You Soon Realize You're Not Sufficiently Advanced For Your Situation

Uptown parties have girls in costumes and red carpets.



Downtown parties have girls without costumes and performance pieces.



Uptown parties have well dressed people and well-lit situations (so you can see how well dressed they are).



Downtown parties are in the dark so that you can act too cool to care that a TV crew is right next to you while in fact you're REALLY trying to evesdrop on Stephanie Seymour from the shadows.



Uptown parties feature people who will snicker behind your back or make cutting remarks to you face in the spirit of glib oneupmanship.



Downtown parties feature people who will threaten you with their sexuality.

Basically the whole week is an excuse to bust out antiquated (70's-era) notions of uptown/downtown new york scenes; as an old acquaintance of mine once said (foolishly on many, MANY levels), there's 'nothing good above 14th street.' The truth of the matter is that any given person will go to any given event so long as there is enough liquor/tiny burgers to last through the evening and/or enough photographers to take their picture. Everyone loves to dress up! Everyone loves to see naked people dancing (or doing anything, for that matter)! Fashion Week is a biannual bacchanal celebrating the cavalcade of human oddities that you marginalize every day -- like the notion of your own mortality -- in order to make yourself function. No one can live like this all the time. It would be too fantastic.

SAVONAROLA IS BACK FROM THE DEAD

Until Sleater-Kinney gets back together I will have to be happy (and I am, believe me) with the sudden and powerful return of Savonarola, two of my dear dear friends and one of my favorite singer/songwriter duos. I rank them higher than the Lennon and McCartney. I am a contrarian.

They dissolved about a year and a half ago after one self-released album (full disclosure: I produced "Knives" and "People I Don't Like") when Ted had a midlife crisis and ran off to join These Are Powers.

AND NOW THEY ARE BACK. And possibly with another name change, though I'm encouraging them to keep it, and possibly with a stylistic change, which would predicate a name change. In short, they are writing stuff, but I have no idea what it is. They played an acoustic show at Tommy's Tavern (possibly the best they've played) on Sunday on a bill promoted by Anthony Macbain and featuring he, Schwaahed, Ron Wax and MC'd by Oldman Unfamous Jacob.

The images (and there are more here), were my first with my new Pocket Wizards (awesome) and the after-show was my first time DJ-ing (off a borrowed iPod, no less).

A splendid time was had by all.