Busy days. Sometimes I think it’s just us because the calendar gets thicker and the work keeps piling up, but when I ask around, I learn that the social scene, the going-out scene, the charity gala scene in New York these days is busier than ever.

Even on a Sunday: Last night over at the Essex House the James Beard Foundation held their 19th annual Holiday Auction and Dinner – a celebration of French cuisine provided by Bertrand Chemel of Café Boulud, New York City; Hélène Darroze of Hélène Darroze, Paris; Pierre Hermé of Pierre Hermé, Paris; and Daniel Hébet of Restaurant Le Jardin du Quai, L'isle-sur-la-Sorgueand created what must have been an unforgettable dinner.

The menu was paired with a premium selection of wines and spirits from Remy Cointreau USA, including Champagne Piper-Heidsieck, Champagne Charles Heidsieck, Laroche, and Rémy Martin. Sounds good, but imagine when it was over, walking out of the Essex House into the brisk New York night, thinking maybe, as the French would say: de trop ... non? Or, as we’d say in New York: Oy! All those calories!

And meanwhile, over at MoMA, Peggy Siegal was staging one of her brilliant hot-ticket screening soirees of Columbia Pictures/ Dreamworks Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment’s “Memoirs of a Geisha.” Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and his cousin Arthur Golden hosted, followed by a dinner at Osteria del Circo. Mr. Sulzberger is the publisher of the New York Times, and if you didn’t know, has been in the news lately because of Judy Miller, the former reporter of the New York Times who parted company with the paper last week over the Valerie Plame investigation. Mr. Golden, also from the famous newspaper family, has made his mark as author of the book of the same name on which the film is based.

Among the Big Bright New York crowd: Clarissa Bronfman, Campbell Brown, Leon and Debbie Black David and Mary Boies, Claudia Cohen with Carolina and Reinaldo Herrera, Mica and Ahmet Ertegun, Julie Taymor, Steven and Cathy Graham, John Guare and Adele Chatfield Taylor, Bob Balaban, Louisa Beccaria, Buck Henry, Marlene Hess and Jim Zirin, Warren and Olivia Hoge, David Henry Huang, Amy Irving, Dayssi and Paul Kanavos, Bill Keller, Marie-Josee and Henry Kravis, James LaPine, Frank Langella, Santo Loquasto, Bennett Miller (director of “Capote”), Samantha and Abie Rosen, Perri Peltz, Fred Schepisi, Tony Roberts, Julian Schnabel, Mary Beth Hurt, John Patrick Shanley, Allison and Arthur Sulzberger Sr., Gail Sulzberger, Judy Sulzberger, Annie Sulzberger, Annette Tapert, Tommy Tune, Michael Wller, Alexandra and Sheila (Mrs. Tom) Wolfe, Jean Doumanian, David and Helen Gurley Brown, Victoria and Minot Amory, Nathan Bernstein (Katharina’s in Europe), Bill Blair (sans Deeda) and Marshall Brickman.

Premieres and screenings are big doings on the social calendar these days. Last Thursday night they opened Work Title Films production of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” in New York, starring Keira Knightley, Matthew McFadyen, Dame Judi Dench, Donald Sutherland, and Brenda Blethyn.

I didn’t make the screening but I went over to the Loeb Boathouse in Central Park for the after-party for several hundred (who did see the picture). The consensus: great.

The producers also gave a block of tickets to Literacy Partners to sell for fund-raising and they raised almost $50,000 for the cause.

I took my Digital and got a few shots (very few comparatively) of the crowd including Mr. Sutherland. I was told that Keira Knightley was there but since I wouldn’t know her from Kyra Sedgwick (I know: my bad) I never got her photograph. I did see a very beautiful young woman at a table who stood out even moreso because she was with another young woman and a bunch of sorta scruffy looking guys. She mighta been Keira Knightley (Ed. Note: after checking Google, I think she was), but she was eating and I didn’t want to disturb her and alas ... no picture.

Mr. Sutherland was with not one, but two very good-looking women who might have been approximately his contemporaries (maybe one was even his wife). Then Arnold Scaasi wanted to help me find the stars to photograph and we came upon Rosamund Pike. “She was in the movie!” he enthused, “Take her picture! With me!” So we stopped her and I asked if I could take her picture. She looked at me and then looked away, as if looking for someone to rescue her or to find her her table or to find her something to eat. Or anything.

“May I take your picture?” I asked as unobnoxiously as possible.

“Yes,” she answered as if it were easier than “no.” So I told her I was going to take her picture with Mr. Scaasi. She continued looking around the crowd (like “get me outta here!) but nevertheless went along.

“It’s Me and my Scaasi!” I joked. Haha.

Uh-uh. She didn’t get it. Nevertheless, we got a picture of the beautiful Ms. Pike and Mr. Scaasi. I was thinking if she knew who Mr. Scaasi was (she’s British), it might be good for her future wardrobe. Who’s might and what’s maybe.

After I left Ms. Pike and Scaasi, I found three very pretty young women at a table together being photographed by some guy. “Who are they?” I asked him. “That’s Julianna Margulies, Natasha Richardson, and Keira Knightley,” he said.

Oh good, I thought: my big chance. So I asked if I could take their picture. They were very agreeable, as you can see. Then when I sent the images to JH said: “that’s not Keira Knightley, that’s Natasha Richardson. And I don’t know who the blonde in the middle is.”

After a few more of those hits and misses, I decided to hang it up and have something to eat. Which in this case was pasta with mushrooms, sausages and pesto, sauteed and tossed in a skillet over a flame by a guy in a toque (a chef?) right before my eyes. Excellent: I went back for seconds, and then left the party.

It’s a short walk (about an eighth of a mile) from the Loeb Boathouse to Fifth Avenue and 72nd Street. It was a beautiful night with a bright three-quarter moon up above and the orange glow of the Park streetlamps lighting my way.

There was no one on the roadway but me. Not even runners. I was thinking how Olmstead and Vaux, when they designed and laid-out the Park back in the middle of the 19th century, taking many of their ideas from Regent’s Park in London, didn’t plan on the Park being used at night. Regent’s Park was full of crime back in those pre-electrified days, and so Olmstead and Vaux designed the transverses so people could get from one side to the other without actually going into the Park. Up until 30 years ago, maybe even less than that, there was no nighttime activity such as runners, cyclists, roller-bladers in the Park. Not anymore. The Park’s designers would probably be surprised at how things have changed and at how much this beautiful Park is used for most of the 24 hours in the day.