chronicles
by
DEBBIE BANCROFT
Winter Renaissance
I
n an interesting twist, I had a call from a friend in Palm Beach, last week. “I’m looking at the sun dappled ocean and sipping a Mai Tai, poolside. What are you doing?” she somewhat smugly, inquired. “Well actually, I’ve got to hop over to The Temple of Dendur, after I salute my pal’s new book, and have to forage through my spring closet as it’s 60 degrees here!” I equally smugly responded. Recitals, screenings, new books and shows, and all of that in our spring-like, vital, vibrant mecca . . . hold the Mai Tai, sister. Starting this ‘Winter Renaissance,’ was a petit concert by the ‘poet of the violin,’ Joshua Bell and his pianist collaborator, Jeremy Denk, given by the über philanthropic Kochs, Julia and David, in their beautiful home. Joshua and Jeremy mesmerized the audience with an hour of sonatas
George Gurley and Hilly Heard
from their new album, “French Impressions,” while French impressions in the Renoirs and Vernets smiled down upon us. Joshua admitted his 300-year-old Strad was usually worth more than the homes he performed in “. . . till tonight.” David commented on the amount of effort Joshua put into his sonata. “We have a shower upstairs, if you’d like to use it!” And Joshua noting the esteemed audience, said “What a crowd—I’m amazed I made the list!” In the power pow-wow: Barbara Walters, Carolina Herrera, Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber, Princess Firyal of Jordan, Christine Schwarzman (with the best commute, up the elevator), Tory Burch, Christine Baranski, Brad Comisar, Gayle King, Bronson Van Wyck, Nicole Miller, Frédéric de Narp, Amy Fine Collins, Collins Kinga Lampert, and not many more, compounding the loveliness. Still humming Ravel, I made my way to Tina Brown and Harry Evans’ chic maisonette, to toast Bill Bratton (the formidable ex Police Commish of NY, Boston and LA) and Harvard Prof, Zachary Tumin’s Tumin book, Collaborate or Perish! As Bill’s great pal, Leonard Stern says, this book shows us, through example, “that we can no longer, go it alone.” Harry Evans noted, “technology counts, but people talking to people counts for more.” I agreed, and spoke to Caroline Hirsch and Andrew Fox, Hilary Geary Ross (whose own book was the holiday hit, and keeps going!) and Wilbur Ross, Allison Stern and Robert Zimmerman. Zimmerman Those of us who loved reading George Gurley in The Observer and Vanity Fair are thrilled we have his new book, George & Hilly: An Anatomy of a Relationship to sate us. The release of his uncensored, unselfconscious examination of a man on the brink of matrimony was apparently both cathartic and inspirational. George got down on his knee, midway through his Doubles’ book party, and proposed to Hilly. “No big deal”, she told us, “It’s not the first time, and probably won’t be the last.” Surprised, but jubilant witnesses included: Katherine Bryan (George’s beautiful mother, who saw George’s dad, George Jr., there for the first time in over 25 years), Annette Tapert, Jong-Fast Nick Denton, Duane Hampton, Sharon Molly Jong-Fast, Haynes-Dale Chris Tennant, Shelby Bryan, Hoge, Amanda Haynes-Dale, McFadden C.S. Ledbetter, Peter Kaplan and Bartle Mary McFadden, Bull, who is working on his new novel and just became a grandparent to a baby girl—“Will you make her call you Uncle?” I asked—a tried and true method of sounding young(er). “Brother,” he said. My screening spectrum this month took me from a movie about a powerful, cage-fighting gal, to toe-tapping Broadway boys, and don’t we love a little of both?
BILLY FARRELL/BFANYC.COM
New Yorkers take advantage of the unseasonably nice weather with a bevy of bashes