Cocktail Party

The Building a Scholastic Heritage (B.A.S.H.) cocktail party, canceled because of the blizzard last weekend, has been rescheduled for Sunday. The main B.A.S.H. event, the 19th annual "Passport to Progress: A Celebration of Our Cultural Diversity," will be held at 6 p.m. April 24 under a party tent at Malvern Preparatory School, 418 S. Warren Ave., Malvern. Proceeds will benefit the school. Heading the B.A.S.H. dinner and auction committee are MaryAnn Bursich of Phoenixville and Mary and Vincent Zurawski of Thornbury.

Mayor Rendell put out the call. He was holding a fund-raising event, and he wanted his major contributors to attend. So, last night, about 75 of them went to the City Hall cocktail party to sip wine and champagne, munch on shrimp and cheese and salmon and to give - $1,000 each. No surprise there. Except that the money went not to Rendell nor to another Philadelphian nor even to another Pennsylvania politician. It went to Gov. Florio. Why would Philadelphia residents shell out big bucks to the leader of another state, a state that, not long ago, tried to lure away the '76ers and the Flyers?

Contortionists Ekaterina Bogdonova (top) and Valentin Ganey of Cirque du Soleil perform for 2,000 international meeting planners at a cocktail party at the Wyndham Franklin Plaza Hotel yesterday.

Broad Street Baller went ballistic with the hugging, tearful, hysterically high-fiving hordes of happy fans at the Wells Fargo Center on Thursday after a 79-78 nail-biter over the Chicago Bulls sent the Sixers into the second round of the NBA playoffs for the first time since 2003. HEAVENLY MOM: No one but no one was happier than Lamont "Monty G" Anderson of South Philadelphia — 380 pounds of pure Sixers love, down from 467 after trainer Kimberly Garrison got him to abuse the machines at the 12th Street Gym. "We did it!"

After 20 years of Riccardo Muti, the audience couldn't stop cheering. The ovations and flowers kept coming at the Academy of Music Wednesday night for his farewell performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Muti is heading for Europe. The farewell included a cocktail party before the concert and a dinner party afterward. But Muti will be back, as guest conductor.

Stylistas aren't quite sure what to call the haute hair they crave. A forehead-spanning pouf, maybe? That bump? You know, the big-hair thingy? Here's a little Fashion 101, folks: It's a pompadour. "I didn't quite know what to call it," said Jessica Lynch, 34, a fund-raiser for the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. "My stylist gave me a pompadour with a ponytail to frame my face. It was a very retro 1950s look. I loved it. " Whatever you call it, the pompadour is hot right now. In a retro-good-girl, modern-bad-girl kind of way. Some fashions catch on quickly, but others (like the pompadour)

Up to now, former District Attorney Edward G. Rendell has run softly for governor, albeit with a big schtick. He was saying things like, "As you know, I will soon complete my second term as district attorney. At that time, I plan to announce my candidacy for governor of Pennsylvania. " Next week, at no specific stroke of the clock, the Committee to Elect Ed Rendell will become Rendell for Governor - and Rendell will really, truly, finally be on the road to the Democratic primary.

City Councilman Francis Rafferty received a $1,000 campaign contribution from the local Roofers union the day before sponsoring a Council resolution to commend the union, according to campaign finance records filed this week. The $1,000 contribution from Composition Roofers Local Union 30 & 30B was made last June 18, the day before Rafferty asked Council to commend the roofers for their charitable work, specifically a new roof installed at no charge for a church in Rafferty's Grays Ferry neighborhood.

The plight of the homeless in this city is no laughing matter. However, a band of merry men and women will join together tomorrow night in The Comedy Benefit for Philadelphia's Homeless to raise money to help those with no place to live. It's a local version of Comic Relief, a three-hour performance to benefit the nation's homeless, airing Saturday at 9 p.m. on HBO. The Comedy Works, 126 Chestnut St., is the site for the local benefit, hosted by Harvey of WIOQ (102 FM) radio and featuring local comics the Legendary Wid, Keven Sullivan and Todd Glass.

Parking problems in downtown West Chester have led Jake Shur & Son Army & Navy Store to close the retail portion of its operation at 34 W. Gay St. "People don't want to be hassled with parking problems when they go shopping," said owner Dick Shur, whose father, Jake, opened the business about 50 years ago. Dick Shur, who said the store would continue its wholesale division, has been with the company for 30 years. Shur said the borough eliminated about 40 parking spaces in the four blocks between Matlack and Darlington Streets when it repaved the streets under the Main Street mall project in 1979.

