Party Digest Newsletter -- Volume 1 Issue 3, 28 August 2009

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Volume 1 Issue 3

28 August, 2009

In this issue you will find:

1. Partydigest Parties With Uncle Sam's New York: A Night Tour Of New York's Hottest Clubs

2. Pera Restaurant

3. Guggenheim Announces September 25 It Came From Brooklyn Lineup

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1. Partydigest Parties With Uncle Sam's New York: A Night Tour Of New York's Hottest Clubs

New York, NY, August 17, 2009--Partydigest tags along to experience the Chelsea Night Club tour with Uncle Sam's New York firsthand. Along with 10 additional guests from all parts of the world, the PartyDigest staff parties it up at the hottest nightlife venues in NY. Below is the breakdown of our night.

Starting at 10pm: The first stop on the tour featured Naima Restaurant where everyone got acquainted with each other over a couple of drinks complimentary of Uncle Sam's.

10.30: After a second round of drinks, guests moved to the Glass Lounge. Equipped with a live DJ and a futuristic interior, the group got comfortable with each other at a smaller venue.

12am (midnight): The third stop featured the #32 hottest spot in West Chelsea on the "Top 100 [of] 2009 Night Club & Bar" according to www.nightclub.com: Marquee. As the group chugged their last drinks at the Glass Lounge, we walked right past the line at approximately midnight to get our dance on. As usual, the Marquee was packed from wall to wall with little elbow room. Many people chose to stay at the main room which featured house and techno music while I stayed on the second level where I reveled in the hip hop music.

2am: After countless rounds of drinks, we met with our tour guide outside of the Marquee excited to check out the last stop on the tour- the M2 Ultra Lounge. Previously named as the Mansion, this club featured two rooms similar to the Marquee- one playing techno music and the other with Hip-hop music. After a couple of drinks, we all decided it was time to exit the club at 3 in the morning.

Some of us from the tour ended the night over chicken kabobs from a street vendor. We kicked off our dancing shoes and laughed over the events of the night. To say the least, tonight was one of the most memorable nights to date.

For more information on the Chelsea Night Club Tour, please visit www.unclesamsnewyork.com or call 1(212).888.8769

2. Pera Restaurant

Recently, we had the good fortune of being invited to dine luxuriously as one of Manhattan's trendiest Turkish restaurants - Pera located at 303 Madison between 41st and 42nd Sts. party pic

Not only is the food great, but the place has great ambience and becomes quite the after-work place to meet and eat.

The restaurant's publicist Shelley Clark, who we've known for years, made a lunch appointment and stayed for a short while introducing us to the restaurant, chef and describing in delicious details some of the entrees.

Who knew the restaurant came about as a result of a business plan prepared by the young Turk named Burak Karacam, who envisioned the eatery on paper as part of his college prepwork. Lo and behold, the idea became a reality and instead of becoming another Wall Street banker the smart genius opened Pera.

It helped that he came from a Turkish dining dynasty with well-known restaurants in the Mediterranean. But he could have always taken that short cut and gone home to a well-bred business. Kudos to him for braving it in the heat and dust of NY kitchens.

We started out with a lovely California Rose paired with Warm Hummus with pastırma, moving on to the Lemon-Dill Marinated Sea Bass and ending the appetizer round with Mini Shish Trio .

Our main course was paired with delightful Malbec wines and Grilled Calamari Salad comprised of green olives, tomatoes, peppers, homemade pickle, celery, and oregano vinaigrette. Arguably the best calamari salad on the planet!

Feeling robust and the Malbec slipping in quite well, we moved toward the Pera Lamb Tradition - a chef's tasting plate of lamb specialties, lamb loin brochette, seasoned lamb ribletsour and signature fresh lamb "adana".

The restaurant wasn't very crowded and our server was a delight and very easy to work with when it came to sampling dishes or just experimenting with courses.

If you're still not sold after reading this, than here's the best part: Wine & Meze afternoons, Monday thru Saturday -- A bottle of wine from a choice of 25 and choice of three meze for $39! Wow. From 3:30 to 7 Monday thru Friday, from 5:30 to 7 on Saturday.

Also Pera does great picnic baskets for al fresco dining in a park, at the beach or in the backyard. Marvelous gifts for your host /hostess in the Hamptons.

Visit www.peranyc.com and make your reservations today.

3. Guggenheim Announces September 25 It Came From Brooklyn Lineup

(NEW YORK, NY -- August 27, 2009)--The second It Came from Brooklyn concert will take place September 25, 2009, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum with performances by Julian Plenti (aka Paul Banks of Interpol) and I'm In You and readings by authors Rivka Galchen and Hampton Fancher. Comedian Eugene Mirman will serve as the MC for the evening.

It Came from Brooklyn, the new concert series showcasing Brooklyn's emerging and established talents in the fields of music and literature was conceived by coproducers Sam Brumbaugh and Bronwyn Keenan as part of the museum's 50th Anniversary celebrations. The title of the series references Robert Gordon's book It Came from Memphis, which details the birth of rock-n-roll in the 1950s.

"Over the past decade, Brooklyn has emerged as a place of astonishing artistic creativity and interdisciplinary experimentation," said Brumbaugh, "Our aim is to share the spirit of this scene with the museum's audience and beyond, while keeping a local feel for New Yorkers."

