Spending time in Shanghai, one of the world's most populous cities, can be draining, with tens of millions of people crowding every crevice, construction projects inevitably obstructing your path, and twice as much air pollution as Los Angeles. You can breathe a sigh of relief, however, during the short, ear-popping elevator ride to the 87th floor of the Shanghai World Financial Center, the entry point into the Park Hyatt Shanghai -- the world's highest hotel.

New York-based designer Tony Chi envisioned the hotel as an elegant yet understated modern Chinese residence. An expansive living room greets you as you exit the elevator, which sits alongside a European-style dining room with a Bulthaup-designed open kitchen. Two floors below, a therapeutic spa offers an infinity pool, treatment centers and daily tai chi classes. With only 174 rooms and a staff of full-time butlers, intimacy is an important component of the Park Hyatt experience.

Despite the location atop a skyscraper, the rooms are some of the largest in the city and feature daybeds for in-room massages, overflowing soaking tubs, and 'courtyard'-style corridors that connect guest rooms to create bigger private spaces for larger groups.

The Park Hyatt will host its grand opening event on November 1. Be careful though -- the serenity of this place is captivating, and you may never want to take that high-speed elevator ride back down to ground level. --BRANDON FELDMAN

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It's not the best time to sell an expensive, sweeping estate in the nation's capital. And outside of Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. has never been a place of largess. The Everymay Estate, however, might be an exception to these rules. One of Washington's oldest homes -- 216 years! -- the estate was recently placed on the market for the first time in over a century, with a price tag of $49 million, making it the city's highest real estate asking price ever.

According Christie's, the stately Georgetown 12,000-square-foot home was built in 1801 and has 22 rooms, eight bedrooms, six bathrooms, and 100 parking spaces (the house can be rented out for weddings and parties for a reported $30,000). There's also a gatekeeper's house and a three-room staff house. The grounds include terraced gardens with six fountains. The main two-and-a-half story Georgian-style brick mansion features open terraces, Federal-period doorways at the north and south entrances, a tympanum in the north doorway filled with a wooden scalloped sunburst, and palladium windows throughout.

The estate's history dovetails with the founding of the nation's capital -- bragging rights for any owner. George Washington contracted engineer Pierre L'Enfant to design the U.S. Capitol in 1791. One year later, businessman Samuel Davidson purchased the a huge swath of land and selected a gently sloping hillside location, which is now Georgetown, for his stately home. Both L'Enfant and Davidson turned to architect Nicholas King for design. Davidson broke ground in 1801. The fifth and current owner, Harry L. Belin, is the grandson of diplomat Lammot Belin who bought Evermay in 1923. The original Evermay Estate was a sprawling 150 acres that included the land on which the Treasury Building, Old Executive Office Building, Lafayette Square, and the northern lawn of the White House were eventually located. Now the estate grounds are confined to a leafy four acres overlooking Rock Creek Park and the Washington Monument.

With such a high asking price, Evermay could easily beat the current record sale of another nearby manse, The Halcyon House, that sold for roughly $29 million last year. The current economic landscape, however, isn't optimal. "God, the timing was horrible," one real estate agent told the Washington Post. "For anyone to spend that kind of money in a good economy would be one thing, but with the news we've seen lately about the economy, the timing couldn't have been worse." --JOHN CLARKE JR.

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In the ponds of baseball and politics, Nate Silver dedicates his work to fishing out and gutting the statistical red herrings.  As managing partner of Baseball Prospectus -- holiest of quantitative baseball texts -- and, more recently, founder of the polling data site, "FiveThirtyEight.com," the 30-year-old U Chicago econ grad is gaining much-deserved attention for his work supplanting flawed models of conjecture with predictive algorithms that do just that -- predict (accurately) the outcomes of America's pennants and presidential races. "Baseball and politics are data-driven," Silver explains. "But a lot of the time, that data might be used badly. In baseball, that may mean looking at a statistic like batting average when things like that of on-base percentage and slugging percentage are far more correlated with winning ballgames. In politics, that might mean cherry-picking a certain polling result."

