Cindy Adams makes the rounds. (Photo: Beowulf Sheehan/PEN American Center)

INT. MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY — EVENING CINDY ADAMS is standing with a friend among a crowd of hundreds, surveying the black-tie attendees at the PEN Literary Gala, who include Philip Roth, Zadie Smith, Jay McInerney, Jennifer Egan, Candace Bushnell, Joanna Coles and Peter Godwin.

Ms. Adams is wearing a splashy, graphic print jacket and a bun atop her head. A stream of partygoers greet her. She is approached by the Transom and asked how to work a room.

MS. ADAMS
The first thing you do is ignore Salman Rushdie. Because there’s no party he’s not at.
THE TRANSOM
Oh my goodness. Okay. Did he do something?
MS. ADAMS
No. He’s just everywhere.
THE TRANSOM
You’ve been doing this a while. How do you identify celebrities in a room full of writers?
MS. ADAMS
I am hoping some of these people will recognize me.
I look for a few celebrities—Molly Ringwald is schlepping around here—and whoever else I see. I will tell you, however, that these writers do not dress well.
Take a look at this lady. (Points to a woman across the room.)
You see that big behind and the big arms?

LADY #1, a slender, attractive older woman smiles and heads straight for Ms. Adams.

LADY # 1
I could not believe that Nora died two months after she gave me that prize.
I mean, didn’t she look good that day?
MS. ADAMS
She did. She would not let anybody know.
LADY # 1
We were so close. We always celebrated our birthdays together.
THE TRANSOM
Were you close with Nora Ephron, Ms. Adams?
MS. ADAMS
I didn’t go to her place for Passover, but we knew each other.
THE TRANSOM
Nora Ephron is really having a moment.
MS. ADAMS
She will last for a little while. Everybody is ‘Nora! Nora!’
Which is why Tom Hanks will win something.
(Leans in toward The Transom.) I have no idea who this lady is.

In the background, writer Susan Orlean walks past New Yorker editor David Remnick, who is standing near Salman Rushdie. LADY #2, a brunette in a sparkly white dress, leaves Mr. Rushdie's side and approaches Ms. Adams.

LADY #2
Excuse me. My dad is such a big fan of yours. He’s got a King Charles Cavalier.
He told me, years ago your dog ran out, and he grabbed it, because he's such a big dog lover.
And you wrote him a thank-you note. Do you remember him? ...In a Bentley?

MS. ADAMS
Yes! Yes, I do! He never sent me a note!
LADY #2
You never gave him a return address. You just said, "Thank you, Cindy."
MS. ADAMS
I work at the Post! He could have found me there ... Whose dress are you wearing? It’s gorgeous.
LADY #2
This dress was made for me by Roberto Cavalli years ago. It fits. I’m shocked.
MS. ADAMS
Look at that figure! I hate you. Go away from me!
LADY #2
Let me tell you. I’m 45 years old. I have a 19-year-old. I’m disciplined. I’m a vegan...
I had to tell you for the sake of my dad. He’s not a public person.
He’s a private businessman. He lives in the Galleria. He’s in Fisher Island most of the time.
MS. ADAMS
When he comes back, he can buy dinner. I will have it with him.
LADY #2
He would love that... I know that Salman is my boyfriend.
He’s a good man. I'm a woman, not a child.
I'm not gossip. I'm a mother. (Disappears into the crowd.)
THE TRANSOM
That was Salman Rushdie’s girlfriend?
MS. ADAMS
I have no idea.

Ms. Adams then takes the Transom by the scruff of our silk jacket and walks us around the room.

MS. ADAMS
Look at that lady in green. With her breasts hanging out like anybody wants to touch them!
THE TRANSOM
Do you think people do or don’t want to touch them?
MS. ADAMS
No! Nobody does. I’d rather have a bagel than touch her things. Look at this one.
The pants don’t go down to the floor, and her crotch is very visible.
She’s got a bag that nobody would wear anywhere. On Pitkin Avenue they would refuse it.
THE TRANSOM
Pitkin Avenue, where’s that?
MS. ADAMS
It’s on the Lower East Side. Do you know Delancey?
Do you know Rivington? What are you, gentile?

