The Transom

Italian playboy turned workaholic entrepreneur Lapo Elkann recently took on the appointment of Global Ambassador to the biggest hospital in the Middle East, the Chaim Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, which treats roughly two million Jewish and Muslim patients.

“My companies, they all start with an ‘I’ and end with an ‘I,’” said Mr. Elkann, founder in the past year of both Italia Independent, the lifestyle brand, and Independent Ideas, the advertising agency. He was watching a soccer match at a sports bar on Bleecker Street, hours before he was scheduled to catch a plane to Paris. After a few days there, he was planning to visit Italy for four days, followed by a trip to Iceland, where he’s working on yet another mysterious venture.  read more »

“It’s very surreal,” said David Chang, the hugely hyped hotshot at the helm of Manhattan’s three Momofuku restaurants, about taking top honors as the city’s best chef at the James Beard Foundation Awards at Avery Fisher Hall on Sunday, June 8. (The ceremony was hosted by Sex and the City’s Kim Cattrall, who “flirted” awkwardly onstage with Mesa Grill’s Bobby Flay and refused interviews.)

Mr. Chang had just bested a slate of industry vets, including Gramercy Tavern’s Michael Anthony, Picholine’s Terrance Brennan and WD-50’s Wylie Dufresne. “Those guys are the rock and foundation of New York, and I’m just a young punk,” he said modestly.

While many foodies were sniping about how such a young upstart earned a spot on the best-chef ballot to begin with, perhaps even more were gossiping about how Mr. Chang physically got to the ceremony: rolling up to the red carpet at Lincoln Center in one of two tricked-out party buses that he leased specifically for the evening’s festivities. “We invited a lot of chefs,” he explained. “Hopefully, guests don’t realize that all the chefs are absent from the kitchens tonight.”

Each 40-passenger bus—which cost a minimum of $2,100 apiece for the first six hours, according to the rental company, the Party Ride of Brentwood—came equipped with tinted black windows, custom black leather couch seating, disco lights, flat-screen TVs, surround-sound speakers and a smoke machine.

The mobile blowout began early. “We went to Daisy May’s BBQ,” Mr. Chang said. “My good friend Adam Perry Lang fed us and took good care of us. Then we were on our way here. … I don’t know what’s going to happen later; we’ll see.”

He rebuffed the Transom’s humble request to join the rejoicing chefs on board. “What happens there is going to stay on the bus,” he said.

cshott@observer.com

Amanda Green is the daughter of the late playwright and lyricist Adolph Green—who formed a legendary, lasting collaboration with Betty Comden—and Broadway actress Phyllis Newman.

On Monday, June 9, Ms. Green—who has herself written lyrics, for the musical adaptation of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, and has worked with actors Mario Cantone and Christine Ebersole—directed and performed in a revue called Comden & Green’s New York, as part of a benefit for Greenwich House Music School in the West Village.

The production included 42nd Street’s Michael Arnold tapping out “Moses Supposes” from Singin’ in the Rain, as well as numbers from The Revuers, On the Town, and Bells Are Ringing. “I saw how much fun they were having, and I wanted to do it, too,” the tall, slender, bronzed Ms. Green, who is in her early 40s, said about her decision to follow her parents into music theater (older brother Adam is a journalist who has written for Vogue and The New Yorker). She recalled growing up on the Upper West Side, where the famille frequently entertained composers Leonard Bernstein, Julie Styne and Stephen Sondheim. “It was a lot of cool people.”

Despite her parents’ stringent warnings not to choose a career in showbiz, Ms. Green wrote and performed her first song at the age of 19, for their 25th wedding anniversary celebration, which took place at actress Lauren Bacall’s apartment in the Dakota on West 72nd Street and Central Park West. She was last in the lineup, after Messrs. Bernstein, Styne and Sondheim. “And Isaac Stern on violin, so it was a pretty intimidating debut.”

