Peaches Geldof carrying takeout in Brooklyn ... Ed Westwick walking around town in a velour track suit ... Kate Winslet talking on her cell phone in the West Village ... Kelly Rutherford buying a pretzel on the street with her baby Hermes ... Salma Hayek carrying her baby Valentina ... Taylor Momsen and Connor Paolo filming scenes for Gossip Girl in Midtown ... Katie Holmes heading to yoga class and later getting out of an SUV outside her East 13th Street apartment ... Russell Brand and Jack Black standing outside the Late Show with David Letterman ... and Whoopi Goldberg protesting Proposition 8 outside a Mormon church on Columbus Avenue.

Rachel Weisz walking by herself downtown ... Liev Schreiber carrying his son Alexander on Lafayette Street ... Natalie Portman on the set of her new film ... Jeff Goldblum leaving ABC studios after an appearance on Regis & Kelly ... Salma Hayek carrying her daughter Valentina ... Ed Westwick walking to the Gossip Girl set in Harlem ... Jamie Oliver, Bill Cosby, Taylor Swift, and Ted Turner posing for photos outside the Letterman show ... Taylor Momsen walking with friends in Greenwich Village ... and Danny DeVito leaving Da Silvano with his kids.

♦ Guy Ritchie met up with sons David and Rocco in London yesterday for the first time since October, but only after agreeing to follow a list of rules issued by Madonna, which included no new friends, no fast food, no newspapers, and no TV. [Us, Mirror]
♦ Back in the US, Madonna supposedly threw an "intimate dinner party" at her apartment so she could introduce Alex Rodriguez to a group of her friends. [Mirror]
♦ One week after Tim Robbins experienced a few problems trying to cast his vote in the presidential election, officials now say they pinpointed the issue: Robbins turned up at the wrong polling location, which he might have known if he'd bothered to vote in the mid-term elections. [NYDN, P6]

Mary-Kate Olsen smoking during lunch with boyfriend Nate Lowman ... Jeremy Piven hailing a cab outside Balthazar ... Robin Williams leaving his hotel ... Mad Men star Elisabeth Moss crossing the street with a Starbucks cup in hand ... Brad Pitt getting in an SUV outside the Michael Kors boutique on Prince Street and later stopping off at Mercer Kitchen ... Kim Raver, Brooke Shields, and Lindsay Price filming scenes for Lipstick Jungle ... Katie Holmes walking to a yoga class and later carrying Suri into their East Village apartment building ... and Ed Westwick walking on the Upper East Side.

Natalie Portman walking her dog in the West Village ... A bundled up Scarlett Johansson walking with friends ... Ashanti posing outside the Early Show ... Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts grabbing coffee ... Julianne Moore walking in the East Village ... Ed Westwick leaving a photo shoot for K-Swiss ... Whitney Port standing under an umbrella with a friend ... Jessica Alba on the set of her new film in Brooklyn ... Jessica Szohr trying on clothes at a French Connection store ... country singer Brad Paisley waving outside the Letterman show ... Kate Winslet talking on her phone in the meatpacking district ... and Katie Holmes and Suri walking under an oversized lady bug umbrella.

♦ Soon-to-be-single Madonna premiered her directorial debut, Filth and Wisdom, at the Sunshine Theater on Monday night. On the red carpet and/or the after-party at the Thompson LES: Lindsay Lohan (left), Jerry Seinfeld, Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber, Ann Dexter-Jones, David Blaine, Alan Cumming, America Ferrera, Brooke Shields, Marc Jacobs and Lorenzo Martone, Glenda Bailey, Jessica Alba and Cash Warren, Juliette Lewis, Jason Biggs, Jeremy Piven, Vanessa Williams, Becki Newton, Malin Akerman, Lake Bell, Max Minghella, Padma Lakshmi, Terry Richardson, Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson, Joe Zee, Byrdie Bell, Fabiola Beracasa, Ferebee Bishop Taube, Zani Gugelmann, Katie Lee Joel, Beth Ostrosky, Eleanor Ylvisaker, Kelly Klein, Minnie Mortimer, Maggie Rizer, Chace Crawford, Amanda Cutter Brooks, Ingrid Sischy, Ross Bleckner, Nancy Jarecki, Derek Blasberg, Ed Westwick, Rose Byrne, Taylor Momsen, Debbie Bancroft, Terry Richardson, Bruce Weber, Guy Oseary, and Ali Wise and Jason Pomeranc. [The Daily, PMc, Wireimage, Style.com]

Uma Thurman outside her West Village apartment ... Ethan Hawke walking in Chelsea with his wife, baby, and dog ... Sarah Jessica Parker walking son James to school ... Ed Westwick in the makeup chair on the Gossip Girl set ... Peter Dinklage taking his dog for a walk ... Kate Winslet leaving her apartment ... Katie Holmes and Suri walking in the East Village ... Michelle Williams posing with Richie Rich on the red carpet ... Gary Sinise and Scott Wolf on the set of CSI ... Michelle Obama leaving the Time Warner building after an appearance on Larry King Live ... Sarah Chalke and Dennis Quaid outside the Letterman show ... and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen arriving at the airport last night.

Chelsea Clinton walking in flip-flops with a cup of espresso in hand ... Penn Badgley and Ed Westwick filming scenes for Gossip Girl outside the Palace Hotel ... Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes laughing with friends in Times Square ... Tom Cruise and daughter Suri leaving their apartment ... Rachel Bilson making an in-store appearance at Macy's in Herald Square ... John Mayer leaving his apartment with a big bag ... Madonna's kids Lourdes and Rocco arriving at the Kabbalah Center ... Tim Robbins and Brian Williams outside the Letterman show ... Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel getting in an SUV after Howard Stern and Beth Ostrosky's wedding at Le Cirque ... Angelina Jolie outside Lee's Art Shop on West 57th Street with her kids, and later leaving Nobu with Brad Pitt.

