Amid the crumpets and collectors gathered in the London Hotel's second-floor tea room, Director Amy Meyers welcomed all to the "wonderful summer fete" and kicked off the lineup.

The big blockbuster appears to be some months away.  Thomas Lawrence: Regency Power and Brilliance, which opens Feb. 24, centers on the enigmatic portrait master's collection of works that chronicled the shifting of class boundaries and gender roles within 18th century London

On Sept. 16, the show opening the fall season is The Independent Eye: Contemporary British Art from the Collection of Samuel and Gabrielle Lurie. Artists featured include by postwar British artists Patrick Caulfield, Howard Hodgkin, John Walker, Ian Stephenson and most notably, John Hoyland.

In perhaps the most inventive and personal show, the Center will spotlight the career and works of lesser-known architect and former Yale professor with Notes from the Archive: James Frazer Stirling, Architect and Teacher. The exhibit, running Oct. 14, 2010- Jan. 2, 2011, encompasses more than 300 of Stirling's drawings, sketches and models from the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal.

Stirling "was one of the leading architects of his generation," said Robert Stern, Dean and J.M. Hoppin Professor of Architecture at the Yale School of Architecture. "[But] he got left behind in terms of people's consciousness."

The exhibit will run in tandem with An Architect's Legacy: James Stirling's Students at Yale, 1959-1983, which explores Stirling's legacy through the eyes of his students. It will be at the Yale School of Architecture in New Haven.

Altogether, it was a very proper event, the only snafu being when one onlooker unexpectedly fell out of her chair and onto the patterned carpet during the slightly long slideshow. 

 Perhaps she was simply holding her breath in anticipation.

“There aren’t that many names I know,” said the 64-year-old fan. “Myskina—I know her. But I couldn’t pick her out of a line-up.”

It’s the story of women’s tennis. Like the draw here at the last warm-up tournament before the U.S. Open, the field isn’t so much weak as it is anonymous.

Just a few years ago, the women’s game was controlled by a set of first-class divas, a set of athletes the public knew simply as Serena, Venus, Jen, Monica and Martina.

But most of those first names will be absent when the Open arrives in Flushing this week. Thanks to injuries, attrition and indifference, the dramatic running rivalries that used fuel the sport’s popularity are a thing of the past. Also gone are all the diva-driven dramatics that lured fans to Center Court every big Sunday.

As far as the current players are concerned, the marked decrease in crazy tennis dads, players bumping during changeovers and incidents of trash talking is a good thing.

“Trash-talking is over now,” said Wimbledon champ Amélie Mauresmo, her hair wet after stepping out of the shower after practice in New Haven. “Today, players might think something, but they won’t say it in public like they used to.”

“There’s a difference from a few years ago,” quietly observed Justine Henin-Hardenne, the five-time Grand Slam champion, clearly more uncomfortable than Mauresmo while answering questions from the local press. “There’s still a lot of conflict on the court, but off the court it’s probably better now.”

But the dirty secret of women’s tennis is that it thrives on conflict.

In many ways, Henin-Hardenne’s ascendance the last three years reflects the change that women’s tennis has undergone, with the brash, outsized personalities of Venus Williams and Martina Hingis replaced by one of the most brooding, press-shy athletes in sports.

“Back then, you had everything,” said L. Jon Wertheim, tennis reporter for Sports Illustrated, with more than a hint of wistfulness. “You had a racial component, a burnout component, a tragic back-story. It was like a sitcom, and everyone had an easily reducible role.

“The buzz factor isn’t nearly what it was five years ago. It’s harder to get a grip on the sport. The sport thrives on these back-stories, and fans don’t know who they’re rooting for. Elena Dementieva is a perfectly pleasant person, but the average fan doesn’t have a grip on who she is.”

Put simply, today’s women players aren’t household names.

“You don’t say ‘Anastasia’ or ‘Elena’ and say, ‘Yeah!’” said NBC tennis analyst Bud Collins.

