Where to begin, where to begin? As Stephen Colbert said at one point last night during the Time 100 gala at Lincoln Center — his first "public" appearance since the now-infamous White House Correspondents dinner speech — "This is cool ... It's the 100 most influential people hanging out and influencing each other."

From a media event standpoint, it doesn't get much buzzier. From the multiple red-carpet entrance that included no less than three layers of organized paparazzi (we rode a Mavericks-sized wave of flashbulbs just in front of J.Lo and Mark Anthony) to Katie Couric's toast of Edward R. Murrow, the boldfaced names flowed all night, from all angles: Scandal-touched authors (Dan Brown), scandal-touched Time faces (Matthew Cooper, Norm Pearlstine), titans of leftist satire (Colbert and Al Franken) and their right-bent enemies (Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter), one-time presidential hopefuls (John McCain, Ralph Nader), current members (Condoleeza Rice), music moguls with major posses (Diddy), money honies (Maria Bartiromo), domestic divas old (Martha Stewart) and new (Rachael Ray), gold medalists (Joey Cheek), big-time directors (George Lucas, Jerry Bruckheimer) and actors (Isabella Rossellini, Will Smith), ubiquitous Marsalises (Wynton) and one very forgiving political blogger-cum-author (Ana Marie Cox). A fun, surreal evening.

FishbowlNY notes from the cocktail hour: