Al Pacino

“We have a Shakespearean, Elizabethean temper,” Al Pacino informed a seated crowd Monday evening in Central Park. As part of its 50th Anniversary Gala, the Public Theater was honoring Mr. Pacino with an award, in the form of a prop rapier he had once wielded on stage, “I’m a little nervous,” he laughed. “I wish I had water, but I have a sword,”

While the audience of hundreds listened to Mr. Pacino with rapt attention, a secondary scrum gathered across the fence. What appeared to be backup pitchers on a hapless softball team abandoned their game to listen to the famed thespian. Soon, a quintessentially New York amalgam of dog-walkers, skateboarders and bright-eyed Broadway hopefuls paused their iPods, essaying to hear Mr. Pacino over the Central Park din.

Earlier, as guests arrived, many seemed to materialize suddenly from the Where’s Waldo-esque ether of the park. From the throngs of sunglassed and unknowing denizens, Julianna Margulies and husband Keith Lieberthal appeared, followed by Chelsea Clinton and Mac Mezvinsky, Kathleen Turner, Julia Stiles and Lily Rabe.

The red carpet, positioned on the West side of the theater, was situated atop a blind hill. With clipboard in hand, one unlucky PR staffer was tasked with running up and down the escarpment, alerting her superiors when the VIPS arrived—the Public’s own Paul Revere. (Listen, dear readers, and you will hear, her stage-whispering celebrity arrivals from far and near!)

Returning to the Delacorte theater was a sort of homecoming for Ms. Rabe, who acted alongside Mr. Pacino last year in The Merchant of Venice. “Working with Al Pacino was one of the great privileges of my life,” she told The Observer. “He’s a wonderful human being, and being able to spend a year of my life, a very complicated year of my life, with him through all of that was something that I’m very grateful for.”

She insisted she wasn’t nervous when she first met the actor, however, and made no special preparations for the occasion. “I didn’t do anything. I probably, I don’t know, I rolled out of bed and took a shower,” she laughed. (Such élan!) While meeting her idols does not make her ill at ease, other things certainly do: “You know, snakes. Snakes not for me. People, more for me.”

As Ms. Rabe headed toward dinner, Steve Martin appeared wearing a fedora. He rushed towards his seat, and declined to be interviewed, with an unconvincing half-apology. “But I like The Observer!” he called over his shoulder, “It’s a great paper!” God bless you Mr. Martin! Don’t worry, we’ll talk next time.

Bob Balaban, however, proved perfectly chatty when asked which of the Bard’s characters he most identifies with. “Easily Caliban, because no other Shakespearean character is almost my name. It’s the only one!” he exclaimed gaily. “What could it be, Richard III? No. That doesn’t sound like Balaban.” The actor went on to describe his busy summer, which includes a book tour for his upcoming title The Creature from the Seventh Grade. “Its completely autobiographical,” he said. “But in this case the boy turns into an eight and a half foot reptile, which I didn’t do.” Describing himself as “shortest, skinniest, most-incompetent boy in his class,” Mr. Balaban professed that he has “fabulously good and fabulously horrifying memories of the seventh grade.”

At dinner on the Delacorte’s northeasterly lawn, guests toasted the Public’s half-century of free plays. White lanterns bobbled in the slight breeze as Christine Quinn saluted the organization.

As the main course was being served, Tony Kushner shared his favorite Shakespearean play. “For various reasons, Midsummer, because I think its about theater itself. So it seems like to me it’s sort of at the center of things.” Sadly, we didn’t have the opportunity to press him further, as we were overwhelmed by hundreds of passing chicken breasts.

After the meal, the crowds sought their seats for the evening’s reading of Romeo and Juliet. Attempting to avoid the clogged corridors, full of chatting and meandering guests, many attendees hoofed it across the lawn, only to find they had to mount a thigh-high fence to access the stage. Revelers young and old, spry and not so spry, heaved legs over the railing in an show of theatric acrobatics. Several sets of unmentionables were unwittingly flashed.

Before finding our seat, we ran into Cynthia Nixon, whose fire-red hair is growing back after her stint as a cancer-stricken professor in the Broadway show Wit. The actress, however, doesn’t know if she will keep her tresses short. “People keep asking me that. I’m getting a lot of positive reinforcement about the length,” she said, pulling at the still downy strands.

Inside the theater, guests rose for a standing ovation as the cast took the stage. Meryl Streep larked a lighthearted vision of Juliet, while Kevin Kline read opposite, as Romeo. Christopher Walken earned the most laughs as a sometimes Queens-inflected Mercutio, and Christine Baranski appeared as the nurse. Throughout the reading, flashing, fluorescent underbellies of passing planes reminded viewers they were sitting beneath the midsummer Manhattan sky.

After the performance, we found Ethan Hawke. Asked what he would ask Shakespeare if he had one question, Mr. Hawke thought for several moments, before offering a response. “What happens when we die?” he concluded. Genius or cheeky (or both), we have not yet decided. We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

After the reading, guests returned to the Delacorte’s front lawn, and enjoyed dancing, desserts and drinks. “Can I get champagne and wine? Is that bad?” one guest asked her friend guiltily.

The clock neared midnight. The softball team had long since packed its bats (after yet another loss, it seemed), and the Great Lawn was quiet once more. The party at the Delacorte continued, however. With glasses in hand guests danced into night, ill-chosen spike heels sinking into the new summer sod.

editorial@observer.com

Matt Lauer(s)

The sweltering pre-summer heat has begun to settle upon our fair city. In the season during which New York’s every nook and cranny teems with sweaty tourists, true city folk gather their kaftans and swim trunks, and head for the hills. The sandy hills of Main Beach, that is.

Fetching our long-hibernating car, we were pleased to find it still filled with the detritus of last summer. A slightly deflated sunhat, a beloved pair of flip-flops, a tube of now suspect sunscreen. We smiled, remembering with sandy fondness of our time Out East. Yes, while the city has its undeniable boons, nothing can quite compare to the Talkhouse late, late on a Saturday night, nor the peculiar shock of seeing endless George Hamilton clones strolling the bucolic streets.

