Jon Hamm with a mustache. (YouTube)

— Mindy Kaling was spotted pleading with John Mayer to give his expert opinion on her love life at Koi in the Trump SoHo. We can only speculate that his answer involved calling her genitals racist.

— Jon Hamm plays Aimee Mann's director in her new music video for Labrador:
http://youtu.be/XA1cX-wgMdM

— A bevy of musical greats made a show last night in memorial of Broadway composer Marvin Hamlisch. Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Aretha Franklin and Itzhak Perlman performed for VIPs including Mike Nichols, Nancy Pelosi, Regis Philbin, Susan Lucci, Sarah Jessica Parker, Alan Cumming, Sheldon Harnick, Mary Rodgers and Paul Shaffer.

— Eva Longoria and Mark Sanchez were spotted holding hands while leaving a romantic dinner at Daniel. You know, if you care about that kind of thing.

— And in chair-related news, Clint Eastwood feels bad about making fun of the president, and calls himself a Libertarian. Also he has no respect for tables.
http://youtu.be/7mIC8Nw7LqI

New York fashion week has finally come to a close. Amen! For those less-fortunate editors and fashion authorities (or perhaps we are the lucky ones) that have not jetted off to London or Milan, we finally get a moment to recover.

In retrospect, we relished the young talents of Prabal Gurung and Jason Wu. The Observer will never forget the spectacle and grandeur of Alexander Wang—or the impeccable quality of Simon Spurr’s suiting. With such a busy social schedule and so many shows, it’s hard to remember all the garments we evaluated with a careful eye.

We’re still a smidgen bitter about a few mishaps with Oscar de la Renta and PR Consulting… but we forgive easily… Oscar might possibly have been the best women’s collection in town! Best of luck obtaining the financial means to swing the $15,000 price tag...

One thing we do recall in our hazy fatigue, is the undeniable fact that fur is back. Yes, yes it never really left! But honestly!

"It's so glamorous and luxe!" proclaimed Joan Rivers about fur, backstage at Dennis Basso.

Perhaps Ms. Rivers is in the right. Has there ever been so much mink, chinchilla, fox, raccoon, coyote, goat, rabbit, astrakhan, Mongolian lamb, ermine and sable shown in New York? Probably… but let’s peruse The Oberserver’s favorites— shall we?

Images: GETTY and Patrick McMullan.

Willey (left) with Susan Lucci.

Walt Willey, a star of ABC’s All My Children, spoke to The Observer last week after the final day in production of the soap for the network. It wasn’t a sad day of taping, he said: “The scenes we were shooting were party scenes anyway—the atmosphere matched the scenes. It was kind of a party atmosphere. You wouldn’t know we were canceled.”

And technically speaking, the show was not cancelled—the show is to live on in some form in a deal with the production company Prospect Park which is to see the show landing online. “It’s in transition, not in pause,” said Mr. Willey.

“I hate change,” Mr. Willey said of the shift to “airing” All My Children online, “and I think, five days a week, we’re your only friends at that time of day. For the most part, we always drew an audience—Grandma watched, and therefore, the grandchild watched. Viewing these shows was a tradition.

“I think this will reverse it. Now the grandchild will say, ‘I know how you can watch your show [online].’… I think about this crap a lot.”

As for the replacement of All My Children, which is to go off the air September 23 (its replacement, the food-themed talk show The Chew, is to commence September 26), a decision that All My Children star Susan Lucci recently decried. Mr. Willey said, citing soap operas’ brand loyalty, “I think they could have done it in a far smarter business way, and they’re going to see that very shortly... Network television is eating itself for the same reason soaps are in trouble.

“If ABC had not wanted so badly to get out of the business, they had a great opportunity to do what Prospect Park was doing [by broadcasting online]. I just think there’s an incredible demographic there—I wouldn’t want to see them leave the fold, these are the folks who have been watching for so long.”

Mr. Willey, who does not know if he will be one of the actors returning for the Prospect Park All My Children, is embarking on a short tour entitled “A Tribute to Pine Valley” in October (including a stop at Town Hall on October 26). “It’s this thing that harkens back to the glory days,” said Mr. Willey. “We did these big shows, people are starved for that—there’s nothing like it anymore. There were these super-soap weekends at Disney—now those are gone. People are really wanting this.”

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

The Amazing Kreskin was running loose. On Nov. 5, the 66-year-old

mentalist had broken free from his Howard Rubenstein publicist and was zooming

around Suite 16, a nightclub on Eighth Avenue and 16th Street, greeting people

by either delivering a bone-bruising whack to their backs or shaking their

hands like he was working a rusty well pump.