The boys of Gossip Girl grace the cover of November's issue of Details, and inside, they recount the indignities they are forced to endure as professional thespians (such as avoiding paparazzi or shaving their tween-intimidating chest hair). None of the Gossip trio has it harder than pretty pony Chace Crawford, however, whose protestations that he's more than simply an actor/model are ignored by lascivious writer Mark Harris ("Perhaps you've seen [Crawford] shirtless and treasure-trailed for Abercrombie & Fitch" — perhaps we haven't, Mark!). Unfortunately for Crawford, there's one obstacle he may never overcome, and it's an affliction that is common in young men with Diesel jeans and a gym membership to Crunch:

♦ Natalie Portman is single. She's split up with boyfriend Devendra Banhart. Best of luck, guys! [People]
♦ The son of famed architect Richard Meier says his dad is gay and he was forced into a mental hospital and disinherited for saying so. Richard's friends, meanwhile, say he's definitely not gay and he's actually quite the ladies' man. [P6]
♦ Clay Aiken pocketed roughly $500,000 for his coming-out cover story deal with People. [MSNBC]
♦ Sarah Palin might make a cameo on Saturday Night Live. Also, Hugh Hefner would love to give her a spread in Playboy. [OK!, Daily Star]

It's the most unfightable news story of the day. Last night, at a Kings of Leon concert, actress Drew Barrymore got into some down 'n dirty tonsil hockey with Gossip Girl fop Ed Westwick. They were sucking face like mad, for all the world to see. And see the world did, if our tips inbox is any indication. Several breathless emails arrived in the early morn, keening to us about this sex explosion that will surely ruin the world with its blinding hotness. Or something. Read some accounts of the events after the jump.

When Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick are confronted with the fact that everyone wants them to be totally gay for each other (or indeed for anyone), they're forced to tap dance along a thin line between enthuasiastically avowing their absolute heterosexuality and not in any way alienating their fanbase. (Says Ed: "It's not true, but hilarious... People project their fantasies...") For women, though, the issue is just not so stressful: Queen B. Leighton Meester, for example, is delighted to be a Sapphic object of desire.

Good morning friends! I am still in bed (don't get sexy thoughts-at the moment I look like Joe Pesci's mom if she'd just fallen down the stairs) and am exhausted from my astute late night political coverage. Anyway this is all to say that I'm tired and mayyyyyyybe a bit hungover, so let's start off with a softball. You know Gossip Girl? Sure you do! You know one of its stars, the catfish looking Ed Westwick? Of course. Well other than being a sort of walking parody of a brooding English actor, he writes poetry!

Transforming himself from inexperienced young Brit to decadent scion of privilege Chuck Bass clearly involves some impressive acting skills on the part of Ed Westwick, but as The Transom discovers, only by seeing the process up-close can you appreciate quite how much elaborate facial contortion is involved: "Mr. Westwick skillfully relaxes his eyelids... tilts his head sort of down and to the side, and proceeds to flex his nostrils as if mid-yawn and, voila!" Somewhere, Stanislavski is looking on and smiling. [Observer]

When we first saw the photos of Gossip Girl stars Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick lounging on the grass between takes-as louche and laissez-faire as two successful young men in the primes of their lives can be-something about the photos struck as familiar. But we weren't quite sure what it was until today, when a helpful tipster pointed us in the right direction. It's straight out of Brideshead: Revisited! Specifically a scene from the Jeremy Irons miniseries based on the Evelyn Waugh novel about class and religion and forbidden desire. Chace is the timid but fascinated Charles Ryder, Ed is the aristocratic seen-it-all-except-it Sebastian Flyte. Hopefully no Julia or Lady Marchmain will come between them this time. [Brideshead photo from tipster, other via Bauer-Griffin]

Gisele Bundchen leaving her townhouse in the West Village ... Veronica Webb chatting on her cell phone while walking downtown ... Michelle Williams pushing Matilda in a stroller through their Brooklyn neighborhood ... Ed Westwick, Penn Badgley, and Chace Crawford filming scenes for Gossip Girl up at Columbia ... Katharine McPhee waving to fans outside MTV ... Ron Kuby walking down Third Avenue ... Miranda Kerr riding on the back of Orlando Bloom's motorcycle on the street downtown ... and Katie Holmes attending a rehearsal for her upcoming show.

["Gossip Girl" (13 days!) actor Ed Westwick filming on set yesterday; image via Splash] Steverino_Begins' new line beats the original, Ed Westwick Goofs the Floof.

Mary-Kate Olsen taking a walk downtown, iced coffee in hand ... Jennifer Lopez in a GMA interview in Central Park with Chris Cuomo ... Tim Robbins chatting with fans playing hockey in the Village ... Katie Holmes, Tom Cruise, and Suri playing in Central Park ... Sarah Silverman walking through SoHo with a friend ... Ed Westwick filming Gossip Girl on the campus of Columbia ... Paris Hilton and Benji Madden holding hands on their way to a waiting SUV ... and John Mayer leaving Nobu with his brother Carl.

["Gossip Girl" actor Ed Westwick walking in New York and picking his nose yesterday; image via Splash]

["Gossip Girl" dauphin Ed Westwick filming in Brooklyn Heights, a dangerous part of town, today; image via Splash]