She was preceded on a runway (ahem, a red carpet) that bisected the Plaza and cascaded to the street, by the stylish likes of Daphne Guinness, Julia Koch, the beauty entrepreneur Lauren Remington Platt, the runway star Karolina Kurkova and scores of emphatically youthful guests whose combined wattage easily eclipsed that of the social stalwarts who customarily form the backbone of such affairs.
However, there was one surprise guest in attendance whose star wattage outshines all the rest: His Airness.
Part of his tone comes from who he is, a former cold warrior and longtime C.I.A. analyst, cautious and low-wattage, whose business was the dark side of people and countries.
The interviews, a Who's Who of political and entertainment celebrity, feature performers like Tony Bennett, Ruby Dee, Miriam Makeba and Sidney Poitier, whose stories and star wattage are balanced by the heft provided by the likes of the historian Taylor Branch.
In "Delight," embedded above, Lee presents an orchestra of high-wattage light bulbs whose relays are wired and programed with Max/MSP.
And there's the house bigot, the low-wattage Chick (Noah Emmerich), whose taunt is that the Navajos look just like the Japanese.
And accessible, a trait for which I, a reader whose literary brain is not of the brightest wattage, was always grateful.
"The amount of celebrities, the wattage, may be a little dimmer," said Barbara Martin, whose business, BrandLinkDC, represents luxury clients, including the W Hotel on the Pennsylvania Avenue parade route.
It helps that Peet exudes cool-eyed mischief as a woman whose awareness of her colleagues' ill will only increases the wattage of her poise.
"Our student is a kid whose light switch is off, but there's a lot of wattage".
