Suck on this, Champs Elysées! For the third year running, New York's Fifth Avenue boasts the most exorbitant retail rents on the planet.

According to brokerage Cushman & Wakefield's annual talley, which tracks the world's top 233 shopping locations across 47 countries:

Joanne Podell, senior director of Cushman & Wakefield's retail services, told Commercial Property News that the sharpest increases have come in--gasp!--Midtown:

Of course, envoking that power doesn't necessarily translate to an equally high rate of cash-register reciepts, noted C&W's Gene Spiegelman:

See, it's not about the money. It's about leverage. Get it? Guess you just have to be there.

- Chris Shott

HILLY: It might seem trivial to you, but we live in the kind of world where that kind of thing matters. And I don’t want to be with someone who is so cavalier that he feels his girlfriend’s feelings don’t matter, that he can just walk out with any tramp into any taxi at any time of night—

GEORGE: Can I just—

HILLY: That’s just insensitive and selfish!

GEORGE: Calm down! Listen, here’s what happened—

DR. SELMAN: Where do you think this is going to go?

GEORGE: No—we need to back up. We met my friend for dinner at the steakhouse—

HILLY: There’s no explanation; it doesn’t matter—

DR. SELMAN: Well, you know something, Hilly? I guess the question has been asked previously: How much are you going to put up with? You must have limits.

HILLY: Actually, I do have limits, and I’ve been thinking about them a lot more seriously recently— especially after this.

GEORGE: I thought you wanted to stay at the club and I needed to get out, and I just went home and as soon as I got home, I called you.

HILLY: Despite all of this, I do think that you made some progress, because it was the first time that you were able to leave that place before 3 a.m.

DR. SELMAN: How do you guys view the nature of your relationship?

GEORGE: The night at Bungalow 8—I mean, the place was like 75 percent sexy girls, and I happened to know a half-dozen of them. I was afraid to get too close to them, have a conversation— let me finish!—because I thought Hilly would come over and hit them over the head with a bottle of Grey Goose!

HILLY: Oh, that’s ridiculous.

GEORGE: You’ve done that before!

HILLY: I have not. I’ve slapped a few people, and that’s not that big of a deal.

DR. SELMAN: How would you feel if she left the place with some other guy?

GEORGE: What, like a gay guy?

DR. SELMAN: No, a heterosexual guy.

GEORGE: Umm, and went straight home like I went straight home?

DR. SELMAN: If you didn’t even know where she went.

GEORGE: Well, I don’t know. That’s a good question. All I know is that I had a window of opportunity to get out of there. I would have stayed, if someone would’ve come over to me and cheered me up, and I would have been back in it.

DR. SELMAN: Why wouldn’t you have said, “You know, Hilly, I’m not in the mood—let’s leave”?

GEORGE: I did say that!

HILLY: No, no!

GEORGE: I said that and I walked to the door, and you were still there talking to some friends. I waited a few minutes and then I said to myself, “I gotta go now or I’ll be here until it closes.”

DR. SELMAN: It doesn’t seem to me that she wouldn’t have been amenable to leaving.

HILLY: But then also, in 24 hours, I find out that, “Oh, by the way, that girl I shared the taxi home with …. ” I was like, “ What!?” The one thing that got him to leave Bungalow 8—and get home before freaking 8 o’clock in the goddamn morning and leave me behind to get raped and killed like that poor 16-year-old girl—was some ho. Just imagine how that makes me feel.

DR. SELMAN: How does that make you feel?

GEORGE: She was a nice—

HILLY: I don’t care what she was! I don’t care if she’s the Virgin Mary. I hate her.

DR. SELMAN: Why do you think this is funny, George?

HILLY: It’s horrible. I mean, it really makes me feel like—I’m not joking, George. It really makes me feel like, you know, maybe it’s time to, you know …. I don’t want it to be one of those textbook stories about, “Oh, she gave him the ultimatum and then walked away.” But you need to make some decisions and figure out—I know I talk about being jealous of other girls, I admit that readily, and it’s something I want to work on. But in terms of the respect, or lack thereof, that you give me, I think that maybe that’s something that you need to think a little bit more about and … I don’t know ….

GEORGE: Well, can I ask you one thing? Did you have a good time at the Hugo Boss party the other night?

HILLY: It was fun.

DR. SELMAN: What does that question mean, exactly?

GEORGE: It means that we’ve had some ups and downs, but overall we’ve had a pretty good summer.

HILLY: George, relationships aren’t about quid pro quo. Because I feel jilted because you left me alone stranded in a bar the other night, you can’t remind me of the fabulous evening the week prior.

GEORGE: I’m really sorry. I’ve already explained myself like 10 times to you.

DR. SELMAN: I would think it would be a common courtesy to anybody, that if you’re leaving before them—

GEORGE: I know. I was waiting for you for like five or 10 minutes, you were talking to some people, I’m sorry.

HILLY: It’s O.K.—you don’t have to apologize anymore. I’m not looking for that. I just want you to know the feelings that have been going on in my head. I wouldn’t be sitting here right now if I didn’t accept your apology.

DR. SELMAN: But why are you putting up with this, Hilly?

HILLY: Because I love George! And he puts up with a lot from me, too.

