It's A Blanket!

I am such a sucker for mood lighting, soft techno-lounge music, and gimmicks, so I've been dying to spend an evening at trendy Manhattan club Duvet. Duvet, in addition to throwing Hunkmania every Friday and Saturday evening ("Indulge your bachelorette party fantasy, celebrate a birthday or the have the ultimate girls night out. Celebrate being a woman and enjoy life with these Sexy HUNKS!"), spoils the "dress to impress" crowd's hedonism with bottle service in bed, literally. Thirty dining beds, banquettes, and seven private "intimate" bedrooms where you either want to be the night's first couple or you want to just avoid. (I assume they're for people who don't exactly have a private zone at home.) Everyone's got to stand out somehow; if I ever got the chance to own a club, I'd call it "Hammock" and replace all the seats with... well, hammocks. Hey, it's better than my other idea, "Bidet." (But worse than my blanket fort cafe idea.)

I got my chance last night, cover-free, courtesy of Netparty, and it was... I guess the right word would be "comfortable." Really, all the excitement you'd expect from sitting on a bed. But as someone who'd like to see Western fashion move towards an all-pajama direction, I felt a sort of kinship. Like if you go the Olive Garden, is there any good reason you have to sit up straight, keep your feet off the table, not scratch yourself there?

Mites. Forgot about mites.

I thought folks would be claiming beds right away, but it looked like young professionals showed up for the happy hour first and sleepytime later. Personally, I like exploring first, so found the Ice Bar, the jellyfish aquarium (Duvet's website says it "houses over 100 exotic jellyfish," but I counted five), the bathroom, then found an empty giant bed and, you know, sat on it. Pros: 400-count sheets, imported Italian pillows. Cons: not as comfortable as the Brookstone bed, not allowed to jump on the bed (I assume, I didn't ask), and right, no duvets! Took my shoes off. Laid back, curled up. Wasn't bad. I mean, I could do the same thing at home; I even have the right lighting.

I really wanted to get out my laptop and shine under its soft gray light, but the mattress and booze still didn't put me enough at ease. Inevitably, someone thinking they're duly pitying me would come up and remind me, joshing, "Hey, work is over! Get out there and have some fun!" Which would be the point — not that my personal projects, this writing and stuff, isn't fun to me — but nobody's drifting my way in the first place and I only opened the computer like an anglerfish, passively luring folks over. I do want to try it some day, but I need to think of a witty, but friendly retort first. Instead I started chatting with this girl whose friends left her alone — second unsolicited, unprompted conversation with a chick ever! Yay! (?)

I'd go back, with friends, but I bet what you're dying to hear about are the bathrooms! God, the best thing about these posh places are the comically nouveau trendy bathrooms, as if the concept needs improvement. Duvet has two bathrooms, both obviously designed by someone who's never used a public bathroom before. First motif is the one-way glass doors, so there's a mirror on the outside and tinted window inside, so you don't miss a minute of the party while you're evacuating. Of course I knew no one could see inside, but the setup doesn't ameliorate any piss anxiety, especially since the top floor bathroom's right freaking there, behind the clear jellyfish tank and it's a swinging door and there's no lock. Second motif is no toilets or urinals, just a drain running along the wall, like the one you're not supposed to use at the gym shower, and kind of fenced off. I took pictures. I hope they're expecting me to tie my horse to those posts or something, because there's no way I'm peeing there.

I'm disappointed in San Francisco, their Olympic torch relay, and mostly their attempts to quarantine the torch from protesters like it might catch social consciousness germs. I expect that crap from Paris or London, or pretty much anywhere else in America, where people playing games, and corporate sponsorship of the same, have always outweighed the rights of oppressed peoples half a world away. But San Francisco has a pretty sizable and vocal population pressing for its own basic human rights concerns, so their indifference — tacit support, really — for the Tibetan genocide is so... decadent and Western.

I'm particularly amused by the official Chinese response, first and foremost by the simple fact that these Communist fogies who order protesters murdered believe they have a right to an opinion, period, and that we have an obligation to listen and agree with it. China called the protests "an obvious act of defying the Olympic spirit." You know what, China? How about you get back to exporting bird flu and poison toothpaste and shut the fuck up, okay?

