Surely you’ve heard all about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid calling Kirsten Gillibrand the “hottest member” in the Senate by now. And we always thought Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) had “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” But anyway, with lust in the legislative air, we made straight for the RoutanBabymaker3000. The Babymaker3000 uses some kind of photo software to predict what the offspring of any two prospective parents might look like. (For some reason known only by would-be viral marketers, this site is promoting the Volkswagen Routan, which is apparently some sort of new corn syrup substitute.)

Authentic computer simulation of Harry Reid and Kirsten Gillibrand’s baby.

Of course, the only problem with this is that everyone knows that Scott Brown (R-Massachusetts) is in fact “the hottest member.” After the jump, see what Reid and Brown’s baby would look like... If you DARE!

Photo via LehmanClutch.com.Today saw a quirky, morally questionable addition to the online-shopping community in the form of a Lehman Brothers clutch. “A savvy shopper discovered 30 vinyl, forest green, Lehman bank envelopes at an estate sale and turned them into ‘Lehman clutches’ that are surprisingly cute, with an embossed logo and an on-trend metal clasp,” Refinery29 reports. On-trend indeed! In the wake of the recession, America has been positively bullish on funereal, financial crisis fashion.

This Wednesday, September 22, a one-day only show will be mounted in the creamy marble halls of the New York Public Library’s flagship Fifth Avenue branch. To celebrate the public opening of the Library’s archival holdings of Gay Men’s Health Crisis (G.M.H.C.)—a groundbreaking organization founded in the earliest moments of the AIDS epidemic—a half-dozen vitrines will line Astor Hall, displaying materials related to the organization’s efforts in assisting people living with AIDS.

“G.M.H.C. were pioneers in every one of the core areas in responding to the AIDS crisis: education, client services, development, and research,” Jason Bauman—Coordinator of the Library’s extensive Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) collections—told me as we toured the exhibition. “It’s amazing how immediate their response was—their first newsletter comes out in 1982, when there were just a few hundred AIDS-related deaths, before it was even called AIDS. And right from the start, they were predicated on providing both a medical and personal response.”

Chord Overstreet joins the cast of Glee in Season 2 as Sam Evans, a transfer student to McKinley High, and rumors have been swirling around the internet that the hunky, 21-year-old Bieber-haired Nashville native will not only become the school’s starting quarterback and a member of the Glee club, but might start hitting for my team as a possible love interest for Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer). In an effort to ferret out the truth—or at least some sensational and prurient details—I gave Chord a call and grilled him about guilty pleasures, kissing boys, and his athletic build.

Brett Berk: I’m sure you get this all the time, but: Chord Overstreet? It’s like the moniker Charles Dickens would give to a plucky young dulcet-voiced hustler who lives in an abandoned coal shed on elevated train tracks. Where did you get that name?

Chord Overstreet: I got the name from my mom and dad. I come from a big family—I have four sisters and one brother—and I was the third one born. And there are three notes in a chord, so, that’s how I got that name. My dad’s in the music business so he gave me a musical name.

Lo, the most important day of the Earth, Wind & Fire calendar! Today marks the 21st night of September, the date that appears in the opening lyric to the disco band’s most famous song, “September.” (And no, we’re not even going to address the crackpot theories of Earth, Wind & Fire historical revisionists who award that distinction to “Boogie Wonderland.”) The song, which was included on the band’s first greatest-hits album, The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire Vol. 1, in 1978, was a bona fide hit, skyrocketing to No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard R&B; chart and the top of every bar mitzvah–D.J.’s playlist for the next 30 years. In fact, throughout the 80s and 90s, “September” became a welcome fixture at wedding receptions, graduation galas, engagement events, and 50th-birthday parties alike. As is the 21st Night of September Day tradition—actually, for the most observant, the holiday typically lasts until December, when “we found the love we shared in September/Only blue talk and love”—we recall the most magnificent musical offerings to the gods of Earth, Wind & Fire.