DR. SELMAN: What does he put up with from you?

HILLY: I don’t want to talk about it.

DR. SELMAN: If you don’t want to talk about it, Hilly, you don’t have to talk about it—but could you at least say why you don’t want to talk about it?

HILLY: No. I don’t feel like it right now.

GEORGE: The stuff that I put up with? Um—

DR. SELMAN: Well, she might not want you to reveal it. Do you know what she’s referring to?

HILLY: Can we talk about me next week?

GEORGE: It’s just that she drives me crazy once in a while.

DR. SELMAN: But you know relationships usually work if there’s some equality. We’re hearing about really bad behavior from you. And yet she hangs in and says: Well, you put up with stuff from her. We don’t hear any about of that.

GEORGE: I’ve tried time and again for us to find common interests.

DR. SELMAN: You have common interests.

GEORGE: Let me finish this, please. We’ve tried museums, going to church, Broadway plays, witchcraft. I’d just like to get into anything together. I guess we are both reading Taki’s prison memoir right now.

HILLY: Why is it that every day I come home, you’re sitting on the couch in that weird sort of like—he’s naked except for his boxers, kind of like a little pod child. He’s been sitting there for hours, he probably hasn’t been doing—I don’t know what he’s been doing—but it looks like he’s been sitting there kind of comfortable in that spot, yet comfortably miserable. And then I walk in and I’m exhausted after a day at work, and I just need time to sit and not talk to anyone, and then he gets up and goes into his room and shuts the door. Plays with his e-mail and whatever, and behind the door he’ll start screaming, “ Fuck! Mother fucker! What the fuck! Fuck!” And then silence. And I think, “O.K., based on previous experiences, I’m not going to interfere. I’m just going to wait here until I’ve been properly addressed.” So 10 minutes more goes by and I hear, “Goddamn motherfucking bastard! Why the fuck!”

GEORGE: It was the computer.

HILLY: So finally he’s like, “ Hilly! Get in here.” And I go in, he’s like, “Why is it doing this?” And he’s just typing all these gibberish e-mails to his friends. And he was referring to the margins. So I’m like, “O.K., George,” and I tried to grab the mouse, and he said, “ No, don’t!” And I swear he almost hit me. And I said, “George, just give me the mouse.” And I finally figured it out for him. And it’s like, to come home to something like that—do you really think I’d be bursting through the door: “Let’s go to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens!”

GEORGE: One thing she really likes about me is the pictures of me as a little kid. She’ll say, “You’re mean and grumpy and you get home at 6 a.m., but the real you is that little boy in his knickers with his poker-money pouch.”

DR. SELMAN: What you said before is that she liked the Hugo Boss party.

GEORGE: Oh yeah, we went to this great party, and I asked David Bowie for advice on whether we should get married, and he said, “I’m sorry, I have nothing!”

DR. SELMAN: You’re going on the assumption that she would marry you.

GEORGE: Yeah.

[ Silence.]

GEORGE: When I was in college, I remember reading something by D.H. Lawrence—the idea was that all this stuff we’re talking about, love and sex and all this stuff, you should just take it lightly.

HILLY: So get me a ring. Take it lightly. If we change our minds, I’ll give it back.

DR. SELMAN: So you would get married to George?

HILLY: I’d at least like to have a ring so we could take things a little more seriously. If it’s all so lighthearted, then what’s the problem? Maybe the taxi girl you’d prefer—I don’t know.

DR. SELMAN: Where’d did you go with her, anyway?

GEORGE: Look, there’s no way I’m going to be able to acquit myself on this—

DR. SELMAN: This is bad behavior.

GEORGE: I don’t— fine. O.K.

HILLY: Ohh! I know what did it. We showed up for dinner, and his friend Chris’ first comment was, “Wow, you two look like an Upper East Side socialite couple.”

GEORGE: That’s interesting. Good insight. Anyway, the fact is that Hilly is so cool, so great. I did say I love you, or whisper that, last night. And I know that no one else—let’s say no New York woman—would put up with this.

DR. SELMAN: You do?

GEORGE: I’m pretty sure. I’m a handful. The first night we decided to go out, I told her about my patterns with girlfriends: I always do something to screw it up somehow early on, and then I flip out. In college, there were girls from Mission Hills, very Hilly-like—I mean, no one’s like Hilly—but all real pretty. The first one, I actually stayed at Kansas University because of her. First night I met her, she said, “I’m gonna marry this guy.” Two weeks later, she informed me that we weren’t dating anymore. Two months later she told me, “If you call me again, I’m calling the police.”

DR. SELMAN: What happened in the relationship prior to Hilly?

GEORGE: It didn’t work out. I was cuckolded by her—and the one before that, too.

DR. SELMAN: Hmmm. I see.

GEORGE: But anyway, Hilly said that she too does things a month into the relationship to screw things up.

DR. SELMAN: Why would you leave her at Bungalow 8? Weren’t you afraid she might meet another guy and do the same thing to you the other two girlfriends did?

GEORGE: Well, I want to be careful answering this.

DR. SELMAN: You’ve certainly pissed her off enough to do something like that ….

GEORGE: I’ve never been worried about that. She’s not like the other girls. Maybe we should just forget this topic. But one’s dating history is somewhat relevant ….

