"She used to wash her clothes and face with the same soap, said a 2008 Vogue article, and seldom wore makeup, much less luxuriated in the perks of privilege — like the private yoga classes with her friends Kathy Freston and Arianna Huffington — she indulges in today. At Yale, she would stake out Filene’s Basement to procure designer gowns on the cheap. Today, she is regularly photographed wearing Rodarte and Prada."

Ms. Huffington and Ms. Deng recently co-hosted the book party for Ms. Freston's diet book, The Lean. (Ms. Freston is the recently separated wife of ex-Viacom chief Tom.) They served guests Martha Stewart, Joel Klein and Harvey Weinstein vegan hors d'oeuvres made with tofu, quinoa and kale.

Ms. Huffington recalled a toast Mrs. Murdoch gave.

“She said, ‘I grew up so poor in China that one day I aspired to have meat regularly,’ ” Mrs. Huffington told the Times. “ ‘Now that I can have meat three times a day, Kathy tells us we can’t have any meat at all.’ ”

While the women went off to mingle over cucumber cocktails and discuss Ms. Freston's useful diet tips—pardon us, it's not a diet book, it's a cleanse—Mr. Freston huddled with Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner, Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter, the entertainment lawyer Allen Grubman and film producer Harvey Weinstein. The gentlemen, all wearing jackets and neckties, quietly talked into each other's ears and occasionally said things like, "O.K., so I'll call you about that thing next week," loudly enough for the surrounding guests to overhear.

Nearby was Ms. Freston, an attractive, skinny blond in her 40s who used to be a model, wearing a slimming pink cocktail dress.

"This is not a fast," she said of the book, published by Weinstein Books, that has already gained the approval of Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Mehmet Oz. The follow up to her first Quantum Wellness book, which came out just last month, instructs readers on how to carry out a 21-day cleanse by giving up sugar, caffeine, alcohol, gluten and animal products. "It's basically a whole foods, plant-based diet. It's medically sound. You don't have to feel deprived and you still get all your nutrition." 

Ms. Freston has been a vegan for a long time now. Her philosophy, she said, is to "lean" into the vegan lifestyle and give up one animal at a time. "I gave up steak, then pork chops, then chicken, then fish, and eventually became a vegan," she said. Her husband, however, is not a vegetarian, but he's made some progress. 

"Well! We eat vegan in the house because I'm in control of the kitchen, but when we're out, he eats whatever he wants," she said.

Mr. Freston, who in his 60s stands tall and handsome, described himself as a "partial veganist." 

"I eat fish and dairy, but not meat so much," he said. "Kathy always says, 'Give up one animal at a time.' So, I started with the little ones and worked my way up!"

The former CEO, who has been doing yoga for years now, has even tried the cleanse invented by his wife.

"It was not bad," he said. "You know, it's not like a diet where you're not eating enough food and you're hungry all the time. It's hard the first week and then you get used to it. But I still found myself waiting for that 21st day. When it finally came, I made a big pot of coffee."

Has his health improved since marrying Kathy?

"Yea-ha!" he said. "It's made a massive improvement in my health and, hopefully, my life expectancy. I've always been in good shape, I think, and watched my weight, but my diatary awareness probably wasn't as good as it should have been. She sets a firm pace and I'm just trying to hang in there."

The photographer Patrick McMullan, who was not only shooting the party, but was also listed as one of the hosts, invited Ms. Freston to the front of the room to say a few words.

"Thank you, Harvey Weinstein, and everyone at Weinstein. I love being part of your family," she said. "You are fierce and great at what you do."

Then she turned to Mr. McMullan: "And Patrick," she said, surveying the tightly packed room. "Boy, you call and they come!"

In the main room, there were yoga performers, practicing couples yoga as the guests surrounding them looked on in expensive cocktail dresses and tall heels. One thing the organizers of the party didn't seem to account for is that yoga studios are generally very hot with minimal ventilation so as to allow for the complete sweaty yoga experience. And so, as the downstairs studio began to fill up, it became uncomfortably warm. (Mr. Wenner hung out by the stairs the entire time, never venturing too deep into the sweaty room.)

But Mr. Weinstein, who was making his way around shaking hands, didn't seem to mind. His beautiful wife, designer Georgina Chapman, trailed behind in slim black pants and a candy-striped little jacket. 

"I've seen outlines of the book when they were working on it, but I haven't read it yet," Ms. Chapman told the Daily Transom. "But now I feel under pressure that Harvey and I need to try this."

Ms. Chapman is a vegetarian, but her husband is not. The last time Ms. Chapman tried to do a cleanse—the so-called master cleanse that involves consuming only lemon, maple syrup, water and cayenne pepper for 12 days—it didn't go so well. (Her husband didn't even bother trying.)

"I gave up after a few days. It was awful!" she said. "I lasted three days and on the last day, I went to Waverly."

The ex-wives of Jason Kidd, Patrick Ewing, and Eddie Murphy were overheard discussing a "First Wives Club" type reality show over drinks at the Gansevoort Hotel. [P6]

Whoopi Goldberg suggested that John McCain call himself "Jack Mack" to appeal to America's youth when he visited The View yesterday. [Gawker]

Robert De Niro and his Tribeca Productions partner Jane Rosenthal left Creative Artists Agency for Endeavor talent agency. [P6]

Tom Freston's wife, Kathy Freston, may be causing chefs headaches all over town. [P6]

Leven Rambin poses as twins Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield on the new editions of Sweet Valley High teen-targeted books. [The Cut]

African Americans are being mistreated all over the place. Beyoncé and Jay-Z's wedding may have been played down by tabloids because "African Americans don't sell covers," meanwhile David Patrick Columbia accidentally misidentified the few African American males featured on his Web site New York Social Diary. [NY Daily News, Radar]

Fabiola Beracasa, Michelle Trachtenberg, Byrdie Bell, Maggie Betts, and Arden Wohl showed up at Macelleria in the Meatpacking District for a dinner honoring the artist David Ellis. [Park Avenue Peerage]

East 66th Street, Tom Freston’s townhouse. “Arianna’s the most protean person around,” said Ed Kosner, of Arianna Huffington. “Look it up. Not protein.”

The former Daily News editor in chief was leaning on a rail, waiting for his wife. He blogs for Ms. Huffington’s Huffington Post. “It’s fun.”

