Russell Simmons.

Last Monday, 250 people joined the Transom in Russell Simmons’s penthouse apartment in the Financial District, shaking snow and sleet off their fur coats and craning their necks to see over a wall of cameras. Mr. Simmons, the chairman of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, was hosting a ceremony to celebrate FFEU’s young leaders, and scores of lucky invitees weren’t going to let a little weather get in the way.

Benjamin Bronfman, an environmentalist, entrepreneur and musician who’s worked with artists like Kanye West and Jay-Z, was one of the evening’s five honorees, although he professed ignorance as to what he did to deserve recognition: “What the hell are you honoring me for?” he said.

But good press is good press, and it seemed to come at a good time for Mr. Bronfman: the Seagram’s heir had been making headlines the past couple weeks while battling his baby momma, singer M.I.A., in court over their 4-year-old son.

The event also fell on the same day that New York City’s fire commissioner’s son, an FDNY EMT named Joe Cassano, announced he would resign after the public caught wind of his racially charged tweets, which included such gems as “I like jews about as much as hitler #toofar? NOPE” and “MLK could go kick rocks for all I care, but thanks for the time and a half today.”

When asked if such a revelation underscored the importance of a foundation like Mr. Simmons’s, the host replied, “I’m not gonna talk about that,” and walked away.

“There’s ignorance across the board,” said lawyer Sal Strazzullo, another of the event’s honorees, who was less offended by the Transom’s line of questioning.

Mr. Strazzullo, 40, is perhaps best known for handling such high-profile assault cases as those of chef David Burke (and his driver) and of nightclub owner Adam Hock (and model Jessica Hart). He also represented Brooklyn model Ingrid Gutierrez after she was struck by broken glass when tablemate Chris Brown fought with Drake at W.i.P nightclub.

Dubbed the “night-life lawyer” by The New York Times, Mr. Strazzullo is also popular among strippers like Sophia Kandelaki (Scores), Alexia Moore (Big Daddy Lou’s Hot Lap Dance Club) and Milana Dravnel, the former mistress of Oscar De La Hoya. Mr. Strazzullo needed some defending of his own when he was sued for sexual harassment by a former paralegal, according to the Times.

(Were all the honorees in need of some character rehabilitation, the Transom wondered?)

Guests drank mango lemonade champagne spritzers and munched on a buffet of bite-sized desserts and hummus. Around Mr. Simmons’s home, there were a smattering of gold and copper Buddha statues and a prominently displayed photo of Mr. Simmons with the great spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle.

When asked how he reconciled the violent and intolerant messages that occasionally find their way into hip-hop with his foundation’s main mission of creating peace and harmony, Mr. Simmons responded: “I don’t feel I have to reconcile hip-hop with our sexist, racist, homophobic society. This generation is no less gangster than our government. I’ll continue to do God’s work as I see fit.”

Speaking of hip-hop, rapper Q-Tip was also in attendance, but had disappointment written all over his face.

“We have affluent people here, and it’s great outreach, but there needs to be more activity. We need to get into the neighborhoods and be foot soldiers,” he said. “A 16-year-old boy was just shot in Brooklyn. We’re all here in Russell’s beautiful loft, and somewhere in Brooklyn a young brother is dead and people are rioting.”

To be fair, it was very good hummus.

Mr. Simmons has listed his duplex penthouse condo at 114 Liberty Street for $11 million, a listing first spotted by The Real Deal.

The condo has five bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, barrel vaulted ceilings, a huge chef's kitchen and a kitchenette (perhaps Mr. Simmons—a vegan and big time fan of homemade juices—needed some extra storage space for all the fruits and vegetables he eats?).

As Mr. Simmons once told The New York Times in response to a question about his Sunday morning meditation ritual: "My crib, the whole thing's an altar." In broker babble, that apparently translates to: "One must visit this property and experience the captivating aura of light, views, grand scale and drama."

Mr. Simmons once shared the spacious, sunny loft with ex-wife Kimora Lee Simmons, whom he bought out for $2.3 million back in 2007 after the couple divorced. The listing is held by Corcoran brokers Deborah Grubman and David Dubin.

Ms. Grubman told The Real Deal that the property offered a unique opportunity to buy in the neighborhood before prices—post WTC completion—shoot up. You know that we're living in a hyper-gentrified city when $11 million is the getting-in early price.

kvelsey@observer.com

Simmons and Williams

“My first young experience with the arts was putting on my mother’s Afro wig and singing Michael Jackson songs in the bathroom mirror,” the actor Michael K. Williams reported to The Observer on a drizzly Saturday evening in East Hampton.

We were at Russell Simmons’s house for the 13th annual Art for Life Foundation benefit, which this year was to honor a slate of luminaries, including Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon, Bancorp Inc.’s Betsy Z. Cohen, Tamia and Grant Hill and Sun Capital Partner Inc.’s Marc J. Leder.

Just moments before, Mr. Williams had been posing for a few clicking cameras, a cigar tucked between his lips as he tugged at leather suspenders overlaying a blue-and-white checked shirt. We had no problem visualizing the mental image of a young Mr. Williams belting “Beat It.” Though Mr. Williams is perhaps best known for his role in HBO’s The Wire, he divulged that his creative career actually began with dance.

“In school, [art] stimulated me. It made me want to stay in school; it made me want to learn. It stimulated my mind in ways that I can’t ever really explain,” Mr. Williams remembered, his previously lighthearted tone on hiatus. “But as an adult, as a human being, the arts saved my life.”

But even with the former dancer’s current television chops and star credentials, the Brooklyn native admitted the evening’s trek to East Hampton was only his second. We took another glance at his dapper appearance before concluding that his Ralph Lauren getup certainly didn’t betray him as a Hampton newcomer.

