James Brolin and Barbra Streisand.

“Mirella Freni and Pavarotti shared the same wet nurse,” former NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said last week at the Eighth Annual Opera News Awards at The Plaza, sharing a bit of opera trivia before giving the Metropolitan Opera Guild’s distinguished achievement award to the supreme Modenese soprano. “Just imagine the Freudian connotations,” hizzoner continued. “Mirella’s mother liked to say, ‘Guess who got all the milk?’”

Triggering uproarious laughter and a few gasps.

The next morning, Shindigger was still giggling at the Waldorf Astoria for the 2013 Matrix Awards, hosted by Joan Rivers, where pioneering women in media and communications such as Kara Swisher, Joanna Coles, HSN’s Mindy Grossman and Bonnie Hammer received Tiffany & Co. medallions from the likes of Barry Diller, Iman and Ryan Seacrest. Another legendary songstress, five-time Tony winner Audra McDonald, was celebrated as well.

“She has the voice of an angel,” Council Speaker Christine Quinn declared as she bestowed a Matrix on Ms. McDonald. Though it was Ms. Rivers who got in the last line—“Dessert was good, but not worth the calories!”—before hobbling off the stage.

All in all, it proved to be as much of a musical week as a comedic week for Shindigger, though, highlighted by The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s 40th anniversary Chaplin Awards Gala, which honored the epic career of Barbra Streisand and featured a mega-star-studded array of delicious surprises.

“Boy am I excited, this is such a treat!” exclaimed our first surprise, Liza Minnelli, after a standing ovation. “When I saw Barbra perform, I went nuts,” she raved. “I said Mama—it’s just unique and was splendid. She had chutzpah! The real deal!”

Grabbing the mic and a nearby director’s chair, Ms. Minnelli winced, “Now I have to sit down. My back is killing me.” And then she performed such Streisand signatures as “What Did I Have That I Don’t Have?” and “Isn’t This Better” from Funny Lady. (Ms. Streisand would quip later that she had forgotten the former was one of her songs.)

Next, former recipients Catherine Deneuve and Michael Douglas graced the stage.

“Michael and I are very pleased to give you congratulations on this well-deserved honor, and happy birthday!” the French siren purred.

“You were a master,” gushed Mr. Douglas. “It has been my joy over the years to watch you as an artist on stage, and it has been equally as meaningful to be your friend.”

One after another, immortal film stars and celebrity performers paid their respects to Empress Barbra, who sat perched with husband James Brolin in box four, first tier, on the right side of Avery Fisher Hall. George Segal, Amy Irving, Kris Kristofferson and Blythe Danner all said a few words, video felicitations came from Robert Redford and Omar Sharif, and there were musical performances by trumpeter Wynton Marsalis (“Hello Dolly”), songwriter Alan Bergman (“The Way We Were”), and a surprise finale by Tony Bennett.

“She asked me why she should do it,” Ben Stiller said drily as he recounted how he convinced the diva to take her role in Meet the Fockers. “Finally, we worked out the creative details, or as she calls it, ‘the money.’”

The funnyman then introduced his Chappaqua neighbor, who just so happens to be the 42nd president of the United States of America.

“I don’t know why, I just never got the nerve to call him up and hang,” Mr. Stiller laughed. “Hey, Bill, wanna come over and order some vegan pizza and play some video games? Watch House of Cards on Netflix?”

President Bill Clinton, taking in the crowd’s awe and rousing applause, played with the wisecrack. “Ben, I accept your offer, and pretty soon House of Cards will be back on,” the former president pledged. “Meanwhile, we can watch a replay of Meet the Fockers and see Barbra give sex advice to old people—like me!”

Awkward laughter filled the hall as the president quickly mentioned his wife, Hillary, and then continued:

“I am very grateful to The Film Society of Lincoln Center for allowing me, on its 40th anniversary, to give the Chaplin Award to my friend. A friend of my family’s and one of the most gifted and big-hearted people I have ever known.”

President Clinton commended Ms. Streisand for her film work, her philanthropic leadership and her many talents.

“When I was president, we had a small list of members of Congress that we called the ‘Just Say Yes List,’” because they were so dogged that you knew you were gonna give in to them sooner of later,” he recalled. “That’s the way Barbra is. In the end, I would say yes.”

And then it was finally time for Ms. Streisand to take the stage.

“My dear Mr. President, thank you for taking the time to be with us here tonight,” she began.

