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_

But we also learned some things. For instance Ms. Mortimer finally admitted on camera that Topper's family had a problem with her self-publicizing antics. "Topper, his family just hated that I was out there getting photographed all the time," she said. "Because in the old world of New York society you were only in the newspapers when you were born, you got married, and you died. And that was it." Topper's face is blurred out during his brief appearance on the show, which makes him look like a headless, walking suit. We also learned that much of the drama will be created by Dale Mercer, Ms. Mortimer's mother, who will try to get her daughter and Topper back together; that in socialite land, getting a drink thrown in your face sometimes requires calling the ambulance and the police (such was the unfortunate fate of Alexandra Osipow, who got in the way of Ms. Kirby and Mr. Johnson-Calderon's fight.); and, judging by Harvey Weinstein's non-blurry appearance on the show, he actually agreed to sign the disclosure agreement!

All-in-all the show was not-good in that very specific way that might actually bring in audiences. (Socialite Tatiana Platt posted to her Facebook last night: "Tatiana Platt was pretty horrifed by High Society last night.")

At the end of the episode Tinsley suggests that the audience check out some extras on the CW's website to learn interesting things about her, like whether she "eats Street Meat." We went, we tried to find out, and alas could not locate the answer.

But then there is the shameful practice of advertising glittering guests who have not in fact confirmed that they’re attending.

This is what happened on Saturday, May 31, at Gallery Bar on the Lower East Side, during a fund-raiser for Artists for L.W.A.L.A. (Living with a Life-Long Ambition), a philanthropic organization that gets young people involved with Africa.

A press release for the event had promised 42 names, including habitual gala-goers Dabney Mercer, Byrdie Bell, Olivia Palermo, Ally Hilfiger, Alexandra Richards, Nigel Barker, Richie Rich and others.

But not one showed—not a one! Not even Kristian Laliberte, the event’s publicist, deigned to make an appearance.

So what went wrong?

“I think that the mix-up must have been that many of the expected attendees thought that the event was a typical summer fund-raiser in the city occurring during the work week,” said Mr. Laliberte’s partner, Timo Weiland. “Bottom line, I am thinking that the explanation is a leaky datebook combined with a few of the people not having been invited or reminded.” (Mr. Laliberte could not be reached.)

“Well, they definitely didn’t R.S.V.P. since this is the first I heard of it,” said Alan Rish, whose clients include Lydia Hearst and Ally Hilfiger, both of whom were listed as confirmed guests.“Lydia was with her boyfriend on Saturday, and maybe she would have gone, but she never even knew about it,” he said. “And Ally is out of town, so she definitely wouldn’t have been attending.”

Ms. Palermo’s publicist, Caroline Curtis, whom The Observer reached by phone, said, “Olivia had no recollection of being invited or R.S.V.P.-ing to the event.”

“Anybody who has been in New York longer than five minutes knows not to rely on tip sheets,” said Mr. Rish. “To expect Lydia or Ally to show at an event on the Lower East Side in the summertime is just unrealistic.”

“No one gets very upset about it, but it does reflect on Olivia directly because it makes her look flaky or not committed if someone uses her name as a definite and then she doesn’t show,” said Ms. Curtis. “So I wish this weren’t the case, but as a publicist I know that it absolutely happens.”

“She finds it a little frustrating, because then people think that she’s being petty and say, ‘Oh, she couldn’t show up for her own charity,’” Mr. Rish told The Observer.

Cinema Society founder Andrew Saffir, who hosts many of the city’s high-profile events—most recently organizing the Iron Man after-party with attendees like Gwyneth Paltrow, Diana Ross and Michael Kors—said, “Gosh, no, that is absolutely not O.K. No one wants their name on something that they don’t plan on attending. If you are advertised to attend, you’d certainly want to follow through.”

“Even I have found my name on tip sheets for things I either declined or hadn’t responded to,” he said.

ialeksander@observer.com