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Happy Endings

Book BFFs Karen Abbott and Julia Cheiffetz Reunite for 10 Times the Pay

Squares

No Gorditas For Lolitas: Skins Too Spicy for Taco Bell

Sundance

Watch Kevin Smith Rant At Sundance Before Buying His Own Movie

The Wee Hours

80-Proof Walk-Up: What's Barramundi Hiding?

By Nate Freeman | January 11, 2011 | 7:52 pm

Barramundi, with its specials scrawled on a chalkboard and its waterlogged-wood exterior, is practically indistinguishable from the other haunts that line its Clinton Street block on the Lower East Side. But buried within is something of a hidden gem. Since early November what appeared to be an innocuous apartment above the restaurant has been candle-lit three nights a week and inhabited by silhouettes barely visible below. There are men in suits attending to corner booths, moving wrists bent with cocktails on trays, washed in that fire hazard of a glow. Could it be? Yes!... MORE»

books

Typhoid Daddies: Seth Mnookin Takes on Jenny McCarthy & Co.

By Bill Wasik | January 11, 2011 | 7:45 pm

Near the beginning of The Panic Virus, Seth Mnookin's definitive, infuriating history of the myth that vaccines cause autism, the author relates a story from a Park Slope dinner party he attended in 2007. Mr. Mnookin was discussing pediatric health with a new parent in his early 40s who explained that he and his wife had decided to delay their child's vaccines. On what sources had he based this weighty decision? Questions along these lines were met with murk. "I don't know what to say," the man replied. "It just feels like a lot for a developing immune system to deal... MORE»

Chin up: Helen Hunt and Liev Schrieber.
movies

Taking the Fun Out Of Dysfunctional

By Rex Reed | January 11, 2011 | 7:44 pm

If you haven't reached the end of your attention span for dysfunctional families, here comes another one in Richard Levine's Every Day. Liev Schreiber is absolutely perfect as Ned, a well-paid TV scriptwriter who appears to have it all--colorful job, perfect home, loving wife and two mature, intelligent sons with promising futures. But beneath the surface, Ned is in crisis, and festering scabs are ready to erupt; after 19 years of career and marriage, nothing is what it seems. His older son, Jonah, is gay.... MORE»

books

The Indecipherable Sister: Allen Shawn's Memoir of His Austistic Twin

By Elizabeth Gumport | January 11, 2011 | 7:39 pm

While the only child has parents, and friends, and may someday have a spouse and children, one kind of human relationship will always be foreign to her. Lacking siblings, the only child is well acquainted with solitude, and less likely to equate being alone with being lonely, or at least accepts a certain degree of lonesomeness as the natural way of things. More than most people, only children feel their selves to be the result of time spent by themselves. Twins, on the other hand, would seem to be the people who most define themselves in terms of others.... MORE»

Glasses half empty: Rosamund Pike and Dylan McDermott.
movies

Little Houses On a Depraved Prairie

By Rex Reed | January 11, 2011 | 7:37 pm

At the movies, January is traditionally the dullest month of the year--a dumping ground for the leftover flotsam that wasn't good (or commercially viable) enough to release in time for box office potential or awards consideration at the end of the previous year. Get ready for another... MORE»

Rosamund Pike
Shindigger

The Oscar Race Comes to Manhattan

By Daisy Prince | January 11, 2011 | 7:25 pm

It’s the New Year, and the Oscar race is on. On Monday, two events took place promoting Oscar-worthy pictures, a private lunch and talk for The King’s Speech and the New York premiere of Barney’s Version.  It was fitting that at a lunch given for The King’s Speech—the brilliant film about King George VI and the speech therapist who helped to cure the monarch’s stammer—should take place in a suitably grand private... MORE»

From the Soho House Art Collection, Miami
The Art Scene

Free Drinks For Art: Soho House Makes a Trade

By Anthony Haden-Guest | January 11, 2011 | 7:25 pm

There is a long and honorable tradition of eateries and watering holes where artists can settle their checks with their work. And there is about to be another. Francesca Gavin, art curator for the London-based Soho House brand of private clubs, is heading here to amass a collection for the New York branch, bar tabs as barter. “I’m coming over during Armory Week” (about March 1), Ms. Gavin said—and she will be buying in bulk. Soho House Miami’s collection, for example, amassed over a number of weeks, is 150 pieces... MORE»

