Less than two months after the 5,000-square-feet condo at the Atalanta at 25 North Moore was auctioned off for $5.5 million by Eastern Savings Bank, the buyer, Mr. Stasis' One Platinum Company LLC, is taking Ms. Roy to court to evict her.

Mr. Stasis claims Ms. Roy, who did not respond to requests for comment, continues to inhabit the apartment, ignoring requests and demands from him and his reps. But while Mr. Stasis told The Observer that "we are entitled to a vacant apartment but she has ignored us and continued living there," the Terms of Sale from the foreclosure sale note that the property was sold "as is" with the physical order and condition "subject to any rights of tenants and/or occupants in possession." Translation: It's up to the buyer to evict any current tenant.

Jay Dankberg, a landlord/tenant lawyer and a former judge who acted as referee for the Dash condos' foreclosure auctions (another condo of Mr. Dash's also entered foreclosure), explained the specificities to The Observer. "If they won't leave voluntarily, then you have to evict them. It's called an ejectment action."

Mr. Stasis is pursuing just such an action in court on Sept. 23. Leading co-op/condo lawyer Steven Wagner explained that "they can't just change the locks on the door, but whatever rights she has to stay there were likely done away with in the foreclosure."

Mr. Dankberg, who is not involved in the eviction case, says that something like this could take from several weeks to several years, and cited a Bronx eviction case he is working on-it's been ongoing since 1997.

- A month ago the foreclosure auction of hip hop entrepreneur Damon Dash's Tribeca condo at 25 North Moore Street hit the press. The selling price at auction was $5.5 million and went to Platinum Capital. Now the deed in city records confirms a price of $5.6 million (the extra $100,000 possibly part of the new additional costs tabulation ACRIS is pioneering).

- According to the blog Harlem Bespoke, the former Harlem brownstone of Langston Hughes is back on the market for $1 million. The ivy-cloaked townhouse at 20 East 127th Street was listed last year for $1.2 million before taking a brief hiatus from the market.

cmalle@observer.com

On a recent blustery December night, rapper Mos Def was in the house. Dressed in brown slacks, shiny dress shoes, jean jacket and a cabby hat tilted to the side, he sipped a bottle of Rolling Rock, taking in the vibe. “It’s like a cross between early Hitsville, Andy Warhol’s Factory and a little bit of the Algonquin roundtable,” he told me. “But it’s something completely different.”

As it happens, this shape-shifting space has a name—DD172—a business plan and a onetime mogul making it all happen. DD is for Damon Dash, the 38–year–old fallen hip-hop impresario who thought it would be cool to start a hippie art collective right smack in the middle of one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Manhattan. It is, in short, the kind of scene you hoped still existed in Manhattan, but feared might have gone away.

“Everybody’s welcome here,” a beautiful Edie Sedgwick blonde named McEnzie Eddy told me. “You have to, um, have a certain spirit in order to feel welcome here.”

McEnzie is tall and slender as a ski pole, in her early 20s. Doesn’t walk so much as she floats. This is her space as much as anyone’s. She’s at the very top of the food chain here, a member of a select group of three people that has at times been referred to as “The Loop”—the inner circle that runs the place.

As the night heated up, McEnzie made the rounds—to a waifish girl who looks a lot like Cindy Lauper, at work on a wall painting, to a bearded guy mixing a recently recorded track with Mr. Dash.

McEnzie moved here from South Carolina, started working for Mr. Dash right out of college as his “assistant’s assistant,” and has moved up the ranks since. When she talks, she uses words like “wack and “ill” (as in so-and-so “is the illest dude I’ve ever met”), which indicates she’s spent a lot of time around her boss.

“This space has a certain type of feeling. … You can thrive here, you know?” She leaned back in her seat and half-closed her eyes, continuing a bit dreamily. “If you have that spirit, you recognize it right away when you walk in. And you don’t want to leave. And everyone in here recognizes it in you. … You feel it, you know? There’s just like a—you feel it.”

DOWN THE HALL I found Mr. Dash, in tight jeans and chunky black-framed glasses, smoking a joint, a group of followers huddled around him like a football scrum. “Damn, my payroll just keeps getting bigger and bigger,” he said, to no one in particular. He’d just hired a new graphic designer—a young 20-something who’d shown Dash his portfolio and gotten himself on the payroll in the course of about three minutes. Then he grabbed me by the shoulder. “Come with me while I get a haircut.”

He headed into a private back room and slumped into a leather desk chair while a barber gave him a trim. “I’m a businessman,” he told me. And this new space, which he opened just a few months back, he said, is a “branding company.”

The idea is that this hippie experiment might give him a new life in New York, the city that made him and then the city that beat him down.

