Wainwright's tiny bedroom. (The New York Times)

Celebrities—they're just like us! Okay, not really, but some small aspects of their lives are kind of like some small aspects of our lives, even if these small, overlapping aspects of our lives do not usually involve real estate. Unless, of course, it's the squalid apartment that the celebrity lived before he or she was a celebrity, like William Shatner's old, ramshackle house in Hastings-on-Hudson. Mostly, these reminiscences have a strong undertone of "can you believe that someone like me lived in someplace like this?"

And we look around at our own sad, squalid apartments and ask ourselves the same question, but we know the answer to that question which is that no one is surprised you live in a place like this and probably never will be.

In any event, imagine our pleasant surprise when we were reading The New York Times and learned that Rufus Wainwright is famous and he still has a small, cluttered apartment with bad light. That he keeps his blinds drawn most of the time because his look out onto brick walls. And that his bed, like almost every bed we've ever had, only offers egress from two of the four sides. "It's a total dump," Mr. Wainwright told The Times, betraying that oh-so-familiar disbelief.

The Gramercy Park apartment is only about 450 square feet, according to The Times and what's more he shares it with his husband Jörn Weisbrodt. Mr. Wainwright bought the apartment in 2002, when he was in the process of making it, but had not really made it, at a point in his career when making it meant buying a dark, small space and littering it with cigarette butts as he wrote his music.

Of course, the apartment is not quite like the dingy hovel we live in—The Times tells us that its walls have been recently papered with prints by Zuber, a favorite of Jackie Kennedy, and that the couple continues to use two chairs made by a close friend with a store on Melrose Avenue, and that they decided to move back into the apartment after renting a larger one in Chelsea because they are spending more time in Montauk these days. It is, in other words, a pied-a-terre. Which is, in a word, why Rufus Wainwright's small, dark apartment is nothing like our small, dark apartments.

kvelsey@observer.com

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Wainwright's tiny bedroom. (The New York Times)

Celebrities—they're just like us! Okay, not really, but some small aspects of their lives are kind of like some small aspects of our lives, even if these small, overlapping aspects of our lives do not usually involve real estate. Unless, of course, it's the squalid apartment that the celebrity lived before he or she was a celebrity, like William Shatner's old, ramshackle house in Hastings-on-Hudson. Mostly, these reminiscences have a strong undertone of "can you believe that someone like me lived in someplace like this?"

And we look around at our own sad, squalid apartments and ask ourselves the same question, but we know the answer to that question which is that no one is surprised you live in a place like this and probably never will be.

In any event, imagine our pleasant surprise when we were reading The New York Times and learned that Rufus Wainwright is famous and he still has a small, cluttered apartment with bad light. That he keeps his blinds drawn most of the time because his look out onto brick walls. And that his bed, like almost every bed we've ever had, only offers egress from two of the four sides. "It's a total dump," Mr. Wainwright told The Times, betraying that oh-so-familiar disbelief.

The Gramercy Park apartment is only about 450 square feet, according to The Times and what's more he shares it with his husband Jörn Weisbrodt. Mr. Wainwright bought the apartment in 2002, when he was in the process of making it, but had not really made it, at a point in his career when making it meant buying a dark, small space and littering it with cigarette butts as he wrote his music.

Of course, the apartment is not quite like the dingy hovel we live in—The Times tells us that its walls have been recently papered with prints by Zuber, a favorite of Jackie Kennedy, and that the couple continues to use two chairs made by a close friend with a store on Melrose Avenue, and that they decided to move back into the apartment after renting a larger one in Chelsea because they are spending more time in Montauk these days. It is, in other words, a pied-a-terre. Which is, in a word, why Rufus Wainwright's small, dark apartment is nothing like our small, dark apartments.

kvelsey@observer.com

]]> http://observer.com/2012/11/just-like-a-real-bohemian-rufus-wainwright-has-a-small-dark-apartment/feed/ 0 kvelseyobserver wainwright http://observer.com/2012/09/guests-of-cindy-sherman-the-azuero-earth-project-benefit-at-the-artists-east-hampton-spread/#comments Tue, 04 Sep 2012 19:21:05 -0400 http://observer.com/2012/09/guests-of-cindy-sherman-the-azuero-earth-project-benefit-at-the-artists-east-hampton-spread/ Jonah Wolf http://observer.com/?p=260867

Cindy Sherman. (Adriel Reboh/Patrick McMullan)

“Look who it is: it’s Edwina, the Edwina,” Isaac Mizrahi exclaimed to The Observer this past Saturday, as he approached Edwina von Gal, the designer who, Ross Bleckner told us, “did the landscaping at my house in Sagaponack.”

