Went to a benefit tonight for the New York Festival of Song, a concert series run by one of my oldest friends (and Rancho-Obsesso-mates). A benefit, of course, is put on to raise money, and tends to be populated with people who have lots of it. Not including me; I go because this is Steve's baby, and I'm happy to scrape up the money for a ticket, but it's not like there's any point in the organization (or any organization) actually courting me. But I sure enjoyed it. Kimberly Barber and Frederica von Stade, singing separately and together, opera arias and theater songs. Ranged from fun to beatiful to, in the case of von Stade singing the Piaf song "La Vie en Rose," absolutely heartbreaking. The venue was odd: architect Rafael Vinoly's office, in Soho. Apparently Vinoly does this kind of thing a lot, concerts and musical evenings, and has a big lower-level space with a piano -- his own, he's a dedicated amateur himself -- and a street-level entry space big enough for the pre-concert wine and munchies. Being an architect's office, people were working late, both in the basement model shop and in the upstairs studio. Being until recently an architect myself, I had the weirdest out-of-place feeling. I kept thinking I should have been upstairs, or, really, in the basement, with the hardworking peons, not in the middle with the idle rich.