"I'll have what she's having"

Five hundred women and a handful of men packed the Coolidge Corner Theatre tonight for Nora Ephon. She unwrapped the scarf from around her neck and cut loose with lessons from her life as a writer.

First off, she paid homage to her journalism teacher at Beverly Hills High School. On the first day of class he dictated a bunch of facts, along the lines of "The principal announced that the faculty will travel to Sacramento on Thursday for a seminar on new teaching methods.'' Then he asked the class to write a lede. Students turned in their papers and the teacher threw them all in the trash. The lede, he told them, is that there will be no school on Thursday.

"I can't tell you how many times in journalism and life I have missed the point,'' Ephron said.

While she was working with Rob Reiner on "When Harry Met Sally,'' she told him that women often fake orgasms. He said, "Not with me."

Ephron said, "Oh, yes they do.''

He asked the women in the office if Ephron was right. They said she was.

Afte Meg Ryan read the scene in which Sally tells Harry that women fake orgasms, Ryan suggested that Sally have an orgasm right there in the restaurant. Billy Crystal chimed in, "Then a customer can say, 'I'll have what she's having.'"

"That's the moment you learn that collaboration can be a great thing,'' Ephron said. As the screenwriter, she gets the credit for Crystal's classic line.

Ephron, who was an intern in the Kennedy White House, closed with a riff on blogging. "I blog for the Huffington Post. I write about this White House, knowing nothing about it which is one of the thrills of blogging.''