We were at Cindy Sherman’s new East Hampton home at a benefit for the Azuero Earth Project, the Panama-based ecological nonprofit of which Ms. von Gal is president. It was a cozy beginning-of-the-end to the Hamptons summer season. Guests sat on benches under a white tent to eat empanadas and watch performances by Suzanne Vega, Rufus Wainwright, Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed. Children climbed into pendulous bamboo cocoons, stuffed with pillows, that swayed from the trees.

“I live just up the road,” Ms. Vega, who had been asked at the last minute to replace Rubén Blades, told us. “I originally came as a guest of Laurie’s, and I thought I was going to see Rubén Blades!” Wearing a top hat—a “tip of the hat to Marlene Dietrich”—Ms. Vega performed “Marlene on the Wall” and “Gypsy,” written when she was a “folk-singing and disco-dancing counselor” at a summer camp in the Adirondacks. She had M.C. Bob Balaban serve as an impromptu music stand, holding a handwritten lyric sheet for a new Dylan-inspired number about the tarot’s Queen of Pentacles.

“I probably shouldn’t have kissed her,” Mr. Balaban confided to us afterward. “It’s rude to kiss somebody you’ve just met.” Mr. Balaban told us about his upcoming appearance as Lena Dunham’s psychiatrist on Girls, and recommended we visit Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner’s former home down the road. “It’s just a little hut,” he explained. “They didn’t have any money.” (We read that Ms. Sherman paid $4.65 million for her estate, though we weren’t invited inside.)

Gorgeous in two shades of blue mufti (a baby blue wrap over a navy dress), the chameleonic Ms. Sherman told us that though she had just moved in a month ago, “There’s just a few little things that need to be tweaked, but I’m pretty settled.” Was this party a little housewarming, then? “A big housewarming,” she corrected us. Ms. Sherman also talked about transplanting her career retrospective from New York’s Museum of Modern Art to San Francisco’s MOMA, where it’s currently on view. “The space is different; it was hard to edit out some of the work.”

We watched Gina Gershon and Martha Stewart, both in pre-Labor Day white, run around taking pictures, and stood by as Mr. Mizrahi introduced Mr. Bleckner to his husband, Arnold Germer.

“We’re married, you know,” said Mr. Mizrahi.

“I didn’t know!” Mr. Bleckner replied

“Now we’re moving in together,” Mr. Germer went on.

“That’s exactly what married people do!” Mr. Bleckner pointed out. “Usually it’s the step before, but I guess you’re playing it safe.”

Messrs. Germer and Mizrahi (whose bandana matched that of Bruce Weber, also in attendance) weren’t the only couple at the party to have taken advantage of New York’s new same-sex marriage laws. David Maupin and Stefano Tonchi brought their twin girls, Maura and Isabella.

We asked Mr. Tonchi about changes at The New York Times’s T Magazine, which he left two years ago to edit W, specifically about the recent departure of his successor, Sally Singer. “Oh, please. Old news,” Mr. Tonchi answered summarily.

Mr. Wainwright brought his husband, Jörn Weisbrodt, whom he had married the week prior. He opened his performance with what he called a “really Hamptons-y song about a bored housewife ... which I have become. Love it!” Later, he sang about his own Hamptons domesticity in “Montauk”: “This next song is about my daughter, Viva Katherine Wainwright Cohen, and also my incredible new husband, Jörn Weis-” he caught himself and laughed. “Jörn Wainwright. Or Rufus Weisbrodt, however you do it. In fact, his name is Weisbrodt, which means ‘white bread’ in German, and what is it, there’s something about a honeymoon? In Dutch, a honeymoon is called a ‘white bread,’ white bread weeks. You can get fat, basically, now that you’re married.”

Lou Reed, married for four years but with his wife for a decade prior, came off a little less enchanted. “Are you done? Jesus. And we’re related,” Mr. Reed muttered jokingly, as Laurie Anderson plugged in her violin next to him, generating a loud electronic buzz.

