A smart, sharp, beautiful, successful friend asked me where she could entertain her out-of-towners. Not knowing anything about these tourists I sent her a list of the A-List places. This list included joints as diverse as The Darby, Avenue, Provocateur, Electric Room, Le Bain, Le Baron, and W.i.P. There are of course many other choices and places closer to the edge but as I said they are strangers in a strange land and these felt safe to recommend. After describing each place in a couple of sentences they opted for W.i.P. W.i.P. is satisfying the needs of a downtown art/fashion/mixed crowd that had been forsaken for so long. Their Tuesday night soiree' Dropout continues to service the Post Jackie 60 scene. Tomorrow night in honor of Fashion Week they are offering up the amazing Debbie Harry. I caught up with Dropout honcho and man-about-town Lyle Derek and asked him all about it.

My birthday bash at Avenue last night proved to be more fun than a barrel of monkeys. I am limp and drained and wonderful. I feel like a million yen.  Avenue asked me to throw my party there and I couldn't say no. The good people at Avenue/ Tao Strategic Group have been work associates, friends, and family from the good old days when I was that maniacal Steve Lewis guy. They put up with me then and celebrated me yesterday... in style.

A freak injury involving a work boot, an immovable object, and an unfortunate little toe has made this a slow news day. I blew off yesterday with pain pills and bandages, just mobilizing enough to DJ last night. I had a tumbly, tossy night of  medicated dreams and am coming at this late in the day. Normally, I'm up at 7am, but the painkillers convinced me my pillow was where my fortunes lie. Of course, they lied and my editor is going to hurt another toe or something.

Art Basel is one big, enticing, honey pot of rich folks, semi-rich folks, and broke folks posing as rich folks, and generally a lot of inebriated folks with expensive things. In other words: a grifter’s paradise.

"You down here working or partying?" was the most quoted line at Art Basel this year, and more often than not, the answer was a bemused shrug, and then the latter. 

"Nightlife is the soul of the city."

Fashion Week has descended upon New York City, anointing new and yet-to-be-opened venues with its holy presence. Fashion houses and fashionable rags have shouldered their way into seen-and-be-seen restaurants and night spots, and have sold off their first born in order to offer their party guests a first look at some unopened places, like The Mondrian and the Darby's buzzy basement. The perennial question: Whether to elect tried-and-true spots (or, in the case of Alexander Wang, gas stations and bounce houses) over what could be just a flash-in-the-pan hotspot. Herewith, a rumor-mongering and totally useless look at where all the week's parties shall take place.

What was that line Bogie tossed at Ingrid Bergman to get her to run off with that dapper old guy at the end of Casablanca? Oh yeah: ”We’ll always have Paris.” I guess he was right, as there doesn’t seem to be an end to how much Clubland loves to associate with the romanticism of gay old Paree. Everybody is on the edge of their seat for Le Baron, which somebody told me will be “The Baron” when it slams into lower Mulberry Street. Indeed it will slam, as young romantics everywhere see it as the second coming. It’s actually the third coming, as they already have one in Paris and Tokyo, too.

Since it's looking like no one will be going to France ever again, the French seem hell-bent on bringing their brand of tres cool to us. A while back, we reported on an Eater tip that André Saraiva, the Parisian über-scenester and graffiti artist behind that city's bastion of after dark exclusivity, Le Baron, was planning a New York expansion. Today, you can consider that possibility a likely reality.

New Beatrice alert! New Beatrice alert! According to Eater, the already legendary Parisian nightclub Le Baron is coming to New York, and there's nothing you can do about it. The uber-exclusive celebrity playground barely fits a hundred people (most of whom are rail-thin), and you can expect its New York outpost to be similarly cramped. The space it's occupying is miniscule.