David Berman (Wikimedia Commons)

David Berman arrived 20 minutes late for his talk at the Macaulay Honors College on Monday night. Which was fine and fashionable, but you half-expected him not to show up at all. Mr. Berman, the Nashville-based poet and musician, is very reclusive and rarely makes public appearances.

In 2009, he broke up his indie rock band, the Silver Jews, after a two-decade run, and abandoned music entirely. He said it had to do with his father, an infamous D.C. lobbyist who works for industries including alcohol and tobacco.

“This winter I decided that the [Silver Jews] were too small of a force to ever come close to undoing a millionth of all the harm he has caused,” Mr. Berman wrote of his father when he announced the breakup.

So what has he been up to for the past few years? Not much or a whole lot, depending on how you look at it. There is a book, You Owe Me a Feeling, put together by the artist Friedrich Kunath, which uses stray lines from Mr. Berman's old notebooks alongside wondrous photographs. On the whole, the lines aren't as good as those from Mr. Berman's excellent first book of poetry, Actual Air, though there is at least one repeat from that collection (“sadness is not co-terminous with hopelessness”) along with a sentence from his penultimate album (“There is a place past the blues I never want to see again”).

But Mr. Berman didn’t mention the new book on Monday night, probably because he wasn't really involved with the making of it. Instead he spoke for two hours about … well, it wasn’t entirely clear. He had a briefcase of notes, to which he referred sporadically as he stood at the lectern, pausing for long stretches of time and running his hand exasperatedly through his greasy black hair.

Mr. Berman’s talk, the first in a new speaker series at Macaulay Honors College, was mostly inscrutable. He spoke of his disdain for Rush Limbaugh; he talked about neoliberalism; he discussed heavy metal, which he doesn’t like; and he name-dropped philosophers like Gilles Deleuze, Paolo Virno and Soren Kierkegaard without elaborating on their philosophies.

“Maybe we are at the end of the stage of nation states,” Mr. Berman mused, with no evidence to back that up.

Mr. Berman said so much in such a rapid-fire way that it’s nearly impossible to sum up his thoughts. Basically, though, it seemed like he was frustrated about political polarization in America.

“I just decided to live with it,” Mr. Berman said, “to live with the moronization of America.”

When he wasn’t complaining or taking himself very seriously, Mr. Berman’s monologue could get delightfully odd. And it felt kind of like his poetry—abstract, discursive, sardonic, with weird one-liners that jump out at you.

“I feel inside like Alan Alda sometimes,” Mr. Berman said, alluding, somehow, to his own sadness about the world.

At one point, Mr. Berman held forth for a few minutes on “counterintuitive truths,” as he called them, listing some off the top of his head: Reno is west of Los Angeles. Forest fires are good for the ecosystem. He paused for a long moment to examine his notes, and then he settled on another one and looked up excitedly.

“Maggot therapy!” he said. “Maggot therapy!”

The Human Spark

Oh, Alan Alda, what can’t you do? Mr. Alda (a man that, through an entirely un-scientifically conducted poll, we’ve concluded reminds most people of their dad) hosts the three-part PBS series devoted to what makes humans unique. Tonight’s installment, “So Human, So Chimp,” is devoted to—you guessed it!—chimpanzees! But don’t get your hopes up for giant diapers, bicycles and funny hats: This is PBS, and Mr. Alda will examine just how closely chimps resemble we the people, through concepts of empathy, tools and language. This involves a field trip to a small Caribbean island, where Yale University’s Laurie Santos is “studying rhesus monkeys’ ability to steal grapes … and read minds.” Um, say what, now?  Monkeys … just a little less scary than robots. [PBS, 8 p.m.]

Thursday, Jan. 14:

Grey’s Anatomy/Private Practice 

Hey, remember when Grey’s Anatomy was airing new episodes? Us neither! But tonight, the soapy favorite one can’t help but still watch returns for a big ol’ crossover “special event” with spin-off Private Practice. What does this mean? Addison is back in Seattle! And, judging by the previews, people are running around the halls while doctors yell things like “shut it down!” Exciting! It’s also nice to see that McSteamy (Eric Dane) is going to get a little extra screen time (two whole hours’ worth), even it means
he has to hook up with the female staffs of both shows (read: McSlut). [ABC, 8 p.m.]

Friday, Jan. 15:

The Squid and the Whale

Beware to all of you who have parental divorce in your background: This 2006 film from writer-director Noah Baumbach is as heartbreaking as it is (painfully) funny. Set in ’80s era Park Slope (no Food Co-op or Bugaboos!), The Squid and the Whale follows Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels as they try to navigate their separation and the raising of their two sons, played by Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline (fun fact: son of Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates). Mr. Daniels seems to get the choicest of lines, including our favorite, the oft-repeated “filet of the neighborhood.” But trust us, everyone is good in this, including William Baldwin and Anna Paquin. [Sundance, 3 a.m.]

Saturday, Jan. 16:

The Abyss

Already seen Avatar at least twice? Take a look at James Cameron’s earlier foray into the great unknown with the underappreciated The Abyss from 1989. With Avatar-hindsight, you can totally see what was starting to brew in and occupy Mr. Cameron’s brain for the next 20 years! Instead of Pandora, we get the ocean. (Which is really just outer space with water. Think about it.) And instead of Sigourney smoking a cigarette, we get Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, who is excellent, plus, do we even need to mention that Ed Harris also stars? Oh, and weird, watery aliens? The best thing about this movie is to remember that, reportedly, the crew liked to wear T-shirts that read, “Life’s Abyss, Then You Dive.” [HBO, 10 a.m.]

