Holiday parties! We'll try to maintain our dignity -what's left of it after tumbling headlong down a set of stairs in an evening gown last weekend-at The Observer 's shindig at a seedy boîte somewhere in midtown …. 'course we're not telling you exactly where , silly! Here's hoping our commercial real-estate reporter, whom our old hag of an editor says is a dead ringer for the late movie star Dana Andrews, brings his "crazy party shirt" and his glowstick …. Meanwhile, at the oak-and-black-steel John Varvatos boutique, Gruner and Jahr chief executive Dan Brewster , Rosie's former boss, hosts a party for every picky eater's favorite chef, Craft's Tom Colicchio . Why Mr. Brewster is hosting the party we were unable to determine at press time, but make sure to swipe a copy of Mr. Colicchio's new book, Craft of Cooking , for swift re-gifting later ….

[Our party, we'll never tell; John Varvatos, 149 Mercer Street, 6 to 9 p.m., 212-812-8088.]

Thursday 11th

Go to Elle ! Those homemaking honeys over at Elle Décor are having a holiday party. They'd better watch their backs: InStyle 's spin-off, Home , got Friend star ( Friend star? Friend ster?) Courteney Cox Arquette on its first cover! Meanwhile, don't be surprised if Hannah Storm looks like hell tomorrow: CBS , the network of the Geritol generation, is having its own company bash . If you're one of those white people who like to call Z-100 with "the phrase that pays," attempting to give "shout-outs": The radio station is having a Jingle Ball concert co-hosted by Jennifer Lopez (where she been?), plus MTV's Tweedledum and Tweedledumber, Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson. Guest stars will include the curvalicious, Grammy-nom-hogging Beyoncé and her moody and soulful beau Jay-Z , whom we once totally freaked out at a party. Then change clothes and go to the much-hyped Crobar in Chelsea for some kind of opening. The owners are apparently hiring go-go dancers, drag queens, midgets and conjoined twins. "Bartender, make mine a double!" Thank you, we'll be here all week ….

[ Elle Décor holiday party, ddc, 181 Madison Avenue, 6 to 8 p.m., 212-767-4590;

Jingle Ball, Madison Square Garden, 7 p.m., www.z100.com; CBS Christmas party,

51 West 52nd Street, 35th floor, 5:30 p.m., by invitation only; Crobar, 530 West 28th Street, 9 p.m., by invitation only.]

Friday 12th

Gablevision: We were swamped, what with this "holiday special issue," so we had special guest correspondent Elon R. Green rifle around in the press releases, and here's what he came up with: Clark Gable (he of the worst breath in Hollywood) is panting all over Marilyn Monroe in The Misfits , a classic about cowboys, threesomes and Nevada, written by Arthur Miller. Thanks for the legwork, Elon, and by the way, what the heck has happened to the much-anticipated career comeback of Mr. Miller's son-in-law Daniel Day-Lewis -or is he just a stay-at-home, p*ssywhipped daddy these days? Anyone? Anyone?

[Public Library, 127 East 58th Street, 2 p.m., 212-759-7358.]

Saturday 13th

Wang-chung tonight! Make that today: Wedding-gown goddess Vera Wang clambers onto the balcony of Bloomie's to plug the men's edition of her new fragrance, Vera Wang. Think warm tobacco and vintage leather with just a soupçon of sandalwood. "I adore men," Ms. Wang wrote us, Naomi Wolfish–ly, in an e-mail that sounded, excuse us, a little canned , a little prepared -almost as if it had been put together by public-relations people (but maybe we're just being cynical). "Because of the nature of the business I'm in, I've gotten to know men very well and have shared in some of their most special and intimate moments," Ms. Wang's cyber-communiqué continued. "So it seemed natural to me to create a fragrance that would inspire some of the most romantic, sensual and personal moments of their lives …. There is something so private and intimate about what happens between two people and I wanted to capture that magic with both the men's and women's fragrance. Scent is such an intimate experience between two people …. It becomes his familiar embrace, wrapping both him and her in comfort and assurance. So it's a fragrance not only for him, but for her as well." How modern. Bring a bottle to the dancing queens of the New York City Ballet, who are flitting at a benefit featuring The Nutcracker , the classic Balanchine ballet that's been bringing families and anorectics together for decades! Afterward, everyone will tiptoe backstage to a "Land of Sweets" (untouched) to hug frail wannabe Claras. Honorary chair: that chipper soccer mom, Katie Couric.

