Wednesday, May 6
Spring? What spring? Sadistic weather gods oscillate between moist and moister—perhaps punishment for Madoff? Kelly Bensimon? Condé Nast Portfolio?—thus forcing even composty Brooklynites to crank up their air conditioners in shame (speaking of shame: to walk by any park these days is to admit that you, too, once bared your plump, drunk, pasty 22-year old kisser on the weekends, before acquiring dignity and a nice Norma Kamali one-piece, hell-oooo!) The French, not ones to shy away from a little sweat, celebrate “Food, France and Franco-American Friendship” (now they want to be friends!) at a benefit for the American Hospital of Paris Foundation at Daniel; honoree is Barefoot Contessa cookbook genius Ina Garten. Later, proving that the chastened, consumption-crazed New York of yesteryear has some fight left in her yet, Saks Fifth Avenue and the Fashion Group International gather a clutch of socialites, makeup artists and fashion editors—among them the sisters Hearst, Marie Claire reality star Nina Garcia and ex-KCD queen Bonnie Morrison—to celebrate, oh yes, a cellular lifting serum! Finally, extreme footwear-clad downtown denizens venture bravely north up Lexington Avenue (in town cars, of course, lest they encounter a fanny pack!) for public art organization Creative Time’s gala at the Lexington Avenue Armory—y’know, of Marc Jacobs shows and, like, the military—among them art-world party people like collector Beth Rudin DeWoody, Whitney Contemporaries founder Lisa Anastos, photographer Catherine Opie, Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren (edgy!) and—oh, dear God, can it be? It is!—Marie Douglas-David, the scorned Nordic sex-freak countess whose $100 million divorce gave us a reason to live for most of February! “I never wanted to do a party where I served bad food to people and made my friends miserable, like most art benefits,” said Anne Pasternak, Creative Time’s president. “We’ll have a lot of really fabulous people there, David Byrne and Cindy Sherman, David Lynch, Eric Fischl, Laurie Simmons; it’ll be a very sexy group of people … last year, Beth DeWoody was being honored, and she performed a Broadway number that was directed by Susan Stroman. It was to die for. It was so memorable. The fact that she would get dressed in costume and be so brave when the woman’s never performed live before in her life … people were screaming! And then we had these male strippers come out and do a number for her … she was so stunned, I can’t begin to tell you. Everyone, society people, artists, everyone was going crazy for the strippers, you had people standing on their chairs waving their boo-tays …” Say no more!
[Third Annual Celebration of Food, France & Franco-American Friendship, Daniel, 60 East 65th Street, 6:30 p.m., 212-605-0398; Saks Fifth Avenue and the Fashion Group International celebrate Clark’s Botanicals Cellular Lifting Serum, 611 Fifth Avenue, 6:30 p.m., invite only; Creative Time Benefit 2009, 69th Regiment Armory at 68 Lexington Avenue, 6:30 p.m., 212-206-6674, ext. 204]
Thursday, May 7
How do you know you’ve really made it, gentrificationally speaking? You get your own Cancer Society, of course! The American Cancer Society, Brooklyn Office, throws a Pink & Black Tie Gala at Brooklyn Navy Yard—though they’ve kind of committed an amateur snafu by inviting Stacy London of What Not to Wear to host. (Everyone knows you need a Muffie or Mitten or Bunny or Bitsy to bring in the big bucks, people!) And just when we were thinking there was nothing else worth mentioning about today, we came across a press release informing us that over in the irrelevant meatpacking district (nope, sneaking $500 bottle service into brunch does not make you fun again!), at apparently still-kicking nightclub Tenjune, “Hip, Young New Yorkers Fight Against Alzheimer’s Disease in Style.” (Does Alzheimer’s Association Junior Committee honorary chair Elisabeth Hasselbeck qualify as a ‘Hip, Young New Yorker’ these days?!) Meanwhile, The Observer’s Doree Shafrir and co-author Jessica Grose read from Love, Mom, based on their Web site Postcards From Your Momma, their collection of rib-tickling emails from Moms just like yours, at the 92nd Street Y’s hip Tribeca branch.
[Pink & Black Tie Gala, Stage 6 at Steiner Studios, Brooklyn Navy Yard Waterfront, 6 p.m., 718-622-2492, ext. 5115; Collective Consciousness Gala, Tenjune, 26 Little West 12th Street, 8 p.m., 646-744-4545; Postcards From Your Momma: What to Do When Your Mom Gets Drunk and Posts on Your Facebook Wall, 92YTribeca, 200 Hudson Street, 7:30 p.m., www.92y.org]
Friday, May 8
Clintons blanket beach? Rumors swirl that the Clintons, surely beside themselves at the idea that the Obamas will usurp them as First Family of Martha’s Vineyard this summer, may be arranging for Chelsea to get married on the tony island during the Obamas’ Martha’s Vineyard vacation, thereby stepping on Obama’s news cycle. Who else can’t wait for summer! Meanwhile, world famous architect Santiago Calatrava, auteur of winning designs for the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, appears at the opening of the exhibition “Santiago Calatrava: World Trade Center Transportation Hub” at the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute, which presumably aims to show the public what their subway station would have looked like if someone had actually gone to the trouble of, you know, building it …
[Santiago Calatrava: World Trade Center Transportation Hub, Queen Sofía Spanish Institute, 684 Park Avenue, 6 p.m.]
Saturday, May 9
“Music is my chief interest,” declared The Observer’s own legend of a film critic, Rex Reed. “I’m much more interested in that than I am in movies. Movies are all so rotten lately. …” Mr. Reed was calling to discuss his stint as host of the 92nd Street Y’s Lyrics & Lyricists series, for which he has curated a program honoring the misunderstood Ira Gershwin. “There have been so many misconceptions. People think that Ira was George’s little brother—he wasn’t, he was two years younger, he had a career in full swing before he ever collaborated with his brother, he was the first person to ever win Pulitzer for a Broadway musical and the committee made no mention of George. … I consider him one of the great poet laureates of the American theater. I’m having to write the whole thing, and I’m also singing in it! … I wear a lot of hats.” We are so there.
[Lyrics & Lyricists Presents the Man That Got Away: Ira After George, 1395 Lexington Avenue, 8 p.m., www.92y.org]
