Ms. Givens, for her part, has a powerful reason to stay in the city during the summer: she's a full-time, practicing associate attorney at the esteemed Cravath, Swain and Moore firm. Her brother, Matthew Reeve, has also been keeping busy: he's in a three-year graduate program at NYU, which he'll be leaving with dual Master's degrees in film and business, and which includes an intense summer session. "I just realized, I can't take any credit for this event in any way!" Mr. Reeve exclaimed. (A companion affectionately corrected him: "That's not true at all.")

When we asked Mr. Reeve what he'd been reading, he rattled off some very dry-sounding textbooks: The Independent Producer's Survival Guide; Basic Statistical Ideas for Managers. ("Great cure for insomnia," he offered.) Mr. Reeve is well-rounded, though; he said he'd also been reading Josh Waitzkin's The Art of Learning. "He was a former chess champion who then gave up professional chess and started tai chi," Mr. Reeve explained.

Speaking of memoirs, we also chatted with Francesco Clark, founder of the Clark's Botanicals skincare line, who's just released his own. Walking Papers, which details both the spinal-cord injury that left Mr. Clark wheelchair-bound and his painful, remarkable recovery process, arrived on American shelves June 3, and will launch in Russia, China and the United Kingdom in three weeks. The characteristically cheerful and polite Mr. Clark described his ordeal as, all things considered, a positive thing. "I'm getting better — I'm using my wrists now. I'm involved in a research study at MIT, a robotic research study," he said. "I don't know, I forget about my injury... life has to move on. And so my summer feels like your summer."

Apart from actor Hayden Christensen, the event drew mostly gorgeous media types: we spotted Louise Roe, erstwhile Olivia Palermo competition on The City and current host of The CW's makeover show Plain Jane, along with Allure editrix Linda Wells and men-about-town Peter Davis and Kristian Laliberte. But it was Paper's Mickey Boardman we couldn't help approaching; we were drawn to his jewelry. Over a lime-green polo shirt, Mr. Boardman wore an eye-catching, oversized green bib necklace.

Fenton, maybe?, we speculated internally, before Mr. Boardman beat us to the punch. "Joan Rivers for QVC!" he announced proudly. "My mom sent them to me. This color story is 'peacock.' I also have them in pink."

“It’s the one part of our bodies that cannot be affected by Botox!” Ms. Wells told a group of women seated around a large square table covered in a pink tablecloth who were crunching on lightly dressed lettuce leaves. 

“I think we always pay attention to what’s immediately important and it’s usually superficial things—the way we look, our hair, our wrinkles, and we forget to pay attention to our hearts,” Ms. Wells told the Transom. “I go to my spin class almost every day. It’s really fun! We’re all addicted to it, I think.”

But according to Ms. Wells, the classes are not about competition for her and her high-profile friends. “Our classes are candlelit so you can’t look around at everybody even if you wanted to,” she said.

Ms. Rosenthal, dressed in a belted gray dress and a purple cardigan, said that her favorite class is Gospel Spin with an instructor named “Derryl.” (Hallelujah!) But the classes aren’t exactly conducive to gossiping.

“No, you can’t talk! You just close your eyes and spin as fast as you can,” said Ms. Rosenthal. “The competition is only about how sweaty we are afterward and it’s usually a toss-up. And you probably wouldn’t want to get close enough to actually check.”

The Transom was also curious about the ladies’ Valentine’s Day plans.

“Jeff and I usually do something with all the kids. We take them out to an early 5 o’clock pasta dinner at Serafina, which is my kids’ favorite,” said Ms. Zucker. “And we give them little heart candy.” (The Zuckers are waiting for their 12th wedding anniversary in June to exchange gifts.)

Over in the corner, the leggy Portfolio editor Joanne Lipman, dressed in Chanel, was catching up with Ms. Wells.

“Well, I’ve been married for a really long time so …” said Ms. Lipman, breaking into a giggle. “We just stay home and hang out with our kids and sometimes they cook for us. But everything is fine with me. Ordering out, takeout, whatever.”

ialeksander@observer.com

In fairness to all concerned, we were given ample warning. Halfway through Allure magazine’s 10th Anniversary Best of Beauty Awards on Monday, Sept. 19, in the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center, editor in chief Linda Wells made a speech during which she let it be known that we would, at the close of the evening, be receiving the mother of all goodie bags.