Sunday, Jan. 17:

The Golden Globes

Yes, we know there are some very important football games on today (go Jets!), but let’s get our priorities in order: Awards show fever officially kicks off tonight with the 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards. Sure, people can say that these Hollywood Foreign Press Awards don’t matter, but you know what? They do! The stars come out in all their feathery frocked finery (and seem to drink rather freely, judging from shows past), and one gets to watch the weird, awkward high-school hierarchy of television actors mixing it up with big movie stars. Still not convinced? Ricky Gervais is hosting, which we’re pretty sure means good times indeed. [NBC, 8 p.m.]

Monday, Jan. 18:

Life Unexpected

New show alert! And this one looks fine-tuned to entice all those Gilmore Girls/Felicity/My So-Called-Life fans to the CW. The premise: A 15-year-old who has spent most of her time in foster care decides to become an emancipated minor, which leads her to her biological parents—a “30-something” (shriek!) aging frat boy and a local radio celebrity (snicker), played by Rosewell’s Shiri Appleby. And then a judge awards joint custody! And get this—the biological mother’s boyfriend, her on-air partner, is played by Dawson’s Creek vet Kerr Smith. Which means, truly, that we are old. Prepare for a lot of Juno–meets–something-else talk, pretty Portland, Ore., scenery and, natch, tears. [CW, 9 p.m.]

Tuesday, Jan. 19:

The Biggest Loser

For those unsure of whether they want to get with the whole Biggest Loser machine, might we suggest that this is the time to check in? It’s only the third episode in this cycle, which is usually when these very hungry and stressed-out people start becoming unglued (plus, they’ll still outweigh you by at least 100 pounds, which is reassuring). Tonight’s drama-fest will include one player threatening to leave after some sort of disagreement with one of the trainers (we’re guessing it’s tough-love Jillian), and accusations fly at the weigh-in. Oh boy. We can’t wait until the Olympics makes weight loss an official event. [NBC, 8 p.m.]

Equally sincere but without much entertainment value, Flash of Genius is another of those movies about honest, ordinary citizens fighting the powerful system of corporate corruption. This time little David is Dr. Robert Kearns, a professor of mechanical engineering in Detroit who invented the “intermittent” windshield wiper. The corporate Goliaths who stole and marketed his invention, cheated him out of his patents and falsely claimed the credit for his ideas were the Ford Motor Co. and the Chrysler Corporation. Kearns spent 12 years relentlessly pursuing these ruthless tyrants for using their money, technology and power to screw him out of his rightful profits while simultaneously installing his invention in their new cars without seeing him or taking his phone calls, and the decades of disappointments, insults to his integrity, setbacks and litigation (chronicled in a lengthy New Yorker article that provided the basis for Philip Railsback’s screenplay) make for interesting viewing up to a point. But too much technical information about circuit boards, Motorola transistors and U.S. patent laws eventually takes up more screen time than Kearns’ sympathetic story, leaving the viewer restless and bored.

Worse still, it’s a movie that needs a big, charismatic star who can hold attention in the center ring for two hours, and Greg Kinnear does not exactly spell box office allure. It’s a good time for a story that attacks American big-business institutions, but corporate wrongdoing plays second fiddle to the obsession of the man himself. Kearns devotes so much effort into protecting his reputation, to the point of utter paranoia—turning down every offer for out-of-court settlements, risking his family’s future, destroying his marriage and ending up in a mental institution—that you begin to lose patience. By the time he turns into a broken man, jobless, estranged from the people who loved him and living on government assistance, he’s no longer much of a hero. Salvation arrives briefly in the form of a gutsy lawyer (Alan Alda) fearless enough to drag every automotive corporation through the halls of justice. But even after Ford returns Kearns’ five patents and offers to pay him a fat figure that could send his six children to college, the attorney is defeated by his own client, who arrogantly refuses to bargain unless Ford publicly admits stealing his invention in print. When Kearns turns down the money, even his wife loses faith in the case, and Kearns loses his lawyer and his family. Following another decade of stress, research and commitment, the man finally gets his day in court, acting as his own attorney, with his six kids as his legal assistants. He triumphs, but the huge emotional price is obvious in his exhaustion. He died in 2007, before this film was completed.

Quirky and likable, Mr. Kinnear gets his best role since sex-addicted murder victim Bob Crane in the disturbing Auto Focus, and plays it like Jimmy Stewart in a Frank Capra vehicle. He is ably supported by Alda as the lawyer, Dermot Mulroney as the business partner who turns coward, and Lauren Graham as the long-suffering wife. Mark Abraham’s earnest direction does a commendable job of compiling tons of legal documents into a chronological narrative that is easy to follow, replete with the obligatory courtroom duel saved for the big finale. Having said all that, why does this movie fail to involve? It’s got good actors, period ambience and the right elements. But it remains a wan subject unlikely to interest a wide audience; it’s a well-made movie nobody will ever see. I will say this, though. Not since The Insider locked horns with the tobacco industry has a mainstream movie savaged unscrupulous corporate chicanery with such vengeance or named names so frequently. As one wag observed last month in Toronto, when the film had its world premiere, “Ford, in this movie, is anything but a product placement.” And I loved the query in Variety, questioning why, even after years of fighting the company, did Kearns still drive a Ford?