[Vera Wang, Bloomingdale's, main floor/balcony, 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, 1 p.m., 212-705-2000; the Nutcracker Family Benefit, New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, 2 p.m., 212-870-5585.]

Sunday 14th

Calling all dominatrices! Bring your dark sunglasses, your latex cat suits and your uppers and downers to the Remote Lounge, where some voyeurs-"R"-us are tossing something called the Matrix Party -that horrible cheesy movie, an irrational favorite of guys we'd otherwise consider dating, will be broadcasting on multiple TV screens with all of its thinly veiled biblical metaphors. We called the number and were told in a classic desperate invitational ploy, "No one can be told what the Matrix Party is. You have to see it for yourself." Whatever. Meanwhile, the rest of Manhattan's TV screens are all aglow with the second half of the Mike Nichols–directed version of Tony Kushner's Angels in America -where's that box of Kleenex?-which, like most great works of art, is kind of a downer and an upper at the same time.

[Remote Lounge, 327 Bowery, 9 p.m.,

tickets at http://www.falcon-productions.com/falconcurrentevent.html.]

Monday 15th

Jann, willing and able: Memo to Jann Wenner: If you're trying to skew Rolling Stone "younger," maybe it's time to retire the private "Women Who Rock" concerts with people like Liz Phair and just use Beyoncé like everyone else …. (If your fat-assed boomers with no African-American artists in their collections will insist on going, bring sassy Slate editor Meghan O'Rourke, who penned a mean essay about Ms. Phair for the Arts and Leisure section of The New York Times - then watch the ensuing fireworks … ). Also today: Even though New York magazine's mommy doesn't appear to love it anymore, the mag is putting on a brave face and celebrating local "luminaries" (translation: random crew of famous people) at its annual New York Awards luncheon . The overexposed Tina Fey and the smart, underused actor John Turturro will shove awards at His Diddyness Sean Combs, Hillary Clinton, grouchy lefty Al Franken, architect Richard Meier, boyish actor Tim Robbins, horsey Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and Kevin Kline (hope he brings sexpot wife Phoebe Cates!). Wonderful Town's Donna Murphy will croon. We're exhausted.

[Liz Phair, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, 7 p.m., 212-265-1191; New York Awards, Four Seasons Restaurant, 99 East 52nd Street, 11:30 a.m., by invitation only.]

Tuesday 16th

Make mine a moneytini! Financial reporter Lynnette Khalfani (Dow Jones, Wall Street Journal , CNBC), a mercenary 35-year-old who finds the lack of financial literacy in this country "appalling," fêtes her new book, Investing Success: How to Conquer 30 Costly Mistakes and Multiply Your Wealth . It's a fund-raiser for institutions that help people manage their finances-pretty wild stuff. Guests will drink lurid green moneytinis and decorate a tree with $10's, $20's and $50's. " People always say money can't grow on trees so we were like, actually it can !" Ms. Khalfani said to us, in a peculiar drawl. Is she from the South? "You know, people always ask that, but I was born in Manhattan! Now I live in West Orange, N.J., with my husband. I just have a twang, I guess!" Whatever works for you, sister …. Meanwhile, it was only a matter of time before the dog events and the singles' events mated: Tonight, a singles' mixer for dog fanciers with the S&M-sounding name "Leashes and Lovers." Here's co-host Michelle Kennedy, 30, who met her hubby Kevin in Central Park while he was walking a golden retriever. "It wasn't even his! He was actually dog-sitting for a friend who was on his honeymoon. The dog turned out to be a terror ; his apartment had hundreds of dollars' worth of damage! It broke his answering machine and the air purifier. He was like, 'At least I got Michelle out of this.'" And now we have Michelle to bring the rest of us together. There will be prizes, music, the dreaded "icebreaker activities" and the inevitable "funny guy" working the dog-on-the-invisible-leash gimmick. Here's the weird part: No dogs are allowed! "People will have a lot to talk about," Ms. Kennedy said, a bit too insistently. "Do you ever meet those people who don't have pets? It's like, 'What's wrong with you?' Dog people are extra-friendly, and they're excited to meet people like them. They're like, 'Here are my people!'" Bring newspaper … to read.

