JELLY BEANS AND ANCHORMEN The New York Young Republican Club hosted a birthday celebration and awards ceremony in honor of President Reagan at Scopa on Madison Avenue last week. The late president’s birthday was on Sunday. The president of the Center for Security Policy, Frank Gaffney, received the Peace Through Strength Award; the founder of the Guardian Angels, Curtis Sliwa,received the Shining City on a Hill Award, and MSNBC television host Joe Scarborough received the Great Communicator award.

In his acceptance remarks, Mr. Scarborough reminisced about his earlier career as a congressman, specifically campaigning door-to-door. Regarding Reagan, Mr. Scarborough said, “Every actor wants to direct. Reagan was the director, Gorbachev was the actor, and the wall came down.”

In his acceptance remarks, Mr. Gaffney spoke about the Law of the Sea Treaty, which would allow the United Nations to tax America. Reagan opposed the treaty, but it may be ratified yet.

Mr. Sliwa gave rousing remarks in support of the Republican party. Interestingly, he said his parents supported President Roosevelt and his own first vote was for George McGovern.

The NYYRC also gave Scott Sala an award for grass-roots activism. Mr. Sala, who was one of the official bloggers during the Republican National Convention, runs www.slantpoint.com. Its tagline is, “Biased Media. From the Heart of NYC.”

Robert George of the New York Post was the evening’s master of ceremonies. Awards presenters included Niger Innis of the Congress of Racial Equality and Andrew Stuttaford of National Review Online.

Among those in the audience were a former candidate for City Council against Gifford Miller, Jennifer Arangio; journalist Thomas Lipscomb; John Krieger of Achelis & Bodman Foundations, and glam rocker Nathaniel Thorne and his wife Michelle. Mr. Thorne’s band is called “Drop Dead Gorgeous.” A senior adviser for Mayor Bloomberg, Shea Fink, also stopped by.

One of the raffle prizes was a small jar of Jelly Belly jellybeans.

COLLECTORS’ CORNER The Big Apple Chapter of the American Political Items Collectors gathered in Chelsea yesterday to buy and sell political memorabilia. Tony Lee, who organized the event, visited the various tables. One dealer was overheard asking another if he had any “Corzine rectangles.”

Philip Kellerman’s table was in a prime position near the entrance. It brimmed with donated buttons for $1 each. The buttons ran the gamut; one from the Progressive Labor Party read, “It’s not just Bush: It’s Capitalism.” Proceeds from their sale raised money for Harvest of Hope Foundation, which helps migrant workers and their families. By half past noon, Mr. Kellerman had raised $409.

He once helped to stuff envelopes for the campaign of Eugene McCarthy in 1968 and George McGovern in 1972, but became hooked on political memorabilia after attending a garage sale in Oneonta, where he met collector Bren Price.

Also stationed near the front was Trudy Mason, who collects President Clinton and Senator Clinton memorabilia, as well as Tammany Hall and Nelson Rockefeller items and political sheet music. She was wearing pins that read “Blue Stater” and “No Mandate.” Among the items at her booth were special Kraft limited-edition “Macaroni & Cheese” boxes made for delegates to shake as noisemakers.

Near the back was a large display of items for sale by Mark Evans of Avon, N.Y., whose company, Collectors Archive, bears the motto, “We have the things your Mother made you throw out.” Asked about how he managed to arrange his table so neatly, Mr. Evans cited his training as a librarian.

Since it was Reagan’s birthday, the Knickerbocker asked Mr. Evans if Reagan items were popular. He said that the 40th president was so charming that members of both political parties collect him. He had for sale a pin that is known among collectors as the “Reagan cone head” where his photo is shaped like an oval. Mr. Evans described himself as a “Hillary-loving, Clinton-forgiving, proud McGovern liberal democrat” who nevertheless “enjoyed seeing Reagan in person” when the late president visited Rochester in 1984.

Mr. Evans, who is about to launch a Web site at collectorsarchive.us, also had unusual items such as watch fobs and old photographs with people wearing political buttons. He is a fan of Senator Kerry and is sergeant-at-arms of the Kerry Political Items Collectors, which will meet next in Haverhill, Mass., in October. The Knickerbocker asked Mr. Evans if Mr. Kerry might attend. He said Mr. Kerry probably has never heard of the group.

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MUNRO MAGIC The Literary Committee of The National Arts Club honored Canadian writer Alice Munro with its gold medal. Novelist Russell Banks was master of ceremonies, introducing the writer; the executive editor in chief of Random House Publishing Group, Daniel Menaker; a 1997 recipient of the National Arts Club Medal of Honor for Literature, Margaret Atwood, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Cunningham. (Disclosure: The Knickerbocker is a member of the literary committee.)

Ms. Atwood said that she struck up a friendship with Ms. Munro by just “calling her up” in 1969, after reading her work. Ms. Munro invited Ms. Atwood to sleep on her floor. She did.

Ms. Atwood said she couldn’t use words like “exceptional” or a “sacred treasure of Canada” to describe Ms. Munro, who dislikes the “highfaultin.” Ms. Atwood instead created an imaginary conversation from Ms. Munro’s hometown:

First speaker: “Maybe she is the greatest writer in the world, you hear that a lot,’ says one neighbor … but I wouldn’t know ’bout that.”

Second speaker: “She tells the truth, ya know, and people don’t always like that, eh?”

First speaker: “But she never puts on airs … if you ask her to bring a pie to the bake sale and she agrees, she will bring that pie.”

In her acceptance speech, Ms. Munro said ignorance enabled her to become a writer: She said she had been ignorant that there could not be any Canadian writers of note; ignorant that the short story was dead, and ignorant of the fact that women couldn’t write.

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NEW LEFT REVISITED John McMillian of the History and Literature Program at Harvard University; a senior lecturer from Brown University, Paul Buhle, and a professor from Rutgers University, Jeremy Varon, spoke at the CUNY Graduate Center on a panel about a book edited by Mr. McMillian and Mr. Buhle called “The New Left Revisited: Critical Perspectives on the Past” (Temple University Press).The event was hosted by the Gotham Center for New York City History and moderated by Mike Wallace.

A humorous moment occurred during the question-and-answer period when one person at the microphone asked a fiery question but later rose from his seat to continue responding. “There was always someone like that in the late ’60s,” Mr. Buhle said. “We always had to ask him to let other people speak.”