Manhattan bulletin

Manhattan is sunny again, which is a relief: reviewing rooftop bars is no fun at all in the rain. The only flipside is that I have a week of concerted bar going to get through in the name of research. My poor, poor liver.

Aside from the detrimental health effects of my latest commission, everything else is good. JSL is bouncing around the apartment (he’s staying for a few days) looking like he is suppressing a lot of unholy glee at the news that his screenplay went into production in Spain yesterday. An adaptation of Hemingway’s Garden of Eden, it stars Mena Suvari, Jack Houston, Caterina Murino, & Richard E Grant.

Last night I took JL to Soho House for the latest in the Grand Classics series: Kevin Spacey introducing Preston Sturges’ 1941 film, Sullivan’s Travels, starring Joel McCrea & the ravishing Veronica Lake; a pointed tragi-comedy about a director of musical comedies who wants to direct socio-realistic movies. Bumped into Poppy & Daisy de V, with their mother, & L afterwards. After supper I cabbed it to the Lower East Side to The French Diner, then was persuaded to 151 Rivington, a dark, deep & dirty basement bar, to meet more people. So much for a quiet Monday night: in at 1-ish.