[Book party, nice apartment on East 72nd Street-not The Paris Review , by invitation only; December Leashes and Lovers Cocktail Party, Club Nikki, 53 West 35th Street, 7 to 9:30 p.m., 212-239-9035.]

Wednesday 17th

Frodo versus frozen: When he's not out there bangin' down doors and gettin' scoops, our intrepid media reporter likes to recite the latest Lord of the Rings trailer in the creepiest voice ever …. The third installment (opening today) has apparently escaped the critical fate of the third Matrix , which everyone hatrix … so count us in! Or, if you like a challenge, hide under an Oliver Theyskens cloak and sneak into an advance screening of Cold Mountain , the movie version of Charles Frazier's (kind of boring) novel, which stars naughty Jude Law , scrunchy Renée Zellweger and Nicole Kidman , poster girl for scorned women the world over. If you're feeling particularly nervy, there's a formal dinner afterward benefiting the City Parks Foundation : Just put on your elbow-length gloves, force a grin and you're in ….

[ Cold Mountain screening, the Paris Theatre, 58th Street and Fifth Avenue, 6:30 p.m., by invitation only.]

For this reason, I wasn't expecting much from Forty Words for Fear (Gaff Music), the new CD by novelist Madison Smartt Bell and poet Wyn Cooper. Even so, the album's back story was tough to resist. Mr. Bell's novel Anything Goes , published last year, concerned the to-ings and fro-ings of a fifth-tier bar band. While writing the book, Mr. Bell asked his friend of two decades, Mr. Cooper, to help him come up with song lyrics for his fictitious group. (In rock circles, Mr. Cooper is best known for writing a poem, "Fun," that, with some modifications, became Sheryl Crow's 1994 megahit "All I Wanna Do.") Not only were the lyrics included in the book but, as a lark, Mr. Bell, who plays guitar, also set them to music and recorded a demo tape of the songs.

Thanks to the intercession of Gaff Music label head Scott Beal, that tape made it into the hands of producer Don Dixon, famous for his work with the Smithereens, Let's Active and R.E.M. Mr. Dixon liked what he heard, set up some studio time with long-time collaborator Mitch Easter (who engineered the record), recruited co-producer Jim Brock and hired some crack musicians-and before long, Mr. Bell's lark had become an honest-to-goodness record. This is what we in the journalism trade call a nice hook. But again, it's a novelist and a poet making a rock album; the precedents aren't tremendous.

Which makes Forty Words for Fear all the more surprising. Though no masterpiece, it's a thoroughly absorbing piece of work. Songs with titles like "The Here Below" and "What God Had Up His Sleeve" lay mordantly humorous lyrics and a general air of foreboding over rustic blues backdrops. Call it woodshed noir.

Mr. Bell won't win any singing competitions, but his gruff, quaky voice-reminiscent of the aforementioned Mr. Cohen, as well as folkmeister Greg Brown and the late Boston hipster Mark Sandman of Morphine-is just right for the music's thoughtfully ragged tone. (Mr. Cooper, on the other hand, limits his vocalizing to the recitation of a few stray lines.)

Better still are the arresting sonic touches sprinkled throughout, courtesy, I assume, of Messrs. Dixon and Brock. The percussion underlying the album's opening track, "On 8 Mile," sounds like somebody banging metal garbage cans together, and probably is. The heaviest rock number, "Anything Goes," could almost pass for ZZ Top-except that the lead instrument is a banjo. Elsewhere, accordion, trombone and short-wave radio make memorable appearances. The creativity on display here is such that one can't help concluding a second career is within Mr. Bell's grasp, if the novel-writing thing doesn't pan out.

That's Not Phair!

If you're still somehow wondering whether Liz Phair has really sold out, I can tell you unequivocally that she has. Her new album, titled simply Liz Phair (Capitol), is about as transparent a bid for Top 40 radio play as you can get.

But what's wrong with that?

With her classic first album, Exile in Guyville , released in 1993, Ms. Phair gained the kind of street credibility that today's bespectacled Williamsburg nerds would kill for. Any further adulation from the fringes of society would be redundant. More to the point, she's a 36-year-old single mom, and all the rave reviews in the world won't buy baby a new pair of shoes.

