Hovering near the unmanned iPod resting on the side bar, stands a short, pallid blond man. Here is our Gatsby, except he is more like Willy Wonka. Even in a crowded, packed room, Culkin is impossible to miss. In the dim light, he sometimes looks like an adolescent and sometimes like an old man. But never, from any distance or light, does he look his real age of 31.
Most of his friends are stationed at a giant table in the back of the bar, a cross between the Last Supper and a toddler’s birthday party. There’s a paper tablecloth and dinosaur action figures scattered around two delicious birthday cakes. Culkin’s younger brother Kieran, who played a rebellious teenager in Igby Goes Down, is there, as is his other brother, Shane, who is not an actor.
When Culkin finally speaks at around midnight, his voice is high-pitched and androgynous. “Hi everybody, welcome to the dinosaur party! Thank you for all coming, it’s been a blast.” He awards a girl named Carolyn with a ribbon for her stegosaurus bodysuit. He plays with a pair of chattering teeth and then reveals that it’s actually Shane’s birthday. The crowd roars. He thanks everyone for coming “from the bottom of my heart.”

The next day, I called the club to ask them about the event. Dustin Nelson, the marketing director for Le Poisson Rouge, said that he’d been getting emails all day about the party. It wasn’t Shane’s birthday, he tells me. “It was no one’s birthday,” he said. “It was a birthday party for dinosaurs. It’s totally nonsensical.”