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Faye Penn

By Faye Penn 5/09 12:17pm

only in new york kids

Cindy Adams makes the rounds at the Pen Literary Gala. (Photo: Beowulf Sheehan/PEN American Center)

Night at the Museum: Cindy Adams Works a Room

INT. MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY — EVENING CINDY ADAMS is standing with a friend among a crowd of hundreds, surveying the black-tie attendees at the PEN Literary Gala, who include Philip Roth, Zadie Smith, Jay McInerney, Jennifer Egan, Candace Bushnell, Joanna Coles and Peter Godwin.

Ms. Adams is wearing a splashy, graphic print jacket and a bun atop her head. A stream of partygoers greet her. She is approached by the Transom and asked how to work a room. Read More

By Faye Penn 5/07 7:32pm

NYOLIVING

6 Photos

‘These chair covers are so tongue in cheek. You have to add something funny to the mix. I would unabashedly tell everyone that they’re Ikea chairs underneath.’

Anchors Away: Achieving a Summery Home Without Drifting Out to Sea

“No more coral!” declares Mary Kate McGrath, picking up a party napkin emblazoned with the twiggy red theme so ubiquitous of late. We’re on a shopping trip in Tribeca, scouting warm-weather home touches that don’t have anchors, palm trees or any of the other usual seasonal suspects.

“Summer is not the time to pretend suddenly that you are an avid fisherman or yachtsman,” says Ms. McGrath, the editor of PureWow, a web site and daily lifestyle email for readers who have graduated from DailyCandy. “You don’t need rope everything or shell plates. You don’t need those in the city. Hello, you’re in a walkup.” Read More

By Faye Penn 10/24/12 2:08pm

The Transom

Tama Janowitz A (1 of 2)

Slave of Ithaca: Tama Janowitz Moves Upstate

Jay McInerney is reviewing wine for the Wall Street Journal. Bret Easton Ellis is in post-production on The Canyons, a film he wrote that stars Lindsay Lohan opposite porn star James Deen. Meanwhile, Tama Janowitz, the third corner of the pop-lit trinity that defined New York in the ’80s, is now living in Ithaca as she tends to her eight poodles, two horses and one ailing mother.

Wait, eight poodles?

“It was part of a midlife nervous breakdown,” the Slaves of New York author told the Transom. “I kept thinking, one made me happy so I should get another one. Then I was going to start showing them as a hobby, but that world is too dreadful to contemplate. Then I thought I’d breed them and that would give me a nice income. Then I wound up with eight of them, and I couldn’t bring myself to sell them. They’re all spayed and neutered now.” Read More

By Faye Penn 10/09/12 7:51pm

The cover of the season's hottest proposal

The Lena Dunham Book Proposal—Reviewed!

Underlying every advice book is an assumption that the author already is something that the reader wants to be, whether skinny (Bethenny Frankel), rich (Suze Orman) or rich and leisurely (Tim Ferriss).

What does Lena Dunham have that her fans want for themselves? We’re going to rule out her fashion sense and her strange and Read More