And how was her act received? “I was the sentimental favorite. What were they going to do?”

ialeksander@observer.com

Poets House of Soho, founded by Stanley Kunitz and Elizabeth Kray in 1985, has long had a devoted patron in the actor Bill Murray, who played a cameo role in the Transom’s childhood: En route to nursery school one day, we met him shooting Ghostbusters at a firehouse on North Moore Street; according to the Transom’s mother, he offered to buy our Smurf lunchbox. (We declined.)

Despite or perhaps in defiance of recently reported marital difficulties, Mr. Murray was among the hundreds of men and women who gathered at Centre Street on Monday, June 9, for the House’s annual Poetry Walk Across the Brooklyn Bridge. “Would now be a good time to share our Smurf anecdote?” we asked our liaison. “Maybe later,” she said.

Poet Thomas Lux, the evening’s emcee and self-proclaimed Safety Captain, walked over the bridge backward, making sure, as he said, that no poetry nut was killed by a bicycle nut. On Fulton Ferry Landing, poet Martín Espada read lustily from a Mayakovsky poem, and Pulitzer Prize winner Galway Kinnell read, as he does every year, Walt Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.”

During a banquet at Bubby’s Brooklyn, the Transom was told that Mr. Murray was in no mood to talk. A note was circulated, but never came back. Later, the star rose before the crowd. “I am aware,” he read, from Mr. Kinnell’s poem “Oatmeal,” as Mr. Kinnell turned his chair to face the lectern and ate from a plate of cherry pie in his lap, “it is not good to eat oatmeal alone.”

As the evening drew to a close, the Transom approached Mr. Murray directly, forgot the Smurf anecdote, and asked, instead, how reading poetry compares to acting.

“I like this,” Mr. Murray replied, before disappearing into the night, “because it’s a live take.”

wheinrich@observer.com

At the Wildlife Conservation Society on June 3 at the Central Park Zoo, we found a creature with a steely gaze and a hefty, 235-pound-ish build: Al Gore.

The Transom imagined that the former vice president was thinking the following: What am I doing here again? Oh, yeah, my daughter Karenna married a Schiff and they’re big supporters of this charity—therefore, I have to be here or I’m a dick even though I won a Nobel Prize and an Oscar for saving the planet. Say … that’s some porcupine.

Wearily, Mr. Gore shook our hand. “We’re not doing interviews tonight,” he said.

For comfort, we turned to his wife. Unfortunately, we greeted her not with our own name but with “Tipper Gore” and it came out all wrong—like we were reminding her who she was, or were trying to score points for recognizing her. Whatever it was, Ms. Gore had no interest telling us what animal she identified with the most.

Trial lawyer Ed Hayes was more forthcoming. “I hate to say this, but honestly, the animal that I relate to would be a wolf,” he said. “You know what else I love: zebras. I love the way they look.”

Writer and self-proclaimed zoologist Paul Gregory Speck bummed a cigarette. Mr. Speck, who looks exactly like Tennessee Williams (“they all say that”), said he identifies with leopards. “I love all of the great cats,” he said. “In fact, the little cats, too. I think they’re really the supreme beings among the animals.”

Later, after he’d chatted with Mr. Gore about energy conservation, Mr. Speck offered his opinion on the candidates: He said John McCain was most like a buffalo. (“Determined, indomitable, ferocious, stubborn.”)

“And we’ll give Obama ‘mountain gorilla,’” he said.

Was he sure about that?

“I was about to say spider monkey. Well, he does have certain simian movements and jungle fever—see, I think it’s going down the politically incorrect path. … Let’s say a bird, a bird might be better. Let’s say magpie. A magpie is a very talkative and intelligent bird, which is even capable of imitating sounds. A magpie is like a two-tone crow. It’s half-black, half-white.”

Interior decorator Mario Buatta told us he loves monkeys, and how when he was a kid, he’d go to the Staten Island Zoo and see Jocko the gorilla, a frequent masturbator.

“I like McCain. I think he’s a patriot, and he’s been through a lot,” Mr. Buatta said. “He’s old but he’s got experience. King of the jungle. An elephant.”

