Life is Good (for the chosen few): NYT: At Holiday Parties, St. Nick Starts to Morph Into Bacchus

[FreeStateDemocrat]

By MELENA RYZIK
Published: December 10, 2006

The holiday party season is in full swing, and even without a naked Santa, there is a lot going on. Business has been booming at new steakhouses like STK in the meatpacking district and Porter House New York in the Time Warner Center, at the resurrected palaces of excess Le Cirque and the Russian Tea Room, and at the Nokia Theater in Times Square, a newer addition to the music and event circuit. All are fully booked this month — and into the next — with events for financial companies, law firms, media conglomerates and tech businesses.

Driven by higher salaries in the financial and technology industries and bigger Wall Street bonuses, corporate events are larger, more creative and often costlier than in the recent past, party planners, restaurant owners and banquet managers say.

“We’re having a really ridiculous fabulous season,” said Serena Bass, the Manhattan caterer who has spent more than two decades in the corporate party business. “Two-thousand four was not so great. Last year was better, and this year is really, really great. The numbers are bigger. Last year we were getting a lot of 150. Now were getting 250, 350, 450.”

Ninety percent of the parties at the Russian Tea Room, which reopened last month, will have caviar and vodka service, at a cost of as much as $500 a person, said Ken Biberaj, a spokesman for the restaurant. Even ice sculptures are back: behind the glowing white bar at the Fox party, held at Studio 450, a loft in Chelsea, there was one in the shape of a giant letter I (for “Interactive”).

As lavish as the parties are, they are still not quite up to dot-com era excess. But at a time when the Dow has reached new highs and the haves are evolving into the have mores, these celebrations are more in line with the buoyant economic mood than with the discouraging situation in Iraq. This season, there is a greater willingness to throw more-elaborate parties, complete with themes, video displays and specialty cocktails.

“In the past, we had the idea, ‘We’re in a war,’ ” said Danielle Venokur, the general manager of L’Olivier, a florist and event production company with offices in Chelsea and on the Upper East Side. “But for some reason, that’s not in the forefront of everyone’s mind right now.” She paused before adding: “That’s a little scary.” (cont'd)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/fashion/10hospitality.html?ref=style

[ClassWarrior]

1. Glad to hear Faux had an ice sculpture shaped like an "I"...

...for IMPEACHMENT. :evilgrin:

NGU.

[moc]

2. Go to the link and check out the accompanying picture.

Enough botox ya think? I'd be surprised if that woman on the left could smile normally. Blech. I don't understand the attraction of botox.

[whistle]

3. Weimar Republik of post WW I Germany underwent much the same

...transition of social upper class excesses and working class economic deprivation from 1919 through 1933 until the Nazis under Adolf Hitler siezed power and established Hitler as dictator.

What is being witnessed in the U.S. right now are the precursors of economic, social and political disasters yet to unfold.

The German films of Fritz Lang document these signs especially his two part Dr. Mabuse released in 1922, Metropolis 1927, "M" 1931 and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse 1933. If you can find the restored versions of these films on DVD especially those which have the commentaries, watch them. There were also a number of other Lang films produced during his early film making carreerr in Germany which I have found most interesting, entertaining and educational.

<for more on Lang see> http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000485/

[AngryAmish]

4. I'm glad I'm not the only one

I am eating and drinking myself into an early grave. I need to relax.

[tanyev]

5. Ah, a return to the Gilded Age. Good times.

For a very select few.

[Mike Daniels]

6. If the company has the money to spend, they should have at it

I seriously doubt not one of these companies isn't also giving to at least one or more charities over the business year.

[smirkymonkey]

7. New York City used to be such a cool place.

Now it's just a big playground for the shallow, greedy, self-absorbed mega rich. I live here and I can't tell you how many times I get into discussions with people who have been here for years who are just fed up and disgusted by the fact that the pigs-at-the-trough have taken over our great metropolis and turned it into a mockery of it's former self.

Bonfire of the Vanities, Raging out of control!