Swelter

Ending another lost weekend with a bout of foolish hubris in a borrowed neo-Beach penthouse, one of those exalted fortresses of wealth that eerily mock man's folly. The party, unfortunately, very high-WASP in concept: a coterie of valid guests, cheap food, but a truly big-deal apartment. Far above the stench of the city, a pitiless sun bleaching the landscape into banality, the all-is-dust tone nicely captured by Eric Newill of South Florida magazine: "God, you're like J.J. Hunsecker in Sweet Smell of Success. The Walter Winchell of Broadway, coming home from the Stork Club and alone at the top. Except it's just a bunch of cheesy nightclubs now, and you're the eyes of Washington Avenue." In the end we're all a dysfunctional family of cardboard glamour, and home is nothing but a collection of friends who, thank God, understand the treacherous path to fabulousness.