Wednesday 16th
Steve Florio in a Speedo? Ladies and gents of Condé Nast: Shake the crumbs of that Rice Krispies treat from this paper, suck in your wobbly winter tummies , suck down a few extra Xanax and head to the annual Swimsuit Try-On hosted by Glamour magazine (which seems to be regaining some of the dignity of the Ruth Whitney years since Bonnie Fuller left to write self-help books). You get a free one-on-one consultation to identify the best bathing suit for your pale winter figure. If you work at Time Warner , schedule a flu shot.
[E-mail candice_dhakhwa@condenast.com for an appointment.]
New York is tchotchke ville! All those who prowl the red-eyed eaves of eBay – you know who you are -emerge for “Americana” week in New York , done with special fervor this year thanks to post-9/11 patriotism …. Tonight, the American Folk Art Museum’s American Antiques Show gets jiggy at its gala benefit. You get musty-smelling Antiques Roadshow experts, Victory gardens, singles mixers with themes (“How to Spot a Fake”) for the “young collectors” under-40 crowd …. Meanwhile, further uptown, you’ve got the preview opening of the New York Ceramics Fair , which is featuring 18th- and 19th-century American Glass from Salem, Mass.-extra-rare crockery to hurl at your new mate!
[American Folk Art Museum, Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th Street, 6:30 p.m., 977-7170; New York Ceramics Fair, National Academy of Design, 1083 Fifth Avenue, 5 p.m., 369-4880.]
Moonshine mojitos? More proof that the newly swish but – let’s face it – rather smelly meatpacking district is passing swiftly from its Pastis phase into its baby-stroller-and–Banana Republic phase: The people who brought you the West Village’s Cowgirl Hall of Fame (kind of a Disney-fied Hogs and Heifers with food and preppy lesbians) are opening BarK , a 40-seat restaurant with wooden-themed décor and a menu of “upscale country cuisine.” Giddy- yap ! Private hoedown tonight. Crash strategy: last season’s Dolce & Gabbana cowgirl outfit (see Madonna video) … with pumps !
[519 Hudson at West 10th Street, 7 p.m., by invitation only, 633-1133.]
Our theory about Ally McBeal is that it began to lose gas not when Robert Downey Jr. left the show (though that certainly didn’t help), but when Anne Heche played a character with Tourette’s syndrome …. Now meet actor Joshua Lewis Berg , who has Tourette’s. He opens tonight in a one-man show, called Syndrome, about the disease. “It’s a stereotype disease, people think that it’s just people screaming curse words when actually that’s an incredibly rare tic,” said Mr. Berg, a 31-year-old Detroit native. “It’s a whole package of things. It’s not just the tics and it’s not just the cursing. I’ve been sniffling nonstop for 20 years. People have asked me about weird things I do to warm up, but they think it’s just an actor warming up, when actually I’m releasing Tourette’s energy. I can do a play and if I concentrate I won’t tic at all, but it takes a lot of attention, and before and after the play I’m ticcing like a madman. But in this play I’m just going to let it go. The tics I’ll be putting on-the character has more than me-will become my own tics, almost like I’m rewriting the play at times. If someone in the audience has Tourette’s and starts yelling something out, I could pick that up.”
[Greenwich Street Theater, 547 Greenwich Street, 8 p.m., 255-3940.]
Thursday 17th
Beam me up, Scott! We’re sure the Harper’s Bazaar redesign party held in some gallery last week was a real hoot, with the British Sykes sisters positively springing off the walls, being “witty” and “silly” as self-loathing Anglophile American fashion editors looked on with envy–but we doubt they had a star attraction like R&B singer Jill Scott , who was robbed of Grammy nominations by the more conventionally photogenic (i.e., skinnier) but less talented Alicia Keys. Tonight, back in the meatpacking district, Ms. Scott sings at Essence ‘s party for its new editor in chief, Diane Weathers. We’re psyched.
[Lotus, 409 West 14th Street, 6 p.m., by invitation only, 642-0243.]
Franzenstein? You know, Farrar, Straus and Giroux has created a monster …. The 2001 National Book Award winners continue to milk it with an evening at the New York Public Library discussing “the writing life” ( their quotation marks), incongruouslysponsoredby Bloomberg -the company, not the Mayor …. But apparently Jonathan Franzen, who survived tussling with Oprah to win the fiction prize for The Corrections , is too busy to show (“I believe he’s in Europe,” said a rep for the Book Awards-ah, the writing life!), so a fellow named David Means , a friend of Mr. Franzen’s who “reads” for him, is going to act as a stand-in. Ask Mr. Means if he also does Mr. Franzen’s socks.
