The mad marketing genius Michael Shvo is partnering with developer Joseph Moinian to market a planned W Hotel at 123 Washington Street, a source said. Mr. Shvo is expected to market the condominium portion of Mr. Moinian’s condo-hotel.

The brash Mr. Shvo, who made himself famous with sleek marketing for 20 Pine Street and the Bryant Park Tower, revels in a clean and polished style. His marketing peddles to a certain audience—not quite trust-fund kids, but a group, say, that spends its weekend nights flooding the meatpacking district.

Mr. Shvo advertises on his Web site that he’s worked with the Moinian Group before, but this is surely their biggest project together. And now their partnership will decide the success of W’s first splash below 14th Street.

The high-end brand will have company in the once-maligned financial district.

Tiffany & Co., Hermès and Thomas Pink will all open stores there soon. And though a spokesman said no decision has been made, The Real Deal magazine reported last week that Larry Silverstein is converting his 99 Church Street into an enormous 60-story condo-hotel.

IF THERE'S A MAJOR BUILDING SALE, YOU EXPECT it to happen in a part of Manhattan where there are big skyscrapers with high-powered tenants.

But in this muscular real-estate market, a watershed sale can apparently come in the form of a petite, six-story Soho building whose main tenant is Pottery Barn.

A building at the corner of Broadway and Houston, 600 Broadway, is in contract for more than $1,000 per foot at $71 million, a source said.

The sale price per square foot for this 65,000-square-foot building is in an elite territory generally reserved for the highest premium buildings in midtown—a 666 Fifth Avenue or an 825 Eighth Avenue, say.

So what perks does this building have, other than the hordes of weekend shoppers outside it that make crossing Broadway and Houston so daunting?

Well, it sold for exactly that reason: Prime retail rents were the sale’s driving force. Asking rents for ground-floor space on Broadway (in Soho) average $282 per foot, and can go as high as $400 a foot, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

The 123-year-old brick-built 600 Broadway is also recognizable to New Yorkers: It has the DKNY mural on its side, the one that’s been there since 1989.

The new buyer is a group of investors led by Alex Adjmi. The seller is Enterprise Asset Management.

According to city records, Enterprise purchased the building in January for $21 million (well, that’s quite a flip). But two sources said the new sale price was for an amount closer to $40 million.

Though the building is in contract, it is not expected to close for at least another year, a source said. The reason is unclear.

Pottery Barn’s lease runs through 2012, but expect major rent increases when that lease ends or a new and bigger name takes its place, since Mr. Adjmi will certainly look for reasons to justify this large sale price.

Readers of Commercial Breaks have seen head-scratching building sales like this before. When the 90-year-old Rodin Studios, at 200 West 57th Street, sold for $126 million, at more than $1,000 per foot, it was all due to its proximity to Columbus Circle and the big retail money it can command.

But is $1,000 per foot the new standard for Soho? Last June, 131-137 Spring Street sold for $46 million, at $814 per square foot. Those buildings’ retail tenants are Burberry and Diesel.

The Fantastic Four capital-markets team at Cushman & Wakefield—Richard Baxter, Ron Cohen, Jon Caplan and Scott Latham—brokered the 600 Broadway deal. They declined to be interviewed for this story.

THIS IS QUITE A SHOWDOWN: Donald Trump versus Vornado’s Steve Roth in the heavyweight real-estate legal battle of the 21st century.

Well, sort of.

Last week, Mr. Roth announced that he’s buying, for $1.8 billion, a 70 percent stake in 1290 Avenue of the Americas and a San Francisco office building from a group of Hong Kong investors, Hudson Waterfront Associates. Mr. Trump will retain a 30 percent share in the buildings.

But as part of the agreement, Mr. Roth will have to get involved with the lawsuits that Mr. Trump has filed against those Hong Kong investors, his one-time partners in a riverside development site on the Upper West Side.

In 2005, Hudson Waterfront Associates sold the development for $1.7 billion. Mr. Trump was part owner of the site.

Mr. Trump complained that his partners didn’t get enough money for it, so he did what he often does: He sued them. This didn’t entirely work—all of the lawsuits have been dismissed except one.

So now the interesting part! Mr. Roth paid a below-market rate for 1290 Avenue of the Americas, at $775 per square foot. The reason? As part of the deal with Hudson Waterfront Associates, Mr. Roth will indemnify the investors—or, in other words, he’ll foot all the bills for any further lawsuit that Mr. Trump pushes against them.

So if they go to court, it’s a showdown of Mr. Trump’s money versus Mr. Roth’s money.

Mr. Trump seems determined, too. In the New York Post on Saturday, he commended Mr. Roth on getting a good deal, but added, “Our lawsuit will be successful.”

But it’s not all bad for Mr. Roth. The Hong Kong investors will have to reimburse Mr. Roth if Mr. Trump is successful with any lawsuit regarding disputes over their partnership, according to a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

But if Mr. Trump wins any other claims in an appeal, or pushes this further, that’s only more billing hours Mr. Roth will have to cough up to pay for this lawsuit.

"There's still a lot of urbanites here-a lot of writers, professionals," he continued. "But as real-life neighborhoods go, it's as close to …. " Here he trailed off and looked confused. "I dunno."

Maplewood? Larchmont?

The 34-year-old writer got his 15 minutes of fame when he was commissioned to deliver a pilot for a CBS sitcom tentatively titled Cobble Hill. Whether he gets to stretch Warhol's time limit is up to that notoriously fickle beast known generically to New York screen hopefuls as Hollywood, a continent away from the leafy neighborhood that Mr. Roda hopes to make into the new household word for that oft-recycled television bromide, the young, urban professional at play in the city. But when the New York Post ran a short item on the deal in October, Mr. Roda's fame soon turned into infamy.

"I hadn't even started writing and there were all these blogs expressing outrage," he recalled, mumbling over his black coffee as if not wanting to draw attention to himself among the young hipster crowd. "I think it's this feign of outrage. There's a certain amount of irony that exists here among all of us-you know, if I heard that someone was making a show called Cobble Hill, I'd roll my eyes and make fun of it too, because I think that's what you're supposed to do."

The fact that Mr. Roda had moved to the neighborhood-specifically, to the leafy brownstone block of Congress Street-only two years ago, after years of subletting and sharing apartments across Manhattan, made him that much more of an outcast among the junior media elite that has settled in along the Smith and Court street corridors of F-train Brooklyn.

"I really wanted to look at the thirtysomething generation, the Gen-X's. I thought, 'Where could it take place?'-and sitting in Cobble Hill, I thought, 'Here is as good a place as any.' That's really the only reason."

Indeed, Cobble Hill is already too expensive for Ross and Rachel and Chandler and Monica et al., the characters that ostensibly lived on Grove Street in the West Village when Friends first hit the air in 1994. But for Hollywood, finding the next bankable yuppie neighborhood in New York has become as much a part of a winning formula as finding the next hip neighborhood is for young New Yorkers. Maybe that's why everyone was so pissed off: If Hollywood catches on that quickly to your little discovery of a neighborhood, you know you never really discovered it at all.

Mr. Roda has no such pretensions. "When you move to New York, that first six-or-seven-year blur is very exciting," he said. "You ignore how uncomfortable you're feeling; you pay huge amounts of money for crap. But after a while, the smell, the sounds are not acceptable any more. You get into your 30's, and you can't live the way you used to live. My rent increased when I moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn, but my quality of life jumped way up. It's just more manageable.

"I was having dinner with a friend at this restaurant on Court Street, and a couple walked in," Mr. Roda continued, as if pitching a scene from his pilot. "Very sorta neat, very neat-not even J-Crew, more like Burberry. My friend was looking at them and said, 'This neighborhood is dying.' But my friend is like this power attorney. It was kind of funny. We like to fancy ourselves as having something a little extra; the Burberry couple are probably saying the same thing about the next person that comes in."

So is there any hope?

"Someone was talking about how Williamsburg had gone to shit and gotten commercialized," Mr. Roda said, referring to what was actually a satire piece in New York magazine. "And this guy-I think he was a poet-slash- ashtray-maker-quoted Vincent Gallo saying something about how the neighborhood used to be pure, and now it's like a dorm." Mr. Roda smirked. "When a caricature of hip says a neighborhood's not hip, it kinda makes it hip again."

About 10 years ago, I found the perfect example of this genre for a bargain few-thousand yen in the farty-businessman department of the Isetan department store in Tokyo (we pixies shop our brains out when we visit Japan). Every subsequent wearing of this spiffy impermeable elicited gratifying shrieks of "Is that Helmut?" Time, alas, has not been kind to this garment, and as I yanked it from the closet to combat the recent hideously unpredictable April showers, I was forced to confront the fact that, with its stained collar, frayed cuffs and dangly buttons, it was more Ratso Rizzo than Dolce & Gabbana.