This heavenly hamper turned out to contain everything from Ling Instant Gratification Face-Lift to Fancy-Feet Foot Petals, those tiny pads which stop you flying out of your slingbacks when you’re staggering home laden with goodie bags. To put it simply: It was $2,500 worth of high-class slap, and it was free!

I should point out that Ms. Wells didn’t say the word “slap,” though she probably should have. “Slap” is a common English noun used by housewives and drag queens alike to refer to both makeup and skincare products, as in “I simply must pop into Boots the Chemist and buy some slap.” The American beauty vocabulary is sadly lacking a word like “slap” that covers both maquillage and skincare. I suggest we adopt it forthwith.

Back to the Allure Slap Awards. After the speeches, there was a performance by the singer and Gap spokesmodel Joss Stone, who, apart from needing a dollop or two of foot cream, seemed like a lovely young lady. However, though we clapped and hollered, none of us were really concentrating: All we could think about was the crate of award-winning slap that awaited us.

The frenzied post-performance stampede over the ramparts of oversized brown canvas totes that filled the Rainbow Room coat check was a media-worthy sight. Where was Anderson Cooper? Where was Geraldo? Though completely and utterly hilarious, it was just a warm-up for the shenanigans which ensued as wild-eyed guests began to wrestle their goodie bags across the carpet and out of the building.

According to Ms. Wells, it had taken eight hours to get the 280 bags—almost 10,000 pounds of slap in toto—up to the 65th floor. How to evacuate? Allure publisher Nancy Berger Cardone solved the problem by providing an army of strapping young men to Sherpa our slap-sacks down to our waiting Town Cars. Unfortunately, there weren’t quite enough hunks to go around, and a significant number of us were sans Town Car.

The site of so many schvitzing beauty-industry execs dragging their goodie bags along 49th Street, desperately flagging down cabs or attempting to wedge themselves up the stairs of M.T.A. buses, recalled one of the more grueling challenges on Survivor.

Having had a double-hernia operation back in the 1970’s—the result of lifting too many store mannequins—I was even more reluctant to carry my own bag than most of these pampered professionals. Thinking moderately quickly, I eventually slipped one of the Sherpas $5 and, potentate-like, proceeded grandly towards Fifth Avenue, where I found a taxi in no time. I swear that I could hear the chassis dragging along the ground as we sped off.

The next morning, wild rumors circulated in the slap community of drunken, horny execs taking home more than just the goodie bag. One can well imagine the kittenish overture to the Sherpa: “Bring this goodie bag back to my apartment, Pablo, and I’ll show you my two goodie bags.”

When I checked in with Ms. Wells to thank her for an unforgettable evening, she told me the tragic tale of one Allure staffer who stumbled in her Manolos and was clunked on the head by the closing elevator doors. “She rode down with colleagues holding a cocktail napkin to her bleeding brow,” Ms. Wells chuckled compassionately, adding: “She was still clutching the handles of her goodie bag.”

According to Ms. Wells, one out-of-town Allure advertiser had a nightmarish experience at the airport: She would have missed her flight had the security agent not gone limp from boredom and fatigue halfway through searching the bag. As a token gesture, he confiscated her vibrating razor.

One male cosmetics executive, not wishing to be encumbered at an après-awards dinner, declined the goodie bag. The next day, his wife heard about it from a friend and is on the verge of instigating divorce proceedings.

All of this begs the question of why we care so much. Why goodie bags, and why now? How did the goodie bag become so culturally central? What is the deeper meaning of this phenomenon? Is it connected to global warming? Who knows? One thing’s for sure: In centuries to come, our epoch will be seen as the Golden Age of Swag. Future generations of social anthropologists will look back at the early 21st century and, scratching their heads, write complex papers about that bizarre era when people refused to go anywhere unless they were rewarded for their pains with sackfuls of graft.

Let’s close with a heartwarming tip e-mailed to me by a West Coast reader who has been raising money for Red Cross hurricane relief by selling the contents of her goodie bags on eBay: “I recently flogged a tube of StriVectin,” wrote this inveterate partygoer, “the hot stretch-mark-cum-wrinkle cream, from Miramax’s 2004 Golden Globes party goodie bag. It went for over $100 … ka-ching! … Would’ve been more if I’d saved the box.”

