Mrs. Smith goes to Symphony Space: We mean Anna Deavere, of course! The mistress of one-woman productions (she was up for two Tonys for Twilight: Los Angeles ) was heartbreaking in last year's Roth-fest, The Human Stain -tonight she introduces a reading of short stories by Edward P. Jones, Anne Carson and Victor D. LaValle to a huffy audience of Condé Nast editors who showed up expecting Anna Nicole Smith …. Meanwhile, Wesley Clark -who put his fate in the hands of the Clintons and thus ended up standing around in his jockstrap -sits down with Washington Post muckraker Dana Priest (kind of a less sloppy Judith Miller ) at the 92nd Street Y …. A few blocks south, the Whitney museum's intelligentsia (i.e., members) preview the "edgy" biennial exhibition, including work by experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage and painter David Hockney.

[Anna Deavere Smith introduces, Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, 8 p.m., 212-864-1414; "The New War: Wesley Clark and Dana Priest," 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Avenue, 8 p.m., 212-415-5500; Whitney opening reception, Whitney Museum, 945 Madison Ave, 7 p.m., 212-570-3641, members only.]

Thursday 11th

Bow-tied Bushies, otherwise known as the Young Republicans , gather to hear from Kellyanne Conway , president of Polling Company, which conducts research for groups like Microsoft, the Heritage Foundation, Philip Morris and Ladies' Home Journal . Ms. Conway was expecting a decent crowd. "We're not quite Dominican shortstops yet," she cautioned. "But we're growing!" Amuse yourself by using that quasi-word "santorum" in a sentence …. Meanwhile, their parent s-in black tie-attend the Armory Show's opening-night benefit on the piers on the Hudson. Watch for women trotting out the Easter colors a tad too early ….

[New York Young Republican Club meeting, Soldiers', Sailors', Marines' and Airmen's Club, 283 Lexington Avenue, 7 p.m., 212-533-4940; Armory Show opening-night benefit, Piers 90 and 92 on the Hudson River, 7 p.m., 212-708-9680.]

Friday 12th

If Howie Mandel doing stand-up at Foxwoods makes you nostalgic for Bobby's World , huzzah for you! Mr. Mandel's quirky animated show-about a dark-haired kid who, you may recall, loved to daydream and wear humungous blue sneakers -was by far his best role. We asked Mr. Mandel what he's been up to, aside from a Showtime movie, Crown Heights , in which he plays a hip rabbi named Laz. "What the hell I been up to ?" he snapped. We changed the subject: Would you consider hosting the Oscars? " Nah . If somebody were to ask me to do it, I would certainly be honored. But it's tough enough to do comedy and to entertain as it is. When you start in the business, it's really tough to win an audience over-I would imagine the Oscar audience is the toughest there is." Certainly tougher than fat people in track suits, half in the bag and their life's earnings gobbled up by blackjack …. Some names are better changed : The New Opera Ball hits the Plaza hotel, but back when it was in Austria, it was tagged the Wiener Opernball . Where do you pin the corsage? Anyway, the event-which has been endorsed by the likes of Kevin Bacon and squeeze Kyra Sedgwick (the thinking man's Julia Roberts )-benefits the Children's Hope Foundation , which helps children and teenagers living with H.I.V. and AIDS.

[Howie Mandel, Foxwoods Resort Casino, 39 Norwich Westerly Road, Mashantucket, Conn., 9 p.m., 800-200-2882; the New Opera Ball in New York, Plaza Hotel, Fifth Avenue at Central Park South, 7:45 p.m., 212-792-4048.]

Saturday 13th

"I confess to being pretty much an Amazon virgin," said pretty author lady Kathryn Harrison from the Brooklyn home she shares with husband and fellow writer Colin. "I think that in a weak moment, I once looked at the reviews of one of my books-some of which actuallydid seem quite personal," she continued. "And I justthought, 'Thisisnot something I can afford to do. This is emotionally costly and stupid.' And that was the end." Tonight, Ms. Harrison-who wrote a memoir ( The Kiss ) about an affair she had with her father (hey, it beats Match.com )-speaks with Leonard Lopate at the indefatigable Brooklyn Public Library. Meanwhile, the American Museum of Natural History -where the stuffed people and animals in the dioramas get up and walk around in the wee small hours-has deemed today "Annual Identification Day," whereupon visitors are encouraged to haul in shells, rocks, insects and other natural ephemera. Bring Howie Mandel.

[Kathryn Harrison and "Brooklyn Writers for Brooklyn Readers," Brooklyn Public

Library at Grand Army Plaza, 2 p.m.,

718-230-2100; Identification Day, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West and 79th Street, 1 p.m., 212-769-5100.]

Sunday 14th

Tim Robbins may be whipped like an egg cream , but Susan Sarandon's gangly hubby powers on: He's the writer and director of a new play, Embedded , a satire about the Middle East conflict that skewers embedded journalists and government officials. Sounds just fine-but again, just like Alan Alda in Crimes and Misdemeanors and Mr. Robbin's own work in The Player , these lefty do-good types are at their best when playing selfish bastards.

[ Embedded , the Public Theater,

425 Lafayette Street, 212-230-6200.]

Monday 15th

Hans solo! Hans Blix , cuddly chairman of the International Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction , discusses his new book Disarming Iraq , and its likely sequels ( Disarming Korea , Disarming Iran , Disarming Portugal ) …. In other news, it's the Ides of March. Julius Caesar was assassinated by his best pal today in 44 B.C. Conspiracy theorists, take note: Neil Simon (who wrote the TV series Caesar's Hour ) was recently stabbed in the back, too, when his friend (and publicist!) gave him a kidney. Coincidence?

[Hans Blix, Eisner-Lubin Auditorium, Kimmel Center, 60 Washington Square South between Laguardia and Thompson streets,

6 p.m., 212-992-9091.]

Tuesday 16th

More proof that New York has become a nice, slightly corny all-American city: Hootie and the Blowfish perform at Borders books (where we believe Hootie may actually be working.) Today, the group signs copies of Best of Hootie and the Blowfish 1993-2003 . Can you feel the magic? … Meanwhile, during the TV series The Wonder Years , every other teenybopper was wild about Kevin Arnold- but personally, we were always much more of a "Paul" girl. We managed to find the Arnold family patriarch, played by actor Dan Lauria , now dabbling in the thea- tuh . "I've only done one revival in the last 15 years, because I don't do plays by old, dead white guys," said Mr. Lauria, a no-nonsense 56. He was out in Long Island ("I've come up to visit my mom. Mom's always great to have around, because she likes anything I do-to her, I'm Olivier.") Mr. Lauria is on the cusp of a new play, Ears on a Beatle , opening tonight. Plot: An experienced, older F.B.I. agent teams up with a younger agent who views him as a hero. The two conduct undercover surveillance on John Lennon. "In the end, the younger man has become me and I've become destroyed by it all." Thanks for spoiling the ending, pops. Any more surprises? "What I was shocked about is how many young kids know about Lennon. I don't mean the Beatles-I mean Lennon , I mean Strawberry Fields and all that. We had to turn away hundreds of 15-year-old kids showing up in Lennon shirts and black arm bands." The big huggy bear still gets recognized, of course. "That's never gonna stop! But it's like Jack Lemmon said: 'When they stop stopping you on the street is when you have to worry.' I'm the Hugh Beaumont of my generation." Who?

[Borders, 10 Columbus Circle, West 58th Street and Eighth Avenue, 1 p.m., 212-823-9775;

Ears on a Beatle , DR2 Theater, 103 East 15th Street, 8 p.m., 212-239-6200.]

Wednesday 17th

St. Patrick's Day! Green plastic bowlers and Mike Bloomberg playfully poking Diane Taylor with his shillelagh …. The parade blankets midtown at 11 a.m.; watch for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton inventing yet another Irish ancestor; by 11 p.m., the streets are alive with Irish folk making merry …. Earlier, the Hospital for Joint Diseases sponsors a community blood drive-you must weigh a minimum of 110 pounds, meaning the cast of Friends is out, except for Matthew Perry , who can give twice. (Watching the reruns is the proverbial box of chocolates, isn't it? You never know which Perry you're gonna get- Thin Perry, Average Perry, Fat Perry. )

[243rd annual St. Patrick's Day parade,

11 a.m., Fifth Avenue from 44th to 86th streets; blood drive, the Hospital for Joint Diseases, 301 East 17th Street, 7 a.m. to

6 p.m., 212-598-6232.]

Now that she's married, Rosie O'Donnell gets therapy: Today she chats at the 92nd Street Y with psychoanalyst and Today show contributor Dr. Gail Saltz about creativity and motivation in the performing arts ( note to Ms. Saltz: best keep away from any mention of "taboos"-see: Taboo , recent flop of). Some food taboos are broken at the Mark hotel, where pastry chef Frederic Bau does unspeakable things with chocolate (the woman's catnip) from Valrhona. "He's sort of their chocolate ambassador," said the Mark's executive chef, Andrew Chase. "Chocolate is going to be a component of all the savory dishes. It's used to either compliment or contrast the food. These chocolates all have some sugar in them , so I'm curious to see how Frederic is going to do it myself!" Is Mr. Blau flashy? "If he had an American counterpart-and I don't think he does-I just couldn't see them being so humble and such a pleasure to be around. In the States, it's different: It's tough here, and there's a lot of competition, so by the time these chefs get to the top, a lot of them can get big egos." In other news, surely you know it's What If Cats and Dogs Had Opposable Thumbs Day ; we called the man behind the day, Tom Roy , a former native of Astoria who's now an associate producer of the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire. What would happen if the aforementioned pets had the aforementioned digits? "It would be hell!" he said in between slurps of a strawberry Tootsie Pop. "Every time I go to the refrigerator, my basset is with me going, 'Hey, whadda we got in there?'" Strange fact: Mr. Roy played the "wild-eyed street creature" in the Bruce Willis–Brad Pitt vehicle 12 Monkeys . "Weird movie, huh!?" Meanwhile, animals with and without opposable thumbs set up tent in New Jersey, as the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus arrives with its big cats ( rr-rrrr-ow! ) and clowns ( grrrrrr! ) , which will be fueling children's nightmares for years.

[Rosie O'Donnell, 92nd Street Y, 1395

Lexington Avenue, 8 p.m., 212-415-5500;

"A Night of Wine and Chocolate," Mark's restaurant, the Mark, East 77th Street at Madison Avenue, 7 p.m., 212-744-4300; "The Greatest Show on Earth," Continental Airlines Arena, 6:30 p.m., 877-379-0694.]

Thursday 4th

Book reviewers get revenge on the great unwashed public today at the National Book Critics Circle awards , where contenders include William T. Vollmann's Rising Up and Rising Down (your brother-in-law cashed in a mutual fund to buy a copy) and Blake Bailey's biography of Richard Yates, A Tragic Honesty . The critics also continue that dubious habit of doling out Lifetime Achievement Awards to authors who still manage to turn out damn fine work with regularity. This year, the award goes to scruffy, white-haired Studs Terkel. We reached the 91-year-old Studs (best known for his collection of interviews, Working ) at his Chicago home; he had to retrieve his hearing aid ( "I'm deaf as a post, and a slave to technology" ). He said he's assembling a new book about music, and it may not be his last: "I'll keep going till I check out. I've gotta keep goin', you know? I might kick the bucket right this minute talking to you."