Ever conscious of my diminutive stature, I headed to Burberry's new custom trench-coat department, entitled "Art of the Trench" (212-407-7100), on the fifth floor of the recently tarted-up 57th Street store, where made-to-measure specialist Erika Denis greeted me enthusiastically and unfurled her tape measure.

The first style I tried on was the historic, momentous, spectacular Trench 21. Explanation: At the beginning of the 20th century, military officers discarded their rubberized "mackintoshes" for Burberry raincoats. Modifications including knife clips, a snuggly throat-latch, epaulettes and a rifle-pad were added to accommodate the needs of First World War trench warfare, et voilà -the "trench" coat was born! For $1,495 (a mere $5 more than the off-the-peg price!), this spectacular Humvee of outerwear can be custom-made to fit even toi , with the fabrics and linings of your choice.

With Hollywood fantasies stiffening my sinews, I dove into a small size, fully expecting to look like a cross between Humphrey Bogart and Audrey H. I ran to the mirror, only to find I was staring at Linda Tripp/Linda Hunt. Be warned! The generous cut, double-breasting and elaborate detailing are an unmitigated disaster on any but the tallest and butchest.

Sensing my level of trauma, Erika attempted to calm me down with tea and scones ($10) ordered from the Mad Tea-Cup, the bijoux in-house café on the third floor. I tried on several more styles. The closest one to the raincoat of my dreams was a model called the Shearford ($1,075), a single-breasted, fly-front number in stony beige with theclassicBurberry checked lining. Even if the buttons get dangly, you can't see them. When Erika broke the news that I would have to wait seven weeks to receive my custom garment-i.e., I would have it just in time for July 4 weekend-I elected to stay with my squalid Ratso Pervo for one more year.

For those of you without recourse to an existing raincoat, Banana Republic is offering the perfect 100 percent cotton, khaki pervert impermeable for a mere $159.99, reduced from $225. Or, for the same money, you could buy 30 street-corner umbrellas.

Re that Burberry trench: Why not club together with yoursiblings,dragDadto Burberry and order him a custom flasher for Father's Day?

Stay dry, and don't get arrested!

Mr. Stiller is currently in town at work on an untitled comedy directed by John Hamburg, who wrote Meet the Parents and wrote and directed the vastly underseen comedy Safe Men .

According to sources close to the production, Mr. Stiller has insisted on being called by the alias used on-set for security purposes by the production crew-even away from the public eye. Stacey Sher, the film's producer, denied that Mr. Stiller uses the alias for anything other than security purposes, and raved to The Transom about Mr. Stiller's on-set demeanor.

"Yesterday [Monday], Ben was taking pictures with kids outside John's Pizza," Ms. Sher said, adding that during Tuesday's shoot, Mr. Stiller ran up and down Ludlow Street in the rain "over and over and over again," hurtling over garbage bags, never once complaining, never once taking time in the heat tent. "He has been a dream to work with," said Ms. Sher.

But the source said that Mr. Stiller's nickname isn't the only thing that has the crew talking. On Friday, Nov. 8, according to the source, Mr. Stiller had a doctor's appointment in the West Village at 11 a.m. and rehearsal for Mr. Hamburg's film at 1 p.m., also in the West Village. The source told The Transom that Mr. Stiller, who is staying in an Upper East Side hotel, insisted that the production staff book him a room at 60 Thompson Street in the West Village-just in case he had some down time between appointments. The source said that Mr. Stiller never wound up using or paying for the room, but that the production had $175 worth of fruit and water waiting for him just in case-all of which a representative from the celebrity-friendly hotel denied.

Later that afternoon, according to the source, the film's crew was informed that Mr. Stiller had a personal chef who would need a car for the weekend. A producer on the film who asked not to be named admitted as much, but said that this request was not unusual, and that the chef needed the crew to book her a car "because she needed to get some pots and pans around the city."

The source also claimed that Mr. Stiller demanded that two hard phone lines be installed in his mobile trailer for each of the three days he spent shooting in New York. According to the source, Verizon representatives had to rewire the trailer each morning. The source said that Mr. Stiller would not emerge from his trailer until both lines were in place.

"We try to accommodate all actors," said one producer on the film. "[Two phone lines] is standard procedure in Los Angeles. Every major movie star in the city of Los Angeles has this, and we are a Los Angeles film company."

Topping it all off, according to the source, Mr. Stiller pitched a fit on Sunday, when he discovered that only one copy of The New York Times had been left in his trailer.

"I do not wish to dignify that garbage with a response," said Kelly Bush, Mr. Stiller's publicist in response to the litany of complaints. "None of that is true."

-Rebecca Traister

Idiot Wind

Some of the most political rockers of the 60's and 70's seem to be succumbing to the insidious influence of political correctness.

On Monday, Nov. 11, during the first of two nights at Madison Square Garden, Bob Dylan performed an unexpected rendition of the Rolling Stones 1971 paean to interracial, uh, romance, "Brown Sugar." In the original, three of the five choruses go "Brown Sugar, how come you taste so good / Brown Sugar, just like a black girl should"; two end with the variation "just like a young girl should." But Mr. Dylan, dressed in what looked to be black satin pajamas with red piping, and powering through the number with the conviction of a man who suspects that he may actually have written the lyrics himself, used the latter, color-blind version for all five choruses.

Mr. Dylan is in good company. On Oct. 29, Lou Reed managed to shock a roomful of staid Hollywood lefties at the Creative Coalition's "Seconding the First" event in support of free speech by self-censoring his 1972 song "Walk on the Wild Side." Mr. Reed abandoned his lyric "and the colored girls say" in favor of "and the girls say."

- R.T.

Stilton Crew

The Nov. 7 opening of the new Burberry's store on East 57th Street brought out the Brits. Two Sykes sisters, Alice and Lucy, came hand-in-hand, and models Sophie Dahl and Stella Tennant showed up, as did Vogue European editor-at-large Hamish Bowles. They were joined by a crew of New York luminaries that included socialite Blaine Trump in a white-fur cape, former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and gal pal Judith Nathan, Bungalow 8 owner Amy Sacco and Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, who at one point during the night referred to his date, Ms. Dahl, by using the very Burt Bacharach–ish phrase "my ladyfriend."

Guests were served such English staples as tiny shepherds' pies and Stilton cheese puffs that fouled many a bird's breath.

It seemed like the right place to conduct a poll on the very Bond outerwear.

" Loo-oove trench coats," said socialite Nicky Hilton. "Love them. I'm going to get one personalized in pink cashmere lining."

Ms. Hilton added she would have it inscribed. With "Ms. Hilton."

"You have to have a certain elegance to carry it off," volunteered Stella Tennant, dressed in a black Balenciaga jacket and black jeans. "It could look frumpy."

Pausing on the staircase on his way out was the devilish-looking, mustachioed designer Claude Sabbah of Da House of Sabbah. He had come with his ladyfriend, Vanity Fair contributing fashion editor Anne McNally, whom he called "my beautiful friend/guide." He wore a leopard-print pantsuit, an orange leather coat, a gold tooth, gold chains, gold hoops and a leather Louis Vuitton hat.

"It's so funny-I was photographed 10 years ago in full Arabic Burberry's outfit I did myself in ID magazine," Mr. Sabbah said. "I had a strong story with the clan, Burberry's-I love England. Anyway, at the time, the head of Burberry's Europe, Mr. Levy, wanted to sue me. And I called him and said, 'How can the Levy sue the Sabbath?' He said, 'I'm not suing you,' and we became friends. True story !"

-Elisabeth Franck

Vespa Drill

The Vespas are coming! Many a tear has been wiped of late in lower Soho as Canal Jeans, a beacon of downtown no-nonsense cool, announced it will be closing for good in January. But just two blocks down, the nouveau retro-chic yuppies are giddy … they're getting their very own Vespa boutique.

Over 600 checkbook-wielding romantics daydreaming of Roman Holiday flocked downtown on Wednesday, Nov. 6, in order to hail the swarm of candy-colored scooters. They're overflowing from Manhattan's first Vespa store, Vespa SoHo, on Crosby Street between Howard and Grand.

Filmmaker Joel Coen and his actress wife, Frances McDormand, beat the mad rush, convincing store owner Zach Schieffelin and his wife, Wen, to sell them a Silver ET4 before the 1,800-square-foot boutique's official opening on Nov. 7.

Live with Regis & Kelly co-host Kelly Ripa's husband, All My Children 's Mark Consuelos, won't shut up about wanting one of the damned things, and as you'd expect, she won't shut up about it, either. The whole thing gave Regis Philbin a good chuckle when his co-host announced last week that her husband was so excited about going to the opening party that he showed up at the boutique's cobblestone stoop a night early by mistake.

