Roberta Flack. (Getty Images)

Wednesday, July 27

Clay Date

Summer’s caught up with us—and we know, we complain about it every week, but the aggregate effect of sweating this much packs a more crippling punch than Wendi Murdoch! We find ourselves regressing to childhood: leaning hard on the chocolate-frozen yogurt handle at 16 Handles, wearing shoes made of flimsy rubber and schoolboyish shorts, experiencing a surfeit of emotional lability (glee when we find shade or a seat on the subway, suicidal rage at all other times). Summer makes kids of us all! We may as well drop in on RH Gallery’s no-kids-allowed Clay Party, an arts-and-crafts shindig in celebration of the gallery’s more serious concurrent shows, “Pure Clay,” featuring Korean minimalist Lee Ufan (whose work is also in the Guggenheim right now—what a summer for this guy!), and “Contemporary Clay,” a group show featuring Kathy Butterly’s so-called “sexy cups.” They’re misshapen and intriguing and reminiscent of sex organs—and feel free to make your own at tonight’s party, at which wine and delectibles will be served. Bring a toothbrush or some dental floss—no, we’re not kidding!—to carve out your own masterpiece and pretend you’re at summer camp. (If the heat hasn’t rendered your intellect childlike already, try another glass of wine!)

Clay Party at RH Gallery, 137 Duane Street, RSVP for tickets at gallery@rhgallery.com or call (646) 490-6355.

Thursday, July 28

Visiting the Goon Squad

We didn’t establish ourselves as great artists at the Clay Party last night—our sculpture was more “conceptual” than “formal.” But after a day spent driving out East, we’re more eager to indulge our childish sides than to think about artistic endeavors. What a relief that the artist John Codling—formerly a big-deal Wall Street type who now makes celebrity-inspired multimedia work—is hosting a movie night at the Waasteria Gallery. His multimedia art show there, inspired by Jay-Z, won’t distract our attention from The Goonies (a kids’ movie, for adult attendees, to raise money for Solving Kids Cancer). It’s a collision of artsy pretension and Hollywood cheese even weirder than the paintings of Christopher Walken that launched Mr. Codling to fame. The Goonies! Really, it’s as though he knew precisely the mood we were in—to think about nothing! A few more weeks of regression and we’ll either be cured and ready to take on Proust—or playing with coloring books.

John Codling’s show “Me I Play” closes tomorrow at the Waasteria Gallery, 77 Industrial Road (Wainscott), and the screening takes place at 8pm with pizza, tacos, ice cream, beer, wine, and popcorn, 8pm, visit http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1848957281 for tickets.

Friday, July 29

Photo, Synthesis

Okay, we’ve recovered—and we’re ready to take intellectual matters a teensy bit seriously. Of course, we’re also still in the Hamptons, so art’s best served with cocktails and canapés—as at tonight’s opening reception for Terri Gold and Steve Miller’s exhibition, “Planet.” Ms. Gold photographs shamanistic, spiritual elements of disappearing cultures, while Mr. Miller himself is showing X-rays of exotic flora and fauna (we’re sure he tried to find a life form in the Hamptons to X-ray, but a picture of our rosé-swollen insides wouldn’t sell many prints). “You’ve got an educated audience interested in these issues … and you’ve got people who can afford art out there!” says Mr. Miller, who shows around the world but lives part-time out East. Catch them while you can—this show’s running through July 31, and Mr. Miller’s jetting off later this year to present a print of a python’s X-ray to a zoo director in Brazil.

4 North Main Gallery, 4 North Main Street (Southampton), 5pm-8pm, visit 4northmaingallery for information.

Saturday, July 30

Save Some for the Fishes

Newly-minted CSI star Ted Danson is to attend a party in honor of Oceana, the save-the-fish charity that reminds you that just because you love ahi doesn’t mean you can feel good about eating it … We’re dragging our heels about attending, but only since we know that all the consciousness-raising going on will give us pause about dining on our favorite summer repasts: shrimp cocktail and oysters. Speaking of those aquatic treats, visitors to midtown’s egregiously casino-themed eatery Lavo may partake in both at the “bikini brunch,” ginned up for those who can’t quite make it out East. Men must wear shirts, while women are quite encouraged to wear bikinis. It’s just like you’re at the beach! Actually, wait, it’s more like you’re waiting tables at Hooters, but paying instead of getting paid.

