December 1 – The benefit at Lincoln Center was called “Music has Power”, and somebody at the beneficiary, The Institute for Music and Neurologic Function, sure has power. The organization drew Gwyneth Paltrow to host, her boyfriend, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Moby, Kevin Bacon and brother Michael Bacon, Vanessa Cartlon, Marvin Hamlisch and Metropolitan Opera soprano Korliss Uecker to perform. Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart, pianist/conductor Lorin Hollander and developer of percussion products Remo Belli were honored for their contributions to music and wellness. (We didn’t actually find out how these gents contributed to wellness, but we’ll take their word for it.) On the wellness note, we wondered if all that makeup Gwyneth had on was good for the baby, freshly reported to be in her oven.

Around the corner on Columbus Circle, the quietly elegant new Mandarin Oriental Hotel opened at the almost-completed Time Warner Center (rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it?) Listening to Billy Joel tickling the ivories and circulating among the $975 private spa rooms, $12,600 per night Presidential suite and 35th-floor views were John Leguizamo, Isabella Rossellini, Denise Rich, architects I.M. Pei and Calvin Tsao, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly, artist Leroy Neiman and Gina Lollobrigida(!?!). By evening’s end we were tired, but couldn’t scrape up the dough for that Presidential suite, the priciest in New York.