[National Book Critics Circle Awards, New School University, Tishman Auditorium,

66 West 12th Street, 6 p.m., 212-251-6831.]

Friday 5th

No word if Bill Clinton- philandering former President turned South Beach diet fanatic -will be at today's South Beach Wine and Food Festival in midtown, hosted by Food and Wine editor Julie McGowan and Aquavit's Marcus Samuelsson and grazed by David Bouley, Anthony Bourdain, Alain Ducasse, Drew Nieporent and Al Roker …. Meanwhile, it seems Venice needs your help, so the Young Friends of Save Venice strike up their fiddles at a "Casanova's Court" masquerade ball. "Dress to seduce" says the invitation, adding that "masks, furs or black tie" are required … But first swing by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's benefit plant sale- 20,000 plants , any of which would die under our care. We called Lucille Plotz , who's worked at the garden for "50-some-odd years," and she let us in on 2004's veggie trend: "Heirloom tomatoes are very attractive," she said, conspiratorially. "Heirloom tomatoes are tomatoes that have not been hybridized." We pressed her to endorse a favorite plant, but she refused, saying only that she was quite fond of "dwarf plants."

[South Beach Wine and Food Festival, Riingo at the Alex Hotel, 205 East 45th Street,

6 p.m., invitation only; Casanova's Court, the Metropolitan Club, 1 East 60th Street,

8 p.m., invitation only; Brooklyn Botanic Gardens benefit plant sale, 900 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, 9 a.m., 718-623-7200.]

Saturday 6th

The Junior League- tough broads in pearls -embrace the recent trend of masked parties ( cheaper than a face-lift! ) at their Winter Ball tonight (theme: Venetian masquerade) at Cipriani's …. If it's your weekend with the kids: Italian mouse/author Geronimo Stilton (brainchild of Italian publisher Edizioni Piemme ) comes to the Scholastic Store to hock his newest tome, Four Mice Deep in the Jungle , and Lord and Taylor unleashes a bunch of puppets and a storyteller, Miss Teri, who will "perform with her magical keyboard." Meanwhile, it's Purim; Christians sneak out to see Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ , secure in the knowledge that their Jewish friends won't spot them ….

[Winter Ball, Cipriani's , 110 East 42nd Street, 7 p.m., 212-288-6220; Geronimo Stilton, Scholastic Store, 557 Broadway,

3 p.m., 212-343-6166; A Whale of a Tale , Lord and Taylor, 424 Fifth Avenue, 11th floor, 2 p.m., 212-382-7670.]

Sunday 7th

Of course gay people should have the right to marry-they have the right to be miserable just like the rest of us! Today Dr. Khoren Arisian , of the New York Society for Ethical Culture, asks "Marriage, Straight or Gay: What's Ethics Got to Do with It?" Which reminds us of Elton John's response when asked what he'd be getting Liza Minnelli for her wedding: "A heterosexual husband." Zap! … And 30 blocks uptown, at the 92nd Street Y, meet a single woman who's too smart for most guys: Karen Armstrong , the former nun turned chronicler of faiths (God, Buddha, Muhammad) .

["Marriage, Straight or Gay: What's Ethics Got to Do With It?", New York Society for Ethical Culture, 2 West 64th Street, 11:30 a.m., 212-874-5210, ext. 144 or 116; the Glanz Lecture: Karen Armstrong, 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave., 7:30 p.m., 212-415-5500.]

Monday 8th

Life is LaBute-iful: Ingenue actor Kieran Culkin joins castmates Brian Dennehy, Christopher Meloni, Amanda Peet, Paul Rudd and Susan Sarandon in dark-souled playwright Neil LaBute's Autobahn , a reading of five new one-act plays. Meanwhile, the Hamptons start their hum-hum-hum as Mortimer (Mort) Zuckerman, Alec Baldwin, Ben Bradlee and Jack Youngerman scoop up lifetime achievement awards at East Hampton's Guild Hall Academy of Arts gala at the Rainbow Room, as Lauren Bacall looks on.

[ Autobahn , Little Shubert Theater, 422 West 42nd Street, 8 p.m., 212 -727-7765; Guild Hall Lifetime Achievement Awards gala, Rainbow Room, 30 Rockefeller Plaza,

6:30 p.m., 631-324-0806.]

Tuesday 9th

Eye want candy! Artist Craig Kanarick previews his confection collection of photographs, Eye Candy , at Dylan's Candy Bar . "I stopped off at some bodega to buy candy one day, and I saw all this candy on the shelf, and I thought, 'They're like little precious gemstones!'" said Mr. Kanarick. "So I grabbed a camera and began photographing, shooting it like it was a little fashion model. I didn't turn on techno music and a fan or anything, but it was really beautiful!" Then yet another gala gallops through Gotham, as the New York City Opera's Spring Gala features the last Hollywood couple with class, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, as well as Tony Kushner, Stephen Sondheim and a performance of the latter's Sweeney Todd starring Mark Delavan and Elaine Paige …. Meanwhile, Donald Trump goes off-camera to honor Corcoran real-estate chief executive Pamela Liebman at the Kite Dance Benefit, being held at the city's favorite new mall, the Time Warner Center. Worthy cause: Child Development Center in East Hampton.

[ Eye Candy , Dylan's Candy Bar, 1011 Third Avenue, 6 to 9 p.m., www.dylanscandybar.com; New York City Opera's Spring Gala, New York State Theater, 20 Lincoln Center, 5:30 p.m., 212-870-5575; Kite Dance Benefit, Mandar in Oriental, Time Warner Center, Columbus

Circle, 6:30 p.m., 631-267-2734.]

Wednesday 10th

Celebri-chef Rocco DiSpirito (has dainty lady's lips) unzips his two latest inspirations, Rocco Cookware and Rocco Food , with a frisky demonstration and luncheon. Elsewhere, author and former cop Laurie Lynn Drummond reads from her debut book, Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You . (Sounds like our last relationship.) Ms. Drummond has written 10 short, "blistering fictional portraits" of Baton Rouge policewomen. Bonus dirty excerpt! "The burn from the teeth of the cuffs, I remember it catching my skin …. " (Sounds like our current relationship.)

[Rocco cookware and food launch, Rocco's, 12 East 22nd Street, 12:30 to 2:30 p.m., by invitation only; Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You , Barnes and Noble,

675 Sixth Avenue, 7 p.m., 212-727-1227.]

Fashion Week backwash: Ptooey! It used to be that Daisy Fuentes was the de facto spokesmodel for our Latina sisters, but then J. Lo and her monstrous rump took over the MTV airwaves …. Anyway, today that staggeringly successful post-post-feminist magazine, Lucky , helps Ms. Fuentes launch a new clothing line, and we'll just feel "lucky" if said line doesn't include those silly knit caps with the flaps that tie under the chin; Manhattan is just bursting with those lately. Crash strategy: a prissy skirt and sweater set-yes, according to The New York Times Styles section, sluttish dressing is finally out ! Meanwhile, Manhattan's high-culture vultures throw a gala preview of the Art Dealers Association of America's Art Show, benefiting the Henry Street Settlement (a social-services charity). You got your de Kooning, your Pollock, your Hopper, your Picasso, your Lichtenstein and a "bold" Henri Matisse line drawing from 1947 (the last time sluttish dressing was out)-also, ageless lady philanthropists Agnes Gund and Kitty Carlisle Hart.

[Daisy Fuentes Collection launch party, Splashlight Studios, 529 West 35th Street,

6 to 8 p.m., 877-902-6633; the Art Dealers Association of America Art Show gala

benefit preview, Seventh Regiment Armory, Park Avenue at 67th Street, 5:30 to 9:30 p.m., 212-766-9200, ext. 248.]

Thursday 19th

Marlo or Meryl? Badlands anchorman and thinking woman's sex symbol Tom Brokaw is honored tonight by the Museum of Television and Radio at the bechandeliered Waldorf after 38 years of honorable service to NBC …. He's gonna rip off the clip-on mike for good soon and put on his rubber fly-fishing waders ( slosh ), leaving us to that bland boob, Brian Williams - sob ! Your honorary chairs: super-evolved, sensitive couple Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue (he hosted a talk show once, she gave the world the touchy-feely 1970's anthem collection Free to Be … You and Me ). Downtown, meanwhile, actress Meryl Streep and her cheekbones and her undeniable but sort of tedious talent show up for the opening night of a play she produced, Bridge and Tunnel , by playwright/actress Sarah Jones . The plot: Fourteen characters "travel the roads of assimilation" to tell the story of American change in an ever-changing America. "A whole bunch of different characters are going to converge on 45 Bleecker and wreak havoc for an hour and a half-that's the best way to put it," said Ms. Jones. Turns out this entire bunch of characters is gonna be played by … Ms. Jones! "It's a lonely cast party," she said. "I'm not in my writer's head, I'm not in my actor's head. I really make an effort to sort of zone into eight other people's heads and let them do all the work." In earlier eras, we believe this was referred to as "multiple-personality disorder."

[Tom Brokaw salute, Grand Ballroom, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, 301 Park Avenue, by invitation only; Bridge and Tunnel , 45 Bleecker Street Theatre, 7 p.m., 212-307-4100.]

Friday 20th

Chomskying at the bit: Spitfire academic Noam Chomsky gets "the treatment," such as it is, in N.Y.U. instructor Noel Salzman's play The Loneliness of Noam Chomsky (Performance) . The lucky linguist will be portrayed by Aya Ogawa , 29, a programming assistant at the Japan Society by day-and a woman . Odd. "The amount of information in the man's brain is astounding and amazing!" said Ms. Ogawa, whose previous bizarre acting credits include J. Robert Oppenheimer. "He just takes the facts of what has happened and reveals how those facts have been distorted by the media or hidden from the public. To read him is just a process of unveiling facts." She then admitted that the best part of the role is "the glasses."

[Chashama Theater, 113 West 42nd Street, 7 and 9 p.m., 212-592-4644.]

Saturday 21st

Film wonks! Only a week or so till the Oscars, and our bushy-haired, bushy-tailed "showbiz" correspondent is dusting off his spats, formulating the tough questions …. Tonight, there's a screening of the animated and live-action short films -that's right, the ones nobody actually bothers to see, except pallid N.Y.U. cultural-theory grad students with bountiful trust funds and house accounts at the Angelika. The event is hosted by Robert Osborne , who'll sign his handy reference work 75 Years of Oscar after the show and is part of some "Monday Nights with Oscar" series-wait a sec, isn't it Saturday tonight? What the bleep? In other hot news, The New Yorker quietly, discreetly celebrates its 79th anniversary today; editor David Remnick is girding his loins for the imminent plop of former New York Times "cultural czar" and all-around boy genius Adam Moss upon New York magazine in nine short days. Meanwhile, the anxious tippety-tap of freelancers freshening up their résumés can be heard across the city …. By the by, whatever happened to Radar ?

["Monday Nights with Oscar," Academy Theater at the Lighthouse, 111 East 59th Street between Park and Lexington, 2 p.m., 888-778-7575.]

Sunday 22nd

Break out the Birkenstocks, socks and lox: A bunch of lefties, like Princeton prof Cornel West and Ian Williams , who wrote The U.N. for Beginners , are gathering for the last day of "Life After Bush," a three-day conference about workers' rights, racism and LGBTQ activism, whatever that may be …. Meanwhile, uptown, one of Ernest Hemingway's many grandkids -a 36-year-old guy called Sean -is lecturing on Poppa's life and plugging a compilation of his work called Hemingway on War , then joining in a "buffet brunch" and an "informal conversation." Our own "informal conversation" with young Mr. Hemingway was something of a bust: He called from Carroll Gardens (that's Brooklyn) and confided he'd recently gone hunting ( "mostly geese and ducks" ) and fishing ( "trout … on the Missouri River" ), and that was about it.

["Life After Bush: Youth Activism and the Fight for Our Future," CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., 212-727-8610; Sean Hemingway on Ernest Hemingway, 92nd Street Y, 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue, 11 a.m., 212-415-5500.]

