The first leg of The Creators Project, a globe-trotting arts and music initiative from Vice magazine and Intel, debuted on a sweltering Saturday. Over 3,500 New Yorkers packed in at Milk Studios to view shows from Interpol, Gang Gang Dance and The Rapture and art from Radical Friend and MOS Architects.

"It's a very serious message in a very frivolous industry," Harper's Bazaar editor-in-chief Glenda Bailey said during the cocktail hour at sixth-annual Harper's Bazaar Anti-Counterfeiting Summit held today at Hearst Tower. Guests milled around the Hearst Tower penthouse, eyeing fake bags, watches and shoes over polite conversation and chilled white wine.

A panel talk began with sobering news from keynote speaker Juan C. Zarate, a national security expert who laid out how three well-known terrorists funded their operations through counterfeit goods. Spain's 2004 train bombings were also financed by pirated movies.

Teens scoured the Internet for a peek at the third installment of the 'Twilight' series. Speakeasy's Elva Ramirez explains the enduring appeal on the News Hub.

Corey Haim, a teen hearthrob to the Sassy and TigerBeat generation, died today in Los Angeles, according to the Associated Press. He was 38. Autopsy results will confirm the cause of death at a later time.

The teen star, whose fame increased following roles with his best friend Corey Feldman in movies like "License to Drive" and "The Lost Boys," grew into a man who publicly battled drug addiction. In 2007, Haim reunited with Feldman for an A&E reality series, "The Two Coreys."

The 82nd Academy Awards has enough dramatic storylines to make a great movie. The number of best picture candidates has been super-sized, from five to ten, and the number of hosts has been doubled. Leading up to the event Cablevision squared off with Disney over whether the broadcast would be aired in the New York City area. And on the show, ex-spouses James Cameron ("Avatar") and Kathryn Bigelow ("The Hurt Locker") will face off over some of the top prizes, including best picture and best director. "Precious," "The Blind Side" and "Inglourious Basterds," are also in the mix.

Speakeasy will be live-blogging the Oscars from the arrivals at 7 p.m. ET all the way to the awarding of the last golden statuette, with reports from inside and outside the ceremony.

Tuesday night's sold-out Jay-Z concert at Madison Square Garden catered to recently-converted fans ("Empire State of Mind" was played in the middle of the set) and longtime diehards (the closing encore was packed with bounce-inducing early hits like 1999's "Big Pimpin" and 1998's "Hard Knock Life" and "Can I Get A...").

A surprise guest nearly stole the spotlight from Hova, though. Jay-Z took an unexpected break in the middle of the set, ceding the stage to Young Jeezy, who asked the crowd to pray for prison-bound Lil Wayne. As Nicki Minaj and Jeezy performed Young Money's "Bedrock," Lil Wayne bounced into view unannounced, ricocheting off the stage like a teenage cat. The crowd squealed a collective "OMG!" like tweens at a Justin Bieber concert. Rapper Drake completed the entourage as they segued into the now-apropos mixtape jam "I'm Going In." Each of Lil Wayne's going innnn's was savored by the crowd, as it was likely to be the last performance before the rapper starts a one-year sentence for gun possession.

With the release of R.J. Cutler's "The September Issue" on DVD, someone made the genius decision to pack in over 90 minutes worth of never-before-seen footage. The bonus footage actually exceeds the original film's length. Often, deleted scenes and bonus footage play like indulgent filler, but The September Issues's extras are as compelling and quirky as anything that made the film.

"Where humanity exists, beauty exists," writes Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones, Chairman of L'Oreal in the opening essay to a five-volume work published by the L'Oreal Foundation.

The phrase pithily sums up the thesis of "100,000 Years of Beauty," a four-year academic project to dismantle the cultural constructs of beauty. The project tapped 300 authors of 35 different nationalities and across 20 different disciplines to decipher and explain how aesthetic exercises occurred not just in contemporary society but throughout time. The first book begins with a look at pre-historical efforts at jewelry, embellishment and colored powders.

It was the end of her long night as host of Louis Vuitton's Saks Fifth Avenue launch party in midtown, but Maggie Gyllenhaal lit up when asked about her new film, "Crazy Heart."

"I think it's my favorite film I've made," Gyllenhaal said of "Crazy Heart," a character portrait that stars Jeff Bridges as washed-up country singer Bad Blake. After early Oscar buzz, the film is being rushed into theaters in December to qualify for awards season.

Vice magazine launched a new video series, "Munchies," in which celebrity chefs are hauled out of the kitchen and filmed while on the town. If the first episode is any indication, lots and lots of alcohol will be involved. (And as the series name suggests, maybe even some pot-smoking -- which upsets our family-paper standards so we'll just pretend we didn't hear that.)

