New York, July 22, 2008 - A year ago Laurie Anderson played the Highline Ballroom as a part of the High Line Festival curated by David Bowie. That intimate venue and the dozens that followed throughout North and South America and Europe in many ways have served as Anderson's laboratory for the project she calls Homeland.  "Homeland is about love and war -- two things that have been on my mind recently," said Anderson in an interview with Lincoln Center Festival's Charles Sheek.  "So more or less I collect ideas in notebooks and put them in stories and songs.  It's great to edit them with a live audience so touring has been essential to the creation of the piece."  As a light-show performance, Homeland has evolved in the last year from the hyper-frenetic digital projections of Mark Coniglio as staged at the High Line Festival to the more languid lighting of the current production.  This latest installment of Homeland, however, continues to employ those naked incandescent light bulbs at the ends of long electrical cords.

Tuesday afternoon's dress rehearsal doubled as the press photo-call and hinted at the refinement coupled with force that is Laurie Anderson's program.  Both the musicians and the stage lighting were put through the paces one last time before the opening notes were to be played Tuesday evening.  At one point during the rehearsal, Anderson and her sound man Charlie Campbell spent a solid five minutes attempting to isolate a low-level, nearly inaudible whirring noise coming from her side of the stage.  Meticulous timing was the goal as they planned the exact time Campbell should mute the sound of Greg Cohen's electric bass just as he was to set it down in exchange for his upright, in order to reduce as much ambient sound as possible lest it clang into, say, the bird sounds delicately being made on the viola by Eyvind Kang.  The attention to detail is surely nothing new to Anderson, but all the same no less important for this homecoming of Homeland to Lincoln Center's Rose Theater, which runs for five nights through Saturday, July 26th.

Text and photographs by Damien Neva

New York, July 18-19, 2008 – Major League Soccer team the L.A. Galaxy came east to play the New York Red Bulls this weekend, and OAN got a chance to ogle David Beckham check out all the action at Giants Stadium.  Friday’s practice session was accompanied by a press conference.  Beckham said it was good to be back in New York, and that he was hoping to win the match this time.   He also said that he takes his celebrity status in stride. 

During the Galaxy practice session we ran into Giants coach Tom Coughlin in a corridor at the stadium; he took a look at the field, uttered a loud harrumph, and walked off.  We were too timid to ask if he was amused, annoyed or just surprised to see the “other football” taking place on his turf.

Saturday night’s big game brought a record crowd (for soccer) of over 45,000 to the stadium.   Some enthusiastic female fans spelled out “Becks” across their bare torsos. 

Once the game ended – a 2-2 tie – Beckham started to walk off the field, and then remembered his fans and walked over to the stands, removed his shirt and tossed it to some kids.  A sweaty souvenir. 

New York, July 17, 2008 – Cosmetics Mecca Sephora’s ten-year anniversary party drew an odd lot of partygoers including several members of the Lohan clan.  While Samantha Ronson has been DJing quite a bit recently in New York City, her “very good friend” Lindsay Lohan has been disappointingly absent from the nightlife scene.  However, our grapevine was buzzing on Thursday that Lindsay had flown in especially for the Sephora bash at the Angel Orensanz Foundation, and lo and behold, there she was by Samantha's side.  Her mom, reality show subject Dina Lohan, and brother Michael Lohan also turned up at the party.  Natasha Bedingfield performed for the Lohans, Samantha’s sister Charlotte Ronson, Nicky Hilton, Brooklyn Decker and Lydia Hearst.  There were empty bags into which partygoers were encouraged to tuck away a few well-chosen Sephora items, but that turned into a free-for-all with everybody grabbing armfuls of product, including displays.  By the time poor Ashanti took the stage, everybody was too busy shopping to pay attention.

