Despite her enormously pressured schedule with her hit TV series "Lipstick Jungle," wrapping up shooting Clive Barker's latest flick, "The Midnight Meat Train," and raising two little girls, Rowan and Grier, Brooke Shields still has time for Broadway. The very tall Brooke will present the Douglas Watt Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Dance to the very, very tall Tommy Tune at the 2008 Fred & Adele Astaire Awards on June 2. As you may know, in addition to her international fame as a star of film and television and top cover model, Brooke has been beloved by Broadway theatergoers since making her Theater Word award-winning debut as Betty Rizzo in "Grease" in 1995. Since then, she has won the hearts of audiences for her starring roles in such Broadway hits as "Chicago" (Roxie Hart), "Cabaret" (Sally Bowles), and "Wonderful Town" (Ruth Sherwood).

Brooke Shields and co-star Kim Raver this past summer at Bridge- hampton polo. Photo by Rob Rich

Those "Sex and the City" girls have sure kept busy over the last year with the ultra secure shooting on the film version of the white hot series. Sarah Jessica Parker managed to squeeze in another film, "Smart People," which is charming some of the critics. Kim Cattrall traded in her plunging necklines and stiletto heels for high-necked Victorian garb and dark hair to star as Daniel Radcliffe's mother in "My Boy Jack." Cynthia Nixon has been hitting the talk show circuit as a breast cancer awareness advocate and poor Kristen Davis has been fighting off bloggers and gossip tabloids who claim to have racy nude pix of her. I saw them - definitely not her. But at least there's life after SATC!

Montauk's Paul Simon rocked the house at the Brooklyn Academy of Music gala this week and will be staying around Brooklyn through next week to headline at the famed hall with Olu Dara, Grizzly Bear, Josh Groban, The Roches, and Gillian Welch. Paul revisits the quiet railway stations, urban rhythms, and immigrant dreams of his greatest American tunes.

Also in Brooklyn at Steiner Movie Studios owned by Westhampton's David Steiner and family is hottie Ewan McGregor. "Deception," Ewan's new erotic thriller, is being shot on a soundstage in one of the glass-and-steel hangars, and the Scottish star has a busy schedule ahead of him. Over the next two days, he had to film a montage of sex scenes that requires him to get it on with five different actresses - none of whom he has met before. In "Deception," billed as a "seductive psychological thriller," McGregor plays a solitary Wall Street auditor Jonathan McQuarry, who is lured by a flashy New York lawyer called Wyatt Bose, played by Hugh Jackman, into a high-priced sex club known simply as "The List." He meets and falls in love with a beautiful woman known only as "S," played by Michelle Williams, who is kidnapped. Hugh Jackman and Ewan in the buff – again! How could you not have told me, David?

Speaking of sex scenes, join me in congratulating Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues, who just celebrated its 10th anniversary and that of her V-Day movement to end violence against women with a big, blowout bash in New Orleans. In the last decade, The Vagina Monologues has been produced in 120 countries; 4,000 benefit productions for V-Day have taken place so far this year with 90 percent of V-Day's money directly funding anti-violence programs.

Never one to act on a small stage when a bigger one would do, last weekend she turned the New Orleans Superdome into the Superlove - a two-day global event to mark the anniversary of her V-Day movement, the campaign to stop violence against women which she founded on the back of her play.

Ensler has been coming to New Orleans for more than two years, working with local women's groups. With benefit performances for V-Day taking place in more than 80 countries, the anniversary could have been staged anywhere, but Ensler chose New Orleans because of its recent unhappy past. "New Orleans has been a war zone for women."

It seems a stretch, but it appears to have paid off. The concrete overpasses to the Superdome which were filled with the homeless citizens of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina were this time filled with proud, undaunted women. Thank you Eve.

I had a deadline and couldn't make Caroline Lieberman's housewarming bash at her new digs in the ultra posh Robert A.M. Stern 15 Central Park West. I was looking forward to a little celeb gawking what with her neighbors being folks like Denzel Washington, Sting and Trudie Styler, NASCAR hottie Jeff Gordon, and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. Hopefully, Caroline will be having a few more fetes and I'll be able to give you the skinny and what everyone is buzzing about.

