Gift Guide 2005

Newborn

To get off to the right start.

Grandpa

Who likes to putter. And put his feet up.

Sister

Who's just signed her first lease.

Dad

Who'd still like to climb Kilimanjaro.

5-Year-Old

Who's been dreaming of this all year.

Boyfriend

Whose closet is more packed than yours.

Mom

To unleash her creative side (and dress the part).

Brother

Who's always moving time zones.

Boss

To really, really get on her good side.

Friend

Whose life is a runway show.

Nephew

Who's notoriously hard to please.

11-Year-Old

With one foot in teenland.

Economy of One

Model Shalom Harlow spends a hypothetical $2,419 on her friends.

Greatest Gift Hits and Misses

John Patrick Shanley and other notables discuss personal holiday highlights and lowlights.

Over-the-Top

Outrageously expensive possibilities for a megasplurge.

Great Deals

A complementary set of suggestions for the bargain hunter of means.

The Other Fifth Avenue

A shop-by-shop map of Brooklyn’s hottest hipster retail zone.

Twenty Under $20

A surprisingly stylish range of presents, all for less than New York’s basic unit of currency.

The Give-Back Ticker

New York charities in need of holiday donations.

Sometimes a Candle Is More Than a Candle

A handy chart to help you decode the subtext of the holiday gift.

Features

The Grief Police

They managed to bring the ground-zero rebuilding process to a shuddering halt. The politics of sympathy can be a dirty business.

Cracking the Kindergarten Code

The effective way to coach, flatter, and bribe one’s way through the admissions season�and why parents shouldn’t fret too much if their kid doesn’t make it in.

Average Joe

No company has taken lifestyle branding to the extremes that Starbucks has. Which is why Dunkin’ Donuts has made a big counterweight bet that a good many New Yorkers might prefer a less pretentious, less expensive cup of coffee. Even if it doesn’t taste that good.

Strategist

Look Book

An ex-model who expects her toddlers to keep fashion alive.

Restaurant Review

The minds behind Barça 18’s Spanish cuisine hope to trade authenticity for popularity.

In Season

A chestnut and spaghetti squash recipe from Bistro du Vent.

Consuming Passions

Edible gifts for Italophiles, chocolate lovers, and other foodies.

Shop, Don't Drop

If you’re hitting Jeffrey and the rest of the meatpacking district this holiday weekend, here’s where to recharge.

Shop, Don’t Drop (Part 2)

Nothing works up an appetite like pricey holiday-gift shopping on Madison Avenue.

Real Estate

When developers want to add on to a building but tenants don’t, the tenants usually lose.

Intelligencer

The Life Neurotic With Noah Baumbach’s Midwood High Alums

Noah Baumbach may not seem quite ready to leave the old days behind, but his fellow Midwood High School alumnus Carol Henning is positively obsessed.

Larry King’s Marital Monkey Trials

Ever wonder what dinner-table conversation between Larry King and wife No. 7, country singer Shawn Southwick-King, is like?

Grumpy Joan Collins Prefers Ivana to Abu Dhabi Royals

Last week’s Angel Ball to benefit the G&P Foundation for Cancer Research raised $3.3 million and drew Stevie Wonder, Nelly, Russell Simmons, Kelly Ripa, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, and one apparently pissed-off Joan Collins.

Everywhere You Go Has Valet!

Why practice parking?

Gobble-Gobble!

Eating Pros Talk Turkey - No forks allowed.

It Happened Last Week

While there’s never really a good week to be a white guy with Jheri curls, last week was a particularly bad one.

Breakup at Tiffany’s

’Tis the season for two-timing spouses to slip up and get caught, say the city’s busy private investigators.

Other Newfound Bloomberg FANS

A field guide to local voting tribes.

New Ad City

Breaking down the cost of getting our attention.

Twin Towers, USA

Time’s running out to get a piece of World Trade Center wreckage for your local memorial.

Germophobe Warfare

You touch the subway bars with your hands?!? Gross.

The Culture Pages

New Björk

Björk discusses her latest craven commercial sellout: the two-and-a-half-hour score to a wordless film about a giant blob.

Movie Review

The modern Mideast sagas in Syriana succeed thanks to excellent pacing (and an admirably realistic George Clooney turn as an overweight spy).

Trailer Mix

Our reviews of this week's previews.

Clarification

Beloved blues musician or muttonchopped POTUS?

Theater Review

Two new plays perform the rare trick of being political without being pedantic.

Hamlet Reviewed

Like two teenagers at the prom, New York’s embrace of Shakespeare is at once touching and ridiculous.

The Reproducers Reviewed

A musical about infertility is too sweet for its own good.

Influences: Edward Albee

A Q&A with the playwright.

Books

Why did Uzodinma Iweala, Harvard-grad son of a diplomat, write a novel from the viewpoint of a child soldier?

Roman à Clef Watch

Paris Hilton and Salman Rushdie turn up in recent novels.

Pop Music Review

Madonna bests Kate Bush in a battle of eighties musical icons.

Overheard

What the audience really thought about Lee Ann Womack and Scooter Jennings.

Classical Music Review

A syrupy kids’ opera from Rachel Portman insults the intelligence of music fans of all ages.

Coloratura: Natalie Dessay

A Q&A with the Romeo et Juliette star.

The Peculiar Endurance of Opera’s Greatest Awful Singer

Audiences appreciated her joy, as well as a quality she was blissfully unaware of: that poignant nobility often projected by harmless figures who take impossible chances and hilariously fail.

The Approval Matrix

Our deliberately oversimplified guide to who falls where on our taste hierarchies.

Columns

The City Politic

The old-school New York Democrats who are waiting for Eliot Spitzer to save their party may be in for an unpleasant surprise.

The Imperial City

The unlikely duo of Bruce Ratner and Frank Gehry may produce the crowning achievement of New York’s architectural renaissance.

Departments

Letters to the Editor