Suffering through city traffic, and the doldrums of 495, we finally emerged on Route 27 where droves of convertibles wove between the trucks, each unnecessary acceleration screaming, “I’m getting to the Hamptons faster than you, just watch!”

Practically suicidal after hearing “Call Me, Maybe” a full six times on the radio, The Observer lost reception and exited the highway where congested interstate turned to into congested country road. Memorial Day weekend in Southampton, was, as expected, crowded. Women in airy maxi-dresses appeased screaming children with ice-cream; teens shopped the Soho-esque boutiques; young beaus in bright, patterned (ducks, flowers, whales, anything) swimmies showed base-tanned thighs; South Fork natives, wearing indignant athletic shorts and T-shirts, eyed their summer prospects.

We drove to Cooper’s beach, that riotous stretch of ostensibly public coastline which demands a $40 dollar daily parking fee. Barefoot, we traversed the sand and took a dip in the still-frigid waters, officially baptizing summer 2012. Basking in a beach-chair, we noticed that while our season had only just begun (as evidenced by our sadly pallid skin), others already seemed accustomed to the littoral tableau.

Salty-haired kids were busy digging holes at the water’s edge, entirely oblivious to the cold. Umbrellas partially shaded a group of buff (guy) and coquettish (girl) lifeguards, making it difficult to parse the group’s surely brewing summer romances. Our reverie was cut short, however, when a young beachgoer, packing up for the afternoon, whined as he headed toward the parking lot carrying a beach chair. “Mom, is there any way to open the Mercedes trunk from your cell?”

Leaving the beach, we drove along the country lanes, peering at the houses.

As we drove up Elm Drive, a convoy of valets heralded our arrival at the Hamptons magazine fête.
“Happy Hamptons!” A chipper reporter greeted friends, awaiting the arrival of the magazine’s most recent coverboy, Matt Lauer. While Today Show host was running uncharacteristically late, his likeness was broadcast throughout the venue. Copies of the magazine were arranged on tables for guests to peruse, and purported VIPs (housewives, real and otherwise) posed alongside posters of Mr. Lauer’s boat-shoes-and-khakis cover shot.

Bobby Flay tried to skulk in unnoticed, but was promptly called back to the step and repeat.

Peter Brant Jr. was in attendance, behind a pair of oversize sunglasses as he posed for photos with friends. “Now lets see one with a big smile,” a photographer said, wishfully. But Mr. Brandt maintained is cool countenance.

Trying to talk over the incessant gum popping, we spoke to model Julie Henderson, who shared her thoughts on the Hamptons. “I’m a resident here, for the summer” she explained. While Ms. Henderson stays in Southampton, she assured us there was no inter-Hamptons rivalry. Still, she prefers her own enclave. “I just think it’s cuter,” she said. Moreover, Ms. Henderson believes most people have quixotic vision of Long Island, believing the hamlets to be unrealistically opulent.  “I don’t find it to be really luxurious, in a way that people probably that don’t come here see it,” she told The Observer. “It’s very relaxing. I can bike to the beach.”

Others, however, found the Hamptons have waned in recent years. “I would say in the past ten to fifteen years things have changed drastically here,” Fern Mallis said. “The influx of all these people form Wall Street and from Europe, and the amount of money that people are spending here,” she said, were reasons why the community was indelibly reshaped. “This used to be a place where all the artists and writers and everybody could come and work and afford to live out here, and it’s very difficult for them now,” she said.  “Farms are going and all the land is going, and it’s getting really crowded.”

In particular, Ms. Mallis bemoaned the Hamptons’s epicurean scene, and said she was most looking forward to simple dinners at her home this season. “It’s crazy going to the restaurants in the summer! You know I don’t do the, ‘Do you know who I am? Get me a reservation!’ trick.”

Still, she was confident that the Hamptons holds some intrinsic value that opportunists and hedge funders can not diminish. “It’s still a beautiful place. No matter what happens, they can’t change the light and the air and the color and all the special things here.”

At last, Mr. Lauer arrived, apologizing for his tardiness. Though humble and unruffled, he made it clear this was not his first rodeo. He smiled at the cameras, affably chatting with the wide-eyed press and answering questions from indiscriminate outlets. He discussed his family’s newly acquired Water Mill farm, and his dreams of turning it into an equestrian oasis for his wife and kids.

Mr. Lauer, however, does not ride himself. “You know, I love things like golf and I love things like tennis, and I watch people get banged up riding horses all the time. If I did it, I’d want to kind of do it peddle-to-the-metal, and I think I’d probably end up in a body cast,” he told us.

Looking down, we realized Mr. Lauer was wearing loafers without socks. It must be summer! “You know, even though we didn’t have much of a winter out here I’m still thrilled that the warm weather’s here,” Mr. Lauer said. “This is the time we look forward to all year.”

Too true!

editorial@observer.com

Yaz Hernandez

New York is a medley of pedigrees. More than anywhere else in the world, our metropolis is a patchwork of identities, a bricolage of bloodlines and homelands. The city’s sundry constitution was particularly evident last Thursday evening at the annual el Museo del Bario gala where city grandees of varied lineage congregated to celebrate New York’s premiere Latino arts institution.

“I love when people mix and blend. So, I love when my Jewish friends are like, ‘I feel so Puerto Rican right now.’ I like that kind of feeling; that’s very New York,” Reuben Toledo told The Observer, noticing the peculiar cocktail-hour mosaic. “You get to be Irish once in a while and Puerto Rican once in a while.”

Guests, (Irish, Puerto Rican and everything in between) sipped signature Cipriani Bellinis and Bacardi-laced beverages, greeting friends theatrically as if it had been years, rather than hours, since they had seen each-other last. Nina Garcia, Julianna Margulies, Agnes Gund, Fe Fendi, Stefano Tonchi, Liz Peek and Christian Cota all coursed throughout the space, looping repeatedly around the reception area and the bar.

