Best Bets

Custom-stitched linens, plus Stella McCartney’s Adidas line

Economy of One

Duncan Sheik spends an imaginary $30,000 on vintage microphones and yoga retreats

The Look Book

Featuring a “German Quentin Crisp”

Market Research

From hand-carved Cartiers to Duane Reade ballpoints, a guide to pens

Mating

Avant-garde socializing with Soy Bomb

Real Estate

Détente between co-op boards and brokers

Shop news

Store openings this week

Ask a Shop Clerk

Sarah Pinto of H&M

The Best Seller

“Cookie” lingerie set

The Restaurant Review

Greek cuisine at the Upper West Side’s deservedly popular Onera

In Season

A black-truffle recipe from a Ducasse chef

Restaurant Openings & Buzz

Week of Jan. 31, 2005: Plate, Della Rovere, and English Is Italian.

Ask Gael

Compass Yet Again? Can I Trust You?

Pass the Vanilla Cognac

Un-blinglike uses of Navan, hip-hop’s cognac du jour

The Underground Gourmet

Sukhadia’s is a gift to midtown vegetarians.

Fat Tuesday

New York’s no New Orleans, but that’s no reason not to get in the bead-slinging swing come February 8.

Wing It

For a nonpartisan Super Bowl Sunday, skip the cheese steaks and lobster rolls and order in some spicy chicken wings.

Auctions

Handicapping the Kennedy auction at Sotheby’s

Company Man

Big-time actor Philip Seymour Hoffman runs one of New York’s smallest (and coolest) theater companies.

Movies

Sundance buzz proves unreliable

Resident Alien: What Ever Happened to Hal Hartley?

Hal Hartley on trying to get his audience back

We Wuz Robbed

A New York–Centric Guide to the Oscars

Theater Review

Sutton Foster is the only highlight of the awful Little Women

Hurlyburly Reviewed

The New Group’s revival of David Rabe’s Hurlyburly confirms it as a major play.

TV

Torture moves from dramas to the nightly news and back

Dispatchers: Joe and Harry Gantz

The art of procuring Taxicab Confessions

Pop Music Review

Manhattan fixture Antony’s favorite subject is, of all things, nature

Influences: Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull goes to the ballet with Mick Jagger

Classical Music Review

The Iron Curtain rises on twentieth-century Soviet music

Composer: David Lang

This week at BAM, the busy composer David Lang premieres Amelia, a furiously athletic pointe-driven work.

On Disc: The Audio Encyclopedia

More than 40 hours of hard-to-find live performances, featuring singers and conductors you won’t hear anywhere else.

Book Review

The unjustly maligned work of the late Heather Lewis.

Overheard

What the Audience Really Thought about NBCC Nominations Party (vs. National Book Awards)

Comic Duo: Mike Albo & Virginia Heffernan

Performance artist Mike Albo and his partner, Virginia Heffernan, just published a comic novel about a classic New York phenomenon.

Intelligencer Gossip

Irv Gotti’s dirty laundry, Melania Knauss’s best dress man, Daniel Boulud on B’way, and more.

It Happened Last Week

Although the iniquitous were mostly out of town New York was hit by blows of fire and ice that felt like divine retribution.

Remembering Their Godfather

Cesar Pelli, Bernard Tschumi, Rafael Viñoly, and others on Philip Johnson’s monumental achievements

Sting Like an Oscar Nominee

Hilary Swank’s boxing coach

The Worth of a Raise

Last month, the minimum wage in New York State rose from $5.15 to $6 an hour. Jada Yuan spoke with several minimum-wage workers about the change.

The Competition

David Barton picks a new gym

Letters to the Editor

The City Politic

Pataki stiffs the city so he can sustain his fiscally tough, tax-slashing rep with the national GOP.