It’s been a depressing few years. In 2009, Mr. Dash’s marriage to his wife, fashion designer Rachel Roy, fell apart. Before that, in 2005, Mr. Dash had a famous falling out with Jay-Z that resulted in his leaving Roc-A-Fella Records. “I always looked at him like my brother, so I was just surprised that business came before personal friendship” he told me. There have been reports that he owes the State of New York around $2 million in back taxes, and that two Tribeca homes he owns are in foreclosure. “There’s truth to everything you read, a little bit. But it’s a recession,” he said.

But Google him, and you’ll stumble across the once flashier Dash —the Dash in Jay-Z’s music video for the song “Big Pimpin’,” aboard an oversize yacht somewhere off the tropical coast of wherever—a bottle of Cristal in each hand, voluptuous models all around. At the height of his power, he estimated his empire to be worth upward of $50 million (and others estimated it as high as $100 million). He had been dating singer Aaliyah when she died, tragically, in a plane crash. He co-founded Rocawear, a hugely successful clothing line, and executive-produced movies including The Woodsman, starring Kevin Bacon.

This mix of people and crafts is part of Mr. Dash’s shot at reinvention, and, he hopes, even financial redemption. “I’m a pretentious hippie,” he told me on more than one occasion. “This is what I should be doing. … Regardless of how I got here, I’m exactly where I want to be.” Mr. Dash said that in his days of Rocawear, Cristal and yachts, he was “compromising my brand—Ralph Lauren, that’s what I wanted to be.”

That could be the reason he’s doing all this now, and there’s probably truth to it. But what Mr. Dash has succeeded in creating here at 172 Duane Street is, above all else, his own hermetic world—far from the world that’s shunned him.

“Has Damon spoken to you about Wack World?” Nyssa Frank, the space’s gallery curator and Cyndi Lauper look-alike, asked me at one point.

That’s the name Mr. Dash, and most of the other people in here, use to describe everything outside these walls. “Everything is wack world out there,” Mr. Dash said. “Every corporate infrastructure—it’s like we’re a bunch of circles trying to fit in square pegs, and it doesn’t work. And that’s what everyone here feels. Like, I don’t fit in that world. Because the way it’s built, only a certain amount of people will win, and everyone else will lose and get exploited.”

It’s Mr. Dash’s own reality, where he is the unchallenged philosopher king. And to go along with it, he’s concocted his own business model. “Every business model created before the recession is defunct because it’s based on a healthy economy,” Mr. Dash explained. “Now there’s a new economy, all these business models are completely brand-new.” But he added, “We’ll make money, though—we gonna pay the bills.”

Toward that end, he’s seen to it that he’s a 50 percent partner in everything that goes on in this building. DD172 is essentially an umbrella organization housing a number of different projects, among them Creative Control, Mr. Dash’s online-content-production arm; America Knew, a forthcoming culture magazine; and VNGRD79, the Web-design arm. There’s also a gallery on the first floor.

Though Mr. Dash was vague about his financial arrangement with the landlord, he said he’s renting the space. (McEnzie said that, rent-wise, they’ve worked out a “creative deal” with the building’s owner.)

He’s already seeing some money come in from the BlakRoc album, a collaboration between indie band the Black Keys and various hip-hop eminences, including Mos Def, Ludacris and Wu Tang Clan’s RZA that came out this past September. “Look,” he said, “you don’t come out of financial troubles over night. But, I guess, if this is financial trouble, I like being broke.”

AT AROUND MIDNIGHT, Mos Def made his way up to a makeshift recording studio on the second floor to lay down an impromptu track. Earlier in the night, he’d told me it was his birthday. Now he’d had a few drinks, like most everyone else, and he was in the mood. I wandered around for a couple more hours, and soon the indie band Darlings in the basement was on.

On my way out, I caught up with Mr. Dash one last time. A ushanka sat squarely on his head as he sipped a red drink from a clear Dixie cup.

A joint went around, and I wondered if a place like this could really last long. Mr. Dash smiled, inhaled deeply, as if sucking in the entire room. 

“I’ll tell you in about three or four years if it’s worked,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen … but I don’t see any corporate infrastructure that’s living like this. So even though we’re indie, we still have an aspirational lifestyle.”

This is exactly what he’s always wanted, he continued, gesturing at the people around him. After years of compromising, he said, “it’s finally me.”

