Roberta Flack. (Getty Images)

Wednesday, July 27

Clay Date

Summer’s caught up with us—and we know, we complain about it every week, but the aggregate effect of sweating this much packs a more crippling punch than Wendi Murdoch! We find ourselves regressing to childhood: leaning hard on the chocolate-frozen yogurt handle at 16 Handles, wearing shoes made of flimsy rubber and schoolboyish shorts, experiencing a surfeit of emotional lability (glee when we find shade or a seat on the subway, suicidal rage at all other times). Summer makes kids of us all! We may as well drop in on RH Gallery’s no-kids-allowed Clay Party, an arts-and-crafts shindig in celebration of the gallery’s more serious concurrent shows, “Pure Clay,” featuring Korean minimalist Lee Ufan (whose work is also in the Guggenheim right now—what a summer for this guy!), and “Contemporary Clay,” a group show featuring Kathy Butterly’s so-called “sexy cups.” They’re misshapen and intriguing and reminiscent of sex organs—and feel free to make your own at tonight’s party, at which wine and delectibles will be served. Bring a toothbrush or some dental floss—no, we’re not kidding!—to carve out your own masterpiece and pretend you’re at summer camp. (If the heat hasn’t rendered your intellect childlike already, try another glass of wine!)

Clay Party at RH Gallery, 137 Duane Street, RSVP for tickets at gallery@rhgallery.com or call (646) 490-6355.

Thursday, July 28

Visiting the Goon Squad

We didn’t establish ourselves as great artists at the Clay Party last night—our sculpture was more “conceptual” than “formal.” But after a day spent driving out East, we’re more eager to indulge our childish sides than to think about artistic endeavors. What a relief that the artist John Codling—formerly a big-deal Wall Street type who now makes celebrity-inspired multimedia work—is hosting a movie night at the Waasteria Gallery. His multimedia art show there, inspired by Jay-Z, won’t distract our attention from The Goonies (a kids’ movie, for adult attendees, to raise money for Solving Kids Cancer). It’s a collision of artsy pretension and Hollywood cheese even weirder than the paintings of Christopher Walken that launched Mr. Codling to fame. The Goonies! Really, it’s as though he knew precisely the mood we were in—to think about nothing! A few more weeks of regression and we’ll either be cured and ready to take on Proust—or playing with coloring books.

John Codling’s show “Me I Play” closes tomorrow at the Waasteria Gallery, 77 Industrial Road (Wainscott), and the screening takes place at 8pm with pizza, tacos, ice cream, beer, wine, and popcorn, 8pm, visit http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1848957281 for tickets.

Friday, July 29

Photo, Synthesis

Okay, we’ve recovered—and we’re ready to take intellectual matters a teensy bit seriously. Of course, we’re also still in the Hamptons, so art’s best served with cocktails and canapés—as at tonight’s opening reception for Terri Gold and Steve Miller’s exhibition, “Planet.” Ms. Gold photographs shamanistic, spiritual elements of disappearing cultures, while Mr. Miller himself is showing X-rays of exotic flora and fauna (we’re sure he tried to find a life form in the Hamptons to X-ray, but a picture of our rosé-swollen insides wouldn’t sell many prints). “You’ve got an educated audience interested in these issues … and you’ve got people who can afford art out there!” says Mr. Miller, who shows around the world but lives part-time out East. Catch them while you can—this show’s running through July 31, and Mr. Miller’s jetting off later this year to present a print of a python’s X-ray to a zoo director in Brazil.

