BlackBook Magazine

There are many reasons to visit Comme Ca in LA's West Hollywood, but the best is the beverages. Trained by the school of Milk & Honey, the bartenders blend fresh produce and top-shelf liquor into dreamy combinations. Cocktails take such importance at the restaurant that they are featured on the main menu, listed between "Fruits de Mer" and "Sides."

Consider this dream: I’m in a small SoHo boutique, say, Sunglass Hut. Twinkling pairs of designer shades surround me. Beside me is my favorite “Gossip Girl” Michelle Trachtenberg and together we are tirelessly trying miles of them on, rummaging through cases of them. Thankfully, I live in New York and things like this occur rather frequently. Yesterday, Trachtenberg, Gen Art, and BlackBook’s Fashion Director Elizabeth Sulcer came together in SoHo’s reinvented Sunglass Hut to host the launch party for Gen Art’s 10th Anniversary Styles Runway and Awards Show. Trachtenberg busied herself with the exploration of the sleek black-and-white interior of the store, perusing the endless selection of eyewear. I jumped at the chance to try the Dolce & Gabbana, Tiffany & Co., and Sunglass Hut’s “Glam New York” collections.

Last night, when Australian dance rock outfit Cut Copy took the stage just after 11 p.m. at Studio B in Greenpoint, we found ourselves front row, center. Such is the pleasure of going to a concert alone—criss-crossing through the masses to get up front ain’t no thang when you’re a loner. Their album In Ghost Colours is a dance-rock sensation. The crowd ecstatically shouting all the lyrics can attest to that fact—it was U2 for club kids. With our buzz decreasing and our bladder increasing, we waited for a lull in the band’s set (never came) to drain and refill.

George Gurley, The New York Observer scribe and BlackBook contributor (see his interview with Christina Ricci), is one of the figureheads responsible for the baffling lure of the Beatrice Inn. He's the one I associate with all those nights I manage to lose a bit of my dignity between waltzes on the dance floor (tangos with the stairwells) and all of those clever conversations I seem lose myself in after the second Stella Artois. But arriving at the Beatrice at a respectable hour of 10pm last night for George’s surprise birthday hurrah gives me a strange sort of imperviousness. As much admiration I have for the disarming journalist my own projected cocktail count will not leave any room for finding myself chatting away past 4am. And this time, there will be no negotiating with the stairs on my way out.

Most of the time, after a drawn-out night in New York, we come to work on time, pulled together—a little tired, but kempt. Today is not one of those days. The city was busy last night. Kanye played 1Oak, the MoMA hosted an event for the release of HBO's Recount—stay tuned for our candid interview with actress Laura Dern—while GQ and Stoli Vodka threw down in the West Village. We didn't make any of these.

On last night's Gossip Girl, one of New York's newest temples of velvet-rope-ism made a cameo appearance. Serena's mysterious drunken blackout while out on the town had her thinking (and telling others) that she accidentally killed someone -- squeal! But the next day, who should call boyfriend Dan on Serena's abandoned cellphone but a bartender from 1Oak, claiming the phone had been left at the bar (along with a substantial unpaid tab). Though 1Oak was off-camera on GG, take a look inside the club via our photo gallery.

What’s that we hear? Can it be? The pitter-patter of tiny backlashes? Your author certainly cannot even recall (though alcohol abuse may be partly to blame) a nightlife press release so vigorously decrying exclusivity as the one promoting San Francisco’s grandiose new “temple” of nighttime debauchery as Zen Compound. Based around his Temple nightclub and branding the entire space a “VIP room” (you’re all special!), DJ-owner Paul Hemming’s ZC is striving to merge Occidental decadence and Eastern consciousness into one chic, gloriously groovy and uplifting experience.

"Wait, was that the night we were all pole-dancing at subMercer?" asks director Kimberly Peirce, the visionary behind Boy's Don't Cry and this year's Stop-Loss. She laughs from her belly, and it's incongruous, given that I'm here as her guest, to watch her accept the Andrew Sarris Award at Columbia University, her alma mater. After a montage sequence that projects her most moving scenes for a crowd of aspiring filmmakers and aging professors, Peirce takes to the stage. She scans the room, and says, "People always ask me for advice, for that one thing that might help them 'make it' in film." Aside from truth and passion and all the ideals that one learns in film school, she shrugs her shoulders and jumps into an anecdote about how she found herself hitting rock-bottom on national television.

"Moscow Mule?" asks the waiter, as he proudly displays a sticky-sweet tray populated by an assortment of cocktails named after Russian donkeys. "Mule?" we italicize. He might as well have offered me a Burger Meat-tini. Still, thirsty, we drink. This is the last time our friend will come bearing gifts. You see, the private dinner to celebrate the launch of Unruly Heir at Bloomingdale's quickly devolved into a spectacle of starving socialites and double kisses at Thor.

Like so many nights before, the ever innocent “after work cocktail” slides into pre-show tequila shots with a band, crashing an awards ceremony, and the notion of staying in and getting caught up with Gossip Girl is somehow replaced by the thump of bass and the clink of glasses. GG will have to wait. Last night I came to the Highline Ballroom to do what we writers call "work." I was interviewing the buzzy band Bitter:Sweet, whose albums have been securing a lot of airtime on shows like Grey’s Anatomy, not to mention the theme song for Lipstick Jungle. I’m instructed prior to the interview that I cannot actually stay for the show, as it’s a “private engagement.” I take it in stride, drinking a bottle of water as I sit through Bitter:Sweet’s sound check, which is quite entertaining in itself.