Those first-name players pull the game up to its highest reaches. They brought the women into prime time for the U.S. Open final. They raised higher purses for tournaments. They were cover girls.

After several decades’ worth of domination at the hands of the men’s game, the television ratings for the women’s Grand Slam finals finally began to match—and oftentimes beat—the men’s finals’ ratings.

Sports columnists everywhere were suddenly speaking of the greater virtues of the women’s game: It had more rallies than the men’s game, and the good matches were a crisp two hours—the length of a college-basketball game.

Now those encomiums have been replaced by excuses.

Chief among them this year—as cited in interviews with Women’s Tennis Association officials—seems to be that the women’s tour needs more Americans. But take one look at the men’s tour and that argument dissolves. The men’s game is experiencing a renaissance on the backs of two foreigners: the invincible Roger Federer and the handsome, exciting Rafael Nadal.

In fact, the player who has the best chance to bring any buzz back to the women’s game is Russian-born Maria Sharapova— currently the highest-paid female in the history of sports. But for all of the Canon commercials and her squeaky-clean image, Sharapova still hasn’t won a Slam since her elegant 2004 slaying of Serena Williams at the Wimbledon final, at the age of 17.

Which leaves Mauresmo and Henin-Hardenne as the closest thing to genuine stars that the W.T.A. has to offer.

“Justine and Amélie are kind, they’re smart, but they’re also shy and not wildly outgoing,” said Anne Worcester, former chief executive of the W.T.A. and current director of the Pilot Pen Tournament in New Haven. “But when Venus Williams and Irina Spirlea bump each other, fans like that drama and they like that tension.”

Ms. Worcester was referring to the moment in the 1997 U.S. Open when Spirlea threw her shoulder into Williams’ body during a changeover. Williams’ father, Richard, reacted by calling Spirlea a “big, tall, white turkey” after the match.

Consider the world-famous diva of women’s tennis during its apex: five-time Grand Slam champ Martina Hingis. Her most absurd highlight was calling Mauresmo, one of the few openly gay players on tour, “half a man.” A close second was her appearance in the 1999 French Open final, when Hingis called a bathroom break in the middle of her final against Steffi Graf, returned from the locker room with a new outfit and hairstyle, smashed her racket into the clay at one moment, underhanded her serve on Graf’s match point, slapped a W.T.A. official when she left the court and burst into tears when the French Open crowd booed her during the trophy presentation.

“Tension off the court brings drama on the court,” said Ms. Worcester. “Martina Hingis was charismatic. She had that grin, she’s mischievous, and when she said something, you want to listen. Fans like that.”

The tour’s malaise is perhaps best personified in Venus and Serena Williams. The Williams sisters—love them or hate them—invited a massive amount of attention with their years-long domination of the sport. But now, at a time when the sisters should still be in the prime of their careers, Serena is barely ranked in the Top 100 and Venus is hurt, adding to the sense of a pervasive culture of injuries, absence and indifference around the tour.

“The players aren’t supporting the tour,” said NBC and CBS tennis analyst Mary Carillo. “Mauresmo has blown off the entire hard-court season. Then there are injuries and phony injuries—Clijsters is out for two months.

“They don’t think about growing the game; they think about growing their bank account,” Ms. Carillo continued. “There’s been a recession for years, but the players don’t feel it. They’re making more. You can’t convince them that tennis is in trouble. They can’t feel it; their agents can’t feel it. They’re living in an entirely different reality.”

Along with that is the loss of any true rivalry in the sport. Federer and Nadal have played each other five times this year. Years ago, Hingis and Venus Williams would play each other as many times. But with the biggest names withdrawing from tournaments or spreading to different warm-ups, there’s no chance for two players to establish a rivalry.

“It’s hard to build a brand here,” said Mr. Wertheim, the Sports Illustrated reporter. “After Sharapova beat Serena at Wimbledon, that was supposed to be the next great rivalry. I’m not sure they’ve played two times since then.”

But perhaps there’s reason for hope: After retiring several years ago due to injuries— and her consistent failure against the Williams sisters—Hingis is making a comeback, and is entering the Open ranked ninth in the world and with a legitimate shot at making it into the final.

