August’s Perfect Party

Here at Perfect Party headquarters, we keep certain members of our acquaintance close and others closer, which is how Steve Hotze scored a highly coveted invitation to this month’s jam. With his cohort Jared Woodfill, he’s turning his anti-HERO Campaign for Houston into the national Campaign for USA, spending millions to boycott Target over its live-and-let-live trans policy, which is awesome. And by that we mean not awesome. Moving on. Anthony Bourdain finally came to town to film for Parts Unknown, stopping at Kaiser Lashkari’s Himalaya and winning back the hearts of Houstonians long annoyed by his dismissal of our culinary scene. Also (rumored to be) filming in Houston: Love & Hip Hop. Word is H-Town native Mehgan James, of Bad Girls Club and Basketball Wives LA fame, has signed on, so get ready. Rounding out our guest list are Utpal M. Dholakia, the Rice professor who, in a Freakonomics Radio podcast, finally explained the reasons behind the much-lamented proliferation of mattress stores across Houston and the nation (essentially, high markup, low overhead, peripatetic population); Louisa Stude Sarofim, the Houston heiress who, with Janie C. Lee, made an extraordinary gift to the Menil Collection of more than 100 drawings by the likes of Cezanne and Picasso; Keavon Runnels, the band director at Austin High, who was named a quarterfinalist for the Grammy Music Educator Award; Deidre Mathis, the local entrepreneur who’s planning to open a hostel in Midtown, a grand idea; and Odalis Almendarez, the Davis High School graduate who’s off to Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on a full scholarship, becoming the first in her family to go to college. That’s awesome! And by that we mean awesome.

Published in the The Best of the Bayou City 2016 issue of Houstonia Mag.