We shifted attention toward the night’s cohost, artist (and older brother of Russell) Danny Simmons.

Though on painkillers after recently throwing out his back, Mr. Simmons seemed in rare form and eager for the fête.

“It’s going to be our biggest year ever, and we got blue people standing around on the lawn, we got pink people, orange and blue people,” Mr. Simmons told us emphatically, while motioning toward the performance artists outfitted in brightly colored jumpsuits on the lawn. (The chromatic theme for the evening was “the summer’s hottest hues: rush orange, aqua blue, chartreuse, and fuchsia.”)

Mr. Simmons announced that the foundation—which raises money for arts education and gallery programs to benefit inner-city youth—was entering the night having raised more than $1.5 million this year, not including the proceeds to be garnered from the evening’s auctions “A lot of money for me this year would be anything over $2.1 million,” he said. “That’s the most we’ve ever raised.”

We raised our gaze toward the tent (all while eluding the first drops of rain) to speak with designer B Michael, outfitted in all-white garb from his men’s wear couture collection.

“I love summer because as a New Yorker, I wear black every day and summer is my excuse to wear white and do color,” Mr. Michael told us, referring to his monochrome duds. His usual East Hampton attire is a pair of white raffia shorts combined with a linen shirt and “shoes like this,” he said pointing to his white, beach-print shoes (a brave choice for a red carpet of damp grass).

Jonathan Cheban must have read our thoughts. “What am I wearing?” he inquired preemptively. “Something that’s going to get destroyed tonight, for sure.”

Aside from his Out East look—which had him donning an open-necked tuxedo shirt—Mr. Cheban also spoke of his creative focus. “I feel like art is always related to people, and it’s helped people get to different levels and take them out of wherever they are,” he waxed. “It’s something that people with talent can kind of use.”

After Mr. Cheban retreated to a dry space, we turned to Rocsi from BET’s 106 & Park and solicited her opinion about the night’s honoree, Ms. Carey, joining American Idol as a judge.

“I think it’s the most brilliant thing,” she enthused. “I think so many other shows may be a little envious and jealous that they got Mariah. She is this generation’s Whitney in some people’s eyes.” (We left aside the more morbid implications of the comparison.)

MC Lyte later echoed Rocsi’s sentiments. “Five octaves?” she queried rhetorically of Ms. Carey’s vocal range. “That doesn’t happen today.”

The red carpet culminated with the appearance of Salt-N-Pepa, Cheryl James and Sandra Denton, respectively, who simultaneously cooed praises for the evening’s fundraising.

“The arts obviously are very important for young people to express themselves,” Ms. James said. “It’s the way we made our living, and, you know, I think it’s very important for kids to be able to express who they are through music. The creativity keeps them happy, keeps them going.”

By this point, heavy clouds began to release a steady drizzle, prompting red-carpet invitees to bid a final hello before seeking dry ground and comforting libations. We nabbed ourselves a French 75 (the drink du nuit, courtesy of Bombay Sapphire) before joining them.

Upon entering the tent, we were immediately greeted with work from a variety of artists. As we perused the exhibit, we noted the ballooned, asymmetrical fixtures ornamenting the room’s ceiling.

Large lamps served as centerpieces for the tables—some mimicked animal shapes while others stood bedecked with silverware painted to blend with the monochrome palette of each lamp. All boasted intermittent, blinking lights. The entire scene possessed enough whimsy that we wondered whether a child had blueprinted the entire experience—save for the ever-flowing wine bottles and performances by Anita Baker, Salt-N-Pepa and Diggy Simmons.

We kept these musings to ourselves as we retreated from the East Hampton abode and back to the water-logged city.
sgrothjan@observer.com

Too much "help"?

Three days after we picked up The Secret, we won the lottery. It was a Friday night in Williamsburg, and we were drunkenly blinking into the fluorescent lights of a local bodega, waiting for our dinner—also, technically, a late lunch and tomorrow's early breakfast—of a beef patty with cheese, when we decided to feed two dollars into a machine to purchase an Instant Take 5 ticket, which enticed us with a promise that we could "Win Up To $5,555!"

We used a quarter to scratch the ticket, revealing our win of $5, not five grand, but more than double the amount we had paid for the privilege of entering. It didn't matter that we would have to wait until the next day to retrieve our winnings, or that we would inevitably forget to do so and continue to hold the prize-winning piece of paper in our wallet for the rest of the week before we remembered that we had hit it big in an alcoholic stupor. At the time it was a sign: that if we could win money just from reading The Secret, than one week of piling on the self-help books would lead to bigger and better things (and hopefully give us the tools to keep track of our earnings).

We were so wrong.

By Friday afternoon, we had speed-read (or at least skimmed through) Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek, the aforementioned Oprah-certified The Secret, the celebrity-smattered Dear Me: A Letter to My Sixteen-Year-Old Self, Marina Spence's Make Every Day a Friday, and Russell Simmons’ Do You!: 12 Laws to Access the Power in You to Achieve Happiness and Success. Every day, we took one more "self-help" suggestion from each of the books and added it on to our daily schedule.

At least we know we're in good company: in the year 2008 alone, according to Forbes, Americans spent more than $11 billion improving themselves through classes, seminars, CDs, and books. (Ironically, the majority of the self-help books you'll find in a Barnes & Noble will have a chapter on managing your finances. The other half will involve a Real Housewife telling you how to lose weight.) Because we are cynical non-believers, we decided to start with The Secret, which didn't cost us a penny since we already owned it as a gag gift we were planning to give a friend for a birthday.