DR. SELMAN: Yes—and also the reasons for failed relationships. The best predictor of the future is the past.

GEORGE: Well, here we are, and we’ve been in couples therapy for one year ….

DR. SELMAN: Don’t you think you could piss her off enough to go with some other guy? Since it’s happened to you before.

GEORGE: Look at that smile she just gave me. The answer is no.

DR. SELMAN: Why would you not think that?

GEORGE: I think that we’ve been through so much together that we’ve gone over these bumps. I think we’re in a different place now.

HILLY: So be nicer.

DR. SELMAN: Don’t you think it’s provocative to leave a club with another woman?

GEORGE: All right, I have nothing more—I’ve said all I can on this. It was a mistake, it happened, I was high on Vermont Green and I’d had beer and vodka—

DR. SELMAN: So now you’re saying that drugs made you do it.

GEORGE: I know, lousy excuse.

DR. SELMAN: What would have happened if you didn’t leave?

GEORGE: Nothing more to say about that. I’m sorry. But if you want to assess the situation some more, tell me what you think of us as a couple. Lay it on the line, give us the verdict. I’m ready.

DR. SELMAN: The verdict? This is not a courtroom.

GEORGE: Do you think we’ve gotten better or worse since she moved in? Give it to us straight.

DR. SELMAN: Does it matter what I think?

GEORGE: Yes! It matters.

DR. SELMAN: Why?

GEORGE: One could argue that by not answering that, you’re being passive. You’re just sort of going along with it.

DR. SELMAN: Well, what is your take on this? Because you are here, too.

GEORGE: I’ve said a whole lot.

DR. SELMAN: Do I think you have changed?

HILLY: I’m sorry to interject, but you know there’s only so much that he can observe in these sessions. For example, I haven’t even mentioned the fact that in the past two weeks, George has been, for the first time in ages, more outgoing. Tonight I’ve been spewing out all this stuff—

DR. SELMAN: So you think he’s functioning better?

HILLY: Yes, absolutely. I think overall, we’re better.

DR. SELMAN: It’s a big step, though, to get married. That’s something that’s completely different. It’s easy to get married to somebody; it’s not easy to get un-married.

HILLY: What about getting engaged?

[ Silence.]

HILLY: Start thinking a little more seriously about it. No definite date in mind! Nothing like that.

DR. SELMAN: So you want it to happen?

HILLY: I want to be engaged.

DR. SELMAN: Despite all of this!

HILLY: Oh my gosh, George, if you didn’t have a penny to your name, I would, you know, cancel my fall-winter order at Burberry and find a way to pay the rent and do whatever it takes—

GEORGE: I really do pay for everything. I have to fight to get your quarter of the rent. And this Con Ed thing ….

DR. SELMAN: You asked me my opinion. So it occurs to me that you’ve never been married, you’re 38 years old, you question your life. She is putting up with all of this from you. There are numerous examples of bad behavior. And it seems like you know Hilly is not turned off. So you could just turn up the volume.

GEORGE: I think I’m behaving much, much better every month we’re together.

DR. SELMAN: Do you agree with that?

[ Silence.]

HILLY: I don’t know if I can measure it on a scale like that.

DR. SELMAN: Has he ever left you in a bar before?

GEORGE: Once at Lotus, remember? You got really mad. Well, we made love last night; that was pretty hot—during Children of the Damned? You don’t like it when I bring that up. But that’s important? Sorry. Private?

DR. SELMAN: What could be private about making love while watching Children of the Damned?

GEORGE: On the topic of sex, you told us we should be having sex twice a day. My question is: O.K., I’m 38, we’ve been together for almost five years—isn’t that setting the bar kind of high?

DR. SELMAN: Did I say twice a day? Well, at least once a day.

GEORGE: Oh! Well, I know some people who’ve been together for a while and it’s more like once a month.

DR. SELMAN: Well, that’s their problem.

GEORGE: I don’t know—is that a problem? This friend of mine made it seem like it wasn’t a problem at all. And you said something about testosterone—does that come in pill form?

DR. SELMAN: Gel. You rub it on your skin. There’s also a drug out now to help you quit smoking. Chantix.

GEORGE: O.K. Can I have that and also get a prescription for … you don’t have any Viagra or Cialis samples do you?

[DR. SELMAN nods and gets some Viagra samples and hands them to GEORGE.]

[ To be continued.]

—George Gurley

Prior Articles: George and Hilly published 09/11/06 George and Hilly published 08/14/06 George and Hilly published 08/07/06 George and Hilly published 07/31/06 George and Hilly published 07/24/06 George and Hilly published 07/17/06 George and Hilly published 06/26/06 George and Hilly published 06/19/06 George and Hilly published 05/29/06 George and Hilly published 05/15/06 George and Hilly published 05/08/06 George and Hilly published 05/01/06 George and Hilly published 04/17/06 George and Hilly published 04/03/06 George and Hilly published 03/20/06 George and Hilly published 02/6/06 George and Hilly published 01/23/06 George and Hilly published 01/16/06 George and Hilly published 12/26/05 George and Hilly published 11/14/05 George and Hilly published 11/07/05 George and Hilly published 10/24/05 George and Hilly published 10/17/05 George and Hilly published 10/10/05 George and Hilly published 10/03/05 George ’n’ Hilly, Back in Couples, Turn on the Doc published 09/26/05 But Should We Get Married? Part III published 08/29/05 But Should We Get Married? published 08/15/05 Should I Get Married? My Hilly Joining Me In Couples Session published 08/08/05

[Lucille Lortel Theater, 121 Christopher Street, 6:30 p.m., 627-7373.]