There was one more thing. As we stood on that staircase, I asked Mr. Dash whether, in his mind, all this could possibly be a reaction—against the old world he used to inhabit. “Probably,” he conceded, pressing his lips together in thought. But, he went on, “you can have that world—I don’t want it. That’s why I left.”

editorial@observer.com

Damon Dash is claiming that a feud between rappers Jay-Z and Kanye West was caused by Jay-Z's refusal to "knight" Mr. West onstage with a "gleaming chain." [R&M]

At a party in Miami, Paris Hilton and Stavros Niachros were "all over each other," just for old time's sake. [Star]

Apparently, MSNBC's Chris Matthews is just as loud and tactless in real life as he is on television. Mr. Matthews' fellow passengers on a Saturday train ride were treated to his shouted opinion on Hillary Clinton's possible role as Secretary of State: "She's just a soap opera. If he doesn't pick her, everyone will say she's been dissed again, we'll have to live through that again." [P6]

More than 70 exotic dancers have joined a lawsuit against Scores, accusing management of skimming money from their tips. [NYP]

Billionaire Ron Perelman and ex-wife Patricia Duff will return to court next month, this time to discuss the order of protection daughter Caleigh filed against her mother this summer over "emotional abuse." [P6]

A Comme des Garcons for H&M dress is already on eBay (it's a size 8 with a starting bid of $750, in case you didn't make yesterday's opening). [The Cut] 

A characteristically humble Kanye West on his career: "I realize that my place and position in history is that I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade, I will be the loudest voice...It's me settling into that position of just really accepting that it's one thing to say you want to do it, and it's another thing to really end up being like Michael Jordan." [AP]

Stylist Rachel Zoe seems to have patched things up with former client Nicole Richie, who made the stylist a household name by referring to her as "raisin face" and "lettuce cup" on her Myspace page. [P6]

Damon Dash, who co-founded Roc-A-Fella Records and Rocawear, is pretty much broke. [NYDN]

Top Chef is filming tonight at Eric Ripert’s Le Bernardin on West 51st Street. [Eater]

Actor Orlando Bloom made out with his on-again girlfriend, model Miranda Kerr, at Lure Fishbar in Soho. [P6]

House Bunny actresses Emma Stone, Rumer Willis, Anna Faris and Katharine McPhee all seemed to be getting along at the New York premiere of their film, while sullen-looking co-star Monet Mazur walked the red carpet alone. [NYDN, last item]

From time to time, particularly when running a few clicks behind schedule, The Transom likes to roll boldly onto a scene and not get caught up with the fine print of a press release. There is a certain “let the freedom bell ring!” sensation that comes with firing off questions willy-nilly based on a few words at the top of the invite.

Such was the case at the Viennese Opera Ball, where The Transom materialized on Friday night—why, look, a red carpet at the Waldorf-Astoria!

Hey, so, Anne! Anne Curry! What do you like about the opera?

“The opera?” the broadcastress asked in return. “Well, the costumes, theme, the passion—of course, more than anything, the passion.”

(The passion, excellent. The Transom knows a ripe thread when it sees one.) And what opera are you most passionate about?

“Hmmm,” she mulled, gripping the sides of a frilly Vera Wang gown. The event was black tie. At it happened, The Transom was wearing a pea-soup-green suit and suede boots. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think I know enough about opera to have a favorite. You keep asking about opera. Why opera?”

Silence. Eyeballs.

The armor was unraveling at a rapid pace. Good journalist that she is, she was certain to twist the knife. “Are you with the Opera News or something?” Ms. Curry asked.

It turns out the 52nd Viennese Opera Ball has very little to do with opera and everything to do with fund-raising for orphanages around the world. There is also a bit about waltzing and a real live horse-drawn carriage being paraded into the main ballroom.

“I’m here because it’s a fund-raiser for children who are orphaned, including children who were in the tsunami and many other tragedies in the world,” said Ms. Curry. “I covered the tsunami and I care about children.”

She conceded that as a co-host of the event, she would be doing a little waltzing later on.

Yoo-hoo! Fergie’s back, y’all! The party had moved to a reception room, and the Duchess of York had walked in looking divine in a Luca Luca gown with a train. (Oh no, she didn’t—but oh yes, she did.)

“It’s about providing children a place to have a family unit. These villages provide a place where they can be together and grow up together, which is so right,” said the duchess.

It was her first time attending the ball. “I’m not really a person who goes to balls; I am much more a person that goes in the field. I go to see the villages and I talk to the children, and I learn that way,” she said. “But of course, like all charities, you have to do a few balls in order to raise the money and to raise the awareness. In order to keep the children sustained, you have to do evenings like tonight.”

The duchess said she started her own company earlier this year that, among other things, connects women.

And always one to follow proper decorum, the duchess had rung up beforehand to inquire about the proper color gown to wear.

She gave The Transom a good once-over. “Are those desert boots you’re wearing? Hmmm, yes—much better suited for the desert.”

—Spencer Morgan

Andy Hearts Edie

George Hickenlooper, director of the stylish Sienna Miller vehicle Factory Girl, finally squeezed his way into the limousine waiting for him outside the Gramercy Hotel at around 5:40 p.m. on Monday.

Mr. Hickenlooper’s super-elongated car was already packed with around 10 friends, and he had been waiting for another tardy pal. He seemed to be doing his darnedest to avoid the Zeigfeld. One made due with her backside wedged up against the Scotch bar.