Jason Ritter and Sarah Roemer in The Event.

“The Event wants to be the next Lost,” is what people are going to say. We’ve been down this road before: The Nine, Jericho, Flashforward, Invasion, Life on Mars, Day Break, and countless others were all heralded, at one point or another, as “The Next Lost.” But I’m going to let you in on a little secret: There’s no such thing as “The Next Lost.” It’s a fantasy, a futile quest, a snipe hunt. Lost is one of the first sc-fi or fantasy shows that was actually successful in primetime—story and ratings wise. Because it’s the first, it has been celebrated as some sort of savior to television; a title it probably doesn’t quite deserve. Lost, as a television show, can’t compete with its own folklore. It’s become the Show To Which All Others Will Be Judged. I’m tired of this search. What we have now is not the next Lost, it’s the first The Event—whatever that means. So let’s get one thing straight: I refuse to compare The Event to Lost (unless totally necessary).

America’s Senate majority leader, Nevada’s own Harry Reid, has been on quite a saying-things rampage these days! Just last week, he said something that was, until today, one of the most inappropriate things he’s ever uttered. Reid invoked the term of endearment “my pet”—twice—in referring to Delaware senatorial hopeful Chris Coons. “I'm going to be very honest with you—Chris Coons, everybody knows him in the Democratic caucus. He’s my pet. He’s my favorite candidate,” Reid said at a September 11 memorial, adding, “I told him that and I tried to get him to run. I’m glad he’s running. I just think the world of him. He’s my pet.” An infantilized, emasculated Coons later admitted, “I've met Senator Reid at least twice.”

Charles Dana Gibson at his summer home near Dark Harbor, Maine, 1940. Credit: Condé Nast Archive.

Fashion week is generally about looking forward, assessing developing trends, and discovering new engines of creativity that are likely to determine the way people dress and define style in the months and years ahead. In Manhattan last week, tastemakers from all over the world attended elaborate runway shows and extravagant parties, searching for innovations that might suddenly spread like wildfire throughout popular culture.

Ironically, though, the greatest expression of style and beauty that I encountered last week did not appear in a designer’s collection or at an ultra-exclusive industry celebration; instead, I found it during an overnight trip to Seven Hundred Acre Island, along coastal Maine. It was among the patrician members of the understated Down East community that I first heard the story of fashion’s historically famous “Gibson Girl,” and saw the iconic images featuring her classic good looks and traditional feminine style.

The former editor in chief of Simon and Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf, and The New Yorker, Robert Gottlieb has had an illustrious publishing career that spans more than half a century. His latest book, Sarah: The Life of Sarah Bernhardt (Yale University Press; September 21), is the inaugural title in Yale’s new biography series, Jewish Lives. Gottlieb tracks the trajectory through which “The Divine Sarah,” the illegitimate daughter of a courtesan, transformed herself into the first international celebrity performer. In the following excerpt, Gottlieb introduces us to the actress’s elusive early life, speculative family tree, and lifelong motto: Quand même or “Against all odds.”

Stephanie Seymour and Peter Brant in 2008. Photograph via PatrickMcMullan.com.

The December 2009 issue of Vanity Fair contained a series of delectably revealing photographs by Mario Testino showing supermodel Stephanie Seymour, then 40, covered by little more than her own carefully arranged limbs and a few droplets of water. The spread was accompanied by an account of the decidedly ugly divorce proceedings involving Seymour and Peter Brant, her husband of 15 years and the father of her three children. Seymour charged Brant, who is now 63, with carting away part of the family art collection without her consent, cutting off her allowance (a tidy $2,500 a week in cash), and trying to turn the children against her. Brant, in turn, dredged up Seymour’s stint in rehab and claimed that she had performed an intramural art heist of her own.