Vive la DIFFA-rence! If you missed the Memorial Sloan-Kettering "High Rollers" benefit a few weeks back, this is your chance to tart yourself up like a Las Vegas streetwalker, girlfriend! Maggie Rizer, the sly strawberry blonde who models for Tommy Hilfiger and looks like she could use a nice big helping of mashed potatoes, is hosting "Casino: An Evening of High Stakes Support"- notice how benefits have long titles now, as if they were plays. What it benefits: the Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS. Whom you'll share a gaming table with: a collection of models (Alek Wek, Carmen Kass, Lauren Bush); a pride of editors (Anna Wintour, Polly Mellen, Hamish Bowles); and an embarrassment of freeloading journalists. Meanwhile, the swish Plaza Athénée hotel throws an opening party for its new restaurant, Arabelle-think lamb and little rounds of veal. A friend who's already managed to eat there told us: "They had some foam on some entree, but isn't foam over?"

[Cipriani 42nd Street, 110 East 42nd Street, 6:30 p.m. ,727-3100; Arabelle, 37 East 64th Street, 6 p.m., 646-638-0771.]

Thursday 21st

Five white guys at the Y! But first, three massive bronze spiders at the foot of 30 Rockefeller Plaza! Who says summer is punishingly dull? The spiders are the brainchildren of nonagenarian sculptress and New Yorker Louise Bourgeois. In 1995's "Ode to My Mother," Ms. Bourgeois wrote: "My best friend was my mother and she was deliberate, clever, patient, soothing, reasonable, dainty, subtle, indispensable, neat and as useful as a spider. She could also defend herself, and me, by refusing to answer stupid, inquisitive, embarrassing, personal questions." Speaking of which, carrot-topped commentator Jeff Greenfield is moderating a panel at the 92nd Street Y on "The State of the American Press" tonight. Ted Koppel, Bill Kovach, Tom Rosensteil and David Halberstam compare hairdos (Ted's helmet wins again!) and then pound you into dull-witted submission as they consider such burning questions as How do reporters put together their stories? Is the reliance on the media healthy, or has it gone too far? Our advice: Skip the panel and sneak away to get a bikini wax and a nice soak in the steam room (hello, sailor!) at the Y's new answer to Bliss, InSPArations. Or crash the book party for The Unwanted, Kien Nguyen's memoir about life under the Vietcong.

[Spiders, 30 Rockefeller Center, 980-4575; State of the American Press, 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Avenue, 8 p.m., 415-5500; InSPArations, 415-5795; The Unwanted, Merchant's House Museum, 29 East Fourth Street, 6:30 p.m., by invitation only, 613-1653.]

What's a B.A.P.? Like a J.A.P., but African-American …. Tonight is the book party for The BAP Handbook: The Official Guide to the Black American Princess; prominent B.A.P.'s in the book include the Williams sisters (Wimbledon starts Monday!), Naomi Campbell and Chaka Khan. (What, not Lizzie Grubman?)

[The Gemini Lounge, 221 Second Avenue, 6:30 p.m., by invitation only, 447-7800.]

Friday 22nd

Torpor in Tribeca … We feel that special summer depression that no pill can cure descending on us in a thick cloud, dampening our ambition and our up-and-at-'em spirit, making us want to do nothing but don $5 sunglasses and slip into a cold movie, but must it be Tomb Raider? Tribeca Film Center, the Film Forum of secretly wealthy Tribeca residents who like to flit around the neighborhood in faux paint-spattered jeans and flip-flops, is screening a pair of documentaries today. 1) Chain Camera, in which 10 students at a Los Angeles high school were given video cameras to film their lives in a kind of Real World gone horribly awry: they passed the cameras on to another 10 students, and so on, and so on … when will it end? 2) Director Michel Negroponte's film, W.I.S.O.R., about Manhattan's century-old subterranean steam-heating system and the big 700-pound robot that fixes it. Hey-who says summer in Manhattan is torture?

[54 Varick Street, 334-2100 for show times.]

Saturday 23rd

If you're gay, it's your day! Pound your tambourine hard for Gay Pride Weekend. In Sagaponack, the 80's revival washes ashore as the Go-Gos perform at the Mercedes-Benz-sponsored Love Heals party, benefiting the Allison Gertz Foundation for AIDS Education. Tell the slimmed-down head Go-Go, Belinda Carlisle, to go hog-wild at the finger-lickin' barbecue; we liked her plump! In the faraway and mysterious kingdom of Quogue, there is yet another "casino"-themed party, as Fox 5 anchorperson John Roland-the slightly nonplused-looking one-takes the helm for a "Sail Along the Moonlight Bay" benefiting the East End Hospice. Bring a lifejacket and plenty of beef jerky.

