Happy New Year? You bet!

I meant to keep in touch more, but I get so wrapped up in the holidays that sometimes I forget my responsibilities. We try to celebrate Christmas around here with all the pagan trimmings, and this year I had to spend hours cleaning up my basement just to locate the ornaments for the crucial Christmas tree… which, of course, has nothing to do with Christ, but lots to do with green—evergreen, in fact. We put a lot of lights and balls and figures on the tree. I like to think of them as minor lares and penates, descendants of the old household gods kept on the hearth in the Roman household.

Here are a few of my favorite ornaments. The cold-blooded creatures:

The gherkin, or dill pickle, and the sock monkey:

Mammy from Gone With the Wind:

Not to mention the wise old owl, the Hindu marching band, the Joseph Kosuth silver balls, the glow-in-the-dark Colonel Sanders, and the Pomeranian dog, to name but a few. What better sort of thing is there to collect? My friend Robert Hawkins, over in London, has a swell tree, too. Here's a look at his.

Well, today the tree is coming down. As much as I hate to see it go, I hate permanent Christmas decorations even more. They're like tape left on windows months after a hurricane has passed. No, we're on to a new year now, and I have a feeling this is going to be a memorable one. There's a sort of 1967 buzz in my ears. Maybe I left the amplifier on. But maybe, just maybe, this year will see a cultural revolution, or at least a volution. I've got a feeling 2008 is going to be just dandy.

So in the spirit of catching up, I've been meaning to mention a great man for some time now, and this new year seems like an appropriate occasion.

I wish I could remember who turned me to Lord Whimsy. Please remind me, forgotten sir. Perhaps it was my itinerant snapshooter colleague the Sartorialist. Apologies for my absence of mind. It's the wine, perhaps. At any rate, Lord Breaulove Swells Whimsy, as he calls himself (I doubt that a mother thought all that up), is the author of a very amusing and inspiring volume titled The Affected Provincial's Companion, Volume One (Bloomsbury, 2006), and the belletrist behind the blog (god, I hate that term, let's find another one) titled "The Affected Provincial's Almanack: A Journal of Aesthetic Particulars and Speculative Living." I try to check in there a few times a week, as if it were a sort of ethereal pub.

Here's a photo of Whimsy from his Almanac:

The novelette-sized Companion is a delightful collection of essays, homilies, poems, and social studies illustrated by Whimsy's own hand—which generally and genially exhorts the reader toward the veneration of endangered virtues and values. For one thing, the author is a gifted proponent of personality, and a well-armed enemy of the herd instinct so prevalent in our society. He is a self-confessed dandy, a connoisseur of trifles and niceties, and, it goes without saying, a gentleman and a scholar (in fact, a scholar of gentlemanliness). Tucked within a setting of bibelots and bagatelles here are numerous gems of wit-born wisdom.

Videlicet:

"Once, sissies were mistaken for gentlemen; alas, now gentlemen are mistaken for sissies."

"A man's beard, that marvel of mandibular topiary and primeval source of virile powers, is the equivalent of an elk's antlers or a lion's mane—for it marks its owner as having completed his days a milk-lapping whelp, and heralds his becoming an adult male of the species."

"As opposed to ages past, the bon vivant of today can be known for doing something, but should be much more well known for being someone. The self is the bon vivant's main canvas and medium of choice."

Anyway, this is a must for the library, and a handy companion for the traveler. It will get you coast to coast by air more than once, as anything said well bears repeating. As for the blogue of Lord Whimsy (doesn't that look better?), it is a delightful source of knowledge that one is unlikely to find collected elsewhere. As someone who has spent a small fortune (by today's standards) on gardening, I have been particularly inspired by the horticultural notes he posts regularly. Actually, he's a big fauna fan too, and his postings give us a sort of underground Discovery Channel. Views of his "angel's trumpet" fill me with nostalgia for the daturas left behind when I abandoned ship vis-à-vis "the Hamptons." And I have mixed feelings about moving the country house from hardiness zone 7a to 5b. Whimsy got me all excited about a tree, the Franklinia alatamaha, which seems unlikely to grow in my new environs, but it seems like a dare. Anyway, Whimsy is an heroic, exemplary gardener, indoors and out. Here's a picture of his bog garden in winter.

One might take Whimsy (who would seem to be named Victor Allen Crawford III, he who holds the Lord's copyrights) for a retro personality, but that would be simplistic. This is a man who is not loathe to praise the works of mid-century modern designers like Tommy Parzinger and Finn Juhl or demonstrate an exquisite eye for mid-century ceramics. He explains his relationship to the past very nicely in a discussion of "trad" on the amusing website Kempt. Is Whimsy a Provincial? Well, he seems to live in New Jersey, near the City of Brotherly Love, which is where he appears to maintain a bastion of civilization against the assaults of vulgarities local, national, and international. I say wherever a fellow like this locates himself, that is a capital.

Another charming aspect of this author is that he belies in spectacular fashion the tired notion that to have style one most be homosexual. Whimsy is more living proof that you don't have to be gay to be a marginalized aesthete.

Anyway, I've just come back from vacation and all this typing has tired me. I have to run over to the private sale at Paul Smith. Why don't you switch over to the Affected Provincial's Almanack now and browse there for a while, while I get up the energy to prepare a new post on another, darker form of Dandyism-on-the-Rise.

Sometimes I worry about my seven-year-old not being an avid reader, seeming content to watch TV and films and otherwise entertain himself without dipping into literature of his own volition. I have even gone so far as to buy Pokémon cards and books, hoping that his inexplicable interest in this vile cult would get him to read more. (It actually has.) Fortunately, boys are curious about certain things, such as volcanos, supernovas, war, geysers, sharks, snakes, man-eating animals, glaciers, polar regions, and, for some reason, penguins. So I was delighted to discover The Dangerous Book for Boys, a book by two Brit bros, Conn Iqqulden and Hal Iqqulden.

Nicely retro in its swashbuckling design, this book is a treasury of all things that separate the boys from the girls, theoretically, such as knot-tying, battles, table soccer, treacherous mountains, rockets, secret code, dangerous insects, tree houses, flags, and pennants. Well, I admit it, I partly bought it for myself. In any case, it's working. He's reading it!

The Dangerous Book for Boys is such a big hit that it inspired a spin off, The Daring Book for Girls, which to my dismay has no chapters on garter belts or Nabokov, and a satire, The Dangerous Book for Dogs. Ha, ha, by the way.

But this did get me thinking. It got me in touch with some interests I may have neglected. Well, not all that much. I actually have a secret hobby of picking up books that are not exactly fashionable but which offer a certain adventurous perspective. So let me name a few of them.

To most people, Halliburton means that evil corporation once run by Dick Cheney that represents the worst side of the military industrial complex; the company responsible for running the Iraq oil industry (into the ground), for the "clean-up" after Hurricane Katrina, and the company that made the study responsible for the privatization of war under the neo-cons, and the rise of such mercenary operators as Blackwater.