During dinner, we found a couple of fabulous socialites.

I’m like a mother lion,” said Muffie Potter Aston, who was wearing a pink silk dress. “I fiercely protect my children. I try to take care of my den and other people in the den, other peoples’ kids, anyone I love in my circle.”

Mr. McCain, she said, resembles a wolf, while Mr. Obama is like a horse.

“I’m a minx,” said Debbie Bancroft, wearing a diaphanous peacock-colored number. “I am some form of feline, because I am observant, selectively madly affectionate, clean and cool.”

And the candidates?

“I would think McCain is something sedentary. A black bear. Something that hibernates. I think it’s not a good thing. I think Obama is completely a sleek and observant and perceptive character and is awake in all seasons. Hillary has come and gone. I think she was a predator that missed her mark. Some form of feral cat that missed her prey.”

ggurley@observer.com

“I’m very sad about Yves Saint Laurent, which is why I’m wearing a 30-year-old jacket,” Council of Fashion Designers president Diane Von Furstenberg, clad in a blue “Le Smoking”-esque number by the late designer, confided at the New York Public Library on Monday, June 2. “It’s from my attic.”

Mr. Saint Laurent, who died June 1 in Paris from a brain tumor, was much on people’s minds at this, the annual CFDA Awards, otherwise known as fashion’s Oscars. “He was wonderful, he was divine, he was mischievous,” Ms. Von Furstenberg said. “I loved him.”  read more »

“I have a broken toe and I walked here—I break them all the time!” said actress Blythe Danner (a.k.a. Gwyneth Paltrow’s mom), wearing not hideous gladiators but daisy-accented sandals with an elegant white pantsuit at Planned Parenthood’s One Million Strong Cocktail Party on Monday, June 3. She said she would be spending the summer with her grandchildren, Apple and Moses, while her son-in-law, Chris Martin, is on tour with Coldplay.

Ms. Danner was one of several Hollywood grandes dames, including Jane Fonda, Kathleen Turner and Jessica Lange, at the Prince George Ballroom in Murray Hill (or is it North Gramercy?) on Monday, June 2.

Ms. Fonda arrived as her typical glammed-up Southern self, wearing a tangerine-colored Issey Miyake blazer with a texture not unlike that of an egg carton. “We can get certain women in the White House that might as well be a man and we can get certain men in there that are feminists,” she said when asked about our presidential prospects. “I happen to think Obama is a feminist. In general, though, I think women govern in a less hierarchical, ‘I have power over you,’ more inclusive kind of way.”

Ms. Turner, wearing an Asian-style knotted jacket, seemd to agree. “The biggest difference between a woman and a man is of course compassion, ability to communicate and less ego!” she said in her signature raspy voice, adding that she’s been involved with Planned Parenthood since college. “I needed consultation, contraception and a sex education.” Who doesn’t, honey, who doesn’t...

ialeksander@observer.com

On Friday, May 30, the Transom found reality-show star Dina Lohan, mother to actress Lindsay and three other children, at an event for Project Cuddle, a charity benefiting abandoned babies, in Port Washington, Long Island.

Hailing from North Merrick, Ms. Lohan is something of a local heroine: Last month, she was honored as one of the “Top 20 Long Island Mothers of Celebrities” by an organization called Mingling Moms. Don’t ask.

“I’m here because it’s so important,” she said. (Also? National spokesman John Stamos, the actor, couldn’t make it.) “I got this call like really late last night and they’re like, ‘Can you come?’”

Does she consider herself cuddly and a good cuddler? “O.K., that’s a really weird question. Cuddling means just to embrace your kids. They make me out to be some crazy mom. … I’m just there for my kids.”

But is E!’s Living Lohan a sendup of her family? “It’s not about me; it’s really about setting the record straight, and the world has gotten so ridiculous with the sensationalism—not you guys … I’m sorry.”

What else is cuddly? “When my kids want to sleep in my bed, which they do—that’s cuddly. And we have animals—that’s cuddly.”

What’s uncuddly?