4 North Main Gallery, 4 North Main Street (Southampton), 5pm-8pm, visit 4northmaingallery for information.

Saturday, July 30

Save Some for the Fishes

Newly-minted CSI star Ted Danson is to attend a party in honor of Oceana, the save-the-fish charity that reminds you that just because you love ahi doesn’t mean you can feel good about eating it … We’re dragging our heels about attending, but only since we know that all the consciousness-raising going on will give us pause about dining on our favorite summer repasts: shrimp cocktail and oysters. Speaking of those aquatic treats, visitors to midtown’s egregiously casino-themed eatery Lavo may partake in both at the “bikini brunch,” ginned up for those who can’t quite make it out East. Men must wear shirts, while women are quite encouraged to wear bikinis. It’s just like you’re at the beach! Actually, wait, it’s more like you’re waiting tables at Hooters, but paying instead of getting paid.

Oceana Hamptons Splash Party, a private home in Southampton, 7:30pm, for tickets visit oceanasplashparty.org; Lavo, 39 East 58th Street, bikini brunch begins at 2pm, call (212) 750-5588 for reservations. Sunday, July 31

Lord Styron

Though in life William Styron was known to prefer the relative isolation of Martha’s Vineyard (we said, “relative”!), his work remains the perfect beach read for the Hamptons as well: nothing’s quite so bracing a corrective to an afternoon of sitting by the pool and an evening of parties as reading something grim and knowing like Lie Down in Darkness. Anyway, Georgica Beach at midday can be crushingly depressing. Styron had a difficult time negotiating literary fame, though his daughter seems perhaps less conflicted: Alexandra Styron mined her childhood for intriguing and enlightening anecdotes and insights, which she crafted into the memoir Reading My Father. Tonight she’s reading at the Quogue Public Library. (And boy, does she know how to do a summer reading schedule—she was in Vineyard Haven a few weeks ago and East Hampton last night.) There’s no choice in the matter—we’re going to check it out.

Quogue Public Library, 90 Quogue Street (Quogue), 5pm

Monday, August 1

Flack Attack

Were you wondering what’s going on with Roberta Flack? Question answered: per her website, she’s currently at work on an album of Beatles covers. If you’d like to see her in the flesh and maybe try to get her to sing a few bars of “Killing Me Softly With His Song” (or perhaps “Octopus’s Garden”), drop in on the enthusiastically named Bright Lights! Shining Stars! gala, an event in support of the NYC Dance Alliance Foundation and its college scholarships. Ms. Flack is to accept the Ambassador for the Arts Award, a fitting prize for someone bringing new attention to little-known British pop music. The guests include wee Tade Biesinger—a preteen NYC Dance alum who’s now known for Billy Elliot, and Tony-winning choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, who’ll be reunited with his In the Heights writer Lin-Manuel Miranda, one of the guests of honor. All these months later, we can finally feel good about supporting youth dance without fearing we’re sending youths into a future of Black Swan psychosis!

Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, 566 LaGuardia Place, cocktails at 6pm, awards and performances at 7:30pm with dessert and Champagne to follow, call (855) 692-5678 or visit nycdance.com for tickets.

Tuesday, August 2

Today’s Special

Some causes—like youth dance or the career rehabilitation of Roberta Flack—are simply unimpeachable. That may help explain why the host committee for tonight’s fund-raiser to benefit the Special Olympics, the Special Olympics Junior Committee Summer Social, is so gloriously lengthy: 28 do-gooders, as well as 47 on the junior committee. The host committee includes well-connected model Lauren Bush, her sister Ashley Bush, someone else’s sister Dabney Mercer, and roman á cleffer Anisha Lakhani. The evening of drinks goes down on the Hudson Terrace, on the far West Side—we’ll see you there, along with all of our nearest and dearest social friends!

Hudson Terrace, 621 West 46th Street, 7:30pm, visit http://summersocial.kintera.org/ for tickets and more information.

Wednesday, August 3

Kids Stay in the Picture

Remember how we could bring ourselves to support youth dance only  grudgingly? (Those Black Swan emotional scars, embedded with feathers, run deep.) Well, we’re yet more willing to support the artistic endeavours of youth when it comes to the performing-arts camp that produced Natalie Portman (her characters may be crazy, but boy, does she seem sane!) and Mariah Carey (well, Ms. Portman’s sane enough for both). The Oscar winner and the rainbow enthusiast both attended day camp at Long Island’s Usdan Center, which buses in artsy kids from the city. Tonight it holds a fund-raising gala. Current campers take the stage to perform with the Met soprano Monica Yunus—boy, are we jealous! Back when we were kids, all we did was make sloppy pottery and watch The Goonies. In fact, that’s all we’ve done this week!

