• Graydon Carter has backed out of hosting Vanity Fair's next Oscar party at Tom Colicchio's LA iteration of Craft because he doesn't like the Century City complex spot's "corporate feel." Laurent Tourondel's BLT on Sunset Strip will probably host the celeb-glutted affair instead. [P6]

Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke's divorce was so bitter that they both vehemently declared they would never marry again. Time heals all wounds, it seems. While Ethan just had a quickie ceremony with Ryan "the nanny" Shawhughes, Uma is enjoying a glitzy high-profile engagement to European financier Arki Busson, Elle Macpherson's ex and baby daddy. Arki and Uma are photographed daily, he's got bundles of money, she's got an eight-carat diamond ring, so there couldn't really be a downside to this for Uma, right? Wrong! At least according to the Daily Mail, which managed to locate a bunch of unnamed (but bitchy and indiscreet) friends. You see, sex-symbol Uma is frankly lucky to have found a man who'll give her a chance. "Men have let her down in a big way," points out "an admirer." "So to find a genuine, charitable guy like Arki who is so obviously crazy about her is a blessing—and she knows it." Yes, especially having spent the previous three years with total nobody Andre Balazs.

• After weeks of battling in court, Christie Brinkley and Peter Cook negotiated a "surprise" settlement last night, which they announced at 6 AM this morning. Many of the details are still fuzzy—they'll explain more when they get to court this morning—but custody will likely stay as is, and Christie will likely retain ownership of most of the couple's properties. [NYP]

Entourage hottie Adrian Grenier turns 32 today. Former mayor David Dinkins is 81. Jessica Simpson is turning 28. Gallerist Andrea Rosen is 46. Ex-Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O'Neal is 57. Times film critic Tony Scott is 42. Theater attorney Freddie Gershon will be 69. Web marketing guru Seth Godin turns 48. Social fixture Lisa Anastos is 40. And Jeffrey Greenberg, the former CEO of Marsh & McLennan and son of billionaire Hank, is 57.

• Dow Chemical will acquire rival specialty chemicals company Rohm & Haas for $18.8 billion, in a deal financed by Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway and the Kuwait Investment Authority. [Reuters]

Tom Brokaw bike riding! A sickly looking Henry Kravis in jeans! A creepy Mike Ovitz wearing a T-shirt that reads "Student Life Adviser." Photos of Day 1 of Herb Allen's Sun Valley media summit are online. [HuffPo]

• A penthouse duplex at 15 Central Park West has gone on the market for $80 million. The 5,276-square-foot space has four bedrooms and a library. It was originally purchased two months ago for $58.9 million. [TRD]

Hedge fund manager Phil Falcone is a hometown boy! Sure, he made $1.5 billion last year, bought the Guccione mansion for $49 million, and has a plasticized, fameseeking wife. But deep down he's a man of simple pleasures and heartfelt generosity. His office? "Quiet and spartan, with a threadbare blue carpet." And Falcone hasn't forgotten where he comes from. "At Chisholm High's all-class reunion, he donated $15,000 to help fund the fireworks show." Such generosity! "Later that night, Falcone paid for a night of drinks for everyone at Tom & Jerry's Bar in downtown Chisholm, then tipped six bartenders $250 apiece." [Minneapolis Star Tribune, via Daily Intel]

• Seasoned jetsetter Diane von Furstenberg plans to take the angst out of packing with her new cruise collection La Petite Valise: "Packing is the key to everything. It can be painful to do it properly and keep it light, but afterwards you'll be so happy, so proud." It also helps if you can afford to travel with an entourage of eight assistants. [Telegraph]

Pierce Brosnan waving to fans on his way out of Da Silvano ... Agyness Deyn taking her puppies for a walk, iced coffee in hand ... Lourdes Leon checking out her manicure outside Madonna's Upper West Side apartment ... Kirsten Dunst carrying a stack of magazines and a cup of lemonade through SoHo ... John Mayer leaving his apartment downtown, en route to a gig on Long Island ... Carolyn Murphy, Gwyneth Paltrow and Elizabeth Hurley outside the Waverly Inn.

