An Officer and a Gentleman—and Shaun White!
Between Kellan Lutz offering to get naked on stage and Ted Danson thanking Esquire for a wonderful evening, the 2012 GQ Gentlemen’s Ball was a boozy affair. Read More
Alice Riley-Smith
The Public Theater Undergoes Set Change—and Intermission Is Worth the Wait
The Public Theater, Lower East Side’s iconic Shakespearean play house, which emerged from its facelift on October 4, celebrated in a big way with a Block Party on Saturday, the first of an eight-week re-introduction “designed to engage the entire New York community.” Read More
Men, Approach with Caution! These Girls Bite
“Every time you hear the word vagina, drink!” commanded opening act, Mamie Gummer.
The audience, mainly female—go figure—responded with the obedient clinking, and subsequent sinking, of glasses that reverberated through Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater. And vagina was indeed the theme of the evening at These Girls, Glamour’s night of monologues by young ladies they’ve deemed the new generation of female voices.
It quickly became apparent that for all involved (Olivia Wilde, Leandra Medine, Rashida Jones, Zosia Mamet, Aubrey Plaza and Lauren Miller), this was a chance to have a real heart-to-heart—you know, girl talk—so far from their usual introverted selves.
“Tonight, these girls can be who they uniquely are fan-fucking-tastic,” exclaimed Gloria Steinem.
It was refreshing, we suppose, though The Observer did feel a tinge of sympathy for the few men in the audience. Read More
Ciao Bella Toscana!: Where We Drink Wine—A Lot Of It
“Don’t stop eating,” joked Nicolo Maltini, the U.S. Ambassador for Antinori, as we were leaning full bore into an excess of food, wine and family on a regular basis, without trying too hard—the kind you find in Tuscany, Italian households through the city and its suburbs, or Olive Garden.
Quite frankly, we’d like to know how the prestigious winery—now in its twenty-sixth generation, tracing back to 1385—has escaped alcoholism/obesity and the dysfunction that we assume would accompany it.
“Italian culture is to have wine with our food at our home,” explained Allegra Antinori, who deals primarily with the hospitality side of the family business. Through the pop up Cantinetta Antinori at the Mondrian Soho Hotel, “guests can understand better our lifestyle”—which is to say a real booze buffet.
What you’d expect for $160 per head. Read More
Never—Ever—Sleep Alone: Where We Hook Up With Dr. Schiller and Her Waiting Room of Singles
“Have you ever been handcuffed to a radiator?” A young man in a laboratory coat introduced himself to The Observer last Friday evening as we took our seats at the opening of the fall run of alternative singles night, Never Sleep Alone. Our reaction, or lack thereof, must have been transparent. “Sorry, I just need to ask you some basic erotic questions.” Oh, alright, get on, then.
It appeared that the point of this short survey was to detect our sexual energy, translated by the color of a mood mask we were given to wear for the duration of the evening.
The performance took place at Joe’s Pub, the quaint underbelly of the Public Theater—a low-lit, intimate space with a bar at one end, where the more reserved voyeurs sat, and a cluster of tables at the front, where brave singles positioned themselves vulnerably. The champagne flowed, a crucial aphrodisiac for the evening.
It quickly became clear that Dr. Alex Schiller, the sex therapist played by comedian Roslyn Hart, meant business. Dressed in black latex, there was no beating around her bush. Read More
Molly Ringwald Starts a New Chapter: The Actress Trades in Breakfast Clubs for Something Decidedly Darker
Expectations were high for An Evening with Molly Ringwald, which featured the actress-turned-novelist in conversation with Vanity Fair’s Elissa Schappell, as part of the East Village Lit Crawl. This was either due to some deferred Molly-mania, the kind that melted the hearts of many a Reagan-era adolescent male, (and quite a lot of women), or in sincere anticipation of Ms. Ringwald’s new novel, When It Happens to You. Read More
Inside the Low Line, Adrian Grenier’s New Favorite Hang Out
The launch of the Low Line exhibit last week previewed the potential of life in subterranean Manhattan. Here we take a look inside the surreal scenes of an underground park, fed by light from fancy new solar technology, and then hang out at as a special benefit held on Thursday night to promote the dream park. Among the guests? None other than Entourage star Adrian Grenier. Now that it’s drawing some star power, it looks like the Low Line might be able to rock some of that High Line magic all the way to reality. Read More
This Is Science! The Low Line is Not Just A Subterranean High Line
The fact that it was underground was not the only aspect of the Low Line that set it apart from its railroad friend, the High Line.
“There are a lot of differences. This is a new form of solar technology… the idea that we treat light like a liquid,” explained co-founder James Ramsey, the more scientific of the two. This concept, of channeling light in order to photosynthesize subterranean plant life, came to him while traveling through India. Read More