In an interview with Play, The New York Times’ quarterly sports magazine, Hingis was asked if the women’s side was tougher since she returned. She said no and, with her typical grace and sense of sportsmanship, cited Mauresmo’s success as Exhibit A for the decline in the game’s quality.

On Sunday, while Mauresmo was signing balls and posters for fans, she was told by a reporter what Hingis had said.

Her hand immediately froze. Her face tightened. Her chin twitched.

But, in keeping with the times, she quickly regained her composure.

Answering a question about Hingis and her comeback, she said, “I think it’s quite amazing.”

There was no hint of sarcasm.

They now say that peace activists sympathetic to Ned Lamont are trying to revoke the senator's registration as a Democrat in his hometown of New Haven. The argument is that he stopped being a Democrat when he started running as an Independent petitioning candidate.

"This gives the lie to the idea that this is not an effort to purge different ideas from the party," said Lieberman spokesman Dan Gerstein, who referred to the activists as Lamont surrogates.

Lamont, obviously, can't be responsible for the actions of all of his supporters. But talk about off-message...

We're still waiting for a comment from his campaign.

-- Jason Horowitz

UPDATE: The Lieberman campaign has just released a statement on this (after the jump), while Lamontblog has a rebuttal, aimed primarily at Gerstein.

Lieberman Campaign Denounces Party
Purge Effort by Lamont Supporters
"Dirty political tricks at its worst"

HARTFORD -- Lieberman for Senate Campaign Manager Sherry Brown issued the following statement denouncing the effort launched today by Ned Lamont's supporters to have Joe Lieberman purged from the Democratic Party rolls in New Haven.

"The purge campaign launched today by Ned Lamont's supporters is dirty political tricks at its worst, ranking up there with the outrageous tactics that Katherine Harris and the Republicans used in 2000 in Florida to stop all the votes from being counted.

"This kind of ridiculous, partisan game-playing is not going to provide anyone in Connecticut with better jobs, better health care, or better schools. All it's going to do is deepen our divisions and add to voters frustration with our broken political system.

"Joe Lieberman is running to change that, to builld a new politics of unity and purpose that will bring our state and country together to solve our common problems. We will leave it to Ned Lamont to defend the old politics of partisanship and polarization that he and his supporters want to continue."

Josh Isay may be new to the Lieberman campaign, but not to Lieberman himself.

"I have actually known the Senator's family for almost my entire life," said Isay. "I grew up in New Haven."

Hometown loyalties aside, Isay said he is a great admirer of the Senator, and expressed confidence Lieberman will take on and win against Democrats, Republicans and anyone else going into November's showdown with Ned Lamont.

"I think he is going to do very well with Democrats and unaffiliated voters and Republicans who want to end partisan bickering and who want progress," Isay told me.

Lamont's campaign has already jumped on the Lieberman's campaign hiring of Isay -- who recently worked on the reelection campaign of Mike Bloomberg -- and a Republican pollster as another opportunity to question the senator's Democratic credentials.

"It makes you wonder who the real Joe Lieberman is," Mr. Lamont's spokeswoman, Liz Dupont-Diehl just told us. "He has been Republican, Republican, Republican for some time. Now we are seeing it manifest itself."

But Isay, who helped reelect Republican Mayor Bloomberg, said he was a true-blue Democrat.

"I'm a Democratic political consultant who represents both elected officials and progressive causes, I believe Joe Lieberman has been a great Senator and is the best choice in this race. And I believe that this is totally consistent with my clients and my beliefs."

--Jason Horowitz

According to the town-by-town returns, Lamont padded his margins over Joe Lieberman in places like Greenwich, where he received 68 percent of the vote, and New Canaan where he got 62 percent.

But most impressive was his performance in Cornwall, a pleasant-looking town of 1,400 up in Litchfield County, where Lamont drew 91 percent of the primary vote.

How does that happen, exactly?

