Dualities abounded last week in the town so nice they named it twice. The Mets lost Game 7 by a deuce, even after Endy Chavez’s miraculous catch turned a two-run homer into a double play. “I thought, She looks just like me,” Madonna said of the child she snagged on her orphan-shopping excursion to Malawi last week (she’s made up her mind, she’s gonna keep the doppelgänger). Then she declared her desire for an encore African adoption. President Bush threatened to put North Korea’s Kim Jong Il on double-secret probation if he detonated a follow-up nuclear weapon. When Janus-faced lawyer Lynne Stewart, found guilty of two counts of conspiracy to provide material aid to terrorists for smuggling out messages from the mastermind of the original Twin Towers bombing, Omar Abdel-Rahman, received just over two years’ prison time, she boasted, “I could do it standing on my head!” Andrew Cuomo and Jeanine Pirro danced a nasty pas de deux in their two last-minute debates; he encouraged her to recheck her tax returns, and she repeatedly referred to him as a “junior prosecutor.” Real-estate developer Tishman Speyer picked up a nice pair of properties—Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village—for a cool $5.4 billion. Cardinal Edward Egan gathered priests for two hours to defend himself against charges of duplicity after an anonymous letter denounced him for his “dishonesty, deception, disinterest and disregard.” Queens assemblyman Brian McLaughlin was indicted for stealing $2 million, including $95,000 from a local Little League. Rapper Fabolous—known for his duet with P. Diddy on “Trade It All, Part II”—was shot in the thigh in Chelsea, but declined to explain the matched set of firearms police found in his car. Two-plus-two-star chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten sued upstairs duplex-plus-penthouse owner Calvin Klein over water damage to his apartment. Lawyers for former fake fireman Peter Braunstein indicated he’ll be pleading schizophrenia. CBGB closed for good, though talk lingered of a duplicate opening in Vegas. And the Giants’ two-time Pro Bowl halfback Tiki Barber—not to be confused with his identical-twin brother, Ronde—sounded the two-minute warning on his career, hinting he’ll retire at year’s end.

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Related:

• Archive: “It Happened Last Week”
• Articles by Mark Adams
• Table of Contents: Oct 30, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!