The Fifteen-Day Week

Today while you’re using an old toothbrush to try to clean the nooks and crannies on your stove, people wearing linen and “face powder” will be beating the heat at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton’s Midsummer Party, gorging on Glorious Food in lavishly decorated tents (it all starts to feel like Groundhog Day after a while, doesn’t it?), while waving silent hellos to folks like artist Chuck Close, gagillionaires Evelyn and Leonard Lauder, designer Nicole Miller, scribe Tom Wolfe and Dorothy Lichtenstein (widow of pop artist Roy, whose art hangs in the museum.) Wait—there, by the back burners, you missed a spot.

[Parrish Art Museum, 25 Job’s Lane, Southampton, 7 p.m., 631-283-2118, ext. 40 or 41 for further information or to purchase tickets]

mbryan@observer.com

High-schoolers from Long Island sneak out of second-floor suburban bedrooms—ker-PLUNK!—and buy 40s with fake IDs before heading to Radio City Music Hall on the LIRR to see the Steve Miller Band (we know this because we were once a high-schooler from Long Island). Once there, they run into their dads. Meanwhile, Manhattan’s helicopter fleet heads East, shuttling freshly plumped lips and designer dresses to the gala for the
ArtHamptons International Fine Art Fair (can’t we be left alone with our beach reads in the summer instead of having to pretend to care about art?), featuring art from the 1880s to the present.  read more »

Feist—the women your boyfriend keeps comparing you to silently in his head while you’re asleep—performs at the Prospect Park Bandshell to flocks of nubile female fans and the occasional dude, and Jennifer Aniston’s unlikely lover, musician and failed comedian John Mayer, plays too-far-away Jones Beach, for ladies who didn’t meet that special someone at Dune nightclub in the Hamptons last weekend. Meanwhile, feeling down about your closet-size apartment or cheating boyfriend? An Iraq war documentary should put things in perspective! Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber’s Full Battle Rattle hits Film Forum, chronicling the training of American soldiers in a billion-dollar simulated Iraqi village in California’s Mojave Desert.  read more »

Lacking a married older man with whom to retire to the Hamptons for long weekends? Take a “guyatus” (their word, not ours; rhymes with hiatus) and head to NoLita literature mecca (an oxymoron, you’d think!) McNally Robinson to fete The DailyCandy Lexicon: Words That Don’t Exist but Should, a useful contribution to the Western canon by the women who send us those cute little e-mails we use to procrastinate at work. (Bonus dirty excerpt! “Drimming” = drunk text messaging.) A publicist assured us that there will be “at least one hot/young/straight/unattached guy in the media” in attendance. (Uh-oh—sounds like Tom Beller, no?) Either way, sounds like the kind of party that might require unwinding over country crooner Shelby Lynne, appearing possibly-ironically at the Music Hall of Williamsburg to perform hits such as “Things Are Tough All Over” and “I Won’t Die Alone” (indie rock doesn’t get us like this).  read more »

Don’t you have a fancy benefit or ball to attend tonight? No? Then drag your ambiguously gay boyfriend to Williamsburg for the re-launch of Monday Night Burlesque at the Art Space Formerly Known as Galapagos (unpronounceable symbol forthcoming), which has decamped down the river to Dumbo, a Brooklyn neighborhood known for its strollers. “Most of our audience is 50-50, and more often, it’s the girl that drags the guy there,” said Doc Wasabassco (nee William Morton), the man responsible for helping to ensure rococo-looking tattooed chicks continue stripping naked all over New York. “Burlesque, when done right, is really very couples friendly,” he continued.  read more »

We’re going out on a limb and predicting a Wimbledon men’s final between Anna Wintour pet Roger Federer and Mallorcan conquistador punk Rafael Nadal (who’s pretty hot from certain camera angles, albeit a bit young for us.) Machinelike Federer may finally be showing signs of age. (Or is it fatigue from all those fashion shoots?) Either way, major televised sporting events are always a convenient excuse to stay home folding laundry and reading InStyle in a mud mask.

[Wimbledon men’s final, 9 a.m., NBC]

mbryan@observer.com

Wham BAM, thank you, Ma’am! Indefatigable Brooklyn cultural mecca BAM fills the intellectual void that is July 4th weekend with an Afro-Punk Film Festival—so named for a documentary on black punk rock music by James Spooner—which aims to broaden people’s ideas about black music and “black revolution,” said co-curator Jake Perlin, who added that the festival will include much more than just movies—“music and outdoor events, things like that.” Notable among celluloid offerings will be The Federation of Black Cowboys (2003), about “a group of black cowboys in Brooklyn called the Federation of Black Cowboys,” said Mr. Perlin (this can only be a positive thing for Williamsburg), and Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006), about the disproportionate number of African-Americans among cult leader Jim Jones’ 900 suicidal brainwashees in 1970s Guyana, who sped themselves off this mortal coil with poisoned Kool-Aid.  read more »

