Ira Glass and Mike Birbiglia pose at The Bing Bar

It's winding down, celebs are fleeing, the open bars are starting to dry up, and The Observer's 4 day long hangover is starting to catch up with us—enough of the sob story, we're going back in for more.

First stop: Surprise surprise—The Bing Bar for a dinner and after party with the cast and crew from Sleepwalk With Me

• NPR's Ira Glass stormed the red carpet (read: stood there graciously speaking to lesser media mortals) and gave us a few pointers on the birds and the bees as we asked him how he got here: "Well, when a mommy meets a daddy, and they reaaaaly really love each other..."
• Bourbon in hand, we borrow the ear of the star himself, comedian Mike Birbiglia who through "years and years of debilitating and honest failure" arrived right where he is today. This guy's put his 10,000 hours in.
• Occupy Sundance marched around a bit outside our window, seemingly unaware that their audience was already deeply sympathetic (right?)

A quick drive-by drinking at Grey Goose and we're headed back to the basement at Bing to catch Theophilus London and Asher Roth on stage

Theophilus London commands the stage at Bing

• "I wonder if anyone thinks I'm famous..." overheard The Observer from a partygoer as we checked in with the omnipresent Hannah Bronfman, fresh from a short stint in Vegas for the Chanel event the night prior.
• Quick to remind everyone that he's probably much cooler than you, an insufferable Mr. Roth muddled about the red carpet un-ironically bouncing a tennis ball. Cool, dude.
• You kind of have to give it to Mr. London, who cites preparation, concentration and "an obsession with experimenting as much as possible with the latest tech" in getting him to where he is today. For a 24 year old from Brooklyn, he's got the stage presence of a seasoned vet.

Alright fine, twist my arm, let's go to Tao

• We found fameball DJ Samantha Ronson belting out a passable set, eventually putting the entire party on hold at microphone point to pay homage to Noah Tepperberg "Everybody shut the fuck up, there's somebody here that we have to thank, and I think you know who that is..." A crass, yet sweet gesture that didn't not remind us of the holdup scene from Pulp Fiction.
• They're out of bourbon. This is a problem.
• Sundance make out team Kirsten Dunst and Garret Hedlund realized they were sick of dancing with the plebeians and decided it was time to break it down on stage where Ronson and Rashida Jones were all too happy to oblige.
• Even Rashida Jones's name is hot.

The Observer was disappointed to learn that our red-eye flight would be cutting off our opportunity to catch LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy attack the turntables at Bing tonight, but we suppose there's always next time.

Ms. Ronson, at her show.

Charlotte Ronson's collection shed the 90s-chic layering from last spring and moved into lighter pieces that together seemed to present ideas of femininity for every age -- from the patch-worked overalls and sweet floral jumpers that reminded The Observer of our own childhood, to fitted dresses that celebrated the female silhouette, and the belt-as-collar accessories that emphasized slender necklines.

For the "Victorian" pieces, as Ms. Ronson describes them, long hemlines and high-buttoned collars kept things delicate without showing too much skin. The not-so-Victorian sheer fabrics, on the other hand, kept the pieces summery and flirtatious.

While Ms. Ronson’s dresses conjured up sophisticated garden parties, the Bohemian knits made us want to lie in the park, whiling time away. Crop tops and light sweaters kept the knitwear from feeling too heavy.

The dip-dye trend was still present in this season’s collection, but with added nuance -- an asymmetric cut, a strategic color placement -- that gave the pieces an air of sartorial maturity.

The Observer’s favorite look? The silver polka-dotted sheer blouse and matching skirt, with light denim details for the collar, breast pockets and waistband.

It would be appropriate, given the lady-power at play, that she stack the front row with her girls: Nicky Hilton, Kelly Osbourne, Leandra Medine, and DJ Chelsea Leyland. Let’s not forget the copious amount of beauty products given out at every seat, including lip gloss samples from Ms. Ronson’s new makeup line (worn by the runway models), and the awesome dancey S/S soundtrack compiled by sister Samantha. Ronson-to-Ronson synergy!

Even though fall has barely arrived, the collection made us excited for spring --- though, as we left the air-conditioned venue, frozen kefir in hand to ward off the still-syrupy humidity, we wish we had some of the pieces now. At least we have the lip gloss.

Cassidy and Carmelo.

