This week, it seemed like the rest of the world just couldn’t be roused. Faced with a foam-mouthed pack of barking Democratic senators, Samuel Alito somnolently aced his way through confirmation hearings. A visit to the still-not-in-such-great-shape Gulf Coast couldn’t shake George W. Bush’s wall-eyed complacency, as he declared New Orleans “a heckuva place to bring your family.” But here in New York, perhaps owing to a string of 50-degree January days, things were definitely stirring. There was, after all, cash to be ostentatiously flung about. Wall Street is doling out a record $21.5 billion in bonuses, prompting its employees to pay tribute to Sidney Frank, the marketing genius behind Grey Goose who died this past week, by slugging grossly overpriced cocktails. Ex-cabbie Tamir Sapir spent $40 million buying the Duke Semans mansion across from the Met and also became an instant peta target when he disclosed his plans to use it to showcase his vast ivory collection. There were scandal-tinged celebrities to be ogled, as Lindsay Lohan joined Kate Moss in some light lesbianism when they rode the pole together at Scores. (Mike Bloomberg, not to be outdone, was made an “honorary lesbian” by former city councilwoman Margarita Lopez, but refrained from lap dancing.) And there were infuriating errands to attend to following the underpublicized switch to the 39-cent stamp that saw grousing, penny-bearing mobs queuing in post offices to buy two-cent stamps. Somehow even the city’s perturbation seemed more palatable in a light spring jacket after the New York Giants got a pummeling by the Carolina Panthers in the playoffs. (If losing 23-0 wasn’t harrowing enough, Tiki Barber had to explain to coach Tom Coughlin exactly what he meant when he told reporters that they had been “outcoached” by the Panthers.) And though it would be hard to characterize the feeling upon hearing the news that New York’s blandest Hollywood’s couple, Hilary Swank and Chad Lowe, had split after eight years of marriage as grief exactly, there was a good deal of curiosity about who’d end up with the couple’s jewel of a Village townhouse.

Related:

• Archive: “It Happened Last Week”
• Articles by Andrew Goldman
• Table of Contents: Jan 23, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!