When New York special correspondent Dave Hill ran into Tony-nominated Martha Plimpton in our Tribeca elevator last week, he couldn’t resist a journalistic urge to question her. Using his absurdist anti-interviewing technique to elicit dark secrets from his subject, Hill makes Martha Plimpton admit her fake-hair fetish and gossip about Billy Crystal. Watch the video for more shocking revelations.

The luxury home market may be stagnating in Greenwich, Connecticut, but some people are still living the dream. In this week's New Yorker, Nick Paumgarten enters the belly of the beast, and has a surreal experience visiting the home of Mark Mariani, a 43-year-old developer and garden-center owner who describes himself on his Website as "a sort of latter-day Thoreau crossed with an English gardener."

Out back, a battalion of gardeners was trimming boxwoods that had been sculpted in the shape of musical notes. "It's something Liberace should have done," Mariani said. The pool had rose petals floating in it. Allés led through the hedgerows to little cherub statues, corresponding to his wife and two children, then farther on to an orchard full of plums, figs, strawberries, olives, and pears. Inside, he showed me his basketball court and his movie theatre, where he urged me to sit in one of his plush velvet seats. He turned out the lights and out on a DVD of a Carlos Santana concert. "You like Santana?" Mraiani said. "I'm so glad he finally got noticed."

Thoreau would have approved entirely, we're sure.

A Greenwich State of Mind [NYer, print only]

Just one day after NBC announced its (we suspect) New York–set show Mogulettes, ABC is all, "We'll see your Plum Sykes and raise you a J.Lo." It turns out Jennifer Lopez is set to executive-produce an adaptation of her 2002 chick flick, Maid in Manhattan, creating a series about a "young Latina from the Bronx working at a Manhattan hotel who tries to make it in the world." But the hour-long dramedy won't tell that exact same rags-to-riches story, because, well, then it would end. Among other reasons: "The show is a different maid in a different Manhattan," says Chad Hodge, who's writing the pilot (and is also responsible for the "Studio 54–themed drama" going to Showtime). A different Manhattan? Like Brooklyn? Or a version of Manhattan shot in L.A.? We suspect the last option, because Hodge went on to explain why he related to the concept: "I imagine being a writer in Hollywood is often very similar to being a maid in Manhattan," he said. Right, it's all about you guys. We're hoping Long Island–based J.Lo's involvement — she'll "be very integral in the pilot and series," Hodge says — means that at least some of the filming will be done here. In any case, that's two New York–y shows announced in just two days! Your move, CBS. —Lori Fradkin

ABC dramedy is 'Maid' to order [HR]

The summer internship. Ugh. How terrible it is to be young and to have to spend one or more of what are frankly a limited amount of summers you will look good in a bathing suit clad in office casual, performing menial tasks for people who you believe, deep down, are stupider than you. Why should anyone have to suffer such a thing? These thoughts certainly crossed the minds of Genevieve Hudson-Price, Sabrina Blaichman, and Caroline Copley, three downtown kids whose parents helped them start a gallery this summer. Housed in a property lent to them by Sabrina's father — developer Charles Blaichman, who also owns the building that houses Soho House and Spice Market — the gallery will exist until September, when the building will be knocked down to make way for a luxury hotel. It is called 7Eleven, a reference not only to the address but to "our society's consumerism."

Would you like to gently throttle them yet?

Faking it for Sappho's sake is nothing new in pop culture, but what was once a winking tease has, in the summer of 2008, hit an obnoxious fever pitch. This is due in no small part to Lindsay Lohan, who has been engaged in a very public relationship with Samantha Ronson; the couple’s every nuance is carefully archived in the annals of celebrity gossip. Then "Page Six" announced the romance between Johnson & Johnson heiress Casey Johnson and Yahoo progeny Courtenay Semel (whose last tabloid appearance was her are-they-or-aren't-they relationship with … Lindsay Lohan). And a strong contender for song of the summer is Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl," the lesbian-for-a-night anthem with blunt lyrics ("I kissed a girl, just to try it, I hope my boyfriend don't mind it") and a blunter video (Perry strokes a cat). No room for subtlety on the new isle of Lesbos.