Monday 23rd

Smug rocker couple! Dweezil Zappa (Frank was his father) and Lisa Loeb (had, like, one hit song sometime back in the 1990's) are still shacking up together, and they called from a hotel in Chicago to discuss their new show on the Food Network, Dweezil and Lisa -think Dinner and a Movie , except no movie. "It's about how the food fits into our lives," said Mr. Zappa, 34, one of whose sisters is named Diva Muffin. "It's not like a musical film where suddenly there's a song about tomato sauce." "We're just completely obsessed with food!" added Ms. Loeb, a neither-here-nor-there 35. Tonight, the duo plays the Bowery Ballroom-bring pies, hurl them. Or you can go hear two Tonys, Bennett and Randall , belt tunes from Guys and Dolls -only thing is, it costs at least $1,000 (oh, Adelaide!) … but it does benefit a worthy cause, the Iris Cantor Women's Health Center. Option C: The View 's Meredith Vieira (the one who's not old, fat nor formerly fat) M.C.'s Rodale's "Books for a Better Life" awards. Suze Orman (Oprah's finance guru) and Karen Duffy (Revlon spokesbeauty) will honor Dr. Wayne Dyer, author of It's Never Crowded Along the Extra Mile . (Heck, it's even less crowded at home under the covers.)

[Lisa Loeb and Dweezil Zappa, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancy Street, 866-468-7619; "Books for a Better Life" awards, Millennium Broadway Hotel, 145 West 44th Street, 6 to 8 p.m., 212-463-7787; Guys and Dolls benefit, Imperial Ballroom, Sheraton New York Hotel, 811 Seventh Avenue, 7 to 10 p.m., 212-821-0560.]

Another babe authoress! We found 22-year-old Cecilia Ahern at home in Dublin, resting from a whirlwind tour for her debut novel, P.S. I Love You . The plot: After her husband dies of brain cancer at 30, Holly is surprised to find that he has left her a letter for each month of the year containing a list of things to do to overcome her grief. "It was really an idea that just jumped into my head when I was daydreaming one day," said Ms. Ahern, a pretty colleen who just happens to be the daughter of the prime minister of Ireland, and apparently quite a manic talent. "I started at 10 p.m. and went till 7 in the morning. I'd sleep till 3 in the afternoon and then start all over again. I just work much better at night. My brain works much better, and there are no interruptions because no one's ringing." Who would she like to star in the movie version? "I really, really wouldn't mind anyone who's good at acting. I think Jennifer Aniston would make a great Holly, and I like Gwyneth , too." Brace yourself: The kid's already written a second book. It took four months. What's it about? "I wish I could tell you, but I can't." Begorrah !

[ P.S. I Love You reading, Barnes and Noble, 2289 Broadway, 7:30 p.m., 212-362-8835.]

Tuesday 24th

Fashion Week backwash continues as designer and noble soul Kenneth Cole -who we think is married to a Cuomo or something-fills his store windows with articles of clothing donated by Sharon Stone (actress), Lance Bass (spacey Backstreet Boy) and Oscar de la Hoya (the hottest boxer on the planet; not to be confused with designer Oscar de la Renta, who we must say charmed the pants off us a couple of weeks ago!). Are the donated garments, well, quite fresh? "Um, I assume they're all washed," said Mr. Cole (the same!) from the fancy part of Florida. "But they're also all signed, so … I would imagine that they're all sanitary, if that's your concern. But if there's anything that appears anything less than sanitary and sterile, we will, in fact, make sure it is such before we deliver it." Phew!

[Kenneth Cole/Help U.S.A. auction, Kenneth Cole at Rockefeller Center, www.kennethcole.com for more information.]

Wednesday 25th

"It's a great way to live," said erstwhile Daily News editor Pete Hamill from Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he lives when he's in hard-boiled "writer" mode. "I always say, 'Between the vowels of Mexico and the consonants of New York, I might get a decent sentence out of myself,'" Mr. Hamill said modestly over the click of castanets and the swish of petticoats. "I can do all the reporting in New York and then hole up and … just write! My friends, the Knicks fans, don't call me up after every goddamn game!" Mr. Hamill's finishing up a book about downtown Manhattan, but today he'll fly in to join Norman Mailer and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in fêting the centennial of James T. Farrell , author of the classic Chicago tome Studs Lonigan . And speaking of studs, you'll find your share of Buddhist beefcake at the Tibet House 's party for the New Year (it's the Year of the Wood Monkey -which sounds silly, but it's better than astrology), with performances by David Byrne (Talking Head), Ray Davies (bluegrass) and "serious" composer Philip Glass, who spoke to us of his love for the Dalai Lama. "You might say, 'I wish I had been alive to meet Gandhi, or I wish I'd been alive to meet Abraham Lincoln,' or someone like that," said Mr. Glass, with fervor. "Well, here's a guy who's around now . And he's not as close as you're gonna get-he's what you got." That's nice, dude, but is Uma coming?

[James T. Farrell Centennial Celebration, Celeste Bartos Forum at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, 6:30 p.m., 212-930-0855; Tibet House Benefit Concert, Carnegie Hall, 881 Seventh Avenue, 7:30 p.m., 212-247-7800.]

Wednesday 11th

Fashion Week traipses on, leaving every female in its wake feeling bad about her body , except us (honey, an awkward silence would be comfortable in our body). It's been two days since Oscar de la Renta's show, and a week since we ruffled his ruffles by implying that he'd tacked on the "de la" …. So he spontaneously called our office, nearly causing us to choke on our Mentos. "I just wanted to clarify this with you," said himself. "Maybe others add on the 'de la' for commercial purposes, or to make them sound more interesting, and even the taxi drivers are called 'de la something '-but in this particular case, that is my name. If you do research, you will find out the reason I call myself "de la Renta" : One of my great-grandfathers was the mayor of a city in Puerto Rico called Ponce. My name comes from him, and it is my right to call myself that. I do not pretend to be of any origin that I am not. You said I 'recently acquired' the 'de la,' but I've been this since I was born, and I'm now 71. That does not seem so recent to me." We kissed and made up with Mr. DE LA Renta , who then invited us to his show. Later, men pour themselves a stiffy at the Victoria's Secret soirée ce soir . Models Giselle (toned and tawny), Adriana Lima , below, (raven-haired, blue-eyed), Oluchi Onweagba (five times fast!) and Tyra Banks (America's Next Top Model diva) will link bony elbows and play hostess. Why? They're launching a new book, Victoria's Secret Backstage Sexy; A Limited-Edition Book of Provocative Photography , featuring supposedly too-hot-for-the-catalog pics. Speaking of, at last year's party we watched a cigarette-wielding partygoer accidentally light someone's hair on fire, and-words really cannot do it justice ….

[Victoria's Secret party, Spice Market, 403 West 13th Street, 9 p.m., by invitation only.]

Thursday 12th

Want to wake up next to a Glamour editor? Ply yourself with caffeine at Glamour magazine's "Morning Tea and Touch-Ups" party (breakfast, manicures, massages, makeup) On the catwalks: Cynthia Rowley, Carmen Marc Valvo , Peter Som , Behnaz Sarafpour and Zac Posen . In other news, it's Charles Darwin Day! The New York City Atheists (everyone, basically) gather to celebrate Mr. Galapagos' theory that we were spawned not from God, but through biological evolution, which then weeds out the weak through natural selection: hence Vogue . Remarks by anthropologist and historian Richard Milner. Later, take the train to bushy Billyburg for the Valentine's Day Ball: Ladyfest*East, the grassroots nonprofit organization supporting women in the arts, holds a Project Fund-R-Pants auction, selling panties decorated by feminist artists and scholars like Sarah Dougher and Harvard prof Carol Gilligan. Lady Lori Barrett came up with the idea. "I was thinking in terms of that Victoria's Secret bra they were selling for millions of dollars. I thought, 'Wouldn't it be fun to do something that was a little more meaningful and gaudy and artistic to support women and women in the arts?' The panties are starting to come in, and they're great! There's one really terrific artist named Hope Perkins who covered the underpants in glitter. They look like Wonder Woman underpants."

[ Glamour magazine's Morning Tea and Touch-Ups, Bryant Park Hotel, 40 West 40th Street, by invitation only; Charles Darwin Day, 352 Seventh Avenue, 16th floor, 6:30 p.m., 212-535-7425; Hair Ball, Union Pool, 484 Union Avenue, Williamsburg, 8 p.m., www.ladyfesteast.org.]

Friday 13th

Friday the 13th- and the last day of Fashion Week. Coincidence? … the human hangers at Richard Tyler Couture (velvet pantsuits) and Ralph Lauren prance down the runway and then hang themselves up. Fashion editors go back to presiding over "How to Wear a Tunic" articles. At the Landmark Sunshine Theater, see the Rex Reed–approved flick Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin , which begins its limited exclusive engagement with a Q. and A. with director Richard Schickel. The place'll be packed with thick-goggled cineastes.

[All shows by invitation only: Ralph Lauren, the Annex, 545 West 22nd Street, 11 a.m.; Richard Tyler Couture, Atelier, Bryant Park, 2 p.m.; Charlie , for information go to www.landmarktheatres.com.]

Saturday 14th

Raise your hand if you only knew today was Valentine's Day because the Google logo changed. Meanwhile, toxic bachelors and psychotic bachelorettes have spent the past week trying to figure out how to best say "Happy Valentine's Day" ironically …. If you don't have a sweetheart, follow the tight buttocks of the Urban Park Rangers around as they show you Central Park's most romantic locales (Bow Bridge, Belvedere Castle, the Ramble). Those who dislike Bush and bush alight to the White Party gay-la, where the boys are thumbing their noses at the administration with this year's theme: the "Traditional Wedding Reception." Others find fools for love and just plain fools at the "Don't Be Alone on Valentine's Day!" singles mixer hosted by the Eight at Eight Dinner Club. By the way , our last boyfriend dumped us on our birthday -via cell phone -from another girl's party. (When he called to request we return one of his shirts … we mailed it back. Piece by piece.) So grab an ex's article of clothing, photo, sex toy or any other of their cr*p you still have and head to Z100's " Shred Your Ex" Valentine's Day Party. There will be ceremonial shreddings and performances by Jai Rodriguez , Queer Eye's "culture vulture," whose purpose on the show is utterly baffling …. Or if you'd rather keep it real, attend Gallery Henoch's opening reception for its invitational 2004 show, with work by artists David Barnett, Derek Buckner, Antonio Carreño, Arthur Carter, Dmitri Cavander, Guy Diehl, Max Ginsberg, Henry Richardson, John Randall Younger and Elizabeth Wilson.

[Meet at Romeo and Juliet statue, near the Delacorte Theater at 81st Street, 4 p.m., www.nyc.gov/parks; Eight at Eight happy hour, Local Cafe, 1004 Second Avenue, 8 p.m., 212-629-8445; Opening reception, Gallery Henoch, 555 West 25th Street, 4 to 6 p.m., 917-305-0003; Z100's Shred Your Ex Valentine's Day Party, Webster Hall, 125 East 11th Street, 11 p.m., www.z100.com; the White Party, the Roxy, 515 West 18th Street, 11 p.m., 212-674-8541.]

Sunday 15th

"God, it's awful out," said Joel Grey when we called him at his Manhattan home. "You know what bugs me? The darkness. It's the end of the day-or the world . Yuck!" Tonight, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is auctioning off bears made in the images of actors and theater characters-get your Jerry Orbach teddy, kids!-autographed by the actors. "My first bear -this is my second bear-was the Master of Ceremonies (from Cabaret) ," said Mr. Grey. "This year's bear is the gorilla! The gorilla bear is sort of … what animal is that? The gorilla-bear. Or a borilla ?"

[The Broadway Bears VII, B.B. King Blues Club and Grill, 237 West 42nd Street, private reception begins at 6 p.m., doors open at 7 p.m., auction begins at 8 p.m., 212-840-0770.]

Monday 16th

"Some people maybe need a little bit of a push, so I'm gonna give them one!" said 27-year-old Stacy Berman, a physical trainer who will be standing at 86th Street and Central Park West at 5:30 a.m. today (wave to her from the cab on your way home). "I also have the people that are just ready and willing to go as far as they can, and then I'm gonna jump on your back and make you jog with me on your back," she said, somewhat enticingly. "It's a tough-love approach to training." Meanwhile, the queasy, not-yet-in-the-bag transition from TV to movies continues for the cast of Sex and the City : Tonight, Chris Noth stars in the TNT movie Bad Apple . Why do we get the feeling that most of the Sex and the City cast will end up playing "the clueless white neighbor" on various WB sitcoms?