185 Colonial Springs Road (Wheatley Heights), dinner at 5pm and concert at 7pm, for tickets write to gala@usdan.com or call (631) 643-7900.

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

While "Talika" may sound like a kooky potion-concocting quack, it turns out it is "a French skin-care company that specializes in specific treatments."

In attendance (supposedly) will be ER actress Gloria Reuben, Sopranos actress Sharon Angela, TLC personality Stacy London, socialites Emma Snowdon-Jones and Anisha Lakhani, The Real Housewives of New York cast member LuAnn de Lesseps, bridal designer Lara Meiland, and Who's the Boss? actress Judith Light, who these days has found a home on Ugly Betty.

According to the invite, guests will be greeted by models and bathing suits handing out samples of the serum. But let us get to the most fun part of the evening: 

Either the New York party scene really is slowing down or it's been hijacked by the '80s. 

"I went to Barnes & Noble yesterday, believe it or not, and bought Screenwriting for Dummies," Ms. Lakhani said. "I'm freaking out. I have never written a screenplay before!" 

The Daily Transom wondered just how Ms. Bracco became interested in Ms. Lakhani's first novel, which was published in August.  

"She read my book and thought it was really funny, and she said she could see it on the big screen," Ms. Lakhani said. "She contacted my agent and made an offer. We met, and I loved her. I wanted to sell it to someone who had a really good sense of humor and she really appreciated the dark humor in Schooled and embraces it."

As for being put in charge of penning the screenplay, Ms. Lakhani is grateful. 

"She's Lorraine Bracco! She can get anyone to write the screenplay, but she's taking this leap of faith and asking me to do it," she said. " I think she’s right about people who are hungry—I’m hungry and I really want to do a good job because I want to earn her respect. I’m going to do my absolute best."

Ms. Lakhani did not disclose the sum that Ms. Bracco paid for the film rights to the novel and said she wasn't sure if Ms. Bracco was looking to act in or direct the film. (According to Ms. Bracco's IMDb page, she has only directed one comedic short in her career—Auto Motives starring James Cameron and Robert Downey Jr.) And while Ms. Lakhani is not sure how much creative control she will ultimately have beyond writing the screenplay, she is already visualizing some things. 

"If it does hit the screen, it will be so fun to get whole new group of young Hollywood actors together or even more unknown kids, some that actually go to school here in Manhattan," she said. "There can be a lot of funny scenes like the bar mitzvah scene. Also—like Woody Allen’s movies which are all about loving New York—it would be fun to show, like, the moms outside the private schools, the little Shih-Tsus, and Yorkies, and Mannies, and Drivers. It will be great." 

Then Ms. Aleksander muscled her way into ZoneHampton, a gym frequented by the likes of Alec Baldwin, Kelly Ripa and Matthew Broderick, and spent an hour huffing and puffing with Gregg Cook, possibly the East End's most motivating spinning instructor.

On Sunday evening, the Transom's favorite tippler George Gurley found himself at the afterparty for a premiere of a film about wine, but there was very little alcohol to be had! Also, no one seemed to even be interested in imbibing. We hope this does not portend a fall season of sobriety.

Finally, the Transom met up with the comely Anisha Lakhani, former Dalton schoolmarm with a new roman-a-clef who might find that her fancy new friends turn on her once they discover the subject of her next novel. As Ms. Lakhani says, "Wink, wink!"

