The New York World

I’m getting married this summer and thought it might be a good idea to speak with some gentlemen who I suspected could give me some pointers.

It was raining on a Friday morning when I met Bo Dietl at his office on the 50th floor of One Penn Plaza. Despite some shreds of cloud, Mr. Dietl—a homicide detective turned security consultant and media darling—had a clear view of the city below and, off in the distance, in the middle of the choppy harbor, the Statue of Liberty. Every surface of his office seemed to be covered with awards and framed pictures of Mr. Dietl with folks like O.J. Simpson and Bill Clinton. The day before, Staten Island Congressman Vito Fossella had admitted to having an extramarital affair resulting in a secret love child. “Poh, Baby!” blared an issue of the New York Post resting on a nearby chair.

“You know what I think the problem with relationships is?” said Mr. Dietl. “People search real, real hard for love, and the word ‘love’ is passed out—like my daughter, her friends, say, ‘Goodbye, I love you.’ Love, love, love—the word ‘love’ is thrown around too easily.”

He leaned back in his leather chair. He wore a blue shirt—made from the best Egyptian cotton, he told me—with a white collar. His cuff links were square sapphires lined with diamonds. On his hip, he wore a holstered Glock pistol. His round face was deeply tanned, tight and shiny, enhanced by well-kept white stubble.

“It’s nice to say you love someone,” Mr. Dietl continued. “But the truth of the matter is I’m 57 years old, and I never felt love until maybe I was 53 years old, and I was through one marriage, and I had two children through marriage, and I wasn’t exactly the best husband in the world, and what with my job being a New York homicide detective, and with all the rah-rah’s running around—I was a bad boy, I was a cheater, admittedly, and I wasn’t happy.”

Like the congressman from Staten Island, Mr. Dietl said he himself had a secret love child. Or two.

He went on, noting that he’s seen many good marriages torn apart by unnecessary adulterous affairs, frequently committed by bored, pampered wives. The key to a relationship, he told me, is communication. Especially in the bedroom.

“When you are making love, ask her what she likes: ‘Is this good?’” said Mr. Dietl. “Don’t think that because you are endowed with a large penis, you’re jumping on top and ramming and ramming, that you can make her feel great. You know the whole thing is about her feeling good.”

He gave me a serious look. “There are a lot of women,” he said, “who are not reaching orgasms.”

“People think it’s all about how long you do it, and this size bullshit,” he said. “You know what? Size doesn’t matter. … The majority of the women are not into 12- or 14-inch penises because it hurts them. When you are making love, and you have aroused her sexually, to that plateau, where every part of it is romantic, where you kiss all over the body from her head to her feet—that’s lovemaking. Not jumping on top and ram-a-dama ding-dong—that don’t mean crap.”

Mr. Dietl said he began dating his fiancée, Margo, seven years ago, but only four years ago did he realize that he was in love.

“To me, being in love with someone is you wake up, you go to sleep, thinking about that person,” he said. “She’s my best friend, she’s my soul mate, we think the same. The only problem is that she has the same personality as mine, so when there’s an argument, there’s no give, it’s like a car crash, head on. But I think we are starting to handle it, because we understand each others’ personalities.”

He gestured at a calendar girl in a bikini on the wall. “I can look at a Playboy playmate, 19-, 20-year-old, a hot, young tight-body babe, and you know, that’s there, that’s there, it looks good, and I’m a man. But if I weigh it out, and I weigh it with what I have …” He added that people shouldn’t be afraid of incorporating role-playing and pornography into their sex lives to keep things fresh.

I emerged from One Penn Plaza feeling woozy. Back at my office, I phoned someone who might also have some wise words on marriage, Raoul Felder, the famous divorce lawyer.

“You want my advice on marriage?” he said. “I got three words: Pre. Nuptial. Agreement.”

“The divorces are getting uglier, because there’s a certain quantum of anger in these relationships, and because divorce is becoming basically no-fault, they end up fighting about kids and money. And they get much meaner and tougher,” said Mr. Felder, 71.

And his own marriage? He and his wife are still married. What’s the secret?

“Fear. My wife is a divorce lawyer. I gotta run, kid.” Next Page >

Think of a book club, and the image that comes to mind is one of a group of middle-aged women in a suburban living room, munching on crudités and sipping white wine, talking about The Kite Runner for 20 minutes and then sliding effortlessly into gossip about the markers of suburban ennui: children, husbands, lovers (always other people’s, of course), school boards, nosy neighbors, nosier bosses, and how Linda has lost so much weight since the divorce, maybe we should say something?

My mother has been in such a book club for over 20 years. It meets on the first Monday of every month, and twice a year each member brings in a list of books for the following six months, and then all the women vote. (Paperbacks only, please!) I personally have been in at least four failed book clubs, so the thought of being in one for 20 years seems almost quixotic. Most recently, a co-worker and I decided on a New York-themed book club; we made it through some John Cheever short stories, The Age of Innocence and Washington Square before giving up.

But the book club that met the other evening at the Upper East Side apartment of Susan and Charles Avery Fisher—who is better known as Chip and is the son of Avery Fisher, for whom the hall in Lincoln Center is named—did not seem like the sort of book club that gives up easily. Mr. Fisher, who is 52, runs a company that manufactures a “cranial stimulator,” which delivers an electrical current to the brains of patients suffering from depression; he has also owned a catering company, a cookware store and an Upper East Side ice cream shop called Mr. Chips.

Mr. Fisher started his book club three years ago; it meets only four times a year, always on a Monday evening, in the vast living room of his apartment at Fifth Avenue and 87th Street. (It is the kind of living room where one hardly notices the grand piano in the corner.) Only nonfiction books are read. “I really don’t like fiction,” Mr. Fisher said. “It’s just not my style. I read it occasionally, but it doesn’t really interest me.”

Mr. Fisher often gets the books’ authors to pay a visit to the book club to discuss their books, and usually he invites them back as members. Michael Gross joined after the club read 740 Park, as did Karen Abbott after the club read her book Sin in the Second City, about sisters who ran a Chicago bordello in the early 1900s. “Most authors have been flattered,” Mr. Fisher said. “They rather like the chance to hear what people in a small book club say.” Gay and Nan Talese are on Mr. Fisher’s e-mail list because they are personal friends, though they do not usually attend.

“We have a no-bullshit rule,” Mr. Fisher told The Observer. “You can come if you haven’t read the book, but you can’t bullshit.” Mr. Fisher is on the library committee at the University Club, where he likes to play squash and backgammon. At the meeting the other evening was a new member, Peter Otto, who is one of Mr. Fisher’s backgammon and squash sparring partners. Before the others arrived, Mr. Otto and Mr. Fisher discussed the pro-am (professional-amateur) tournament taking place at the club. Squash doubles, they told me, is quite challenging.

The book under discussion that night was Einstein: His Life and Universe, by former Time managing editor (and current columnist) Walter Isaacson. Mr. Isaacson was, sadly, out of the country, although Mr. Fisher said he had kindly responded to e-mails, and there had been a brief, though ultimately unfruitful, discussion of doing some sort of book club conference call with Mr. Isaacson.