“She’s very inventive and very intelligent and has good English education,” said Mr. Kosner. “I think she has always been fearless, from the first time she came to New York. I don’t think she’s changed any—I mean, her politics have oscillated around.”

“There is not a correlation between being fearless and having your politics change or not change,” said Mr. Kosner.

The party was mainly restricted to the second floor of the four-story manse. It once belonged to Andy Warhol. Hi, Barry Diller! “You know, the thing is, about this Web thing, is, you know, all of it is word-of-mouth,” Mr. Diller said. “There’s virtually no marketing—so when you have a real voice, then you really do resonate.”

He couldn’t quite put his finger on what exactly her voice was. “She’s always had important people who like her.”

Tom and Kathy Freston like her. Earlier this month, after 26 years at what is generally called Viacom, Mr. Freston, then CEO, was abruptly handed his walking papers.

“Tom, I need to talk to you this week,” said Charlie Rose. Sumner Redstone, Mr. Freston’s former boss, was soon to be a guest on his show.

“I told him that when you consider what’s going on there and how Sumner Redstone is behaving, I think he’s lucky to be out of there,” said P.R. king Bobby Zarem. “He said the amount of money he got wasn’t as large as it was said to be.”

The amount of money Mr. Freston received in severance was said to be $60 million.

“Tonight’s about Arianna,” Mr. Freston said over and over again.

But later. “Since this happened, I really don’t know what I’m going to do,” he told The Transom. “We’re going to Asia for a couple weeks.”

“I have much more time for traveling now,” he said.

The house was lathered in worldly artifacts as well as pictures of his two sons.

“One of my sons is a senior in college. He’s working on his thesis and too busy to hang out with me. The other one’s a junior in high school. You know, when you’re a junior in high school, you’re not exactly excited to hang out with your father.”

Mr. Freston said he’s still been too busy lately to look at Ms. Huffington’s Web site. His wife blogs there. He hasn’t given any consideration—“not a thought”—to taking up blogging himself.

Lynn de Rothschild made a speech about Ms. Huffington from the staircase. “I’ve known her for a long, long time, through different generations. Through each of her lives, she has always been this perfect creature—and the fact that fear was behind all of it is kind of stunning to me.”

Ms. Huffington made a short speech. “You know, Socrates, my compatriot, says that courage is the knowledge of what is not to be feared,” she said. “And so often we are afraid of shadows. And for me, the only way I could write this book is by being raw, intimate and vulnerable. So wait until you get to the sex chapter.”

Later, Ms. Huffington removed her heels, as she often does at parties. At 57, few things scare her anymore, she said. “I’m terrified of curling my eyelashes. I think that I’m going to poke my eye.” She said she was recently struck by fear when her daughters—she has a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old—began tossing around the term “friends with benefits.” “They’re too young to know anything about ‘friends with benefits’!”

She declined to comment on the fear involved with her 11-year marriage to millionaire former Congressman Michael Huffington—who came out as a bisexual shortly after their divorce. “He’s a great father and a great friend.”

She said she is certainly not afraid to take another whack at love.

“Arianna doesn’t need any advice from me,” said Ms. Freston, who is a self-help author and a spiritual counselor. “She’s a star in life and she’s a star in love.”

Nine p.m. The lights flicked on and off. Ms. Freston shook hands as guests filed out. She appeared stressed; there were hushed apologies.

Apparently, there had been some unpleasantness with a blogger who had been taking pictures of the Freston home.

Reached on Monday night for comment, Ms. Huffington did not side with her fellow bloggers. “Yes, there is a difference between fearlessness and foolishness. That was not appropriate—to take pictures of what is on people’s desks. There are certain conventions to be followed; that was not some public place. There are certain unstated rules.”

She said Mr. Freston had already gotten over the incident by the time he sat down for dinner later that night.

Ms. Huffington’s book— On Becoming Fearless—was, you might by now imagine, organized around a theme. Could she imagine tiring of the word fearless at some point?

“No, never,” she said. “I will continue talking about fearlessness until an epidemic of fearlessness has spread across the country.”

—Spencer Morgan

Eligible Bachelors

“I don’t leave the house much anymore,” said Billy Bob Thornton at the School for Scoundrels after-party at the Stone Rose on Monday night. Mr. Thornton, now 51, dressed all in black, said that his wild bachelor days are over. He said he rarely leaves his hotel room now when he’s in town. In School for Scoundrels, he plays a confidence coach who advises geeks on how to get girls. In reality, Mr. Thornton said, “I have only bad advice.”

Nowadays, he’s focusing on fatherhood. His daughter, Bella, just turned 2. And yes, he and his ex-wife, Angelina Jolie, have discussed getting their tots together for a play date. “She’s all over the world, you know. But someday we’ll get them together.”

Nearby, Kristian Laliberte, an events coordinator/men’s buyer, was checking out the men on the new Gotham mag list of “NYC’s 101 Most Eligible Bachelors.”

He marked off all the dudes he knew to be gay. “Like, half of these guys are gay,” he said. He’d put stars next to 27 of the pictured bachelors he knew to be gay—including himself. He was amused by the straight-laced answers that many of his fellow gays had offered as their “relationship deal-breakers.”

“If she doesn’t pass the ‘mother test’” was P.R. maverick Jonathan Cheban’s deal-breaker. Over that, Mr. Laliberte had scrawled three stars.

He also wrote “SO GAY” next to Mr. Cheban’s picture.

Doesn’t anyone talk about bisexuals anymore?

Anyway! Actress Sarah Silverman is also in Scoundrels. She said that Jon Heder, who plays one of Mr. Thornton’s girl-phobic students, is actually quite a smoothie. “He’s really cool; he’s an open book.” She particularly admires how he handles being a Mormon. “He’s so cool about it. And you know, he can’t swear because of his religion, so he would come up with some really creative ways to get around it. One time we were all joking around, and he came out with the word ‘ball-meat.’”

What now?

She gestured at her crotch. “You know, like meat from your balls.”

—S.M.

Expecting Maguire

Last Friday afternoon, Jennifer Meyer, Tobey Maguire’s very pregnant wife, had a leisurely lunch with a blond girlfriend at the Beverly Hills eatery La Scala.

“She’s so loud,” said an eavesdropper at the table next to Mrs. Meyer’s. “She was like, ‘My doctor says I need to eat all the carbs!’ She ordered a chopped salad with grilled chicken and a plate of pasta Bolognese.”