In baseball, Silver's analysis is rooted largely in the fundamentals of Sabermetrics (a statistics-based formula that factors several variables for luck into an overall productivity quotient). And Silver's methods have since been validated by a set of unlikely outcomes that few besides him saw coming: a World Series victory for his hometown White Sox in 2005, followed by a lackluster 72-90 finish the following year; as well as the title of most improved for the Tampa Bay Rays at the beginning of this season, despite that team's 96 losses in 2007, worst in the league that year.

Silver's transition into politics has been predictably smooth.  As with baseball, his election formula uses past results of comparable players -- in this case political candidates and polling firms -- to project future performance (i.e. voting results). Thus Silver can predict the tally in a certain district based on how similar candidates have fared throughout history in demographically comparable regions, and using information on how well pollsters predicted the actual outcome.

Such projections are posted on his site, FiveThirtyEight.com, which has enjoyed a 5,000 percent increase in traffic between March and June, largely thanks to his Nostradamus-like primary predictions for Indiana and North Carolina. Rejecting the polling majority's consensus, Silver anticipated a 17-point Obama landslide and 1 point Clinton squeaker in the Tarheel and Hoosier states, respectively. The results once again validated Silver: Clinton stole Indiana by 1 point, while Obama rolled in North Carolina on a whopping 15 point margin.  And if Silver is saying "I told you so" once again Election Day, it will be in the wake of something like a 351-186 electoral college victory for the Democratic candidate, as predicted by Silver's website; also listed is Obama's chance of winning: 96.7 percent.

For all their quantitative precision, however, Silver's formulas don't account for the intangibles. The youthful Rays' lack of poise and composure in the clutch, for instance -- an integral part of their likely demise tonight against the Phillies (see Pena and Longoria's combined 0-29 in the series). Or the fickleness of American voters, for that matter, who could swing the election in any unforeseen direction. --NASH LANDESMAN

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(Lee Uniform and Effects, before 1864. Courtesy: Museum of the Confederacy)

Grant and Lee in War and Peace, the new exhibition at the New-York Historical Society, traces the Civil War through the two chief strategists of the conflict.  While Lee was always a military prodigy -- Lincoln asked him to be the first general of the Union -- Grant's rise was more circuitous; when the war began, he was working at his father's leather goods store in Illinois.

The show provides the usual trove of memorabilia: from swords to flags, to Grant's handwritten 'Terms of Surrender' that was delivered to Lee.  Perhaps most surprisingly are the Southern General's dainty dancing shoes.  You'll also find videos and topographical maps describing pivotal battles of the war.  One of the most touching and human comparisons couldn't be more simple: the coats they wore.

On view until March 29, 2009

nyhistory.org

("Let Us Have Peace" The Golden Anniversary, April Ninth, 1865-1915. Courtesy: New York Historical Society)

(Ole Peter Hansen Balling, Grant and His Generals, 1865. National Portrait Gallery)

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In their first ever World Series, the Tampa Bay Rays meet the Philadelphia Phillies tonight in Florida for Game 1, and Vegas odds makers have made the American League contenders an expensive betting proposition. Most online gambling sites have the upstart Rays -- with superior rotational depth -- a -130 favorite over the Philadelphia Phillies (meaning that you have to lay $130 on Tampa to win $100).  Game 1, however, is an even-money bet as Philadelphia starts its young fireball pitcher Cole Hamels, the dominant ace of the series.

Gamblers may bet on specific props as well, like which player will hit the first home run of the series (Upton, Howard and Longoria are all favored at 5:1), the series MVP (my money's on Shane Victorino at 12:1) and whether Jimmy Rollins will strike out at some point during Game 1 (-105 says he will), to name just a few.  The list is as long as your bankroll permits. --NASH LANDESMAN

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In collaboration with Men's Vogue, the famed French outfitter Moncler brings you the Austin, a limited-edition jacket based on the coat the company made for the trainers of the 1968 French ski team in Grenoble. Far from being overstuffed, the royal-blue jacket is slimmed down, but still sports enough high-quality goose down to keep you warm, whatever the wind-chill. Only 220 of the individually numbered coats have been made and the first five are now on eBay, with proceeds going to DonorsChoose.org, a nonprofit organization that provides a way for people to donate directly to specific projects at public schools.