Sunday

We begin with the positive thinking exercises outlined in Rhonda Byrne's The Secret (Atria Books/Beyond Worlds, 2006). We get a kick out of reading passages out loud to our siblings like an over-eager guidance counselor, or zealous Tony Robbins-esque figure. Stuff like: "If you see it in your mind, you're going to hold it in your hand!" and "In fact, parts of our body are literally replaced every day!" For those out there who have never read The Secret—which has sold more than 21 million copies by promoting "the laws of attraction"—the idea is simple. You want something, you think hard enough about it (while keeping the rest of your thoughts positive), and you will get it.

This is so shammy and hokey that we can't believe Oprah promoted it, until we remember that Oprah promoted James Frey as well. Two for two, Oprah.

As an experiment, waiting for coffee in Starbucks, we decide to will a cupcake into our possession. We focus on the idea of a cupcake; how we will come to own and then enjoy it. While we're thinking about how stupid this whole process is, we notice a Starbucks employee replacing the breakfast items in the counter with afternoon snacks. Including...yes! Cupcakes! We buy one while pondering the miracle of The Secret, which we had finished in a record two days—What? It's a small book—and attracting positivity into our lives, which lasts approximately four minutes until we remember that we are supposed to be on diet anyway and discard the entirety of our tasty, magical treat. Money down the drain! This is probably why we need financial self-improvement books.

Monday

Time to plunge into Mr. Ferriss' The 4-Hour Workweek (Crown Publishing Group, 2009). We avoided Mr. Ferriss' other tome, The 4-Hour Body, because we didn't want to exercise, and also because we didn't want to think about Mr. Ferriss giving women extended orgasms, which we know from a New York Times' article is in there somewhere. Plus, we were excited about the suggestion in Workweek that we completely ignore email except for two short windows per day: one at noon, and one at 4 p.m. But this immediately presents a problem for our editors, who were not aware of the "stay offline" portion of Mr. Ferriss' program when they suggested we look into it. Oh well! By 10 p.m., editors have found a loophole in our system and are now texting us notes about work whenever we're out of the office.

The problem with Ferriss' book, which promotes (among other things) the "80-20 principle"—i.e., that 80 percent of our benefits come from 20 percent of our work—is that the 4-Hour logic doesn’t hold water when you are doing field reporting. The concepts the author outlined in his D-E-A-L program (Definition, Elimination, Automation, Liberation) might work for would-be entrepreneurs or office slackers, but try "eliminating" your reading of the news to just two hours a week (which Mr. Ferriss claims to do) when your job is to be on top of the news cycle. Being fired can’t possibly be part of the game plan, right? Automation—which involves a sort of out-processing of most of your work so one can spend as little time as possible actually doing one's job—is also not an option if you work in a creative field, though we did appreciate Mr. Ferriss' sound financial advice and persuasive arguments for taking "mini-retirements" now, instead of saving it up until we are too old to travel.

As for the whole Definition part...we have trouble with that too. The "D"  is for defining in very specific terms what you want from your career and life. We begin to notice a disturbing trend in self-help literature, asking us to formulate a concrete example of our ideal lifestyle—the very thing we have been avoiding having to think about since we picked a major in college.

Tuesday

"Go Where the Action Is" is one of the crucial components laid out by Russell Simmons in Do You!: 12 Laws to Access the Power In You to Achieve Happiness and Success (Gotham, 2007). Though it has all of the literary heft of a fortune cookie, we assume that this book will have the most helpful, down-to-earth advice in our new library, something we belatedly acknowledge is due to our love of Def Comedy Jam.

Mr. Simmons gives a lot of lip service to moving to New York, L.A., or Atlanta, because, as he says: "...You ain't going to become a rapper or an actor living in Idaho...You can't wait for the action to come to you. You must go to the action."

We already live in New York, but as it stands, the "action" on Tuesday night seems to be in Zuccotti Park, where we park ourselves for the night in an attempt to sleep among the protesters. We've written enough about the movement, it's time to dive headfirst into the grimy late-night underbelly in order to live up to our full potential as an in-the-field reporter. Mr. Simmons, himself an Occupy-advocate—and a member in good standing of the 1%—spends most of his book talking about the lessons of Kanye, Jay-Z, and his own clothing brand, Phat Farms. Unfortunately the rules governing rapping and entrepreneurship are still far from those of journalism, and we spend half the night shivering, climbing in to share sleeping bags with drunk Canadians who make us recite lines from Good Will Hunting in a Boston accent. We're operating under the misguided premise that being close to the epicenter of "action" will somehow make our lives better. Instead, we get a sinus infection, and are two hours late for work the next day.

Wednesday

Humpday! We feel like the inside of a dirty hippie's sock (and probably smell just as bad) after trying to overnight it in Zuccotti the night before.There's nothing more we rather do than go home and shower, so what better book to read than Marina Spence's slight little number, Make Every Day a Friday! (Morgan James Publishing, 2009). The book touts itself as a "stress-free" system to "gently guide" you to change either your work, or your attitude towards your current job. Unfortunately, it doesn't take more than 10 pages to realize that Friday! is one those books: the ones that work under the presumption that your dream job is out there for you somewhere, or that you have the perfect job but you need to make some other life-shifts in order to appreciate it fully. Because our mood is so dark, we decide to embrace Ms. Spence's tip/sub-chapter that "Hating Your Job is a Gift!" from the "Taking Steps to Clarity" chapter. We make a list of all the things we don't like about our work.

We hate:

• Having to do assignments that involve trying to "better ourselves" in any way
• Getting up early in the mornings
• Long commute
• No good food places in Times Square

Now, Make Every Day a Friday tells us to look at our list and imagine the opposite of what we wrote in our "career hate" list. And we can imagine this life perfectly: working from home all day (when the "work day" starts at noon); eating MSG-laden Chinese food from the place on the corner; never taking any steps to get ourselves into a healthier, more social lifestyle. The thing is, we've already had that career before...it's called freelancing, and after a year and a half of it we went so stir-crazy we were begging friends to let us just come in and hang out in their offices, just to give us an excuse to brush our teeth and get dressed in the morning.