“I would cut my legs and tits off/When I think of Boris Karloff,” Mr. Reed sang, in a song from last year’s much-maligned Metallica collaboration Lulu. He next performed a monologue in the voice of his mentor Andy Warhol: “Lou Reed got married and didn’t invite me ... you know I hate Lou, I really do.”

Ms. Anderson performed a monologue of her own, about observing the Amish in Western Pennsylvania—“Gee, I wonder what it’s like to live that way,” she mused—which nearly cleared the tent, though her political criticism drew some laughs. “Ever since hearing Clint Eastwood talk about optimism the other night at the Republican Convention,” Ms. Anderson narrated, her voice electronically shifted several octaves down, accompanied by slow synth chords, “I actually became extremely pessimistic about the future. I mean, look at the odds for a second. You have more chance of getting hit and killed in a car crash than dying in a plane crash.” (Here, she lost us again.)

As the wind off of Accabanac Harbor picked up (“I’m getting the best hairdo of my life thanks to this body of water,” Mr. Wainwright joked), guests began to wrap their shoulders in complimentary green picnic blankets.

Patrizia Pinzon, visiting from Panama, bemoaned the absence of Mr. Blades, the one Panamanian who had been scheduled to perform. “Everybody’s here, but they don’t know what it’s about.”

Wainwright and Weisbrodt. (Patrick McMullan)

The summer of same-sex weddings! Couples that have used the year since marriage equality was legalized in New York to pick the perfect caterer have included Christine Quinn and fiancée, Thomas Roberts and fiancé--and now pop singer Rufus Wainwright and his love, theater producer Jorn Weisbrodt. The Post reports that the ceremony will include Carrie Fisher, "best known for playing Princess Leia in the original 'Star Wars' trilogy" (no love for When Harry Met Sally?) as well as Yoko Ono. The wedding will take place in Montauk. Mr. Weisbrodt changed the mind of the prominent "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" chanteur: New York noticed, in 2010, that Mr. Wainwright had said, "I... feel a strong tie to the traditional bohemian concept of being a homosexual, i.e., the last thing we want is to be like everybody else."

"Since meeting Jorn all that changed," Mr. Wainwright said later.

The party was in honor of Riverkeeper's initiative for cleaning up the Hudson River, and despite the fact that Bill Clinton, Sting and Trudie Styler were supposed to be there, they didn't turn up for the cocktail hour-maybe because the waiters were passing around glasses of fresh, clean water instead of something stronger. Singer Rufus Wainwright dodged The Observer. "I just need some water," he said, and headed straight for the bar, which had a full liquor selection.

We had a longer chat with Inside the Actors Studio host James Lipton, who led The Observer to the bar, where he grabbed an orange-juice-and-sparkling-water concoction and snagged a few peanuts. Mr. Lipton had been in the news lately for his appearance on Charlie Sheen's speaking tour. The whole thing had been a surprise to Mr. Lipton, who'd just planned to be an audience member at the New York show: "Charlie tried to go on while the crowd was booing, and he whispered in my ear, 'Ask me just one.' Neither he nor I had planned it." The one question had been "What's your favorite curse word?" "I figured that was appropriate." How was the after-party, at Southern Hospitality? "We were there until 2:30 a.m. Best soul food I've ever had."

Mr. Lipton, wearing a pinstriped suit and gold patterned tie, is ready to move past Mr. Sheen-he's looking forward to the change in the season! "Springtime to me means my wife and I go to the Hamptons," he said. "My study, at my home, faces the gardens, and the magnolias are out, two of our flowering fruit trees, and I think, 'Honest to goodness, it's spring!'"

Not everyone is as lucky as Mr. Lipton. Author and former Observer writer Candace Bushnell expressed a wish that there were more hours in the day to enjoy the weather! "I'd like to go bike riding. It's my fantasy! At least sometimes I take my dog to the dog run," she said. Looking a bit resigned, her husband, Charles Askegard, ceded his seat next to Ms. Bushnell so that she could fill us in on her spring plans.

