Wednesday 4th
John Kerry emerged from the Democratic National Convention in Boston with virtually zero bounce in the polls -maybe it’s time to drop-kick that nincompoop Ben Affleck off the campaign bus, Teresa …. Meanwhile, New York’s own political agitator, the meek but fierce Moby , pops up on the roof of 60 Thompson to toast his new line of bottled bevies dubbed “teany,” named after the uncapitalized tea café on the Lower East Side he co-owns with friend Kelly Tisdale. “Fueled by a lot of caffeine, Kelly and I stayed up late researching a bunch of proprietary ice-tea blends and started selling them in the shop,” said Moby. “It was a long process of learning about the industry and considering to what extent I am an asset and to what extent I am a liability: It would be naïve of me to assume that at least part of the population isn’t negatively predisposed towards me. I didn’t want this to be another gratuitous celebrity product launch.” In more music news, Jonny Podell -who was born in a “no-bedroom apartment” in the Bronx and ran the music department at the William Morris agency-is starting his own gig. “The first two acts I signed [at William Morris] were the Allman Brothers and Alice Cooper,” said the raspy-voiced 58-year-old. “Then I left and was the first person to start a boutique agency ; then through my use and abuse of substances -which I was as good at as being an agent- I ended up with nothing , got better and started at the bottom all over again!” Tonight he invites people to “drink, eat, dance, dress like a rock star” at the Podell Talent Agency launch party. What will he be wearing? “A tutu.”
[Teany launch, A60, the 60 Thompson rooftop, 60 Thompson Street, 8 p.m. to midnight, by invitation only; the Podell Talent Agency launch party, Mobilia, 446 Broadway, 9 p.m., 212-981-5291.]
Thursday 5th
More proof that Australia has something to offer besides Nolita boys in tight trousers, dingoes and quaint accents: At the Australian Consulate General , while everyone sips Foster’s ( burp! ), Melbourne’s own Christine Balint reads from her new novel, Ophelia’s Fan , “a lavishly romantic fictional biography of an overlooked cultural icon.” Paul Hogan? Nope! The muse in question is 19th-century Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson , the inspiration for Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique . Not highbrow enough for ya? In an overrated, oversized club across town, cranky but dapper Harper’s editor Lewis Lapham , artist/provocateur Art Spiegelman , documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker and two-timin’ Moby (see yesterday) eclectically huddle together for the Imagine Festival of Arts, Issues, and Ideas Countdown Party -hmm, sounds like a front for hippies planning to protest the Republican National Convention! If you’re like us and sip cocktails in the sunshine whenever possible , don’t miss your chance to right your wrongs at a Bergdorf Goodman publicity push today. What they’re sellin’: Doctor’s Dermatologic Formula . “Increased sun exposure causes so much dermal damage that summer is often thought to be worse for the skin than other seasons,” said dermatologist Dr. Howard Sobel , creator of the D.D.F. line, which is supposedly perched on the bathroom counters of fancy Hollywood ladies Cameron Diaz and Halle Berry . “And alcohol causes dehydration, which results in sluggish skin.” Uh- oh!
[ Ophelia’s Fan , Australian Consulate General, 150 East 42nd Street, 6 to 8 p.m., 212-351-6550, the Imagine Festival of Arts, Issues and Ideas Countdown Party, Crobar, 530 West 28th Street, 6:30 to 9 p.m., RSVP to nelta@mkpr.com; D.D.F. counter, Beauty level, Bergdorf Goodman, Fifth Avenue and 58th Street, 212-872-8817.]
Friday 6th
If you gave up any pretense of intelligence and taste long ago and haven’t read a book without pictures in over a year , you likely spent many hours glued to America’s Top Model last season, and so already know that Ebony Haithe, Camille McDonald and Sarah Racey-Tabrizi didn’t win-but tonight you can see them strutting at a fashion show that benefits colon-cancer research. Expected attendees include healthy twin Ashley Olsen and actress Kim Cattrall who, like our ex , always says she’s going to come but usually never gets there. And in more pre-convention hippie news, Bright Day , a new play by Tom Ellis , opens at the Bank Street Theater. Plot: Four college kids spike Richard Nixon’s
[Ice-Blue Charity Fashion Show, the Altman Building, 135 West 18th Street, 8 p.m., www.safyreevents.com/up-events.html; Bright Day , Bank Street Theatre, 155 Bank Street, 8 p.m., 212-868-4444.]
Saturday 7th
Out in the ho-ho-Hamptons, right now is about the time everyone has stopped getting along and someone just caught a rash. So put on your requisite summer-benefit wear ( little flouncy skirt or handkerchief hem ) and brace yourself for yet anotherproduct-pluggin’party, “Tiffany Does Opera,” where the blue-boxed bluebloods raise mad paper in East Hampton to benefit Eos Opera . If that doesn’t get you stinko , there’s a “Burlesque Bash” where you can slam down drinky-poos for the Young Patrons of Guild Hall and teeter to music by the requisite Ronson. (We’re not sure which, and it doesn’t matter.)