“I only really party when I’m in New York or Italy,” said Kirstie Alley, between puffs on a cigarette, sitting on the dock next to the naval ship Intrepid. “And I’ve been in New York for a while now,” she finished.

The Transom was floating on DJ Cassidy’s 30th birthday party; for this summer’s rendition—the last one ever, the nightlife-famous DJ claimed in the invite—he draped the boat’s ballroom in black velvet and served up enough Hennessy to fill the river it’s floating in.

Maybe Mr. Cassidy senses his own star fading, but by midnight, the venue was at capacity. If it sounds like a classic New York club fire hazard, it was: at midnight, a fleet of New York’s Bravest showed up in full gear, boarded the boat and walked past the immobile airplanes to the giant hall. No one noticed.

“Get your Hennessy on, girls!” Mr. Cassidy yelled from the stage, screaming his party’s liquor sponsor dutifully. He was wearing a canary-yellow suit, standing next to former Lindsay Lohan paramour Samantha Ronson, who was juggling an arm’s load of vinyl. “Come on! Come on! Come on!” repeated Mr. Cassidy. After a “surprise” performance from New Edition—yes, that New Edition, nostalgia-invoking rap producer Swizz Beatz showed up with a giddy Carmelo Anthony. Swizz was coming from playing a Paper magazine party with Joe Jonas.

“Yeah, I seen him there,” Swizz noted of the Jonas brother, an unlikely fellow performer for the hip-hop producer. “I love music, man. Anybody that can be a phenomenon, it’s impressive.”

And no matter, the nuances of fame: there is Hennessy to be drank. Swizz walked into the crowd with the Knicks star, pumping his fist to one Michael Jackson song after another, unlikely to look back.

“andre est a paris … !” the man said, on Twitter, April 21.

“Je suis a paris!” read another tweet, from May 28.

And then, on June 9: “very hot in N Y … !”

The Transom confirmed his stateside presence on that sweltering Thursday when we ran into him at the Boom Boom Room. Samantha Ronson was on the decks (it’s been noted that Mr. Saraiva is dating the D.J.’s younger sister, Annabelle Dexter-Jones), and the Baron Andre sat windowside with a spread of Standard Hotel fries and Champagne. As the party waned, many of the attendees followed their Cognac buzzes from the meatpacking to Nolita, where, until Le Baron opens, Kenmare will suffice.

We stayed late. Around 4 in the morning the Transom was wedged in a booth next to Ms. Dexter-Jones, in a slipover jersey sweater and tiny hot-pink shorts, as we waited for Mr. Saraiva and Nur Khan, the owner, to finish up talking. Ms. Dexter-Jones happened to mention, not casually, the recent article on her boyfriend that had run last month in BlackBook.

“You know, none of that is true,” the 24-year-old Ms. Dexter-Jones told the Transom. She was referring to the bit that equated the sound of the couple’s shower sex—overheard by the BlackBook editor in question—to “someone strangling a crocodile.”

We never believed that, Annabelle, we said. Never even thought about it.

Then Mr. Saraiva returned to our wing of the booth.

“I don’t know when Le Baron will open,” he told the Transom. “Maybe it will never open!”

We pleaded with him to go ahead with his plans. Then, knowing his transatlantic tendencies, we asked where his travels will take him in the next months.

“Well,” he said, plucking out his English words as if from an ill-stocked, cluttered bag. “I have to be New York, to watch over the construction of Le Baron.”

So it will open!

“I don’t know,” he said. “But when it does, you will know.”

Later that evening, after hopping around the packed Soho streets for Fashion's Night Out, we found ourselves in an even more aggressive mob scene: the line of people desperate to join us at the Pop magazine party at Don Hill's. Dubbed the party of the week before it even happened, the bash at the new venture from nightlife barons Nur Khan and Paul Sevigny attracted the evening's biggest names. As Iggy Pop rocked on the stage, Gwen Stefani sat perched on a ledge cradled by husband Gavin Rossdale; Mary-Kate Olsen stood on a bench to make up for her height; and Nicky Hilton chatted to the woman of the hour, Pop editor in chief Dasha Zhukova, girlfriend of one of the world's richest men, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.

Of course, Chloë Sevigny wouldn't miss out. She had on a T-shirt and jean skirt befitting the gritty Don Hill's feel, and told The Observer that her brother's place would be the city's new hot spot. "It's what it was like at the Beatrice, and it's probably been missing since the Beatrice," she said. (What she didn't say, of course, was that the Beatrice Inn was closed in 2008 for overcrowding and "inadequate means of egress"--problems that hopefully will not plague Don Hills.)