Bid on the jacket on eBay.

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With the roller coaster that is the stock market these days, perhaps one of the surest places to put your money is in antique watches.  Looking at the results of the first Fall Antiquorum watch auction held on Oct. 16, things don't seem to be affected by the dwindling Dow at all.

One of the more interesting pieces to sell at the auction was a watch by Longines given to world famous physicist Albert Einstein by the Jewish community of Los Angeles in 1931.  The 14k tonneau shaped watch was engraved with Einstein's name and date on the back of the watch.  The estimate for the 'time only' piece was $25,000-35,000 and it ending up selling for an incredible $596,000 -- over 2000% of its estimate.

Perhaps a new theory needs to be worked out...E=mc2 as the new 401K? --STEPHEN WATSON

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(Photo via designobserver.com)

Our friends over at the blog Design Observer have a great story on the inventor of the cowboy shirt, Jack A. Weil or "Jack A" as he's known:

Back in the 1940s, Jack A had realized that the cowboy shirt could be something more than a simple product. The idea... was to reflect the flamboyance of the rodeo riders, their reckless bravado. His job was to translate those qualities into the language of pattern and cut: shaped cuffs, bold yokes, tapered waists, and vibrant colors.

Along with his son -- Jack B, of course -- Weil popularized the use of snaps on a shirt. Writes Adam Levy:

In 1946, when the war was over, [Jack A] traveled by train to the swanky offices of the Scovill Manufacturing Company -- located in New York City's Chrysler Building. Scovill made the highest quality industrial snaps in America. Jack was seen by a junior sales rep in a double breasted suit who told him point blank that it simply wasn't feasible to put a Scovill snap on something as flimsy as a shirt.

We're certainly glad that Scovill was wrong, and that Jack A persevered. He and Jack B went on to run Rockmount Ranch Wear, a manufacturer of classic western shirts, Stetsons, and bolo ties. Rockmount shirts can be seen on Misfit Clark Gable, those Brokeback boys and many a cowboy in between.

Read the full story here.

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When Drew Nieporent opened Montrachet in 1985, he brought an ambitious French cuisine to Tribeca. It was a bold move in a neighborhood that, at that time, wasn't known for sommeliers and soufflés. By the time Montrachet closed its doors in 2007, the area had become a dining destination, many of the changes were due to Nieporent himself (he's a co-owner of the perennially crowded Nobu around the corner). With the newly opened Corton, Nieporent returns to the site of Montrachet and offers a winning take on modern French dining.

Corton presents no shortage of refined options: A recent dinner began with an amuse bouche of a miniature egg-white bagel with caviar — it's a terrific way to start a meal. Despite the clean lines of the room, you can get robust fare. A starter of sweetbreads and egg confit is luxurious enough that it makes you want to lie down. An entrée of roasted squab and smoked bacon was nicely set off against a chestnut crème.

It will take some time before we find if Corton wins any stars in the next Michelin Guide. The third guide for New York arrived last week and Masa joined Per Se, Jean-Georges, and Le Bernardin as the only three-star restaurants in town. There aren't many surprises, although Babbo was stripped of its lone star. Just what will Mario do?--DAVID COGGINS

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Men's Vogue and the Singapore Tourism Board picked two lucky winners to travel to Singapore to attend Formula One's first nighttime race. Delward Brown and Tanya Young of Florence, South Carolina, flew to Singapore in time for the Grand Prix on September 28. They stayed at the Fairmont Singapore Hotel, which offered views of the 5.06-km track, with its 23 turns and top speeds of nearly 200 mph.