“She was giving advice to her friend,” said the source. Ms. Meyer looked gorgeous in a long black dress. “She was saying how she and Tobey were doing so great, and how they go to therapy and it helps so much.”

Ms. Meyer, 29, and Mr. Maguire, 31, got engaged earlier this summer.

“She said she could tell Tobey’s gonna be an amazing father, because no matter where he was, he always found time to fly home and check on her,” said the source.

But life isn’t all beer and skittles for Ms. Meyer. The couple is conflicted about what to name their baby girl. “She said she likes guy names that also work for a girl, like Cameron. But Toby doesn’t like that. She also said she likes old-fashioned names like Evelyn, but that Toby didn’t like those either.”

The oldest daughter of Universal Studios C.E.O. Ron Meyer and a jewelry designer by trade, Ms. Meyer did most of the talking during that lunch, said the source.

“She was like, ‘I feel so bad for all our friends who have no direction and don’t know what to do with their lives.’ Her friend was like, ‘Yeah, I know.’ Then Jen was like, ‘I’m so happy I’ve always known what I wanted to do with my life.’ And then her friend was like, ‘Yeah, me too!’”

—S.M.

Prince Half-Nelson

It was a meeting of worlds last Wednesday at Asprey, the oh-so-English specialty boutique, currently in temporary digs on 57th Street, where the American Associates of the Royal Academy Trust held its annual pre-gala cocktail party.

“We celebrate the Anglo-American association,” said executive director Dorothy Kauffman. Her dress was vintage Pucci. “It belonged to my mother, so it’s very special for me to be wearing it tonight.”

The Royal Academy was founded in the 18th century, the American Associates in 1983, as a “respectful nod to each other across the Atlantic,” Ms. Kauffman said. “The spoken word is deeply impactful. We”—Americans and English—“share a common language and cultural heritage. We can read each other’s novellas, prose and poetry and get it.”

Ms. Kauffman is fluent in French; her husband of 13 years, Stephen Hollowell, an Englishman, is proficient in German.

Before moving to the U.S., Mr. Hollowell worked as a detective in England. In his youth, he was a headbanger—“Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd”—but without the telltale long hair. “I had short, short blond hair and the bovver boots,” he said. He sounds a bit like the actor Bob Hoskins. Standing one flight up on a balcony overlooking the store’s entrance, he wore spectacles, a gray suit, a patterned tie and a shirt in ultramarine blue, from Asprey.

“All the women were all over him and all the men sort of stayed back,” he said, describing the scene when a group of American Associates on a tour of London scored an audience with His Majesty Prince Charles. “So my wife said, ‘I want to introduce you.’ I said, ‘Nah, you don’t have to introduce me.’” Ms. Kauffman insisted, and Mr. Hollowell acquiesced—but with one non-negotiable condition: “I am not bowing.” The two men made each other’s acquaintance. “Prince Charles said, ‘Oh, very lovely to meet you.’ And I said, ‘Hey, how’re yah doin’?’”

—Nicholas Boston

Such Globes

“It’s a great honor to be called upon to be a figurehead, I guess—to spearhead something that’s so culturally important, especially when New York City is, in my opinion, the cultural star in this country of ours,” said Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star Christopher Meloni. He, along with his wife Sherman, was playing host at a gala for the New Globe theater at Valentino last week.

The barrel-chested construction worker turned actor was dressed more like he’d been spending time with the Queer Eye squad. Earlier that day, he’d been given a Valentino makeover. He was wearing: a black velvet blazer (“Touch it, it’s soft!” he said; it was pretty soft); a “lilac” dress shirt; some shiny slacks.

“It’s nice,” he said. Valentino had pledged to donate 10 percent of a week’s sales to the New Globe cause—and one velvet blazer. “I fuckin’ better be able to keep it! I mean, I came in and got fitted,” Mr. Meloni said. “No, but this jacket isn’t going to fit anyone else. Between these shoulders”—big and broad—“and my little ass”—heck of a waist line!—“no one’s gonna be able to wear this.”

Russell Simmons and Mr. Meloni’s partner in sex-crime prevention, Mariska Hargitay, dropped in for some lightning-fast photo ops. The initiative to build a modern version of the London Globe Theater on Governors Island has relied heavily—almost exclusively—on the generosity and spearheading gusto of celebs like Mr. Meloni.

“In this day and age, you almost need a few celebrities to get people to pay attention,” said Mr. Meloni. Almost? Anyway. “New York is about culture, not war museums.”

Jane Krakowski, of Ally McBeal and now of 30 Rock, said that as an actress, supporting the New Globe was a no-brainer: “It works twofold—it would be a great thing for New York, and also maybe we can get hired there one day as well.”

Sadly, none of the stars made their way to the after-party at Bungalow 8. Club owner Amy Sacco is also a New Globe “friend” and was happy to host another of Ms. Romer’s parties. The evening’s auction had raised $35,000, but event organizers still weren’t totally satisfied. “I was really hoping Ralph Fiennes would make it,” said one.

—S.M.

“It’s a great book, you know what I mean?” said Harvey Weinstein. “Rob Weisbach”—the honcho of Miramax Books—“brought it into the company, with Jonathan Burnham”—Mr. Weisbach’s predecessor, who is also the man-friend of Star editor Joe Dolce—“and I read it. Actually, we didn’t even read it! We just interviewed Kathy. She’s so great. We read her other book. It’s a really smart read, and I think it’s what’s on people’s minds.”

“It’s my second book, but I gotta tell you, this one really meant a lot to me,” said Kathy Freston of the book in question, The One: Finding Soul Mate Love and Making It Last. “Now to be kind of out of my pajamas, you know, and kind of climbing out of my cage to be out and about is really exciting …. ”

It was last Thursday at a reception in celebration of Ms. Freston’s sophomore literary achievement at the Core Club in midtown. (The establishment, which began operations last fall in an elevator building on East 55th Street, takes Soho House’s members-only concept and bumps it up a few notches on the exclusivity index. Price of membership: upward of $100,000.)

“ … so, in the book, I try to get people to understand that it’s really within us; that if we work on ourselves and shift our energy, everything around us shifts. You know, whether you’re single or whether you’re married or whether you’re dating someone, when you work on yourself and you change your magnetism, everything around you shifts and changes.”