Showing up on the right day, however, was crooner Tony Bennett and his son, Danny. A chauffeured limo brought them to the event, where Mr. Bennett nervously mounted a green bike that sat parked in the store. "I hope this thing isn't on," he said, adding that he doesn't even know how to drive a car. Vroom!

-Anna Jane Grossman

The L'Impero Curse

Daniel Radcliffe might have wished this weekend that he had the same thunderbolt-shaped scar on his forehead that got his character, Harry Potter, such special treatment at Hogwarts.

The 13-year-old, in town for the Nov. 10 Ziegfeld premiere of the second installment of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets , tried to score a Saturday-night dinner reservation at L'Impero, the hot, nine-week-old restaurant improbably located in Tudor City.

L'Impero co-owner Chris Cannon (also owner of the restaurant-crowd after-hours favorite, Bar Veloce) explained that the concierge from the Essex House, where Mr. Radcliffe was staying, called him personally on Saturday afternoon about Mr. Radcliffe's party of five.

"We were already four tables overbooked," said Mr. Cannon. "It would have been great to have Harry Potter here, but that's not what's going to keep you in business for the next 10 years. It's not like he lives in New York.

"Maybe if I was 8 years old, I would have been going nuts," Mr. Cannon continued, "but we need to take care of our customers, and a party of five-people could have had to wait for hours."

-R.T.

The Transom Also Hears …

… The Four Seasons restaurant felt like a fever dream during the final hours of Friday, Nov. 8. Co–general manager Julian Niccolini was gadding about in a brightly hued blue-green shirt beneath his tailored suit, and punk-era power popster Joe Jackson sat at the Grill Room bar in a black leather trench coat and green plaid pants. Mr. Jackson, who told The Transom he'd never been to the Four Seasons before, had come to see the performance of Echo, a two-person band featuring D.J. Takuya Nakamura and singer Joy Askew, with whom Mr. Jackson has performed. The concert, which took place in the hallowed Grill Room, followed a dinner in honor of winemaker Cristina Mariani, who runs Castello Banfi vineyards in Italy.

-Frank DiGiacomo

Make vroom! Welcome to November, a month that people take a little bit too seriously , a month of melancholy and corduroy , and the only time of year you'll hear New Yorkers utter the word "succotash" with a straight face on the crosstown bus …. Now that subway service is starting to lag and subway cars are turning back into rolling homeless shelters (can you spell "projected $6 billion city budget deficit for 2003"?), all sorts of New Yorkers have decided that they actually live in Europe and are zipping perilously around town on Vespa motor scooters , looking like, well, complete idiots (if you're not a skinny guy from Rome, don't even try it … ). And so tonight, an 1,800-square-foot Vespa boutique opens in Soho with a party-invitees include skinny designer/homemaking hostess Cynthia Rowley , the usual retinue from The Sopranos and

actor Matthew Broderick ( baby on board! ).

[13 Crosby Street, 7 p.m., by invitation only, 822-8171.]

Sufferin' Soon-Yi? Woody Allen recently called himself a "failed artist" in the Italian press, so one can only imagine the earful his wife is getting …. Tonight, three guys in their 30's from Levittown, Long Island, present a satire, Who Killed Woody Allen? (plot: the Woodman has been poisoned and his celebrity friends are all suspects). "It's kind of odd and sort of dark," said director and co-writer Tom Dunn , who came up with the idea after he lost the rights to produce Mr. Allen's Death . He insists there's nothing vindictive about it. "We're making every effort to get him down; I think he'd get a kick out of it. We're not dealing with the Soon-Yi thing, personal stuff. It's sort of a send-up of celebrities more than it's about Woody-Woody's just a device, I guess." Meanwhile, it's beginning to dawn on us that our Thanksgiving is decidedly not going to be straight out of Hannah and Her Sisters but more like Take the Money and Run , maybe with a soupçon of Sleeper ….

[Triad Theater, 158 West 72nd Street, 9:15 p.m., 206-1515.]

Thursday 7th

Two more store parties … Get ready for your man to stink like a sperm whale! But first , the mossy scent of wet wool floods midtown as Burberry hotshot Rose Marie Bravo welcomes a passel of Brits- Viscount David and Viscountess Serena Linley, model Stella Tennant, editors Glenda Bailey and Sykes sisters Lucy and Alice (not Plum, alas; she's in London)-to the spankin' new 24,000-square-foot, six-floor Burberry store on 57th Street , with its floating, folded-wood grand staircase, decorative fireplaces, gentlemen's lounge and tea bar. Quasi-deep question to pose to the addled Brits: Are stores the new palaces? Meanwhile, slightly loopy French designer Paco Rabanne -who makes clothes out of metal discs, believes in Nostradamus , etc.-launches his new ambergris-based fragrance, Ultraviolet Man ($55 for a 3.4-ounce eau de toilette spray). Question to pose to French people : When the heck did your men stop washing and start wearing eau de toilette ?

[Burberry store opening, 9 East 57th Street, 6:30 p.m., by invitation only, 228-5555; Ultraviolet Man launch, Vue, 151 East 50th Street, 6:30 p.m., by invitation only, 564-6367.]

Break out the ear plugs, do-gooders! Strangely resurgent 80's pop-metal band Bon Jovi is playing at a party for the Robin Hood Foundation (helps poor children); still-experimenting-after-all-these-years musician Laurie Anderson is booked at the Dia Center for the Arts fall gala; and, downtown, the Rhythm Collective and Full Circle Souljahs are thumpin' away at Safe Space's benefit-watch for committee member and moon-faced Columbia undergrad Julia Stiles to trot out the "urban" moves she busted in Save the Last Dance ….

[Robin Hood Rocks party, Roseland, 239 West 52nd Street, 7 p.m., 227-6601; Dia Center, 548 West 22nd Street, 6:30 p.m., 243-7300; Safe Space, Capitale, 130 Bowery Street, 8 p.m., 226-3536.]

Friday 8th

Buttolph, buttocks … Our pet theory-that New York Times restaurant critic Biff ("One Star") Grimes went on hiatus to sulk about his section's "buzzy" hire of Nigella Lawson -is blown to smithereens! The New York Eats Out exhibit at the New York Public Library, which Mr. Grimes has been curating these many months, opens today, drawing extensively from the Buttolph Menu Collection you didn't know the great library was harboring …. Later, one more reason to skip Secretary : The Film Forum shows The Phantom of Liberty , Luis Buñuel's kinkiest comedy- leather-clad maîtress whips businessman's bared rump as moviegoers titter smugly into their spouses' necks.

[ New York Eats Out , New York Public Library, Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, 11 a.m., 930-0830; The Phantom of Liberty , Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, 727-8110.]

Saturday 9th

Rosie's got balls … Magazine-editor-gone-terribly-awry Rosie O'Donnell resurfaces suddenly as auctioneer at the Promise Ball benefiting juvenile diabetes, M.C.'d by NBC's Chuck Scarborough (wears lady's glasses). Meanwhile, the milking of The Sopranos ' moment continues, with "Comedy You Can't Refuse," a night of Italian-American comedy and music hosted by Steven R. Schirripa , (plays Bobby Baccala, one of the more lovable characters on the show). "It's going to be easygoing fun, and that's it," Mr. Schirripa told us. "I've hosted quite a bit of stuff, you know-goddamn phone." We inquired about his book, A Goomba Guide to Life . "I'm sick of talking about it." No prob!

[Promise Ball, Waldorf-Astoria, 301 Park Avenue, 6:30 p.m., 689-2860; Comedy You Can't Refuse, Comedy Garden, , 8 p.m., 307-7171.]

Sunday 10th

Prima Donnas! O.K., so no one's exactly staying up all night under the bedclothes with a flashlight and a big bag of Cheetos, unable to put Donna Tartt's new novel down …. So what? The most overscrutinized second act in American letters stomps to the Upper East Side tonight for a reading and some finger foods …. Meanwhile, in Williamsburg-the new home of the landed gentry-it's a Generation Y band called the Donnas . Donna R., a.k.a. guitarist Allison Robertson, 23 and married(?!) , called from outside Minneapolis to address misconceptions about her group. "There are so many , I mean it's hard to figure out where to start -we have a list! The biggest ones are that we're not good people; that we're, like-you know, slutty and really f*cked up …. I think a lot of times, people think of us as a joke band -you know, like it's all a big farce -and it's sad, it's sad that people can't grasp the fact that we, like, know full well what we're doing. We know fully well where the humor is and where the humor isn't ." Anyone else miss the Spice Girls?

[Donna Tartt reads, Lenox Hill Bookstore, 1018 Lexington Avenue, 6:30 p.m., 472-7170; Donnas, Warsaw, 261 Driggs Avenue, 8 p.m., 718-387-0505.]

