It was Nov. 18, and we’d taken the Friday-night train to New Haven—a booze-soaked isthmus carrying us from Manhattan to Yale, where our alma mater would battle Harvard in the next day’s football game. Nate-Dog, William, Cooper and I have gone to the Game every year since graduating in 2002 (Nate and Coop from Harvard, Will and I from Yale). But this year, Mother Yale had some new house rules for tailgaters: no drinking games, no standing/sitting on U-Hauls, and tailgating parties would be shut down by the end of halftime. Of course, in the words of Will: “Who cares? I’m blacked out by then anyway!”

Metro-North was lousy with Yale and Harvard alums caravanning to Connecticut. Of my 20 friends, most of us are investment bankers or med students, and all of us are buffoons. We came together in New York after graduation, forming fast friendships and ignoring our commencement speakers’ advice to branch out and socialize with people from non–Ivy League schools. That evening, we’d taken over a train car, setting up a temporary government based on substance abuse, inanity and the alienation of those around us.

“Are you packing?” Nate-Dog asked. I nodded, holding up a bottle of Poland Spring filled with Bacardi. At Harvard-Yale two years ago, I woke up Sunday morning on a windowsill in a train station. This year I’d vowed to maintain my dignity—or at least consciousness. It’s good to have goals.

Sometimes I think my friends and I are aging backwards, like Jonathan Winters on Mork and Mindy. It’s amazing that some of us are pulling in $200,000 annually and managing people’s finances, yet we still spend most weekends running around with more alcohol than blood in our veins, photographing each other urinating on parked cars and trying to convince people to sleep with us. My friends in med school administer each other IV’s when they’re hung over and call themselves the “IV League.”

Looking around, however, this year’s pilgrimage feels like that “What’s different about this picture?” game in newspapers featuring two nearly identical scenes. Circle Cooper, who, instead of perusing Maxim, is doing the Times crossword puzzle. Circle Nate-Dog, who would normally be throwing things at people, but who is now reading The Journal. Hairlines have receded with stunning efficiency. Waistlines have expanded. Circle, circle. We also planned staying one night instead of two this year because it now takes a full 24 hours to feel like human beings again after a day of debauchery. We’d even chartered a limo to take us back to New York after the game. Oh, shit.

We’re adults.

In The Sun Also Rises, Bill Gorton asks Mike Campbell how he went bankrupt. “Gradually, and then suddenly,” Mike answers. That’s how the arrival of adulthood feels. It’s like being on a seesaw in grade school, and having the asshole on the other end get off while you’re still up in the air. You totally saw it coming, but it startles the hell out of you.

Maybe that’s why the Game felt especially significant, if a little desperate, this year. Maybe deep down, we were hoping that Harvard-Yale would act as a sort of salt lick of youth, as if we could fend off the ravages of time by getting as wasted as possible. How fitting that Yale was telling us to slow down with these new restrictions. “You’re getting too old for this,” she seemed to be saying.

Coop was regaling the group with a story about a woman who recently ambushed him at a bar. “She was a serious cougar, a total coug,” he says. A “cougar” is a man-hungry woman in her late 30’s or 40’s who was hot about 10 years ago but now a little worse for wear. “I had to get out of the situation and didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I took my shirt off! The bouncer threw me out immediately.” Everyone laughed and moved on to reminiscing about Harvard-Yale past.

“Remember the Game where William found pizza on the ground and ate it?”

“Remember the year Nate-Dog found pizza in the garbage and ate it?”

By the time we arrived in New Haven at 8:30, the wheels had fallen off about an hour before. I’d downed half of my “Poland Spring.” Cooper kept shouting, “Hug it out, bitch!” to no one in particular. William was debating writing “If found: Take to the Marriott Hotel, room 119” in black Sharpie across his arm.

We took our coalition to a local bar. I realized in my time away from New Haven, I had forgotten basic street names. Cooper had forgotten his coat, but Jack Daniels made him impervious to the cold. Emboldened by drink, Nate-Dog sprinted toward a parked car. Without breaking pace, he leapt on the back trunk, ran across the roof and down the front hood, leaving dents the entire way. “It seemed like a good idea at the time!” Nate-Dog grinned at our applause. His entire existence is dedicated towards “story value.” The kid will do anything for a good anecdote.

At the bar, shots were taken, friends were greeted, and I’m pretty sure people were having sex in the coatroom as I hung up my jacket. I jumped on Nate-Dog’s back and rode him around the dance floor. The questions “Where are you living?” and “Where do you work?” were answered again and again. “You know, I always had a crush on you in college,” people lied to each other. I lost my friends, but luckily an old acquaintance offered me half of her bed at the Holiday Inn. As blackness closed in at 5 a.m., I prayed that somebody had my purse—a Hail Mary Pass Out.

The next day’s tailgate lasted six hours so, in drunk time, it took about two minutes. Despite all the rules, it was pretty much the same as every year: A fat dude in mid-keg-stand was dropped by his friends. U-Hauls filled with gyrating coeds blasted the inevitable Madonna and Kanye West. “There’s just something really painful about people dancing during the day,” Will observed. The network of U-Hauls reminded me of the giant hedge maze in The Shining. I had an utterly clichéd case of the hiccups when I happened upon Coop lying in a pile of discarded hamburgers.

“I’m so punished,” he whimpered. “Can we go home now?”

“The limo’s picking us up in 20 minutes,” I said.

“No shit?”

“Shit.”

It was a stretch limo, but the six of us snuggled together and passed out in a pile, like a litter of puppies huddling in the corner of a large box. The engine vibrated below, taking us back to the city and to work on Monday morning. “We are too old for this,” I thought before drifting off.

On Monday, I got my pictures back. In them, we were urinating on parked cars.

It was Nov. 18, and we’d taken the Friday-night train to New Haven—a booze-soaked isthmus carrying us from Manhattan to Yale, where our alma mater would battle Harvard in the next day’s football game. Nate-Dog, William, Cooper and I have gone to the Game every year since graduating in 2002 (Nate and Coop from Harvard, Will and I from Yale). But this year, Mother Yale had some new house rules for tailgaters: no drinking games, no standing/sitting on U-Hauls, and tailgating parties would be shut down by the end of halftime. Of course, in the words of Will: “Who cares? I’m blacked out by then anyway!”

Metro-North was lousy with Yale and Harvard alums caravanning to Connecticut. Of my 20 friends, most of us are investment bankers or med students, and all of us are buffoons. We came together in New York after graduation, forming fast friendships and ignoring our commencement speakers’ advice to branch out and socialize with people from non–Ivy League schools. That evening, we’d taken over a train car, setting up a temporary government based on substance abuse, inanity and the alienation of those around us.

“Are you packing?” Nate-Dog asked. I nodded, holding up a bottle of Poland Spring filled with Bacardi. At Harvard-Yale two years ago, I woke up Sunday morning on a windowsill in a train station. This year I’d vowed to maintain my dignity—or at least consciousness. It’s good to have goals.

Sometimes I think my friends and I are aging backwards, like Jonathan Winters on Mork and Mindy. It’s amazing that some of us are pulling in $200,000 annually and managing people’s finances, yet we still spend most weekends running around with more alcohol than blood in our veins, photographing each other urinating on parked cars and trying to convince people to sleep with us. My friends in med school administer each other IV’s when they’re hung over and call themselves the “IV League.”

Looking around, however, this year’s pilgrimage feels like that “What’s different about this picture?” game in newspapers featuring two nearly identical scenes. Circle Cooper, who, instead of perusing Maxim, is doing the Times crossword puzzle. Circle Nate-Dog, who would normally be throwing things at people, but who is now reading The Journal. Hairlines have receded with stunning efficiency. Waistlines have expanded. Circle, circle. We also planned staying one night instead of two this year because it now takes a full 24 hours to feel like human beings again after a day of debauchery. We’d even chartered a limo to take us back to New York after the game. Oh, shit.

We’re adults.

In The Sun Also Rises, Bill Gorton asks Mike Campbell how he went bankrupt. “Gradually, and then suddenly,” Mike answers. That’s how the arrival of adulthood feels. It’s like being on a seesaw in grade school, and having the asshole on the other end get off while you’re still up in the air. You totally saw it coming, but it startles the hell out of you.

Maybe that’s why the Game felt especially significant, if a little desperate, this year. Maybe deep down, we were hoping that Harvard-Yale would act as a sort of salt lick of youth, as if we could fend off the ravages of time by getting as wasted as possible. How fitting that Yale was telling us to slow down with these new restrictions. “You’re getting too old for this,” she seemed to be saying.

Coop was regaling the group with a story about a woman who recently ambushed him at a bar. “She was a serious cougar, a total coug,” he says. A “cougar” is a man-hungry woman in her late 30’s or 40’s who was hot about 10 years ago but now a little worse for wear. “I had to get out of the situation and didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I took my shirt off! The bouncer threw me out immediately.” Everyone laughed and moved on to reminiscing about Harvard-Yale past.

“Remember the Game where William found pizza on the ground and ate it?”

“Remember the year Nate-Dog found pizza in the garbage and ate it?”

By the time we arrived in New Haven at 8:30, the wheels had fallen off about an hour before. I’d downed half of my “Poland Spring.” Cooper kept shouting, “Hug it out, bitch!” to no one in particular. William was debating writing “If found: Take to the Marriott Hotel, room 119” in black Sharpie across his arm.

We took our coalition to a local bar. I realized in my time away from New Haven, I had forgotten basic street names. Cooper had forgotten his coat, but Jack Daniels made him impervious to the cold. Emboldened by drink, Nate-Dog sprinted toward a parked car. Without breaking pace, he leapt on the back trunk, ran across the roof and down the front hood, leaving dents the entire way. “It seemed like a good idea at the time!” Nate-Dog grinned at our applause. His entire existence is dedicated towards “story value.” The kid will do anything for a good anecdote.

At the bar, shots were taken, friends were greeted, and I’m pretty sure people were having sex in the coatroom as I hung up my jacket. I jumped on Nate-Dog’s back and rode him around the dance floor. The questions “Where are you living?” and “Where do you work?” were answered again and again. “You know, I always had a crush on you in college,” people lied to each other. I lost my friends, but luckily an old acquaintance offered me half of her bed at the Holiday Inn. As blackness closed in at 5 a.m., I prayed that somebody had my purse—a Hail Mary Pass Out.

The next day’s tailgate lasted six hours so, in drunk time, it took about two minutes. Despite all the rules, it was pretty much the same as every year: A fat dude in mid-keg-stand was dropped by his friends. U-Hauls filled with gyrating coeds blasted the inevitable Madonna and Kanye West. “There’s just something really painful about people dancing during the day,” Will observed. The network of U-Hauls reminded me of the giant hedge maze in The Shining. I had an utterly clichéd case of the hiccups when I happened upon Coop lying in a pile of discarded hamburgers.

“I’m so punished,” he whimpered. “Can we go home now?”

“The limo’s picking us up in 20 minutes,” I said.

“No shit?”

“Shit.”

It was a stretch limo, but the six of us snuggled together and passed out in a pile, like a litter of puppies huddling in the corner of a large box. The engine vibrated below, taking us back to the city and to work on Monday morning. “We are too old for this,” I thought before drifting off.

On Monday, I got my pictures back. In them, we were urinating on parked cars.

From big machers on museum boards with millions to spend to relative nobodies with a few grand saved up, anyone who wants a leg up on the competition tries to see the merch first. Competition is so fierce because of a long-overheated art market in which nearly every gallery exhibition sells out and waiting lists are the norm. Since the Armory Show is arguably the most important contemporary art fair in North America, there's a lot of work that collectors might not get a crack at otherwise.

The Armory Show isn't the only fair where collectors cut in line: Larry Gagosian flew Marie-Josee and Henry Kravis to Art Basel Miami Beach last December for a private tour while galleries were still setting up. But the consensus among art dealers is that early entry is especially endemic to the Armory Show. "The Armory does a shockingly horrible, really shoddy job of keeping out collectors during installation," said Chinatown dealer Michele Maccarone. "Stupid and irresponsible gallerists let them in, and it totally makes for this feeding-frenzy atmosphere." Last year, Andrea Bundonis, the head of P.R. at the blue-chip PaceWildenstein gallery, was too busy to speak with the press at the press preview, which precedes the MoMA benefit, because she was making sales to collectors who had finagled their way in.

