park Avenue and 50th Street, 7:30 p.m.]

mbryan@observer.com

Nurse eggnog hangover with Sinatra’s Christmas album on repeat, ’cause there’s positively no reason to leave your apartment today! After all, markdowns lose their appeal when we’ve been paying 70 percent off for everything since October!

mbryan@observer.com

Had enough of the relatives yet?  Well, how ’bout some more bottle? Let’s drink to Kwanzaa! The Apollo Theater hosts its Kwanzaa celebration, featuring dance company Forces of Nature. Speaking of: the New York Dolls, somehow still kickin’, play further downtown at the Fillmore.

[Kwanzaa at the Apollo, 253 West 125th Street, 7:30 p.m., www.ticketmaster.com; New York Dolls at the Fillmore, 17 Irving Place, 9 p.m., 212-777-6800]

mbryan@observer.com

It’s Boxing Day, Mummy! Brits soak their New York pals for yet more bar tabs and dinner bills as they host “Boxing Day Parties,” while brilliant Beatles cover band the Fab Faux hit Terminal 5 to cover Abbey Road and Let It Be. And suburban ennui flick Revolutionary Road hits theaters—you know, the one marketed as Titanic II—and New Yorkers feel better about the fact that they never moved the kids somewhere where they could breathe fresh air or play Capture the Flag in the cul-de-sac. (Please, who would’ve taught them Cantonese?)

[The Fab Faux at Terminal 5, 610 West 56th Street, 8 p.m., www.terminal5nyc.com; Revolutionary Road, www.fandango.com]

mbryan@observer.com

Bring on the figgy pudding! All I want for Christmas is … a check for groceries and a signed copy of What Should I Do With My Life? (Say, can we trade that in for microdermabrasion?) Back in the city, luck out with a Monty Python double feature and all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet at the 92YTribeca—and we all, deep down, enjoy the one day of the year when no one else will be at the computer, either.

[Chinese & a Movie, 92YTribeca, 200 Hudson Street, 2 p.m., www.92ytribeca.org/film]

mbryan@observer.com

’Twas the night before Christmas and all through the city … Jewish  folks log out of JDate, and attend that feast of expectation, drunken boinking and self-loathing known as the Matzo Ball! To quote from the refreshingly straightforward press release: “For many, Christmas Eve is about getting to church, getting the kids to bed early and getting gifts under the tree. But for Jewish singles, Christmas Eve is about getting it on …” Amen. We’ll be crashing the late-night Christmas Eve bash thrown by dapper Gay Talese, whom we suspect of having several ostrich-leather-bound personal grooming kits.

[Matzo Ball, Capitale, 130 Bowery Street, 9 p.m., www.matzoball.org]

mbryan@observer.com

STILL HERE? For those messy-haired young rebellious types skipping family Christmas to shack up with that tortured Brazilian video-artist heir they met at Santos (“recession” being but a buzzword for blameless unemployment!), potty-mouthed rappers the Wu-Tang Clan play at Hammerstein Ballroom.

[Wu-Tang Clan at Hammerstein Ballroom, 311 West 34th Street, 7 p.m., www.ticketmaster.com]

mbryan@observer.com

Thinking woman’s sex objects Calvin Trillin and Garrison Keillor give their tally-whackers a good scrub, iron their shirts and show up in public to discuss Mr. Trillin’s latest tome, Deciding the Next Decider: The 2008 Presidential Race in Rhyme. “I’m hoping Garrison will sing a few of the songs,” said Mr. Trillin of his fellow humorist. “Like a song for Sarah Palin called, ‘On a Clear Day I See Vladivostok.’ And there’s also a song to the tune of ‘O Tannenbaum’ called ‘Mike Huckabee.’ … I think Garrison would be very good because he’s had some church training!” Mr. Trillin said his book of election rhymes came to him last spring.  read more »

Holiday spirit yet? No? Busy Matisyahu ushers in Chanukah at Webster Hall and drag queens paper the house at Oh Holy Shit, It’s Christmas! at the Cutting Room. “The idea was, ‘What if the Virgin Mary was a boozy lounge singer telling her side of the events?’” said star Mimi Imfurst. “Not only did she eat the bread at the last supper, she took home leftovers! … It’s the downtown version of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular.” Ooh, goody!