Monday 11th

Feeling the Pinchbeck: Shopping and tripping: A pre-holiday sample sale downtown benefits amFAR (worthy AIDS charity)-"There's lamps, pillows, body lotions, stuff like that," said amFar's Stefanie Paupeck. Later, a panel titled "Shamanism and Globalization" features yage-swilling carpet knight Daniel Pinchbeck , Open City co-founder and author of Breaking Open the Head : A Psychedelic Journey Into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism . Anyone else feel we've had enough of men writing about inner quests and ladies writing about the "work/life" balance?

[Samples Off Fifth, International Toy

Center, 1107 Broadway, 3 p.m., 806-1724; Shamanism and Globalization, Lecture Hall, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, 7 p.m., 854-6842.]

Tuesday 12th

Two more Daniels: Downright adorable chef Daniel Boulud celebrates his new book, Chef Daniel Boulud Cooking in New York City . Special Eight-Day Week correspondent Noelle Hancock asked M. Boulud, " If you could be any food, what would you be?" To which he saucily replied: "It depends on whether you want to be licked, chewed or smelled. If I want to be licked, I'd like to be rum-raisin ice cream with chocolate chips …. As for chewing, I'd like to be a piece of sausage-it's so tough and dry." What does he think of the phrase You are what you eat ? "Why do you think I'm holding a hot dog on the cover of the book?" Is there anything that he doesn't like to cook? "I don't like to cook things that are slimy and gooey … like okra. But as long as it's fresh, I don't mind if it's pig's feet, frog's legs or calf's brains. And if I don't want to cook it, I'll get someone else to do it for me." Somewhat easier crash mark for tonight: Details editor Daniel Peres has a party for Politically Incorrect washout Bill Maher , whom Mr. Peres has hired to write a column in an ongoing attempt to get someone- anyone! -to read Details . Post-post-ironic party-escort possibility: radio host Kurt Andersen!

[Daniel Boulud, Daniel, 60 East 65th Street, 6 p.m., by invitation only, 933-5267; Details party, Paramount Bar, Paramount Hotel, 235 West 46th Street, 7 p.m., by invitation only, 630-4839.]

Wednesday 13th

Karenna Gore warning in effect for tonight, as her environmentally conscious but tubby Dad - Al Gore to the rest of us-bellies into town with wife Tipper to do some sloppy, public French kissing and plug their new book, Joined at the Heart: The Transformation of the American Family , at the 92nd Street Y. Prepare yourself for lots of "humorous" one-liners from Mr. Gore about Florida and chads and "stolen elections," which reveal a seething inner rage that he's apparently quenching with lots of eclairs.

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

Lotus entertain you! Let's face it: No matter how many well-showered fashion models, cozy little pie companies and fancy flower markets they put in the meatpacking district, the place just isn't gonna smell good until they clear out those dear, departed cows …. But can you blame a gal for trying? Tonight at Jeffrey where we have spent many a rainy weekend afternoon fitfully running our hands over the $500 shoes designer Masakï Matsushïma (protégé of the pleats-obsessed Issey Miyake) launches a perfume called Mat, which will retail for about $50 per ounce and stink to high heaven of ancestral bamboo, mango pulp, juniper berry, watermelon, parsley and tea leaves, squeezed mint and lotus flower. (Note to conspiracy theorists: That somewhat ersatz-feeling nightclub Lotus, with its plump and unnecessary velvet ropes, is just a few doors down the street.) According to a publicist, the guest list cleaves neatly into three social groups: "your standard magazine types" (Anna Wintour and Kate Betts, or more likely their terrified deputies), "your society types" (perhaps Nina Griscom or Marina Rust, both of whom also qualify as "standard magazine types") and then "your models" (Carmen Kass, Maggie Rizer). And if you think about it, "your magazine types" are really just people who deep down want to be "your model types," while "your model types" have sex with rich men hoping to become "your society types," while finally "your society types" spend tens of thousands of dollars on plastic surgery trying to be "your model types."

[449 West 14th Street, 7 p.m., by invitation only, 206-7447, ext. 27.]

Thursday 19th

Entrenched! Come spring, those aforementioned "magazine types" will insist that one purchase a $600 trench coat, one of those purportedly useful garments that is the color of wet mulch and totally not waterproof …. Tonight Burberry, fancy trench-coat purveyor with penchant for plaid, throws a cocktail party at Saks to preview an exhibit called The Art of the Trench Coat. Who's not invited: artist Damian Loeb, who put the Burberry plaid in one of his paintings; and designer Miguel Adrover, who rudely deconstructed a Burberry coat in his first New York show …. Meanwhile, Matthew Broderick, who is rumored to be married to Sarah Jessica Parker, opens with Nathan Lane, who plays Max Bialystock in The Producers. Can the musical version even come close to the sublimely funny Mel Brooks film? Will Producers co-producer Harvey Weinstein accidentally sit on Sarah Jessica Parker and squash her? Meanwhile, ever notice how, in acting couples, when the wife's star begins to eclipse the husband's, hubby suddenly decides it's time to "get back to my true love, the theater?" Watch for Chad Lowe in Cabaret any day now.

[Burberry, 611 Fifth Avenue, the Men's Store, sixth floor, 5:30 p.m., by invitation only, 940-4242; The Producers, St. James Theatre, 246 West 44th Street, 8 p.m., 239-6200.]

Spring drinking! Is it more of a champagne evening (spindly heels, clutching at the elbows of your girlfriends, copious burping), or do you just want to plunge straight into the gin and vodka (glum Dries Van Noten Oxfords, pawing some greasy-haired guy behind a pillar, waking up in Williamsburg hel-lo?). Begin at Nicole's, the feminine version of Fred's (restaurant-in-basement concept), where you can join the girls of Marie Claire in their little slip dresses, guzzle Veuve Clicquot and fête Adweek editor-of-the-year Glenda Bailey, the Jean Brodie of women's magazine editors. Then throw on a moth-eaten cardigan and walk, briskly, three-quarters of a mile north, where the Whitney Contemporaries, that bunch of young art ninnies, is celebrating the museum's new high-tech exhibit: BitStreams & Data Dynamics. Your refreshments: Mercury Gin, Peconika Vodka and desserts from … Nicole's! Mmm.

[Marie Claire, Nicole's, 10 East 60th Street, 6 p.m., 841-8489; Whitney Contemporaries, 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street, 9 p.m., 570-7737.]

Friday 20th

She got her Beatle now where's yours? Heather Mills, the girlfriend of Paul McCartney (she's only a bit older than his designing, horsy daughter Stella not that there's anything wrong with that), has given away some 27,000 prosthetic limbs to land-mine victims around the world; tonight she and her cute, crêpe-faced beau hotfoot it to a reception honoring themselves for their work on behalf of Adopt-A-Minefield. Social land mines at the party include actor Chevy Chase, writer Fran Lebowitz, bandleader Paul Shaffer and restaurateur Keith McNally. The Observer suggests sending a check, then bringing that pugnacious yet secretly sexy guy at the office to "White-Collar Fights" night at the Church Street Boxing Gym, where literary Ivy League wusses like to go to prove how, despite their soft exteriors, inside they're just seething beasts (with book deals and bimonthly pedicures). We asked a tough-sounding gym staffer named Nate to set the scene. "A D.J. plays hip-hop and R&B; we have students, businessmen, stockbrokers; they have headgear, mouth guards, protective gear," he said. "I wouldn't call it a singles scene per se, but a lot of singles show. I think the competition against yourself is what's really the rush. There's beer, no food." Click.

[Cherry, W New York–The Tuscany, 120 East 39th Street, 6:30 p.m., 981-5139; White-Collar Fights, Church Street Boxing Gym, 25 Park Place, doors open 7:30 p.m., 571-1333.]

Saturday 21st

You'd hope that, with summer and bathing-suit season around the corner, Manhattan would be buckling down and easing off the hard stuff …. But no-oo, spring drinking continues apace at the Italian Wine Merchants on Union Square, which begins a weekend-long tasting of over 100 white wines from the region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. It's co-hosted by Slow Food U.S.A., a nonprofit organization of about 5,000 people, so we called Slow Food chick Erika Lesser to find out if slurping down the occasional Starbucks Frappuccino is gonna send us straight to hell. "You know, New York is one of the fastest cities around," she said. "Just the pure manifestation of speed that is New York makes it hard on a daily basis for people to incorporate 'slowness' as we like to call it into their lives. It starts with the small gestures, taking small steps to combat the industrialized food culture. In the beginning, it might be something as simple as going to the green market and buying some tomatoes instead of paying a huge premium for tomatoes flown in from Holland." Yeah, those Dutch are always up to no good.

[Italian Wine Merchants, 108 East 16th Street, noon, 988-5146.]

