If you like your pleasures to come, not singly, but in battalions, you can do no better than to visit your local county fair. One of the Hudson Valley’s biggest, the Dutchess County Fair, celebrated its 165^th anniversary this past weekend, and thousands of families thronged the Rhinebeck Fairgrounds to pet the cows, ride the Ferris wheel, and marvel at dozens of exhibits displaying everything from prize tomatoes to huge Belgian draft horses.

It’s inevitable, really. No matter your level of steely determination or the limits of your bank account, you will covet something—a maxi (non-mini) skirt, a cashmere sweater, a shiny new pair of penny loafers—once you take a gander at a September fashion magazine, stroll down Fifth Avenue, or simply notice how everyone around you has emerged from the sweltering New York heat fashionably clad in the season’s newest trends. And if you are as neurotic as I am, you’ll need a way to capture this new fashion vision as it takes shape.

Like a bastion of gentrification casting its shadow over TriBeCa, the 20-story James New York Hotel is the third in a string of modernist hotel towers to crop up in the skyline of downtown Manhattan.

It looks like the city's art vendors aren't going anywhere, for now. On Monday, a justice from the New York State Supreme Court upheld a ruling that temporarily stops the city from limiting the number of artists selling their work in several city parks.

Bookstores nationwide are releasing Jonathan Franzen’s novel Freedom to the public on Tuesday. Franzen’s new book is a chronicle that examines the notion of family, history and personal liberty in our time.

After four decades, NASA is planning to retire its shuttle program, beginning in 2011. That will leave the National Aeronautic and Space Administration's remaining fleet of three space shuttles without a home. Twenty one institutions nationwide are interested in landing one of the orbiters, and Manhattan's Intrepid, Sea, Air & Space Museum is one of them.

This Saturday's Rock the Bells hip hop festival will have fans reminiscing about the battered cassette tapes of yore. The big headliners are Snoop Dogg, A Tribe Called Quest and Wu Tang Clan. To some, that's as close to a hip-hop trinity as it gets.

These days, if you're down around the site of the planned Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero, you might find a few protesters. But mostly you'll find a New York neighborhood going about its usual business.

Fans of the King of Pop are gearing up for the second annual party in Michael Jackson's honor this weekend. Hosted by filmmaker Spike Lee, "Brooklyn Loves Michael" is expected to draw tens of thousands of revelers to Prospect Park's Nethermead Meadow.

The twenties come roaring back again this weekend on Governors Island. The fifth Jazz Age Garden Party revisits the era of bobbed-hair flappers, and dapper gentlemen, speakeasies, and hot jazz.

Restrictions have been temporarily lifted on art vendors in city parks. On Wednesday, a judge granted a restraining order preventing the Parks Department from enforcing five-week-old rules limiting the number of "expressive matter" vendors in parks.

Fall has always been the best time of year for fashion in New York City. The weather is finally cooling after endless humidity. Thick glossies are piled high on newsstands. And we, denizens of the city's five boroughs, will once again partake in storied activities like strolling through Central Park, popping in and out of galleries, window shopping in SoHo, and lingering over brunch. But only after donning our fall best.

In addition to the languorous picnics and beach volleyball games you want to get in before the end of summer, you can add three plays to your to-do list. Macbeth, The Punishing Blow and Sex in Mommyville are all closing this weekend, so get to it!

Starting September 9th, designers and models from around the world will converge on New York for fashion week to exhibit their cutting edge visions. We know what they'll be wearing. But what are YOU wearing? Snap photos of stylish people around the city and submit them right here so everyone can vote for their favorites.

Things aren't going too well for Wyclef Jean.

Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara's and his Japanese collaborators are working on an installation that will open September 9 at the Asia Society, and right now fans are flocking to the Park Avenue Armory to see the artist at work.

Billionaire Eli Broad said Monday he had chosen an expanding downtown cultural district for a new museum to showcase his collection of art that includes works by Salvador Dali and Joan Miro.

Edward Kean, primary writer of the ''Howdy Doody Show'' and who is credited with creating the exclamation, ''kowabunga,'' has died at the age of 85, family friend Del Reddy said.

Author Suzanne Collins, her gentle smile and soft features framed by waves of blond hair, looked out upon hundreds of fans crowded into the Books of Wonder store in Manhattan and unveiled the most anticipated young adult novel of the summer, "Mockingjay."