OUT & ABOUT by AMANDA GORDON
Order out of Social Chaos
So much going on this week, when I sat down Wednesday night to make a list of all the parties I'd gone to so far, the list had 10 items on it. And it was only Wednesday.
Now it's Saturday, I technically have the day off, but I have a baby naming in Brooklyn soon (yay Abigail!). Before I go, though, I'm going to sort through the week and give you the highlights.
Pretty in Camelot
At the top of the list of fun nights at Avery Fisher Hall is the New York Philharmonic's performance of a popular work at springtime. This year it's Lerner & Loewe's Camelot. On opening night of athe limited run, ladies were pretty as princesses, men acted princely, and bronze castles surrounded by purple hydrangeas added courtly chic.
See more in the photo gallery:
http://www.shutterfly.com/pro/nysun/outandabout/20080509nyphil
Ice Palace @ Costume Institute Gala
The Temple of Dendur tonight has been transformed into an ice palace for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute gala hosted by Giorgio Armani, with chairmen Julia Roberts and George Clooney.
Guests will go up the 26 steps of the museum's grand staircase, flanked by paparazzi, then follow a red carpet into the new exhibit showing fashions side by side superhero costumes, then continue for cocktails in the Petrie Court, before hitting the ice palace.
Gallery Adds: Ballet, Night in D.C., Young Lions, PEN
Scenes from this week's parties:
The White House Correspondents' Bash: http://www.shutterfly.com/pro/nysun/outandabout/20080428whca
New York City Ballet Opening Night:
http://www.shutterfly.com/pro/nysun/outandabout/20080502nycb
Young Lions at the New York Public Library:
http://www.shutterfly.com/pro/nysun/outandabout/20080429nypl
The PEN gala:
http://www.shutterfly.com/pro/nysun/outandabout/20080429pen
Naming at Namer's Peril
The risk of naming gifts is often put on the side of the institution: what if the donor gets into trouble, or can't pay up in full? But a recent story in the Yale Daily News about the Thain Cafe in the new Bass Library at Yale (yes, the Thain running Merrill Lynch) shows that the exposure can go the OTHER way: in this instance, some students are alleging that the Thain Cafe's operator has been passing off decaf espresso as the real thing.
Read more here:
http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/24755
The D.C. Party Report
News organizations are competitive, on the number of scoops, the number of readers... and the number of celebrities they can get to come to their parties. On one night a year, these organizations decide to compete simultaneously, and it becomes a fierce sport. That night is the White House Correspondents Dinner. Sadly, what that competition means is that the point of the event, which is to celebrate the journalists who cover the office of the America's commander in chief gets a lot obscured.
Wilco at Tanglewood
How to become relevant in an instant to a whole new generation of affluent music lovers? Book Wilco. Tanglewood has done it, and it's cause to celebrate with a Yankee fox trot. Wilco will play August 12. Tickets, ever so reasonably priced at $26 to $36, go on sale tomorrow, April 25, through the Tanglewood Web site (www.tanglewood.org).
Manhattan Institute Glam
That Alexander Hamilton was an elegant man, and his disciples at the Manhattan Institute follow in his footsteps, as I hope this photo, taken at the Institute's Alexander Hamilton Awards on Tuesday night, indicates.
But this admittedly fuzzy photo of that glamorous woman (guess who)doesn't tell the whole story. In sharper focus, Henry Kissinger, Maurice Greenberg, Paul Singer, Mayor Giuliani and others made the event about issues, such as bilingual education, trade, and welfare reform.
More soon.
Tribeca Film Festival Fashion
The Vanity Fair dinner opening the Tribeca Film Festival, which took place last night, is by now one of New York's socially exclusive traditions. With Graydon Carter presiding, the event pre-figured his Waverly Inn, except in some ways it still has more punch, because it takes place not in the well-established small-scale West Village, but on an open frontier downtown, namely, the State Supreme Courthouse.
Arriving guests posing for photographers played out a fashion runway that gives a sense of the freedom and strictures of Tribeca dressing.
Here She Comes to Save the Day
The Met doesn't need to be "saved" by anyone, but it is sure lucky to have fashion superhero Anna Wintour on hand to plan the Costume Institute's fund-raising party.
The party is tied into the summer Costume Institute exhibit on superheroes, and today Vogue has posted a video giving a preview of the exhibit and event.
Highlights:
The curator of the exhibit, Andrew Bolton, says the party is "Impossibly glamorous...The Oscars of the East Coast" and that we're living at a time when superheroes are relevant.