Oceana Hamptons Splash Party, a private home in Southampton, 7:30pm, for tickets visit oceanasplashparty.org; Lavo, 39 East 58th Street, bikini brunch begins at 2pm, call (212) 750-5588 for reservations. Sunday, July 31

Lord Styron

Though in life William Styron was known to prefer the relative isolation of Martha’s Vineyard (we said, “relative”!), his work remains the perfect beach read for the Hamptons as well: nothing’s quite so bracing a corrective to an afternoon of sitting by the pool and an evening of parties as reading something grim and knowing like Lie Down in Darkness. Anyway, Georgica Beach at midday can be crushingly depressing. Styron had a difficult time negotiating literary fame, though his daughter seems perhaps less conflicted: Alexandra Styron mined her childhood for intriguing and enlightening anecdotes and insights, which she crafted into the memoir Reading My Father. Tonight she’s reading at the Quogue Public Library. (And boy, does she know how to do a summer reading schedule—she was in Vineyard Haven a few weeks ago and East Hampton last night.) There’s no choice in the matter—we’re going to check it out.

Quogue Public Library, 90 Quogue Street (Quogue), 5pm

Monday, August 1

Flack Attack

Were you wondering what’s going on with Roberta Flack? Question answered: per her website, she’s currently at work on an album of Beatles covers. If you’d like to see her in the flesh and maybe try to get her to sing a few bars of “Killing Me Softly With His Song” (or perhaps “Octopus’s Garden”), drop in on the enthusiastically named Bright Lights! Shining Stars! gala, an event in support of the NYC Dance Alliance Foundation and its college scholarships. Ms. Flack is to accept the Ambassador for the Arts Award, a fitting prize for someone bringing new attention to little-known British pop music. The guests include wee Tade Biesinger—a preteen NYC Dance alum who’s now known for Billy Elliot, and Tony-winning choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, who’ll be reunited with his In the Heights writer Lin-Manuel Miranda, one of the guests of honor. All these months later, we can finally feel good about supporting youth dance without fearing we’re sending youths into a future of Black Swan psychosis!

Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, 566 LaGuardia Place, cocktails at 6pm, awards and performances at 7:30pm with dessert and Champagne to follow, call (855) 692-5678 or visit nycdance.com for tickets.

Tuesday, August 2

Today’s Special

Some causes—like youth dance or the career rehabilitation of Roberta Flack—are simply unimpeachable. That may help explain why the host committee for tonight’s fund-raiser to benefit the Special Olympics, the Special Olympics Junior Committee Summer Social, is so gloriously lengthy: 28 do-gooders, as well as 47 on the junior committee. The host committee includes well-connected model Lauren Bush, her sister Ashley Bush, someone else’s sister Dabney Mercer, and roman á cleffer Anisha Lakhani. The evening of drinks goes down on the Hudson Terrace, on the far West Side—we’ll see you there, along with all of our nearest and dearest social friends!

Hudson Terrace, 621 West 46th Street, 7:30pm, visit http://summersocial.kintera.org/ for tickets and more information.

Wednesday, August 3

Kids Stay in the Picture

Remember how we could bring ourselves to support youth dance only  grudgingly? (Those Black Swan emotional scars, embedded with feathers, run deep.) Well, we’re yet more willing to support the artistic endeavours of youth when it comes to the performing-arts camp that produced Natalie Portman (her characters may be crazy, but boy, does she seem sane!) and Mariah Carey (well, Ms. Portman’s sane enough for both). The Oscar winner and the rainbow enthusiast both attended day camp at Long Island’s Usdan Center, which buses in artsy kids from the city. Tonight it holds a fund-raising gala. Current campers take the stage to perform with the Met soprano Monica Yunus—boy, are we jealous! Back when we were kids, all we did was make sloppy pottery and watch The Goonies. In fact, that’s all we’ve done this week!

