Swelter

An impossible act to follow, but the ride uptown plunging on anyway. A Concert Association of Florida/We Will Rebuild fundraiser at the Omni hotel, with a great classical lineup, home girl Judy Drucker, Luciano Pavarotti, Itzhak Perlman, and Vladimir Ashkenazy. The opening of the very beautiful, very valid Jason Rubell gallery on Lincoln Road, featuring the work of Whitney Biennial-bound artist Gary Simmons. Afterward, an elegant post-reception dinner at the Century, attended by collectors Nedra and Mark Oren, Nancy and Bob Magoon, and members of the Whitney Museum National Committee, in town for an art tour of Miami. A high point coming with the resident palm reader approaching the head table -- occupied by people like Flora Biddle, well bred enough to actually get away with wearing polyester -- and reading the hand of an imperious upper-class WASP, bemusedly indifferent to his fate. "You will be in the public eye soon...and this line means that you will also be coming into a great deal of money." Our own hand, proffered with the pathetic eagerness of the orphans in Oliver Twist, somewhat less illuminating. And naturally, not promising at all.