Wednesday 24th
The Time Warner behemoth on Columbus Circle burps out another event tonight , as Dom Pérignon launches its newest vintage, harvested in the summer of ’96 and somewhat spookily dubbed the ” Vintage of Light ,” within the ice-cool walls of the Mandarin Oriental hotel. We asked our man at D.P. what he had to say about it, but after confessing that he’d already ” nipped” at one of the bottles, he insisted on keeping the night’s details a secret , which can be loosely translated as: “We’ll be lucky if we get Jaid Barrymore to show …. ” If you can nip an invitation, offer your flute to TV chef Rocco DiSpirito , who might be a bit dispirited after losing a star in The New York Times , or raise your flute to giantess club girl Amy Sacco .
[Dom Pérignon ‘Vintage of Light’ launch, the Residences at the Mandarin Oriental, 60th Street and Columbus Circle, 7 to 9 p.m., by invitation only.]
Thursday 25th
People who place personal ads in the back of The New York Review of Books cuddle together at the 92nd Street Y as roundtabler Charlie Rose lathers it up with Swiss-man Klaus Schwab about the World Economic Forum. Mr. Schwab may have founded the love-in of the world’s smartest, richest and most powerful a few decades ago, but raise your hand and get him to admit it’s those gift bags stuffed to the hilt with big-boy gadgets that keep them coming back to Davos for more. Elsewhere, Dave Eggers -he and blond, ethereal wife/fictioneuse Vendela Vida are in running to become the next Colin and Kathryn Harrison -joins quietly sexy young author Jonathan Safran Foer, Michael Cunningham, Joyce Carol Oates and Wendy Wasserstein at the Cooper Union, where the group will recite from unpublished works covering such issues as the virtues of peace and the evils of war. (Yes, the idea that Joyce Carol Oates , who publishes 59 books a year, has any “unpublished work” is truly terrifying …. ) Proceeds go to hippies (i.e., Downtown for Democracy). Meanwhile, actress Anne Heche , most likely steaming over Ellen’s Emmy nomination, thrusts herself back into the spotlight by opening tonight on Broadway with Alec Baldwin in the revival of Twentieth Century ; the producers watch nervously and hope Ms. Heche hasn’t wandered too far from the mothership since her well-received stage work in Proof .
[Charlie Rose speaks to Klaus Schwab, 1395 Lexington Avenue, 8 p.m., 212-415-5500; “Where’s My Democracy?”, the Great Hall at Cooper Union, 7 East Seventh Street, 6:30 to 10 p.m., 212-592-4647; Twentieth Century , American Airlines Theatre, 227 West 42nd Street, 8 p.m., 212-719-1300.]
Friday 26th
Paris Hilton’s hamster-cheeked house couturier, Alvin Valley, holds court in his Soho showroom and tells every women who walks through the door exactly what he thinks-which is to wear them low, tight and too long. Then tuck your thong and ride your Vespa uptown ( brrrrrrrrrrrrrip !) to the Italian Cultural Institute , where Italian director Marco Bellocchio breaks biscotti with Peter Scarlet , executive director of the Tribeca Film Festival, and screens Good Morning, Night . If you’d rather stay downtown, Fresh Art is hosting a benefit at HAI Gallery in Soho for artists with special needs; you might just win a dog-grooming session if you rig the raffle properly.
[Alvin Valley Sample Sale, 632 Broadway, Suite 602, noon to 6 p.m.; Marco Bellocchio in conversation, Italian Cultural Institute, 686 Park Avenue, 6 p.m., 212-879-4242, ext. 370; “Every Picture Tells a Story,” HAI Gallery, 584 Broadway, third floor, 7 to 10 p.m., 646-262-3273.]
Saturday 27th
Pour a gimlet into a thermos and head to the Small Press Book Fair (Lilith Fair for the Paris Review set) , where women wearing fashionably ratty tweed sit for publishing seminars, readings by small-press authors and an exhibit on Emily Dickinson (who’s overdue to be portrayed by Jennifer Aniston wearing a prosthetic nose). Today at the fair, there’s an interview with long-tressed Morgan Entrekin of Grove/Atlantic, who picks up the “Ben Award” for outstanding contributions to the field of independent publishing-though why they named it after Ben Affleck , we haven’t a clue …. Weekend with the kids? Put the tykes on a leash and drag them to the Sixth Annual New York International Children’s Film Festival awards ceremony. Sexy mom Susan Sarandon , naughty director Gus Van Sant , wacky director Jonathan Demme and Adam Gopnik -that guy The New Yorker pays to write (and write, and write) about Paris-are among those sprinkled on the jury’s panel.
[16th Annual Small Press Book Fair, General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, 20 West 44th Street, 212-764-7021; noon to 5 p.m., New York International Children’s Film Festival Awards Ceremony, Directors’ Guild of America Theatre, 110 West 57th Street, 212-505-2900, by invitation only.]