More proof the French should stay in France, with the exception of that genius-y Daniel Boulud (double air kiss!): It's Bastille Day, commemorating the fall of Bastille , wherever that is- we went to public school -so one thing you can count on today is a crew of frog waiters running around town totally wasted. Make the best of it and say bonjour to Union Square Café's plucky pastry chef, Emily Isaac , who's teaching Manhattan's organic young ones how to make crêpes and soufflés using ingredients from the Greenmarket. "We're supposed to be doing peaches and stone fruits that day, but I'm a little nervous because I haven't seen any yet at the market," Ms. Isaac said. Merde! Later, Vanity Fair editors sell what's left of their sorry souls and help launch Abercrombie & Fitch 's new A&F "magazine," a catalog that looks like a spank book, and Will Smith takes on Spidey and Michael Moore at the premiere of I, Robot , co-starring the beautiful if underfed Bridget Moynahan. Plot involves robots taking over the earth, Will saving the day, etc. (Here's hoping he brings tiny wife Jada Pinkett to the after-party-she's a pistol!)

[Kids Morning Market Meetings, Union Square Cafe, 21 East 16th Street, 8:30 to

11 a.m., 212-989-3510, ext. 24; A&F magazine launch, Hotel Gansevoort, rooftop,

18 Ninth Avenue, 8 to 11 p.m., by invitation only; I, Robot , Beekman Theater, 1254

Second Avenue, 7:30 p.m., Lever House,

390 Park Avenue, both by invitation only.]

Thursday 15th

Get High! For some reason, the High Line , a 1.45-mile elevated rail structure on Manhattan's West Side, is beating out starving kids in Africa and rain forests as the cause de jour among the city's power elite; that is, if your definition of "power elite" includes actor Kevin Bacon ( currently redefining self as creepy character actor ; catch him in forthcoming child-molestation flick that wowed them at Sundance!) and hotelier Andre Balazs (Uma's rebound man) …. Tonight, Colors editorial director Kurt Andersen selects something from his by-now-quite-impressive collection of coordinated socks and moderates a panel of four architectural firms squabbling over the High Line-is it just us, or has the city gone architecture- mad in the wake of the debates over the World Trade Center space? All these earnest Euros in wire-rimmed glasses running around ….

["4 Teams 4 Visions," Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place, 6 p.m., 212-258-6111.]

Friday 16th

Pool parties! So oil heiress Patty Raynes -likes horsies and lives in Southampton-is serving up some pinktinis for fashion designer Douglas Hannant, who'll be showing off his new resort collection at a swishy trunk show. When exactly, we wonder, did "resort" and summer morph into separate seasons? "We dress differently down there," Mr. Hannant said, "there" being Palm Beach. Ms. Raynes belongs to the "0.5 percent of the population who can afford my clothes," he added with-was that a sniff ? "The collection will be all about the jet set in Acapulco -you know, when you really got dressed up to travel." As opposed to wearing Juicy Couture to the airport. Over in Bridgehampton , a.k.a. "the Bridge," Barbara and Bunky Hearst (not to be confused with lit'ry agent Binky Urban) fling open the doors of their sprawling pad, which features a 130-foot balcony. Actor Roy Scheider will be stopping by to raise a flute to Ellen Adler , daughter of Stella and former flame of Marlon Brando. "We were never lovers!" Ms. Adler told us. " We were sweethearts . I mean, he had a lot of different girlfriends …. His death is like a crater hitting . In Death Valley, where we went together a long time ago, there is the Hoobie Hoobie crater: a huge gaping hole. That's what this feels like." Keep her off the 130-foot balcony. Finally, if you're lucky enough not to be stuck in the Hamptons, rub shoulders with other young "collectors" vying for affordable art-photos, paintings, under 600 bucks-at Jen Bekman's Pin Up Redux show in Soho, New Jersey's newest suburb .

[Douglas Hannant 2004 resort collection preview, Raynes residence, Southampton, 12:30 p.m., by invitation only; Alchimia, Hearst residence, wouldn't you like to know? , Bridgehampton, 5:30 p.m., by invitation only; Pin Up Redux , Jen Bekman, 6 Spring Street, noon to 5 p.m., 212-219-0166.]

Saturday 17th

The Wells of loneliness: Squeeze into your casually wrinkled "manpris" (Capri pants for guys) and wander over to the season's only proper clambake , if there is such a thing, at the summer abode of Allure editor Linda Wells and her husband, Charlie Thompson. You're not invited, but luckily the Eight-Day Week is a total glossy-magazine whore and still has a November 2002 Allure containing a bit on "How to Crash a Party." Give Ms. Wells a dose of her own medicine by (we're paraphrasing here): 1) Pretending to argue with a friend at the door (no one stops a couple in the middle of a fight); 2) feigning celebrity by having a friend ask for your autograph; 3) asking the door Nazi where the restroom is, saying you're having "a bit of an emergency." … Back in da boroughs, our commercial real-estate reporter puts a glowstick in his trousers and pops up at P.S. 1's Saturday-afternoon rave with thumpetty-thump-thumps brought to you by hip-hop's shadowy whiz kid, D.J. Spinna.

[Clambake, Thompson residence, Southampton, 7:30 p.m., by invitation only; "Warm Up," P.S. 1, 22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, 3 to 9 p.m., 718-784-2084.]

Sunday 18th

Ponies, phonies: For all you fans of antiquated elitist "sports," the Mercedes-Benz Bridgehampton Polo thingie started yesterday. Stephanie Seymour alert goes to red, men named "Chance" and "Alistaire" swing big mallets, and mojito hos primp and preen. "So there's beautiful steeds cavorting on a green pitch and nobody's watching them!" shrugged our favorite Hamptons publicist, Steve Haweeli. "They're watching each other in the V.I.P. tent seeing who's wearing Gucci, who's got the Cole Haan shoes and is that a Tiffany necklace ? What always kills me about this is, there's the distinct odor of horse manure because it's everywhere, so when you're wearing those f- m-pumps, step lightly, lassie!" We'll say! From polo, back to Brando: "He's a tragic figure, a bit like Orson Welles , I think," opined Catherine Perebinossoff , Citibank employee turned historian, who's leading a walking tour of Marlon Brando's New York City today. "He was once an elevator operator at a department store," she said. "The department store has since met an unkindly end, but I'll give you a hint. It was featured in Godfather Part 1." (Um, Gimbel's?) "He lived with this disregard for a whole slew of things," continued Ms. Perebinossoff. "It wasn't even conformity to nonconformity, because it was on a much higher plane. His apartment was almost bare, and it was a Grand Central Station for other actors and intellectuals, who were welcome to stay for weeks if they wanted." Um, how many people lead walking tours that require MetroCards?

[Mercedes-Benz Polo Challenge, 849 Hayground Road, Bridgehampton, 4 to 6 p.m., 212-421-1367; Marlon Brando's New York City, meet at 155 West 58th Street, 1 p.m., 212-475-6914.]

Monday 19th

Dial M for Moron: That one unemployed friend of yours who can never get his sh*t together and is always hitting you up for coke money comes in handy tonight: Send him and a blanket and some hummus to stake an early claim at Bryant Park's "Mondays at Sunset" film series, sponsored by HBO (are they still the "It" channel? Anyone?). The lawn opens at 5 p.m. and there's no booze allowed , but you know that has never stopped us! Tonight, marvel at the late, lovely Grace Kelly in Dial M for Murder , which was later remade into a Gwyneth Paltrow film that is not worth discussing . Watch in dismay as your fellow New Yorkers do a dumb-ass jig during the circa-1987 HBO theme-song opener.

[ Dial M for Murder , Bryant Park, Sixth Avenue and 41st Street, lawn opens at 5 p.m., www.bryantpark.org for details.]