rreed@observer.com

Diminished Capacity is a harmless but monotonous trifle about a baseball card. Matthew Broderick is making too many movies and giving the same performance in all of them. This time, he’s a Chicago newspaper editor named Cooper who suffers a brain concussion and gets demoted to proofreading comic strips. His neurologist says he’s got what they call “diminished capacity,” but he no longer throws up when he drives a car, so he goes home to visit his mother (the wonderful Lois Smith) and discovers that everyone in his hometown has diminished capacity, too—especially his Uncle Rollie (Alan Alda). Mom has reserved a room for him in a local loony bin, but there’s a waiting list. Sure, he’s crazy as a bedbug, but he’s also got a rare, valuable Chicago Cubs baseball card that is worth six figures. So Cooper, Uncle Rollie, Cooper’s old high-school girlfriend Charlotte (Virginia Madsen) and her precocious son pile into a station wagon and head for a nostalgia convention at Wrigley Field. Compared with artifacts like Hank Aaron’s autograph and the shoelaces Joe DiMaggio wore when he hit in 56 straight games, Uncle Rollie’s card is so priceless it has to be displayed behind glass. The rest of the movie is about the bidding war between a demented fan named Mad Dog McClure (Dylan Baker) and a crooked con man named Lee Vivyan (Bobby Cannavale). It’s as innocent and benign as a weenie roast, but the direction by Steppenwolf co-founder Terry Kinney shows some signs of intelligent life. As a devotee of the TV series Oz, I know what a dynamic actor Mr. Kinney is. And anyone who saw his recent production of Neil LaBute’s brilliant play Reasons to Be Pretty is well aware of his power as a stage director. But movies are a different ball game, and this is his first time at bat. He is heading for success, but in the future, I am hoping for something meatier than Diminished Capacity. It’s a start, but building an entire movie on a baseball card is like basing a modeling career on a facial mole.

rreed@observer.com

Terry Kinney’s Diminished Capacity, from a screenplay by Sherwood Kiraly, is based on Mr. Kiraly’s gentle and yet hilariously hectic novel spoofing the insane predilections of people entangled in the mania surrounding the hunt for an obscure baseball card of a Chicago Cubs player from the early days of our national pastime. Again, as with The Wackness, for a low-budget project, Diminished Capacity is blessed with a blue-ribbon cast. Most notably, Matthew Broderick as brain-damaged Cooper, a downward-drifting Chicago journalist, and Virginia Madsen as Charlotte, a spunky, divorced mother of one and Cooper’s former flame in their hometown, LaPorte, Mo.—naturally a stronghold of St. Louis Cardinal fans. The Cardinals, unlike the Cubs, have long been the winningest National League team against the American League. Alan Alda completes the trio of top performers as Cooper’s terminally demented Uncle Rollie, who believes that fish pulling on the strings attached to the keys of his typewriter, which is perched on the banks of the Mississippi River, will somehow serendipitously produce readable poetry.

Cooper’s mother, Belle (Lois Smith), wants to put Uncle Rollie in a nursing home for his own protection, and asks Cooper to come back home from Chicago to help her persuade him. And then there is Wendell (Tom Aldredge), the completely senile neighbor of Uncle Rollie and Belle, in a trailer he protects zealously with a shotgun against any strangers who might come to arrest him for some ancient misdemeanor everyone in LaPorte has forgotten.

The very title, Diminished Capacity, played as it is for uneasy laughs, may initially disturb viewers like me with memory-loss problems of our own. Yet by the time the film is over, with its redemptive ending for Cooper, Uncle Rollie, and the indispensably clear-minded Charlotte, one realizes that one does not have to be afflicted with “diminished capacity” to do crazy things beyond the realm of reason in the service of some seemingly trivial mania. Dylan Baker and Bobby Cannevale as Mad Dog McClure and the very dangerous Lee Vivyan (particularly when he is mockingly misnamed Vivien Leigh) both exemplify two sides of this midsummer madness connected, as it is, to masochistic memories of the Chicago Cubs in all their inglorious ineptitude, which seems to be extended to this season.

asarris@observer.com

If there were a Tony Award for best ensemble acting, Glengarry's all-male troupe would surely win it hands down.

Mr. Mamet's toxic 1984 play is famously about a group of rats-or shabby Chicago real-estate brokers-who fleece the gullible with phony land sales in Edenesque Florida. The juiciest roles go to Alan Alda as Shelly Levine, the fading, elderly salesman who needs a break so badly he has us cringing, and Liev Schreiber as Levine's smart apprentice in the venal art of the deal. Both of them are simply terrific.

Mr. Schreiber's swaggering, ruthless Richard Roma with the spit-polished shoes is coiled, weaselly and very dangerous, like a ticking bomb. This fine, physically intimidating actor looks as if he might knock you through the wall for sport. His Chicago accent and ear for Mr. Mamet's linguistic heat couldn't be better (or more enjoyable). Mr. Schreiber is something rare onstage: a good listener. When he's listening intently to the tales of Mr. Alda's Shelly, his eyes convey nothing less than love for the old guy who taught him everything-the master who taught him, in effect, how to be a ruthless scam artist.

Mr. Alda, enjoying a happy career renaissance of late, conveys the terrible, plaintive desperation of a man pleading for his life. "What was that? Luck?" Shelly argues with the punk who runs the office. "That was 'luck'? Bull shit, John. You're burning my ass, I can't get a fucking lead … you think that was luck. My stats for those years? Bull shit … over that period of time …. Bull shit. It wasn't luck. It was skill. You want to throw that away, John? … You want to throw that away?"

Glengarry is a modern Death of a Salesman. It's a morality play about the ruthlessness of our sentimentalized American Dream, or the low art of survival and profit in the American Way of Life. Though it doesn't move us like the Miller, Glengarry invented a new definition of the all-American male: You are who you con.

The scummy, killer capitalists in Glengarry are also the heirs to Mr. Mamet's own lowlifes in American Buffalo. There, the loser Teach announces his Philosophy of Life: "You know what is free enterprise? The freedom of the individual to Embark on Any Fucking Course that he sees fit …. Am I so out of line on this? Does this make me a Commie?"

Here, the winner Roma offers his own mindless philosophy: " When you die you're going to regret the things you don't do. You think you're queer? I'm going to tell you something: we're all queer. You think that you're a thief ? So what? You get befuddled by a middleclass morality? Get shut of it. Shut it out. You cheated on your wife? You did it, live with it …. You fuck little girls, so be it. There's an absolute morality? May be. And then what?"