“I don’t really know what that means. It’s kind of a derogatory question. Like you don’t wanna go dark. You just have to—laws of attraction. You know, if you breed good, you get good.”

We think that’s what she said. So there’s nothing uncuddly out there? “I am so not going there! There is no one uncuddly to me! And if they are, they’ll figure it out.”

We asked what she was wearing and she turned around so we could check the label of her fancy tan coat (Armani). Unfortunately we pulled down the back of her black lacy dress (Chanel) and she spun back around. “I said my coat! You looked at my dress!”

We did, Dear Reader, and we likey what we saw!

ggurley@observer.com

Speaking of fashion! Now that we know the latest in Marc Jacobs’ love life at the click of his Facebook page, the Transom was wondering: Will other designers follow suit?

“I don’t have a Facebook page,” said Thom Browne, rolling his eyes. “I have no interest in people knowing my personal life.” Mr. Browne was speaking at Ago Ristorante in Tribeca on Thursday, May 29, at a party thrown by GQ. “I have no idea what’s going on with Marc Jacobs,” he sniffed. “I hope he’s having a good time.”

Last year, Mr. Browne was romantically linked to an angelic Columbia undergrad—does he have someone in his life now? “My personal life is personal!” he said. So quaint!

A few feet away, designer Michael Bastian was asked about the Jacobsian way. “Well, I don’t have a Facebook account for that exact reason!” he said. “But you also don’t have a choice at a certain point. When you become such a superstar like that—I’m nowhere near that—that’s part of the price that you pay. Either you don’t give a shit and you roll with it, or you don’t live your life.”

Meanwhile, over at the bar, there was West Village habitué John Bartlett, currently creating a line for Liz Claiborne. Would he put it out there on the Net? “No, not anymore,” he said. “When I broke up with my lover of 12 years, it was in Page Six—it was kind of horrifying! Now I’m very happily married.” (To custom framer John Esty.) But married-married? Like California-style?

“Well, we haven’t gotten married in front of our families. But we feel married. We’re still negotiating, our lawyers are still negotiating!”

jkoblin@observer.com

During El Museo del Barrio’s 15th annual gala at the 42nd Street Cipriani on Thursday, May 22, tiaras were distributed on trays, in keeping with the Latin American tradition of the quinceañera (kinda like a sweet 16 but a year earlier and more formal). Miss Teen USA Hilary Cruz and Miss USA Crystle Stewart arrived wearing their own recently bestowed crowns. Cute, ladies!

The event was co-chaired by husband-and-wife collaborators Ruben Toledo, the artist, and fashion designer Isabel Toledo, until recently charged with the makeover of label Anne Klein. Both are of Cuban descent, but met when they were just 13 in West New York, New Jersey. “She has a theory that if you marry early, it actually works out well because you sort of change together,” said Mr. Toledo, who has a faint pencil moustache that makes him look a bit like Gomez Addams in The Addams Family.

Though traditional quinceañera wear is white, designer Nicole Miller arrived in a feather-accented black gown with artist Romero Britto, who was wearing a white blazer festooned with splashy giant red and black kisses. “We met in Miami through Absolut Vodka!” Ms. Miller told the Transom. “Years ago, I designed a tie for Absolut and Romero designed a dress, so we met at an event for that.” Carmen Unanue, of the Unanue family that owns Goya Foods, was also clad in negro. “Very elegant,” she said. “And very New York.”

How does Steven Brill—the entrepreneur and journalist whose many ventures include Court TV, American Lawyer magazine and the now defunct media-watchdog monthly Brill’s Content—feel about his daughter Emily Brill’s fledgling blog, Essentially Emily: Confessions of a 5th Avenue Misfit, whose topics include “elite private schools,” “Ritalin,” “fashion,” “exotic trips” and “nightlife”?