On Saturday night, at the after-party for Charlotte Ronson's spring collection, Ms. Ronson, wearing a fitted, frilly blue dress, told us she was feeling good after her show, and said the rest of her week will be filled with "meetings--hopefully positive ones!" Her twin sister, Samantha, explained the personal significance of her final musical selection from the show, Lisa Loeb's "Stay": "That was an ode to one of my sister's and my best friends from when we were kids. She died a few years ago, and that was like our song together." Rashida Jones, on the other hand, wasn't feeling chatty, but she was clearly thirsty, as we witnessed her pour a hefty amount of vodka straight from the bottle into a empty coconut-water carton.

More action at Alexander Wang's party. The young designer topped his gas station soiree from last year's Fashion Week with a full carnival, built from scratch in a parking lot at 18th Street and 10th Avenue. Dree Hemingway, Terry Richardson and Agyness Deyn all turned up for the pulled pork sandwiches and skee ball.

The wildly enthusiastic Mr. Wang talked to us for a few moments, but didn't have time to stay put. "Will you walk with me to the bar?" he said as we dodged the cameras and flashbulbs. "We need alcohol! We need alcohol! Sorry!"

We asked Mr. Wang, who had on a black T-shirt, black shorts and black sneakers, about the theme for his over-the-top party. "The carnival is the new performance. Everyone can be a performer now."

We asked him to elaborate. "I just want people to have fun," he said. "Just get drunk, have fun, have a good time."

Our fashion crawl came to a close on Sunday night at the Tommy Hilfiger 25th Anniversary after-party, where we got a little literary with Mad Men's Christina Hendricks. "I just finished The Way the Crow Flies, which I absolutely loved," she said. Next on her night stand is One Hundred Years of Solitude, which she's started three times but never made it past the first chapter. "I know it's going to be worth it if I just go for it. ... I know the payoff will be there," Ms. Hendricks said. We also ran into Kelly Osbourne, who told us she was looking forward to hearing the evening's musical performers, the Strokes, play for the first time in New York since 2006. "Before there was the Strokes, I really liked *NSYNC and, like, really big pop music. And then the Strokes came out and they are what made me change my taste, I guess you could say. In my generation, I think that happened with a lot of people."

Asked what his favorite moment of the party was, Mr. Hilfiger said, "Having all of my friends there, including Jennifer Lopez, Bradley Cooper, Rebecca Romijn, Jason Lewis, Lenny Kravitz, to celebrate with me, and the Strokes' performance. It was one of the best nights of my life."

editorial@observer.com

"Kool Thing" was released on Sonic Youth's 1990 album Goo, so its inclusion in the shows conforms nicely to the stereotype that fashion moves in strict 20-year cycles. Some chart-toppers from 1990 include Michael Bolton's "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You" and Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby," neither of which we have heard on the runways so far.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OdSoKfTP1k

The Chelsea Piers fête offered pink-crusted cotton candy machines, a bored lifeguard on a tall pink chair and a sandbox where models played volleyball over a pink net. Guests ate fried chicken, biscuits, gravy, tiny hotdogs, tiny burgers, huge French fries and freezer-burned cups of Coldstone ice cream.

Guests ate—but it seems worthwhile to remember that this is a crowd for whom fast food and cheap clothes are a novelty. The meeting of style snobbery and the mass market remains a tricky business; witness the beating Cintra Wilson took for her “Critical Shopper” column mocking J. C. Penney’s fat mannequins and Middle American clientele .

As for Ms. Ronson’s designs, available free to guests from a booth at the back, they seemed popular despite being unremarkable and mostly polyester. Predictably, by the end of the evening, only Wilson-mocked size 'larges' were left in the more appealing styles.

Ms. Ronson herself wore leather shorts, bejeweled safety pin earrings and a sheer tank from the collection. She showed off a bracelet designed by her mom, but carried it in her purse—on her own wrist, she wore a tangle of friendship bracelets

She left the press enthusing over how “classy” she was in dodging questions, and how wonderful her family was in general. The Ronsons managed to engender a lot of goodwill despite proving mostly elusive. Twin sister Samantha reportedly arrived at 7:45 and dashed right in; brother Mark came at 9:30, laptop in hand, and skipped the red carpet entirely.

