Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

• Was Lindsay Lohan dating Heath Ledger at the time of his death? That was what came out yesterday when the latest clip from Michael Lohan's vast archive of recorded phone conversations was posted online. (Dina Lohan can be heard expressing concern that Lindsay was headed down the same path.) On tap for today? A call between Dina and Michael in which she tells her ex-husband that Lindsay has been cutting herself. [NYDN, NYP, Radar]
• Alleged David Letterman extortionist Robert "Joe" Halderman appeared in court yesterday where his lawyer asked a judge to drop all the charges against the former news producer. The reason? Halderman's $2 million demand wasn't blackmail, silly. It was a legitimate business proposal in which Letterman could have first dibs on his screenplay, naturally. [NYP, NYDN, TMZ]
• Rihanna says she put on the tightest dress she could find to pick up Glamour's Woman of the Year award on Monday night at Carnegie Hall. She also spent $50,000 flying in her mom, aunts and brothers from Barbados to join her at the event. One person who was missing from the festivities: Her dad, who RiRi recently said abused her mom while growing up. [P6, NYDN] More

• Bee Shaffer says she has no plans to follow in mom Anna Wintour's footsteps. "I really don't want to work in fashion. It's just not for me. I respect her, obviously, but it's just a really weird industry." She concludes by saying that people who think fashion is life are lame and she'd much rather become a lawyer, thank you very much. [Fox News]
• Charlize Theron appears on the cover of Vogue's September issue. It also touts the fact it's 584 pages, though that's down last year's 798 pages. [Cut]
• Be careful if you spend your days walking around in flip-flops. If you're not, you could pick up a deadly germ and if you happen to cut your foot, the germ will enter your bloodstream and kill you. Enjoy the rest of summer. [NYDN]More

♦  The Condé Nast memo concerning budget cuts seems to have failed to make its way to W. Last week Kate Moss arrived in NYC to do a shoot, only to discover it had been canceled and no one had bothered to tell her before she left. So, after stopping to smoke a cigarette outside JFK, she hopped back on another first class flight home, at the cost of $12,000 to the magazine. [Mirror]
♦  The latest casualties of the recession: Holly Dunlap, whose shoe line is no more, Fred Leighton jewelry, which might be going into liquidation, and even, maybe, expensive fashion shows. [NYP, WWD, WWD]
♦  Fashionistas in Moscow are coping with the plunge in the market the way any good Russian would: They're drinking lots of vodka. [stylefile] More

♦  It's just such a relief to know that as the economic situation reaches new levels of bleakness, fashion journalists won't lose sight of what's important: Bows are back! Julia Restoin Roitfeld is the trend's pioneer, on the off chance that you needed persuading. [Grazia]
♦  Not quite as earth-shattering, but still important news: Maggie Gyllenhaal has jumped on the short haircut bandwagon. [Elle UK]
♦  Is the Ice Queen melting? In this heartwarming urban fairy tale, a young fan happens to see Anna Wintour in a store, and he tells her "OMG, I could just cry," but she says, "No, please don't cry," and then has Bee take a picture of the two of them. [Fashionista]More

♦  At Betsey Johnson, the front row—Kelly Osbourne, Perry Farrell, Miss J Alexander, Bow Wow, Ugly Betty's Mark Indelicato, Jason Lewis, Mickey Boardman, Lynn Yaeger, and Patrick McMullan—sat at little tables festooned with frosted cupcakes and lollipops for a Peter Pan-themed show in which Liam McMullan played a pirate "throwing gold coins at the audience and pinching the models' exposed bottoms as they walked by." Betsey did her customary finale cartwheel, showed off her granddaughter (left), and went off on vacation with her boyfriend (an Italian decades her junior, of course). [NYO, The Cut, Fashion Wire Daily]

♦  Everyone's favorite Fashion Week mishap, the runway tumble, happened at Rodarte: Abby Lee fell off her extremely high heels, although a tired-looking Agyness managed to stay upright. Not that the show, which unveiled clothes even more unique and directional than we've come to expect from the Mulleavy sisters, needed the extra publicity: The presence of Anna Wintour, Bee Shaffer, André Leon Tally, Diane von Furstenberg, Michael Roberts, Simon Doonan, Natalie Portman, Tobey Maguire, Kim Gordon, and Miranda July sealed the label's white-hot reputation. [style file, Reuters, Wireimage] More

• The inimitable Fug Girls were at Yigal Azrouël today and saw Elettra Rossellini Wiedemann (not sweating in leather pants, enthusiastically posing for a photographer), Miss J Alexander and Nigel Barker (chatting front row), Cory Kennedy (bored, disheveled), Alexis Bryan Morgan (still pregnant), Fabiola Beracasa (front row next to Katie Lee Joel), Nina Garcia (talking to reporters), and Kelly Cutrone (looking better in person than on TV). [The Cut]
• How bizarre that a designer with this much Fashion Week buzz is someone unheard of a year ago: Abigail Lorick (left), who designs the clothes for Gossip Girl's Eleanor Waldorf's fictional label, showed her collection last night and was rewarded with endless breathless coverage. [Elle, NYO, WWD, GoaG]