-- Josh Benson

UPDATE: Steve Kornacki has more analysis. From an email:

UPDATE UPDATE: From Kornacki:

The Lieberman site is still down. Complaints have been filed on the state and federal level. And now, the FBI is getting involved.

"The FBI has begun to interview people on or staff. They are taking this very seriously," said Dan Gerstein.

At this point, nobody knows who is to blame. But this guy was causing trouble at Lieberman's polling station this morning in New Haven.

--Jason Horowitz

-- Josh Benson

It was Nov. 18, and we’d taken the Friday-night train to New Haven—a booze-soaked isthmus carrying us from Manhattan to Yale, where our alma mater would battle Harvard in the next day’s football game. Nate-Dog, William, Cooper and I have gone to the Game every year since graduating in 2002 (Nate and Coop from Harvard, Will and I from Yale). But this year, Mother Yale had some new house rules for tailgaters: no drinking games, no standing/sitting on U-Hauls, and tailgating parties would be shut down by the end of halftime. Of course, in the words of Will: “Who cares? I’m blacked out by then anyway!”

Metro-North was lousy with Yale and Harvard alums caravanning to Connecticut. Of my 20 friends, most of us are investment bankers or med students, and all of us are buffoons. We came together in New York after graduation, forming fast friendships and ignoring our commencement speakers’ advice to branch out and socialize with people from non–Ivy League schools. That evening, we’d taken over a train car, setting up a temporary government based on substance abuse, inanity and the alienation of those around us.

“Are you packing?” Nate-Dog asked. I nodded, holding up a bottle of Poland Spring filled with Bacardi. At Harvard-Yale two years ago, I woke up Sunday morning on a windowsill in a train station. This year I’d vowed to maintain my dignity—or at least consciousness. It’s good to have goals.

Sometimes I think my friends and I are aging backwards, like Jonathan Winters on Mork and Mindy. It’s amazing that some of us are pulling in $200,000 annually and managing people’s finances, yet we still spend most weekends running around with more alcohol than blood in our veins, photographing each other urinating on parked cars and trying to convince people to sleep with us. My friends in med school administer each other IV’s when they’re hung over and call themselves the “IV League.”

Looking around, however, this year’s pilgrimage feels like that “What’s different about this picture?” game in newspapers featuring two nearly identical scenes. Circle Cooper, who, instead of perusing Maxim, is doing the Times crossword puzzle. Circle Nate-Dog, who would normally be throwing things at people, but who is now reading The Journal. Hairlines have receded with stunning efficiency. Waistlines have expanded. Circle, circle. We also planned staying one night instead of two this year because it now takes a full 24 hours to feel like human beings again after a day of debauchery. We’d even chartered a limo to take us back to New York after the game. Oh, shit.

We’re adults.

In The Sun Also Rises, Bill Gorton asks Mike Campbell how he went bankrupt. “Gradually, and then suddenly,” Mike answers. That’s how the arrival of adulthood feels. It’s like being on a seesaw in grade school, and having the asshole on the other end get off while you’re still up in the air. You totally saw it coming, but it startles the hell out of you.

Maybe that’s why the Game felt especially significant, if a little desperate, this year. Maybe deep down, we were hoping that Harvard-Yale would act as a sort of salt lick of youth, as if we could fend off the ravages of time by getting as wasted as possible. How fitting that Yale was telling us to slow down with these new restrictions. “You’re getting too old for this,” she seemed to be saying.

Coop was regaling the group with a story about a woman who recently ambushed him at a bar. “She was a serious cougar, a total coug,” he says. A “cougar” is a man-hungry woman in her late 30’s or 40’s who was hot about 10 years ago but now a little worse for wear. “I had to get out of the situation and didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I took my shirt off! The bouncer threw me out immediately.” Everyone laughed and moved on to reminiscing about Harvard-Yale past.

“Remember the Game where William found pizza on the ground and ate it?”

“Remember the year Nate-Dog found pizza in the garbage and ate it?”

