— DIANE CLEHANE

With the dog days of summer upon us, the usual suspects at Michael's are soldiering on over their Cobb salads until it's time to take off those last few weeks of the month to the Hamptons, Nantucket or some other sun-filled spot far from the madding crowd. In the meantime, the random celebrity sighting is keeping things interesting. Word of illusionist JB Benn's sleight of hand tricks that kept the crowd bedazzled last week must have gotten around the magician's union because my spies told me that David Blaine walked in without a reservation yesterday and was bending quarters for everybody's amusement. Just thought you'd like to know.

I was lunching today with publishing powerhouse turned Internet entrepreneur Joni Evans, whose five-month old site Wowowow.com is going great guns. Joni, who is wow's CEO, launched the site with pals Liz Smith, Peggy Noonan, Mary Wells and Lesley Stahl for "self-assured women who are a bit too old to care what everybody thinks." This month, Joni kicked off "The Book Party" with Judith Martin (Miss Manners) reading a collection of the classics. "It's been incredibly well-received," she says, and plans are in the works to expand the vertical in all sorts of interesting ways. And that's not all -- Joni tells me in the not-so-distant future the site will introduce a new fashion maven into the mix to cover style and a health vertical 'Medicine Ball.' The site's content is popping up on MSN.com, Fox.com and Yahoo's Shine. For more dish about Joni and her newfound career, check out her interview with me for our "So What Do You Do?" series coming next month ...

Here's the rundown on today's crowd:

1. Charlie Rose and an unidentifed young blonde gal

2. Peter Brown

3. Jonathan Tisch and John Sykes

4. Michael Fuchs and Peggy Siegal

5. Stan Shuman and a casually-clad gent

6. Gerry Byrne reading the New York Post until Michael Yuddin arrived

8. Charlie Schueler and John Ellis

9. Joni Evans and yours truly

11. Jane Friedman (who gave Joni a big hello when we were making our way out) and Jan Constantine

12. For the second week in a row: MSNBC's Joe Scarborough with Morning Joe cohost Mika Brzezinski, with Ed Rollins and wife Shari

14. Diane Sokolow and Nancy Moonves (Les' ex, in case you were wondering)

15. Peter Price (just one table away from the Mrs.)

16. Judy Price

17. Freddie Friedman

18. Producer Stanley Jaffe

20. My pal Joan Gelman with Lynn Goldberg

21. Quest's Chris Meigher

22. Jack Myers (Long time no see!)

23. Jordan Ringel

24. Nick E. Rubinstein (Thanks for stopping by and saying hello)

25. Business Week's Jon Fine (hubby of mediabistro.com founder Laurel Touby) with Air America chairman Charlie Kireker and CEO Bennett Zier

26. Portfolio editrix Joanne Lippman

28. Showtime's spinmeister Stu Zakim with MIN's Steve Cohn. The always affable Stu stopped by for a chat and to give me a sneak peek at the clever ad campaign they've got planned for the hotter than hot -- and Emmy nominated -- Dexter. Trust me, it's bound to get plenty of ink. The show's new season premieres September 28 (You're welcome, Stu)

29. Susan Mercandetti and David Sloan

Faces in the crowd: Marchesa designer Georgina Chapman (aka Mrs. Harvey Weinstein) heading into the Garden Room. Take note all you strivers -- power is where you find it.

Please send comments and corrections to DianeClehane AT mediabistro Dot com and lunch AT mediabistro DOT com.