Helena Christensen and Liv Tyler. (Dustin Wayne Harris/PatrickMcMullan.com)

“The clothing’s just the sprinkles on top.” So said tattoo artist Ami James, and it could have been the motto for the evening, especially when the chocolate-sprinkled cupcakes appeared later on, one last treat for a collection of self-proclaimed oddballs, from Michael Stipe to Bono’s wife, Irish business woman Ali Hewson, to a late entry looking like the boy next door, Josh Hartnett.

They were gathered last night for the launch of the “Eccentrics Issue” of Vs. Magazine, which coincided with the official opening—or, anyway, the celebrity opening—of Paul Gerard’s Exchange Alley, the two events hosted by brunette beauties Liv Tyler, whose face in close-up stares from the cover of the new Vs., and Helena Christensen, who took the photo.

Mid-Fashion Week, and celebrating a high-end fashion magazine for the fashion-forward and runway-ready, the event was still somehow an escape from the frenzy, a respite. Yes, fashionistas and models mingled with artists, designers and rock stars, but the party was low key compared with the Marc Jacobs soirée on the same night.  The atmosphere at Exchange Alley, a restaurant that already feels local and loved, was one of nonchalant chic. The décor chimed with the night’s theme, black-and-white Hollywood studio shots matching the grayscale (splashed with pink) magazine cover. Mr. Gerard’s cooking, myriad different dishes with an Ottolenghi palette, also fit. The chef confessed to a Jack Kerouac fetish and modestly described himself as a potential eccentric, “more than your average Joe.”

Pity the poor eccentric. Quirkiness advertised runs the risk of cancelling itself out—after all, what could be more commonplace than clamoring for attention? To catch a glimpse of naked oddity one had to peek from unexpected angles, the only way to register, for instance, the tattoo of a cat on the ankle of Cobra Starship’s Gabe Sapporta. Mr. Sapporta, appropriately enough, was engrossed in conversation with Ami James, arguing that to be eccentric meant “never having to think about what it means,” never having to reduce it to a “label.”

Ms. Hewson said she knew “a lot of eccentric people who look totally normal,” and that it was “harder to find a normal person than an eccentric person.”

In this crowd, certainly, a cast of characters chosen not for fame but for quirks. There was a lot of Gaga talk; think eccentric, think Lady Gaga? Not quite. The point of the issue was not staged eccentricity but rather eccentricity as badge of dedication and passion. Mitchell Feinberg—Bronx-born still-life photographer and favorite eccentric of both Jakob F. S., editor-in chief and creative director of Vs., and Vibe Dabelsteen, the magazine’s fashion director—said, “the best eccentrics are those not extravagantly but thoughtfully so.”

Mr. Feinberg’s two photo shoots for Vs. saw conceptual art deal with the disposable: In one he plastered perfume bottles with powder, in the other he drilled a Patek Phillipe with a bullet fired from a .22 caliber rifle. He said that to be eccentric meant “to look at the world in a different way to everyone else.” According to Ms. Dabelsteen, Mr. Feinberg’s way of looking involves “caring about the finest details—that’s what makes him eccentric. Eccentricity and perfection are very close.”

If there was a queen of quirk, it was Colette. This multimedia artist, pioneer of the living art performance, pre-Cindy Sherman, describes herself as a “true New York eccentric”—the fact that she was born in Tunisia and grew up in the South of France sealed the deal. She had no compunction about wearing her weirdness on her sleeve—or rather her head. Her oversized black-and-white hat matched the décor and threatened to dominate it.

And the eccentrics’ most admired eccentrics? A tricky decision; in the worlds of art and fashion, choices are limitless. There was a vote for Salvador Dalí, for Andy Warhol, for Christopher Hitchens, for Diane Pernet, and—Ms. Christensen’s favorite—a “walking piece of art,” the recently deceased Anna Piaggi. Mr. Sapporta chose his girlfriend Erin Fetherston, “because in her spare time she’s a unicorn.”

To hell with the penthouse loft! Michael Stipe would rather have a studio, for art's sake! (Photo: Corcoran)

Midlife crises tend to evoke the same images: red sports cars, hair plugs, letters of resignation. But not if you’re a rock star. Not if you’re Michael Stipe.