"I think I need to read these ladies' minds!" Mr. Kreskin yelled

as he lurched toward a small group of attractive young women who were seated at

the back of the club. He was dressed to impress in a dark sport jacket over a

matching incandescent yellow silk shirt and tie. His graying hair was parted on

the side, and he wore big chunky glasses.

But then he looked over at The Transom, who was sitting at an

adjacent table, waiting to interview him.

"A little later," the mentalist said to the women as he made a

beeline for the tape recorder.

These are heady times for

entertainers like the Amazing Kreskin. For whatever reason-terrorism, anthrax

or general spinelessness-America's A-list celebrities just don't seem

interested in attending New York premieres, store openings and benefits.

But where Jennifer Lopez and Drew Barrymore see risk, hard-bitten

entertainers like Mr. Kreskin, Barry Manilow, Susan Lucci and others-who long

ago dropped off the A-list, or never made it in the first place-see

opportunity.

These show-business lifers

have found themselves in a city where, suddenly, free drinks with a man who

bills himself as "The Original Mastermind" qualified as an eminently coverable

media event in what was once the peak social month of November. And they

were more than willing to pick up the slack.

Their ideas about sleekness may be more at home in Vegas than

Hollywood, but the 24/7 brand of show business they practice requires an iron

constitution that comes in handy when the better-styled are heading for their

safe rooms. And in moments of crisis, their penchant for big, emotive numbers

and old-fashioned parlor tricks works like the entertainment equivalent of

comfort food.

On Nov. 5, Manhattan was like a big bowl of Kraft Macaroni &

Cheese, with Mr. Kreskin plugging his new book, The Amazing Kreskin's Future with the Stars , at Suite 16 and Mr.

Manilow performing at both the Hammerstein Ballroom and Carnegie Hall with a

cast of characters that included Chevy Chase, Ms. Lucci and former porn star

Jack Wrangler.

Off the Wall

Over at Mr. Kreskin's party, the mentalist's publicists had taped

up a sheet of predictions that he had allegedly made on CNN at the beginning of

the year. Among them: "There will be at least two major airline tragedies by

September or early October," and that the Yankees would not win the World

Series.

For his book, Mr. Kreskin had

gotten some help on the prognostication front. The Amazing Kreskin's Future with the Stars attempts to ask a

number of celebrities and professionals, including actor Tom Hanks, former

special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, conductor Skitch Henderson and Son of Sam

killer David Berkowitz, to make predictions about the futures of their various

professions.

As a result, it seems destined to become a cult classic, along

the lines of Robert Evans' audio-book reading of his own memoir, The Kid Stays in the Picture.

In Mr. Kreskin's book, the comedian Roseanne is asked, "In the

next millennium, what will be the main TV-delivery mechanism?" Her reply: "Are

you on drugs?" Mr. Berkowitz predicts that tens of thousands of prison inmates

will "suddenly disappear" when God whisks them to heaven.

And Howard Stern forecasts that Mr. Kreskin "will shake hands so

hard with a biker that he will beat the crap out of you." That one seems

destined to come true.

The cover of the book proclaims Mr. Kreskin "the Nostradamus of

the 21st Century!" But when The Transom asked the mentalist if that was true,

he replied, "Yeah, but he was flaky."

Mr. Kreskin fidgeted in his seat.

So what were his predictions about the future of celebrity? we

asked.

"Can I be honest about that?" he replied. "I just toured Canada

last week for two weeks. Nobody pretty much cares about-what was his name?-Gary

Condit. Nobody cares about whether a scoutmaster is gay or not gay.

"Who in God's name!" the mentalist yelled, startling a group of

people at the bar. "People are going to start having priorities, maybe breaking

down fences around their houses, using porches, which were used in the days of

no air conditioning when people spent time outside and visited."

What?  

The mentalist seemed to sense that he had gone astray. "The

important thing of the celebrity will be going back to the Second World War and

how important the comedians, the performers that dealt with fantasy, took

people's minds."

Mr. Kreskin didn't seem to think that sentence needed correcting.

"I think the climate has changed," Mr. Kreskin said rapidly, as

someone put what looked like a caffeinated drink on the table in front of him.

"Celebrity is great, but in the whole scope of things, it has a different

position.

"My uncle was a fireman 18

years. And I have been to more fires on fire trucks as a kid. I know every

part. I could take you on a fire truck and say, 'Let's sit here,' and we'd

have, not a great time, but an exciting time."

