This image was lost some time after publication.


New York mag's resident dating columnist Amy Sohn has written one of those magical book things we keep hearing about. Apparently, if you can write more than 15 pages at a time, you can get an agent thingy and they'll help you make enough money to pay for rent or something — or, at the very least, you'll get a party celebrating the release of your book at Lotus. Gawker Special Correspondent Lockhart Steele and staff photographer Eliot Shepard investigate the meat-packed release of Amy Sohn's My Old Man.

This image was lost some time after publication.

Remember when Lotus used to be all hot and stuff? Last night at the velvet ropes, 8:30pm:

Beautiful woman in Khazak wool jacket: "Can I help you?"
Bouncer-type guy in background: (meaningful glare)
Me: "Uh, I'm here for the book party."
Woman: "Uh, ok."
Bouncer-type guy: (unhooks rope)

This image was lost some time after publication.

I missed Amy Sohn's commencement speech at Brown back in the mid-90s, but an acquaintance remembers it thusly: "Not a lot of laughs." Apparently, it didn't have much to do with sex. Neither did the book party last night at Lotus, though I did run into sex columnist and professional party crasher Baroness Sheri de Borchgrave moments after the bartender told me the open bar had just closed. (Free drink options missed: bourbon or a fruity cosmo-looking thing.)

This image was lost some time after publication.

Sheri, hanging by the bar with drinking mate Jay Cheshes of Gourmet mag fame, set the scene. "You just missed David Amsden!" she said. "He's working on some Hollywood thing about teenagers who party. Gil Holland, the filmmaker, is over there. Jesse Oxfeld was here. Oh, and we talked to Amy's brother. He used to be embarrassed about her writing about sex, but he's getting more used to it now."

This image was lost some time after publication.

I nodded knowingly. Some New York Mag interns were massed in a corner. Amy was on the upper level with her agent, Daniel Greenberg, and a bunch of other well-wishers. I never made it up there, though — it looked so far away.

This image was lost some time after publication.

Fatigue overwhelmed me. Had only myself to blame for showing up two hours late. The bar was closed, and so was my heart.