"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future!"

This remark is not one of movie mogul Samuel L. Goldwyn’s famous malapropisms. Though it certainly should be. It is actually the utterance of Niels Bohr, the Nobel Prize-winning Danish physicist who first applied the quantum theory.

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Last year at this time after the Toronto Film Festival, smart insiders came home to tell me that a little film, an independent called "Slumdog Millionaire," would go on to win the Academy Award. I had no opinion, but indeed it happened.

This year there seems to be no consensus. People say that the sleeper "Precious," which I’ve been writing about for over a year, and George Clooney’s "Up in the Air" will definitely be contenders.


George Clooney/Image: Nicolas Genin/Flickr

If there is a secret hoped-for winner, it would be the Weinstein Company’s glamorous musical "Nine," starring just about every famous female star in the international firmament.

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New York is a nervous breakdown. In Chicago recently, on wowOwow.com business, I was amazed at the rich and social citizens who approached me saying how "sophisticated, exciting and out-of-this-world New York is" – as if they’re apologizing for Chicago being backwater. I had to respond in amazement: "Are you kidding?"

Sometimes I think of an evening out in New York as the equivalent to picking cotton (really hard) or appearing onstage opening night without having learned my lines. Heart-stopping!) Here’s a sample:

Last Thursday I went to Swifty’s popular café where we had a meeting of the committee for the Fete de Swifty, upcoming on September 23. After that, I had a command performance to appear at the Doubles nightspot for the annual celebration of Quest magazine, in which my byline often appears. (I have to give publisher Chris Meigher credit. He got Doubles to make the best hors d’oeuvres of the night.

Segued from there to an East Side apartment of Elizabeth Stribling and Guy Robinson. They were pouring for the Landmark Conservancy benefit. This happens November 4 and we are turning a clutch of New Yorkers into "Living Landmarks" and legends in their own lifetime!

I guess you think I went home after that? But, no, popped into the new Renaissance Hotel opening at Lexington Avenue and 57th Street to celebrate with the Ritz Carlton folks at a party, hosted by Kathleen Matthews, who runs all their happenings. Had a chance to chat with that fellow Kathleen is married to, what’s-his-name of MSNBC TV. Oh yes, he’s Chris Matthews and he always accuses me of being "opinionated" where he is "dispassionate" and "reasonable." I guess so.

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Another evening, there I was, barefooted, on a rocking boat in the Hudson River off of Chelsea Pier 60 sipping some mighty fine tequila. I always like my tequila disguised in the mighty margarita, but the entrepreneur of this "sipping" event was the famous tycoon Bob Pittman and no margarita was in sight. He then taught me a thing or two about his new tequila, imported from San Miguel de Allende. The name is "Casa Dragones." The Dragones were historic cavalrymen who helped win Mexico’s independence. Bob’s tequila comes from the blue agave plant (actually it’s not a cactus as some believe, but from the lily family).

It takes eight to a dozen years for each plant in Mexico to be harvested. Then, in the end, the tequila outstrips all others, or so Pittman claims, in smell, taste and elegance. (It was pretty damned good!) I have to bow to this Mississippi native’s sipping expertise. He is an Internet phenomenon and offering up good tequila has become his offbeat passion. As I passed Rolling Stone’s owner, Jann Wenner, with my new blue Casa Dragones T-shirt, which I had snatched off a handsome hunk behind the bar, Jann said, "Don’t fall overboard, Liz"