Our good friend, writer and photojournalist Jesse Nash, he of the beautiful wife Irena Patar and gorgeous twins Evangeline and Annabelle who stop strollers in their tracks, has just returned from China – once again – and will be showing for the first time ever a photo essay, "China: A Nation in Anticipation" at Manhattan's Grant Gallery in SoHo through May 7. The show features dozens of photographs taken during his many trips to the country over the past decade-and-a-half - unforgettable images of this rapidly evolving landscape. Nash has recorded in color and black and white volumes of history that have been etched into the furrowed brows of men and women who struggled through times of revolution and hardship, and captured in graphic brilliance the promise of hope and bright tomorrows on the pristine faces of children. He preserves for posterity moments and places that can never be recaptured.

Among the countless friends expected to attend during the two-week exhibition include actors Martin Sheen, Alan Alda, Matthew Broderick, Julianne Margulies and Kathleen Turner, composer David Amram, Tony Bennett, Rosanna Scotto, "Today" show hosts Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera, both of whom will be covering the Beijing Olympics, are expected, as well.

The final farewell event for my dear pal the recently deceased gossip maven, celebrity art collector, party promoter and inventor of midget bowling, Baird Jones took place last Thursday night at Webster Hall. It certainly was an unusual send-off. There were video clips of Baird, a bogus self-professed virgin, on the Phil Donahue, Sally Jesse Raphael and Joan Rivers shows promoting the "National Chastity Association". The legendary 82-year-old talk show host, Joe Franklin, emceed the event. Franklin, credited with having the first talk show in television history in 1951, is known for giving great talents such as Elvis Presley, Woody Allen, Barbra Streisand and Julia Roberts their first exposure on TV. He is also known for having complete unknowns and some bizarre folks - like Baird - alongside major stars on his shows.

But, even Joe could not have provided an act bizarre enough to top the performance of Danny the Wonder Pony, an invited guest. Danny who wears a real leather saddle strapped onto his back, asked sexy female guests to ride him. Those who did were thrilled. As Danny bucked and twirled his riders, they squealed with pleasure while their skirts flew up and their panties flashed. In all, it was a fitting way for a man who was a true eccentric and a great New York character to ride off into the sunset.

The Conde Nast Traveler's Hot List Party is always celeb gridlock and this year was no exception with glitterati like Ashlee Simpson, Joan Allen, Natasha Bedingfield, "Heroes" hottie Milo Ventimiglia, Denise Rich, Elizabeth Hasselbeck and her cutie jock hubby Tim, Adrien Brody, Eva Amurri, the gorgeous daughter of Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins and many, many more. Several of these stars confided that they are obsessed with the reality show "Real Housewives of New York City" – and were thrilled to see the show's stars Alex McCord, Jill Zarin and Bethenny Frankel at the bash.

Now I'm off to do a little schmoozing at the ultimate schmooze-a-teria Elaine's'
the favorite watering hole for writer and Hollywood types. Countess Luann de Lesseps is hosting a little cocktail do for her fellow committee members of the upcoming Fred & Adele Astaire Awards. I'm told it's going to be a divine little gathering. Marisa Berenson, Savion Glover, Pat and Scott Mitchell, Robert Osborne, Phyllis Newman, Lee Roy Reams, Donald Saddler, Tamara Tunie, Tommy Tune, Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson, and Douglas Watt are among those confirmed to attend.

Also expected are the hard-working social types who are behind this 110 percent - Jillian Auferheide, Joanne Borts, Charles Cochran, Robin Cofer, Dora Frost, Dame Josephine Hall, Anna Jordan, Dyann Klein, Regina Kravitz, Joe Lanteri, Caroline Lieberman, Denise McClellan, Maryann Meyer, Alix Michel, Bruce Michael, Miranda Pildes, Risa Pulver, Ronni Anderson-Ramirez, Judy Rice, Cassandra Seidenfeld, Dr. Janet Shefts, and Zilia Sicre.