AN ACQUAINTANCE NAMED RUSSELL held a “Loud Jacket Party” last Saturday night. The loudest jacket I currently own is a double-breasted navy blue number with silver pinstripes, but nobody seemed to mind.

My favorite new local band, Lushy (more about them on a future date, I promise) played two sets of ultracool jazz-pop. Delicately tasty cocktails were served up by trained professionals. Party guests read aloud from Russian history books when they couldn’t think of anything witty to say, which wasn’t often.

The center and right faces in this pic belong to the extraordinary party goddess DJ Superjew and cool-and-strange-music connisseur Otis F. Odder.