Like a jumping jack, the New Yorker’s editor in chief, David Remnick, popped out of his front-row seat and onto the stage five times to receive National Magazine Awards at a luncheon yesterday at the Waldorf-Astoria. It is the 40th year for the magazine world’s top editorial honor, which is bestowed by the American Society of Magazine Editors and the Columbia School of Journalism, and which this year attracted more than 1,500 entries.

The New Yorker, which received 10 nominations, more than any other publication, took home an Ellie – the Alexander Calder-designed stabile that looks like an elephant – for profile-writing, reporting, reviews and criticism, and public interest (for Seymour Hersh’s Abu Ghraib reports), and then capped the run with an award for general excellence in magazines with circulation between 1 million and 2 million.

In other categories, too, the New Yorker’s publisher, Condé Nast, cleaned up at the ceremony, winning more awards than any other publishing group. The other Condé Nast magazines that won included Wired and Glamour for general excellence in their categories, Gourmet for photography, and Style.com for general excellence online. The editorial director of Condenet, Jamie Pallot, said winning an Ellie was “the icing on the gateau.”

The big surprise was the appearance of Martha Stewart at the jam-packed luncheon, which was attended by more than 1,200 editors and publishers. Dressed in what could almost be described as prison drab – a black leather jacket and khaki pants – she went onstage with the editorial director of Martha Stewart Wedding, Darcy Miller, to accept the award for general excellence for magazines with circulation of 200,000 to 500,000. Stewart first thanked her staff, but then, unlike most of the other award winners, gave a straightforward pitch for the magazine’s quality – as if the audience were made up of advertisers rather than colleagues.

Another magazine owned by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia also won an award. Kids: Fun Stuff To Do Together received the Ellie for design. That magazine’s editorial director, Jodi Levine, who wore knee socks and said the staff were just “big kids,” thanked Stewart for being an inspiration. Almost all the award winners thanked their bosses profusely, with Condé Nast’s S.I. Newhouse coming in for the most praise.

One of the underlying themes of the day was babies. The society’s president, Mark Whitaker, joked that he was worried that Glamour’s very pregnant editor in chief, Cindy Leive, might go into labor before the end of the two-hour ceremony. And when the editor in chief of BabyTalk, Susan Kane, accepted her award for personal service for an article on breast feeding, she said the author of the feature was in the audience – with breast pump.

Other winners included Sports Illustrated for leisure interests, Esquire for feature writing, National Geographic for the essay “Was Darwin Wrong?” and the Atlantic Monthly for fiction. Ironically, the Atlantic has just announced that it is dropping fiction as a regular feature.

Archrivals Time and Newsweek each won an award. Newsweek won in the single-topic issue category for its issue on the presidential election, “How He Did It.” Time was the surprise winner for a photo portfolio documenting the tragedy in the Sudan.

Even before the awards were handed out, some publications were promoting their nominations to advertisers. Meredith’s Country Home, which was nominated for photography, took out ads in trade magazines and sent mailings to its clients. Glamour also did mailings, celebrating its nomination. Glamour won. Country Home didn’t.