Well, to me, the number-one Halliburton will always be Richard Halliburton (1900-1939), an extraordinary character who was perhaps the most popular adventure writer of the 20th century. After Lawrenceville and Princeton, the young Halliburton decided that instead of taking a job he would swim the length of the Panama Canal. For starters. Halliburton decided that he wasn't meant for a desk job and that traveling to the world's most exotic spots was the life for him, and he managed to make a living at it through a series of best-selling books and the lecture circuit.

Halliburton's first volume, The Royal Road to Romance (1925), finds our hero climbing the Matterhorn out of season, getting arrested for photographing the guns and fortifications at Gibraltar, sneaking onto the grounds of the Taj Mahal after-hours to take a midnight dip, and climbing the Great Pyramid of Cheops, among other memorable jaunts.

In The Glorious Adventure (1927) the impetuous Halliburton first climbs Mount Olympus looking for gods and finds only shepherds; he then follows more or less the route of Odysseus across the Mediterranean. He swims the Hellespont, and visits Troy, Tunis, Malta, Stromboli, Sicily, and various other Mediterranean spots, trying to retrace Homer's legendary itinerary, although frequently with picnic basket and champagne bucket.

In New Worlds to Conquer (1929) our Ivy League hero heads down to Central and South America, diving to the bottom of the Mayan Well of Death in search of skulls, swimming the Panama Canal and wandering around Devil's Island.

In The Flying Carpet (1932) Halliburton goes modern, picking up a biplane and a pilot (also possibly bi) and flying around Europe and the Middle East, visiting Morocco, Algeria, the Sahara, Egypt, Turkey, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, and then India, Nepal, and Thailand (still Siam then), and winding up with the headhunters, the proverbial wild men of Borneo. In Tehran Halliburton runs into another American adventurer, William McGovern, author of To Lhasa in Disguise, and they decide it would be most amusing to be incarcerated in a Persian jail. Through the Shah they arrange to be imprisoned "without favor," except not having their heads shaved and being pardoned "when we felt sufficiently punished," and they hob-nob with the cream of society, which happens to be imprisoned by the dictator.

In Seven League Boots (1935) Halliburton duplicates the feat of Hannibal, crossing the Alps on an elephant. He visits the killer of the the Czar and his family on his deathbed and learns the truth of the Romanoff's demise, and in the Caucuses he finds the oldest man in the world who turns out to be an alcoholic. (He took to drink in 1803, he claims!) Then he becomes the first non-Muslim to make the hajj to Mecca and live to tell about it.

It's all great stuff. Not only would these adventures be impossible to duplicate today, for reasons of politics, as well as the extinction of cultures, habitat, and the wonders of the world, but these books are written very much under the pressure of the white man's burden, with an attitude and vernacular as extinct as the Tasmanian Wolf. For the most part the antique violations of political correctness are simply amusing. That's the way it was, and through their bred-to-rule eyes we get a very realistic picture of the way things work, even if Halliburton's accomplishments are mostly staged stunts. Occasionally one also gets a hint that there is more to this adventurer than meets the eye. He seems to have wanted to escape the confines of western society for reasons that are never addressed explicitly. Halliburton, it seems, is one of nature's bachelors, and no doubt he frequently found strange cultures more hospitable to his inclinations than the one he grew up in. (It was rumored that among Halliburton's closest intimates was the flamboyant silent screen star and lifelong bachelor Ramon Novarro.)

Halliburton's disappearance was as spectacular as his appearance. In March 1939 he set sail in a Chinese junk from Hong Kong, headed for San Francisco, ignoring warnings of an impending typhoon. In the midst of the typhoon the junk was spotted by an ocean liner, the S.S. President Coolidge, to which it managed to get off a wire of his last words: "Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here instead of me."

Now that's the way to go. Live fast, die young, and have your good-looking corpse eaten by the fish. That kind of adventure is simply no longer available. Even for employees of today's Halliburton and other corporate adventurers. Get drunk and shoot up some innocent civilians today and you're likely to wind up with immunity. It's even harder to see the inside of a Middle-Eastern prison, unless you're hired to waterboard the wogs.

Another of my favorite adventure reads is a book found in a "free" pile in an antique store: Congo Kitabu (Random House, 1964) by Jean-Pierre Hallet. Jean-Pierre was the son of the Belgian painter Andre Hallet, who specialized in African scenes, and he was brought up in the Belgian Congo. He entered the service of the Belgian government and worked as an administrator until the Congo became independent in 1960. He lived among the Efe pygmies, by whom he was officially initiated into the tribe (quite an honor for a man of 6'5"), and he taught them to farm. He was also initiated into the Masai, after killing a lion with a spear.

Hallet loved Africa and Africans, both human and animal, and he devoted his life to helping them. During a famine Hallet took to dynamite fishing in Lake Tanganyika, and he provided tons of fish to feed starving pygmies, before he blew his right arm off when a stick of dynamite exploded prematurely. After that incident he drove himself 200 miles to a hospital on a treacherous dirt road.

During his years in Africa Hallet saved many animals that would have died otherwise, and he accumulated one of the greatest collections of African art. Hallet died in 2004 of leukemia at the age of 76, and his collection was auctioned on behalf of the Pygmy Fund.

Congo Kitabu is a great true-life adventure, but it is also one of the best books in explaining the state of colonial Africa at the time of Independence. There's an amazing chapter on the events of 1960, when Belgium left the Congo—thousands of people running through the streets chanting "Dependence! Dependence!", a perfect expression of the cruel ironies that would follow. I also wholeheartedly recommend Hallet's other two books: Animal Kitabu (Random House, 1967) and Pygmy Kitabu (Random House, 1973). Hallet was enchanted by the pygmies. When he first encountered them the other tribes, such as the Hutu and Tutsi, famous for the Rwandan genocide that took place later, did not even regard them as humans, but Hallet explains how this oldest line of homo sapiens has much to teach its taller brothers.

All of this armchair adventure is bound to make a guy thirsty, so that's when I pull out my leather-bound copy of The Gentleman's Companion: Around the World with Jigger, Beaker and Flask (Crown, 1946). Delightfully written by Charles H. Baker, Jr., this "exotic drinking book" is ostensibly a collection of cocktail recipes from the definitive and original to the recherché and occult. Here you will learn to make such concoctions as the Antrim Cocktail, "found in the quaint little Overseas Club in Zamboanga on the Island of Mindanao"; Ernest Hemingway's Reviver; the Sahara Glowing Heart Cocktail "from the hands of one Abdullah, an Arab Muslim wizard back of mahogany at the Mena House Bar, near the pyramids of Ghizeh"; the Mexican Firing Squad Special from La Cucaracha Bar, Mexico City, 1937; the World Famous Quarantine Cocktail, "No. 1, favorite in Manila"; and The Swiss Yodeler, from Villa d'Este, Lake Como.