185 Colonial Springs Road (Wheatley Heights), dinner at 5pm and concert at 7pm, for tickets write to gala@usdan.com or call (631) 643-7900.

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

Youth and Beauty 

Ah, Karen Russell. Or, as the Swamplandia! author might render it, Karen Russell! Never has a young author provoked such envy since that little minx Freudenberger. (Is it a girl thing?) But back to Ms. Russell: The 29-year-old phenom was pegged as an under-40 author to watch on that queasiness-inducing New Yorker list last summer, and now it's time to actually watch her--in a conversation with the novelist Kevin Brockmeier moderated by dreamy Granta editor John Freeman. Us, jealous? Why ever would you ask? ... We're all young once, of course. It used to be that all the hot things wanted to make movies. The old downtown gang is the subject of the new doc Blank City, opening today at the IFC Center. Jim Jarmusch and John Waters, among others, drop in to explain why they haven't made a good flick since the 1980s. 

Karen Russell, McNally Jackson, 52 Prince Street, 7 p.m.; Blank City at IFC Center, 323 Sixth Avenue, visit ifccenter.com for showtimes and tickets

Thursday, April 7

Company Policy

What do you get when your TV, the New York Philharmonic and Stephen Sondheim have a drunken threeway? A production of Sondheim's Company starring Christina Hendricks, Neil Patrick Harris, Stephen Colbert and Jon Cryer. (Charlie Sheen, alas, was busy rehearsing for his turn as Sweeney Todd.) Not everyone in the cast is a TV carpet-bagger: Patti Lupone gets the show-stopping "Ladies Who Lunch," and Tony winner Anika Noni Rose plays Marta. It won't be a walk in the park (with George) for the performers. Says Ms. Rose, "This feels plenty staged to me--with sweat running down the back of my neck! It's not gonna be some cute little performance with a book in hand." Thankfully, Ms. Rose assures us most of her co-stars have the requisite stage experience: "You don't just jump into Sondheim. It's like saying, 'I'd love to do some crosswords. I'll take the Times Sunday.'" Good luck, Mr. Colbert! 

New York Philharmonic, Avery Fisher Hall, 10 Lincoln Center Plaza, 7:30 p.m. (performances continue through Saturday), nyphil.org

Friday, April 8

Yale to the Chief 

Boola-boola! It's a Yalien invasion when the Ivy's Glee Club celebrates its 150th anniversary with a concert at Carnegie Hall. Maybe it's just an allergic reaction to New Haven, but boy, do these kids have spirit! So if you're looking to meet a spouse who can bear you babies with a legacy advantage, this is the spot to be. We used to think glee clubs were dorky, but that was before a certain hit TV show came along. "I do watch Glee, but I think they're more of a show choir than a glee club," sniffed Emily Howell, club president. Duly noted--so yeah, still dorky! ... One performer who doesn't have a dorky bone in her body? Catherine Deneuve, that's who. The Gallic stunner is celebrated tonight with a special screening of the new documentary Catherine Deneuve, belle et bien là, at the French Institute. Ms. Deneuve has been a star since the 1960s, and she's still doing great work, as anyone who saw her smoke up a storm in A Christmas Tale can attest. The lady even made Repulsion attractive.

Yale Glee Club, Carnegie Hall, concert at 7:30 p.m., tickets at carnegiehall.org; Catherine Deneuve, Tinker Auditorium at French Institute, 22 East 60th Street, RSVP at cinema@fiaf.org

Saturday, April 9

Beer Summit

Hey, art world--enough with the white wine! It's so damn civilized. If you really want to get those creative juices flowing, you need something a bit more festive (if not illegal!). How about beer? The RH Gallery's latest installation-art piece, the Kunst Biergarten, is an indoor suds-haus inspired by the Munich-based artist Wolfgang Ellenrieder (how very Bavarian!), whose art is on view in the gallery. The Biergarten is meant to start a conversation about contemporary art, some of which one may need to be half-drunk to appreciate! The curators and critics invited were asked to submit possible conversation topics with their RSVP. Here's a freebie from the Eight-Day Week: How many brews will it take before somebody stumbles into one of Mr. Ellenrieder's gorgeous canvasses? Prost!