The rhythmic timing of "Mamet-speak" is as precise as Mozart's, only different. That is, every note counts in its scatological way. The danger with "Mametspeak" is that it becomes locked in a style-it did!-lessening the impact of the ritual con games, the dislocated, jazzy repetitions, linguistic tics, all the fucks.

The salesmen in Glengarry are great talkers without the "right" words. You read between their inarticulate lines. In that sense, the play owes a big debt to Harold Pinter, British master of street language and its circumspect, brutal subtext.

To say the play is all male is a half-truth. It's the absence of women that goes to the chauvinist heart of the matter. Women do not belong in this manly universe. They are aliens. They're the mysterious, devouring things that Saul Bellow's Herzog described eating green salad and drinking human blood.

Closing a deal in Glengarry is therefore compared lingeringly to the seduction of a woman. Same high.

The worst word in the play, however, is the dread C-word. It's spoken only once-drawing a few gasps and nervous giggles from the audience. I can use any word in this open-minded paper, except that word. In England, from whence I came, it may be addressed to both men and women as a term of endearment. For example, "Hello, you old C-word. How are you today?" But in puritan America, it's the lowest of the low. It's significant that when a Mamet man wants to demolish another man, he calls him a C-word, the essence of womanhood.

I have one minor criticism about the production. Santo Loquasto's set for Act I is too pretty and light. The local Chinese restaurant where Glengarry's salesmen meet in booths should be a shady dump-the extension of their grungy office in Act II.

Otherwise, perfect.

Real Poetry

From Mr. Mamet's street poetry to the real, live poetry of the Welshman Dylan Thomas, one of the greatest romantic poets and wrecked geniuses of modern times.

Wales is the country of fierce hymns and proud coal miners, of the best rugby players, of fantastic choirs, opera singers, actors and poets. It's good to see Dylan Thomas played by a wonderful, expansive actor, Geraint Wyn Davies-a Welshman himself, I guess-in his one-man show at the adventurous little Mirror Repertory Company on West 71 Street. Small theater, mighty sound.

Thomas died in 1953, age 39, while staying at New York's Chelsea Hotel during a rampaging promotional tour, when he was adopted by "society." Nowhere is Mr. Davies more moving-and personally dismayed, it seems-than when he tells us how the cause of Thomas' death was listed in the official post-mortem as an "insult to the brain." Dylan Thomas was a terrible drunk, with his bulbous eyes and blubbery lips and ciggy. But he was a joy to all hearts in his enduring "craft or sullen art / Exercised in the still of night / When only the moon rages / And the lovers lie abed."

The play's title, Do Not Go Gentle, is taken from one of his best-known poems:

Do not go gentle into

that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at

close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the

light.

"I am a bit of a showoff, you know," he announces, cheerfully introducing himself at the start of the evening. "Oh, by the way, I am Dylan Thomas." And here Mr. Davies pauses to ask of us pitifully, "The poet?"

Well, this is a great chance to get on intimate terms with the man. Written and directed by Leon Pownall, the entertaining piece is not without its flaws however. I would have liked to have been more convinced that reductive Bardolatry-Thomas' worship of Shakespeare-accounts for his self-loathing as an inferior poet.

Every poet is inferior to Shakespeare, and Thomas was favorably compared to Frost and Yeats. No, he was a man, more likely, who could not cope with the pain of being alive. A true bohemian like the rollicking Irish dramatist Brendan Behan (who also died of drink), Dylan Thomas remained a free spirit who brought joy to us and destruction to himself. "Someone's boring me," he once said in one of his funniest statements. "I think it's me." He was a great poet who drowned boredom in booze, and fled life.

He's Alda't! Yes, firefighters are nice when you need to be swiftly plucked from a burning building, but ladies, think about it for a sec-what kind of fellow do you want to steer you through the emotional horror of war-torn New York? The image that immediately enters our mind is lanky-sensitive 1970's leading man Alan Alda. Tonight, Mr. Alda and equally cozy schoolteacher-turned-memoirist Frank McCourt don turtlenecks for a "parlor discussion" at the Y, where they'll trade favorite New York stories with playwright Nora Ephron, among others. Your host: Roger Rosenblatt, New York Times Magazine contributing editor -now that's a sweet gig! What it rather brazenly benefits: the Y. What it will cost ya: $50, but $200 more and you get to hobnob at a special pre-program cocktail reception with Mr. Rosenblatt and a lot of little plastic cups.

[92nd Street and Lexington Avenue, 8 p.m., 415-5500.]

We've heard from just about every demographic on how they're coping in these trying times, but what about drag queens? We found Joey Arias sleepily pouring himself a glass of water in his Spanish Art Deco one-bedroom apartment in the Village. "It's about being strong. It's about 'positive,'" he said. "Your mind and your life and just everything. You get to fall apart, but you have to go on, and it makes you even stronger- like you pull a leaf off a tree and make it grow another one stronger." Tonight, Mr. Arias styles his hair in a gigantic inflexible pompadour and opens as Joan Crawford in his answer to the Harry Potter franchise, Christmas with the Crawfords. "To me, it's like the new Christmas Carol for the 21st century, with Joan as the new Scrooge," he said. "I put my face on slowly and look at myself, because I have to soak Joan into my body, and then I'm ready to go on. That someone over five or six decades would survive that strong, like a young girl at the height of her career pulling it out like Madonna-I think it's pretty fantastic. Me being a gay man doing drag is not just impersonating women; it's portraying them in an hommage . It's not just glitter, big eyes and crazy cooking tips."

[Chelsea Playhouse, 125 West 22nd Street, 8 p.m., 439-5135.]