The evening’s signature cocktail was called “the quintessential,” a rum infused tipple. It appeared not all the waiters were familiar with the bespoke beverage, however, as several guests ordering refills were met with anxious stares that, without speaking, plainly asked “quintessential what?”

Instead of tired inky-black dresses, many female attendees donned festive reds, hoping to show their Latina fashion savvy.

Carolina Herrera, who appeared imperial as ever in her own vermillion gown, explained. “I think the Latinas, the women, they love fashion, and they love to look very soignée, how do you say?” she said, with her particular Latin-Gallic inflection. “We are always happy.” Ms. Herrera, however, claimed that Latina women do not have a particular style, but rather a self-conscious, cultural chic. “It’s not a Latina style, I think it’s about the way you look,” Ms. Herrera said. “And they like color as you can see,” she added, gesturing across the kaleadoscpoic scene. “As you can see, they like to look perfect.”

A perfect testament to Ms. Herrera’s claim, designer Isabel Toledo did indeed look perfect. Wearing a vintage-cut, multi-textured cocktail dress with sandals en el estilo Cubano, Ms. Toledo explained her hopes for the next generation of Latinos in America. “The hope is to stay Latina in the soul,” she said gleefully. Ms. Toledo offered further advice to Latino Americans voting in the upcoming election. “We should wait until the very last minute until we really feel this is the one we stand behind, to really hear as much as possible. Frankly everyone is being taught what it is to be involved in politics,” she said.

Artist Cindy Sherman, who appeared blanched with her blonde locks and white frock, expressed a straightforward vision of Latin America. “Passion, bright colors, good food,” she said, were the qualities she most associated with Hispanic people. She admitted, however she had not spent much time in Spanish speaking countries. Her Latin excursions seemed largely limited to childhood experiences, traveling, she said, with her parents to Puerto Rico, Mexico and the Virgin Islands. Still, she had trekked up to el Museo del Bario! “I biked up there once from downtown,” she declared. Rather, her primary reason for attending the gala was to congratulate her friend, designer Narcisco Rodriguez whom el Museo was honoring with an award. “He’s just one of my favorites,” Ms. Sherman said of the coutourier.

Ms. Sherman was certainly not the only guest attending the event in support of a friend. Yaz Hernandez, who has been involved with el Museo for years, had a veritable camarilla of intimates standing behind her. Charged with organizing the gala in years past, Ms. Hernandez relinquished her hostess duties this season to accept an award from the institution for her longstanding commitment to promoting Latin culture.

“She’s kind of infectious. You just cant turn her down, and you kind of want to be her,” Alexandra Lebenthal said of Ms. Hernandez. Like Ms. Sherman, Ms. Lebenthal admitted she had not spent as much time in Latin America as she would like, aside, of course, from Puerto Rico which she visits regularly. “We sell Puerto Rico bonds, so I know the credit well,” she added, referring to Lebenthal and Company, her financial services firm. We couldn’t help but notice Ms. Lebenthal’s red-carpet ready dress, a close-fitted strapless number with a matching headband (cut from the hem, we imagine). “It’s Zac Posen,” she said proudly. “I like a big dress.”

Sarah Wolfe, one of the evening’s co-chairs, also said that Ms. Henandez was responsible for her involvement with el Museo. Ms. Wolfe has worked alongside Ms. Hernandez on the annual gala for years, but found herself with extra responsibilities this time around. “It’s not been easy,” Ms. Wolfe said of coordinating the event without Ms. Hernandez, “but, you know, nothing worthwhile is!” Ms. Wolfe confessed that she does not speak Spanish, but offered a Latinesque alternative. “I speak French. On peut parler en Francais!” (It’s a romance language, good enough!) Ms. Wolfe earned our (highly coveted, mind you) nod as the evening’s best-dressed attendee, looking stunning in a 1974 vintage Dior gown.

Finally, The Observer was able to speak with Ms. Hernandez herself. We asked her if she was able to enjoy the evening as an honoree. “Ah, how was it,” she began, lips pursed, “A bit difficult. But I shouldn’t say that. The truth, the heart, I’ll tell you. It was— Oh my God!” she gasped, her gaze drifting toward some unseen detail apparently amiss. “I feel great being a hostess. That, I know how to do,” She said, squirming at the unnamed minutiae which had caught her eye. “I have it down to a science.” She was, however, thankful for the recognition. “Listen, I’m just grateful.” She said, before fluttering off to fix the offending centerpiece or seating arrangement.

editorial@observer.com

In the 30 seconds after the bell rang at the NASDAQ exchange, more than 80 million shares were traded, and with the IPO (really the night before, when the underwriting banks bought the stock from Facebook), Mr. Zuckerberg made $25 B.

But he wasn’t making any money off me.

I joined Facebook in 2007, back when you still had to identify your school to become a member. Carefully curated pics were promptly uploaded to my profile, and soon I was scrutinizing my future college classmates, accepting friend requests with bright-eyed, bushy-tailed pride. I was never really addicted to Facebook, but for several years I would log-on at least once daily, friend-ing old summer camp acquaintances and lustfully stalking sweet Laxers (look it up).

After a while, however, I found posting and viewing Spring break beach shots (cellulite airbrushed out, cleavage brushed in) vaguely vulgar. The entire site seemed to be based around a strange, self-branding tango of exhibitionism and voyeurism. Still, I maintained my account to keep in touch with friends, to make sure my little sister didn’t post any photos she would live to regret, and to participate in the enduring who-looked-hot/not dialogue with my peers.

Initially, I was even excited by the sharp-shot targeted ads. "Ee-gadz! I do want to check out that conflict-free diamond tennis bracelet, I do want to support Prop 19 and I do want to invest in blue-light acne treatment!" I found myself cooing over and over again. But after a while, Facebook’s apparent telepathy had me jittery. I was a 20-something, prep-school educated Californian with a hazily expressed penchant for all things acceptably unorthodox, and Mark Zuckerberg and his army of youthful-genius programmers had successfully pigeonholed me. I found myself fitting perfectly into the Facebook algorithm (or rather, it fitting perfectly into me), and no number of Grateful Dead dancing bear T-shirts could counterbalance it.