[Matisyahu’s Festival of Lights, Webster Hall, 125 East 11th Street, 6 p.m., www.ticketmaster.com; Oh Holy Shit, It’s Christmas!, the Cutting Room, 19 West 24th Street, 7:30 p.m., www.virginmarylive.com]

mbryan@observer.com

India, on stage and off: Choreographer Pina Bausch’s India-inspired dance piece, Bamboo Blues, unspools at BAM, performed by her company, Tanztheater Wuppertal. Say it again: Tanztheater Wuppertal. Tanztheater Wuppertal! And while stiletto sales and dearth of holiday office parties have been dominating the news of late, the brutal terrorist attacks in Mumbai remain for many the true and tragic story of this season. Tonight the Chabad Center for Jewish Discovery throws a benefit party for Mumbai; Hasidic reggae star Matisyahu will be performing.

[Bamboo Blues at BAM, Howard Gilman Opera House, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, 7:30 p.m., 718-636-4100; Chanuka Benefit for Mumbai, Espace, 635 West 42nd Street, 9 p.m., www.standwithchabad.com]

mbryan@observer.com

Didn’t his band have that MTV video with the girl in the bee suit? Evan Dando, who was definitely hot when we last checked, 16 years ago, lands at Southpaw in Brooklyn to continue to wrest a living from that one good song his band the Lemonheads once released. And at traditionally tourist-infested South Street Seaport, it’s the Tall Ship Lighting Ceremony! Ahoy, sailor!

[Evan Dando at Southpaw, 125 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn, 9 p.m., www.spsounds.com; Tall Ship Lighting Ceremony, South Street Seaport Museum, Pier 16, South and Fulton streets, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.]

mbryan@observer.com

Our jaded bosom is heaving with unabashed glee! Legendary ’60s girl-group the Shirelles—“Mama said there’d be days like this”—celebrate their 50th Anniversary at Symphony Space, where they will perform “our signature songs,” declared original group member Beverly Lee, speaking from her home in New Jersey. These days, she said, the gals sing “whenever the phone rings. Pennsylvania the night before last, we’ve been jumping all over, San Fran, Texas, you name it! We do cruises, symphonies, concerts, birthday parties, bat mitzvahs, you name it. We’ve done inaugural balls. … God is good, we’re very blessed.” The group hadn’t performed in New York since 2004.  read more »

Downsize this, baby! A new group calling themselves the American Society of Shit-Canned Media Elites (ASSME)—i.e., all those who weren’t savvy enough pre-recession to flash some epidermis for the New York Times Magazine editors and land an assignment and subsequent book deal—throws a party at Ella Lounge on Avenue A. “Wow. Um. Yes!” wrote ASSME chief and former Radar staffer Aaron Gell when we inquired (via IM, of course; we’ve cut back on phone use in this economic climate) about whether this was an actual society. “This is probably how the French Revolution got started.” He’s expecting “quite a few unemployed media people from across the spectrum.  read more »

This One Is Mine
By Maria Semple
Little, Brown, 289 pages, $24.99

At the beginning of Maria Semple’s debut novel, This One Is Mine, multimillionaire L.A. music executive David Parry checks his brokerage account and finds it “up from yesterday, and the Dow was down eighty points.” He muses privately that “the hard part wasn’t making the money, it was keeping the money.”

How quaint.

This is the first of many clues signaling that Ms. Semple’s L.A., though still familiar, is already a relic: rich studio wives, fancy cars, renovations of sprawling modern homes with ocean views, toddlers named Django and oblivious indifference to the outside world.  read more »

We’re holding out for 2009! A week till Christmas and still no holiday parties in sight! Will someone please start spending some money around here? In lieu of free food, we settle for overemotional  crooners Oasis and Ryan Adams at Madison Square Garden, which, sometime in the near future, we could see converted into temporary housing for displaced Merrill Lynch employees. … Now get that mistletoe over here, Swampy, and mix us a gin fizz!

[Madison Square Garden, 7:30 p.m., www.ticketmaster.com]

mbryan@observer.com

Roiphe raises the bar! A pack of Park Slope moms wearing sustainable wool jumpers bring farmers’ market tomatoes to the 92nd Street Y and aim them at Katie Roiphe, urban provocatrice, proud struttin’ divorcée—wash that man right out of your hair, girlfriends!—and author of The Morning After: Fear, Sex and Feminism—which got feminists’ hemp-panties in a bunch by accusing drunk college women of being partially responsible for the drunk sex they had.

