♦ Sasha Petraske's Mercury Dime won't be serving alcohol (it was denied a liquor license yet again last night), although Petraske is hoping to rebound by turning Milk & Honey into a "private social club." [Eater]
♦ Cocktail king Dale DeGroff is working with Marriott to create cocktails for the hotel chain. [NYT]
♦ Philippe's new West Village offshoot, Philippe Chow Express, is now equipped with touch-screen kiosks. [NYT]
♦ Guest of Guest's map of where the cool kids hang out. [GoaG]
♦ Le Cirque has dumped its à la carte menu. [Zagat]
♦ Steve Lewis corresponds with his old pal Michael Alig. [BB]
♦ A cooking lesson courtesy of Wylie Dufresne. [GS]
♦ Laura Bush clearly has no interest in what Frank Bruni thinks. She turned up at Michael's for lunch today. [MB]

How convenient: the entire subprime mess explained in two minutes using stick figures. [BusinessPundit via BoingBoing]

One more sign of the dismal state of the economy: a record number of people are putting their private jets up for sale. "In July, there was an average of 36 planes for sale daily. That compares with the average of only eight to 10 for sale every day a year earlier." Now you just need to find a bank that will lend you $30 million or so and you'll be good to go. [WSJ]

♦ John McCain canceled his appearance on CBS's Late Show with David Letterman tonight; Keith Olbermann will fill in instead. [HuffPo]
♦ The best (and worst) fall TV show ads. [THR]
♦ The end of the Sun is drawing near; the last paper may be published on Monday. [Gawker]
♦ NBC's Nightly News gained viewers in 2007-08; ABC and CBS both experienced declines. [TV Decoder]
♦ Did Harper's Bazaar photoshop its October cover featuring Kirsten Dunst? [WWD]
♦ Oprah Winfrey will lend her voice to the upcoming Disney flick The Princess and the Frog. [THR]
♦ Ad spending declined by 1.6% in the first half of 2008. [AdAge]
♦ Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho is coming to Broadway. [Variety]
♦ Meet the oldest working reporter in the country. [E&P]

♦ Frank Bruni doesn't give Delicatessen in SoHo any stars, but he's pretty pleased with those famous cheeseburger spring rolls. [NYT]
♦ New York's Adam Platt can't get over Sheridan Square's "bland" decor (which he likens to the interior of an airport hotel), but the food earns the spot a star. [NYM]

Sarah Palin will be departing the city shortly, assuming her motorcade hasn't already made a beeline for the airport. The candidate for VP spent yesterday, of course, sneaking peeks at the fold-out world map in her pocket as she tried to discuss weighty issues with various world leaders at the U.N. Her husband and strangely-named kids, in the meantime, paid a visit to the Central Park Carousel and FAO Schwarz. The Palins met up in the evening at the Millennium UN Plaza Hotel, where a throng of reporters and fringe Palin supporters were waiting for them at the entrance. Let it be known, however, that the folks at HotelChatter most definitely do not approve of Palin's hotel selection: "If laying low is what you're looking to do, may we gently chime in to let you know that staying at the Millenium Broadway smack in the middle of midtown during your NYC visit is not the way to go about it? It's tourist central over there." Agreed, although it is a considerable step up from the hotels she's accustomed to.

Alex Rodriguez's Trump Park condo has officially hit the market. For $14 million—or roughly twice what the slugger paid for the place—you'll get a 4,600-square-foot pad with library/den, dressing area, windowed chef's kitchen, and en-suite master bathroom. You'll have to come up with your own supply of blonde strippers, however. [Modlin Group via NYO]

Have you seen the new matchbooks that some cigarette retailers are handing out with packs of cigs? You may not want to. They're "designed to freak out smokers with photos of cancer-ravaged lungs, rotting teeth, and throat tumors, accompanied by the warning, 'Cigarettes are eating you alive.'" Unbeige has pics. [Unbeige]

Barack Obama is ahead by nine points, according to a new poll by ABC News and the Washington Post: "The tanking economy is fueling a surge for Barack Obama, who has jumped to his biggest lead of the race yet over John McCain." [NYDN]

The New Yorker's Nick Paumgarten offers up a few reasons why NYC slipping into recession may not be such a bad thing after all: "Maybe Manhattan will become affordable again, and cool, and dangerous. Dangerous in theory, but not to you or your family and friends. Dirty, but in a good way. Night clubs where anything goes. Art, music, Billy Martin." Roy Edroso of the Voice isn't quite as convinced. [NYer, VV]

Bankers' losses are going to be certain authors' gains: Book proposals about the Wall Street debacle have already landed on publishers' desks, reports Leon Neyfakh in the Observer. Times business columnist Joe Nocera (right) and former Fortune reporter Bethany McLean (left) are asking for offers in excess of $1 million for their "definitive chronicle" of the financial crisis, and Newsweek's Daniel Gross is pitching a "quickie electronic book" with a similar premise. Meanwhile, Publishers Marketplace reports that Melanie Jackson has sold Roger Lowenstein's Six Days That Shook the World, "a look at last week on Wall Street and in Washington, illuminating the origins of the crisis," to Ann Godoff at Penguin.

