The Eight-Day Week

How big is your boyfriend’s summer share? If it weren’t for the sulfurous breeze coming from the approaching F train, we might be forced to strip naked on the subway platform and show this moist curdled season what we really think of it! (Partly our fault for not dumping the unemployed musician in time to find a feller with a jet copter to East Hampton.  read more »

For those itching to swipe the ole credit card for no higher charitable purpose … Fashion’s buoyant, shaggy-haired darling, Alexander Wang, hosts a much-anticipated sample sale, offering up his expensive ripped jean shorts—beaver shot!—and slouchy blazers available at prices we still can’t afford but will pay anyway.

[Alexander Wang sample sale, 386 Broadway, 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.]  read more »

Feel-good women’s fashion rag Glamour unspools Glamour Reel Docs, a heartwarming documentary following “three Glamour readers as they pursue their dreams.” We can only conclude that host Tommy Hilfiger is feeling warm and fuzzy after his recent engagement to a comely blonde? Later, Christie’s preview for its Ocean Liner sale (we just write what they tell us!) to benefit the good people at Oceana, who have Ted Danson on their board and who would prefer we not kill off all traces of life in the ocean, bless them. On sale: an actual life preserver from the Titanic!

[Glamour Reel Docs, Village East Cinema, 189 Second Avenue, after-party at Bowery Hotel, 335 Bowery, 866-689-2108; Oceana Hosts “Turning the Tides” at Christie’s, 20 Rockefeller Plaza, 6 p.m., www.oceana.org/christies]  read more »

We’ve been too distracted by cheddar to notice the arrival of Gay Pride Week: That annual ritual that brings outer-borough gays and lesbians to Manhattan to parade around in chaps while their local counterparts hole up in downtown lofts with their partner and two adopted children and pretend not to have anything to do with these people! To kick off the festivities, Miss Vera’s Finishing School for Boys Who Want to Be Girls offers a class on “How to Walk, Sit & Pose With Pride.” “Sometimes we have more trans-women than genetic girls and sometimes it’s the opposite,” said Miss Vera. “Some trans-women feel like they’re a klutz. But mostly because they need to unlearn many of the things they learned as men.” Her tips, she said, include: “When you first walk into a room, strike a pose. Don’t run to the nearest corner. Look confident, and focus far away.” For those still involved with heterosexual pursuits, Gwyneth babydaddy Chris Martin hits Madison Square Garden with Coldplay, anthemic rock band we roll our eyes at but still listen to in secret.

[Amazing Grace: How to Walk, Sit & Pose With Pride, Nola Studios, 250 West 54th Street, 8:15 p.m., 212-989-0906; Coldplay at Madison Square Garden, Seventh Avenue between 31st and 32nd streets, www.thegarden.com]  read more »

“I totally bring it, as far as my love of cheese,” said Oliver Butler, the avant-garde theater type from Red Hook who prevailed in last year’s cheese-eating contest—the brainchild of shmancy foodie destination Stinky Bklyn—by eating half a pound of French Cantal in two minutes. “It’s really more technique than anything,” continued the beguiling Mr. Butler. “You start eating the cheese and it turns into a gelatinous glue in your mouth. You want to send it down, but it works against you. Cheese is a very competitive food. It actually makes it harder to eat. Hot dogs don’t work against you. Cheese, you’ll turn into a block of stone if you stop. Water is key.” Patrick Watson, co-owner of Stinky Bklyn, said that this year’s contest will involve “Cantalet. It’s from France. It’s a mild, cheddarlike cloth-bound cheese.” He plans to cap the festivities—which are part of terrifying hipster-parent-infested Smith Street Fun Day Fair—at 30 cheese eaters. Added Mr. Butler: “I think there are probably a ton of people who would love to dethrone me.” Yes, we’re sure they’re lining up!

[Stinky Bklyn Cheese Eating Contest, Smith & Vine, 268 Smith Street, 3 p.m., 718-522-7425]  read more »

What won’t celebrities do for their fellow man, we ask you? East Hampton boutique owner Roberta Freyman hosts “Hats for Hope, a Madcap Event!” featuring headwear designed by amateur milliners such as Cynthia Rowley; actress Alicia Witt; socialites Lisa Anastos, Debbie Bancroft and Muffie Potter Aston; and fashion designer James Coviello, who told us he’s planning to “make a sort of Edwardian hat out of it … You know that movie with Audrey Hepburn, My Fair Lady? It’s like that, so you could totally wear it.” Mr. Coviello warned us it’s about to get very Ascot around here: “For some reason, it’s almost become not so uncommon, as in England, to wear a unique, eye-catching hat for a special occasion. It’s becoming more acceptable.” Added Angelica Torn, actress and daughter of Rip Torn: “I’m going to decorate with silk blue roses and it’s going to be called Laura. It’s inspired by Tennessee Williams’ play The Glass Menagerie. My parents met and fell in love during a Tennessee Williams play.” Zoinks! And then, brace yourselves, it’s “the first major benefit of the summer, and we always get a great crowd!” said Dini von Mueffling, writer and co-founder of Love Heals, the AIDS charity beneficiary of a gala in Sagaponack. “Everybody waits for this event, because this is sort of the kick-off of the summer,” added Scoop owner and Love Heals co-founder Stefanie Greenfield. The expected socialite haul includes possibly soon-to-be Lindsay Lohan in-laws Charlotte Ronson and mama Ann Dexter-Jones. “This year our theme is Alice in Wonderland,” said Ms. von Mueffling. “We always set up out in the field, away from the house.” Crop circles! And what will the ladies be wearing to educate the masses? “It’s certainly not long dresses, but women go all out a lot of the time,” said Ms. von Mueffling. “We’re often amused at the women who are sinking into the grass with the stilettos, but hey, it does say farm on the invite.” Bring yer Wellies, ya fancy ponces!