"There's a regular group, and it's as if they've been transported inside by a Trojan horse," said London dealer Kenny Schachter. "That's when you see the food chain of the art world at work. It's total Darwinism."

One repeat offender cited by several dealers who declined to be mentioned by name is Whitney Museum trustee Beth Rudin DeWoody. "I guess it's not something that should happen, but usually a dealer invites me in so I can see something without all the distractions. This year I'll probably save a lot of money, since I'll be out of town until the last two days of the fair." Other much-mentioned high rollers who are said to practically waltz right in on the arms of dealers include David Teiger, whose name graces a gallery at MoMA, and real-estate magnate Aby Rosen. (Mr. Teiger declined to be interviewed for this story; Mr. Rosen didn't return calls for comment.)

Smaller fish need to resort to crafty tactics. Michael Nachman, a textile manufacturer who started collecting contemporary art four years ago, convinced a journalist "from some magazine, I don't remember the name," to doctor up press credentials for him last year. "Once you see the difference it makes in terms of what you have access to, it's hard to go back to starting your Armory experience at the MoMA preview," he said. Artist Neil Frankel, who buys from such Chelsea powerhouses as the David Zwirner gallery, cops a more casual approach. "Sometimes, when they're setting up, I might help somebody bring something there, or I might have an appointment to meet a dealer," he said. "Then I'm in."

But what most everybody is angling for is a worker's pass. These allow unfettered access to Piers 90 and 92, where the fair is held, until the MoMA benefit begins. Whatever passes the galleries don't need are often bestowed upon favored clients. "Listen, I've lost out over the years because I waited for the public opening," said a venture capitalist who persuaded a rising Chelsea dealer to hand over a worker's pass. ("Don't mention which gallery he got it from," the dealer added. "I don't need a war among my clients.")

One young collector who has an art-world job gets his worker's pass through business connections. "I did it last year, and I'm definitely doing it again this year," he said. "The really good stuff is so good that anyone who sees it knows to buy it straight away."

Last year, workers' passes were reconfigured to incorporate photo ID's. "We've gotten applications where we look at the photograph and are like, 'That woman is on our V.I.P. list!'" said fair director Katelijne De Backer.

Still, Ms. De Backer has resigned herself somewhat to sneaky collectors and the exhibitors who help them-obviously, everyone knows on which side their bread is buttered. So this year, Armory organizers are allowing each gallery to invite a certain number of lucky collectors to the press preview. "Talk about feeding the frenzy!" said Ms. Maccarone, the Chinatown dealer.

Sure enough, Mr. Nachman tried to get invites from three of his regular galleries last week, but each had filled its quota. "I called the Armory Show and said, 'Look, I'm a collector, and I'd like to get a pass to come to the press preview,' and they were very hard-nosed. It's sort of ticking me off. I mean, why should others get the advantage and get the cream of the crop? I want to have pick of the litter, too."

According to Harvey S. Shipley Miller, Mr. Nachman shouldn't despair. And Mr. Miller should know: Having spent the past year putting together a $75 million drawing collection for MoMA, he has countless enviable connections but refuses to sneak in early. "I encourage everybody to go the last day. The Europeans especially don't want to ship anything back, so whatever they have left-well, you do the math."

-Rebecca Cascade

Decadance

The theme for "An Enchanted Evening," the first annual winter gala benefiting the School of American Ballet, was the 1940's. With that glorious era in mind, the co-hosts of the party, the luxury-goods company Hermès, transformed Jazz at Lincoln Center's Allen Room into a "1940's French-style nightclub in the spirit of Jean Cocteau," according to a press release.

The men wore black tie and the women looked glamorous and "evening chic," but in a glitzy mid-80's, big-hair kind of way. A few managed to pull off middle of the last century, like the young lady who told The Transom that she had on a 40's-style bias-cut satin dress with a peep-toe high-heel dorsay.

The Transom tried for the look (gray Brooks Brothers suit, white shirt by the Gap, a blue and white spotty tie, beat-up Timberlands), but no one seemed impressed. During the cocktail hour, Jeanette Walls, the MSNBC.com gossip columnist and author, helped to explain that decade's elusive style.

"The 1940's, in terms of fashion, in my opinion was the best period ever," Ms. Walls said. "Because what it did was combine practicality with sexiness. It was also an era in which people were powerful: They dressed to work and also achieved. Before then, the 30's, it was a matronly look-women were made to look very maternal and had a dowdy look. In the 40's, it was Rosie the Riveter and working gals and these really sexy, smart outfits."

Ms. Walls, wearing a Vera Wang dress, remarked that if there's any benefit to life during wartime, it's that people get more practical about fashions-and, she added, there's fun to be had. "Live life to the fullest, because it might be the last day," she explained, adding that that applied to New York City in 2005 "more than pre-9/11".

She isn't entirely optimistic these days. "I don't think we know what's going to happen. I'm nervous," she said.

How has the war changed her life?

"I've started reading the A-section of The Times."

John Kalymnios, a sculptor, stepped out for a cigarette on Broadway. He said he thought the scene in the adjacent room, Dizzy's Club, was capturing the 40's better that evening. "This party's a bit more theatrical-let's put it that way," he said of the ballet benefit. "There's a lot of glamour up there, everyone's dressed to the nines, but there's no smoke in the room.

"I think there was fashion [in the 1940's], there was excitement," Mr. Kalymnios continued. "There was this intrigue of time and space that doesn't exist today. We've lost it. War is too high-tech now. We're too saturated today with media. I think in our society, we're all trying to reinvent ourselves. It's a conceptual environment."

Socialite Somers Farkas and Town and Country magazine editor-at-large Mike Cannon were on their way to dinner in the Atrium Room, which looked like the set of a Fred Astaire movie. Ms. Farkas said she felt less anxious than she'd been in 2003 and that now we're in a postwar period. "Hopefully this will be a time of peace, most importantly-prosperity, domesticity," she said. "The troops are coming home!"

"Prosperity and pearls," Mr. Cannon cracked.

Seventeen editor Atoosa Rubenstein, in a stunning, extremely cleavage-friendly strapless ball gown, noted that her magazine was launched in 1944, and she's taking it back to the ethos of that time. "It really was a moment when young women were coming into their own," she said. "Leonard Lauder always talks about his 'lipstick formula': that during certain times like wartime, one thing that will go up is lipstick, because women still want to look elegant and show their best face. And I think that's certainly true of the 40's. The women of the 40's projected an image of being very strong and very secure in themselves during a time that was very uncertain, and we're certainly facing those times again."

Did she think the war's almost over?

"For me to make a statement about that would be silly. I do think we have a new status quo."

Hotelier Ian Schrager agreed. "I don't think anybody thinks it's over. I think we're at the beginning of it-in it for the long haul," he said.

Did Al Qaeda get lucky on 9/11?

"I do think that, in terms of the scale and its success. But there will be others ones, I'm sure."

Mr. Schrager said that the 40's (i.e., the big-band style and swing music) had always inspired him. "I think usually, in a bad time, people look for escape by having enjoyment, and I don't see that now," he said, before recalling the golden age of the 70's, when he ran Studio 54.

"It was more mindless," he said. "You know, sometimes you really can't capture that splendor. I think all the forces of the universe came together then, and it was a special time."

How's nightlife doing now?

"In New York? It's nonexistent."

"What's cool about the 40's is high-waisted pants," said actor Liev Schrieber, having a smoke outside. "I'm afraid we're much less involved now than we were then. I don't know if it's the age of numbness-I just have the sense there was a deeper sense of identity in America in the 1940's."

After the suave, ageless Bryan Ferry crooned a few romantic standards (among them, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes"), he allowed his conversation with writer Candace Bushnell to be interrupted for some chatter about the 1940's. "A very good period for pop songs," Mr. Ferry said. "A lot of the songs I do from that period were written by refugees from Europe who came to New York and embraced the town's culture. They came here and wrote incredible songs."

What stage were we at now?

"There isn't a war on, is there?" he joked. "I guess living here is different from England. In England, there's always a war going on of one sort or another."

Are happy days here again?

"Not for me, particularly, at the moment."

At 10 p.m., guests for the after-party-predominantly a B-list crowd who'd paid $150 to get in-passed through a "magical portal" with haze flowing around it and into the Allen Room, which looked like the set of a high-school play that was about to collapse. Not a whole lot of glamour in their midst, with the supreme exception of socialite Debbie Bancroft, who was wearing a sable fur over her long, sleeveless beaded gown, and Patricia Duff, in a chic black suit. They were talking about politics and the Women's Campaign Fund event they'd been to earlier.

Ms. Duff said the 40's made her think of Frank Sinatra, Betty Grable, Tokyo Rose and "drop-dead-handsome men in uniform."

If they could time-travel back?

"I'd meet Eleanor Roosevelt," Ms. Bancroft said.

"I'd want to be a partisan working in the underground against the Nazis … some resistance somewhere," Ms. Duff said, adding that it felt to her like 1939 right now. "Storm clouds are approaching," she said, citing Syria and Iran. "I hope we're resolving things in a peaceful manner, but it could be building up to more hostility."

They looked around the room at the kids.

"They're not dancing enough," Ms. Bancroft said.

-George Gurley

À La Mode

"All this anti-French business, that's just about politics," huffed Mireille Guiliano, a Parisian puff of smoke and the author of a best-selling book suggesting we could all be thinner, happier, healthier, sexier-if only we acted a little more like the French. While she said this-after a reading last week at the 92nd Street Y-dozens of Upper East Side women with dark glasses down on their noses and hair tied back tight enough to render Botox unnecessary were clamoring for her autograph. What's this? The Transom wondered as we were muscled out of the way by a woman of oompah-loompah stature but good, old-fashioned American grit. We're trying to be like the French now?

Last time we checked, France was out, out, out: of fashion, of 1441, of the hot-food bar at the Congressional cafeteria. But all that changed, it seems, with French Women Don't Get Fat, Alfred A. Knopf's improbable 2005 offering to chubby women a little too sophisticated for Random House, and an unlikely answer to the Franco-American contretemps. It begins with a disclaimer: "Whatever the state of Franco-American relations-admittedly a bit frayed from time to time-we should not lose sight of the singular achievements of French civilization."

Food, she means. Not any of those other pesky things (diplomacy, labor relations, military et al.).

"You know," Ms. Guiliano flatly told The Transom at a reception after the reading, "we don't like our government, either."

Aha! Forget all the protest marches and hunger strikes, people-the message here is that, with a strict diet of leek soup, long walks, snug skirts and champagne (Ms. Guiliano is also the C.E.O. of Veuve Clicquot and a master of cross-promotion), you can be svelte and subversive at the same time. So rise from the couch, ladies! Discard those old sweatpants and go buy yourself a Hermès scarf! Et voilà: You're 15 pounds lighter-and a socialist!

It went something like that for Mary Louise Engelhardt, a particularly vocal audience member at Ms. Guiliano's reading. Ms. Engelhardt was clad head-to-toe in saffron-colored cable knits-remember, we like the French now-and her brand-new Hermès scarf was tied in a prim little off-center knot against her neck. Ms. Engelhardt bought the scarf a week ago but was still carrying the Hermès bag; it matched the sweater and gave off a certain Frenchness that seemed appropriate for the night, to her mind. "I lost 11 1¼2 pounds, thanks to your book," she blurted during the Q.-and-A.-turned-A.A.-style portion of the evening, to much delicate applause. Afterward, at the champagne reception, she told The Transom that her husband is sending her to France for her birthday, in memory of the 11 1¼2 pounds.

Ms. Engelhardt was waiting in line to have the author-who was wearing the same crinkly green sweater as in her book-jacket photo-sign both a copy of the book and a restaurant guidebook to Paris. "Mostly, though, I just want her to tell me the good places to eat," she said.

Surrounding her in the queue were women equally moved by Ms. Guiliano's book, their husbands scattered uncomfortably around the room, drinking champagne and avoiding eye contact. Among them was Austin Noll, who said he was waiting for a guide to how French men stay so trim.