Mr. Kreskin stopped himself. "I'm sorry if I get off the wall,

but that's my nature!" he said as he started whacking The Transom repeatedly on

the back.

So we asked Mr. Kreskin if he saw this moment, when a lot of

other celebrities were running scared, as a time to shine?

"It's ironic you bring up

what you said to me, because this has been discussed with me," Mr. Kreskin

said. He alluded to an "inspiring" but mysterious meeting with Secretary of

State Colin Powell.  I've got to do it in

my own way. I just can't cheapen-I don't want to take advantage of what's

happened. I want to make this a positive opportunity for all of us to be

greater than ever."

Manilow's Mitzvah

Further uptown, at the Hammerstein Ballroom, comedian Chevy Chase

was trying his best to make "WorldTrAID911"-a benefit for the children who lost

parents in the terrorist attack of Sept. 11-a positive experience for himself.

"That was the worst applause

I've ever gotten," Mr. Chase told the crowd, which was remarkably sparse given

the cause. (The top two levels of the Hammerstein Ballroom were almost

completely empty.) But the show went on, with Mr. Chase introducing the evening's

"surprise guest," Barry Manilow.

"I just thought I'd stop by to say hello," Mr. Manilow said as he

stood at his piano, his spiky, highlighted hair looking darker than usual. He

was late for another benefit at Carnegie Hall that night, but hell-when

newspapers are declaring that the age of irony is over, guys like Mr. Manilow

know they've got to make hay while the sun of sincerity shines.

"I'm going to do a song that speaks to me and moves me," Mr.

Manilow said. "I wrote this song for my very first album that I recorded, back

in 1821." The crowd tittered, then Mr. Manilow tinkled the ivories and sang "I

Am Your Child," followed by a rousing, a cappella version of "One Voice."

The crowd cheered. "I'm getting a mitzvah!" Mr. Manilow said.

Mr. Chase could have used some of Mr. Manilow's showbiz polish.

He did the same joke twice-"Where is the money going? It's going to me"-and

more than once mentioned the "stupid" questions that reporters had asked him

before the show.  ("Is it safe to laugh?"

was his favorite.) And on a number of occasions, after leaving his stack of

note cards backstage, he seemed lost.

The stately, plump Colin Quinn fared a little better. Referring

to the Northern Alliance rebels, Mr. Quinn said: "There's nothing like going

into battle with guys on horseback. We may lose the battle, but we hit the

Triple." But Mr. Quinn seemed to bog down with a joke that attempted to compare

New York fire chief Thomas von Essen to fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger.  "Whoops," he said mid-joke to the

firefighters in the audience. "You guys hate him. I'm not going to do that

one."

Mostly, things were pretty sincere. A children's choir did "New

York, New York."  Comedian Denis Leary,

who used to tell a great joke involving Mr. Manilow, a fan and bondage, thanked

the rescue workers in the audience.

But Jamie-Lynn Sigler, co-star of The Sopranos and a budding pop star, reenergized the evening with

her surreal, chest-heaving performance of her single, "Cry Baby." With one

shoulder and her midriff bare, Ms. Sigler gave a Minnelli-class performance of

the tune, singing: "You can cry cry, baby, all you want / You can try try, but

I'm gonna tell you to stop." 

The Joy of the Prostate

Long before Mr. Manilow took the stage at Carnegie Hall, New York

Pops conductor and The Amazing Kreskin's

Future with the Stars contributor Skitch Henderson led the orchestra

through "That Old Black Magic," with All

My Children diva Susan Lucci on vocals.

Clad in a red reflective sheath that looked like it could survive

reentry into the earth's atmosphere, Ms. Lucci was giving her all at the Lauri

Strauss Leukemia Foundation Benefit Concert. Organized long before the events

of Sept. 11, the event, titled "Accentuate the Positive," was billed as a

tribute to the music of Johnny Mercer.

But for her next song, Ms. Lucci attempted something a little

more personal. "I know what you're wondering," she told the crowd. "You want to

know, 'How did it feel to be nominated for an Emmy all those times and never

win?'"

The white-haired crowd, many

of whom didn't seem well versed in the saga of Ms. Lucci's 19-year Emmy losing

streak, stared blankly-but, undeterred, the actress slipped into "Winning Isn't

Everything," a song written for her by Marvin Hamlisch, about her suffering at

the hands of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

"Me, I'm doing fine," she sang. "Seated on the aisle / I'll lose

and then I'll smile." And then, like some audio defibrillator, the Carnegie

Hall sound system cut to the actual voice clip of soap actor Shemar Moore

shrieking: "The streak is broken! The Emmy goes to Susan Lucci!"

