Bronx? Stale.

Simpson takes a pregnant pause

(Water-)breaking news flooded the blogosphere this weekend when Ashlee Simpson, the second product from Papa Joe's C-list celebrity plant, announced her latest release: baby Bronx Mowgli. Simpson's Baby Daddy is Fallout Boy bassist Bad Spiderman.

Pop culture pundits are abuzz with speculation regarding the etymology of the newborn's name. While christening your child after the place of its conception is one of the most scarring parental faux-pas imaginable (one night in Paris logically enough led to One Night in Paris), even more inane is naming your infant after a locale you've never visited. And as any Manhattanite who has braved The Bronx can attest, the Wentzes would be run out of the outer borough before their skull-decaled limousine ever reached the RFK Bridge.

Like every faithful tabloid follower, I'm all for the rich and famous passing on neuroses to the next generation of rehab charges. After all, what better name to read beneath a mugshot than "Pilot Inspektor Riesgraf Lee?" But for the love of lunacy, why not keep to subjects that you are personally batshit crazy about--we're looking at you, Kal-El Coppola Cage--before all household conversations start sounding like J.Lo anthems, punctuated with bursts of barrio solidarity. Let's leave the declarations of hometown pride to the Jennys from the block. (The BRONX!)

Foodie Call: 202

Photo by Shanna Ravindra

With the economy perched more precariously than Milanese models in next spring's stilettos, most businesses are scrambling to cut costs. Nicole Farhi, however, had the foresight to consolidate from the very start. Her restaurant 202 caters to that special strain of New Yorker who prefers one-stop splurging. Mannequins draped in Farhi's latest designs adorn the hardwood floors, allowing gourmands-on-the-go to browse the garments from their brunch tables. By the time dessert arrives, you'll realize you'll have to send it back to fit into the dress you decided to buy halfway through your salad.

Photo by Shanna Ravindra

For fashionistas who prefer to keep their foods as far from their fabrics as possible, 202 also has a general shopping area off of the main dining room, which features Farhi's line of housewares and furniture.

And for those New Yorkers whose bank accounts aren't recession-resistant, feel free to simply ogle the clothes and drop in for the wallet-friendly brunch menu (and drop-in you must, as 202 does not accept reservations for the mid-day meal). My fellow foodie and I each opted for the Full English Breakfast: a substantial platter--by Chelsea's manorexic standards--of bacon, a single sausage, tomatoes, a stemless Portabello mushroom, and two poached eggs on toast for $13. I followed up my entrée with a pumpkin-flavored cheesecake garnished with pecans--a much more affordable indulgence than the blazer I had been eye-fucking across the room. Note the epicurean porn below:

Photo by Nicholai Joaquin

The verdict? Clear your calendar. Just don't drool on the displays. You know what will happen if the gays working the floor will have to dry clean your dribble off the damask.

202
75 Ninth Avenue between 15th and 16th Streets

It's a Helluva Town

At least that's what the masses who have made their way to Manhattan's shores have proclaimed (profaned?) for generations. And with all due respect to Pierre Bordieu, these transplants (including yours truly) have held one truth to be self-evident: New York City is the only cultural capital worth craving. It doesn't matter whether we wide-eyed wayfarers hope to tread the boards in Times Square, make our mark on Madison Avenue, or win a fifteen-minute-run through the Page Six rumor mill; the real reason we moved here was to vie for la vie. Unconvinced? How many cosmos did you and your three best friends swill before your midnight screening of SATC: The Movie? As I suspected. So trade in those vagabond shoes for Jimmy Choos and start gushing--unabashedly--over the glamorous life Gotham has to offer.

And what better way to inaugurate this City-centric page than to discuss the phenomenon that embodies the electronic exaltation of New York's elite: Gossip Girl. I'll admit, when I first heard of the show, I dismissed it as typical tween fare, with a shelf life no longer than the median duration of puberty. Yet, despite deceptively low ratings, GG has permeated--if not downright pummeled--the cultural landscape, prodding Old Man Nielsen to reevaluate his methods. It even prompted Manhattan's female population to believe that, this season, Puritan is the new Parisian. (Unless, of course, you're inclined to traipse through Central Park in nothing but your nightie. Or attend Ivy League interviews in bustiers that would make a Pussycat Doll blush. But I digress.)

While the break-out star of the show is undoubtedly She of the Shiny Hair, I pledge my allegiance to Blair Waldorf, the socialite sociopath with the heart--er, credit card--of gold, the very sort of sophisticate we new New Yorkers dream of emulating.

Leighton Meester as Blair Waldorf

While her closest frenemy, Serena van der Woodsen, simply giggles her way into the world's good graces, Blair has always been relegated to the rank of second-class royalty, forced to intimidate--rather than charm--her subjects into submission. The only time The Queen B truly intercepted the social scepter? When S *killed* a coke addict and absconded to Connecticut. But if not for those years struggling to escape Serena's siren call, we would be bereft of the bitch we adore today. Where would be those self-destructive schemes? Those deflective bon mots? That armoire (armory?) of couture, meant to distract from the bulimia-ravaged body her mother still compares to Edna Turnblad?

But alas, fellow Gothamites, though Leighton Meester may play this paragon of City-chic to Emmy-worthy perfection, we must face the fact that Blair Waldorf is but fiction, and the young woman who portrays her is but another actor-cum-aspiring-musician, as eager to cash in on her celebrity as any CW starlet before she goes the way of Felicity. (How B would disapprove!) The latest, most disheartening proof of Ms. Meester's mere mortality? Hot on the rubber heels of castmate Ed Westwick's descent into discount shilling, news has leaked that Leighton sold out for a sneaker line herself.


WTF, LM? Just as leggings aren't pants, Reeboks do not a fashion icon make.