1.2.12: 2012, here we come! | New York Social Diary

2012, here we come!

Taking their bows at the New Year's Eve premiere of The Enchanted Island at The Metropolitan Opera House. 10:05 PM. Photo: JH.

Monday, January 2, 2012. It was a bright, sunny, brisk day, the first day of the New Year in New York. Mid-evening brought cooler rains and some gusts of of strong, but not wintry, winds.

Like a lot of people, I like to keep New Year’s Eve to a bare minimum. It started for a lot of us on Friday, the day-before holiday, when the town had emptied of the work forces. I didn’t venture into midtown to see the mobs of tourists and suburbanites getting their last of 2011 in the City, or Times Square on the big night.

The line around the block at the Met on Sunday afternoon.

On Saturday morning I went to Zabar's with a glorious gift certificate a very kind and generous friend had given me. The place was mobbed (no exaggeration) with lines for the breads and pastries, the coffees, the fish counter, the meat and vegetables counter, the cheese counter. Zabar's under those conditions requires a navigational talent that comes with being a lifelong (10 years or more) New Yorker. A million stories, the Naked City, etc., it’s all there and everyone is in everyone’s way and getting out of everyone’s way. No one minds however, because everyone gets the picture: a feast in development.

I picked up some caviar, crème fraiche, blinis; some smoked whitefish salad, some brie and crackers and I was all set. JH, it turned out, was in the store the same time I was – although we never ran into each other – and he got the picture of the crowd at the fish counter.

The fish counter at Zabar's on Saturday afternoon.

The thing about the Zabar's staff is that they themselves are deep New York. Pros at their jobs; efficient, thorough, exacting, and so-what-else-would-you-like? Always polite but focused and that Noo Yawk unflappable.

You watch them slice the smoked salmon with those long knives. Artists at work. I have a friend who is so fascinated watching them work that he secretly would like to join the staff. And all the while they’re keeping a running conversation with each other behind the counter. It’s that way all over the store right to the checkout where the staff is fast, efficient, friendly but not-too, and thank you.

From the other side.

Then, on exiting, out in front of the store, you can pick up a new or recent book on the book tables set up there on the curbside. I got two – the last of my Christmas presents to friends: Edmund de Waal’s “A Hare With Amber Eyes,” and the new biography of Pauline Kael by Brian Kellow, “Pauline Kael; A Life in the Dark.”

New Year’s Eve at 7:30 I went over to Karen Collins and Jesse Kornbluth who live in Carnegie Hill near the Park.

The Kornbluths have a lot of literary friends – which also means media/magazine/movie people. Their gatherings are always en famille; it doesn’t matter if you don’t know anyone – there’s lots of conversation for everybody. Karen is an ace in the kitchen and she always sets out a buffet that includes excellent desserts (chocolate mousse was this night’s). Amanda Vaill, the biographer, journalist, screenwriter (“Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins,” “Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy – a Lost Generation Love Story”) brought some Chestnut Soup. Which she made at home. I never had Chestnut Soup before. Incredible.

Filing into the Met for their New Year's Eve performance of "The Enchanted Island."

Inside the Met.

I didn't stay for the full buffet because a couple of old friends were coming over for the aforementioned Zabar's cache about nine. Otherwise it was a very quiet evening (other than a constant conversation since we see so little of each other). We tore through the caviar, etc., and a bottle of Cristal and a bottle of Dom Perignon (both holiday gifts also!) and before we knew it, there was noise out in the street and the sound of firecrackers booooooming ... all the way east from Central Park.

I went out in the terrace to see what the ruckus was about (because this is an exceptionally quiet neighborhood especially on weekends): A lot of younger people ringing in the New Year and having a good time. A lot of New Yorkers (as well as a lot of Americans) turn on the TV for the Times Square New Year’s Ball drop which this year featured Lady Gaga. I missed that.


	Didn't get around to watching this.

This year there weren’t any mentions of resolutions around my “buffet.” I don’t know if that’s because of age when finally the acknowledgement that resolutions remain in force for no more than a day, if that long. The human race has “evolved” to the point where we can now destroy each other (ourselves) with a flick of the switch. Such realities dissolve the notion of “We” and “They” into a simple inevitable “We.” This simple fact seems to elude such a vast number of humanoids that it is easy to imagine Mother Nature having the Last Word with us.