How does she balance her book contracts-which she told The Observer include two forthcoming young-adult novels and two books for grown-ups? "I have a lot of ideas! I feel like I have too many ideas," Ms. Bushnell said, gesticulating wildly and nearly tipping over her glass of Champagne (no water here!) onto the fish needlepoint. "I wish I could write for more hours, but after six or eight hours, you got to get up!" In blue sequined Nicole Miller, Ms. Bushnell finally made her exit. "I have to have my fantasy bike ride!"

We bumped into the very outdoorsy Joan Hornig, co-chair of the event and jeweler to the stars. "We kayak-or rather, we double-kayak," she said, gesturing to her husband, the financier George Hornig. "He does the paddling, I do the relaxing!" What was she wearing? "What? You mean, like, Spanx?" When informed we were asking after the brand on her back, not her lingerie, she replied, "I don't know the clothes! They just came out of my closet!" As her husband looked on, she pulled her striking gray hair out of the way and pulled down the back of her dress for The Observer to peer at. Double R ... "Oh, Rachel Roy!"

Finally, we arrived at the man with a sense of the party's purpose. Paul Gallay, the official Riverkeeper, passed on several appealing hors d'oeuvres as we spoke-a clear sign of his seriousness of purpose. His title indicates that he's the man responsible for keeping the Hudson clean and for reporting any legal breaches. He's been on the job nine months, "and I'm still wet behind the ears," he said, making or missing a pun. Did he still bother going fishing, exploring, biking along the river, given that his job was to guard it? "Give me a busman's holiday any day," he said. Looking out onto the Hudson as the sun set, we couldn't disagree.

“I do not own it, Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn own it, yes, yes, we must be very clear about that!” exclaimed Frances Hayward, the silver-haired animal-rights activist and philanthropist who has rented the famous Grey Gardens mansion in East Hampton for twelve years now.

Ms. Hayward was arriving at the Ziegfeld premiere of HBO’s new Grey Gardens film, starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange as eccentric Kennedy cousins Big Edie Beale and Little Edie Beale.

“I was originally living in Lauren Bacall’s house,” Ms. Hayward explained. “And then she sold it, and I had heard about Grey Gardens. This was many, many years ago, before it was that famous. It was just, 'Oh, right, that’s the house with all the cats, remember, Jackie Kennedy’s cousins?' It was Sally who had the vision—they bought it when it was just a wreck—and it was Sally who had a vision to restore it and make it the lovely place it is today. It’s just a beautiful sweet house with the most fabulous garden in the world.”

The renowned address is still strewn with artifacts from the Beale era. “Their books are there, their old steamer trunks are there,” said Ms. Hayward. “There are lots of remnants. They’re all over the place, the whole family is.”

The house, whose squalor was first immortalized in the brothers Albert and David Maysles' 1976 documentary, has only seen its fame grow over the years, thanks to a Rufus Wainwright song, a blog, a Broadway musical, and now this film.

When Ms. Hayward mentions her address these days to acquaintances, "Well, now they say ‘Oh my God!’"

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani arrived, grinning, his arm around wife Judi Giuliani. The duo power-walked the red carpet, stopping only briefly to acknowledge that they’d never seen the Maysles' documentary.

“No, but we’ve been to the house!” said Mr. Guiliani. “She loves it.”

“It’s a fabulous house, obviously,” concurred Ms. Guiliani, who wore a hot pink dress. “It’s been renovated since what you’re going to see, I assume, in the movie.”

They couldn’t remember the exact reason for their visit. “We were at an event. I don’t remember," said Mr. Guiliani, laughing.

The packed theater cheered as Ms. Lange, portraying the aged Edith Beale in prosthetic make-up, broke into hysterical singing onscreen.

Afterwards, at the Pierre Hotel, where a very un-recession-like dinner of Dover sole and lobster Caesar salad was rolled out for hundreds, Ms. Barrymore held court in the bar area in a retro fur stole and hair net, greeting and hugging friends.

Nearby, her onetime boyfriend, "I'm a Mac" actor Justin Long, was overheard evading another reporter's question about whether they were still dating. He didn’t say no, he was insisting, he said “no comment.”

“I’m having a hard time coming up with words because I loved it so much,” he told the Daily Transom about the film. “And I loved the documentary so much, and I’m amazed they were able to capture it. Like, they really captured it; they got it. And that’s a feat that’s … it’s beyond belief for me right now.”