So, the opposite of our current "career dislikes" is an even worse scenario. Great. Why can't any book just tell us what we want to hear...that things are perfect the way they are and maybe we should just take a nap?

Thursday

We do some of the time-traveling exercises encouraged by Dear Me: A Letter to My Sixteen-Year-Old Self (Simon & Schuster, 2009). Joseph Galliano’s book has a wide range of celebrities writing letters to their awkward, adolescent selves, which technically isn't "self-help" as much as "inspirational" and/or "somewhat terrifying." After all, who isn’t better off now than when they were 16? Certainly not Stephen King, though he does council his younger incarnation to "Stay away from recreational drugs." Hugh Jackman keeps it vague with "You've had many blessings in your life and will have many more...don't forget where those blessings came from." (Australia?)

Still, if James Franco and the guy who plays Fred on YouTube are qualified to give life advice to younger versions of themselves, certainly we must have some wisdom to impart as well. After many false starts, we eventually wind up with a piece of paper that sounds more like an evil twin's of King's:

Dear Us at 16,

You might think that all those psychedelic drugs you are currently taking will eventually have long-term consequences. To the best of our knowledge…you’re good. Ecstasy stops working when you are around 21, so do as much as possible now. Oh, and you’re not imagining things: mom and dad are getting a divorce.

Keep on truckin’,

Us at 27

The problem with writing a letter to ourselves after reading this book is that everyone in "Dear Me" is famous and living the dream, so their advice is applicable not only to their former selves, but to anyone who also wants to be Alice Cooper/William Shatner/J.K Rowling. Their advice (for the most part) is of the "It Gets Better" variety...because for them, it did. We can't offer that kind of solace to our former selves. Life is better in some ways...other ways, it's worse. (At 16, we probably would have loved to spend a night sleeping in a concrete park in New York, who are we dash our young dreams by whining about it now?)

We stared at the piece of paper for awhile, feeling depressed. Sort of wish we had eaten that cupcake when we had the chance; binge on carrots and hummus instead. Never have we felt so stressed out, overworked, underpaid, and unlovable as when we started taking the advice of other people on how to make our lives better.

Friday

During our last day of formal self-improvement, we go to Williamsburg to meet Anna Goldstein, a New York life coach who specializes in helping women in their 20s and 30s (she can be found online at Self In The City). Running late to the meeting, we quickly scarf down a(nother) beef patty while smoking a cigarette simultaneously, which we assume means that these programs have not been working the way they should.

Ms. Goldstein’s process revolves around the Model of Behavioral Function, a sort of thought-to-action guide to getting our shit together. As we sit in her home office, a huge, brightly lit studio space with a large-screen TV and wacky furniture that actually looks more like a well-funded tech start-up than a therapist’s office, we jot in a notebook as she instructs:

Think

Feel

Behavior

Results

Of course, Ms. Goldstein is not our therapist, but as we go over the events that immediately preceded our encounter—the rushed and greasy lunch when we really wanted sushi—we find ourselves venting a week’s worth of pent-up frustration. Ms. Goldstein prompts us occasionally on how we could alter our first line of thinking to create a different belief system about work, health, interpersonal relationships, and the rest. It’s harder than it seems, which we're beginning to realize is why the the self-help books haven’t done us much good. While books can encourage you to act differently, Ms. Goldstein helps us isolate those early negative thought patterns that feed into our pre-existing (but somewhat unconscious) belief system. For example: "We never exercise because our bike is in the shop and we can't find time to pick it up," which leads to the belief of "We never exercise." And if we take it as a given that we never exercise, why bother being proactive about picking up our bike?

Eventually, we cycle (so to speak) to the problem that's been plaguing us all week:

“What do you want to do?” asked Ms. Goldstein.

“We want to write comedy,” we tell her. And when we say it out loud, it sounds just as stupid as all the times we've thought about it while reading self-help books.

“And what would that look like?”

After we're done pragmatically laying out the details of our eventual “Shouts and Murmurs” piece, the hypothetical book we will write, and how to deal with obligations of fame and fortune, it doesn’t seem like such a crazy idea after all. It also seems like we've put a lot of subconscious thought into our Goal Lifestyle, despite floundering for weeks over the absurdity of answering the world’s vaguest question: “What do we want?”

Feeling better, we treat ourselves to sushi after meeting with Ms. Goldstein, and then break our “no e-mail” rule to send our boss a message: we'll be taking the rest of the day off.

Andrew W.K., Russell Simmons, and James Franco (via Getty)

Last March, we did a socialite-laden post about the dangers of accidentally CC'ing everyone on an invite list instead of using BCC. In most circumstances, you chalk the mistake up to a faux-pas and feel a momentary twinge of embarrassment. Of course, if you are a photographer to the stars, this might lead to more sticky situations.

Liam McMullan, son of famed photog Patrick and quite a shutterbug himself, invited us to his father's PMC Magazine/Maybeline party last night at the Dream Hotel in Chelsea. Unfortunately the rain combined with our stupid decision to wear leather flats to work, we were unable to make it. The moment we were about to reply to the Jr. McMullan's email (sent from his smartphone), we realized that he had sent the invite out to over 30 people en masse (message).

Glad we dodged a bullet and didn't press 'Reply All'! As we were congratulating ourselves on our Internet social skills, we noticed that some of the names of the list were definitely not for media eyes. Like say, James Franco's Gmail account. Or Andrew W.K.'s. Or Russell Simmons's personal email.