Mercy College is trying out a new thing, wherein applicants to the college can find out whether they're accepted overnight. It's called Immediate Decision Week! Catchy, right? Doesn't it sound fun? Like a game show or a reality show where Paula Abdul or some other such luminary pops out to judge you? That's what Mercy is hoping. To promote the program, admissions officers will canvass for students by trawling beaches and malls in the five boroughs in search of "instant applicants." "Contrary to what may be suspected," the Sun writes awesomely, "Immediate Decision Week does not appear to be an act of desperation." Rather, it's an act of capitalism!

Anthony Agnello —"Cousin Vinny" to his paesans — wanted what everyone wants: to work with the things he loved; and to be a success. For a while he ran a business where he rented out strippers, but that fell apart after he rented one to the local high school. Last year, he tried opening a Subway sandwich shop in the Bronx but was shut down by the chain for putting up Al Capone posters and not wearing regulation uniform. You can hardly blame him. Who wants to wear a visor? Or gloves? Vinny wanted to feel the air tickling his hair and the cool meat on his fingers. He wanted freedom. So he struck out on his own. He opened a place down the road, calling it, "Cousin Vinny's Way," which promised free fountain sodas and $5 foot-long subs along with "six hours of nonstop, hard-core, live action from some of the most beautiful young ladies who have ever chosen to take their clothes off in public." Food and sex combined? George Costanza would have approved. But Subway did not. Since he was still using their wrappers and other such paraphernalia, they're suing him, and yet another of Cousin Vinny's dreams has been deferred. "I know I'm a little rough around the edges, but I was just trying to run an honest business," he told the Post today. Stay strong, Cousin Vinny. They can take your money, but they can't take your spirit.

HOT 'GRINDERS' SANDWICH & STRIPPER BIZ SLAP [NYP]

As New Yorkers continue to wait in two-to-four-hour-long lines to get their hands on the sweet, sweet magic that is the iPhone (if only we had some HTML code to put a halo around that very word), the Times has moved forward, covering the best offerings from the iPhone app store. You know, so you have something to look forward to while you bake in the sun, waiting in line. They have a nifty slideshow with iPhone screen shots demonstrating all the cool new applications. Those screen shots also happen to show the phone's service level at the time the images were captured — and what you see at left is a compilation of the service levels on all the iPhones that the Times showed off. Hmmm. Not so good. At all. And AT&T doesn't exactly have the best reputation for stellar reception anyhow. Sigh. God: After all this, please don't tell us the damn thing is going to end up being little more than a tricked-out Fabergé egg. —Jessica Coen

Slideshow: Trick Out Your iPhone [NYT]

Next week's issue of New York Magazine will contain an oral history of our late founder Clay Felker's career both here and elsewhere. In this sample, his wife, Gail Sheehy, talks about the first time she saw Felker, when they were both at the New York Herald Tribune.

The first time I laid eyes on Clay he was yelling on the phone — something unusual. I dared to walk down the back stairs at the Herald Tribune women's department, which was a flamingo-pink ghetto. But I had a story idea, and the only way to do it was to go and talk to Clay. So I was quite terrified; but then when I heard him and saw him, he was very big. And he had a huge voice, which just, you know, sliced right through me. And he was yelling at somebody about tickets to Dinner at Eight. He was just, like, another creature from another planet to me. But totally intriguing. —Gail Sheehy

Earlier: Tom Wolfe Remembers Clay Felker
Clay Felker, 1925–2008

Next week's issue of New York Magazine will contain an oral history of our late founder Clay Felker's career both here and elsewhere. In the following sample, Tom Wolfe talks about Felker's "dominant New York gene."

I knew Clay was from Webster Groves, Missouri, a place I had never been. I was curious about Webster Groves because Clay was such an unusual person. I was sure that much of him could be discovered there, because everyone arrives in New York with the past sewn into the lining of his clothes. I finally had a trip to St. Louis, and I realized it was nearby. So I went out to Webster Groves, and discovered that Webster Groves had absolutely no influence on Clay whatsoever. Clay was born with a dominant New York gene. I talked to his sister about this. She said that the first complete sentence that Clay uttered as an infant was: "What do you mean we don’t have reservations!"

I mean, New York was made for Clay, who was simultaneously thoroughly knowledgeable about the intricacies of status in New York, and at the same time he was just wowed by it. He was agog at what all of these wonderful people were doing. I must say that I shared that, and it was probably one of the reasons we got along so well. —Tom Wolfe