Ms. Adams nods toward a guest in a loud summery print.

MS. ADAMS (CONT.)
Look at that one.
THE TRANSOM
It’s like Lilly Pulitzer died or something.
MS. ADAMS
Very good! That’s one in a row for you.
Look at that bag. They carried those during the war!
THE TRANSOM
What are you wearing, Cindy?
MS. ADAMS
It’s old Armani. It’s $4,500 three years ago. Look at my pearls.
I don’t believe in poverty. It’s not my thing.

Dinner bells begin to chime. Guests make their way to their tables. The Transom starts to part ways with Ms. Adams. We thank her for her time.

MS. ADAMS
Just don't quote me being too vicious!

Tom Hanks photobombs 'drunk' Observer reporter. (Patrick McMullan)

For a while, it looked like Bill Murray would be this nation's greying Loki--the prankster god who pushes hipsters to the ground and whispers to them, "No one will ever believe you," while pouring shots behind the bar at SXSW, crashing karaoke night and generally being a merry prankster.

But recently Tom Hanks has taken up the charge, showing up on Saturday Night Live for cameos like he was Steve Martin or something, and, in a recent infamous incident, posing for several photos with what looks to be a very drunk, passed-out man.

Now, several outlets have already confirmed that this joke was a set-up, that the drunk kid--a Redditor from West Fargo, mind you--posted the pictures along with the title, "My friend met Tom Hanks, stole his glasses and pretended to be wasted.” Still, even with the truth (allegedly) out there, isn't it more fun to believe that if you wake up drunk somewhere, there might be evidence on your iPhone that Tom Hanks was messing with your unconscious body?

That was the question we posed to a buoyant Mr. Hanks, who was celebrating the opening night of Nora Ephron's posthumous production of Lucky Guy at Gotham Hall last night. Still very much in his blustery reporter character, he told The Observer that there are at least "two versions" of this now-legendary tale.

"Okay, so one of the versions goes that my wife and I were visiting my niece, and she works in a diner in West Fargo," Mr. Hanks began boisterously (his projection lessons from his first Broadway show obviously paying off), "and there's this group of kids sitting at a table in the back, and one of them comes up and tells me, 'Mr. Hanks, great to meet you, sorry to bother you, but my friend does this thing were he poses with celebrities and pretends to be wasted.'"

"So I go over there and the guy isn't drunk," Mr. Hanks continued, "but they take a couple photos where he pretends to be passed out, and I look like I just stumbled upon him."

"See, that's the story people want to believe," we told him.

Mr. Hanks paused. "Well now, that second version is that I did just start taking pictures with a passed-out guy. I'm happy with this version, that it's become somewhat of a legend. I wouldn't want anyone not to believe that I am capable of turning up on their phones." To prove the point, Mr. Hanks then posed for several "passed out" snapshots with The Observer.

Well, as they say in Lucky Guy, (and we're paraphrasing here): "If you want the truth, go down the morgue and count the bodies ... you are born, you die, and everything in between is subject to interpretation."

Meryl Streep (Getty Images)

Three-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep announced last night her donation of $1 million to the Public Theater, the company at which she got an early start on the New York stage. "I give this gift in honor of the founder of The Public Theater, my friend and mentor Joseph Papp, and in remembrance of one of the theater's Board members and greatest supporters, my friend Nora Ephron," Ms. Streep announced.

This summer, Ms. Streep took part in the 50th anniversary of the Public Theater by playing Juliet in a Shakespeare in the Park production of Romeo and Juliet. The company, which organizes the summertime performances outdoors, is set to unveil to the public the $40 million renovation of its Astor Place home with an open house on October 13.

The late Anna Piaggi (Patrick McMullan)

A glance at Twitter these days might prompt one to wonder why all of our celebrities are suddenly expiring en masse. It used to be said that deaths come in threes—now the daily news cycle arrives like a plague, cutting down one cultural luminary after another.