The stunned crowd applauded politely as Ms. Lucci trundled

offstage-where, according to a witness, the actor John Davidson was running

around like a madman.

Next came Friars Club dean

Freddie Roman, who addressed "the young men in this room who do not yet know

the joy of the prostate." Most of the crowd seemed well acquainted with the

prostate and loved the joke.

"I pee like a stutterer

talks!" the Vulcanesque Mr. Roman blurted out to whooping laughter.

After Monica Mancini

performed "Moon River," the song that her father, Henry Mancini, co-wrote with

Mercer, Jack Wrangler, the former gay porn star and monologist, introduced his

77-year-old wife, Margaret Whiting, who sang "Hooray for Hollywood"-a song that

her father, Richard Whiting, co-wrote with Mercer. Ms. Whiting added a verse of

her own: "Hooray for royalties / It seems that money grows on trees."

When Mr. Manilow finally did take the stage around 10 p.m., the

Carnegie Hall crowd went nuts.

"We love you!" shouted one woman from the balcony as Mr. Manilow

concluded his first number, "Daybreak," which included the lyric "It's daybreak

/ Ain't no time to grieve!" The audience clapped and swayed, and Mr. Manilow

shouted, "Hello, New York!"

Mr. Manilow introduced his

next number as "I Am Your Child." He'd written it for his very first album, he

said, which he'd recorded "in 1821."

Again, the crowd cheered. Mr. Manilow beamed at the Carnegie Hall

crowd. "I'm getting a mitzvah!" he said .

-Frank DiGiacomo, Ian Blecher

& Rebecca Traister

In a dizzying succession of tangential subplots, a film director finds his wife in bed with the pool boy and pours a can of pink paint all over her jewelry; a lunatic robs a seedy office and riddles the neighbors with bullets; two gay guys see a monster hiding in the trash bin behind a coffee shop; and everyone seems to be running away from unknown terrors. Within 24 hours, Betty dazzles Paramount, discovers a decaying corpse and becomes the lesbian lover of the weird amnesiac she calls Rita, who dons a fright wig and wakes up in the middle of the night speaking fluent Italian before stealing off to a surreal theater where another wacko lip-syncs an Italian aria and passes out onstage. Rita turns out to be the star of a film that is being directed by the man who found his wife in bed with the pool boy, Betty turns out to be a junkie named Diane and … oh, what's the use? Nothing in this interminable (two and a half hours of agony) swill makes one lick of sense, which seems to be Mr. Lynch's arrogant intention from the start. When all else fails, he cuts to the Hollywood sign.

I can think of no sane reason why any fool would finance this lurid gibberish, and the only excuse for suffering through it is the curious appearance of Ann Miller, the legendary MGM musical star, as a garish landlady named Coco. Like everyone else in the cast, the Queen of Tap seems to have directed herself; fortunately, her character has nothing to do with anything else in the film. Mulholland Drive reminds me of that juggler in Ms. Miller's Broadway musical Sugar Babies -the guy who juggled the sneaker, the apple and the meat cleaver. Get the right balance and everyone goes, "Wow, that's cool!"; drop the wrong thing and you end up with a finger missing. The loathsome, incomprehensible and dismayingly amateurish Mulholland Drive goes one better-it's missing an entire brain.

Another horror unveiled at the festival and now opening commercially is Fat Girl , one of a vast number of current films that reflect a disturbing obsession with death and torturous sexual relationships. Catherine Breillat, the controversial French director who brought full-scale pornography to the commercial screen in 1999's numbing Romance , now returns with this repellent story about an obese 12-year-old who gorges on banana splits and endures endless insults about her weight while watching with envy and rage as her beautiful 15-year-old sister loses her virginity to a handsome Italian student on a summer holiday.

The film segues from black comedy to violent horror on the way back to Paris, when the mother and pretty sister are hacked to death by a maniac on the expressway and the "fat girl" is brutally raped and abandoned on the side of the road. Dazed but dazzled, she seems oblivious to the carnage. In fact, she's so happy to finally be the object of somebody's sexual attention that she refuses to press charges. The sex is ugly and graphic in a film so pointless and revolting it cannot be redeemed even by shock value.

