Ethan Hawke turns 39 today. Mike Nichols, the film director and husband of Diane Sawyer, is turning 78. Gossip Girl's Kelly Rutherford is 41. The First Lady of California, Maria Shriver, is 54. Sally Field is turning 62. Writer Michael Cunningham is 57. Rebecca Romijn (formerly Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) turns 37 today. Thandie Newton is turning 37. Taryn Manning is 31. Actress Emma Stone is 21. TV host Catherine Crier is turning 55. Former Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger is turning 69. Joe Wilson, the former diplomat and husband of Valerie Plame, is 60 And Lamar Odom, the NBA star and poor soul now married to Khloe Kardashian, is 30. A few weekend birthdays after the jump.

It's kind of a sad news day for some. Mostly for actors who never quite took off the way some had hoped. But it's also good news for fans of Amy Poehler and Joy Behar. They're doing just fine.

Ethan Hawke turns 38 today. Mike Nichols, director, four-time divorcé, and husband of Diane Sawyer, is 77. Sally Field is 62. California's First Lady, Maria Shriver, is 53. Michael Cunningham, the author of The Hours, is 56. TV host Catherine Crier is 54. Actress Kelly Rutherford is 40. Rebecca Romijn is 36. Thandie Newton is 36. Taryn Manning is 30. And your favorite former Manhattan Borough President, Ruth Messinger, celebrates her 68th birthday today.

A novelist and Virginia Woolf enthusiast, Michael Cunningham is an American writer, best known for his 1998 novel, The Hours, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award.

At the cocktail party preceding the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses spelling bee last night, former Star editor Joe Dolce was rubbing up against cheetah-sheathed Page Six editor Paula Froelich. Was he here to spell, like Paula? "God no." He was here to cheer on his boy, HarperCollins VP Jonathan Burnham. Joe has been mostly occupied by cheering Jonathan on lately, though he hasn't been completely at loose ends during his year of unemployment: "I was working on a web-based project about design, but I had to pull back from it recently," he said, as a very tall, beautiful woman in a houndstooth skirt and enormous diamond earrings came up behind him and mischievously grinned at everyone. It was Alex Kuczynski, who has been described by this website as a "pervert," a "body modification expert," "somewhat plastically-reconstructed," a "facially-reconfigured semiotician," and most often, "Times rich lady beat reporter." "Hi Bunny!," she said. "I looove your bangs! You look like a person on the 'Brady Bunch'!" Did she mean Cousin Oliver? Whatever, totally charmed! Nikola Tamindzic documented this.

1. Hear Susan Orlean (The Orchid Thief/Adaptation), Michael Cunningham (The Hours), and Louis Begley (About Schmidt) discuss the realities of adapting books for the big screen, with writer Jonathan Lethem moderating.
2. Swipe chocolate and green tea fortune cookies from 66.
3. Check out the Italian fashion exhibit at the Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology.

From a reader, noticing that we seem to have misplaced our Musto-English dictionary: "barfy? no, not a word. But used by Michael Cunningham earlier in Musto's column (see below). a frequent Musto device - repeating silly words & phrases used by his subjects." Ah.

Architect Robert Kahn's CitySecrets guidebooks offer an impressive collection of insider tips provided by contributors such as Michael Cunningham, Penelope Lively, Rick Moody, and fellow architect Richard Meier. Selected sites include the main room in the McKim Mead & White-designed Metropolitan Club, a three-painting tour of Upper East Side museums, and the garden of the General Theological Seminary.

Tripping with the hip tipsters [Boston Globe via Kottke]

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City Secrets: New York City