He's been a Francophile for years, see-he has no problem imitating the French. "It's taboo to some people, I guess, but I happen to admire the French people. I like their lifestyle, their food, their wine, and I love Paris."

Lots of people do, said Ms. Guiliano. "It was funny, because when the book was accepted, it was, you know, the time of Iraq-anti-French everything," she continued. "I thought, 'Wow, I don't know how this happened.' But here we are."

Here we are, indeed-at a curious crossroads of diet and diplomacy. Ms. Guiliano's book, endorsed as it is by such varied luminaries as Emeril Lagasse, Adam Gopnik and Nicole Miller, might just be the gastronomic Yalta of our time. Leave the details to the politicians, she told The Transom at the end of the night; her plan is to solve everything "with a good meal."

-Rebecca Dana

The Transom Also Hears …

As the faculty at Harvard meets twice a week to determine whether to give a vote of "no confidence" to embattled university president Lawrence Summers, Hollywood's golden boy has tentatively jumped to his defense. Matt Damon, who dropped out of Harvard 12 credits short of graduating to pursue his acting career, told The Transom: "I haven't read the transcript, so I'm not too comfortable giving my opinion on it. But I will say that when you're trying to encourage 18-year-old kids to exercise freedom of thought, it can be dangerous to remove [Mr. Summers] for doing just that." The Oscar-winner had stopped by a special screening of Non Ti Muovere (Don't Move) on Sunday, March 6, at the request of the film's star, Penélope Cruz, whom he met on the set of All the Pretty Horses. No word on where some of Harvard's other well-known alumni-among them, Natalie Portman, Norman Mailer, John Updike and Conan O'Brien-stand on the future of Mr. Summers, who has been famously under fire since postulating that women may be less likely to thrive in the fields of math and science due to innate gender disparities.

-Noelle Hancock

Among those queuing up to get a hearty handshake from the star, and to dine on a soggy spring salad and some pesto chicken at the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown, were veteran screen star Lauren Bacall, Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, actors Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church and Virginia Madsen as well as director Alexander Payne from Sideways, Maria Full of Grace's Joshua Marston and its star, Catalina Sandino Moreno, and The Incredibles director Brad Bird. Fox Searchlight's Peter Rice and Miramax's Harvey Weinstein were seen just shaking each other's hands.

As people began to empty out of the Grand Ballroom after the event, Ms. Bacall approached Mr. Eastwood from behind. She placed her hand on the small of his back and then wrapped it around his shoulder. "I love him," she cooed to no one in particular and then left him with Mr. Almodóvar. "Congratulations," the Bad Education director said with a thick Spanish accent. Mr. Eastwood, who was positively glowing, responded with a hearty handshake, clasping Mr. Almodóvar's upper arm with his left hand. The ensuing photo op was perhaps the most unusual pairing for Mr. Eastwood since Every Which Way But Loose.

Mr. Eastwood then retrieved some vitamins the size of horse tranquilizers from his pocket. He offered one to his wife, Dina Ruiz-Eastwood, who palmed it absently.

"We're just getting started," Mr. Eastwood said after a big gulp. (Please, someone cue Karen Carpenter and "We've Only Just Begun.") Over the weekend, his film Million Dollar Baby took home the Best Picture award from the National Society of Film Critics. They have no honorary dinner, but Mr. Eastwood, who is no stranger to awards seasons, joked, "We've got a lot of chicken to go." And then he was off to meet with Mr. Marston, who had been patiently flanking him.

The 74-year-old actor- cum-director's presence was felt throughout the event as he received numerous shout-outs from presenters and honorees, critics and stars alike. And security-definitely not there to protect Mr. Giamatti-patrolled the balconies, clasping their earpieces as if they were re-enacting Mr. Eastwood's turn as Secret Service Agent Frank Horrigan in In the Line of Fire. Coincidentally, earlier in the evening, director Alexander Payne did his best impression of Hilary Swank's character in Million Dollar Baby by shucking and jiving for the starlet. Ms. Swank, who cleans up nicely, was there to present Mr. Eastwood with his award for Best Director. Her husband, actor and activist Chad Lowe, looked on sheepishly-perhaps praying that his wife wouldn't kick Mr. Payne's ass, or his own.

The dinner itself was a veritable Sideways orgy. The evening began with Mr. Giamatti presenting the golden-haired Ms. Madsen with an award for Best Supporting Actress, after delivering a 10-minute soliloquy extolling her beauty and being. "There are people in this world that seem to exist more than other people," Mr. Giamatti explained in a way very similar to Miles, his dopey, hyperbolic character in the movie. "I simply yearned to be with this woman." When Ms. Madsen took the podium, she reminded Mr. Giamatti that "your wife is here." Who knew?

In the game of musical chairs that followed-which must seem awfully familiar to the cast and crew of Sideways, which is undeniably this year's critical darling and has been racking up awards left and right-director Alexander Payne presented Mr. Giamatti with his award for Best Actor; Ms. Madsen and Mr. Church presented Mr. Payne and screenwriter Jim Taylor with their award for Best Screenplay; and then actor (and soon-to-be director) Liev Schreiber presented Sideways producer Michael London with the award for Best Picture, after admitting that he had "quietly sobbed" during the film.

Afterward, The Transom caught up with Mr. Payne and asked him how he felt about the backlash the film had been receiving in The Times, courtesy of critic A.O. Scott (who was nowhere to be found-he must still be on vacation) and, more recently, the Daily News.

"Fuck it," he retorted, looking tired yet dapper in a dark suit, before admitting that he always worried about the film being overexposed: " I thought it was overhyped," he said.

The only thing not getting rave reviews Sunday night was the venue. Although many agreed that it was an improvement on last year's setting, the cavernous and now-defunct Noche, they didn't have too many positive things to say about the Grand Ballroom, which was set up like it was about to host a shareholders' conference in Houston.

Closer playwright Patrick Marber, who was there to present Clive Owen with his award for Best Supporting Actor, quipped: "I haven't actually been this nervous since my bar mitzvah … which was in a room quite like this."

The best line of the evening, however, goes to Al Franken, there to discuss the merits of Fahrenheit 9/11, which won the award for Best Nonfiction Film. Since director Michael Moore was 3,000 miles away in L.A. at the People's Choice Awards, Harvey Weinstein, the co-chairman of Miramax who fought to have the film released, took his place-and likewise bore the brunt of Mr. Franken's wit.

"Harvey Weinstein stood by this movie," Mr. Franken began, "even in the face of certain success. And that is all you need to know about Harvey Weinstein."

-Jake Brooks

Screwball Comedy

"The hardest part about being me is the other people that are so extremely tight-assed and conservative that they don't get what I'm trying to do," Anna Benson huffed. What she's trying to do is raise money for victims of the recent tsunami disaster-but instead of jumping on the telethon bandwagon, she decided to pedal some ass. On Sunday, Jan. 9, the ravishing wife of Mets pitcher Kris Benson hosted a benefit performance of Pieces (of Ass), the play in which women deliver monologues concerning "hot-chick angst." The 28-year-old mother of three, who also helped her husband co-found a nonprofit foundation called Benson's Battalion, introduced the show, poking fun at her past life as an exotic dancer. "The last time I was onstage, I was naked!" she said.

While Ms. Benson fancies herself an Oprah Winfrey–Howard Stern hybrid, even the woman that FHM crowned "Baseball's Hottest Wife" is getting tired of all the dirty talk. "I'm always referred to as the 'ex-stripper.' I mean, if I'd been a waitress, would I be the 'ex-waitress'? I want people to push that aside and think, 'What else does she have on her mind?' Because I have puh- lenty on there!" That, she says, is the reason her husband made her quit stripping. "He said, 'You're not doing this anymore-you're too intelligent.' He's the kind of person who could spot the diamond in the rough. He was interested in what I had to say." Aren't they all, honey?

It turned out that she did have a lot to say. After posing in the December 2004 issue of FHM, she spilled to the lad mag about coming to the aid of her nauseous husband when he was recovering from arm surgery. "We were flying home from the hospital and we had to squeeze into the plane's bathroom together so I could stick suppositories up his ass to keep him from throwing up," she confessed.

She also recently told Howard Stern that if her hubby ever cheated on her, she would sleep with all his teammates and team officials, including the groundskeepers.

So does her husband ever get mad when she shoots her mouth off? "I piss Kris off daily!" she laughed. "The way I see it, whether you agree with my opinions is irrelevant. If I've pissed you off, I've done my job. I like to stir the shit, if you will. That's part of the fun of it-making up." She wiggled her eyebrows.

Her loose lips caught the attention of VH1, which will soon make a final offer on a reality show chronicling her life as an athlete's wife. The couple, who will split their time between New York and Atlanta, where their children go to school, spent the week apartment-hunting, having ruled out brownstones where the stairways are too narrow for Mr. Benson's 6-foot-4 frame. They're partial to the Upper East Side so Mr. Benson can have as quick a commute to the stadium as possible, and also so they can spend more time together.

"I'm not going to get down to the nitty-gritty," she insisted, "but the key to a happy marriage is real good sex! If you're making love five days a week, you're only fighting two days."

-Noelle Hancock

Going Dutch

Despite the multiple death threats against him, Geert Wilders makes a grand entrance when he can. The 41-year-old Dutch parliamentarian's much-discussed whitish-blond coiffure and brawny six-foot frame immediately gave him away as he entered the Martin Gang Law Library, three floors above the midtown offices of Commentary magazine, on Jan. 10. Around 20 academics, policy wonks and journalists cut short their highbrow conversations and glanced up from their coffee and pastries to take a look. After a brief introduction, with his security detail waiting outside the conference room, the dark-suited Mr. Wilders began his pitch for a "Dutch Patriot Act" to take aggressive measures against Islamic radicals in his homeland and explained his call for a five-year moratorium on non-Western immigration to the Netherlands.

Such stances may have earned him death threats back home, but they've made him the darling of many conservatives in the States. During his week-long tour, Mr. Wilder's packed agenda includes the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, and the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute and Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform in Washington, D.C. He also plans to meet with Tim Goeglein, deputy director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, who was described in a recent Washington Post profile as "a virtual middleman between the White House and conservatives of all stripes seeking to shape its policies."

Mr. Wilders' speaking engagement at Commentary was the result of a few well-placed phone calls and e-mails sent out to announce his arrival. However, managing editor Gary Rosen maintains that "it was not meant to show our sponsorship or endorsement of his views."

Dutch society is known for its extreme tolerance (same-sex marriage) and permissive attitudes (decriminalization of soft drugs and prostitution), and Mr. Wilders' conservative policies would normally be a tough sell at home. However, shortly after the November murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh by an Islamic extremist, Mr. Wilders' popularity has soared in some recent national polls among predictions that if elections were held tomorrow, his party-which currently doesn't even have enough potential candidates-could pick up as many as 28 of the 150 seats in Parliament.

Stylistically, Mr. Wilders was impressive in his command of the material, yet some of his proposals were met with furrowed brows rather than cheers. A few audience members focused in on some of the vagaries in the platform that have to be ironed out if Mr. Wilders wants U.S. support.

But Cooper Union professor Fred Siegel, who attended the event, told The Transom that Mr. Wilders presented his views sensibly and is correct in several ways. "Reading someone like Ian Buruma's [recent 5,000-word New Yorker] piece, you get a highly misleading impression. He's calm, reasoned and speaks to the issue."

After the event, Mr. Wilders stood leisurely and smoked on the sidewalk. Walking down Lexington Avenue (with his security detail walking a few paces in front and behind), he remarked that it was "good to get some fresh air"-a rare opportunity for someone driven to Parliamentary sessions in secrecy. At the Barclay New York bar, Mr. Wilders discussed why he is building a new party and how he differs from Pim Fortuyn, the charismatic gay conservative who criticized Dutch policies on immigration and political asylum. Mr. Fortuyn was a politically popular figure, but he was gunned down in May 2002 by an animal-rights activist prior to an election.

"I'm not Pim Fortuyn. I want people to judge me on who I am. I am Geert Wilders. What we share is our anger, and that the popular voice is not being translated into policy."

Whether or not he finds a receptive ear among the conservative elite, Mr. Wilders will keep pitching.