Your Dog Looks Like a Whore

I wish I could have more nice things to say about the folks at eccentricpets.com because it looks like they do some really good, important work. They're in the animal rescue business, finding homes for unwanted pets... and then dressing them up. I believe I have a new arch-enemy. Putting a raincoat on your dog when you're taking him for a slushy walk might not be too bad, but this meretricious greyhound mini-skirt or the dress for a guinea pig or hamster robs every last shred of dignity from a creature who eats its own poo. (Really, click on the link because that hamster dress needs to be seen to be believed.)

In case your poor pet didn't look ridiculous enough in the "Dazzling Doggy" mini-skirt at right, you can contact Ruth Regina at Wiggles Dog Wigs for the full-on canine tranny look. Half these dog wigs are so freaking ridiculous they couldn't even get a dog to model them. Dude, they're dogs — they already have hair and unless they're performing in a Vegas show they don't need more, and they certainly don't need it to be platinum blonde. Words fail to describe how much I wish I could lock this woman in a room for a week with all of her over-coiffed dogs.

Man, I don't even have any vitriol left for "animal communicator" Donna Velardi.

Meet BlingH2O

Hey, frivolous rich people! Are you looking for a way to stand out, to let the other mansions on the block know just who has the most money to throw away? Sure, you could buy a faster plane than the neighbors, or a larger yacht, but in my admittedly impoverished, humble opinion, the most brilliant way to announce to Page Six, "Nobody is gaudier than I am!" is by purchasing a case of (yes, this is real) BlingH2O, at forty dollars for 750 milliliters, the world's most expensive bottled water. That's a hundred bucks for one of those plastic Coke bottles full of something that literally falls from the sky. Now that's ostentation!

By the way, Coca-Cola, or Coke, is something we poor people drink when we've run out of Dom Perignon and Grey Goose.

Among the many healing powers of BlingH2O are the ability to get the lower half of this anonymous bikini model to talk to you.

But the best thing about BlingH2O is that it's fungible. I mean, it's not like BlingH2O comes with an extra hydrogen atom in every molecule or anything. So you could amuse yourself by, say, throwing a party with your wealthy friends and promising them BlingH2O but secretly switching it with Poland Spring instead. When I become rich, I'm totally gonna do that.

Stuff the Taliban is Missing Out On

New York City is commemorating the sixth anniversary of 9/11 with the solemn dignity it deserves: with Spring '08 Fashion Week! Woo-hoo!

That's one of the beautiful things about living in a free country like ours, cause if you go to Iran or Saudi Arabia, you're not going to find a week-long celebration of all things size zero and revealing. They're starved for sartorial variety over there, since there's only so much creativity you can put into the one-size-fits-all chador or burqa. I see progress on the horizon in the war on drab, which is great, since they hate us for our freedom and our low-neckline floral print sundresses.

I buy my clothes at Old Navy, which is conspicuously underrepresented at Fashion Week for some strange reason. I don't understand why; Old Navy has this new line of argyle sweaters that comes with a bouncy commercial jingle and five dollar shipping and handling. The people gotta know what pattern sweater they'll be wearing in the near future! Or else, we might all buy different styles, and then all of civilization will be doomed!

No, wait. Not doomed. Motley.

As much as I'm aware of the public's fascination with stupid, shiny things, why the hell does any of Fashion Week matter to anybody at all? No one even wears fashion; we wear giant neon rubber shoes and sweatpants with writing across the ass, and a little chunk of Tim Gunn's soul dies every time someone clips their cell phone to their belt. It's the same insipid news every half-year — "Color is big this season" — as if there's anything else they could possibly say. Really, color? Fuck you, Anna Wintour: I was just about to release my new clothing line made entirely of Saran wrap and Scotch tape! It would be great if Giuliana de Pandi would warn me the day before we all start wearing Lost in Space-style standard issue silver jumpsuits, but otherwise shut it and you can all just get back to purging.

Here's where all the resentment lives: I don't look like that! No one, except the bimbos and himbos sashaying down the catwalk, looks like that. First of all, these guys are WASPier than the all WASPiest WASPs in Greenwich and Newport Beach put together. Even the Chinese guy is WASPier than I am. (You wouldn't believe how many photos I had to search through to find that guy.) The lower-right photo guy is wearing an ascot. In my world, the only person who can wear an ascot without deserving to be punched in the throat is Freddie from Scooby-Doo, so he better get a Mystery Machine and start explaining how local ghosts are actually evildoers in costumes trying to scare everyone away real damn soon.