“It’s getting better every day,” Mr. Brill e-mailed from a vacation in Umbria. “It’s quite a distance from when she was writing a brilliant honors thesis in prep school about the electoral college, but it’s well-written and has a distinctive voice. It’s now clear that the more she does it, the better she is getting at it.” Does he mind being mentioned, as in an April 23rd post signed “Misfit”? (“Are we seeing eye to eye right now? Not exactly. He keeps telling me to ‘Get a J-O-B.’”) “I often wish she wouldn’t,” Mr. Brill wrote. “Then again, there are people I’ve written about who’ve had the same reaction, to put it mildly.”

Ms. Brill, 25, attributed her decision to blog with a long-standing interest in journalism, along with confidence gained after shedding 100 pounds last year. “I had a family newspaper in fourth grade with a subscription base of four people—my parents and two siblings—called The Brill Family Times that I would slide under their bedroom doors,” she told the Transom, adding that she rued posting a video of herself laughing over a private voice mail left by Men’s Vogue editor Hudson Morgan. “I learned a lot from that. I do have journalistic integrity, and I will have it from now on.”

“I’m interrogating a minor, and then I’ll be with you,” writer and amateur pugilist Jonathan Ames told the Transom at a benefit for the literary magazine Open City on Thursday, May 22. Young, pretty lady-intellectuals were wafting through several connecting rooms in N.Y.U.’s Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House in the Village, under the gaze of literary éminences grises captured in photographs on the walls. Mr. Ames, who’s known a few trannies in his time and was without his recent escort, singer Fiona Apple, finished talking to the poetess with the plunging neckline and then explained that when he forgets someone’s name at a party, he quotes the Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger movie The Red Shoes: “Life rushes by—time rushes by, but the red shoes go on dancing forever.”

In the middle chamber, the very tall Open City editor Thomas Beller thanked guests and introduced the author Robert Stone, who read from his story “High Wire,” something about California, love, loss and getting older. The guests pressed forward in tightly compressed circles to listen; by the wall, a woman in a red jacket held her sleeping blond daughter in her arms under a black-and-white photo of Philip Roth in blue jeans, his hands in his pockets, thumbs pointing at his crotch. “In the sack,” read Mr. Stone, “she told me about her early life in Fresno.” Playwright and actor Wallace Shawn, looking dapper and accompanied by his longtime companion, the writer Deborah Eisenberg, appeared by the door, then quickly disappeared.

Actress Lindsay Lohan’s father, Michael, was on the phone from his house in Southampton, none too pleased about ex-wife Dina’s new reality show, Living Lohan, which premiered on the E! network Monday, May 26.

“I don’t believe in hypocrisy and deception,” he said, adding that the show is a farce. “She’s supposed to show how she’s a mother and a manager, right? First of all, if she’s acting as mother, why the heck is [son] Cody always going to sports alone or with a driver? You never see her doing homework with the kids.”

On the show, Dina appears to keep a spotless house; Michael suggested otherwise. “The place is always a mess,” he said. “She doesn’t even know what the word ‘laundry’ is.

“And she’s surrounding the kids with all the wrong people,” he continued. “In one episode”—he’s seen advance copies—“her brother Paul Sullivan, he’s out on bail, and he’s sitting at the table. They won’t even show her other brother, who just got arrested for DUI and drug possession.” (As reported in The New York Post.)

The angry father, who unsuccessfully pitched his own show, Deeds, about doing God’s good work, said he’d spent the afternoon fielding phone calls about his upcoming court date with Dina, regarding custody arrangements, on June 3. He said Ms. Lohan had missed 19 of the last 30 of those appointments.

Elsewhere in E! reality-show news: Keeping Up With the Kardashians star Kim Kardashian stirred up controversy recently when she leaked the public-service announcement she shot on the weighty subject of Burma on her personal Web site. Fanista.com, which produced the spot, had intended to hold the video in light of the cyclone.

In the segment, Ms. Kardashian discusses the embattled country with her sister Kourtney, while picking out a skimpy outfit for a benefit in its honor. “What’s this benefit for again, burping?” she asks. “Burma, not burping,” replies her sister.

“It’s hard to know what’s most offensive about this PSA,” quipped blogger Tyler Durden.

