Dear Friends of Clay,

It is said that people die the way they live. Knowing Clay as you do, you will probably not be surprised by the story I want to share with you. In the past week, as he approaches the final deadline of his life, Clay’s life force returned with gusto.

Not that it ever flagged for long. In the past year, he has astonished every doctor and nurse who predicted “It won’t be long now.” Last summer, after three months in a rehab unit in Riverdale, Clay revived from near-drowning in double pneumonia and worked with physical therapists twice a day until he could circle the floor twice on a walker at about the speed he used to reach while sprinting across town for an important lunch date. He was able to come home last September.

In January, pneumonia returned. We were sent to the emergency room by his primary care doctor for yet another CT scan. After waiting 8 hours for the test, the doctors had gone home and he was under imminent threat of being admitted by default. I threw a little hissy fit. The CT was done, but the radiologists had left so no one could read it. A sympathetic resident finally produced some results. They sounded foreign. It was a scan taken 9 months before.

I wheeled Clay out of the ER with the IV needles still in his arms, and we congratulated ourselves on a jailbreak. We had spent more than a year frantically circling around the revolving door of acute care, from gridlocked ER’s to repeated hospital admissions, where, nonetheless, each time one is treated as a tabula rasa, one’s body parts segmented like cheese cubes on an hors d’oeuvres tray with each one assigned to a different specialist and Medicare code, then on to a rehab facility and back around the revolving door again. Until we discovered palliative care. A doctor insisted on making a house call. Honest to God.

It was Dr. Sean Morrison, who leads the Palliative Care team at Mt. Sinai Hospital. He took over Clay’s care last January. The mission of palliative care is to keep a senior out of the hospital and give back some control to people over a stage in life that is uncontrollable. Dr. Morrison sat with Clay and me for an hour, at our home, and we had the first full and frank conversation about Clay’s ideas on how he wanted to play out the end of life. He wanted to remain at home, under only maintenance care by aides, and get out and see and taste the world whenever he could.

He was always up for rolling over to Lincoln Center for a rehearsal at the Philharmonic, or helping to swing himself into the car and heading downtown for a show at the New Museum, or the opening of Byron Dobell’s art show, or out to Bridgehampton to have Thanksgiving with Bina and Walter Bernard. He insisted upon climbing icy outdoor stairs, with help, to be present for our grandson’s first piano recital.

Starting in May, he wasn’t able to go outside most days. It wasn’t easy for him to remain upright in the wheelchair. But when his dearest partner-in-parody, Tom Wolfe, sent over his hilarious 8,000-word preface to the anthology of New York magazine being published this fall by Random House, I read it to him in savory 2,000-word bites that produced wicked laughter and a burst of ebullience.

The next day, Monday, June 17, Dr. Morrison made a home visit. He told Clay that he recommended that the tube feedings be suspended because the nutrition that had nourished him for the past nine years was not being absorbed and was causing him to choke. Clay nodded assent. His body was beginning to shut down.

Clay asked, “How long?”

“It won’t be long. A week to a month.”

Clay did not look surprised. The doctor took me aside in the next room. We spoke in hushed tones. Clay’s voice pierced through the half-open door. He wanted his wishes heard: “Don’t abandon me.”

An urgent inspiration possessed me. “Do you want to do one great thing, darling?” He nodded vigorously. “How about we go out and hear some jazz?” The light flared again in his eyes. Tonight? He shook his head up and down. I said, “Let’s see who’s playing at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola!” The show started in two hours.

He pulled up from his hospital bed and picked out a linen jacket and deep blue shirt and a suede cap. I touched up his face with tinted sunscreen and wheeled him in front of the full-length mirror. “How’s that for handsome?” He looked pleasantly surprised to see a picture of normalcy.

Dizzy’s was the quintessence of New York … seductive cocktail tables set beneath a window wall with a bigger-than-Trump vista across Central Park to the frosted layer-cake condos of Fifth Avenue. The aides and I ordered exotic drinks. Clay took a sip … the first taste in his mouth in years.