“Last time I went to a premiere, the limo caught on fire,” he said as the car peeled away from the curb. That was the West Hollywood opening of Mayor of the Sunset Strip, the documentary he wrote and helmed about the beloved L.A.-based radio jockey Rodney Bingenheimer. “We were outside the Chateau Marmont, and it was a brand-new Lincoln limo. It started smoking on Sunset and Crescent Heights, and literally just burst into flames,” he said in a monotone. “It was great; it was a bonfire.”

On the ride over, the director allowed a few glimpses into his movie’s private highlight track. There was Sienna Miller being an hour late for her Edie audition. Meanwhile, Mr. Hickenlooper was considering Natalie Portman, Kate Hudson and particularly Brittany Murphy for the part, and was about to write off Ms. Miller for tardiness. The director further vouched that it was in fact Ms. Miller’s headshot—not her style-icon status or Jude Law fame—that initially caught his eye, specifically her “insouciant, sardonic smile.” And when she did finally show up to the audition, Ms. Miller “channeled from above” Ms. Sedgwick, and Mr. Hickenlooper was moved to cast her almost immediately.

And there was also the fact that Mr. Hinkenlooper wasn’t a huge fan of postmodern art. “It started with Duchamp and pretty much reached its height with Warhol,” he said. And since then, he said, it’s continued to “seep in so much it’s kind of created this sort of infantilization of our culture, this real decadence. That’s why our culture’s so sexualized now, and people throw elephant shit on the Virgin Mary and they say, ‘Well, it’s art.’”

Through making the film, Mr. Hinkenlooper said, he’d grown to respect Warhol, “because of what he did in opening art to popular culture. He made art sort of less elitist.”

“I’m nervous,” said actress Meredith Ostrom as the car pulled up to the red carpet. She plays Nico in the film, one of Mr. Warhol’s post-Edie muses.

The director himself expressed some slight butterflies. “Wow, look at the crowd,” he said. “This is fun.”

The Zeigfeld was massively oversold.

“It’s a universal topic,” said Jimmy Fallon, who also stars in the film. “Fame, and what would you do for fame, and how long will it last—these are question we’re obsessed with.” Hi, Jimmy Fallon’s hair!

The limo ride to the after-party at the Chelsea Hotel was a little less giddy. “I wanted the film to resonate and get people to sit with their feelings for a second,” said Mr. Hickenlooper. “I wanted people to at least feel some of the sadness.”

At the party, there was some debate as to who was to blame for Ms. Sedgwick’s demise, which ended in a drug overdose.

“I tried to save her many times,” said her brother, Jonathan Sedgwick. “It was a tragedy that is a lesson to every young girl that wants to aspire to be an actress or be famous. You can get so excited by fame that you can forget yourself and do drugs to get there.”

He put a fair amount of the blame on Mr. Warhol—as did the movie. “He sucked blood from people. He did. He was a voyeur. He encouraged Edie to take drugs, and at times he’d stick needles into people,” he said.

“The film captured what an evil prick Warhol was in the 60’s, before he was shot by Valerie Solanas,” said Aaron Richard Golub, one of the film’s producers. He knew Warhol intimately—the artist did a portrait of his wife as a wedding present. “After that, he fuckin’ calmed down …. Inside, there was a fuckin’ weird evil person lurking.”

“It was a good movie,” said gallerist Tony Shafrazi, who also knew Mr. Warhol. “But in terms of truth, that’s a different thing. It wasn’t a correct portrait of Andy at all. He was a very kind, tremendously generous human being, but also highly productive.”

Bee Shaffer was keen to focus on a different element of the film, “I thought the fashion was great,” she said. “I thought Sienna looked amazing in the film, and I thought she was really, really fantastic.”

“She was a fascinating and amazing woman who had the ability to affect, you know, my generation, and this is 40, 50 years on now,” said Sienna Miller, the star of the show. “I think you have an icon every now and then who comes along and manages to be timeless—and taps into something that is a mood of a nation. Edie had that ability; Marilyn Monroe had that ability; Audrey Hepburn had that ability. But there are very few people who had that ability to really touch a generation. And she existed and it was such a short window, and I don’t really know what it was. But it was an incredible achievement she made.”

—S.M.

Damon Dash, Movie Mogul

Harvey Weinstein made a move to reclaim his throne atop the indie-film empire after this year’s performance at Sundance—the man was grabbing up movies like Edie Sedgwick in the pantyhose department of Bergdorf’s.

But a big, hungry aspiring movie mogul was also born this year at the ’Dance. And Damon Dash has big plans, y’all.

“That was me just showing you a sample of how I’m gonna get down,” said Mr. Dash of the “innovative” marketing techniques he employed in Sundance this year while hyping his gritty, youth-angst flick, Weapons. (The Transom witnessed firsthand the sleekness of the Weapons bomber jackets he gave out to members of his crew, but hasn’t yet listened to his CD. Yet!)