The divine Ms. Streisand spoke about the power of art in trying times and shared numerous anecdotes from her treasured past. “Ever since I can remember, I’ve been called bossy and opinionated,” Ms. Streisand admitted. “Maybe that’s because I am?”

The audience chuckled, and Ms. Streisand raised her voice: “Three cheers for bossy women!” she said.

And through the standing, roaring gala patrons, we swore we saw Mr. Clinton’s wife, in the third row, beaming.

The book will use dramatic moments such as the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the overthrow of the Qaddafi regime in Libya, the transitions in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Arab Spring "to frame her thoughts about the recent history of US foreign policy and the ongoing need for American leadership in a changing world" and promises "vivid personal anecdotes and memories of her collaboration with President Obama and his National Security team." according to the deal announcement in Publishers Marketplace.

The deal was negotiated by Williams & Connolly attorney Robert B. Barnett with S&S publisher Carolyn Reidy and will be edited by Jonathan Karp. Although there has been no details of Ms. Clinton's advance, it's safe to bet that she got more money than Cat Marnell for a very different kind of memoir. Ms. Marnell signed with Simon & Schuster earlier this week and the publisher reportedly paid her a hefty half a million dollar advance for her memoir about sex, drugs and addiction.

Memoir, after all, is a broad category.

Clinton.

It was Beyoncé Knowles who sang that “Girls (Run the World).” She would know, especially given Sunday’s mob scene outside Bar Pitti, where she and husband Jay-Z attracted an agitated crowd, frenzied by a rare public appearance of their new daughter, Blue Ivy.

For evidence, tune to HBO, which debuted a show Sunday night starring daughters of David Mamet, Brian Williams and Laurie Simmons, whose 24-year-old spawn, Lena Dunham, also wrote, directed and coproduced Girls alongside Hollywood’s favorite one-manchild movie factory, Judd Apatow.

Note that Beyoncé didn’t have “women” in the chorus of her song. Even though Hillary Rodham Clinton can cover the New York Post, drinking beer and earning a classic headline—‘SWILLARY!’—in the process, it would seem Old Age and Treachery are no match for the youth these days, or at the very least, the fawning attention youth commands. Like Girls, the exciting winner of this year’s Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Nobody, sent the chattering classes into overdrive, but not quite the way 24-year-old reporter Sara Ganim winning a prize for investigative reporting did. At that moment, Arianna Huffington and the first Pulitzer for her news operation of largesse was an afterthought.

How obsessed are New Yorkers with fixating on young people? Just take the thousands who tuned into a live stream of the NYU Library’s most famous residents—two red-tailed hawks, Rosie and Bobby—as they hatched two new New Yorkers into the world. Elsewhere at the city’s finest factory of Drunk and Debt-Riddled Youth, NYU president John Sexton finally hammered out a deal with Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer for the university to continue to metastasize onto Manhattan like an invasive tumor.

Incredibly, it was only five years ago that Gossip Girl first premiered, and introduced the world to a new take on what happens when the young are left to their own hormonal devices. The first song on the show was a catchy 2007 hit with the saccharine-sweet chorus: “They don’t care about the young folks.” Things change quickly, especially since perpetual Peter Pans from Jay McInerney to Jerry Lewis all clamored for cameos on the show, which is now about as cool as April in New York City used to be (before young people ruined the ozone layer, too).

Perhaps Girls presents the only viable option for fighting the youth as an adult human, as evidenced by the way it closed out its pilot episode with a too-appropriate tune by Paul Simon’s 39-year-old songwriting spawn, Harper: If you can’t beat ’em, don’t join them, but spawn your own youth to infiltrate and conquer.  

A glass ceiling.

In light of this morning's New York Times acknowledgment that a candidate in the Republican field for 2012 is a woman--"Mrs. Bachmann's rivals," we are told, "will have to find ways to disagree with Mrs. Bachmann without being accused of making subtle references to her gender"--we decided to look back at how many times the phrase "glass ceiling" appears in that paper in reference to a variety of would-be glass-ceiling-busters. (If it were broken, would we still be calling Ms. Bachmann "Mrs.?"

• Results for "Jeane Kirkpatrick" + "glass ceiling": 1
• Results for "Barbara Jordan" + "glass ceiling": 3
• Results for "Christine Lagarde" + "glass ceiling":3 (the phrase wasn't used in today's briefing on her new post at the IMF!)
• Results for "Jill Abramson" + "glass ceiling": 5 (all articles written by Ms. Abramson)
• Results for "Nancy Pelosi" + "glass ceiling": 50
• Results for "Geraldine Ferraro" + "glass ceiling": 74
• Results for "Michele Bachmann" + "glass ceiling": 84
• Results for "Sarah Palin" + "glass ceiling": 237
• Results for "Hillary Clinton" + "glass ceiling": 458

Give it time, Ms./Mrs./Rep./Congresswoman Bachmann. You can stretch this run into infinite think pieces if you have enough funding!