[Katie Roiphe at the 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Avenue, 8:15 p.m., www.92y.org]

mbryan@observer.com

‘The Observer has never spelled my name right,” said socialite and philanthropist Emma Snowdon-Jones, calling to discuss tonight’s Charity: Water gala, which raises money to dig wells in Africa. Ms. Snowflake-Jones went on: “I met Scott [Harrison, the founder of Charity: Water] the day he came back from Liberia. He had gone to take pictures and was so moved by it and he said, ‘I think the problem is water. And building these wells is very viable. We could do it for between four and five thousand.’ And as we’re sort of talking about this over a $20 or a $16 drink at Double Seven, a club that is no longer, you put your drink down and you feel a bit sick, not from the drink.  read more »

Ironic glue-gunning being all the rage, the sassy feminists at BUST magazine host a Holiday Craftacular, where adorable Amy Sedaris will sign her book, I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence (no other kind, honey!), while crafts vendors offer holiday shmatte on the cheap for your picky sister so you can spend the rest of your paycheck on that all-inclusive in Playa for New Year’s. Ho ho … ho?

[Holiday Craftacular, Metropolitan Pavilion, 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.]

mbryan@observer.com

Who knew Obama’s election would be such a boon to biographies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Today the nice people at the New York Historical Society opens an exhibit, “A New President Takes Command,” presumably meant to draw parallels between the first terms of F.D.R. and Mr. Obama, if the comparison has not been adequately seared into everyone’s minds by the aforementioned liberal elite media.… Think of the rising cult of F.D.R. as AA for election geeks with www.fivethirtyeight.com withdrawal. …

[A New President Takes Command, New York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, www.nyhistory.org]

mbryan@observer.com

Note to self: gently ‘remind’  unshaven pseudo-boyfriend about nearly free Rag & Bone military coat you want for Christmas before participating in recession-proof fun at the ever-edgy 92YTribeca, where Prince’s 50th birthday is celebrated with a “Purple Rain Sing-Along” at the pre-recession party hour of midnight. … We’ve been practicing in the shower for years!

[Purple Rain Sing-Along, 92YTribeca, 200 Hudson Street, midnight, www.92ytribeca.org]

mbryan@observer.com

The truth about Gossip Girl? Partnership for a Drug-Free America (well, that sounds a bit harsh right now!) hosts its gala at the Waldorf, chaired by heavyweight suits currently under degrees of duress, including Dick Parsons of Time Warner, Les Moonves of CBS, Mel Karmazin of Sirius, Brian Roberts of Comcast, and John Mack, head of chastened Morgan Stanley. And speaking of drugs! Teenage contributors to RED: Teenage Girls in America Write on What Fires Up Their Lives Today (apparently, it’s some movie called Twilight?), edited by Amy Goldwasser, read their essays at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Barnard freshman Maya Popa told us her essay is about “religion, how people interpret religion in a modern context … I wrote this when I was in high school.  read more »

Ladies! Have you noticed the new ubiquitous riding boots of winter don’t really keep out moisture like those Uggs of yesteryear—but they do make us look like we were all dorm-mates at Deerfield! Not that it matters what one wears to nibble stale frosted cookies in an office conference room while fighting off nostalgia for last year’s scandalous hoedown at La Esquina (the chocolatinis! The drunk and festive interns!). Ah, remember when coworkers were more than just competition for your employers’ shrinking payroll, and were instead tantalizingly twinkly one-night-a-year, wham-bam-thank-you-sir Christmas party baubles?! But take heart! The stubbornly ascendant country to your right  read more »

In recent years, we’ve endured the resurrection of many 1980s staples, including skinny jeans, leggings, drop-crotch MC Hammer pants, Wayfarer sunglasses, cocaine and Andrew McCarthy.

So why did it take us so long to haul out the shoulder pads? Controversial linchpin of ’80s dressing, they conjure memories of Dynasty and Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation, of teased bangs and pinstriped power suits. In other words, not the era’s brightest moments.

