Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

Fader magazine's daily blog points us to an interesting new sales tactic from NYC's noisy-post-punk indie band The Walkmen. They made their new album, You & Me, available for sale at www.amiestreet.com and, for every record sold, $5 will be donated to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The deal will be available for the next three weeks, before the album is officially released in stores on Aug. 19.

The band made the announcement on their website, where you can listen to some of their music, or, there's always MySpace.

Maybe this is a way to make us all feel gut-wrenchingly guilty if we try to download You & Me online. What about those kids in the pediactric center looking straight out of that Jimmy Fund commercial that made us cry in the theater that one time? Think of the children!

Generalizing is generally bad business. Unless, of course, you’re talking about people in fashion. They’re all just sooo helplessly self-obsessed. Right? No—wrong, actually. Sure, they might go and make a video about all their good works after they’re done. But they are doing good. As stunning Sudanese supermodel Alek Wek told us when we caught up with her during Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, “You can’t just judge it, like, one onion isn’t smelling good and the whole sack is like that!”

Considering the season and everything, we found this recently-shot clip rather fitting. It features 15 prominent people in the fashion industry talking about their favorite charities. From Tory Burch discussing her volunteer work for Memorial Sloan-Kettering to Zac Posen sharing his loyalty to TeachersCount, it may just refashion your view of...fashion.

Matthew Schuerman reports on why he'd rather have stayed in bed:

"I've already complained that coffee is not being served," the mayor said, walking into a press conference this morning at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital. Then, turning to Nobel-prize winner Harold Varmus, "But coffee's probably not good for you." "Sloan-Kettering thinks so," said Dr. Varmus, the hospital's president.  read more »

Further evidence of the mayor's addiction to the evil bean! (For the other evidence, read Jason Horowitz's piece in today's Observer.)

By the end of the sleepy press conference, about a new biotech center on the East River, the mayor seemed disappointed that the reporters had stayed on-message. In fact, the only thing vaguely resembling a campaign plug to come out of his mouth was admitting, reluctantly ("I try not to talk about how I give money away"), that he contributed some of his wealth to stem cell research. "We'll take other topics," the mayor said. Freddy's housing plan? The Coney Island carousel? Snakehead fish? "None? Okay, thank you very much."

I have a friend from another country who has just been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.  read more »