“It’s a grassroots kind of a movie, so it has to have grassroots marketing, but the movie business doesn’t really understand that,” said Mr. Dash. (This was at the Factory Girl premiere, by the way.) “So I’m gonna show them. I want people to pay attention to what I do. The reason why I don’t mind showing you is ’cause no one else could do it. No one else knows where to go. I know exactly where to go. And once I do it, I want you to watch everyone copy my style of selling movies. It’s the same way I did the music business.”

How was that?

“You know what I mean—like, I’m good with identifying talent, but people don’t really realize how good I am with marketing. I’m like, you know, ambidextrous in that way. Put it like this: You’re going to be able to understand, and you might be able to look at the movie as a brand by the time I’m done with it. I’m gonna turn a movie into a brand by the time I’m done with it. You understand what I’m saying? … You saw I gave out the product that you could touch and wear, and I gave out the music so that you can actually be in that person’s world, and you listening to what they listening to.”

“What he knows, people don’t know in Hollywood, said Russell Simmons. “He’s connected to a mainstream culture. He’s not living in a foreign place. Beverly Hills is a little bit foreign. A lot of these guys are good storytellers, but culturally they’re missing something. The story is critical, but even melody needs the right beat. Damon’s got the right beat.”

So it’s like get ready for Damon Dash in the movie business?

“Yeah, basically,” said Mr. Dash. “Put it like this: Better bring your A-game. Once I get there, ain’t never gonna be done again.”

—S.M.

Who’s the Nicest Girl in Town?

Alessandra Ford-Balazs, the 17-year-old daughter of hotel magnate Andre Balazs and model-agency exec Katie Ford, had just posed for the cameras at Friday’s Viennese Opera Ball at the Waldorf-Astoria. She has a big smile, almond eyes and long ginger-brown hair. She was wearing a burgundy-and-mocha-patterned Catherine Malandrino.

She has just hired a stylist. She’s been making do on her own, so far. “But I mean my father and my mom both have pretty good fashion, so both of them kind of guided me and I found my own—for better or worse—sense of style,” she said.

Ms. Ford-Balazs is currently a junior at Riverdale High School.

“I’m a fruit girl,” said Ms. Ford-Balazs, reaching a willowy arm toward a slice of star fruit. Earlier this year, she acquired representation with the Gersh Agency for her acting as well.

“I really love old architecture and interior design,” she said, admiring some typical Waldorf molding, “because you really get a sense of the history and what may lie in the future. I don’t know. It’s a really nice feeling of atmosphere.”

What about all these old farts doddering around? Suppose they add to that sense history too, right?

“I don’t see any old people here,” said Ms. Ford-Balazs, without a hint of sarcasm. “It’s people with a lot more years of experience than me.”

—S.M.

Mentors!

“It’s the most powerful thing on the planet,” said music impresario Quincy Jones at the National Mentoring Partnership gala at Guastavino’s last Thursday night. “It’s like I said: You remember 10 percent of what you see, 30 percent of what you hear and 80 percent of what you do. And if you walk in the shoes of giants along with the giant, you gonna learn a lot.”

The event was billed as “Mentoring’s Big Night to Gab, Graze & Groove.” There was a rack where men could check their ties. And then a piano man, too, doing impressions of everyone from Elton John to Alicia Keys.

For his part, Mr. Jones—the 76-time Grammy-nominated producer—was grooving and gabbing at the same damn time. “All I can say is, if you can see it, you can be it, and as the man said, go, go, go, go, go, go for it.”

He said mentoring was part of his DNA because he’d come up on the shoulders of so many “beautiful people,” from “Ray Charles to Bumps Blackwell, to Bobby Tucker, to Clark Terry, to, as I said, Ray Charles.

“Ray and I—we came through the whole career together, and we had to define who we were as young African-Americans in the American Northwest. And we had one thing: We said, ‘Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your acceptance of me.’ You have to know who you are,” Mr. Jones said. “Go down and find out now, and if you can see it, you can be it. Go for it.”

Hey, that’s just the stuff that got music legend Phil Ramone on his way!

“Quincy’s one of the most positive people I know,” said Mr. Ramone, who cites Mr. Jones as Mentor No. 1. “In a business like the musical world, it’s not always positive—you have to find something about it that you really want. And it’s not about just connections—it’s about a lot of encouragement at the right time.” Mr. Ramone, who has produced everyone from Barbra Streisand to Ricky Martin and was one of the mentors being honored that night, said that helping young people realize their goals is “what I live for now.”

