Resident Alien

In these mildly entertaining diary excerpts based on his column in the New York Native, Crisp, known also as ""one of the great stately homos of England"" and author of The Naked Civil Servant and How to Become a Virgin, presents himself as ""a free-loader, a dilettante, a butterfly on the wheel,"" and tells how, in his seventies, he pulled up his English roots and moved to Manhattan, where he more easily capitalized on the advantages of being a ""Personality."" ""In the rest of the world,"" he says, ""fame is something that happens to you but in the United States it is something you do."" And do it he does. He logs in the lunches, dinners, parties, TV appearances, occasional cameo roles, free trips and other events that fill his time, while he maintains a pied-a-terre in a $75-a-month room in a dangerous neighborhood on New York's Lower East Side. His often amusing comments are at once self-deprecating and self-serving, with the flavor of a stand-up routine. Gracefully written, gently humorous and a paean to the generosity and warmth of Americans vs. the English, this book is sure to appeal to Crisp cognoscenti. Author tour. (Apr.)