There are many dozens of recipes in this book, but the most intoxicating thing about it is the spirit in which it was written. Surely it was composed under the proximate influence of intoxicants; but it never crosses the line into decadence, always upholding the convivial nature of imbibing while decrying loutish behaviour: "We prefer firmly to go on record that we find scant humour in dipsomania, or in potted gentlemen who in their cups beat wives, or in horny-handed toilers of any class who fling their weekly pay chits onto the public mahogany while tearful mates and hungry infant mouths await by a cold hearth."

No, it's civilization we're talking about, boys. Any civilization worth having is bound to entail some adventure. Sure, it's dangerous sometimes, but are we not men?

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It's not very classy to talk about classy, but sometimes it just can't be avoided. Class is what makes life worth living. But, like kicks, it keeps on getting harder to find.

Today I feel like a sports orphan. All dressed up and nobody to root for. Ordinarily I would be getting geared up for the NBA season, as I did for the twenty years I was a Knicks season subscriber. Ah but the storied franchise has fallen on hard times, and I have no sympathy. They still call and ask if we'd like our seats back, but I have to say no.

"Call me when Isiah's gone," I'll say. "Or, actually, call me when the Dolans are gone." I could take losing. I sat through years of it enjoying myself, like I did during the 1985 season when we went 23-59. Hey, we had Pat Ewing, and the future looked bright.

But when the classy Larry Brown was done in by the smarmy Isiah Thomas—that eye-rolling, baby-faced malefactor; the guy who froze rookie Michael Jordan out of his first All-Star game, refusing to pass him the ball; the guy whose leadership killed a whole league, the Continental Baskeball Association; the guy who presided over the team with the highest payroll and the worst record—well, I couldn't hang anymore. And as the recent sexual harassment trial rolled on I was hardly surprised as the once-glorious franchise was forever tainted by the behavior of an uncouth coach in cahoots with an uncouth owner.

Payback is a bitch.

I could be enjoying the NFL season, but that's been hard, since my team, the New York Jets, is 1-4. They could be 2-4, perhaps, had not America's greatest football coach, Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots, demonstrated an utter lack of class by violating league rules and taping signals made by Jets coaches. The same Belichick who shunned his former assistant, Jets coach Eric Mangini, apparently for going out on his own as a head coach, refusing to speak about him or make eye contact with him. No class. But it doesn't stand out much in a classless league full of stars like Terrell Owens, Michael Vick, Tank Johnson, or teams like the Vikings—remember the seventeen players on a boat full of hookers?

That leaves baseball, and I'll continue to watch, but it's hard after the fall of the Yankees. I continued to watch them for several innings after I stopped listening. I had to turn the sound off during game four of their ALDS series with the Indians. It was a good game, although marked by questionable umpiring, but I couldn't stand listening to the commentators. All they could talk about was Joe Torre getting fired by George Steinbrenner if the Yankees lost, or Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, and other players bolting from the team.

The Yankees are a team people love to hate, but you have to honor the achievement of manager Joe Torre, who took the team to the post-season twelve years in a row. Perhaps more than that, you have to honor the achievement of Torre in not only leading the Yankees to an unprecedented performance in an age of parity (none of the teams now competing for the world championship were in the playoffs last year), but in managing to more or less silence the volcanic ego that is George Steinbrenner. Torre led the Yanks to the post-season in each of his seasons with the team. In half of his seasons the team went to the World Series, and they won four of the six they played.

Steinbrenner has owned the Yankees for thirty-five seasons now. In his first 23, he changed managers 20 times. Torre not only transformed a team that hadn't won a series in 18 years, he actually transformed the owner. Steinbrenner's public side was ugly and vulgar, from his conviction for illegal campaign contributions to Nixon and obstruction of justice to his public explosions and vendettas aimed at employees and players, even widely beloved players like Dave Winfield. When Steinbrenner was "banned for life" by Commissioner of Baseball Fay Vincent on July 30, 1990—after it was revealed he had future Hall-of-Famer Winfield spied on—the crowd at Yankee Stadium gave the news a standing ovation.

But the exemplary gentleman Joe Torre managed to defuse the loutish Steinbrenner with calmness, patience, probity, grace, courtesy, frankness, and credibility. The more virtuous and modest Torre appeared, the less Steinbrenner was able to lash out. As a result "the Boss" interfered with the team less and less, leading to more and more success. This new Steinbrenner became almost loveably eccentric, appearing as a regular character on Seinfeld. And Torre was the master of using gentlemanly behavior to manage a team of millions, getting them to work together as a unit.

But when the Yankees fell behind the surprising Cleveland Indians in the ALDS this fall, Steinbrenner could no longer contain himself. He hinted that Torre would be dismissed if the Yankees didn't win game four. And that, of course, was all the media could talk about. That was all the TBS team of Chip Caray, Bob Brenly, and Tony Gwynn could talk about, even with innings left to play.

Sports has been destroyed by the gossip-mongering mentality of the media—who's making how much, who's maneuvering to move on, who's stabbing who in the back. We had shots of Don Mattingly, Torre's bench coach protégé. Would Don be taking over for Joe? What about the game?

More and more I find myself turning off the sound. Why? No class. The commentators are tuned to the lowest common denominator. Rather than criticizing Steinbrenner and praising the gentlemanly Torre, the media behaves as if Steinbrenner were some sort of Jaweh, an angry god who must be appeased, rather than the crotchedy misanthrope he is.

Joe Torre's post-game news conference was a primer in the art of being a gentleman. He gave thanks. He praised his team. He gave due credit to the victors. He teared up but didn't cry. He said all the right things. Torre exhibited pure class. He is an utter mensch.

And the next day the cover of The New York Post carried a large color photo of George Steinbrenner leaving the stadium. His baby-blue eyes looked blank, anesthetized. On his head was a baseball cap with the legend "Majestic Warrior." I later learned this is the name of one of his race horses, but I can't help but feel that this is also a sort of a tacky crown he put on, thinking of himself as precisely that. The majestic warrior who fires all losers for their own good, who rises while Kate Smith sings "God Bless America."

As I write this Joe Torre's players seem to be sticking up for him, suggesting that his retention as manager might be a factor in their resigning with the team. Good for them. For what it's worth, Giuliani, who has suggested that if he's elected he might name Torre to his cabinet, and Mayor Bloomberg have both come out in favor of Torre continuing as Yankee skipper. Perhaps the Mayor could put his money where his mouth is and buy out Steinbrenner, or perhaps the city could take the team, arguing public domain. If you follow the money the city has been paying the Yankees, supposedly for the new stadium, there might be an argument for that somewhere.

But it's all too sad. We grew up thinking that sports would teach us important things like, well, sportsmanship. Not to mention honesty, selflessness, teamwork, competitiveness, and modesty. Alas. Today sports seems to teach ruthlessness, hot-dogging, gamesmanship, self-gratification, and greed. Well, at least NCAA basketball starts soon. And even though golf is played for millions, self-penalization is still practiced by professionals, and club players frown on rule breakers and mulligan abusers. And we still have croquet, badminton, and bocce.

