The Halloween Dance Party to End All Halloween Dance Parties
Last night’s New York by New York event was a costumed dance party of sorts at Judson Church. Chromeo, Dan Deacon, and Kudo provided the beats for All Hallows Madness, and revelers wore their creative best. There was “crazy-ass Britney” and “bad mommy Britney,” as well as sexy Albert Einstein (no equation hotter!) and the fashionably disaffected Kate Moss and Pete Doherty. The cash prize of $750 went to a well-lit octopus, and everyone enjoyed the open bar and their subscription to New York long into the night. Still looking for a costume idea? Get some inspiration from the video.
Video: All Hallows Madness
New York by New York: Upcoming Events
party lines
Tilda Swinton’s Halloween Costume Will Be Better Than YoursWe all know that starting tomorrow night, the subways will be filled with drunk people in costumes, all the way until Halloween on Wednesday. In case you’re still without costume inspiration, despite our best efforts to help your asses, we trolled last night’s Fashion Group International Night of Stars gala to ask celebrities what their costumes would be. “It won’t be from Ricky’s,” said Jane Krakowski, who has been wearing a fat suit on 30 Rock. André Leon Talley wrote our jokes for us. “I always go as myself,” he said. Not a bad idea: You can do it, too, readers: Just throw on your graduation robe and call yourself an “Editor-at-Large.” Princess Alexandra of Greece is dressing her 5-year-old son as Darth Vadar, but she recalled her most memorable costume? “My husband and I were once Catwoman and Catman or something,” she said. You mean — BATman? “I don’t know — we both wore matching cat masks.” We tried Tilda Swinton, another foreigner. “I’m from Scotland where Halloween was invented. We have very different traditions. I’m not really sure what the American tradition is,” she said. “I did see a woman on the subway the other day here who was looking through a very sexy lingerie catalogue, picking out her Halloween costume, but we don’t switch it that way.” Well, we explained, American girls like to look slutty. “Right. Well, I’m looking forward to it — when is it? Wednesday?” Sure is! “I think I’ll probably wear my birthday suit.” —Amy Odell
Get fashion tips from Jean Paul Gaultier, Mayor Bloomberg, and Joan Jett at our complete coverage of the Fashion Group International’s Night of Stars.
grub street
It’d Be Better With Oompa-Loompas
Looks like Max Brenner, the nonexistent “Bald Man” of high-concept choco-bar infamy, has started a trend: Call it the Willie Wonka–fication of the coffeehouse experience. The weirdness continues at the Roasting Plant, where freshly roasted coffee beans are sucked out of transparent vessels through overhead pipes and into a souped-up espresso machine. We’re as baffled as anyone, but we also have to grudgingly admit that the shop’s main attraction, a Rube Goldberg–meets–H.R. Giger device, looks pretty damn cool. And, who knows, perhaps the beans do stay fresher this way. We’ll let Rob and Robin provide further explanation over at Grub Street.
The Roasting Plant’s Coffee Beans Dance Overhead [Grub Street]
neighborhood watch
Hipsters on a RampageChinatown: In a fit of ironic violence or violent irony, a hipster mob (including, reportedly, Neckface) trashed an empty building slated for demolition. [
buy low
Dreaming the Possible Park Slope Brownstone Dream
You’re determined to live the brownstone dream in Park Slope, stroller-police and Food Co-op fanatics be damned. Maybe a building with an extra unit you can rent out for additional income (or guests). But every house seems to go for too much; according to the Corcoran 2006 Report, the average price of a two- to four-family home in the neighborhood is $1.79 million; the median price is $1.625 million. This house at 213 13th Street defies the numbers with an asking price of $1.05 million. Yes, it’s closer to Fourth Avenue than Fifth or Seventh, and it isn’t exactly huge, but hey, you can’t have everything. At the very least, you get intact, original details (three fireplaces, pine-plank and parquet floors, moldings) and a pretty brick façade to remind you why you longed for a Brooklyn brownstone in the first place. S. Jhoanna Robledo
the follow-up
We Glide Swiftly OnOf all things to snipe about (namely a pro-war Republican’s military creds), it was interesting to find so many Daily Kos posts dedicated to how an antiwar vet group was identified in passing. To clarify: In no way did I mean to imply that Vote Vets were actually part of the Swifties, or associated with the Swifties or all the smeary baggage that has defined the Swifties; I only meant to imply that Vote Vets was run by Dem-affiliated operatives that, similar to the more popularly known Swifties, used hard-hitting attack ads as a means to an end.
I only wish I had as many words and as much space to define Vote Vets as I did in a previous story after the November elections in which the director, Jon Soltz, refers to himself as “the Swift Boat Captain of ‘06.” Geoffrey Gray
Update: After this item posted, Vote Vets said it did not describe itself as an “antiwar” organization but rather “pro-military, pro-war, and pro-war on terror,” and “anti-escalation and antiwar against Iran.”
Swift-Boat Revenge [NYM]
Earlier: Don’t Mention the Swift Boats!
company town
Olbermann Is EverywhereMEDIA
• Keith Olbermann will take a break from slamming the Bush administration to co-host NBC’s Football Night in America on Sundays this fall. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Tired of losing to Condé Nast at the National Magazine Awards, Hearst will honor its own at the Tower Awards tonight. [WWD]
• Newspaper coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings looked downright bloglike. [E&P]
party lines
Bette and Joy’s Happy, Raunchy Halloween
How does Bette Midler celebrate Halloween? If her tenth annual Hulaween Gala at the Waldorf the other night was any indication, by lacing into a string of good-natured obscenities to browbeat other celebs into supporting her New York Restoration Project, which cleans up, replants, and maintains neglected city parks.