Program

PROGRAM: What We Love This Week (January 12-January 18)

By Rachel Morgan | January 11, 2011 | 7:18 pm

ART Give your high-school student a chance to unleash their creative spirit at the Whitney Museum by constructing their own version of art at the Teen Artist Workshop: Karthik Pandian. Mr. Pandian, best known for highlighting the interaction between modern society and its treatment of monuments, currently has an exhibit, "Unearth," on display at the Whitney (4:30-6 p.m. Thursday, Whitney Annex at 33 East 74th St., free, registration required).   See students' night photography at the School of Visual Art's "Night Shift" (opens Friday, SVA... MORE»

The Lunch CROWD

Shoes Too Big to Fill: More About My Air Jordans, Henry Kissinger’s Amorous Meal and the Moneymen

By Julian Niccolini | January 11, 2011 | 7:11 pm

Mike Ovitz was telling a group of people at the Grill on Thursday about the $30 Air Jordans he bought me for Christmas. "Julian," he says, "I actually meant to buy you Prada shoes, just like my shoes that you approve of. But I called Prada myself and they said, 'I'm very sorry, Mr. Ovitz. Prada doesn't make shoes in size 12.' But then they called back and said, 'For you, Mr. Ovitz, we called Italy and are having a large pair of size 12 shoes custom made.'" Can you imagine? So, Mike Ovitz, says to me, "You're new name is Big... MORE»

Condo's most famous work, perhaps.
Portrait of the artist

The Sonorous Voice of The New Yorker Explains Kanye's Album Art

By Nate Freeman | January 11, 2011 | 4:53 pm

On October 17, Kanye West took to his Twitter account, as he is wont to do, to reveal to the world the art for his fiercely anticipated new album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Well, it was the intended artwork. "Banned in the USA!!!" the tweet read. "They don't want me chilling on the couch with my... MORE»

Max Fish, here to stay for another year!
Lower East Side

Ludlow Gets Lucky! Max Fish, Once Set To Close, Now Back For Another Year

By Nate Freeman | January 11, 2011 | 3:51 pm

Since December, walking out of Max Fish -- the classic Lower East Side haunt that's kept artists, rock stars, and downtown lushes wasted since the nineties -- meant possibly never walking back in again. Word got out that the property taxes and sky-high Ludlow Street rents were forcing Max Fish out of its location.... MORE»

Kanye plus some randos and a bunch of cheesy ads. Stylish.
The Social Network

Kanye West's H.A.M. Spells Doom For Myspace

By Ben Popper | January 11, 2011 | 3:39 pm

You can smell the schadenfraude in the blogosphere today as Myspace announces heavy layoffs.  For a while the social network was flying high, even as traditional media was coming undone.  Now it seems that the "network effect" will lead to a world of almost complete Facebook domination.  But Myspace recently unveiled a major redesign, and in that effort there was a glimmer of hope.  The site might not be the best social network for its 130 million users, but it could be the best destination for artists and their... MORE»

I love you, Mom.
More Money

Accused of Oedipal Tendencies, 'Fabulous and Conceited' Peter Brant II Fires Back

By Nate Freeman | January 11, 2011 | 1:02 pm

Are you aware of a certain Peter Brant II? Ah, you're not? Here's the "about" section of his Facebook fan page, it's a perfectly good primer: Peter Brant II is a Designer, Art Collector, Socialite, and Model, and the eldest son of Supermodel Stephanie Seymour and Newsprint Billionare [sic] Peter Brant... MORE»

Award Tour

Cruise-Holmes Coalition To Skip Oscars Over Beef With Anne Hathaway

By Nate Freeman | January 11, 2011 | 11:49 am

Religious extremists Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes may not be gracing the Kodak Theater's red carpet come Oscar... MORE»

And she came from Bucklebury, England.
The Royals

For the Kate Middleton Completist: Bus Tours to Scour Queen-To-Be's Hometown

By Nate Freeman | January 11, 2011 | 10:50 am

Kate Middleton: How did she do it? What happenstance of childhood moments conspired to bring about this prince-bagging commoner? Was there a specific element, a key to this alluring concoction of shiny smile and shiny hair? Perhaps the hamlet that bore her -- could that be the defining reason for Kate's magnetism, a look and grace that's arrested the prince, the country, and the... MORE»