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

Kate Middleton, 'Newsweek''s favorite cover girl. (Getty Images)

Today's  cover of Newsweek, with a digitally-aged Lady Di hobnobbing with Kate Middleton, raised our eyebrows--and not merely for the suggestion that, had she lived, Diana would have been "Tweeting from Davos" (wouldn't she have delegated telling her story to a Twitter-age Andrew Morton?). Why, in our unscientific count, it was the fourth time in Tina Brown's fifteen issues as editor in which Kate Middleton has been featured on the cover!

Ms. Middleton was pictured, alone, in the "Kate the Great" pre-wedding cover story; with her new husband in a post-wedding regular issue (the cover story then as this week was written by Tina Brown) and commemorative issue; and now walking with Diana in this week's installment of Ms. Brown's beautiful, dark, regal fantasy. (We're leaving out the international cover in which Ms. Middleton and Prince William were depicted as "Fantasy Britain" vs. a riot-torn "Real Britain"; the American cover that week depicted the Olsen twins, with a much sunnier spin on Kate and Wills in the cover line "Can Kate & Will Save Britain?")

With four covers to her name, Ms. Middleton is more popular at Tina Brown's Newsweek even than crazy weather (three covers), the Clintons (two covers), or stock photography of white people and their problems (two covers). Only three covers thus far in Ms. Brown's tenure do not depict Kate Middleton, a weather pattern, a Clinton, or a stock photo of a white person: those covers depict Gabrielle Giffords, the aforementioned Olsen twins, and Mitt Romney.

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

"I'm a Pornstar!"

If you thought Weinergate was the end of crotch shots, dirty talk and Internet voyeurism (all with the rosy glow of a history in politics!), think again: the situation is now x-rated.

Meet Samantha Kogelman, working name Sammie Spades. The “About Sammie” section on her Facebook reads: “I'm a Pornstar! I love having sex, partying and cooking delicious food! I'm also a full time college student and I regularly dance at the Spearmint Rhino in Las Vegas!” The self-proclaimed “Pornstar!” had been working in relative obscurity (“hits” include Wanna Fuck My Wife Gotta Fuck Me Too 3, I Fucked You & Yo Mama 5, and Internal Injections 7) until early this morning, when news broke that the 24 year-old used to be an intern for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The intern-cum-adult video actress first met Ms. Clinton at a banquet in 2006, where she inquired about an internship opportunity with the then Senator. In a statement on TMZ.com, Kogelman (er, Spades?) says that she was accepted into the summer 2006 internship program at the New York Senator’s Buffalo office where she performed miscellaneous office tasks. The overnight star states that she "…was planning on becoming an attorney and then going into public office" but that financial troubles impelled her into a career in pornography.

The small-time star was thrust into the spotlight when photos of her with Secretary of State Clinton, from her days as a lowly intern, were tied to her current identity as Sammie Spades and leaked to TMZ.

In a call with The Observer this morning, Kogelman’s publicist Kevin Blatt said that the actress was “shocked” when the story came out but that now “she’s embracing it… It is what it is.”

It certainly seems as if the overnight star is making the most of the situation. In a Twitter post from around nine o’clock this morning, she writes “Look! Someone thinks I'm interesting today :oP” and included the link to the TMZ article. Later, her feed is updated with: “Well, its definitely been an interesting morning! Check out the story on TMZ if you don't know y :o)”

Blatt’s relationship with Kogelman appears to be somewhat suspect. During this morning’s conversation, he admitted that he has only represented the former intern for two days. He explained that he “has friends at TMZ” and that they gave him the “heads up that the photo leaked” after which time he approached the actress. “I told her she needed representation,” said Blatt, who markets himself as a “celebrity news maker” on his website.

Sounds sketchy to us, but it would appear that all of the buzz around Sammie Spades’ (albeit brief) history in politics has been good for her career. According to her newly acquired publicist, he has been fielding calls from photographers and magazines all morning.

In a final statement, the actress asserts that she doesn’t “think Hillary would be too happy” but that she has “nothing but respect for Mrs. Clinton."

Perhaps Weiner should take a page out of Sammie’s book and consider pornography as his next career move. After all, with those photos, he’s well on his way to becoming a “Pornstar!”