The mini-movie is one of more than 30 in a series of 60-second shorts varying in tone and featuring comedians Will Ferrell and Sarah Silverman and the actress Jennifer Aniston. The idea being to use celebrities to draw attention to a very serious cause, and the Burma It Can’t Wait campaign, said fanista.com founder Dan Adler.

“Unfortunately, due to extremely bad timing, Kim prematurely released the commercial on her Web site,” said commercial and music video director Brandon Kraines, who co-wrote the sketch with writer David Nickoll. The spot was filmed some three weeks prior to the cyclone.

But why use Ms. Kardashian in the first place? “At the time she had a No. 1 hit reality show,” said Mr. Kraines, who recently helmed a System of the Down video and an online “viral” starring Jessica Alba. Mr. Kraines noted that the Kardashian video had generated around 250,000 page views; the second-most-viewed PSA in the series had 30,000. “If anyone misconceptualized the spot, all I have to say is, ‘Watch it again and listen to the dialogue,’” he said. “This is not something that was supposed to stir up controversy.”

Also on Monday, May 19: Hair, makeup and costume people decked themselves out for the Designing Hollywood Awards, distributed by New York Women in Film & Television during a ceremony held at the Time-Life Building.

Actress Bebe Neuwirth, of Cheers, Frasier and Broadway fame, told the audience that it was a makeup artist’s fabulous lipstick and lip-liner that “gave me my character” for The Paint Job, about a woman dating a serial killer. A “just disgusting” pair of boots inspired the dapper and dignified Pierce Brosnan, his costume designer revealed, “to let go of the ego” and adopt a sleazy strut for the hit-man comedy The Matador. And the legendary Faye Dunaway gushed in a video tribute that the wig and hairstylist who tends to her wavy golden tresses is “one of the very special people in my life.”

Costume designer Catherine Marie Thomas was honored for her work in movies such as Kill Bill and A Prairie Home Companion. Another honoree, makeup artist Patricia Regan, who appeared not to be wearing any cosmetics herself, allowed that actors are “not always” cooperative when she applies disturbing, macabre or weird face paint. (Surely not endearingly creepy Christopher Walken, who appeared on a screen while Ms. Regan spoke, as a vampire in the 1995 film The Addiction.)

After a softball Q&A led by InStyle managing editor Charla Lawhon, coiffeuse Colleen Callaghan noted that in the five decades that she’s been working, only one actor wanted a hairpiece as a souvenir: Dakota Fanning’s little sister, Elle, who sports long red locks as the child version of Cate Blanchett in the upcoming The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. “She loved her wig,” Ms. Callaghan said. “But she’s only about 8 years old.”

The only vegan member of Congress, Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), was drifting calmly through Cipriani Wall Street on Saturday, May 17, wearing a patterned bow tie, a gold-embossed flag pin and a strangely youthful glow. “I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in,” said Mr. Kucinich, 61, who stopped eating meat decades ago to combat a severe case of Crohn’s disease. “I could probably beat most people half my age in a sprint. Not kidding.” Not laughing!

He was there for a fund-raising gala thrown by Farm Sanctuary, which rescues and protects farm animals. The party was emceed by television host Melissa Rivers, who told the Transom that a difficult pregnancy had ended her brief flirtation with vegetarianism. Still, “I’m not a huge meat eater,” she said, “and if I do, it’s an occasion, and then it sits in my stomach like a brick.”

Actress Ally Sheedy also professed discomfort digesting flesh. “Honestly, I feel like, why do we eat meat at all?” she said. “I do eat fish. I find that a little bit easier.”

Ms. Sheedy was talking with Michele Balan, a comedian in a serious mood. “We tend to blame everything on China and the third-world countries, but in this country it’s just as bad,” Ms. Balan said. “I was horrified at the Kentucky Derby when they shot that horse.”

“They didn’t shoot the horse!” Ms. Sheedy gasped. “They euthanized it.”

Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons lurked behind a pillar with his gazelle-like girlfriend, actress Porscha Coleman. “Every so often I get a glimpse of obvious truth,” Mr. Simmons said softly, “and the obvious truth is the abuse of animals is a horrible thing.”

As the crowd was prodded downstairs for dinner, servers were circulating platters of mock-chicken nuggets. “Usually the waiters steal food,” one said. “Not tonight.”

Management at the Plaza is paying a million dollars to an electronic-music composer, one Ariel Blumenthal, to create a two-hour soundtrack for its revamped Rose Bar (along with Frank Sinatra remixes for the lobby). “They said they want the downtown people to come uptown,” Mr. Blumenthal, who has been working on the project amid workmens’ marble drilling between 1 and 7 a.m., told the Transom during a visit the other night.

The décor was already in place: Persian onyx bar top, gold Greek-key furniture detailing, lots of velvet and fringe. A “heavy, older kind of setting,” is how the composer, who is 34, described it.

A resident of L.A. who was born in Tel Aviv and educated at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mr. Blumenthal researched the Plaza project by prowling New York’s hotel bars with a colleague. He was not impressed. “You hear a very narrow sound image so everybody can speak and make noise,” he said. “That’s it. The whole night. On the other hand, when you go to a club, then you hear all the low end—the beats and all that. What we’ve created here is something much more dramatic.”

The four tracks Mr. Blumenthal has composed for the Rose Club include a “Plaza theme”—embedded, he said, because “they didn’t want it to feel too commercial.” By the bar, the beat is louder and more insistent; next to the staircase on the lower level, the sound is muted enough to permit conversation. And off in an enclave he has dubbed “the stoner corner,” one hears lots of bass and guitars and not much else. “You won’t be able to play this mix in any other room,” he said, “because it’s mixed into this specific setup of these specific speakers here. The music is kind of embedded in the wall.”

“Tonight is what I call menu night: You get a little taste of what the company does throughout the season,” said socialite and American Ballet Theater board member Blaine Trump during intermission at the company’s opening night and spring gala at the Metropolitan Opera House on Monday, May 19. “To be honest, I always thought I was going to be a ballerina when I grew up,” she added. “And I am still hoping it will happen someday!”

Ms. Trump was not alone in rhapsodizing about Capezio flats and tutus after the elaborate performances, which featured company members Irina Dvorovenko and David Hallberg in intricate costumes. “I was taking ballet till I was about 10,” said the designer Tory Burch. “But then the toe shoes came and that was about it for me.”

“I took ballet for about six years when I was growing up, but I was no swan,” said 5-foot-9 model Molly Sims. “I had a very pretty pink tutu, but I didn’t know my left foot from my right foot.” The leggy lady admitted to being envious of the dancers: “Their bodies are just perfectly sculpted—of course I’m jealous!”

Speaking of bodies: Donald Trump Jr.’s wife, Vanessa Trump, was eager to tell Ms. Sims about her postpartum weight loss. “Sixty pounds!” she proudly declared. (Kai, a girl, was born in May 2007.) “Being a mom is like the hardest job, but it’s the best work; just seeing her say mama and wanting you to hold her,” Ms. Trump said as Ms. Sims smiled and tilted her head understandingly.

More Trumps! Donald Sr. arrived with wife Melania, wearing a black backless gown with an empire waist by Versace. NBC morning guy Matt Lauer, with wife Annette Roque, said he enjoyed the performance quite a bit, despite not really knowing his way around a plié. “Do I look like the kind of guy that did ballet?” he asked the Transom. Sorry we asked, sir....

Meanwhile, Taylor Momsen, who plays improbably impoverished Brooklyn private school brat Jenny Humphrey on Gossip Girl, arrived with her parents, wearing a gown that appeared a bit roomy on her 14-year-old frame. “It’s wild, I love New York,” said Ms. Momsen, who grew up in St. Louis. “There is just so much to do.” The actress took ballet for nine years. “I started when I was 3, when it was all about tutus and stuff, so I didn’t really know what I was doing,” she said, marveling at the show: “The clothes and the dancing and the legs in the air!”