Last Thursday morning, the publisher John O'Brien put out a cigarette and walked into the Washington Square Hotel for breakfast, where he greeted William H. Gass. The novelist was reading The New York Times and eating a bagel and fruit with his wife... MORE >
"I am going to see how fast I can write a novel," Blake Butler wrote on his blog, gillesdeleuzecommitted - suicideandsowilldrphil dot com, on April 14, 2008. "I am going to write nonstop on it until I am done. I started today at 12:30 p.m. and now have 4,500 words at 8:18. I hope to have a draft of a 30,000-word novel in 10-15 days. I am going to try to blog about it while... MORE >
Every time a young band plays a concert in the Museum of Modern Art's atrium, it seems that Rodin's Monument to Balzac is frowning at the spectators in disapproval.... MORE >
The press release for "The Times Square Show" promised "THE BIGGEST MACHINE ON EARTH," "ART POLITICS PERFORMANCE + FILM," "Exotic Events!" and "More Than You Bargained For." It was June 1980, and the art collective CoLab—about 50 artists, among them Kiki Smith, Jenny Holzer, Charles and John Ahearn—had taken over a derelict four-story building at 41st Street and Seventh Avenue, formerly a massage parlor, and filled it with a disjointed barrage of multimedia art.... MORE >
The 95-year-old father of public-access television sat on the stage, frowning. "I'd like to say that if what we saw on the screen tonight is all that is public access, it would never have lasted," said George Stoney. The crowd laughed awkwardly. "I think what we saw was the worst aspects of public access." There were a few scattered claps among the audience. "I thought that this show did a disservice to the whole... MORE >
Fashion Week may have ended yesterday, but the final word, as it were, for The Observer was at the Adam Kimmel party at Don Hill's the night before. Hank Williams III, grandson of country legend Hank Sr., stood on a stage with a five-piece band: upright bass, fiddle, banjo, drums, and pedal steel. Everyone wore cowboy hats except for the fiddler who wore a trucker's cap. Mr. Williams' hair was braided into a long... MORE >
At a showcase for House of Waris at the Museum of Arts & Design in Columbus Circle, The Observer bonded with the designer Waris Ahluwalia over our mutual... MORE >
To a literal-minded reader, "Lust for Life," a poem Michael Robbins published last April in The New Yorker, would have raised a few questions. Are elephants ever cannibals? Has the poet ever operated a meth lab? Did that meth lab often explode? Is Mr. Robbins really often compared to Britney Spears? Has John Milton ever jumped out of his birthday cake? Does he really think everyone in Sweden is an idiot? For the magazine's... MORE >
Last Wednesday, Cipriani Wall Street welcomed into its enormous marbled confines tuxedo-clad celebrities, AIDS activists and fashion cognoscenti for the amfAR Gala, the organization’s Fashion Week kickoff.... MORE >
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From where The Observer was seated at the Betsey Johnson runway show at Lincoln Center yesterday, we could see Ms. Johnson in the wings backstage, flailing her arms and coaching the models before they stomped out on the runway (the models replicated the movements the best they could; it looked a little more frigid, though). This was no small task. Ms. Johnson showed 91 looks, separated into two sections, the "Black Tag" collection, featuring... MORE >
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At all three parties The Observer attended Saturday night, we heard the usual refrains from the people guarding the door: "You're wasting your time;" "I can't help you tonight, sir;" "No" (our personal favorite). We got in anyway, of... MORE >
Five fashion bloggers from Tumblr got out of a cab at 40th and Seventh Avenue, and it looked for a moment like a clown car. They waited in the lobby of a big midtown building for 19 others to arrive to take a tour of Oscar de la Renta's studio. "We're one buddy system away from being a field trip," one of them, Ashley Simko said. "We are a field trip," the blogger John Jannuzzi... MORE >
Last week, The Observer took the elevator to the top floor of the Warren and Wetmore building on 57th Street for the opening of fordPROJECT, an art gallery started by Altpoint Capital Partners, the same company that owns Ford Models. The people in charge insisted there would be no models in attendance.... MORE >
"Hello, uh, bonsoir," the director Christopher Thompson said last week at a screening of his first film, Bus Palladium, at the French Institute on 59th Street. “This is in English, right? I’m sorry I don’t sound more French. It’s always a... MORE >
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