Wednesday, March 18
Phew! We survived St. Patrick’s Day without being run over by a beer-swilling, laid-off trader from Hoboken! (We went there once in our early 20s to celebrate this “holiday” and weren’t quite right for years …) Who would guess that St. Patrick was actually an upstanding Christian missionary and not the inventor of onion rings? Not that guests at Film Forum’s premiere of Valentino: The Last Emperor are really the St. Patty’s Day types anyway. Directed by Vanity Fair editor Matt Tyrnauer, this much-publicized film follows retired Italian fashion designer Valentino Garavani, who is known for dressing women such as Jackie Kennedy in classy evening gowns and, more importantly, for traveling the world with six pugs. That’s one … two … three … four … five … six! Pugs!
[Valentino: The Last Emperor at Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, http://www.filmforum.org
Thursday, March 19
Fleetwood Mac! Is here! New York! Playing Madison Square Garden! Meaning little else about today matters! … Nonetheless, we should probably mention that friends and colleagues of the late John Updike host a gathering at the New York Public Library to pay tribute to a man so scarily productive that he’ll publish three books posthumously. Spooky! Expect New Yorker editor in chief David Remnick, former New Yorker editor Chip McGrath (whose spawn Ben currently toils at the magazine) and New Yorker scribes Adam Gopnik and Roger Angell, not to mention several folks who do not work at Condé Nast, such as Knopf chief Sonny Mehta. And if this doesn’t give you your fill of tweed and lilac-scented cashmere socks, try the Lotos Club, where East Hampton arts hub LongHouse Reserve is hosting a benefit featuring playwright Edward Albee—you know, the Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? guy—and Tony winner Marian Seldes, who will stage a dramatic reading of Mr. Albee’s play Counting the Ways. Meanwhile, showing complete disregard for literature is shoe designer–to–the–starlets Brian Atwood, who hosts a cocktail party with nubile young things with huge bony feet such as Byrdie Bell (somehow we suspect that if our parents had named us Byrdie, everything would’ve been very different) and Julia Restoin-Roitfeld, sultry spawn of fur-hugging French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld. The dubious reason for this gathering is the publication of a new doorstop of photographs by Tony Duran featuring Thomas Crown Affair babe Rene Russo wearing Mr. Atwood’s shoes. Has anyone told these nice people we’re in a recession?!
[Fleetwood Mac at Madison Square Garden, 8 p.m., www.ticketmaster.com; John Updike tribute, New York Public Library, Celeste Bartos Forum, Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, 7 p.m.; LongHouse Reserve Spring Benefit, Lotos Club, 5 East 66th Street, 6:30 p.m., 631-329-3568; Brian Atwood cocktail party, OpenHouse Gallery, 201 Mulberry Street, 8 p.m.]
Friday, March 20
New York ain’t lonely, honey! There’s a club for everyone around here! Swingers? Check. Foot fetishists? Check. Hipster bike jousters? Check. Dadaists? Check mate! “It initially came to be during the beginning of World War I, and in this time when we’re involved in not only two wars but have the economic Pearl Harbor, as Warren Buffett put it, we need to dig down and find a new way of seeing things, and Dada has always been about that,” said Kat Georges, organizer of the Madcap Dada Poetry Salon at the Cornelia Street Café tonight. “Dada itself claims that it never existed. We’re not an organization; we’re just hosting this event and enjoying it.” Of course, the dress code is somewhat open. “You can cross-dress, undress …” said Ms. Georges. “The idea is to be striking and bold and creative. Dada poet Mina Loy used to dress for masquerade balls wearing lampshades as her hat.” (We can see it on Galliano’s runway now!) And in other news of the artsy set (sigh, we used to think we were “artsy,” but then we discovered Stam bags …), a group called Art Battles stages an Iron Chef–like art competition at Le Poisson Rouge, featuring four brave artists creating visual art live to the soothing sounds of someone called DJ Jus Ske. (Can’t help you here; ask your unpaid and very surly intern.)