Ms. Freston is appreciably tall and svelte, and the palazzo style of pant she wore further accentuated her lines. As “spiritual influences,” she named Marianne Williamson, Deepak Chopra and Carl Jung. “But,” she quickly pointed out, “I get inspiration everywhere. I get inspiration from cab drivers, or waiters. Everybody has that wisdom inside of them, and that’s the thing—there are soul mates all around us.”

“You kidding?” said Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner, in response to the question of whether he thought it difficult to find and keep a mate in New York. “Yah, I think so.”

Brian Grazer, whose latest film production, The Da Vinci Code, premieres this month, showed his ring finger. “I’m still wearing my wedding ring,” he said, despite his very recent separation from wife Gigi Levangie Grazer.

“Find relationships?” said a pinstriped Calvin Klein. “Oh my God, then I’ve gotta read this book really fast. Maybe I’ll learn something.”

“But it’s really not about just one person,” Ms. Freston said. “It’s about taking the potential between people when you have an attraction, where there is physical chemistry or shared lifestyle ideals or whatever it is, and then taking that plane and really sort of feeding it so that it becomes this thing that runs throughout your life.

“Tom’s kids, my stepchildren, are definitely soul mates of a different sort,” she said.

Gil Fres­ton, a son of Viacom shot-caller Tom Freston—Ms. Freston’s husband of eight years—was in attendance. He sported a teen-chic outfit: an untucked white shirt with a loosely knotted tie and Vans.

His MySpace page said that he is 16 years old, attends the Dwight School and has 341 friends, one of whom recently left him a message that read, “If Damon Dash keeps following in you [sic] older brother’s footsteps (re: Page Six), how long will we have to wait until Dash starts dressing up in drag, walking the streets of Chelsea at 3am?”

Oh, but 16 is such a tough age.

“Vodka and water, please,” said Freston père to the bartender. He looked handsome and relaxed in muted grays. “It’s a lonely job, I can tell you—it’s a lonely profession, being a writer. You see it really firsthand, someone trying to work on a book and go through endless amounts of rewrites. She”—Ms. Freston—“requires a lot of solitude, not disturbance.”

Barbara Guggenheim, the party’s co-hostess, approached him.

“Hi, Barbara, thank you for this,” Mr. Freston said. A big kiss. “How are you? You didn’t have to do this. This is lovely.”

Ms. Guggenheim gripped his hand assuringly.

“We all have The One!” said MTV dev dude John Sykes. His wife, Laurie, wore a black-and-white ensemble with pearls. Beside him was Jane Buffett, wife of Jimmy. “I’ve been married to a rock star for 35 years,” she said. “I got the one.”

“Really, what I would say, to make things work: no expectations,” Ms. Buffett said. “Because every expectation is a predestined resentment.”

The couple was separated for nine years, but reconciled in 1991 and remain happily married.

“I think all the art on the wall are owned by the members,” Ms. Freston said to Ahmet Ertegun. “Isn’t it amazing?!” she said, admiring an outsized Basquiat, to which someone else had drawn her attention.

“It’s very claustrophobic, too” Graydon Carter, tucked into one corner of the room, was heard saying to his wife, Anna Scott, and another attractive blonde.

“Never had more compliments on an issue,” he said of Vanity Fair’s current “Green Issue.” “I’ve always been an environmentalist, and this is the great time to do it. It’s the biggest issue of our age.” (In this instance, by “issue,” he meant a matter of concern, not that actual periodical.)

Carole Daly hopped onto a chair to thank everyone for coming, “on behalf of Rupert and Wendi, Burt and Barbara, and Bob and myself.”

“Neil Simon once said, when I married Bob, that ‘Carole Bayer Sager Bacharach Daly’ could have been a great law firm,” she said. “I want to say that if Kathy had written this book in her early teens and I had a chance to read it, I think I’d be standing here with a few less names.”

“I’m so completely humbled,” Ms. Freston said. “It’s so amazing to be among all of you people who are such bright lights. So much talent, so much creativity, so much accomplishment, such interesting people. Especially Harvey Weinstein—I am so honored to be a part of your house,” she said, extending both her hands to Mr. Weinstein, who was standing beyond her grasp. “Harvey’s a real miracle worker, it’s true. He takes any creative project and he adds his magic and things happen beyond your wildest dreams and I am, I’m the lucky one.”

After she’d thanked everyone—nearly—and the guests were returning to their conversations, Ms. Freston swung around to discover her husband.

“Oh, my husband!” she shrieked. “Tom! I want to thank him! Tom!”

“The old Hilary Swank and Chad Lowe case,” joked a man nearby.

—Nicholas Boston

The Mets’ Costume Gala

The Transom sought high and low for a reporter who had attended the always-glamorous Metropolitan Museum’s annual Costume Institute Gala on Monday, hosted by Vogue editor Anna Wintour. (This year’s theme: Anglomania!) At last, it found one; and here is his report.

The most notable innovation at the Mets’ costume gala May 1 was in the headgear: Now that batting helmets have become ridged and indented, rather than smoothly curved, their decoration has become more than a rounded, gleaming replica of an ordinary baseball cap.

The Mets favor a two-tone look, with blue on the higher elevations in front and black on the sunken parts in the rear. The effect is subtle and eye-confusing; some batters looked as if their helmets were filthy with pine tar, while others, showing blue or black at different angles, suggested the color-shifting prismatic paint on auto-show concept cars. (It is past time for that technology to reach the consumer market—not in the flashy blue-to-pink form of some custom cars, but in, perhaps, iron gray to silver, or deep blue to black, as the final touch on, say, a Lincoln Continental.)

The visiting Washington Nationals, meanwhile, wore grim navy hats and socks with their gray road uniforms. They looked like a completely different team than the one that had posed in jaunty red caps for the individual portraits that showed on the giant video screen. Alfonso Soriano—newly converted to the outfield this year—wore his socks high, the way he’d done as the Yankees’ second baseman, back when the Yankees started losing the World Series instead of winning it. In left field, he had moments of utter staggering confusion; at the plate, he struck out with his old confident, sweeping swing. The crowd jeered either way. Nick Johnson, his fellow ex-Yankee, wore his socks high too, but nobody cared.