Brown and Young joined the more than 40,000 spectators who turned out to watch a heated race, with Ferrari's Felipe Massa's in pole position. But a disastrous pit stop quickly eliminated Massa's lead -- Ferrari got their signals crossed and Massa drove off with the fuel hose still attached. The door was opened for McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, who along with Massa is a contender for the championship.

But Nelson Piquet had other plans. He crumpled his Renault in a crash, bringing out the safety car much to the advantage of his teammate, Fernando Alonso, who started the race in 15th. Alonso used the opportunity to catch up to the pack and, as other drivers were penalized for illegal pitting, won his first race of the season.

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Eero Saarinen's iconic TWA Flight Center at JFK Airport is experiencing a rebirth. While the structure sat abandoned since American Airlines bought TWA in 2001, JetBlue has adopted Saarinen's swooping concrete shells as the focal point of its newly built Terminal 5, which opens October 22.

The new terminal building, designed by corporate architecture giant Gensler, curls partway around Saarinen's building and connects to its arching white tubes, which formerly led to TWA gates. The two structures play well together, but each is clearly a product of its time -- Saarinen's building, completed in 1962, evokes the romance and optimism of air travel; Gensler's creation is a model of efficiency. The new low-key structure is all about moving both people and planes at record speeds -- its 20-lane, 340-foot-wide security checkpoint is the largest in the U.S., and a generous arrangement of gates is expected to make plane turnaround time 40 percent faster than the norm. Entertainment is provided by Rockwell Group's design of the Marketplace -- the terminal's triangular retail and dining area that takes cues from the steps at the Met and the video boards of Times Square with bleacher-style dining and performance platforms as well as a 40-foot-wide ring of video monitors that hovers overhead from crisscrossed cables.

Visitors eager to get a peek inside Saarinen's building will have to wait -- the connector tubes are currently blocked off, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls the building, is continuing restoration work. The Port Authority expects to reopen the structure as an optional check-in area, and for other yet to be determined uses (perhaps a conference center or restaurant), sometime next year. --TIM McKEOUGH

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New York, London, and Milan might preoccupy the fashion industry for most of the fall, but another world city is slowly gaining ground. Shanghai, China's most cosmopolitan city, is on the radar for many designers as they recognize the importance of the Asian market. They are quickly opening boutiques in this city of over 20 million (with a large population of Westerners), in what has been called the "Paris of the Orient." In fact, Ferragamo hosted its 80th Anniversary Celebration here in March.

While stores are scattered in neighborhoods throughout the city, West Nanjing Road is home to several notable retailers. With Hermès , Jil Sander, Zegna, Lagerfeld and Prada, the list of boutiques at Plaza 66, a very upscale mall on this impressive strip, might be confused for a trip down Madison Avenue. 

One great find at Plaza 66 is I.T., a unique store carrying a broad range of clothing from a number of houses including Comme des Garcons, APC, Alexander McQueen, and DSquared, plus an impressive mix of lesser-known designers that get invited to show their collections here.

For those of us with slimmer builds, these luxury boutiques are especially welcome. Since Asians are typically less stocky than Westerners, it's much easier to find smaller sizes, not to mention the fact that there's a greater emphasis on menswear here than in most cities around the world.

For example, a trip to an Hermès store in Manhattan wasn't fruitful when I visited a few weeks ago looking for a French cuff shirt with a 14.5 inch neck. The associate told me I'd have to wait a month or so while they searched for the shirt at boutiques across the globe. Here in Shanghai, however, smaller sizes are the norm, and I was able to find that shirt with relative ease.

Don't expect bargains, though. Prices are on par, if not more, than they are stateside. A beaver-lined Vicuña sweater by Loro Piana sells for  226,900 RMB, or nearly $34,000 USD. Sure, you might be able to get a similar sweater at Loro Piana on the Upper East Side but where else can you buy it and walk down the street to have a lunch of jiao zi (dumplings) and pi jiu (beer) for less than $2? --BRANDON FELDMAN

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(Photo courtesy of Swatch)

James Bond's legacy -- like his invincible character -- is immortal; it will remain preserved in the annals of cultural iconography so long as the gold wristwatch, Aston Martin DB5, and shaken martini continue to symbolize cool.