While the gin-soaked golfers at the Maidstone formally abandon their wives, mistresses and kids for the rest of the summer, in the city it’s a hot-dog-and-potato-salad-binge day—although last time we checked, we definitely don’t have a backyard, so we’re inexplicably forced to endure the heartburn-inducing Nathan’s International July Fourth Hotdog Eating Contest in Coney Island, featuring people who engage in gluttony for a living and not just for shameful late-night stress relief. (Last year’s winner ate 66 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes. Why are we celebrating this?) Later, helping to alleviate the general feeling of nausea will be Kim Gordon and Sonic Youth, who are hot in that ageless sort of way, performing at Battery Park, thereby allowing us to relive our six months of grungy rebellion in middle school, when we wore ripped jeans and smelled pot (before deciding against it).  read more »

No sugarcoating, suckers! We give you the cold, hard truth: You live in the center of the universe, and nothing is happening today! So pony up for the oversize bag of Twizzlers and a line of tourists at the movie theater, where Sundance Audience Award winner The Wackness opens, starring Olivia Thirlby of Juno, oddity Mary-Kate Olsen, and the great Sir Ben Kingsley as a shrink, all navigating the vaporous, early Giuliani-era waters of New York in 1994. Why does this movie sound like it’s going to obnoxiously demand a lot of very specific reactions from us, that there will be “right” and “wrong” responses and that we’re going to have to listen to self-styled cinéastes yammer about it on Smith Street for weeks?

[The Wackness, www.fandango.com]

mbryan@observer.com

Jitney give you the jitters? Helicopter gas getting too expensive? Then why not stay in town this summer! Looking around at the women dressed in denim skirts that barely graze the crotch, and men in Capri pants and flip-flops, the city looks like a beach anyway! (Note to aforementioned women and men: Please, please don’t trust your instincts.) And by the way: Were wedding presents for people you barely like always this expensive? The artists at Chelsea’s Atlantic Gallery capture our emotional state in an exhibition, Catastrophe. Tonight a group of experts—i.e., “The Four Panelists of the Apocalypse”—convene to address the topic, among them Colin Beavan, that blogger doofus best known for writing about his year without toilet paper in The Times and getting a book deal out of it.  read more »

The fruitcake is just crumbs, we’ve seen every movie in theaters, the Rockettes have packed up their hose and left town and New Yorkers don a collective scowl and go back to work to face the moody boss, the cloudy office fish tank, the fantasy football scores and the lunchtime lines at Chipotle, and you know what? Maybe it’s the new shoes, but we’re secretly happy.

[Radio City Christmas Spectacular, through Dec. 30, 212-307-1000]

Hey, 2008, pour us a cup of coffee! Another year has passed, so dress your scruffy boyfriend in a shirt and tie and drag him as far away from his remote control and Nintendo Wii as possible—perhaps up to the Carlyle to be serenaded by soothing jazz vocalist Loston Harris at Bemelmans over a stiff martini?—lest you lose him to the Rose Bowl and possibly be forced to also endure it yourself, which is too painful a thought to consider at a time like this.

[Loston Harris at Bemelmans, 35 East 76th Street, 9:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m.; the Rose Bowl, ABC, 4:30 p.m.]