“2012” has been heralded throughout the world as the Last Year of the Mayan Calendar. I don’t watch the History Channel although I know many who do and The Mayans and “2012” are now familiar territory to the believers, the tv watchers.

I don’t presume to know the future, or the outcome of such things as the Mayan Calendar, but I am reminded of the ancient Hindus’ advice to one and all in everyday life: Watch Out. I am reminded of this everyday as I observe New Yorkers walking into oncoming traffic as if it’s not there, focused on their cells or not – just Not Watching Out. I am reminded of this everyday when I read about all the saber rattling that goes on all over the planet. I am not talking about the Protests or Protesters. I am talking about the official saber-rattling (which now means Bombs Away).

We; not they. Watch. Out. Such a simple dictum for us all.

Meanwhile, out there in the Great Big World (or the Big Bad World, depending on the view), down in St. Barth’s they were having their New Year’s Holiday celebrations -- a far cry from the pastoral East End Avenue:

When you consider the list of Boldfacers I am about to present, you could conclude that that little island is now the World’s New Year’s Eve Lovefest of Celebritydom.

Gustavia Harbor in St Barths.

Such as: Jon Bon Jovi, Martha Stewart, Owen Wilson, Marc Jacobs, Anjelica Huston, Will Arnett, Mischa Barton, Jerry Bruckheimer, George Lucas, Rupert and Wendi Murdoch, Ron Perelman, Harvey Weinstein and Georgina Chapman, Steve Wynn, Jimmy Buffett, Pat Riley, Brett Ratner, Russell Simmons and Melissa George, Kimora Lee and Djimon Hounsou, Red Hot Chili Peppers' Anthony Kiedis and Flea, Peter Brant and Stephanie Seymour, Roman Abramovich and Dasha Zhukova, Brian Grazer, Rachel Zoe, Patrick Demarchelier, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Richard Meier, Vito Schnabel, Lola Schnabel, Tamara Mellon, Larry Gagosian, Aby Rosen and Samantha Boardman, Blaine Trump, Andrew Saffir and Daniel Benedict, Lorenzo Martone, Lawrence Bender, Olivia Palermo and Johannes Huebl, and Nat Rothschild; and those are just the ones reported to me. Plus their significant others, you can assume: husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, potentials, past, future, overnight.

Many of the above listed as singles were not single. Or wouldn’t be before the day was over. Also, not everyone was staying on the island, or on a boat on anchor, but had arrived by boat and plane from other islands nearby just for the parties.

A closer look Gustavia Harbor.

Some of the hot spots of celebrity watching: Maya, Taiwana, Eden Rock, Bagatelle, PaCri, L’Esprit, Isola, Le Ti St. Barth, and The Yacht Club for late night.

Some of the hot invites: Russell Simmons’ party at Eden Rock, Jimmy Buffett’s birthday at May’s, Brian Grazer’s Party at Do Bazil, and of course Roman Abramovich’s veddy exclusive (as these things go) party with a performance by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Looking over those lists: The idea of Society today is authentically expressed in this group by one or two degrees of separation. It is neither familial, ancestral, financial, or meritorious. It is digital And always in process of change. Come day, go day, God will bring Sunday, as my mother used to say.

A transporter boat destined for a yacht.

Reading about the Abramovich party, and considering his omnipresence in this hemisphere, aboard his (world’s largest, costliest) 536 foot yacht Eclipse, I was reminded how in the 50s and 60s American political campaigns and discussions were always about “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming!” Remember The Evil Empire? This was an argument that evoked enormous fear throughout an entire American population, and ruled the foreign policy of our nation and the world for decades.

Well, forty years later, they’re here. From the Eclipse, to the recent $88 million dollar sale of Sandy and Joan Weill’s apartment at 15 Central Park West to a Russian oligarch, and all over the high end real estate on both coasts, they’re here. To stay. Or so it would seem (staying nowadays can mean two hours or 20 years).

“The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming!”

Meanwhile back in Manhattan, at Holiday Time, our Shanghai Diarist Jeanne Lawrence and her daughter Stephanie hosted a Family Dim Sum Holiday Party last Wednesday at their Park Avenue apartment. Stephanie Lawrence is in town on vacation from school in Paris where she’s been studying French and French History. Stephanie, who went to Chapin here in New York (just across the road of my apartment building) has been accepted at the Cordon Bleu Cooking School.