After six years of presumably felicitous dwelling in his two-story penthouse loft home and studio on Canal Street in SoHo, Mr. Stipe, the former lead singer and lyricist of now-disbanded R.E.M., is calling it quits and, like most retirees, moving south. And by south we mean downtown Manhattan.

When his band of 31 years split up last September, Mr. Stipe had a revelation, a change of heart, a loss of religion, if you will.

“I wake up in the morning thinking of sculpture, not lyrics,” Mr. Stipe told The Wall Street Journal. “Lyrics are too hard.”

The Observer begs to differ—after all, words are our currency, Mr. Stipe—but we’ll pretend like we understand. Everyone is entitled to a career change. God knows Julian Scnabel does it all the time.

The Journal says that Mr. Stipe wants to reinvent himself as a “downtown artist” and that he’s looking to replace his current abode with “a large studio space where he can work on his sculptures.”

We guess, when you’re rich and famous, that you can do silly things like this—pack a backpack with some clay, a few blankets, and a Power Bar and downgrade to a studio apartment. But how far will Mr. Stipe take this new vagabond persona? Will he ride the subway there? Or perhaps hoof it?

And how long will it last? How soon until he starts missing his “light-flooded central atrium and glass doors” or his “industrial-style open kitchen” designed by chef and restaurateur, Mario Batali? When will he start craving a bath in his “oversize soaking tub” or a pillow fight with partner Thomas Dozol in any one of the four bedrooms? And what about Kirsten Dunst? Where’s the neighborly love?

Fortunately Mr. Stipe still has some time to change his mind as the loft was only recently put on the market for $10.95 million. But whatever happens, we wish Mr. Stipe luck. In fact, we’ll start clearing a spot in our office for a new work of art. As they say, nothing goes better with computers, stacks of paper, and empty coffee cups than bronze statues.

And as a testament to that birthright, Holbrooke was a foreign affairs genius who, when he was not ending wars and had a chance to indulge in frivolity, could extend his quick instinct beyond the ravages of the Middle East and onto the battlefields of Manhattan society. He was "The Bulldozer" in both capacities.

After decades of unparalleled journalism (editing Foreign Policy), overseas negotiation (advising multiple presidents and, in 1995, engineering the end of the war in Bosnia with the Dayton peace accords) and investment banking (making millions on Wall Street after selling consulting firm, Public Strategies, to Lehman Brothers) he fully indulged in his Gotham disposition by taking a job as the chief American representative at the United Nations. Such a job allowed for Holbrooke -- and his new (read: third) glam wife, Kati Marton, who had just divorced Peter Jennings -- to move into an untouched suite at the Pierre, worth $27 million, where they would entertain under the auspices of official U.N. business.

A 1998 story in The Observer anointed them Manhattan's new it couple.

He and his wife of three years have become immediate candidates for the kind of gilt-edged couple encountered in one of his friend Ward Just's Whartonesque Eastern Corridor novels.

"It's as if they're suddenly 'the one,'" said a photographer intimate with the velvet-rope crowd, "for the inner sanctum."

That article -- entitled "Here Come The Holbrookes! The U.N.'s New Couple" -- displayed not an ounce of restraint as it filled out the ambassador's larger-than-life rockstar aura.

One White House source reported that President Clinton described Mr. Holbrooke as a combination of Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman, with too much Rodman in the mix.

With the election of a Republican president in 2000, Holbrooke stayed in New York to work for AIG, and continued to dine and travel with the high echelon of those with money, power, and cache. The anecdotes are innumerable; this comes from a blog post in which New Yorker scribe Steve Coll offers up a personal Holbrookean memory.

While we ate lunch, Jerry Seinfeld and some of his entourage entered the dining room; Seinfeld was a guest at the hotel. “Jerry!” Holbrooke shouted, warmly. They were neighbors, it turned out, in New York and Telluride. We stood for introductions and chit-chat. Holbrooke asked what Seinfeld was working on and the comedian talked about his new reality-television show. In mid-explanation, however, Holbrooke’s cell phone rang. It was Robert Mueller, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and so the Ambassador had to interrupt Seinfeld to take the call.

Richard and his wife continued to entertain at their Manhattan home as well, as proven by this nugget from a 2009 story in The New York Times.