And Ms. Barrymore’s performance? “Again, like, words are escaping me. She just lost herself in it. It’s one of the greatest, transformative performances I’ve seen in a long time. A beautiful, tragic performance.”

He refused to say whether he’d seen her at all during the filming. (Later, the Daily Transom spotted the pair sharing several suspiciously long embraces.) “Personal stuff I’d rather not talk about,” Mr. Long explained. “I know she worked her ass off.”

"Here's my quote," Ms. Poehler said. The night before she had bid farewell to Saturday Night Live during her Weekend Update segment. "It's a feel good story--it's the feel good existential one man show of the year."

We spoke about Smart Girls, her Web show with Amy Miles that celebrates "girls who are changing the world by being themselves."

"Amy's in that too!" Ms. Poehler said, swinging to the side introduce Ms. Miles, who had one arm in a sling. She waved at us with the other.

"We're so thrilled it's out there and people are watching it," Ms. Miles said, smiling. "We're excited that we put something out there that is like something I would have wanted to see at that age. And we're representing girls that we kind of were because you don't really ever see that."

"Just normal girls, just regular girls," Ms. Poehler said, shaking her head.

We asked if she wanted to tell us anything about SNL.

"No, no..." she said, laughing. "No, I'm just psyched to be here and this is a really cool trippy show and Michael is a good friend of mine, and is a transformative preformer and so I was happy to be even included. Look, if anybody asks you to do something with Debbie Harry, say yes. My 14-year-old version of myself can't believe that I got to meet Debbie Harry."

"I'm gay and out and proud, but in saying that I feel that the gay community could be a little more engaged," Mr. Wainwright said. "You can even spell it out. E-N-G-A-Y." Har!

"I guess one of the reasons I'm so vocal is to get some of my community out there because especially gay men-and those are the only ones I can really speak for-they tend to get a little into the lush life and the dance, the DJs, the disco music, and it's fun and everything, but unfortunately I'm a huge pessimist right now. And I can't dance that off," said Mr. Wainwright, dejectedly.

The actress Fran Drescher interrupted Mr. Wainwright's speech to tell him that his boyfriend is "so cute. I hope he has a straight brother!"

According to Mr. Wainwright, it was the agitation for gay rights that helped bring down John Kerry. "I think we're a little wiser now and we realize we're going to have to play ball a bit in terms of those issues," he said. "Which is unfortunate and depressing but it's also just reality."

As for whether he was interested in dipping into the lush life himself, he said, "No, no. I'm just following hors d'oeuvres around! I feel like a grazing cattle." The evening before, he had performed at the Equality Rocks event with Melissa Etheridge.

The Daily Transom noted that the Hollywood effect that also didn't do well by John Kerry. "I think it really depends on the celebrity," said Mr. Wainwright. "I think what Madonna did was ridiculous and really atrocious, and was just such bad timing," he said, referring to the video she has been showing on her latest tour comparing John McCain to Hitler and Barack Obama to Gandhi. "It's just so, so dumb."

Then Angela Bassett said she thinks it's the perfect time for a black man to be president.

Colorado Senator Ken Salazar, who was wearing an enormous cowboy hat, introduced Ms. Lopez, who was wearing conservative, rather Laura Bush-like red outfit. Mr. Salazar congratulated her on all her accomplishments, especially being mother of twins; Ms. Lopez then took the stage to introduce Ms. Edelman. "If I had a dollar for every person who told me not to get involved with charity, I could provide health care for all the children in the country," Ms. Lopez said. "That illustrated that gee, maybe this country does need a change."

The evening’s dress code was “decadent chic.” Mr. Wainwright wore a green leopard print suit (“It’s Viktor & Rolf. And they made it specifically for me”) over a shirtless, kind-of-hairy chest, accessorized with an avant-garde mass of jewels by Justin Giunta. “I actually wore it once for my Judy Garland concert in London,” he said, of the suit. “And for ‘decadent chic,’ I thought, There’s nobody more decadent or chic than Judy! So I took it out of the closet.” Indeed!