The Case For Destiny

After so much crapola, is it any wonder people are flocking to Serendipity ? Fluffy and innocuous as Cool Whip, it is nonetheless uplifting, romantic and delightful, further enhancing the world's enduring love affair with the Big Apple-the kind of movie we need more of right now. John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale play strangers who meet cute in the Christmas rush at Bloomingdale's while bickering over the last pair of black cashmere gloves. Although they're involved with others, they discover an immediate affinity during a ridiculously romantic spin through the skating rink at Rockefeller Center and then tempt destiny by exchanging names and phone numbers, kind of. He writes his on a $5 bill that she promptly spends; she writes hers inside a copy of Love in the Time of Cholera which she promises to sell to a secondhand bookstore. Should they find these lost items one day, they'll know that fate meant them to be together, in the beguiling tradition of Margaret Sullavan and Jimmy Stewart.

Years later, living on opposite coasts and on the verge of marriage, neither can forget that fateful Christmas when Cupid's arrows wounded them forever. He enlists an obituary writer for The New York Times (Jeremy Pivens) to track down the mystery woman he remembers only as Sara, and she teams up with a New Age bookstore owner (Molly Shannon) in a long process of detective work that shows New York as a glittering, magical land of enchantment where love conquers all. The film's chief problem is that the two stars appear together only in the beginning and end, making their chemistry impossible to assess. The funniest bits involve Eugene Levy as a demented Bloomingdale's tie salesman on the verge of a nervous breakdown-the kind of role that made Eric Blore and Franklin Pangborn indispensable staples in films of the 40's. Handsomely directed by Peter Chelsom, who redeems himself after the disastrous Town & Country , it's contrived and sweet enough to give you a toothache-but, in the end, Serendipity is more warming than mulled cider with cloves on Christmas Eve.

Lucci's Lounge Act

Susan Lucci may be famous as the man-hungry femme fatale Erica Kane on the soap opera All My Children , but there's nothing tempestuous or suggestive about her sunny nightclub debut at Feinstein's at the Regency (through Oct. 13). She's as tiny as Thumbelina, and her engaging smile is a bracing tonic for everyone, including the sad and weary cops and firefighters she invites to occupy the ringside table every night.

Singing is a lifelong dream, and she gives it all she's got in a slick show ranging musically from Duke Ellington swing to Peggy Lee blues. If she hasn't found a style or a sound of her own, Ms. Lucci still commands attention when she shares family photos of her two children during a heartfelt arrangement of Sondheim's "Not While I'm Around," and proves she's a good sport on "Winning Isn't Everything," a clever song by Marvin Hamlisch about how it feels to have the longest losing streak in the history of the Emmy Awards (she finally won in 1999).

As a singer, Ms. Lucci is no Ella Fitzgerald-her pitch wavers, and her arrangements are of the unremarkable Vegas lounge-act variety, but she makes up for all that with good taste in music, an overwhelming sincerity, a determination to please and a triumphant personality. My advice to her: ditch the over-rehearsed patter, trust your material more and follow your own instincts. Why? Because there's something about Ms. Lucci's cocoa-colored sequins and cheery ready-for-teddy gameness that is very comforting and fun in the face of world frowns. Despite occasional intonational challenges, this is a gal who sends you home smiling.

Kim Stanley, All Weekend

Kim Stanley died on Aug. 20 in New Mexico, leaving a gap in the history of American acting that will never be filled. Widely considered the greatest actress of her generation, she was a source of inspiration for a whole legion of writers and performers who grew up watching her on "live" television dramas in the 1950's while doing their homework. Many of them will celebrate her overpowering influence and achievement at a memorial service on Friday, Oct. 12, at 2 p.m. at the Actors Studio, 432 West 44th Street. Speakers will include Joanne Woodward, Janice Rule, Elaine Stritch, Arthur Laurents, Bryan Forbes and John Guare.

As a special treat, that entire weekend will be devoted to the showing of six of her greatest television triumphs. Friday at 7 p.m., Horton Foote will provide from his private collection a rare chance to see the Philco Playhouse production of A Young Lady of Property . On Saturday, you can see The Traveling Lady , which was turned into the Broadway production that catapulted Kim Stanley's name above the marquee in lights for the first time, as well as John Frankenheimer's 1957 Playhouse 90 production of Clash by Night that made television history. On Sunday, there's the Playhouse 90 production of William Faulkner's Tomorrow , followed by the two-hour Ben Casey in 1963 that won Ms. Stanley a Best Actress Emmy. All of these events are free, but call the Actors Studio at 757-0870 for times, details and possible changes. Since every theater notable who knows anything about the art of acting at its zenith will be there, make plans to arrive early. This is the first time Kim Stanley-notoriously reclusive in her lifetime-has ever been honored in New York. A stampede is expected.