Of course, notable deaths aren’t on the upswing—but chatter about them certainly is. We perform our grief on social media, the personal tributes flooding Twitter in the moments after each passing. To the traditional accoutrements of mourning (the mountains of stuffed animals, the candles and roses, the dimming of the lights on Broadway), we have added the tweet, the retweet and the "like."

This past week, composer Marvin Hamlisch, fashion editor Anna Piaggi, art critic Robert Hughes, and author and raconteur Gore Vidal all passed away. Then, even as we were writing this, film critic Judith Crist joined them. In a past era, their deaths would have have merited a Times obit and a mention, if time allowed, at the end of the evening news.

In the age of Twitter, though, there is no such thing as a muted response to a celebrity passing. At press time, the top trending topics included Hamlisch, Hughes and Piaggi, as well as A Chorus Line and The Sting, Hamlisch’s two best-loved works. “Rest in peace, Good man. #ChorusLinealldaybaby” wrote one Twitter user apparently planning to enjoy Hamlisch’s work. “My cat loves this one,” wrote another user, of a track Hamlisch wrote for The Informant! Piaggi and Hughes earned tributes no less heartfelt, with a Canadian reporter speculating all three were together in heaven, “trading stories over a plateau de fruits de mer and rosé.”

Twitter is perhaps the ultimate tool for celebrity death announcements—better, even, than celebritydeathbeeper.com (“Now checking for deaths every 10 minutes”). The collective digital keening represented by the subject’s ascension to trending topic-hood opens up a realm of deeply personal and hyper-specific emotional projection. For instance, it allows those who once personally encountered the subject to advertise that fact. As one devastated tweeter noted of Hamlisch, “I rode a hotel elevator with him in Phoenix once.”

It also imparts which of the celebrity’s books, characters or songs is the most beloved among one’s circle. Turns out, everyone has read Crazy Salad and The City and the Pillar, and adores “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.”

These days, failing to retweet a celebrity’s passing, ideally with a hastily assembled Spotify playlist, an animated GIF or a lovingly curated series of YouTube clips, is a sign of one’s heartlessness. Chiming in, after all, is how we know we’re still alive (for now); to sit one out is to risk irrelevance. While eulogies are still rightly offered by those who loved the deceased, Twitter conveys death’s effect on those who “liked” him.

Wading through the sheer volume of remembrances of Hamlisch or Piaggi, one feels as though it could go on forever—or at least until the next celebrity dies. And with every tweet fired off, staking out the sender’s claim to a very fleeting and high-tech grief, one feels the tweeter’s anxiety, as though his enthusiasm could stave off the inevitable.

And someday, the tweeter no doubt hopes, his own followers will eulogize him—something appropriate, just a few characters and a shortened link, in memoriam.

Nora Ephron lives on in memorial essays (Getty)

When legendary author/screenwriter/feminist/Huffington Post blogger Nora Ephron passed away on Tuesday, the Internet immediately lit up with tributes and personalized memorials. Everyone, it seemed, had something to say about their relation to Ms. Ephron's work. Though she was a real reporter, most people remember her as the queen of first-person journalism (with the subject of interest being herself). Which meant that a lot of these memorials--if they weren't dashed off tweets saying "R.I.P. Nora"-- were about the writer's relationship with Ms. Ephron's work, taking on the voice of the Crazy Salad author in what amounted to some strange transference/fan fiction-y memorials.

With the knowledge that to write like Nora Ephron is not to be Nora Ephron, we can't help but love some of these amazing eulogies honoring the cultural icon's passing by writing a eulogy in her voice.

1. "Nora Ephron: A Life of Voice and Detail", Tom Hanks, Time Magazine
While most celebrities were content to dash off a quick tweet or blog post about the woman whose movies made them famous (or famouser), Mr. Hanks' Time essay had both self-effacing humor and the journalist's insights that qualifies a piece as "Ephron-esque."

