Shindigger

Baldwin and Thomas.

Baby It’s (Still) Cold Outside: Singing and Shivers at the New York Philharmonics Spring Gala

It was a quintessentially March evening. Though the sun was shining bright, the breeze added enough of a chilling twinge that guests shivered as they checked their coats at Avery Fisher Hall. The troupe was gathering for the New York Philharmonic’s spring gala, and given the ambiguous weather, their outfits bespoke the seasonal purgatory.

Some donned bright patterned frocks, deciding to ring in the season with open, if goose-bumped, arms, while assorted grand-dames entered in full fur coats. Half of the gentlemen had dusted off their Easter ties, but the rest chose more subdued neckwear hues. Overall, the group’s collective attire oscillated undecidedly somewhere on the spectrum between lion and lamb.

The Observer walked up the stairs toward cocktail hour directly behind a bronzed and conspicuously trim Alec Baldwin, and his yogi belle, Hilaria Thomas. Where had they been basking, we asked. “We went to Florida for the weekend. It was unusual, because I’m not much of a Florida person,” Mr. Baldwin said. “We had three days, or two and a half days …” he began. “Of paradise!” Ms. Thomas interjected, finishing his sentence with an adoring, eyelash-fluttering gaze.

“We would exercise in the morning and then lay by the pool all day,” Mr. Baldwin admitted. “And then exercise at night,” Ms. Thomas added. The Observer blushed. “Yeah, we had a lot of exercise.” Read More

The Independence Party Tries a Buttoned-Down Appeal

It’s been two years since the chairman of the New York State Independence Party, Frank MacKay, cut his hair and removed his earrings. At the time, he was traveling around the country, trying to lay the groundwork for a potential presidential campaign, and he realized that he’d be taken more seriously if he looked less Read More

Psychopunditry

It's Friday, and you know what that means: Only two more days until Sunday morning! If you're anything like me–and if you're reading this blog at 4:45 on a Friday afternoon, I suspect you are, you poor devil–Sunday morning is your Friday night, the few hours a week that make life worth living. There's Russert Read More

Elsewhere: Suozzi, Fulani, Spitzer, Karben

Gawker has all the Tom Suozzi you can handle.

Dawn Summers has a must-read riff on the race in the Brooklyn 11th congressional district, and how it’s affecting her family.

“Nothing you can do? There’d better be something you can do. There is an election coming up and if this is how Read More

Manhattan Institute, California Style

The Manhattan Institute has a well-produced indictment of Albany out today, and a new Web site to go with it.

Their bottom line is that the state taxes and spends too much, and the targets for blame are “the special interests,” identified as teachers unions, public authorities, public employees, public “servants,” and the plaintiffs’ Read More