By Brian Thomas Gallagher 9/04/12 7:17pm

Drinking Games

WEB_SAVE_kidadultbars4_Andrew_DeGraff final

Prolonged Alco-lescence: What’s With All the Kids’ Games in Bars?

Back in July, the website Brokelyn threw a party at Williamsburg’s Crown Victoria that it dubbed “Salute Your Jorts.” The theme of the evening was summer camp. A “bug juice cocktail” was just $4. In addition to Ping-Pong and bocce, the planned activities included spin the bottle and making friendship bracelets and macaroni art. Attendees were told, “don’t forget clean undies, just in case they get strung up the flagpole.” It sounded horrible, the low-water mark of a trend in recent years of turning bars into amusement parks for adults. Read More

By Foster Kamer 7/20/12 5:52pm

Wonderful Moments in Public Speaking

Oh Fran How We Love You

Fran Lebowitz Goes to Town on NYU, NYU Students, and Bloomberg’s Micro-Apartments (Video)

New York City icon, author, and essayist Fran Lebowitz needs little in the way of introduction. Via ANIMAL New York, she recently made an appearance at SoHo bookstore McNally Jackson for the release of the book ’While We Were Sleeping: NYU and the Destruction of New York‘ which was written by a group of NYU faculty members (but of course) who are in opposition to the university’s president, John Sexton. Ms. Lebowitz was her usual, fiery self, which is to say: Utterly captivating and refreshingly impassioned. Read More

By Aaron Gell 4/12/12 8:40am

Nightlife

9 Photos

Veep Premiere

Vice Squad: Ray Kelly, Bill Keller & Fran Lebowitz Hit the Premiere of Veep

Armando Iannucci’s new HBO series Veep, which premiered on Tuesday night at the Time Warner Center, looks like a winner—more Biden than Bentsen. Starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the shaky-cam comedy is to the West Wing what a bucket of Popeye’s is to a bowl of flax-dusted Brussels sprouts (less wholesome but considerably tastier).

During the cocktail hour preceding the screening, the premise of the show gave us an excuse to ask everyone : Who is your favorite vice president? Fortunately, guests were in a festive and charitable mood. No doubt they were already anticipating the post-screening filet mignon awaiting them at Porter House.

“You know what? I’ve never been asked that before,” Fran Lebowitz replied when we tracked her down in a corner of the 10th-floor reception area. “That’s a great question.” She thought a little. “Well, there was Johnson, and he became the president. Which is why you can’t nominate someone like Sarah Palin.” Read More

By Daniel D'Addario 8/16/11 6:20pm

The Eight-Day Week

Ann Curry, Sheila Nevins, Gloria Steinem, Katie Couric, and Tina Brown.

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Steinem [Updated]

Gloria Steinem either was or was not interested in talking about The Playboy Club, the upcoming NBC series depicting the milieu in the buxom-bunny warrens where she’d worked, undercover, in the 1960s. “It’s defunct, it doesn’t exist anymore,” she told The Transom, adding to comments in another interview in which she told Reuters she hoped Read More

By W.M. Akers 1:32am

Art Calendar

The Big Think

Intellectuals, unite. This fall, the ideas and ideologies will be flying at New York museums. Here’s a look at some of the more important, or interesting, lectures and readings coming up.

The Morgan Library & Museum

Reading Mark Twain

Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2010, 6:30 p.m.

$30 for non-members

Read More

By Tom McGeveran 12/20/07 5:22pm

Michael Cunningham on Joan Didion at the National Book Awards

The National Book Foundation has released videos from the National Book Awards (hosted by Fran Liebowitz!) Here’s Fran introducing Hours novelist Michael Cunningham, who presents an award to Joan Didion after introducing her witha little speech. Afterwards you can go watch your Chris Crocker or Jacob Lodwick video or whatever. Merry stinkin’ Christmas, ingrates!