Ephronism:

(On This Is My Life, Ms. Ephron's first film)
Take one otherwise unremarkable scene in which the lead character moves across the East River, her dreams, courage and household items packed into a rental trailer she is towing across the 59th Street Bridge. She steers uptown on First Avenue, then turns left toward Central Park, winding through it on one of the familiar cross-park routes, turns right on Broadway, then left onto an Upper West Side street, finally stopping in front of the family’s new home. What’s so special about that? Here’s what: this was the first time I had seen a geographically correct moving montage in a movie — real cars in real traffic in the actual order of transit required to get from point A (the ordinary life in not — Manhattan) to point B (Manhattan), a distance of miles physically but light-years culturally.
Nora, with her sense of story, understood the value of the turn-by-turn realism of her character’s trek, transforming what could have been a standard moving-the-kids-and-couch bit into a journey of hope and glory. When I was told she was going to direct a second movie — Sleepless in Seattle — and wanted to meet, I actually hollered at my agent, “She shot that geographically authentic move into Manhattan!”

2. "What Nora Ephron Taught Me About Love In The Movies", Linda Holmes, NPR
Despite thinking that she is the only person who liked You've Got Mail, which is a pet peeve of ours, admittedly (When anyone boasts about how this film is their "guilty pleasure," we really want to tell them that a) It's everyone's guilty pleasure flick, and b) If you are telling total strangers about it, you don't feel that guilty), Ms. Holmes' literary homage to the end of When Harry Met Sally totally makes up for not knowing about this.

Ephronism:

I suspect I still accidentally try to talk like I'm in a Nora Ephron romantic comedy; I wouldn't know it, because I'd just think of it as trying to make great conversation.
I love that she wrote goofy stuff like spitting grape seeds into the window. I love that she used just the right amount of profanity. I love that I still like saying "Mr. Zero knew" and "Waiter, there is too much pepper on my paprikash," and that there is almost no occasion when I will not say "Baby Fishmouth."

3. "No More Twitter Eulogies, Please", Gabe Delahaye, Videogum
Nora Ephron could turn complaining into an art (neck pains and the grief of small breasts sort of being a FWP), which is something she shared with Videogum's grumpy Gabe Delahaye. His tribute to the late writer takes the form of yelling at everyone to stop tweeting their tributes.
Ephronism:

The Internet in general is just a terrible place for eulogizing. You know how newspaper obituary columns work for people of note, right? When a “famous” or “important” person crosses a certain age or health threshold, their obituary is researched, written, and carefully edited before being put away on file to be used in the case of that person’s death. If/when someone dies, any new stories or details that have accrued in the remaining days, weeks, months, years of their life can be woven into a carefully and thoughtfully constructed piece that does, despite Joan Rivers’s best protestations, come at least close to honoring their lives and providing deserved recognition for their achievements. Because there is time. As there should be. Honoring a life takes time.

4."The Funniest Feminist", Alex Leo, The Atlantic Wire
Reuters' Alex Leo combined a personal knowledge of Ms. Ephron with a great biography, which is very helpful during a time when most writers are just talking about the one time they met the author, or how Crazy Salad/You've Got Mail changed their lives.

Ephronism:

I was lucky enough to know Nora for my entire life. Whenever I gave her something of mine to read, her first note was inevitably “make it funnier” no matter if it was supposed to be funny or not. The second note was usually “more honesty”—instructing me to reveal the parts of myself I find deeply embarrassing or shameful or scary because that’s what this is all about, right? It’s very hard to challenge a woman who wrote about everything from her parents to her divorce to her neck, and there would have been no point in arguing because she was right…always.

5. "Seeing Nora Everywhere," Lena Dunham for The New Yorker
On the other side of the "I Knew Nora" spectrum, Lena Dunham's piece in The New Yorker today was like reading Ms. Ephron eulogizing herself. If anyone is heir apparent to Ms. Ephron's writing style (if not politics), it's Ms. Dunham.

Ephronism:

This past week, the elevator in my new building both flooded and caught on fire, so an extra doorman had to be hired to carry elderly women up the stairs. I think Nora would find this funny and strange and awful. Every sweaty step I take to get to the sixth floor I hear her name like a mantra.

If you haven't read the New York Times' exceptional obituary of Ms. Ephron do so. Meanwhile, we have been relishing our own small piece of Ephron's legacy: The You've Got Mail character Frank Navasky, played by Greg Kinnear.

