WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM SNOOKI, seer of The Jersey Shore?

“HOW WE LIVE, LAUGH, COMMUNICATE and think about our world today,” insists student David Showalter, who has a $5,000 grant to present a one-day conference on “Jersey Shore Studies” at the U. of Chicago on Oct. 28. It will be an academic look at the annoyingly popular MTV reality series and will offer panel discussions on “Guido Sexuality” and “The Jersey Saga: Honor Culture in Medieval Iceland and Modern Seaside,” with 800 indicating they will be attending.

NO, MISS SNOOKI PIG will not be attending. She got $32,000 for mouthing off at Rutgers U. and David hasn’t the cash to dole out that kind of speaker’s reward. It is said cast members for the TV horror get $100,000 each per episode. Methinks they are worth $1 each.

REMEMBER WHEN “THE SITUATION” strutted up to the podium at a recent Comedy Central TV roast of Donald Trump? The Situation was so bad, so juvenile, so unfunny, he was booed off the show. Fake tans, fake fights and fake brains should be discussed. The Jersey Shore shows us the public’s taste is for entertainment far shallower than we feared.

THE EMPHASIS OF THE U. OF C. CONFERENCE should be how to elevate reality TV. Follow the intimate lives of Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners? Have TV shows in more civilized locations, like New York? But then you would have The Real Housewives of wherever and they are ridiculous, but not as vile as Jersey Shore idiots.

YOU ARE RIGHT. WE HATE THE SHOW but the public loves it, revels in it, waits for it. David is right. Study what we laugh at, what we watch — and what some of us loathe.

WHO IS THE HANDSOME, ELIGIBLE EXPERT on health and fitness who was almost killed riding his bike when a texting female motorist ran into him? He was thrown on her hood, crashed through the windshield and his bike was ruined. Thanks to being in great physical shape, he had only a scratch or two.

WHO IS THE BRUNETTE BEAUTY who shaved her gorgeous head to match the bald pate of her lover, undergoing chemotherapy? She moved in with him to help him through his difficult treatment. True love triumphs over vanity and selfishness.

BAD NEWS … THE HELIPAD IS COMING. Approval of the helicopter landing atop the new Lurie Children’s Hospital on East Chicago Ave. in the heart of highrise heaven, frightens many nearby residents at Water Tower, Olympia Center, the Hancock, etc. Prayers and swears greeted the verdict. Fear of crashes, noise and lowering of property values were reasons for fighting the choppers.

SAD NEWS … JUDY LEWIS, daughter of screen stars Clark Gable and Loretta Young, is now in a nursing home, ill and blind. She told me that her birth mother never acknowledged her, and she only met Gable a few times. It wasn’t until a few years ago she learned who her parents were.

ACTRESS JANE LYNCH, hot as Sue Sylvester on TV’s Glee, has a book out, Happy Accidents about her life and the years she spent at Steppenwolf Theatre, Second City and Annoyance Theatre. We liked her best as Charlie Sheen’s savvy psychiatrist on Two and a Half Men. Jane met fans at the Women and Children First bookstore in Andersonville. She grew up in south suburban Dolton.

AN HISTORIC WOODEN ALLEY, SOUTH OF NORTH AVE. on State behind the Cardinal’s Mansion, will be the scene of a ribbon-cutting by the Gold Coast Neighbors at 11 a.m. Oct. 22, marking its restoration, announced Tom Thilman, GCN leader.

A HIGHLIGHT OF THE 47TH CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL was the awarding to French film director and producer Claude Lelouch of a Silver Hugo for 50 years of achievement, by festival founder and director Michael Kutza. The screening of Lelouch’s 43rd movie, What Love May Bring followed.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN is the latest film starring actor John C. Reilly and the crowds at the Film Festival applauded his work. He walked the red carpet and met fans at the AMC River East 21 Theater.

SHHHH! THE GRAND VIZIER is inviting secret guests to a preview for next year’s Twelfth Night Masque but we can’t tell you where or when. But isn’t it at O’Brien’s?

CONGRATS TO EXELON EXEC Ruth Ann Gillis, named chairman of the Goodman Theatre board.

A MEMORIAL SERVICE at Fourth Presbyterian honored the memory of a great lady, Helen Sowa, who died of complications after hip replacement surgery. Our sincere sympathies to her daughter, Meg Nagel.

HALLOWEEN EXTRAVAGANZA that promises lots of fun is the Cece and Melinda party at Proof Lounge Oct. 27 with prizes for the best dressed and entertainment by Chicago Cabaret Academy.

DEMI MOORE AND ASHTON KUTCHER are fated to break up, insists Burton Wade, because he is younger and thus worth more than she is, as well as because Demi is older and on the way down in popularity and desirability. Ashton is on the way up and will be for many more years. Wade, a dating expert, reminds the couple met when he was 25 and she was 40, but both were then “of equal value.” Wade says many younger men are interested in older women but their appeal doesn’t last.

THE COUNTRY’S FIRST HELLENIC MUSEUM opens Nov. 5 with a ball at the Rooftop Terrace in Millennium Park and Mayor Rahm Emanuel in attendance with civic leaders from all over the country.