Mr. Fisher’s book club follows a rather set schedule. Members are welcome at the Fishers’ beginning at 7 o’clock, when they may have a cocktail or a glass of wine. (Jackets and bags go in the library.) By 7:30 or so, dinner—made by the Fishers’ housekeeper—is served, buffet-style, on a long table in the dining room, and then eaten on laps in the living room. The other night, there was a tasty curried chicken, macaroni and salad, and two tarts for dessert. When the grandfather clock in the corner chimes 8, it is time for the discussion to begin.

“I’m not a control freak,” Mr. Fisher said, “but I have a routine that works. It’s pleasing for me and it’s not annoying to anyone. Most book clubs meet 10 to 12 times a year. I think that’s a punishing schedule.”

The members in attendance that evening were an Upper East Side hodgepodge; they included Georgia Shreve, the poet and writer who sold her duplex penthouse in Mr. Fisher’s building for a reported $46 million in December; Mr. Gross’s wife, Barbara Hodes, who designs knitwear (Mr. Gross was attending the PEN Awards gala at the Museum of Natural History that evening); an arts and fashion writer named Marcia Sherrill; handbag designer-turned-real estate agent Carey Adina Karmel; art appraiser Catchia Goggin; and lawyer Blake Hornick, who went to overnight camp with Mr. Fisher.

“We’re very liberal about who comes,” Mr. Fisher said. “It’s usually friends of friends. We only had one guy who got kicked out. He was a lawyer we knew. Basically, the first meeting he came to, he had a list of comments about the book. It was like preparing a brief for a litigation trial. I sort of didn’t comment on it, but he got the idea that it wasn’t a great idea. Next Page >

“I believe I’m the first person ever to bum a cigarette on the Internet,” reveals Ned Henly, a graphic designer in Forest Hills, Queens. “I met a guy named ‘dogelliott’ on MySpace. He lives in Cleveland and has a complete collection of the original Punk magazine—but he also loves techno! We began to have long cyber-conversations, and one day I asked him: ‘Do you have a spare cigarette?’

“‘Sure,’ dogelliott replies, and he drops an unfiltered Marlboro in an envelope and mails it to me. Two days later, I pull out the cigarette and light up—while listening to Eat Static, the underrated glam-techno band! It was like being the first man to orbit the moon!” Next Page >

I spoke to Archimedes J. Selby, inventor of the six-sided television. I visited him in his loft in Dumbo.

Sparrow: So this is your six-sided television.

Selby: One of them, yes.

Sparrow: It’s a cube. When I heard ‘six-sided television,’ I didn’t picture a box.

Selby: It’s perfectly cubical. I call it ‘Total TV.’

Sparrow: It must have taken you a long time to perfect.

Selby: Actually, it’s not that difficult to distribute the television signal to six screens simultaneously. All you need is a dual-sided polarity catheter, really.

Sparrow: The problem is watching six screens simultaneously.

Selby: Yes. On the other hand, it makes TV much more sculptural.

Sparrow: What about the bottom of the cube? How do you see that?

Selby: Of course, you don’t have to watch it. But if you want to, you can suspend the TV from a wire, or place it on a glass table.

Sparrow: Have you encountered any surprises yet, in your inventing ?

Selby: I’ve built three Total TVs so far, and everyone seems to like the black-and-white one! Particularly when I show movies from the ’30s. Watching Ronald Colman wander around six sides of a cube pleases everyone.

Sparrow: Is your real name Archimedes?

Selby: Yes, my father named me that. Perhaps that’s why I became an inventor.

Sparrow: What did Archimedes do?

Selby: He was born in approximately 287 B.C.E. in Syracuse, Sicily. Archimedes invented compound pulley systems, war machines and the planetarium. He began the study of hydrostatics and pycnometry (the measurement of volume or density of an object).

Sparrow: Well, you’ve certainly lived up to your name!

Selby: Thanks. Next Page >

“Why do you keep replying, ‘Thank you, but we already have plans for that evening,’ Marsha, when you know we’re free?”

“It’s just an excuse, Mauro. I just want to avoid an invitation by boring people.”

“Yes, but it sounds too … How can I say? Grandiose to me. In Italy we don’t make plans. I mean, not normal people. The government, maybe, sometimes. At least they boast it, to impress voters and pretend they are in charge. But ordinary people …”

“We are not ordinary. We’re supposed to have plans in our life. They can’t invite us like that, on the snatch, impromptu, with only a few days’ notice.”

Marsha, my Upper East Side girlfriend, can’t understand how Italians can survive always improvising—without inviting, nor making theater reservations or booking restaurants one month in advance.

“Come on, Marsha, don’t play it big. Don’t act precious. If one of my Italian friends calls us to go out on that same evening, we don’t have to invent ‘plans’ for fear of showing that our life is empty. You know we love to spend most of our evenings here, sitting in front of the TV. Actually, upgrading our cable TV menu has flooded us with wonderful movies, and improved my English, although it has almost killed our social life…”

“That was your idea.”

“No, no, no, darling, my idea was just to replace a crummy old little TV set with something civilized.”

“Yes, but then you invaded our sitting room with a monster, this humongous 42 inches plasma. Where the hell am I supposed to place food and beverage for our next parties?”

“Actually, I haven’t finished yet.”

“I know. Don’t come up with that again. No way. Don’t get me started on your freaking sound system with wires all over the place. Don’t even raise the subject.”

“But Marsha, that’s the normal consequence of buying a large-screen TV. What do we make of it, if the sound is not comparable to the vision, at the same excellence level?”

“It’s already stereo.”

“We’re talking ‘home cinema’ here, milady. … ‘Dolby Surround system.’ Remember the private screening we were invited to by the Italian distributor of Woody Allen’s Scoop in his luxurious Palazzo Borghese apartment in Rome?”

“Gee, but that was another planet. They are professionals, that’s their field. We are not movie geeks. Come on.”

“I just saw a five channels 400 dollars sound system in the store near my Rizzoli Bookstore office, on 57th Street.”

“I told you: I don’t want any of your ‘surround’ sound around here. Not that I don’t appreciate your will for improvement, but the only thing I’ll be surrounded by will be wires. See this? They’re already mushrooming all over: the TV cable, the connection to the DVD, the wire for the pay-TV box, the high-speed Internet, the telephone ... There’s such an intricated bush under the plasma screen. It was supposed to save room, but now it’s invading us.”

“It’s wireless.”

“What?”

“Yes, wireless.”

“You mean the five speakers come without wires?”

“Yeah … kind of.”

“Kind of what? The last time we had something wireless around, it was that pirate neighbor of us who stole from our wi-max, getting connected for free and making us pay for his all-night porno browsing and wanderings around the Net.”

“We discovered that almost immediately.”

“Yes, after some wonderful astronomical bills … You don’t like flat rates, do you?”

“The sound system is almost totally wireless, Marsha, I swear.”

“What do you mean ‘almost’? ‘Almost totally’ sounds sooo Italian. Like ‘Almost pregnant’.”

“The rear speakers are wireless.”

“You mean two out of five.” Next Page >

Was in the presence of a stunning Latina last night. Staring at her shoulders and back. Also met Fiona Apple. She’s either shy or was averting her eyes from the sight of me, couldn’t tell.

