Wednesday; Rain never came

The bar scene at t he Museum of the City of New York's winter ball. Photo: DPC.

Sunny, not so cold, mild with rain promised. Never came. Down at Michael’s it was the regular Wednesday madhouse. Someone was giving a book party for Linda Fairstein at the big round table in the bay. Leslie Stahl was there. And Mickey Ateyeh and Kate White and Esther Newberg and some others I missed. I took a picture of Linda and three more of the guests. This is Linda’s seventh or eighth or ninth book. There’s no stopping her. Or her readers, obviously.

In the gourmet mob: Louise MacBain, David Adler, Duncan Darrow, Joe Armstrong, Jerry Della Feminaet al, Patricia Dente, Tom Kranz, Mike Ovitz, Marc Rosen, Chuck Pfeifer, Henry Schlieff who was hosting a large table for Valerie Bertinelli who has a new book out too. Ms. Bertinelli has been off the media radar for some time now but there were a lot of people in the room who got one of those cheap celebrity thrills see the girl in the flesh. And onwards: Beverly Camhe, Francine LeFrak with Brent Glass of the National Museum of American History in Washington; Leslie Stevens with Ellie Saad Robbie, Dominick Dunne with Frank Langella, Kitty Kelley with Pax Quigley; Jon Tisch, Harvey Weinstein, Christian Leone, Fern Mallis, Steven Stolman, Luke Janklow, Norah Lawlor, Bobby Zarem, Malcolm Morley, Parker Ladd. I was with Dr. Sarah Rosenthal and Sassy Johnson who are now old friends, having met through yours truly.

Cynthia Lufkin, Linda Fairstein, Kate White, and Stephanie March at Michael's.

I’ve named only a handful because there were two, three and four at every table and although I don’t know what they were talking up, it was a storm, waves of vocal energy jammed the room. Although they were many “names” unknown to the public, many if not all knew each other in one or two degrees of separation. This kind of crowd is an adrenaline pleaser and is the main course on the Michael’s menu.


	Ashley Schiff with handbag by Fiona Kotur.

Cameramen and mikes came in to shoot Ms. Bertinelli who seemed unimpressed by the whole thing. There was a pile of books on her table and everyone got one. I got one of Linda Fairstein’s. Autographed.

Last night Ashley Schiff invited me to dine with her and her old school chum Amber Frumkes at the Café Carlyle and to hear Barbara Cook’s cabaret show. Ms. Cook with the amazing voice, a very young woman at 81 (that wasn’t a typo). Love songs.

She started with “There’s A Rainbow Round My Shoulder” which was introduced by Al Jolson about the time that Ms. Cook was born. The theme was “Love Songs” and so there were the Gershwins, and Irving Berlin (“I Got Lost In His Arms”), a song sung first by Fannie Brice in a film in 1930, “Makin’ Breakfast For the One I Love,” Rodgers and Hart (“Where Or When”), Sondheim, Cliff Friend and Matt Malneck and Ray Livingston, “Love Is Good For Anything Ails You,” Romberg and Hammerstein’s “Love Come Back To Me,” and encored with “We May Never Meet Again.”

She’s there until April 12th and if you’re anywhere in a hundred mile radius, book a table, have din and then sit back and drink up the wit, the melody and rhythm and that beautiful voice. This is New York; this is Barbara Cook.

After the show I went up to the Museum of the City of New York where they were holding their late winter ball. Big big crowd, black tie and lots of dressy women. I wandered through with my camera to catch some familiar faces, surprise some others and capture the general visual idea of the night.