Spank me, it’s New Year’s Eve! Those not aiming to lose half their rent and all their dignity at a sweaty club in West Chelsea—where, let’s see, at least one party is being hosted by Carson Daly and attended by a Simpson (no, we don’t know which one, and we don’t care) have several options: Patti Smith, the woman we most want to be when we grow up, plays the Bowery Ballroom (yep, CBGB’s is still a T-shirt shop on St. Marks); in pricier happenings, the indefatigable Messieurs Batali and Bastianich stage a grand “it’s the perfect slightly old-world New York New Years’,” seven-course gala at Del Posto for a mere $250 a person! Explained Mr. Bastianich, who is in the process of expanding his formidable dining empire to the far shores of London, Las Vegas, and Foxwood’s Casino: “Those experiences of dinner and dancing are far and few in between these days, and it’s one of my personal favorite things.” Hence, Mr. Bastianich will attend the extravaganza himself: “I have a table with my mother and my wife.” And what of Mr. Batali? “I don’t know what he’s doing.” Mr. Bastianich explained his countrymen’s New Year’s traditions thusly: “In Italy, the big holiday is New Year’s Day, and New Year’s Eve is just kind of a big family dinner, and then you go to bed. It’s a family holiday. But that doesn’t really apply to promoting our New Year’s Eve festivities, now does it?” And Mr. Bastianich doesn’t usually celebrate Italian-style anyway: “Usually I’m skiing in the Dolomites.” Us, too! Weird, huh? In the meantime, bonus excerpt from the menu, which can only be called culinary porn: “Molto Mario’s own pork sausage recipe, sliced tableside, Castelluccio Lentils and 25 yr. Aceto Balsamic Traditionale.” Then open wide: “Puffed Bittersweet Chocolate, Brandied Amarone Cherries and Vanilla Gelato.” Oh my … oh, oh, NEXT! The New York Road Runners, aware that what we all really need on New Year’s is to move our widening asses, stage a four-mile run in the middle of the night. The run is now in its 29th year! “We feel that it’s become not only the signature race on our yearly calendar, but one of the signature events on New York City’s New Year’s Eve calendar,” said Richard Finn, spokesperson for the group. “We have music, dancing, a costume parade, and this year we are very pleased to announce that we’re having New York’s first-ever New Year’s Eve fireworks countdown, Gucci-style!” And! “We have a non-alcoholic champagne stop in the middle of the race.” But getting back to those costumes: “You get anything from the New Year’s Eve baby—somebody dressed up in some sort of diaperish outfit—to Old Man Time, to one year there was a group that came as snowflakes,” said Mr. Finn. “In 2000 we actually had a whole group from Long Island who dressed as the bridge to the new millennium. Twenty-five people dressed as a suspension bridge! Then you run in your costume, which is actually the fun part.” Sorry, sir, but we’re still a little freaked out by the thought of adults running four miles in diapers.

[Carson Daly’s Official New Year’s Eve Party, Gypsy Tea & The Madison, 33 West 24th Street, 8 p.m., www.joonbug.com; Patti Smith, the Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, 9 p.m., www.ticketmaster.com; Del Posto, 85 Tenth Avenue, 212-497-8090; Emerald Nuts Midnight Run in Central Park, East Drive near 68th Street, 10 p.m., www.nyrr.org]

Newsflash from Palm Beach! The Young Friends of the American Red Cross Greater Palm Beach Area Chapter—say that three times fast—present a beach bash sponsored by Lilly Pulitzer and hosted by real estate scioness and jewelry designer Ivanka Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Ah, close your eyes and say it again with us: beach bash! And back here in reality, it’s your last day to warm your soul with The Nutcracker at Lincoln Center. We miss the fledermaus!

[Young Friends of the American Red Cross Beach Bash, Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, 561-833-7711, invite only; The Nutcracker, New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, 5 p.m., www.nycballet.com]

Original glam rockers the New York Dolls play Irving Plaza while everyone else gets hopelessly delayed at the airport flying back to be with their sweetie when the ball drops (blech!), our stomachs have stretched at least 20 percent, we’re not speaking to our siblings anymore and we all wonder whatever possessed us to leave this smelly, overcrowded city in the first place! In any case, Don’t you have something to return?

[New York Dolls at Irving Plaza, 17 Irving Place, 8 p.m.]

No one is back from New Jersey and Ohio, you’re somehow slogging away at the office while your roommate gets stoned and reads The Guide to Getting It On!, and the evening’s fun is limited to the would-be hookers who populate Wasabassco Burlesque’s End of the Year Show in Brooklyn, featuring the no-doubt gratuitously tattoed derrieres of people named Creamy Stevens, GiGi LaFemme and Nasty Canasta. We can’t quite explain burlesque’s enduring appeal in our thin-crazed city, but gentlemen, this much booty usually costs way more than eight bucks.

[Wasabassco Burlesque, Union Hall, 702 Union Street, Brooklyn, 718-638-4400]

The tourists are safely tucked away inside Bloomingdales by now, so why not venture timidly to the Met, where they’re still lighting their 20-foot 18th-century Italian Seraphim-adorned Christmas tree (but hey, balls from Duane Reade are nice too!) over and over again all week in an effort to take us back to the days in mid-December when we hadn’t yet wasted half our vacation watching Six Feet Under DVDs! Naturally, this is no ordinary spruce, but one with “diminutive, lifelike attendant figures and silk-robed angels hovering above.” (Who needs marijuana when we have the Met?) And while you’re up there getting cultured, may as well check out the Rembrandt exhibit, a timely reminder that most people who have ever lived on this earth have had it harder than we do.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, tree lighting at 4:30 p.m. 5:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., 212-535-7710]

Getting ... Spending Crazed shoppers do their best impersonation of the rabid masses in Will Smith’s apocalyptic I Am Legend. Eight-Day Week Special Correspondent Nicole Brydson called up shopgirl Tay Kim of AG Adriano Goldschmied in SoHo. Ms. Kim recalled that last year, “a man came in and tried to return a pair of pants. We told him that we could exchange for another pair, but we needed a receipt. … He was so angry that he snatched his shopping bag and walked outside. Right after he got out, we looked outside the window, and he kicked the shopping bag across the street and almost hit a person. Well, he had to cross the street and pick that up.” (Note to self: Buy potentially violent male relatives only the right size pants!) And later, bearlike DJ ?uestlove hits S.O.B.’s—we hope to help us dance off that third piece of fruitcake and excise all trace of Christmas music (yes, even you, Mariah) from our heads.

