Late night gambling party at a country estate

Hartford party veteran Amber A. was celebrating Christmas in Connecticut this week, and last night we caught her right before she left to go back to Portland, OR. An intimate few gathered at her mother Cindy's country estate for dinner followed by heavy drinking and gambling. The five of us playing all made tens of thousands of dollars at the table and then lost it all in a matter of minutes. We were listening to Guns 'n' Roses. I stopped taking pictures once the party really started to get interesting in order to not cheapen the experience with the endless taking of snapshots. We played spin the bottle, truth or dare, and drank every drop of alcohol we could find in Cindy's well-stocked liquor cabinet. Later, Sam Ekwurtzel saved the evening when he retrieved a bottle of Brut from his knapsack at exactly 3am.

At roughly 4am Laurel Coniglio lit a fire under the mantel to encourage the already palpable level of romance and good feeling. Four of us climbed into the foldout couch-bed and Sam opened a beautiful little bottle of Beaujolais compliments of Power Boothe, well-wisher, old friend, and dean of the Hartford Art School. We passed the bottle to one another in bed until probably 5:30am professing our enduring true love for each other, shedding unnecessary items of clothing, getting more and more deliriously drunk. Everybody lost their virginity and everybody is now with child.

In the morning we drafted a letter to Power Boothe thanking him for the bottle and for his help in creating such a happy Christmas miracle. We also smoked tons of chronic and went to work late.

Amber A.

Joan Miro in the background

Sick ponchos, ladies!

shocked by daylight

Christmas Party for the NEVERS'S and Jesus.

Tomorrow night after everyone has had enough of grandma and grandpa and mom and dad and sister, come out to Sully's for a Christmas party. I am going to demand champagne cocktails even though the bartender clearly has no idea how to make one. Lacey Nevers and all the Nevers sisters will be there so this should be packed and really fun. All the boys that waited too long to tell her how much they loved her are going to be there because this is their last chance to show her how they feel before she leaves again for LA. There are going to be so many broken hearts, tears, and text messages tomorrow.

Real Art Ways, MiBar after party, Blow Up New Haven...

Here are some party picture from this past weekend. A lot of people looked great. MiBar was probably the best night of the weekend on Thursday night for Brian Friedberg's party with DJ Hannah Latitude. Blow Up was fun too. I'm looking forward to Christmas night at Sully's for a special holiday Humped party with special guest LACEY NEVERS, who is visiting from Los Angeles.

Real Art Ways, Creative Cocktail Hour celebrating Caleb Portfolio

Stylist Sophie Tong and Caroline McCall

Artist Gregg Davis

Brian Stephenson and Dyani Tisdol

Photographer Tom P.

Nick Naney rules because he wore this poncho to work

After Party at MiBar, Park St.

Real Art Ways' Kristina Newman-Scott, yours truly, and Catherine Blinder

Jen Knauf, back in town from London

Brian Friedberg, aka DJ Rizla

power couple Edgardo and Gabriela Galarza-Block

DJ Hannah Latitude and her unidentified date

Meghan Dahn

Supposedly this guy's name is Tron.

Blow Up, Cafe Nine, New Haven

DJ Chris Prorock

Hot couple.

Mayor Perez: horrendous

Why does the Hartford Courant insist on photographing our mayor? This picture was on the front cover of the paper this morning. I do like the woman's fur coat on the right. He is, no contest, the ugliest person in Hartford. Enough about crime, poverty, "white flight," and urban blight... the single worst presence in our city is our own mayor. His face is terrible PR. Any effort put forth by city planners and developers to attract commercial growth or exciting cultural attractions are mired in a whole city hall full of offensive-looking elected officials.


Anyway, tonight I'm going to Lee Boucher's Christmas caroling party and then I'm off to New Haven for Blow Up. Pictures tomorrow.

CCH sprouts a new after party, at long last

Tomorrow night is the monthly Creative Cocktail Party at Real Art Ways (Photographer Caleb Portfolio's new show will be on view, pictured). Should be a fantastic party as usual. But there is good news! Brian Friedberg, RAW ex-employee and my ex-lover is throwing an after-party at a bar I've never heard of just around the corner from RAW, so this time the partying does not have to stop at 10pm when everyone is just getting started. The bar is MiBar at 1995(!) Park Street. I think its a sports bar, which is embarrassing but I am giving this place the benefit of the doubt. Real Art Way's super-good resident DJ Latitude will play a set at the after-party followed by someone else, possibly even Brian. I am very much looking forward to it, especially since we've been lacking variety in nightlife lately. Leave it to Brian to spice things up.

Reasons why the 90's are finally back

As everyone should know by now the 90's are making a major comeback and I would just like to help usher in this revival. I really want to see people at parties looking real cool, depressed, disaffected, pissed, broke, slouching and existentially anxious. I know I should be writing about parties, but this honestly seems more pressing and it's been weighing on my mind lately. There are literally millions of reasons why this needs to happen. Here are a few of the most important style points to think about, or you could just watch "Reality Bites" "My Own Private Idaho" and every episode of "My So-Called Life."