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 Excitement in the air
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Central Park. 2:00 PM. Photo: JH. |
11/10. Another damp and rainy weekend in New York. On Saturday afternoon after the rain, the sidewalks alongside the nearby Carl Schurz Park were covered by a wet carpet of fallen foliage plastered against the pavement. Reverie. Nostalgia. I took a picture of the tree in front of my building because the yellow was so magically brilliant and bold and I wanted to celebrate it. Soon to be swept away by the winds and the cold grays of December.
The Obama excitement has been in the air. The papers are full of advice. I prefer to wait and see. He’s so young looking. Soon he will face even newer more complex and challenging problems involving the nation’s financials.
There is a prevailing sense in the American people that someone can always come up with the jack to solve the problem, whatever the problem. It is very possible, however, that the President six times before Mr. Obama, Mr. Eisenhower, was prescient in his Farewell Address. If you don’t know what Ike said, you can easily look it up. You will see that President Eisenhower had vision, very very rare in contemporary life, maybe always. That is what will be required of our new President, a kind of far seeing-ness to navigate the stormy waters. Because he is new, and fresh, and young and smart, the optimist in me prefers to think he has it. If it should turn out that he doesn’t have vision, the optimist in me will continue to think someone does.
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| The yellow thriller yesterday afternoon, sunless at 4 PM. |
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I am most interested in watching Mrs. Obama. I have a feeling that she is an optimist’s ideal. She seems to be a woman who is resolute, who is concerned about her children and her family, and is very aware of the need for community to protect our families. I could be wrong but if you thought Hillary Clinton was proactive, wait’ll you see Michelle Obama. But that is just my intuition.
What will happen to these two young people now entering this Presidential Persona process – the most astounding process possibly on the planet right now, as President and First Lady of the United States – that is what I will be watching with curiosity and interest.
There are those who object to my writing about the President, at least this President-elect, in the NYSD. There are those who believe that if you mention a politician that they don’t favor, you’re being political. I don’t agree. Presidents are very powerful in the world and very much in the world I cover, no matter their party. Gore Vidal assures us that there is really only one party, what he calls “the Property Party” with two sections. Whether or not that is true, it is true that many people I report on have relationships zero to two degrees of separation with whoever is President.
These are the real privileged classes, kid yourself not. Many people I report on have active stakes in the corridors of power and in fact hold positions resembling ownership. Presidents are always only temporary visitors to those corridors of powers. Their backers are not temporary.
“Political” to me is when people are advanced or made rich or favored for economic purposes because of their political connections. And there are lots of those. Everywhere. We watch that go on all around us everyday. Even in the most esteemed administrations. In fact, in the world that I cover, a great many of the very wealthy, and the businesses, and the banks, financially support as many candidates as they can as a kind of hedge.
In the meantime, let’s hope the winner of this last Presidential election will do us right and lead us out of this morass that is enveloping us.
Meanwhile, life goes on (obla-dee-obla-dah). The benefit gala calendar in New York is as superractive as ever. Maybe moreso. Three, four major events a night on the weekday calendar.
The numbers in terms of dollar contributions have declined for some but not for others. Just one dinner I attended for Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories last week grossed $4 million. The week before last I calculated that the four galas I’d attended had grossed seven or eight million dollars in aggregate. That’s good; because all of these organizations need the money to address our needs.
Not all of these galas are big grossers, of course. Some are just lovely evenings where the ladies get dressed up in the ballgowns and the men put on black tie. One such was the French Heritage Society dinner dance the Thursday before last.
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Jean Shafiroff, Denis de Kergorlay, Elizabeth Stribling, Princesse Marie-Sol de La Tour d'Auvergne, Co-chair CeCe Black, and New York Chapter Co-Chairman Odile de Schietere Longchampt |
| Valentin and Yaz Hernandez |
Barbara de Portago and Nancy Jane Loewy |
So here’s to dear old France. The French Heritage Society is actively involved in raising money to assist restoration on ancient and centuries old architecture in France. This is not a big money organization but their funds play important and sometimes pivotal roles in keeping history alive. In the meantime its members which must number in the hundreds, also make pilgrimages to their beloved France to see what their work is accomplishing, and to enjoy the splendor of its chateaux and palaces and its splendid countryside.
There are a number of prominent and active organizations that hold galas in New York every year in order to raise money for restoration of architecture all over the world, with several I can think of off the top of my head that benefit France. The French Heritage Society’s gala benefit was its very first. The inaugural. They’ve been in business for quite some time but all funds had been raised privately.
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| Denis de Kergorlay and Elizabeth Stribling |
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This one gala was presented by its planners as a simple black tie dinner dance in a beautiful private club (which insists it remain nameless – don’t ask ...) with theme being Burgundy (while we’re on the subject) which meant that dinner was also going to be an oenophile’s pleasure. If not treasure.
Elizabeth Stribling, the New York real estate broker known as Libba to her armies of friends and associates, President of the FHS right now, invited George Sape to speak as the evening’s Wine consultant/ entertainment.
Mr. Sape is a jolly fellow and his expertise is cloaked in a warm and comfy sense of humor about himself and his pleasure: he’s fun to listen to.
As a hopeless non-oenophile, I did come away with one interesting bit of expert information from a man who loves French wines. He said that the Pinot Noir from Oregon, almost any winery in Oregon, is better than the French Pinot Noir. He said you almost can’t go wrong if it’s from Oregon.
Mr. Sape spoke for about twenty-five minutes about his chosen subject and everyone had a good time and quite a few laughs. After that more wine was served, along with the delicious dinner and in the center of the ballroom, Bob Hardwick and his Bob Hardwick Sound was playing ... ”Life’s great, Life’s grand, future’s all planned; So long, Jonah good-bye. How’m I riding, I’m riding high.” The dance floor was jammed.
It was what you could now call one of those “civilized” nights in New York. Little Old New York, as they used to say, once upon a time in dreamland.
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| Alexandra de Wankowicz and Eduardo Aranda Godlewski |
Alison Harmelin and Samer Hamadeh |
Elizabeth and Stanley DeForest Scott with Chips Page |
| Ann Rapp and Martin Shafiroff |
Celso Gonzalez-Falla and Sondra Gilman |
| Barbara and Donald Tober |
FHS Chairman Elizabeth Stribling, Count Nicholas Wenckheim, and Mimi Stafford |
FHS Founding President Michele le Menestrel Ullrich and Jose-Maria
Ullrich |
| Gala Co-Chairs Jean Shaifroff, CeCe Black, and Karen Clark |
George and Jeri Sape |
Royce and Jennifer Diener |
| Lee Black, Anabelle Mariaca, and John and Barbara Robinson |
NY Chapter Co-Chairman Guy Robinson and Elizabeth Gerschel |
| Rosalie Brinton and Larry Kaiser |
Prince Jean d'Orleans and NY Chapter Co-Chairman Odile de Schietere Longchampt |
Patricia Weeks and Stuart Rekant |
| Comtesse Elisabeth de Kergorlay and Lionel Geneste |
Laura Zeckendorf, Robert Sculthorpe, and Suzette de Marigny Smith |
| Paris Chapter Co-Chairs Madame Astrid Stanfield Pinel and Comtesse Dominique Flahaut de la Billaderie |
Michael and Joan Steinberg with FHS Chairman Elizabeth Stribling |
Richard Ford and Matilda Gray Stream |
| Patricia Shiah and Valentin Hernandez |
Rosanne Loesch and William Zeckendorf |
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