Plum TV, the "resort network" founded by Tom Scott (left), is now in talks to raise additional capital or even sell the company entirely, according to today's Post. The paper says the high-end (but lightly-viewed) network is in discussions with "a number of potential suitors [who] have developed a taste for Plum TV." We're hearing a slightly different story from a Plum staffer, however. The company is hemorraging cash, we're told, and has been busy cutting costs as of late: staff has been cut and expensive shoots have been cancelled. So today's news that Plum is talking with potential investors including Barry Diller's IAC, Terry Semel's investment fund, and Teddy Forstmann's IMG may very well signal that a fire sale is taking place.

New York Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist is on the move. According to city records posted today, Lundqvist paid $3.9 million for a three-bedroom, three-bath duplex penthouse at 310 West 52nd Street. The 2,035-square-foot apartment features a terrace and a chef's kitchen, and it also comes with storage space, which will be perfect for all of Lundqvist's bulky hockey gear. We're guessing this means he'll be leaving his current digs—he purchased an apartment at the Bromley on the Upper West Side for $1.75 million in 2006—and so he'll no longer get to rub shoulders with Michael Moore in the elevator, but that may not be the worst thing in the world. [Cityfile]

Are you fond of the refreshing effects of a super-caffeinated beverage every now and again? Well, that probably means you're on your way to become a drug abuser. According to psychiatry professor Roland Griffiths, who's calling for caffeinated drinks to carry health warnings, energy drink consumption in college students "predicted subsequent non-medical use of prescription stimulants, like Ritalin." Horrifying! If only they were just smoking pot and moving on to injecting heroin, like previous generations.

Matthew Broderick holding hands with Sarah Jessica Parker while walking in Midtown and later riding on a scooter with little James ... Maggie Gyllenhaal crossing the street ... Calvin Klein eating outside with a friend ... Carla Bruni carrying a Post under her arm ... Marcia Gay Harden and her daughter crossing the street with smoothies in hand... Katie Holmes leaving her building solo ... Sarah Palin arriving at the Colombian Embassy on the Upper East Side ... Diane Lane posing with an autograph-seeker outside her hotel ... Julianne Moore hopping into a SUV outside her West Village townhouse ... Matt Dillon stepping off the sidewalk ... Billy Bob Thornton outside NBC before taping Conan O'Brien's show ... and John Mayer all dressed up en route to a benefit.

So if investment banks are taking shelter from the financial shitstorm by morphing into commercial banks, does that mean Wall Streeters will soon have to deal with getting paid like commercial bankers, too? Good question! Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein took home $70.3 million last year; JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon collected $27.8 million; and Lehman Brothers chairman Dick Fuld walked away with $35 million. Of course that's not what their counterparts in commercial banking are making. Bank of America's CEO, Ken Lewis, earned a meager $16.4 million last year. (We're weeping, too.) "I think they [investment banks] are going to have to come more in line with a more traditional compensation plan," says one expert. Guess you might have to wait a few more years before you can afford that loft in Tribeca or four-bedroom in Scarsdale! [NY Post]

Attending official functions with her diminutive husband, French prez Nicolas Sarkozy, Carla Bruni's perfectly chosen outfits and European charm remain far more newsworthy than the boring old diplomatic business that's the ostensible reason for her presence here. Yesterday's schedule included a visit to the UN, where her husband gave a speech to world leaders but, more importantly, Bruni wore "demure" pinstripes and a ponytail.

♦ Super secretive hedge funder Israel Englander has paid $9.3 mil. for a co-op apartment at 1000 Park Avenue. The four-bedroom spread features a maid's room and a library. You can see the floorplan after the jump. [Real Deal]
♦ Makeup maven Laura Mercier has flipped her Chelsea loft at 205 West 19th Street. Mercier sold the 5,500-square-foot space to Lionel Pincus' son, Henry, and his wife Ana, for $8.5 mil.—$1.8 mil. more than she paid for it in late 2006. [NYO]
♦ Italian photographer Elisa Sighicelli paid $3 mil. for a 2,000-square-foot loft at 225 Lafayette Street. She purchased it from video artist Douglas Gordon. [NYO]
♦ The five-acre Bellport property once owned by Elmer Sperry, who founded the Sperry Corporation, is on the market for $5.7 mil. The property includes a three-bedroom house, two pools, and a guest cottage. [Newsday]

He knew we were waiting for details, and he hasn't kept us in suspense: Simon Doonan's wedding to Jonathan Adler was, says Simon, "a perfect day," during which the lovebirds laughed, cried, and "threatened to stomp on each other" instead of stomping on a glass. They then headed off on honeymoon in Big Sur not alone, but with Jonathan's mother and sister, Ruben and Isabel Toledo, and Ariel Levy and her wife Amy Norquist. [NYO]

You know Rick Sanchez, don't you? He's the CNN personality who once locked himself in a car that was sinking underwater so he could show viewers how to escape, and even had a Florida state trooper taser him for another segment so he could recount the sensation of having 50,000 volts of electricity coursing through your body. Sanchez has been inescapable on CNN as of late: he anchored much of the daytime coverage on the cable network during the financial meltdown last week. But he's just as kooky as ever! After the jump, a clip of Sanchez's greatest hits compiled by the folks at 23/6.