It's up to each of us, as gentlemen, to stand up and be counted. And together we count. Otherwise the Knicks wouldn't still be calling. So allow me to suggest that teams and their merchandise who do not adhere to our codes be strenuously boycotted. Take off that Yankee cap until the skip is back. You're on notice George, Hank, and Hal. And you too, Belichick and Kraft. And you Dolans, too. Send Isiah back to the Motor City. Maybe he can help GM fail. And all the rest of you knuckleheads. Pay attention! We're gentlemen, and we're not going to take it anymore!

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I think I was a little too hard on Wallpaper magazine a few years back. I think I was taking out my problems with the boom in "lifestyle" on them. I guess it's better to have a lifestyle than to have no style. And in retrospect, Wallpaper was quite brilliant, and almost surprisingly (after its sale to Time Life), it remains a very intelligent and well-done magazine relating to the stylistic aspects of life. They do a particularly good job on travel, providing tips for a person of taste on where to stay, go, eat, drink, etc., in a different city every month. They continue to be good on architecture, furniture, and objects, and they have some of the silliest fashion spreads ever. I think a lot of the brilliance of Wallpaper came directly and indirectly (oracularly, perhaps) from its founder Tyler Brûlé. And his brilliance is showing again in his brilliant new magazine Monocle.

Monocle looks businesslike. It's compact and somewhat type-heavy for a mag published by a noted aesthete. But really it is the best jetset magazine yet. It tells you what the smartest people are doing around the world, and it tends to tell you first. The Monocle's eyebrow—that's industry jargon for the description above or below the logo like Playboy's "for the man of the world"—is "A BRIEFING ON GLOBAL AFFAIRS, BUSINESS, CULTURE AND DESIGN." I bet it hasn't altered one word from the way it appeared on the business plan. And why should it? Monocle is smart. And it's adult. It's so adult there's none of that adult stuff in it. Even the fashion is refreshingly sensible. They seem to have very good instincts on where to find excellent under-the-radar (or gaydar) product for those of us who like our labels very much on the inside.

For me the fifth issue, "July/August," is the best yet, maybe because it's the "World's Top 20 Most Liveable Cities" issue. That feature is well reported and well considered, and it will certainly give me something to think about as my approaching vacation winds down and I start to reconsider the liveability of New York City. Don't worry, that happens to be every time I go some place. Monocle also has a feature called "50 Things to Improve Your Life." And although I generally despise enumeration in magazines, particularly in the form of coverlines like "309 Essentials for Fall," Monocle, with offices in London, bureaus in New York, Zurich, and Tokyo, and correspondents all over, really comes up with some clever life-improving suggestions. I plan to look into Schiesser underwear and Nantucket red pants. I already subscribe to the Mogens Koch library system.

Anyway, I would just like to doff my Montecristi straw hat to Monocle for daring to be grown-up, intelligent, and stylish all at the same time. Monocle costs ten bucks and it's well worth it. Investigate please, my readers. You might even meet someone interesting if you're seen reading it in public.

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I live in Noho, and in many ways it's the ideal Manhattan neighborhood. My favorite restaurant is down the block. There's great Japanese on the next block, and an art supply store. There are troves of mid-century modern treasures scattered around. The Bowery Hotel's new Italian restaurant, Gemma, opens for dinner tomorrow. Easy bag-hauling proximity to Whole Foods and Astor Wines is awesome. And somehow I haven't missed CBGBs. I wonder how they're doing in Las Vegas? Something's always new around here. Like the new Jack Spade Kiosk at the Bowery Hotel, offering news, necessities, and notions. And art on the walls (NFS).

Downsides? Well, we've been under construction for a couple of years here, and our cobblestone street is like an obstacle course. Since it's landmarked, I'm sure candidate Bloomberg will have the masons out soon to make repairs. But for the most part the building boom has resulted in improvement.

Number one on the charts is Ian Schrager's 40 Bond Street, a surprising building from the great architects Herzog & de Meuron that combines street level "townhouses" with upstairs condos. I was a little nervous at first, but it has grown up into quite a remarkable building. The concept is a re-imagining of the cast-iron loft buildings that made Soho and its northern neighbor famous. Those cast-iron buildings made great use of natural light, and that's the case with 40 Bond and its floor-to-ceiling, fully operational windows. And the steel that's standing in for cast iron is beautifully encased in glass the color of vintage Coke bottles. I can't wait for occupancy, because apparently, at night, internal illumination will cause the glass to glow.

Probably the most controversial elements are the gates which front the building on street level. They were designed on a computer from samples of genuine New York City graffiti. It's nice for something baroque to break out of the box of post-modernism, and I think this transfiguration of artistic vandalism is fantastic. Here are the gates being installed. Call me crazy, but what's not to like?

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It's really hard being a Yankees fan, but I can't help it. I got this way simply by growing up in the American League and watching the Yanks of Mantle, Maris, Yogi Berra, Billy Martin, Whitey Ford, et al. It was hard hanging with George during the Winfield, Mattingly, Guidry, Goose years, but the team has almost always displayed true character, no matter how vile the ownership and management seemed.

But lately George has mellowed, and the fact that he has allowed Joe Torre to continue through the ups and downs of this most professional of teams makes one believe that growth is possible, even at an advanced age. Maybe Seinfeld humanized the guy.

I like the Yanks a lot, even at 13-and-1/2 back of the Red Sox. Yeah, they are a bunch of rich "overdogs," and sure, they are corporate and imperial (I loved Phil Mushnik's joke that Roger Clemens was seeking to pitch for Houston when the Yankees were traveling), but I like this group of personalities. Derek Jeter, who just broke Joe DiMaggio's record for hits, has the best attitude in baseball, projecting heroic enthusiasm and a fantastic love of the game, while Hideki Matsui appears as a noble samurai warrior. Jorge Posada is a stoical phenomenon and an utterly complete player, while A.Rod is a magnificently complex athlete and human being. Mariano Rivera combines hall-of-fame play with hall-of-fame class. That's just the cream of this group of casual superheroes.

But right now I'm really feeling sympathy for Jason Giambi, who is, apparently, in hot water for being perhaps the only one of the players publicly linked with chemical abuse to have apologized in any way or owned up to his errors. As Bonds cruises toward an embarrassing date with destiny, and while Mark McGwire has been bizarrely silent since breaking the all-time home run record, dropping off the face of the earth, and while players like Gary Sheffield (see the issue of GQ currently on stands) employ double talk to skirt the issues, it is clear that the record-breaking boom of the nineties was broad and involved many, many players. It is also clear that chemicals such as amphetamines have been a mainstream part of the game since long before Jim Bouton chronicled the 1969 season in Ball Four.

