An opera coat by Paul Poiret, 1912, in the Met's collection

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has canceled loans to the Moscow Kremlin Museum of works by French fashion designer Paul Poiret, “in response to” Russia’s art embargo, Met spokesman Harold Holzer told The Observer today.

"Paul Poiret – King of Fashion" is set to open at the Moscow museum on September 7 and was to consist of loans from the Met and from the Fashion Museum in Paris.

The “loans won’t be going forward,” Mr. Holzer said, “in response to” Russia’s embargo on lending art to U.S. museums.  “As long as the loan embargo is in place, the museum believes it can no longer lend” to Russian museums.  A “one sided” relationship would, he said, be “unfair.”

Russia instituted its art embargo after Chabad, a Brooklyn-based Jewish sect, obtained a default judgment against it in July 2010, saying it feared its art would be seized by Chabad to force it to comply.

Because of the embargo, the Met has already lost promised loans to two of its own shows – “Cezanne’s Card Players” and “Rooms with a View” – and “if the embargo is not lifted by September,” Mr. Holzer said, “the Met is on track to lose paintings for “’Master Paintings from India.’”  That show is set to open at the Met on September 28.

The UK Guardian reported in 2007 that Mr. Kasparov spends thousands of dollars on bodyguards each month to protect him and his family. But, I wouldn't worry about him having to sell the family silver as it seems that the chess grandmaster has money to spend. As well as his recent $3.4 million purchase on the Upper West Side, Mr. Kasparov keeps residences in Paris, Moscow, Leningrad and that political hotbed: New Jersey. The deed for the penthouse condo was filed under the names of both Mr. Kasparov and his third wife, Daria, with whom he has a young daughter.

Mr. Kasparov, who was arrested during a protest in Moscow in 2007, told Playboy in an interview, “If something goes wrong with me or my family, I don't think there's a chance for them [the Kremlin] to say they aren't guilty. For many Russians, I'm a symbol of national pride. I was the Soviet champion even for the left wing, even for the nationalists. I'm not Garry Kasparov, half-Armenian, half-Jewish born, but the Soviet champion, the man who was on top of the world of chess, the pride of the nation.”

Mr. Kasparov may soon assume a new role as the international pride of the Upper West Side.

cmalle@observer.com

- Max Abelson

around you is being swept along by the nouveau sincerity-especially vis-à-vis

holiday preparations-leaving you high and dry. Having turned your back on

Yuletide sentimentality right about the time movie-star trannie Divine pushed

the Christmas tree on top of her mother in the 1975 John Waters movie Female Trouble , you are understandably

at a loss. The last time you decked the halls with boughs of holly-or

challah-Margaret Trudeau was a well-recognized name. Over the years, you've

celebrated the holidays, but only with your girlfriends Tio Pepe, Kahlúa and

Drambuie. Now, spurred on by the shifting, increasingly warm and fuzzy Zeitgeist , you are trying desperately to

get in touch with your inner Martha, but it's simply not working.

Don't panic. Holiday szhoosh ( szhoosh , as I've told you before, is the

window dresser's vernacular meaning "embellishment") is not such a big deal.

Here are 10 shortcuts aimed at first-timers. Follow my simple instructions and

you will get the hang of things. At no stage of the proceedings are you allowed

to ask the question "Why am I doing this?" Promise!

1. Vintage Christmas-tree ornaments are kooky and classy,

especially if gorgeously tarnished. I'm talking about those family tree ornaments-circa

1960-which your more sentimental siblings snagged from the attic years ago,

while you were hunched over a bong at college. It's not too late: run to the 26th

Street flea market, where vintage ornaments

abound. A box of six medium-sized balls will set you back about $30. Don't

polish them! (This is one of those rare occasions when I actually advocate the

dreaded shabby chic!) Place your vintage orbs delicately into a large fruit

bowl, and use as a combination centerpiece and conversation piece.

Alternatively, place two small, ball-filled, glass dessert dishes on either end

of your mantle.

2. Wreaths are nice … for funerals. For your foyer or mantel, try

the following: take that old Styrofoam wig-head, or vintage millinery head, and

double-stick a lustrous drugstore wig to it ($15 wigs, $3 wig-heads at Lacey

Costume Wig, 505 Eighth Avenue,

695-1996). If you have a plain white wig-head and basic drawing skills, then

magic-marker a Modigliani-esque or Twiggy-ish face upon same. Take your

leftover vintage balls and embellish the coiffure in an aesthetically pleasing

manner. Don't forget to add extra-long dangly earrings and give her a name.