[Sail Along Moonlight Bay, Sandacres Estate, Quogue, 7 p.m., 631-288-7080; Love Heals, Luna Farm, 276 Parsonage Lane, Sagaponack, 8 p.m., 529-7935.]

Sunday 24th

You say "potato," we say "Pataki": Our lanky, dim, bizarrely popular Republican Governor turns 56 today, as his future opponent Andrew Cuomo continues to get angrier and angrier …. Meanwhile, if you're not invited to help blow out Mr. Pataki's candles, your only real option-besides a couple of arts festivals in Queens, which are too bleak for us even to go into-is head to KGB bar, where McSweeney's literary magazine sponsors four more white guys-John Hodgman, Todd Pruzan, Sean Wilsey and Arthur Bradford-who will warm up for their 92nd Street Y appearances 20 years hence by reading and singing songs.

[McSweeney's, KGB, 85 East Fourth Street, 7 p.m., 505-3360.]

Monday 25th

Condé Nast crush worse than usual in Times Square: It's the start of Summer Restaurant Week- $20.01 specials, plus drinks, tax and tip, which means the tab will come to more like $60.01, which shouldn't deter the Allure editors on expense accounts from scooting down to Artisanal …. Later, things get really claustrophobic when, in an example of simply bad planning, Taste of Times Square (TOTS), an outdoor food festival, begins at 5 p.m. (15,000 people went last year-you've been warned, burp!), so aforementioned Allure editors will now have some trouble getting a cab downtown to the Sigerson Morrison shoe boutique, where British author Anna Maxted, who's trying to hitch herself to the Bridget Jones bandwagon, reads from her new novel, Running in Heels, a tender tale about a coke-snorting bulimic. Bonus dirty excerpt: "'The vagina,' said my father once, 'is like an old sock.'" The Brits still don't really get sex, do they?

[Summer Restaurant Week, www.restaurantweek.com for participating restaurants; Taste of Times Square, West 46th Street between Broadway and Ninth Avenue, www.timessquarebid.org; Anna Maxted, Sigerson Morrison, 28 Prince Street, 5:30 p.m., 625-8925.]

Tuesday 26th

Before Nathan Lane was a big, unstoppable blimp flying high in The Producers, he starred in Isn't She Great, a crummy biopic about Jacqueline Susann based on a Michael Korda article in The New Yorker, back in that magazine's unfortunate "feisty" phase …. Today Interview co-hosts a party for Shadow of the Dolls, a sequel by Rae Lawrence to the original Valley of the Dolls, in the DKNY store on Madison Avenue …. And speaking of Jackie-sploitation, isn't it a wee bit tacky that there is now Jackie O.–themed makeup to capitalize on the Metropolitan Museum exhibit? What genius greenlighted that? Later, another wobbly collusion of art and commerce at the Hugo Boss Flagship Store, where peculiar artist Jeff Koons is installing some pieces; proceeds from an auction will benefit the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is nice … or if you'd prefer giving kids musical instruments, try VH1's "Save the Music" benefit at Roseland Ballroom. Bid on photos of model Gisele strumming a guitar, Mick Jagger in drag and Jennifer Lopez stomping about …. On the committee: new power couple Ed Burns and Christy Turlington (he whines, she ommms); mistress of makeup Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer and a closetful of models (including the aforementioned Maggie Rizer).

[Shadow of the Dolls, DKNY, 655 Madison Avenue, 6 p.m., 768-5761; Jeff Koons, Hugo Boss, 717 Fifth Avenue, 8 p.m., by invitation only, 940-0640; Save the Music, Roseland Ballroom, 239 West 52nd Street, 8 p.m., 727-2220.]

Clinton, Plimpton! This just in! Former President Bill Clinton-who's become the Where's Waldo? of the New York party scene ever since he was caught loudly telling lesbian jokes at Babbo-sucks it up and attends a book bash at George Plimpton's house for Steven Cohen, a former press aide to the Big He who has edited an anthology about childhood games (marbles, stickball, playing hide-and-seek with your wife's billing records, etc.). Watch for Mr. Clinton's bewilderment when the lissome Paris Review interns, who think D.C. interns are cheesy and fat, all but ignore him as he tries in vain to offer them a rum-and-Coke.

[George Plimpton's house, top-secret Upper East Side location, 6:30 p.m., by invitation only, 684-6050.]

Wednesday 27th

Marital therapy? Upper West Siders just keep trying to inject some fun back into their two-career, two-stroller, double-no-foam-latte marriages with rowdy, sweaty outdoor spectacles such as Lincoln Center's "Midsummer Night Swing," which opens tonight with Ben E. King (sang "Stand by Me") and a big, big, big band. We're talking an entire month of jumping and jiving around in a little swing skirt, in complete and utter denial that this is actually the year 2001. On the more sedate East Side-where the marriages gave up on fun long, long ago-the New York Grand Opera does an Elton John–free version of Verdi's Aida. Don't worry, things get really crazy in July!

[Midsummer Night Swing, Columbus Avenue and 63rd Street, 6:30 p.m., 875-5000; Aida, Central Park SummerStage, Fifth Avenue and 72nd Street, 7:30 p.m., 245-8837.]

