6.21.12: A hot one | New York Social Diary

A hot one

Looking up at the High Line at 16th Street. 2:20 PM. Photo: JH.

Thursday, June 21, 2012. First full day of Summer (yesterday was the first) and Mother Nature gave us a hot one – around 97 degrees (depending on where you were outside) with a Real Feel of 105.

Last night coming home at ten-thirty, the Real Feel was down to 97. More is predicted for today and then Thunder Storms.

Me, I was home most of the day, happy with my Vornado fans. Yes, I know that sounds like modern martyrdom, but the truth is, these little fans directed on an angle to the ceiling keep the air pleasantly cool (as opposed to chilly cool). Many of us think we cannot live without a room temperature in the low 60s. Not so, in reality. I was never uncomfortable, however, and slept under a single blanket last night.

I did venture out midday yesterday to run some errands and to pick up some lunch. Interestingly the sidewalks along Lexington and Thirds Avenues in the 70s were busy. I stopped by Swifty’s which was very busy (and nice and cool).


	This is a NO-NO for any sensible dog owner.

I had stopped in because just outside the restaurant, one of the customers had left her sweet little white Westie, tied to a pipe on the sidewalk while she had a leisurely lunch in that blistering heat. I went in to find out who the owner was. As it happened she was just leaving, fortunately, so I didn’t say anything to her.

However, my friend Nancy Baker, who lives right around the corner, had been in earlier and had a different experience which she emailed me about later in the afternoon:

The time, 12:20, the temp 95 or so. I was so upset as someone had emptied the water dish the restaurant had put out by the sweet, very clean and docile dog sitting patiently in the heat. I went in and asked who owned the dog. A young woman said she did. I proceeded to read her the riot act. A waiter went out and kindly refilled the water dish. The woman announced that I had RUINED HER LUNCH!!! I could see I was getting nowhere with her so I left and went outside and talked to the dog. Well, out comes said owner as mad as a hornet and tells me that if I don't leave her alone she's going to call the police! So I left and I went and shopped, and on my return 30 minutes later the dog was still there. So awful. I saw that a friend was on his way to the restaurant with his son. He was shocked about the dog and vowed to talk to the woman. I thanked him and let's hope that her lunch was truly ruined!!!

I vote with Nancy. Would that dog owner have enjoyed herself sitting in the midday sun wrapped in fur and chained to a water pipe? Furthermore it is always dangerous for the dog to be left outside a restaurant or store, hitched to a tree or a pipe or a fence while they’re inside running their errands. (It is also very dangerous to the dogs’ health to be “running” alongside while their masters casually – and idiotically – bicycle around the sidewalks and roadway.) Our animals are dependent creatures, just like our children. People who cannot be depended on to insure their animals’ safety actually can’t be depended on by the rest of us in many ways.

Some people are stupid and thoughtless when it comes to caring for their pets (and no doubt with a lot of other humans as well). I don’t know why they have them. Probably for the free unconditional love which the animals provide and which the owners need when no one else is around to amuse them. I have a few thoughts about “why” but I’ll leave it for another day. Meanwhile those pets are intelligent enough to know that – far more intelligent than the owners – and helpless to do anything about it.

Last night at the Paris Theater, Andrew Saffir’s Cinema Society, along with The Hollywood Reporter, Piaget Watches and Sony Pictures Classics hosted the New York premiere of Woody Allen’s new film To Rome With Love, starring with Roberto Benigni (who is hysterical) Judy Davis, Penelope Cruz, Ellen Page, Alec Baldwin, Jesse Eisenberg, as well as the writer/director himself.

At (my) last count, Woody Allen has written and directed (and often starred in 43 films). And that’s not counting the additional ones he’s appeared and starred in. Sitting there in the Paris Theater last night watching the crowd fill the seats (it was packed), I was busy anticipating what the writer-director was going to entertain me with, because I know whatever the story, the mood, the setting, and the cast, I’m going to get splashes (and sometimes showers) of wit and along with uncontrollable guffaws. Sometimes, as it was last night, I get carried away and have to silence myself.

I’ve been in Allen’s company several times at Alice Mason’s dinner parties, although I’ve never had a conversation with him. He doesn’t seem all that different from the character you see up on the screen: quiet, understated, almost shy – but not quite. I once interviewed him back in the day (mid-'60s) when his star was just on the rise and he was still doing stand-up at the Village Vanguard.

You know what he looks like, and in real life he’s as unobtrusively present as he is on stage or on film – except when he’s saying something. But even when he might seem predictable with his storyline, he still surprises with his lines, his bons mots or his kinda crazy way of looking at human haplessness. Of course when it comes to the comic Battle of the Sexes, he’s right up there with the French and British immortals.

Scenes from To Rome With Love.

And so it was last night. I had to stifle some of the laughter because as it is in comedy, not everyone is laughing at the same time. Woody Allen can get me laughing so that everything becomes funny.

The film, shot entirely in Rome, and so gorgeous you just wanna be there, is a comedy of classic situations drawn from Boccaccio, the Marx Brothers, and William Shakespeare. The story is about the madness of modern life and willy-nilly 15-minute fame, plucked like a lottery out of someone’s whim or the media’s pointless objectives. Robert Benigni, so unlikely a character to play an “instant star,” portrays it as perfectly ludicrous. Alec Baldwin plays the foil/common sense conscience of Jesse Eisenberg (playing the now classic young Woody Allen character). Penelope Cruz was the beautiful, Sophia Loren-like Roman hooker. The whole thing was preposterously real; classic Woody Allen.

After the screening last night, there was a party at Casa Lever Gardens for the cast and guests. More on that later.

Watch Your Step: The Ghost and Mr. Baldwin the day before yesterday on Fifth Avenue and East 62nd Street, demonstrating that there are still all kinds of ways in this celebrity crazy world to get people's attention even if you're unrecognizable. Image via Gawker.

Also last night over at Jazz at Lincoln Center another New York classic, the great, irrepressible Barbara Carroll opened her five night engagement at Dizzy’s Club Coco-Cola (in the Time-Warner complex on Columbus Circle), accompanied by Ken Peplowski, Jay Leonhart and Neal Smith.

When it comes to the American Songbook there is no one – no one – with the knowledge, the repertoire, the style, the technique, and the experience to compare with Barbara. There once were others – and she worked with many of them – but now she stands alone, so it is always a rare chance to see her. I have a lot of her albums on my iTunes and when I want to calm myself down and quietly revel in the genius of American composers and lyricists of the 20th century, I just turn on the Barbara Carroll and turn off the shuffle.

Barbara Carroll at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola with Jay Leonhart, center, and Ken Peplowski. Photo: Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times.

And while we’re on the subject of the keyboard and the geniuses, this past Tuesday night in Antibes, Bob Pittman, CEO of Clear Channel, John Hogan, Chairman and CEO of Clear Channel Media and Entertainment, and Michael Kassan CEO of MediaLink, hosted an intimate dinner at the Hotel du Cap which featured a special performance by Sir Elton John.

John Sykes, President of Clear Channel Entertainment Enterprises; Tom Poleman, President of National Programming Platforms at Clear Channel; Sir Elton John; Bob Pittman, CEO of Clear Channel; Tim Castelli, President of National Sales, Marketing and Partnerships at Clear Channel Media and Entertainment; John Hogan, Chairman and CEO of Clear Channel Media and Entertainment.