Each fashion week comes packed with its own themes -- and we're not necessarily talking about hemlines. For the last few seasons, the lack of runway diversity and outrage over too-skinny models has dominated fashion week coverage. This season's theme is shaping up to be about getting people to buy clothes, now, please, and not at a discount.

But lest people forget about the price too-skinny models pay for bright lights and big cities, model Crystal Renn is ready to remind us. Renn's autobiography "Hungry: A Young Model's Story of Appetite, Ambition and the Ultimate Embrace of Curves" arrives in stores on Sept. 9, just in time for New York's seasonal shot of unattainable glamour.

Barbie's been a rock star, an astronaut, a doctor and a supermodel. What she has never been is someone who would sing a subversive song.

And that remains so. This week, Mattel released Barbie's first music video with music set to 1997's "Barbie Girl." The song, made famous by Danish group Aqua, is a cheeky critique of materialism and female disenfranchisement; Mattel's tweaked 2009 version is a you-go-girl anthem for the post-Bratz, post-Pussy Cat Dolls generation.

The first episode of "Jon & Kate" since the announcement of their impending divorce had a bittersweet quality. The two principles seemed happier alone. And some moments that Kate spent with her children were genuine and touching.

The two episodes were divided between two locations, the Gosselin home and a beach rental in North Carolina. At the start of "Renovations and Vacations," the producers flag the episode as taking place this past January, just as the tabloid storm was gathering. It was before the man-about-town photos, before Hailey Glassman, before Kate Major, before Michael Lohan.

Big band swing and its counterpart, the lindy hop, have been part of the American cultural landscape since the early part of last century. "Lindy hop is the physical embodiment of swing jazz," explains Rik Panganiban, an administrator behind the largest swing dance website, Yehoodi.com.

Ayana Josef, Nona Amoruso, and Rhonda Goss are strangers to each other, but each of them mourned Michael Jackson's death in the same way. They were shocked to learn of his death on June 25, and they spent the next four days remembering his music and his impact on their lives. They gathered with family and friends in the days after the news, describing their sadness in terms similar to that losing a cherished family member.

So for them and thousands of New Yorkers, four days of private mourning wasn't enough. On Monday, June 30, fans went to Harlem's Apollo theater, stood in the June sun, and waited as long as three hours to say goodbye inside, 600 fans at a time.

With declining art prices, now is the prime time to invest in art. WSJ's Elva Ramirez speaks to art consultant Franklin Boyd at the New York Armory Show about strategies for spotting good art deals.

See more photos.

Photo Slideshow: From 'Sex and the City' to the final farewell of Yves Saint Laurent, a look back at 2008's most memorable fashion moments.

At his first press conference, President-elect Barack Obama said that getting a dog for his two daughters when the family moves into the White House in January is “a major issue.”

Photos: See famous presidential pets.

After his election night mention of a new puppy for Sasha and Malia, Obama said that topic had generated more interest on his Web site than any other.

There are few things that the fashion industry agrees on. One of them is Polaroid film.

Polaroid is used daily across the industry, among publicists, model agencies, casting directors and designers, to capture and file instant images. But Polaroid announced in January that the company would stop producing its instant film.

Is this the Fashion Week when diversity comes back into style?

It's been nearly nine months since CFDA president Diane von Furstenberg urged designers to create "truly multicultural" runway shows. Media reviews of last season's shows, however, suggested that the CFDA's suggestion was not always heeded. When Jezebel counted up last February's New York shows, they found that about black models were used only about 5% of the time.

The exhibit, which gives a nod to the 1980’s goth musicians, is grouped around themes that include The Laboratory, The Haunted House and the Ruined Castle. “Some designers, like Alexander McQueen were acting as artists, creating things which evoked beauty and horror, claustrophobia, madness in a very sophisticated and artistic way that I found quite thrilling,” Dr. Steele says.

Featured artifacts include Mina’s dress from the 1992 film Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a Victorian mourning gown and gowns from Alexander McQueen’s fall 2007 Salem Witch Trial-themed collection. “There are layers of fears that go into” Goth, Dr. Steele says. “It’s not just the idea of ghosts but of the mind being haunted by fears, regrets or a family history of madness.”

About three weeks before fashion week starts, the offices of casting directors, stylists and designers are flooded with show packages containing cards of models that agencies want to promote for the bi-annual runway shows. Model cards are meant to provide basic stats on available models for hire: A typical card features photos of a model, his or her measurements and contact information.