[Stacy's Bootcamp, 86th Street and Central Park West, 5:30 a.m., 917-269-6955; Bad Apple world premiere, TNT, 9 p.m.]

Tuesday 17th

Her brother bought New York magazine, but Wendy Wasserstein gets all the babes -today, as she M.C.'s a panel comprising ABC's Claire Shipman, NBC's Campbell Brown and CNN's Judy Woodruff at Le Bernardin. Topic: the future of politics. Brace yourself for raucous applause the first time one of the panelists mentions Hillary . Cool down with chanteuse and former One Life to Live star Christine Ebersole , who sings love songs to the soused and smiley at Feinstein's.

["Uncommon Women," Le Bernardin, 155 West 51st Street, 5:30 p.m., by invitation only; Christine Ebersole at Feinstein's at the Regency, 540 Park Avenue, 8:30 p.m., 212-339-4095.]

Wednesday 18th

Believe it or not, there was a time when young women writers got published without perkily posing in a camisole for The New Yorker -tonight, a quadruplet of National Book Award winners holds forth on "the writing life." We called Shirley Hazzard, 73, winner of the award for fiction at her home ( "that big monster," she calls it) on East 66th. How would she characterize her writing life in New York? "In New York, there's a kind of soft beating on the windows all the time; even if you clear the decks, all this is going on outside." So are you able to get work done? "I do-yes, indeed. But between you and me, not this winter! Because I had that book out last October, and after that my life has been temporarily convulsed with many, many things to do. And what I'm doing is beginning to work subversively in my head, so that when I go to Italy in March, I'll be able to sit down and begin to put it on paper."

["The Writing Life," New York Public Library, 6:30 p.m., 212-685-0261.]

Valentine's Day is still 10 long, wintry days away , but already we have a bunch of events crowding our in box, all of which begin, "Hey all you Single Ladies!" [ delete, block sender ]. Fashion Week, on the other hand, starts the day after tomorrow (that sound you hear is 10,000 Brazilian bikini waxes … ), and the invites aren't exactly overwhelming us-or even whelming us …. As for today, you can get your monthly requisite art event out of the way: Weimaraner wonk William Wegman and Cindy Sherman (favored artist of impressionable Barnard co-eds ) are among the 288 artistes who have kindly donated their wares to benefit the children of Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School . Mr. Wegman told us about his dog, which just gave birth (we like it when dogs are pregnant because, unlike all the smug Manhattan mommies, dogs don't act like being pregnant is equivalent to winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Twice.) "My children, who go to Little Red, slept through the entire thing. In fact, my son got up at 3 to go pee, and he saw my wife and I at our most hysterical-holding on to a puppy, trying to breathe life into it-and he said, 'My nose hurts.' He peed and then he went back to bed." Anything the Sex and the City foursome wear annoyingly flies off the shelves, so it was only a matter of time after Charlotte left shiksa-ville that people started trying on Judaism for size. Hence today's discussion, "It All Began With Ruth: A Panel Discussion on Conversion to Judaism." "I converted to Judaism a year and a half ago, after a very long spiritual journey that began in the mid-1990's. I was basically practicing Taoism," said panelist Joel Sanchez, a 40-year-old former actor. "I love gefilte fish. Before I converted, I had a Russian-Jewish girlfriend, and her mom used to make it." The gefilte fish gets 'em every time.

[Little Red School House and Elizabeth Irwin High School silent auction, I-20 Gallery, 529 West 20th Street, 10 a.m., 212-477-5316, ext. 232; "It All Began WithRuth: A Panel Discussion on Conversion to Judaism," J.C.C. in Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Avenue, 7 p.m., 646-505-5708.]

Thursday 5th

Henri Bendel, Part I- Dilemma for the ladies : Do you send your boyfriend to Bendels to nibble hors d'oeuvres and aptly named Playboy Playmate Nicole Wood ? Or do you endure yet another Valentine's Day composed of a card from Duane Reade and acrylic lingerie from H&M ? Henri Bendel is holding an exclusive Valentine's Day men's private shopping party -complimentary booze, complimentary gift wrap, free delivery of purchases over $500 and photos with the Bunny . ( You'd hope a fella would be happy enough just buying some naughty piece of lingerie for his ladyfriend without having to be enticed by some pneumatic nudie girl on stilt-like stilettos, but we digress …. ) We'll be downtown with our childhood crush Ralph Macchio, who's now 42 -yes, 42!-and who's in a new play, Magic Hands Freddy . "I co-star with Michael Rispoli, who plays a masseur named Freddy and is just great in the role," Mr. Macchio said. "He's perfectly cast . I play his brother Calvin. They're foster brothers who grew up in a rough neighborhood in Philadelphia, and my character winds up being a n art historian for the University of Pennsylvania …. The story explores the love of the brothers and the choices we make in life. It's got this great twist at the end that I'm tiptoeing around and trying not to give away. The first time I was onstage was in Cuba and His Teddy Bear with Robert De Niro ." Do people still recognize Daniel-San? " All the time ! They don't recognize as much anymore, because I'm beginning to age like the rest of the human race-and shamefully so! But it's always there; The Karate Kid is like my middle name in every press release. I realize that not many folks get that kind of an opportunity, so as much as it's been a double-edged sword, it was really a great thing." We're just happy he hasn't turned up on Star Dates on E!

[Men's shopping party, Henri Bendel, 712 Fifth Avenue, 6 to 8 p.m., 900-HBendel; Magic Hands Freddy, Soho Playhouse, 15 Vandam Street, 8 p.m., 212-239-6200.]

Friday 6th

Shivering, bare-kneed fashion editors take their pencil skirts to the Fashion Week mothership and pretend not to watch she of the sunglasses and bloodless lips …. To raise awareness for women's heart disease, the designers have whipped up some pretty red frocks that'll be parading down the runway on the bodies of mannequins Alek Wek and Erin Wasson, modelite Amanda Hearst, and celebs like Vanessa Williams and Jamie Lynn Discala. Later , Alek and Erin repair to Jean-Georges' new restaurant, Spice Market , for the 7th on Sixth party and wave away hors d'oeuvres with the likes of beauties Bridget Hall , Angela Lindvall , Carolyn Murphy , Anouk Lepore and Trish Goff. Hey, while we're almost on the subject, can we talk about how every woman on The Apprentice looks like a contestant from one of Mr. Trump's pageants? … Meanwhile , we recently inspected a press release, and when we saw the phrases "mockery of suburban living," "collapse of American value system" and "sexually repressed couple," we thought, "It's either a typical night on the Upper West Side or an Edward Albee play." The American Dream opens tonight.

[Red Dress Collection 2004, the Studio Noir, Bryant Park, noon, by invitation only; The American Dream , the Arthur Seelen Theatre, 250 West 40th Street, 8 p.m., e-mail impulsetheatre@hotmail.com for reservations.]

Saturday 7th

John Waters once said, "I pride myself on the fact that my work has no socially redeeming value." A man after our own heart! We asked him about Edith Tells Off Katherine Hepburn , part of his photography retrospective, which opens tonight at the New Museum of Contemporary Art. "Hepburn took herself so seriously!" he said. "So this is Edith [Massey, whom you might remember from Pink Flamingos , sucking down eggs]-somebody that Katherine Hepburn I'm sure would have been snotty to -but, of course, Edith isn't really giving her the finger. That's the whole thing: using images from completely different things. I put them together to tellthenew narrativethat I want to tell that, of course , neverreallyhappened."What exactly is going on in that photo? "Well,I don'tknow whatthat's called.With balls, it's called 'tea-bagging.' With breasts, I'm not sure what it's called- foreplay ? Icon foreplay." … On the Left Coast, Clive Davis has his annual pre-Grammys bash and invites all his splashy friends.

[ John Waters: Change of Life opening reception, New Museum of Contemporary Art, 583 Broadway, 7:30 p.m., members only; Clive Davis' pre-Grammy bash, the Beverly Hills Hotel, 9641 Sunset Boulevard, Beverly Hills, Calif.]

Sunday 8th

Henri Bendel, Part II- British clothier Alice Temperley has hopped across the pond to move in with ol' Hank Bendel, and today she opens her new boutique with the help of model Helena Christensen (the one from Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game" video). Meanwhile, at Bryant Park: Luca Luca (youthful, sensual), Alice Roi (princessy, rock 'n' roll) and Tracy Reese and Catherine Malandrino (is there a difference? We can't tell) …. And hey, rememberlast year's Grammys,when Erykah("I knew I should have gone to rehearsal") Badu read too far on the cue card and actually said "Applause" at the end of her speech? Moments like that are why you'll find us glued to our crappy Ikea sofa tonight, watching Beyoncé, Justin and OutKast win everything. And how exactly is Eminem's "Lose Yourself" still eligible for nomination? It came out so long ago, everyone's found themselves. (That last joke is an homage to Joey Adams . It wasn't his, but he woulda stolen it, and we woulda been glad he did.)

[Temperley store opening, Henri Bendel, 712 Fifth Avenue, 7 to 9 p.m., by invitation only; 46th Annual Grammy Awards, CBS,

8 p.m.; all Fashion Week shows by invitation only: Tracy Reese, the Studio, Bryant Park, 10 a.m.; Alice Roi, the Promenade, Bryant Park, 11 a.m.; Catherine Malandrino, 776 Sixth Avenue, 4 p.m.; Luca Luca, the Tent, Bryant Park, 8 p.m., more info at www.7thonsixth.com.]

Monday 9th

Oscar de la Renta takes his rich ruffles (and that later-in-life-acquired "de la" ) to Bryant de la Park and joins Carolina Herrera ( neatnik, big on the polka dots), Betsey Johnson (slightly goth, slightly slutty-the clothes, not her), Badgley Mischka (beading, elegant) and BCBG Max Azria (Banana Republic, but more fluttery). The Drama League honors smoldering actor Antonio Banderas and wife Melanie Griffith at the annual Musical Celebration of Broadway Gala. Jerry ("I put Baby in the corner") Orbach serves as honorary chair, while Chita Rivera and Christine Ebersole do the sing-and-kicky-kick thing …. At the uncivilized hour of 9 a.m., Bridal Guide magazine encapsulates daily life for women ages 25 and up with its annual "Race for the Rock," in which 50 entrants chase down a three-carat engagement ring. Winner gets the chance to propose to their sweetheart live on WB-11's Morning News .

[All shows by invitation only: Carolina Herrera, the Tent, Bryant Park, 11 a.m.; Oscar de la Renta, the Promenade, Bryant Park, 1 p.m.; Betsey Johnson, 17 Irving Place, 3 p.m.; Badgley Mischka, the Promenade, Bryant Park, 5 p.m.; BCBC Max Azria, the Tent, Bryant Park, 7 p.m., www.7thonsixth.com; Musical Celebration of Broadway Gala, Grand Ballroom, the Pierre Hotel, 2 East 61st Street, 7:30 p.m., 212-244-9494, ext. 5; Race for the Rock, start at Michael C. Fina, 545 Fifth Avenue, 9 a.m., 212-557-2500.]