Dude, how many days did you wait until you fired up some porn when you got your HDTV? Tempted to now, but Hilly’s in a Really Bad Mood.

Did I already mention that my advice for Wes Anderson would be to rent Gallipoli before he steals another two hours from my life? See, it’s not only visually beautiful, it’s spiritual, too. Has something to say. Unlike the Darjeeling Limited which looks good here and there but sucks donkey balls.

I’d almost be disappointed if they’re weren’t a lot of racist crackers at NASCAR races in scary ass parts of the South.

You know, you could go purchase some Metamucil of your own right now, much as I’d like to spot ya some of mine.

Damn. Hate having to remember me dancing the night before. Played air guitar and air drums. Feel like a jackass now.

At New York Athletic Club earlier, in this little private room next to the Colonial Room. Think you not only have to be a member but a war veteran to go in there. In the corner by the card table they got pictures of maybe 40 vets on one wall and on the other, a big display of Nazi memorabilia, swastikas—stuff taken from German soldiers, but still weird. No plaque explaining what’s up.

Sure I’d bone Samantha Power if she walked into my room right now with a bong and a fistful of Viagra. Probably bone just about anyone named Samantha.

Hey—no real reason to write “El Ay.” Save yourself some time by writing “L.A.” or even better, “LA.”

Interviewed a Mistress Brie once. Told me she took a dump on a famous rock star at Pandora’s Box. Off the record statute expires after ten years with that kinda stuff.

I once told Sloane right after a normal chat one night that she made me pre-ejaculate in my pants. Other than that, no conflict of interest.

Here’s my attitude since you asked: women get scared and lonely, have needs, issues, feel abandoned and stuff. Daddy and so on. So be nice to em, give em a hug, tell em it’s okay, cheer em up. Sure, fuck with their minds a little—they like it—but then later on give em a nice back massage.

Thinking about changing my name to Firefox. Mozilla Firefox.

Dude, I can’t find Nat’l Geographic Channel.

Boulder sucks. Everyone is perfect there. Perfect hippies, everyone’s cool and groovy and is in great outdoor shape. Hey, we’re going rock climbing, you in? Fuck you, Tripp. And fuck you Sandy, pseudo-communist. Those pics say it all. No way you get to score either of those chicks with the innertubes. Sure, they’ll dance with you at the String Cheese show, but you’ll get nada. Now go whip one up in your tent.

You’re a scallops guy if they’re done right. Like saying you’re not a chocolate chunk or olives guy. But you will eat crabs which are like giant bugs.

Basically you guys have gotten to the point where you can’t live without music. You’re addicts. No music and you’re all sad. I want my music, where’s my music, oh I need my music, my precious music.

Sorry, nothing gay about liking Judy Garland. She’s for everyone. Was James Mason or Gene Kelly gay for being in movies with her? No. Were Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin gay for singing with her? She was a member of the Rat Pack. Takin’ her back from the gays.

Can’t stop watching this. Pretty crazy at the end when they break out the rubberbands: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce8nfWyX7P4

I think I’d like to ban the use of “mmm-kay” and “for realsy”.

Sick of these puritans, all this schadenfreude. Spitzer was tired of boning his wife or vice versa, he was stressed, needed some, got some—what’s the big deal? What kind of country are we living in? If you had his hectic schedule wouldn’t you like a Penthouse Pet to swing by your hotel room once a month, pay her a grando? For that he has to step down? He got a little addicted to really good quality vagina.

Never knew Ted Turner was that insane. He’s on Charlie Rose.

Agree with you she has aura of 70’s anchor slut. Not so sure she has a big old hairy bush and wears see through underwear. But I’m with you on never listening to a single thing she says, which is good because she’s on CNN. Wonder why she’s got that banana tattoed on her ankle. Any theories?

Feel pretty wise and think I got a solid grasp of reality, good “feel for the moment,” good at reading people’s minds, pretty good at Jeopardy!—but worry I got “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” going on.

Wait. You think Clinton is a sex addict cause he fucks anything that moves but Spitzer isn’t cause he plans ahead? You may be right, but I think they both got the “me need pussy now” trance.

Woke up this morning feeling GREAT. Practically skipping around the pad. Know why? B12 patch. They cost $29 now.

Almost finished with the regular classic big container of Metamucil which I purchased by accident. Very psyched cause now I can get some Orange Flave. Sure does work too. Whooooshhhh! No grunting.

Dexys were great? Question: When, how did all you come to rediscover Dexys Midnight Runners? Don’t tell me you were saying this 10-20 years ago, cause I never heard you ever even mention the band. What started this? Smell a rat. Next Page >

The revelation that Eliot Spitzer was a connoisseur of $1,000-an-hour prostitutes hit New York like one of those bolts of lightning in a cartoon that splits open the pavement in two perfectly perforated halves. No one could believe it. Now, a month after he ’fessed up and resigned, a crater in the proverbial town square continues to smoke and belch. For example: His 22-year-old hooker du jour, Ashley Dupré, becomes a millionaire off downloads of her song on MySpace and is offered six figures to pose for Penthouse. District Attorney Robert Morgenthau publicly defends his former prosecutor, saying, “I think he has been punished enough.” Mr. Spitzer and his wife, Silda, meanwhile, lay low. And men and women, couples and singles, are left to wonder: Just how many men in New York are paying for sex?

Last Thursday I went to Starbucks with one of Manhattan’s former top-dollar madams to get some answers. We met first at her attorney’s office to set the ground rules. No names. Let’s call her Jane!  read more » Next Page >

The other weekend I went to a housewarming party that an editor I know was throwing in Prospect Heights. It was one of those parties where everyone there is someone you’ve seen at another media party but never hung out with one-on-one and the conversations tend to veer toward industry gossip (stuff like: “Well, I’m considering taking the editor-at-large position”), what I like to call byline stalking (“I loved your profile of Chelsea Clinton, but your blog post on your corner deli was hysterical”) and not-so-subtle undermining (“That Web site seems like a really good place for you right now”).

One woman, who is always wearing the types of dresses I wish I owned because they seem perfectly suited to media parties—simple, black, vaguely vintagey-looking, knee-length, very flattering—made a beeline for me.  read more » Next Page >

On Saturday, March 29, Sanaa Sondhi’s short story “The Story of the Girls That Love to Dance and Love Each Other” was brought to life by 15 New York improv actors on a stage in the basement of the Drama Book Shop on West 40th Street in Manhattan. It was a sold-out show—about 60 people. Ms. Sondhi, the author, wore a yellow dress and sat in the front row. She was a little nervous. She had just turned 5 years old.

Standing in the back of theater, Jamie Salka—31, medium height, short brown hair, pointy nose, intense eyes with matching dark circles underneath—was grinning in a way that many of the youngsters in the audience might associate with a mad scientist.  read more » Next Page >

Connolly’s Bar and Restaurant on 47th between 5th and Madison avenues is the official home of Black 47, a politically charged Irish rock band, whose name is derived from the worst year of the Great Irish Famine, 1847. They play every Saturday night. During the week, the bar is the de facto Bear Stearns after-work hangout: Some 6,000 employees of the fallen bank work in the $1.5 billion, 45-story, granite-and-glass octagonal tower around the corner.

