My Phone's On Vibrate For You. Or, Cavalcade of Stars.

This one's for my sister. So tonight my friend A., the dance critic, took me to see some dance, with music by Rufus Wainwright. Who I like a great deal, but who my sister loves. In the cold light of...a subway ride and a cheese sandwich, the dance, while enjoyable, didn't really matter, because while parts of it were beautiful (the Wainwright parts), some other parts were bullshit (the part where the booming-over-the-tinny-speakers Rite of Spring threatened to obliterate the dancers, who were up to a lot of soundless fury, etc.). The choreographer was Stephen Petronio, with some costumes by Tara Subkoff. Wainwright composed three (?) songs, two set to lines from Whitman (Unseen buds, infinite, hidden well and The Modern man I sing, the last to lines from Dickinson (Hope is the thing with feathers). No instruments, just his voice, layering one part over the next. Wonderful. This and Bach's St. Matthew Passion in under two weeks! We sat right in front of him. He was wearing a dark striped shirt tucked into black jeans, and a black vest with some sort of brooch on it. Like a sheriff's star, but not--? Anyway, he was nervous, it seemed. When the lights went down, I heard him utter, sighing, "Oh, boy." As in here we go, I hope this turns out alright. Then during a pause he said to the friend he was with--"Where'd my water go? Did you drink it all? You did? Oh, I could really use some!" Then his friend said look, it's just fantastic, or something like that. Poor thing. His mother, Kate McGarricle, was next to him. Then--and I couldn't figure out whether this other person was being serious or sarcastic--his mother asked this other person if he was making a movie. And the person said, in a British accent, "Oh, yeah, I'm in this thing with Russell and Nicole. Some Australian cowboy thing, set in the thirties." But wait! Rushing into the auditorium to take my seat I was behind Lou Reed and his Downtown Queen Consort Laurie Anderson. Or maybe he's her Downtown Queen Consort--? Anyway, I was right behind them. They're both tiny and skinny, like a pair of wax beans. He seemed doddering, like a 75-year-old man. ("That's what you get for doing heroin," said my friend A. "That's one good thing about growing up in Berkeley," she added. "You get to see what years of drug use looks like, so that you want to live healthy.") Wrinkly, but not grey-haired. In a long madras-ish plaid blazer with zippers where pockets should be and maybe some pale jeans. She wore, as to be expected, some satiny chinoisey bell-shaped grey jacket, hair regulation spiked. His hair curls up in a wiry, spiky way at the back of his neck. Reader, I stared at it to remember it always. Because while he might have had the Factory, I have his neck in the lobby of the Joyce. He came up the aisle where were seated and was talking to a black guy that maybe was--not Andre Leon Talley, but someone who I knew I knew--and said, I swear to God, "Do you remember Ingrid Sischy? Do you remember we had dinner at her father's place that time?" As if that wasn't enough, Leelee Sobieski was there. I had a hard time explaining to A. who she was, because I had forgotten why we even knew about her in the first place. I once upon a time saw Baryshnikov with A., and even in the lobby of that theatre, with a trench and a baseball cap on, I saw exactly why Jessica Lange married him. Did I mention that I left the house, realizing way too late to change, that I was wearing the jeans and coat I had worn to Easter vigil at a church in the city and the candles we held blurped wax on them?

Meanwhile, while I was out, 70 people hung over the East River in the Roosevelt Island tram. Goodness. Hope they're alright. That's exactly why I've never taken it, though I've long wanted to. Also, the Spanish family that rules the corner of St. Mark's and Fifth brought out the card table and dominos tonight, so that means summer has officially arrived.