Would it kill these fashion designers to make clothes for guys who weren't part of a secret government program to genetically engineer square-jawed, six-packed, clear-skinned male models? Especially since... have you ever taken a look at the behind-the-scenes people at fashion shows? Maybe this chick just doesn't photograph well (not like she doesn't have an army of professionals whose job is to make sure their subjects do photograph well), but Anna Sui needs to stick a lot of fingers down her throat before I'll buy that "camera adds ten pounds" argument from her. These designers are practically all two steps away from being forced into a traveling circus. What kind of vain moron dripping with self-esteem issues takes fashion advice from these people? Halloween costume advice, maybe...

Really, dude? You're gonna wear that baseball cap in your official Fashion Week photo? Going with the sideburns and half-beard? Do you have a World Series of Poker tournament to get to after the show?

And that's just the men, where the only room for design creativity lies across two extremes: flamboyantly gay and enormous prick.

Or a really talented designer could theoretically combine the two: What the hell is this guy so smug about. Someone needs to get him a mirror, then smash his head into it to wipe that smirk off his face.

The first year I don't watch the Miss Teen USA Pageant and Miss Teen South Carolina gets asked to evaluate our nation's education system. Let's say you're in this situation, on the spot with Mario Lopez sticking a microphone in your face, and someone asking you why Americans can't find America on a map. The thoughts you gather, just during that first deep breath, might be something like, "Not enough schools, not enough teachers, culture glamorizes stupidity, too many kids in each classroom," and Caitlin Upton, Miss Teen South Carolina — so she's like the best teenager in all of South Carolina — comes up with this:

And people want to hate on her for saying on stage what is probably the stupidest thing ever said, ever, in the history of the universe. But in her defense, has anyone shown that there isn't a correlation between maps per capita and Americans' ignorance of where we're actually located? No, they haven't, because it's the stupidest thing ever said, ever, in the history of the universe. So there.

I bet Margaret Spellings saw that, and she's right now drafting up a proposal — no child left undirected. Not like it's gonna be any less effective than the millions we've spent on abstinence education.

What The Hell Is Wrong With England?

They have a queen, for Christ's sake, and they treat her like freaking royalty. It's the twenty-first century. We've had an Enlightenment, invented democracy and liberalism: get with the program, England!

And get with the program America, while we're at it with the program-getting. Our President held a white-tie banquet for the queen and her totally emasculated prince husband, and seven-thousand of their closest friends. The White House spent the weekend getting ready, spending your tax dollars on floral arrangements, touching-up paint jobs, and gold-engraved invitations. It would be a obscene waste of money even if this weren't a president who hasn't bothered to attend a single funeral for a soldier killed in Iraq. I know, I know: our soldiers didn't have the good fortune to be born into one of history's most prestigious inbred families. Screw them. Well, I guess that's what the Bush administration's doing.

For some reason, whenever the British come and visit, Americans have to turn into the same foppish dandies our forefathers fought a revolution to get the hell away from. Have you seen Entertainment Tonight's coverage of David Beckham's move to Los Angeles? Or that Katie + Peter show on the E! network? Who the hell are Katie and Peter, why should I care, and what are they saying? You're from England; speak English, dammit! The queen's got to be the worst though, and Bush's usual obsequious nature in the presence of his political betters — Dick Cheney, queen of England, American Legion — is just sickening.

Here's the protocol: The queen shall be addressed as "Your Majesty." One does not shake the queen's hand unless she offers her hand first. After the queen is done eating, everybody is done eating. Um, has it occurred to anybody that maybe the other guests aren't finished? God, how I'd love to be the one greeting the queen here in America: "Welcome to America, we don't have royalty here. You can carry your own bags." The protocol may be fine when our head of state visits England's backwards aristocracy, but when you come over here, you follow our customs.

In other news, Paris Hilton got her ass arrested because she thought that, being Paris Hilton and all, it was cool for her to drive with a suspended license. You know, because she's more important than the rest of us. Her family actually got mad at the judge for sentencing her (instead of at the celebutard who drove drunk in the first place, then got and violated her probation), and Hilton apologists took time off from swooning over the queen to complain that forty-five days in rich white person Beverly Hills jail was too harsh. I see absolutely no connection between the two attitudes.