In the absence of the prodigy siblings (see Bazaar’s “Royal Tenenbaums”–themed photo shoot), a motley assortment of other celebrities did time along the press line. Cisco Adler gamely addressed topics that a bigger star might avoid—nude photos, ex-girlfriends. Eva Amurri rehashed her pole-dancing exploits. Sophia Bush inadvertently whacked a reporter’s tape recorder out of his hand.

“Sorry, I gesticulate a LOT,” she apologized.

Sean Lennon arrived all in white and accompanied by a beautiful girl in a translucent lace dress. Hilary Duff talked about her upcoming Gossip Girl stint, accidentally revealing to reporters that Tyra would be playing Josephine Baker. Ms. Duff praised collaborations like Ronson/Penney for making fashion “more available to America.” (The Transom salutes you, Hilary; truly you are a woman of the people.) Shrewd observers noted that Ms. Duff had brought Amazonian handlers so as to appear even tinier.

Probably the most enthusiastic guest was one of the earliest to arrive—Ann Dexter-Jones, a.k.a. Mama Ronson. She had beachy curls and a British accent, and wore sneakers and jeans with a zipper-trimmed bustier. Getting a mom talking about how great her kids are is like shooting fish in a barrel, even when the kids are famous. Ms. Dexter-Jones was delighted to chat about her children’s high I.Q.’s and the “good values” that she had instilled in them.

Samantha Ronson DJed early in the evening, a cigarette dangling from her mouth and her laptop covered in stickers for Obama, Lily Allen, England and her twin. Later, though, a band of skinny dudes took the stage, playing (among other things) a loud cover of the Mark Ronson–produced “Back to Black.” By the time they reached their second to last song, all the Ronsons (mom included) were clustered near the stage, rocking out together. New York taste together with basic fun had never looked cuter.

But most of the front page of the News this morning is devoted to a "JUAN GONZALEZ EXCLUSIVE." Much has been said in the past about what constitutes an exclusive. For instance, this morning I can exclusively reveal that my allergies are acting up. You could make an entire failing newspaper out of things you are the only news source to have bothered with. And while Juan Gonzalez, who won a Pulitzer in 2007 for his crusading investigative reporting about the bad air and illnesses that resulted from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has solid credentials as an investigative reporter, this "exclusive" seems like it was mostly a case of being tipped off to a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court last week. That said, it's a great story: "FUROR OVER 600G PASTOR: Riverside Church group sues to halt rev's huge salary & perks." If anything the story is undersold slightly: you may remember the case of Friar Tuck, the Staten Island minister who embezzled money from his congregation to get cosmetic surgery. This is much, much bigger. First of all, Riverside Church is a huge, influential pulpit, and a huge Gothic church built with Rockefeller money. If the church's influence in politics is less famous than that of, say, the Abyssinian Baptist Church, it's probably just because the left-of-center politics of the congregation (and its racial diversity) make it less of an obvious choice for politicians putting themselves explicitly before African American voters. But make no mistake: this is a huge church, and the man they've chosen as pastor, Brad Braxton, is about to enjoy one of the most influential Protestant positions in the country. It seems that while the congregation approved of his installation as pastor, though, the list of perks that make up his rather lavish compensation package were available only to a select few. This congregation has also seen turmoil in recent days; it's partly a Baptist denomination, and the struggles within the Baptist church to reconcile a "peace-and-justice" package with the increasingly conservative religious mores of much of the Baptist flock are documented. Mr. Gonzalez may have stumbled onto just another internecine battle among constituents of the congregation, but it's hard to judge. At any rate, to return to Friar Tuck: Unlike his parish on Staten Island, this congregation matters as a city institution. And in contrast to his rather meager and pathetic grift, this "executive compensation" struggle involves a real number, and comes at a time when high salaries and lavish compensation (he gets an $11,500 monthly housing stipend, and a maid!) are not popular with the working and middle classes of any political persuasion.