Sunday 22nd

Feeling Puckish? There's a reason today is pokier than life on an artisanal goat-cheese farm. Yesterday's throbbing Slow Food singles scene moves to the Puck Building for a risotto workshop. Elsewhere, Janis Joplin's siblings, Michael and Laura Joplin, open a rock musical of the blues mama's life called Love, Janis. Like all culturally oriented New Yorkers, we stay home for our customary Sunday VH1 Behind the Music marathon.

[Slow Food orgy picks up at the Puck Building, 295 Lafayette Street, 1 p.m., 988-5146; Love, Janis, Village Theater, 158 Bleecker Street, 8 p.m., 307-4100.]

Monday 23rd

That big PalmPilot in the sky must have short-circuited, because there are just too many high-wattage galas tonight! Don't say we didn't warn you the entire city is going to be crawling with people in "creative" black tie. (Please, fellows, no bolos! Also, be on lookout for untrained Manhattan males who, trying to recreate Russell Crowe's ghastly Oscars get-up, affix a ribboned medal to their lapel if you see one of these idiots, we will give you $10 for every tomato you hurl at his head ….) Speaking of which, on the Upper East Side, Anna Wintour and Annette de la Renta co-chair the $3,500-per-head Costume Institute Benefit Gala, which used to be known as the "Party of the Year" when it was held in December and now that it's been moved to wacky, moist spring, well, anything could happen! Wardrobe tip: Don't wear Chanel the Chanel people were ticked off when the Met gave them the slip in favor of a Jackie O. exhibit …. If you pedal across town, it's the P.E.N. Literary Gala! (Think lots of boring speeches and then Warner Books chief Larry Kirshbaum pulsating like a wild man on the dance floor.) Your "literary table" hosts include: Dominick Dunne, Eve Ensler, Nora Ephron, Rick Moody, George Plimpton and Gay Talese. Sparkle, sparkle! Meanwhile, spiky "downtown" folk like Laurie Andersen, Karen Finley, Philip Glass, Yoko Ono and Eric Bogosian charge you big bucks for performance art for the Kitchen's 30th-anniversary gala at the Roxy (wardrobe tip: roller skates!) … and, we also have midtown covered: Bob Costas and a bunch of Yankees are raising money for multiple myeloma (cancer of the bone marrow.) We need smelling salts.

[Costume Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, 7:30 p.m., 570-3948; P.E.N. Literary Gala, New York State Theater, Columbus Avenue at 63rd Street, 7 p.m., 334-1660, ext. 111; Kitchen, the Roxy, 515 West 18th Street, 7 p.m., 243-7300; Multiple Myeloma, Cipriani 42nd Street, 110 East 42nd Street, 6 p.m., 203-972-1250.]

Tuesday 24th

Uma, Korda …. So Henry James wrote a big, boring book called The Golden Bowl, and of course Ismail Merchant and James Ivory took one look and thought, "We can do this cr*p with our eyes closed!" The movie version, starring Uma Thurman (the Julia Roberts of independent film), Kate Beckinsale (the British Neve Campbell) and Nick Nolte (the, well, Nick Nolte!), premieres tonight and then, in a stunning example of old-fashioned capitalism, there will be a reception at Steuben, the crystal tchotchke store on Madison Avenue, which is auctioning off the first in a limited edition of 50 Steuben "golden bowls" that retail for just $14,000 apiece. What is this, a Merchant Ivory production … or QVC? (Mitigating factor: Some proceeds will benefit the Merchant and Ivory Foundation, which supports emerging artists, and the American Foundation for AIDS research.) Meanwhile, a few blocks north, the overspill from the P.E.N. Literary Gala last night hits the party for Simon & Schuster stud muffin Michael Korda's 12th book, Country Matters: The Pleasures and Tribulations of Moving from a Big City to an Old Country Farmhouse. Bonus dirty excerpt! "The pigs' droppings … produced so many melons that we couldn't eat them all and had to give them away to everybody who stopped at the house, along with immense quantities of tomatoes and zucchini…." Note to self: Avoid tonight's crudité platter.

[The Golden Bowl, screening, Paris Theater, 4 West 58th Street, 6 p.m., auction and reception to follow, Steuben, 667 Madison Avenue, by invitation only, 817-9404; Michael Korda, Madison Avenue Bookshop, 833 Madison Avenue, 5:30 p.m., by invitation only, 207-6926.]

Wednesday 25th

Renée Zellweger turns 32 today so go see her, that scoundrel Hugh Grant and Colin Firth (thump-thump, thump-thump) in Bridget Jones's Diary! Why? Because it's grrreat!

[777-FILM.]

Lotus entertain you! Let's face it: No matter how many well-showered fashion models, cozy little pie companies and fancy flower markets they put in the meatpacking district, the place just isn't gonna smell good until they clear out those dear, departed cows . But can you blame a gal for trying? Tonight at Jeffrey where we have spent many a rainy weekend afternoon fitfully running our hands over the $500 shoes designer Masakï Matsushïma (protégé of the pleats-obsessed Issey Miyake) launches a perfume called Mat, which will retail for about $50 per ounce and stink to high heaven of ancestral bamboo, mango pulp, juniper berry, watermelon, parsley and tea leaves, squeezed mint and lotus flower. (Note to conspiracy theorists: That somewhat ersatz-feeling nightclub Lotus, with its plump and unnecessary velvet ropes, is just a few doors down the street.) According to a publicist, the guest list cleaves neatly into three social groups: "your standard magazine types" (Anna Wintour and Kate Betts, or more likely their terrified deputies), "your society types" (perhaps Nina Griscom or Marina Rust, both of whom also qualify as "standard magazine types") and then "your models" (Carmen Kass, Maggie Rizer). And if you think about it, "your magazine types" are really just people who deep down want to be "your model types," while "your model types" have sex with rich men hoping to become "your society types," while finally "your society types" spend tens of thousands of dollars on plastic surgery trying to be "your model types."

[449 West 14th Street, 7 p.m., by invitation only, 206-7447, ext. 27.]

Thursday 19th

Entrenched! Come spring, those aforementioned "magazine types" will insist that one purchase a $600 trench coat, one of those purportedly useful garments that is the color of wet mulch and totally not waterproof . Tonight Burberry, fancy trench-coat purveyor with penchant for plaid, throws a cocktail party at Saks to preview an exhibit called The Art of the Trench Coat. Who's not invited: artist Damian Loeb, who put the Burberry plaid in one of his paintings; and designer Miguel Adrover, who rudely deconstructed a Burberry coat in his first New York show . Meanwhile, Matthew Broderick, who is rumored to be married to Sarah Jessica Parker, opens with Nathan Lane, who plays Max Bialystock in The Producers. Can the musical version even come close to the sublimely funny Mel Brooks film? Will Producers co-producer Harvey Weinstein accidentally sit on Sarah Jessica Parker and squash her? Meanwhile, ever notice how, in acting couples, when the wife's star begins to eclipse the husband's, hubby suddenly decides it's time to "get back to my true love, the theater?" Watch for Chad Lowe in Cabaret any day now.

[Burberry, 611 Fifth Avenue, the Men's Store, sixth floor, 5:30 p.m., by invitation only, 940-4242; The Producers, St. James Theatre, 246 West 44th Street, 8 p.m., 239-6200.]

Spring drinking! Is it more of a champagne evening (spindly heels, clutching at the elbows of your girlfriends, copious burping), or do you just want to plunge straight into the gin and vodka (glum Dries Van Noten Oxfords, pawing some greasy-haired guy behind a pillar, waking up in Williamsburg hel-lo?). Begin at Nicole's, the feminine version of Fred's (restaurant-in-basement concept), where you can join the girls of Marie Claire in their little slip dresses, guzzle Veuve Clicquot and fête Adweek editor-of-the-year Glenda Bailey, the Jean Brodie of women's magazine editors. Then throw on a moth-eaten cardigan and walk, briskly, three-quarters of a mile north, where the Whitney Contemporaries, that bunch of young art ninnies, is celebrating the museum's new high-tech exhibit: BitStreams & Data Dynamics. Your refreshments: Mercury Gin, Peconika Vodka and desserts from Nicole's! Mmm.

[Marie Claire, Nicole's, 10 East 60th Street, 6 p.m., 841-8489; Whitney Contemporaries, 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street, 9 p.m., 570-7737.]