"I want to explain what's going to happen in Holland and also to ask for support-political support, maybe financial support, all the support possible."

-Michael Calderone

The Transom Also Hears …

… that Bill Murray was a man of few words at the New York Times Arts and Leisure Weekend "Times Talks" on Friday, Jan. 7. After the notoriously press-shy actor was interviewed by Times scribe Lynn Hirschberg, he was approached by A.P. radio journalist Jane Waldman. "May I ask just one question?" she implored. "Sure," said Mr. Murray. "That was it."

-N.H.

The credit-card debt towering over our heads. The friend we refused to bail out of a small-town lockup. The sheer emotional mess of our lonely lives. And whether we're giving enough money to the charities we appear on television to promote.

For pop star Jessica Simpson, along with Rosie O'Donnell, Derek Jeter and plenty of other stars, carefully cultivating relationships with select charitable foundations-or founding one's own-is a part of the job. There's the oft-touted need to use one's advantages to help others. And all that altruism makes for some great headlines!

If some stars use causes to benefit from the attention, plenty of others use the attention they get to benefit causes. Who are we to say which are which?

Leonardo DiCaprio and Sandra Bullock are giving plenty to tsunami disaster relief, and Oprah Winfrey and Rosie O'Donnell have won praise for the sheer size and the efficiency of their charitable organizations. But there are a few celebrities-like Calvin Klein and Whitney Houston-whose groups are either in debt or haven't donated very much money. Whatever their intentions, their results are something we can judge.

So The Observer decided to take a look at several dozen celebrities and their charities-to see how much money they're raising, how much they're giving away and how much they've squandered.

"A lot of celebrities will set up a foundation with a lot of hoopla and fanfare and don't put their own resources into it-for some reason, they're chintzy-and don't ask their wealthy friends for money either," said Daniel Borochoff, the president of the American Institute of Philanthropy, a charity watchdog group. "Sometimes they'll get family and friends involved that don't know what they're doing, so the charity ends up poorly managed."

According to industry guidelines, about 60 percent of a charity's expenses should go directly to charitable activities. While most of the charities on this list meet that target-Jessica Simpson and Vince Carter, shame on you-others are falling into debt or inactivity.

"Michael Jackson's had a number of charities that didn't amount to anything," said Mr. Borochoff. "I've been told a lot of egregious stories in confidence, so I can't tell you the really good stuff!"

Some of the best-respected celebrity charities are the Lance Armstrong Foundation and the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, according to Sandra Miniutti, director of external relations and spokeswoman for Charity Navigator, another charity watchdog.

"On the flip side, one of the most well-known poorly run charities is Operation Smile, which has partnered with Jessica Simpson," she said. "A relatively low percentage of their budget is going to the services they're in the business of providing and instead go to high administration and fund-raising expenses.

"The majority of celebrity-affiliated charities are well-run. However, what we say to donors is: Just because a celebrity endorses the charity doesn't mean it's an excellent charity."

See for yourself. The entries below show how much the celebrities raked in and the percentage of the charities' expenses ("Ratio of Program Expenses" in philanthropy-speak) that actually went to charitable activities.

Rosie O'Donnell

Charity: The For All Kids Foundation

Goals: To provide financial supportto nonprofit programs serving ecnomically disadvantaged and at-risk children.

2003 Assets: $35,217,244

2003 Revenue: $1,694,320

2003 Expenses: $2,991,681

2003 Program Expenses: $2,393,529

Ratio of Program Expenses: 80 percent

C.E.O. Compensation: $106,412*

*Treasurer Daniel Crimmins' company, DPC Management, located in a suite down the hall from the foundation, provided investment advice for $304,476.

Christopher Reeve

Charity: Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation

Goals: To fund research that develops treatments and cures for paralysis caused by spinal-cord injury and othercentral-nervous-system disorders.

2003 Assets: $13,287,227

2003 Revenue: $14,168,116

2003 Expenses: $17,389,633

2003 Program Expenses: $12,141,308

Ratio of Program Expenses: 70 percent

C.E.O. Compensation: $220,000

Charity Navigator Rating: III

Lance Armstrong

Charity: Lance Armstrong Foundation

Goals: To increase awareness, encourage the government to take action, and address the health-policy concerns of people battling cancer, and to support their families.

2003 Assets: $9,928,999

2003 Revenue: $9,043,412

2003 Expenses: $10,541,883

2003 Program Expenses: $8,523,966

Ratio of Program Expenses: 81 percent

Highest Salary: $133,338

Charity Navigator Rating: IIII

Britney Spears

Charity: Britney Spears Foundation

Goals: To raise funds to benefit selected charities.

2003 Assets: $74,737

2003 Revenue: $342,907

2003 Expenses: $516,826

2003 Program Expenses: $391,028 ($1,106,781 in 2002)

Ratio of Program Expenses: 75 percent

Highest Salary: $30,741

Vince Carter

Charity: Embassy of Hope Foundation

Goals: To raise funds for organizations and individuals who work to improve the quality of life for children.

2003 Assets: $25,570 ($53,898 in 2002)

2003 Revenue: $152,930

2003 Expenses: $185,690

2003 Program Expenses: $48,345 ($127,229 for fund-raising)

Ratio of Program Expenses: 26 percent

Highest Salary: No paid employees

Jessica Simpson

Charity: Operation Smile (Ms. Simpson is the national spokeswoman)

Goals: To repair childhood facial deformities; to build public and private partnerships that advocate for sustainable health-care systems for children and families.

2003 Net Assets: $9,319,733

2003 Revenue: $11,422,567

2003 Expenses: $10,995,539

2003 Program Expenses: $6,244,788

Ratio of Program Expenses: 56 percent

Highest Salary: $176,538

Charity Navigator Rating: I

Jayson Williams

Charity: Jayson Williams Foundation

Goals: Youth Education and Counseling

2003 Net Assets: –$7,051 (deficit)

2003 Revenue: $62,342

2003 Expenses: $69,393

2003 Program Expenses: $62,918

Ratio of Program Expenses: 90 percent

Highest Salary: No paid employees

Muhammad Ali

Charity: American Parkinson's Disease Association

Goals: Founded in 1961 to "Ease the Burden and Find the Cure" for Parkinson's through research, as well as patient and family support and education.

2003 Net Assets: $11,021,906

2003 Revenue: $11,501,031

2003 Expenses: $8,590,305

2003 Program Expenses: $6,263,257

Ratio of Program Expenses: 73 percent

Highest Salary: $162,435

Charity Navigator Rating: III

Tiki Barber

Charity: Fresh Air Fund (Mr. Barber is on the board of directors)

Goals: Over 10,000 New York City children enjoy free Fresh Air Fund programs annually.

2003 Net Assets: $96,363,662

2003 Revenue: $14,588,390

2003 Expenses: $13,112,546

2003 Program Expenses: $9,897,264

Ratio of Program Expenses: 75 percent

Highest Salary: $233,871

Charity Navigator Rating: II

Paul Newman, Julia Roberts

Charity: Hole in the Wall Gang Fund

Goals: A nonprofit summer camp and year-round center which serves children and their families coping with cancer, sickle-cell anemia, H.I.V./AIDS or other life-threatening illnesses.

2003 Net Assets: $43,792,497

2003 Revenue: $4,821,671

2003 Expenses: $6,074,557

2003 Program Expenses: $5,207,971

Ratio of Program Expenses: 85 percent

Highest Salary: $113,500

Charity Navigator Rating: II

Bruce Willis

Charity: Willis Foundation

Goals: Raise funds to benefit charities.

2003 Net Assets: $874

2003 Revenue: $312,000

2003 Expenses: $111,688

2003 Program Expenses: $107,500

Ratio of Program Expenses: 96 percent.

Highest Salary: No paid employees

Calvin Klein

The Calvin Klein Foundation

2003 Assets: $8,728

2003 Revenue: $57

2003 Expenses: $125

2003 Program Expenses: $0

Ratio of Program Expenses: 0 percent.

Highest Salary: No paid employees

Oprah Winfrey

Charity: Oprah's Angel Network

Goals: Grants awards to grassroots organizations in under-served communities that assist people with basic human needs, dignity and educational initiatives.

2003 Assets: $7,430,851

2003 Revenue: $4,967,827

2003 Expenses: $2,173,896

2003 Program Expenses: $1,930,895

Ratio of Program Expenses: 89 percent

Highest Salary: $58,805

Michael J. Fox

Charity: Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research

Goals: Dedicated to ensuring the development of a cure for Parkinson's disease within the decade.

2003 Assets: $15,738,571

2003 Revenue: $16,335,971

2003 Expenses: $17,881,605

2003 Program Expenses: $15,989,657

Ratio of Program Expenses: 89 percent

Highest Salary: $210,000

Bruce Springsteen

Charity: Thrill Hill Foundation

2003 Assets: $3,206,479

2003 Revenue: $1,009,354

2003 Expenses: $128,102

2003 Program Expenses: $128,000

Ratio of Program Expenses: 100 percent

Highest Salary: No paid employees

Whitney Houston

Whitney Houston Foundation for Children

2003 Fund Balance: -$6,144 (in debt)

2003 Revenue: -$270

2003 Expenses: $2,027

2003 Program Expenses: $0

Ratio of Program Expenses: 0 percent

Highest Salary: n/a

Derek Jeter

Charity: Turn 2 Foundation

Goals: Established to identify and fund nonprofit organizations in Western Michigan and New York City which focus on substance-abuse prevention and treatment for youth.

2003 Assets: $2,010,369

2003 Revenue: $1,549,729

2003 Expenses: $1,157,444

2003 Program Expenses: $973,985

Ratio of Program Expenses: 84 percent

Highest Salary: No paid employees

Russell Simmons

Charity: RUSH Philanthropic Arts Foundation

Goals: To provide opportunities, facilities and funding to artists of diverse cultural background.

2003 Total Assets: $781,142

2003 Revenue: $953,620

2003 Expenses: $912,058

2003 Program Expenses: $716,735

Ratio of Program Expenses: 78 percent

Highest Salary: $93,746

Joe Torre

Charity: Joe Torre Family Foundation for Margaret

Goals: Dedicated to fund and develop education programs that will end domestic violence.

2003 Net Assets: $278,847

2003 Revenue: $337,172

2003 Expenses: $58,325

2003 Program Expenses: $50,000

Ratio of Program Expenses: 85 percent

Jane Pauley/Gary Trudeau

Grandison Foundation

2003 Assets: $2,538,830

2003 Revenue: $375,863

2003 Expenses: $338,910

Total Charitable Expenses: $325,500

Ratio of Program Expenses: 96 percent

Highest Salary: n/a

The following celebrity charities have not filed tax returns since 2002:

Aerosmith Foundation (debt of $5,060 in 2001)

Donald J. Trump Foundation (net revenue of $350 in 2002)

Brokaw Family Foundation (net revenue of $32,750 in 2002)

Arod Foundation (Alex Rodriguez) (debt of $21,369 in 2002)

Bernie Williams Foundation (debt of $28 in 2002)

Michael Bolton Charities Inc. (debt of $160,606 in 2002)

Christy Turlington Charitable Foundation (debt of $15,452 in 2002)

Peter Jennings Foundation (net revenue of $125,348 in 2002)

Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund (the Baldwin brothers) (net revenue of $183,558 in 2002)

Robin Hood Foundation (Gwyneth Paltrow, Harvey Weinstein are on the board) (net revenue of $7,742,820 in 2002)

Ennis William Cosby Foundation (debt of $111,975 in 2002)

William Henry Cosby Jr. and Camille Olivia Cosby Foundation (debt of $268 in 2002)

The Gere Foundation (net revenue of $1,540 in 2002)

Tommy Hilfiger Corporate Foundation (0 percent ratio of charitable expenses in 2002)

The Hilfiger Family Foundation (debt of $15,737 in 2002)

The Justin Timberlake Foundation, which provides financial aid to education groups who develop or enhance music programs in the public schools, hasn't filed a return since 2002, when it reported assets of $6,306 and $141,077 in program services (a 74 percent ratio of its total expenses).

