Last Scene Here
Monkeying Around
That Chimp Could Use Some Restylane
Party animals, animal lovers and assorted other Homo sapiens were on hand to chow on chowder, pizza and assorted other delicious nibbles, while sipping cocktails and indulging their animal instincts at Zoo New England’s A Wild Affair fund-raiser at the Stone Zoo.
Despite the uncooperative weather, guests got to see two newly hatched flamingos, a jaguar lounging in his enclosure, a colobus monkey, a sloth and other wild creatures. The evening’s entertainment included an a capella group that seemed to startle the North American beaver minding its own business behind them.
Present and accounted for: the captivating Mimi Stith, the effervescent Lynn Crisci and her main squeeze, Doug Julian, Zoo New England head honcho John Linehan (who once was attacked by monkeys), banking bigwig Jan Houghton, state reps Jason Lewis and Paul Donato, and countless others.
During the live auction, one guest said, “The girl with the bright purple hair deserves to win for that alone,” and a pungent topic of conversation was the 7,000 people who had gone to see the reeking corpse flower at the Franklin Park Zoo.
However, the most interesting nugget of zoo minutiae was the fact that at the Honolulu Zoo, one of the lemurs required liposuction.
“What’s next?” asked a guest. “Botox for baboons?”
Everything Old Is New Again
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Todd English reopened the restaurant where it all began, Olives, with a party that was surprisingly familial and low-key despite the high glamour quotient.
Front and center were his two offspring, cupcake princess Isabelle and chip off the ol’ block Oliver, blonde beauty Susan Charbonnier, steakhouse mogul Steve DeFillipo, regular laugh riot Tony V, City Hall hipster Tony Nunziante, stunning blonde Jenny Johnson, and one guest whose cell phone rang while he was talking to car czar Herb Chambers, and it turned out to be the service department at one of Chambers’ dealerships.
Another highlight was when someone mentioned the time Bill Gates passed out up against the bathroom door.
“It’s a whole new restaurant,” English said, which prompted one guest to quip, “Maybe this time around, it’ll be Mark Zuckerberg.”
Hats Off
Spoiler alert: I was one of the judges of the hat contest.
That doesn’t change the fact that the Rose Garden Party
, held in the spectacularly beautiful Kelleher Rose Garden in the Back Bay Fens, is one of the summer’s hottest parties.
Hosted by First Lady Angela Menino and Parks Commissioner Antonia Pollak to raise money for ParkArts, the evening attracted a strictly A-list crowd that included Aquarium chief Bud Ris, the ubiquitous Frank Wisneski and his gorgeous wife, Lynn Dale, blonde bombshell Connie Brown, dapper arts benefactor Bill Nigreen, the breathtaking Grayson Moore and her mother, the right Rev. Helen Miller Moore, the flawless Mary Hines, the jewel-like Elisha Daniels, the soie elegant Maggie Ahearn, the unsinkable Molly Dunne, madcap fashion designer Sara Campbell, BCA head honcha Veronique LeMelle and BSO bigwig Kim Noltemy, not to mention my fellow hat judges, artistes extraordinaire Marie Galvin and Kathleen McDermott.
The categories included just for men (which I naturally deserved), most elegant, best garden party, most creative and (new category) best fascinator.
It doesn’t matter who won, because everyone looked splendid (and I didn’t win), but a mere sample of the witty repartee was this exchange:
“My handwriting degenerated when I needed glasses.”
“Really? Mine did when I started drinking in the morning.”
However, the funniest remark, while, granted, an obvious one, was, “Does this hat make my ass look big?”
