vip in the city, page 65

StandUp For Kids is the nation’s largest all-volunteer, non-profit organization dedicated to working with and for runaway, homeless and street-dependent youth since 1990.

The information session CS and I attended after work on Thursday was being held at the Time Warner Center (25 Columbus Circle, or according to the condo developers: One Central Park.) HN, StandUp for Kids – NYC’s new Executive Director, had arranged for the group to gather on the sun terrace of his building, and at first I was concerned that the breathtaking views from the 51st floor aerie would distract from his presentation. But once he began speaking in earnest about the organization and the volunteers’ works, we in attendance were hard-pressed not to take notice.

He began with a series of grim statistics about the plight of runaways: half of the children who leave home return within a week; those who don’t – or can’t — live on the streets for an average of three years. Of those, 5,000 die every year – 13 a day – from violence, disease or suicide. Half of the ones who do survive, become pregnant or infected with sexually transmitted diseases.

Although these children are notoriously difficult to document and track, most estimates put their numbers around the country at over 1.5 million — over 500,000 younger than 15 years old. New York City alone claims tens of thousands of these runaways in its streets, many of whom are trying to escape deep poverty, or unimaginable abuse. Once on their own, they have scant options for survival outside of begging, stealing, selling drugs or prostitution. StandUp For Kids runs an extensive community outreach program, with volunteers on the streets in shifts, reaching out to these kids, and distributing food and items such as shampoo, condoms and dry, clean socks. They target pockets of the city where runaways are known to convene: the Christopher Street piers, the Port Authority bus terminal, Columbus Circle — just steps from the very building we were sitting atop, where a two-bedroom apartment rents for $28,000 a month. For years, after late nights at the office, I’d see these gangs of teens circling aimlessly with their skateboards around 2 Columbus Circle, never realizing that they just didn’t have anywhere else to go.

As the sun set and the chill of impending autumn settled in the air, we retreated to the building’s private screening room and watched a short film about StandUp for Kid’s mission, featuring the founder, Richard L. Koca. For more information on what you can do to help, please check out the StandUp for Kids national or local websites.

After the presentation, CS and I joined HN and his friends SK and SN at Valhalla, where we met up with three other session attendees. Lively, if possibly young-skewing, crowd at this Hells Kitchen neighborhood spot, but she and I will probably stick to our own standby place. And in fact, we closed out our evening there over Diet Cokes.

The public space at Broadway and Liberty, once known as Liberty Plaza Park, reopened — ahead of schedule — in June 2006. At the ribbon-cutting, it was rechristened Zuccotti Park in honor John Zuccotti, U.S. Chairman of Brookfield Properties (which owns The World Financial Center and One Liberty Plaza) and the chairman of the Real Estate Board of New York. Zuccotti is also a former first deputy mayor of New York City, and former chairman of the New York City Planning Commission. (So that’s  how you get a park named after you.)

I stepped out at 12:30PM for the second of three free lunchtime concerts in the square. Bassist-singer Esperanza Spaulding (whose name means “hope” in spanish) played a jazz set, backed by a keyboard player and drummer. The trio set up stage just in front of Mark di Suvero‘s 70-foot tall steel beam Joie de Vivre sculpture, which last year was relocated to the financial district from the Storm King Art Center in Orange County, New York, where I first saw it. I remember the ten months during which the park was closed off for construction, and how one leg of the sculpture’s tripod base emerged from over the plywood barriers set up along the perimeter – like an abstract red giant escaping easily over a too-low wall onto the sidewalks of Broadway.

After work, I met up with SN for our first Russian class of the semester, which despite our entrenched pessimism, had not been canceled after all. Good  because I genuinely want to advance my language skills; bad  because I had done absolutely no review or preparation for the first class. Which turned out for me to be very bad indeed.

This being a language skills course — and one with only eight students — the oral participation requirement per student was set pretty high. I spent the entire two-hour class in a state of nausea and anxiety. You know the dream about having to take an exam for which you haven’t studied — in fact: you’ve no clue about the subject, your pencils keep breaking and you can’t even read the test papers? Yeah — sort of like the waking life version of that. At least I wasn’t naked.