Frank Navasky was the boyfriend of Meg Ryan's character in the film. He was also a reporter for the New York Observer.

As IMDB puts it:

Frank Navasky is a columnist for the New York Observer. His columns often feature protests against the effects of technology on society. As a result, prior to the arrest of Theodore Kaczynski, he was sometimes jokingly mentioned as possibly being the Unabomber. He is particularly skeptical about the advantages of computers, and is famous for his pæans to the electric typewriter. He was also a prominent participant in a movement, ultimately unsuccessful, to save The Shop Around the Corner, a children's bookstore.

Frank Navasky comes off, at times, as arrogant, slightly obsessive-compulsive, a narcissist, and an indignant anti-capitalist.

For example, this is the scene in which he meets Tom Hanks' character Joe Fox, for the first time:

In the original script, Frank worked for a paper called "The Independent," but it was clearly modeled after The Observer, which is what they ended up using in the film. A lot of good it did him. Spoiler alert: They eventually split, and Ryan ends up with Tom Hanks.

Ephron was a well-chronicled character in the Observer, especially from the late 80s onward. One of the earliest mentions of her in the paper came in a July 25, 1988 story by Michael M. Thomas ("The Midas Watch: The Punishing Hamptons Social Scene of '88"). She was also a regular fixture in The Transom, the front-of-book column of boldfaced names. 

I'd heard from a Observer editor a few years ago that the character of Frank was based on Frank DiGiacomo, the former Vanity Fair writer (and soon-to-be-former Gatecrasher editor) who oversaw The Transom for a number of years while at The Observer. After all, the character was named Frank, and is a slightly cantankerous wiseass (which is an apt description of many an Observer reporter and editor over the years).

As it turns out, though, that tip was probably a decade-old bit of pranksterism passed down to me. The character was actually a sweet tribute to Observer writer Ron Rosenbaum, the man who reportedly inspired Steve Jobs to start a little company called Apple Computers.

Mr. Rosenbaum, who currently writes The Spectator at Slate, shared Ephron's views on many a topic: An avowed love of Charles Portis as well as the erstwhile Upper East Side watering hole, Elaine's (the setting for Rosenbaum's novel Murder at Elaine's, which Ephron once attempted to adapt into a musical with Roy Blount Jr.). Mr. Rosenbaum and Ephron also worked together on [MORE] Magazine and a satirical conference named for A.J. Liebling that Time once called "Journalism's Woodstock."

So what did Rosenbaum think of the character? Ironically—at least as it regards Rosenbaum—the answer was, while a little buried, already out there on the Internet, not too long after the movie had been released.

In a 1999 column for Slate about adapting to new technology, he wrote:

So, I may not be a Luddite, but I play one on TV, or I'm played as one if you rent and watch You've Got Mail. If you can get past the chirpy sentimentalizing of terminally insipid e-mails by tragically insipid stars Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, you'll find in the film a relatively benign caricature of a New York Observer writer with arcane literary and philosophical preoccupations who crusades to save an independent bookstore from being crushed by a big chain store, who rejects computer culture and rhapsodizes over his typewriter--an Olympia Report Deluxe electric. Now, it just so happens that I am a New York Observer columnist (click here to download me) with arcane literary interests (see the interview with me posted in Feed last month, if you care) who launched a crusade to save an independent bookstore (called Books & Co.) and who wrote a column rhapsodizing over his typewriter--an Olympia Report Deluxe electric--while working on a doomed film project with future You've Got Mail director Nora Ephron.

The column confirms on a intimate level what Ephron was able to capture so well and so often in her work: Two people, with shared interests and creative outlets, one acting as a muse for the other. The Observer’s appearance in the film is an obscure footnote to Ephron's work and life, but one that makes working for this paper a bit sweeter.

The film's larger contribution is the way it made New York feel like a small town. It took an amazing talent and a special kind of insight to do that, and the place hasn't been the same since.

For that, and in so many other ways, large and small, she'll be missed.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

While news of Nora Ephron's supposed death hasn't trickled out at all, Liz Smith seemingly eulogized the screenwriter and director in a post on wowOwow. "I won’t say, “Rest in peace, Nora,'" writes Ms. Smith. "I will just ask “What the hell will we do without you?'"