[AG Adriano Goldschmied, 111 Greene Street, 212-680-0581; ?uestlove at S.O.B.’s, 204 Varick Street, 8 p.m., www.ticketmaster.com]

Santa’s done his dirty work! Whatever became of the magical Christmases of our youth? In their place: self-help books from Mom and a mispelled erotic text message from that guy from the other night, as we pad about the house in unfortunate bedroom slippers and high-school field hockey sweatpants, inhaling cinnamon rolls. Luckily, here comes Tim Burton’s costume drama Sweeney Todd. What that ails us can’t be cured by Johnny Depp, we ask?

[Sweeney Todd, www.fandango.com]

Visions of sugar plums (and fistfuls of Ambien) dance in many heads tonight as Santa makes his rounds; if you’re Jewish and single and really want to mingle with some ho-ho-ho’s, the city transforms into a sort of JDate Live, as the Matzo Ball takes over Capitale, and the Ball 2007, which is more or less the same thing, swallows five other venues all at once, not to mention “complimentary Escalade and Hummer Limousine Service” (sigh) between parties, and—hey, look at this!—the band Booga Sugar, best known for serenading Polo-clad masses in the Hamptons—beware, ladies, the bassist once tried to seduce us despite the fact that he’s 42 and married! Plus, really, the bassist? Right?

[Matzo Ball, Capitale, 130 Bowery, 9 p.m., www.matzoball.org; the Ball 2007, 8 p.m. to 4 a.m., www.nyc.letmypeoplego.com]

In the good old days, those not of the Christian faith understood that Christmas was a great time to see movies, eat Chinese food and feel happy that they didn’t have to endure last-minute shopping meltdowns, maxed-out credit cards and family neurosis. ... But then someone had the bright idea of turning Jews’ peaceful and lovely Christmas week into a spectacle of forced humor and awkward parties. Such as tonight’s group of funsters, Good for the Jews, who offer “Putting the Ha! In Hanukkah” at the Highline Ballroom, with a self-proclaimed “Jew-studded” comic line-up of Todd Barry, Rachel Feinstein and Dave Attell sponsored by Heeb Magazine. Let the self-loathing begin!

[Good For the Jews’ “Putting the Ha! In Hanukkah,” the Highline Ballroom, 431 West 16th Street, 8 p.m., www.ticketweb.com]

Nubile teenagers get frocked at the Infirmary Ball, which is not an event for sick people but rather a glittering debutante debauch at the Waldorf-Astoria, which has previously seen the “coming out” of such social luminaries as Cornelia Guest and Lydia Hearst! Those saving themselves for the Matzo Ball may head to Film Forum for Hannah and Her Sisters, which was made in 1986, before Woody left Mia for Soon-Yi and developed his Scarlett fetish. Or check out Nutcracker: Rated R, a charming little theatrical event that “cracks open the heart of the classic children’s ballet to uncover drugs, sex, family secrets and all the other delights that make the Holidays so special.” These avant-garde theater types are always on the cutting edge, you see.

[72nd Annual Infirmary Ball, Waldorf-Astoria, 7 p.m., infirmaryball@aol.com; Hannah and Her Sisters at Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, 7:40 p.m. and 9:45 p.m., www.filmforum.org; Nutcracker: Rated R, Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue, 8 p.m., 212-254-1109]

Miss me, Mizrahi? Fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi has parlayed his women’s clothing success at Target into a successful career as—you guessed it—a cabaret performer! “A Holiday Celebration with Isaac Mizrahi” gives audience members the not-altogether-rare opportunity to watch Mr. Mizrahi portraying Mr. Mizrahi with “special guests” and “holiday anecdotes.” If the question on your tongue is “Why, dear God, why?”, then here is the answer, from the man himself, speaking recently to a fellow journalist: “I jump at the chance to appear in New York because I am a giant ham.” And later, those wishing to remind us that Christmas has meaning beyond discount designer dresses and the Barney’s shoe department hold a benefit for New York’s homeless, “Christmas in New York,” featuring Natalie Cole and pianist Dino Kartsonakis celebrating “the birth of Jesus through music and the arts and the lasting gifts which Jesus’ life makes possible.”

[A Holiday Celebration with Isaac Mizrahi, Blender Theater, 127 East 23rd Street, 8 p.m., www.ticketmaster.com; Christmas in New York, Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, 8 p.m., www.lincolncenter.org]

Free booze and interoffice petting<