My attitude toward the site had already generally soured when I heard last February that Facebook was going public, but within a week of the news, I deactivated, permanently, and I’ll tell you why.

Aside from Facebook’s use of my clicking habits and social network connections to tailor ads, I had another unsettling realization. Facebook is a service and a product to its users. But they pay nothing to use it, and there is no native revenue stream. The value of the company—its main asset, to itself any and potential business partners—is the users themselves, and access to them and their information. What they were planning to sell shares of was me. It was you.

With 900 million users, and an initial $104 billion valuation, let’s say each Facebook profile is worth about $100. Now, the relative worth of a profile of course varies, based on level of engagement and other factors, but for argument’s sake, to Facebook, and now to its shareholding public, you are worth about as much as a matinee ticket to Rock of Ages.  But that’s just one you. It’s the collective YOU that really matters.

Of course, data gathering as a for-profit enterprise is not unique to Facebook. For instance, the other company of comparable size whose main product and asset is its users is Google. However, there is a key difference: Google is transitive, whereas Facebook is reflexive. In other words, Google and its data collection are outward moving, leading to other destinations on the web, other resources. Facebook’s project builds entirely on the sum of its users interactions with one another.

In this sense, Google could be likened to a librarian, whose services we enlist in exchange for the concession that what books we ask for will be tracked. Facebook, on the other hand, is like a party that all your friends attend, but in order to yourself, you must agree to have all of your interactions recorded. In this way, the data, the information, and ergo the value of Facebook is internally generative: the more interactions, the more information, the more the collective YOU is worth. And the rate of addition to the data value is astonishing. According to Facebook’s own numbers, more than 3 billion “likes” and comments are posted per day, along with the uploading of more than 300 million photos (per day!)

It’s then either a post-modern joke or a Marxist irony (or both at once) that we are able to buy shares of us. But either way, I don’t want you buying shares of me.

(Add to this the further irony that before the ostensible public offering of Facebook’s stock, the vast majority was spoken for by the big-ticket clients of the banks that underwrote the IPO. And of the shares that were available to retail outlets, those were distributed preferentially to clients with the biggest accounts. Poor? Join Facebook. Rich? Buy Facebook.)

In the days since the IPO, Facebook’s stock slid below its offering price—and as of this writing, is at $31 a share—but the daily stock prices are not the point, at the moment. Even as Mr. Zuckerberg’s personal fortune fluctuates in multibillion-dollar swings, his project is bigger.

Projected to have one billion users by year’s end, the sheer size of the Facebook community makes it hard to grapple with. There are few commodities, aside from air and water, used by as many people. Only Coca-Cola and Microsoft, and maybe McDonald’s, can claim comparable numbers. Fully half of all Internet users are on Facebook, and that’s a lot of eyes on ads

But display advertising has proven to be a limited source of cash, and Facebook is focusing revenue streams from other sources. As the company itself noted in its SEC filing, “In 2009, 2010 and 2011 and the first quarter of 2011 and 2012, advertising accounted for 98%, 95%, 85% and 82%, respectively, of our revenue.”
(The company also gets a growing proportion of its revenue from fees paid by third-party apps and plug-ins, including 12 percent of overall revenue from Zynga alone, the company behind the popular game Farmville.)
The solution to the diminishing ad business, it seems, is tied to making Facebook into what Mr. Zuckerberg has called an “identity layer” for the entire web. That is to say that in his ideal version of the site (and world), everything you do on the Internet will be through Facebook, including online transactions.

This is ambitious, but given the size of its user base, and how thoroughly it is already ingrained in people’s Internet habits, imminently achievable. Even a modest version of this would be an revenue juggernaut. If the company were to, say, realize a revenue rate of 1 cent a day per user, by taking a percentage of transactions from vendors, that would be roughly $10 M. a day, or $3.5 B. a year. And that seems to be on the very conservative end of the hopes.

Now, this is troublesome when the head of the company has, let’s say, “innovative” ideas about privacy. In 2010, Silicon Alley Insider obtained instant message conversations from when Mr. Zuckerberg was still christening Facebook at Harvard, in which he refers to users who have voluntarily given over their personal information as “dumb fucks.” The bluster of a power-drunk 19-year-old, maybe, but in 2010, tech blogger Nick Bilton tweeted an exchange he had with a Facebook staffer. “Off record chat w/ Facebook employee. Me: How does Zuck feel about privacy? Response: [laughter] He doesn’t believe in it,” the tweet said.

And indeed last week, the company was hit with a $15 billion class action lawsuit from a group of users claiming the company violated the US Wiretap Act by tracking their Internet use after they had logged out of Facebook.

The fact is, the more information Facebook gathers about you, and the more ways it has to monetize that information, the more the company is worth. Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in his letter to investors, “Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission—to make the world more open and connected.” Even taking this at face value, it doesn’t really matter anymore. It is a company, and a publicly held one at that. And even though Mr. Zuckerberg has a controlling interest in Facebook, it now has to be accountable to stockholders. The tension between user privacy and monetizing data in service of stock price is a real one—and seems unlikely to fall on the side of users.

I see congressional hearings in our future.

And what did Mark Zuckerberg, whose personal fortune is now bigger than the GDP of Jamaica, offer to the legions of users, whose time and information have imbued Facebook with its vast value? “In the past eight years,” he said magnanimously, “all of you out there have built the largest community in the history of the world. You’ve done amazing things that we never would have dreamed of and I can’t wait to see what you’re all going to do going forward. So on this special day, on behalf of everyone at Facebook, I just want to say to all the people out there who use Facebook and our products, thank you.”