Yet modern runways have begun to resemble surrealist marching band practices, dominated as they are by massive “structured” shoulders accessorized by tassels, fur and—at Maison Martin Margiela in September—blond wigs. 

 read more »

You know this can’t end well for the dog: Michelle Williams’ new film is about a broke young woman driving cross-country with her dog; it’s called Wendy and Lucy, and the U.S. premiere is at that cutting-edge house of hipster celluloid, Film Forum. Four Christmases suddenly ain’t lookin’ so bad.

[Wendy and Lucy at Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, 212-727-8110]

mbryan@observer.com

“I ran the London Gay Men’s chorus for five years,” said Charlie Beale, artistic director of the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus, tonight performing its Holiday Spectacular at Carnegie Hall. “Which is why it’s so interesting for me—we did the marriage equality debate in London when I was there; now it feels like old hat. It’s not an issue in the straight population at all, and so to come here and find I’m doing it all again is … interesting.” Mr. Beale went on to explain that his group is “always doing outreach work with organizations in New York City; for example, an organization called Village Cares, we do a lot of singing for.  read more »

Balls for allergies! It’s that time again: the Annual Food Allergy Ball at the Waldorf! Honorees include Aquavit chef Marcus Samuelsson, while “dinner chairs” and “vice chairs” (just hanging on after selling off the art and bling, one assumes) include smoldering environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., famous wealthies David and Julia Koch, and Vogue-ette Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, all sworn enemies of peanuts. The black-tie crowd will be treated to a performance by Kelli O’Hara from South Pacific. Later, exotically named BAMcinematek, the film arm of BAM—mecca for the arty intellectuals and people who are otherwise motivated to actually go to stuff—kicks off the inevitable Paul Newman Tribute film series, honoring “his transfixing blue eyes and effortless charm.” (Oh, that men like this actually existed in Brooklyn …)

[Food Allergy Ball, Waldorf Astoria, 7 p.m., 212-627-1000; Paul Newman Tribute, Dec. 8 through Dec.11, www.bam.org for schedule]

mbryan@observer.com

Ubiquitous Bobohead Garrison Keillor kicks off his weekly December residency at Feinstein’s with a show called “Man in Tux in Red Shoes With Piano,” featuring “romantic tunes by Irving, Cole, Elvis, and others, interspersed with stories, thoughts and commentary by one of America’s most celebrated endearing storytellers,” according to an overeager press release. Pricey, nostalgic uptown dinner theater lives on!

[Garrison Keillor at Feinstein’s at Loews Regency, 540 Park Avenue, 8:30 p.m., 212-339-4095]

mbryan@observer.com

Gong show Galapagos! The Galapagos Art Space in Dumbo (home to more than upwardly mobile procreative types these days, we hear!) hosts the Gong for Good Show, wherein intoxicated Brooklynites perform slapdash variety acts for the purpose of sending Christmas to an orphanage in Guatemala. “I didn’t want them to have to cut corners with their Christmas fiesta,” said altruistic organizer and Greenpoint denizen Julianne Schrader. “I started doing this as a fund-raiser because I didn’t want to be investing such effort into just throwing a party. I figured, ‘Why not Gong for Good? People seem into it.’” She added that this year’s acts include “a Janis Joplin Tribute Act named Pearl, a hula hoop act, a sketch comedy skit called Santa Baby, a traditional Indian dance and who the hell knows what else we’ll drum up.  read more »

New Yorker writer eschews big weird hair trend in favor of subdued product-tie in! Ben Greenman and his book, Correspondences, are waltzed around the room by Jack Spade, maker of high-end men’s messenger bags. (The good Mr. Greenman wrote text to adorn the nifty passport covers sold by Mr. Spade.) Is your head spinning yet? “Not that I don’t buy things, but I’m not a retail-minded person in that way,” said Mr. Greenman, who is responsible for the Goings On About Town section of David Remnick’s unstoppable rag. “If you gave me a list of three designers or stores, I could probably say, ‘Oh yeah, I walked by that once.  read more »

“My favorite farm animal is a pig because they are such intelligent and emotional animals,” said ’80s legend and 1998 lesbian crush object (High Art) Ally Sheedy the other day via email, apropos of the Farm Sanctuary “Winter Wonderland for the Animals” event she’s attending tonight at the Art Directors Club with other famous lettuce chompers, like fellow neon-decade heartthrob Corey Feldman, Legally Blonde acting genius Jennifer Coolidge, hip addict and girl-about-town Tatum O’Neal, and a blond DJ-for-our-time who calls herself Princess Superstar. “I became a vegetarian because of love for animals and then committed to being vegan because of all the education on factory farming I received from Farm Sanctuary,”  read more »