At lunchtime, the Kim & Sheu Duo: Jennifer Kim (Violin) and Connie Sheu (Guitar). The Juilliard musicians this afternoon seemed somewhat less prepared for public performance than last week’s Kang & Soto: playing quietly at times, seemingly to themselves, with repeated fits and starts. It felt more like we were witnessing an open, staged practice session rather than an actual concert, which probably suited the lunchtime crowd gathered at 180 Maiden well enough. SYB brought my favorite sandwich again. And I noticed for the first time today that there is a gallery located in the lobby of the building, which will only be open through the end of September 2006. I’ll have to remember to peek inside next week.

After the evening vegetable pick-up — more peppers, eggplant and tomatoes! — I did a quick dropoff at the apartment and then zipped back down to the W New York – Times Square for a book launch in honor of comic performer, actress, playwright, author and baker Amy Sedaris, whose upcoming book, I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, is being released in October by Warner Books. In it, she offers practical entertaining tips, like deal with the inebriated. (“Better to cut them off rather than pretend it’s not happening and then allow them to stay over and wet your bed.”)

In a kooky touch, quite likely cooked up by the guest of honor, everyone at the party was required to wear a name tag, not with his or her name, but with their occupation/industry and a red or green sticker, announcing their relationship status: single or taken. In rotation, I spied (mostly red-stickered) writers, singers, real estate developers… and a rocket scientist!

There was a crowd gathered around the bar — cosmos only — and among the guests, men circulated with trays of Sedaris’ famous cupcakes. Sedaris herself was seated at a table in the center, petite and elegant in her black silk dress and fishnets, chatting up fans (of which there were many in attendance) and signing CDs with audio highlights from her book. On mine, she wrote:

Vanessa,
Pee on me.
– Amy Sedaris

Oh! Um, thank you. I don’t know if that inscription is better or worse than B’s, which simply pronounced: “Fag!“

I’ve been reading about Sripraphai (see-PRA-pie) for years, and actively thinking about it for over a month, but oddly, I’d never motivated the trip out to Woodside to check out for myself what most regard as the best Thai restaurant in New York City. Really odd, considering that I trek out to farther flung areas of Queens at least once a week. What was once just a buzz about the restaurant on the foodie-boards, has grown into a din of explosive praise over the past couple of years, ushering humble Sripraphai into the limelight of official dining destinations. Frank Bruni 2-starred them back in November 2004, the 2005 Zagat’s named Sripraphai one of the 50 best restaurants in the city and New York Magazine ranked it number 5 of the 101 best Cheap Eats in New York — and one of only seven restaurants in the city granted 5-star status.

So after a couple of inspiring trips out to Pam’s, I sent SC an email asking her if she’d like to join me in this culinary adventure. JG and SYB quickly signed on — Sripraphai newbies all — and we made the arrangements for the following Monday.

A quick shot to 61st Street/Woodside on the 7 Express. From there, it was a just few blocks walk under the elevated subway tracks along Roosevelt to our destination. A second round of expansions and renovations in late 2004 had doubled the Sripraphai seating area to 70 (not including the back garden) and transformed the once utilitarian space into a more welcoming spot. I wasn’t sure what to expect (since clearly the food, and not the ambience, is the main draw), but considering that the owners probably needn’t have bothered too much with creating a pleasing dining area, they’ve done a decent job. We bypassed the main room for the garden tables out back, which was far prettier than I had expected: landscaped, with a central burbling fountain, and a perimeter lined with flowered shrubs — and one curious cat.

The wonderful spicy scents emanating from the kitchen were enough to send my stomach grumbling into high gear. One of the menus had accompanying color photos of all the dishes. Everything looked crazy delicious!