He’s right, it’s all us. Which is a sweet sentiment, though not as sweet as the billions we earned him.
Despite all this, I don’t expect an exodus. A critical mass has been reached, and projections suggest the site will continue to grow in the foreseeable future. I am not fighting against Facebook; Facebook has already won. By next year, one seventh of the world’s population will have an account on the site. Facebook is not a bubble that can burst—it has become a reality unto itself. Still, I’m enjoying life as a conscientious objector. I don’t need or want a third-party to manage my personal relationships for profit.

So, if you want to catch up, just email me. But in the meantime, can you “like” this article? The button is at the top of the page.

editorial@observer.com

A severe cross-costal storm system (apparently of Los Angelino origin) bore down upon the Metropolitan Museum of Art this week. The tempest, however, was not unforeseen. Squalls have been detected all week, as Hollywood winds have breathed flash-bulbous air over the city. Finally, at prime cocktail hour Monday, the heavens burst. Instead of rain, legions of celebrities precipitously poured forth.  Beneath an ivory tent, reporters and photographers lined the Met’s red-carpeted steps. As if embarrassed by the necessary unpleasantness of media, the museum set up a imitation privet hedge bordering the stairs. Paparazzi (who were required to appear in black tie) leaned over the waist-high foliage like prying neighbors, frantically snapping their shots.

Separated by the width of the staircase into north and south factions, broader civil (and uncivil) fissures soon emerged amongst the body of reporters. On the north side, gussied representatives from glossies and dailies bickered for elbowroom. A late-coming society blogger was boxed out (with half-hearted contrition, ceremoniously expressed), while one reporter complained about quote stealing from the previous year’s fête. Things were quieter on the southern front, although the group was largely ignored by politicking PR representatives hoping for viral pick-up.

And then, before the squabbling was resolved, the floodgates opened. Anna Wintour and daughter Bee Shaffer were among the first to arrive, criss-crossing the red staircase for the cameramen. We took a moment to speak to Ms. Shaffer as her mother placated a clamoring cable news network. Wearing a blue-lace Erdem gown with a manageable train, Ms. Shaffer claimed to be worlds away from her typical attire. “I live in, like, denim shorts and plaid shirts. It’s awful! I live in L.A, no one dresses up there,” she informed us. Asked to identify her harshest fashion critic, Ms. Shaffer pointed behind her shoulder toward her fur-clad maman. “She’s fantastic,” Ms. Shaffer was quick to add.

Julie Macklowe, arm in arm with designer Chris Benz, was soon circulating amongst the reporters (both Northern and Southern) sharing the details of her newly pink coiffure. “I dyed it in my apartment last night, in my bathroom,” she shared excitedly. “Pink hair does fade, but it looks beautiful when it fades. It lasts for about a month. I sort of wish it would last forever.” Asked what she though of Vogue’s new initiative to hire healthy, of-age models, Ms Macklowe smiled. “I love that. We can all eat a little more, right?”

Unlike some of the harlequin smoky-eyed ladies trouping up the red carpet, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff appeared fresh-faced and organically stunning. Gathering the skirts of her strapless Vera Wang gown, she offered a slightly different perspective concerning the fashion Bible’s announced measures. “I think Vogue taking their stance on that issue is an incredible thing. I think that fundamentally our industry needs to support more of the, you now, muscular, shapely, beautiful women of the world.” she told The Observer. While she has fully emerged from beneath the wing of Vogue’s chieftess, Ms. Winston Wolkoff still regards her former boss as the highest fashion authority. “I respect Anna the most,” she said before waltzing inside.

Wendi Deng Murdoch agreed, also naming Ms. Wintour as her couture sage. “She dresses me sometimes! I always get advice from her,” Ms. Deng told us. Soon we were chatting with Ms. Deng about the Taiwanese designer responsible for her bejeweled drop earrings and the virtues of Prada ready-to-wear. “I love Prada because her dresses are so interesting and edgy,” she said. “I wear it for every day.”

While mostly serving as crutches for their gown-hobbled dates, some gentlemen also did their best to stand out. Robert Kraft showed us his diamond, football-shaped cufflinks. “The players gave that to me after our third Super Bowl win,” he bragged. Asked who he looks to for fashion inspiration, Mr. Kraft did not hesitate. “Tom Brady,” he replied.

The museum’s front stairs proved particularly difficult for many of the female guests, whose ambitious gowns stunted varsity struts, allowing no more than a totter. Renée Zellweger looked more like (a slender) Bridget Jones as she maladroitly attempted to ascend the daunting staircase in her black Pucci Gown. Despite the help of an aide, Ms. Zellwegger was only able to take half-steps, and essayed to mask her limited range of motion with repeated poses for photographers who were more interested in Florence Welch.

“Amy! Amy!” a young reporter desperately shouted as Amy Poehler passed. “I’m sorry! I can’t move!” the actress replied, tangled in the feathered train of her Fotini gown. At least two nameless guests tripped on overzealous hems, but like figure skaters, immediately resumed their routine, red-faced with the knowledge of a duly-docked score. Andre Leon Talley struggled toward the entrance, at one point grasping in vain at the leafy periphery. “I’m exhaaaauuuusted!” he proclaimed, finally finding the front door. He then spent several seconds pressing his face against the cool marble of the MET’s foyer, much to the envy, we imagine, of equally breathless belles unwilling to smudge their rouged cheeks.

A particularly gusty crew of personalities soon flooded the carpet, as photographers barked thunderously for their attention. Kanye! Justin Timberlake! Jessica Biel! Tim Tebow! Scarlett Johansson! Tom Brady and Gisele! The Jonas Brothers! Claire Danes! Mick Jagger! Mayor Bloomberg! The comically stacked brigade paraded past the gauntlet of outstretched hands clutching live recorders, past the unplaceable voices yelling arbitrary questions and, finally, through the doorway toward the civilized party within.

And then there was Marc Jacobs. Wearing just white boxer shorts and a sheer-lace dress, we asked the designer about his outfit. “It's just a black lace dress,” he said sounding bored. The irony was, apparently, unintentional. We asked Mr. Jacobs when he last donned a particularly unsightly ensemble to an event. “I don’t think there’s such a thing as a fashion faux pas. As long as you’re happy and you do you. I mean fashion’s about self-expression, and if you express yourself honestly,there is no faux pas.” After citing himself as his harshest fashion critic, the near-naked emperor sauntered up the stairs, irreverently at home.

