Save The Children's an awesome, nonreligious, independent charity doing great work worldwide, providing everything from shelter to education to medical care for kids who aren't within reach of it, for whatever reason. By no means do you have to buy the book to give a buck, but if you, it'll be well worth it.

Spider Man 2 thespian and recent Columbia MFA graduate James Franco signed it sometime before telling our photographer, Mo Pitz, to fuckoff. Mo will forgive him one day, but we're still thankful for the sign. Same with 2009's National Book Award fiction prize winner, Let The Great World Spin author Colum McCann. We also got I Was Told There Would Be Cake author Sloane Crosley, College Humor founder Ricky Van Veen, media reporter Jeff Bercovici (signing as Dave Eggers), the New York Times' Allen Salkin, cartoonists, other National Book Award nominees, and a bunch of other people who—like you—care about books.

Signature Gawker editors past and present grace the thing, too: Editor-in-Chief Gabriel Snyder, New York Magazine's Jessica Coen, The Awl's Alex Balk, founding editor Elizabeth Spiers, Page Six's Neel Shah, and and our very own weekend cleanup hitter, Foster Kamer, who braved the National Book Awards to do this, and also ambushed a Mediaite's live broadcast to plug it (fast-forward to 48:30 for the surprise). Besides which, if The Dark Lord Balthazar himself can pitch in...

....so can you. It's for a great cause, it's a literary treasure, and is the best copy of a Historically Important Book, Going Rogue, in existence. Hands down. Don't miss out: get your last bids in here.

Honestly, you don't even have to be able to read particularly well to see just how much This Is Totally, CompletelyFuckingAbsurd subtext this was written with. Poor Allen Salkin. The Seymore Hersh of the Sunday Styles (and Sarah Palin Slambook Signee) clearly did not enjoy this. Imagine having to hang out with Madonna's squeak toy for a few nights. And then write two pages about him. Forget what isn't someone's idea of fun; this sounds like a spite-assignment. The only thing that could make this better is if David Attenborough narrated it for readers.

Into the trenches Salkin goes. Watch as he infiltrates the nesting den!

Young models in sheer cocktail dresses shimmied near chrome buckets holding bottles of the vodka brand sponsoring the party.

He meets curious creatures of the night, and attempts to elicit information about their intent marauding around the natural habitats of a Jesus.

A freelance reporter for Life & Style magazine prepared to sidle up for a quick interview. "I'm here because I'm supposed to ask him questions about dating Madonna," she said.

Yes, well, as if we don't already know, Jesus Luz is basically Madonna's squeak toy. They had plenty to say about each other:

"I don't talk about my girlfriend," Mr. Luz said. "Let them come to their own conclusions." (Through a spokeswoman, Madonna declined to comment for this article.)

Salkin, however, persevered. There are questions that need answering. Most importantly, how the hell do you pronounce his name? Observe his continuing efforts to communicate in his native language with the indigenous call of the celebrity weekly reporter:

Asked if she knew how to say Mr. Luz's first name, she ventured, "Hay-soos? Or maybe Gee-zus?"

But it's not all mysteries! Out he comes, with answers to the questions regarding this cosmic being with whom Madonna's sexual organs associate themselves with.

Before Mr. Luz, muscular and curly haired with piercing blue eyes, returned to the laptop and mixing board, he explained the proper way to say his first and last names: "Zhay-ZOOSE. Loose."

And...that's basically the big revelation here. Jesus went to a DJ school, started booking gigs, met Madonna a month after she divorced Guy Ritchie, and she's been paying him allowance since. Okay, he says she's not:

..He said that was ridiculous. "I'm laughing so loud," he said.

But who says they're "laughing" at embarrassing allegations? People who are not laughing. Note the curious lack of a bracketing "laughing." Salkin knows this guy's pockets are lined with Ray of Light-era cash. Want to see how bored Salkin is with Jesus? Look:

It reads like a fact sheet. The IMDB "Trivia" page for Pet Cemetery 3 was written with more excitement than this. It's not at all a hack job or a rush job, because, for all intents and purposes, everything you'd ever want to know about Jesus Luz is contained within this piece.

This is the definitive Jesus piece. Including how much he thinks he's worth ($30,000, which a club decided not to pony up for). It's exactly why this reads like a please, get this thing out of my life job. I almost kinda feel bad for his having to take this one on. Almost. Meanwhile, has anybody ever cared less about a Madonna boyfriend? No. Maybe it's a sign of the times, how we've grown with Madge, how Madge just can't buy/fondle up some excitement like she used to, or how we just have better things to give a shit about these days. Or maybe it's just a sign that—predictably—Jesus is just like every other model/DJ in New York City: meh.

