Jul 18, 2007 03:30 PM
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New York, 2:54 AM
Wed Feb 10
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Last evening, as Town Cars disgorged their passengers at the intersection of Bank St. and Waverly Place, a curious interaction played out in front of Graydon Carter's clubhouse, also known as the Waverly Inn. A man and a woman with carefully alphabetized lists stood guard, checking names as people attempted to enter. It was all in honor of a début novel by Vanity Fair deputy editor Doug Stumpf (#69, currently, on Amazon; #73 on Barnes & Noble's website; film rights optioned by Warner; etc.). Stumpf is no stranger to the publishing world, having worked as a book editor at Morrow, where he edited Michael Chabon. He is also the basis for what became the Robert Downey Jr. character in Wonder Boys, and we hope he came off looking better and better as he edited it. Apparently at one point it was 1,000 pages long. Also, he is also the author of From Baby to Bikini: Keep Your Midsection Toned SAFELY during Pregnancy and Flatten Your Abdominals FAST after You Have Your Baby. Anyway, as Graydon Carter does for all of his loyal pets, he excerpted Stumpf's book in the latest issue of the magazine, and of course, hosted this party.
So that's who he is. The woman in charge of the party's RSVPs was a tall, tanned publicist named Annabelle Dunne, who used to do PR for the West Village-y fashion designer Catherine Malandrino. She has moved up in the world, to guarding Graydon Carter's interests, and she and her nervous boy-assistant were not interested in letting us in. Annabelle's superior, a woman named Lizzie, had hemmed and hawed about whether we would be allowed in to chronicle the foibles of the overpaid editors and writers that make up the VF masthead, and whether Graydon would be wearing a blue blazer with gold buttons, and whether he would be holding court in the corner of the front room, his hair doing that thing that it always does, and whether there would be a sentry stationed at the entrance handing out glasses of white wine from a tray.
There was! Because they allowed us in for the briefest of moments before Annabel's associate came inside, all apologetic, and asked us to step outside again, because there was one more person Annabelle needed to check with before we could be allowed in, and he was very sorry, but they didn't think they were doing press, and could we just wait one moment? We briefly regretted not taking the chip with tuna tartare on it that had been offered to us in the 30 seconds that we had stood there in the low-ceilinged bar room of the Waverly, trying to get our eyes adjusted to the darkness before we were thrust so cruelly back into the light. Annabelle was on her cell phone; no one wanted to make eye contact with us. As they entered, a young man asked Doug Stumpf whether his book had gotten a bump from the reviews that had recently been published. We recognized him as the same young man we had once seen at another book party, who had told us he was picking up books for "his boss," and told us he was a reporter at Vanity Fair. Funnily, we never saw his name on the masthead! Anyway, he and Stumpf entered the party together.
Then! "David Margolick!" exclaimed one of the publicists, upon that editor's arrival. He seemed both pleased and embarrassed by this show of recognition. It was deceptively warm outside, in a pre-storm humidity kind of way, and we were sweating. Inside had been very nicely air-conditioned.
Annabel returned from the vestibule, where she had finished her phone call, and apologized, but there was no press at the party, really, and we were not going to be allowed in. So we went to Morandi and had a perfectly pleasant drink outside (iced tea for Josh, since he was going boxing afterwards, a glass of wine for me, since I was going home and watching recorded episodes of My Super Sweet Sixteen afterwards), where we discussed how the restaurant is basically like the Italian version of Pastis and maybe Keith McNally just has this, like, build-a-restaurant game on his computer where you just plug in what kind of restaurant you want (French, Italian, American, what have you) and the computer spits something out for you. Next to us was a group of four women who looked like ladies who lunch, except it was dinner time, and then Betsey Johnson walked in, looking exactly like you would expect Betsey Johnson to look, and she seemed cheerful and like she didn't give a shit about not being invited to Doug Stumpf's book party, anyway.
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