Here's more about Wal-Mart's newest addition, Phil Singer.

Singer's name popped up in Claire Atkinson's story today, noting he runs "a corporate consulting firm, which has worked with prominent Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer."

Singer also worked on Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign and, most recently, on Andrew Cuomo's 2010 gubernatorial campaign.

The giant realtor is currently mounting a campaign-style campaign while it explores opening its first store in New York City. Other political operatives helping the Wal-Mart effort include Bloomberg's 2009 campaign manager, Bradley Tusk, and noted pollster Doug Schoen. 

As for Singer, who is 35, intense, and a marathon runner, he politely referred questions to Wal-Mart spokesman Steven Restivo.

Restivo said, Singer started "several months ago" and "is well-respected among the New York City media and he's helping us on the communication front."

I asked if Singer's connection to those notable Democrats was part of the reason he was hired.

Restivo paused briefly, and said, "He was brought on for his background and skills in the field of communications." (I sent an inquiry to Cuomo's office to see if the governor has any thoughts about Wal-Mart and will update when a response is available.)

On the broader point about the company's communication strategy in New York City, here's how Restivo described it:

"Wal-Mart has a good story to tell and so, we're putting the resources behind telling it in as many different ways as we can to as many different people as we can," he said.

One thing critics note is the company's refusal to attend City Council hearings on the matter.

Restivo said the Council hearings shouldn't be seen as platform where issues could be earnestly discussed.

"For months, we have been engaging with elected officials and community stakeholders across the city and we've been listening to concerns, answering questions and sharing information," he said. "Our decision not to attend those hearings had nothing to do with our willingness to answer questions. We do that every single day in New York City and had everything to do with hypothetical nature of the proceedings."

When asked what he would like to see different in order to attend those hearings, Restivo was not specific. 

"We don't have a store or announced project in New York City," he said. "It's no secret we're evaluating opportunities, but at the end of the day, we don't have a store or announced project here."

Donald Trump shot down a report claiming he would announce his candidacy on the final episode of his show, The Apprentice, on May 15.

"I can't announce during the show, I really can't" and "I'm not allowed to" he said, during an interview on Talk1300. "I don't know where it came from."

But Trump -- who has flirted with two previous presidential runs -- said he was serious about it this time. "There's no doubt in my mind I want to run as a Republican," he said. "I've always felt that. Really, never wavered."

"Years ago," he added, "there was a big move to get me to run in the Reform Party. Fortunately I didn't do that; I decided not to do that. And as you know, that was a strange group." He added, "I like the people but I just didn't think they had their act together at that time."

"I haven't really thought about it since," Trump said about running for president.

But now, he has.

The show's host, Fred Dicker -- who is also the New York Post's state editor, read a recent poll showing Obama's sky-high support among African-Americans. 

Trump said the numbers were troubling and pointed to Hillary Clinton as proof that he probably won't get the kind of support among African-Americans that he deserves.

"I tell it like it is," Trump said. "[Y]ou'll hear a political reporter go on and say it had nothing to do with race. But how come she had such a tiny piece of the vote? And you know, it's a very sad thing.

"I have a great relationship with the blacks. I've always had a great relationship with the blacks. But unfortunately, it seems that, you know, the numbers you cite are very, very frightening numbers."

Dicker said, somewhat rhetorically, that votes should always be based on merit, not on race.

"If that were the case, why did Hillary Clinton do so poorly?" Turmp asked.

Oh, and Trump also stood by his claims that Obama has not produced adequate information about being born in the United States

"There's something going on," Trump said. "He either has one [a birth certificate] and there's something on it that he doesn't like, or he doesn't have one."

"I'm amazed that the press gives him such a free ride on that," he said. When told that the Washington Post fact-checked many of his claims on this issue and found them to be inaccurate, Trump held his ground.

He said the paper should have called him for his side of the story.

"She is seen correctly as paving the way for my political career and those of many other women," Clinton said. "We owe her so much. She stood where none of us had ever stood and comported herself with intelligence, toughness, humor and grace."

A host of political dignataries, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson attended the service, which was held at the Church of Saint Vincent Ferrer.

Ferraro was memorialized not just by Secretary Clinton, but by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, as well as former vice-president Walter Mondale, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, former California Rep. Jane Harman and Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski.

Mondale, who catapulted Ferraro from a congresswoman from Queens into history when he selected her as his vice-presidential nominee in 1984 noted that there were only two women in the Senate then. There at 17 today.