SPOOKS ABOUND when Concierges Unlimited International party Oct. 27 at the Rookery for their 21st benefit.

HOT ACTOR HUGH JACKMAN INVITED PALS Beryl and Al Blitz to see Real Steel, his new movie, and they stayed at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Hugh had his wife and two kids with him in California.

OUT OF A JOB? There are tips to be had in the new book by President Bill Clinton, out in November, titled Back to Work. The 200-page offering is a guide to the current economic slump, how it was caused and how to recover. It is his third book, following the best selling memoir, My Life and a book on philanthropy called Giving.

STARTING A NEW JOB is daughter Chelsea Clinton, 31, who has joined the board of Barry Diller’s Internet media holding company. Chelsea is pursuing a doctorate at Oxford U. as well as working at New York U., the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative. She will receive a retainer of $50,000 plus stock options.

FOR $56 A DREAM IS FULFILLED for two hip and trendy gals. Mix a combined 50 years of cosmetic and fragrance industry experience, add a splash of a fine idea, and Cocktail was born! Leave it to Lauren Ellwood and Gigi Gold to create their company, Flowers & Water, and birth a luxurious perfume, Cocktail, that sells for only $56 and smells like a million. They used long lasting natural oils, only recyclable materials and donate a portion of sales of Cocktail to a charity, CURED, dedicated to research for eosinophilic disease. Lauren and Gigi are hoping for the sweet smell of success.

FEMALE COURAGE AND HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT in the world’s largest money pit, the Chicago Board of Trade, is told with honesty and love. Joyce Selander, a beautiful blond with balls and smarts and humor who adores her fellow traders, spins the tale. She penned Joyce, Queen of the Mountain in three months and it is a fun read and you will actually learn how traders make and lose fortunes. Joyce tells it like it is, and you realize immediately that she is not some shy, retiring female — she’s a lioness in the pits and heaven help guys who get in her way. Oh, yeah, she uses feminine wiles and is proud of her petite bod and stunning smile. As a kid she decided to be queen of the mountain and she achieved her dream. Joyce, who knows the ins and outs of the gold and silver markets, reports that when the Twin Towers were hit in New York City, tons of gold bars kept in the basement vaults were already loaded for delivery out of the damned buildings. Draw your own conclusions.

BOOK SIGNINGS in Joyce Selander’s future for her Joyce, Queen of the Mountain are at DePaul, the Economic Club and the Cigar Society of Chicago. Attendees will be surprised at this slim volume that includes an unsolved murder, a suicide, and details of trades that made history. But she’s a woman who sings the Willie Nelson song, “To All the Men I Loved Before,” and she includes a list of 21 super pals — not lovers, she told me, just great friends. Some of them are: Billy O’Connor, Butch McGuire, John O’Doherty, Jim Behrens, Michael Forbeck, Ric Shanahan, Jeffs Kollar, Uncle Julius Frankel, Charlie Clement, John Geldermann, Vince Schreiber, John Frazier, Everett Klipp, Edmund O’Connor, Daniel Amstutz, Freddie Brzozowski and Tim Anderson. Well-known trader Barry Lind wrote the foreword and calls Joyce a special kind of woman. In the book she praises trader Jeff Silverman “as one of the brightest men in the commodities industry.” The book tells her amazing story and is a personal history of the last 40 years in the trading pits.

WE MOURN THE DEATH of a great guy, Arthur Nielsen Jr., 92, of market research fame. He loved movies and radio, and was active until the end with many local charities. He took his father’s firm to 22,000 employees in 25 countries with annual revenues of $680 millions.

JUST BECAUSE IT IS PINK it doesn’t mean it is helping fight the battle against breast cancer. In a Marie Claire article this month, Lea Goldman exposes many phony charities making a profit from this hateful disease as the frightened public buys into their hype. The money allocated for breast cancer research, $763 million, is more than double for any other type of cancer. Charity charlatans are getting rich as we are no closer to a cure than we were 20 years ago. Peddling the pink logo has become a massive racket, Goldman reports, and many complain too much cash goes for awareness campaigns, walks, races and rallies — at the expense of research.

SAY BELATED HAPPY BIRTHDAY to: Joan Cusack, Sharon Osbourne, Hugh Jackman, Penny Marshall, Roger Moore, Emeril Lagasse, Paul Simon, Scott Bakula and Usher.

SINGER E. FAYE BUTLER, who will be inducted this fall into the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. and who has won six Joe Jefferson awards will star Nov. 15 at the Sarah Siddons Society gala at the Ritz. Faye recently released a CD entitled Circle of Firsts as well as a new cabaret act. Donna Atwater and Greta Flory are co-chairs.

FANS OF SINGING WAITER John Vincent Mahady of Mon Ami Gabi are looking forward to his Oct. 30, 2 p.m. concert at the Mayne Stage, 1328 W. Morse Ave. Many are grabbing brunch prior to the performance at Act One Cafe. Witty John is also one wicked baker, creating a chocolate cake with Snickers bars inside that is addictive.

“YOU ARE NOT REALLY POOR UNTIL YOU PUT WATER ON THE CORN FLAKES.” —ELAINE MARKSON, Literary AGENT

CONTACT: annbgerber@gmail.com or 847-677-2232