Across dining the room, Bear Stearns chief operating officer Alan D. Schwartz was sitting next to his mentee, Ethan Miller. “It’s great having him as a mentor,” said Mr. Miller. He’s 17 and a student at the Fordham Leadership Academy for Business & Technology. “Knowing how much of an important and busy guy he is, he actually took the time off to, you know, be there for me. Anytime I call him, he replies and, you know, gets back to, takes the time to see what I want.”

What do you guys talk about?

“He always ask me how’s school, how I’m doing in school, do I have any recent tests, how I do on it, you know—how am I doing, how’s my family,” recalled Mr. Miller. “And I ask him these questions like, how is you doing and how is his family and how’s business and everything.”

Mr. Schwartz had once been a mentee, too. “My college baseball coach Tom Butters,” he recalled. “He taught me a lot about life.”

—S.M.

The 48-year-old actor was in Park City with his wife, Kyra Sedgwick, for more of a “public” purpose, promoting his new celebrity-friendly charity site, sixdegrees.com.

“I mean, the kinds of the movies that you come and you see still have a Sundance-y kind of indie vibe and, you know, this year especially has some darker, intense kinds of films, which is really great.”

It was Saturday and he was talking to The Transom from the Entertainment Weekly outpost, which had allotted a room for his new enterprise.

Mr. Bacon eventually brought his point to its obvious conclusion, that the world’s premier independent-film forum has changed radically since he first attended in 1989, when Park City was “still a sleepy little ski town and the Egyptian was the only theater with any movies.”

“Now you also have like this swag street,” he said with a laugh.

Being in Nature

But he wasn’t kidding. The area surrounding Main Street was riddled with roughly 20 celebrity-gifting suites.

The size of Sundance has mushroomed in general, and the town this year was dotted with scads of theaters and converted screening rooms to accommodate the festival’s program of 196 films.

But the effect of the “swag suites”—sponsored by the likes of Cadillac, Lexus and Marquee, combined with the seemingly endless flow of dinners, cocktail parties, concerts, after-parties, after-after-parties—has been to mutate the face of a once self-righteous symposium of small films into a frivolous celebration of celebritydom, a 10-day orgy of avarice.

Mr. Bacon, for his part, was trying to make the best of the situation. He said he had launched his site just a few days earlier on Jan. 18 and had already raised over $60,000. The site introduces visitors to a number of charities as well as to the celebrities who support them. After all, “We live in celebrity-obsessed culture,” he said. He brought the charity to Sundance this year to sign up as many celebrities as possible as well as garner media attention.

“We also have a thing on our site where you can actually come and bring any swag that you get and we’ll auction it off,” said Mr. Bacon, who wore jeans, boots and a dark blue long-sleeved thermal undershirt. “If you get anything that makes you say, ‘Well, I think I can part with this.’”

On the couches behind him sat a bored-looking Alan Alda and Teri Hatcher waiting to have their pictures taken in the EW studio, which was currently occupied by Josh Hartnett.

“I donated some shoes and gloves and a coat and a set of speakers that I really didn’t want to let go,” said Mr. Bacon, adding that AIDS and the environment were the causes to which he was most dedicated.

Up Main Street at the Project Greenhouse gift suite, Ed Begley Jr. was working up a sweat on his “usable power” bike. “I have one of these at home, too,” he said, peddling. “As I ride, I’m generating usable power. At my house I have a battery array, so as I ride the energy goes into the batteries and it’s available for any chore, to toast toast, to charge a cell phone, to run my computer for a whole day.”

The actor, who bought his first electrical car in 1970, was at the festival to pump his cause as well as his new show, Living with Ed, on HGTV.

The press kit for the environmentally friendly suite was printed on paper made primarily from elephant poo. Among the products being gifted were organic vodka, juice, non-toxic paints and furniture made of sustainable materials. A waitress came by offering edamame hummus on an organic mushroom flatbread.

Hounddog producer Terry Leonard was there and donated $500 to “offset the carbon emissions for the entire production of the movie.”

Lexus had helped sponsor the suite and sent a chauffeured hybrid to transport The Transom to its exclusive Icehouse suite at the top of a mountain. At the gate a guard asked for the occupants’ names.

Kathy Uyen, the attractive Asian actress in the front seat, joked, “I’m Lucy Liu.” The Transom followed suit, claiming the title of Brad Pitt.

Some seconds later, upon reaching the large tent with an igloo-like entrance, a mass of publicists had gathered in nervous anticipation of Mr. Pitt and Ms. Liu.

“The fact that that guard actually believed me goes to the point that there needs to be more Asian-American actors so that people don’t say, ‘Oh, you must be Lucy Liu,’” said Ms. Uyen. She had just been on the receiving end of a fierce lecture from one of the embarrassed publicists. “She said it was really humiliating, because she had all these sponsors paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for this event expecting to get photo ops with these celebrities.”