[Madcap Dada Poetry Salon, Cornelia Street Café, 29 Cornelia Street, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., http://threeroomspress.blogspot.com; Art Battles at Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street, 8 or 11 p.m., http://www.artbattles.com
Saturday, March 21
Note to New York newbies: Rao’s isn’t just an expensive marinara sauce you buy at Whole Foods; it’s also an Italian eatery in Harlem full of mobsters and celebrities! And since you’ll never get a reservation there (unless you happen to be sleeping with Robert De Niro, in which case, you win, bang, bang), why not sample its distinctly Goodfellas charm at the James Beard House, where a charity dinner promises cameos by the Pellegrino family, owners of the joint, not to mention the Italian home-cooking of Carla Pellegrino, whom we’re told will be whipping up fontina-and-prosciutto-stuffed veal loin with porcini ragu and fried polenta, among other house specialties. “I met the Pellegrinos in Las Vegas about two years ago, when they opened Rao’s at Caesar’s Palace,” said Beard honcho Susan Ungaro, adding that she’s expecting “the whole family, Frank Jr. and Sr., Carla, Ron Straci, and then the bartender, Nick the Vest. He has over 350 vests.” Sounds like a good idea not to send anything back.
[James Beard Foundation presents “A Night at Rao’s,” James Beard House, 167 West 12th Street, 7 p.m., 212-627-2308]
Sunday, March 22
If your boyfriend quotes regularly from Superbad, toss him a clean T-shirt and drag him to see director Greg Mottola appearing at his own day-long Museum of the Moving Image retrospective alongside actors in his films, among them Liev Schreiber, who will attend a screening of The Daytrippers (1996), and Kevin Corrigan, a vet of both Superbad and Pineapple Express … meaning we have no idea who he is, but our skinny musician might!
[Superday with Greg Mottola, DGA Theater, 110 West 57th Street, 2 p.m. on; see http://movingimage.us for schedule]
Monday, March 23
On the one hand, we have the New York City Ballet—beloved of socialites everywhere—and on the other, we have the Ballet Hispanico, described by Marie-Louise Stegall, its director of development, as “modern with Latin flavor … we appear quite frequently with live bands. They are absolutely gorgeous, I have to say, our dancers … Everything is really theatrical in flavor.” The flavors will be hot tonight as SoHo House hosts a benefit featuring a “dance display” by company members, who will be gyrating in Zac Posen. (“We are hoping he’s going to be there,” noted Ms. Stegall.) It’s almost enough to make a gal briefly consider re-committing to Pilates before kicking back blueberry mojitos withLatin dance enthusiasts Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Julia Dimon (daughter of beleaguered Jamie) and Grace Gummer, daughter of La Streep. Meanwhile, the literati stage a “Literary Showdown” to flaunt their knowledge of the English canon. (May take more than that to woo those hard-bodied hedge fund widows, fellas!) The authors’ team includes famed book jacket designer Chip Kidd; author A. J. Jacobs in trousers so tight you can just call him “Lefty”; and ubiquitous joiner Jonathan Lethem. They’ll compete against teams of editors and agents hailing from Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Ballantine, Endeavor and more. (This all feels very much like the debate team trying to upstage the lacrosse players after the lacrosse players blew the biggest game of the season … and later burned down the school.)
[Junior Society of the Ballet Hispanico’s Dance Into Fashion Benefit, SoHo House, 29-35 Ninth Avenue, 8 p.m.; Literary Showdown to celebrate Slice literary magazine, Dixon Place, 161 Chrystie Street, 6:30 p.m.]
Tuesday, March 24
Find those little white shoes you used to wear to jazz class, pair them with a dingy vintage fur from their grandma’s closet and slog out to see British Indie rockers Bloc Party perform at Terminal 5. Rock stars being quite the Internet savants these days, we convinced one member of the band to email us! “My favorite show in New York was the Brooklyn pool show,” said Russell Lissack, guitarist, referring. “It was a glorious, sunny day and we got to have a big water fight in the pool before the show. Then we played what I think was our biggest show ever in New York.”
[Bloc Party at Terminal 5, 610 West 56th Street, 8 p.m., sold out]
Wednesday, March 25
Isn’t it romantic? Sarah Dunn reads from her latest novel, Secrets to Happiness, about angst-ridden New Yorkers chasing their own fluffy tails in a search for romantic bliss, wedded or otherwise, at the Barnes & Noble in the West Village. Bonus dirty excerpt! “I’m serious,” said Jack. “I want a warm woman. Is that too much to ask for?” “No, see, but I don’t think that’s all you want,” said Holly. “I think you want a woman who’s stylish and articulate and funny and smart, who has a real career, who keeps up with her New York City grooming routine and goes to the gym and has a flat stomach and who also happens to be an incredibly warm and nurturing individual. And maybe all that doesn’t fit together so well.”
[Sarah Dunn at Barnes & Noble at Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street, 7:30 p.m.]
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