I admire Jason Giambi's courage, not only in getting off performance-enhancing drugs, but in recovering from major injuries and illnesses, and returning to top form as a feared hitter and a real gamer. But more than that, I admire the fact that he has been a man about these issues, while everyone else, from the commissioner to other suspect players and their teammates, pussyfoot around them.

It seems that Jason Giambi has failed a test for amphetamines in the last year, but he has been a man about it, and he is the only person to state that players using prohibited substances should have apologized for it. Meanwhile, the giant egos continue to deny any wrongdoing, or expect us to believe that they were so naïve as to have no idea that the various exotic treatments they underwent that yielded such spectacular results might have contained prohibited substances. Garbage! If the relatively forthright Giambi, who has apologized over and over for admittedly vague sins, is punished while Barry Bonds is rewarded, and the others in spectacular denial get off free, it will greatly amplify the stink that hangs over baseball.

The day that Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron's record, Pete Rose should be admitted to the Baseball Hall of Fame. They should just put his plaque in the phone booth.

This space has been quiet for about a week due to my heavy travel schedule. First I went to Houston to attend the 20th Anniversary Gala of the Menil Collection, one of America's most important museums. Their surrealist collection alone makes a visit worthwhile, and that's just the beginning.

I was invited by my pal Michael Zilkha, a member of the Menil's board, who thought I would enjoy the evening because the entertainment was provided by Chic, the great dance band headed up by our mutual amigo Nile Rodgers. I hadn't seen Chic play since…well, since Studio 54 closed, so I wasn't about to miss it. Actually, I love Houston. I always have fun there, and I can never pass up a chance to put on a tux and do the boogaloo.

This grand event was, in fact, a masked ball, and my wife and I toyed with the idea of making corrugated cardboard masks in homage to Robert Rauschenberg and his corrugated sculptures, which are now on display at the museum, but I got lazy and we arrived maskless—which turned out for the best because about six hundred of Houston's richest and most fashionable people went all out, coming up with really great masks, from homemade jobs to authentic African ones. Luckily my friend Christophe de Menil, a daughter of the museum's founder Dominique de Menil, showed up with a bag of sixty masks that she had made, copying various works of art. I picked up Andy Warhol's face and walked around as my old boss's self-portrait for a while.

Chic was fantastic. It wasn't quite the same as the old days, as Nile's partner, the brilliant bassist Bernard Edwards, died from pneumonia at the age of 43 ten years ago, and then the drummer, Tony Thompson, died of cancer at 48 in 2003. But the current lineup did right by Chic's repertoire, performing all of the band's hits, including "Dance Dance Dance," "Everybody Dance," "Le Freak," "I Want Your Love," and "My Forbidden Lover," as well as songs written by Nile and 'Nard for Sister Sledge ("We Are Family") and Diana Ross ("I'm Coming Out" and "Upside Down"). We danced nonstop through the entire set.

Nile said goodnight, but I knew there was more to come because they hadn't played "Good Times." As a joke I went up to the stage and yelled for "Rapper's Delight," the number-one hit by the Sugar Hill Gang that appropriated the music of "Good Times," which had only reached number two on the charts. Nile launched into the song, which rocked the place, then stepped to the microphone and did the entire rap from the track: "Everybody go hotel motel Holiday Inn…if your girl starts actin' up then you take her friend…" He acquitted himself superbly, his precise diction making the original vocalists Wonder Mike, Master Gee, and Big Bank Hank seem sloppy in comparison.

Nile is an amazing guy. Ten years ago Billboard called him "the top producer in the world," which would be hard to argue with considering what he's done for Madonna, Miss Ross, Sister Sledge, Duran Duran, the B-52's, Debbie Harry, David Bowie, Ric Ocasek, Sheena Easton, Eric Clapton, Southside Johnny, David Lee Roth, INXS, Bob Dylan, Thompson Twins, Cyndi Lauper, Jeff Beck, Paul Simon, Laurie Anderson, Mick Jagger, Bryan Ferry, Grace Jones, and let's not forget Beavis & Butthead. But he's also a tremendous guitar player. Anybody who gets hired by Eric Clapton for a Hendrix tribute album is serious. And there's the little-known side—the great Scrabble player, the ventriloquist. The man is a star's star, and I don't plan to wait so long before seeing him play again. Watching him work is an inspiration.

So then it was back to New York for two days, and then back to Texas—Austin this time, to attend a GQ function. I can't comment except to say that Adam Rapoport, GQ's Style Editor, has a nice golf swing, and Austin was really a pleasant surprise. The rolling hills outside this rather cosmopolitan city reminded me a bit of Tuscany. Fonda San Miguel makes a hell of a duck tamale. The Salt Lick, a barbecue located in ranch country, has terrific vittles and perhaps the most persistent, indefatigable, and egregious rock band on the planet in residence. I plan to return to Austin next fall to play the other three courses at the Barton Creek Resort. Loved the Crenshaw Cliffside course, though I could have used a six-pack of mulligans, being more rusty than usual in my season opener.

I was glad to get back to New York, as I was beginning to understand why everything is bigger in Texas, including the people. Texas is tied for the seventh most obese state in the Union, with 25.8 percent of the population officially corpulent. You just can't stop eatin' that barbecue.

And then, there I was, innocently driving up Route 22 through Wingdale in Duchess County, headed toward my country home in Connecticut, when I spotted it: Big W's Barbecue. We stopped and the whole family pigged out on ribs, pulled pork, macaroni and cheese, dirty rice, and cole slaw. Big W's is run by a former French chef from Manhattan who got tired of the grind and opened up a roadside stand. It grew to be so popular that now there's a little restaurant there, serving barbecue very similar to the fare at Austin's Salt Lick. In fact, both establishments use the same industrial-strength smokers. You don't have to go to Texas to get awesome barbecue. And you can get your pulled pork on the traditional hamburger bun, or—and this may qualify as some sort of sacrilege—on challah bread.

I think barbecue is a movement and, like its adherents, it's growing. There's another fantastic joint in New Milford, Connecticut: The Cookhouse. Yup, Texas is comin' to us. It's okay. It's good for the willpower. I'm taking it one rib at a time.

They say it's good luck when you step in dog shit on the streets of Paris. I say it's good luck if you don't fall down, and it stays on the sole. But that's about the only drawback of strolling in the City of Lights. Paris was made for walking, and that's a good thing, since the taxi situation is so exasperating. You can't hail one—you have to go to a taxi stand, and the French are only slightly better than the Italians at forming a queue.

The Mrs. and I walked almost everywhere, enjoying the nice weather, the beautiful sky, the decoratively egoistic people. A lot of Americans have problems with the French ego, that attitude that's so on the surface. I don't. The night after consuming much wine at the oenophile's birthday reported on earlier, I dragged myself out of bed and to lunch at Fouquet's restaurant. It's a delightful place, with excellent food. Opened in 1901, it has sort of a spiffier, gourmet Sardi's vibe, as it has been a movie trade hangout since the days of Charlie Chaplin. The walls are covered with photographs of stars and directors, from Jean Cocteau to Catherine Deneuve.

