Had the chance this week to pay tribute to Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner at a NYC cocktail party celebrating the success of their book Freakonomics. Levitt and Dubner are friends of mine and I helped bring them to Google last summer.

Wednesday’s party was held at the Gansevoort Hotel, a hangout trendy enough to attract Fabio (who was spotted at the bar). Neat venue, but cramped given the rain which confined us to a single room instead of the full roof deck.

The publisher of Harper Collins, John Stossel, the editor of the New York Times magazine and I all spoke for a few minutes before the Stev(ph)ens did their thing. Of interesting note – the first print run for Freakonomics was 37,000 copies. Now there are over 1.5 million in print. Whew.

Among the attendees were my friends Nick Haines and the lovely Jesse Marmon (who has excellent posture). Because of the overcrowding, Nick and Jesse were delayed at the door which lead to this amusing exchange:

Nick: Why’d you let him in? [after being held back but another guest was allowed to enter]
Bouncer [with disgust]: Sir, that’s a five year old disabled boy in a wheelchair. Do you care to reconsider what you just said?