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It’s a gray day around here, so I’m blogging something perky: style.

First off, au revoir to Steven, the Museum of Science and Industry textile designer who was auf’d on Project Runway last night. What do you think? Was it his time to go? I’ll refrain from comment, since I haven’t been keeping up with the show. But there he was, sipping a drink a few weeks ago at a gay sports bar in Uptown. A bunch of his friends had gathered to watch the premiere; poor Steven cried out halfway through the evening that…

Several months ago, a pianist named Lisa Kaplan invited me to a house party at a gorgeous mini manse in Gold Coast. Lisa was going to be performing with a few members of her classical sextet, Eighth Blackbird; they were touring a lot at the time, and this was one of the few opportunities I had to check them out.

I dragged my friend Maria with the promise of wine and pretty music, but I really didn’t know what we were getting into. A contemporary classical sextet from Chicago? Rocking a house party on the Gold Coast? It was, admittedly, a little awkward…

What happens when politicos plan a rock concert?

It gets freaky, in a the-last-time-whoever- planned-this-last-turned-on-the-radio-in- the-1990s sort of way.

Of course, the music was not the point of the Chicago Rocks for Change concert this weekend at the Riviera. The point was raising money for Barack Obama, who came out at the end of the Wilco set, gave frontman Jeff Tweedy a big bear hug, and got the crowd hollering with a rousing speech…

Sure, I raised a glass of Champagne last week at a holiday fete at Prada, and followed it up with a ladies luncheon hosted by Amanda Puck at Le Colonial. But I wasn’t quite in the seasonal spirit until this weekend, when writer/m.henry pastry chef Michael Bowen threw his annual White Trash/White Christmas party in Edgewater…