Sunday 28th
“Just because I was discovered just hanging out on my stoop doesn’t mean every other pretty girl will,” said actress Rosario Dawson , who was indeed plucked from the stoop by Kids director Larry Clark and went on to star in Josie and the Pussycats and The Adventures of Pluto Nash . “They need to get off the streets and into more creative and worthwhile activities.” Tonight Ms. Dawson M.C.’s a benefit for the Lower Eastside Girls Club at the Bowery Ballroom, complete with a D.J. (one of the Ronsons -do you care which?). The club’s minions will be passing out homebaked cookies shaped like tenement houses -but if that’s a little too bitter for your taste, the grand raffle prize includes a year’s supply of Krispy Kreme doughnuts …. Hey, they’re delicious, but can we move beyond the idea that Krispy Kreme is the height of white-trash chic? Can we move beyond the whole idea of white-trash chic?
[Let’s Hear It for the Girls!, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, 9 p.m. to 2 a.m., 866-468-7619.]
Monday 29th
Uma eats a meatball! Swedish chef Marcus Samuelsson presides over a Dewar’s event that features celebrity pairs cooking for each other: Mipam Thurman cooks for sister Uma (who’s cooking with hotelier Andre Balazs these days); Met Costume Institute associate curator Andrew Bolton bakes for boho design queen Anna Sui; New York City Ballet dancer Charles Askegaard whisks up something saucy for his wife, Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell. “We cook a lot in Connecticut, because cooking in New York is too difficult most of the time,” Mr. Askegaard said. “We cooked some lovely Southern fried chicken yesterday, actually.” He added: “Don’t confuse Candace with Carrie Bradshaw-she’s actually a better cook than me. She’s really good at making Yorkshire pudding.” Meanwhile, the Hamptons can’t behave themselves and wait their turn: A maddening crowd putters to Sag Harbor for Hamptons Restaurant Week -Nick and Toni’s, Almond, Della Femina, blah blah blah …. Will this sandy strip survive another season’s invasion of Manhattan mini-moguls and their rented wives?
[Dewar’s Man with a Pan, Marquee, 289 10th Avenue, 7 to 10 p.m., by invitation only; Hamptons Restaurant Week, 631-329-0050, www.hamptonsrestaurantweek.com.]
Tuesday 30th
Her coppola runneth over: Sofia Coppola may not have been able to deliver the ring to Mordor at this year’s Oscars , but she did make history as the first woman to ever wear flats on the red carpet! Tonight, the breathy Marc Jacobs muse is fêted for efforts like The Virgin Suicides , the harmless and vastly overrated Lost in Translation and her rarely seen short film, Lick the Star . In celebrity-chef news , we’d like to start a petition for all the chefs to just please get back in the kitchen and please stop foisting your “personalities” on us ; nevertheless, we couldn’t resist calling Olives’ frisky chef, Todd English , to see what he was up to. We found him in- where else? -Las Vegas. “Trying to keep myself somewhat out of trouble!” he said from Caesars Palace. He told us about a performance he’s doing tonight at Supper Club: “It’s a cooking-show class demo with theatrics wrapped around it in the form of Broadway-type theater. They’ve got Broadway actors working with us, and they’ll be singing and dancing in between and around us.” Can’t a girl just have a hot dog anymore? Meanwhile, back at base camp, Van Morrison squeezes into something elegant and plays to the brown-eyed ladies at Irving Plaza.
[ A Work in Progress: An Evening with Sofia Coppola , the Gramercy Theatre, 127 East 23rd Street, 7 p.m., after-party at Metronome, for tickets call 212-708-9680; Chef’s Theater: A Musical Feast , the Supper Club, 240 West 47th Street, 7:30 p.m., 212-239-6200.]
wednesday 31st
Two chances to lose the raffle tonight: the Miller Theater Spring Gala honoring Columbia University president Lee Bollinger , the needs-no-introduction Kitty Carlisle Hart and communications-empire heiress Anne Cox Chambers -or Juilliard’s benefit concert , hosted by actress Christine Baranski ( Welcome to Mooseport ) and actor Keith David and serenaded by soprano Renée Fleming and jazz man Wynton Marsalis. If those don’t deliver, head southwest, where former supe’ Christy Turlington rises from child’s pose (she had a baby last fall) to launch a new line of yoga togs . If you’re not into yoga, get your smarty-pants self to a benefit for the International Neuroscience Foundation , which knows that there are two types of New Yorkers: crazy and crazier. The co-chairs are all very pretty (even if a few of them married maniacs): former model Helena Christensen, Cristina Greeven Cuomo, Lulu de Kwiatkowski, Shoshanna Gruss (née Lonstein) and the recently hyphenated Lucy Sykes-Rellie.
[Miller Theatre Spring Gala, Galt House, 10 East 62nd Street, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., by invitation only; Classified Jazz benefit, Juilliard School, 60 Lincoln Center Plaza, 7 p.m., 212-573-6933; Mahanuala launch, Spirit, 530 West 27th Street, 7 to 9 p.m., by invitation only; International Neuroscience Foundation benefit, BLVD, 199 Bowery, 7:30 to 11:30 p.m., 212-941-8282, ext. 13.]
