Get A schnapshot of Schnabel! Grab your digital cameras, as amfAR (American Foundation for AIDS Research) throws its annual New York Gala, honoring Julian Schnabel, Bobby Shriver and smoky-eyed French Vogue editrix and rumored Wintour nemesis Carine Roitfeld, at Cipriani. Solemnly pledging their support via red carpet photo-ops will be a high-low fashion crowd including Marc Jacobs, Lou Reed, Natasha Richardson, amfAR chairman Kenneth Cole, Miss Universe Riyo Mori and performer Barry Manilow. (Does no one in this crowd know a musician born after the Battle of the Bulge?) Then, into a week crowded with studiously fashionable downtown events, burst the charmingly throwback young scions of Young New Yorkers for the Philharmonic with a “Mid-Winter’s Eve” ball, hosted by bright-eyed, trust-funded youngsters of dubious employment status. If you want to know how botox under 30 will turn out for you, here’s your chance! The young waltzing worthies include Melissa Berkelhammer, Harrison LeFrak, Kipton Cronkite (he’s everywhere! Kipton, reveal thyself!) and Georgina Schaeffer. And speaking of botox, Women’s Day Magazine hosts its Red Dress Awards at Stone Rose Lounge at the Time Warner Center, feting the fight against heart disease, apparently the No. 1 killer of women (and here we thought it was hypothermia from sleeping alone in unheated, closet-size $1,200 studio apartments!) with honorees Denise Austin, a former fitness guru, and Fern Mallis, an IMG head honcho whom we can either thank or hold responsible for all this Fashion Week weirdness. And finally, some love for the striking Hollywood writers: Alex Borstein and Seth MacFarlane, writers and actors on Family Guy, perform a benefit at Carnegie Hall for the WGA, featuring appearances by Patti LuPone and the increasingly skinny, tattooed Janeane Garofalo. Ms. Borstein told us the event was “born out of boredom �
��cause we’re on strike.” Way to sell it, baby! The show, she explained, is “as if you found an idiot’s iPod and you’re taking a listen. Some retarded idiot person schmuck. We do some commercial jingles, a rendition of a Journey song, and then something from Carousel. And then we do maybe Tina Turner.” And on the subject of the strike itself: “Sometimes we get very frustrated,” said Ms. Borstein, “like, ‘God, let’s get this over with.’ And then sometimes you’re like, ‘I could really get used to never working again. I’ve gotten used to picketing for three hours and then coming home and watching bad episodes of 24 on DVD!’” We’re still stuck on the fact she said “retarded”…
[amfAR Gala, Cipriani 42nd Street, 6:30 p.m., invite only; Young New Yorkers for the Philharmonic event, Avery Fisher Hall Lincoln Center & the Union Club (101 East 69th Street), 7 p.m., 212-875-5760; Woman’s Day Red Dress Awards, Time Warner Center, fourth floor, 6 p.m., 212-767-6391; WGA Benefit, Carnegie Hall, 154 West 57th Street, 8 p.m., 212-247-7800]