SantaCon-which began in New York in 1998-started out this year at Triple 8 Palace in Chinatown. After some early-morning dim sum, the crowd hit up Central Park, Times Square, Macy's and several bars on the way. The Transom caught up with the festivities at Jake's Dilemma on Amsterdam Avenue. Spirited Saint Nicks played beer pong, foosball and danced. The SantaCon Web site encouraged participants to be creative, and the costumes ranged from Elvis Santa to cross-dressing Santa, with just about everything in between.

"The best part is, you don't know where you're going next," said Dave Chaffin, who has taken part in SantaCon the past four years. "The Santa suit really unites everyone."

"Santas on the move! Santas on the move!" began a chant from somewhere in the bar. Quickly, hundreds of Santas swallowed their pints, lined up on the sidewalk and marched boisterously down 81st Street. Unity, indeed!

"Is this a strike?" asked one bewildered Upper West Sider, as if an army of radicalized department-store Santas tossed the children off their laps and hit the streets. She may have been confused by the protest sign reading, "Stick It Up Your Chimney," from the Union of Flying Reindeer.

The Santas headed down into the subway, to the chagrin of awestruck bystanders hoping to get a seat on a quiet train. Underground, the voices echoed loudly, and some pulled out their photocopied song books with dirty carols such as "O Come All Ye Faithless," "Deck My Balls" and "Police Navidad." An impromptu conga line broke out on the C train, while a couple of smashed Santas took pulls from a fifth of Jack Daniels.

The next stop was Rockefeller Center, where throngs of tourists lined the sidewalk, gaping at the lighted Norwegian spruce. Some mothers held onto their wide-eyed children as a seemingly endless line of rowdy Santas pushed through the crowd (however, a few less-surly Santas gave candy canes out to the kids).

"I see you when you're sleeping," said one belligerent Santa to group of giggling young women. In addition to crass comments, Santas also passed judgment on the spectators-and this reporter-deciding who had been naughty or nice this year.

"What paper you from?" asked one burly Kris Kringle.

" The New York Observer."

"Oh, definitely naughty. No presents for you."

-Michael Calderone

The Nose Knows

"This is it!" squealed a teenage girl tottering on chunky foam-platform shoes. She and a friend had come upon a velvet rope at a trendy Chelsea club early one recent weekday evening. After checking their names off on his clipboard, the bouncer pulled the rope aside, granting them admission to the club's interior, where electronic dance music thumped and scores of other adolescents congregated.

The girls had been invited to the nightclub by Steven Pearlman, a Park Avenue plastic surgeon. The soirée served as a kind of self-improvement open house, where high-school-aged girls unhappy with their appearance could consult with experts in facial cosmetic surgery, diet, exercise, skin care and hair styling.

"It's not just a nose job these days," said Dr. Pearlman, who has a Cheshire-cat grin and bears a faint resemblance to the actor James Spader. "Girls gain confidence after their surgeries and want to improve many other elements of their appearance. For example, girls with big noses often have big, frumpy hairdos. We can direct them to a stylist who can help fix that."

The evening's multi-disciplinary approach to transformation echoed trends in reality television, where programs like Extreme Makeover and The Swan show radical transformations managed by teams of surgeons, life coaches and cosmetologists. Dr. Pearlman said that many of his young patients admire the looks of media personalities like Catherine Zeta-Jones and Jennifer Aniston, but they hope the surgery will yield a look that is still somehow "their own."

Plied with grown-up-looking drinks served in martini glasses (but made only from fruit juice, of course), the teens took turns sitting with a woman named Liz, who was conducting on-the-spot computer consultations, showing prospective patients how they might look with pruned proboscises. "I feel like a fortune teller," Liz giggled as a teen with a slightly hooked nose settled in at the table.

"Do you see a good nose in my future?" the young girl asked hopefully.

In addition to glimpses of their post-op streamlined visages, there was plenty to keep aspiring homecoming queens busy. One table was manned by Alistair Greer, a hunky personal trainer from Ireland. At another station, nutritionist Natalia Rose offered tips on diet regimens designed to help teen girls shed pounds. "Personally, I eat only raw foods," Rose told one mystified mother. "What? Like a plant?" the woman asked.

All the while, Dr. Pearlman, who is the president of the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, moved among his guests and some of their bewildered-looking mothers, explaining the prerequisites for surgery, which can cost, he said, between $7,000 and $10,000.

Just how young are some of Dr. Pearlman's patients? "It depends on the individual, but I can generally start on girls at 15 and boys at 16," he said. "Though with the guys, you have to be careful that they're not going to be doing any sports too soon after their surgery."

He said that he knows of a surgeon in Mexico who will operate on girls as young as 12, and a presentation shown at the club that night quoted a study saying that rhinoplasty on preteens does not affect nasal or facial growth.

"Ultimately, you have to assess the maturity of the patient," Dr. Pearlman explained. "She has to be emotionally grown-up."

Dr. Pearlman's presentation continued to flash on the screen of a nearby computer, suggesting that besides rhinoplasty and chin augmentation, the repair of a cleft lip is the only other facial surgery suitable for teens.

"What's a cleft lip?" asked one girl who was watching. "What's rhinoplasty?" asked another, sipping a virgin cocktail.

-Lee Bailey

Into the Groove

In the days before she discovered Kabbalah and decided that New York was naff, one of the best places for an up-close Madonna sighting was at GMHC's annual Dance-a-thon, a sponsored event to raise money for H.I.V./AIDS programs in the city. One of the last known sightings of the singer getting her groove on was back in 1997, the year that GMHC officially retired the event due to financial mismanagement-the event no longer served as a fund-raising initiative, according to executive director Ana Oliveira, barely breaking even on its costs.

Last Saturday evening, the GMHC hosted the official "Return of the Dance-a-thon" at the Jacob Javits Center. No Madge in sight, but over 3,000 people danced to a revolving set of D.J.'s that included Danny Tenaglia and Junior Vasquez. Free pretzels, bananas and water were provided for sweaty dancers taking a break from their sponsored dance sessions.

The celebrity quotient at this year's event was noticeably thin-Naughty by Nature's Vinnie Brown, Queer Eye culture maven Jai Rodriquez and Alan Cumming, along with Rosie Perez and recently crowned Miss New York Meaghan Jarenski-perhaps owing to the widespread impression that the virus is no longer a pressing concern in the city, since the availability of drug cocktails has kept thousands of H.I.V.-positive New Yorkers alive.

"You don't see skeletal people walking around these days, but people still die of the disease," said Mr. Cumming, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words "Drug Dealer." (He later showed The Transom the back of his provocative garment, which was in fact promoting the "Keep a Child Alive Initiative," which gets drugs to children with H.I.V./AIDS in Africa.)

"The worst thing is that the spotlight's gone off it," said Mr. Cumming. "People aren't being educated about it, and the only form of government education is abstinence. You can't ask young people to stop having sex," he said. "That's ridiculous."

The actor, who said he intended to hit the dance floor a little later, expressed frustration at the lack of concern regarding infection among younger gay men, but thought the recent hype around drug-induced unsafe sex was overstated. "There's a lot of bare-backing going on, but it's too easy to blame it on crystal," he said.

-Shazia Ahmad

Let the Sunshine In

For most people, the highlight of the office Christmas party is watching co-workers hit on the interns and, if you're lucky, the occasional receptionist vomiting on herself. However, when you work at Ken Sunshine Consultants-which represents the likes of Justin Timberlake, Leonardo DiCaprio, Barbra Streisand, Ben Affleck, Ricky Martin and Hilary Duff-the fun comes in guessing which A-listers are going to show up and let Mr. Sunshine parade them past the cubicles. On the night of Monday, Dec. 13, Ben Affleck and Leonardo DiCaprio made an appearance at the office headquarters on Fifth Avenue, stopping conversations wherever they went as partygoers abandoned their chatter to gawk. Other lower-wattage personalities meriting curious glances were Carson Daly, Mark Green and Al Sharpton. And then there was Christine, a guest dancing in front of the D.J., doing her best impression of Elaine in that infamous Seinfeld episode.

-Noelle Hancock

The Transom Also Hears …

… that Hedwig and the Angry Inch star John Cameron Mitchell is directing the next video for the emo band Bright Eyes. Mr. Mitchell is open to casting people of all sexualities, ages and ethnicities, but is especially looking for people in serious relationships. "Basically, we want open-hearted people of all kinds," said Mr. Mitchell. The production will be a night shoot, to take place between the holidays-either Dec. 28, 29 or 30. To keep things lively, Mr. Mitchell plans to host a dinner party, complete with board games, for the entire cast before the shoot.

-N.H.

… that on the night of Friday, Dec. 10, designer Zac Posen, actress Eva Mendes and singer Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas were cavorting about the palm trees of Bungalow 8, while Sean (P. Diddy) Combs made the rounds with an entourage of three, Liev Schrieber and Luke Wilson held court in a banquette, and brother Owen (dressed down in jeans and a baseball cap) was titillated by three buxom gals who kept the actor's interest by taking turns grinding up against each other.

-N.H.

All that was left was to call Ms. Nixon's publicist, Carrie Ross, to get a reaction. But Ms. Ross was doing her job, too: She begged the duo to sit on the story, according to Mr. Rush-just for a day-so Ms. Nixon could get through a press conference promoting her Sundance Channel series, Tanner on Tanner.

That's the way the gossip business has operated since the days of Luella Parsons, an era both more and less civilized than ours: show a little compassion now, get a little cooperation later. Ms. Ross promised Mr. Rush and Ms. Molloy an exclusive comment from Ms. Nixon discussing her relationship in exchange for their forbearance.

The following day, however, someone leaked news of the interview to the media-gossip blog Gawker.com, and the site's editor, Jessica Coen, gladly posted the following item under the heading "Ruminating on Cynthia Nixon": "Wouldn't it be funny if 'Sex and the City' alum Cynthia Nixon, like, came out as a lesbian to a local tab (maybe even one that isn't the Post or Newsday) in the next 24 hours? Seriously, what are the chances of something crazy like that?! We're cracking up just thinking about it. We also laughed about urban legends like alligators in the sewers, so who knows? 'Cause we KNOW there be some alligators in the sewers.

"But then again, we smoked an assload of meth at the Dark Room last night. What's a Cynthia Nixon?"

By the end of the day, both the Daily News and the New York Post were working on cover stories about Ms. Nixon's revelation.

"Essentially, we're all writing a gossip column together on the Internet," Mr. Rush observed-and without much cheer. In fact, the gossip columnist has little to celebrate as the rest of the world rejoices in the emergence of the civic-minded, collaborative environment that the pioneers of the World Wide Web foresaw years ago. For New York, controlling information-especially about celebrities!-has long meant controlling the world. And for the masters of that universe, a little democracy is a dangerous thing.

Welcome to 2004, the year in which gossip got out of the hands of the powerful Hollywood publicists and Manhattan lawyers and was dumped in the lap of the average New Yorker. Power to the people!

Because it was, after all, not Ms. Nixon's publicist that kept Rush and Molloy from getting their scoop. It was some anonymous New Yorker, writing into Gawker.com with a fresh tip. Did you just see Ethan Hawke stumble out of a bar? Write it in to Gawker Stalker! Ten more readers will probably be able to trace his circuitous walk back home to Chelsea. Cindy Adams has got nothing on you. Did you just shred a document in the mailroom at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia? Might want to stick it in your pocket.

"People know that we're a small operation and we can react quickly," said Bill Bastone, editor of the Web site thesmokinggun.com. His site publishes public (and sometimes private) documents-lawsuits, arrest warrants, performance riders-that tell the stories of the stars in terms so antiseptic, they're lurid. The site had its big break in 2000, when it uncovered restraining orders filed by a former fiancée of Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? bachelor Rick Rockwell, who allegedly had threatened to kill her if she broke off their engagement. But just as often, it's the random tipster that puts them on the trail-a tipster who would have had to be vetted mercilessly by more traditional operations like Neal Travis' old column in the New York Post.

"It's instant gratification, and people gravitate toward that," said Mr. Bastone, explaining that print columnists ignore the new generation of online gossips at their peril. "If you pick up Liz Smith, I don't think she's ever mentioned an online site because I doubt she surfs blogs, and it reflects well on Rush and Molloy and Richard Johnson that they're willing to acknowledge this other world that's also doing what they're doing."

