


FRIDAY
-At work, Paige is given a bottle of Three Olives Orange-Flavored Vodka, from The L Magazine's generous editor, Jonny Diamond: Age 24
-After work we all get ready for a night in Manhattan, we are extremely excited, like tourists (because Friday's too often are spent resting for Saturday festivities): Age 18


Obviously, this is just a really gross story, but not to get too personal with you (it's just me and you, right?) I honestly can't remember the last time I got drunk and felt the need to defecate. In fact, I don't know that I've ever done that. (Again, between me and you) I don't think I have any particular issues with matters of the bowel, but the idea of doing such a thing while drunk seems utterly foreign to me. (Matters of the Bowel... heh, my new rom-com screenplay.)
Also, sorry if you've read this far. Grossest post yet at thelmagazine.com.

Hosted by poet Tommy Pico, tonight's event will feature readings from Birdsong #11, music by folk duo PAPS (go here and listen to the song "Seen It All"—so good it makes me want to spit). The special token sad old person guest reader tonight (disclosure: I was once one of those) is poet and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht, who wrote a book called Doubt: A History. I heard Ms. Hecht interviewed on Speaking of Faith and she's smart and funny and seems like the kind of person you'd want to be seated beside at an otherwise unpleasant dinner party (sad old people represent!).
C U 2-nite!

FRIDAY
-Paige is grumpy and lame after an exhausting work week and decides to stay in: Age 34
-She and her boyfriend rent I Love You, Man and she laughs hysterically the entire time, Jason Segal elevating her from her grump: Age 15
-Holly and Kristy head to the First Friday's at the Guggenheim to listen to DJ Chromeo while looking at Chagall: Age 30
-Holly finds a 24 oz Bud Light Lime and sips it through a straw while riding train to Upper East Side: Age 20

This weekend we were verbally assaulted by a middle-aged woman wearing what appeared to be a crown of mink, while we were wearing PETA-approved faux leopard/puma coats. This was awesome and without a doubt the highlight of January 2010. This lady should learn to act her age. Who, besides Regina George, just makes fun of girls like that?

If there is one thing we learned this weekend, it's that our maturity is inversely correlated to the temperature outside. The lower the mercury dips on the thermometer, the more elderly we become, and this weekend as the temperature plummeted we started applying for our AARP cards...

Its no secret that the two of us are obsessed with holidays. We plan Halloween costumes in March, leave Christmas lights up year round, and force our roommates and boyfriends to partake in our annual Valentine's party where we pull out the trusty craft bucket, drink reddish adult beverages, dress completely in red and pink and spend an entire evening making cards for even the most obscure recipients ("Carlos the garbage man! Our Hasidic landlords!"). We look forward to celebrating holidays as much as we look forward to televised awards shows (which we also count as holidays). That’s why this past weekend was the ULTIMATE. We kicked off with an open bar party, courtesy of The L Magazine, and wrapped-up with baking and gift giving. Let us now turn to our patented Maturity Index to see just how old we behaved this weekend.