Thursday 22nd

Thanksgiving! It's here-and what a commotion ! Clanking measuring cups, whirring Cuisinart blades, clattering plates and that "kooky" aunt with big jewelry who keeps showing up each year, but no one is exactly sure how-or if-she's related … Best just to stay out of the way! Maybe fill a thermos with steaming hot cocoa ("with just a kiss of Amaretto") and trudge to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade . Maybe two kisses of Amaretto, to brace yourself for gigantic marauding balloons, gigantic pasty tourists and rampant commercialism .

[Parade starts at 77th Street and Central Park West, 9 a.m., and ends at Macy's, 34th Street and Sixth Avenue, at noon.]

Friday 23rd

Everyone knows about Balanchine's Nutcracker , with 40-foot Christmas tree, dramatic onstage snowstorm and an audience of Upper East Side moppets in velvet headbands wishing they could be Clara, but can Clara do this ? (See startling photo.) Tonight, the frighteningly flexible Jessica Howard -three-time U.S. Champion in rhythmic gymnastics (a sport popular in Bulgaria )-goes head-to-head with The Nutcracker as she appears in Twin Kingdoms , the story of Yana, a young woman kidnapped by a dragon who longs for a new life free of hostility and pretense. (Don't we all, sister, don't we all.) We called Ms. Howard in Bulgaria , where she was visiting her coach, but whoever answered there spoke only Bulgarian. That's life .

[ The Nutcracker , New York State Theater, Lincoln Center Plaza, Broadway at 63rd Street, 8 p.m., 870-5570; Twin Kingdoms , City Center, 155 West 55th Street, 8 p.m., 581-1212.]

Saturday 24th

Salami salaam: Thinking-woman's sex object and chef Mario Batali pries himself from his restaurants Babbo, Lupa and Esca and performs a $75 cooking demonstration at Italian Wine Merchants, where a resident sommelier will helpfully suggest wines to go alongside …. A source close to Mr. Batali told us he'd be making goat-cheese tortellini, orecchiette with broccoli rabe and fresh sausage, and also doing a sausage demonstration: "Nothing bad, just lots of fat." Bring it on, baby ….

[108 East 16th Street, 1 p.m., 473-2323.]

Sunday 25th

Santa Claus, gay? Jeffrey Solomon's one-man show, Santa Claus Is Coming Out , previews tonight and opens tomorrow. "It's a mockumentary about the secret life of Santa Claus, told in the form of a theatrical documentary, like Anna Deavere Smith," said Mr. Solomon. He plays a boy named Gary who requests a doll from Santa, who has homophobic elves, a Jewish agent and a "beard" (Mrs. Claus). Why out Santa? "A lot of reasons," said the playwright. "I guess he's so wholesome, he's the most beloved children's character, and what if he were gay-would you let your children sit on his lap? It kind of goes to the root of what we consider acceptable or not acceptable for our children. It is not a children's play, I guess. If you look at South Park , you can see my play." If the apocalypse comes, one-man shows and cockroaches will be the only two things to survive ….

[24 Bond Street, 8 p.m., 206-1515.]

Monday 26th

What is it with the mockumentaries? Get out your wry black-rimmed glasses for the premiere of The Independent , a "look back" at the "career" of a prolific independent filmmaker played by Jerry Stiller -cameo by his increasingly annoying son Ben almost inevitable ….

[Screening, CC Village East Cinema, 189 Second Avenue, 7:30 p.m., party to follow, Tan Da, 331 Park Avenue South, by invitation only, 646-792-2306]

Tuesday 27th

I see England, I see Kim France …. The city springs back to life ( boing )! Sort of. Since the economy has gone to seed, Lucky editor Kim France's exhortations to shop -which used to make one feel a certain queasiness and self-loathing-have now made her a regular Uncle Sam …. Tonight, Ms. France (who's become quite the gal-about-town since Glamour 's Bonnie Fuller was-there'snosugarcoatingit- askedto leave ) co-hosts a party with New Age designer Donna Karan to "kick off" the "Miracle on Madison Avenue" charity shopping event, which is coming on Dec. 2. What it benefits: the Children's Aid Society. "It's going to be socialites and celebrities!" promised a publicist, in what was apparently intended as a plug. "Muffie Potter Aston, Courtney Arnot, Helen Schifter, Olivia Chantecaille … we're approaching Kyra Sedgwick, Liev Schreiber. Just real New York type of people." Later, another Condé Nast publication, Bon Appétit -the poor relative of Gourmet since the latter was gussied up by bohemian-glam dirty-book writer Ruth Reichl -hosts a "Wine and Spirits" event, with tastings from the menus of Marcus Samuelsson (Aquavit), Charlie Palmer (Aureole) and Daniel Boulud (Daniel). Their publicist told us that they're auctioning off plates designed by gamy-sexy actor Michael Douglas, outgoing Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (where does he find the time?) and wedding-dress designer Vera Wang. What it benefits: the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

[ Lucky party, 655 Madison Avenue, 6 p.m., by invitation only, 286-7397; Bon Appétit benefit, New York Marriott Marquis, 1535 Broadway, 7 p.m., 888-34-FOCUS.]

More proof that "cocooning" is way out of control: Designer and "antiquaire" (whatever that is) Rose Tarlow celebrates her new photo book, The Private House , which appears to be about toilets, with Michael and Jane Eisner, David Geffen, Terry Semel, Bill Blass and others who have private houses way bigger than yours. But just think of the heating bills!

[Four Seasons Grill Room, 99 East 52nd Street, 6 p.m., by invitation only, 822-8170.]

Wednesday 28th

More athletic ladies! You can have your Nutcracker , but to really get into the spirit, you have to see tonight's opening gala performance of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, with your honey-voiced host, James Earl Jones . So get out those sparkly chiffon numbers and let it fly ….