But what of the almost two dozen evil masterminds who have brought out the best in Bond over the course of 22 films? Is it fair to cast aside Bond's leading antagonists with the same callous indifference usually reserved for their faceless henchmen?

Swatch's take on that issue is echoed in the sentiment of its founder, Nicolas G. Hayek, who asserts that "if Bond is alive and well today, it is thanks in no small part to the inspiration and enduring power of his enemies." As such, the watchmaker's new line commemorates the 22 villains who infused the Bond series with dramatic conflict and quirky personality -- from Dr. No all the way through Dominic Green of Quantum Solace. The 22 new watches reflect each villain's sinister style in truly unique form.

You can display Octopussy's oppressive temperament with General Orlov's black-and-red band and Soviet star fastened menacingly around your wrist. Or, if you adored the Man with the Golden Gun and dream of outshining its flashy villain, Saramanga, you can rock a timepiece more golden and no less deadly than his infamous golden hand-piece. More of a Baron Samedi man? The watch honoring Live and Let Die's spooky antihero is mean, green and voodoo-themed. The line is as devious and varied as the villains themselves, and the possibilities limitless. As Hayek slyly notes, "Omega is James Bond's watch of choice, but real, interesting villains prefer Swatch." --NASH P. LANDESMAN

More: A slideshow of the 007 Villain Collection by Swatch

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The New York Times reported today that thousands of contributions made to Barack Obama's website are under suspicion. Among the list of Obama's 2.5 million Internet donors, made-up names such as "Jgtj Jfggjjfgj" and non-existent addresses such as "Some Place, UT" stand out as obviously questionable donations. The Times' states that nearly 3,000 donations have been made to Obama with such clearly false donor information. By refusing public campaign funds, Obama allowed himself to break fundraising records and has enjoyed a clear advantage over John McCain who has had much more limited fundraising initiatives. Since F.E.C. rules don't require candidates to list donors whose contributions amount to less than $200, the Times speculates that one reason for the pseudonyms on Obama's list could be "in order to donate beyond the maximum limits."

It goes without saying that this is a serious problem that must be addressed. The Internet's role in the political process should be democratic, not exploitative. One possibility not raised by the Times, however, is that these donations are international. F.E.C. rules bar any non-U.S. citizen from contributing to a political campaign, but given the Internet, any disgruntled foreigner can help elect his or her pick for the leader of the free world.

The idea that these fictitious donations are from internationals seems to make the most sense. In a recent BBC poll of 22,500 people in 22 countries, Obama was favored by a four-to-one margin. Take a Canadian citizen I know who has lived in the U.S. for the past ten years. He's a hardworking member of the U.S. economy and an avid political junkie. He's also a huge fan of Barack Obama and thinks that an Obama presidency will restore an idealistic vision of America. He thought about donating through Obama's website, but was worried about breaking election law. So he considered giving money to American friends who would donate it on his behalf. Instead, he's going to purchase both of Obama's memoirs, with the hope that some of the profit will trickle down to the Democrat's campaign efforts.

Yes, this all seems relatively harmless. But what if it we were talking about an Al Qaeda extremist, rather than a Canadian, who believes Obama will be a "softer" president than McCain when it comes to terrorism and international policy? As we watch Iceland go bankrupt, and the global markets crumble one after another, we're also seeing the potential rise of this new global political capital. If the fictitious online donors do end up being internationals (if such a thing could even be proven) then our political world may be growing more interdependent like our banking world, and citizens of the world will prove determined to have their say in U.S. politics. --CHLOE KAMARCK

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The iconic photographer William Eggleston gets his day in the sun at Christie's on October 13 when 60 lots of his extraordinary color photographs go up for auction. You'll find signature images of the American south, from gas stations to diners, street signs to arcades. A little secret: A number of the photographs are quite affordable, with estimates beginning at $5000.