"In New York, blogs are setting the gossip agenda for the day," said Janice Min, editor of Manhattan-based gossip-glossy Us Weekly, noting how the stories are increasingly slipping away from both the gossip purveyors and the celebrities themselves. "You can now follow the lives of people in real time."

With all of this "file-sharing," it's hard to keep a premium on gossip in this town now. Once upon a time, secrets were a strong currency in Manhattan's power elite. But as the sheer number of gossip sites on the Internet grows, secrets become increasingly difficult to keep-and like the not-so-almighty dollar, "the scoop" is dropping in value.

"Publicists have lost a lot of power," said former gossip columnist Marc Malkin. "They can't just have the In Style treatment of their clients anymore."

With all of New York as their staff, sites like Gawker keep the gossip coming.

"Sometimes when I think that I've got a lot of sightings in the column, I look at Gawker, and they'll have 90 inches of sightings," sighed Richard Johnson of Page Six fame.

Indeed, since Page Six's Nov. 22 one-liner about Ethan Hawke dining at the Mayrose diner with estranged wife Uma Thurman, Gawker Stalker has posted seven sightings (totaling 450 words) detailing the actor's to-ing and fro-ing, including fun details about his carrying a Hello Kitty purse.

Perhaps their only hope is a sort of chemotherapeutic one: If the public gets overloaded on gossip, it might just get sick.

"People have a limited amount of time in their day," Mr. Johnson said. "And Page Six is tight and well-edited, so readers get the biggest bang for their buck."

In case you think it's just a word game, consider that new breed of gossip, the photo exclusive. Now that pictures are worth a thousand dollars (at least) and cell-phone cameras are ubiquitous, everyone is a potential paparazzo. As it gets easier to transmit photos electronically, don't be surprised if the photo-filled weekly mates with the blog and spawns an entirely new beast.

After all, unlike newspapers, which operate under libel laws and are proofread by lawyers, the Internet is mostly a laissez-faire market, and the gossip therein is equally unchecked, as Lindsay Lohan recently discovered. After the story got out that she'd lost her purse at a party last week, it didn't take long before pictures of her license, American Express black card and a supposed "big fat vial of coke" popped up on blogs. While the evidence was quickly proven to be fake, the damage had already been done.

Suddenly,publicists have gone from professional image makers to damage controllers. "This business used to be based on relationships, which were nurtured over years and through plenty of expensed dinners and drinks-you'd feed stories to the right columnists and, in return, give them a little dirt on somebody else's client," one longtime personal publicist reflected. "Now I get phone calls everyday from gossips who are calling me about some crazy shit they found on the Web: 'Did your client overdose after a party at Dublin's? I read it on some Web site …. I heard about it from a friend of a friend of somebody's dog walker.' It's out of control."

The Internet has turned gossip into a worldwide game of "telephone," with stories boomeranging across the Internet as facts are easily misconstrued and then built upon.

"Bloggers are welcome to do reporting and confirm rumors, but they don't seem to want to be troubled," said Mr. Rush. "Probably because no one pays them."

In the meantime, Ms. Min points out one important difference between the blogs and the old-school gossips: Gossips report. Blogs decide.

She pointed to a recent rumor that Freeman's had refused to serve the Bush twins when they stopped by the hip eatery. The restaurant has since denied the story.

"What's troublesome about this accelerated, frantic gossip cycle is that some people don't care if the information is true or false," she said.

"Gossip was once rarefied-but because so much of it is needed, now a lot of it is simply made up, glamorized, fictionalized and added to," Ms. Smith complained.

As for the old-fashioned ritual of reporting out a story-especially celebrity gossip, which often involves legal problems, personal injuries or scandalous sex-the new generation doesn't always have time for such obligations.

"One time there was a crackpot rumor that Matt LeBlanc was in a crazy motorcycle accident and was languishing in an L.A. hospital," said Defamer's Mark Lisanti. "So I called the hospital where he reportedly was, ended up on hold in a computerized system and hung up. That was my foray into reporting."

Jonathan Cheban looks familiar-too familiar. Biting on rock shrimp tempura, he absently ran a hand through his longish dark hair. He was casual but stylish in Levi's, a long-sleeved gray T-shirt peeping out from under a collared navy Polo, his feet encased in black Louis Vuitton shoes. ("They're like butter!") Fellow diners nodded in his direction or shot him a curious glance. Maybe they recognized the 31-year-old New Jersey native from the glossy pages of Us Weekly or Star magazine, where he's one of those anonymous types in the background of all the flash-heavy paparazzi shots, partying with Paris, snacking on sushi with Mischa. At the front rows of Fashion Week, in banquettes at Butter and even as an escort on the red carpet, Mr. Cheban is often seen with the likes of Scarlett Johansson, the Olsen twins, Kelly Osbourne, the Hilton sisters and Nicole Ritchie.

Mr. Cheban proudly described how he and Paris share a birthday, and when the pair turned 28 and 20, respectively, their party at Eugene was sponsored by Playboy. "I still remember how, on the invite, my name was first and Paris was second. It was 'WITH Paris Hilton,'" he said, poking the air with his chopsticks for emphasis. Nightlife impresario Noah Tepperberg, who was managing Eugene at the time, counts the event as one of his all-time favorites. "I will always remember that party as one of the best nights of the whole year," Mr. Tepperberg said. "The guest list was everyone who's anyone: Lenny Kravitz, Puff Daddy, Carmen Kass, Jay-Z …."

Who is Jonathan Cheban? He's not famous, he's not a celebrity assistant, and he's not anyone's lover. Mr. Cheban is one of those Zelig-like creatures, a friend of the famous, who's somehow managed to break into the most celebrated echelon of our social caste system. While he's not making any headlines himself, he gets to reap plenty of the benefits of fame.

But who would even know how to go about befriending a celebrity? It's all about the approach. "He's not star-struck; he's not affected," said Lizzie Grubman, the accident-prone publicist who spent the summer handling publicity for the Hamptons hangout Star Room with Mr. Cheban, has known him for 10 years and counts him among her best friends. "A lot of publicists out there want to be the celebrity, and he's not like that at all. He's an entrepreneur."

Others are not so flattering. "He's the king of name-dropping-it's always 'Jessica told me' and 'When Paris and I were down in Miami,'" said one longtime celebrity-party denizen.

Former business partner Jake Spitz believes that Mr. Cheban's ambition guides him in friendship as well as business. "When Jonathan has his eye on something, he gets it, whether that's a celebrity friend or a job," said Mr. Spitz, who reportedly threw Mr. Cheban and others out of their Network PR office and changed the locks during their split back in 2001. "I think Jonathan has an eye for people who can do something for him-which everyone does who's in P.R. and is successful at it. Maybe he studies developing talent or something …. "

Mr. Cheban leaned down to check his Sidekick, which was constantly flickering on and off. "It's the best thing ever made," he gushed. "I was the first person in the country to get it, even before Lindsay [Lohan] and Nicky [Hilton] and Nicole [Ritchie]."

On his right arm, a white-and-black diamond bracelet spelled out "YOLO." "It stands for 'You Only Live Once,'" he explained, then pulled out a Harry Winston necklace featuring his interlocked initials. It sat incongruously on his chest next to the Polo rider on his shirt. "I always need bling to light it up a bit. You know, you don't want to be just an average person." An onyx Audemar Piguet watch straddled his other wrist. He used to wear a Rolex that he'd had custom-painted chocolate brown with diamond numerals. "The Rolex got a little boring," he said, shrugging. "Suddenly every random J.A.P. uptown was walking around wearing one and it was like, 'Uh, uh!'" When everyone eating at Houston's is wearing a Rolex, you know you gotta take it up, and the Audemar is definitely the next step up."

The waiter interrupted, and Mr. Cheban launched into an ordering campaign that put Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally to shame. "I'd like the tuna sashimi salad, but with the dressing from the soft-shell crab salad," he said at one point. "I'll check that one for you," the waiter replied. "No, they have it. I get it every night," he insisted. "Yes, but tonight-" "They'll do it. They do it for me every time," Mr. Cheban said firmly.

"My palate is very sensitive with food," he explained when the waiter left.

He likes being in control. He negotiates the streets of New York in his black 2004 Mercedes CLK because he can't bear to wait for cabs. And he has a problem with authority figures-something he struggled with during the years before he became his own boss. "It was really hard to take orders. Sometimes I knew I was better than the people I was working for."

Jersey Boy

These days, Mr. Cheban does have a day job: He's the driving force behind the celebrity T-shirt line Clarendon and the founder of CommandPR, which has overseen high-profile events like P. Diddy's white parties, Janet Jackson's album-release party and J. Lo's pre-party for the MTV Video Music Awards, and represents top clients like Evian, Polaroid, Radu and even Lean Cuisine. "Everybody else has their work separate, but my life and work are combined. That's why you'll never see me falling on the floor drunk," said Mr. Cheban. "If people see me messed up, then why would they trust me with $10,000 to represent their company?"

Jessica Simpson inadvertently kicked off Mr. Cheban's T-shirt line when she tugged on one of his tees to get her eyes Lasiked on Newlyweds. "When I saw that episode, I was like, 'We just had a 20-minute ad!'" said Mr. Cheban. T-shirt sales also soared after Mr. Cheban wisely gave his wares to high-profile friends like Lindsay Lohan and Mischa Barton. The Black Eyed Peas' Fergie chirped about the line in the September issue of Vogue.

Mr. Cheban's businesses might now ensure his status on the celebrity social circuit, but he planted those roots a long time ago, when he was, well, just another kid from the 'burbs. Once upon a time, Mr. Cheban did wait in line at places like Limelight and Club USA. It was the late 80's, and the Fort Lee High School student was the only child of a real-estate agent (his mother) and a diamond dealer (his father). Even while earning a communications degree from Hofstra, he was coming into the city every night to haunt "It" places like Café Tabac and Casa LaFemme. But he doesn't say much about it, as if his life's narrative didn't truly begin until he'd put down his first and last month's rent in Manhattan.

"New York clubs and restaurants were just concentrated with models and beautiful people," said Mr. Cheban, referring to what it was like as a Jersey teen coming into the city. "When you're 18, you think that they're living the best lifestyle. Of course, you grow up and realize that models live in miserable model apartments unless they're high-end supermodels. But then you find other levels of wonderment. You think about other things, like having a private jet, as opposed to being in a nice restaurant."

After graduating from college in 1995 the 22-year-old finally moved to Manhattan and landed an internship at the public-relations firm Jason Weinberg and Associates. Following that job was an insufferable turn in the research department for The Late Show with David Letterman-"They would make me go on the subway at 10 o'clock at night returning videos!" He spent much of his time sneaking over and trying to assist the talent department.

During his time at Letterman, über-publicist Desiree Gruber of Rogers and Cowan set Mr. Cheban up with an interview at the Los Angeles office, where he got a job as an assistant in the film department. He lasted 10 months in L.A.: "Everyone was in business suits all the time; it was all about agents, cars and swing dancers." Back in New York, he got a job as an assistant booker at Next Models, where he befriended beauties like Molly Sims and James King and escorted models to film premieres. He grew restless, and soon went to work for P.R. madam Peggy Siegal.

"She was nuts, screaming, but I loved it because she never screamed at me," he said. "I can still hear her going, 'Stuff and seal! Stuff and seal!' when we were at the office until 2 a.m. stuffing invitations."

One day a call came from Mr. Cheban's friend, mega-manager Benny Medina (whom he met through Naomi Campbell, whom Mr. Cheban was accompanying to a Vibe TV-show party in L.A.). Mr. Medina wanted Ms. Siegal to handle the $1.5 million birthday bash for 29-year-old burgeoning rapper Sean (Puffy) Combs. Ms. Siegal rebuffed the offer, saying she "doesn't do that type of event," until Mr. Cheban begged her to reconsider.

"He dug in and worked 20-hour days for the weeks leading up to it," says Mr. Medina. "The turnout was so great we could barely handle it."