Friday 20th

She got her Beatle now where's yours? Heather Mills, the girlfriend of Paul McCartney (she's only a bit older than his designing, horsy daughter Stella not that there's anything wrong with that), has given away some 27,000 prosthetic limbs to land-mine victims around the world; tonight she and her cute, crêpe-faced beau hotfoot it to a reception honoring themselves for their work on behalf of Adopt-A-Minefield. Social land mines at the party include actor Chevy Chase, writer Fran Lebowitz, bandleader Paul Shaffer and restaurateur Keith McNally. The Observer suggests sending a check, then bringing that pugnacious yet secretly sexy guy at the office to "White-Collar Fights" night at the Church Street Boxing Gym, where literary Ivy League wusses like to go to prove how, despite their soft exteriors, inside they're just seething beasts (with book deals and bimonthly pedicures). We asked a tough-sounding gym staffer named Nate to set the scene. "A D.J. plays hip-hop and R&B; we have students, businessmen, stockbrokers; they have headgear, mouth guards, protective gear," he said. "I wouldn't call it a singles scene per se, but a lot of singles show. I think the competition against yourself is what's really the rush. There's beer, no food." Click.

[Cherry, W New York–The Tuscany, 120 East 39th Street, 6:30 p.m., 981-5139; White-Collar Fights, Church Street Boxing Gym, 25 Park Place, doors open 7:30 p.m., 571-1333.]

Saturday 21st

You'd hope that, with summer and bathing-suit season around the corner, Manhattan would be buckling down and easing off the hard stuff . But no-oo, spring drinking continues apace at the Italian Wine Merchants on Union Square, which begins a weekend-long tasting of over 100 white wines from the region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. It's co-hosted by Slow Food U.S.A., a nonprofit organization of about 5,000 people, so we called Slow Food chick Erika Lesser to find out if slurping down the occasional Starbucks Frappuccino is gonna send us straight to hell. "You know, New York is one of the fastest cities around," she said. "Just the pure manifestation of speed that is New York makes it hard on a daily basis for people to incorporate 'slowness' as we like to call it into their lives. It starts with the small gestures, taking small steps to combat the industrialized food culture. In the beginning, it might be something as simple as going to the green market and buying some tomatoes instead of paying a huge premium for tomatoes flown in from Holland." Yeah, those Dutch are always up to no good.

[Italian Wine Merchants, 108 East 16th Street, noon, 988-5146.]

Sunday 22nd

Feeling Puckish? There's a reason today is pokier than life on an artisanal goat-cheese farm. Yesterday's throbbing Slow Food singles scene moves to the Puck Building for a risotto workshop. Elsewhere, Janis Joplin's siblings, Michael and Laura Joplin, open a rock musical of the blues mama's life called Love, Janis. Like all culturally oriented New Yorkers, we stay home for our customary Sunday VH1 Behind the Music marathon.

[Slow Food orgy picks up at the Puck Building, 295 Lafayette Street, 1 p.m., 988-5146; Love, Janis, Village Theater, 158 Bleecker Street, 8 p.m., 307-4100.]

Monday 23rd

That big PalmPilot in the sky must have short-circuited, because there are just too many high-wattage galas tonight! Don't say we didn't warn you the entire city is going to be crawling with people in "creative" black tie. (Please, fellows, no bolos! Also, be on lookout for untrained Manhattan males who, trying to recreate Russell Crowe's ghastly Oscars get-up, affix a ribboned medal to their lapel if you see one of these idiots, we will give you $10 for every tomato you hurl at his head .) Speaking of which, on the Upper East Side, Anna Wintour and Annette de la Renta co-chair the $3,500-per-head Costume Institute Benefit Gala, which used to be known as the "Party of the Year" when it was held in December and now that it's been moved to wacky, moist spring, well, anything could happen! Wardrobe tip: Don't wear Chanel the Chanel people were ticked off when the Met gave them the slip in favor of a Jackie O. exhibit . If you pedal across town, it's the P.E.N. Literary Gala! (Think lots of boring speeches and then Warner Books chief Larry Kirshbaum pulsating like a wild man on the dance floor.) Your "literary table" hosts include: Dominick Dunne, Eve Ensler, Nora Ephron, Rick Moody, George Plimpton and Gay Talese. Sparkle, sparkle! Meanwhile, spiky "downtown" folk like Laurie Andersen, Karen Finley, Philip Glass, Yoko Ono and Eric Bogosian charge you big bucks for performance art for the Kitchen's 30th-anniversary gala at the Roxy (wardrobe tip: roller skates!) and, we also have midtown covered: Bob Costas and a bunch of Yankees are raising money for multiple myeloma (cancer of the bone marrow.) We need smelling salts.

[Costume Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, 7:30 p.m., 570-3948; P.E.N. Literary Gala, New York State Theater, Columbus Avenue at 63rd Street, 7 p.m., 334-1660, ext. 111; Kitchen, the Roxy, 515 West 18th Street, 7 p.m., 243-7300; Multiple Myeloma, Cipriani 42nd Street, 110 East 42nd Street, 6 p.m., 203-972-1250.]

Tuesday 24th

Uma, Korda . So Henry James wrote a big, boring book called The Golden Bowl, and of course Ismail Merchant and James Ivory took one look and thought, "We can do this cr*p with our eyes closed!" The movie version, starring Uma Thurman (the Julia Roberts of independent film), Kate Beckinsale (the British Neve Campbell) and Nick Nolte (the, well, Nick Nolte!), premieres tonight and then, in a stunning example of old-fashioned capitalism, there will be a reception at Steuben, the crystal tchotchke store on Madison Avenue, which is auctioning off the first in a limited edition of 50 Steuben "golden bowls" that retail for just $14,000 apiece. What is this, a Merchant Ivory production or QVC? (Mitigating factor: Some proceeds will benefit the Merchant and Ivory Foundation, which supports emerging artists, and the American Foundation for AIDS research.) Meanwhile, a few blocks north, the overspill from the P.E.N. Literary Gala last night hits the party for Simon & Schuster stud muffin Michael Korda's 12th book, Country Matters: The Pleasures and Tribulations of Moving from a Big City to an Old Country Farmhouse. Bonus dirty excerpt! "The pigs' droppings produced so many melons that we couldn't eat them all and had to give them away to everybody who stopped at the house, along with immense quantities of tomatoes and zucchini ." Note to self: Avoid tonight's crudité platter.

[The Golden Bowl, screening, Paris Theater, 4 West 58th Street, 6 p.m., auction and reception to follow, Steuben, 667 Madison Avenue, by invitation only, 817-9404; Michael Korda, Madison Avenue Bookshop, 833 Madison Avenue, 5:30 p.m., by invitation only, 207-6926.]

Wednesday 25th

Renée Zellweger turns 32 today so go see her, that scoundrel Hugh Grant and Colin Firth (thump-thump, thump-thump) in Bridget Jones's Diary! Why? Because it's grrreat!

[777-FILM.]

Recently, the son of Rao's owner, Frank Pellegrino Jr., opened Baldoria, a restaurant in the theater district. Dinner at Baldoria was a very different experience. We walked into a jostling vestibule where a harassed hostess tried to persuade us to wait at the bar until our party was complete. The place was packed solid, mostly with tourists. Service was friendly but slow, and the feeling of being in a tourist spot was accentuated by the side orders of unnecessary vegetables pressed upon us, dishes "for the table" that had already been individually ordered, and unrequested bottles of mineral water that topped up the bill nicely.

Al Goldstein, the publisher of Screw magazine, was at the next table, dressed in a Superman T-shirt. His companion also wore a T-shirt; hers was patterned like the lining of a Burberry raincoat. There was no point in wondering what on earth they found to talk about, since conversation at Baldoria is virtually impossible. The noise bounces off the wood floor and walls (which were covered with carpet and fabric in Baldoria's former incarnation as Wally and Joseph's, a steakhouse) and reverberates around, making you feel like you're sitting in the middle of a battlefield. I suppose noise gives a place a certain energy, but I heard recently that some restaurant owners like it because it makes customers drink more. "I'm not supposed to drink," yelled one of my friends when he sat down. Five minutes later he'd ordered a vodka martini straight up. There you have it.

The decor at Rao's slowly evolved and acquired a patina over the years; Baldoria's is the work of a designer. It's a beautiful simulation of a turn-of-the-century New York Italian restaurant, on two floors seating 62 downstairs and 74 upstairs, with a mahogany bar, mirrors, brown leather banquettes and pressed-tin ceilings that look yellowed by cigar smoke. There's a 50's juke box like the one at Rao's on each floor, but the songs I heard at Baldoria (apart from what sounded like a modern rendition of "My Girl") were more along the lines of Britney Spears than Tony Bennett or Frank Sinatra.

Baldoria's executive chef, Michael Shiell (who happens to be Frank Jr.'s cousin), has put together a menu with many of Rao's signature Neapolitan classics–the marinara sauce, the roasted red peppers and the lemon chicken–but it's also been updated with a raw bar and some lighter, more sophisticated Northern dishes. You can begin with Rao's seafood salad, a simple mixture of lobster, crab, calamari and shrimp in lemon and olive oil. It's one of those unfussy dishes that stands on its own. Don't pass up the wonderful marinated roasted red peppers either, tossed with pine nuts and raisins in a fruity olive oil. The pasta e fagioli soup was so-so, and the baked clams oreganata bit tough and bready under a nicely browned crust. Mussels were a better choice, in a delicate white wine sauce.