I think I was the only guy in the place not wearing a tie. Most of the men were talking business and drinking serious bottles of wine. I needed to end my hangover, so I asked the waiter, "Avez vous Coca Cola?" He replied, "Yes, but it is no good."

It was snotty, but of course he was right.

"I need one," I said. He didn't even roll his eyes. The Coke appeared a few minutes later, and then there was excellent foie gras, smoked salmon, and Dover sole. A nice half bottle of Sancerre and the hangover was gone. But that kind of snottiness has something approaching charm. It says "our culture is strong."

I'm fascinated by Fouqet's, particularly because it is now part of a hotel called Fouquet's Barrière, and that hotel is responsible for one of the best pieces of architecture I've seen in a long time. I didn't know what it was, but I saw a building around the corner that simply knocked me out. It looked like a concrete casting of a typical Hausmann-era, nineteenth-century Paris building with contemporary windows poked into it. Which is exactly what it is. The Fouquet's hotel is one solid block, and where there was no charming building they simply installed one on the rue Bauchart and rue Vernet sides.

Created by the extraordinary "ecological architect" Edouard Francois, to me this building is the answer to all of the problems posed by contemporary architecture. It is about how yesterday and today can meet successfully. I love how the exterior mimics its neighbors in a modern texture while the windows are poked in almost randomly, responding to the hidden structure of the interiors.

I also love how the windows mirror the beautiful Parisian sky against a background of concrete.

I'm always fantasizing about where I would live in Paris. Later we strolled along the Seine on Avenue de New York. I thought that might be a fitting address, and there are some lovely buildings there near the Palais de Tokyo, which houses a great collection of contemporary art and a fun restaurant. And then I got an idea. I saw the Popeye anchored there against the quai. I wonder how much a boat like that would cost.

I'm famous in Paris now, thanks to Purple Fashion, the coolest fashion magazine on the planet, putting twelve pages of moi, as fashion model, in the new issue. Last season it was Vinnie Gallo, this season it's me. (I didn't get the cover, like Vincent, but at least I got to wear men's clothes!) It's a great issue, with sexy pictures of Stella Tennant, pieces on William Eggleston and David Lynch, and amazing photos by Terry Richardson of Jared Leto in his underpants which demonstrate the amazing amount of fat he gained to play John Lennon's killer Mark David Chapman, and the amazing amount of fat he lost to become Jared Leto again. Anyway, fame is fun. Every fashion show I went to I was interviewed for TV. When I walked into the Martin Margiela men's store a guy came up and thanked me for TV Party.

My first night in Paris I attended the 50th birthday party of the legendary Michel Zumpf. He is an artist and filmmaker (Le Géographe Manuel, 1994) and a fantastic character. He looks like Woody Allen and talks like Salvador Dali. For the last several years Zumpf has been working on a film about winemaking in France, and to celebrate his half-century he pulled out a succession of amazing bottles. When he brought out a jeroboam of Chateau LaTour 1990, I felt even more famous.

Here's a famous French newspaper writer opening the box the LaTour came in, by any means necessary.

And here's the effect the wine had on Zumpf.

The next night it was my turn to celebrate a birthday, which I did with numerous friends at a lovely, tiny Italian organic restaurant named Cibus, near the Palais Royale. Oliver Zahm, the editor of Purple Fashion, selected the place, and I couldn't have been happier. Especially when I tasted their Barolo, and when the chef came out with a truffle the size of a softball that he'd been storing in the Carnaroli rice especially for this occasion.

Among the brilliant, glamorous, and famous ducking out to smoke were Jean-Baptiste Mondino, the great photographer and director, Fabien Baron, the great art director, and Gina Nanni O'Brien, the great wife.

The great conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth, the great Mondino's evil twin, the great Glenn O'Brien, and the great illustrator and director Jean-Paul Goude.

Also in attendance were the great illustrator Jean-Philippe Delhomme (who illustrates GQ's Style Guy column); the great creative director Ronnie Newhouse and her husband, the great publisher and martial artist Jonathan Newhouse; the great painter Donald Sultan; the great tailor John Pearse and his great-beauty wife Florence; the great record company (Ze) founder and environmental energy mogul Michael Zilkha and his great wife Nina; and others almost too great and fabulous to mention. And, of course, the great publisher of Purple, fashion model, and contender for the title of the Serge Gainsbourg of the 21st Century, Oliver Zahm.

It's almost a relief to be back in New York where I am not followed around by TV camera crews. Almost. But I think I'd rather be in Paris.

My esteemed colleague and close personal friend Jean-Baptiste Mondino, the world famous photographer and video artist, e-mailed me the following message:

Best video EVER!!!
JB

He included this link:

http://www.zeronews-fr.com/flash/appartement.php

I say to you, judge for yourself.

Meanwhile, apropos of nothing, here is another picture from Peter Gunn. Volume 2 arrived yesterday. Notice how only Pete's left thumb grazes Edie's neck.

When I was a little kid, what did I want to be when I grew up? Well, for one thing, I wanted to be an urbane game show panelist like Kitty Carlisle, Arlene Francis, Henry Morgan, Betsy Palmer, Oscar Levant, Moss Hart, Bennet Cerf, Tony Randall, Buddy Hackett, Dorothy Kilgallen, Jayne Meadows, and Steve Allen on such shows as What's My Line? and I've Got a Secret. Hey, I trained for it. Repartee was my game.

Unfortunately, by the time I got here this fantastic institution was gone from the cityscape, replaced by programs too horrible to contemplate. But recently I became aware of a little cable show called Name That Painting, produced by Mark Kostabi, on which "celebrity luminaries" compete for dollars to, well, name that painting with the assistance of art historians and experts. There's even a house band. And Mr. Kostabi hosts the show remotely, by closed circuit from Rome or, lately, L.A.

The panelists are actually in the great New York game show tradition—writer Gary Indiana, Art Newspaper wit Adrian Dannatt, Artnet's Walter Robinson, Paper's Carlo McCormick, artist John Zinsser, personality Taylor Mead, Randy Jones (the original cowboy of the Village People), and last, but certainly not least, me.

I've actually enjoyed the guilty pleasure a few times in recent weeks after discovering, at the urging of art restorer and regular Lisa Rosen, that it really is a fun show. And best of all, I've been the big winner. Except last week, when film director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) cleaned up spotlessly with his attractive French accent and titles that tested the limits of our language.

Here's Mr. Gondry working out with the house orchestra, the White Leather Soc Band:

You can catch the fun every Wednesday night at 8:30 in Manhattan on Time Warner Cable Channel 56, on RCN Channel 108, on MNN's website every Wednesday night at 8:30 EST, or at your leisure at www.markkostabi.com.