Just when you thought we were in for a boring summer, it turns out the President's twin daughters are tequila-swillin' bar babes, giantess Brooke Shields is going to stomp and warble her way through the lead role of Sally Bowles in Cabaret, and the Mayor of New York has gone completely, utterly mad-any day now, they're going to send Martin Sheen up the East River to Gracie Mansion in a camouflaged boat …. In short, the tabloids are going to be this summer's beach-blanket reading of choice! But the publishing industry, still smarting over the utter failure of the much-hyped e-book (which turned out to be like reading a very long and dull e-mail from an annoying friend) is hurling "summer reading" at your head as fast as it can. Take Mr. Maybe, by a British expat named Jane Green(above)-who, according to the jacket copy, "worked for many years as a journalist, with occasional forays into public relations for film, television, and the odd celebrity." Bonus dirty excerpt! "He turns as the water sloshes around him in the bath, then looks at me through eyes glazed with lust-" Slam. Tonight, Ms. Green gets a book party in a fancy midtown hotel; watch for tipsy publishing poobahs trying to secretly ask the concierge if there are any rooms available "by the hour."

[New York Palace Hotel, Villard, 24 East 51st Street, 6:30 p.m., by invitation only, 782-8441.]

If you missed last night's gathering of some of New York's most upstanding citizens (the Hilton sisters, Denise Rich-hey, is there a bail bondsman in the house?) at the FiFi Awards (Oscars for the perfume industry), tonight the-take a deep breath-Annette Green Museum at the Fragrance Foundation opens a Sex, Scents and Cinema exhibit that includes a video montage of perfume scenes from movie history, narrated by The Observer's own Rex Reed! We asked Annette Green about current fragrance trends. "I would say they are more romantic," she said. "For a couple of years, we had a uniscent trend; scents could be worn by men or women. Then we went to very light, I-can't-smell-you fragrances. And now, the pendulum has swung the other way." As pendulums are wont to do. Next up, Calvin Klein throws a "Zero Tolerance" cocktail party benefiting the fight against domestic violence. (Zero tolerance is what we have for fellas who douse themselves with Mr. Klein's "uniscent" cK Be, but that's a whole other item.) Finally, at Jeffrey, the last respectable address in the meatpacking district, they're launching a special line of Keds, the preferred fashion sneaker of suburban moms across America. These will go for about $120 per pair-once again a case of something previously affordable and useful suddenly going kitschy and expensive.

[Sex, Scents and Cinema exhibit, Annette Green Museum, 145 East 32nd Street, ninth floor, 6 p.m., by invitation only, 725-2755; Calvin Klein, Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th Street, 8:30 p.m., 349-6009, ext. 241; Jeffrey, 449 West 14th Street, 7 p.m., by invitation only, 727-9421.]

Thursday 7th

Naked city: Hey, don't blame us, blame our "enlightened" editor, who demanded "more sexy pictures-and I don't mean Liz Wurtzel." So we came up with something called the Take Home a Nude auction, where artwork by Tony Bennett, Bill Blass, David Bowie, William Wegman and other "artist-as-a-second- career" artists is going to be raffled off to benefit the New York Academy of Art. On the committee: MTV "personality" (and rich girl) Serena Altschul, ace tennis commentator John McEnroe, suddenly omnipresent actor Liev Schreiber and the last honest man left in show business, Rolling Stone Keith Richards. Nearby, Nerve-the only porn magazine we know that manages to be less sexy than Maxim, even with full frontal nudity-celebrates four years online, one year in print and its staff members' piercings. Naturally, they are videotaping the whole thing.

[Take Home a Nude, 20 Rockefeller Plaza, 7 p.m., 966-0300; Nerve, Look, 174 Hudson Street, 8 p.m., by invitation only, 965-1146.]

Turned on by Turturro? At long last, a premature retrospective we can get excited about! (As opposed to, say, last year's Kevin Bacon tribute.) The Young Friends of Film at the Film Society of Lincoln Center spend most of their time swinging in hot tubs, but tonight they honor thinking-woman's sex symbol John Turturro, star of countless Coen brothers mov-ies. Tim Robbins, Illeana Douglas, Spike Lee and Christopher Walk-en will make drunken speeches, and so should you, even if you're just staying home with your cat watching Barton Fink for the 469th time.

[Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center, 8 p.m., cocktail reception to follow, Kaplan Penthouse, 875-5630.]

Friday 8th

If "Hamptons share" makes you wince and think "Colgate College" and "New York magazine personal ads," you will probably get through the summer just fine. But it doesn't hurt for a woman to know her way around a big piece of meat-hence, you need Richard Ruben, who today teaches a seminar at Peter Kump's New York Cooking School called Building Rich Flavors: Marinades and Rubs for the Grill or Oven. "We're going to be culling from every possible style of rub," said Mr. Ruben, who looks a bit like Richard Fish on Ally McBeal, "from the classic American rub of brown sugar, paprika, salt, black pepper, garlic powder-which is our old standard rub dating back to days gone by-to something totally fabulous and Caribbean … that interplay of the citrus-sour and the nice explosion of heat that occurs, which really panders to my personal palate!" Anything to make Bobby Flay like us. Meanwhile, in the actual Hamptons: Tory Burch, Kathy Hilton and Anne Hearst host a dinner party to celebrate the release of Candace Bushnell's Four Blondes in paperback, and then their Mini-Me's (Elisabeth Kieselstein-Cord, Amanda Hearst, Hilton sisters) host the after-party for the young 'uns. Bring Candace some kippers for her Brit gent!