The New York Post: All is quiet, for now, on the developing story of the "SPITE WEDDING" the Post brought us yesterday. Will Sandrina bear Harold's child after all? Did Harold sleep with his old pool-installation boss? The Post no doubt will stay on top of this important story, but in the meantime there are all the incremental developments in the Craigslist Murder which today, suddenly, demand front-page treatment. "KILLER'S SECRET LIFE: Chilling new portrait of Craigslist suspect" is what we've got. A bit of the teaser text is helpful: "... preppy med student by day, prostitute stalker and gambler by night, authorities have revealed." And more: "his stunned fiancée stood by her man." A "double life" trope is a great way to get past the paradoxes of a personality we haven't had much time to analyze, but the "chilling new portrait" will not be new—or even complete— to anybody who has been following this story on the Internet. Mr. Markoff's "electronic trail" includes a wedding web site with possibly more page inventory than this site, a facebook account, and more. But the Post takes an old-fashioned reporting approach, talking to people who knew him, setting up a stringer outside his fiancées house to describe a few hours of comings and goings there. Perhaps most fascinating in all of this is the e-mail his fiancée, Megan McAllister, sent to the Boston Herald: "'He is intelligent, loyal and the best fiancé a woman could ask for,' McAllister said in an e-mail to the Boston Herald. 'Unfortunately, the Boston police try to make money out of these things.'"

Now, this fiancée angle is pretty fascinating actually. Because it's not actually clear how much of a secret Mr. Markoff's gambling ways were—evidence marshaled by the Post and others for his gambling predilections included reference to his high-school yearbook—we're more interested in the fact that his fiancée was caught with him in a car on the way to Foxwoods than we are in the fact that Foxwoods was their destination. How serious can this double life have been if, once exploded, his fiancée appears to be planning to go forward with the wedding? The Post is edifying on these details on the inside pages, moreso than the News, but in going for a Day 2 angle, what about a picture of the killer and his fiancée, with an inset mugshot, with a "Stand By Your Man" declaration of some type on the front?

This is normally something the Post does handily, as in the refer at the top of the page to the story of Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, complete with courtroom sketch (shorthand: Courtroom Drama inside! and a good reason not to use a real photo.) "Now the pirate cries," reads the text, referring to the 15-year-old's unaccountable smile as he was perp-walked Monday. Happily for all of us, "a judge wiped a grin off his face and left him in tears, realizing he faces life in the brig." This is the kind of gallows we all thrill to stand around. Go, Post!

And lest she be relegated to a footnote, the Post also allows us a glimpse into the psychosexual world of Lindsay Lohan: "Lindsay's new lovers" flags a Page Six item (also widely read yesterday on the Internet) documenting her rehabilitation: the "faux lesbian" is "drowning her sorrows" over her break-up with Samantha Ronson in a "sea of men." As Tina Brown would say: V. Hot!

General observations: We may think the Post could have done better on the Craigslist Murder, but the News was just a bore on the topic. And while Lindsay Lohan and pirates are both topics already rode hard and put away wet, it's hard to imagine Juan Gonzalez's piece about Riverside Church profits much from the huge display it got on the front of the News. Was the News afraid to go big for a second day in a row on the Craigslist Murder story? Because that's just silly. We'd love to penalize the Post today for underplaying the Craigslist Murder story yesterday, but yesterday's Post is not the one sitting right next to today's News on the newsstand. In the Wood War, every day starts a clean slate.

Winner: The New York Post

We learn that Mr. Lohan has been invited to Sundance this year, where he will again attempt to compete for a good cause (his November boxing match was cancelled when his parole officer objected to his participation) in a poker battle against other "A-list celebrities." Also, there's the announcement that he and his daughter have declared a "truce," which means that "all sources, so called friends and mouthpieces" should "refrain from any more comments or suggestions on her blog." 

As for the blog itself, the inaugural post warns readers:

Meanwhile, in a video clip, he explains what it is about:

If you still have questions for Mr. Lohan, he'll be hosting a live chat tonight at 9pm. The topic is: "How the media, press and public opinion affect those in the spotlight." 

This morning, in a pathos-heavy Christmas Eve Myspace dispatch, Ms. Lohan got reflective:

Also, in a traditional holiday move, it seems that dysfunctional father Michael decided to bring up that love child we were hearing about this summer:

She also included a shout-out to sister-in-arms Britney Spears, who "is an amazing talent and she has gone through a lot, (just as i have) in the public eye...which is not necessarily a bad thing.. It teaches young girls and boys that there are certain things in life that you should not let get in the way of your dreams and accomplishments."

Singing off, Ms. Lohan is sure to note that she will be spending Christmas in LA with Ms. Ronson. In a post script, she encourages readers to check out some of her favorite songs from Ms. Spears's new album. Among them, not surprisingly, is "Shattered Glass."