While we'd never be so gauche as to actually put these people's private information out there, as a public service to celebs and socialites, here's a list of people who might be wanting to change over to Hotmail pretty soon:

• Socialite Cleo Coco Lettry Vauban
• Socialite Anna Rothschild
• Occupy Wall Street sympathizer Russell Simmons
• Academy Awards host James Franco
• Manager and producer Steve Paul
• Musician/comedian Andrew W.K.
• Magician and mind-freak Criss Angel
• Model Sabrina Huls
• Justin Timberlake surrogate and Napster creator Sean Parker
• Socialite-rising and former Observer semi-star Stephanie Wei
• Girls Loves Shoes stylist Zia Ziprin
• Photographer Antoine Verglas
• Izzy Gold aka Francesco Civetta
• Artist/photographer Ohad Maiman
• Catfish star Yaniv Schulman
• Rapper/actor Chris Massey
• Alterna-socialite Arden Wohl

Actually, strike what we said before: It's actually amazing how many of these cool kids have kept a hotmail/yahoo address. Or maybe that's just their "PR" address they give out in case a snafu like this ever occurs.

A man with a US dollar bill taped over his mouth joins members of trade unions join "Occupy Wall Street" protesters during a march to Foley Square on October 5, 2011 in New York. (STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)

UPDATE: This story was revised October 18 with new information including an updated number for the total amount of funds raised by the protest. It was originally posted on October 14 and ran in The New York Observer print edition Wednesday, October 19.

“George Soros money is behind this!” Rush Limbaugh told his listeners two weeks ago, feeding speculation that the “99 percent” agenda espoused by the Occupy Wall Street protesters has filthy-rich backers—a claim picked up by Reuters and heatedly debated in the media. Soros money? If only. Around the time Reuters was walking back its headline, “Who’s Behind the Wall Street Protests,” later revised to “Soros: Not a Funder,” protesters were voting on whether to spend $3,000 on brooms and trash cans to clean up the occupied plaza in order to avoid eviction by the city.

Back in July, when local activists hammered out the logistics of the Occupy Wall Street protest, they were planning for little more than an urban camping trip. Committees were established to handle security, medication and sanitation. Nourishment was a major concern. Fundraising was an afterthought.

Still, onlookers are rightfully eager to follow the money. Politics have been so dominated by financing for so long that a major movement without major backers seems unthinkable. Last week, Republicans announced a new Super PAC determined, according to The New York Times, to “raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to defend the party’s majority next year”; meanwhile, President Barack Obama raised more than $42 million for his re-election campaign over the last three months.

Donations are flowing into Occupy Wall Street as well, though on a much smaller scale; as of Tuesday the protest’s general fund has raised approximately $294,000, according to members of the finance committee on Tuesday (although the committee is still refining its balance sheet in advance of giving it to a CPA). That’s enough to keep the demonstrators well-fed and livestreaming, but it’s not Soros-level treasure.

More than 4,000 donations ranging from $5 to $7,000 and totaling about $214,000 have been collected online. About $1,000 in cash comes in every day through the empty five-gallon water jug at the ersatz cafeteria in the middle of the plaza and three duct-taped paint buckets stationed at the information booths. Michael Moore gave $1,000 after a book signing. An anonymous donor gave $5,000 after a fundraising pop-up art show, entitled “No Comment,” held at the historic JP Morgan Building. The General Assembly, the group’s open legislature, voted en masse to decline a donation from music mogul Russell Simmons, who wanted a hand in helping the protest shape demands (spawning a rumor that he’d asked the protest to endorse an album in exchange for $20,000). The total on-site donations, cash and check, is about $80,000. And that’s just the general fund; more has been raised for tangential projects. Staffers of the free paper The Indypendent garnered $75,690 to print The Occupied Wall Street Journal via the crowd-funding site Kickstarter; another group has raised $2,971 on the crowd-funding site IndieGoGo to send “radical barbers” and “progressive tailors” to make over the protesters.

Meanwhile, organizers have had a crash course in money management. “It’s radical finances,” Victoria Sobel, the 21-year-old Cooper Union art student who served for a few weeks as Occupy Wall Street’s unofficial CFO, told The Observer Sunday during an evening rendezvous at the protest’s off-site conference room and facilities, McDonald’s.

The group resisted temptation when it came from Mr. Simmons. But how can the decentralized movement, encompassing many varieties of purist from anarchist to libertarian to vegan—one protester told The Observer she maintained a strict alkaline diet—remain uncorrupted? Occupy Wall Street has to keep its books clean in order to avoid going the way of Al Capone. But it’s also had to justify working with the banking establishment to its radical congregants, 24 of whom were arrested over the weekend during a mini-run on the LaGuardia Place Citibank. It’s a delicate line to walk, especially when every major decision and any purchases over $100 have to be approved by the General Assembly, sometimes twice. The sanitation working group recently brought a simple proposal: the purchase of storage bins in order to tidy up the park. It passed, but only after a member of the assembly attached a friendly amendment stipulating that the bins should be certified Fair Trade. When attempting to purchase Fair Trade storage bins, the sanitation committee discovered they do not exist. The proposal had to be passed again.

The movement is also large enough that many people in positions of responsibility don’t know each other, adding to the difficulty of establishing a financial infrastructure. When we first met Ms. Sobel, a young protester seated nearby couldn’t help but overhear. “Hey, are you on Finance?” he asked. “I’m at the info booth, and we like, get a lot of money? What should we do?”

The movement has also inspired unaffiliated websites, claiming to be collecting funds for Occupy Wall Street. There are more than 200 occupation-related campaigns on the fundraising website WePay; some are rumored to be fraudulent, others merely unauthorized. The organizers behind OccupyWallSt.org started raising a separate fund for their own expenses, for $6,000, causing a kerfuffle with the finance committee. Meanwhile, people at the camp are “always trying to steal the buckets,” Ms. Sobel said, and well-meaning protesters as well as opportunists have been seen walking around with their own buckets.