With some difficulty, we finally winnowed down our choices to four dishes and an appetizer: the Crispy Chinese Watercress Salad, Shrimp Pad Thai (for a baseline comparison), Drunken Noodles with Beef, the Sautéed Crispy Pork with Chile and Basil Leaves and Whole Red Snapper with Green Mango. Also fragrant bowls of sticky rice and coconut rice, hot tea (for SC who was nursing an oncoming cold), Thai iced teas and coffees for the rest of us.

Monday may be the best night to go. I’d read about waits stretching to over an hour during peak weekend hours, but this night at 8:00PM, the restaurant was hardly half full. Take note: the restaurant is closed on Wednesdays.

The food! Unfortunately my photos aren’t very good, and once the plates hit the table, it seemed just too obnoxious to hold up everyone else from eating while I figured out my lighting issues. But here are a couple.

The salad – a pile of crisp, lightly battered, fried watercress, with cilantro, red onion, cashews, chicken, squid and shrimp, bathed in a refreshing chile, lime, fish sauce and sugar combination. Whole red chiles, and long strips of green chiles, which were dangerously difficult to distinguish from the watercress in the dim light of the garden. (Disaster and tears were narrowly avoided at the last moment.)

We requested the food at a “medium” level of spice, and in retrospect, I am very grateful that we didn’t attempt the “Thai spicy.” One bite of the broad, flat drunken noodles with beef, chile, and basil leaves and a slow burn began at the base of my tongue, building until it engulfed my entire mouth. Thankfully, the waitstaff is very attentive with the water glass refilling. I suppose they have to be.

The pork was richly fatty and crispy as advertised, with shreds of bright basil and flecks of vibrantly red chile. Wonderful! And the whole fried red snapper with green mango salad: crispy, tender and moist all at once, with a delicately seasoned topping of shredded fruit, just spicy enough to give a kick – though not as incendiary as the drunken noodles or the crispy pork. Oh my.

Tongues a-tingle, we ate and ate until we could eat no more. (SYB really should have stopped before chomping down on that final chile, in an ill-advised stroke of capsaicin-exploding bravado.) And still there was more food. We packed up the rest, defeated, but fully satisfied.

On the way out, we could not pass up the refrigerated case filled with glorious Thai desserts: coconut and pumpkin custard squares, banana sticky rice, delicate marzipans. And a dazzling array of Thai pastes and preserves (most with helpful English labels.)

So many things on the menu beckon to me, a return trip to Woodside is already in the works. Fried softshell crab – bring it on!

On the way back into Manhattan, the four of us stopped in at SYB’s to catch the premiere of The Rachael Ray  show that he had set to TiVo while he was at work, for reasons he has yet to fully explain. No comment; the headline of this Yahoo! News article says it all: “Rachael Ray Show” potentially annoying.

Except I would perhaps replace “potentially” with “definitely” or “extremely.”  Never did I expect to hear the words “slut shoes” come out of inaugural guest Diane Sawyer’s mouth. I hope to never hear them again.

[Edited to add: I want to know who at Sony Music is responsible for this.  Stop the madness! ]

Brooklyn writer Jonathan Lethem — not to be confused with the other Brooklyn writer Jonathans: Ames and Safran Foer — was billed on the Starbucks Salon program under “Storytelling.” I had signed on early for this appearance by the author of Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of Solitude.

The latter, by the way, is not about Superman at all, though superpowers do come into play. It reminds me that I still haven’t read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon’s comic book inspired (and Pulitzer Prize winning) novel. I picked up Chabon’s debut novel The Mysteries of Pittsburgh after my own wondrous, mysterious Pittsburgh summer, and was immediately struck by the touching elegance of his writing. I still recall vividly how the story captured the poignant thrill, confusion and melancholy of the last summer of youth. At least how I imagined it would all be, during that final year of high school when I was reading it. It’s one of the few books I’ve read and held on to over the years. Perhaps because I liked it so much, I’m ambivalent about its currently being made into a film, starring Peter Sarsgaard, Sienna Miller and Mena Suvari. Though I will say that the movie adaptation of Chabon’s second novel, Wonder Boys, was one of the underappreciated films of 2000. The book itself is very good, also… though I do find the film tie-in edition with Michael Douglas’ big ol’ mug on the cover a little disconcerting.

