The Union Square Barnes & Noble may have been rocking out Thursday night with the sounds of Mike Doughty and Min Jin Lee, but about fifty blocks uptown that same evening, Simon Doonan was signing copies of his new book, Eccentric Glamour, at the B&N at Lincoln Triangle. The chapter Doonan read from, “A-List Celebs Don’t Puke in Their Purses,” had sage reflections like “People say fame is a bitch. I think it would be more accurate to say, ‘Fame is a bitch, but a dash of low-level notoriety is absolutely gorgeous!'” and “People are much too busy worrying about their own lives to ask why you are dressed up as Wolf Blitzer.” (Wolf Blitzer dresses badly?) Then he told the crowd, “It’s not vulgarity I have a problem with, I love vulgarity, walk down Fifth Avenue in a bikini for all I care. And if you’re a stripper, you should probably dress like one. But why the Real Housewives of Orange County have to dress like one all the time too, that’s my concern.” Despite Doonan’s encouragement to let their freak flags fly, however, Simon & Schuster publicist Brian Ulicky says he was told by a B&N organizer that “it was possibly their best dressed crowd ever.”
Attention, Pamela Keogh, author of the just-released What Would Audrey Do?: that sounds like a challenge!