Dear Reader,

Welcome to O2 on the Web!

Readers of The New York Observer in print already know the section as the newspaper's special section for features, columns and reviews about New York life: society, culture, film, music, dance, theater, books, fashion, food and drink and more.

Now, we've breaking it out into its own homepage on the Web, so you can find all that good stuff put together in one place.

Is this what you're looking for when you come to observer.com? Then be sure to bookmark www.observer.com/o2 and come back every day for constant updates on New York style and culture.

Were you a regular reader of The Daily Transom and now can't find the old 'style' channel where the column used to live? Bookmark www.  read more »

Dear Reader,

Welcome to O2 on the Web!

Readers of The New York Observer in print already know the section as the newspaper's special section for features, columns and reviews about New York life: society, culture, film, music, dance, theater, books, fashion, food and drink and more.

Now, we're breaking it out into its own homepage on the Web, so you can find all that good stuff put together in one place.

Is this what you're looking for when you come to observer.com? Then be sure to bookmark www.observer.com/o2 and come back every day for constant updates on New York style and culture.

And keep an eye on this page, which in the coming months will be the site of many of the innovations we've been working on behind the scenes to make our site the engaging, urgent, witty, urbane place New York City needs it to be.  read more »

On the evening of Wednesday, Nov. 12, Style.com’s executive fashion director, Candy Pratts Price, was standing in the bar of Bergdorf Goodman’s seventh-floor restaurant wearing a black Calvin Klein minidress and black bejeweled Edmundo Castillo ankle boots, surrounded by 200 of her nearest and dearest, there to celebrate her new book, American Fashion Accessories.

“I’m so happy that people came out,” said Ms. Pratts Price in her trademark throaty voice as dermatologist and socialite Lisa Airan waited expectantly to greet her. “It’s not all doom and gloom. We got what we wanted—a new regime!”

She was speaking of the president-elect, for whom she’d shilled in several of her popular animated stream-of-consciousness video-blogs, or CandyCasts.  read more »

Socialite Maggie Betts hoped that there would be a secret photo shoot with a wind machine at the CFDA awards dinner last night and there totally was! [FWD]

Former Project Runway contestant Christian Siriano was asked to make a guest appearance on Gossip Girl, but he's still considering. [E! via The Cut] 

British design couple Mary Eley and Wakako Kishimoto have departed as the design duo behind Cacharel, citing creative differences and brand vision as the reason. [WWD]   read more »

The reviews of the opening of David Mamet's American Buffalo at the Belasco have been unenthusiastic. The critics almost unanimously describe poorly cast stars—John Leguizamo, Cedric the Entertainer, and Haley Joel Osment—going through the motions with wooden dialogue. ("Ssssssssst. That whooshing noise coming from the Belasco Theater is the sound of the air being let out of David Mamet's dialogue," wrote Ben Brantlee in The New York Times.)

But signs that the play might lay an egg were already in evidence last Friday afternoon at Café Une Deux Trois, where a press lunch with the cast had been scheduled. Instead of excited actors ready to begin the new Broadway run of a perfectly timed critique of inflated valuation, a near empty restaurant, and a sheepish hostess greeted the Daily Transom.  read more »

Organizers announced today that Internet Week New York will take place from June 1 to June 8 next year. This will be the second year for the event and, in 2009, the Metropolitan Pavilion in Chelsea will serve as the official headquarters. Hey, geeks, rejoice (and feel the hangover)! Internet Week New York is presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences in cooperation with City of New York and The Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting. This year, they are partnering with Time Warner, Tumblr, Google, the New Museum, Columbia Business School, NY Tech Meetup and The Webby Awards for various events.

Maybe this year Mr. Bloomberg will mention more New York-based Internet companies (you know, besides "Facebook" and "Google") in his kickoff speech...

More from the press release:  read more »

Ben Silverman, co-chairman of NBC Entertainment and NBC Universal Television Studio and executive producer of NBC's The Office, The Biggest Loser, and ABC's Ugly Betty, appeared on Charlie Rose last night to talk about YouTube vs. Hulu, the iPhone, the awesomeness of The Today Show, and other yawn-inducing topics.

A quote from Mr. Silverman during the interview:

'Digital delivery has altered how entertainment is both produced and delivered forever. And it will continue to alter and evolve.'

Ho-hum. The interview left us nonplussed.

But he certainly agitated Nikki Finke. "Yes, I feel so much better about NBC bettering its primetime prospects now that I've watched Ben Silverman toss around phrases like 'disintermediated from my audience via technology' and 'trigger digital activation' on Charlie Rose last night," she wrote on her blog, Deadline Hollywood Daily. "Silly me for thinking that Ben was hired to program the network instead of parrot advertising-speak."  read more »

TORONTO—On a cold, cloudy November afternoon, celebrated chef Susur Lee sat quietly in the back room at Madeline’s, one of two chic restaurants he owns and operates in the fashion district here, pondering over the final details of his boldest menu yet. “The Chinese always say, eating is heavenly,” he said. “That is the way of life for us. It doesn’t have to be glamorous food, but good food.”

For more than two decades, the tall, handsome, ponytailed cook from Hong Kong has been making dishes good enough to lure devout New York gourmands some 500 miles across the Canadian border to try his Chinese-based, French-infused cooking.  read more »

Javier Peres slept on the flight from Berlin last Wednesday night and hit the tarmac running. He dropped by the Tribeca Grand hotel to check in, splashed some water on his bearded face, then grabbed a cab to Terence Koh’s art opening at a private residence uptown. Sometime around sunrise, he crashed. He woke up the following evening around 8 p.m. and went to the Phillips de Pury auction, where he attempted to buy back a piece of Mr. Koh’s work—a wall installation of 12 bronze hands and forearms covered in black patina, wax and oil. A bidding war ensued between Mr.  read more »

Turn on. Tune in. Drop … off your dry cleaning and head to a demonstration!

No, seriously, I am having such a totally tumultuous ’60s moment! My life has gone from light and fluffy to totally heavy, man. Everything’s coming up protests and peace signs. It’s a freaky scene. When I’m not on some crazy demo, I’m slapping counterculture slogans on Barneys’ windows and cramming them with Woodstock-abilia. Don’t get me wrong: I’m hardly Hanoi Jane. Call me Weatherman-lite. I am really more like Streisand in The Way We Were, only without that diabolical frizz.

What’s brought on the Barbra moment? Oh, just the quest for my civil rights, that’s all.  read more »