He recalled campaigning with Ferraro in Mississippi after the Democratic convention.

"I remember a local farmer asked of her, 'Young lady, do you know how to make blueberry muffins?' I thought uh-oh. And she said, 'Yes. Do you?'"

Many of the speakers recalled Ferraro's vice-presidential debate with George H.W. Bush in 1984, in which she famously accused the Vice-President of patronizing her.

Mikulski recalled Ferraro as master of constituent service.

"And by the way, she loved earmarks!" she said.

Many of the speakers brought up Mondale and Ferraro's electoral rout in 1984, in which the duo lost 49 out of 50 states.

"I always thought of her as the vice-president of Minnesota and Washington D.C," said Jane Harman.

Hillary Clinton remembered attending the Democratic convention in San Francisco, where Ferraro was first nominated, with her daughter, Chelsea. She said that the Clinton family were able to corner her for a photograph on the floor of the convention.

She described Ferraro as a devoted friend.

"She was invested in my life just like she was in all of her friends' lives. Our battles were her battles. Our triumphs were her triumphs."

Clinton added, "When that day comes--and it will come---when a woman is elected president or vice-president, we will know that Gerry helped make it possible."

Bill Clinton cited an article in a newspaper yesterday that said that Ferraro's native Queens now has a near-equal number of Asian, Hispanic, and black residents, and he said that all of the children there would benefit from Ferraro's path-breaking example.

"In their homes tonight, there are children--little girls and yes, little boys too--who will be just a little closer to having their shot at the American Dream because she lived."

Ferraro died this week after a long bout with blood cancer. She was 75 years old.

That was Jerry Nadler, the liberal Democratic congressman, in an interview this weekend, referring to President Obama and the military intervention in Libya.

Those concerns were also raised on a conference call Saturday, where other liberals, like Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, raised constitutional questions about Mr. Obama's actions.

The tension is over who has the authority to declare war, the Congress, or the president? Nadler, and his colleagues, say had the president sought congressional approval before taking military action, many of the questions they now have could have been answered.

The split on Libya is also dividing liberal and conservative non-interventionists from liberal and conservative interventionists.

Hence John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, who have been harshly critical of the Obama administration for waiting several days before agreeing to participate in a multilateral military attack on the forces of Mohamar Qaddafi, are on the same side as Hillary Clinton and other Democrats who tend to regard Bill Clinton's decision to intervene in Bosnia as the height of enlightened humanitarianism.

"We did not lead this," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was quoted saying this Sunday in the New York Times and other outlets. "We did not engage in unilateral actions in any way, but we strongly support the international community taking action against governments and leaders who behave as Qaddafi is unfortunately doing so now."

Nadler, who is generally a hawk on Israel, but who was also an early proponent of unilateral withdrawal from Iraq, doesn't buy the argument about multilateralism. "It doesn't matter that the U.S. is not taking the lead," said Nalder. "So what. We are still using U.S. military forces" and "the fact that other countries are doing it to are irrelevant. This act was unconstitutional."

French and British forces led the military assault in support rebel forces in Libya, who seek to depose President Qaddafi, whom President Obama has already said "needs to go." But Nadler said that the decision to pile in against the rebels could set a precedent for American forces taking action all over the place.

"If we're intervening for humanitarian reasons, why not the Ivory Coast or Darfur? Why here ?" he asked. "We cannot intervene at every situation."

"It's hard to see any vital national interest" in Libya, he said, referring to the constitutional powers a president has for using military force without the requisite consent of the congress beforehand.

Rep. Anthony Weiner, who has been broadly supportive of the steps taken in Libya, has warned of uncertainty about the mission.

"I do believe we must be a country that steps in to protect citizens from despotic leaders of their own country," Weiner said at a press conference this Sunday.  When I asked Weiner why there was intervention in Libya, versus other places facing political unrest, he said, "We haven't heard the president articulate that. It's been only a vague articulation from the president's cabinet."

He went on to repeat explanations he said came from the president's administration about why Libya was more suitable for U.S. military action: "that this was an achievable objective, making it different from other places around the world; this is something that there's a ready-made coalition, making it different than places like the Congo," he said.

"But that's a question a lot of members in Congress were asking," he said.

"Who are these rebels?" Mr. Nadler asked, referring to the soldiers on the ground in Libya. "Are they democratic, with a little d? Look at what we did in Afghanistan. We armed anti-Soviet forces, and we got the Taliban."

[Note: This item was slightly expanded from an earlier draft.]