[Hats for Hope, a Madcap Event, Roberta Freymann boutique, 66 Newtown Lane, East Hampton, 4 p.m.; Love Heals at Luna Farm, 276 Parsonage Lane, Sagaponack, 7:30 p.m., www.loveheals.org]  read more »

The Cure was the band always playing at those eighth-grade dances where we were too busy standing in the corner being fat to actually dance with anyone (and thus were inadvertently spared enduring a hip-locked, corduroy-erection-grind when “Freebird” came on …). Tonight the aging blokes of the Cure hobble into Madison Square Garden, led by portly vampire Robert Smith, the best justification we’ve seen lately to invest in $250 night cream!

[The Cure at Madison Square Garden, Seventh Avenue between 31st and 32nd streets, 8 p.m., www.thegarden.com]  read more »

Those who don’t recall American Girl dolls from their coddled adolescence may scratch their heads at the rabid packs of mother-daughter tourists flocking to the massive flagship on Fifth Avenue. Now Abigail Breslin has been enlisted to portray one of these freakish dollies the Julia Roberts-produced Kit Kittredge: An American Girl! (Kit was not on the roster back when we were throwing tantrums for all things circa 1990, but she is apparently the Great Depression version of rosy-cheeked, resourceful girlhood, i.e., an early dyke. …) Also appearing at tonight’s New York premiere at the Ziegfeld are co-stars Jane Krakowski (who shouldn’t quit her day job!), Julia Ormond, Stanley Tucci, Chris O’Donnell and Julianne Moore, who does not appear in the film but is a friend to the children!

[Kit Kittredge: An American Girl premiere, the Ziegfeld, 141 West 54th Street, 5 p.m., invite only, www.kitkittredge.com]  read more »

Crank the outside temp up to 103 degrees and watch how fast New Yorkers morph from eco-smugness into borderline carbon crack-whoredom, ducking into Duane Reade for free hits of air-conditioning and guzzling bottled water by the truckload, while beer-bellied finance types look up from their CrackBerries and recover Propecia-repressed libidos as the subways fill with post-coital-looking dames (in truth it’s post-$60 Fekkai blowout) in exposed lingerie, perspiring décolletage and neck tattoos. Uptown, the charity shopping events continue unabated, with a bevy of triple-named social gals (Beth Rudin DeWoody, Vogue-ette Marina Rust Connor, Vanity Fair scribe Amy Fine Collins)—not to mention Jonathan Adler and our very own creative genius Simon Doonan—rushing to the aid of starving opera stars at City Opera Thrift Shop’s “DIVAS Shop for Opera” event. “I thought that it was an intellectually interesting project to align myself with,” e-mailed haute stylist Patricia Field, co-chair and the woman responsible for Sarah Jessica Parker’s peerless drag-queen tranny look. “I am happy to see that the City Opera thrift shop project has met with great success and is expanding beautifully as a result of it, now involving many fashion stylists, designers, fashion journalists and other fashionistas.” Added co-chair and vintage shopping enthusiast Elsa Klensch: “With globalization and designer boutiques around the world selling exactly the same items, I find their fashion to be repetitive.” Of course, she added, “I still shop them.” KA-CHING! Ms. Klensch plans to wear one of her “collection of kimonos I bought in the early-morning markets in Tokyo. … It makes me look a size smaller and a lot taller.” And she will be on the prowl: “What I want is a green handbag, preferably in alligator.” Perhaps she’ll bring her fowling piece!

[DIVAS Shop for Opera, Industria Superstudio, 356 West 12th Street, 5 p.m., 212-870-4018]  read more »

Boteach versus botox! Rabbi radio star Shmuley Boteach has written a book, The Broken American Male and How to Fix Him—the exact instruction manual we’ve been waiting for!—and tonight he discusses it with NY1’s Budd Mishkin. “We live in a culture that judges men solely based on their income,” said the rabbi. “That makes them emotionless and soulless. Take, for example, a hedge fund manager”—we have, rabbi, it didn’t work out so well!—“he can’t react emotionally to the whims of the volatile market. A guy who gets butterflies in his stomach can’t be a successful doctor. The men in Iraq can’t identify emotionally with the men they’re supposed to shoot. So these men come home and can’t relate emotionally.” And the rabbi was just warming up! “Broken men lead to inadequate women,” he continued. “One out of three young marriages are platonic. When a couple gets home after work, the husband won’t talk. When the wife is getting undressed, her husband is watching television. She thinks, ‘He won’t talk to me anymore because I’m not interesting. He won’t make love to me anymore because I’m not sexy.’ It leads to women thinking they’re not thin enough, not blond enough. To be an American woman is to never be enough.” Oh rabbi, you’re telling us.

[Shmuley Boteach at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place, 7 p.m., www.mjhnyc.org]

mbryan@observer.com

Art begs for mercy from fashion as the Whitney Museum Art Party is now indistinguishable from backstage at a Proenza Schouler show! Co-chairs include OC actress Rachel Bilson, Vogue’s Meredith Melling Burke, Bergdorf buyer Roopal Patel and designer Max Azria, while pulchritudinous attendees showing their support for free designer dresses, oops, the advancement of art, include Elizabeth Banks, Camilla Belle, Ginnifer Goodwin, Diane Kruger, Amanda Peet (still gamey!), Uma Thurman and Claire Danes, along with a crop-dusting of socialites such as Fabiola Beracasa, Byrdie Bell, Olivia Chantecaille, Tinsley Mortimer—and—to put the cream in this puff—most of the cast of Gossip Girl. (Bring all your crazy pills to this one, folks.) The evening will feature a silent auction (shhh!) of work by art stars such as Matthew Brannon,