Team Party Crash: Fall Book & Gin Mingle @ Housing Works

Ah, the Housing Works Fall Book & Gin Mingle — a delightfully debauched affair, filled with publishing types and those who love them. And Chuck Klosterman! Despite the over-imbibing of the Belvedere and Moet from Wednesday evening's Spy party , Team Party Crash roused itself out of its immortal hangover Thursday to lumber up the street from Gawker HQ to the Housing Works Bookstore Caf last night, where we forked over $10 and a used book (we hauled along a dating manual from the Gawker discard bin) and made our way to the open bar.

Housing Works — which helps people living with HIV and AIDS get housing — has long been one of the causes of choice for a certain breed of media type. It's the domain of book critics and agents, tweedy authors, highbrow magazine editors, and the stray literate celebrity or two. (Peter Sarsgaard was listed on the invite as a host, but was nowhere to be found. Damn you, Ramona!) Despite the yawn-inducing potential of such an affair, we sent Gawker photographer Nikola Tamindzic — decidedly out of his element, but cheerfully up for anything — and associate editor Doree Shafrir, who knows more of these people than she lets on, to document the whole gin-soaked affair. Peruse our photo montage of pretentious conversations, with Shafrir's trenchant analysis after the jump.

The feeling you get when you walk into the Housing Works Bookstore Caf on Crosby Street is like walking into the slightly downtrodden Upper West Side apartment of that book editor or Columbia professor who bought their four-bedroom co-op in 1967 for $35,000. One of the first people I spot when I enter is none other than Frenemy of Gawker Chuck Klosterman, who appears to have exchanged his trademark black-rimmed hipster glasses for a more fashion-forward clear pair. I avoid him and make a beeline for the sad assortment of food, which includes wings, pita bread and hummus, crudite, squares of cheese and what appear to be Trader Joe's tortilla chips. Oh yeah, it's a fundraiser. Almost forgot.

I waltz around for a spell, paranoidly trying to avoid Klosterman's clear-eyed gaze — he knows who I am! I'm sure of it! — and absentmindedly remarking upon the bizarre music choices, which careen from Bobby Brown (but no Whitney!) to U2 to Tina Turner to Toto Justin Timberlake to Duran Duran to Madonna. I'm starting to feel faint — it's also hot as balls in here — and take refuge by the front of the store, where I think I'll be able to spot any Important People who may come in. Unfortunately the ungodly combination of heat, and gin, and Klosterman has taken its effect, and I must depart.

Fall Book & Gin Mingle @ Housing Works [Photos]
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