In the stands, Mets blankets were the accessory of choice, and layers were abundant. There was a cold wind blowing straight in from center field. It untied one end of a Venezuelan flag draped over the loge railing in honor of Mets pitcher Víctor Zambrano—the old reactionary flag, with the horse on the coat of arms running rightward, not the newly redesigned Hugo Chávez flag with the horse galloping boldly left. But the wind did Zambrano a favor, knocking down the Nationals’ hardest-hit drive of the night for an easy fly out.

Other costuming notes: Mr. Met wore his usual baseball head, lovable and a tiny bit disquieting. The prize patrol bombarded the stands with their T-shirt guns, launching at least one bundled T-shirt clear into the top deck. The designated theme of the evening, Anglomania, was not immediately evident.

But what is the essence of Anglophile style, if not bearing and endurance? Julio Franco, age 47, pinch-hit for the Mets in the bottom of the ninth and stood gracefully still. The score was 1-1. He was batting for closer Billy Wagner, who had pitched without the lead, against the book, overpowering the Nationals to keep the game tied. Mr. Franco watched ball one, ball two, ball three. A gimme strike one. And then ball four. A pinch runner took his place at first base. Two batters later, with the pinch runner on second, the Nationals’ pitcher fielded a tailor-made double-play ball and threw it wildly into center field. Franco’s runner sprinted home with the victory.

—Tom Scocca

Kindred Spirits

“I do yoga and I try to get Tom to join in,” said Kathy Freston.

“I do a good bit of yoga, not as much as her,” said her husband, Tom.

Mr. Freston is the co-president and co-C.O.O. of Viacom. Ms. Freston is an author and meditation counselor. Both are delightful. Last week, they were guests of honor at a benefit for the Continuum Center for Health and Healing at Beth Israel Medical Center.

“New York has a way of beating you up,” said Ms. Freston. “The stress really takes an effect and Woody’s”—Dr. Woodson Merrell, a Continuum board member and the night’s M.C.—“really taught us a lot about nutrition and meditation and really taking care of ourselves, so that our immune system isn’t so susceptible.”

According to Forbes, Mr. Freston received a $16 million bonus in fiscal year 2004.

“He does a mean downward-facing dog! He really does,” said Ms. Freston of her husband. “I’ve actually even gotten him to meditate, once in awhile. We eat a lot of vegetarian food. He gets more tofu than he ever dreamed possible.”

“But best of all with Woody,” said Mr. Freston, “are the vitamin shots.”

Ms. Freston agreed. “A good vitamin-B hookup is really great.”

Well, bend us over and shoot us up, because that truly does sound fantastic. A nice break, really, from swallowing horse-pill-sized vitamins with burnt deli coffee and a Paxil.

“I’m a meditation counselor,” said Ms. Freston. “So I have an altar, a meditation room, a little yoga corner of the house, and we definitely eat as organic as possible, use nontoxic chemicals. What else?”

“Whole Foods,” said Mr. Freston.

“Yeah, we shop at Whole Foods,” she said. “We try to, you know, shop locally, local farmers. I think finally people are starting to think about it. I think things happen in New York first.”

Allen Sperry, the president of Manhatti.com, and John Hays, the deputy chairman of Christies, sat at table 11. The centerpiece consisted of a few flowers and a vase of broccoli.

Over a dinner of something called herbed millennium tofu spread, goat-cheese mousse, free-range organic chicken and a phyllo purse stuffed with quinoa, their conversation turned to the much-maligned auctioning of Asher Durand’s Kindred Spirits by the New York Public Library back in May.

“Why did they have to sell it?” asked Mr. Sperry.

Mr. Hays leaned in close. “I can give you 38 million reasons why,” he said.

Sarah McLachlan performed a few songs, while a visibly pregnant Christy Turlington snuggled into hubbie Ed Burns. Ms. McLachlan was suffering from a sinus infection, she said during her performance. “When I’m sick,” she said, “the last thing I want to do is take antibiotics. I take a lot of Chinese herbs. I’ve done acupuncture, cranial sacral. I’ve done a lot of massage.” Where’s the good doctor with the big needle now?

At the close of the evening, Dr. Merrell presented Mr. and Mrs. Freston with a gold-plated statue of Tara, a Buddhist deity. The audience members closed their eyes and breathed deeply as Ms. Freston, in her lovely cream pantsuit, guided them in meditation.

“May every living soul realize peace,” she said.

—Raegan Johnson

The Devil Wears What?

Henry Novelo was on Broadway, barking instructions into a wireless headset, when a film technician suddenly materialized and asked him to move out of the shot.

What shot?

The Devil Wears Prada was filming across the street and the crew wasted no time in disrupting the daily routine of the poor suckers working much more unglamorously in the Flatiron district on a Monday afternoon. Unconcerned, the delectable Adrian Grenier and princess Anne Hathaway were seated inside the Mayrose café, doing their scene.

The technician asked pedestrians gawking at the flashing lights and equipment to look away from the flashing lights and equipment. Office-drone smokers were acceptable, but could not look at the cameras.

“What movie is it?” demanded Mr. Novelo.

“The Devil Wears Prada.”

“Who’s in it?”

“Meryl-Streep-but-she’s-not-here-today,” said the P.A.

“You shut down two or three blocks just to film the extras?” Mr. Novelo asked in disbelief.

“Don’t yell at me!” countered the crewman, intercepting more unsuspecting pedestrians.

“This is bullshit,” Mr. Novelo said. “This morning I was going to this power meeting— with Verizon Wireless—and one of those guys walked up to me and pushed me back to stop me!”

It was now 5 p.m., almost rush hour.

“Forget about me smoking—whaddya gonna do, stop New York City at rush hour?” he growled.

Nearby, a small crowd of smokers passed the time in speculation about the self-presentation of Mr. Grenier’s sexuality. “It’s the T-shirt,” said one.

A line of extras next to Mayrose had waited patiently since 8:30 a.m. to mindlessly walk back and forth in front of the café’s glossy windows. Tobin Tyler reclined outside, dressed in a white button-down shirt and jeans. “That’s a tough job,” he said, gesturing to another crewmember trying to divert city traffic away from the shooting site. “I mean, you gotta tell New Yorkers they can’t go down their street?” He shook his head.

Nearby, Carol, an up-and-coming actress in jeans and a striped blazer, rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe it’s after 4 and we’re still shooting this same scene.” Her feet were clad in gleaming black Nikes.