If you're set on getting a more complete picture of the artist (so to speak) consider the portfolio of Los Alamos: 75 dye-transfer prints taken from 1965-1974 (estimate: $350,000-550,000). Eggleston has been hailed as the father of color photography -- if that sounds like hyperbole, one look at this work reminds us that he is a genuine classic. --DAVID COGGINS

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(Photo via christies.com)

Is it a sign of nervous financial times? Or were auction houses being overly ambitious last spring when they extended the traditional boundaries of the art market to include houses by famous Modernist architects?

Christie's, in a much-ballyhooed offering last May, added Richard Neutra's Kaufmann Desert House in Palm Springs to its prestigious Post War and Contemporary Art Sale. Despite a winning bid of $15 million (over $19 million when commission and the price of the adjoining lot were added), the purchase ultimately fell through. The house -- which Neutra built in 1946 and now graces the cover of American Masterworks: Houses of the 20th and 21st Centuries, by Kenneth Frampton and David Larkin (Rizzoli) -- goes back on the market this week; the real estate market, that is.  Listed with Crosby Doe, a Los Angeles-based realtor specializing in architectural properties, the asking price is $12.975 million.

Unlike Christies, Wright, the Chicago-based auction house, did not fly potential buyers across the country to see its May offering, Louis Kahn's 1961 Esherick House outside Philadelphia. Even so, the firm headed up by Richard Wright still heavily promoted this exquisite, one-bedroom home with an estimate of $2-3 million. But it was passed over at auction, and now the Esherick House, too, is being sold the more traditional way. It is listed with Patrick Gallagher of Eichler & Moffly Realtors in Chestnut Hill. The new price sounds familiar: $2.4 million.

Gallagher happens to be the son of the current owner, a dentist who has lived in the Esherick House for 30 years. The realtor contends that while "Wright did everything they could, the mentality of home buyers is different from those attending art auctions." Indeed. Unless it is, say, Jean Prouvé's transportable Maison Tropicale (which hotelier Andre Balazs bought at a Christies auction for $4.87 million in 2007), a house is a fixed object, so other factors come into play, such as its surrounding neighborhood. Equally important is the time homeowners need to make up their mind. "Perhaps buyers in Chestnut Hill are more conservative," Gallagher says. "But most buyers spend quite some time deciding where they're going to live for the next X-number of years. It's not a decision made in a split second." --DAVID HAY

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All My Sons returns to Broadway in its second revival with a star-studded cast and media buzz, namely around Katie Holmes. A preview on September 18 (the play opens October 16 and will run until January 11, 2009) was met with frenzy with the arrival of Tom Cruise and anti-Scientology protestors outside the theater chanting "Save Katie." In the tradition of Hollywood actresses taking to the stage (Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman), it seems as though Katie Holmes is trying to make a name for herself as a serious actor. But can Holmes draw enough star power and ticket sales?

Arthur Miller's three-act play, which examines the American Dream, is relevant today as it was when it debuted in 1947. Inspired by a true story of a successful businessman who knowingly sold defective airplane parts to the U.S. government during World War II, All My Sons tells the story of Joe and Kate Keller, played by John Lithgow and Dianne Wiest, who cope with the loss of one son while their surviving son Chris (Patrick Wilson) returns home. And he's not alone; he's brought his dead brother's fiancée and childhood friend Ann (Holmes), whom he plans to wed.

Written two years before Death of a Salesman, All My Sons was perhaps Miller's first critical success. It won Tony awards for best director (Eli Kazan) and best play and was adapted into a movie in 1948. Today, Simon McBurney directs a cinematic-like production with vivid images and projections as suspenseful music frames the dialogue.