After a year of not getting screamed at by Ms. Siegal, Mr. Cheban called socialite publicist Samantha Phipps at Paul Wilmot, and the two of them teamed up with another publicist, Jake Spitz, to form Network PR. Things were humming along when, again, Mr. Medina came calling. This time he hired the trio to organize a birthday party for an unknown actress named Jennifer Lopez at an unopened club called Halo.

"People are extremely loyal to him because if he says he's going to do something, he does it, and he will never embarrass you by not delivering for your artist," said Mr. Medina.

During its tenure, Network represented Banana Republic, Baccarat Crystal, Oscar de la Hoya, Backstreet Boys, Playboy, and clubs like Spa and Luan.

"I was like, 'Oh my God, we're 25 years old, with a staff of 20, and getting $10,000 retainers!' Every place we touched turned to gold," he said wistfully.

The group fractured in 2001 because Mr. Cheban and Mr. Spitz weren't "on the same page"-a split that played out in the city's gossip pages. "I didn't like the way he was fighting with people and screaming at them on the phone," Mr. Cheban explained, "because we had these big, big clients, and my reputation was so rock solid …. "

In the end, Mr. Spitz bought out Mr. Cheban's and Ms. Phipps' stake in the company, and Ms. Phipps moved to Los Angeles. "It turned out that three cooks in the kitchen didn't not work. We were way better over the dinner table than we were over the boardroom table."

Paris is Burning

As Mr. Cheban was tucking into a ball of vanilla ice cream to close out the meal, Nicole Ritchie called. She wanted him to meet up with her and Paris at Marquee, where they were filming the first episode of The Simple Life 3. First he decided to pop into Nobu Next Door and say hi to Mary-Kate Olson (or "M.K." as he calls her), who was dining with a young man in a baseball cap. "She lives in the area," Mr. Cheban explained. "This is like her local diner." After chatting a few moments, he walked back out. " That's going to be written up tomorrow," he sighed. "That was Ali she was eating with, the guy she supposedly dumped David Katzenberg for." (Indeed, the sighting popped up the next day on the media blog gawker.com).

"New York is tough, because places are so desperate to be written about that they'll sell out anybody. You have to know where you can go and who you can trust."

Inside the red-tinted walls of Marquee, wearing a skin-tight, shimmering gold dress, Paris was standing on a banquette, wriggling her butt back and forth for the paparazzi and tossing her professionally extended mane around. Guys wearing shit-eating grins climbed over each other and the furniture to get a look. Next to her, Nicole kept pulling up her too-long strapless gown. A pink diamond ring sparkled on her left hand, which she waved at her boyfriend, D.J. AM-who was spinning records and wearing a silver band on his left hand. ( Hmmm …. ) Mr. Cheban joined them in their private booth, where the girls greeted their friend with squeals and hugs. The Simple producers tried to get the girls to be more animated for the camera. Gamely, they stood up and shook their booties, grabbing Mr. Cheban's hand and pulling him in for the fun. He did the "sober person's bop," bouncing around with them, clapping his hands occasionally. At one point, he lit up a cigarette.

Tommy Lee ducked in and made a beeline for the V.I.P. area, where the group followed in what amounted to a human motorcade of bodies. Paris quickly busied herself with Wimbledon finalist Mark Philippoussis. Bridget Hall's statuesque frame could be seen across the room. "She needs to grow her hair out," Mr. Cheban observed. "I've known her forever. When she was 17, I took her to that awful Tim Allen movie, The Santa Clause, and was so bored I fell asleep. Very embarrassing."

"That fucking bitch!" Nicole screamed a bit later, pointing 10 feet away to a strapping blonde wearing jeans and dark, "intellectual" eye glasses. The woman was irate, convinced that the best friends were trying to oust her from her table. "You are not taking my fucking table!" she yelled. Mr. Cheban put his arm protectively around Nicole.

"I want her out of here immediately!" Nicole shouted. The blonde held her arms up in the air in a "bring it on" kind of way. Paris reached into an ice bucket passing by and, cackling, launched some cubes at her. "You're the fucking ugliest bitch ever!" Paris screamed. Mr. Cheban doesn't mind when he has to play bouncer for his chums. "I protect my friends when I'm out with them, whether we're at fashion shows, clubs or just walking outside. I'll block photographers' shots and I'll piss the paparazzi off," he said. "I was in Mr. Chow's with Mischa Barton having dinner, and a photographer came in the restaurant and just went and started taking pictures of us eating. And I literally went up to him and threw him out of the restaurant. I thought that was so disgusting."

Those moments serve as reality checks for Mr. Cheban. "When we're all out at Butter or something, no one's thinking about who's famous. It's only when you go outside and suddenly they're getting their photograph taken that you remember. Otherwise, it's like hanging out with your friends from college. We have our own inside jokes and our own lines …. "

Of course, that's also a part of the job. "No celebrity is anyone's friend," said one longtime publicist, who scoffed at Mr. Cheban's stable of celebrity show ponies. "They just hang out with people who can do something for them, and Jonathan makes them feel special and important. It takes a certain kind of personality to put up with that stuff, because it's a 24-hour job. It's exhausting."

Later, on the way in to the members-only club Upstairs at Cipriani the doorman eyed Mr. Cheban's Louis Vuitton shoes appreciatively. "Some day I'll get there," the man sighed longingly. "I'm not quite there yet, but some day."

"Don't worry-it took me awhile to get them, too!" Mr. Cheban said. "Actually, it totally didn't," he confessed minutes later. "I just didn't want to make him feel bad."

At around 2:30, Mr. Cheban called it a night, the streets nearly vacant as his Mercedes purred along. When he got home, Mr. Cheban was going to TiVo a reality show ( Cold Turkey, about people trying to quit smoking)-something he does every night until at least 3 in the morning.

At a stop light, he confessed that he finds going out to be a "pain in the butt." "When you deal with a lot of people and a lot of people know you, it becomes a little bit of a hassle. You walk in and end up saying hi to 50 people who want to talk about nonsense. That's why I like to go out with celebrities who get a lot more attention than me. I kind of hide behind them a little bit. It's a good decoy."

The Accompanied Library is located in an elegant space at the back of the National Arts Club, part of a chunk of apartments-37, to be exact-designed as "creative spaces," but really below-market rentals for the club's members to live in the cushy environs of Gramercy Park. Roomy and bright, the spaces are filled with original details and in reasonably decent repair. Several years ago, the club's president, O. Aldon James, found himself embroiled in a minor fiasco as the Manhattan district attorney's office raided the N.A.C. for non-payment of sales taxes (his brother and longtime club resident, John T. James, pled guilty in 2003 to evading taxes on jewelry bought and sold by illegally exploiting the club's nonprofit status) amid allegations that several tenants weren't being charged to reside there. A spokesman for the D.A.'s office told The Observer that the club is now in compliance after paying fines last year for not charging an occupancy tax to residents. Nor has the imbroglio stopped the club from reaching out to young idealists. So when Brooke Geahan, Iris Brooks and James Fuentes waltzed into the N.A.C. on March 1 with the idea of building a cultural empire (library and magazine), they were granted their wish.

"A library is just as exciting as any disco or nightclub," said O. Aldon James. And, of course, it helps to have some connections. One of Ms. Brooks' family friends, the architect Jacqueline Miro, alerted the girls that a space formerly occupied by the sculptor Chen Chi had been vacated, and Ms. Geahan's friend, Timothy Nye (philanthropist, media mini-baron and Uris scion), owned an apartment next-door and an upstairs gallery. "You're supposed to list your artistic accomplishments when you apply," said Ms. Geahan. Somehow, the projected venture was accomplishment enough.

Both 26, Ms. Geahan and Ms. Brooks are two charming young ladies-as Alice Quinn might describe them. Small and well-proportioned, they possess that distinctly elusive quality of good hair. Ms. Geahan is from Arizona, middle-class and studied the violin seriously until she left for college. She doesn't speak in specifics-almost as though English is her second language-but is fiercely determined. Thoughtful, more assuredly eloquent, Ms. Brooks is from New Orleans, heiress to rather bohemian parts of a Texas oil-and-gas fortune ("I did the whole debutante thing," she said-despite the fact that her parents, Dalt Wonk and Josephine Sacobo, are bona fide eccentrics), and studied dance rather intensively until she went to college. Co-founder Mr. Fuentes, a New Yorker, runs the Chelsea gallery Lombard-Freid.

Around 11 months ago, the trio began to collaborate on Accompanied, a venture designed to fill a void. It's a void they still aren't able to articulate.

"After leaving school, I really felt a lack of places to go to talk to people …. I wanted a forum to talk about things," said Ms. Brooks, searching for words. Ms. Geahan summed it up more succinctly: "Unless you spend money, you can't take a book home from Barnes and Noble's." Indeed. "Writers should be near their bread and butter"-books, she meant, not paper coffee cups and green straws. "The Society and Mercantile Libraries always close too early. There was never a place downtown to go and read. And I didn't have friends with Park Avenue flats with big libraries. I wanted my own place to go."

In the library's brightly renovated space at the National Arts Club, the towering bookshelves are only a quarter filled, mainly by a haphazard mixture of books donated by friends and family. There are a number of separate rooms with fireplaces and one rusty, claw-footed tub in the bathroom. The trio single-handedly renovated the space themselves after star architect Thierry Despont dropped out of the project (differences with his daughter, Catherine Despont, who was originally on the editorial board, may have been the reason). It is calm and uncluttered, just right for drinking milky coffee and musing on the only chapter of A la Recherché du Temps Perdu one has read or heard about. Not that one would need to read the rest of Proust's opus-as long as it can be discussed. After all, with its Sunday-brunch fixtures, the library is, much like Ms. Brooks intended, somewhere to go and "talk" to people. Reading-well, that may be a secondary activity: Ms. Brooks and Ms. Geahan claimed that they're too busy to read at the moment, although Ms. Geahan has succeeded at getting through Moby-Dick.

"By getting people to our space, literature will become more acceptable in a social context," Ms. Brooks said. "We would like our friends to go to a reading instead of an art opening." Ms. Geahan chimed in: "There are major problems with the literary community; it is failing to attract the community at large."

And how do they intend to bring literature to the masses, to enlighten New Yorkers in this video-saturated age? Book parties. "It's unusual for a literary book to have a party," Ms. Brooks explained. "When an artist has a show, the gallery has a private dinner and party for all the artist's friends. You just don't see the author celebrating! One has to support the arts in a way that's also celebratory, that's vibrant and fun. It's not that I want everyone hanging off the chandeliers-but authors deserve to celebrate. That's why we're offering 25 book launches a year. Authors should apply and say why they think their book deserves a party."

As for her own prose, there is none at the moment. Ms. Brooks claims that Accompanied is too much of a time commitment for any serious writing.

And the magazine is still in the works-its first issue won't be ready before late spring 2005. Ms. Quinn, who edited the fiction section of The New Yorker for a good 15 years, followed by a 17-year tenure as its poetry editor, hasn't seen any of the magazine's templates. "It remains to be seen whether they have an editorial vision," she said.

Ms. Brooks explains that the magazine's idea is not to confine itself to "an exclusively literary form …. It's going to be fun, not unbearably intellectual. It'll have a literary bent, a sense of humor, without sacrificing any of the smartness of it." They cite The Paris Review and Flair as well as early inceptions of The New Yorker as inspiration, although they agree that The New Yorker "has stopped addressing people like us, in the way that it once did." Ms. Geahan described it as "a lifestyle magazine with a literary twist."

Most intriguing of all-especially in a city that abounds with pretentious creative types publishing literary magazines on iMacs in their bedrooms-is how this untested trio managed to raise money in the first place. They've registered their venture as a nonprofit organization, with an income mainly generated by private and corporate donations, well-heeled benefactors and a benefit staged last March in the Gramercy Hotel. And Mr. Nye's 20 21 foundation acts as an umbrella organization for the library and magazine. "The library is a beautiful complement to the more artistically focused nature of 20 21," he stressed. "It gives Gramercy that sort of destination feel. They are creating an atmosphere, and no community thrives without an atmosphere."

Board member Alice Quinn agrees: "These girls have very nice style and tremendous drive. It's just a lovely, cozy space. When you have an event there, it's like being around a hearth. It felt very jolly. What could be better than having writers bring people in the space?"