“I paid $100 for these sneakers on my break,” she said. “I couldn’t stand in those heels anymore. None of the shots are gonna show my feet, so what do they care?”

Robbie Bryan and Tim Miller, both dressed N.Y.C.-casual in slacks and jackets, were called to walk in front of the window where the characters are sitting and drinking coffee.

“CUT!” yelled the frumpy woman wearing a production badge. “RESET!”

Messrs. Bryan and Miller came back, and walked behind Carol around the corner again. And again. And again.

“Your mind’s a little jellylike,” said Bryan after the umpteenth take, “doing the same thing over and over all day.”

“It could be worse. We could be digging ditches.”

A teenage girl with curly black hair wrapped in a pink bandana stood on the corner, dressed in baggy orange cords and a denim jacket. “Are they filming a commercial?”

It’s a movie. The Devil Wears Prada.

“What? The devil wears what?”

Prada.

“Who’s in it?”

Meryl Streep, but she’s not here. And that guy from Entourage.

She lost interest and ran off.

Another young New Yorker with shades perched in his black spiked hair paused to watch the action.

“What movie is this?”

The Devil Wears Prada.

“Who’s acting in it?”

Meryl Streep.

“Is she here?”

No, she’s not here today.

“Who’re they?” he motioned to the actor and actress barely visible inside through the glare of the spotlights reflecting off the glass.

The guy from Entourage and the girl from The Princess Diaries.

He craftily sidled up to the window and snapped a couple of quick shots of the actors with his camera. He tipped a wink before running off to show his girlfriend. “I told her they were filming a movie here. She’s excited.”

Mr. Bryan came over and shook his head.

“Those are the stand-ins,” he said, nodding toward the terribly normal couple inside the coffee shop. “The actors are in their trailers, around the corner.”

—Nicole Pesce

Half A Wormy Apple

“I met Neil Rosen at a premiere party once,” the actor Jesse Eisenberg said. “It was kind of like meeting Santa Claus.” This makes Mr. Eisenberg the first up-and-coming actor to admit to being star-struck over a NY1 film critic and his Big Apple rating system.

Mr. Eisenberg slunk into the Regency Hotel’s Library lounge last week. He nervously ran one hand through unruly curls while clutching his tweedy jacket with the other, unconsciously doing a dead-on Woody Allen impression. The now-22-year-old (his birthday is the same as the release date for his new film, The Squid and the Whale, Oct. 5) is also startlingly honest. He disclosed his apartment’s location—Chelsea; the cost of his rent—“18-something”; and his girlfriend’s profession—nonprofit arts administrator. “Was it fun to do that movie? Not really,” he said of last winter’s Cursed, about a werewolf in Los Angeles. “I did it to make some money.”

Back in the 90’s, there was a better-known Eisenberg; Mr. Eisenberg’s curly-haired cutie sister, Hallie Kate, who starred in ubiquitous Pepsi commercials and charmed Jay Leno in Tonight Show appearances. “She’s cute and brilliant,” he shrugged. “Those Pepsi ads were kinda stupid, but she’s a lot smarter than me. I think she’ll end up being a doctor or something.”

“Jesse auditioned maybe nine or 10 times,” Noah Baumbach, director of The Squid and the Whale, had told The Transom earlier. “I kept hearing through the casting director via Jesse’s agent that he really wanted the part but kept feeling like he did terribly. I thought he was great. I just kept bringing him back because there’s a lot to the character and I wanted to make sure he could handle every aspect—which of course he could.”

“He said nine auditions?” Mr. Eisenberg asked. “I think it took maybe six or seven.” He grinned. “I really wanted the part—me and every other young actor who got to read the script.”

After The Squid and the Whale’s New York Film Festival premiere, Mr. Eisenberg would be flying back to L.A. to finish a limited run of Orphans, a small play co-starring Al Pacino. “Al Pacino. Fucking amazing, right?” It may transfer to Broadway this winter.

“I get offered money for movies sometimes, but I think there’s a direct science for how bad the movies are to what they want to pay you,” he said. “Al Pacino, he just made $10 million or something for that movie with Matthew McConaughey”—Two for the Money—“but then he gets to do a play. I don’t think I’ve reached the point where I can do that. His crappy movie still might be my good movie, you know?” He smiled. “He gets the cream of the crop of crap.”

—Sara Vilkomerson

And Happy New Year

When the Nation of Islam enters the room, two things come immediately to mind. They will, hands down, win the best-dressed award. Also, one wonders: Who else these days brings such a frisson of conflict to a party?

Longtime documentarian Marc Levin’s Protocols of Zion will open in New York on Oct. 21. The film tries to unravel what Mr. Levin sees as a resurgence of post-9/11 anti-Semitism, relating such sentiment to that old absurdity The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In fact, that infamous forgery turns 100 this year, but its dissemination hasn’t slowed, dovetailing nicely with an odd chestnut that 9/11 was part of a Zionist plot for world supremacy.

For a screening and party for the film, the 15th floor of the HBO building was saturated with producers, backers, publicists, invited guests, a few members of the press and black-tied waiters. And then the entourage of African-American men and one woman, half in crisply tailored suits, a few in berets and baggy green camouflage, stepped off the elevator.

Mr. Levin, the journeyman narrator, takes his audience on a whirlwind tour of Kabbalists, Arab-Americans, white supremacists and incarcerated Black Muslims. As a filmmaker, Mr. Levin is less self-righteous than Michael Moore—pure New Jersey where Mr. Moore mourns for Flint, Mich. He’s also a born schmoozer; he shook hands with any stranger he didn’t recognize. Tall and gray-haired in a light jacket and pink shirt, he played part idealist, part P.T. Barnum (“Obviously,” he said later, “you want people to pay and go see the movie”). His vocabulary is pure Hollywood, while his accent is undeniably across-the-Hudson. He says fun things, like “wake up, baby” and “putting strychnine in the Kool-Aid.”

And Protocols of Zion is begging for controversy. The film’s poster shows the burning World Trade Center—the two towers are stacks of leather-bound copies of the inflammatory booklet. Asked about it later, Mr. Levin said, “I don’t want to, you know, offend any of the families of the victims. At the same time, this isn’t just history, some crazy book written a hundred years ago. It came back to me in the wake of 9/11, when somebody said, ‘You know that, that, which was written a hundred years ago, came true on 9/11, and the Jews were behind it, and that no Jews died …. ’ So the fact that yes, it’s sensitive, it’s provocative, but I think it’s legitimate.”

