Last Thursday I was lured to the Drug Policy Alliance "Absinthe makes the Heart Grow Fonder" benefit party to celebrate the one year appeal of the Absinthe prohibition in the States at 151 Wooster. Over 600 guests showed up to enjoy the complimentary Le Tourment Vert Absinthe including Muhammad Cohen, author of Hong Kong On Air: TV news, love, betrayal, high finance, and cheap lingerie; Elisabeth Eaves, author of Bare; Melissa Ditmore, editor of the Encyclopedia of Prostitution & Sex Work, illustrator Molly Crabapple; Keith Richburg, the NY bureau chief for WashPost, Sheridan Prasso, author of The Asian Mystique; and Tracy Quan, party promoter who's currently writing Diary of a Jetsetting Call Girl.

While there listening to a great speech about how the war on drugs doesn't work, I received a summons from my sister, Gail Heidel, who was at a gallery reception for Andrea Stanislav (pictured left) down the street at Jonathan Shorr Gallery. Turns out Stanislav is working on a book project with Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Bill Foley to be published by the University of Minnisota Press with the working title "Holiday Inn Dubai: the Dystopia inside the Utopia". Looks like everywhere I go, I run into book people.

Top Photo: Muhammad Cohen, Tracy Quan, and Dana Friedman, founder of Dragonfly Technologies.