Back at the Salon (in daylight)…

Although Lethem is a regular on the literary circuit around town, I’d never actually seen him in person, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. This afternoon, instead of pulling pages from an excerpt or essay, he was joined on stage by Isaac Butler, local theater director (and occasional writer and actor). Together, they performed a dramatized reading of Lethem’s short story “Their Back Pages,” about a group of cartoon castaways/castoffs who find themselves on a deserted island a la Lost.

The story was a little slow getting started — the audience at first seemed… perplexed — but as it built some momentum, and the men threw themselves into character, it was quite funny. A brief question and answer period followed, during which there was the predictable fawning over Lethem, who is apparently rather well-versed in pop-culture.

Downstairs at the Starbucks Gallery, with its off kilter walls:

After the Salon, we walked around SoHo for a bit and then made our way downtown to Eldridge for an early dinner. This time, instead of Super Taste, we decided to try its across-the-street rival for hand-pulled noodle supremacy: Sheng Wang. The subterranean space is about on par with Super Taste in terms of ambience, but their signature bowl is distinct from Super Taste’s in flavor: the noodles swim in a lighter broth, chock full of beef, spinach and pickled radishes, and are topped with a single fat, fluffy, white fishball stuffed with minced pork. The superior bowl, I think, may just be a matter of preference.

Over to Little Italy, where the 79th Annual Feast of San Gennaro was taking place. If we hadn’t been so full of noodles, we would have picked up some zeppoles. Oh, I’m a sucker for zeppoles — all sugared, hot, fried dough treats, actually.

Back to the Starbucks Salon for the final show of the ten-day event. Eclectic Method is a trio of DVJs who mix audio and video by blending together music videos and film footage to a mash-up soundtrack, using mixers, DVD turntables, laptop computers and video projectors. For tonight’s performance, they culled material from Madonna, the Jackson Five, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stevie Wonder, Beyonce, Wu Tang Clan, The Bangles, Jimi Hendrix, The Triplets of Belleville, the Oompa Loompa song, Outkast, The Beatles…

The crowd sat transfixed for almost the entire ninety-plus-minute set. Several of the Salon employees broke out into enthusiastic dance, eventually joined by a couple of hipsters. Those not getting their groove on, served up all the coffee and pastries (cheesecake, apple pie, espresso brownies) left in the glass cases in a grand finale-clearing gesture.

I got up bright and early on Sunday morning for my sautéing techniques class at Williams-Sonoma at the Shops at Columbus Circle. The class was the first I attended in the shop’s Sunday morning cooking series. I figured that although I already pretty much knew how to sauté, a more formalized instruction couldn’t but help. John, the instructor, explained a bit about the origins of sauté (from the French sauter, which means “to jump”) and the smoke points of different oils. As he talked us through a preparation of chicken with lemon-basil sauce, he offered some practical advice for successful sautéing: gradually heating the pan before adding the fat, not overcrowding the bottom of the pan, and ensuring all the pieces are generally the same thickness and size.

Which reminded me a little bit of the classic SNL sketch, Cooking with The Anal Retentive Chef. R.I.P., Phil Hartman.

Brunch downtown at Chat ‘n’ Chew with SYB, after which, en route to Time Out New York’s “Back to School Blowout” in Union Square, we passed through stand after stand piled high with skeins of colorful yarns and impressive displays of fiber crafts. And lots and lots of squealing women, many lugging around overstuffed shopping bags, along with the occasional shellshocked-looking man – all out for the Eighth Annual “Knit-Out & Crochet” event, also being held that afternoon in the Park.

I recognized a few of the yarn purveyors from around the city (like Seaport Yarn and the Upper West Side’s Knitty City) as well as some of the larger yarn and crafts manufacturers. It would have been very easy to get caught up in it all had I been with someone else (i.e., a woman), but I surmised that SYB probably wasn’t all that interested in oohing over the silks, cashmeres, mohairs and alpacas.

