Peter Nygård

 The Dillard’s store at Lakeside Mall (3301 Veterans Memorial Blvd., Metairie, 833-1075) is celebrating its newly completed renovation and grand re-opening this week with a variety of events and special guests. Peter Nygård, fashion designer and founder of women’s apparel company NYGÅRD International will make a personal appearance at the Lakeside store at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 11. He will also visit other local Dillard’s stores on Friday, Oct. 10, stopping at the Esplanade Mall (1401 Esplanade Ave., Kenner, 468-6050) at noon, and at the Oakwood Mall (197 West Bank Expwy., Gretna, 362-4800) at 3 p.m.

Also on Friday, from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m., Shalini Vadhera — celebrity makeup artist and author of Passport To Beauty — will be sharing makeup tips and insider tricks at the Lakeside store to celebrate the Dillard’s debut of her cosmetics line, Global Goddess Beauty. For every Global Goddess purchase of $75 or more, customers will receive a signed copy of Shalini Vadhera’s Passport To Beauty book.

It was almost midnight when my plane landed at the Louis Armstrong International Airport. Even though I felt my lungs and my hair instantly fill with a ripely familiar swell of hot and humid New Orleans summer air as soon as I rolled my suitcase over the automatic-door threshold, I was still in a happy daze — trying to savor the last remnants of cool, unencumbered relaxation from a week-long Vermont vacation that I didn’t want to admit had officially ended.

I snapped out of it pretty quickly in the taxi line, however, when I saw the suspicious looking minivan the orange-vested woman with the walkie-talkie was directing me to get into.

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On Saturday, Aug. 9, the Voluptuous Vixen (538 Madison St., 529-3588; www.thevoluptuousvixen.com) will join more than 50 French Quarter galleries and shops for Dirty Linen Night, a celebration of the arts featuring free music, food and spirits on Royal Street and beyond. The Voluptuous Vixen will feature mixed-media landscapes by artist Susan Batts and a 25 percent off sale on Anna Scholz clothing and Chaos handbags. After the event, the shop will be closed until Aug. 29.

Ballin’s (721 Dante St., 866-4367; www.ballinsltd.com) is hosting a trunk show Thursday-Saturday, Aug. 7-9, featuring suits by Renee DuMarr and colorful Thai silk separates by Marissa Baratelli.

At Interior Designs Inc. (3814 Magazine St., 895-5111; www.interiordesignsnola.com) shoppers will save 15 percent on all Lee Industries custom upholstered furniture ordered before Sept. 30. Choose from hundreds of styles, woods, finishes and fabrics from Lee, a company with a long track record of eco-friendly manufacturing using soy-based cushions, certified frames, recycled filling for pillows, water-based stains as well as many organic and natural fabrics.

You still have time to take advantage of Rubensteins’ (102 Saint Charles Ave., 581-6666; www.rubensteinsneworleans.com) last-chance sale. Save up to 65 percent on selected menswear items and up to 75 percent on selected women’s merchandise.

Photo by Cheryl Gerber

Jim Bernazzani has a way of making people listen. I met him about a month ago at the bar at the Columns Hotel. Wearing blue jeans and a white pique polo shirt with an FBI patch embroidered on it, he was sitting alone having a cocktail. I knew very little about the man at the time, but from the first words he said —— he had me rapt. At first I was listening to see if I could figure out what it was about him that made me want to listen to him — maybe it was his “exotic” Boston accent or the way his words sometimes dipped into a near whisper, making you lean in to hear or ask him to repeat what he just said — but then I just gave in and let myself become engrossed in what turned out to be a memorably stimulating conversation in a small group at the end of the bar for over an hour.

Bernazzani may have a reputation for being “tough talking,” but he can also be vividly expressive. He told some amazing stories about his experiences working for the FBI in the days immediately following Katrina. He talked about the city — as it was and as it is — and about all of the places in the system where it’s all gone wrong. But since he made it clear, to me specifically, that he was speaking off the record, I cannot divulge the details of that exchange, and until now, I had no reason to write about this encounter at all.

But over the weekend, I saw him in an interview on WWL’s “Sunday Morning with Dennis Woltering.” And once again, Bernazzani got and kept my attention — this time not because of the tales he told, but because of the plans he is making.

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Since TiVo came into my life, I have been pleasantly oblivious to most of the TV commercials that used to waste my time with whatever they were trying to sell and whatever “clever” way they were trying to sell it. And I must say, I am now quite happy to use the remote control to speed right through these ads and get back to the show. But sometimes, I get distracted and forget to press the fast-forward button. Recently, during two such lapses of TiVo awareness, I was subjected to two ads that got my attention, and my goat. Read the rest of this entry »

Vintage
4536 Magazine Street (upstairs)
Thursdays 6 p.m. - midnight

Friday classes optional. It was a kind of unwritten rule many of us lived by, back in my days as a happy little co-ed at LSU. Thursday was the big night to go out. Fraternity mixers, drink specials and live music at the bars, etc.

But out here in the real world — inasmuch as New Orleans can be considered the real world — Fridays are mandatory. Or maybe that doesn’t apply to everyone, because lately I’ve noticed that wherever I go, Thursday nights are happening. Restaurants are packed; bars are hopping. People are out. .

However, it takes more than a hip crowd, a hot meal or a drink special to get me out on a school night these days. Still, for the past two Thursdays, I’ve been bellying up to a new bar in town, one that is exclusively a Thursday night thing. It’s called Vintage (4523 Magazine St.), the beautiful, newly renovated space above Savvy Gourmet. Read the rest of this entry »

It was not at all like Frank Costanza described it to Kramer. There were no “Feats of Strength.” Unless you count the little poles holding up some of the vendors’ tents, there was no official “Festivus Pole” to speak of. (I had heard there would be one, but I never saw it.) And I didn’t overhear any exchanges that would qualify as the “Airing of Grievances.”

But Seinfeld disparity aside, make no mistake, there was a Festivus miracle last Sunday. In my eyes, the miraculous thing about this bustling holiday arts market at the corner of Magazine and Girod streets was just being there! Being there and perusing the wares of a good number of indie artists and artisans — jewelry, ceramics, textiles, artwork, house wares, etc. — and seeing all of the other shoppers who came out, not just to support the local arts community, but to buy some really cool stuff. Read the rest of this entry »

“What I need is someone who will make me do what I can.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

In a way, I think Ralph was right on with that one. It’s easy to say, “Wow, I wish I had someone to keep me on track, to make sure I’m living up to my potential, to keep me on my toes.”

But in reality, if you did have such a person in your life — say it’s your mother or your husband or your wife or your neighbor — you’d probably end up resenting them for “nagging” you or avoiding them just to get a little peace and indulge in a little non-creative loafing. So I think it’s safe to assume that Emerson’s “someone” is really a hypothetical entity. But that was then. Read the rest of this entry »