Illustration by Vault 49

It Happens This Week
• SpongeBob SquarePants makes his Macy’s parade debut (800 nylon ropes keep the unnaturally unspherical balloon from losing its shape).
• City revels in tryptophan stupor.
• Shopping woes for Bruce Ratner?
• Brooklyn clergymen to boycott Atlantic Terminal Mall.
• NYC indie-rock standbys Luna hit Irving Plaza on their farewell tour.

Spitzer Goes Prospecting for Donations from People He Hasn’t Prosecuted.
Barely 24 hours after Chuck Schumer announced that he was staying in D.C., invitations to a massive December 9 fund-raiser for Eliot Spitzer at the Sheraton New York appeared in power mailboxes all over the state (complete with a Warholesque portrait of the attorney general). It should help answer the question: How could a man who’s made himself so electable by targeting the city’s financial Establishment—brokerages, insurance companies—possibly raise big money? The list of moneymen chairing the event, expected to raise $3 million, shows which deep-pocketed industries Spitzer the fund-raiser is targeting: hedge funds (George Hall, Adam Solomon), trial lawyers (Joe Belluck), and real estate (Edward Milstein, Stephen Green). Meanwhile, Spitzer confidants say that his political operation’s kicking into high gear: Rich Baum, Spitzer’s chief of staff, has been tapped to manage the campaign. He’ll soon join managing director Cynthia Darrison, who helped set up the luncheon, at which, an adviser says, Spitzer will finally, officially announce his candidacy for governor.
—Greg Sargent