Time Out hosted the back-to-school festival last year also, the primary purpose of which is to welcome new — mainly, college — students to New York City and to introduce them to the vast and diverse offerings of the city. I like attending because in addition to being a continuing student – Russian class starts on Wednesday! – it’s nice to be reminded of why New York is such a great place to be.

Heartland Brewery was there in the Square, pumping out free beer from a keg, as was Trader Joe’s with their Mango Lemonade and Chile Spiced Mango samples (chewy, spicy — different.) Peanut Butter & Company had lots of coupons and temporary tattoos to distribute. I let the woman put one on my arm; it had a monkey on it! There were lots of giveaways – nothing spectacular, though SYB picked up a Wicked -emblazoned hand fan, and we both entered contests for Carnegie Hall subscriptions and comedy shows. Fingers crossed!

Popped into Max Brenner Chocolate by the Bald Man — the newish cafe/ restaurant/chocolate shop from Israel that opened its first New York City branch off Union Square, drawing crazy, sweet-seeking crowds, and inevitable comparisons to Willy Wonka (minus the Oompa Loompas.) From the moment we set foot inside the door, the rich, heady scent of chocolate permeated our nostrils. And no wonder: there were trays, plates, bins and fountains overflowing with the dark stuff at every turn. It was almost too much. Almost.

I hear they serve a chocolate “pizza” — with an optional topping of mini-marshmallows — in the cafe. Is that wonderful… or a little obscene?

After work, I met S & HYB at the Starbucks (they’re inescapable!) in Chinatown before AH’s birthday party. On the way over, we stopped off for a quick dinner at Super Taste on Eldridge, introducing HYB to the joys of hand-pulled noodles.

As I explained to him, according to New York Magazine’s profile, this noodle shop at the Fujian ghetto edge of Chinatown “makes what is indisputably a five-star bowl of beef noodles for a paltry $4… Alas, the mood, as set by the glum slurpers who patronize the establishment, is as cheerful as a July 4 picnic at Guantánamo Bay and weighs in at zero stars, giving Super Taste an average of two stars.”

Haha. But yeah, that’s about right.

A funny thing: since the last time (or since the above profile prominently appeared in New York Magazine’s Cheap Eats issue), the establishment removed all English language menus from the walls, making the place even less friendly for non-Chinese speakers/readers. All references to “Hand-Pull Noodle w. Beef In Hot & Spicy Soup” were absent, and I was forced to rely on my rudimentary Chinese reading skills to order. Luckily for all of us, “beef” and “noodles” are in my limited repertoire; I owe it all to Wah Kue on Mott Street. And pointing is universal.

Mmm, mmm good.

After another stop for what may have been the most expensive ice in Manhattan – $6 for two bags?! Grrr… – we arrived at AH’s top-floor apartment where the party was in full swing. I spent most of the night out on the balcony, admiring her views over lower Manhattan. AH had baked another one of her wonderful cakes for the occasion: this one a carrot and walnut layer cake with cream cheese frosting, that HYB lit afire with birthday candles.

On the way home, the warm smells from Doughnut Plant carried us along Grand Avenue.

Random celebrity sighting: Dennis Quaid on the 7 train, holding hands with a younger Asian woman. She asked me for directions, and I realized then that she wasn’t quite fluent in English. I thought Quaid was (re)married, and living in California? Or maybe it wasn’t him I saw after all?

Regardless, I’m sure it wasn’t Randy.

First visit to the Starbucks Salon — a pop-up salon, performance venue and gallery in SoHo that builds upon the heritage and intimacy of the traditional coffeehouse setting. Concerts, readings, comedy, fashion, art… all “Provocative Performances to Engage and Inspire Audiences in New York,” according to the company’s press release. For ten days, Starbucks took over the Corinthian-columned building (known as the King of Greene Street) that once housed an art gallery… and over the holidays, the UNIQLO pop-up store.

I can anticipate the haters coming out now to decry how the global behemoth banked $6.37 BILLION in revenue in 2005, while bankrupting hundreds of the very same independent coffeehouses they’re now mimicking.