Tuesday 10th

The luxury-gooding of Manhattan continues apace, as Louis Vuitton debuts its largest store in the world on East 57th Street. Speaking of which, on today's pussywalk : Chaiken (think Theory, but more expensive), Nanette Lepore (gypsy, feminine), Calvin Klein (so minimalist even he's not there anymore), Narciso Rodriguez (satin, clingy) …. Meanwhile, what does Bruce Wasserstein have in store for New York magazine? Ask him yourself when you crash the Bank Street College of Education soirée honoring him and playwright sister, Wendy Wasserstein. (We got a sneak peak at her next play: It's about a furrier and three Jewish women. One act.) If that doesn't do it for ya, fill your pipe with strawberry tobacco and head to the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at the Gah-den. "It's a benched-dog show, meaning the dogs have to be in a certain area when they're not being shown, and they'll be on benches-hence the name!" said Kennel Club spokesman David Frei. "That means you're able to circle amongst the contender, and maybe even pet them, shake some paws, meet the breeders and handlers of the dogs. You can ask questions like, 'Why does my dog do this, and how can I get them to stop? Why did my dog eat my modem?' That's a true story, you know! I came home last night, and it was just in pieces! I have the two greatest Brittanys, but they're kind of stir-crazy right now because of the weather."

[Louis Vuitton store preview party, 1 East 57th Street, 8:30 to 9:30 p.m., 150th Anniversary party, surprise location, 9:30 p.m. to 2 a.m., by invitation only; Bank Street College honors the Wassersteins; the Pierre Hotel, 2 East 61st Street, 6 p.m., 212-961-3332; Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, Madison Square Garden, 9 a.m., 212-307-7171, www.westminsterkennelclub.org.]

Wednesday 11th

The pitter-patter of model's big, bony feet continues today with Vera Wang (classic, tasteful), Michael Kors ( Ralph Lauren meets pre-Target Isaac Mizrahi ), Proenza Schouler (now out–Marc Jacobs–ing Marc Jacobs ), Anna Sui (quirky, boho), Matthew Williamson (we dunno, but the Vogue girls dig 'im) …. Once upon a time, Rolling Stones fans found out what it's like to be touched by an angel when it's packing a blade and weighs a deuce and a half. And you can, too, at the 92nd Street Y's screening of Gimme Shelter . "It'll be just like old times," cracked director Albert Maysles . "But I don't know what the rates of drug addiction are these days, or if anybody is taking LSD the way they used to." George Lucas pops up in the credits as one of the cinematographers. "The funny thing about Lucas was that none of his stuff was used," Mr. Maysles confessed. "His camera had something wrong with it and the stuff didn't come out. When we looked at it, all we saw was black with little spots, so we used to joke that that's how got the idea for … what was his film? That famous film?"

[All Fashion Week shows by invitation only: Vera Wang, the Atelier, Bryant Park, 11 a.m.; Michael Kors, the Tent, Bryant Park, 11 a.m.; Provenza Schouler, the Studio, Bryant Park, 2 p.m.; Anna Sui, the Tent, Bryant Park, 7 p.m.; Matthew Williamson, the Studio, Bryant Park, 8 p.m.; Gimme Shelter , Steinhardt Building, 35 West 67th Street, 7 p.m., 9 p.m., 212-601-1000.]

Fashion Week nips at our heels like a terrier, and it don't look pretty, sister girlfriends. But some people just can't wait to get crackin': Diane von Furstenberg -the Susan Sontag of the fashion set-winds herself into a wrap dress and shows up at the launch party for Café Bohême (a coffee-vodka liqueur), topped with a frothy art auction. Translation: downtown types holding theme martinis. "We got models, creative directors and designers -there are 23 innovators in all-to create collages that will be on display, so we're going to see some diverse stuff," said a publicist. Innovators include the aforementioned Ms. von Furstenberg, Ben ("Naomi's my sister!") Watts, Charlotte ("Samantha's my sister!") Ronson , mad potter Jonathan Adler , designers Alice Roi (the anti-Shoshanna) and Matt Damhave (the anti–Tara Subkoff). The collages will be auctioned off to benefit Free Arts for Abused Children. We asked what they look like (the collages, not the children). "We don't know. It's going to be a surprise for all of us. All we did was give them a theme, ' Bon Vivant ,' which means 'Living well is the best revenge.'" We though it was trashing your ex- "lover" in the pages of the New Yorker …."

[Free Arts for Abused Children, Lot 61, 550 West 21st Street, 9 p.m. to midnight,

by invitation only, 212-625-3165 for ticket requests.]

Thursday 29th

O.K., we're willing to humor our wee Mayor by pretending that the Olympics would be a great thing for New York (actually, who do we think we're kidding ? It would be a disaster from the word go : clogged traffic, the city filled with wide-bottomed Midwesterners and gangly German athletes, Islamist terrorists rubbing their hands in glee … ), so we're not going to do a little jig that the U.S.A. luge team is coming to town today with their luges and tight bodysuits-this ain't Aspen, folks, we're a city, remember? Anyway, if you want to lie on your back and go 60 miles an hour without having to go for dinner and drinks first, the luge lads will be encamped on various icy patches of the city today …. Once you're spent, glide on over to the super-duper Cooper Union for two scoops of Schadenfreude ! Snow-maned Susan Sontag (below) -the Diane von Furstenberg of the intellectual set -lectures on her latest, Regarding the Pain ofOthers , rethinking the way pictures inspire dissent, foster violence or create apathy, focusing mainly on photos of atrocities and their role in our culture (in other words, Britney's wedding pic). "She's out of the country and really unreachable!" trilled a flack when we phoned. Alas . Bring the sultry septuagenarian a cupcake-her birthday was yesterday.

[Learn to Luge, Battery Park, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Union Square Park, 5 to 7 p.m., www.nyc.gov/parks; Susan Sontag, the Great Hall, 7 East Seventh Street, 6:30 p.m., 212-353-4195.]

Friday 30th

Hello, Dalí! Film-studies majors in prescriptionless glasses with "dirty" hair (strategically mussed with a caviar-based pomade ) follow their clunky black shoes ( clunk! clunk! clunk! ) to the Film Forum for a screening of L'Age d'Or and Un Chien Andalou (that eye-slitting scene gets us every time ). According to Dalí, the theme is "the pure and correct line of 'conduct' of a human who pursues love through wretched humanitarian patriotic ideals and the other miserable workings of reality." Mm'kay? If you've got a lactose-intolerant boyfriend you'd like to get rid of, it's only two days 'til the annual Great Grilled Cheese Meltdown. Take him to the Comfort Diner (a different grilled cheese every day for the month of February.) Feast on the inside-out grilled cheese fondue with Gruyére and Emmentaler. Back in college, we made ours with Cheez Whiz and an iron ….

[Screening, Film Forum, 212-966-0730; Great Grilled Cheese Meltdown, the Comfort Diner, 214 East 45th Street, 212-867-4555, or 25 West 23rd Street, 212-741-1010, throughout February.]

Saturday 31st

What's hotter than a room full of insurance executives? Tonight, the maniacs of SBLI USA Mutual Life Insurance Company are holding their annual gala to benefit America's Second Harvest, which works to alleviate hunger in the U.S. "The entrance is going to be set up like Auntie Em's house, and there will be gizmos to make it look like there are twisters," said a flack. "Then you're going to walk through Munchkin Land, and there'll be a casino and auction in the Enchanted Forest. The awards ceremony will take place in the Emerald City, and there will be medals given out signifying courage, wisdom and love. Oh, and the food will be set up to remind us of the needs of the hungry." How about the needs of those who are getting screwed by insurance companies? (Oops! Sorry, sir!) Meanwhile , if you always thought it would've been cool to live in the 19th century so you could say, "Pistols at dawn!" , think again- Alexander Hamilton did and consequently didn't get to see much of the 19th century. "He and Aaron Burr exchanged 10 or 12 letters over a few weeks prior to his death, and you can see this dueling etiquette, with exchanges like ' You, Sir, did not deny …, '" said Jim Basker, M.C. of today's Hamilton hoedown at the New-York Historical Society. Hear all about the man on the tenner-visionary, soldier, statesman, crappy marksman. "People will be surprised to learn that he was the only immigrant Founding Father. He was a poor, illegitimate kid from the Caribbean Islands who became one of the leading founders of America." But what's his value today? "I'll tell you something that's thrilling to me-so far, we've had 700 people sign up! That many people coming to hear about one historical figure is pretty stunning. I think Hamilton's stock is rising! … The first panel is called 'Hamilton and Money,' because he's famous for his expertise in helping to organize the American economy. He's the genius who insisted upon the assumption of debt and the mixed economy. Those are very Hamiltonian ideas. Oh, and the artsy people might be interested in this part-" Click!

[SBLI USA's 2004 Recognition Gala, Sheraton New York Hotel, Imperial Ballroom, 811 Seventh Avenue, 7 p.m., 212-356-0307; Alexander Hamilton, the New-York Historical Society, 2 West 77th Street, 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., 646-366-9653.]

Sunday 1st

One of The Times ' more predictable Op-Ed stars, Paul Krugman, is a dewy-eyed bearded gent, and today he podium-izes at the New York Society for Ethical Culture. Once he gets you stoked, head over to the Gramercy Theater and see Tom Cruise test the elastic on his Hanes and many frogs descend from the heavens over Los Angeles as MoMA screens Magnolia as part of its "The Hidden God: Film and Faith" series. On the tube, the Carolina Panthers play the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.

[Paul Krugman speaks, New York Society for Ethical Culture, 2 West 64th Street, 11:30 a.m., 212-874-5210; Magnolia screens as part of MoMA's "The Hidden God: Film and Faith," the Gramercy Theatre, 127 East 23 Street at Lexington Avenue, 1 p.m., 212-777-4900.]

Monday 2nd

When Sex and the City 's last Manolo has been scuffed, we'll wager that not many will miss Sarah Jessica Parker's uncanny Dee Snider impersonation. No, what'll really be missed are the hiss-fests between Mario Cantone and Willie Garson. Mr. Cantone came to the phone on a recent afternoon; he'd just awoken. We told him we'd miss his catfights with Stanford Blatch. "I know-me, too. Fucking with each other like that. It's fun-I loved givin' him shit. I really thought I was going to end up with him …. If I end up with him, I'm gonna kill somebody. I will not end up with Willie Garson. I love Willie, but we're not going to end up together as lovers- sissy, bald straight man playing a gay man. He prisses it up with the best of them, doesn't he?" (You haven't met our Big-Cheese Editor.) Tonight, you can catch Mario-along with Joy Behar, Darrell Hammond and Judy Gold-at Caroline's on Broadway. Proceeds benefit individuals with AIDS, H.I.V. and AIDS-related illnesses.

[Comedy Cares, Caroline's on Broadway, 1626 Broadway, 7 p.m., 212-840-0770.]

Tuesday 3rd

What happened to mustaches? Has it really been 30-some odd years since they represented maximum mackdom? Has Burt Reynolds truly been replaced by Ewan McGregor? Thurman Munson -the scrappy Yankee catcher who died tragically in an airplane crash in 1979-is given his due tonight. "In a way, he was like a lowercase Yogi Berra," said Bill James , author of The 2004 Bill James Handbook . "Yogi was not an athlete, but an extremely effective player-meaning he wasn't quick or graceful or pretty, but he got the job done. Thurman was like that: He got the job done." And the 'stache? "There wasn't very much pretty about Thurman, including the mustache. Thurman was not a good-looking guy, particularly. He had a kind of scruffy-looking mustache that seemed to fit an image." Inasmuch as we'd like to rub shoulders with other mustachioed greats like Rollie Fingers and Catfish Hunter, we'll make due with John Starks, Roger Clemens and John Franco -who proves you can collect Medicare and still pitch.

[Thurman Munson Awards Benefit, Marriott Marquis Hotel, 1535 Broadway, 7 p.m.,

212-888-7003.]

Wednesday 4th

The other Weill- not the rainmaker from Citigroup -has an evening devoted to his bad self, starring Tadpole r Bebe Neuwirth . "Singing Kurt Weill is much closer to who I am than anything else I've done," said Ms. Neuwirth. "Lilith Crane is not who I am- except that I'm really shy. And I'm extremely driven!" Nordoesshe have much in common with Chicago 's fishnetted Velma Kelly. "I don't really go around murdering people. Or carrying a machine gun." Or, for those who like to harrumph a lot: Times man William Safire speaks at the Y.