The problem is that Ms. Phair's pursuit of commercial acceptance has diluted her personality, which is the reason we still care about her 10 years after her debut. Among the many people she hired to compile this album were the Matrix, the production team that gave the world Avril Lavigne's "Complicated," and, sadly, Liz Phair is much like that horrid teenager's simulated rock: pure pabulum coated with a thin layer of processed toughness that's as catchy as it is empty.

Ms. Phair, of course, trumps Ms. Lavigne when it comes to sexual forthrightness; her frequent use of dirty words heated up many a reviewer when she first arrived on the scene. On the new disc, she's still up to her old tricks, but the results are more stupid than sexy. The principal offender, "H.W.C.," features a refrain that some might view as risqué: "Gimme your hot white come." Yet the way Ms. Phair sings these words, in the la-di-da voice of a high-school talent-show folkie, removes any potential thrill. It's further proof that spaying and neutering, though helpful for pets, doesn't make for great rock 'n' roll.

Dull Dan

Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, the prime movers of Steely Dan, have been around long enough now that they seem like family-the two weird uncles you never had. Hyper-educated masters of insular jive talk, they seem to be enduring an endless midlife crisis. They're hopelessly cynical, yet occasionally blindsided by bouts of twisted romanticism, usually brought on by the temptations of much, much younger women. Or at least the characters they write about are, and have been since Mr. Fagen and Mr. Becker started the band in the early 70's.

In this respect, they've stayed consistent; their latest release, Everything Must Go (Reprise), is full of guys like the sad sack in "Things I Miss the Most," who takes his mind off his lady love's departure by "building the Andrea Doria out of balsa wood."

As always, the Dan's barbed lyrics are nothing short of brilliant, and Mr. Fagen's acerbic New York whine remains the consummate vehicle for them. But the rest of the package is troubling. Over time, Messrs. Becker and Fagen have settled into a way too comfortable mid-tempo pseudo-jazz-funk groove. Everything Must Go 's rhythm tracks have a generic quality that renders them almost interchangeable with one another. At least two-thirds of Mr. Becker's noodly guitar fills could have been excised without harm. Worst of all, the tunes are downright predictable.

Most critics and fans view the antiseptic fern-bar soundtracks of 1980's Gaucho as Steely Dan's nadir, but in melodic and harmonic terms, that album's songs offer far more surprises than anything here. What happened to the dazzling twists and turns of "Glamour Profession" or "Aja" or-one of the most perfect pop songs recorded in the 1970's-"Rikki Don't Lose That Number"? Maybe that's as pointless a question as asking why Steely Dan don't rock anymore. But dammit, why don't they?

Get Thee Lee!

Finally, a brief word about New York singer/songwriter Chris Lee's new CD, Cool Rock (Misra). The critical boilerplate on Mr. Lee is that he's the inheritor of the late Jeff Buckley's mantle, and true enough, the two do share some vocal similarities, particularly a smooth, swooping falsetto. But the songs Mr. Lee writes don't have Mr. Buckley's rock edge. Instead, they're airy, urbane mélanges of jazz, soul and old-school pop, sharing deep roots with the 80's work of Everything But the Girl and Paul Weller's Style Council. It's a kind of music I didn't realize I missed until I heard Mr. Lee. That he plays superbly is welcome enough; that he ends the album with a heart-tugging rendition of Mississippi John Hurt's "Nobody Cares for Me" is fresh whipped cream and strawberries on the cake. Get Cool Rock .

But a lot of Ms. Phair's male fans were just really into the fact that she talked dirty and gave songs blunt titles like "Fuck and Run" (never mind that it was from the point of view of a girl weary of an endless stream of one-night stands). Guys loved the postmodern round "Shatter" because she sang, over and over, "Every time I see your face, I get all wet between my legs … I'd like to be your blowjob queen." Women thought: This highly intelligent, Oberlin-educated, attractive, strong woman can read my mind. Men thought: Hubba hubba! It's sort of like the way some guys read Bust , the sex-positive 'zine for feminists: as pornography. This no doubt contributed to her selection as cover girl for Rolling Stone 's 1994 " Women in Rock" issue, wearing a fetching little slip dress and looking very cute.