Christmas Windows (for the last time): Lord & Taylor and Macy's

I'm glad I saved the best Christmas windows for last. Lord & Taylor has an antique postcard theme, and while I'm not big on Victorian Christmases, I feel like they did a very nice job, nostalgic without being sappy and full of little details that made each scene really worth examining. They put up blown-up duplicates of real postcards from the late 1800's and early 1900's, and they reproduced other postcards in full three-dimensional diorama mode. The puppetry wasn't quite as technologically advanced as in the Saks windows, but they enhanced the vignettes, giving them a focal point that you'd drift away from but always return to. Saks felt like a pop-up book in comparison.

Macy's also did a really impressive job with their Christmas windows. I mean, really impressive — there was some story about Christmas trees or something, but who cares? They had a fire-breathing dragon with video-camera eyes! And a polar bear! And the whole thing's interactive!

You touch a little star on the window and the lion in the display, for instance, comes to life and roars, or the snowmen start playing the drums, or the mermaid (!?) comes out of her, uh, clam. I guess they ran out of Christmas-themed ideas, so the Macy's "Tree of Joy" window is an underwater fantasy scene. Kind of takes you out of the moment. But the whole interactive thing is a bit of a problem, since the windows are crowded with little kids trying to touch them, and I'm standing there, all patient, but I WANT TO TOUCH THE WINDOWS!!! Too bad it's Christmas and you can't just pick the kids up and drop them in front of the window with a bottle of perfume (Estee Lauder on 1). If I lived in the city, I'd stop by at two in the morning and spend the whole night playing with the Christmas windows.

Christmas Windows: Bloomingdale's

The holiday theme at Bloomingdale's this year is "The World Celebrates," about different Christmas traditions around the world. Except it's a little, well, Eurocentric. Each window is a papier-mâché display of Christmas legends in Ireland, Greece, Sweden, Italy with a two-sentence blurb about what you're looking at. In Italy, your presents come courtesy of La Befana: The Magi invited her to come on their journey to receive the Christ child, but she was too busy cleaning her house and declined. Now, racked with guilt, she delivers gifts to all good boys and girls throughout Italy, apparently relieving some of the burden from Santa. In Russia, they tell children the story of Grandfather Frost, who made a girl out of snow for a childless couple.

It's too bad the Bloomingdale's people used up all these stories in a single year, because they could've milked them for a couple of Christmases. The La Befana story and Grandfather Frost could both merit a whole series of windows, instead of the diffuse two-sentence treatment they got, pandering to the parochial, attention span-deprived demographic. They had some windows explaining the holiday traditions here in America, in case you're not familiar with Santa Claus. And did you know that there's this holiday called Chanukah? I didn't. Thank you, Bloomingdale's, for educating me!

Update: Miss USA Survives Coup Attempt! Runner-Up Miss USA Plots Assassination!

Thank God! His Magnificence, Donald Trump, has bestowed His mercy upon Tara Conner, embattled Miss USA and dumb blonde country girl lost in the Big City. We barely avoided a military takeover of the national beauty pageant scene, pageant curfews, puppet judges controlled by a shadow Trump government, censoring what inane songs the contestants can sing. I guess that last one wouldn't really affect the Miss USA pageant because, as I just learned, unlike the almost-as-superfluous Miss America pageant, Miss USA doesn't even have a talent portion. So if you're a chick with bright skin, shining teeth, strong hair, an abnormally fast metabolism, dreams of teaching every child in the world the magic of reading, and no discernible talent whatsoever, you too can be Miss USA!

On the other hand, if you cured Alzheimer's, sang Rossini so beautifully that the Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims stopped their suicide bombing for an hour to be entranced by your mellifluous voice, and actually taught a thousand kids to read, but you're bigger than a size two or you've got braces or saggy tits or some other physical imperfection, then fuck off, Ugly!

Still, Trump, in His infinite wisdom and compassion, said he "believes in second chances" — and he goddamn should, since he's been given plenty — and Tara will be keeping her title and fairy princess tiara. Justice and the rule of law has prevailed. Naturally, there is going to be fallout: Tara will be doing hard time in rehab, following in the footsteps of other luminaries like Lohan and Olsen. Trump still believes that Tara can be a role model for young people, teaching them important life lessons like, "Don't get caught," and, "Turns out people can use these camera doohickeys to record images of you."

Scandal in America! Miss USA Forced to Abdicate in Bloodless Coup! Chaos in the Streets!