[ An Evening of Kurt Weill , Alice Tully Hall, 8 p.m., 917-322-2140; "Observations," William Safire, the 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Avenue, 8 p.m.,

212-415-5500.]

What? you ask? A gay musical?

Well, not really. The Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green "love letter" to Depression-era New York, with its opening song about Christopher Street, isn't totally gay-maybe just 40 percent.

The story, adapted from the play My Sister Eileen by Jerome Chodorov and Joseph Fields, is about two ambitious sisters coming to make it big in New York from "Why oh why" Ohio, and there's a lot of sister-on-sister hugging on the way to the happy ending.

"Huh, yeah-I guess there is a little hugging. But I hope there's not too much. I think that's us trying to infuse the script with a little more depth than it has," said Ms. Westfeldt, curled up on a taupe sofa under a Kandinsky poster in her Upper West Side apartment on a recent evening. She'd just returned home from the matinee performance. Her dark blond hair was disheveled from being under a wig; her heart-shaped lips were very pink around the edges, having only just been scrubbed clean.

Upon reflection, she agreed that the hugging was actually kind of significant. "Like my movie, it's the story of two women helping each other find happiness," she continued. "The love of the sisters is the story's meat. They both find their way in the big city and get a little wiser in the end. There's truth in their journey. It's a sweet and happy package."

In the play, Ms. Westfeldt-who normally lives in Los Angeles with her boyfriend, actor Jon Hamm-plays Eileen Sherwood, the young, pretty ingenue who wants to be an actress and serves as the Lucy to sister Ruth's Ricky. Ruth, a ballsy, wise-cracking aspiring journalist, is played by Broadway veteran and multiple Tony-winner Donna Murphy, who's a wiry 45 and looks too old and frail to be the comely and youthful Ms. Westfeldt's age-approximate sibling. But Ms. Murphy's a pro-her rendition of "One Hundred Easy Ways (to Lose a Man)" is worth the price of the ticket alone-and she and Ms. Westfeldt make a gosh-darn-swell team.

Ms. Westfeldt set down her glass of red wine and uncurled herself a second time to try to stop her bathroom faucet from dripping ("Chinese water torture," she called it). When she returned, she explained that early in her career, after graduating from Yale, she'd done lots of musicals but then moved to L.A., where, pre– Kissing Jessica Stein , she'd generally get cast as the pretty girl next-door or the good-girlfriend type.

Writing Kissing Jessica Stein -in which she plays an anxious single woman who experiments with lesbianism-was her effort to create a different kind of role for herself. "But after Kissing Jessica Stein , I'd get the parts that were edgy and neurotic and type-A."

Eileen, she explained, "is the full-on opposite of Jessica Stein-which is nice, because as an actor what you always want to do is the opposite of what you've just done.

"I felt like Kissing Jessica Stein was about a girl who was too smart for her own good, getting in her own way and being overly judgmental of people and unable to live in the moment," she continued. "And I feel like Eileen is literally so in the moment that she falls in love with everyone she meets and doesn't overthink at all. She doesn't even think some of the time! She leads with her heart and doesn't overanalyze anything."

For her part, Ms. Westfeldt-who auditioned for the play on a whim in September, when she was here for a wedding-feels that she's a mix of both personality types.

"I'm probably dead in the middle of the two Sherwood sisters. I'm an overthinker, and I can get so lost in the details and the 'if-thens' in making decisions in my life," she said. "But on the other hand, I can be idealistic and overly optimistic and gullible."

When she feels like she's too much of the latter, however, she can just be the sweet actress Eileen and turn to her own real-life Ruth Sherwood: her sister Amy Westfeldt, four years older and a reporter for the Associated Press in New York. "It's a crazy parallel," she said. And yes, they do hug a lot.

-Anna Jane Grossman

Return of Ka- ching !

Very late on Wednesday, Dec. 17, Bob Shaye and the other big honchos at New Line, producers of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King , the third and final installment of the J.R.R. Tolkien trilogy, gathered opening-night box-office receipts at Elaine's, which seems to be the closest place around here to Middle Earth.

New Line has a special phone line just for them at the restaurant. "They set up the, the-what do you call it? The laptop. It has a special modem," said Elaine's owner, Elaine Kaufman, on the afternoon before the event. "They used to have to plug the modem into the light fixture," she continued, "but now they have a special modem and they get the different figures. It's very exciting."

On Dec. 30, Ms. Kaufman told The Transom that she'd had a blast on that special night. "Elijah Wood came. Cute kid, very nice-no agenda," she said. "And the blond kid was there-Owen something? [Orlando Bloom.] Oh, and the other kid-the English one with the beard … Ian McKellen."

Ms. Kaufman has been hosting such opening-night parties for New Line for close to a decade, she said.

"Last time we did it, it was-what was it, The Elf ? That guy Ferrell came?" she said, adding that she hadn't yet seen the final installment of The Lord of the Rings but enjoyed the first two very much. "They were both O.K. You know, wonderful films-not throwaways."

Despite her fondness for the films, however, Ms. Kaufman wasn't serving any Lord of the Rings –style grub.

"We make all the food for them as they come in. Fresh," she said. "But Middle Earth food? Honey, I dunno. You have to call New Line to find out about that."

-A.J.G.

Rocco vs. Julian: The Epilogue

Rocco DiSpirito and Julian Niccolini have canoodled and made up. On Dec. 7, the New York Post 's Page Six column reported some harsh comments from Mr. Niccolini regarding Mr. DiSpirito's alleged intention to bring the camera crew from his reality-TV show, The Restaurant , to the Volunteers of America benefit at the Four Seasons, where Mr. DiSpirito was supposed to cook that night. Mr. Niccolini even went so far as to say that the NBC show shouldn't be called The Restaurant , but rather Nightmare at Rocco's . Although a food fight seemed imminent, the two men told The Transom that nothing happened. "Rocco and Julian Niccolini were on good terms," said a spokeswoman for Mr. DiSpirito. And Mr. Niccolini said that as soon as Mr. DiSpirito arrived in his S.U.V., the two of them went to the Grill Room bar for some champagne. "The issue I had was with the camera and the show, not with Rocco himself," said Mr. Niccolini. "That night," he added, "everybody was very pleasant. Champagne was flowing freely-Dom Perignon, actually."

-Alexandra Wolfe

Abe's Other List

What do you get when you put a rabbi, a Troma actress and a recently paroled parking-garage magnate in a room together?

Abe Hirschfeld's 84th birthday!

On the frosty morning of Dec. 14, Mr. Hirschfeld celebrated his second birthday since being paroled in August 2002 after a jail sentence resulting from his efforts to hire a hit man to kill a former business partner. The soirée was held at Madison Avenue home of the onetime owner of the New York Post , where the craggy, unshaven birthday boy-dressed in a red smoking jacket and a checkered red-and-white bowtie-smoked a Cohiba that he admitted was not an acceptable part of his diet. "My son-in-law sent me a package, and it's my first cigar in eight months. Otherwise I wouldn't smoke it," he said.

Mr. Hirschfeld was comfortably perched on the couch, at a roughly 30-degree angle, next to a black-clad actress named Lisa Gaye, star of Troma's Class of Nuke 'Em High Part II: Subhumanoid Meltdown and Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. Ms. Gaye also claimed to be appearing in a forthcoming Sci-Fi Channel reality show that she couldn't discuss "because of the $5 million confidentiality agreement."

"The Muslims are the best friends the Jews have," Mr. Hirschfeld said suddenly as he glanced out the living-room window, which overlooked Madison Avenue. "Throughout history, there has never been a Holocaust in a Muslim country-not like in Poland, which was extremely anti-Semitic." In fact, he said, the root of our President's problems is the lack of "Arabs" in the cabinet.

Mr. Hirschfeld keeps an imaginary list of men responsible for "the destruction of New York." At the top is Governor George Pataki. The birthday boy pointed to the wall across the room, which was adorned with an Al Hirschfeld pen-and-ink drawing of the Governor wearing a yarmulke. "There's Pataki at my 75th birthday. He's lighting the Hanukkah candles. I saw George Pataki on Thursday. We are not on good terms. But he said to me, 'Only you can make peace in the world.' I was very shocked."

Standing by the portrait was Mr. Hirschfeld's red-haired daughter Rachel, who recently finished law school and was, allegedly, one of the seven people on her father's very real "hit list"-all of whom were supposed to die, at Mr. Hirschfeld's behest, at the hands of Larry Davis, a convicted cop-shooter. (Mr. Hirschfeld, it should be noted, has consistently denied these allegations.) The Post , which Mr. Hirschfeld briefly owned for 16 mutinous days, reported that Rachel was in good company: Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Ira Gammerman was also on the list of those slated for termination.

Mr. Hirschfeld dropped a couple more names from his other list-the one of people killing the city: Randy Daniels, Rudolph Giuliani ("He was a very good undertaker-nothing else. If there's a funeral, he's there") and Rupert Murdoch. There seemed to be a lingering bitterness about Mr. Murdoch, "who stole from me the Post ."

But he was not at all unhappy about a New York Law Journal article-it's part of his press kit, "Hirschfeld Health and Economy"-entitled "The Law of Bribery in New York." Here's the gist: P.L. §215.22, known colloquially as "Hirschfeld's Law," was created in response to Abe's conduct during his first criminal trial on the hit-man matter. So grateful was Mr. Hirschfeld for the hung jury that he reportedly gave or offered to give $2,500 to each of the jurors-not illegal, but sternly frowned upon. The State Legislature decided that the incident "set a dangerous precedent in that it increases the likelihood that a juror's independence might be compromised … by the mere possibility of receiving some future monetary benefit or other 'reward' from a party to the proceeding." (At a second trial, Mr. Hirschfeld was eventually found guilty of second-degree criminal solicitation.)

Mr. Hirschfeld smiled broadly and pointed to the article. "I'm the only one who has a law named after him," he said. Shortly after that, his grandchildren, Benjamin, Jonathan and Matthew, brought out an enormous chocolate cake. As he stood up, The Transom noticed that Mr. Hirschfeld's fly was open.

Rabbi Schlomo Hagar, a friend of Abe's for a mere three months, gave a rousing, nonsensical speech during which he demanded that everyone chant: "Long live Abe Hirschfeld! Long live Abe Hirschfeld!" Everyone did, with a lessening sense of urgency each time.

And then came the jokes.

"It's Christmas time," said Abe, "and I realized that Jesus couldn't have been Jewish … "

(At this point, a gray-haired man to the left whispered, "Here we go …. ")

" … since he went to the Last Supper, not the early-bird special!"

Everyone laughed heartily.

"Barbara Walters said to Bill Clinton, 'Monica Lewinsky says you have a very small penis.' 'Not true,' said Clinton. 'She just has a very big mouth.'"

"Awwww!" said the crowd. "Come on, Abe …. "

-Elon R. Green

Much Ado About Yanks

On the evening of Dec. 14, Sir Peter Hall, modern-day avatar of Shakespeare's spirit, dropped into the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College and offered one of the most shattering pronouncements the American theater has heard in decades, a Nicene Creed of acting that in one breath banished the myth that American actors have to mash their speech into heaving parodies of the Queen's English if they want to perform Hamlet .

"I love the sound of Americans doing Shakespeare," cooed Sir Peter, the legendary British director who founded the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1960. "This is the truth: I love the American sound! [It's] much closer to Elizabethan than the clipped, gray way I'm speaking to you as an 'educated Englishman.' And when an American actor really goes for it and stops pretending to be a British actor playing Shakespeare, which is horrible, then the thing really lives."

Sir Peter, who had jetted to New York to receive the Shakespeare Society Medal, is round and balding, a suit-swaddled cross between, say, the earthy Sir Toby Belch and the otherworldly Prospero. He has directed over 300 plays (including 29 by Shakespeare), won two Tonys and been knighted by the queen for his "service to the British Theatre." His latest book is Shakespeare's Advice to the Players .

