Wednesday 6th
Just when you thought we were in for a boring summer, it turns out the President’s twin daughters are tequila-swillin’ bar babes, giantess Brooke Shields is going to stomp and warble her way through the lead role of Sally Bowles in Cabaret, and the Mayor of New York has gone completely, utterly mad-any day now, they’re going to send Martin Sheen up the East River to Gracie Mansion in a camouflaged boat …. In short, the tabloids are going to be this summer’s beach-blanket reading of choice! But the publishing industry, still smarting over the utter failure of the much-hyped e-book (which turned out to be like reading a very long and dull e-mail from an annoying friend) is hurling “summer reading” at your head as fast as it can. Take Mr. Maybe, by a British expat named Jane Green(above)-who, according to the jacket copy, “worked for many years as a journalist, with occasional forays into public relations for film, television, and the odd celebrity.” Bonus dirty excerpt! “He turns as the
[New York Palace Hotel, Villard, 24 East 51st Street, 6:30 p.m., by invitation only, 782-8441.]
If you missed last night’s gathering of some of New York’s most upstanding citizens (the Hilton sisters, Denise Rich-hey, is there a bail bondsman in the house?) at the FiFi Awards (Oscars for the perfume industry), tonight the-take a deep breath-Annette Green Museum at the Fragrance Foundation opens a Sex, Scents and Cinema exhibit that includes a video montage of perfume scenes from movie history, narrated by The Observer’s own Rex Reed! We asked Annette Green about current fragrance trends. “I would say they are more romantic,” she said. “For a couple of years, we had a uniscent trend; scents could be worn by men or women. Then we went to very light, I-can’t-smell-you fragrances. And now, the pendulum has swung the other way.” As pendulums are wont to do. Next up, Calvin Klein throws a “Zero Tolerance” cocktail party benefiting the fight against domestic violence. (Zero tolerance is what we have for fellas who douse themselves with Mr. Klein’s “uniscent” cK Be, but that’s a whole other item.) Finally, at Jeffrey, the last respectable address in the meatpacking district, they’re launching a special line of Keds, the preferred fashion sneaker of suburban moms across America. These will go for about $120 per pair-once again a case of something previously affordable and useful suddenly going kitschy and expensive.
[Sex, Scents and Cinema exhibit, Annette Green Museum, 145 East 32nd Street, ninth floor, 6 p.m., by invitation only, 725-2755; Calvin Klein, Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th Street, 8:30 p.m., 349-6009, ext. 241; Jeffrey, 449 West 14th Street, 7 p.m., by invitation only, 727-9421.]
Thursday 7th
Naked city: Hey, don’t blame us, blame our “enlightened” editor, who demanded “more sexy pictures-and I don’t mean Liz Wurtzel.” So we came up with something called the Take Home a Nude auction, where artwork by Tony Bennett, Bill Blass, David Bowie, William Wegman and other “artist-as-a-second- career” artists is going to be raffled off to benefit the New York Academy of Art. On the committee: MTV “personality” (and rich girl) Serena Altschul, ace tennis commentator John McEnroe, suddenly omnipresent actor Liev Schreiber and the last honest man left in show business, Rolling Stone Keith Richards. Nearby, Nerve-the only porn magazine we know that manages to be less sexy than Maxim, even with full frontal nudity-celebrates four years online, one year in print and its staff members’ piercings. Naturally, they are videotaping the whole thing.
[Take Home a Nude, 20 Rockefeller Plaza, 7 p.m., 966-0300; Nerve, Look, 174 Hudson Street, 8 p.m., by invitation only, 965-1146.]
Turned on by Turturro? At long last, a premature retrospective we can get excited about! (As opposed to, say, last year’s Kevin Bacon tribute.) The Young Friends of Film at the Film Society of Lincoln Center spend most of their time swinging in hot tubs, but tonight they honor thinking-woman’s sex symbol John Turturro, star of countless Coen brothers mov-ies. Tim Robbins, Illeana Douglas, Spike Lee and Christopher Walk-en will make drunken speeches, and so should you, even if you’re just staying home with your cat watching Barton Fink for the 469th time.
[Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center, 8 p.m., cocktail reception to follow, Kaplan Penthouse, 875-5630.]
Friday 8th
If “Hamptons share” makes you wince and think “Colgate College” and “New York magazine personal ads,” you will probably get through the summer just fine. But it doesn’t hurt for a woman to know her way around a big piece of meat-hence, you need Richard Ruben, who today teaches a seminar at Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School called Building Rich Flavors: Marinades and Rubs for the Grill or Oven. “We’re going to be culling from every possible style of rub,” said Mr. Ruben, who looks a bit like Richard Fish on Ally McBeal, “from the classic American rub of brown sugar, paprika, salt, black pepper, garlic powder-which is our old standard rub dating back to days gone by-to something totally fabulous and Caribbean … that interplay of the citrus-sour and the nice explosion of heat that occurs, which really panders to my personal palate!” Anything to make Bobby Flay like us. Meanwhile, in the actual Hamptons: Tory Burch, Kathy Hilton and Anne Hearst host a dinner party to celebrate the release of Candace Bushnell’s Four Blondes in paperback, and then their Mini-Me’s (Elisabeth Kieselstein-Cord, Amanda Hearst, Hilton sisters) host the after-party for the young ‘uns. Bring Candace some kippers for her Brit gent!