It was announced that HBO Documentary and Family president Sheila Nevins was home sick. “Yeah, right,” mumbled one of the militants. Of course, the evening could have been more entertaining, but the various prison inmates interviewed in the film were obviously also unable to attend. Still, when the post-film Q&A began, the room had a noticeable air of expectation.

“One flaw I found in the film,” said Malik Zulu Shabazz, chairman of the New Black Panther Party, to the tense room, “was just the use of the word ‘Semite.’ It conveyed to the audience that only Semites are Jews …. Which raises a whole other question on the origin of Judaism and ignores that fact completely that it originally comes from Africa, and the current population of Israel, mainly from Europe, are Ashkenazi Jews.” At least one man, a few rows down, visibly displayed his displeasure. With glasses and a bald spot, a light blue open-necked shirt and blazer, he turned around half out of his seat and shook his head angrily. He mouthed what looked like “No way,” but may, of course, have been much dirtier.

Mr. Shabazz is a tall and imposing man; after the panel, in his dark suit and glasses, he spoke firmly, but with impeccable politeness: “I think it has been an education,” but “we need a deeper analysis than merely saying that the Jewish community is hated because they’re Jewish. There are legitimate grievances by black people and by Arab people about what has been done to them by members of the European Jewish community.”

O.K., so far we’re talking. And the Protocols pamphlet? “I have no idea,” said Mr. Shabazz, “whether it is true or false.” Eric Ture Muhammad, executive director of the Black African Holocaust Council, also voiced his suspicions. “I have no proof,” he said, “that it’s a fabrication. I’m not here to say that I believe in it. However, it is uncanny how so many similarities in terms of what we see in the world today fit those protocols.” O.K., less constructive.

And what about the bizarre and persistent rumor that no Jews died in the World Trade Center? Here Professor Leonard Jeffries stepped in. A smaller, older man with a mustache and a kufi hat, Dr. Jeffries was famously demoted from his chairmanship of the CUNY black-studies department. “That’s not even a question to respond to,” he insisted. Pressed by an intrepid AP reporter, Dr. Jeffries stood firm. “Well, they’re gonna twist it, whatever we say. That’s a crap question.” But Mr. Shabazz shrugged off this advice, talking over Dr. Jeffries. “I don’t know,” he said, “I don’t know, I don’t have enough research on that.”

Mr. Levin was happy to end the evening with the glass half full. Here he was, after all, hosting a room full of Jews and militant black Muslims, and “Nobody panicked, you know. Because the fear, is it gonna turn into a freak show, and chairs thrown and people hitting each other? You know, whatever: the Geraldo syndrome.” Of course, black nationalists may be the least of his problems. “Come tomorrow night,” Mr. Levin teased. “The J.D.L.”—the Jewish Defense League—“is going to be here.”

—Brad Tytel

It wasn't anything that had to do with the Sept. 7 MTV Video Music Awards, where Mr. Freston munched lobster and sipped champagne on the first mezzanine of Radio City Music Hall with his new bosses at CBS. It was that Mr. Freston's penthouse at 39 N. Moore Street in Tribeca had gone into contract for about $4.35 million on Aug. 31.

Mr. Freston, who is married to Kathy Freston and has two kids from a previous marriage, put the duplex penthouse on the market for $4.5 million in mid-April. But when no serious offers arrived, he knocked the price down to $3.95 million in June. "In real estate, very frequently, you have to ask less to get more," said Mr. Freston's broker, Elaine Schweninger of the Corcoran Group.

When Mr. Freston bought the apartment for $713,000 in 1994, it was raw space; it was his fourth loft in Tribeca in 18 years. The nine-room, sixth-floor, 4,500-square-foot apartment has four bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, exotic Brazilian cherrywood floors and two wood-burning fireplaces. The apartment was decorated by L.A. interior designer Kerry Joyce, who also spruced up hotelier Ian Schrager's classic Southampton mansion. Ms. Schweniger, who described the apartment as "beautifully crafted," said "the big kahuna here was the terrace"–1,000 square feet of perfectly manicured terrace.

Once the price was lowered to $3.95 million in June, the bids starting pouring in. "We, of course, had a choice of candidates," said Ms. Schweninger. On Aug. 31, an Upper East Side couple signed a contract to buy the apartment, swapping neighborhoods with Mr. Freston, who didn't wish to comment on the deal but said in an e-mail that the selling price was close to $4.35 million. The sellers were represented by Kurt Weyrauch and Helen Dreyfuss of Brown Harris Stevens.

Come October, Mr. Freston will start moving into the five-and-a-half-story townhouse that has only one more bedroom than the penthouse, but also a library with a small terrace with a few plants in the back, and six fireplaces–-one of which is adorned with a statue of a woman on either side–central air conditioning, Juliet balconies and an elevator.

WATER MILL, N.Y.

IS THE WILZIG CASTLE CURSED? Four years ago, brothers Alan and Ivan Wilzig started building a fake family homestead in Water Mill, on Long Island. Alan named it Wilzig Castle, and in 1998 they put it up for sale for $5 million, fully furnished. On Sept. 14, the brothers had to return a $300,000 deposit to a man they described as a "virtually unknown, Long Island, 64-year-old real estate magnate" who they said had agreed to buy their house for $3.395 million. And it wasn't the first time.

Sources said the mystery buyer, who had made an offer for the mansion in June, was recently diagnosed with fatal lung cancer. He "executed the whole deal and was diagnosed with a terrible illness that re-prioritized his life," said Alan Wilzig, 35. "He had wanted the house so his children and their children would be attracted to 'Grandpa's castle' like a magnet."

Two years ago, nearly the same thing happened–a buyer broke a deal to buy the castle for health reasons. Both times, the brothers returned the deposit. "Personally, I would rather throw $300,000 down a sewer than profit from some person's illness or misfortune," said Alan.

