The Shame Game

It was 2006, and Damon Young had just met a woman on MySpace. Their back-and-forth was witty, flirty and easy. They went on a first date at Barnes & Noble, where they browsed books and continued to vibe. Things were going great, Damon thought. That is, until she called off their second date. Damon was…

Was This the Art Party of the Summer?

Gallery openings tend to be staid affairs. White wine, art-world hobnobbing and maybe dinner. O’Flaherty’s, a scrappy gallery in the East Village of Manhattan that’s named after a nonexistent Irish pub, sought to invert the whole notion of the summer group show. First, it held an “open call” in which anyone — starving artists, children,…