I liked the new-style salads: arugula and shaved artichokes with lemon and Parmesan and a delicious combination of wild asparagus and fava beans with bufala ricotta cheese. But my favorite dish (and you're not going to believe me) was the eggplant soufflé. I ordered it in a fit of masochism, for just recently I'd tried foie gras soufflé–an experience I hope to never repeat. But the eggplant soufflé was a veritable explosion of Mediterranean flavors with a wonderful aftertaste.

If you like peppers and Italian sausages you will find plenty to like about Baldoria's menu. Orecchiette with broccoli rabe and crisp chunks of sweet and hot sausage could not be bettered, nor could the sausages with peppers and onion, or the thick, pink veal chop which came under a thick curtain of roasted hot and sweet peppers (watch out for those innocent-looking green cherry peppers; they are fiery). Game hen was tender and juicy, with sausage, peppers, mushrooms and herbs.

Pollo al limone, a Rao's signature, is made by broiling the chicken first, then cutting it into chunks and browning it in a coating of lemon juice, herbs and olive oil. It was a bit dry on this occasion, but the crispy skin was delicious. Too bad the veal scaloppine with capers and lemon was gluey from the flour, and shrimp with bread crumbs and oregano was dry and salty. Monkfish with sherry sauce was dull (and I confess to a prejudice against this fish. It's either great–on rare occasions–or boring, with nothing in between). Branzino (Mediterranean bass), on the other hand, is a fish of subtle character; it was cooked simply with carrots and leeks in sea water, which gave it a clean, briny taste. Grouper was good, too: a lovely plain summery dish with arugula, lemon and slivers of Parmesan.

Baldoria's desserts are lavish, rich and addictive. They include cassata, a bombe filled with ricotta mousse with chocolate, hazelnuts and cherries, topped with white chocolate sauce and a light, creamy chilled strawberry zabaglione. Fresh peach semifreddo with wine syrup was ordinary, but the small beignets, puffs filled with chocolate caramel and espresso cream, were splendid.

Even though its doors are open to a very select few, the mystique of Rao's has spawned something of a cottage industry, with a line of food products, including a bottled tomato sauce, a CD of their jukebox hits and even an award-winning cookbook. Certainly Baldoria's food is as good as I had at its uptown sibling. I came to Baldoria one night with a friend who is lucky enough to be a regular at Rao's. What did he think? "Rao's is quieter," he said.

Baldoria

* *

249 West 49th Street

582-0460

Dress: Casual

Noise level: What? Did you say something?

Wine list: Mostly Italian, well priced with interesting choices

Credit cards: All major cards

Price range: Main courses $18.50 to $56

Dinner: Monday to Saturday, 6 p.m. To 11 p.m.

* Good

* * Very Good

* * * Excellent

* * * * Outstanding

No Star:a Poor

Right in the middle of New York's fall 2000 fashion shows, at around 8 P.M. on Feb. 6, as fashion editors put in appearances around the pool of Diane Von Furstenberg's West Village carriage house, this year's show-to-be-at had been decided.

"Are you going to Miguel?" asked a French fashion editor, nervously checking her watch and casting an eye toward the door.

At 9 P.M., Miguel Adrover, 34, had arranged to show his second collection ever at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center at 107 Suffolk Street. No invitations had been sent out. It wasn't on any schedule. Assistants of those who wanted to attend had to be dispatched to the 57th Street offices of publicist Marion Greenberg to beg for passes: a dollar bill with the address stamped on it.

Inside the theater, in a low-ceilinged room with a T-shaped catwalk and loud, classical piano music playing, the room grew overcrowded. Designer Nicole Miller; Vogue creative director Grace Coddington; New York Times Magazine stylist Anne Christensen; and Harper's Bazaar editor at large Brana Wolf, filed into the front row next to Vogue editor Anna Wintour. There was no run-of-show program with which to follow along, and the lights were dimmed so that they just illuminated the runway.

The show delivered a quiet rebellion against the rich-bitch look being shown by older, established designers. Volunteer models wore Burberry's trench coats, an Hermès belt or a swatch cut from a piece of Louis Vuitton luggage sewn onto it-trademark labels, twisted out of context for emphasis. A Burberry coat was turned inside out and worn backwards and rebelted, with the label front and center. A parody of the gray flannel suit featured one pair of pants cut open at the crotch, pulled over the head, with the arms in the legs, worn as a jacket, cinched by an Hermès logo belt. Even Yankees caps had been sewn into the shoulders of a plain navy sweatshirt.

"Other shows are like catalogues," Mr. Adrover said after the event. "My show is an adventure … I tried to represent the streets of New York. Like a rich, chic lady from uptown and a hip, chick lady from downtown. Mix it together and represent the street. Rich class, poor class, and at the end of the day, all walking on the same street … The street doesn't have class."

Then there was the Victorian-style suit, complete with a knee-length jacket, which Mr. Adrover claimed he made from a mattress that belonged to the writer and actor Quentin Crisp. "When he died, they put all his stuff on the street," said Mr. Adrover, who was a neighbor of Crisp's. "And I was trying to show a little bit about how hard it can be living on the street. And I just took it home and pulled it apart and created a nice, tailored suit. The stains? It doesn't matter. Life is hard, I will say."

He added: "I hate label whores."

But the label whores just adore Mr. Adrover. The day after the show, under the tents in Bryant Park, he was news: He's got so much humor! He's really pushing the envelope! I've been watching him for a while.

Women's Wear Daily put the Burberry's dress on its Feb. 7 cover and called Mr. Adrover "New York's New Star." And Cathy Horyn, in The New York Times , raved until she was reduced to a one-word sentence: "Wonderful." Vogue.com called him "one of the most creative new talents on the fashion scene." Burberry's, now on a tireless mission to become hip, was initially less than pleased, and considered legal action. By Feb. 18, the company had cooled off.

"After the show, my head was like a balloon," said the designer, who seemed to be hiding out at the offices of Ms. Greenberg, who is his pro bono publicist-at least for now. "I've got so many messages and everything. I am overwhelmed.… But if you think I've got a minute to relax? It's not like that. You have a whole other show to do."

He was munching on leftover Valentine's Day candy. "Valentine's is for losers," he said.

"All my editors tell me he's the next big thing," Ms. Wintour told Women's Wear Daily .

Mr. Adrover's story has become an urban fashion legend, and "it's a long story, baby!" he said. He was born on the Spanish island Majorca, in a town of 200; his parents are almond farmers. He dropped out of school at age 12 and, a few years later, headed off to London where, while working as a janitor in hotels, he started to become a regular at nightclubs.

"It was punk," he said. "The New Romantics." It was also in London that he first got interested in fashion and met Alexander McQueen, who is now the designer for Givenchy. "I fell into fashion accidentally," said Mr. Adrover. "It just comes up, you know? I have a passion for clothes. Alexander is a good friend of mine, and I collaborated with him for several years, for about five or six seasons. It was not a job, it was helping a good friend."

He moved to New York in 1991 and began to design T-shirts under the label DOGG. They sold at Patricia Field, a store on East Eighth Street, and overseas in Japan. Four years ago, he opened his own store, called Horn, on East Ninth Street. It's filled with his own quirky, one-of-a-kind clothes and sometimes those of friends. Rarely, there's an Alexander McQueen showpiece hanging on the rack.

Despite the store, his studio and a wealth of connections, a big part of the legend is that this guy is destitute. In the chairs at Bryant Park, it was repeated over and over again. He's only got $13! He lives in a 300-square-foot basement! How poor, how untrained, how raw.

"He's famously impoverished," said Glenn Belverio, who interviewed Mr. Adrover for the fashion magazine Dutch . "He obviously doesn't come from wealth. And I think often people who come from poor backgrounds are keyed into esthetic things. Like style. I think there's something more genuine about their interest and the way they express it."

"It was a brilliant sendup of the whole Burberry plaid thing," said Mr. Belverio. "It was uncanny how he was able to focus on that and subvert it. I mean, this is someone who can't afford trend reports !"

Mr. Adrover's condition encouraged stylists, models and publicists to work for free. "He doesn't have any money at all," said Eric Daman, a stylist who worked 12- and 13-hour days for a month preparing for the show. "We'd all bring food to eat, we'd all share food. That kind of thing. It's like a big paradox, that he can't buy a bagel at the deli, but has the cover of Women's Wear Daily saying he's a big star. He still can't afford to buy cigarettes."