-Jessica Joffe

Crying Wolfe

Tom Wolfe fans packed into the Neue Gallerie on the night of Nov. 8 to celebrate his new novel, I am Charlotte Simmons. But out there, all over New York, were critics and detractors-people who just don't like Tom Wolfe for one reason or another. Maybe they remember how he barbecued William Shawn and The New Yorker magazine in 1965 in The New York Herald Tribune, or eviscerated Leonard Bernstein a few years later in "Radical Chic." Maybe it was his cheerful attacks on modern art (The Painted Word) and modern architecture (From Bauhaus to Our House). Then there was his Harper's essay in 1989 on the state of fiction, which caused great outrage in the literary world and led to a public feud between Mr. Wolfe and his "three stooges"-Norman Mailer, John Updike and John Irving. Or maybe it's just those white suits he wears.

"Maybe it's you get it or you don't get it," said writer Charles (Chip) McGrath, who recently profiled Mr. Wolfe in The New York Times Magazine and who worked at The New Yorker during the Shawn era. "I would like to think that that has blown over. He was certainly persona non grata for a long time. You couldn't mention his name in The New Yorker when I was there. There was one guy, I forget who it was, who had the copy of ["Tiny Mummies! The True Story of the Ruler of 43rd Street's Land of the Walking Dead" and "Lost in the Whichy Thickets: The New Yorker"]-it was sort of samizdat. They had been Xeroxed countless times. Periodically you'd go and you'd read it, and it felt like the baddest thing you could do at The New Yorker in the mid-70's was to go and read those pieces.

"Some of it is part of his shtick, and he brings it on himself," Mr. McGrath continued, speaking of the reaction some have to Mr. Wolfe. "He once said that he wore the white suit because it annoyed people. And one of the puzzles about this guy is he's very shy-he's an incredibly well-mannered, polite man-and he loves to tweak people. He loves a good feud. Yes, he lives for the feud."

Former New Yorker editor Tina Brown echoed her former colleague.

"I think literary feuds are what all should be doing," she said. "It's better than having feuds about, you know, politics. It's a good time for some nice literary dust-ups. It means you care about books."

"Wolfe is arguably the finest writer in America today," said American Spectator editor R. Emmett Tyrrell. "So I can understand why Norman Mailer would be offended. I think you could call it pencil envy."

"He enjoys the criticism; he loves the fight," said Mr. Wolfe's wife, Sheila. "I think it depends upon the milieu: If he's writing about architects, then he likes to tweak the architects. If he's writing about artists, then he likes to tweak them. I don't know if he's celebrated anybody, has he? Oh, he celebrated Ed Hayes!"

Mr. Hayes (a.k.a. Tommy Killian in The Bonfire of the Vanities) said his friend was a great writer and a great man. "I think any great man has enemies, and I think that in most cases his enemies only make him greater," he said. "I mean, I have enemies and I'm quite proud of them. If you don't have enemies, you haven't done anything in your life."

A dozen or so people were lined up to pay their respects to Mr. Wolfe, who was wearing a double-breasted white flannel suit, blue striped shirt, periwinkle blue tie and faux spats shoes. He said he'd "heard" about a few critics and admitted he did like to infuriate certain people on occasion.

"But I can't assume the persona," he said. "I was so grateful to Bill Buckley when he described me as the matador having tea with his mother. I couldn't have said it better myself."

-George Gurley

Rebels and the Rapture

After presenting the Legendary Newshound trophy to Helen Thomas at Glamour Magazine's Women of the Year Awards on Oct. 8, Sam Donaldson came bounding into the makeshift pressroom at the American Museum of Natural History.

"All right, Ms. Thomas, why'd you steal the money?!" he shouted at her, bizarrely. "Answer the question! What's wrong with you?"

"When did you stop beating your wife?" she yelled back.

"I haven't!" he retorted.

Once the two calmed down, the first lady of the press told The Transom her feelings about the next four years. "Pain, pure pain" and "outrage," she said. "I think we're in a dangerous period."

Mr. Donaldson, however, cast a kinder eye over the W. presidency. "I'm from West Texas-El Paso-and I spent the first 26 years of my life out there, so I know this young man. If you're walking down a trail in West Texas and you see a rattlesnake-POW!" he shouted, pointing a "finger gun" at the startled group of reporters. "You don't stop to consider 'Is that rattlesnake really dangerous?', and you certainly don't stop to organize a coalition to deal with the rattlesnake. That would be silly." He then recalled a speech that J.F.K. delivered at American University when he and Ms. Thomas were covering the Kennedy administration. "The last paragraph of that speech began with these words: 'The world knows that America will never start a war …. ' Well, times change!" he shrugged.

Ms. Thomas continued to lambaste President Bush. "We don't have any eloquence anymore. We have not had a major speech on this war since May 1, 2003. Nothing is explained. We don't explain anything while we drop bombs."

"Bombs away!" Mr. Donaldson crowed.

Others who collected Women of the Year Awards Monday night include Carolina Herrera, who received the Fashion Force award from Katie Holmes; Olympian Carly Patterson, who was honored by Katie Couric; and the crusading 9/11 "Jersey Girls," who were presented their award by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.

To conclude the evening, Jon Stewart roasted his boss, honoree Judy McGrath, chairman of MTV Networks. In addition to the requisite wisecracks ("As I sat here this evening and witnessed this remarkable litany of women, one thing has stuck in my head: 'The guy who publishes Glamour-is his last name really Wackerman?' Is that real?"), Mr. Stewart brought some political comic relief: "It was a difficult election, but there is a silver lining. Understand that when the Rapture comes-when Jesus comes-and the righteous are lifted into Heaven, then the Democrats will regain control of the Senate."

-Noelle Hancock

Milla: Crack Is Still Back

Actress and L'Oreal model Milla Jovovich had a scare last year. "It was third-degree pre-cancer," Ms. Jovovich told The Transom at the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund gala. "I have to say that without this organization and the information they've given me, I wouldn't have asked my doctor for the test that found it. Everyone's at risk." She's now getting check-ups every four months. "It's another cross we have to bear on top of our periods," she said of ovarian cancer.

On Nov. 4, Ms. Jovovich, Donna Karan, Peter Boyle, Tommy Hilfiger, Lesley Stahl and model Natalia Vodianova (the wide-eyed minx currently staring out from the cover of W) showed up within the pink-hued walls of the Metropolitan Pavilion, where Trudie Styler accepted an award from the foundation before the Village People performed.

Ms. Jovovich sported a fluttery blue-and-peach floral dress that she was auctioning off to benefit the foundation. It was from the spring collection of Jovovich-Hawk, the clothing line she started with design partner Carmen Hawk, whom she's known for 10 years. They'd just sold their second collection to Fred Segal. "We're working with one seamstress out of my kitchen right now, so it's very mom-and-poppa right now, but that's what's great about it. It's very personal."

Ms. Jovovich recalled the time she got a little too personal at the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of her movie, The Fifth Element. "I wore this incredible Galliano outfit that, like, hardly covered anything, but covered exactly what needed to be covered, and it was really uncomfortable to wear all night. Then the back split open and Demi Moore stitched it up in the bathroom."

While the burgeoning designer claims she pays no attention to which way the sartorial trade winds are blowing ("I read more Scientific American than fashion magazines, so I don't even know what the spring trends are right now!"), one trend she was sorry to see was fall's rising waistlines. "No matter how big your butt is, hip-huggers always accentuate. I don't care what anybody says, if you have that little butt crack showing, that plumber's butt-that's the sexiest thing."

-N.H.

The Observer ’s intrepid cosmetics correspondent met this young pup of a makeup artist on a crisp Friday morning at Dylan’s Candy Bar, near his apartment. "It’s a total cliché, and as revolting as I feel saying it, I really do believe that Kevyn and I were kindred spirits in a lot of ways," Mr. Jessup said, munching on a concoction of Lucky Charms and Marshmallow Fluff. He was wearing high-waisted, disco-era black pants, a pinstriped black shirt and a denim jacket with a Kerry-Edwards button. "Kevyn’s mission in life was to make women not feel threatened by beauty—to make it a fun thing where people looked at nothing as a flaw, but merely as a beauty mark that defines and individualizes you," he continued. "There so much in cosmetics that involves human emotion. Makeup artists should almost be trained as therapists before we start."

Like many members of his profession, Mr. Jessup has a colorful background. He’s the only child of two cabaret singers (a fan of theirs apparently paid his delivery expenses). His peripatetic parents brought their only child on tour throughout toddlerdom. Mr. Jessup claims that he didn’t know any children, other than a single cousin, until he entered kindergarten.

Mr. Jessup’s father had inherited a 13-acre orange ranch in the San Joaquin Valley, and the family eventually settled there, opening a country store. When Craig was 5 years old, he said, he sold $2,000 worth of handmade quilts and homemade jams to Star Trek actor William Shatner. Later that year, Anjelica Huston passed by and bought a scoop of orange ice cream; her then boyfriend, Jack Nicholson, was waiting in the car.

Our li’l entrepreneur began doing business off the shoulder of Highway 65, selling sprigs of mint and greeting cards decorated with paint flung from a salad spinner. His first foray into the world of cosmetics was a mud mask made of soil from the orange groves and liquid dish soap. It was priced at 25 cents.

At the age of 9, Craig was put in Catholic school, where he immersed himself in the fashion and beauty world to escape "the mean kids": reading Vogue, religiously watching Style with Elsa Klensch with his grandmother (side by side in easy chairs), and mimicking Todd Oldham’s House of Style designs by using coffee filters on a Barbie doll.

When he was 13, Craig wrote Mr. Oldham a fan letter and got a handwritten note and a signed photo in return. After Mr. Jessup’s commendably progressive father took his son to Mr. Oldham’s perfume launch at the San Francisco Neiman Marcus, the designer invited the gangly teen to his fashion show in New York. "Every big model was in the show that year," Mr. Jessup said reverently. He met Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Kristen McMenamy—and their favorite makeup artist, Kevyn Aucoin, who granted Craig an autograph that read "Big kisses, gorgeous! Love, Kevyn."

"I just thought that was so New York and glamorous," Mr. Jessup said.

A few years later, he wangled a job as a makeup artist at the Prescriptives counter in a San Francisco Macy’s. By the time his bosses discovered he was only 16 years old, he was already bringing in a 150 percent increase in profits, he said.

After graduating from high school, Mr. Jessup went to New York and got an apprenticeship with Darac, the flamboyant director of artistic development for the Prescriptives cosmetics at Bergdorf Goodman. "My first year with Darac, I aged about 10 years—in good and bad ways," Mr. Jessup said. "I invested so much of my teenage life in this fantasy and came in and realized it was all a sham, which was slightly depressing: the ways the beauty and fashion industries take advantage of the emotional states of women and feed into women’s insecurities about their image, that moment where the hope turns into hopelessness and women think: ‘God, I wish I could look like that, but I never can.’ It can be like an abusive relationship." He shook his head.

Still, when Mr. Aucoin floated the possibility of a job with his new line, Mr. Jessup jumped at the opportunity to work under the great makeup artist.

Six months later, Mr. Jessup was manning the counter at Bendel when Kevyn Aucoin business manager Margo Haynes-Fason called him into the corner. "Something terrible has happened," she said. "Kevyn died."

"I thought I was going to die," Mr. Jessup said. "Everything seemed like it would just end immediately."

But it didn’t.

At Henri Bendel and on editorial and private assignments, Mr. Jessup tends the faces of top models, actresses, political figures and royalty. He refuses to name his famous clients. "It embarrasses me," he said. He calls it "shameless self-promotion" when unknown makeup artists try to raise their stock by attaching their names to celebrities. "You shouldn’t think about the makeup artist before you think about the person wearing the makeup," he said. "Kevyn didn’t attach himself to celebrities; they attached themselves to him. He was so enjoyable, they always wanted him on their arm."

Not that Mr. Jessup plans to remain in the shadows forever. The makeup artist is currently playing Judge Danforth in Marymount’s production of The Crucible and is developing a 1970’s-style variety show. After he graduates in May, he plans to find an agent to help him "horizontally integrate" his career. "It’s a privilege to work on people’s faces," he said, "but at some point you want to be the one people are putting makeup on."