[Celeste Bartos Forum, 42nd Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues, 6:30 p.m., 685-0261.]
Friday 18th
Is it just us, or is Miramax really no better than the big studios with their mindless action films? Both rolling out the same d*mned formula every few months, but because Miramax movies have subtitles and take place in small European towns, they get credit for being “artsy” …. Today, the big M. releases Italian for Beginners , a movie about six thirtysomethings searching for love ; a young minister arrives in town and expects his stay to be temporary; everybody takes Italian lessons ; and suddenly the drab little town is a romantic wonderland of Italian phrases and amore …. It’s basically Chocolat meets The Full Monty and Big Night , with a whiff of Kate & Leopold . Stay home and rent Preston Sturges.
[777-FILM.]
Saturday 19th
She’s no Paula Zahn- but she’s got pluck ! Katie “I Make More Than Tom” Couric poofs up her new, glam blond hairdo and co-chairs the opening-night party for the 2002 Winter Antiques Show, which got bumped from the Seventh Regiment Armory (we’re at war, remember ?) to the wall-to-wall carpeted Hilton. Special this year: a loan exhibit of scrolls and shells. What it benefits: The East Side Settlement. Ms. Couric has somehow retained her credibility when her peers- Diane Sawyer, Maury Povich -stopped trying long ago ….
[Winter Antiques Show, Hilton New York, 1335 Avenue of the Americas, 6 p.m., 718-292-7392.]
Sunday 20th
Guitars, Globes? If you’re a guy who wears untucked plaid flannel shirts, khakis and sneakers, you’ll probably care to know that it’s the last day of a big guitar festival and there’s a guitar marathon today featuring Andy Summers, the dour English one from the Police …. All the rest of us stay home and fill up the popcorn bowl for the Golden Globes, which is basically the Academy Awards smooshed together with the Emmys-plus the stars get drunk and show more flesh! (Or in Calista Flockhart’s case, bone.)
[Guitar marathon, Makor, 35 West 67th Street, noon, 415-5500; Golden Globes, preshow coverage starts on E! at 6 p.m.]
Monday 21st
They’re taking Martin Luther King Jr. Day seriously out in Brooklyn , at least-gospel choir, a screening of Boycott , a documentary about the 1956 Montgomery civil-rights protest, rap’s first (and last?) yoga aficionado Russell Simmons makes a speech (but will wife Kimora Simmons be hawking her Baby Phat line?). Meanwhile, back in Manhattan , “theater people” ( chunky silver jewelry, black tights, braying laughs ) go listen to playwright Arthur Miller and bald, rosy New York Times columnist Frank Rich have a chat at the 92nd Street Y.
[Brooklyn Tribute to Martin Luther King Jr., B.A.M. Howard Gilman Opera House, 30 Lafayette Street, program starts at 10:30 a.m. and lasts basically all day, 718-636-4111; Arthur Miller and Frank Rich, 1395 Lexington Avenue, 8 p.m., 415-5500.]
Tuesday 22nd
Kiss him, he’s Amish! Cuddly author Stephen Raleigh Byler, 31, was raised Mennonite in Lancaster, Penn.; got his masters in religion and literature from Yale ( oooh ), an M.F.A. in fiction writing from Columbia ( ummm ); has worked as a radio announcer, bankruptcy counselor and a guide at a fly-fishing lodge; and now inhabits his own personal Yaddo at the Murray Hotel in Livingston, Mont.… Today, Mr. Byler joins his editors at William Morrow at a party for his new book, Searching for Intruders : A Novel in Stories (By the way, are there any actual novels anymore? All these stories that kinda make up novels, novellas, memoir-slash-novels, big fat “edgy” epics -where are all the nice 297-page novels that make you want to sit on a porch and just read and then get lost in a daydream of spanking the sultry Latina next door?) Bonus Freudian excerpt! “My father was on top, his naked ass facing me, gyrating.” Well, Harold Bloom, the squishy lovable bard of Greenwich Village, liked it.
[At the home of Mr. Byler’s agent, somewhere on the Upper East Side, 6 p.m., by invitation only, 206-1630.]
Wednesday 23rd
Makin’ Whoopi!Warming up for her Oscar gig in March, wacky actress-turned-Entenmann’s-spokesgal Whoopi Goldberg pops up at the Marriott to be honored along with six prime ministers from the Caribbean. Which reminds us, if anybody wants to fly us to the West Indies (like say our Precious -whose idea of a “honeymoon” is 48 hours at a “spa” in the Catskills ), we’re game ….
[New York Marriott Marquis, 1535 Broadway, 6:30 p.m., 843-1745.]