It was a crowd of well-heeled, big-drinking nature lovers, all of whom had enough money to buy some fabulous costumes, like the man dressed as a Christmas tree covered in ornaments and the half-dozen Andy Warhols roaming about, including an unrecognizable Michael Kors, who’d added a prosthetic forehead and nose to his face. “What are you, Golda Meir?” Harvey Fierstein, dressed as John from Peter Pan, asked Midler’s co-emcee, Joy Behar. “No! What? I’m the Queen!” she replied, hitting his arm. “I’m the blues,” said Willie Nelson, dressed in a black suit and looking exactly like Willie Nelson. “I’m Flora, the goddess of the garden,” said Midler, her thoughts trailing off. “Who are you?” she continued. “Oh! It’s Shalom. Goodness, what are you, dear?” Shalom Harlow, in a bikini, satin robe, Afro, and abdomen full of bullet wounds, said she and her date were dressed as Scarface. As she reached to say hello to Midler, she spilled a sizable amount of “coke” all over the Waldorf’s pristine carpet. Midler laughed. No one bothered to clean it up.
the morning line
It’s Springtime for Hitler Kid
• You’ve got to hand it to the Hitler Kid: After getting ejected from school for donning the costume on Halloween, yesterday he wore it again — this time for the media, and purely in protest. This is quickly turning into the lamest ACLU case ever. [NYP]
• You do not cross American Girl Place. The Mattel-owned dainty emporium has filed a complaint against Actors’ Equity that says AEA has been goading its employees to unionize. This is going to be like On the Waterfront, except with Barbies. [NYDN]
• ExamGate! Staten Island high-school administrators may have tampered with grades on Regents exams and directed teachers to do it as well. A whopping seventeen science teachers came forward with the accusations. Better late than never, we suppose (the exams were administered in June). On a lighter note, but on the same theme, a Brooklyn high-school principal has distributed a pie chart explaining her new grading system — with the slices totaling more than 100 percent. [NYT, NYDN]
• A Bronx man is DOA at St. Barnabas after a police shootout. According to the cops, two plainclothes officers clearly saw the gunman armed and assaulting another man; the DOA fired first. [WNBC]
• And, it’s beginners’ luck for the Knicks, who eked out their first win (against Memphis, 118-117) under coach Isiah Thomas. In a more disturbing portent, it took them three OTs to do so. [amNY]
the morning line
Friendly Skies, Unfriendly Runways
• More reasons to avoid Newark Airport: First a plane plops down on a narrow taxiway instead of a landing strip. Now two jets clip each other’s wings on a runway while one is taxiing and another is being towed. No injuries, but what the hell? [amNY]
• A teenage trick-or-treater was killed in a hit-and-run after being chased onto Harlem River Drive by a knife-brandishing attacker. In a moment of discord, the Times puts the victim’s age at 13, the AP at 15, and the Daily News at 16. [NYT, AP via amNY, NYDN]
• In other Halloween news: Two million took to Sixth Avenue to gape at 50,000 costumed marchers, one reveler got stabbed after catching his girlfriend parading with another man, and, of course, someone had to come to school in a Hitler costume, which he’s now defending as “satire.” Lovely. [NYDN, NYP]
• George Steinbrenner was rushed to the hospital after reportedly fainting while watching his granddaughter perform in a college play. He’s fine, but the performance got canceled amid the ruckus. It may be worth noting the granddaughter was playing Sally Bowles in Cabaret. [WNBC]
• Historical, yes; preservationist, not so much. The New-York Historical Society wants to build a glassy 23-story tower behind its palatial HQ as part of a renovation. The haughty neighbors are predictably up in arms over blocked park views. Perhaps they could drop that annoying hyphen as a compromise? [NYT]
in other news
Papers Love Cats, Now and Forever
There’s a rash of stories out there about animal shelters prohibiting or limiting the adoption of black cats until Halloween blows over. The idea is that daft revelers may pick up the cats as party props or novelty gifts only to toss them aside a few days later; there’s also the old Black Mass chestnut — what if someone uses the kitty as the fodder for a Satanic ritual? There’s even a controversy about whether halting adoption is a good idea: The AP quotes Gail Buchwald, vice-president of a New York shelter, to the effect that these particular felines have it hard enough. “Black cats already suffer a stigma because of their color,” she says.
in other news
Halloween Skanks, or Female Chauvinist Pigs?“Good Girls Go Bad, for a Day” is the headline of today’s “Thursday Styles” front-pager examining why women these days use Halloween as an excuse to dress like sluts, and it’s entirely unsurprising such a piece has become the top item on the Times site’s most-e-mailed list. The article is filled with quotes from feminist academics and gender-roles scholars, but that’s all a bit too high-toned for our tastes. Instead we checked in with New York’s Ariel Levy, who examined the rise of “raunch culture” in her Female Chauvinist Pigs — and who’s so over feminist shibboleths she actually spent a week with the Girls Gone Wild guys while researching the book.
Okay, so why are women getting so skanked-up on Halloween these days?
There is a huge aspect of generational rebellion to raunch culture: Nobody wants to turn into her mother, and whether your mother was/is a radical feminist or a right-wing Evangelical Christian — both pretty common among baby-boomers — either way it’s going to get under her skin if you dress as a stripper to go trick-or-treating. Or if you dress as a stripper to go to junior high.