It’s the end of the world! With last week’s steam pipe going boom and news that Al Qaeda is stronger than ever and a seeming future of endless re-looping Bush and Clinton family presidencies (Hillary; Jeb; Chelsea; George P. Bush … ), you can forgive us for camping out by the AC in close-to-the-edge hysteria.… We don’t know about anyone else, but we’re convinced it’s going to be the weather that gets us in the end; then again, it might be robots.… Meanwhile the latest entry into the annals of capitalism is Laurel Touby, the first woman since Gypsy Rose Lee to get rich from wearing a feather boa. Ms. Touby has sold her Web site/media brothel, Mediabistro, for $23 million, and tonight she’ll be at Michael’s for a party wishing famous TVNewser editor Brian Stelter good luck at The New York Times. We’re hoping Ms. Touby does her infamous version of the dance of the seven veils of Salomé. Next! Jonathan Tropper shows up at the Barnes & Noble on the Upper West Side to read and sign copies of his new novel, How to Talk to a Widower, which is about a “modern guy in crisis” when his wife of two years dies in a plane crash. Not our idea of a great beach read, but there you have it.… If you travel further south, you may find yourself amid the klieg lights and red carpet at the Ziegfeld Theatre for the premiere of No Reservations, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones (still married to the truly underrated actor Michael Douglas) and hot Aaron Eckhart. The folks at Warner Bros. want you to know that although the splashy posters might lead one to believe otherwise, this is not a romantic comedy: “It’s a romantic drama.” Got it? Good. So no laughing. There’s a small, fancy-pants dinner to follow at Bar Americana (no big parties in summer; not enough celebs in town to fill seats) but who knows where the Eckhart might roam later in the night? And lastly, requiring no reservations (yuk, yuk) is an outdoor screening in Riverside Park of the movie that boosted Pinot Noir sales and made those “but I only drink wine” alcoholics everywhere feel good about themselves: Sideways.
[Mediabistro party, Michael’s, 24 West 55th Street, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., by invitation only; Jonathan Tropper book signing and reading, Barnes & Noble, 2289 Broadway, 7 p.m., www.barnesandnoble.com; No Reservations premiere, Ziegfeld Theatre, 141 West 54th Street, 7 p.m., by invitation only; Sideways, Pier 1, 70th Street at Riverside Park South, 8:30 p.m., www.riversideparkfund.org]
