New York Culture

I've always hated New York City, that poisonous configuration on the other, inferior coast. It's a ghastly, decaying city, the subject of late-night monologues and front page stories detailing unspeakable atrocities. The Big Bad Apple is continuing evidence that cities are becoming obsolete. Watching New York struggle and succumb has been a sort of national media performance art piece, a slow-motion conceptual choreography of chaos and entropy. But it's had nothing to do with me.

Leaders of New York's diverse cultural institutions met Wednesday with Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's administration to discuss how to deal with a 15% cut in city arts funding prompted by the World Trade Center attack. Participants said the atmosphere of the closed-door conference at City Hall was supportive of the mayor. "The arts community, like the rest of New York, is ready to go," said Laura Jean Watters, executive director of the Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island.

Leaders of New York's diverse cultural institutions met Wednesday with Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's administration to discuss how to deal with a 15% cut in city arts funding prompted by the World Trade Center attack. Participants said the atmosphere of the closed-door conference at City Hall was supportive of the mayor. "The arts community, like the rest of New York, is ready to go," said Laura Jean Watters, executive director of the Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island.

I've always hated New York City, that poisonous configuration on the other, inferior coast. It's a ghastly, decaying city, the subject of late-night monologues and front page stories detailing unspeakable atrocities. The Big Bad Apple is continuing evidence that cities are becoming obsolete. Watching New York struggle and succumb has been a sort of national media performance art piece, a slow-motion conceptual choreography of chaos and entropy. But it's had nothing to do with me.

"I might as well sell my weekend house. I'll never see it again." This was the reaction of Joseph Volpe on his first day as the new general director of the New York Metropolitan Opera. Volpe was named Wednesday to run the nation's largest opera company. He will also be in charge of financial operations and public relations. At the same time Marilyn Shapiro was promoted to executive director of external affairs (in charge of fund-raising and marketing).

The grand piano of late cabaret singer Bobby Short sold for $132,000 in an auction of his personal effects, auction house Christie's said. The piano, a 1971 black lacquer Bechstein kept in Short's Manhattan apartment, had a pre-sale estimate of $30,000 to $40,000. A monogrammed Cartier silver ice bucket sold for $18,000 and an Art Deco wrought iron fire screen brought $12,000, the auction house said.

Maria Elena Fernandez had a decidedly different experience at Ivar than I did on a recent Saturday night ("Choose the mood," Oct. 24). Anger was my "unchosen" mood. This is likely because she entered knowingly into the owner's promotion scheme, whereas I was an unwitting participant. I was invited to a birthday party and was told to get to the club around 10 p.m. I was on a "priority" guest list and my cover was being waived. My friend and I arrived around 10:30 p.m. to find 150 people waiting outside.

Malcolm McLaren's multimedia event on Saturday at the Hollywood Palladium--partially benefiting the Rainforest Foundation and incorporating aspects of New York fashion culture with Brazilian music and dance--was predictably, irresistibly pretentious: We can hang out with the Warhol set and get down with the south-of-the-equator conga crowd too, it begged attendees to brag.

Christmas came early for a pair of online magazines. Last week, Feed (http://www.feedmag.com) raised more than $250,000 from a group of private investors that includes computer guru Esther Dyson and former MTV Networks Chief Executive David Horowitz. Feed co-founders Steven Johnson and Stefanie Syman persuaded them to invest in their irreverent, New York-based culture magazine after making a presentation at the prestigious Angel Breakfast in July.

Betrayed A Play George Packer Faber & Faber: 128 pp., $13 paper IN January 2007, George Packer went to Iraq to write for the New Yorker about Iraqis risking their lives to work with the Americans there. "Their American employers in general regarded their welfare as a bureaucratic nuisance," he writes in the introduction to "Betrayed," a play based on the resulting article.

"I might as well sell my weekend house. I'll never see it again." This was the reaction of Joseph Volpe on his first day as the new general director of the New York Metropolitan Opera. Volpe was named Wednesday to run the nation's largest opera company. He will also be in charge of financial operations and public relations. At the same time Marilyn Shapiro was promoted to executive director of external affairs (in charge of fund-raising and marketing).

Taking a few steps past "Henry's Film Corner" and "Film School" into original productions, the Independent Film Channel has bundled three comedy series -- a cartoon, a mockumentary and a puppet show, all related, naturally, to the movies -- into an hourlong omnibus, premiering tonight. The package has a kind of can't-be-bothered-to-go-out-on-Friday-night appeal; all of the series are amusing, and none is remarkable. One might call them lackadaisically funny.

When the late writer and wit Dorothy Parker suggested that her epitaph should be "Excuse my dust," little did she know how close she was to the truth. For the last six years, her ashes have languished in the office of Manhattan lawyer Paul O'Dwyer, who is hoping her admirers will think of a fitting way to dispose of them. The problem, O'Dwyer said, is that when Parker died on June 7, 1967, at age 73, she asked to be cremated but did not stipulate what was to be done with the ashes.