After graduating from Columbia University in 1998, Ms. Lakhani, who is 32, took a job teaching 7th grade English at Dalton. She quickly became dissatisfied with her measly teacher's salary and began taking on after-school tutoring gigs--jobs that can pay upwards of $350 an hour--with what she called "high-profile Manhattan families." And thus Ms. Lakhani began to enjoy a lifestyle of Chanel handbags and splurges on designer make-up at Henri Bendel. (A brown-and-white shopping bag very similar to Bendel's adorns the cover of Ms. Lakhani's book.) She eventually left Dalton, where she had become chair of the middle school English department, after eight years.

In her novel, Ms. Lakhani's protagonist is named Anna Taggert, and the Manhattan prep school where Anna teaches is called Langdon Hall. Her novel is the latest to attempt to expose the fetishized world of elite New York private schools; the genre has become defined by Cecily von Ziegesar's Gossip Girl series. Then there's Academy X, the thinly disguised novel by Andrew Trees, a former Horace Mann instructor whose contract was not renewed after his book came out; and a book called The Upper Class, written by Hotchkiss School graduates, among others.

But Ms. Lakhani doesn't mind being percieved in the same category.

"Sure, they were fun books and if I were to talk to Andrew Trees I'd say, ‘great book, but anything boys can do, girls can do better!'" said Ms. Lakhani cheerfully. She has a bronzed complexion and hot red manicured fingernails, and wore a loose-fitting cotton tank top, jeans and sandals. "But on a serious note, he wrote a book about a teacher while he was still at Horace Mann. I am no longer a teacher at Dalton, so no one can fire me." Dalton has declined to comment on Ms. Lakhani's novel; she also claims that she has not received negative phone calls or emails from the school or her former clients.

Ms. Lakhani insists that her book points a finger at the teachers, tutors and the private school system for going along with the concept of professional homework doers, not necessarily the students and parents who fund it all. But that doesn't mean that uptown privilege didn't make an impression on her.

"As a tutor, you're going in and out of apartments that look like the Met and one day I'm sure will be turned into museums," she said. "But as a teacher you're coming home to your fifth floor walk-up on First or Second Avenue. And sure, there are some girls who have walk-in closets that when you walk in, it's like the angels sing and the chandeliers sparkle. Have you seen Sex and the City? That closet! Twelve-year-olds!" Needless to say, Ms. Lakhani is not to the manner born. Her family moved from India to New Jersey when she was young; she grew up in Saddle River and Ridgewood, N.J., and attended a public high school.

Her outsider observations of Manhattan wealth probably clash with how most New Yorkers were first introduced to her, which was through New York's benefit and party circuit a year before she was outed as the author of that Dalton book. These days, Ms. Lakhani lives in an Upper East Side apartment with her husband, who's in finance, and made a name for herself at Bvlgari dinners and Emanuel Ungaro luncheons, posing for photos with socialites Tinsley Mortimer, Dabney Mercer, and Annie Churchill.

Does that make Ms. Lakhani a bit of a hypocrite?

"I'm not going to do that vapid thing, like I'm not a socialite, but I'd just say read my next book," she responded. "I knew nothing about that world when I was teaching, but after I finished the book, I had some time on my hands and some research I wanted to do so I started going out. I won't lie, there is another story bursting to come out of me. Does that explain it? Wink, wink?"

Ms. Lakhani said that she's currently working very seriously on what might be her next book, the nature of which she declined to comment on, only saying that there are some "characters" she's met while going out that belong in a novel. But first, Ms. Lakhani must deal with how Manhattanites receive her first novel.

"It will ruffle some feathers no doubt, but I think people will get what I'm saying," she said. "You can't help if someone calls you a hypocrite. I was doing this whole thing like ‘I'm going to kill myself if they're mean to me'--I am a Cancer, so I'm prone to having these ‘everyone hates me' cry fests--but then I was watching Katie Couric on The View yesterday and she quoted Kim Catrall from Sex and the City and she said, ‘If I stayed home because of what every bitch in New York thought about me, I'd never leave the house.'"