Wednesday, October 1

Whew! How about that September? The month didn’t exactly go off as planned, did it? Luckily we have leafy October on deck, during which we will attempt as a civilization to wake up from the surreal dreamscape of Lehman Brothers imploding while an Alaskan beauty queen—albeit one protected from witches—auditions for the vice presidency. So let’s celebrate a return to normalcy with Steve McQueen’s first wife’s cabaret show, a song-and-dance about the New York of yesteryear, before glass mega-towers, mortgage-backed securities and Pinkberry, when she met her late husband. “I was coming out of dance class in Carnegie Hall and instead of turning right as usual I wanted to go to the health food store for carrot juice. I turned left and there he was,” said actress Neile Adams. “‘You’re pretty,’ I said, and he said, ‘You’re pretty, too.’ It wasn’t for four more weeks until we were formally introduced, but I saw him everywhere. It would be stalking today. He wasn’t famous until we’d been married for two or three years. I was the breadwinner.” Talk to us, honey. Back then, she said, “there were musicals on every block. We were called gypsies for that reason. You just went from show to show to show. You can’t do that anymore. They’re better dancers today than we were, they worry about their diets. … We just danced. I used to have Snickers bars for breakfast every morning. They’re easy and I really don’t like cooking.” Is anyone feeling the need for some yoga? Karen Dawn, author of sensitive tome Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals, celebrates World Vegetarian Day at celeb-infested Jivamukti Yoga School. On second thought, we’ll have a Snickers bar.

[Neile Adams’ Something Cool, Metropolitan Room at Gotham, 34 West 22nd Street, 7 p.m., 212-206-0440; Reading/signing at Jivamukti, 841 Broadway, second floor, 7:30 p.m., 212-353-0214]

mbryan@observer.com