In case you haven't been religiously checking out TMZ.com — where celebrities, random dipweed B-list celebrities, and the random dipweeds who hang out with celebrities go to show the world what huge asses they really are — then you might not have heard that Tara Conner is about to be stripped (not literally, sadly) of her Miss USA title by none other than Donald Trump. I bet he told her, "You're fired!" Ha ha ha! I'm hilarious! Cause that's what he says on that show!

According to the always reliable New York Post, Conner was growing up a little too quickly amidst the New York City nightlife, drinking even though she's underage, failing a drug test for cocaine, and making out with Miss Teen USA Katie Blair not to mention a bunch of other scuzzy, useless NYC trust-fund club dudes. Aren't we facing a troop shortage in Iraq? I see a solution somewhere in here....

First of all, no beauty queen should be punished for making out with Miss Teen USA, unless there's a webcam in the room during the punishment. God, that sounds hot. Maybe Trump can land his obnoxious, gaudy braggadocio in the lucrative online pornography industry. And second, how is it that we can have an alcoholic, cocaine snorter as our freaking president, but somehow this behavior crosses the line for Miss USA?

What does Miss USA even do? Besides representing an implausible, misogynistic image of an idealized, subservient female role in our paternalistic society, I mean. That's a big, important job. And Maxim magazine, Victoria's Secret, beer commercials, our nation's copious collection of starlets and celebutards, Anna Wintour, and Mattel are only reinforcing ridiculous body image standards. Who's making sure impressionable young girls are personality-free, talentless, and utterly incapable and worthless without a man — preferably one who's plastered his name all over New York City but still can't get a decent damn haircut — by their side. That's too much responsibility for Miss America alone!

Christmas Windows: Saks Fifth Avenue

Saks Fifth Avenue traditionally puts on the most jejune Christmas windows of all the New York City department stores — always some bland kiddy holiday story full of aspartame and pixie dust. Little Billy and Susie, the whitest of white animorphic dolls — our protagonists are always white, unless this year is a diversity themed Christmas — sneak up to their attic on Christmas Eve and find a magical telescope that lets them watch Santa bring toys to good, presumably Christian, children all over the world. Even Dr. Seuss, if he were alive, would be like, "Whoa, that's a little too saccharine for me."

Oh, I almost forgot, the narrative is etched on the windows with those rub-on letters, but they have a tape loop reading it aloud, too. So you know who their audience is: four-year-olds. Because toddlers have a ton of disposable income. I think Barney's Christmas display gets offended that you have the nerve to look it right in the eye, but at least they know who they're marketing to.

This year's story was, uh... a weird cross between Leonid the Magnificent and a kinky icicle fetish. It's like the window designers were on angel dust this year. Okay, our herione, no pun intended, is "an ice crystal who was known as Allie." That thing on the right is Allie The Passive Voice Ice Crystal; I guess she's in a pairs figure skating competition or something, and I'd make more fun of her outfit, except it's really not that bad once you see the other anthropomorphized ice crystals in the story and what they're wearing. Allie is looking around for a snowflake of other blue-haired albino dolls to join. I'm sure we can all relate.

Next window: Allie floats by a snowflake of scantily-clad anorexic ice crystal ballerinas. Look at these role models for young girls. The fabric goes over your body, not around it. There's also this fat nerd snowflake, and he's got no chance with these vapid bitches. God, I hate them. They won't let him in their snowflake, lunch table, or nightclub. But Allie, bless her heart, takes pity on Nearsighted Dork Ice Crystal, and they become bestest buddies.

I'm calling bullshit right now. First, there's no way in hell Allie's not joining that ballerina snowflake. We all know they thought her fugly, slutty dress was totally cute and they invited her into their stupid clique. And second, never in the history of man nor trillions and trillions of snowflakes has a hot babe ice crystal passed up the opportunity to join the popular snowflake to hang out with the buck-toothed, pencil-necked, beanie-wearing melvin.

Third window: Allie and her new dweeb-alicious friend run into this ice crystal dude, named Chip. Really. No offense to everybody named Chip out there, but I don't even know how people wind up with that name, let alone ice crystals. What does that list of baby names look like, that Chip is the best option? Scratch, Dent, Blemish — no, I guess we'll go with Chip. And for a snowflake? It's worse than naming your sussex spaniel Kevin... but not quite as bad as naming your child Kal-el because you suck as a parent. Okay, I'm done.

And I forgot to mention that the nerdy ice crystal is named Tay-Tay. Yeah, he looks like a Tay-Tay.