Mine's called Pam. (See photo.)

3. A Christmas tree covered in holiday greeting cards is known as

a "friendship tree"-which is all very heart-warming, but irrelevant in your

case, because you're not on anyone's card list. A lack of card-sending chums

is, however, to your advantage, because you get to art-direct your own

friendship tree. Run to MoMA and buy 40 of your fave art postcards ($14.95 for

a box of 20). No landscapes, please: Portraits work better, and Warhol works

best. Stop off at the hardware store and buy 40 alligator clips (you doubtless

know them better as "roach clips"). Simply clip the cards to a small

(three-foot) tree and, voilà , a

Warholenbaum. (See photo.)

4. Overblown, over-creative gift wrap upstages most gifts. Simply

wrap yours in metallic gold-foil paper ($4.30 for a 19-by-27 sheet at Kate's

Paperie, 561 Broadway, 941-9816) and tie them up with yarn. Yes, colored

yarn-the kind deployed on Cindy Brady's coiffure. It's cheap, it's chic and

it's back! The fatter, the better. Tie it in simple cartoony knots. The best

yarn selection can be found at Gotta Knit (498 Sixth

Avenue, 989-3030)-for $13, you get a 60-yard ball.

5. Did you get laid off? Do

you have time on your hands? Do you crave something therapeutically

labor-intensive, something far more insanely time-consuming than even Martha

Stewart can come up with? (Remember when she wanted us to hand-block our own

gift-wrapping paper?) Why not build yourself a replica of the Kremlin using

cookies and bonbons? I have neither the patience nor the space to tell you

exactly how to execute this monumental project. I can, however, tell you where

to look: You will find a picture of a cookie-Kremlin-along with pages of

detailed instructions-on page 32 of the December 1970 issue of Ladies' Home Journal . Gallagher's Paper

Collectible at 126 East 12th Street (473-2404) sells copies of vintage LHJ 's-including this one-for $25.

6. Looking for patriotica? You won't find Stars and Stripes balls

at the flea market. Call Bronner's (800-361-6736) and ask about their

five-and-a-half-inch American Eagle for $8.49 and the Stars and Stripes freedom

bell for $11.99.

7. Re Martha Stewart: The great one is purveying this season's

most perverse little tree. It's restrained, it's white and it's made from

zillions of tiny, obsessively wired white goose feathers ($375 at Martha by

Mail, 800-950-7130).Dangle your solitary American Eagle from it for a

hauntingly patriotic effect.

8. Buy a kooky glass vintage

or Barbara Hepworth–ish menorah online or pop into my husband's shop (Jonathan

Adler,465BroomeStreet,941-8950) and grab one of his ceramic baby-blue-and-navy

Brancusi-esque wedge menorahs ($98). While you're there, pick up a chic

stoneware piggy bank ($85) for your Chanukah Geld.

9. Loosen your minimalist girdle a tad and buy yourself a set of

Swarovski-crystal-encrusted Chanukah candles by Kaos ($45 for a set of 15 at

Barneys). They're great on a menorah or in a gentile receptacle.

10. Did you know that pickles were part of the whole traditional Tannenbaum situation? Back in

19th-century Deutschland, the gherkin was traditionally the last ornament to go

on the tree. On Christmas morning, the first brat to find the gherkin was

rewarded with a little extra quelque

chose from Saint Nick. The Bronner's catalog has pickle ornaments for $5.49

each. They won't show up against greenery, therefore buy two nine-inch Bronner

ornament stands ($2.99 each). You are now free to dangle your pickles in

improbable locations.

Happy hols!

The Grill Room has moved into the former premises of Le Pactole, a French restaurant where we had gone for dinner several years earlier. Now at the entrance, instead of a table spread with hors d'oeuvres, there was an enormous oval wooden bar packed with stockbrokers, lawyers and accountants drinking martinis and gazing at the party boats bobbing in the marina below. On the bar, which was under an old railway station clock (in perfect time with the red neon Colgate clock across the river), sat a humidor containing cigars, starting at $9.50 each. My husband stared at it wistfully. He used to get the Kremlin's surplus Cuban cigars from a Russian émigré in Brooklyn for 80 cents each, but after Mikhail Gorbachev departed office, the supply dried up.