In the last few years, the show package has evolved from a simple informational tool to an industry art form.

Italian Vogue's new edition featuring only black models once again brings to attention the issue of diversity in the predominantly white fashion world. The topic has generated some buzz in recent years, but has had little lasting effect on the runways and in magazine fashion spreads.

The magazine's July issue, which arrives in Italy this Friday and the U.S. next week, features nearly 100 editorial pages of the world's top black models, including Liya Kebede, Sessilee Lopez, Jourdan Dunn and Naomi Campbell. Modeling agent Bethann Hardison, who is behind much of the recent diversity-awareness efforts in the industry, contributed to a feature on 10 up-and-coming black models. Celebrity photographer Steven Meisel shot the spreads.

When One Laptop Per Child's little green laptop starts up, its Linux-based Sugar user interface plays a four-note ditty, composed by the band U2, that stands for the letters O, L, P, and C. This is one indication of how important music is to the computer's mission.

Western fashion often draws from other cultures - as evidenced by batik shirts, sarong skirts or the prevalence of plaid.

Ms. Ray received criticism for
wearing this scarf in a Dunkin' Donuts ad.

But when Rachael Ray appeared in a Dunkin' Donuts ad wearing a black-and-white paisley scarf last week, conservatives accused her of donning a keffiyeh, the traditional headdress for Arabic men, and of supporting extremists. Dunkin' Donuts quickly pulled the ad. What seemed like A simple style choice suddenly ignited a long-simmering debate about the politics of clothing and the power of context.

Contemporary art consultant Franklin Boyd gives a tour of the New York Armory Show, one of the world's largest fairs for new art.

Fashionistas flocked to New York Pet Fashion Week to catch a glimpse of four-legged models and scope out the latest in ready-to-wear leashes and couture ballgowns.

Cover, "Alter Egos" In 2003, photographer Robbie Cooper and writer Tracy Spaight set off across the globe to document virtual worlds, their avatars and the real people behind these fantasy characters. Interviewing dozens of subjects from the U.S., Europe and Asia -- as varied as a transgendered South Korean pop star and a Dutch butcher -- the pair has published "Alter Ego" (released in June).

The Wall Street Journal Online's Elva Ramirez spoke to Mr. Cooper and Mr. Spaight on the nuances of identity play, the cultural differences among global gaming communities, and why players who have the freedom to be anything often prefer to play themselves.

Since Blogger.com debuted in August 1999, the site, which offers Web-based publishing software, has launched millions of blogs.

In May more than 125 million unique visitors viewed Blogger.com-hosted sites, landing Blogger at No. 1 on comScore World Metrix's list of top blogs, which includes competitors like Windows Live Spaces, Six Apart sites, and WordPress.
Now available in over 35 languages, Blogger, which Google bought in 2003, recently introduced a development blog (draft.blogger.com) where users can test out new features, such as the ability to upload videos.
In an interview with WSJ.com's Elva Ramirez, Eric Case, Blogger.com's new product manager, and Jason Shellen, a new business development manager, discuss the evolution of blogging, just how many (or how few) people are reading blogs these days and the difficult balance bloggers must strike when it comes to their privacy.

By day, Karla Schickele is a speechwriter for a top city politician.

But by night, the 39-year-old Fort Greene resident and daughter of composer Peter Schickele plays in two rock bands - and now she is bringing her passion for rock 'n' roll to girls of all ages through a Brooklyn summer rock camp.

"Most of the girls have never played music before," Schickele said, who has taken a leave of absence this summer from her job with Comptroller Bill Thompson to run the camp at the Brooklyn Friends School in downtown Brooklyn.

By ELVA RAMIREZ and JANE H. FURSE
It was the birthplace of the Lindy Hop, where Benny Goodman was crowned King of Swing, and though it closed in 1958, the Savoy Ballroom still fuels happy memories - and happy feet.
Last night more than 400 people jitterbugged and Lindy-hopped the night away to the music of Ron Allen's Harlem Renaissance Orchestra, a black-tie evening at the Alhambra Ballroom that capped a weekend celebration of the 80th anniversary of the opening of the Savoy.

On the streets of Brooklyn, stray bursts of color have been dotting the urban landscape, fleeting works of art that are impossible not to notice.
The chalk outlines - often of street fixtures such as fire hydrants, lamps or even buildings - are mysteriously signed "Ellis G. 2006."
"My art has always been in the street," said Ellis Gallagher, a former graffiti artist, as he surveyed a just-finished hot pink tracing of a lamppost with traffic box and street signage on the corner of Smith and Dean Sts.