Every December, Mrs. Clinton can be found in Mr. Holbrooke and Ms. Marton’s apartment, laughing through an annual dinner they hold in her honor. The guests and the entertainment have varied — Glenn Close has sung carols, Robert De Niro and Matt Damon have sat alongside business figures and writers, and one of the tamer toasters called Mrs. Clinton the nation’s “first shiksa,” or gentile. But Mr. Holbrooke and Ms. Marton always give Mrs. Clinton laudatory toasts of their own.

And when Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter first opened the Waverly Inn, his star-studded West Village homage to cafe society, Holbrooke was not going to miss out. New York dining critic Adam Platt spotted the regular one the night he happened to be reviewing the place.

In the end, I didn’t actually beg to get my table at the Waverly Inn. I had other people do it for me. And once inside, I must admit, I felt pretty damn good about myself. And why not? There was Graydon (for whom I once wrote briefly at the New York Observer), resplendent in his regular banquette, which is situated, like a wary gunfighter’s, in the back corner of the room. There was Richard Holbrooke next to him, and next to both of them, hidden discreetly in a little alcove, was Michael Stipe, whose owlish glasses and salt-and-pepper beard made him look bizarrely like Sigmund Freud. And who were all these other people? Who knew? Who cared?

And even when Holbrooke returned to a Washington, D.C. state of mind upon his appointment, by President Obama, to the position of special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, he would not rid himself of that Manhattan sensibility.

"What's happened in Swat is a huge wakeup call," he said to Fareed Zakaria. He was being interviewed on CNN in April 2009, and referring to the area in Pakistan. "That is not in the Tribal Areas. That is 100 miles from Islamabad."

He clarified that tidbit thusly: "As I like to say to my friends in New York, it's the same distance as East Hampton is from Manhattan."

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

Anyone who's spent time with Mr. Escovedo's muscular music, which ranges from balls-out rockers to strings-heavy, Tex-Mex-flavored ballads, will understand why those closest to the San Antonio-born musician would want access to that room. Mr. Escovedo, who didn't start writing his own songs until he was 30, has some dead-on instincts for communicating the highs and lows of human experience through rhythm and lyrics. Heartbreak is Mr. Escovedo's specialty, but his integral, head-heart-and-guts approach ensures that even when he's performing other artists' songs--such as Ian Hunter's "Irene Wilde" (which appeared on last year's lively Bourbonitis Blues ) or Iggy and the Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog," a staple of his concerts--Mr. Escovedo is bringing something new and honest to the stage.

Those who haven't heard Mr. Escovedo will have the opportunity on May 11 and 12, when he appears at the Mercury Lounge on Houston Street to perform songs from his excellent new album, A Man Under the Influence (Bloodshot). On May 12, he will also provide musical accompaniment for his friend, the novelist Larry Brown, as he reads from his new book, Billy Ray's Farm , at Housing Works Used Book Cafe at 126 Crosby Street.

Mr. Escovedo's musical evolution began more than three decades ago. While directing a student film about "the worst band in the world," he and a classmate decided to play the roles themselves. They eventually became a real band, the Nuns, the punk outfit that earned a footnote in rock history for opening for the Sex Pistols' last concert at San Francisco's Winterland in 1978. Later he became a member of the country-punk unit Rank and File and, after that, a member of the True Believers with his younger brother Javier. (His other brothers, Pete and the late Coke Escovedo, played percussion for Santana, and his niece is the former Prince protégée Sheila E.) He also spent a period here in New York, the land of his heroes Iggy Pop, the Velvet Underground and the New York Dolls.

As the 90's began, Mr. Escovedo returned to Austin, Texas, to concentrate on a solo career and raise a family. His resistance to forming the emotional calluses that often plague artists no doubt has much to do with the life-altering events he has weathered there in the ensuing years. Not long after his return, his wife Bobbi committed suicide, leaving him to raise their two daughters, then 9 years old and 6 months old, respectively.

Ten years down the road, Mr. Escovedo is now the proud father of six children, who range in age from 2 to 31 years old. He hasn't been so lucky in love, though. He's currently separated from his third wife, the mother of that 2-year-old.

Those years of exploration and introspection--both personal and artistic--come to fruition on A Man Under the Influence , which was produced by Chris Stamey of the dBs. Mr. Escovedo spent a good portion of the last decade trying to understand the life of his Mexican immigrant father, who worked as a mariachi player, prizefighter and plumber, according to Mr. Escovedo. This moved Mr. Escovedo to co-write a music-based theatrical production, By the Hand of the Father , based on the experiences of his and a number of other Mexican fathers "who were all born at the turn of the century and made that journey from Mexico to the Southwest," he said. "It kind of questions the enigma of the Mexican male--how he's a very silent figure, you know, and kind of odd. He's very masculine, he's very macho, but he's also almost effeminate in his emotional makeup.