Beloved writer of books like Heartburn and films like When Harry Met Sally..., the 71-year-old Ms. Ephron had a late-career renaissance wheun she directed the 2009 hit Julie and Julia. Ms. Ephron's representatives have issued a blanket no-comment policy on Ms. Smith's post.

UPDATE, 5:46pm: Liz Smith is said to have pulled the piece from wowOwow, though we are still able to access it; the language in the piece is consistently past-tense regarding Ms. Ephron's traits, but never explicitly states she has died. A Times publishing reporter has Tweeted that Ms. Ephron is alive, per Knopf, her publisher.

UPDATE, 6:08pm: TMZ reports that Ms. Ephron is gravely ill, though not dead. The Atlantic Wire states that this was a case of premature publication of the obituary, prepared in advance per media custom.

UPDATE, 7:31pm: Liz Smith has emailed The Observer: "Nora Ephron is not [confirmed] dead. We have killed all pre released material & corrected. One can only say she is deathly ill in New York Hospital.  I am broken-hearted over this but sorry if I misled anyone inadvertently. I did not even know Nora was ill." Per The Hollywood Reporter, Ms. Smith had been informed by Jacob Bernstein, Ms. Ephron's son, that the family was planning a funeral.

Tom Hanks (Getty Images)

The latest star to migrate from the big screen to the stage may be two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks, who's reportedly circling a role in a play written by Nora Ephron about the life of the late Daily News columnist Mike McAlary. Ms. Ephron's play, Lucky Guy, would open next spring, according to the Times. And just when we were finally getting over the stage door lines from Julia Roberts's Three Days of Rain turn...

Now, in an apparent effort to one-up us, The Times Magazine has stopped by Ephron's apartment proper for a tour. There, she points out a few of her favorite things, such as Julie & Julia embossed knives, a poster from a Japanese play version of When Harry Met Sally and a teacup collection. ("They are too gorgeous to be used, and they hold barely any tea, I'd like to add. So they are just in a little cupboard, and it is very sad. ") Also discussed? Ephron's deadly fear of bike messengers.

Yet what had The Observer worried more than rampaging stiffs on two wheels was the pair of dice Ephron carries with her at all times. Let's let her explain:

Hobby: I play craps. About 900 years ago, when I was a columnist at Esquire, they had a sales conference in Paradise Island, the Bahamas, and someone taught me. It is such a great game. I will teach almost anyone how to play craps at a moment's notice.

Always With Her: I almost always have dice in my purse.

[...]

Next Big Purchase: I am thinking about going to Istanbul, because I haven't been.

Favorite Vacation Spot: I like Las Vegas.

Maybe this explains Ephron's third husband, Nicholas Pileggi, who wrote Casino, among other films. Then again, that movie premiered eight years after the couple married. Was she the secret muse for Ace Rothstein, the inspiration for Ginger? To think all this time we had no idea.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

Huff Post Divorce will launch on Monday. There are currently over 20 special sections on the Huffington Post about a wide variety of topics including College, Books, and Technology. The new divorce page will include legal and financial advice, forums for readers dealing with crumbling marriages, and news on celebrity splits.

Bay oversaw the development of Huff Post Divorce. She told the New York Times that the site has a wide variety of planned contributors.

"We have some lawyers lined up, dads who are new to the single dad thing, even a rabbi," Bay said.

Bay is a senior editor at HuffPo who has worked as an on-air contributor for Lifetime, NBC News, "Good Morning America," and MSNBC. She was the face of Estee Lauder from 1983 to 1989. Bay married Iger in 1995 in Bridgehampton.

Writer Nora Ephron is also helping with the Huff Post Divorce rollout. In 1983, Ephron wrote the novel Heartburn, a fictionalized account of her marriage and subsequent divorce to Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein. The Huff Post Divorce launch will feature an excerpt of Ephron's new book, I Remember Nothing. 

Iger and Bay's marriage may not be in trouble, but if they do ever split, she's going to be an expert on alimony proceedings. Looks like Iger better be on his best spousal behavior from now on.