Truly, the band of bon chic bon genre artists, patrons and gallerists assembled at Capitale Monday evening all appeared in shades of sable. Black jackets, black cocktail dresses, black eye-liner and black ties streamed into the room, punctuated by wan, porcelain faces. The group’s chatter  soon reached a dull roar, and guests did their best to shout and drawl simultaneously. “I don’t really think they’re crypto-fascists, do you?” someone asked. We did not catch the subject of her inquiry.

Christened in 1981, BOMB magazine has enjoyed three decades of blessings from artists of both wide and marginal renown, the art world’s papal personae and choir-boys alike. While the full spectrum of BOMB devotees appeared at the gala, the vast majority were noteworthy members of the contemporary art scene. Marina Abramovic, Klaus Biesenbach, Dorothy Lichtenstein and Tim Nye all greeted their coal-clad friends and enjoyed the array of comfort-food canapés.

Various paintings and sculptures, donated by artists and galleries for a silent auction, were scattered throughout the room. Our personal favorite, bar none, was an apparently kitchen-made concoction by B. Wurtz, crafted from a Citarella Tupperware (once filled, in all likelihood, with a truffled goose fat marinade), a piece of wire and small wooden cylinder resembling a toiler paper roll.

Having enjoyed a mini ham-and-cheese sandwich, The Observer spoke to Betsy Sussler, BOMB editor-cum-matriarch. “I thought it was going to ‘bomb’ in the first couple of issues,” she said, explaining the quarterly’s inauspicious title. “What I didn’t understand was the groundswell of artists who really, really loved the idea.”

Still, the handle has not come without difficulty. Mayhem erupted after a box of magazines, with the ominous return address label, was sent to the Smithsonian. “People at the Smithsonian called the fire department because they thought it was a bomb. But we all said, ‘Would we have put it on the box if it were?’” Still, however, she doesn’t expect bomb-squads or naysayers to dismantle the publication anytime soon. “It delivers the artists voice,” she said. “And that can last generations and generations.”

Richard Serra, one of the evening’s honorees stood quietly amongst the crowd, a glass of cold water in his hand. A longtime friend of Ms. Sussler, Mr. Serra noted the unique space BOMB has occupied for the past thirty years. “I think it provides a venue for a multiplicity of media, that are unavailable in other formats. So whether its architecture or poetry or literature or film, or interviews, they not only cover unexpected youth, but they cover people that you would not be aware of,” he said slowly, deliberately.

Although BOMB helps him stay abreast of emerging trends and art personalities, Mr. Serra has little interest in many other mainstays of the contemporary art realm. Art fair season has long since lost its appeal, he explained. “I don’t pay attention to that. When I started making art there wasn’t a cultural industry, and now there’s a cultural industry that’s worldwide, and billions of dollars,” he said. “And I don’t go to those events.” Still, he doesn’t oppose the concept of art fairs, walks, tours and parties, he prefers his singular, steely zen. “Its not my interest,” he said with a wizened shrug. “I’m not trying to be cynical,” he added quickly.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum and the other side of the room, Eric Fischl shook hands and chatted loudly, clearly comfortable in the cocktail milieu. With his hair tousled and his oxford shirt half tucked into his jeans, he was indeed at ease.  We asked Mr. Fischl what recent art trends he finds most vexing. “Probably all the art that is like art made by children. Like the pre-pubescent adolescent jokey type stuff: Toys, dolls. It’s time to grow up. That’s where I’m at,” he said, with a beer-on-the-beach intonation.

Soon, guests were ushered into the main dining space, flanked by gilded Corinthian columns and two full bars. Honorees were toasted by friends and contemporaries over a first course of yellowfin tuna sashimi. Taking the stage for her introduction of Mr. Biesenbach, Patti Smith was welcomed with a warm ovation. “If you’re applauding my glasses, the frames are from Germany,” she began. Theresa Rebeck presented her close friend Marsha Norman with a bomb-shaped award, while Hal Foster saluted Mr. Serra.

After a course of stuffed leg of lamb, guests made their way back into the foyer for dessert and final auction bids. James Franco materialized from the twilight Chinatown ether and entered the vaulted, vaunted room. Serendipitously finding him adjacent to the B. Wurtz piece, we asked him what he thought of the sculpture (which had by this time reached a high bid of $4,100.) “Don’t ask me that,” he said, heaving a disinterested sigh. Well, fine.

What was the most outrageous thing Mr. Franco had seen recently, we wondered. “That’s a weird question,” he grumbled, proceeding no further. He was, however, eager to discuss his most recent art project. “I’m doing a big show in L.A at the MOCA, called rebel,” he recited. “It’s inspired by the Nicholas Ray movie, the James Dean movie, rebel without a cause.” Whether he is a rebel and what his cause may be the, world might never know, as he chose not to answer our question. Instead, he asked us if we had seen HBO’s Girls.

As the evening was coming to a close, guests nibbled cannoli, brownies, lemon bites and chocolate peanut butter squares as they scribbled their final bids on the auction artwork.  Coffee (black) concluded the evening. Mr. Biesenbach, Mr. Franco and Ms. Smith left together, a triad of noirish sang-froid disappearing into the still-young night.
editorial@observer.com

Goon

"Do rainbows come out of your nipples? Do you fart cinnamon?" Jay Baruchel asks Allison Pill in forthcoming hockey flick Goon. It's a comedy, surely, but as The Observer watched the film in February, we were vaguely uncomfortable. In between the coarse (if riotously funny) jokes, the sucker punches and the dirty checks, a darker theme took form.

The thing is, Goon isn't just a movie about hockey, it's a movie about hockey enforcers, whose on-ice fights rile fans, rally teams and smear the rink with blood. Until very recently, the role of the enforcer was little known to the world, at least  those whose lives don't revolve around ice time.