We were perhaps, therefore, not the only ones pleasantly surprised by today’s news that Seymour and Brant have decided to call off their divorce. After a year and a half of legal wrangling, and millions of dollars in fees, the couple has evidently concluded that Abraham Lincoln’s united-we-stand business needn’t only apply to nation states. Superior Court Judge Lynda Munro of Middletown, Connecticut, spoke for us all when she said, “That’s interesting. Of course, good luck.”

Related: “First, the Gloves Came Off …” (Portraits by Mario Testino)

Last night saw the Dancing with the Stars debut of Bristol Palin. For all her hip-shaking and shoulder-shimmying, the Alaskan actress/public relations executive had a thoroughly mediocre showing. Gawker called her performance “grody,” which is not exactly accurate but quite damning nonetheless. The Washington Post was more generous, raving that Bristol was “not the worst dancer.” Sarah Palin welcomed the episode as a “SWEET diversion from politics.” Indeed, the two-hour respite was likely a welcome change of pace from mandatory meetings with imaginary constituents who apparently elected her to the public office she does not currently hold. In any event, the Dancing with the Stars judges fell somewhere between “grody” and “distracting” on the Bristol Palin–Appreciation Spectrum™. Judge Bruno Tonioli, an Italian choreographer, told Bristol that she shook her “hips like a pro”; she received 18 out of 30 possible points, which, as Parade magazine reasons, is “mid-level.” Still, compared with the performances of some of her competitors—notably those of Jennifer Grey and Audrina Patridge—it already seems unlikely that Bristol will win. What, then, is there to do? We turn now, as many often do in times of crisis, to the wisdom of Sarah Palin, specifically, the Sarah Palin–method of avoiding undue pain and humiliation in following a humbling loss.

• Following the alleged murders of a photography intern and a reporter within two years of each other, the Mexican newspaper El Diario ran an editorial yesterday in which they asked local drug cartels to indicate what information was acceptable to print. [The New York Times]

• Twenty-three year-old Denver Broncos wide receiver Kenny McKinley was found dead yesterday. His death “appears to be the result of a self-inflicted gunshot,” a Colorado police officer said. [CNN]

• Glenn Beck gamely wished Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert “great success” in planning their forthcoming political rallies. [The Hollywood Reporter]

• Genetically-altered salmon: it’s what’s for dinner!* (*Pending F.D.A. approval.) [The Wall Street Journal]

• “I liken my situation to The Sound of Music, not to Jude Law,” Ethan Hawke said of his extramarital affair (now marriage) with his former nanny. [New York Daily News]

Illustration by Al Hirschfeld.It was announced today that New York’s Algonquin Hotel will soon become a Marriott. The Algonquin in its original incarnation, though, will be forever archived in the annals of literary history, as the establishment’s main dining room was home to the Algonquin Round Table, a daily cabal of authors, actors, and journalists—including former New Yorker editor Harold Ross, satirist Dorothy Parker, and comedian Harpo Marx—who punned and philosophized over lunch throughout the 1920s. As the hotel’s imminent devolution into a Marriott commences, we imagine now scenes from the nascent Marriott Round Table.

Donald Trump photo by Michele Sandberg.Hair mogul Donald Trump has ended up on the Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps cutting-room floor! Unlike cameos by Vogue editor at large Hamish Bowles, economist Nouriel Roubini, billionaire Warren Buffett, and Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, among many others, a scene featuring the Apprentice magnate did not make it into the final film. “I only cut it because it was distracting,” said director Oliver Stone, who promised the sequence would be included on the DVD. “He was at the end of the movie and all of sudden, ‘Hey, there’s Donald Trump!’ Structurally, I think we put him in too late.” According to the New York Post, the cameo in question took place at a barbershop, with Michael Douglas’s Gordon Gekko and Trump exchanging revelations about their follicular foibles. However, compared with many of the other cameos in the film, the scene sounds relatively inconspicuous. Below are some screenshots from the final version of the movie, all of which contain cameos that this blogger thought were rather disconcerting.