Each program takes place in the famed Frank Lloyd Wright--designed rotunda and features live bands, literary readings, and comedy from 8 pm to 12 am. Audiences also have the opportunity to visit select sections of the Vasily Kandinsky retrospective on view this fall. "It Came from Brooklyn is meant to have a cabaret-like atmosphere," Brumbaugh continued, "We want to offer a good night out, with music, comedy, literature, and art--all in one program."

"Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Guggenheim to be a social space that engages the public," said Keenan, who is Associate Director of Special Events at the museum. "The audience can move up and around the spiraling ramp during the acts for a concert experience that is at once monumental and intimate, a powerful contrast intrinsic to the series."

Tickets are on sale at guggenheim.org/brooklyn. Tickets are $45 for non-members, $40 for members. Advance tickets can be purchased before September 10 for $38 for non-members, $33 for members.

All proceeds support the series and the Guggenheim's exhibitions and programs.

8 pm:	Doors open. The audience may view the Kandinsky exhibition or enjoy refreshments at the bar.
9 pm:	Eugene Mirman welcomes the crowd and kicks off the evening.
9:15 pm:	I'm in You
10 pm:	Readings by Hampton Fancher and Rivka Galchen
10:30 pm:	Julian Plenti

Julian Plenti

Paul Banks of the critically acclaimed indie band Interpol has performed acoustically since 1998. His first solo effort, Julian Plenti is… Skyscraper was just released in August by Matador Records under the pseudonym Julian Plenti. Recorded at the Seaside Lounge in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and at Electric Lady Studios in Manhattan, the debut album features keyboards, horns, and strings augmenting guitars, bass, and drums, offering both ethereal soundscapes and urgent rock songs. For It Came from Brooklyn, Banks will perform selections from the album with his mostly Brooklyn-based band. Though Banks had a rehearsal space with Interpol in Brooklyn for years, he currently splits his time between Panama and the greater New York area. It Came from Brooklyn is Julian Plenti's first public performance since 2002.

I'm In You

The musical investigations of Brooklyn-based experimental band I'm In You have been described as part post-rock and part afro-punk disco, part cinematic soul. Band members Chris McHenry, Sebastian Ischer, Dmitiry Ishenko, and Andrei Zakow experiment with minimalist rhythm, heartbreak strings, free jazz horns, and noise-damaged guitars, the whole underscored by foreboding lyrics about relations of power and man's existential limitations. They released their first LP War Dreams in 2008 and recently recorded the EP A Lurid View. For It Came from Brooklyn, they will perform an orchestral set highlighting their rhythmic and textural approach, with Glenn White and Mike Irwin on horns, Erica Dicker on violin, Katie Young on bassoon, and Monique Letamendi and Ricky Suarez on backing vocals. The band's many members have lived, worked, rehearsed, recorded, and performed in Brooklyn since 2007.

Hampton Fancher

Born in east LA, Hampton Fancher left home at 15, went to Europe, became a dancer, then retired five years later to become an actor. Under contract to various Hollywood studios throughout the ‘60s and early ‘70s, he appeared in "lots of bad TV and some unremarkable movies here and abroad," all the while making short films, directing plays, and teaching. At 40, he gave up acting to concentrate on writing and directing, completing a dozen scripts, among them Ridley Scott's Bladerunner, Mighty Quinn, and The Minus Man, which he also directed. Fancher has taught screenwriting at Columbia and NYU and is currently working on a book of short stories for Simon & Schuster. For It Came from Brooklyn, Fancher will read from the work of former Driggs Avenue resident, the legendary and peripatetic Henry Miller, whom Fancher met for the first time in 1957, when he was 18 and Miller was 66. Fancher is Rivka Galchen's next-door neighbor in Brooklyn Heights.

Rivka Galchen

Rivka Galchen received her MD from Mount Sinai in 2003 and her MFA from Columbia University in 2006. She is the author of the widely acclaimed debut novel, Atmospheric Disturbances, about a psychiatrist who becomes convinced that his wife has been replaced by a simulacrum. The novel was named a 2008 New York Times Notable Book and one of the best books of the year by numerous publications including Slate.com and Salon.com. Galchen's essays and stories have appeared in Harper's, Zoetrope, The New Yorker, The Believer, Scientific American, and the New York Times. For It Came from Brooklyn, Galchen will read from the work of one of her favorite writers, the American novelist and short-story writer Jane Bowles, who for a time shared a rooming house in Brooklyn Heights with her husband Paul Bowles, poet W. H. Auden, burlesque star and novelist Gypsy Rose Lee, and a circus animal trainer with two live-in chimps. Galchen is Hampton Fancher's next-door neighbor in Brooklyn Heights.

Eugene Mirman

Brooklyn-resident Eugene Mirman is a Russian-born comedian who grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts and majored in comedy at Hampshire College. Mirman has appeared on several TV shows, including in his own half-hour special on Comedy Central, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Last Call with Carson Daly, a recurring role on HBO's Flight of the Conchords, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Home Movies, Lucy, Daughter of the Devil, and the Adult Swim live action series Delocated. Mirman tours the US regularly and has released several comedy albums. His latest, due out in October from Sub Pop records is called God Is a Twelve-Year-Old Boy with Asperger's. He's also written a parody self-help guide to modern life entitled The Will To Whatevs, published by HarperCollins. Most recently, Mirman has been hosting shows in the Park Slope and Gowanus neighborhoods of Brooklyn while working on the September production of his second annual Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival.

Artwork by Mike Paré, 2009 Photos are courtesy the artists. August 27, 2009 #1130 FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CONTACT:
Claire Laporte, Publicist Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 212 423 3840 or e-mail: pressoffice@guggenheim.org