Last summer, three former NHL enforcers died: two apparent suicides and an overdose. Their stories, highlighted eloquently and graphically in a series of New York Times articles, showed the psychological, emotional and, most importantly, physical stresses of the position.

Analyzing the brain of the NHLs star fighter, Derek Boogaard after his accidental overdose, coroners found he had a degenerative brain disease commonly found in boxers.

Boogaard had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, commonly known as C.T.E., a close relative of Alzheimer’s disease. It is believed to be caused by repeated blows to the head....It appeared to be spreading through his brain.

Goon which parodies the brutal bare-knuckle fights, was filmed before the Times series was released in December, so it seems the film may be a victim of poor timing.

The movie's co-star, Liev Schreiber, however, took a surprising stance when we asked him about the articles at the February premiere. Mr. Schreiber claimed that enforcers face the same physical challenges of all other hockey players. "I don’t think the injuries are from fighting. The injuries are from playing hockey. Most of the devastating injuries are from playing hockey; hitting the boards, not peoples fists.... I challenge someone to check the percentage of concussions that are the result of fists," he said.

The deaths, he said, were not the result of brain damage from repeated blows to the head, but depression. "A lot of those guys, enforcers and tough guys in the NHL end their career feeling like no one appreciated what they did, that they're under valued players. That may have led to some of the reasons some of the depression they felt as they moved out of the game," he said.

Of course, many medical professionals disagree.

Not Ken Brottlieb. (Consumerist)

The Laureate, the Upper West Side homage to prewar pretense, is home to a rag-tag bunch of millionaires. Newly monied characters (whose qualifications may fail to impress Fifth Avenue co-op boards) have been securing their multimillion-dollar pads in the building. The building is now home to cartoonists, developers and horse breeders—what’s next, a used car salesman?

Yes, in fact! Car salesman extraordinaire Ken Brodlieb, the owner of the East Hills Auto Group empire on the Queens-Nassau County border, is the latest Laureate resident.

Mr. Brodlieb purchased a unit on the 12th floor, and while by no means the largest in the building, the place is no downmarket digs. Spanning 2,444 square feet, the three-bedroom, three-bath condo features a terrace, a walk-in-closet in the master suite, heated floors, a washer-dryer and 11-foot ceilings.

Of course Mr. Brodlieb is not unfamiliar with fine real estate: several site indicate he owns a formidable Palm Beach Gardens villa.

The home was originally priced at $6.5 million, but Mr. Brodlieb paid just $6.1 million. All those years of haggling paid off!

His purchase comes on the heels of the Laureate’s largest sale yet one floor down, a $17 million three-unit combo on the 11th floor, sold to an anonymous buyer. According to StreetEasy, however, an $18 million double penthouse with a jaw-dropping ten rooms has also sold. Who might the buyer be this time, a dermatologist to the stars? Perhaps the newest Wall Street madam?

She's suing me for how much?

Elena Rybolovleva has an $88 million bee in her bonnet. Mrs. Rybolovleva has locked horns with her husband, Russian oligarch and fertilizer king Dmitry Rybolovev, in a bitter divorce battle, with his reported $9 billion at the center of the fracas. The international battle royale has spilled into New York, where Mrs. Rybolovleva has accused her husband of purchasing Sandy Weill’s prize $88 million condo at 15 Central Park West in an effort to divert funds in advance of the impending divorce.

The Observer spoke with David Newman, a partner at the law firm Day Pitney who is representing Mrs. Rybolovleva in the case. Encouraging us to refer to the unhappy couple as Mr. and Mrs. R. to avoid tongue twisting and Ruskie butchering, Mr. Newman launched into an animated and calculated attack against Mr. Rybolovlev and his (alleged) nefarious asset shuffling.

At the heart of the issue is a Swiss court order, mandating that Mr. Rybolovlev refrain from spending money acquired during the period of his marriage until the courts decide the fate of his considerable finances. Purchasing the apartment in New York was a flagrant violation of the order, Mr. Newman contended. “It’s almost as if Mr. R. has no concern about the law! Its almost he doesn’t care seem to care about the Swiss court order. It must be because he thinks that rich people have a different set of rules to live by,” Mr. Newman said emphatically.

Thus far, Mr. R.’s camp has been tight-lipped about the proceedings, though we did obtain the following statement from spokesperson Sergey Chernitsyn: “The divorce proceedings between the Rybolovlev spouses have been pending for several years. During this period, Mrs. Rybolovleva’s lawyers have filed numerous groundless complaints in several countries and jurisdictions without achieving any meaningful results. Most of the claims made in these suits as well as in the suit recently filed in New York are false and based on information Mrs. Rybolovleva knows to be incorrect.”

Mr. Newman, however, incredulously rebuffed the statement from Mr. Rybolovlev’s camp. “He’s just using the trust as a vehicle. The point is, he’s using it as a second step, to remove those assets and make sure that Mrs. R. needs even a longer arm to get the assets.”

A source from his office explained that the apartment was purchased by a trust in the name of Mr. Rybolovleva's daughter, Ekaterina Rybolovleva. The oligarch claims to be neither a trustee nor a beneficiary of the trust, and as such is not legally associated with the property. The trusts, the source claims, were established well before the divorce, and Mrs. Rybolovleva participated in their creation. Ekaterina does not intend to live in the apartment, and the property was purchased solely for investment purposes.

While it remains unclear exactly how the 22-year-old Ekaterina fits into the convoluted legal equation, Mr. Newman said one thing is clear: “I think she’s living the life of daddy’s girl, a very well-to-do daddy’s girl and she has a very nice lifestyle,” he said. While the daughter’s involvement “adds a little bit of sexiness,” Mr. Newman said, legally the straw-daughter machination is beside the point. “The bottom line is there is no doubt that he’s trying to leave no assets available to Mrs. R. Anything beyond that I can’t figure out,” Mr. Newman said.

The Observer has learned that the younger Ms. Rybolovleva is currently working to obtain her bachelor’s degree from Harvard and is working on global philanthropic projects, the details of which have not yet been announced.