Lithgow, best known from TV's 3rd Rock From the Sun, is no stranger to Broadway, having won two Tonys and five nominations. Wiest has also performed numerous times on the New York stage, most recently in The Seagull. Wilson in a stage veteran and demonstrated his talent on screen in Angels in America and Little Children. While Holmes' performance was decent, it's easy to forget her better moments (Pieces of April) amid her towering pop culture personality -- Mrs. Tom Cruise. Though curious audience members lined up down the block to witness her debut Broadway performance, the main attraction is from the rest of the cast: first-rate acting. --KATHERINE KIMS

All My Sons
The Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre
236 West 45th Street, NYC

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Remember those college-era debates over which album rocked harder than the other? How "Houses of the Holy" trumped "Back to Black" on vinyl, but not on digital? These arguments, they were our soundtracks, defined our individuality, and made us downright tribal tastemakers. But it brings us together more than it divides. Why? Because we all feel strongly about it.

Celebrating these great, fraternizing chat-offs is the newly released Rock & Roll Cage Match: Music's Greatest Rivalries, Decided. Edited by Sean Manning, the book brings together critics, humorists, rock journos, and musicians who square off over which band is better. The result is fighting words for any music fan. Take your side. Longtime rock writer Marc Spitz, on the Smiths vs. the Cure, says "If the Smiths are its James Dean, the Cure are the Marlon Brando of modern rock." Touré takes on Michael Jackson vs. Prince and decides that Prince "was the wild son of Jimi, the younger brother of Rick James and Richard Pryor, the ultrasexual black Casanova who told you up front that he had a dirty mind . . . Michael held the opposite appeal. His music was often about escaping through dance or being hopeful about the world, and he came across as super-innocent."

Then there are classic one-offs like Richard Hell's take on the Rolling Stones and Velvet Underground. "[The] Velvets can't be denied," opines Hell. "They take the crown. Lou Reed is queen for the day." Other battles royale include R.E.M. vs. U2, Bruce Springsteen vs. Bon Jovi, Radiohead vs. Coldplay and, oddly, Bob Dylan vs. Bob Marley. While most of the book is smartly insightful, we'll pass on the chapters comparing New Edition vs. New Kids on the Block or ABBA vs. The Bee Gees. There are some things we'd rather just forget. --JOHN CLARKE JR.

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Strolling through the dense maze of exotic tropical foliage on the grounds of businessman John Winfield's Bel Air estate -- past wispy, gurgling brooks, a pond full of wildly colorful koi, and a secluded sylvan glade containing a Hellenistic moss-covered fountain -- I found it hard not to imagine this place as the setting of some sort of crazy Eyes Wide Shut-style bacchanal. But the strangers I encountered in the woods were not Venetian-masked libertines. They were black-suited security guards stationed to protect the Hollywood gentry who'd gathered here last Sunday to raise money for Proposition 2 -- a California state ballot measure aiming to vastly improve the conditions of factory farm animals.

The night was sponsored by the Humane Society and hosted by actresses Ellen Degeneres and Portia di Rossi. Speaking to 450 guests dining on gourmet vegan cuisine in the mansion's backyard tennis court, Ellen explained that while she's personally chosen to fight the evils of factory farming by not eating animals at all, the least we could do was to help pass Prop 2 -- which would eliminate the torturously small crates and cages currently used to confine chickens, pigs, and veal calves. After screening a series of potential pro-Prop 2 commercials illustrating the currently unhealthy and heinous conditions on factory farms, Humane Society honcho Wayne Pacelle solicited the deep-pocketed crowd for donations to get the spots aired. Guests like Tobey Maguire ponied up as much as $15,000 each for the cause.

After a short auction to raise even more cash (by the end of the night more than a million dollars had been donated), the guests' generosity was rewarded with entertainment -- and I'm not talking about the cringe-worthy video of a cow singing about the evils of corporate agriculture to the tune of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition." Carole King took to the stage to perform a few of her excellent hits, including a rousing rendition of "You've Got a Friend" (assumedly directed at farm animals). She was followed by Moby and his band (i.e. me and my wife, Laura Dawn), whose performance brought out the dancing beast in feral actresses like Heather Graham, Kelly Lynch, Olivia Wilde, and Lisa Edelstein.