“On an average night there would be between 20 and 30 Bear guys,” said a 23-year-old Bear man we’ll call Tommy. He works on the investment banking side and has been a Connolly’s regular since he started at Bear a year ago. He said that on Friday, March 14, when it was pretty clear that the bank was heading south, and fast, more than 100 Bear employees, mostly men, gathered among the mahogany, rich leather and lighted green clover leaves of the bar.  read more » Next Page >

The business-lunch crowd was beginning to trickle in around 12:30 p.m. on a recent afternoon at El Rio Grande, the Murray Hill restaurant where the gossip columnist Liz Smith is a regular (she lives upstairs). Ms. Smith, who is 85, has been writing gossip for nearly 32 years, and recently helped start a Web site for women over 40 that is, perhaps, where the mothers of the saucy lasses of the women’s blog Jezebel might hang out online. The site, Wowowow.com, stands for Women on the Web, and Ms. Smith’s partners in the venture read like a Who’s Who of the well preserved and the powerful: advertising guru Mary Wells; Joni Evans, who used to be the president of Simon & Schuster; Lesley Stahl, the 60 Minutes reporter; and Peggy Noonan, the conservative columnist.  read more » Next Page >

Heathcliff Felix Alastair Euan Rellie turns 5 on July 31. He was born at Saint Vincent’s Hospital downtown. He’s in his final year of preschool at the West Village Nursery School. He collects the Power Rangers Space Patrol Delta figurines, which are much better than the new series, which are called Jungle Fury. He is almost four feet tall, loves to sing and is fond of creating imaginary battlefields involving lasers and lava on chairs or tabletops. Occasionally he turns up at a fashion show or a fund-raiser or a party with his parents, Lucy Sykes and Euan Rellie. So far he has four pages of pictures on patrickmcmullan.com. He’s catching up with his parents, who between them have around 50.

Heathy, as they call him, can count up to 10 in both Spanish and French. He begrudgingly performed this task for me on Feb. 1, during Fashion Week while sitting in mummy’s lap in the front row of the Rag & Bone show. He had brought a toy plane to the show.  read more » Next Page >

Superdelegates

Many citizens ask: “What exactly are the superdelegates?” Believe it or not, they were originally ordinary delegates, until they were exposed to cosmic rays, or in some cases bitten by a radioactive wasp, which gave them unusual powers. Some can run at super speed; others breathe underwater. Certain mutant superdelegates burst into flame at will. The entire delegation from Rhode Island, for example, can walk through walls. Three of the superdelegates from Hawaii can control wind currents. And Ted Kennedy can shrink to the size of an atom.

Hopefully these superdelegates will remember that “with great power comes great Democratic responsibility”!

How Barack Obama Will Win the Presidential Election

John McCain seems difficult to beat. He’s charming, outspoken, a war hero—and white. But he has one fatal flaw, like Oedipus, hero of the Sophocles tragedy. Perhaps you have read of his shortcoming, in news articles.

Anyway, here’s what will happen. At the first presidential debate, Senator Obama and Senator McCain will shake hands. A moment later, McCain will realize that his opponent has slipped him a penny—but not just any penny. This coin will date from 1913.

Now, John McCain is superstitious. He knows that 13 is an extremely dangerous number. Right there, on nationwide TV, the Republican candidate for president will begin to sweat, and quake with fear.

Barack Obama will win the election. Next Page >

The director of a Norwegian museum claimed yesterday to have discovered cartoons drawn by Adolf Hitler during the Second World War.

William Hakvaag, the director of a war museum in northern Norway, said he found the drawings hidden in a painting signed “A. Hitler” that he bought at an auction in Germany.

He found colored cartoons of the characters Bashful and Doc from the 1937 Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which were signed A.H., and an unsigned sketch of Pinocchio as he appeared in the 1940 Disney film.

—The Daily Telegraph (U.K.), 2/23/08

“Woodland Nymph Drinking Camomile Tea,”

B. Mussolini, ink on death warrant, 1937.

The Duce of Italy by 1925, Benito Mussolini was central to the development of the Futurist aesthetic, but in his spare time he liked nothing better than to draw Pre-Raphaelite woodland nymphs frolicking in idealized northern European glades.

Est. value: $120,000.

“Mobutu Sese Seko (The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, goes from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake),”

M. Sese Seko, Kodak color print, 1978.

The dictator in a Nehru jacket with unidentified woman.

Est. value: $40,000.

“The Peabody Girls in Their Ongoing Battle with the Puff-Puff Demons, in the Land of Sparrowon,”

N. Ceaucescu, notes and illustrations for a projected epic, ink, watercolor and collage on paper, 1973.

Est. value: $315,000.

“Untitled (Robin Hood Beating Up Spiderman),”

Kim J. I., ink and crayon on paper, 2002. Work by this reclusive genius appears on the market very rarely. This piece is in mint condition and expected to go quickly.

Est. value: $300,000.

“Six Million Earth Spirits Paying Tribute to Turkmenbashi,”

Turkmenbashi, gold, silver, bronze, styrofoam, conch shells and enamel, 2003.

Est. value: $2 million.

“Well-Endowed Horse,”

H. Selassie, charcoal on gold brick, 1940.

Haile Selassie, the last emperor of Ethiopia, inscribed this powerful comment on Western ideas about African masculinity while in exile at Fairfield House in Bath, England.

Est. value: $50,000.

“Untitled (Manuel with a Jetpack),”

M. Noriega, pencil on toilet paper, 1995.

One of a series of jetpack drawings produced in the Federal Correctional Institution, Miami, Florida.

Est. value: $80,000.

“Untitled (Flowers, rainbows, squiggly lines),”

P. Pot, colored marker and glitter glue on banana leaf, 1981.

Though much reviled in the West, Pot had a surprisingly whimsical side, as demonstrated by this bubbly
confection.

Est. value: $45,000.

“Shirley Temple with Enormous Knockers,”

J. Perón, ink on signed photograph, 1947.

A pin-up page from Starscreen magazine, inscribed by the actress to Mr. Perón and ornamented with his own hand-drawn embellishment.

Est. value: $600,000.

“Sad Clown Triumphantly Invading Israel,”

I. Amin Dada, living tableau, 1974.

Est. value: $650,000.

“Glorious Statue of Turkmenbashi Holding Two-Pronged Turkmenbashi on Turkmenbashi Base,” and “Turkmenbashi in Turkmenbashi Square Under the Shadow of Turkmenbashi Turkmenbashi Receiving Turkmenbashi with Turkmenbashi,”

Turkmenbashi, oil on canvas (diptych), 1997. Est. value: $150,000.

“Chinese Maiden Gets a Little of the Old Turkmenbashi,”

Turkmenbashi, documentary video installation, 2001.

Often brutal in real life, Turkmenbashi shows a sure hand and a deft touch in this surprisingly tender evocation of cross- cultural misunderstanding and innocence lost.

Est. value: $275,000.

“Gnome Holiday,”

Vidkun Quisling, plaster, paint, reindeer leather and posterboard, 1943.

Est. value: $550,000.