"I live in a small apartment," Mr. Adrover said. "So it just shows that creativity can come from anywhere. It has nothing to do with money. It's not a lucky thing. I worked day and night for many months. Sacrificing eating to buy fabric."

Last September, Mr. Adrover presented his first collection at the spring shows-a lesser version of this year's event. He described it as the story of a Brazilian woman who was kicked out of her rain forest home by loggers. She migrates to Mexico, where she joins the Zapatista rebels, and then to New York, where she winds up homeless, wearing a resewn American flag.

"Even though it wasn't a great retail success," said Linda Dresner, owner of the eponymous Park Avenue boutique and the only retailer who regularly carries Mr. Adrover's clothes, "I still very much admired his point of view."

But an event in November kept Mr. Adrover's reputation alive. Vogue asked to photograph some pieces for an upcoming issue. According to Mr. Adrover, every single item was stolen from a closet in the magazine's offices. Vogue confirmed the story. "It was upsetting, but in a way it was kind of flattering," he said. "I mean, when I realized someone was really behind it, I was like, 'Wow!' Because there were a lot of things from other designers there, things that were much more expensive. And they didn't take the things from the other designers. They took my stuff ."

Barneys New York ordered a number of pieces from the new collection the week of Feb. 14. And, Mr. Adrover claimed, he's hearing offers from various backers.

"Maybe I'll sign with a big house," he said. "It depends on the house. I've got to hear offers, and I'm getting some offers. But with the press I've been getting, you know, cover of Women's Wear Daily , New York's new star, well, the investors look at that. You're going to get a backer."

Feb. 22. C'est moi , c'est moi , Phyllis Stine. In London for fashion week. Gray day. So gray. If I wanted so much gray, I could have stayed home and worn a Marc Jacobs cashmere sweater over my head. Duh!

Sorry I haven't written lately. Dear Diary, man plans and God laughs: You won't believe what has been happening.

Mr. Stine, from whom I am divorced, disappeared. Like he's been kidnapped or gotten himself into a monastery or whatever. But as he never got around to removing me from his will, I am his executor and, as such, find myself having to run his billion-dollar entertainment business. Returned to New York Jan. 22 from Paris couture week and sold his publishing company to the highest bidder because, really, there was too much for me to deal with and go to the collections.

Arrived in London yesterday. Did I say it was a gray day? At the suggestion of trendy fashion friends am staying at One Aldwych hotel in London WC2B 4BZ–all the sections of London are attached to this massive alphabet rigamarole, I suppose, because everyone in London is so literary they can't get enough of the language, which is called here the Queen's English. Speaking of literary, first person I saw in the lobby was Bret Easton Ellis, the novelist, who is in town for the British publication of his novel, Glamorama . I'm in the book.

Massive jet lag attack this morning. Savage.

Dined last night with good pal Mr. Salt at a fish restaurant called J. Sheekey on the St. Martin's Court. Could walk from hotel. Wore deep blue Comme des Garçons suit with Tuleh beaded top and Prada sport shoes as it was Sunday night. Mr. Salt says London gets his juices flowing. "London is the capital of Europe now," he said. It's certainly the most expensive, I responded, looking at the menu. The mixed grill and hothouse spinach cost us $200 and Mr. Salt only had one glass of wine. At next table was Bret Easton Ellis. Jonathan and Ronnie Cooke Newhouse, the publisher and advertising creative director, were in the middle of giving him a dinner party. Very smart group of about 16, or so, including the photographer Jergen Teller and fashion designer Bella Freud. Mr. Salt said we were really up there now.

Feb. 22. Teatime. Back in hotel having attended runway show to launch Burberry's new high-end label called Burberry Prorsum, which Burberry translates roughly as "future." Like I said, London is very literary. Collection was just fine, especially the newly muted trademark Burberry tartan. Even though I've only been here 24 hours, I can report that that tartan is a metaphor for the new Great Britain: old England melding into the new. A boom with a view.

Attended fashion show of Helen David English Eccentrics as I am quite taken by English eccentrics such as the Two Fat Ladies and the late British poet Stevie Smith: "Nourish me on egg, Nanny/ And ply me with bottled stout/ And I'll grow to be a man/ Before the secret's out"–but found nothing eccentric here.

Wonder what the Queen is doing tonight?

Feb. 23. Went to a marvelous party last night at Christie's London for a preview of the Unforgettable: Fashion of the Oscars exhibit to take place in New York on March 18 to benefit the American Foundation for AIDS Research. Other hosts were Christie's chairman Lord Hindlip–I'm rubbing elbows with lordships, dear Diary–London art patroness Janet de Botton, actress Natasha Richardson and Anna Wintour. Vogue has underwritten the charity auction. Names heavily dropped concerning who was there: Tom Ford of Gucci, John Galliano of Christian Dior, Tommy Hilfiger–who was in town to open his new London shop–Gianfranco Ferre, Denise Hale, Elizabeth Hurley and Hugh Grant, Charles and Kay Saatchi, Hamish Bowles, Stella McCartney, Michael Roberts, Naomi Campbell, Miranda Brooks, Simon Doonan, Andre Leon Talley, Isabella and Detmar Blow–she wears the amusing Philip Treacy hats and he is the lawyer who also owns the trendy Modern Art, Inc. gallery, in London E2 7DJ–Lady Helen Windsor, and Bill Blass and Carolyne Roehm who are staying at the Connaught while they shop for furnishings for Carolyne, whose house in Connecticut burnt down a few weeks ago.

Anna Wintour was concerned that the rainbow effects of my multicolor silk-satin ribbon jacket and skirt with matching flotilla hat by Alexander McQueen for Givenchy would clash with the crimson damask in the Great Room at Spencer House, but she asked me to the after-party dinner there, anyway. Actually, if the invitation had come a little earlier I might have worn something else, but nevermind.

Rubbing elbows in London with real English lords and glossy magazine editors. Lord Jacob Rothschild, who several years ago restored the house which had once been home of the ancestors of Diana, the Princess of Wales, made Spencer House available for the evening and I went right up to him and had a long chat. He said my accent "was enchanting." I explained it was purely New Jersey assisted by a few dramatics classes at college–or university, as they say here. The British are fascinated by accents.

At dinner, standing beside her seat at a long table in the crimson great room, Natasha Richardson made a speech I found quite moving. "It's so fitting that we are here," she said, "because I got the idea for the sale of Oscar dresses from Diana selling her frocks for charity. It seemed a great way to deal with leftovers." Natasha raised her glass to Diana. As her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, and sister Joely Richardson and half-sister, Kathy Grimond, looked on, she explained why she worked so tirelessly for the American Foundation for AIDS Research. "My father died of AIDS, and we vowed that we would do whatever we can to make sure no one would ever have to die that way."

After dinner, went looking for free-standing British lords. Met Manolo Blahnik in Spencer House's fantastic Palm Room, all gilded palm trees and gilded palm furniture.

"Thank you for your patronage," he said.

Duly noted: I swooned. Manolo Blahnik is my idolmaker!

Did I like England? he asked. I said I liked tonight, but as far as I could tell boom-boom England was getting to be New York. Strangers not particularly friendly anymore. Everyone in a rush.

"I don't think London has been the same since Diana died," he said. "She was the soul of England."

Literary me: Germaine Greer virtually said the same thing in an excerpt from her new book, The Whole Woman , published in The Daily Telegraph today.

Feb. 25. Yesterday a blur due to late night and jet lag. Leaving town tomorrow for New York. Obviously, leaping off without lords, just dresses. Hail to Alexander McQueen, the only reason to come to London during fashion week, although also liked Bella Freud presentation of a six-minute movie, directed by John Malkovich. And Matthew Williamson's show, very rich, hippie-style, which comes in handy sometimes.

Alexander McQueen's show happened in a truck depot inside of which was huge Lucite box done up like a snow dome. Next season he will show his collection in New York. Models walked the periphery while skaters skated inside the rink. Loved the wintery collection. Very Anna Karenina meets Björk.

"I knew someone would," Alexander said when he heard I ordered the stainless steel lacy skirt.

Billy's List: Quiz time!

1. According to various insiders, who will make model Stella Tennant's dress when she marries David Lasnet this May in England?

a. Oscar de la Renta.

b. Helmut Lang.

c. Vera Wang.

2. Of the following, which was named "Best Retail Project of the Year" in a recent issue of Interiors magazine?

a. Len Morgan's Cove Landing in Lyme, Conn.

b. The Cross at 141 Portland Road in London.

c. Sephora on Broadway.

3. Women's Wear Daily recently reported Ralph Lauren will branch out beyond its own brand and buy which of the following?

a. Levi's.

b. Club Monaco.

c. Country Road.

Answers: (1) b; (2) a; (3) b.