In the middle of our final song, screams erupted from the audience, who pointed fearfully at the foliage hanging over the tall fence behind us. At first I assumed a Big Ag sniper had invaded the party. But then we saw that a spider the size of a golf ball had been lowering himself on a thin web slowly toward the dome of Moby's bald head. As the crowd shouted "Don't kill it!" the actor Jared Leto leapt from the crowd with a plastic cup to contain the fierce arachnid. "The spider is an animal too," Leto said as he gingerly escorted his new friend from the stage. For one night, at least, nature and nurture had become one. --DARON MURPHY

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British design sensation Max Lamb, a favorite among collectors of contemporary limited-edition furniture, is coming stateside. Beginning October 8, New York's Johnson Trading Gallery will host the designer's first solo exhibition in the U.S.

Lamb is known for taking an unapologetically hands-on approach to furniture design -- casting tables by splashing molten metal into divots carved in sand, for instance, or turning concrete stools on a lathe -- and he wanted to create a few special pieces for his U.S. debut. Looking to work with local materials, he traveled to New York State's Catskill Mountains to handpick chunks of bluestone at Hennessey Quarry. He then recruited the quarry's tools and employees, and put the whole operation to work creating seven exceptionally heavy pieces of furniture. The project represents "a real commitment for both buyers and myself," says Paul Johnson, owner of Johnson Trading Gallery. "These are serious pieces to move around."

Lamb snapped these photos of the production process himself. The exhibition runs October 8 through November 9 at 490 Greenwich Street in Manhattan. -- TIM McKEOUGH

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(California Academy of Sciences's grassy rooftop)

When Renzo Piano's instantly lauded California Academy of Sciences opened in San Francisco last week, its stunning, two-and-a-half acre roof, where circular windows pop out into a rolling landscape blanketed with 1.7 million plants -- made everyone sit up.

Atop an airy, classical pavilion, here was "green architecture" right in front of your eyes: Piano's floating exaggeration of the landscape of Golden Gate Park where the new $488 million museum is located.

But wait a minute. Haven't we seen a hill of grass filled with circular lights on the top of a building here in Manhattan recently?

(HWKN's "Mini Rooftop")

Indeed we have. An illuminated, grassy knoll was the central feature of HWKN's "Mini Rooftop": a day-and-night party space paid for by the German car company that ran for 10 fun-filled days during fashion week.

"Building a hill in such an urban setting made people reconnect with nature," said Marc Kushner, a partner in the New York firm.  Pursuing what it refers to as Econic Design, HWKN aims to put nature's forms -- streams, hills, even trees -- back into architectural design.

Although on a tiny scale compared to Piano's spectacular raised landscape -- his grass-laden roof further acts to warm the museum, reducing its heating bill -- it's a stance that we are likely see more of. The days when "green design" meant installing solar panels, self-circulating water, and other eco-friendly systems are over. Now nature has to be not only a construction material but a formal element that makes you want to embrace the building itself. --DAVID HAY

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(Peter Good's Big Money)

With crude prices plunging and the economy in turmoil, what does a 55-gallon oil drum mean to you? The Connecticut conceptualist Jack Lardis has been asking this question of artists and citizens since 9/11, when he began to recognize the oil drum as a loaded symbol of modern life. In 2003, Lardis followed that thought with a not-for-profit organization, Oil Drum Art Inc., which essentially began a dialogue between art and society.

"Our exhibitions really deal with the issues at hand: the environment, global warming, the energy crises, our carbon footprint, the war in the Middle East," says Lardis who has seen his vision grow into over 200 works of oil drum art, which have been displayed in exhibitions throughout the Northeast. The creations range from the angry -- an oil drum painted to resemble a roll of twenty-dollar bills called "Big Money," -- to the abstract -- an amalgamation of stacked and shredded drums called "The Ladder." The most recent show is at the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, CT through October 5. Visit oildrumart.org for more information. --LIZ McDANIEL

More: Slideshow from the exhibit >>

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