By the time we arrived in New Haven at 8:30, the wheels had fallen off about an hour before. I’d downed half of my “Poland Spring.” Cooper kept shouting, “Hug it out, bitch!” to no one in particular. William was debating writing “If found: Take to the Marriott Hotel, room 119” in black Sharpie across his arm.

We took our coalition to a local bar. I realized in my time away from New Haven, I had forgotten basic street names. Cooper had forgotten his coat, but Jack Daniels made him impervious to the cold. Emboldened by drink, Nate-Dog sprinted toward a parked car. Without breaking pace, he leapt on the back trunk, ran across the roof and down the front hood, leaving dents the entire way. “It seemed like a good idea at the time!” Nate-Dog grinned at our applause. His entire existence is dedicated towards “story value.” The kid will do anything for a good anecdote.

At the bar, shots were taken, friends were greeted, and I’m pretty sure people were having sex in the coatroom as I hung up my jacket. I jumped on Nate-Dog’s back and rode him around the dance floor. The questions “Where are you living?” and “Where do you work?” were answered again and again. “You know, I always had a crush on you in college,” people lied to each other. I lost my friends, but luckily an old acquaintance offered me half of her bed at the Holiday Inn. As blackness closed in at 5 a.m., I prayed that somebody had my purse—a Hail Mary Pass Out.

The next day’s tailgate lasted six hours so, in drunk time, it took about two minutes. Despite all the rules, it was pretty much the same as every year: A fat dude in mid-keg-stand was dropped by his friends. U-Hauls filled with gyrating coeds blasted the inevitable Madonna and Kanye West. “There’s just something really painful about people dancing during the day,” Will observed. The network of U-Hauls reminded me of the giant hedge maze in The Shining. I had an utterly clichéd case of the hiccups when I happened upon Coop lying in a pile of discarded hamburgers.

“I’m so punished,” he whimpered. “Can we go home now?”

“The limo’s picking us up in 20 minutes,” I said.

“No shit?”

“Shit.”

It was a stretch limo, but the six of us snuggled together and passed out in a pile, like a litter of puppies huddling in the corner of a large box. The engine vibrated below, taking us back to the city and to work on Monday morning. “We are too old for this,” I thought before drifting off.

On Monday, I got my pictures back. In them, we were urinating on parked cars.

It was Nov. 18, and we’d taken the Friday-night train to New Haven—a booze-soaked isthmus carrying us from Manhattan to Yale, where our alma mater would battle Harvard in the next day’s football game. Nate-Dog, William, Cooper and I have gone to the Game every year since graduating in 2002 (Nate and Coop from Harvard, Will and I from Yale). But this year, Mother Yale had some new house rules for tailgaters: no drinking games, no standing/sitting on U-Hauls, and tailgating parties would be shut down by the end of halftime. Of course, in the words of Will: “Who cares? I’m blacked out by then anyway!”

Metro-North was lousy with Yale and Harvard alums caravanning to Connecticut. Of my 20 friends, most of us are investment bankers or med students, and all of us are buffoons. We came together in New York after graduation, forming fast friendships and ignoring our commencement speakers’ advice to branch out and socialize with people from non–Ivy League schools. That evening, we’d taken over a train car, setting up a temporary government based on substance abuse, inanity and the alienation of those around us.

“Are you packing?” Nate-Dog asked. I nodded, holding up a bottle of Poland Spring filled with Bacardi. At Harvard-Yale two years ago, I woke up Sunday morning on a windowsill in a train station. This year I’d vowed to maintain my dignity—or at least consciousness. It’s good to have goals.

Sometimes I think my friends and I are aging backwards, like Jonathan Winters on Mork and Mindy. It’s amazing that some of us are pulling in $200,000 annually and managing people’s finances, yet we still spend most weekends running around with more alcohol than blood in our veins, photographing each other urinating on parked cars and trying to convince people to sleep with us. My friends in med school administer each other IV’s when they’re hung over and call themselves the “IV League.”