“The World Is Everything That Is the Case (Red and Yellow II),”

F. Franco, acrylic on canvas, 1971.

During the late 60’s and early 70’s, Franco made his conclusive break with the highly symbolic, figurative work for which he had become famous a decade earlier and began producing paintings of luminous, unbounded color, often titled with phrases from Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell. This sterling example of his early explorations of color field work is considered one of his finest and has not changed hands since 1983.

Est. value: $22 million. Next Page >

New York has always been about jockeying for position, and being named to the board of the New York Public Library remains one of the jewels in an ever more exclusive crown; the current Board of Trustees counts among its members New Yorker editor David Remnick, Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., humorist Calvin Trillin and former Harvard president Neil Rudenstine, not to mention several captains of industry, chief among them Blackstone Group chairman Stephen Schwarzman, as well as socialites such as Annette de la Renta. The annual Library Lions gala took in $2.6 million last year. Its 33-member junior board—the Young Lions Committee—is headed up by actor Ethan Hawke, and board members include film director Wes Anderson, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, author Malcolm Gladwell and novelist Marisha Pessl, among other budding social and literary luminaries.

Absent a famous last name, or a fancy job, or an award-winning book, or simply a boatload of cash, a New York Public Library board position is a long shot for even the most devoted bibliophile. But what about … Brooklyn?  read more » Next Page >

The other day at this spinning class I go to sometimes, the instructor fiddled with the CD player as he told us to “crank it up five full turns,” which is really huffing-and-puffing stage for me. “Keisha, I’m putting on a song for you! You’ll like this one!” he said, indicating a woman in the second row of bikes. He pushed some buttons. Nothing. One woman in the front row turned around and squealed, “Keeeeeeisha!” Unfortunately the CD player wasn’t cooperating. “Keisha, I am so sorry,” the instructor said. “I left Mary at home! I’ll bring her in next time!”

Mary, in this case, being Mary J. Blige; Keisha, in this case, being the woman who sits on the same bike every time I’ve been to the class, next to the spiky-haired Asian woman. Then in front are the long-curly-haired woman who’s moving out of town; the super-buff woman who whoops and hollers throughout class; and the other woman who whoops and hollers throughout class. When one of them misses a class, the other ones ask them where they’ve been.  read more » Next Page >

Christopher Hitchens, the British-born journalist-turned-American citizen circa 2007, stopped by New York University’s journalism building recently. After class my friend Sophie and I tailed him to the elevator, where he was chatting with Steve Wasserman, former book review editor of The Los Angeles Times, and a lissome brunette with a book contract: stiff competition.

“Mr. Hitchens, I just want to tell you what a fan I am,” said Sophie, extending her hand. Catching her London accent, he smiled and said, “Well, you’re a long way from home. Would you like a drink?”  read more » Next Page >

Experts predict a recession, and you’ll have to learn to cope with pecuniary hardship. Here is some advice from a poverty-stricken poet.

The key to being poor is finding ways to not spend money. One of the best methods is taking walks. (Remember, you’re not shopping!) Certain walks even turn a profit. Every so often, one discovers money on the sidewalk. (Be careful that the person who dropped the money isn’t standing nearby. You’re not a thief; you’re just accepting gifts the universe offers.) Recently I found the most battered dime I’d ever seen, outside a natural foods store on Third Avenue. F.D.R. looked like he had leprosy. Nonetheless, this coin was still negotiable.

More often on a walk, one will find reading material: the New York Post, for example, with its thrilling game “Word Strength.” I seem to be the only person on earth who plays “Word Strength.” The idea is to find a given number of five-letter words within a larger word, like “dispensary.” Playing “Word Strength,” one learns a lot about language. For example, while anagramming “defrosted,” I discovered that both “doser” and “doter” are words. And I refreshed my memory about what an ester is. It’s an inorganic or organic acid in which at least one -OH (hydroxy) group is replaced by an -O-alkyl (alkoxy) group. And all the time I’m playing “Word Strength,” I’m spending no money!

Which brings me to one of the cheapest activities: education. Now is your opportunity to study those subjects you have always been curious about. The workings of the inner ear, for example. (I recommend the book Endoscopic Anatomy of the Middle Ear by Manfred Tschabitscher and Clemens Klug.) This is known as “recessionary learning.”

Or you can become an artist! The only reason you aren’t one now is because you fear you’re untalented. But if your only goal is not spending money, art is suddenly appealing. Of course, I don’t mean expensive marble sculpture. You must choose a cheapo art form. For example, choreography. You can spend long hours developing your dance notation. Here’s an example, using typography:

0 0

=

(( ~~~

This image shows two dancers—the two parentheses—approaching a 20 foot high sculpture of a sneering face. In the next scene, one of the dancers will rub her hand seductively across the huge mouth.

Here’s another idea. You’ve heard of flower arranging. Try pen arranging! Like many households, mine has a collection of pens by the phone in the living room. In our case, it’s in a jar from Arrowhead Mills Organic Crunchy Valencia Peanut Butter. The jar contains exactly 10 pens (one of which is shaped like a seahorse), plus a black Sharpie marker, 13 pencils (one red), two pen caps, a tiny scissors, an eraser and a box cutter. Finding the perfect arrangement of these utilitarian items is a pleasant and aesthetic exercise. Try it yourself, with your collection! See if an hour or two goes by, at zero cost!

The hardest part about being poor in this country is that all other Americans feel you are a failure. You can counteract this problem by reading great books from other cultures that value poverty. Let me suggest The Book of Proverbs. (Note: It’s in the Bible.) I just opened it at random to chapter 11, verse 2: “When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom.” And two verses later, we find: “Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivereth from death.” Almost every spiritual tradition values poverty, for some reason.

Anyway, don’t get too religious. The recession will only last a year or two. Next Page >

The door to DR. SELMAN’s office was closed and Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” could be heard playing. At 7 p.m. DR. SELMAN waved them in; HILLY showed off her new engagement ring.

DR. SELMAN: Let me check it out in the light.

HILLY: O.K. Well, it’s too big, so I have a ribbon around it.

Dr. SELMAN: Wow, nice.

GEORGE: Yeah, it’s over a hundred years old and it was my great-great-great grandmother’s. Or maybe my great-great grandmother’s. But I’m certain that my father gave it to my mother.

DR. SELMAN: How did you go about presenting it?

GEORGE: Well, last time we were here, she gave me the ultimatum, right? So I got pretty serious and she reiterated that threat a few times, said she was going to move out. So I got to work, swiped one of her rings and took it to Verdura, where it was sized. So then what happened?

HILLY: It was on December 19, it was about 7:14 p.m. and it was the best day ever. I was at work and George called and asked if I wanted to meet him for dinner. I was a little suspicious, because he said he made actual reservations at this place that we’ve been to before, Zarela, this delicious Mexican restaurant. So I got there first and then he showed up and we started chitchatting, and then he kind of cut me off and said, “Oh, Hilly, I’ve got something for you.” I said, “Oh really? What’s that?” And he pulled out this box that said “Verdura” on it and I got really excited. He put it in front of me and I said, “Can I open it?!” I opened it and inside there was a beeswax candle, and I said, “Oh, that looks cool.” And he said, “There’s something else in there,” and I pulled out this little pink pig. It was a little plastic key ring with a button on the pig’s head and when you press it, its snout lights up.

GEORGE: Got it at Gracious Home.

HILLY: And then he said “There’s something else,” and, you know, the box wasn’t so big, so I said, “What’s in there?” And I looked and I pulled out a pair of toe warmers, like you get at the drugstore. And I thought, Well, maybe there’s something underneath, but there wasn’t anything underneath. And I thought, Well that’s still really sweet, because he knows that my feet get really cold. And then I looked at him and he said, “I’m really sorry, you have to be patient with me, I just can’t do it right now.” And I stopped and I looked at the pig, and I was thinking about what I said before, that even if it was plastic, the ring didn’t have to be real or anything, it was about the gesture. And I couldn’t help thinking that the little piggy key holder was round, and somehow I could have that transformed into some kind of ring. And that’s when he said, “Just kidding!” And he pulled out another Verdura box and I opened it up and there it was! And it was glorious to behold. And I put it on my finger and I was so happy! So happy. And then this woman came over and tried to sing, and I pointed the piggy at her and she went away. And that same day, I got a Christmas card from Eddie Van Halen.

GEORGE: I decided that day we’d go to Zarela because I knew they had waiters who come over and sing opera and stuff, so I set that up, and right before I left to meet Hilly, I checked my favorite Web sites and there were some really negative, mean comments on one of them—about me. And it really jolted me. Here I’m about to go give this ring to Hilly, big moment in my life, in her life, and I have to read that I’m a selfish, narcissistic loser: “I’ve always considered George Gurley to be a complete loser.” And someone else compared me to the guy in Out of Africa who gave Meryl Streep syphilis.

DR. SELMAN: This was based on the column?

GEORGE: I think so. Maybe some other things, too. So I had these commenter comments in my head and this was terrible timing. Here I am, an hour away from getting engaged, and I have these comments in my head. So I had to push these thoughts out of my head, and get into a better mood to propose to Hilly. I had to come up with something fast, so I thought about when I was that age—because I picture these commenters, they’re 25 years old, graduated from Wesleyan and now here they’re here in New York and no one’s paying attention to them, no one cares about their degree in comparative literature or herstory, and then they’ll read something like this column and something goes off in their brain—“Heyyyy, wait a second, I’m smarter than that guy! What about me? It’s my turn. Why do I have to work at this crappy job, and he doesn’t even have to go into an office? He goes out every night and sits around all day in his pajamas. …” So then I started thinking, that’s real power. I took it a little farther, and thought, I’m probably one of the most powerful people in New York. Don’t have to get up in the morning. Don’t have to go into an office. Can Mayor Bloomberg do that? No.

Silence.

GEORGE: Then I wanted to cut these kids some slack because I was like them sometimes at their age—seething with envy.

DR. SELMAN: Did you actually ask her to marry you?

GEORGE: I don’t think it even got to—I think she was so excited. One thing I like to clarify is that the prank Verdura gift box—I wasn’t trying to torment her. I had the other one, the real one, right on my lap, ready. Next Page >

Continue to irritate and infuriate people as the years go by but figure out how to take it to the next level: Consciousness raising.

Get my head frozen right before I expire.

Spend a good seven hours with Madonna.

Once and for all, learn how to water-ski and hang-glide.

Stop taking Addies and Klonnies and get that morning wood back on a regular basis.

Get into a fight for a good reason—defending someone’s honor, stopping a crime in progress, anything that results in applause.

Compose a late-60’s progressive rock classic song with a lot of “ahhh’s” in the chorus and live off the royalties.  read more » Next Page >

The events of the week of Sept. 19, 1886, included, as per The New York Times, “the opening of another dining club, the Exchange Club, on New-street, and it is rumored that a coterie of dry goods merchants in the neighborhood of Twenty-third-street will soon organize a similar establishment up town.” (As regards the Union Club, the Times noted, “There is no truth to the rumor in club circles that a coterie is forming to introduce card playing in the club.”)

New Yorkers’ primal obsession with exclusive settings—such as consuming one’s food in a place where no one else, or only a precious few, are allowed to enter—is not a new development. It could even, perhaps, be said to be in our city’s DNA, and therefore the founding of such establishments as the Soho House not an occasion for lamentation but rather, nostalgia. (Its current membership, however, might be occasion for some degree of despair.)

As it did in the 19th century, the intersection of food and exclusivity is one that continues to beguile. And so as the murmurs in the past few months about the increasing number of secret dining clubs in the city—this one for Williamsburg residents, that one for gourmands who feed their children unpasteurized milk—grew louder, you could almost hear the flatware clanking against the vintage Limoges china.

It was thus that, two or so weeks ago, The Observer took the elevator to the eighth floor of a dingy office building near Herald Square—the kind of building, one thinks, where a phone sex operation would set up shop—and, through a window, handed an envelope with $150 in twenties and tens (receipts were not available) to a receptionist. The cash represented a 50 percent deposit to reserve two spaces at a dinner for thirty to be held by the NY Bite Club, a members-only dining club started last year by two enterprising young chefs that, despite its secrecy and dubious legality, nonetheless has a Web site and an e-mail listserv.

Then, last Saturday evening, a journey to a commercial loft building in the West 20’s. “8pm SHARP,” read the e-mail received two days prior. Other instructions: “Upon stepping off the elevator turn right. One of your waitresses for the night will greet you at the door and take you down a long hallway. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT that silence be maintained while walking through this hallway. All noise can be heard by neighbors and that can bring a lot of attention to our operation, which isn’t going to be acceptable.”

Silence was maintained.

The door opened into a tiny kitchen, where the two chefs in dark blue chef’s uniforms were hunched over a conventional four-burner stove. They appeared to be in their mid-20’s, a baby-faced fellow named Daniel and a woman, Alicia, with long brown hair. Though they were the hosts and, along with a woman named Liz, who was one of our waitresses, the masterminds of NY Bite Club, they would not be seen except for brief bursts during the evening.

A curtain separated the kitchen from the dining room, where six tables (five with diners, one for bartender Joaquin Simo, who was from the secretive Lower East Side bar Death & Co.; he would be doing a cocktail pairing with each course) were crammed into a high-ceilinged space. We were led to a table by the window, where we soon met our fellow diners: a doctor there without his wife (“She wouldn’t want to come anywhere you couldn’t get stuff on the side”); a woman who worked as a producer for a food television show; another young couple.

Awkward banter ensued, mostly queries about whether anyone had been before, and whether they had gone to other dining clubs, such as Whisk and Ladle or Peerless Tables or Ghetto Gourmet.

There was talk of the cocktails to come that evening: “We tried going to Death & Co., but they wouldn’t let us in,” said the young woman across the table, who had long red hair and was wearing a black dress. She was an attorney who wished to be a literary agent.

The diners at the other tables all seemed to know each other.

The first cocktails—a champagne drink in classic and anise flavors—were downed quickly, and soon replaced by the first course’s paired cocktail: a Tappan Zee Sidecar, which was described on the menu as a “riff on the classic Sidecar.” These were to be drunk with two pieces of bone marrow, served with parsley shallot salad, garlic jam and toast. In this case, one inserts the knife into the bone and scrapes out the fatty marrow, spreads it on toast and adds jam, and considers that one’s dog would be quite interested in this course. Next Page >

Despite the best efforts of Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg, most neighborhoods in New York still have at least one bar that opens at 8 a.m.

In Midtown East, there’s the Blarney Stone on 49th Street and 3rd Avenue. Midtown West has Rudy’s, Holland’s and Smith’s. In Chelsea, there’s Walter’s. And in the East Village there’s the Blarney Cove, about as wide and long as a single bowling lane, where the last vestiges of the Mid-Day Gentlemen’s Club convene each morning.

Here, on a given day, from around 8 a.m. to noon, anywhere between four and eight elderly men clad in a thick flannel shirts, cardigans, bifocals and scally caps—or some variation there of—can be found perched on their regular stools, tearing it up.  read more » Next Page >

A new scandal is brewing: poets on steroids. “This problem may extend to the very top of the industry,” speculates Arthur Krembloy, investigator for the Poetry Society of America.

“Billy Collins could not have written the lines

They say you can jinx a poem
if you talk about it before it is done.
If you let it out too early, they warn,
your poem will fly away

(from ‘Madmen’) unaided,” Mr. Krembloy asserted.

“Jorie Graham’s latest book, Overlord, shows a super-confident enjambment that’s a particular sign of steroids,” observes forensic literary critic Gerald Hendley Holmes.

The Poetry Society of America is instituting a series of high-profile hearings in February. Already, W.S. Merwin has refused to testify under oath on whether he’s used poetry-enhancing drugs. “I hope these hearings can prevent other poetry readers from suffering,” says Galway Kinnell.

“This is a nationwide problem,” poetics coach Andy Sewall opines. “You’ve got kids in high school and college seeing these poet gurus, and taking sonnet-enhancing substances. The federal government has got to get involved, and get tough on these versifiers once and for all!”

Mandatory drug testing for poets has never been instituted. Next Page >

The setting: A large home in Washington, D.C. Heavy fog presses against the windowpanes. Somewhere—somehow—a coyote can be heard howling.

THE AIDE: Still no luck. All three times I’ve called, someone says, “I’m terribly sorry, Ms. Angelou is not at home.”

THE SENATOR: I see. Why don’t you use your Harvard-summa-cum-cocksucker brain and track her down? Do I have to do everything?

THE AIDE: Yes … it’s … umm, well, actually, it’s kind of strange, because the voice that answers the phone—it sounds sort of like Ms. Angelou’s voice—you know she has that beautiful, distinctive voice—and, well, I mean that’s crazy, right?

THE SENATOR: Of course, it’s crazy, you moron—she spoke at Bill’s inauguration, read that ridiculous poem about rocks and trees and, well, whatever it was about, and we’re friends, she’s not about to dodge my calls. Next time you call, tell the “voice” that if Ms. Angelou campaigns with me in South Carolina … I will ask her to be the speaker at my inauguration.

THE AIDE: I’m afraid you’ve already booked someone to speak at your inauguration—Sinbad.

THE SENATOR [with a far off look in her eyes, sings in a lilting voice]:

Oh, a Scotsman clad in a kilt left the bar one evening fair,

And one could tell by how he walked he’d drunk more than his share—

He staggered on until he could no longer keep his feet,

Then stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street.

THE AIDE: Ummm … Anyway, I’m pumped—we all are—for the next stage, starting tomorrow I’ve arranged to have—

THE SENATOR [singing louder]

Ring ding diddle diddle i de o!

Ring di diddle i o!

He stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street!

THE AIDE: I have a really good feeling about Nevada; even if we don’t get Ms. Angelou, you have a good shot at South Carolina.

THE SENATOR [singing]

Later on two young and lovely girls just happened by,

And one says to the other with a twinkle in her eye

You see yon sleeping Scotsman who is young and handsome built

I wonder if it’s true what they don’t wear beneath their kilt.

[pauses]

Do you hear that?

THE AIDE: Hear what, Senator?

THE SENATOR: The foghorn. I really love the fog … But the foghorn keeps me up at night … Now what were you saying, dear boy?

THE AIDE: Oh … that we all have a good feeling about Nevada; and Penn says you have a good shot at South Carolina.

THE SENATOR: Oh stop blowing smoke up my ass. Anyway, Nevada, South Carolina—it doesn’t matter. If I can’t have the nomination, no one will. I’m going to stay in this thing till the last minute, and I’m going to hit him so hard, I will unleash Penn and Wolfie and all the hounds of hell, we will hit him with every goddam rumor I can find, and by the time he gets the nomination, he will be too damaged to beat the Republican in November. Now why, you might ask, would I want this? Because, dear boy, after eight years of another Republican president, it will be 2016 and the country will be begging for a Democrat. A Clinton.

THE AIDE: Yes, Ma’am. Indeed. But—no offense—but you’d be 69—some might feel that’s …

THE SENATOR: Yes, you’re right: In 2016, I will be 69. That is true. But Chelsea … Chelsea will be 36.

THE AIDE: Oh my God.

THE SENATOR: [singing]

Ring ding diddle diddle i de o!

Ring di diddle i o!

I wonder if it’s true what they don’t wear beneath their kilt! Next Page >

Anyone who has passed by the monstrously large residential complexes known as Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village on First Avenue between 14th and 23rd streets knows they account for a prison-block-like swath of red brick. Lesser known is the fact that the magical forest of tall trees and rolling green hills that wind through the 110 buildings have given rise to one of the city’s most vibrant squirrel communities.

There, the foliage is literally alive with squirrels—in the brush, in the grass, jumping from tree to tree! But on the pathways, squirrel and man walk and crawl as equals, and indeed a newcomer to the area will be surprised at how often his path is interrupted by a friendly vermin begging his pardon for a spare crumb.

“People here love them,” said one resident. “We protect them and feed them. That’s why they come straight to you.”

The man proceeded to demonstrate this phenomenon by looking a nearby black squirrel in the eye and jamming his hand in his pocket, as if to retrieve something. The black squirrel, along with a nearby gray, gingerly trotted over to the man and stood tall on their hind legs, forepaws hanging limp.

It’s a squirrels’ paradise. It is also the one place in New York City the black squirrel can comfortably call home. Black squirrels run free at the Bronx Zoo and around Fordham University, reports Pat Thomas, the zoo’s curator of mammals. And of course there are the Cinnamon Squirrels of Riverside Park. But when it comes to flourishing black squirrel populations, the 80 acres on which Stuy Town and Cooper Village sit is it. Residents estimate they make up some 40 percent of the hundreds of squirrels there.

“Everyone surprised!” said the private housing development’s groundskeeper, Jose Cavallo, referring to how people respond to the black squirrels. “They have the same personality. They have sex together with gray squirrels.”

(Mr. Cavallo added that occasionally the fun gets out of hand: “Sometimes they fall out of the trees and die.”)

On a recent Sunday afternoon, some of the residents discussed the distinguishing behavior of black squirrels.

“The black squirrels like to bully the gray ones,” said a woman with a European accent. “They think they are the minks of the squirrels.”

“The first thing I did when I moved here was call my mom in New Jersey to say, ‘There are black squirrels here!’” said Alexandra, who works in retail.