Broad Street Baller went ballistic with the hugging, tearful, hysterically high-fiving hordes of happy fans at the Wells Fargo Center on Thursday after a 79-78 nail-biter over the Chicago Bulls sent the Sixers into the second round of the NBA playoffs for the first time since 2003. HEAVENLY MOM: No one but no one was happier than Lamont "Monty G" Anderson of South Philadelphia — 380 pounds of pure Sixers love, down from 467 after trainer Kimberly Garrison got him to abuse the machines at the 12th Street Gym. "We did it!"

Stylistas aren't quite sure what to call the haute hair they crave. A forehead-spanning pouf, maybe? That bump? You know, the big-hair thingy? Here's a little Fashion 101, folks: It's a pompadour. "I didn't quite know what to call it," said Jessica Lynch, 34, a fund-raiser for the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. "My stylist gave me a pompadour with a ponytail to frame my face. It was a very retro 1950s look. I loved it. " Whatever you call it, the pompadour is hot right now. In a retro-good-girl, modern-bad-girl kind of way. Some fashions catch on quickly, but others (like the pompadour)

A "SAFE" STUNTMAN got a round of applause last night as he got up from a stretcher, after medics pulled him out of a Chevy Tahoe he was driving in a crash scene in the action/thriller being shot along JFK Boulevard between 18th and 19th streets. Onlookers feared for the stuntman after fire trucks and ambulances arrived, but he got up from the stretcher instead of being loaded into an ambulance. Actor Jason Statham ("The Expendables," "Transporter") shot, literally, yesterday afternoon at 15th & Moravian, in Center City.

IT WAS MOSTLY a happy herd of donkeys that gathered around the water hole - before getting the spur from their riders. The much-ballyhooed Republican "political wave" that is expected to swamp America on Election Day won't wet our feet because Philadelphia is a Democratic dike. A "red city" for the Phillies, we're back to true blue now. The main purpose of Monday night's Democratic autumn cocktail party was to inspire ward leaders and their lieutenants to get out the vote next Tuesday.

LAS VEGAS - It's the first time a woman naked from the waist up has ever initiated a conversation with me at a swimming pool - not counting my daughters when they were toddlers. "Hi," this fantastically caramel-tanned person said as she leaned over - and what I'm going to guess were a couple of 38DDs came within about a foot of my face. "I'm Sara. " We were sitting next to each other at the aptly named Bare, the adults-only pool at the Mirage Resort and Casino. Not only was Sara topless - oh, we're calling it "European style" now - but she was wearing a bathing suit bottom that can best be described as something you might tie around your finger to remind yourself you aren't wearing a top. It was time for a drink.

David N. Zeehandelaar, 55, of Villanova, a lawyer with special knowledge of aviation who won many high-profile cases in the area and was known for his tenacity and competitive spirit, died Friday at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania after a five-month battle with lymphoma. Mr. Zeehandelaar led his firm, Blank Rome L.L.P., to many victories in complex tort litigations during his 14 years there. "He won cases," said Alan Hoffman, cochairman of Blank Rome. "His battle with lymphoma is the only loss I've known him to have.

R2L - Daniel Stern's contemporary American on the 37th floor of Two Liberty Place (50 S. 16th St., 215-564-5337) - doesn't open till Jan. 21. Its coming out will be New Year's Eve for a $150-a-head cocktail party. A few highlights of a tour last week: Fourteen sumptuous banquettes have true window seats for spectacular but not vertigo-inducing south and west views. A hanging sculpture of cutlery catches the setting sun. Walls of wine storage, plus private wine lockers, for sommelier Ryan Davis.

Some facts to drop at your next cocktail party: Since 2007, Procter & Gamble Co. has devoted 11.1 million computing hours to the study of soap bubbles. (You can quote Ray Orbach, former undersecretary for the U.S. Department of Energy.) Less than three ounces of water can generate the same amount of energy as a supertanker full of oil (says Tomas Diaz de la Rubia, chief research officer for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory). When it comes to greenhouse gases, things could be worse.

Imagine an evolutionary timeline of party spreads and dips. It would show salsa eventually replacing the 1970s sour-cream-and-onion mix called California Dip and then morphing into hummus, which is now omnipresent. But "hummus" made of pureed vegetables is positioning itself to take over when the ancient Middle Eastern spread, which is made of chickpeas and tahini (sesame paste), wears out its welcome. This is not to say that the popular pita-bread accompaniment is stepping down any time soon.

Traffic was snarled. Bars were filled with St. Patrick's Day revelers. Rosie O'Donnell and two of her four children spent half an hour in a car yesterday trying to get from the Hyatt Regency at Penn's Landing to Strikes Bowling Lounge at 40th and Locust. "The driver was going around and around," O'Donnell said. "I kept asking, 'Is it in Philadelphia?' " When they arrived at 5:45 p.m., expecting to surprise the nearly 200 participants in the first land-based trip organized by O'Donnell's gay-friendly travel company, they were greeted only by staff and plates of hot wings.