"I always looked at my father as being such a strong man," Mr. Escovedo continued. "He had done all these things, lived such an amazing life, and yet he never had that strength to be able to tell me these real sensitive things."

Two of the songs from the play, "Wave" and "Rosalie," appear on A Man Under the Influence . But if there is a theme to the album, it seems best expressed by the haunting last song, "About This Love," on which he sings: "It's all about this love / It's all about this pain / It's all about the loss / We take to live again." Near the end of the song, Mr. Escovedo changes the last line of that refrain to "We make to live again."

And though Mr. Escovedo explored both his relationship with his wife Bobbi and its aftermath on 1992's Gravity and 1993's Thirteen Years , the track "Across the River" leaves the distinct impression that he's still haunted by her death. "What kind of love destroys a mother and sends her crashing through the tangled trees?" the lyrics ask.

On the phone, Mr. Escovedo said the song was inspired by an old Mexican folk tale that his father told him about La Llorona, a young peasant woman who falls in love with a wealthy landowner. The couple have children out of wedlock, but the man's parents pressure him into marrying a woman from his own class. On the day of the wedding, the woman leaves her children to attend the ceremony, but when she returns, they have disappeared. In despair, she throws herself into the Rio Grande. "When she gets to heaven, she's asked where her children are," Mr. Escovedo said. "She says she doesn't know. So she's made to wander the Southwest looking for her children, crying the whole time."

The parallels between the father's folk tale and the son's life didn't occur to me until a few days after the interview. I called Mr. Escovedo's publicist and asked if he was willing to discuss it further. Although Mr. Escovedo acknowledged the connection, he declined to talk about it.

The secret room was closed. But listen closely at the Mercury Lounge and you'll get a glimpse of what it's like inside.

–Frank DiGiacomo

R.E.M: Losing Their Religion

A few weeks ago, I was wandering the aisles of my local D'Agostino's when I heard strangely familiar music piping from the in-store P.A. system. The tinkly four-to-the-bar piano, gruff bass harmonica and high vocal harmonies sounded straight out of Hawthorne, Calif., but eventually I realized it wasn't the Beach Boys at all. It was R.E.M. performing "At My Most Beautiful," the clever Brian Wilson pastiche from their last album, 1998's Up . Michael Stipe's quavery voice intoning the line "I read bad poetry into your machine" made a curious but pleasant soundtrack as I scanned the shelves for napkins and paper towels.

Now, you could argue that R.E.M.'s inclusion in supermarket background music is somehow hip. Or deliciously subversive. Or confirmation that, sooner or later, all that is alternative melts into the mainstream. What it suggests to me, however, is that one of the leading American rock bands of the post-punk era has finally completed its long transition into utter irrelevance.

My suspicions were confirmed after listening a few times to Reveal (Warner Bros.), R.E.M.'s 12th album and its second without original drummer Bill Berry. Reveal isn't a terrible album; it's thoughtful and well-crafted and would, I'm sure, provide excellent sonic backup for a journey through the produce section. But it is painfully dull. Its title is amusing, too, because Reveal essentially reveals that, despite R.E.M.'s pretense to depth, there is ultimately nothing of interest beneath the facile surface of its music.

For most of the album, that surface is pretty uninteresting, too. Apparently the three remaining founding members of R.E.M.--Mr. Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills--have decided that they will no longer be rocking out. Given that their last attempt to crank up the volume was 1994's sluggish Monster , this is not necessarily a bad idea.

But what R.E.M. have put in place of full-tilt rock 'n' roll is a kind of knowing postmodern commentary on middle-of-the-road pop. It's a tactic so many other artists have already tried that the only way it works anymore is if you back it up with ear-catching tunes. And there are very few here.

Occasionally, a novel moment rises above the general miasma. "All the Way to Reno (You're Gonna Be a Star)" is buoyed by a galumphing six-string bass, twangy electric sitar and what sounds like the clicking of castanets; "Saturn Return" is a sensitive piano ballad laid on top of a cacophony of synthesized percussion; and "Beachball" combines a pseudo-bossa-nova beat with a beefy horn line. But these bits of whimsical arrangement camouflage a series of predictable, uninspired melodies that only become memorable when they are repeated to the point of idiocy.