My six-year-old said he wanted to be Darth Vader, so I bought him the helmet that makes that heavy breathing noise a few weeks ago. He got a lot of wear out of it, but I was thinking it wasn't the best trick-or-treating accessory (it's not great for crossing the street), and it wasn't going to work all day at his school (where the kids get to wear their costumes). Fortunately he loves Jack Sparrow, the pirate played by Johnny Depp, so we picked up that outfit and an optional, partially-beaded dreadlock wig. He loved that, although there was some argument over the Darth Vader issue, and it was a big hit at school. There was only one other Jack Sparrow, and he didn't have the wig. My son did get inexplicably confused with a pirate girl a couple of times, though—I reassured him that he was a manly little buccaneer.

I bought a wig. I thought I might try to go as… well, I'm going to save it for next year… so I didn't restyle the wig. I just put it on to take Oscar to the parade, and gee if I didn't look a little bit like my old boss Andy. I put on these French frames I bought recently and that even added to the effect. So last night I said, "Oh, gee, that's great," a lot. Here's a picture by Lynn Goldsmith:

I was a little disappointed by New York's national holiday this year. I did see some great efforts, but generally a lot of people were content to take the easy way out with devil horns or angel haloes and wings. But to be truthful, I didn't have much endurance. Jack Sparrow had to be in bed early so he could pillage and plunder this morning.

Also, I'd been out the night before Halloween, attending a tasting at Ye Waverly Inn, a new restaurant at an ancient location on Charles and Waverly in the West Village. This beautiful little restaurant is owned by my amigos Sean MacPherson and Eric Goode—I almost published a picture of Eric here from Halloween of last year, when he went as a boy scout, but I value our friendship—and Graydon Carter, the man about town who edits Vanity Fair. It is a delightful spot. It looks like it's been there forever, a sort of mini-21, with antiques, fireplaces, eclectic memorabilia, and good-old-days art, and a charming mural depicting frolicking celebrities by the New Yorker caricaturist Edward Sorel. The place has a wonderful, intimate, sophisticated but comfy, and unpretentious air, and the food is very good. American bistro food in that style we all came to love at various McNally restaurants around town like Odeon.

Spotted Brian McNally in the handsome little bar, checking the place out, and various other luminaries like David Kamp, Bruce McCall, and Alan Buchman, the man behind the Culture Project theater. It was a tasting, so I tasted as much as I could, including all of the desserts, and we wrote little suggestions on the back of our menus. There wasn't a lot to complain about. I recommend the chicken pot pie, the country salad, and the cheesecake. Also, for a change, the waiters are all men of a certain age, giving the place a kind of professional air, and you didn't have to go into contortions to get their attention.

I forgot my camera, but I'll be back there soon. I also ran into Judy Wong there. Judy, who ran the Odeon, has a new place of her own in the West Village, partnering with Odeon's Lynn Wagenknecht on Café Cluny, at 284 W.12th Street. (On the Paris Metro, Cluny is the next stop after Odeon!) It's a small neighborhood spot with a congenial atmosphere, excellent bistro food, and a smart, well-priced wine list. I plan to hang out at both places, although I still tend to get lost when I go to the West Village. I'm going to have to force myself to lay off the biscuits at the Waverly, though—they're just too good, and I'm starting a new career as a model.

This place on Broadway at Broome is maybe the best magazine store in New York. You can also get coffee, a sandwich, a piece of cake, or a Vitamin Water. I'll bet they sell more copies of GQ than just about anybody, including all those other editions from the UK, Germany, Korea, etc. You can read Style Guy in the German and South African editions here.

They have just about any periodical you might want, including such rarities as Me Magazine, and real-deal music magazines like The Wire. They also stock all the rare, groovy fashion magazines, and I can't believe how many of them there are. I have a really good piece on the "wigger" phenomenon in the new 10 magazine, and an interview with artist Christopher Wool and a piece about Senegal in the new Purple Fashion, which has Vincent Gallo on the cover. (Inside is Vincent modeling the best of the season's women's couture, bearded.)

There's a really good interview with Gore Vidal by me in the new Another Magazine—Vidal's new memoir, Point-to-Point Navigation, is out very soon. There is also a fascinating story on Vidal in the newly redesigned L'Uomo Vogue, where you'll also find a piece by me on my old pal Jean-Paul Goude (and the English translations are back!). This is also a place you can buy one of the world's most expensive magazines, Self Service. The new one will be out soon with my big Tom Sachs interview.

Universal News also has Internet access, so if yours is down you can always check in with me here on my… Oh, I hate the word "blog," my electronic diary.

I met Alejandro Jodorowsky when El Topo was a hit, playing midnights at New York's Elgin Theater. I think I was the first American to review it—under the title "Midnight Mass at the Elgin"—for the Village Voice. It's hard to believe that El Topo, the greatest midnight movie of all time, has never been released on tape or DVD. Same for the others. The reason? A disagreement between Jodorowsky and Allen Klein—the man who managed the Stones and the Beatles, and who controlled the rights.

So there was Jodorowsky, sitting in Klein's chair in a corner office on the 41st floor. His smile and peaceful manner helped my hangover, and we had a good talk in front of the cameras. The interview was taped as an extra for the DVDs that will now appear, thanks to Alejandro and Allen hugging and making up after about thirty years of disagreement.

Jodorowsky looks wonderful. I guess you should if you're in the healing business, and that's what he does these days. He's into what he calls "psychomagic." But he didn't put a spell on Klein. I think Klein's kids did. They are fans of the Chilean surrealist's films, which are extraordinary and fabulously eccentric. Sort of Fellini meets Clint Eastwood with a little Bunuel, Dali, and Golden Dawn Society thrown in. I think these films will find a whole new generation ready to blow their minds on them. But Jodorowsky doesn't recommend blowing minds on other things. He's against drugs because illegal drugs support criminals and violent behavior. He's anti-violence, and the one thing he doesn't like about his old films today is that some animals were injured in their making. I told him that last night I was showing my wife The Holy Mountain and, when it came to the scene where a lot of frogs on a Mexican pyramid seem to get sacrificed, I said, "Don't worry, dear. No frogs were harmed in the making of this picture." But then when the pyramid blew up it was pretty clear I was wrong.

The man has definitely mellowed. He says the old Jodorowsky was an idealist, and that today he's a realist. But he's a funky realist who reads tarot cards for the President of Chile. She's the only politician he likes. He considers the rest of today's leaders idiots. He also expressed his dislike for actors, who are "idiots and monsters." He made his last film with Peter O'Toole, and that seems to have put him off actors permanently.

Jodorowsky is planning on making a new film next spring. He'll be eighty then, but he's still going strong. But this time he's not doing it with actors and he doesn't want to do it for money. He wants to show it for free. To heal the world.