Clay sat tall and straight in his wheelchair and for the next hour and a half drank in the music as his sustenance. His attention locked on Mike Melvoin, the jazz pianist whose trio it was, an older man, with undiminished passion. He had been playing piano since he was three years old and was still, past 70, composing for movies and TV. He was another of those indefatigable creatives, like Clay, who produced his first publication at the age of eight, the Greeley Street News, and sold it up and down his block in Webster Groves, Missouri, for the up-market price of a nickel.

Melvoin voiced the philosophy behind his original compositions. “There’s a lot of pessimism and feelings of futility out there … it’s the job of music to dispel those feelings. This is a little song called ‘Life is What You Make It.’” Up-tempo drums kick-started a piece with strong major chords and a restless backbeat. Melvoin leaned in to the keyboard and swayed passionately up and down the octaves with his hands crossing and fingers flying, turning music into the thunder of life. Clay’s fingers drummed on the table … he was a drummer as a boy.

Between two aides, myself, and a cooperative driver, we cantilevered Clay out of the car service and back up to the apartment and into bed shortly before midnight. He was not the least tired. He wanted to talk. He gripped my hands and said clearly, with gusto, “It was a wonderful evening.”

• Is ESDC looking to drop its indistinctive acronym? Seems so. On Sept. 13, Mr. Foye had a meeting scheduled with a branding consultant about “ESDC Name Change.” Such a move would follow the recommendations of an ESDC-commissioned report earlier this year (done by consulting firm A.T. Kearney), which suggested that parent agency Empire State Development pick something a bit catchier to attract the attention of the state’s business leaders (who apparently, according to A.T. Kearney at the time, generally thought that Empire State Development had something to do with the Empire State Building).

• New York magazine seems to be putting together a feature story on Moynihan Station. Mr. Foye had three phone interviews scheduled with New York’s Chris Smith between late September and the end of October (when we first put in the request for the schedule). Mr. Smith is the political writer for the magazine who put out a 7,000-word piece on Atlantic Yards in 2006.

Since taking over New York in February 2004, editor-in-chief Moss has gradually remade the magazine into a sometimes overly clever compendium of What It Means to be a Mossian New Yorker. (It doesn't hurt that owner Bruce Wasserstein seems to be willing to sink an infinite amount of money into the operation.) Mr. Moss' information-heavy formula—composed of equal parts think pieces and charticles—focuses on the verticals of fashion, real estate, food, politics, and culture.

New York Look, which will cost $5.99 and will come out in November and April each year—allowing each issue to act as a postmortem on either the fall or spring fashion shows. It will expand on the fashion coverage that's currently in the magazine, but also put to print some of the fashion features on the Web site, New York spokeswoman Serena Torrey told Media Mob. She elaborated: "The magazine was a group effort and concept. It comes from two places—a feature in the magazine called Five by 10, which takes 10 trends or looks each season and identifies five examples of each. The other inspiration was our website. The runway slide shows are enormously popular on our website." Look will also be online.

Joining Ms. Powell in developing the new venture were Janet Ozzard, of the magazine's Strategist section; Denise Penny, who also works on the magazine's Weddings issue; and "Look Book" mistress Amy Larocca, who recently edited the Look Book Book, a compendium of New York's fashionable-person-on-the-street feature that was released in September.

It's not a stretch to imagine that New York is looking to cash in even further on the luxury brand advertising business. The New York Times' T magazine, whose various hydra include issues devoted to women's fashion, men’s fashion, women’s beauty, and design, and is one of the newspaper’s bright revenue spots in an otherwise gloomy advertising environment. And The Wall Street Journal recently announced plans to introduce a glossy monthly magazine about the lifestyles of the rich, to launch next September. Ms. Torrey declined to name any of the advertisers in the inaugural issue.

Which either means that the response was overwhelming -- organizers say they've changed the event's location to a new, bigger space in the Grand Hyatt Hotel to make "room for more people," and, of course, for more money -- or that it wasn't quite overwhelming enough.

After the jump is the email, composed and sent out by New York Magazine spokesperson Serena Torrey.

--Jason Horowitz

Dear Friends,

I have great news - because of the overwhelming response to this coming Friday's Barack Obama "late night" fundraising reception, the campaign has moved the event to a bigger location - the Grand Hyatt Hotel on 42nd Street between Park and Lex - and there's now room for more people. It's the same hotel (but not room) where the Senator will be for an earlier (much more expensive) reception, and because he won't have to travel to a new venue to see us, he'll spend even more time at our event.

The ticket price is still tiny as far as these things go: $100. So if you're at all intrigued by this guy, please join us on Friday to hear him in person. I promise you won't be disappointed.

If you've already RSVP'd AND paid for this event, your name will be at the door and you should be all set

If you've RSVP'd but not paid, please send in your payment before 6 PM on Thursday, March 8 - even if that means RSVPing a second time. Your payment is what secures your name on the list and they will NOT take payments at the door of the event.
If you missed the first round of RSVPs and would like to attend, please click on this link and fill in your information - but be sure to do it by COB on Wednesday.
TO RSVP and/ or to pay, either click on this link and follow the instructions or fill out the attached form and please fax it back.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

If you indicate that I am your "host" or "raiser," I can better track your RSVP.

I hope to see you on Friday! Please feel free to email me with any questions.

Best,

Serena

It's awards season for Eliot Spitzer's main adman.

The MTA has to pay how much in debt service?

Chuck Schumer made some new friends at New York Magazine's party last night.

Judith Kaye delivered her state of the judiciary speech today [pdf].

Hillary Clinton's official blogger has footage from the campaign trail.

Joe Trippi thinks Hillary got what she needed out of that fight with Barack Obama.

The Village Voice hired an editor from the New York Sun.

Roy Moskowitz, who managed the Democratic campaign against Rep. Vito Fossella, laments that he's not part of the "cabal" picking the replacement for the late Assemblyman John Lavelle.

There's a fascinating discussion here between Yoda, Larry Littlefield and Steve Malanga about whether Rudy Giuliani or Mike Bloomberg is to blame for New York's high tax burden.

Bloomberg's Assistant Director/Special Counsel for Environmental Procurement is leaving to take a job with the New York Chapter of the U.S. Green Buildings Council [job title corrected].

And pictured above is Senator Frank Padavan at a recent press conference in Albany.

-- Azi Paybarah

Update: A self-identified conservative Christian from New Jersey called into the mayor's weekly radio program just now to urge Bloomberg to run for president. The mayor said he was flattered, but added, "The bottom line is I'm going to be mayor for the next three years."

-- Azi Paybarah

- Max Abelson

Ben follows Hillary's cross-wearing habits.

Kirsten Gillibrand tries making a strip club an issue in her race against John Sweeney.

Rudy's blogger thinks Hotline is cheerleading for John McCain.

New York Magazine notes that Esquire withdrew its endorsement of Tom Reynolds because of his weird press conference where he used kids as a human shield. The other Esquire endorsements are here

John DeSio wonders who posted this ad looking for a "fearless investigative reporter" on Craigslist.

Mike Bloomberg gave $143.9 million to charities last year.

Barry Popik wonders why the mayor hasn't held a fund-raiser for Chris Callaghan.

Shelly Silver parks himself on the couch and opens up to City Hall News.

-- Azi Paybarah

- Max Abelson

Daily Kos has August fundraising numbers from the netroots.

37% of of people surveyed by Pace University/New York Magazine want a definitive timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

Rock Hackshaw wonders why the Times opted not to endorse indicted Brooklyn Assemblywoman Diane Gordon or either of her two challengers.

Empire Zone watches John Spencer's new ad and wonders "Has anyone actually seen them on television?"

And for anyone keeping track...the Spitzer biography is ranked 14,400 on the Amazon.com sales rank. Wayne Barrett's new book on Rudy Giuliani is ranked 752.

-- Azi Paybarah