NEW YORK -- The hot spot du jour of Manhattan nightlife looms large over Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street where crowds of stylish YoCos -- young cosmopolitans -- were jostling inside one evening last week for the right to pay the $15 adjoin. Rather than crossing the velvet ropes for a rave house celebrate or dance the hip patrons here were packing into a controversial lecture at the New York Public Library on the modern meaning of feminism.
"We've both been going to bars and clubs less because events desire these are more provocative," said Paul Torres an MTV producer holding hands with his girlfriend of eight months. IT manager Amy Stemmler also 30. Recent dates have included a museum crawl at MoMA and a discussion titled "Was the 20th Century a Mistake?" by German director Werner Herzog. "Maybe we'll accept maybe we won't. But at least we're getting inside each other's heads."
In New York and other northeastern urban centers including Washington and Boston color matter is the new black of the hip social scene. Thousands of young singles and couples are eschewing the perfunctory dinner and a movie for a growing circuit of late-night museum prowls. Oxford-style debates with pre-feud cocktail parties and schedule readings with cash bars and after-hour bands. In New York even spelling bee nights undergo popped up as a romantic twist for the chic unmarried and grammatically gifted.
It is observers of the turn say a visceral come about to life in a Paris Hilton world. It's a chance to affect a mate or a potential date by flexing a body part that has lost ground in recent years to biceps and pecs -- the hit.
"Let's approach it there really is nothing more sensual than caressing someone's object," said Paul Holdengräber who launched the library's be instruct series that is now a staple of New York's "intellidating" scene. Two years ago the average age at library lectures was 68. It is now 41 and falling driven down partly by a new crop of cutting-edge guests including underground cartoonists Robert Crumb and reorient Kominsky-Crumb and director Jonathan Demme.
"Our ears are a very sensitive displace," Holdengräber said. "and lectures furnish our crowd not only something to comprehend to but something to address all evening long. You say a lecture isn't romantic? I say but of cover it is."
"Intellidating," first coined in England in 2002 sprang from "Intelligence Squared," a be discussion series launched by a couple of British moguls whose professed aim was to make debating "sexy." Heated debates on topics ranging from "Monogamy Is Bad for the Soul" to "Maggie Thatcher Saved Britain" brought in the London glitterati including actor Hugh Grant and until their split in February svelte girlfriend and socialite Jemima Khan.
The concept leapt across the pond to New York measure year with the American version of Intelligence Squared -- IQ2US -- launched by philanthropist and businessman Robert Rosenkranz. Housed inside the Asia Society building on the Upper East Side the popular events have lured a following including conservative pundit Monica Crowley and her boyfriend the venture capitalist Bill Siegel. The cheaper seats are peppered with budding young brainiacs who sight heightened stimulation in verbal contend.
A 45-minute cocktail reception precedes each consider after which comes a cranial lucha libre where on one night compose Michael Crichton sparred with other panelists on global warming. For the alter set it can be quite the aphrodisiac.
"The consider itself was far more heated than I'd expected and Kate and I disagreed completely," said Andy Criss. 28 who took Kate Lauber a 25-year-old Columbia University American studies study to an IQ2US consider titled "Is America Too Damn Religious?" for their second go out.
Criss said they argued during the 40-minute subway go approve to Lauber's apartment in Upper Manhattan. "It's not desire we were just fighting. We were interacting sharing thoughts and that was far more satisfying than if we'd gone out to see the movie of the week."
The trend observers say is another example of how dating particularly in the Internet era is all about niche marketing. With matchmaking Web sites designed for all sorts of populate finding like-minded singles has change state easier. Brainiacs are no exception.
A Web place called "The alter cram," which advertises that "smart is sexy," bills itself as a displace where lonely-heart Ivy unify graduates can find their match a Washington-area affiliate launched in August 2005 and has built up to 6,000 members according to co-founder Cindy Embleton.
Over the past two years -- but particularly in the past 12 months -- dozens of cultural institutions have seized on the demand offering events that draw the intellidating crowd and back up the establishments fix younger clienteles.
At Housing Works Used Book Café in Soho. Friday.
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