It's good to be Lloyd Blankfein: In 2007, the Goldman Sachs chief collected $68.5 million in cash and stock, monies he plowed into the real estate market with the purchase of an apartment at 15 Central Park West for $27 million and a ten-acre home in the Hamptons for $41 million. But he also gave a few bucks to charity, too! After the jump, the nitty gritty details from the Lloyd and Laura Blankfein Foundation, including his astonishingly generous $262 gift to the American Stroke Association.

You can call celebrity plastic surgeon Dr. Steven Hoefflin a lot of things (a lousy doctor and a perv are a start). Just don't call him stupid! The doc responsible for Michael Jackson's nose(s), Joan Rivers' face, and Donald Trump's (rumored!) scalp-tightening, as well as the faces and physiques of Angie Everhart, Sylvester Stallone, Elizabeth Taylor, Ivana Trump, Don Johnson, and Janet Jackson, came up with a clever way to duck a $100 million defamation lawsuit that his business partners filed against him this week in Manhattan federal court. He checked himself into the psych ward at Cedars-Sinai in LA. No word on what exactly drove him to the breaking point, but looking at his work over the years couldn't have helped.

Bear Stearns execs Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin were led off in handcuffs a couple of weeks ago, accused of deceiving investors in one of the firm's ill-fated hedge funds. Bayou Group founder Samuel Israel III turned himself in last week after spending a few weeks on the run, and has started a 20-year sentence for defrauding investors of $450 million. (He now faces an additional 10 years for bail-jumping.) Plenty of other financial big wigs may ultimately get caught up in criminal probes, making 2008 one of the busiest years for white-collar defense lawyers, at least since the Drexel Burnham boys headed to the clink in the early '90s. A word of caution, though, to high-finance criminals facing the prospect of time behind bars. You do not want to show up to prison totally unprepared a la Sherman McCoy in Bonfire of the Vanities. Certain matters should be taken into account before you head off to the clink. There are even ways to parlay your riches and master-of-the-universe shtick into preferential treatment! Tips for disgraced Wall Streeters on how to survive behind bars after the jump.

In case you needed some inducement to visit Joel Warren and Edward Tricomi's new 6,100-square-foot hair salon at the Plaza, they'll be offering concierge services as well as the usual styling and coloring: "If you can imagine it, we can arrange it," Warren says, "if it's legal…and even if it's not!" [Style.com]

Celebrity novelist Salman Rushdie, whose literary crimes against Islam placed him under a death sentence and whose knighthood sparked threats of retaliation from Al Qaeda, is the frontrunner to win the Best of Booker Prize. Ironically, this is leading to yet another affront to Allah: gambling! UK bookmakers say that an unprecedented number of bets have been placed on Rushdie to win the award, which will be announced tomorrow. [Reuters]

Answering machine at the Park Avenue apartment of Katie Couric and her two daughters.

• New York's Adam Platt spanks Alain Ducasse's new brasserie Benoit with a zero-star review. Some of his least favorite dishes? The lobster ravioli (a "viscous mess"), cassoulet (tastes like it was "preheated in a microwave"), and the steak tartare ("dressed with enough horseradish to choke a cow.") [NYM]

The man who'd very much like to be the next mayor, grocery store magnate John Catsimatidis, turns 60 today. Also celebrating: Tom Hanks is 52, Courtney Love is 44, and Jack White is 33. Theater producer Ted Chapin is 58. Architect Michael Graves is turning 75. ACLU director Anthony Romero is 44. And Floyd Abrams, the legendary First Amendment lawyer and father of Dan Abrams, will be 72 today.

They really should teach this in Celebrity PR 101: Do not, however tempting, publicly rhapsodize at great length about your fabulous and life-changing new relationship, because said relationship will consequently not last the week. Poor Russell Simmons, days after touchingly sharing with HuffPo readers how he and 25-year-old Porschla Coleman had bonded over yoga and spirituality, is back on the market, according to Page Six. No doubt Simmons will bounce back—he is in possession of a highly-evolved consciouness, after all—but will the eager bidders on a private yoga lesson with Porschla at her ex's house, in aid of Art for Life, now be disappointed?

• Billionaire mogul Bruce Wasserstein is leaving his youthful, second wife Claude for an even more youthful "Asian beauty," whom he has been introducing to friends as his girlfriend. According to the Daily News, this practice of old, white men stepping out with younger Asian chicks might just be a trend! [Rush & Molloy]