Tuesday 20th

Vogue editors cross bridge! At long last, the thinking woman's Kmart, Target (a.k.a. Tar-jay, Targetto), has bulldozed into Brooklyn via Flatbush Avenue. To celebrate the fact that Manhattanites no longer have to schlep to the chain's branches in Queens, there's going to be a boardwalk-style basheroo tonight with hot-dog stands, popcorn carts and discounted shopping! In case you're under a rock or something: Target sells kicky basics from Isaac Mizrahi , "Swell" housewares from power pals Cynthia Rowley and Ilene Rosenzweig (can the latter please tell her hubby Rick Marin to stop writing about his hard-ons in The Times "Sunday Styles" section?) and fancy tea kettles by Michael Graves. Paul Sevigny , who is actress Chloë 's brother and reminds one vaguely of a cocker spaniel, will D.J., while lush-lipped, foul-mouthed comedienne Sandra Bernhard (wo)mans the mike. Keep it clean, sister! We'll linger till performers from the Coney Island Circus Sideshow start nailing body parts to wooden planks, etc., then slum out even further to Joisey, where 80's pop-metal band Poison is washing ashore to open for Kiss.

[Target grand opening, 139 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, 8 to 11 p.m., by invitation only; Poison and Kiss concert, PNC Bank Arts Center, Holmdel, New Jersey, 7 p.m., 732-203-2500, ext. 3714.]

Wednesday 21st

Yoko speaks! Printed Matter, a Marxist nonprofit organization (yes, there are still some left) that tries to interpret the "cultural context" of everyday mass objects (lipstick = phallic symbol = oppression of women, blah blah blah ), is throwing a Yoko Ono retrospective. We (big "get"!) found Ms. Ono just hanging out at her Upper West Side studio (sadly, Sean didn't seem to be there). "It is a worldwide phenomenon that people don't have any more trust for politicians," she said. "We must understand that there are no longer any big daddies we can rely on : Instead of believing in one hero, each one of us has to be a hero . Negative thinking is simply a luxury we cannot afford." Later, in unrelated news, More magazine (for the discerning mid-lifer) and the Wilhelmina modeling agency have been excitedly combing the country for menopausal mannequins and-hot flash!-you can see the finalists of this competition vie for some big prize tonight at Chelsea Piers.

[ Yoko Ono: Editions, Ephemera and Printed Works , Printed Matter, 535 West 22nd Street, 5 to 7 p.m., 212-925-0325; More & Wilhelmina Plus-40 Model Search, the Lighthouse, Pier 61, 7 to 10 p.m., by invitation only.]

"You want to find a contradiction between my post-retreat self and the magazines that I oversee," Mr. Truman wrote in an e-mail, "but none really exists."

Mr. Truman is not the first New Yorker to seek balance and deeper meaning after living in a city that rarely encourages either. But some of his colleagues think that Mr. Truman has chosen a strange environment to embark upon such a quest. Balance and deeper meaning? This was the guy who helped launch Lucky .

Mr. Truman disagreed. Substance was in the eye of the beholder, even at a place like Condé Nast.

"I find equal substance in an Irving Penn photograph in Vogue as a John Updike essay in The New Yorker ," Mr. Truman wrote, noting two of Condé Nast's signature publications. As for Lucky , "If I want to buy a table lamp, I will find more substance in Lucky than I would in a Noam Chomsky essay about shopping."

Inside and outside of Condé Nast, however, there is concern that 44-year-old Mr. Truman's newfound awareness may eventually clash with the magazines he oversees. "My experience at Condé Nast was that the more earthy types didn't last," said a former Condé Nast editor who has stayed in touch with Mr. Truman. When it came to superficial subjects like glamour and style, the editor said, "You have to be willing to believe it-or you didn't last very long."

Another Condé Nast insider raised the possibility that Mr. Truman may simply be going through a mid-life crisis. "Can't he get a red car like everyone else?" the insider carped.

But others at Condé Nast believe Mr. Truman has made a positive change, one that will help the company's magazines. "I found him well-composed," said Dominique Browning, the editor of House & Garden . "He seemed very at peace; he seemed serene. This seems to be a very constructive trip for him."

Allure editor Linda Wells, who Mr. Truman has worked with closely during his eight years as editorial director, noticed something different about her boss immediately after his return from Woodstock.

"I saw him the day before he left, and I saw him the morning he came back," Ms. Wells said. "What's really different is the perspective the [Buddhist] experience gave him in relation to the work I do with him …. He came back and had a very clear perspective about what I should do with Allure ."

Mr. Truman's post-Woodstock advice, Ms. Wells said, was to ease back on the pacing of Allure and create "contemplative moments" amid the "relentlessness of information" in the pages of the magazine.