Yes, Mr. Stipe's lyrics are oblique-but-witty commentaries on himself, pop culture and the travails of modern life. Unfortunately, his delivery of those lyrics is so caked with feigned sincerity that it can be downright sickening. And honestly, who cares about the words when the music is almost a total bore?

For those true believers who may take offense at this assessment, here's a personal confession: My interest in R.E.M. peaked in 1987. I greatly enjoyed most of the music they made in their first decade of existence, and to this day I still love songs like "So. Central Rain" and "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville." But when Mr. Stipe stopped mumbling like a shaman and started enunciating his lyrics, his schtick began to grate on me. "Losing My Religion," a song that an entire generation seems to have taken to heart, has always annoyed me, and I regard most of what the band has done since then as an exercise in pointlessness. I do admire what the latter-day R.E.M. has achieved--the way they've valiantly maintained their integrity in the face of mega-stardom, the way they've inspired so many struggling artists--and I want to like them, but I just can't do it.

One of the most engaging tracks on Reveal , "Imitation Of Life," actually harks back to the classic R.E.M. sound of my youth. Mr. Buck dusts off his old Rickenbacker 12-string, and Mr. Stipe nails a keening chorus. Compared with the rest of this album, it's an exciting moment. But placed next to anything off of Murmur or Reckoning , it comes up lame. The song's title, like the album's, is cruelly apt. For this is nothing more than a pale copy of music that once pulsed with a vital force. Unless you're an unquestioning fan of R.E.M. (in which case, God help you), Reveal is not worth your time .

–Mac Randall

Cowboy Junky

Thirteen years ago, Cowboy Junkies released The Trinity Session , a severe whisper of an album that was recorded live, using a single microphone, at Toronto's Church of the Holy Trinity. Rarely has a band so smartly reinterpreted such a range of iconic songs. The standards of Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, the Velvet Underground and Patsy Cline were deliciously reborn through the sultry wonders of Margo Timmins' voice and her brother Michael Timmins' guitar. The pair shared writing credits on a handful of other songs, including the lovelorn "Misguided Angel" and the fatalistic "To Love Is to Bury." (Another brother, Peter Timmins, played drums on the album.)

At first blush, it looked as if the music world had the sib equivalent of Richard and Linda Thompson on its hands: a tempestuous couple whose passion was matched by their communicative power.

But the Junkies never lived up to the brilliant promise of The Trinity Sessions ; 1990's The Caution Horses and 1993's Pale Sun, Crescent Moon both had moments of stark beauty, but nothing captured the heavy-lidded wallop of their debut. And over the last several years, the band has slipped so far off the radar screen of hipster respectability that many onetime fans assume the Junkies stopped playing together long ago.

In fact, the Cowboy Junkie's latest release, Open (Latent/Zoe), is the band's fifth album in five years (counting one rarities collection and one greatest-hits disc). Unfortunately, it does little to dispel the notion that the band was a casualty of the 90's. The Junkies' most recent album of new material, 1998's Miles From Our Home , was a sad, slick effort to hit pop pay dirt. Open is an unfortunate continuation of this trend.

Without a major-label contract ( Open , like The Trinity Sessions , is being released by the band's own Latent label; Zoe is handling stateside distribution), the Junkies seem to be at a tipping point. The band could either have harked back to its roots of beautiful despair or tried, once again, to reach a wider audience. The Timmins seem to have opted for the latter approach, creating a confusing album of adult-contemporary mishmash.

Where Mr. Timmins' most moving guitar work often consisted of little more than deliberately strummed rhythm lines, here he seems to be trying to don the guitar-god mantle, introducing open-ended jams such as "Dragging Hooks" and "Dark Hole Again" with spacey electric solos that wouldn't feel out of place in the middle of a Grateful Dead concert. On "Bread and Wine," the standard-issue wah-wah guitar is backed by organ washes that might as well have been lifted straight from a classic-rock playbook.

As Ms. Timmins tries to inject some needed emotion into clichés like "Your heart ain't nearly as guilty as mine," it's impossible not to remember how effortlessly she sang of searching out "something small and frail and plastic, baby / 'Cause cheap is how I feel."

