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Overlooking
Central Park from 5th Avenue in the 60s. 11:45 AM. Photos:
JH.
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The thrill was not on first-nighting but frankly
on the Presidential election which at the moment of this writing
(just after midnight on 11/3), it’s still very much up in
the air.
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Dennis
Basso and Marjorie Raein
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I
started out the day at Mix where Debbie Bancroft, Marisa Noel Brown, and Marjorie
Raein were giving a luncheon
and a presentation of the Dennis Basso Fall/Winter
collection of furs for about a
hundred of their friends. JH and the Digital and
I popped in for some pictures and to get a lay of the land. There
was a small,
chic goodie bag at each placement. Speculation as to its contents
were ended when I put my hand in one and felt something soft and
furry. Maybe a muffler for those cold winter afternoons along Fifth
Avenue? A rabbit-y keychain? I couldn’t be sure. One year
it was a little faux mink pillow which was very luxe and which
my dog Missy made short work of.
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Jill
Roosevelt and Marjorie Raein
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Beth
DeWoody, Carol Holmes McCarthy, and Susan Magrino
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Lisa
Jackson and Helen Schifter
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Marisa
Noel Brown
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Hilary
Geary
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Caroline
Hirsch
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Joy
Rosenthal
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L.
to r.: The tables at
Mix; Alex Lind.
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Judy
Licht with Jeffrey and Linda Chodorow
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Debbie
Bancroft and Patty Raynes
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Michael
Cominotto and friends
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Kate
Allen
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Alexandra
Kotur and Kalliope Karella
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Francine
LeFrak
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Kristina
Stewart
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Somers
Farkas
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Zani
Gugelmann
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Alexandra
Kotur, Michele Herbert, and Denise Wohl
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Nina
Griscom
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Carol
Holmes McCarthy and Sara Ayres
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Julie
Dannenberg, Pamela Gross, and friend
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Serena
Boardman and Nazanin Smeets
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Scott
Currie and Bettina Zilkha
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L.
to r.: Gigi Mortimer; Natalie Leeds and friend
with Celerie Kemble; Michael Musto.
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Andrea
Stark
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Joanne
de Guardiola, Marshall Heyman, and Jamee Gregory
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Denise
Wohl with Jeffrey and Linda Chodorow
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After
our photo-op we went down to Michael’s which
was jammed with the talkers and the movers and the shakers.
I had lunch with my old friend Emilia Saint Amand whom
I first knew years ago when in another incarnation I had
a business up in Pound Ridge, New York and she was a customer.
Looking across the room in Michael’s I saw political pr guru Ed
Rollins,
Joe Armstrong with Eden Collingsworth, Peter Brown, Dominick
Dunne, Lloyd Grove,
the new columnist for the Daily News; uber-editor Alice
Mayhew with uber-agent
Boaty Boatwright, Chris Meigher of Quest; Elihu
Rose with Laura Pomerantz, Simon
and Schuster publisher Rob Weisbach, author Pamela Keogh,
Barry Wishnow, Ed Bleier,
Dick Danziger; at the big round table in the bay, Tina Brown with Liz
Smith,
Holly Peterson, Sarah Jessica Parker; literary publicist Lynn
Goldberg, Peter
Gregory with his filmmaker brother Andre (producer of the classic “My Dinner
With Andre”), Candy Pratts Price, Court TV’s Henry
Schlieff, and
veteran starmakers Jerry and Eileen Ford.
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The
operation behind Michael's: Loreal Sherman and Nicole
Kovacs
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DPC
and Emilia Saint Amand
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The
talk around the restaurant was about the news that
someone in the room shared from one of the major network
anchor’s office that “Kerry’s got it,” claiming
that through various swing states, including Ohio and Florida,” Kerry
was already the winner; that “it’s going to be
an early night and not even close.” All kinds of excitement
added to the conversations around various tables. New Yorkers
in the know tend to believe anything they hear given the
right locale and set of circumstances. It was, obviously,
several hours later before they got to see that they couldn’t
believe everything they hear. Or anything.
Media people — and Michael’s clientele are nothing if not media
people
— because of their glorified access to the corridors of power (and therefore
the corridors of gossip), they are the most gullible of the lot. Once again I
am reminded of that Paul Simon line (from “The Boxer”), A
man believes what he wants to believe and disregards the rest.
Early evening I went over to Hank and Mary Rodgers Guettel’s penthouse
apartment on Central Park West overlooking the Park (and the Upper East Side)
where they had lots of family members and friends in for buffet and election
watching. (In one of the viewing rooms, a group was watching Jon Stewart.)
I stayed at the Guettels until about ten and then moved down to the Palm restaurant
on West 50th between Broadway and Eighth Avenue where film mogul Harvey
Weinstein and cosmetics mogulette Georgette Mosbacher were
having a “bipartisan” election
night party. You’ll have to guess which was which, although you might remember
that Georgette’s last name comes from her marriage to a former Republican
cabinet member. The Weinstein-Mosbacher shindig had all the earmarks of a major
New York media-sorta-social-whirl affair. I was told not to bring my camera because “some
of the guests” might not like it. As in, yeah sure – this crew is
addicted to the camera, in front of or in back of. And furthermore Patrick
McMullan’s
boys had infiltrated anyway. Nevertheless JH and the Digital didn’t come
along, so ...
There were still scores, maybe hundreds when I arrived at this
newest addition of the fabulous New York (and L.A.) steakhouse. On entering,
I saw Mr. Weinstein at the bar talking to Mr. Bernstein (as
in Carl – the
other half of Woodward and Bernstein), the
Bernstein fils, Jacob; and
then it was everybody you’ve ever seen on NYSD including the beautifully
ebullient Felicia Taylor, Tina Brown, the Manhattan media queen
mother and her
Sir Harry, Celerie Kemble and her swain Boykin Curry who
were already on their
way out, Joel Siegel, George Rush of the Daily News;
somewhere in the crowd, his employer Mort Zuckerman, Richard Johnson of the Post with Sessa
von Richtofen,
Chris Wilson (also of Page Six), Debbie Bancroft, George Gurley,
Braden Keil,
Joanne and Roberto de Guardiola, Maer Roshan who’s re-launching his Radar Magazine next spring, Angela
Rich who came with her old bud Caroline Hirsch,
comedy impresariess, Madame Mosbacher with the red tresses floating through the
crowd; her sister Lyn Paulsin, Amy Fine Collins, Jill Brooke. About quarter to
twelve, it was time to leave.
Outside on this fair autumn night, just a block from Broadway, there were still
occasional clusters of the crowds coming from the Great White Way. Nothing in
our future had been decided and many of us were going home to wait, as I wait
and file this column .. |
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