[Rubs, Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School, 50 West 23rd Street, 6 p.m., 847-0770; Candace Bushnell, Kathy Hilton’s house, somewhere in the Hamptons, we know not where, after-party to follow, Conscience Point, by invitation only, 966-5000.]
Saturday 9th
Beamer me up, Scotty! That sound you hear is the sound of nothing happening on a June Saturday in Manhattan …. But slip on your Italian racing moccasins and test-drive a BMW today (vroom, vroom)-they will donate $1 for every mile to a breast-cancer foundation. Get on the on-ramp to New Jersey by mistake, and don’t stop until you hit Mississippi.
[555 West 57th Street, 10 a.m., 1-800-I’M-AWARE.]
Sunday 10th
Street-fair hell! “Strolling entertainers,” “local artisans” and an Arlo Guthrie tribute-be afraid, be very, very afraid! Best to stay away from the Brooklyn waterfront today! Meanwhile, in Soho, there is a literary-magazine fair at Housing Works bookshop! (Dave Eggers watch in full effect.) Bicycle-boy George Plimpton wears his summer seersucker and headlines a panel, “Community & Commodity: The Social & Cultural Importance of Literary Magazines,” the title of which alone is enough to send one straight into a mid-afternoon nap.
[Brooklyn Cultural Festival, Fulton Ferry Landing, Brooklyn, 11 a.m., 718-855-7882; Literary-Magazine Fair, Housing Works Used Bookstore Café, 126 Crosby Street, noon, 741-9110, ext. 10.]
Monday 11th
What, you thought New York’s Irish intelligentsia was going to go quietly into that good night? You thought the whole McCourt brothers thing was just a flash in the pan? Wrong! Tonight, Gabriel Byrne-who is fond of Belgian pastries-joins Frank McCourt for a reading of Yeats Is Dead!, a book by 15 Irish authors, to celebrate Amnesty International’s 40th anniversary. Meanwhile, Francis Ford Coppola-disting-uished director now morphing into an amalgam of Paul Newman (spaghetti sauces) and George Plimpton (Zoetrope magazine)-throws an Italian street festival to shill pastas and fixings from his Mammarella line. If his daughter, Sofia Coppola-Spike Jonze’s wife, Marc Jacobs’ “muse,” screenwriter and all-around perfect person; sort of the Anna Quindlen of the rich-daughter “indie” set-isn’t going, then we aren’t, either!
[Yeats Is Dead!, New School, 66 West 12th Street, Tishman Auditorium, 7 p.m., 229-5600; Morisi-Coppola Pasta Factory, 186 Eighth Street, 5 p.m., by invitation only, 334-1919.]
Chloë-less? What do you do with “reluctant” celebutante Chloë Sevigny when she’s drifted slightly off the hype radar? Have her snap into Gwyneth Paltrow mode and host a benefit for the New Group theater company, sponsored by Interview magazine and Hugo Boss. After cocktails, the bash moves from the Hugo Boss store over to the Russian Tea Room, where rock star and actress Courtney Love is going to sing and, quite likely, smash some things. It will cost you a mere $300. (Our prediction: the two ladies will make out, then have a boisterous public spat on VH1 in 2002.)
[Cocktails, Hugo Boss flagship store, 717 Fifth Avenue, 6:30 p.m., dinner and performance to follow, 691-6730.]
Tuesday 12th
Street-fair hell, Part II! Chalk drawing. Murals. Italian ices. Yep, we’ve got another one: This time it’s the Museum Mile Festival-stroller alert on Fifth Avenue from 82nd Street to 104th Street. And if you want to see something really strange, tonight is the premiere of Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, a documentary about the late director by his longtime associate, Jan Harlan, narrated by-oh, dear G-d-Tom Cruise.
[Museum Mile, opening ceremony, Cooper- Hewitt National Design Museum, Fifth Avenue and 91st Street, 5:45 p.m., 606-2296; Stanley Kubrick, pre-screening reception, 8 p.m., Kaplan Penthouse, 165 West 65th Street, 10th floor, screening to follow, by invitation only, 595-6161.]
Wednesday 13th
Ally-oop! It’s National Hermit Week, so if you don’t feel like going to the new, revamped De La Guarda-a peppy friend describes: “It’s Argentinean, you stand up the whole time, you get wet, they fly around on ropes, it lasts like an hour, it’s really fun, it’s great, they’re kind of pounding things and climbing things,” all of which makes us break out in a rash, and that’s even before we got to the really grim part: a Gotham magazine after-party-why not stay home and celebrate Ally Sheedy’s 39th birthday by renting The Breakfast Club, in which she plays a hermit ministered to by current Manhattan night-crawler Molly Ringwald!
[De La Guarda, Daryl Roth Theatre, Union Square East at 15th Street, 8 p.m., after-party to follow, Spa, 76 East 13th Street, by invitation only, 290-1100, ext. 35.]