[Rubs, Peter Kump's New York Cooking School, 50 West 23rd Street, 6 p.m., 847-0770; Candace Bushnell, Kathy Hilton's house, somewhere in the Hamptons, we know not where, after-party to follow, Conscience Point, by invitation only, 966-5000.]

Saturday 9th

Beamer me up, Scotty! That sound you hear is the sound of nothing happening on a June Saturday in Manhattan …. But slip on your Italian racing moccasins and test-drive a BMW today (vroom, vroom)-they will donate $1 for every mile to a breast-cancer foundation. Get on the on-ramp to New Jersey by mistake, and don't stop until you hit Mississippi.

[555 West 57th Street, 10 a.m., 1-800-I'M-AWARE.]

Sunday 10th

Street-fair hell! "Strolling entertainers," "local artisans" and an Arlo Guthrie tribute-be afraid, be very, very afraid! Best to stay away from the Brooklyn waterfront today! Meanwhile, in Soho, there is a literary-magazine fair at Housing Works bookshop! (Dave Eggers watch in full effect.) Bicycle-boy George Plimpton wears his summer seersucker and headlines a panel, "Community & Commodity: The Social & Cultural Importance of Literary Magazines," the title of which alone is enough to send one straight into a mid-afternoon nap.

[Brooklyn Cultural Festival, Fulton Ferry Landing, Brooklyn, 11 a.m., 718-855-7882; Literary-Magazine Fair, Housing Works Used Bookstore Café, 126 Crosby Street, noon, 741-9110, ext. 10.]

Monday 11th

What, you thought New York's Irish intelligentsia was going to go quietly into that good night? You thought the whole McCourt brothers thing was just a flash in the pan? Wrong! Tonight, Gabriel Byrne-who is fond of Belgian pastries-joins Frank McCourt for a reading of Yeats Is Dead!, a book by 15 Irish authors, to celebrate Amnesty International's 40th anniversary. Meanwhile, Francis Ford Coppola-disting-uished director now morphing into an amalgam of Paul Newman (spaghetti sauces) and George Plimpton (Zoetrope magazine)-throws an Italian street festival to shill pastas and fixings from his Mammarella line. If his daughter, Sofia Coppola-Spike Jonze's wife, Marc Jacobs' "muse," screenwriter and all-around perfect person; sort of the Anna Quindlen of the rich-daughter "indie" set-isn't going, then we aren't, either!

[Yeats Is Dead!, New School, 66 West 12th Street, Tishman Auditorium, 7 p.m., 229-5600; Morisi-Coppola Pasta Factory, 186 Eighth Street, 5 p.m., by invitation only, 334-1919.]

Chloë-less? What do you do with "reluctant" celebutante Chloë Sevigny when she's drifted slightly off the hype radar? Have her snap into Gwyneth Paltrow mode and host a benefit for the New Group theater company, sponsored by Interview magazine and Hugo Boss. After cocktails, the bash moves from the Hugo Boss store over to the Russian Tea Room, where rock star and actress Courtney Love is going to sing and, quite likely, smash some things. It will cost you a mere $300. (Our prediction: the two ladies will make out, then have a boisterous public spat on VH1 in 2002.)

[Cocktails, Hugo Boss flagship store, 717 Fifth Avenue, 6:30 p.m., dinner and performance to follow, 691-6730.]

Tuesday 12th

Street-fair hell, Part II! Chalk drawing. Murals. Italian ices. Yep, we've got another one: This time it's the Museum Mile Festival-stroller alert on Fifth Avenue from 82nd Street to 104th Street. And if you want to see something really strange, tonight is the premiere of Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, a documentary about the late director by his longtime associate, Jan Harlan, narrated by-oh, dear G-d-Tom Cruise.

[Museum Mile, opening ceremony, Cooper- Hewitt National Design Museum, Fifth Avenue and 91st Street, 5:45 p.m., 606-2296; Stanley Kubrick, pre-screening reception, 8 p.m., Kaplan Penthouse, 165 West 65th Street, 10th floor, screening to follow, by invitation only, 595-6161.]

Wednesday 13th

Ally-oop! It's National Hermit Week, so if you don't feel like going to the new, revamped De La Guarda-a peppy friend describes: "It's Argentinean, you stand up the whole time, you get wet, they fly around on ropes, it lasts like an hour, it's really fun, it's great, they're kind of pounding things and climbing things," all of which makes us break out in a rash, and that's even before we got to the really grim part: a Gotham magazine after-party-why not stay home and celebrate Ally Sheedy's 39th birthday by renting The Breakfast Club, in which she plays a hermit ministered to by current Manhattan night-crawler Molly Ringwald!

[De La Guarda, Daryl Roth Theatre, Union Square East at 15th Street, 8 p.m., after-party to follow, Spa, 76 East 13th Street, by invitation only, 290-1100, ext. 35.]