Photos: Caroline Torem Craig

New York, July 16, 2008 – The American premiere of Mamma Mia!, the musical comprised of ABBA songs, was as fluffy as the story, with a bright blue carpet evoking the Aegean sea of the Greek Islands where the film takes place.  Hunky shirtless men wearing board shorts with flippers on their feet were stationed along the carpet, bringing that beachy feel to rush hour in Midtown Manhattan at the Ziegfeld Theatre. 

The mood was suitably upbeat, too, with Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth joking their way into the theater – these actors are not known for singing and dancing, and they embraced that.  Brosnan admitted that a part of him was terrified by the prospect of singing and dancing.  “But I didn’t have to be a pitch-perfect singer; I just had to sing with a bit of heart, and act it.   And I think that’s the joy of this piece for all of us”, he told us. 

Star Meryl Streep, of course, has already sung successfully in flicks like A Prairie Home Companion, and original ABBA member Benny Andersson, who was also a producer, called Streep a “real singing star.”  Streep not only had daughters Mamie and Grace Gummer in tow, but her husband, sculptor Don Gummer, made a rare appearance for the frothy confection of a movie. 

Executive producer Rita Wilson was sad that her husband Tom Hanks couldn’t make the premiere, but she wasn’t alone.  “I actually have my whole big fat Greek family with me, just not my husband”, she told us as the movie was about to start.

New York, July 17, 2008 – The leaf was from the medically beneficial Artemisia family, also known as sagewort, but more than one person gasped when Bill Clinton held up a marijuana-like leaf at a press conference today.  But it was all for a good cause – and all quite legal.  An extract of the plant used to make an anti-malarial drug has been fluctuating wildly in price, making it difficult to distribute the treatments.  Today at the Clinton offices in Harlem, the former president announced that his foundation has signed pricing agreements with several suppliers involved in making the drug in an effort to stabilize the medication’s costs.

Representatives from the U.N. and from the drug companies joined Clinton for the announcement. 

Learn more at The Clinton Foundation

New York, July 16, 2008 – Boxing legend Joe Frazier paid a visit to the Sports Museum of America in lower Manhattan on Wednesday, where he mingled with season ticket holders over lunch.  Looking around, Frazier noted that the museum has a huge picture of his arch-rival Muhammad Ali on the wall; “but I had to hunt down a picture of me”, he quipped.   The father of 11 children also said that one of his daughters can beat him up. 

Smoking Joe loaned the Sports Museum his fight robe from the 1974 Jerry Quarry match, and later signed autographs in the museum shop.  Frazier is a world heavyweight boxing champ and an Olympic gold medal winner.

New York, July 14, 2008 – VitaminWater cooled everybody off celebrating the MLB All-Star game in New York City this week.  The biggest bash was late Monday night at Hudson Terrace way over on Manhattan’s west side where the Mets’ David Wright hosted a star-studded party featuring a midnight performance by 50 Cent.   Even the event’s organizers seemed surprised as more and more celebrities walked down the green Astroturf carpet.  Baseball and basketball pros mingled with music and Hollywood types like Paul Rudd, LL Cool J, Busta Rhymes, Fabolous and Gabrielle Union. 

Is it a new love for Gina Gershon?  One of the first to arrive, the Bound star was hand-in-hand with a guy who she declined to identify.  No one can pass up a 50 Cent concert.  A slew of young stars including Emile Hirsch, Lauren Conrad, Chace Crawford, Blake Lively and Penn Badgley hit up the party after attending the big Dark Knight premiere earlier in the evening. (We did too.)

Hardly anyone realized that Penn Badgley was at the VitaminWater bash – he slipped in unnoticed without posing for photos.  However, we saw him exit with his Gossip Girl co-stars, say goodnight to Crawford and leave with his girlfriend Lively.

Photos: Luisa John/PKI

New York, July 15, 2008 - We stumbled upon the Gossip Girl set in New York City on Tuesday, where Penn Badgley and Blake Lively were filming a make out scene. Their characters Dan and Serena are lovers in the popular show, and in a life imitates TV scenario, the two are also lovers off screen.