[City Center, 131 West 55th Street, 7 p.m., dinner and dancing to follow, Imperial Ballroom of the Sheraton New York, 811 Seventh Avenue, 767-0590.]

He's Alda't! The only thing we wanted in that wretched Mel Gibson Helen Hunt vehicle What Women Want was Alan Alda, who played their boss. We fear that Mr. Alda's male archetype (1970's, sensitive yet masculine, earnest yet funny) may be lost forever, replaced by men who favor shiny messenger bags, shiny clompy black shoes and a bit too much hair product . Anyway, Mr. Alda is sob! not yet confirmed for tonight's Hallmark Hall of Fame Gala commemorating 50 years of weepy TV movies at the Museum of Television and Radio (New Yorkers' secret favorite place to whittle away a rainy Saturday), though there's still hope. But the list of "confirmed" presenters reads like Manhattan's very own mini-Oscars: Glenn Close, Blythe ("Gwynnie's mom") Danner, Gena ("Zoë Cassavetes' mom") Rowlands, James Garner. On second thought, make that Manhattan's own mini Irving G. Thalberg Award ceremony....

[Waldorf-Astoria, Grand Ballroom, 301 Park Avenue, 6:30 p.m., by invitation only, 621-6600.]

Wanna Be a Milla-ionaire? There is a certain class of woman (used to be a model, sometimes sings, sometimes paints, has an artist for a parent) who is regarded for some reason as a muse (which is really shorthand for "someone who does nothing except say inane things and wear camisoles") and she will be out in full force at tonight's launch party for Jalouse USA, the English version of some French magazine, hosted by Stella ("Julian's daughter") Schnabel, Zoë ("Gena Rowlands' daughter") Cassavetes and the lovely if tiresomely ubiquitous Milla Jovovich. "We're aiming at urban women, urban girl-to-women aged 20-35, though there is a sort of 'subtle male presence,'" said subtle male French editor in chief Stephen Todd, a gamin 38. "And also it's aimed at the sort of women who wouldn't say, 'Oh, we read women's magazines.'" Glad that's cleared up. We asked him to deconstruct the title. "The publishing family's name is Jalou, but of course it also is the feminine form of 'jealous.' Not jealousy in the green way, it's jealousy in that kind of nice way, like, 'Oh, I just went on holiday to Morocco, aren't you jealous?' It's more friendly." Offer some frites with each subscription, that's our advice, pal!

[118 10th Avenue, 9 p.m., by invitation only, 228-5555.]

Thursday 8th

Music geeks congregate in a moist clump at Elaine's to celebrate the publication of Dream Brother: The Lives & Music of Jeff & Tim Buckley, by cuddly Entertainment Weekly music critic David Browne. Crash strategy: don't wash, wear a suede jacket, be a guy. Party tip for those who haven't read the book: Jeff was the one who drowned, Tim was his beatnik dad who died of a heroin overdose. (Look, rock 'n' roll may not be a barrel of laughs, but it sure beats sitting through Britney Spears' half-time performance, complete with "home girl" moves and glistening flanks .)

[1703 Second Avenue, 6 p.m., by invitation only, 266-4492.]

She shot Andy Warhol, but Valerie Solanas had her reasons: He wouldn't produce her play, Up Your *ss, and was probably pretty snippy about it. The chastened Ms. Solanas went on to write the infamous S.C.U.M. [Society for Cutting Up Men] Manifesto and then expired of pneumonia but tonight, Up Your *ss has its New York premiere! But why is a member of the deplored male species directing? "That was the first question I had," said director and San Franciscan George Coates, "so I asked my assistant Eddie, who's a woman she's very involved in the drag-king world here and Eddie said to me, 'George, Valerie gave the play to a man to direct the first time, so we know that's not forbidden,' so I felt I had some license, and then Eddie invited me over to an event at the Bearded Lady Café, and then I realized 'My word, we could cast the male roles with women!' And I said, 'Eddie, let's do a workshop.'" (Uh-oh.) Anyway, the audience at tonight's benefit premiere should include both Lili Taylor (who played Ms. Solanas in I Shot Andy Warhol) and Lily Tomlin (Alan Alda's co-star in the peerless Flirting with Disaster). Be on the lookout for those types who claim to have been part of Warhol's Factory (you can recognize them because they will ostentatiously and repeatedly refer to Warhol as "Andy"), but who, if you do the math, were 5 years old at the time....

[P.S. 122, 150 First Avenue, 8 p.m., 477-5829.]

Friday 9th

Fire up the Gauloises, pretend you like the taste of Lillet and revisit junior year of college ce soir as the good ol' Film Forum begins a five-week retrospective of Eric Rohmer movies, which are all about cross little cliques of the bourgeoisie who stray from their intimate relationships. Excellent cruising potential if you'd like to try dating a forlorn ex-flutist again.

[209 West Houston Street, 727-8110.]

Saturday 10th

V-O.D.: O.K., O.K., enough already we get the message, we must love our vaginas! We do, we do, we promise! Is anyone else weary of Eve Ensler's ceaseless homage to the female crotch? Does this woman have another piece of performance art in her or is she just a one-trick pony? Scads of lady celebs gather at Madison Square Garden tonight to "take back the garden" we'll let you puzzle that one out in the ominous sounding V-Day 2001, no relation to the upcoming Ben Affleck World War II movie. Tonight's performers include Claire Danes, Calista Flockhart, Shiva Rose, Winona Ryder, Brooke Shields, Gloria Steinem, Julia Stiles and, making her second appearance of the week, Lily Tomlin! What, no Robert Downey Jr.? If you'd like a less "empowering," but more fun, tabloid alternative: check out Sean (Puffy) Combs' attempt to throw a fashion show while he's on trial for gun possession (hey, it's a lesser crime than the fashion felonies committed by most designers) . Then you can skip the after-party and go home to see how his ex-girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez, who seems to be trying to transform herself back into a blushing virgin, holds up on Saturday Night Live.