"You have a huge opportunity here that in some respects you're not taking," he scolded his Yankee audience. "You think to play Shakespeare, you should sound like those English! But the actual sound of American is magic to me."

Too bad not a single English-accent-envying actor was at the Kaye Playhouse to hear his words-just real-deal Brits like Patrick Stewart, Rosemary Harris and Vanessa Redgrave.

Will someone please tell Madonna?

-Lizzy Ratner

The Transom Also Hears ….

On Saturday, Dec. 28, Senator Hillary Clinton, former President Bill Clinton and their daughter Chelsea ventured en famille to see Avenue Q , Broadway's raunchy puppet musical, marking the end of the show's most profitable week since it opened to rave reviews last summer.

The evening was made possible by the letters G and H- the rows in which the former First Family and their "people" were ensconced.

"There's a part in the show where we go out into the audience passing a hat, and we were told to avoid those rows," said one of the show's puppeteers, Stephanie D'Abruzzo. "They said if we reached out to them, we might be tackled by the Secret Service."

Backstage after the show, Senator Clinton joked about not wanting to be photographed with Rod, the conservative-minded in-the-closet puppet, while Mr. Clinton played with Trekkie Monster, the puppet that sings the catchy song "The Internet Is for Porn."

Mr. Clinton also had a lengthy conversation with Kate Monster, the show's zaftig female lead. Fair, with big blue eyes and thick black hair, Kate's a young puppet who's always looking for love in all the wrong places. Several pictures were taken of her caressing his face. "She flirted with him," Ms. D'Abruzzo said. "And he seemed to like her a lot."

-A.J.G.

This is the city of strange bedfellows, but every so often the combinations are so unfathomable that attention must be paid. That was certainly the case on the evening of Nov. 17, when CLAL (the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership) staged a benefit performance of selections from Stargazer: The Rock Opera-about the cosmological clash between Galileo, astronomer and inventor of the telescope, and the Catholic Church-at the Asia Society on Park Avenue and 70th Street.

The primary author of Stargazer is Craig Hatkoff, the real-estate entrepreneur and co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival-which is only to be expected given Mr. Hatkoff's marriage to Jane Rosenthal, the head of Robert De Niro's Tribeca Films company and co-founder of the festival as well.

What was unexpected was seeing the roles of Galileo, Pope Urban VIII and the Dominican Friar Thomas Caccini sung by Joe Lynn Turner, who is best known as the lead singer for Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow and a version of the heavy-metal band Deep Purple that toured in the early 90's. Mr. Turner co-wrote the lyrics to Stargazer with Mr. Hatkoff, and was backed on Nov. 17 by a seven-piece band that included guitarist and musical director Alan Schwartz, who co-wrote the music with Mr. Hatkoff, and New York session singer Kati Mac, who sang the part of Marina Gamba, Galileo's mistress and the mother of his three children.

Mr. Hatkoff told The Transom that his idea for Stargazer began about eight years ago, after the scientist Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway, gave him a book about Galileo and asked him, "Why can't we treat our scientists like rock stars?" That and Mr. Hatkoff's chronic insomnia fueled what he said became an "obsession" with the astronomer.

Another of Mr. Hatkoff's obsessions-albeit a much more private one-is guitar-playing, and, he explained, after reading dozens of books on Galileo, he began to compose what would amount to a 24-song cycle about the 17th-century scandal involving the astronomer. The short version is that Galileo's celestial research led him to conclude that the theory of the 16th-century astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus was correct: The earth revolved around the sun, not the other way around, as scientists and the church had been saying for the previous 2,000 years. Galileo's attempts to sway the church got him in hot water, however. Although Pope Urban, a friend of the astronomer, urged him to write a treatise on the pros and cons of Copernican theory-providing he limit his arguments to mathematical theory-the resulting research, Dialogues Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, ended in Galileo being called before the Inquisition in 1633. He recanted his Copernican beliefs and was given a life sentence under house arrest.

But in telling the tale through music, Mr. Hatkoff has put his own spin on the story. As the program distributed that evening read, "Our story begins to reveal a Church that is far more supportive of Galileo than history often portrays and exposes a darker and more complex side of Galileo"-who, in another part of the program, is billed as the world's first "'rock star' scientist"-"whose own actions and very bad behavior contributed significantly to his own demise." He also has Galileo telling the story in flashback to the poet and political essayist John Milton, who, according to many scholars, met Galileo in his final years. At the end of his life, according to the program, the blind and ailing astronomer "reflects on how freedom and restraint must operate in a delicate pendulum-like balance for society to progress."

"I'm not trying to say this is exactly what happened," Mr. Hatkoff said. "I'm saying this is an interesting way to have a dialogue about what may have happened."

According to Mr. Hatkoff, he didn't initially intend for that dialogue to be heard in a public setting. The entrepreneur explained that he originally wrote the rock opera as a kind of enjoyable, educational experience for his daughters Juliana, 9, and Isabella, 5. Mr. Hatkoff said he was introduced to Mr. Turner by Mr. Schwartz and began working with the singer after Mr. Turner "recorded some lullabies" for my daughters. Indeed, until the Nov. 17 performance, he said that, excluding family, "maybe a dozen people had heard the music."

But approximately a year ago, when Mr. Hatkoff and his wife were looking for religious training for their daughters, their friend Perri Peltz Ruttenberg-who chaired the Nov. 17 performance with her husband, Eric Ruttenberg-introduced them to CLAL's president, Rabbi Irwin Kula, whom Mr. Hatkoff called "the rock 'n' roll rabbi." The two men struck up a relationship. When Mr. Hatkoff mentioned his rock opera to the rabbi, Mr. Kula suggested that it might be a good fit for CLAL's benefit. "I guess in a moment of weakness, we agreed to do it," Mr. Hatkoff said.

"How did this come to be?" Mr. Kula asked the crowd at the performance, which included Ms. Rosenthal, public-relations executive Steven Rubenstein and investment banker Alan Patricof. How did a Jewish think tank come to stage a rock opera about Galileo and the Catholic Church, let alone the first rock opera of any kind to be heard at the Asia Society? Rabbi Kula's answer: "Crossing borders may be the key to wisdom now."

Shortly after that, Mr. Turner-wearing shaggy hair and what looked like a wine-colored crushed-velvet dress shirt-raised his goblet of rock and performed seven guitar-driven songs that would have sounded at home on the School of Rock soundtrack. Mr. Turner did not change costumes or voices to differentiate the three characters he was interpreting, but the program noted that "Natural Order of Things," which had the lyrics "Copernicus learned / While others were burned," would be sung by Friar Caccini, while "Rules by Fools," Galileo's dismissal of those scientists who were less capable than him, would be sung by the astronomer. And Mr. Turner–as–Pope Urban sang "Save the World," about the burden of holding Christendom together in a time of war and plague.

Then it was back to being Galileo for the evening's most challenging song, "Areopagitica," which is harder to pronounce correctly than "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," and refers to Milton's 1644 essay of the same name, which argued against restricting freedom of the press. (It's also the essay in which Milton writes of meeting the blind Galileo.)

Mr. Hatkoff, who didn't play in the band but participated in a question-and-answer session afterward, said that the CLAL benefit was the first time he'd heard Stargazer live. "It was truly terrifying," he said. But the crowd gave him a big hand afterward, and now Mr. Hatkoff has begun thinking in terms of staging an actual opera. He has begun working with a science foundation, which he declined to identify, and said that he's written a 40-page treatment for the opera.

"I think it would be great if it ended up on Broadway or London or as a rock show," Mr. Hatkoff continued. "But as Jane says: 'It's taken eight years-what's the rush?'"

-Frank DiGiacomo

Hef's Black Books

On Dec. 17, Christie's will auction off more than 300 lots of Playboy Enterprises memorabilia, including manuscripts, a bunny costume, a limousine and-perfect 10!-Bo Derek's March 1980 Playboy cover, upon which she's wearing little more than rags and a pinched smile. But perhaps the most mythic items that will be up for grabs are Hugh Hefner's "Little Black Books," documents that actually altered the vernacular. Little black books were once places to store an enemies list; Mr. Hefner made them a little sexier.

And yet, the books are not the trim directories one might expect them to be, as The Transom discovered when Christie's let us examine them in a room overlooking the auction space.

The two books which are up for auction measure roughly two by three inches, and the majority of their entries are meticulously written in pencil. The one from 1957 doesn't have a lot of meat to it-except for the "Joyce Simpson" entry:

MO. 6-3875

met at Harold's-blonde-appeared near-nude in Monsieur

The entries from 1958 are culturally more interesting: Peter Arno and Richard Avedon's addresses and phone numbers kick things off, and arouse suspicions that Hef was poaching from The New Yorker.

But the most sociologically fascinating entry:

Hef's N.Y. apt.

418 E. 71st St.

N.Y., N.Y.

Hugh M. Hefner called himself "Hef"!

There's the occasional lady, of course ("Judy Gammon," who was apparently a "playmate in black feather boa"), but also Dr. Wardell Pomeroy ("Office AG 9-2466") and "Paul's Limousine Service." (Dr. Pomeroy, by the way, was a Kinsey sex researcher who is going to be the subject of a biopic. Chris O'Donnell plays the goatish doctor.)

"I think everybody figured it would be a bunch of famous names and girlfriends and rotations, and all that 'black book' implies," Mr. Hefner said by phone from the Mansion in Holmby Hills. In fact, there is one such book, he confided, but it would never see the light of day.

One entry in particular caught our eye:

"chess playmate"

Gloria Wexler

3554 Rochambeau

Bronx, N.Y.

parents-OL. 4-4886

There are two obvious questions: a) What's a chess playmate? And b) Why does Hef have Gloria's parents' number?

"Well," said Mr. Hefner, "maybe I was dating young girls. I think maybe back in the 50's and 60's, teenage girls lived at home."

Who's Gloria?

"Sounds like somebody that I was dating-whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa … oh, oh, no!" Mr. Hefner sounded like he was trying to stop a runaway horse. "I know who it is now! She did her centerfold posed with a chess set. If she actually played chess, I have no idea. But I know she looked very good in the picture, nude, moving those pieces."

Mr. Hefner seemed more at ease discussing the future than the past, even though, at 77, that involves dealing with his mortality.

"Westwood cemetery, which is located not too far from where I live, is where Marilyn Monroe is buried, and where I will be buried, in a vault right next to her," he said.

What would be his epitaph? we asked.

"[He] had some positive impact on changing the sexual and social values of his time-and had a lot of fun in the process," Mr. Hefner said.

He'd be remembered in other ways. "A biography of my life is going to be done by Brian Grazer," he said.

Will Ron Howard direct?

"Probably not."

The appeal of his life story is obvious, and Mr. Hefner readily admits that he's lived a disgustingly full life-and seen naked just about every woman he desired. But he still has a wish list: "I would like [to see] exactly the ones that the readers would like to see: Zeta-Jones, Britney Spears …." He adds, mischievously, "We have our celebrity-wranglers out there."

In the end-one gets the feeling that the auction is some kind of ending; Playboy's profits have dipped sharply since its heyday-Mr. Hefner has kept an admirable view of himself and his accomplishments. He takes nothing for granted, and there are still wispy traces of the man of whom Gay Talese wrote: "He was a sex junkie with an insatiable habit."

"One of the reasons that Playboy has prevailed," said Mr. Hefner, "and that I have continued to be popular, and that my lifestyle continues to fuel fantasies, is because, you know, there really is a serious, redeeming social value going on here. In other words, I really have lived a wonderful adventure of a life, but done it with a pure heart. I'm still very much-and I'm 77 years old-the boy who dreamed the dream. I wake up every day marveling at what it's all about, pinching myself. There's a certain kind of innocence about it."

-Elon R. Green

Kaus + Coulter = ?