The potty-mouthed lyrics continued with Ms. Phair's second album Whip-Smart . On "Supernova," the single, she sang of a man who could "fuck like a volcano," and on "Chopsticks" described a partner whose preferred sexual position conveniently provided a clear view of the television set. Unfortunately, Ms. Phair sounded like she lacked enthusiasm for the entire exercise-not just the sex, the music-and the record sounded sluggish, rendering it pretty much unbearable. She didn't release another album for four years.

In the interim, Liz married and had a baby, which obviously would alter the life material available to such a confessional songwriter. As often happens to married people, Ms. Phair's just not as concerned with sex as she used to be. Or at least the songs on her long-delayed new album Whitechocolatespaceegg (Matador/Capitol) aren't. A lot of them are about love, but not the sappy, Meg Ryan movie kind; Ms. Phair brings the same ambivalence and observant cynicism to love as she did to sex.

These songs aren't as blunt as her old ones, but it's not so easy to be blunt about something as ephemeral as love. On "Love Is Nothing," a piece of lilting pop with a wonderfully cheesy bridge, she sings about how love is not what she thought it would be. "Go on Ahead" is a dead-on depiction of a troubled, yet still affectionate, relationship: "One night is lovely, the next is brutal." "Johnny Feelgood" chronicles falling for a man, almost against her will: "I could take this in doses large enough to kill," she sings. That song also has one of the most weirdly perfect lines of man-praise I've ever heard: "He's got petals on the bed of his sweat sock drawer." But Johnny's not perfect: "I hate him all the time, but I still get up when he knocks me down." (There was a Johnny on Guyville , too, "Johnny Sunshine"; that one left her bereft.)

On Whitechocolatespaceegg Ms. Phair relies less on the conversational, offhand lyrical style she's used in the past, sometimes opting to reel off a litany of visual images, as on the title track, "Big Tall Man" (shades of suburban ennui), and "Ride," which combines rewritten children's rhymes with an apparition of Liz's fly-covered corpse.

An exception to this new approach is the outstanding "What Makes You Happy," a snapshot of a phone chat between a daughter and her mother about the daughter's involvement with a divorced man. The song is given a glorious wall-of-sound production by Brad Wood, the man who thought to use sleigh bells on "Fuck and Run" when he produced Guyville and who also produced Whip-Smart . (Fortunately, Mr. Wood produced four other songs on the record; the seven produced by Scott Litt are more subdued, and the ones Ms. Phair produced are a tad boring.) "What Makes You Happy" has that oh-my-God-she's-reading-my-mind feeling that the songs on Guyville had. Which is to say, it has the ring of truth, like it's based on an actual conversation she had with her mom.

Mr. Wood also produced "Polyester Bride," a slice of goose-bumpy cheese that chronicles another conversation, this time with a bartender. Liz doesn't exactly ask for "one more for my baby and one more for the road," but kind of. When she wonders whether she "should bother dating unfamous men," the bartender answers with a shopping metaphor: "Do you want to find alligator cowboy boots they just put on sale?" Clearly, Liz's point is that flawless men are as rare as perfect discounted footwear, and I see nothing wrong with that.

Not all the songs on the record deal with relationships, and on the whole, those are the tracks you'll want to skip over. "Shitloads of Money" is the obligatory sellout song-the integrity-versus-money debate-and is kind of a bummer to listen to (not catchy, clichéd). The horrific "Baby Got Going" gave me bad flashbacks to James Taylor's "Steamroller" with its dreaded train metaphors. And there's no telling what the point of the bizarre "Uncle Alvarez" is. (Wasn't he a character on The Munsters ? Never mind.) "Girls' Room," a fantasy about popular high school best friends gossiping, was more successful. It reminded me of Heathers .

Whitechocolatespaceegg isn't a perfect record. It can't be summed up in one sentence, the way Guyville could, but it's Ms. Phair's most complicated and evolved album so far. Maybe her listeners have stopped sleeping with scruffy Jon Spencer fans in the past five years also. If not, Liz Phair isn't their woman anymore. They've got to be content with-God save them-Natalie Imbruglia and Jewel, who whine about being dumped while Liz kicked men to the curb. If that's not regression, I don't know what is.