Guests at Tuesday night’s Black and White Ball at Christie’s are arguably the city’s pre-eminent authorities on where to buy an eye-catching mask. Elisabeth Saint-Amand bought her and her date’s simple masks at Abracadabra, a costume shop on 21st Street. Zitomer and Ricky’s were also sources. And of course, many guests, such as Brooke Duchin, bought their masks in Venice, or at least said they did.

Not keen on masks? They are, after all, hard to see out of and difficult to breathe in. Blair Husain avoided these traumas by having a face painter create the illusion of one. Dorothee Walliser also went minimalist, affixing a piece of black lace to her face.

I’m not sure if Helen Schifter’s sunglasses were a suitable mask substitute or a blatant defiance of the dress code,but she looked cool.

Bronson van Wyck wore a papier mache donkey head, looking not quite as elegant as attendees at Capote’s original ball, such as Candice Bergen, who wore a bunny mask designed by Halston, and decorator Billy Baldwin, who wore a unicorn mask and headdress by Gene Moore.

The point is, there are many ways to cover your beautiful face on a night when you’re wearing a drop-dead gorgeous gown you wouldn’t want anyone to see you in. It’s fun to have old flames and old friends not recognize you. It’s fun to bump into strangers now and then, or even find yourself talking to one.

But this is New York, ladies and gentlemen.And when you’re feeling like the toast of the town, you need light on your face.You need to be able to sip that champagne. No matter how striking the mask, it’s bound to come off.

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Just as crocuses started to spring, the cultural patrons of the East End gathered at the Rainbow Room to pay tribute to one of their favorite institutions of summer, Guild Hall. East Hampton’s theater, museum, and gathering spot celebrated the 75th anniversary of its Academy, a hall of fame for artistic and literary figures who have lived on the East End. Broadway producer Roy Furman, who has four shows up on Broadway, including “Spamalot,” gave a Lifetime Patron of the Arts award to the cofounder of the Blackstone Group and chairman of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Stephen Schwarzman, who called the chairman of Guild Hall, Melville “Mickey” Strauss, “the greatest arm twister on the East End.” Chita Rivera performed for an audience including E. L. Doctorow, Tovah Feldshuh, Chuck Close, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Caro, Richard Meier, and Louis Begley.The chairmen of the event included Ninah and Michael Lynne, Pamela and Edward Pantzer, and Ellen and James Marcus.

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At its annual fund-raising dinner on Tuesday at Cipriani 42nd Street, the president of the New York Academy of Medicine, Dr. Jeremiah Barondess, spoke of the academy’s commitment to public health in urban centers and around the world. And then he asked guests to make sure they checked out the centerfold in the event journal – not exactly Playboy material, but almost as fascinating to the crowd: four pages of graphic drawings of sinewy flesh, taken from the 18th-century book “A New Collection of Bone and Muscle Studies Drawn From Nature by Jacques Gamelin for Use in Science and Art.” One the nine copies of the book in America belongs to the academy’s library.

agordon@nysun.com