RH Gallery, 137 Duane Street, 5 p.m., invitation only

Sunday, April 10

Silence Is Golden

Want to pick up a Laurie Simmons print without getting out of your PJs? BAMart's silent auction is quieter than most: Bidding for items by the likes of Jeff Koons, Richard Serra and Cindy Sherman takes place largely online, making the charity ritual less like the game of sneaky one-upmanship we all know and love (watching people slink up to your coveted item is half the fun!) and more like the online auctions we've all been doing late at night for years, ending up with too many misshapen "vintage" cashmere sweaters in the bargain. Let your computer do the bidding for you and enjoy yourself at the reception, where Ms. Simmons and Carroll Dunham, honorary artist chairs of the auction, will sip cocktails and tell you about how very proud they are of filmmaker daughter Lena. 

Peter Jay Sharp Building, Dorothy W. Levitt Lobby, 30 Lafayette Avenue (Brooklyn), cocktail reception 3-6 p.m., auction information at bam.org/auction

Monday, April 11

Colons and Canciones

Things could get a little awkward at tonight's Ballet Hispanico spring gala, where perky-but-tough news diva Katie Couric is serving as the event's cochair, and Dr. Jonathan LaPook will be on hand as a vice chair. (Other chairs of various types include Dr. Mehmet Oz, investor Roland Betts, former Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack and Nora Ephron.) But back to awkward! Dr. LaPook--Couric completists will remember--was the same guy who gave the newscaster that famous on-air colonoscopy. The group will celebrate Ballet Hispanico's 40th year and try not to giggle. ... If you're free for lunch (it's Monday, live a little) drop in on the Matrix Awards, but be warned: Don't take the red pill. If you do, you will discover the mind-bending truth: that the Matrix Awards have nothing whatsoever to do with Keanu Reeves. Instead, the ceremony honors women in communications. It will be hosted by the mistress of on-message and our new First Tablescaper Sandra Lee. Also: That irascible Rosie O'Donnell will present an award to her publicist, Cindi Berger. We're betting on a Medal of Valor. 

Ballet Hispanico Spring Gala, Plaza Hotel's Grand Ballroom, Fifth Avenue at Central Park South, cocktails at 7 p.m., dinner at 7:45 p.m., program to follow, call 212-362-6710 for tickets; Matrix Awards, Waldorf-Astoria, 301 Park Avenue, lunch begins at noon, tickets at nywici.org

Tuesday, April 12

Keith on Smiling p>

Keith Olbermann, you may recall, was a television announcer that yelled a lot, back when Howard Beale was on-trend. Then he left his gig to team up with Al Gore (a guy who never yelled enough). Mr. Olbermann's new show on Current doesn't start for a while, though, so he's got time on his hands to tweet up a storm and moderate panels, like today's Paley Center symposium on Ernie Kovacs, the pioneering television comedian who was actually Letterman back when Letterman was in rubber pants. Other panelists include comedian Robert Smigel of TV Funhouse and Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog fame, and Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In producer George Schlatter. Let's hope Triumph shows up to hump Keith's leg. 

The Paley Center for Media, 25 West 52nd Street, 6:30 p.m., tickets at paleycenter.org

Wednesday, April 13

Mass Appeal

You know how Sandra Bullock was always the one you got when Julia Roberts was booked? That's been the rep of Governor Deval Patrick: second-tier Barack Obama. How unfair! Anyway, Mr. Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts (hello? executive experience?), is publishing a memoir, A Reason To Believe, the title of which is a brazen refutation of the title of President Obama's memoir, The Audacity of Hope. (You see, hard-nosed reason beats blind faith every time.) The governor is in New York today, where he'll be meeting with well-wishers from the worlds of business and politics at-pass the mini-muffins!-a private breakfast. The gathering at Random House headquarters will be co-hosted by A Better Chance, the nonprofit organization that sent young Mr. Patrick to preparatory school. Money well spent, we'd say!

Random House, 1745 Broadway, 8 a.m., free books and breakfast for attendees, private event

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_