Town, located in the basement of the new boutique hotel designed by David Rockwell, has been packed since it opened in March. Like the small, inexpensive but hip hotels started by Ian Schrager and Andre Balazs, it caters to a generation less interested in gilt chairs and chandeliers than in cutting-edge design in settings that are as unhotel-like as possible, and where the last thing you're expected to wear is a tie. (Here, however, a standard room is a staggering $425 a night.) The building is the size of a large townhouse, with a white Nouveau Deco façade and immense gold doors whose claim to an imposing presence is eclipsed somewhat by the gold flags billowing outside Norma Kamali a few feet away. Town has a separate entrance that leads directly into a sleek, narrow bar, reminiscent of a 30's Pullman club car. On the night I arrived, it was crowded with people who looked more commuter than cool, clutching martini glasses that glowed pink or pale green (one of the house cocktails is a blood-orange cosmopolitan). There are no bar stools, so after about 10 minutes waiting for a table, we repaired to the leather chairs in the lobby until a hostess could lead us down the steps to the basement.

Town's dining room, also designed by Mr. Rockwell, doesn't feel as though it's in a basement. It's a dramatic, soaring space, with 24-foot-high walls that curve behind leather banquettes and sprawling booths, and paneled with translucent, back-lit wooden screens and squares of taupe suede behind long, cascading strings of crystal beads. The lighting is soft and flattering, but finally the elegance of the room is more corporate than romantic. Nevertheless, my downtown friends were happy. "It's so great to be in a restaurant where I'm practically the youngest person for a change," said one. It was also great to be in a dining room where you could actually have a conversation without competing with a D.J.

Mr. Zakarian, who was the chef at 44 in its heyday (and later at Patroon), has put together an intriguing menu of his personal favorites with executive chef Fernando Zapata. (I learned a new term from the press release, which describes Mr. Zakarian's cooking as "ingredient driven"–an interesting concept.) His foie gras terrine is nothing if not "ingredient driven," made as it is with chunks of foie gras folded in mousse and topped with a thick yellow layer of fat. It comes with a sweet pepper jelly that cuts right through the richness. An emerald-green fresh pea soup is laced with peas and strips of crisp prosciutto; a meaty duck terrine is enlivened by ramps and dense parsley purée.

A sea scallop (only one, but it was admittedly quite large) was paired with a delicate scallop sausage that provided a textural contrast, but overall the dish was bland. Carpaccio of fluke couldn't stand up to the stellar blood-orange-and-mint vinaigrette covering it; I would have loved it on a strong meat, like smoked duck. Grilled octopus was surprisingly dry and tough, floating in an acidic potato and lemongrass broth.

Even if the rooms upstairs are exorbitantly expensive, Town's prices–while not exactly bargain-basement–are not. There are no main courses above $29, and there are many reasonably priced wines on the 200-plus-bottle list.

Mr. Zakarian does interesting things with fish, serving a snowy chunk of halibut with pan-roasted salsify and a mild porcini-curry foam. Cod was thinly coated in a truffled sourdough crust and served with roasted beets and black truffles. Sesame-studded tuna was a bit overcooked, fanned out over thickly cut wilted cucumbers and finished with an oddly unassertive sea-urchin sauce. But rare, meaty slices of spice-dusted duck steak were a perfect match for caramelized endive stuffed with apple and a robust buckwheat pilaf. Loin of lamb, crispy spaetzle, citrus and olives made for a jarring combination. Apart from the snails, the veal tongue was my favorite dish, though it was too much for friends who hadn't grown up in a family like mine, which carved it whole at the table. Long, slow cooking had given Mr. Zakarian's version a tender texture and smoky flavor, enhanced by roasted artichokes and radishes.

Pastry chef Nancy Kershner, who was at Brasserie and Brasserie 8-1/2, has put together five cheese plates paired with fruit or marmalade. She also makes wonderful chocolate beignets, dusted with powdered sugar and teamed with frozen café brûlot, a cocoa-coated dome of coffee ice cream flavored with rum and Grand Marnier. Light, breadlike sourdough chocolate cake was given a nostalgic twist by malted ice cream and pretzels; a gooey chocolate soufflé with tart blood-orange sorbet floated on a spun-sugar structure that looked like the skeleton of a rowboat. Toasted pound cake was good, too, with roasted pear and rum-raisin ice cream. A refreshing gratin of sliced red grapefruit was also remarkable, topped with flakes of crisp, candied grapefruit with a scoop of creamy ginseng sorbet.

Like many Italian restaurants, Town's first courses and desserts outshone many of the entrées we tried. It's a chic, business-like place with some great food. And it has a sense of humor: The bathrooms are decorated with scores of clear balls containing miniature Statues of Liberty. That's probably the closest these customers will get to the real thing.

Town

* *

15 West 56th Street

582-4445

Dress: Business

Noise level: Low

Wine list: International

Credit cards: All major

Price range: Main courses lunch $18 to $21, dinner $21 to $29

Breakfast: Monday through Friday, 8 to 11:30 a.m.

Lunch: Monday through Friday, noon to 2 p.m.

Dinner: Monday through Saturday, 5:30 to 10:30 p.m., Sunday until 9 p.m.

* Good

* * Very good

* * * Excellent

* * * * Outstanding

No star: Poor