BOBBY FOREVER.(The Talk of the Town)

Well before the day of Bobby Zarem's surprise party, people were spilling the beans. It was the end of an average week for Zarem, the inveterate P.R. man: the premiere of "The Departed" was on Tuesday, followed by an event at Guastavino's with Scorsese, DiCaprio, and Damon; on Wednesday night, Zarem made an appearance at a cocktail party celebrating Jay McInerney's engagement to Anne Hearst; Thursday was more of the same--"Flyboys" screening, Elaine's for dinner. On Friday night, he went to a party for the opening of the New York Film Festival. Tavern on the Green was packed, and it seemed that everyone in the room suddenly wanted to wish Zarem a happy seventieth birthday. He asked one well-wisher where she'd got her information. "On the Internet," she said. Zarem, who is famous for his long, earnest pitch letters and personal phone calls to journalists, doesn't know much about the Internet. He usually lets his assistants work the computer. "I thought maybe it was one of the bloggers," he said.

The next day, an old friend called and asked Zarem if he would be at Elaine's that night. Zarem phoned Elaine Kaufman, the proprietor of the restaurant where he has eaten dinner two nights a week for forty-three years. "I said, 'Elaine, what's going on?' " And she told him: Bill Augustin, Zarem's chief assistant, had planned a party, despite explicit instructions not to. Augustin had sent an Evite to several hundred of his boss's closest friends. At first, Zarem was distressed. He joked that, in decades of parties at Elaine's, he couldn't remember one that he hadn't orchestrated himself. Then he gave in: "I decided, Fuck it--I'm just going to take a couple of puffs off a joint and relax."

Zarem was one of the first people to arrive. He stood near the door, pivoting in circles. He was wearing black New Balance sneakers and an untucked blue flannel shirt, and tufts of white hair protruded like wings from the sides of his head. Several guests had posted Evite regrets (from Eric Latzky, the P.R. director for the New York Philharmonic: "You look fabulous! Hope to see you soon"; from Christy Turlington: "Sadly, we will be out of town this weekend"), but dozens made it. "I'm just ...