Adding to the intrigue, Mr. Newman revealed that Mr. Rybolovlev is no stranger to 15 Central Park West. The oligarch and his soon-to-be-ex-wife actually looked in the building together in 2008 before all the marital unpleasantness began, he claims. “They looked at apartments in 15 CPW. They wanted to see the Weill apartment but it wasn’t available. They looked at one or two other apartments in that building, they looked in the Plaza, and other very-high-end buildings but ultimately, decided not to buy there but in Florida.” The home they settled on was not just any Florida mansion, but Donald Trump’s Palm Beach estate, for which they paid $95 million. Mr. Newman is also representing Mrs. Rybolovev in an ongoing lawsuit regarding the ownership of that estate.

We contacted Brown Harris Stevens agent, Maria Torresy, who supposedly represented Mr. Rybolovlev on both the Palm Beach and the Central Park West purchases. “I never discuss my customers or my clients,” she said flatly. “So there’s nothing I can really do to help or add to this conversation.”

eknutsen@observer.com

The line, extending west on Gramercy Park South, was filled with feigned flappers and charlatan philosophers donning shift-y, fringed dresses, red lip stains, paperboy hats and three-piece tweed suits. The theme was “Midnight in Paris,” and, like the film of that name, the crowd appeared as histrionic iterations of ’20s ex-pats and salonnieres, a sophomoric vision of the rich interwar milieu. Each guest, member or no, was required to pay $40 at the door; credit cards were accepted.

Inside the oakey space, echoes of shrill laughter could be heard. Bobbed ladies sucked on electric cigarettes beneath a vaulted stained-class ceiling, chatting and gossiping in hushed tones about the recent turbulence at the club. The institution’s former president, O. Aldon James, had been ousted very publicly amid reports that he misused club funds, was a compulsive hoarder and kept scores of exotic birds on the august premises.

For all his flaws, Mr. James would have been in good company at the fête last Wednesday. Eccentric members inducted at birth into the leisure class flirted with one another, bragging with vaudevillian one-upsmanship about recent quail hunting excursions, real estate deals closed and Caribbean resorts visited. In the witching-hour lighting, we could just make out the busts of patriarchs unknown lining every shelf and inch of mantel space, interspersed with delicate bronze nudes.

“I’ve owned this since high school,” said screenwriter Robert Chafitz, looking down at the lapels of his red silk robe. His two-piece Dali-esque mustache began to droop. “I must have been one of those freaky kids at high school that was just attracted to vintage stuff,” he readily informed The Observer. “But I was also making money on the side, street performing as Charlie Chaplin in Paris.”

We inquired about his synthetic whiskers. “I procured it years ago,” he said, “because of course as Chaplin you have to do various mustaches. It’s getting a little droopy with the alcohol.” He was quick to inform us, however, that he could grow ample facial hair of his own. “I just had a full beard about a week ago. I looked like a rabbi. I had to shave it off.”

Just then, we spotted a bedazzled, bespectacled pinup girl whose crystal brassiere and bare stomach were attracting furtive glances from gentlemen throughout the room. “My name is Hazel Honeysuckle,” she proclaimed, perky bust thrust forward with unabashed pride in her craft. Somehow, from the rhinestone unmentionable, she produced a business card, which we accepted. Ms. Honeysuckle, a burlesque dancer, had just finished her first performance of the evening, which, sadly, we had missed. Fortunately, she would cavort for the crowd once more before the evening was through. We asked what her routine entailed. “Getting mostly naked, in a classy fashion,” she qualified. We pressed Ms. Honeysuckle on both points. “Mostly naked is down to pasties and underwear, and classy being, I guess, a lot of rhinestones.”

We took a spin around the space, taking stock of the leather couches and enjoying the museum-lighting over each of the paintings, the leopard-print rugs and the hobnobbing gentility. “I love the headband,” one guest said to her friend (though we wondered about her sincerity). “It really works,” she bluffed in a sing-songy voice, touching the sequined accessory.

After seeing several guests with what appeared to be mascara smudged on their foreheads, we soon remembered that it was in fact Ash Wednesday, and adding to the phenomenological fodder, many of the guests bore faded ashen crosses beneath their flappergirl garlands and Homburg hats. It wasn’t blasphemy, it was blissful unreality, an opiate haze of duty and decorum.

As a songstress crooned a throaty jazz song, amplified through a period microphone, The Observer met Jane Folds, a white-haired club member and professional puppeteer. “It’s a fabulous club. It’s old New York,” she exclaimed. Imploring us to join, she lowered her rose-color glasses to explain the institution’s merits. “It’s not very expensive, in the greater scheme of things, it’s, I don’t know, about $1,000 a year for membership,” she said.

Turning a dimly lit corner, we ran into an elderly man wearing a suit and a massive medal on his chest. Our interest piqued, we were introduced to Vincent McConnell, a former judge whose business card now reads “Counselor/Therapist/Screen Actor.” Despite his shiny cranium and well-weathered face, Mr. McConnell is in the process of applying for membership to the National Arts Club. We wondered why such institutions were still relevant. “Well, the arts, the arts, I mean we must preserve the arts, otherwise our civilization is doomed!” he said. Unable to resist, we inquired about his medal. “I am a member of an order of knights and dames called the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order,” he said, his voice lowering with dignified pride. “They’re not crusaders, not killers. They don’t use the sword, although I was dubbed with a sword,” he said, with a hammy nudge. “I believe in peace and honor and decency and integrity and helping people rather than hurting people,” he explained. Mr. McConnell then launched into a discussion of his 24 years as a colonel in the Air Force.

Woozy from the intoxicating pretense, The Observer prepared to go. A group of young hedgefunding bucks were headed to the nearby Rose Bar for a nightcap or three. We politely declined invitations to join; we had seen quite enough.

And so we hailed a cab, making the traffic-heavy trip home, wondering whether we were witnessing another lost generation take shape.

eknutsen@observer.com