So for now, the house is still called Wilzig Castle. In 1996, the brothers, who help run the Trust Company of New Jersey, a commercial bank run by their father, Auschwitz survivor Siggi B. Wilzig, began constructing the 14,000-square-foot, stone-and-stucco medieval-style mansion in Water Mill's Deerfield Hills. The three-level, 15-room house, adorned with gold leafing and fake Picassos, has seven bedrooms (including two master suites), 10 bathrooms, a fish-stocked freshwater pond, a living room that turns into a disco, a sound system (including speakers that play Italian opera inside the swimming pool), mahogany chests that electronically spit out a big-screen television that rises to eye level and a turreted rooftop with panoramic views. (According to Alan Wilzig, "the contents and art and media were being sold under a separate agreement for a 'house-like' sum of money." That, too, fell through.)

The brothers have made the most of the problem of selling the place. In August, the house was the site of the premiere and party for the Showtime film On the Beach . Alan Wilzig and Armand Assante were hosts. And last summer, the brothers threw a "Jungle Masquerade" theme party to benefit the Rainforest Alliance. It made headlines.

"The Jungle Masquerade last year was the very best party in Hamptons history," said Alan. "Sorry to the white buck-seersucker crowd who may have preferred the 400th anniversary of the Maidstone Club or some such thing! I say 'best ever' knowing it sounds almost absurd; a hyperbolic superlative befitting Donald Trump–who had a great time that night, as did Ivana, Sammy Sosa and 1,100 of our closest friends!"

He described the scene as "Fellini-like, with stunning girls covered in scraps of suede and body paint." He insists, contrary to reports, that he didn't hire these attractive, scantily clothed women. "It was just clever costuming and the nerve and looks to pull it off." After the party, Alan joined the Rainforest Alliance's board.

But that didn't help sell the house. In fact, it attracted other party houses, which will likely make it even more difficult to sell the house. Last spring, sponsors including Nike, Kozmo.com and Evian built a neighboring mansion to promote products in the Hamptons. Called the Synergy Spa, the mansion lets guests like model Frankie Rayder, actress Chloë Sevigny and hip-hop entrepreneur Sean (Puffy) Combs stay free, use the gym, hot tub and tennis courts, and then sends them off with sponsor-stuffed goody bags. The house has driven neighbors nuts.

Another tack has been to rent Wilzig Castle out for the summer. There was a plan for the Nike athletic-wear company to rent the castle last summer. Nike wanted to throw big parties there and let star athletes, media people and hangers-on stay over. But the deal fell through, and afterward the Wilzigs decided not to rent to anyone else. "After Nike fell through, others seemed less exciting," said Alan. "Plus, I had gotten enchanted with the whole Fortune 500 security."

With the neighborhood perfectly quiet now, the house will surely soon be back on the market. When asked if he planned to own another Hamptons property, Alan responded by e-mail: "Never buy … but build, yes. Think Morocco-Turkish motif."

UPPER EAST SIDE

35 Sutton Place

2-bedroom, 4 1/2-bathroom, 2,700-square-foot co-op.

Asking: $1.995 million. Selling: $1.55 million.

Charges: $4,000; 50 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: six months.

HOW MANY BEDROOMS DOES ONE COUPLE NEED? The sellers of this contemporary apartment, a retired couple in their 60's, had collapsed two of their three bedrooms, creating a sprawling master bedroom suite. When they decided they had too much space–they own houses in the Hamptons and Florida–they put the place on the market and started looking for a smaller pied-à-terre. The apartment is on the 20th floor of a postwar co-op and has East River views, which convinced the buyers, a couple in their 40's, to bid almost immediately. "There are very few buildings on Sutton Place that will give you fabulous views and space," said Norma Hirsh of Douglas Elliman, the broker for the deal. The buyers plan to convert the apartment back to its original three-bedroom layout. He is an investment banker, she works in commercial real estate, and they will use the extra rooms to create a guest room and an office. The apartment has hardwood floors, a library, a dining room, an eat-in kitchen and new tilt-and-turn windows. The building has a doorman and an elevator man, and the new owners can be guinea pigs for the restored Bridgemarket under the Queensboro Bridge.

GRAMERCY PARK

201 East 21st Street (Quaker Ridge)

One-bed, one-bath, 800-square-foot co-op

Asking: $599,000. Selling: $606,000.

Charges: $998; 50 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: two weeks.

A PUBLISHER AND A PEACH TREE When the sellers of this Gramercy co-op, two men in their 40's, first visited it one June seven years ago, they immediately canceled their summer rental and set to work on the apartment's 1,000-square-foot terrace. Located on the 18th floor of the building, the terrace had views of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings. That was until one of the owners, an official of a nature conservancy on the New Jersey shore, turned it into a regular orchard–there are peaches, apples and grapes growing there now. When he and his partner, a writer, move to Jersey, they'll leave it all behind for the new owner, a woman who had been working in South America for an international publishing company. "She had gorgeous gardens in Brazil," said broker Jane Cibener of the Corcoran Group. "She hopes to replicate what she's had there." Although the buyer originally wanted a bigger apartment, she was impressed by the terrace, the views and the built-in bookshelves throughout the apartment. The apartment has parquet floors, a windowed bathroom and excellent light. Ms. Cibener said of the 1963 building, known as the Quaker Ridge, "It's one of those gems that's never had a problem." It provides a full-time doorman and garage.

FINANCIAL DISTRICT

176 Broadway (Maiden Lane)

Three-bed, two-bath, 1,830-square-foot co-op.

Asking: $999,000. Selling: $995,000.

Charges: $1,369; 64 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: one day.

WHICH WAY IS DOWNTOWN? Asked to describe this apartment in the Financial District, the Corcoran Group's Victoria Terri-Coté, the broker on the deal, said, "This place really has soul." Maybe that's because House of Blues co-owner Dan Aykroyd used to live there some 20 years ago. Around the time he quit Saturday Night Live to star in The Blues Brothers , he installed black fixtures in the master bathroom along with a Jacuzzi and sauna. The apartment also has a glass-brick wall, high ceilings, southern exposure and oversize windows. The sellers, a couple in their 40's with two children, were art collectors who had lived in the building for 20 years. He's a real estate attorney, she's an art curator, and Ms. Terri-Coté described them both as "die-hard downtowners. Anything north. of Canal Street would give them a nosebleed." Then why are they moving to Battery Park City? Even their broker described the place as almost suburban, with a lot of sunlight and trees. The folks moving into the Financial District, on the other hand, are a couple with two children who are getting out of New Jersey, mainly because his law office is in midtown. This prewar building is located in the Tribeca school zone (P.S. 234 and P.S. 89 are two of the best in the city) and has a part-time doorman.