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Floridian disc jockey Diplo played on Friday night at Hiro for the annual New Yorker Dance Party. If you wanted to see Adam Gopnik shake his strangely wide ass, you'd have been disappointed. But who are the New Yorker readers who appreciate both the sternness of Hendrik Hertzberg and dancing to a song whose refrain is "Put your panties on/Put your pussy away"? We sent photographer Kathy Lo to find out.

Vinny's was serving free pizza to the line at the velvet rope outside. An Acura SUV had been parked on the street—they were a Festival "partner." Pedicabs with the New Yorker logo emblazoned on their behinds dropped off women in earth-tone shawls and men in blazers. Acura, Citi, Grey Goose, Chevron, Banana Republic, and Samsung were partners as well; The official wine was Yellowtail.

Speaking of whores, a group of women smoking cigarettes and clutching their bright yellow tickets waited outside. One said, "MySpace feels dirty." Another said, "Yeah, the New Yorker festival is the new network." A middle-aged man used his dog Kira to attract a cluster of women.

Inside Hiro, I spotted these things:

  • A middle-aged lady with a fancy fannypack dancing to the Zombies' "Time of the Season."
  • A posing girl named Britney who had just broken up with Fancy from the band Fannypack.
  • A cluster of gay Asian men in deep v-necks dancing dirtily with women with jewelry.
  • A cadre of middle-aged women whooping it up like it was their kids' bas mitzvahs, arms waving in abandon, joy written into the creases and furrows of their smiling mystical faces as Britney Spears' "Gimme More" played.
  • A pride of elderly who had read about the festival and were curious enough to check it out. Silver haired foxes, women with well-done dyejobs, holding hands, dancing old tymee.
  • Brian Thomas Gallagher, formerly of Topic and now fact-checker for Vanity Fair. What was he high on? "Heaven," he said, which sounds like a designer drug from the 80s, but I think meant the music.
  • Julie Bloom—formerly of Radar and the deceased Jane and now of the Times with co-worker Amy O'Leary. Bloom is a dance writer but refused to cast judgment on the dancing at the party.
  • A guy who looked like a dickwad, whose shirt had the word Angel appliqued to the back, but who turned out just to be foreign. His name was Tice.
  • Three couples seriously making out.
  • By 1:30 a.m., the room was happily pulsating. Diplo interrupted the music only to say, "New Yorker, y'all." The woman in the fannypack bounced like she was on a pogo stick. A discoball was the blinding Copernican sun around which a thousand points of light danced. The three couples we saw earlier engaged in kissing, grew to four, to five and eventually were too many to count. The dance floor had become a fertile breeding ground.