Here’s Where We Insert A Snappy Reference To A Kinks Song*

But then you’d be asking yourself Who is Ray Davies and why should I care? I can’t completely argue with you there:

He wore a trilby, Ray-Bans, a multicolored scarf, gray stovepipe jeans, and running shoes, and a skeptical expression that belied an affable mood. “The first time I came to New York, with the Kinks, in 1965, we stayed in the Hilton,” he said, heading north on Broadway, toward Columbus Circle. “I was too intimidated to go out. Everybody went out and partied, but I stayed in. I got my six-pack — well, they weren’t six-packs in those days — I got my crate of beer and just drank.”

The Time Warner Center was news to him — “This went up really quickly” — but of little interest. As he walked uptown he pointed out landmarks: the homes or offices of various collaborators or friends — the remastering man, the press agent, the Broadway arranger, the actress from “The Edge of Night” whose story of the cast’s singing its lines in rehearsals (out of boredom) inspired Davies to make the not-so-well-received concept album “The Kinks Present a Soap Opera.”

*Oh, OK, you really got me: “Your Mama And Your Papa And Fat Old Uncle Charlie Out Cruising With Their Friends”.

You Cannot Stop Her, You Can Only Hope To Contain Her

The Claire Danes PR juggernaut rolls along unabated.

Like Cronkite’s Pronouncements About Tet, Heath Ledger’s Departure Portends Trouble For Second-Tier Celebrity Mascots Across Brooklyn . . .

Because once you’ve lost Heath, mass foreclosures can’t be far off . . . Heath Ledger as leading economic indicator:

It wasn’t supposed to matter to Brooklyn. Heath Ledger, the crown prince of the borough’s celebrity aristocracy, apparently fled his fiefdom in Boerum Hill for Manhattan after splitting up with his girlfriend, the actress Michelle Williams.

“To each his own,” said Jay Wilkinson, 29, an actor who lives in the neighborhood, speaking just blocks from the house on Dean Street where Mr. Ledger had lived since 2005 with Ms. Williams and their daughter, Matilda. He echoed a theme expressed by many on blogs and in the streets after the breakup. We barely notice the stars among us. If we lose one, no big deal.

In that, though, lies a tale of arriviste anxiety. What if Brooklyn’s recent cachet as the locus for what’s next is little more than a thin and fragile crust of chic, hiding the insecurity of people who constantly measure the social currency of their ZIP code by Manhattan standards?

The number of trendy boutiques, bistros and music clubs in Brooklyn may have spiked in the last five years, but its infrastructure of cool still represents only a fraction of that found in Manhattan. Its new identity is moored to a finite number of shops, restaurants, luxury condominiums and, yes, celebrities. If even one leaves, a void is created. Could the borough’s new status vanish as quickly as it ascended?

In recent years, Brooklyn’s pool of second-tier celebrity mascots (John Turturro, Rosie Perez, Norman Mailer, Steve Buscemi) has swollen and taken on a level of movie-star glamour, thanks to recent home buyers like Jennifer Connelly and her husband, Paul Bettany, Adrian Grenier and Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard.

These famous names, functioning as both symbols and selling points for the new Brooklyn, helped drive up property values, provided a focus for gossip in coffeehouses and dog runs, and instilled pride among the tide of newcomers who arrived — sort of by choice — from Manhattan and beyond.

Don’t You Know Who I Am? I Pitched In 78 Games For The Yankees In 2002 With An ERA Of 4.38!

It’s not so much the fact that this guy impersonated one-time Yankee Steve Karsay* as it is an indictment of the culture that affords special treatment to one-time Yankee Steve Karsay:

A waiter at a Midtown restaurant helped cops nab a con man who has been impersonating a former Yankee pitcher at eateries across the city, law-enforcement sources said yesterday.

The man, who was not immediately identified, has been pretending to be former relief pitcher Steve Karsay for at least two years, authorities said. He was arrested at the Bryant Park Grill last night after the eagle-eyed server spotted the grifter.

“[The restaurant] was a favorite place of his and it finally caught up to him,” the real Karsay told The Post. “The staff was on to him for a while.”

The con man had tarnished the ballplayer’s image by impersonating him at various hot spots in the city, such as the posh Midtown eatery Tao, and at charity events, where he got drunk and started shamelessly hitting on women.

. . .

The bogus ballplayer was spotted last winter at the Stand-up New York Comedy Club on the Upper West Side, where he interrupted the show by hopping over the bar, making out with a randomly chosen woman, and skipping out on his $100 tab, authorities said.

*Another first-round pick with so much promise that went so unfulfilled.

Keep Frank Gehry’s Pervy Hands Off My Child’s Swingset

In a city preoccupied with buildings, this does nothing to diminish the overinflated cult of the starchitect:

Renowned architect Frank Gehry, famous for experimenting with novel building materials and exploding the boundaries of form, has signed on with the city to design a 1-acre playground near the Battery Park Ferry Terminal on the southernmost tip of Manhattan.

Mr. Gehry, whose whimsical-looking concert halls and titanium-covered art museums are cultural landmarks, has agreed to work for free on what will be his first urban playground design. “People are asking us what it’s going to look like,” the parks commissioner, Adrian Benepe, said in an interview. “He said he doesn’t even know what it will look like yet.”

. . .

The city hopes to begin construction on the playground late next year, Mr. Benepe said, and expects the space to be open for use in 2009.

“Given the way he has exploded the concept of what performance arts buildings will look like, it certainly will be interesting,” Mr. Benepe said.

Another renowned architect, David Rockwell, is also working pro bono to design a playground near the South Street Seaport.

“Any prominent architect that wants to volunteer their time — we’d love to do it,” Mayor Bloomberg told reporters yesterday.