The vast lawn area behind artist and producer Robert Wilson’s modernist Watermill Center resembled a surrealist cocktail party (Mr. Wainwright’s boyfriend, Jorn Weisbrodt, is the center’s creative director). Among the guests were professional cougar Kim Cattrall, toting much-younger boyfriend Alan Wyse (a Smith Jerrod doppelgänger); Howard Stern and fiancée Beth Ostrovsky, poured into a gold Herve Leger dress; and socialites Amanda Hearst, Cristina Greeven Cuomo and Fabiola Beracasa. There was also a man in red high heels and a spandex body suit with several massive balls protruding from his head. A tiki-torched pathway led to a wooded area in which bandaged, asylum-looking youth twitched against trees with giant white boxes on their heads. Solemn drummers sat in formation on the grass; guests sipped pink drinks involving tequila. (This was nothing compared to last year, muttered one guest, when an overweight, naked woman covered in red paint had poured milk on her head).

“This is always the best party of the summer,” said novelist and wine aficionado Jay McInerney, who was wearing a white suit. “It’s something other than going and drinking crappy wine and eating rubber chicken for charity, you know? This is really fun.”

He was standing next to socialite Debbie Bancroft. She motioned toward her ample bosom, buttressed by a slinky floor-length, sequined gown.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have Dita von Teese this year, so Debbie’s the next best thing,” he said. (Last year, Ms. von Teese hung from a swing in the dinner tent.)

“Ohhhhhh, I love subbing for Dita,” interjected Ms. Bancroft generously.

On the way out, the Transom spied a confused-looking horse, standing with handlers on the wooded pathway leading from the street. It sold to PR maven Vanessa Von Bismarck for $30,000.

The Transom soon found itself slightly tipsy and stranded in the Southampton Jitney station with a maxed-out credit card. We were about to stretch out on a bench for the night when we instead decided to climb into the SUV of a total stranger who walked in to drop off brochures for his high-end restaurant-delivery outfit, Dial-a-Dinner. His name was David Blum, and he professed himself a fan of good deeds. (This was when we texted his license plate to a friend).

Mr. Blum told us on the L.I.E. that the economy may be tanking, but rich people are still enjoying $35 pasta dishes in the privacy of their own homes. It’s less gaudy. (Or sometimes, they just don’t want people to know their sexual orientation or whom they’re dating). Business is up 37 percent since last year. In the Hamptons, he delivers from places like Nello and Nick & Toni’s. He’d just come from an event with Wolfgang Puck, who’s a friend.

He got his start at 18, as an undergrad at the University of Miami (he’s now 51). Delivering pizzas led to delivering steak and lobsters, which he now ferries over to people like Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas. “Their birthday is on the same day,” he said. “So they have a few people over to their house—they live on Central Park West. They say, ‘Dial-a-Dinner, we want food from the Palm, we want steak and lobsters, we want delicious shrimp cocktail, we want a few bottles of wine, champagne, send it up.’” He even cleans up, aided by an army of employees in tuxedos.

“We get to see the homes of people like Diane Sawyer and Mike Nichols. We got to see Whoopi Goldberg’s, when she lived with Frank Langella.” Whoopi was not as tidy as Frank, Mr. Blum intimated. “Paul Simon lives in the same building as Lorne Michaels, in the same building as Alec Baldwin, on Central Park West. Paul Newman lives in the same building as Michael J. Fox. They’re all very nice people.

“We take care of Barry Diller,” he continued. “He likes Payard. He likes the Palm restaurant very much. Ron Perelman is a customer. Ron Perelman’s kosher at his house, very nice guy. Joel Klein…”

Mr. Blum is now taking his services to the air with a division called Jet Dining, which allows customers to eat fancy restaurant food on their private planes while flying to other fancy restaurants. “It’s becoming popular right now with some of the hedge fund people, who are extremely rich and want to try new experiences,” he said. He’ll send a private jet for them in Chicago, loaded up with food from the Palm, fly them to New York, put them up at the Pierre, send them to eat at Phillipe—“it’s very hard to get into”—and then fly them back to Chicago.

He’s looking to replicate this aboard helicopters. Everybody is into helicopter shares now. He has a meeting scheduled with Sikorsky, a chopper company. Was the Transom interested in a helicopter ride?

Mr. Blum can anticipate the movement of the financial markets based on who’s sending lobsters to whom, he said. He also once did the food for a party for Michael Jackson, before the singer decamped for Bahrain. “Very nice guy. Very soft spoken. You know who else was at that party? Ariel Sharon. It was very surreal.”

mbryan@observer.com