[V-Day 2001, Madison Square Garden, 4 Penn Plaza, 7 p.m., 307-7171; Sean John, 8 p.m., tent, Bryant Park, Sixth Avenue between 40th and 42nd streets, by invitation only, 206-7447; Saturday Night Live, 11:30 p.m., NBC.]

Sunday 11th

Women tote dogs! You know it's Fashion Week when a) men with strong opinions about how women should dress are suddenly ubiquitous; b) you find yourself a-wastin' hours and hours of your life staring glassily at the E! channel; and c) there are about 468 events for small pooches in the span of a few short days. Today, in a strange scheduling coincidence, two New York Post lady gossip eminences are throwing dog parties. In the a.m., Cindy Adams and her Yorkie, Jazzy, preside over a cocktail brunch at an exhibit, Dogs in Art, at the Doyle Gallery to benefit the ASPCA. In the p.m., Liz Smith throws a high-security celebration of Westminster, showdogs and dachshunds in particular Related plea to Oscar voters: Best in Show for "Best Picture"!

[Cindy Adams, Doyle New York, 175 East 87th Street, 10 a.m., 427-4141, ext. 600; Liz Smith, Tavern on the Green, Central Park West at 67th Street, by invitation only, 472-7737.]

Pajama party? One more way of knowing it's Fashion Week: Diane Von Furstenberg comes out with something that's not a wrap dress (in a ceaseless quest to make sure the wrap dress is not all she's known for). This time 'round it's pajamas, which a publicist couldn't help describing as "sort of wrappy." Tonight, the new Mrs. Barry Diller shows her latest not-just-pajamas collection, "Stolen Moments," eschewing those grimy Bryant Park tents for her own living room. (You would, too, if yours had a pool in it.)

[389 West 12th Street, 7 p.m., by invitation only, 741-6607.]

Monday 12th

Fashion weakness? If you've got a bony bod and a strong stomach, it's your week, bay-bee! Fashion Week hits full throttle today. Our picks for most bearable shows with clothes you might have some chance of wearing: Katayone Adeli, Marc Jacobs . If you crave a movie premiere, we've got one O.K., it's a made-for-TV movie, but it's practically Oscar time, whaddya want? Mike Nichols directs Emma Thompson in a TV version of the Off-Broadway hit play Wit, about a professor forced to re-assess her life when she is diagnosed with ovarian cancer. They always find a Brit when they need to tip off the TV audience that they're about to see something "serious."

[Katayone Adeli, 234 West 39th Street, 10th floor, 3 p.m., by invitation only, 354-0800; Marc Jacobs, 9 p.m., location to be announced, by invitation only, 924-0026; Wit, Clearview Cinemas, Beekman Theater, 1254 Second Avenue, 7 p.m. screening, buffet dinner to follow, Four Seasons, 99 East 52nd Street, by invitation only, 512-5509.]

Tuesday 13th

Question 1: Does Vogue have Manhattan's entire social agenda in its sharp little talons tonight? Grim, but possibly true. So the only real question is, André or Ahmet? If you're dissatisfied with merely catching a glimpse of the very tall Vogue correspondent André Leon Talley's head at fashion shows from your seat in the 15th row, you can try to meet him by crashing a party for Jeanne Beker's show Fashion Television (such a thing exists, and it's not Brazilian? Why did no one inform us?) and the publication of her book, Jeanne Unbottled: Adventures in High Style. In the crowd: nonagenarian designer Pauline Trigère, perky designer Betsey Johnson, strangely M.I.A. designer Todd Oldham. Crash strategy: beat the fashion pack to an early-90's revival! Meanwhile, Ahmet Ertegun is honorary chair of the City of Hope's Spirit of Life Award (what it'll cost you: $1,000!), presented this year to Rod Stewart, who will then perform some hits, and Vogue publisher Richard ("Mad Dog") Beckman, who will then take a bite out of someone's cheek. Who says Fashion Week doesn't have class?

[Jeanne Beker party, Tapioca Room, Centro-Fly, 45 West 21st Street, 9 p.m., by invitation only, 957-3005; Spirit of Life, Cipriani 42nd Street, cocktails 6:30 p.m., dinner and performances to follow, 246-6777.]

Wednesday 14th

The real V-day is here, and your boyfriend is AWOL in Los Angeles writing a television show about strippers? No worries, as the Australian ski instructors say, we have a day packed full of female empowerment events, and none of them involve Eve Ensler . First, "Sources of Femininity: Money, Power and Sex" is the theme of a lunch at the Union Club with realtor Barbara Corcoran and agent Joni Evans, all to benefit the East End Hospice's Camp Good Grief. That takes care of the glaring daylight hours, and then, if you can keep your head up, it's one more round of Vogue-ing as the magazine joins with designer Ellen Tracy and noisy neighbor Cindy Crawford to honor women who have given to charity, for an evening entitled "Be Everyone You Are." Fine advice, except for those among us with multiple-personally disorder

[Luncheon, Union Club, 101 East 69th Street, 11:45 a.m., 631-288-8400; "Be Everyone You Are," Eugene, 27 West 24th Street, 8 p.m., by invitation only, 966-5000, ext. 108.]

Its pleasures are underpinned by Matthew Warchus' lean and perfectly paced production and three super performances from Alan Alda, Victor Garber and Alfred Molina. The three stars are at the top of their game, their assured ease with each other and charm adding to the fun. We like them, though the smug characters played by Mr. Alda and Mr. Garber aren't always likable. (Mr. Molina's compromising crybaby on the edge of a nervous breakdown and a miserable marriage is more sympathetic.) But we could say the real star of the play-the fourth character without which there wouldn't be a play-is that pricy, high-status blank, the 4 feet by 5 feet white-on-white painting that soaks up judgment with utter, dominating indifference either way.

