Meta-review: my weekend [UPDATED]

Walking down West Broadway Friday night to get to a hottt (with three t's) Stuyvesant loft party in Tribeca, who did I spot mingling and posing in front of Cipriani's but Russell Simmons. While this hardly qualifies as a highlight of my weekend--it's NYC, he's famous, but he's no Scarlett Johansson--if this were a gossip page, his name would be in bold, and so I'm just going along with that standard. The party itself was exciting--no celebs, but plenty of people famous for such things as having been in the "T" homeroom, having also had Mr. Gern as an English teacher or Ms. Avigdor as a Calculus teacher. I promised Ling, the party's host, that his picture would appear on this blog, and as a testament to the fact that I do, in fact, remember this party, something those who witnessed my endless ramblings in French and surprisingly effective Hebrew might have doubted, see above. UPDATE See above right; now, with the photo Ling prefers. On the left is Hiro, who I had not seen since homeroom.

After learning of its existence maybe a few months ago, on Saturday I finally saw Red Hook. It seems I very nearly lived on the edge of it--an apartment I'd looked at in "Carroll Gardens" was, I now realize, in that vicinity--but couldn't quite place where it was. Basically you go to Carroll Gardens, follow the Park Slope-Red Hook bus route, pass through an area that looks a whole lot like the bleak expanse of projects and empty lots between Hyde Park and downtown in Chicago, and eventually get to White People Row, otherwise known as Van Brunt Street, where you can get brownies for $2.50 just like at the Dean and Deluca on 85th and Madison. As gentrification-hipsterfication goes, it'll be a while till Red Hook is the next Williamsburg, since there isn't a subway leading to the place, but it really does feel like another city. While both the done-up and Cabrini Green-esque parts of Red Hook were interesting, the waterfront was obviously the draw. The views are amazing. Speaking of amazing...

"Bruno's in Love," unlike the projector it was semi-shown on, is most excellent. It's your typical romantic comedy, except far more entertaining, and with Ohad Knoller in the "Hugh Grant" part. Boy meets girl and all that, yes, but how many romantic comedies include scenes of Japanese businessmen eating hummus and pita with chopsticks?