The party.(CITY DESK)(Christmas parties)

THE end of autumn is the season of obligation--of Christmas parties, office parties, book parties for the holiday list, all perks of our specialness as city dwellers. Open bars greet us as we arrive, bags of trinkets accompany us as we leave. Yet we go to these festivities dutifully, like spoiled children complaining of our piano lessons, or our Ivy League course loads. Life is hard. It takes special effort to infuse these invitations with what even jaded New Yorkers will recognize as glamour.

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The worthy institution, which recently celebrated a birthday here, did an excellent job. Worthy Institution had three things going for them as celebrants: They are from out of town, so no one is used to them; they don't celebrate every year, so no one is tired of them; and (thanks to reason number one), they did not do what every New York institution does, which is to book the grand ballroom of a midtown hotel, opting instead to reserve an evening at the best restaurant in town.

What restaurant is that? Is it the laboratory of the brilliant chef, pushing small portions and raw ingredients to the point where you will prepare your own meal of nothing? Is it the celebrity boite, not yet open to the public, but which does take reservations by e-mail? Is it your neighborhood diner? A case could be made for all of them, but Worthy Institution's choice was the Best Restaurant of 1959. It is a temple of modernism, which means it is as remote as the Gay Nineties. The bar is dark wood, and glass-needle chandeliers, like icicles; the passageway displays a huge Picasso (Picasso as period decor--just the way to hang him); the dining room is a vast clean cube, all cool mute colors and right angles, tended by waiters in grey suits. The menu recalls the moment when classical French cuisine was just passe, and culinary pioneers were discovering America; the freshness of the landfall still lingers.

Worthy Institution planned to fill Best Restaurant by offering Big Deal. Big Deal is not the most powerful man in America--that, ex officio, is the president. Formally, thousands of men and women have more power than Big Deal, since he no longer holds office. But in fact Big Deal is the second most powerful American. Half the country believes he is the king over the water, the other half believes he is Satan's rent boy; either way, we cannot help but look at him. How powerful is he? Bono returns his phone calls.

The convergence of all three factors, finally, would bring the fourth factor: Us. How can a party succeed if We do not attend it?

We did a fine job. Over hors d'oeuvres and champagne I saw Lefty, whom I met in green rooms ten years ago. Lefty brags, which irritates people, yet since he brags only about things he has actually done, what fair-minded person can complain? I asked what he was doing, ...