Where's the party?

Last night at the bookstore, I managed to get into three or four long conversations with customers about merchandise, movies and business.

This one couple bought the SPORTS NIGHT box set after hearing me talk TV and movies for 10 minutes, for they asked me what my favorite box set was. I said it was the SPORTS NIGHT set, because it's intelligent, well-written, well-performed and features the entire run of the series, is my favorite. Also, SPORTS NIGHT gets points for being a show that I only saw on DVD, never on first-run television. And Felicity Huffman and Peter Krause star in it.



The same couple also wondered how I managed to see movies before they were released, so I told them about the ArtsCard and the Sunday Key Cinema Club.

Another couple talked with me about foreign film and impressed me when they were flipping through the section. I've never seen anyone - other than me - hold up a copy of Jean-Luc Godard's BREATHLESS and audibly coo over it. (Lupo would probably coo over it in a store, but I've never seen him do it. I think Lupo was more excited about the Criterion DVD release of RULES OF THE GAME, a film I ought to watch again.)



One of my last customers of the night was a woman named Rebecca, and she was from Manhattan but here on business.

For some reason, because I was ringing up 20 or so greeting cards for her and those take time, I started to rapidly ask her questions the way I used to when I was a newspaper reporter.

Which is how I found out that she was from Manhattan, in town on business, organizing cocktail parties for a new upscale jeweler opening at Lenox and that she technically worked for VOGUE.



So she related a bit of how she was organizing a party for the store while working for the magazine at the same time, and I guessed accurately how she could do that.

"You're in the promotions department?" I asked her.

"My title is promotions manager," she said.

Then she mentioned a new area magazine that she was trying to get the attention of for this party, and I told her that, considering the demographics that she was aiming for and that the store was opening during the holiday season, the way to get young, hip women with a disposable income buzzing about the store would be to invite the people from JEZEBEL.

She wants trendy, hipster Buckhead.

She told me she'd already done that, then mentioned that I really seemed to know a lot about the way this sort of thing worked and was organized.

So Rebecca invited me to the first cocktail party, which is tonight. The mayor's going to be there.

Rebecca told me that it was at David Yurman and that, if I had any trouble at the door, I could just tell them to get her and that she'd work it out.

Last night, leaving the store, I decided that it would be out-of-character for me to go to a VOGUE party and that I probably wouldn't be able to come up with the right sort of outfit to wear - since Rebecca said it was cocktail party attire.

Then, I thought the whole thing sounded like something Carrie from SEX AND THE CITY would be invited to.

And I thought it would be neat and beneficial to maybe try and impress Rebecca again, since she did invite me even though I was just the music store clerk ringing up her greeting cards. Maybe I can be charming and not obvious.

So I'm going tonight, and I called Solenn up and asked her if she wanted to go with me.

Solenn's cool with it, so she's meeting me at Lenox.

I'm hoping we can find the party.