Does this pesky recession mean we have to endure an already-holiday-party-challenged month of December without even the usual haul of reindeer cookies and pecan truffles and mail-order pears from “business associates” popping up on our office giveaway table to medicate mid-afternoon existential ennui? Why get out of bed at all, we ask?! A group of people not yet afflicted with recessionitis (whose symptoms include atoning for accidental net-a-porter.com splurges with permanent bagel fast) celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, among them La Oprah, the honorary chair (who could’ve saved Citigroup herself if she’d felt so inclined!), and American Express’s Kenneth Chenault, a man rich off our $50 credit card late fees! Also there: Manhattan gazillionaires (that sounds so retro!) Jerry Speyer and Joan and Sandy Weill (who escaped the aforementioned Citigroup back when it was still paying seven figures).  read more »

Call it the Year of the Tortoise: the year that New York women—speedy, combative, bargain-driven shoppers—finally slowed their credit card use to a crawl; and tortoiseshell, named for a lumbering, dwindling beast, bled downward from our sunglasses to color the rest of our wardrobes.

Late last week, the city’s beleaguered retail stores were awash in this mottled-honey hue. Designer Shoe Warehouse was selling tortoise ankle boots by Sergio Zelcer for $179.95. The popular boutique Poppy on Mott Street offered Nicole Romano tortoiseshell earrings for $182. Tory Burch had sold out of tortoiseshell clutches at $425. Fashion Web site Style.com was pushing a Sonya Rykiel leather belt with tortoiseshell bow ($217) as a holiday gift.  read more »

For Christmas this year all the right people want a photo of themselves with an international charity logo in the background! Tonight, UNICEF obliges with a Snowflake Ball honoring lovely confection Lucy Liu. Expect the socialite contingent to be out in full force as junior co-chairs include omnipresent socialite Maggie Betts (daughter of developer and Bush ally Roland) and lame-duck presidential daughter Barbara Bush (embarking on a new career in fund-raising to keep the flow of town cars steady post-Secret Service!), and the gala committee includes uptown socialites Muffie Potter Aston, Cynthia Lufkin, Eleanora Kennedy and Gillian Miniter. Has that damned ball dropped in Times Square yet?

[UNICEF Snowflake Ball, Cipriani 42nd Street, 6:30 p.m., www.snowflake.unicefusa.org]

mbryan@observer.com

“I’ll make fun of Mira Nair, but only up to a point,” said Daily Show correspondent and Mumbai native Aasif Mandvi, calling to discuss his gig hosting the Gotham Independent Film Awards.“I’m the only Indian actor that she still doesn’t know is Indian,” continued Mr. Mandvi of Ms. Nair, a presenter at the awards. “’Cause she’s never hired me. So obviously she must not know I’m Indian. I’m excited to let her know I’m of the tribe!” Presenters (and comic fodder) include Mickey Rourke, who has just been getting progressively stranger since 9 ½ Weeks; scruffy divorcee Ethan Hawke; perky Amy Adams  read more »

Let the holiday party begin! Oh wait … News Corp., Hearst, Viacom, ABC News and Newsweek have already canceled holiday shindigs (and we’ve noticed our Big Cheese editor has been particularly slow to bring in his special homemade Yorkshire pudding!), and Goldman Sachs execs—well, let’s just say they’re too busy crying over those chivalrously relinquished bonuses (what, you didn’t get the press release?) to care about pedestrian traditions like holiday cookies—but the surest sign of the apocalypse around here is S. I. Newhouse canceling on the Four Seasons. What will the media columnists write about for December? At least there’s some good to come out of this: In honor of today’s  read more »

Obama’s Power Puffs: Samantha Power, the Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign policy authoress and all-around badass who was forced to resign her post on the Obama campaign after calling Hillary Clinton a “monster” (a “monster” who’s about to take her job at the State Department, that is!), lands at the 92nd Street Y. What the heck, ask her to clarify the “monster” remark.

[Samantha Power at 92nd Street Y, Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street, 7:30 p.m., www.92y.org]

mbryan@observer.com