So the New York Film Festival is in town. I haven't seen any films but have been caught up in peripheral action. Last night was a big dinner hosted by Paper magazine for Pedro Almodovar and his new film Volver, which is debuting at the festival. I was not seated at Almodovar's table, nor at Penelope Cruz's (and she looked hot with her hair up), Michael Stipe's, or Moby's, though I did chat with those eminent musicians. Fab Five Freddy got to sit with Rosie Perez. I'm not complaining. I shared a table with my lovely and the lovely Adi and Ange from ThreeAsFour, those talented and intrepid fashion designers. I'm big fans of theirs although I kind of miss Kai, the Fourth, who is now a solo designer. Kai always made any party more interesting with his hair-trigger social imagination. Anyway, next time Paper magazine better put me with a movie star or ELSE!

Here are my fake paparazzi pictures. Two of ThreeAsFour:

Moby and Paige Powell, who used to be Andy Warhol's favorite date, wearing vintage Stephen Sprouse. I miss Stephen and so does fashion. He was a real artist.

Van Neistat, just back from Paris:

Fab Five Freddy and Jordan Tesfay:

And there was an amusing floor show:

Her name is Julie and she was amusing. Unfortunately dinner was served about midnight. Great food as always at Indochine, but by then I'd had several vodka mojitos, breaking my no spirits rule, as the Ecco Domani was just not going down right. So this morning I wasn't really in the mood, but I had agreed to interview my old friend of decades ago, Alejandro Jodorowsky, who was also in town for the festival and for the release of his films El Topo, The Holy Mountain, and Fando and Lis on DVD. More on that meeting in my next post…

Gavin Brown, New York's most amusing art dealer, held a dinner the other night in the space over his downtown gallery. I think he threw another dinner party the next night. Giving dinners is his latest enthusiasm, and it has a lot to do with the presence in New York of his friend Freddie von Escher. Mr. Von Escher's name is deceptive. He's a Sicilian. But Sicily was the crossroads of the Mediterranean for millennia, and his being deeply Sicilian is somehow connected to what makes Sicilian food the best. Sicilian culture is the product of a deep, fantastic collision of cultures, and when Freddie cooks dinner it's a sort of mini-history of Western Civilization that's enlightening, fascinating, and delicious.

Freddie, who works with museums in Europe and likes to combine the art of cooking and eating with the visual arts, fed us great Sicilian cheeses and sausages, anchovies with beautiful thin-sliced lemons, a salad of oranges, a pumpkin dish with balsamic vinegar, sandwiches made with ricotta and Sicilian tuna, pasta with tomato and fennel pollen, and fried veal steaks. Fantastic. Best of all was the extraordinary aromatic quality of the wild fennel pasta and Freddie's own brand of extra virgin olive oil.

Most good olive oils are made from blends of olives, but this one is a heady, unbelievably aromatic, silken oil made from a single variety. Wine enthusiasts are used to thrilling aroma, but I must say that I have never experienced a synergy of taste and smell that was richer than that provided by Freddie's oil, his wild fennel pollen sauce, and the delicious red wine he offered. I came away with a bottle of this limited-edition oil (120/144) and I plan to center some great meals around it.

Gavin Brown was the perfect host, gathering together a congenial and scintillating group that drank prosecco under the stars and the neon of the FedEx Building on his terrace and dined with distinction in his cleverly "crudo" upstairs room.

Here's Gavin with foxy artist Hope Atherton:

And the philosophical hotelier Sean McPherson with Visionaire's alluringly demure Cecilia Dean:

And the droll, devil-may-care painter John Tremblay, whose conversation is less abstract but no less compelling than his work.

So to continue my account of last week's adventures, I was back in Dublin after an absence of many years, and although I knew that things would be different I was still surprised to observe first-hand just how much different. I have actually visited Ireland several times in recent years, but I'd landed in Shannon and headed west, playing golf and checking out the cuisine upgrades. I remembered Dublin as poor but congenial, and it conjured up memories of diesel fumes and begging children and pub behavior that sometimes seemed to border on aggression. Now I have replaced the smelly buses and needy kids with memories of chic Italian restaurants, the woodwork in Bono's Clarence Hotel, and the dazzling houses overlooking the sea at Dalkey. You still see guys walking around in NASCAR jackets who look like they might like to punch you after a few Budweisers (yes, Bud's big there), but generally this is a place where civilization is on the rise.

A few signs: The beer technicians are always on call, making sure that the world's best Guinness is available under ideal conditions.

Great architecture hasn't been torn down yet to make way for Frank Gehry monstrosities.

Much funky stuff remains.

Here are McDermott and McGough at a chic, undisclosed location in Dalkey, overlooking the Bay of Dublin. Sorrento has nothing on the view here.

New York has great garbage. It's amazing what rich people throw out. When I first moved here, I had numerous items in my apartment that I'd found discarded on the street, including a great round peach-colored art deco mirror. It was chipped a bit, so I hung it so that it dipped just below the sideboard I placed it over. I found an excellent ladder-back chair with a great needlepoint seat on Lafayette Street about ten years ago. And then there's my Baccarat shoe. Maybe this was tossed by a gambler who'd just joined a 12-step club, but I couldn't believe it when I found this lovely item on the curb. It adds a real James Bond character to poker night. Baccarat looks great, because of the shoe, and when you're wearing a tux and playing against an evil genius named "Le Chiffre," it's most intriguing. It is also one of the simplest casino games and little strategy is required, so after several martinis shaken not stirred it can be a relatively safe option. When I'm not using my shoe for Baccarat or Chemin de Fer, it's the perfect thing to hold a few golf balls for putting practice on the oriental rug.

In June the documentary film TV Party, which documents my late-seventies/early-eighties cable show Glenn O'Brien's TV Party, the show David Letterman called "the greatest TV show ever," arrived in the nation's video stores on DVD—released by MVD (Music Video Distributors). Then in August four new DVD compilations hit the stores, each with a single one-hour show and about a half-hour of highlights from other shows—featuring such personalities as Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Nile Rodgers of Chic, Fred Schneider of the B-52s, David Byrne, Jean-Michel Basquiat, John Lurie, P-Funk's George Clinton, Mick Jones of the Clash, Klaus Nomi, Richard Sohl and the Patti Smith Group, Fab Five Freddy, and fashion photographer Steven Meisel, among many others. To celebrate I threw a little cocktail party at the garden of the Soho Grand Hotel. Among those attending were Chris Stein, Debbie Harry, James Chance, Fred Schneider, director Charlie Ahearn, artists Tom Sachs, Donald Sultan, Spencer Sweeney and Duncan Hannah, Robert Arron of the Wyclef Jean Band, fashion mogul Andy Spade, art dealers Jeffrey Deitch and Patrick Fox, star rock photographers Kate Simon, Roberta Bayley, Bob Gruen and Leee Black Childers, writers Gary Indiana and Michael Gross, editor David Hershkovits, and Parisian punk legend Edwige Bellmore. Here are a few pictures from the evening.