Fortunately for the activists, a mutual friend introduced Ms. Sobel to Elaine Brower, a peace activist who lives in Staten Island and works in the city controller’s office. Ms. Brower is the treasurer for October 2011, a movement which had been planning to occupy Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. for the ten-year anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan, independently of Occupy Wall Street—although the groups eventually started collaborating­­.

“Thursday, the 23rd,” Ms. Brower said, consulting her notes when The Observer called. “We sat in McDonald’s—that seems to be the official headquarters over there—and I’m trying to explain to them the ups and downs of accounting and financing.” Ms. Brower detailed the difference between a not-for-profit and a nonprofit to Ms. Sobel and organizers Chris Biemer, Pete Dutro, Darryl Price, and “Robert,” and warned them not to personally accept money because of the risk of taking on unwanted liability.

“I love the whole lateral decision-making process,” Ms. Brower said, referring the protest’s hyper-democratic means of deciding action—“but without any type of leadership they could really get themselves into trouble.”

Ms. Brower arranged for a fiscal sponsor, the nonprofit Alliance for Global Justice, through which the Friends of Liberty Plaza can receive tax-free donations, about a week into the protest.

But the group was still playing catch-up. There was only one venue for fundraising, which was tied to the personal bank account of Mr. Biemer, a 23-year-old Florida transplant and member of the local chapter of Food Not Bombs, the non-profit known for canvassing grocery stores and restaurants for discarded food to repurpose for the homeless. Mr. Biemer was heading up the food committee for Occupy Wall Street, whose original plan was to solicit food donations and find free leftovers by dumpster diving. But on July 29, he wrote an exhaustive letter on the group’s website in which he estimated that the amount of peanut butter sandwiches needed to feed the expected 20,000 people—figuring a typical peanut butter sandwich requires two tablespoons of peanut butter and the stuff is available in 45-lb. tubs—they’d need about $1,000. “Despite some outreach efforts, the total amount of money raised by the Food Committee so far equals $0,” he wrote. “So, we need money.”

Mr. Biemer registered an account at WePay.com to accept donations for food, with the expectation that it would never exceed $2,000 and thus avoid inviting an audit. But after the protest started, they were getting so much donated food that there was no need to dumpster dive, and on the fourth day, Mr. Biemer’s WePay account had collected about $10,000.

In the first week of the protest, around the time they realized they had money, the protesters realized they needed to spend money. Tarps, coffee and other staples that weren’t being regularly donated were in high demand, as were dry socks and underwear after it rained. There was a march planned for Saturday, the protest’s first big weekend, and organizers needed funds to cover bail and medical supplies such as gauze, which was soaked in vinegar and handed out to marchers in case of tear gas. The money was sitting in Mr. Biemer’s account, but there was no legal entity to transfer it to. Meanwhile, some wondered whether it was ethical to spend money people had ostensibly donated for food on other necessities instead. At the same time, protesters on site were grumbling about the funds. “People were really freaking out,” Ms. Sobel said. “’Where’s the money? How much is there? Why can’t I see it?’ I was extremely discouraged. We were kind of screwed.”

Considering the time crunch, Ms. Brower offered to move some money through October 2011. Mr. Biemer overnighted a check made out to the nonprofit for $5,000 and Ms. Brower delivered the cash Saturday morning so an invigorating breakfast could be bought for the plaza in advance of the march. “I told Victoria to make sure she locked it up somewhere,” she said. The money did get locked up, in a safety box at One Police Plaza, after Ms. Sobel was arrested with the remaining $4,300. It was returned when Ms. Sobel was released, with a receipt and a raised eyebrow.

Since then, Occupy Wall Street has opened two bank accounts in the name of its unincorporated association, Friends of Liberty Plaza. The first was at the Lower East Side People’s Credit Union—the most ethically-palatable solution within a reasonable commute. CEO Linda Levy was surprised to see the protesters walk into the bank. “We asked how they had found us, and they said they found us on the internet,” she told The Observer. “We were actually really pleased that they decided to open an account with us. The fact that they would pick us to have their account would reflect that we’re not like other banks. A lot of times there are progressive movements that complain about the banks but they still keep their money in the banks.”

The credit union has made “Occupy Wall Street” an honoree at its upcoming 25th birthday party, she said.

About two weeks ago, Occupy Wall Street was approached by another financial institution: the union-owned Amalgamated Bank at 52 Broadway, four blocks from the protest’s headquarters at Zuccotti Park. The finance committee members were having trouble making it up to the Lower East Side by 4 p.m. in order to deposit, so they opened a second account at Amalgamated, which has a big, red, branded banner in the window: “Amalgamated Bank Supports UFT and the Occupy Wall Street Movement.” (Another possible wrench in the process: Amalgamated is under a consent order by the FDIC for not discharging delinquent loans in a timely manner. If it doesn’t satisfy the FDIC’s requirements, it could be in line for receivership.)

But even as things tighten up on the accounting side, the General Assembly, which now attracts a thick crowd that takes up half the park, is becoming comically inefficient. The group has no sound permit for a PA, so each committee’s proposal must be amplified by the “human mic,” in which a speaker says a few words at a time which are repeated by the audience seated immediately nearby, then echoed in concentric rings. A scribe also transcribes the proceedings on a laptop which is projected onto a screen. And at the opening of each assembly, facilitators remind the crowd the hand signals: up spirit fingers for yes, down for no, and arms crossed in front of the chest to indicate a serious objection.