B and I met at Grand Central to head downtown together for the Ursula Rucker show, at his suggestion. Rucker was listed on the SBUX slate as a “spoken word” performer, and a couple of days before, B shared two of her tracks with me so that I would have some sense of what to expect.

Rucker is a Philadelphia-based wordsmith whose debut album, Supa Sista (2001), and follow-up album Silver or Lead (2003) were released to strong critical acclaim. Her social-political commentary – half-spoken, half-sung – was backed by guitarist/ songwriter/producer Timothy Motzer (who used a guitar synth to layer and live-loop music and sounds to interesting effect) and drummer/composer/producer Gintas Janusonis (who got some love from the Brooklyn contingent in the house.)

We snagged two of the last seats scattered around the floor, and settled in with our cappuccinos from the convenient kiosk set up inside. Most of the tracks this night were drawn from Rucker’s latest album, titled Ma’at Mama. “Ma’at” is the Egyptian goddess of balance and truth. Rucker’s performance was sprinkled with calls for just that and for awareness and “revolution.” In “Libations,” she extensively namechecked figures like Dorothy Dandridge, Tupac, Malcolm X and Gandhi; it was the one piece in the set for which she relied on notes. “Uh Uh” dealt with a woman asserting her value to an unappreciative man. And in between, there were rants about the increasing objectification of women in popular music and video. No Luda for Rucker’s four young sons!

In “Children’s Poem,” Rucker took on the plight of black youth and slavery being “alive and well.” One of the speakers blew out mid-performance, and after a couple of feedback-generating attempts to fix it, the background musicians drifted into silence, leaving Rucker’s voice unaccompanied, smooth and soulful.

SYB’s dinner party tonight. The theme this night was: Apples. For the first time since he started hosting these potluck gatherings, I didn’t cook or bake anything, opting instead to contribute a gallon of fresh-pressed cider I picked up from the Farmers Market on Thursday morning. Lazy guest!

Luckily, there was plenty of food: SYB whipped up batches of chicken-apple sausage and broccoli rabe pasta and an apple-less vegan chili, to accommodate the vegan contingent (which I suppose was comprised primarily of JL.) The chili packed quite a wallop, thanks to his inclusion of the bright orange habañero peppers we picked up in our farmer’s share this week.

Depending on the variety, habañeros typically measure 100,000 to 350,000 on the Scoville scale, though certain varieties far exceed that. Wilbur Scoville developed this scale in 1912 to standardize the heat measurement of chiles. The original Scoville test required a panel of tasters to evaluate how many parts of sugar-water it took to neutralize the heat of a given pepper. Doesn’t sound like a fun job. Nowadays, human tongues are spared and HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromotography) scientifically measures the concentration of heat-inducing capsaicin in parts per million. Those figures are in turn converted into Scoville heat units; one part per million is equivalent to 15 Scoville units.

Bell and sweet Italian peppers have values of 0 Scoville units (not at all hot); jalapeños weigh in at 2,500-5,000; cayenne at 30,000-50,000; and the hottest variety of habañero — the Red Savina — clocks in at a searing 350,000-570,000 Scoville units, earning it the the Guinness record for the “World’s Hottest Spice” in 1994. There have since been challenges to the title by the Naga Dorset pepper and the Naga Jolokia pepper.

I like a little kick in my food as much as anyone else, but I cannot comprehend the cult that surrounds those damage-inflicting, sweat and agony-inducing, blisteringly hot hot HOT pepper sauces. The names alone are enough to be offputting: all the violent variations of “Kill,” “Death” and “Blaze,” plus… Anal Angst X?!

Uh, no thank you. (Please: no wiseguy comments about how that was an awesome movie.)

Always wear gloves when handling!

There was also an abundance of apple desserts, most homemade. JL baked a pair of tarts on site; AH brought in a picture-perfect apple pie she had baked at home. And someone sent in by proxy the divine Sour Cream Apple Walnut Pie from Little Pie Company: a dense crust layered with thin slices of apple and sour cream, and topped with chunks of cinnamon walnut crumble. I will have to get one of these to J for comparison against his favorite Apple Crumb from La Cheesecake in College Point.

