Musical Chairs at Conde Nast Bash

Ah, the holidays are here again, and that means missletoe, the ambient tones of Manheim Steamroller, pine needles, that silly woman who invariably gets carried home through the chilly streets of New York by her patient chums because she drank too much egg nog at the company party, and, of course, the Conde Nast Four Seasons editor and pubisher bash. Imagine the collective egos assembled in that one room; all that hot air in a single location.

Accompany me through this gallery of 'what fools these mortals be.' Why, look over there, it's Graydon Carter and his boy wonder, James Truman lighting up -- oh, those scamps-- tobacco products--indoors! And in direct defiance of Mayor Bloomberg's anti-smoking ban. That contrarian Canadian libertarian is just being rowdy!

Oh, and there's Lucky Editor in Chief Kim France who, like Christ's neighbor, the crucified robber who repented at the last minute, now sits on Si Newhouse's left hand, at the power table.

Metaphors of paradise ring true here and not politically incorrect, by the way, as Conde Nast is the Nirvanna of glossies.

Just as Dante Aligheri places the true Paradiso in the Empyrean, situated outside the universe, and therefore outside space and time, those outer tables, far away from the Mystic Rose, that celestial choir that is Si Newhouse, are less appealing, less -- shall we say -- "holy."

And would it be a far stretch of the imagination to envision the editors at Conde Nast dressed in ermine?

Why, Teen Vogue Editor-in-Chief Amy Astley is seated so close to Si that she can just ... just dip her head, slightly and gently brush her rose lips against his signet ring.

Not since the Court of the Sun King has anyone assembled such a crowd of nonpareil beauty and excellence.

That image I have conjured of Amy Astley is so beautiful ... so sublime, I believe that I shall now weep.


"The seating arrangement means everything - and nothing," says Maurie Perl, the vice president of communications told Keith Kelly of the Post, who sat at none-too-elite Table 8. "The important thing is that you're in the room."

Sure, Maurie, whatever you say.

Thank you Conde Nast, thank you for trapping beauty timeless in your glossy and quite fragrant pages, thanks to you editors great and small, who give me such material and vanity to work on.