Here's Chip. He's floating alone because he's just too wacky and free-spirited and — let's be honest — gay for all those bourgeios snowflakes. But Chip looks like he's cool with it. He's smiling and waving, so I don't know if it's such a huge personal growth moment for him when Allie and Tay-Tay invite him into their circle of merry ice crystals.

By now I've written at least twenty times more words than this story actually consists of, so I'll speed it up. Alice, Tay-Tay, and Chip meet Winnie, who — surprise, surprise — can't find a snowflake to join.Winnie is, uh... "special." I mean, I'd like to give a lot of credit to the artists who built this whole display, and I know their work probably started even before Christmas of last year, but couldn't they put his/her pupils in the center of his/her eyes? He/she looks like he/she just had a stroke. Try explaining that one to the kids.

And while you're at it: try explaining where this baby ice crystal's arms and legs went. And how two ice crystals make a baby ice crystal in the first place. Or maybe they reproduce asexually. Maybe explain to the kids how ice crystals masturbate, especially since hands don't seem to come standard.

Final window: Alice, Tay-Tay, Chip, Winnie, and Baby Ice Crystal decide they can all join hands and become their own misfit snowflake! Yay! Except they don't so much join hands as they all sort of meld into this creepy Siamese quintuplet thing that spins around, and it's all totally messed up. Also, Tay-Tay lost his glasses in the final window. I guess he had LASIK surgery. But as someone who wears glasses, I find this offensive! It's like they're saying everyone who wears thick, horn-rimmed glasses is a friendless louse who'll never have a snowflake to call his own. I'm sick and tired of all these mostly accurate stereotypes about people with glasses! God, it almost makes me want to learn how to poke contacts into my eyes.

I guess here's the Christmas lesson. Everyone is their own unique, special ice crystal, although not necessarily special in the way that Winnie is special. Be yourself. Then, find the one single sympathetic snowflake girl out of the trillions of snowflakes and fuse together with her and three of her weirdo friends in a totally non-sexual way. Gee, they never covered that in The Christmas Shoes.

Christmas Windows: Barney's and FAO Schwarz

One of my favorite things about Christmas in the city are the department store windows, where once a year, the standard homage to overpriced crap gets replaced with a creative holiday-themed homage to overpriced crap. They're baroque and fabulously gay, but in an innocuous way that's cool with the tourists from the flyover states, who are already getting into the Christmas spirit by complaining that Jesus is missing from the decorations. I'm always hoping for some sort of abstract, minimalist Christmas style — which I usually find inside the stores — or failing that, something that isn't ridiculous and puerile. I'm usually disappointed.

Okay, the Barney's windows are never puerile; they're designed for New York's old money, literati elite who are photographed in the Sunday Styles section of the Times and get invited to opening night for new exhibits at the MoMA. You know, people who keep up with the Joneses by shopping at Barney's. This year Barney's asks you to spend heartily and wishes you Happy Andy Warhol-idays, which doesn't even make any sense, except that Barney's is doing this commemorative soup can cross-promotion thing with Campbells.There's over a hundred dollars worth of soup in that picture — twelve bucks a can, and they're crazy popular. I'm guessing that Barney's salespeople work on commission, because it brought tears of holiday joy to my eyes to watch them snatch the last cans in the store out of each others' hands for whoever's phone customer could place the bigger order. Santa would be so proud of us.

I haven't been to F.A.O. Schwarz since they re-opened two years ago, and I'm not a fan of the changes, starting with the candy-colored kiddie-Starbucks ice cream parlor in the back, serving seven-dollar milkshakes. Please, F.A.O. Schwarz, we can't afford that! We just spent $12,000 on a life-sized stuffed woolly mammoth doll, trying to purchase our child's love! We're broke!The worst part is the woolly mammoth — none of the life-sized animals really — isn't huggable. It's felt sewn over a hard shell. I'd rather have one of the cuddly animals they sell for $29.95.

What's really going to take some getting used to with F.A.O. Schwarz is that the new store is just too neat and organized.F.A.O. Schwarz used to be the world's greatest toy box, with playthings spilling out of every conceivable corner, and now it's like Mommy made you clean your room. I'm sure she's happy that she can walk around without stepping on shit like random Legos and Chronicles of Narnia action figures and other people's kids, but this fantasy playworld resents grown-up rules. It feels like an Apple Store or something. Maybe they'll someday throw in a ballpit and even things out.