Looking around, however, this year’s pilgrimage feels like that “What’s different about this picture?” game in newspapers featuring two nearly identical scenes. Circle Cooper, who, instead of perusing Maxim, is doing the Times crossword puzzle. Circle Nate-Dog, who would normally be throwing things at people, but who is now reading The Journal. Hairlines have receded with stunning efficiency. Waistlines have expanded. Circle, circle. We also planned staying one night instead of two this year because it now takes a full 24 hours to feel like human beings again after a day of debauchery. We’d even chartered a limo to take us back to New York after the game. Oh, shit.

We’re adults.

In The Sun Also Rises, Bill Gorton asks Mike Campbell how he went bankrupt. “Gradually, and then suddenly,” Mike answers. That’s how the arrival of adulthood feels. It’s like being on a seesaw in grade school, and having the asshole on the other end get off while you’re still up in the air. You totally saw it coming, but it startles the hell out of you.

Maybe that’s why the Game felt especially significant, if a little desperate, this year. Maybe deep down, we were hoping that Harvard-Yale would act as a sort of salt lick of youth, as if we could fend off the ravages of time by getting as wasted as possible. How fitting that Yale was telling us to slow down with these new restrictions. “You’re getting too old for this,” she seemed to be saying.

Coop was regaling the group with a story about a woman who recently ambushed him at a bar. “She was a serious cougar, a total coug,” he says. A “cougar” is a man-hungry woman in her late 30’s or 40’s who was hot about 10 years ago but now a little worse for wear. “I had to get out of the situation and didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I took my shirt off! The bouncer threw me out immediately.” Everyone laughed and moved on to reminiscing about Harvard-Yale past.

“Remember the Game where William found pizza on the ground and ate it?”

“Remember the year Nate-Dog found pizza in the garbage and ate it?”

By the time we arrived in New Haven at 8:30, the wheels had fallen off about an hour before. I’d downed half of my “Poland Spring.” Cooper kept shouting, “Hug it out, bitch!” to no one in particular. William was debating writing “If found: Take to the Marriott Hotel, room 119” in black Sharpie across his arm.

We took our coalition to a local bar. I realized in my time away from New Haven, I had forgotten basic street names. Cooper had forgotten his coat, but Jack Daniels made him impervious to the cold. Emboldened by drink, Nate-Dog sprinted toward a parked car. Without breaking pace, he leapt on the back trunk, ran across the roof and down the front hood, leaving dents the entire way. “It seemed like a good idea at the time!” Nate-Dog grinned at our applause. His entire existence is dedicated towards “story value.” The kid will do anything for a good anecdote.

At the bar, shots were taken, friends were greeted, and I’m pretty sure people were having sex in the coatroom as I hung up my jacket. I jumped on Nate-Dog’s back and rode him around the dance floor. The questions “Where are you living?” and “Where do you work?” were answered again and again. “You know, I always had a crush on you in college,” people lied to each other. I lost my friends, but luckily an old acquaintance offered me half of her bed at the Holiday Inn. As blackness closed in at 5 a.m., I prayed that somebody had my purse—a Hail Mary Pass Out.

The next day’s tailgate lasted six hours so, in drunk time, it took about two minutes. Despite all the rules, it was pretty much the same as every year: A fat dude in mid-keg-stand was dropped by his friends. U-Hauls filled with gyrating coeds blasted the inevitable Madonna and Kanye West. “There’s just something really painful about people dancing during the day,” Will observed. The network of U-Hauls reminded me of the giant hedge maze in The Shining. I had an utterly clichéd case of the hiccups when I happened upon Coop lying in a pile of discarded hamburgers.

“I’m so punished,” he whimpered. “Can we go home now?”

“The limo’s picking us up in 20 minutes,” I said.

“No shit?”

“Shit.”

It was a stretch limo, but the six of us snuggled together and passed out in a pile, like a litter of puppies huddling in the corner of a large box. The engine vibrated below, taking us back to the city and to work on Monday morning. “We are too old for this,” I thought before drifting off.

On Monday, I got my pictures back. In them, we were urinating on parked cars.