Features

And an Idiot Shall Lead Them

The Yankees’ system seems to have a way of turning every player who passes through into a model of restrained professionalism. Free-spirited, loose-lipped, and frequently egregiously naked, Johnny Damon will give that system its toughest challenge yet.

Five Theories On Why the Art Market Can't Crash

In the modern-art world, the smart money is aghast at what the dumb money has wrought. And though everyone can list his own reasons why the diversified, globalized art market is recession-proof, the real savvy operators are already putting together their lists of what’s still going to be worth the canvas it’s painted on after the fall.

Great Rooms Special: Bathrooms

Design obsessives on the final frontier of home design.
� Master Bath No. 1: The Well-Lived Tub
� Sink Different: Six Sinks That Set the Tone
� Master Bath No. 2: Equal Parts Reading Room, Dressing Room and Family Hangout
� Donna Karan’s Sea of Tranquility
� Future Toilets: Three Utilitarian Styles
� Master Bath No. 3: Kid-Friendly and Stylish

Intelligencer

Rupert Murdoch F.O.B. (and Hillary)

Joins Bill’s Big-Shot Club. (Davos, Shmavos.)

Drew’s Favorite Brunchery Moves to B’klyn

After 24 years in two West Village locations, the cultishly beloved eatery Shopsin’s is moving its legendary 900-odd-item menu and its Connect Four boards to Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn.

Arianna’s Ex Battles Bi Skeptics

�There’s a continuum.�

DMC Sees Himself On Broadway!

Tougher than Javier.

Post-OD: It’s Lapo in Manhattan

Clean, sober, on the town.

Two Ships

Had Chuck Jones and Holden Caulfield colla-borated on a nature documentary to mark the arrival of spring, it might have been similar to the scenario that unfolded in Central Park last week.

The Day Joplin Had the Clap

Tales of shooting rock stars with the legendary Scavullo.

The Streak

Stocks are struggling, and the economy’s so-so. Why did wall street firms just have their best quarter ever?

Eviction Boot Camp

Tales of real-estate woe at a landlord seminar on cheapo tenants.

What Should Katie Do?

What the fans outside the Today show’s studios think of Katie Couric’s possible move to CBS and who they’d like to replace her if she goes

Strategist

Best Bets

Affordable Riesling, a stylishly safe bike, and more.

The Look Book

A makeup specialist on finding one’s own �body story.�

The Restaurant Review

Tasty but unnecessary brand extension at Country.

In Season

Although pineapples are available year-round, aficionados say that the Hawaiian variety is at its best from spring through early summer�which makes the wait for local warm-weather fruit a little bit sweeter.

Ask Gael

I felt a shiver of excitement at Café d’Alsace as I savored a gorgeous soup bowl of that almost abandoned classic, quenelles de brochet, rich and cleverly textured for its 21st-century revival.

Restaurant Openings & Buzz

Week of March 27, 2006: Per Lei, My Befana, Dona, and Astor Center.

The Underground Gourmet

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Clearly, that was the guiding construction principle behind places like Blaue Gans (né Le Zinc), the new Les Deux Gamins (né Metropol), and, on a much smaller scale, Pio Maya, a tiny taquería that opened surreptitiously this winter in a Greenwich Village storefront.

Ashes to Ashes

This week marks the three-year anniversary of Mayor Bloomberg’s smoking ban. Has it been good or bad for business? And if the law were overturned today, would you allow your customers to light up again?

Our Heros

There may be more Subway sandwich shops than there are subway stations (or so says the Post), but that doesn’t mean there aren’t better alternatives.

Fish Fests

Spring is here, and chefs are vying to get seasonal seafood on their menus first.

Mating

Sex messaging, the next-generation booty call.

Real Estate

The rise of the lavish megabathroom.

Ask a Clerk

You’d be very surprised at the number of women who buy our leather whip. Very tailored, stern businesswomen in their late forties who are like, all of a sudden, �I want that.�

Tracy Reese Opens on Hudson Street

The latest addition to the meatpacking district’s boutique ranks is Tracy Reese.

The Culture Pages

The Approval Matrix: Week of April 3, 2006

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

A Long-Lost Love

Ali MacGraw, onstage for the first time at age 67.

The Movie Review

Daniel Johnston, member of the Troubled Artist Hall of Fame.

Four Unlonely Beastie Lovers They Be

To make their new concert film, Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That!, the Beastie Boys handed out 50 cameras to members of the audience at a Madison Square Garden show in 2004. Sara Cardace spoke to four of the �directors� about their fandom.

Bodies of Evidence

Author Annie Cheney on her forays into the world of body-parts sales.

Sexcapades of the Literati

Literary libertines Edmund White and Erica Jong have long used their own amorous histories in the service of fiction. But now both have new (and newly revelatory) memoirs out. Prompting the entirely academic query: Who’s had a more interesting sex life?

The Theater Review

A classic Joe Orton comedy ruined by Alec Baldwin and others.

Architecture

Terence Riley on his years as MoMA’s design guru.

The TV Review

Ric Burns takes on Eugene O’Neill’s critics.

Liza With a �Z�

Restored, remastered, digitized up the Dolby wazoo, this one-hour Bob Fosse shake-and-bake from 1972 lets La Minnelli run around on a Broadway stage in various Halston outfits, channeling Al Jolson, Charlie Chaplin, Jimmy Durante, the Weimar Republic, and her mother.

So NoTORIous

In VH1’s first scripted comedy, Tori Spelling, the poster child for affirmative action in Hollywood, stars as herself, or at least somebody not altogether unlike the Tori Spelling we’ve read about in gossip mags.

Blythe Danner’s real (Gwyneth) and pretend (vodka) motherhood.

Q&A with the Huff actress.

The Classical Review

A long-delayed Kurt Vonnegut project.

The Art Review

William Wegman isn’t as easily dismissed as one might expect.

Influences: Matthew Barney

Drawing Restraint 9 artist Matthew Barney discusses his influences.

Columns

The Imperial City

Has the celebrity-obsession market finally become saturated?

Departments

Letters to the Editor

The Week

Two Kids Walk Into a Chuck E. Cheese’s . . .

Stand-up comedy for the junior set.

An Hour in Soho

Three downtown shows to distract you from Chelsea.

Gorillaz in the Mix

A cast of collaborators plays the music of hip-hop-rock supergroup Gorillaz for five nights.

Rooms of Their Own

Female memoirists take center stage in the final week of Women’s History Month.