Sitting in her Bowery apartment just a few days before the event, Irina tells me she has even more surprises in store –– but that I’m not allowed to write about it. “Do you still want to know who it is?” she asks temptingly. Of course I say yes. But, as promised, I won’t tell. Let’s just say I’m happy I’ll be there.
     Although a famous model, muse, musician, “it” girl, “friend of Kate”, etc, etc, Irina considers herself mainly a writer, and laughs at all the clichéd labels that get attached to her. I write every day, she says. That’s what I do — poetry and spoken-word especially.” She holds up her notebook and leafs through the pages to show me volumes of verse, all scribbled down. “For me, it’s all about words,” she continues, “whether as lyrics, spoken-word, whatever. I’m a storyteller, and I want to get my ideas and feelings on paper and communicate them in whatever way I can.
     Moments later, she segues into a story about getting ready for Thursday’s show, the climax of which is this: “there was this point when the boys were all rehearsing at the studio and Sean’s friend Harper was there [Harper Simon, son of Paul Simon], and so Paul comes over, and Yoko was there too, and everyone is just hanging out and jamming, exchanging ideas, and all of a sudden I had this vision of the scene from the outside and thought to myself, this is really crazy. I mean, I’m just a kid from Canada. I had to call my Dad. I said, Dad, you’re not going to believe this…”