“Everything here is natural. We’re a carbon-neutral environment,” said the as-of-yet-uninformed president of Universal Product Placement Gary Mezzatesta. “This is bamboo floor, that’s an ice entrance, we’ve got all recycled materials on the green carpet.” He added: “So far we’ve been visited by Tom Arnold, Josh Hartnett and Heather Graham. Lucy Liu’s about to come in and Brad Pitt’s coming.”

(Ooops. Sorry, Gary!)

But Ms. Graham really was there! The actress, in town to promote her film Adrift in Manhattan, was busy swagging at the North Face station.

“I have a hybrid,” she said. “A Ford Escape. I love, like, being in nature, and I feel, like, it’s so sad that so many beautiful parts of the world are in such sad state. Save the environment, yay!”

It’s an Honor to Inject You!

The folks at the Marquee suite back on Main Street didn’t feel compelled to weave any causes célèbres into their celebrity gifting. The suite, which had taken over a wing (and reupholstered the awning) of the nightclub Harry O’s, was packed with desirable, if less environmentally sustainable, products, and notably more visitors.

Free Polaroid digital cameras, check. Free Lia Sophia baubles, check. Free Dermatologica cosmetics, check. Free Lacoste, check. A free Restylane gift certificate, check.

What?

A friendly publicist, selling the Botox-usurping medicament, claimed that hotty quarterback Matt Leinart swooped up some Restylane for his very own mama.

“One of the things that I’ve been doing with Restylane is when someone has had a nose job, and the nose starts to move, and the nose starts to look irregular, a lot times I think injecting Restylane is a good option,” explained the good doctor behind the counter. “If you look at celebrities who look bizarre, they should have had Restylane.”

She kindly explained to The Transom that the Botox substitute “works absolutely fantastic on the lower eyelid.”

“If you’d like to make an appointment, I’d be honored to inject you,” she said.

Right down the block, at 780 Main Street, at the Beauty Bar, Dr. Mark Youssef was offering on-site injections.

“I’m scared of injections, I don’t even like going to the dentist,” squeaked Dustin “Screech” Diamond.

Camera crews had been trailing him and Gary Coleman around town for a reality show they hoped to sell called Celebrity Swag Hunt. So far, Mr. Diamond and Mr. Coleman were said to be neck and neck in the value race, each hovering around the $25,000 mark.

At the moment, Mr. Coleman was enjoying a haircut.

“When you’re done, we’re going to take you in the back and start poking you with needles,” said a half-joking Dr. Youssef, who was also pumping the merits of Restylane.

“Nope! With kidney disease I can’t take that kind of risk,” Mr. Coleman shot back. “You can poke Dustin Diamond all day long.”

He later agreed to a Vibraderm skin-exfoliation treatment valued at $200.

The Transom was refused entry at the Fred Segal suite.

“You need a green circle or black diamond on your pass to get in, no exceptions,” said the guard. “Hey, I had to stop Barbra Streisand at the door earlier today.”

In that case, however, the guard had been persuaded to make an exception.

Beyond being crowded, on an incline and quite slippery in spots—particularly in rubber-soled English walking shoes—the swag walk up and down Main Street is a veritable menagerie of famous faces, young and old. Here a Nick Nolte (ducking into a bar), there a Chris Klein (sporting a weave these days?), there a Wynona Ryder (skittish and all in black, as per usual), here a sprightly Adam “D.J. AM” Goldstein, arms akimbo with his new chick Mandy Moore.

If you’re not in the biz, the sightings only serve as a constant distraction from the free products, grub, booze and icy pavement that deserve your full attention. To those who are in the industry—and certainly they represent a significant slice of the 50,000-some-odd people descending on the festival each year—they represent something more.

“It’s like a convention for actors,” chirped Peter Sarsgaard, who was hanging out at the Delta Sky Lodge Friday night. “It’s really nice. You know it’s hard to keep in touch with directors and producers and actors after you make a movie.”

“We gotta, like, join forces,” Damon Dash was overheard saying to his boy Nick Cannon. The two were rubbing puffy jackets together at the Weapons party at the Cadillac lounge Saturday evening. Mr. Dash helped produce the film, which starred Mr. Cannon.

“It serves its purpose, it serves its purpose,” said Mr. Dash of Sundance. “It’s good money, you know. That’s all I really care about, as far as that goes.”

Mr. Dash said he was looking forward to seeing a few movies, like “the one with the little girl in it” and the one with Sienna Miller and the one “about the ganja girl.” But he wasn’t sure about how much time he would be able to spare.

“I’m working, you know, I’m trying to pump this movie,” he said. Of the mainstreaming of Sundance he theorized, “Once there’s money to made and a lot of exposure, then it will always turn to business. It’s like a double-edge sword like that.”

“I’m spinning at the 5W house party again tonight,” said Mr. Cannon. On Friday night, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs had been among those to groove to his jams on the dance floor. He said he was planning to get his “hot tub on” that night as well.