Even the album's more deliberate numbers sound as if they were called in. "Thousand Year Prayer," with its tinkling piano lines and second-hand wood block, sounds cheesy and remote instead of dangerously sparse.

I've never been one to begrudge musicians the right to explore new avenues. On Open , however, one doesn't get the sense that the Cowboy Junkies are exploring new creative paths. Instead, the album feels like a sad, uninspired effort, driven by a desire to rediscover a commercial rather than artistic success. The band seems to have forgotten that wasn't the formula that worked for them in the first place.

–Seth Mnookin

Patria Chef Learns ABC's

When chef Douglas Rodriguez's restaurant Chicama opens on Jan. 29 in the ABC Carpet & Home building on Broadway and 18th Street, he'll be just a couple of blocks from Patria, the Latin American-themed restaurant on Park Avenue South where he became a New York culinary star. But Mr. Rodriguez probably won't be stopping by his old stomping grounds for a friendly drink.

A source close to the situation told The Transom that Patria's owners recently sent a letter to Mr. Rodriguez's lawyer, informing him that the chef was no longer welcome at Patria. The source said Mr. Rodriguez had apparently prompted the letter when, several weeks ago, he parked himself at Patria's bar and reportedly became rather belligerent. "He was out of control," claimed the source. "He was threatening chefs, saying he was going to take people from Patria to Chicama …"

"I don't know who gave you that information, but it's not true. That did not happen," said Mr. Rodriguez, who added that he did not want to talk about Patria, but rather only about Chicama.

His sensitivity is understandable. Although the Cuban-American Mr. Rodriguez has said that he left Patria last October to open another restaurant, called Unico, in a town house on East 32nd Street, sources familiar with the situation said he lost his gig at Patria because management deemed his attempt to open another eatery a breach of contract. One source said Mr. Rodriguez did not tell Patria's owners of his plans for Unico until the day he signed the contract on the new space-at which point he reportedly also offered them an opportunity to invest in Unico.

Unico, in which Mr. Rodriguez will be a partner with Hudson Valley Foie Gras co-owner Michael Ginor, was originally supposed to open in October, but, Mr. Rodriguez told The Transom, it probably won't open until the summer, even though he's currently paying rent. In addition to needing to concentrate on Chicama, Mr. Rodriguez explained that once contractors began gutting and rehabbing the 110-year-old building, which stands on 32nd Street between Madison and Park avenues, "the budget tripled in a matter of months." Sources familiar with the situation estimate that Mr. Rodriguez needs at least another $1 million to complete work on Unico.

It was during this search for additional funds that a mutual friend of Mr. Rodriguez and ABC Carpet & Home co-owner Evan Cole put the two together.

"We made kind of a deal where I would help him here [at Chicama] and he would help me at Unico," said Mr. Rodriguez. He explained that Mr. Cole would not be kicking in any money, but rather would be outfitting Unico with "furniture and fixtures, like rugs, lamps, chairs and tables."

Restaurant industry sources told The Transom that Mr. Rodriguez's decision to enter into a management contract for Chicama with ABC Carpet & Home, while putting Unico on the back burner, has not sat well with his partner, Mr. Ginor. But Mr. Ginor, who said his role with Unico is "more on the advisory side," would only say: "Doug has a phenomenal palate and is a brilliant chef." He did admit, however, that "my wish is that someone who is supportive of Latin culture would come in and support Unico as a patron of the culinary arts."

Even in a business that moves at a breakneck pace, the speed at which ABC's husband-and-wife owners, Evan and Paulette Cole, have managed to change restaurants and concepts is startling. If Chicama does open as scheduled, it will have been only four weeks since the previous restaurant that occupied the space, a rustic Italian eatery called Colina, closed.

Indeed, according to a spokesman for the restaurant, "It's been only seven weeks" since Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. Cole first got together. In December, after talking over the concept, Mr. and Mrs. Cole and Mr. Rodriguez flew to Peru to experience the local cuisine and to buy the artwork, Peruvian icons and furniture that will decorate the space.

Since Colina closed on Dec. 30, the décor and lighting have been changed, and a ceviche bar and eucalyptus-burning grill have been installed. In addition to ceviche of fish and shellfish, which a copy of the menu acquired by The Transom boasts is " the food for the millennium," Mr. Rodriguez will cook up such dishes as aji de gallina, or Peruvian hen stew, and achiote-marinated baby goat.

