Scene & Herd - What’s The Look

Note to you, dear reader: This week’s Scene & Herd is shorter than usual to make room for the Urban Explorer bundle o’ stories. My initial plan was to write about the usual four or five events and shorten it by leaving out unnecessary vowels. Tht prvd 2 b vry cnfsng fr sm ppl, so instead I only did three events.

But oh, what great events they were! My first was last Wednesday night’s fancy dress Nordstrom Phipps Plaza Grand Opening Gala. As is typical with these society-type events, everybody wants to know what the celebs in attendance wore. Well, Mayor Shirley Franklin and I both wore black suits. Mine had pants instead of a skirt, but we both looked pretty sharp, I must say. Former Atlanta Mayor and Ambassador to the U.N. Andrew Young International Boulevard was there, too. Honestly, I was too busy staring at his face and thinking, “Wow, that’s really Andrew Young,” to pay any attention to what he was wearing.

The bulk of the gala-ing took place in the actual store, which was fully stocked and staffed. Some attendees shopped, but most just mingled, ate and drank. There were 10 impressive buffet tables throughout the store. Buffets six and 10, which both had seared tuna, were this columnist’s favorite. Throughout the evening, beautiful women in yellow ’60s dresses and boots walked around handing out generously Vodka-d citrus cocktails. They looked exactly like the fembots from the Austin Powers films.

At 8 p.m., much of the crowd moved to the large luxury tent in the parking lot outside the store for the Gala Fashion Show. The show consisted of 11 “scenes” with each one consisting of about 10 model/outfit combinations. So what’s the “in” look this year? Well, for women, the in look of the moment is tall and thin with a beautiful, pouty-lipped face and immaculate hair and makeup. And judging by serious visible nipple action, brassieres are so 2004. For men, the hot trend this year is “handsome and well dressed” with an emphasis on fantastic abs.

A Kind of Magic: Much to the delight of the county’s delivery pizza industry, Cobb Galleria hosted a Magic: The Gathering trading card game tournament last weekend. Magic: The Gathering is a fantasy-themed strategy card game. Imagine war and hold ‘em poker mixed with Dungeons & Dragons.This wasn’t just guys sitting around a darkened basement saying stuff like, “My Soratami Mirror Guard totally beats your Genju of the Fens.” This was a big money tournament. Imagine the “World Series of Poker,” only without the cigar smoke and Ben Affleck to muck it up. The organizers even constructed a TV set and brought in a TV crew for a live webcast of the event. The winners, a three-man French and French-Canadian Super Team called Nova, split $60,000 after beating an American team in a silent match. There were players on hand from Europe and Japan and, according to the people who showed me around, even a few Magic: The Gathering female groupies.

Family Guy: Last Saturday morning, I used up some of the time that I used to spend filing frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits to stop by the state Capitol for the first-ever Family Day. Family Day was conceived by Republican lawmakers as an end-of-session pizza party and civics lesson. Georgians were invited to walk around the Capitol building and mingle with their representatives and senators. What they failed to realize, however, was that some of the people who showed up might be interested in confronting legislators about things that annoyed them. Puzzled by the sudden outburst of democracy, someone inside the building decided to stop letting people in. The official explanation was that the large crowd inside presented a fire hazard. The explanation was quickly exposed as a crock o’ poop when the families of legislators were allowed in. I finally got into the building around 11:30 a.m. after Sen. Vincent Fort, D-Atlanta, walked outside and personally let about 50 people in. (Note: I’ve since spoken to two people who spend a lot of time at the Capitol for work who said that the building wasn’t nearly as crowded on Family Day as it is during typical work days.)

While inside, I walked around with a group called Defenders of Democracy. They spent their time talking to as many lawmakers as they could about fixing the state’s opaque and unauditable electronic voting system. I also hung out with a group of people trying to talk to Rep. Earl Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs, about living wage legislation. Ehrhart did not come out to talk to them (if you did, Earl, and I missed it, tell me and I’ll run a correction).

-- Andisheh@creativeloafing.com

For more events, see Scene & Herd at www.andy2000.org.??