At the Grace Is Gone premiere, Harvey Weinstein did more than talk business. “He was bangin’ on the bathroom door, going, ‘You better not sell to anybody else!’” recalled Alessandro Nivola, who stars in the film.

Mr. Weinstein reportedly acquired the film for $4.2 million.

Sydney Levine, co-owner of the insiders’ guide Film Finders, got to witness Mr. Weinstein in action again Sunday afternoon. This time the scruffy honcho was after the film Teeth.

“He knew I was listening to every word, but he allowed me to,” said Ms. Levine. “It was like live theater. To me, to listen to a deal being made is almost better than seeing the movie.”

Come nightfall, though, everyone at the dance tends to forget business and get jiggy.

At the Premiere Lounge at the Riverhouse Cafe Sunday night, David Wain, the director of the much-hyped comedy The Ten, was feeling the spirit.

“Lets hear it for D.J. Blue,” he screamed from the stage. “This guy, he mixes, he slaps, he bangs, he scratches, he hits. I want to thank everybody here. I mean, is this the best party at the whole goddamn Sundance? That’s ’cause this is the best fucking goddamn film here!”

Soon after Mr. Wain and the Ten cast got off the stage, up popped Crown Heights–based Orthodox rapper Matisyahu.

He scored big with two models in the front, bringing them to tears.

“I don’t know if they were fans or drunk or really moved, which is what it looked like. They were being really dramatic,” said an onlooker. “During the acoustic Jerusalem song, they were kissing their fingers and putting up peace signs.”

Later, Matisyahu dropped by the Heineken party at Village at the Lift, where Bijou Phillips, Tara Reid, Paul Rudd and Ron Burkle were getting ready for a bout of celebrity karaoke as night fell over the mountains.

—Spencer Morgan

Hip-hop and streetwear mogul Damon Dash is getting into the real-estate business. He wants to rent out his apartment in Tribeca's Sugar House lofts for $18,000 a month. Just a few days ago, the price was $20,000.

When Mr. Dash purchased the 2,888-square-foot Laight Street triplex for $1.775 million in March 2004, he was still riding high as partner to Shawn (Jay-Z) Carter--running both Roc-A-Fella Records and the Rocawear clothing line. But in the last two years, the famous partners severed their business ties. Mr. Dash now has several business ventures, mostly in clothing.

The apartment's first floor is composed of a living room, a windowed state-of-the-art kitchen, and a powder room. Upstairs, there are two bedrooms with skylights. Other notable features include hardwood floors, oversized windows, walk-in closets, and a marble bath.

Prudential Douglas Elliman brokers Claudine DeMatos, along with Raphael DeNiro and Lauren DeNiro Pipher (yes! They're related to Robert) have the Laight Street listing, which requires a one or two year lease from any takers.
Ms. DeMatos declined to comment.

A spokesperson for Mr. Dash declined to comment.

- Michael Calderone

She wasn't wrong.

Hopefully she wasn't hypoglycemic: the drink of choice was sugary champagne, imbibed through straws. "It's awful. Frown!" said a woman before her second sip.

They were crushed into the Garden of Ono the other night--that fine place where apparently Gisele once broke a slender wrist--to celebrate the glisteningly new Daily Mini, a petite monthly spin-off of Fashion Week Daily.

"Our readers begged: 'Please, please, do it more often,'" explained Editor-in-Chief Brandusa Niro, who is chummy despite her mythically frightening name.

Ms. Niro introduced her cover girl, the 18-year-old Australian model-of-the-moment, Gemma Ward. This, explained Ms. Niro, is The Biggest Supermodel In The World Right Now. She is losing her accent, but says she has yet to master American slang. "I'm going to go to the bathroom. Okay?" Ms. Ward asked.

There was Damon Dash. "I'm just a fly guy," he said. And how do the other men measure up to his flyness? "I'd rather watch the women."

Accompanying Mr. Dash was a gorgeous wife, plus a steely man named Shawn who wears Mr. Dash's watch--without the encrusted jewels--and sneakers, though without the slick shine. A tattoo of Psalm 25 on Shawn's right forearm disinclines one from messing with either Shawn or Mr. Dash. ("Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions," and such.)

Tinsley Mortimer, briefly without any socialite companionship, declared that everyone she loves is right here at this very party. She graciously pulled together a string of nouns to describe her sense of fashion: "Oh! Girly, frilly, feminist, over-exaggerated--baby-doll, even. I've been wearing the same bubble skirts since the 80s!"

Svelte fashion policeman Robert Verdi squealed when offered gourmet cupcakes. Later he waxed philosophical on the responsibilities of stardom. "A lot is expected," he sighed.

Mr. Verdi bounced off into the night, kissing, on his way, more of those fashionably elite cheeks that The Daily Mini has, against many odds, done such an impressive job of wooing.
--Max Abelson