With waves of new protesters still arriving, it’s more likely that someone will block each motion. As a result, some groups are raising their own funds–creating resentment and potential legal implications. Suspicion isn’t limited to finance. “They’re having secret meetings,” one protester, who is establishing the plaza’s internet café, said of the media group. The arts and culture committee and media working group dominate the plaza as groups like Labor, Library and People of Color attract smaller numbers—although everyone seems to love the food committee.

The General Assembly passed a resolution to spend a hefty $3,000 to clean up the plaza Thursday when the N.Y.P.D. essentially angled to evict the protesters in order to “clean the park,” the same pretext that was used in June to shut down the union-instigated Bloombergville, an occupation near City Hall to protest budget cuts and layoffs. The body also recently approved a $25,000 budget for the media working group.

But due to the tedious approval process, expenditures are mostly happening only in small increments—petty cash expenses taken out of the on-site cash buckets. Meanwhile, funds are accumulating online. The amount donated per day keeps increasing. A technical team is building an accounting system using open source software, which will embed a balance sheet on the website for anyone to have a look.

“I’ve been trying to warn them to make sure that all of this is really kept aboveboard,” Ms. Brower said. “We know that the government is going to be looking at this at some point. Like, they have buckets around for donations. You really shouldn’t have buckets around. It’s just not a good thing. It’s a temptation and it doesn’t look right.”

We were assured the committee is replacing the buckets with lockboxes, we told her.

“Accepting cash in that situation could lead to problems!” she said. “When money comes into play, it brings out the worst in people.”

ajeffries@observer.com

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Ms. Brower used her own Haiti-based 501c(3) to help out Occupy Wall Street; on two occasions, Ms. Brower used the October 11 association to cash checks for Occupy Wall Street. The Observer regrets the error.

The show, which will premiere October 2, is a psychological thriller focusing on CIA agent Carrie Mathison (Danes) who investigates the disappearance and ultimate recovery of a Marine missing in Iraq.

Gwyneth Paltrow at the Bent on Learning gala. (Patrick McMullan)

Early Wednesday evening found The Observer at in a dusty backroom of Urban Zen, Donna Karan's newest venue, in the West Village, awaiting the arrival of celebrities, especially the ever-elusive and chronically overexposed (somehow, she's both at once!) Gwyneth Paltrow at Bent on Learning's gala.

The event celebrated Russell Simmons and Ms. Paltrow for their support in establishing yoga as a means for physical fitness and teaching emotional wellbeing and preservation in schools throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx.
The press was entirely focused on Ms. Paltrow--everyone wanted to know about the Goopstress’s latest career news. The Observer perched on an ottoman. Suddenly, without announcement, an ice-blonde woman in a silver dress draped over her frame entered the cocktail area, flanked on all sides by burly men who looked like they were serious. She was whisked past the press line, a thin hand in front of her face, muttering “no press, no press, sorry…no interviews tonight…” And with that, she disappeared into the masses, leaving behind her echoes of her name from dejected journalists.

Tika Sumpter, of Gossip Girl semifame, addressed the gossip surrounding her costar Blake Lively’s rumored relationship with Leonardo DiCaprio. “Blake is gorgeous and she’s a smart girl! Leo’s really lucky!” said Ms. Sumpter.  Kelly Rutherford, a Gossip Girl regular also in attendance, expressed her ignorance of the fledgling relationship. “I’m just hearing about it now. We’re not shooting right now, I’m so out of the loop!”

Actress Sanaa Lathan sang the praises of the likes of Ms. Paltrow and Eddie Stern, a famed yogi.   “Yoga is a wonderful tool, and it’s something that they learn and they can always remember and go back on and feel good.”

Russell Simmons, another recipient, assured The Observer that he loved the press, unlike the Shakespeare in Love diva. “I’m here to work,” said Simmons. He divulged the nature of his practice: “In a yoga session with me, we take a lot of snack breaks and have plenty of conversation about the significance of yoga,” said Simmons. When asked the significance of learning yoga, he pondered the question for a moment before responding: “Life has become difficult. And you can smile and breathe in every pose. Learning to do that is a very important part of life, to be able to take life as it comes with a smile, and yoga is just the physical practice, manifestation of that.”

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

In front of a sign that featured Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. peering at the organization's logo was a wooden podium where, minutes earlier, Mr. Sharpton introduced the biggest guest he had ever welcomed. MSNBC hosts Chris Matthews and Ed Schultz were talking to Bertha Lewis, a housing advocate and founding member of the Working Families Party. A few feet away, former Tennessee congressman Harold Ford Jr. dug into his pockets for a business card to hand out to a man in a suit, before quickly making his way on to the next conversation. Several feet away, Earvin "Magic" Johnson was swarmed by a crowd of photograph seekers, which he patiently obliged. Mr. Simmons seemed to take no notice of the pandemonium, since he was engrossed in his own conversation with two gentlemen. Nearby, in a front-row table, NFL legend-turned-actor Jim Brown sat undisturbed.

For some politicos, the image of the "no-drama" president together with the reverend-whose career, at one point, seemed to have been foreshadowed in the pages of The Bonfire of the Vanities-was unexpected.

The one person who didn't find it unusual was Mr. Sharpton. "I never turn down a front page," he said in a recent interview, referring to the covers of both the New York Post and the New York Daily News, depicting him shaking hands with the president, "but I was like, why is this such a surprise to everybody?"

