It was mellow today at Michael's. Several interesting pairings and sightings: Michael Caruso (former ed of Men's Journal) was there with Men's Health editor Dave Zinczenko (do we see bigger abs in the works for Caruso?). Carlos Lamadrid, once of Men's Journal, then of Jane, was in the room, too. Glamour's Cindi Leive was there with two boys from Slate (do we smell a syndication deal?).

mb's Editorial Director, Dorian, and I had lunch with Gil Schwartz, and not just because we knew he could get us a good table, but also because we thought he would be interesting company. Boy, did we learn a lot. For those of you who don't know Gil, he works as the chief corp comm guy at CBS; on the side, he writes under the pen name Stanley Bing. Anyway, more on Gil later, here's the list of folks who were there today:

Table 1: John Millington (yes, Steve the manager's dad), who worked raising money at the Council on Foreign Relations for 20 years after an equally long career in publishing -- introducing Time magazine in southeast Asia (where Steve -- who knew? -- learned to speak fluent Thai!). He was honoring some former CFR colleagues at the table of honor.

2: Bobby Zarem (the PR guy who created the "I Love NY" campaign you see everywhere). Got the bag, bagged the T-shirt.

3: Mayor of Michael's Joe Armstrong with PR impresario and scion Steve Rubenstein.

4: PR Impresario Numero Uno Howard Rubenstein (Steve #2's dad), with Les Goodstein, the new head of advertising at Newscorp, and another Rubenstein employee.

5: Our table. Gil Schwartz is a compendium of information about old and new-fangled management techniques. Bet you didn't know just how brutal those Romans could be; and those Etruscans, what pussycats! "While the Etruscan might try to have a pleasant negotiation over pizza, a Roman would not hesitate to poke an Etruscan in the eye while he was sleeping in order to win his aim," explains Schwartz, "That is a technique still honored by a lot of people in this room [he gestures to other Michael's guests]." Gil has done massive research on this stuff for his new management guide: Rome, Inc.: The Rise and Fall of the First Multinational Corporation. We like Gil. We think we'll keep him very close (but not while we're sleeping).

6: The testosterone version of Ladies Who Lunch, these guys used to meet every week in the Green Room at Trattoria dell'Arte. Now, they're here! TV's Joel Siegel, advertising king-pin Jerry Della Femina, CNN's Jeff Greenfield, Gerry Imber and other men d'un certain age.

7: Blahnik's George Malkemus, Cindy P. Price.

8: New York Social Diary's David Patrick Columbia with a bevy of babes. [A little birdie told us: DPC was with Marcia Vickers of Fortune Magazine, Silda Spitzer (wife of
Eliot) and Maggie Jones of Children For Children (a non-profit created by Silda Spitzer.]

9: Jackie Style authoress Pamela Clarke Keogh with pal Liz Aiello of Sirius, who works closely with Howard Stern. [A little birdie later wrote: "[Liz] is News Director for Howard Stern, [she] came over from Channel 7 (where she ran the 6:00pm news).]

11: Second seating: Josh Howard, formerly of 60 Minutes, now with CNBC, with Mary Murphy, also formerly of CBS News. Mary is currently directing a documentary. Josh is now a VP at CNBC.

12: MediaVillage.com ceo and tv-industry hot-shot Jack Myers with sexy swannish Maury Rogoff and two guys from MediaPace, new clients of hers: Scott Kushner (ceo) and Jesse London (ad sales).

14: William Lauder. Yes, that Lauder.

15: Glamour's Cindi Leive in a really hot-looking black and gold-beige suit by Alberto Ferretti. She was joined by David Plotz (sp?) and Jacob Weisberg, of Slate. We like Jacob's mom (Lois Weisberg, of The Tipping Point fame), ever since we read about her in the New Yorker lo those years ago. She's a fellow connectrix.

16: Walter Sabo, chairman of Sabo Media (he consults for Parade Magazine, Sirius Satellite Radio, National Geographic and Bonneville Broadcasting). He invented talk programming on the FM band. He was lunching with John Gehron, genius program director of famous radio stations such as WLS Chicago. He's the former radio division chief for Clear Channel MidWest. Tim Sabean, program director of the Howard Stern station on Sirius Satellite Radio.

17: Smooth operator (hey, he's on EW's "Power List"!) Jack Romanos, president and ceo of Simon & Schuster, with Avin Mark Domnitz, ceo of the American Booksellers Association.

18: Will Schenk (sp?) with Carlos Lamadrid, publisher of Jane, formerly publisher Men's Journal. Word is Jann Wenner tried to get Carlos back for Rolling Stone, but to no avail.

19: Alyce Alston, CEO of De Beers, former publisher of W and its offshoots.

20: Judy Price with Tina Flaherty, author of What Jackie Taught Us. Flaherty and Keogh--TWO Jackie authors in one seating!

21: Peter Herbst, editor-in-chief of Premiere and hot-shot exec at Hachette. Who was he with??

22: Robert Blumenfeld (sp?) with two gals.

23: Michael Kassan, lawyer and strategic media consultant.

24: Jordan Ringel, hot-shot entertainment attorney with a winning smile.

25: Eric Korman (son of Lou Korman).

27: Some editor of The Face of Stockholm.

29: Hard-living, hard-body (and former ed of Men's Journal Michael Caruso with easy-going, soft-body (or maybe this is supposed to be reversed?) David Zinczenko, of Men's Health. Will Caruso be in a position to someday sue Zincky? We're all atwitter with the possibilities. Caruso certainly looked (as Gil put it), "like the cat who swallowed the canary")!

28: Time Inc.'s Eileen Naughton with another woman. WHO??

If you were at Michael's today (or any day) and would like to report in, or correct the record, please email LaurelT AT mediabistro.com

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