The painting has been bought by the pretentious Serge (Victor Garber) for a small fortune. His best friend Marc (Alan Alda), invited to genuflect before it, announces that it's "shit." The third friend Yvan (Alfred Molina) has no views, wishes only to please and therefore alienates them both. The contemptuous antimodernist Marc, the upwardly mobile, trendy Serge and the neurotic amoeba Yvan are brought to the brink by-of all things-a work of so-called art.

This is the first comedy I've seen that revolves around friendship and artistic bickering. The white-on-white painting itself has even been criticized by some for not being truly modern! It's more a classic modern abstract, circa 1975. It isn't one of Damien Hirst's highly regarded dead animals. It's just generic modern. But it isn't the dramatist's intention to make easy jokes at the expense of old-hat targets. She's onto wittier and bigger things.

"You can say, I don't get it, I can't grasp it," Serge protests angrily at his friend's derisive reaction. "You can't say it's shit." In other, pluralist words, you cannot criticize someone else's taste. You mustn't! For to do so would be a lapse of good taste.

As Louis Menand pointed out in a recent New Yorker column, pluralism is the ascendant philosophy of the day. Art couldn't be timelier in that sense. "No one wants to get caught asserting that one type of art is better than another," Mr. Menand wrote. For good measure, he reminded us that last fall when The New York Times asked 17 experts, including Philippe de Montebello of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and William Rubin of the Museum of Modern Art, the question "What is art?" they all gave the same answer. They said the question had no answer. Art is whatever people say it is.

But if anything can be art, art no longer exists. Ms. Reza's voice of protest, Marc, might be an envious, condescending middle-aged fossil dismissing his friend's pride and joy as "shit," but he's in favor of certain standards. He dares to believe that some paintings are better than others!

A generation ago, the acerbic Cambridge literary critic and legend F.R. Leavis actually caused an uproar by saying that not all novels are created equal. (Naturally, the novelists dispatched to the lower ranks objected the most.) Today, the highest voices in the art world and other Mad Hatters are saying you cannot judge a work of art. You can say politely-as the offended new art collector Serge advises-that "it's not for me, really," or "I'm afraid I don't happen to like it." But if there's judgment, it must be of yourself. It's why, in The Times ' laudatory feature on Chuck Close's repetitively pointillist portraits at the Museum of Modern Art on Feb. 27, Michael Kimmelman could write that if we feel there's something lacking in the art, "it is really in us." There you are! We're to blame.

No, we are not to blame. Some art is a joke. And some plays are better than others, too. This is one of them. But Art isn't about esthetics. Nor, clearly, is it intended to be a sophisticated Stoppardian dialectic about the mysterious meaning of art ("It's shit!"). The white-on-white painting serves as the catalyst to the drama's fun and games about the art of friendship.

Judgmental Marc-a critic in disguise-breaks the unwritten rules. "I can't love the Serge who's capable of buying that painting," he explains, and means it. (Which reminds me of Kenneth Tynan's renowned "I doubt if I could love anyone who did not wish to see Look Back in Anger .") Marc has made the fatal error of taking the taste of his friend personally. Worse-he takes it as an insulting betrayal. But personal differences are what spouses and lovers are for, as opposed to the delicate ground of enduring friendship.

The painting-a comparatively minor thing, after all, if expensive-throws them all to the extent that none of them can now be sure what binds them together, or even why they like each other. It's as if you or I visited our best friend and wondered aloud, "How can you live in a dump like this?" Or, "How can you live with such a putz?"

Perhaps we fall into friendships. We don't judge our friends. It's more tactful and discreet that way, and it's easier, like not judging art. Friends are always there (or they wouldn't be friends). But the moment we analyze the unspoken tightrope chemistry of our friendships, everything can easily fall apart.

Put it another way: What sort of friend are you if you don't think your friends are special? So the white-on-white painting provokes the uncomfortable, amusing question, How can you really care for someone who has awful taste? And the answer is, Tenuously, blindly and well.

The outraged Marc is pointing a finger at the emperor's suit of clothes when he says, in effect: "You are not entitled to find the colors of this painting fascinating. There are /i>>no colors!" And the opportunistic Serge defends good manners rather than the art! "What I blame him for is his tone of voice, his complacency, his tactlessness. I blame him for his insensitivity. I don't blame him for not being interested in modern Art, I couldn't give a toss about that."

Each is a tyrant in his own enjoyably determined way. They approach the tyranny of closed minds-fashionable 'good' taste versus 'intolerant' critical standards. (Though your intolerance might be my good taste.) Even poor old unpretentious Yvan is a demanding absolute ruler via tearful, pathetic compromise. I'm surprised to learn, however, that the gifted Yasmina Reza has said that her play is as much a tragedy as a comedy. In my view, she is not entitled to say so. Marc would say she's talking merde ; Serge would say the idea that Art is a comedy and a tragedy is absolutely fascinating; and Yvan would agree with them both.

I side with the tradition that wisely states one should never believe what the artist says, only what the artist does. Art is a very enjoyable soufflé-and none the worse for that. In Paris, where it originated, it's in the honorable tradition of witty boulevard comedies. The sparkling translation is by Christopher Hampton. Mark Thompson has designed the highly appropriate, minimalist, white-on-white set of a chic monk. The brilliant, hangdog Alfred Molina stops the show with his hysterical delivery of the longest sentence ever written in a play, with the exception of Samuel Beckett.

If I may say so, we can't be friends anymore if you don't find Art a great pleasure.