Swelter 12

Out again into interpersonal land, making a series of wrong moves. Knowles turning up at a private party we'd just left, regaling everyone with tales of Truman Capote and literary Morocco. Winding down the parade with a Madonna-meets-David Letterman moment in some low dive, another girl with an air of studied boredom eagerly throwing mud at our column. The standard moment of cognitive dissonance upon introduction, a sweet ice-cream face confronting the rude shock of reality versus journalistic artifice, our faithful reader bouncing back with the wonderful obliviousness of youth: "You used to be cool, ragging on all these tacky clubs. But now it's almost too nice, like you're trying to kiss up to everybody but don't know how to do it.