Ms. Wells said she agreed wholeheartedly. "When magazines that deal with glamour and style fail is when they believe that it's the most important thing of all and try to impose a judgment on the reader-really condescend to the reader," she said. "That's the negative part of what we do-being so wrapped up in style and fashion."

In his e-mail, Mr. Truman acknowledged that he had spoken to Ms. Wells "about varying the pacing in the well of Allure , to provide some calmer moments." But Mr. Truman noted that this advice was specific to Allure .

"My work is about helping each magazine express its identity, not imposing one identity on all of them," he wrote. He added that he had told Cindi Leive, editor of Glamour , to make part of her magazine denser.

Some close to Mr. Truman said his time off in Woodstock was unsurprising.Jane Pratt, editor of Jane , who has been friends with Mr. Truman for more than a decade, said that both she and Mr.Truman"have been going through a mid-life crisis since we were 20." She added: "He always wants to try new things. He's my professional idol in that way."

Mr. Truman, who is paid around $1 million a year, has one of the best jobs in magazines. Anointed by Si Newhouse, the owner of Condé Nast, as the editorial director in 1994 when he was just 36, Mr. Truman does not have any fixed responsibilities for the magazine publisher. On some magazines, Mr. Truman has more input than others, such as Lucky , Allure , House & Garden -which he helped relaunch in 1995-and Glamour . But the star editors at Condé Nast are said to have a wider berth, including Vanity Fair 's Graydon Carter, Vogue 's Anna Wintour and GQ 's Art Cooper.

And Mr. Truman has been known, on occasion, to make energetic use of his non-work time, taking salsa-dancing lessons, scuba diving and, last fall, learning how to drive a race car. Kim France, editor of Lucky , said that Buddhism "has been something that has been in his life for several years."

Mr. Truman came to this charmed life after editing Details in its downtown-hipster incarnation for several years after it was purchased by Condé Nast. In March 2000, Details was the first of three Condé Nast magazines to be folded under Mr. Truman's watch. (The others were Women's Sports and Fitness and Mademoiselle .) And there have been other tumults during his stint as editorial director. Early on, Mr. Truman clashed with editors who weren't interested in the advice of the young upstart, such as Paige Rense, the editor of Architectural Digest , who told The Wall Street Journal in 1994 that she would "spank him and send him to bed without his supper" if he tried to change her magazine.

Mr. Truman's relationship with Steve Florio, the chief executive of Condé Nast, has also been marked with tension.

"They're both very different personalities," said a Condé Nast editor. "James is flighty-doesn't get into the office very early, is out late at night. Steve is solid, Jupiter-like-and they're both competing for Si's favors."

Though Mr. Newhouse is said to be content with Mr. Truman, some at Condé Nast wonder if the owner is really willing to see his glossies injected with some down-to-earth values.

"For a trade that's based on status and glamour, I would imagine it could be rather alarming. I don't think Si wants that to be the culture of the company," said one former Condé Nast editor of Mr. Truman's recent views. "For one thing, there's not a lot of advertising in it."

Through a corporate spokesperson, Mr. Newhouse and Mr. Florio declined comment.

If people around him are privately worrying, Mr. Truman seemsunalarmed. Still, he had previously taken one stab at clarifying his Buddhist retreat, saying in the April 29 New York that the media-fashion world offered a "seductive invitation to get lost in the distractions of glamour and status and nonstopwork"from which he wanted to temporarily extract himself.

"I imagine a dean of philosophy might speak similarly about feeling caught up in the life of the mind," Mr. Truman wrote to The Observer . "A restauranteur would say the same about the invitation to overindulge in eating and drinking."

Now, Mr. Truman wrote, he was back, re-energized and ready to … write.

"While away I decided I wanted to do some magazine writing again, so I'll be getting to that," Mr. Truman wrote. He added he'd be writing for Condé Nast, but wouldn't say what kind of pieces or for which titles.

Meanwhile, Condé Nast prepares for a new era of enlightened stewardship. House & Garden's Ms. Browning thought Mr. Truman might be on to something.

"His job is not to follow the Condé Nast culture-his job is to lead the Condé Nast culture," she said. "Maybe he's ahead of the curve on where we all should be.