Mary Mohoney said her nephew recently visited and was elated to see his first black squirrel. “He named it Miguel.”

Mr. Thomas insisted that the black squirrel is merely a different color phase of his gray brethren. The curator affirmed that both fall under the species Sciurus carolinensis. Similarly, a panther is a different color phase of a leopard, he said.

“Behavior-wise they would act just like a gray squirrel—which is what they are,” he said.

The question of how the much rarer black color phase arrived in Stuy Town-Cooper Village is a bit of a mystery, not adequately explained by Mr. Thomas’ succinct science: “You tend to find them in pockets because the squirrels there carry the genes for black color.”

Some point way back to Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency, when 18 Canadian black squirrels were released in Washington, D.C. Others are unmoved by even a hint of mystique.

“Just as much of a pain in the neck as the others,” said an older resident of Stuy Town who was wearing a green Barbour jacket, jeans and polished leather shoes. “They get killed or squashed like any other squirrel.” Next Page >

Guy is a single 41-year-old Manhattan man who has had several successful long-term relationships. Readers may send him their questions at DearGuy@Observer.com.

Dear Guy,

I am a 34-year-old professional woman. I have always considered myself to be smart, hard-working and ambitious—qualities I’ve never felt I should have to apologize for. Unfortunately, because of the way I look (I’m half-Japanese, half-Dutch), I seem to attract a certain kind of man. On paper, they’re all exactly whom I would choose as a mate and father to my future children: driven, Ivy-educated and clean-cut. But I find that once I start dating them, they all seem to want me to be little more than arm candy. The last man was always asking me to wear backless dresses to his various functions, and then would stick me in the corner with the other girlfriends/wives and ignore me. I met Joel at a liquor store in Nolita a month ago. He’s 28, shorter than most guys I’ve dated, with an auburn beard. Even though he’s covered with tattoos, he made me laugh within minutes of meeting him. He’s different than anyone I’ve ever been with and makes me feel wonderful. Our main problem is how different our lifestyles are: He lives with five other people in a warehouse in Bushwick—I’ve lived alone since business school, and am saving to buy my apartment. Joel is a struggling—but brilliant—musician who hasn’t had a real job in a while and, truth be told, smokes a fair amount of pot. I don’t care how much money he makes, but I do care about the waking up in an apartment full of guys where every available surface is used as an ashtray! Anyway, Joel says I should try relaxing a bit more, that he’s happy with the way his life is. But I just know that it must bother him on some unconscious level that I make so much more money than he does. I think that if he just applied himself and found a job he really cared about, he would feel better about himself in general, and together we could afford a great apartment. I’ve started to make a few secret phone calls on his behalf. Should I tell him?

—Baffled in Battery Park City

Dear Baffled,

You’re crazy!

Sincerely,

Guy

Dear Guy,

What’s with all the men in this city? I’m a sexy 39-year-old woman looking for love. I go to the gym six days a week, can cook a gourmet meal, knit, speak four languages, have traveled in the Far East and went to Penn. You’d think that I’d have no problem, right? Wrong! I’ve been on Nerve, Match, JDate, The Right Stuff, EHarmony and even placed an ad in the back of The New York Review of Books and … nothing. Every man I’ve met has been a balding mouth-breather with a secret f-ck-buddy and mommy issues. I’ve had it! A friend told me that she knew a friend who moved out to Montana and within days met a handsome man who owns his own ranch and is about to separate from his wife as soon as he works out the details. I’m preparing to move there and try my luck. What do you think?

—Utterly Frustrated in
Fort Greene

Dear Utterly Frustrated,

You’re crazy!

Sincerely,

Guy

Dear Guy,

I never thought I’d be the kind of woman who would still be single at 34 (let alone writing to an advice column!). But here I am. I met Dave at a friend’s dinner party six months ago. We hit it off and agreed on everything from favorite movie (Philadelphia Story) to best Chinese food in the city (that hole-in-the-wall on Allen Street). Dave was unlike any other guy I’ve ever met in New York—ready to settle down and seemingly hard-wired for domestication. But that’s the thing …. All he seems to want to talk about now is having kids. By our second month together he was joking around about whether or not our hypothetical kids would inherit my terrible singing voice. At first I was impressed he was able to talk about such things—most men in this city would rather hit themselves in the face with a rake. But after a little while, it just started seeming weird. He has already bought three stuffed animals “as a goof,” he says. He also keeps mentioning statistics of “high-risk pregnancies after 35”—and we’re not even living together! But I wonder if I’ve been alone so long that I just can’t recognize a great man when I find one. Please help me get over my resistance!

—Feeling Fertile on Myrtle

Dear Feeling Fertile,

You’re crazy!

Sincerely,

Guy Next Page >

Although he swore otherwise, Richard Temtchine was trying to seduce me. “Seduction, it’s definitely an art form,” he explained, as a small plume of steam rose from his espresso. “You’ve heard of Cyrano de Bergerac?”

I nod my head unconvincingly and try to Google it in my head. How do you spell de Bergerac?

“He was my great inspiration,” said Mr. Temtchine, a Paris-born movie producer and former hairstylist who is going to give a lecture, “How to Seduce Difficult Women,” in New York starting at the end of January. We were at Le Bilboquet, the tiny East 63rd Street bistro favored by Brioni-clad Euro men and their ladies. The frosty reception that had greeted my entrance melted like April snow once it was clear I was there to meet “Reee-charrrd!”

Not particularly tall, Mr. Temtchine has a boxy stature, salt-and-pepper tousled hair that’s long enough to grab in fistfuls, and a face that resembles Mikhail Baryshnikov’s. (The specifics of his age turned out to be a bit murky. “When I need to be childlike—which women adore!—I am 10,” he said. “When I am in love, I am 20; when I am not, I am 20 plus tax, and I pay a lot of taxes!”)

“Like so many men today,” he continued, “Cyrano was trapped in shame, unable to face himself, or love. But me, I love being who I am! If more people loved themselves … they wouldn’t have such a hard time seducing others.”

I surveyed him as I slurped some melted ice from the bottom of my glass and chomped on it, because it was late and I was kind of hungry. The father of two and a Harlem resident, Mr. Temtchine was married just once, at 20. (“I had to get away from my mother.”) One of his children resulted from the marriage; the other from a long-term relationship. He spent 20 years working in New York as a hairstylist, “making beautiful women even more beautiful,” all the while listening to their complaints, their desires, their frustrations with men. Then he turned his attentions to Hollywood, producing films including the Adrien Brody ventriloquist movie, Dummy, in 2002. He’s currently directing a film he wrote, titled, yes, How to Seduce Difficult Women, about a French man in New York who helps the relationship-challenged learn the art of seduction. The film is expected to open in the summer.

His seduction film and lecture arose when he realized his decades as a hairstylist made him one of the few straight men with an all-access pass to the portal of feminine insight. The lectures, the first to be held at Opia on East 57th Street on Jan. 28, will feature Mr. Temtchine along with five “gorgeous and difficult” women whom he chose at random from coffee shops and cafes, using a sixth sense that, he explained, told him they were difficult.

New York is full of difficult women, he reminded me. (It occurred to me: I am one of these difficult New York women.) I asked him for some tips he’ll be giving in his lect