Features

The Nuclear Family, Exploded

Blended families of Angelina and Madonna renown seem to make people anxious, raising questions about the nature of parental love. Do people have different feelings about their adoptive children and their offspring? Is parental love a natural or a conscious act?

The Surf Prince of Long Beach

How did a Long Island beach town where the waves barely ever get higher than a few feet spawn one of the most promising surfers in America?

Intelligencer

Guy’s New Guy: Mayor Kelly!

Staten Island kingmaker tries again with commish.

�Piano Man’ Heiress Sorta Indie

Still hasn't signed with a label.

Free Paper Without Free Expression

Swedes not laughing.

Karan’s Escape Plan for Fashion Week

This year in Jerusalem.

Going Once� Okay, Going Twice

Gavel to grovel in Hamptons.

It Happened Last Week

In a week in which a freak twister whipped through Brooklyn, downing trees and smashing cars, everything seemed like it was spinning.

This Old Town

This summer, it’s seemed like this whole aging city is falling apart. A checklist for infrastructure paranoia.

NASCAR Guv

If he’s going to survive, it’s time for a new Spitzer�less of a scold and more of a guy you’d want to have a beer with.

Sniff Test

Is it naughty or just coincidental that (according to some) one of Tom Ford’s colognes smells like cocaine?

Columns

The Bottom Line

Last week’s housing-market crash was a long time coming, and it’s not getting better anytime soon.

Strategist

Best Bets

Lovebirds, corn, and other warm-weather sources of uplift.

Hunting Fashion: A Brief History

Since Victorian times, taxidermy, tartan, and guns have been pop-culture tropes. This fall, they’re in our sights again.

Beauty Jewel Opens in Greenwich Village

At Greenwich Village’s Beauty Jewel spa there’s pampering without pretension.

Look Book

A bindi-wearing, Chinatown-dwelling, French-born artist.

Great Room

A floor of bright stripes in a Gramercy bachelor pad.

Restaurant Review

A Top Chef alum makes a prudently restrained transition to the real world at Perilla.

In Season

In nature, squash blossoms are delicate, ethereal things. On the plate, they’re usually coated in crunchy batter and deep-fried.

Insatiable Critic

In Manhattan’s spring shuffle of three-star toques, Fiamma’s Michael White now reigns in departed chef Scott Conant’s three-star kitchen at L’Impero.

Restaurant Openings

Week of August 20, 2007: Crave Ceviche Bar, Accademia di Vino, BLT Market, and Little Piggy (Market).

Taste Test: Main Squeezes

Is there an art to mixing sugar, water, and lemon or lime juice? To find out, we gulped our way through the city’s best until our lips were numb. Here’s how they rated on a scale of one to five lemons (or limes).

The New Style Merchants

The boutique entrepreneurs filling the gap between the mass market and the $10,000-handbag market.

Unplug Your Office

Setting up an outdoor office at the city’s public wireless hot spots.

Real Estate

Can preserving a brownstone get you audited?

Lili Taylor in a Brooklyn State of Mind

Lili Taylor, who’s starring in the new Lifetime series State of Mind, is the latest celeb to ditch Manhattan in favor of Brooklyn.

Triple Assessment

Harlem property values have risen so fast that apartment-hunters have nearly crossed the neighborhood off their potential-bargains list.

CULTURE

Beauty and the Bleak

Charting Mary-Louise Parker’s path through the Celebrity Life Cycle.

The Movie Review

Robert De Niro prances in a tutu in a romantic fantasy that’s not half bad.

The DVD Filter

New on DVD: House of Games, The Lookout, and more.

Is This Book Worth Getting?

Quick takes on new fiction from Doris Lessing and others.

Mother Lodes: A Conversation

The Mistress’s Daughter author A.M. Homes got together recently with Mary Gordon, whose new book is called Circling My Mother, to talk about the blurry lines between memories and �fiction.

The Theater Review

Two plays attempt to offer new perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian imbroglio.

The Music Review

Crossing John Coltrane with the conservatory.

Playing Favorites

We asked six music obsessives to pick a recent album they can’t stop listening to.

Street Walker

Dissecting Soho’s street art.

The Approval Matrix: Week of August 20, 2007

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

The Week

School’s Out

Aspiring misfits have one more week to see three art-world bad boys in action.

The Story Remains the Same

Glimmerglass Opera’s season of wildly different takes on the Orpheus myth is wrapping up. Time to make that trek upstate.

A Little Bit Country

In New York, the best way to enjoy southern rock is with a cold brew by the beach.

Gobs of Cobs

You’d think that we lived in Nebraska, judging by the corn-crazed menus currently on display.

Raise a Glass, Raise Consciousness

Drink for a good cause (or two).

What to See by the Sea

The first Seaport Summer Theatre Festival brings a month of performance and comedy to South Street Seaport’s S-P-A-C-E Gallery.

Play Outside the Park

First-rate kid zone off Madison Square.

Departments

Comments: August 20, 2007

Readers sound off on deliverymen, Bravo reality stars, and more.