Throughout the four-day-long affair, Mr. Sharpton laid out an argument for reelecting Mr. Obama, often with top Obama aides looking on-including David Axelrod, one of Mr. Obama's top strategists. Before introducing Mr. Axelrod, Mr. Sharpton had a few words for his audience, with whom he was slightly disappointed. Referring to the "shellacking" Democrats took in the 2010 midterm elections, Mr. Sharpton said, "What happened was you was home. Now, everybody wants the president to come in like Superman to undo what we should have helped protect in the first place." He jokingly suggested they have a "national practice day" for voting, but quickly warned them about the dire need to show up at the polls. "Many black mayors went down because their percentage remained the same but the amount went down," he said. "We got to have turnout." Preemptively, Mr. Sharpton addressed the dissatisfaction among those considered to be Mr. Obama's base: voters who are African-American, living in cities and facing the brunt of the economic recession. To them, the message was clear: Stick with the president, and be patient. Change is coming, eventually.

"The boycott in Montgomery was in '55," Mr. Sharpton reminded the crowd. "They ain't got the Civil Rights Act until '64. Nine years later. Nothing ever happens the next day or the next year."

The introduction Mr. Sharpton gave the president was even more forceful. "He came into office when we had great challenges," said Mr. Sharpton. "And what many people have conveniently forgot is that this president took this nation from where it had never been in most of our lifetimes and put it back on a solid course, and now we forget where it was and where he has brought us. And some of us who are the most pained are being asked to make the most sacrifices and then are being demagogued into blaming him for standing up for all of us, and we are not going to be used like that." The crowd cheered.

Mr. Obama, whom Mr. Sharpton introduced as the "servant in chief," a Biblical reference, was wearing a nearly identical suit to Mr. Sharpton's (black jacket, black pants, white shirt, black-and-white tie) and borrowed some of the talking points that had just been delivered. "And as Reverend Al said, some folks have amnesia about this," said Mr. Obama, referring to the economic crisis handed to him by the outgoing Republican administration.

After Mr. Obama concluded his remarks, Mr. Sharpton waded into the audience. When asked if he'll start to play a larger role in advocating for Mr. Obama, Mr. Sharpton wrinkled his nose and shook his head. "No, not at all," he said. "I have no intention in taking on a wider role in his campaign at all."

But not everyone sees it that way. "There's no question about the fact that Reverend Sharpton will campaign loud and clear for Obama, in the community and all over the country," said attorney Sanford Rubenstein, a mainstay at Mr. Sharpton's rallies. "Sharpton says a lot of times that people have got to take their path. And there's a path for Sharpton to take in this campaign, and that's the path to energize the base." The next day, as Mr. Obama and Mr. Sharpton graced the cover of the city's major tabloids, those within Mr. Sharpton's organization were basking in their newfound glory.

The significance of the moment was reinforced in subsequent talks. "The National Action Network is operating at a new brand after our celebration last night with the president," said the chairman of the group's board, Dr. W. Franklin Richardson, speaking before a panel on organized labor. "Not only with the president. All day yesterday we had four of the cabinet members, including the attorney general, the secretary of education, the secretary of HUD, the political adviser to the president. Today we have two members of the cabinet, secretary of labor and secretary of health and human services."

The power in the room had Dr. Richardson feeling heady about Mr. Sharpton's new standing. "Our president, Al Sharpton, is the leading voice in America for African-Americans," he said. "Undisputed. That can not be disputed. That's not debated."

Norman Seabrook, the president of the Correction Officers' Benevolent Association, said the president's appearance at the organization sent a clear message about Mr. Sharpton's role on the national stage.

"[Mr. Obama] showed you the vehicle last night," said Mr. Seabrook. "Al Sharpton was your vehicle. So you give your grievance to Al and say, 'Al, go on to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and take our agenda forward.'" Mr. Seabrook implored the attendees to "use the vehicles that you have that make it work for you. You use the vehicles that you have."

But Mr. Sharpton was somewhat coy about being that vehicle. "There's some people who want a permanent place as the ones having access. It had nothing to do with the community," he said.

On Friday, Mr. Sharpton was accompanied by two men in dark suits, part of his security detail, who walked on either side of him during his stroll down the hallway. They hovered around him during our brief interview. He had just finished his daily radio show and was juggling the demands of the last few panel discussions, as well as those of being a celebrity, posing for photographs with well-wishers.

"In many ways, part of the reason why I could identify with [the president] even though we are so much unalike, or dissimilar," said Mr. Sharpton, "is the crowd that was attacking him for not being black enough was attacking me for being too black. Because it was about them, it was never about our people."

Those unnamed critics that stymied his own presidential ambitions in 2004 weren't the only ones Mr. Sharpton felt stood in his way.

"I think that they always, some in the media, always perceived me more as someone who would not engage in the process more than I ever was. And they forget that I ran for office. I ran for Senate in '92, I ran for mayor. So why wouldn't I be involved in the electoral process?" He added, "Why don't they just admit, maybe we didn't understand what he was saying in the first place?"

            apaybarah@observer.com

One person who wasn't in attendance: Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg has been a strong voice for tolerance of the Muslim-American community--most notably in his speech defending the so-called Ground Zero mosque--but yesterday, instead of attending the rally, he was marching in a St. Patrick's Day parade in Queens.

But the mayor's absence didn't bother Russell Simmons, the hip hop mogul and activist who helped organize the rally.

"I called the mayor and I asked him to attend this rally," Simmons told me. "And he said, 'Well, there's many things, there's the Irish thing, so I won't be able to make it today.' And I respect him for not being able to make it.

"But I think that the reason he's not here is that Peter King's got all that money. And the city needs that money. And he's being smart by not being here, but I know his sentiment. So he's here with us in spirit even if he's worried about Peter King's money. Because of course the head of Homeland Security has plenty of money for New York and we could use it. So he's a smart mayor for not being here. But his words were so clear on the mosque, his words were so clear in respecting the Muslim-American community, that I really admire him for it."

Simmons might be onto something. The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Bloomberg and King met for dinner at Blue Fin on Saturday night, and while the proposed hearings didn't come up, King said the two did discuss federal funding for homeland security.