It was a clever idea of Larry Forgione's to open a steakhouse in this part of town, now that the last of the old places like Whyte's have disappeared. He is also the chef and owner of An American Place and the Beekman 1776 Tavern in upstate Rhinebeck, and if anyone understands straightforward American cooking, it is he. He knows what this audience likes. Miniature vegetables and lemongrass broth infusions are as out of place at the Grill Room as soft pink lighting and discreetly patterned silks. No hot, young, up-to-the-minute restaurant designer has set his hand on this room, with its vaguely masculine wood paneling and forgettable paintings. "It looks like the dining room of an office building-which, I guess, it is," said my husband, looking around. But all is saved by the view across the Hudson. One night, there was a spectacular thunderstorm over New Jersey, with flashes of lightning and torrential rains that lashed the boats below, one of which had a helicopter parked precariously on its deck and boudoir lamps in the cabins.

My ambivalence about the World Financial Center also, alas, extends to the Grill Room, where I had two totally different experiences. On my first visit, the food was wonderful, beginning with the basket of crumbly, warm biscuits that was set on our table. Mr. Forgione, who has a reputation as a stickler for impeccable ingredients, knows that those are what will make people come back for such golden oldies as lobster cocktail in green goddess dressing, shrimp Louie, Caesar salad and pot roast of short ribs. A simple combination of ripe golden beefsteak tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and meaty leaves of arugula with shavings of air-dried sausage and grilled Vidalia onions could not have been better. The shrimp cocktail, not normally one of my favorite dishes, for once had real taste. I also liked the napoleon of smoked salmon and American sturgeon caviar, prettily layered with lemon cream and crisp potato gaufrettes.

My husband had not been along on my first visit, which had been such a success, so he was as surprised as I was when we realized (according to the Colgate clock across the river) that we had waited nearly an hour for the arrival of our first course, a plate of fried Ipswich clams that seemed to consist almost entirely of cornmeal. Our waiter wandered off, never to be seen again, having forgotten to bring mineral water and a glass of white wine. He was eventually replaced by someone else without a word of explanation. The buzzing disco music on the sound system made us feel we were in a Marriott-as, unfortunately, did our neighbors.

At the next table sat a party of men who had, typically, slung their jackets over the backs of their chairs and were obviously enjoying the benefits of their expense accounts. They exchanged loud, boastful stories about their exploits on the road: "Barry slept in my room that night, remember? You were next door with a girl when your wife called!"

Since this is a steakhouse, the meat is served in Mesozoic portions, and includes dry-aged Cowboy Prime Rib and a shell steak served with barbecued onions. Main courses are served steakhouse style, with vegetables such as creamed spinach, hash browns and Yukon gold mashed potatoes extra (and with steaks around the $30 range, side orders at $6.50 and the expensive American wines, prices here add up fast).

My husband's shell steak, which he ordered very rare, arrived lukewarm, which was a shame because the meat was good. The grilled mignon of lamb with minted lamb "jus" had been so tender on my first visit that you could cut it with a spoon. That night, a special, wolf fish with wild mushrooms, had been delicious, too, as was the roast cod, perfectly cooked and served with roasted golden beets and summer savory. But the night I was with my husband, I ordered the tuna, served in an interesting sauce of olives and wild leeks, and it was overcooked.

The very American desserts include a creamy cheesecake, old-fashioned chocolate pudding in a glass and raspberry peach pie. As we tucked into a chocolate macadamia pie that tasted like a candy bar, I wondered what had happened to the restaurant since the wonderful meal I had had a month earlier.

"With this crowd," said my husband looking around the room, "they probably just gave up."

I doubt that is true. But it is too bad the Grill Room's food is so erratic. For when it is good, it can be great.

The Grill Room **

2 World Financial Center,

225 Liberty Street, 945-9400

dress: Business

noise level: Fine

wine list: American and expensive

credit cards: All major

price range: Main courses $24 to $34

lunch: Monday to Friday 11:30 A.M. to 4 P.M.

dinner: Monday to Friday 5:30 P.M. to 9 P.M.

* good

** very good

*** excellent

**** outstanding

no star poor