For this year's holiday season, we decided to have a party. Instead of asking guests to wear ugly Christmas sweaters or swap egg nog recipes, we told people to come dressed as their favorite 90s icon. Because what screams, "We got holiday spirit!" more than teal spandex, glitter, and a Courtney Love 'tude?
FRIDAY
We email back and forth at work all day, helping each other make difficult decisions:
-What to get our boyfriends for Hanukkah: Age 25
-What movie to go see: Age 30
-What costumes to wear for our party Saturday night: Age 15
-We meet to go shopping after work: Age 24
-At Forever 21: Age 13
-Where we try on glitter dresses that cost $15: Age 12
-We, for the second week in a row, go purchase "dinner" at Duane Reade: Age 14
-Sneak our dinner of Cherry Coke, Pirate Booty and Musketeer bars into a movie: Age 12
-Ogle all the nerdy hotties that work at The Angelika Theatre: Age 18
-The movie is The Private Lives of Pippa Lee: Age 35
-We only want to see it because Sarena from “Gossip Girl” is in it: Age 15
Jamie Peck's NY Press cover story — about the decline and fall of after-hours party space, The Shank — tells the usual story of ephemeral exclusivity and the programmatic obsolescence of bohemian fun. Everything dies, baby. (She does a particularly good job, too, of getting people to go on record kind of dissing each other, which is always fun.) The money quotes, however, are from Bushwick resident Julie Vick, who is scared of local teens:
“I’m surrounded by teenagers. People are tagging and ruining things; things were getting a little Altamont-y, and the fun was ending.” Then, according to Vick, a teenage girl grabbed her beer, poured it on her and punched her in the head until she broke free and ran. “I was like, this is humiliating. I’m 30 years old, getting beaten up by 16-year-olds. I’m too old to be somewhere that teenagers are going to beat me up.”
This is true.
Two of Long Island City's biggest art institutions are throwing big parties tonight. At P.S.1 (22-25 Jackson Ave) it's the latest edition of the PopRally series with Summer Solstice at P.S.1: Blood Transfusion for a Ghost, with artist Frank Haines serving as curator. He's organized performances by Blanko & Noiry, filmmaker Rose Kallal and curator Mark Beasley, psychedelic metal band Miracle of Birth, and poet Cedar Sigo (the band ARP will provide sonic transitions between acts). Show starts at 8pm, tickets are $10, click here for details.
Nearby Deitch Studios (4-40 44th Dr) is hosting a release party for MGMT's music video for their latest single "Kids" (directed by Ray Tintori) at 8pm along with a making-of featurette and tunes by DJ Simon O'Connor. If you haven't already seen the video, it is crazy:
The Venice Biennial opens Sunday and you, artsy New Yorker, are probably thinking "what good does that do me?" Well, it does you the good that one of New York's coolest art venues, Honey Space (Eleventh Ave between 21st and 22nd Sts) is throwing a huge benefit party and auction tonight to celebrate alum Swoon's (you've seen her street art, like, everywhere) contribution to the Venetian art fair — a set of three giant DIY rafts (pictured) that she and her crew are navigating across the Adriatic Sea to arrive in the sinking city today. The silent art auction lasts from 7-9pm, followed by a party with live music and a raffle in the cavernous bar/sauna/den of sin and recently refurbished secret party space Serpentine from 9pm onwards. Tickets cost $10, $20 for raffle tickets, more details available here.
Isn't it nice when you can have fun and help someone at the same time? You know, helping others? Ok, stay with me here: The Williamsburg Charter Collegiate School is having a benefit party tonight at Southside, from 8pm to 11pm, to help send their kids on various field trips to fun and interesting places like Costa Rica, Virginia, New Orleans and (boring!) Upstate New York. If I'd had opportunities like this, I wouldn't be stuck blogging for you, dear reader.
(N.B. No actual children will be getting drunk with you at the bar. Despite what the image at left cannot help but imply.)
My wife visited Haiti a couple of years ago to do some work at a rural hospital. When we finally got back to Brooklyn (I'd met her at the airport), and got out of the car, she just started crying right there on our stoop, much to the concern of the neighbor's cat. Now, the tears of a white liberal New Yorker are what every TV/radio pundit lives to ridicule, but these particular tears weren't for guilt or shame, but were mere gratitude for the kind of opulent lives we're able to live here in New York, a reality too infrequently contextualized by the way the other two thirds of the planet lives each day.
I could get into details about how difficult life is in Haiti, especially for children, but that would defeat the purpose of the party I'm trying to get you to go to tonight: Haiti Optimiste II, a shindig at the Bubble Lounge which aims to celebrate the great things about Haiti through photography and music (by Michou and Emily King). Your $10 donation will get you a rum drink and go towards fixing some of those bad things I didn't mention. IF YOU DON'T GO TO THIS YOU ARE A BAD PERSON.
Tonight, 8pm, 228 W. Broadway.
The L Magazine turned six years old last week and our whole staff exploited this with a party at Lower East Side club Happy Ending, an open bar courtesy of 42 Below vodka and Pabst Blue Ribbon and a couple hundred of our closest friends. Pictures after the jump.
Here. Follow the instructions for walk-in or (express at this point) mail-in registration here. If you know anybody who is not registered to vote, send them this link, and walk them down to the registration place before end-of-day Friday.
Or, sayeth the L's Nightlife Editor Zachary Palmer, take them to Le Royale tonight, where the nice people running a "Barack the Vote" party will be registering new voters, and collecting suggested donations (on top of the cover at the door) for to benefit the Obama campaign. There'll be a silent auction, also to benefit the campaign; there'll and DJs and dancing to benefit you, and an open bar for an hour starting at 8pm, to benefit the whole debate-watching process when 9pm rolls around.
Oh, right, the debate tonight. Enjoy that, everyone. This is the Town Hall debate featuring undecided voters, right? God, I hate average Americans, especially ones who don't know who they're going to vote for. Who's excited to watch Obama spout platitudinous talking points as his way of holding ground while questioners hammer McCain on the economy? Good times, good times.
Register to vote if you haven't.
First they came for the hedge fund managers, and I was not a hedge fund manager, so I said nothing. Then they came for the i-bankers, and I was not an i-banker, so I said nothing. But Andrea Rosen, who doesn't work for the L but does work in our office (it's complicated), said something, specifically about what the shitty economy means for bars that serve alcohol other than PBR.
Lately, I can't seem to throw a Vitamin Water without hitting a blogger recounting the latest episode of Gossip Girl or The Hills (including those on the other side of my office). The Monday night parade of excesses has become escapism central for New York's creative underclass. In depressing times, it's comforting to know that somewhere out there, boys and girls with whimsical surnames like "Van Der Woodsen" and "Patridge" are frequenting nightclubs with whimsical names like "Pink Elephant" or "Opera," enjoying most expensive liquors and raddest Bruce Jenner spawn our great country has to offer.
In reality, conspicuous consumption in New York nightlife has been sidelined for the bulk of this decade's countrywide recession.