"Let's not make a mistake," said the celebrated painter. "Let's not call my stuff art. There are about half a dozen here I'd like to burn right now." As cheerfully self-deprecatory as ever about his favorite hobby, Dwight Eisenhower, 76, finally got around to reviewing the 65 oil paintings that make up part of an exhibit at New York's Gallery of Modern Art called "The Memorable Eisenhower Years," which opened last month while Ike was briefly hospitalized. If some of his paintings brought out the arsonist in him, at least they were all genuine--which was more than could be said for a prominently displayed cadet uniform that he was supposed to have worn at West Point. Said Ike after one glance: "This is absolutely false--a replica."

A many-splendored diplomat is Edward Kennedy Ellington, 68. Invited to Washington to grace a White House dinner honoring Thailand's jazz-loving King Bhumibol and his Queen, the Duke had just spooned into his dessert when the background musicians, a championship jazz group from North Texas State University, ventured into Take the A Train, Ellington's theme song. Excusing himself from the table, the Duke moved into the motorman's seat at the piano, got the collegians home without missing a signal. What did he think of the young band? asked the King. "I wish it were mine," deadpanned the maestro.

The note passed from hand to hand among the spectators in Berkeley municipal court advised everyone to "rise silently when Mario comes in." A lot of them did--though silence was a curious tribute to pay Mario Savio, 23, noisiest voice of the Free Speech Movement that raised such a commotion for two years at the University of California. Savio earned himself a 120-day jail sentence from the Berkeley court for trespassing, resisting arrest and refusal to disperse, fought the rap unsuccessfully for two years through higher courts (the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review it), and last week marched off to the pokey after taking a bite of his farewell gift from friends: a chocolate cake with a hacksaw stuck in the middle.

Poor, scrawny, rich Twiggy. Last week it was one Professor Rupprecht Bernbeck, a Hamburg orthopedist, who viewed with alarm the 17-year-old cockney dowsing rod, opined that "practically everything is wrong with her--she has a humpback, exaggerated curvature of the spine and a hanging abdomen," all leading inevitably to "pains in the loins and the hips." Nothing would help old Twig, he added, except maybe swimming or "crawling around on all fours for ten minutes each morning and evening." Whereupon Mrs. Nell Hornby, Twiggy's mother, spoke up: "What a load of rubbish. You'll not find any girl as healthy as my daughter."

Prudence and thrift took another beating in the tax courts last week. In New York, the state's transfer tax department suppressed a smile as it revealed that Howard Gould, sobersided last son of Railroad Baron Jay Gould, left an estate of $64 million when he died at 88 in 1959. Of this bounteous legacy, about $37 million will go straight to Uncle Sam and another $13 million to the state, leaving 26 legatees to scramble for the $14 million remaining. A keener student of the tax game, the late auto heir and playboy Horace Dodge, who died at 63 in 1963, took it all with him and more. Unable to get along on his $150,000 yearly income from a trust fund, Dodge managed to borrow at least $10 million from his mother, Mrs. Anna Thomson Dodge, 99, to bankroll his wining and wiving. When his estate was probated, it totaled a pitiable $718,278, enough to pay off 4-c- on the dollar on $ 12 million in court-approved claims by his mother and four former wives.

Only last February she complained to a visiting American journalist that "people have me constantly pregnant, and I don't know whether I should be pleased or insulted." Now she can be pleased. Monaco court officials announced that Princess Grace, 37, is expecting her fourth child in January, and Monegasques are reportedly hoping for a boy to line up with Prince Albert, 9, against the guiles of Princesses Caroline, 10, and Stephanie, 2.

The New York papers called it a real nice clambake, but it was more than that: a beautiful mornin', an enchanted evening and an endless stream of happy talk on the 65th birthday of Broadway Composer Richard Rodgers. NBC's Today show gave over its full two hours in the morning to a review of his life and work, and that night Mayor John Lindsay pinned the city's Handel Medallion on him during a reception at Gracie Mansion. In between came a luncheon attended by 90 of Rodgers' friends and well-wishers, including cast members from many of his 23 shows. Letters and tape-recorded greetings showered in from the likes of Vice President Humphrey and Senator Dirksen, beatifying him as "a genius" and "America's answer to Mozart." Rodgers had just the right lyrics to cover it all. "I'm intimidated and I'm touched," he said, and sat down.

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