On the way home, it began to rain.

This is my 100th post. Shall I continue?

In 2004, Regis Philbin, who began his television career in th 1960s, was named the Guinness World Record holder for “Most Hours on Camera.” In honor of that title, Live with Regis and Kelly began running segments related to Guinness World Record title holders. Last year, serial record holder Suresh Joachim planted himself in the WABC lobby, and set a new Guinness record for “The Longest TV Watching Marathon” (69 hours, 48 minutes). This week, Reege and Kelly spotlight various attempts to set world records involving cartwheels, pirouettes, tango spins and cutting apples with a sword.

The “Most Apples Cut in the Air by a Sword in One Minute” record, currently held by Kenneth Lee of West Orange, New Jersey, seems oddly specific to me. It stands at 21 apples.

This morning, on Columbus Avenue, Don Claps from Brighton, Colorado, attempted to defend his Guinness World Record for “Most Cartwheels in One Hour” (currently, a dizzying 1,076. Personally, I don’t think I would ever want to attempt that many cartwheels over my entire lifetime, much less one every 3.35 seconds over an hour. But to each his own.) Ashton Kutcher and the Barenaked Ladies also dropped by.

From the Live with Regis and Kelly site:

Guidelines for Most Cartwheels in One Hour

1. Each cartwheel must involve both hands on the floor with legs straight and feet pointed directly upwards once in the air.
2. Each participant must be individually and independently watched and timed with a second person counting the cartwheels armed with a clicking device.
3. Breaks are at the cartwheelers’ discretion but the clock does not stop.
4. Suitably qualified gymnastics instructors and judges must be on hand to evaluate each cartwheel for technical correctness.
5. An experienced timekeeper should be present throughout the attempt.

[Edited to add:  Claps shattered his previous mark by turning 1,293(!) Guinness-approved cartwheels that hour.]

Later that night, M(LF) and I met at our old Monday night haunt, Cielo. for the Belvedere Beautiful Life fashion show, hosted by former Ford model, Parsons grad and Project Runway alumnus, Zulema [Griffin].

For the first two hours, M filled me in on her recent whirlwind of events – moving out, moving on – over Belvedere vodka drinks and passed hors d’oeuvres. It warmed my heart to see my friend so happy and excited. No stranger to the grand gesture, M was inspired that evening to surprise her friend with an impromptu morning rendezvous at a posh hotel. My initial response to the wildly romantic idea was, “That sounds amazing, but… won’t that conflict with class?” — which goes a long way towards explaining why nobody is inviting me out for impromptu morning rendezvous at a posh hotel. M just laughed and ruefully shook her head in response. In any case, would I consider bailing out of the fashion show to tag along as she set this plan into motion? You betcha.

We left Cielo without seeing a single outfit down the runway. But no matter: we were out in the cause of love. Unfortunately, as we soon discovered, M’s cause would have been far easier to take up had it not been peak tourist season in New York City, and Fashion Week to boot.

We overcame the initial awkwardness of sauntering into a hotel lobby, with no apparent luggage, to inquire about the availability of rooms — reminding ourselves that this was New York City and that of all the requests that hotel desks get over the course of any given day, this one would hardly even warrant a raised brow.

But there was no room at the inn. Not at the SoHo House…

… not at The Gansevoort…

…or at The Maritime.

What’s a girl to do? Well, in this case, the answer is apparently: get on the cellphone and book a room — sorry: a suite! — at The Pierre. Ah, M!

Back in my own decidedly less posh surroundings, I got a call from CS, who was just finishing up her evening nearby. Would I be up for meeting at our regular place for a nightcap? Yes, indeed.

So not quite the same, but I guess I got my impromptu rendezvous after all. Heh.

New friends: Bouncer Ray (who carded me for the second time in as many weeks) and Bartender John (who comped CS’s drink.)