On the evening of Dec. 4, The New Yorker's Malcolm (The Tipping Point) Gladwell, Sarah Lyall (a New York Times reporter based in London) and House and Garden editor at large Deborah Needleman had a joint birthday party celebrating the fact that they have each just turned 40. Among the several dozen party guests at Vine on Broad Street was Slate blogger Mickey Kaus, who brought right-wing pundit Ann Coulter as his date. Mr. Kaus is an acquaintance of Mr. Gladwell's from the days when they were both working in Washington, D.C., in the mid-90's (Mr. Kaus at The New Republic, Mr. Gladwell at The Washington Post), as well as a longtime friend of Ms. Needleman's husband, Jacob Weisberg, also formerly of The New Republic and now Slate's editor in chief.

"It didn't seem like a lefty crowd, but then Anne Coulter walked in," Ms. Needleman said.

"She was in a jaunty mood-perfectly fine and nice. Not necessarily evil," said one guest, who added that people seemed more excited to be in a room with Mr. Kaus, who's a good deal shorter than the lanky Ms. Coulter. "She and [Mr. Kaus] definitely seemed more than friends. The jocular repartee they had going made it seem like they had a little James Carville–Mary Matalin thing going."

But Mr. Kaus says that, alas, there is no budding love affair. "We're just friends," he told The Transom, adding that they've known each other since she lived in Washington in the mid-90's. Ms. Coulter has spoke kindly of the liberal Mr. Kaus in the past, telling the Right Wing News last summer that she makes a point of checking his blog frequently because she likes the way he sums up long-winded New York Times stories.

And Mr. Kaus has a nice little nod to Ms. Coulter on his site. Intermittently, a banner on Kausfiles.com displays an ad for an Ann Coulter doll. Available for $29.95 at NewsMaxStore.com, the Barbie-doll-like figure says 14 phrases, including: "Liberals hate America, they hate flag-wavers, they hate abortion opponents, they hate all religions except Islam, post-9/11. Even Islamic terrorists don't hate America like liberals do. They don't have the energy. If they had that much energy, they'd have indoor plumbing by now."

Mr. Kaus said that although he bought one of the dolls to give to a liberal friend as a joke, he has no control over its being advertised on his page. "It's done robotically. It's on other [Slate] pages too," he said.

Apparently, Ms. Coulter spouted none of her 14 disparaging phrases at the party and just had an old-fashioned good time. "She met a lot of liberals who she liked-I think," he said.

In response to an e-mail from The Transom, Ms. Coulter wrote, "The paid advertisement on Kausfiles.com at this precise moment shows a picture of Mel Gibson. Do you think THAT'S a coincidence? Mickey and I are great friends but for all his wonderful qualities, I could never compete with his true love, which is, of course … welfare reform."

-Anna Jane Grossman

Buttering Up Bonnie

At breakfast time at media hot spot Michael's restaurant, patrons awaiting their guests can sit in the alcove near the entrance and pick up any number of newspapers and magazines. Regulars such as Michael Wolff, Dominick Dunne and Mort Zuckerman can pore through The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and now, the supermarket-checkout mag The Star. "We've just started carrying The Star in the past few months," said Michael's general manager, Steven Millington. "Some of the editors and publishers we cater to wanted us to carry it."

Anyone in particular? The Transom asked.

"Someone who comes here a lot asked us to carry it, and we said sure," said Mr. Millington. Bonnie Fuller, perhaps, who just started editing The Star in the past few months?

"It could possibly be," replied Mr. Millington, though he wouldn't confirm that Ms. Fuller was indeed the person.

Well, is she at least a regular there? we pressed.

"She sure is," he said.

-Alexandra Wolfe

Karenna Gore Schiff's ears peek out from between the strands of her flaxen hair; she, 30 years old, fixes the irregularity. Her husband, Andrew, 38, a former physician turned biotech venture capitalist, isn't here. He is a private man and doesn't court publicity. She is awfully unassuming for someone who seems to be involved in every charitable organization in the city, graduated from Columbia Law School, received a $200,000 advance from Miramax Books and has been near the forefront of national politics for years.

"I think that Pataki has short-changed the city," Mrs. Schiff said over a Caesar salad. "I think that by supporting the Bush administration, he has done harm to some of the things that I care about. So I would hope that he is defeated-or doesn't run-next time."

The disappointment in Governor Pataki is understandable. The Schiffs, whether spending time in Central Park with their two children (Wyatt and Anna), scampering around museums or scatting to Wynton Marsalis, feel the ripples of city policy on a very personal level: both, in their nonprofit ventures, and he, working in an industry at the whim of governmental regulation.

Born and raised on the Upper East Side (where his family has resided for "generations"), Dr. Schiff comes from a family that is essentially nonpartisan, although they have, said Mrs. Schiff, tended to vote Republican.

Dr. Andrew (Drew) Schiff is a managing director at Perseus-Soros BioPharmaceutical Fund, which makes investments-in the $10 million to $50 million range-in the biotechnology sector. On the side, he also sits on the board at Henry Street Settlement, a charity that sponsors a community mental-health clinic, a battered women's shelter, and many other initiatives and centers.

Mrs. Schiff is the head of the advocacy committee for Sanctuary for Families and the director of community affairs for the Association to Benefit Children.

As with most dividend-yielding partnerships, theirs is symbiotic.

"He's been really helpful to me in learning how a nonprofit works, so we do talk about that kind of stuff," said Mrs. Schiff. "It's true that I can't get quite as excited about finance as he does, but I try. But he likes to talk politics, too. He's been around the city for a long time-he knows a lot of the players better than I do in city politics.

"I think that he's basically enamored of biotechnology. He loves combining his medical experience with his interest in business-investing in companies that are trying to make medicines for cancer and heart disease and children's diseases," Mrs. Schiff continued. "It's definitely something that excites him. So my guess is that he'll stay with it, but he's always been somebody who likes to change and learn and do new things." She added, "He may decide to go to architecture school next year, knowing Drew."

In spite of the inescapable connection-her dad is President-elect-forever Al, her mom the well-kissed Tipper-Mrs. Schiff admits that she's not an "expert" on city politics, but she's awfully connected. She supported Gifford Miller ("His wife is fantastic, by the way"), Jonathan Bing and Liz Krueger.

"It's true what Tip O'Neill said: All politics is local," Mrs. Schiff said. "And so, in a sense, whenever you start at a local level, you can gain a lot of experience and understanding. I've campaigned for Liz Krueger for State Senator-shaken-hands-in-the-subway kind of thing-so I suppose that's one way I've been involved, in a local sense. But I'm also very much interested in national politics, I guess, because for so much of my life I was in that milieu."

It's not all business with the Schiffs: When venturing out from their East 66th Street residence, they go to the Met, attend the opera and frequent jazz concerts at Lincoln Center. "Wynton Marsalis is amazing," said Mrs. Schiff. "They have this great 'Jazz for Kids' thing that we take our kids to sometimes. He's hilarious. It's only an hour, and that's great, because that's about my attention span, too."

At a glance, the Schiffs are absurdly accomplished. Gretchen Buchenholz, the executive director and founder of the Association to Benefit Children, goes so far as to say, "They're really present . They belong in this cosmopolis." But of the two, Dr. Schiff is more detail-oriented.

"One thing we don't have in common is that he plans in advance much more than I do. He's probably already done his Christmas shopping, and I'll do it the last week," said Mrs. Schiff. "The thing is, when you're married to someone who is that organized, and better at planning, sometimes you get worse. Because there's that safety net." Mrs. Schiff said that she and Dr. Schiff are obsessed with e-mailing each other on their Blackberrys. "Sometimes we're even in the same room," she said. "We call it 'the Crackberry.'"

-Elon R. Green

With the publication of Old School , Tobias Wolff-who freely admits to spending six months on a single short story-has scraped whatever sheen remains off the writer's mystique. I suspect that Mr. Wolff embraces the maxim attributed to Anthony Burgess: If you want to become a writer, admit that you have no God-given talent, then put your ass in a chair and type. That kind of work ethic doesn't come naturally to everyone, a problem that trips up the nameless narrator of Old School , Mr. Wolff's beautiful, frustratingly short novel.

Old School is about writers and teachers and the mystery behind this question: "How do you begin to write truly?" It takes place during the narrator's fourth year at a peculiarly literary boy's prep school in New England. In their fourth year, the boys compete for a private audience with a visiting writer. As if they were bookies, they weigh the odds on each classmate. Their worst nightmare is that an undeserving dark horse might win. For example, Hurst, "a boy who wasn't even known to be a contender" and "an apparent Philistine … won an audience with Edmund Wilson for a series of satirical odes in Latin." Why the mad rush to meet poets and novelists? Our narrator explains, "I wanted to receive the laying on of hands that had written living stories and poems, hands that had touched the hands of other writers. I wanted to be anointed."

One of the great pleasures of Old School is the cameo appearances of visiting authors-Robert Frost, first and most memorably, then Ayn Rand and Ernest Hemingway. The visits, as a faculty member notes with disgust after the fact, are used purely as a motivational tool to summon a body of work from the boys. Sprinkled, blessedly, through the first two-thirds of the novel are scenes of literary heavyweights addressing an entire class (and a lucky student tête-à-tête). The glimpses are in step with what we think we know of these figures: Frost is an articulate, mean old man with a keen sense of humor, whose evisceration of a teacher falls nicely in line with the man who wrote of a dead boy's family in "Out, Out-": "And they, since they / Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs." Rand, all dressed in black and with sycophants in tow, is elegantly coarse. "If you had to name the single greatest work by an American author, what would it be?" She's asked. " Atlas Shrugged ," is her answer.

The schoolboys-our narrator included-are fanatically attached to writers, especially Hemingway, the bearded, pugilistic drunk who hovers, beautifully, offstage. The boys are in love with the final product-they love the writing, they love the author's persona-but they have no appreciation, no awareness, of the process. No surprise, then, that our narrator's own writing is sub-par, and almost none of it finished. Mr. Wolff nails the would-be writer's rationalization: "The beauty of a fragment is that it still supports the hope of brilliant completeness." If the narrator were actually to complete something, he might be disappointed with the result.

A number of the most ardent students edit and distribute Troubadour , the school's aptly named literary magazine. As one of the editors, our narrator has no trouble finding space for his work. The meetings are all pomp and circumstance, with the editors solemnly agreeing that each other's work is suitable for publication. In the latter portion of Old School , this carefully propped-up dignity begins to crumble, prompted by a submission from a boy named Buckles. "Oh for Christ's sake, run the stupid thing!" says an editor. "It's not like the rest of this crap's about to set the world on fire."

The cold blast of this assessment leads almost immediately to our narrator's fall from grace. He's by no means a bad kid. His greatest fear is expulsion, a punishment so awful it's hardly discussed ("No announcements were made and no lessons preached"). He's expelled, of course, for a breach of the "Honor Code": He plagiarizes a story from another high-school literary magazine, an issue from five years back. The author is female-a girl called Susan Friedman-but our boy sees only himself in the writing: "Anyone who read this story would know who I was."

Years later, our narrator writes to her and they meet. It feels like an epilogue. Susan Friedman turns out to be a tough character; she's not at all serious about writing, about her talent. She's training to be a doctor. Our narrator informs her that she should "keep writing," to which she replies: "Mmm, don't think so. Too frivolous. Know what I mean? It just cuts you off and makes you selfish and doesn't really do any good." She has the decency to soften the blow: "Just one gal's opinion."

Old School is advertised as Tobias Wolff's first novel. It's not: He published a novel he's since disowned, Ugly Rumours , in England in 1975. When a fellow writer asked Mr. Wolff about it, he said, "I would be much obliged if you would let this sleeping dog lie." I've never read Ugly Rumours ; I can't even find a copy for under $1,000.

This new first novel won't disappear in the same way. It's a book even Susan Friedman would like: It looks back on youthful naïveté and laziness, on the half-truths and untruths we tell and believe in, and forbears from passing judgment. It favors those who persevere, who quit worrying about their God-given talent or the lack thereof.

Elon R. Green is a reporter at The Observer .