The scene: the annual production of (topical) satire by the Inner Circle, New York City's political writers. The scene stealer: New York's Mayor John Lindsay, candidate for reelection, singing a ditty he composed to the tune of Where Have All the Flowers Gone?:
Where has the charisma gone?
Long lost, I know.
Where has all the magic gone?
Smothered in snow.
Lost the Irish, Jews and Blacks,
My biggest fans are my own flacks.
When will I ever learn,
The ethnic vote's returned.
Where has the charisma gone?
Went out on strike.
Transit, garbage, teachers, cabs,
Pick one you like.
The town's been put up tight so much,
I can't even take a honky to lunch.
Can I regain the spell?
The next few months will tell.
His young wife Joanna at his side, the gentle old man passed his 90th birthday at his home in West Redding, Conn. Edward Steichen, dean of the world's professional photographers, told a New York Times reporter what he has been doing. Mainly, he has been photographing a tree--a 20-ft. shadblow--in every phase of foliation for a color movie he is making. All that remains is to record his "friend" in a storm. "I freely admit that I'm in love with that little tree," he said. "I want the storm to buffet her, but I hope she doesn't get hurt. If anybody chopped her down, I think I'd kill him." And he added: "My life is fulfilled. I can understand with greater intimacy than ever the relationship that binds all growing things."
"Just being there, just standing there, is enough, even if he doesn't do anything at all." The way U.C.L.A. Coach John Wooden sized up his 7-ft. 1 3/8 in. center, Lew Alcindor. was decidedly academic. In three seasons of college basketball, Lew scored 2,325 points, snagged 1,367 rebounds and led U.C.L.A. to three straight N.C.A.A. championships. Each year he was a unanimous All-American choice; twice he was named Player of the Year. The foundering American Basketball Association reportedly offered him $1,000,000--to play for any A.B.A. team of his choosing. But the Milwaukee Bucks, of the established National Basketball Association, topped the bidding with an undisclosed, but obviously monumental, package. His fortune assured, Lew could be pardoned a cheer or two. But right now, he insists, "I'm thinking only of getting out of school in June."
On her sweeps about Venice in her private gondola, Peggy Guggenheim. 70, has borne a vexatious problem: What to do with her vast art collection when she dies? Her palazzo on the Grand Canal is filled with Cubist, Surrealist and Abstract Expressionist treasures. Museums in New York and London have clamored for it but she wanted to keep it in Venice. Then she hit upon an ingenious solution. Why not New York's Guggenheim Museum? So, title to Peggy's 263 prime works, valued at up to $12 million, will be given to the Guggenheim--on the condition that they be permanently located in Venice, available to the Guggenheim for exhibits. Except during the tourist season when, Peggy says, the works must be in the palazzo on the Grand Canal.
"Don't be so gloomy!" she cried to friends gathered at the small cafe in Madrid. "When I get out, we will go to the country and roast a lamb." With that, Luisa Isabel Alvarez de Toledo Maura, 32, Duchess of Medina Sidonia, crossed the street to a courthouse to begin serving a one-year prison sentence. The duchess, whose title* is one of the most venerated in her country, was convicted of illegal protest when she led the villagers of Palomares on a protest trip to Madrid on the first anniversary of the crash of a U.S. bomber bearing a load of H-bombs near the town on Jan. 17, 1966.
They say he's a millionaire after all those movies. Not so, insists California's Republican Governor Ronald Reagan, and to prove it, said he could not scrape up the dough to buy the house he has been renting in Sacramento. His lease was running out, and the landlord wanted him to get up the $150,000 purchase price or get out by April 1. To the rescue came 14 citizens who bought the house, then leased it back to Reagan at his normal $1,250-a-month rent. California Democrats were so touched they organized a "Bundles for Reagan" campaign, urging people to mail a "bag of anything" to the Governor. First bundle to arrive contained--what else?--real estate ads.
* She is a descendant of the 7th Duke of Medina Sidonia who, as an admiral, led the Spanish Armada against England in 1588.
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