These are also usually the ones where you're reminded on an hourly basis that the soiree you're attending cost in excess of twenty grand and the lace on the bride's dress had to be hand-woven by Lithuanian imps and then flown over in a private jet on a silk pillow, cradled lovingly by an international diplomat.
Not that my soiree took off, but of my friends.
Rumors abounded that the soiree was "closed press," which is public-relations code for "journalists will get kicked out on their asses," and most of the press corps dutifully took heed.
The Shah had decided to mark the 2500th anniversary of Cyrus the Great with a huge party at Persepolis, and forgetting that the soiree had actually made a substantial profit in subsequent tourist revenue in the following two years, the mullahs, armed with bulldozers and pickaxes headed to the site to cleanse it of pre-Islamic foulness.
When I'm offered the chance to attend the events held by the same folks who produced Kara Walker's 75-foot candy Sphinx, I am wary that the soiree, promoted by names like Dustin Yellin, Tom Sachs, the Bruce High Quality Foundation, and Glasser, among others, won't just be impermeable, but inescapable, too.
The four-times Italian PM said that the soirees he held at his Arcore villa near Milan were simply "elegant dinners", though other witnesses painted a different picture.
Our seventh president, Andrew Jackson, swung wide the doors of the august White House for a soiree that apparently devolved into a drunken rager that left the president's home in a state of disrepair.
Much mazel to the Secretary of the Treasury who'll be tying the knot with his Scottish beloved this weekend in a big DC soiree that will include the President, the Vice-President and that old troll cum Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross.
The group held a similar soiree that year for Senator Tom Daschle, the minority leader, at the Democratic Convention in Boston.
And the England scene is wittily staged, with Scott Handy's Malcolm discovered attending a musical soiree that contrasts strongly with the Macbeths' own brutal banquet barn-dance.