Sources said those most surprised by ABC Carpet's abrupt change of restaurants were the proprietors of Colina, who included Nick & Toni's co-owner Jeff Salaway. "They essentially threw them out," said one source. "They're not completely done," said another, implying that the divorce between ABC and Colina could end up less than amicably.

Steve Fass, vice president of restaurants, food and housewares for ABC, declined to comment on Colina. Of Mr. Rodriguez he said: "We had an opportunity to get a three-star chef, and we took it."

Mr. Salaway would only say, "They decided to make a change," adding, "Admittedly we had a bad start," referring to a spate of reviews in The New York Times and the New York Post that trounced Colina. But, he said, "We felt that things were looking good. We're disappointed, but it's their place."

Bellow's Gift

The birth on Dec. 23 of Naomi Rose Bellow to 84-year-old writer Saul Bellow and his 41-year-old wife, Janis Freedman, got the Transom thinking. Could Mr. Bellow have complemented his Nobel Prize with another celebrated measure of accomplishment: an entry in The Guinness Book of World Records as the world's oldest father?

After all, Mr. Bellow beats Pablo Picasso and Charles Chaplin, who had children in, respectively, their 60's and 70's. Even Anthony Quinn, that emotive fertility totem, was a mere 81 when his 13th child was born in 1996.

Alas, Mr. Bellow cannot claim the honor. Not because of some sturdy 96-year-old Uzbek in Kazakhstan, but because, according to Guinness World Records marketing assistant Neil Hayes, the organization doesn't monitor oldest pops as a category. "There are a whole host of issues, but basically it all comes down to proving that the man is the father," Mr. Hayes explained in an e-mail to the Transom. "As we need precise information, this would necessitate blood samples to be taken from the infant and the alleged father and this is not in our best interests to insist upon."

A call to Mr. Bellow's literary agency seeking comment from the author produced no response. Mr. Bellow's son, Adam Bellow, declined to comment on the birth of Naomi Rose. "I think it's been adequately covered," he said.

Stipe Takes Plunge

Michael Stipe obviously understands that dressing fashionably often requires great sacrifices of human comfort. Though it was seasonably warm in Sarasota, Fla., on Jan. 15, the R.E.M. frontman swanned into a local restaurant-in-progress, the State Room, wearing a big red woolen ski cap and matching red long-sleeve shirt. Were it not for the purse that was draped on his arm and the luminescent jewelry he was wearing, Mr. Stipe could have been mistaken for a gigantic nipple (albeit one in need of a shave).

The recording artist and film producer was taking part in the Sarasota Film Festival, and attended the State Room party to present actor Stephen Dorff with the festival's Young Lion Award. At the party, a photographer tried to get Mr. Stipe to pose with another rocker, AC/DC lead singer Brian Johnson, who lives in Sarasota, but the R.E.M. singer refused. That didn't seem to bother Mr. Johnson much, though. The singer, who immortalized "Back in Black," told one partygoer: "I got to tell you, mate, I don't like him, and I don't like his fuckin' music."

Mr. Stipe did attempt to connect with other members of the crowd when, according to witnesses, he screamed down from the mezzanine-level V.I.P. room for everyone on the dance floor to take off their clothes. As an incentive, said one source, Mr. Stipe yelled that Mr. Dorff had already doffed his duds (he hadn't). "It scared the hell out of me," said one of the restaurant's proprietors, Philip Mancini.

No one heeded Mr. Stipe's request-at least not at the State Room. A select group of people were then invited to an after-party at the home of Mark Famiglio, one of the festival's organizers and underwriters. There, the Transom hears, approximately 30 people, including Mr. Stipe, took off their clothes and got into Mr. Famiglio's pool, which turns into a Jacuzzi. ( Get the skimmer! ) Asked if this was true, Mr. Famiglio would only say, "Someone may have had a hat on." That must have been Mr. Stipe.

The Transom Also Hears

… The millennial angst of Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia is not for everyone. About two hours into the film's matinee screening at the East Hampton United Artists theater on Jan. 17, one silver-haired woman in the audience got up from her seat, presumably to go to the ladies' room. As she moved into the aisle, the woman sitting next to her asked: "Are you going to slit your wrists?"