[Tiffany Does Opera, Tiffany & Co., 53 Main Street, East Hampton, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., 631-324-1700, ext. 346; Burlesque Bash, 87 Davids Lane, East Hampton, 8 to 11 p.m., 917-351-8600.]
Sunday 8th
One month to go before we bid the onerous daytime charity event (with its attendant perils of flop sweat, toxic ticks and destroying yet another pair of fauxhemian Marni jeweled sandals on a soggy lawn ) farewell. Today we play croquet and stuff our faces for a good cause (breast-cancer research) at North Quarter Farm on the North Fork. Meanwhile, back in Manny-hattan , a former call girl-yes, another one!-who goes by the name Alexandra tutors women in the art of keeping their menfolk faithful. “There are women just dying for this sort of information!” said the former hooker. “Let’s face it, women are a great deal smarter than men , although they just don’t know how to use it to their sexual advantage.” Heck, skip the fancy sex talk, honey-we’ll show up for some good pimp stories!
[Third Annual Farm Picnic to Benefit Breast Cancer Help, North Quarter Farm, 1929 Roanoke Avenue, Riverhead, N.Y., noon to 4 p.m., 631-727-6644; the Luv Coach, East 57th Street, 917-494-3680, by appointment only.]
Monday 9th
Boys like her, girls like her- but does she like herself? From The Breakfast Club to High Art , Ally Sheedy has provided “hot troubled girl” fantasy material for distressed boys and girls of all sexes . Tonight the angular thespian debuts in Triple Happiness , a suburban saga where things go pear-shaped when a young actress moves in with a Westchester family. Bonus Eight-Day trivia : At age 12, Ally wrote a book about a mythical encounter between Queen Elizabeth I and an inquisitive mouse which became a best-seller! Speaking which of, resplendent Observer alumna Candace Bushnell , author Sex and the City , Four Blondes and Trading Up , does Th e New York Times a big favor and reads from Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s ( The Times has been publishing chapters of the book all summer; apparently internal research indicated that most Times readers couldn’t handle more than a chapter of a real book a day, because it would interfere with watching Fear Factor ) at the Borders Books in the Time Warner mothership on Columbus Circle. Come hear what the original Carrie Bradshaw has to say!
[ Triple Happiness , McGinn/Cazale Theater, Broadway and 76th Street, 8 p.m.
212-246-4422; Breakfast at Tiffany’s reading, 6 p.m., Borders, 1 Time Warner Center; 212-823-9775.]
Tuesday 10th
Poker is the game that New York women pretend to like to act bad-ass and tomboyish . (They also tend to order Scotch -which they hate-while playing, and the truly nutty ones try to smoke a cigar ….) Tonight, somewhere in that Time Warner thing, have a peek as amateurs like Michael Mailer and Brian Kopelman hunker down with professionals like Doyle Brunson and Chip Reese to celebrate the Poker Superstars Invitational tournament, which will be broadcasting on Fox for 12 weeks. Supposedly even the losers take home 150 grand and change. We called Henry Orenstein (inventor, Holocaust survivor, poker whiz), who’ll be playing tonight, and asked the octogenarian what makes a good poker face. “I spent a lot of time observing a great player’s ‘tell’ and finally realized that every time he had good cards, he would lower his face just about 10 degrees,” Mr. Orenstein said. “Of course, I never told him.” He added: “I started playing poker after chess-it was just making my head hurt too much.”
[Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament, Stone Rose, Time Warner Center, 8 to 11 p.m., by invitation only.]
Wednesday 11th
Saraswati is the Hindu goddess of learning and has had a river in India named after her-what the hell have you done lately? Anyway, tonight your wispy-haired, wispy-voiced yoga instructor whisks away to Lincoln Center, where dancers, poets and performers get mistaken by passers-by, for one of those swing-dance evenings (which you secretly suspect are a sexual free-for-all ). A few blocks north, the Museum of Natural History premieres Nine Innings from Ground Zero , a documentary about the post-9/11 craze for America’s favorite pastime (before it became writing snarky books about George W. Bush). Thinking woman’s sex object and Manchurian candidate Liev Schreiber narrates.
[Community of Creativity: A Garland for Saraswati, North Plaza, Lincoln Center, 65th Street and Broadway, 5:30 p.m., 212-875-5766; Nine Innings from Ground Zero , American Museum of Natural History, Samuel J and Ethel LeFrak Theater, 7 p.m., by invitation only.]
