The Eight-Day Week: March 4 — 11

Wednesday, March 4

It’s March, mugwumps! And you know what that means: only four months till we can cast off these face-swallowing scarves and sweater blankets and start walking around practically naked—us ladies, that is!—while the mensfolk start to sweat through the back of their work shirts. (By then, we predict they’ll do anything in their work shirts!) In the meantime, let’s wallow some more? Three nice lady fiction writers convene at the Museum of Jewish Heritage to discuss how 9/11 influenced their writing. They are: Claire Messud, wife of New Yorker book critic James Wood and author of The Emperor’s Children—that book about striving overeducated writers; Siri Hustvedt, Brooklyn novelist and wife of Paul Auster; and Deborah Eisenberg, the short-story writer and one-half of the best intellectual couple of all, with partner of comic genius Wallace Shawn, a man seared into our consciousness years ago—many, many, many times—by The Princess Bride! But getting back to materialism! Alexander McQueen, freaky Brit and onetime failed Gwyneth Paltrow Oscar dress designer (gauzy black, bleary boobies; you know the one!), pulls a 2007 and lands at Target, making us momentarily forget that cheap, disposable clothing is no longer morally acceptable. (Nonetheless: zipped leggings! Studded jackets! Ahhh! Is that consumeristic fervor we feel?)

[Contemporary novelists discuss the influence of 9/11 on their writing, Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place, 7 p.m., www.mjhnyc.org; Alexander McQueen at Target, www.target.com for store locations]

Thursday, March 5

And they say drugs’ll kill you! Gentlemanly punk legend Lou Reed and his equally fascinating lady love, performance artist and musician Laurie Anderson, are everywhere these days! Tonight, Ms. Anderson is honored at a gala for the Soho arts hub Location One (she will also provide the evening’s entertainment). In attendance: stars of the recently burst art bubble, including Richard Prince (an artist when not designing Louis Vuitton bags), gallerist Matthew Marks, artist Martha Rosler and performance artist Marina Abramović (not to be confused with Russian gazillionaire art collector Roman Abramovich), and, curiously, the wise feminist Gloria Steinem. (How long can CBGB keep selling tarp green Italian silk crewneck sweaters, anyways, we ask?)

[Location One 10^th Anniversary Benefit Gala, 26 Greene Street, 7 p.m., 212-334-3347]

Friday, March 6

Ah, Friday, the day New York once nursed hangovers by staying in or going to the movies (now we nurse our pocketbooks). The Jim Jarmusch–produced Explicit Ills opens at the Angelika—always good for an overpriced bran muffin—starring genius Paul Dano of There Will Be Blood and hot Rosario Dawson. (We know: She’s from the Lower East Side!) Unfortunately, it’s about “love, drugs and poverty in Philadelphia.” But it’s either this or the New York Pops playing the music from James Bond at Carnegie Hall … Whoosh! Our big cheese editor just darted out the door, bound for his peach-melba-themed Vespa, whistling “The Spy Who Loved Me.”

[Explicit Ills at the Angelika, 18 West Houston Street, www.angelikafilmcenter.com for show times; the New York Pops at Carnegie Hall, 881 Seven^th Avenue, 8 p.m., www.carnegiehall.org]

Saturday, March 7

“We felt that everybody has a bridesmaids dress in their closet, right, and for the most part they will never wear them again, not because they’re so unattractive but because they have five other girlfriends who have the same dress,” said Modern Bride publisher Jennifer Hicks, who was calling to talk about an event her magazine is throwing at the Hammerstein Ballroom wherein former bridesmaids dispense of overpriced taffeta confections for the benefit of … high-school girls’ proms—which is clearly where these dresses belonged in the first place! “Especially in these economic times, a bridesmaid dress could really work beautifully for a prom,” continued Ms. Hicks. (And to think we thought matching confections had gone the way of sex on the wedding night!) “What we’re hearing is that girls are not cutting back on their wedding dress, their ring or their honeymoon. They’re cutting back on invitations, on the number of people invited, party favors, things that really will not affect them personally as much.” (Atta girls!) And then, Dear Reader, Ms. Hicks offered the startling revelation that Tom Brady has officially been taken off the market by that Brazilian (bzzzzzz!) supermodel who insists on showing up to brunch at Extra Virgin in the West Village and pretending to eat French Toast. “She had three dogs dressed in Dolce,” said Ms. Hicks. “I heard it this morning.” Sniff, sniff, next! The hundreds of young downtown artists studying at N.Y.U. (site of that recently squelched dining hall rebellion; this ain’t the ’60s, kids!) stage an open studios day, complete with music from the band Chairlift (ask your unpaid intern who they are). “I’m a professor there, I teach, the kids are great, and I enjoy it a lot,” said artist-about-town Ross Bleckner, who helped plan the event. “Obviously, they’re still in a place in their lives where they’re working with different issues and different media, trying to find out where it is they want to go, which is also part of the fun, the ad-hoc experimental, you know, messy, not-ready-for-prime-time feeling. Which is what a school should be.” Speaking of should: Someone tell these young idealists to become bankruptcy lawyers instead! “These kids know they did not enter a field where there’s job security,” said Mr. Bleckner. He himself will show his work in Aspen (swoosh!) in March, after which “I’m working on the first-ever art exhibition at the United Nations, and it’s going to be the work of former child soldiers and former sex slaves that are being rehabilitated,” he said. “I worked with them at a refugee camp in Uganda … the work is absolutely stupendous! I’m being appointed the first-ever artist goodwill ambassador. By the secretary general. The U.N.’s all geared up. What can I say, I got very attached to these kids.”