Photographers swarmed around Mia Farrow as her glamorous Andre Previn conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Jack Benny played Mendelssohn over the phone. Still, Isaac Stern more than held his own at his 50th birthday celebration. His rendition of the Brahms violin concerto was the hit of a gala at the Hollywood Bowl. At supper afterward, his observations ranged from philosophy ("Music is more important than musicians. The music goes on and on. All we can do is serve it honestly") to a pun inspired by Ogden Nash ("I leave no tone unSterned").

She turned 80 on July 22, and he turned 78 on July 23. The dedication of the John F. Kennedy library at Ethiopia's national university brought them together for a birthday party. Eight candles burned on the pink-and-white-iced cake, and despite the difficulty of drawing a breath in 8,000-ft.-high Addis Ababa, Rose Kennedy blew them out in one puff. "I made it," she panted, laughing, and handed the first slice to Emperor Haile Selassie, King of Kings, Lion of Judah, Elect of God.

"The only phobia I have that I know about is heights," said Paul Newman. "I get clammy even watching somebody else up in a tree." So there was Newman near the top of a 90-ft. Oregon pine, hauling up a chain saw and hand ax. It took a film, of course, a version of Ken Kesey's novel, Sometimes a Great Notion, to induce the actor-acrophobe to do lumberjack stunts. He reported two weeks early in order to work on his timber technique with a real north-woods logger. "It takes a lot of acting," Newman admitted, "to cover up the fear."

Daniel P. Moynihan, one of the Administration's few conspicuous phrasemakers and men of letters, was caught in a literary lapse by a New York Times reader who could not believe that the Presidential Counsellor meant to say "We have become a noisome country" in a recent speech. Moynihan confessed in his letter to the paper that "after hasty consultation with Webster's Second Edition," he had tried--unsuccessfully--to swing a deal with a reporter to have the word rendered as "querulous." Then he concluded with a verbal flourish: "Thus does truth subvert semantics."

The Spiro Agnew and the Mickey Mouse will soon face competition from wristwatches bearing caricatures of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Spurred on by the success of the Agnew watch, young Fred Saxe of Los Angeles has formed a company to turn out timepieces depicting Nixon in a red-and-white-striped coat and blue shoes, his minute-and hour-hand arms extended in the V sign. At about 11:05 the President strikes his memorable double-V victory pose. Saxe insists that his watches are "in no way meant to be derogatory." He does admit that "hidden political comment" may be found in the Reagan model. The numerals on the face run backward.

Awaiting him in Arizona was a new life in the sun with a nine-year-old widow named Hazel. But no commercial airline would undertake to transport Jack, the Baltimore Zoo's bachelor gorilla, from Baltimore to Phoenix. Playboy Publisher Hugh Hefner saved the day by placing his personal DC-9 jet, Big Bunny, at Jack's disposal. Heavily sedated, the 18-year-old, 300-lb. animal was hefted aboard and deposited on Hefner's eight-foot elliptical bed as curious Bunnies clustered round. Something of Big Bunny's ambience may have rubbed off on Big Jack. At first sight of her simian mate, Hazel reacted with immodest delight. Perhaps the Phoenix zookeepers will name the first offspring Little Hef.

Some retired baseball players own bowling alleys, some sell real estate. If Joe Pepitone stays retired at 29, he says he will stick to hairdressing. The eccentric ex-Yankee first baseman owns a chain of "My Place" hair-styling salons for men. After a half-season of feuding with the Houston Astros' management, Mod Joe abruptly quit and came home to New York. His long, carefully shaped locks, embellished by a partial hairpiece, showed to advantage on the Merv Griffin Show, and Joe made his singing debut with a creditably crooned version of Around the World. But he admitted that his heart is still in the dugout. "I love playing in the Astrodome," said Pepitone. "It's the biggest hair dryer I've ever been under."

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