[BID ON THE BOOK HERE. SERIOUSLY. IT'S FOR CHARITY.]

Realize: this is the best copy of this book in existence. Period. Bar none. And at a ceremony when the books and authors being honored have the sales of their books disproportionately inverted by their quality, it only seemed appropriate to get everybody in on The Big Joke of the evening: that more people would read Sarah Palin's Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Bullshit than any of the nominees' and winners' books, combined.

We offered the book up to some of our favorite literature and media luminaries that were in the house that evening. Dave Eggers—that asshole!—was very nice about refusing to sign our book, probably because it wasn't for his 826 charity. But he was kind. How's that for an endorsement?

Not good enough? What about super awesome sleepy Columbia MFA graduate and Freaks and Geeks actor James Franco signing our book?

Yes, this man signed our book. Okay, Jim. Maybe you made our photographer cry. But you did this one for the children. You're okay, today. Also, the nerds at Slate think you're The Sexiest Man With A Pulse, for what it's worth (read: the most ostentatious pillow talk ever). Congrats. But what if an awesome hunky dreamy movie star with an MFA from Columbia isn't enough reason to spend lots of money on a book people drew on?

Maybe 2009 National Book Award winner Colum McCann signing this bad boy is! YES THAT IS COLUM MCCANN SIGNING THE PALIN BOOK. This took a lot—a lot—of convincing. Charity, huh? But it's Sarah Palin's book! Sarah Palin! I can't put my name on anything of hers! Are you sure this is for charity? What charity?!

Funny you should ask, Mr. McCann. I've picked a charity so great, you can't even say their name out loud without feeling awful for never having done something for them until now: Save The Children. Yeah, you're gonna stiff these guys?

They've done great work bringing literacy programs to kids in need across the country, among other great things they've done for kids that otherwise don't get things done for them that should be. If I were running these programs, I would have them all reading Gawker Weekends and Calvin and Hobbes, because that's what I grew up on, but I'm not, and these people are, and we're all better off. You don't have to buy the book to give a buck. Oh, and if you complain about the charity I picked, I'll come to your house and personally beat you with an unsigned copy of Ms. Palin's 2010 NBA Fiction Winner. But yes, people actually signed this thing.

You want proof?

2009 NBA Fiction Prize winner Collum McCann (fourth page, center) really, actually did take this much convincing. He wrote: "'For we must love this poor earth, for we have not seen another...' Go Obama!" Awesome.

Ricky Van Veen and Neel Shah marvel at how incredibly awesome this book is, while Jessica Coen is laughing to herself imagining Sarah Palin read her fabulous, fierce nugget of wisdom.

Here's the guy who I thought was Toph Eggers, right. I got everyone's name wrong that night. At one point I think I remember identifying Keith Waldrop as Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Jeff Bercovici signed the book as Dave Eggers, since Dave Eggers doesn't care about Saving The Children so much as making them read George Saunders or whatever.

Here're the first two pages:

And here're the second two:

And here's the full list of who we know we got:

2009 NBA Fiction Winner, Let The Great World Spin author Colum McCann.

Spider Man 2 actor and recent Columbia MFA graduate James Franco wrote (third page, top-right): "FUCK YEAH!" with a strange vampire-smiley face.

2008 NBA Fiction Finalist Salvatore Scibona (second page, middle-right) gave her "hugs."

2008 NBA Fiction Finalist Rachel Kushner (second page, bottom-left) offers her insight on context clues regarding snowmobiles.

I Was Told There Would Be Cake author by night and Random House book publicist by day Sloane Crosley offered her encouragement "storming the castle." True story: Sloane had no idea what she was signing.

The Seymore Hersh of the Sunday Styles, New York Times writer Allen Salkin took up the entire bottom-third of the fourth page ensuring that I wasn't conning him. He also drew a fairly accurate drawing of himself.

Dave Eggers! As performed/signed by former Portfolio and current Daily Finance media columnist Jeff Bercovici (fourth page, top-right).

Columnist Katie Bakes tried to start a #hashtag, while the New York Observer's publishing beat gangsta Leon Neyfakh wrote...something.

Vice and New York Press writer Jamie Peck (second-page, bottom-right, I think) talked to her about wolves. Someone who isn't Vice writer Jamie Peck, apparently, talked to her about wolves. Claim your identity here!

College Humor founder Ricky Van Veen gave Sarah a big CHILL, BABY, CHILL while Former Radar, Gawker, and Page Six writer Neel Shah got tactful.

The Awl writer Alex Balk.

Flavorwire's Kelsey Keith had more sage advice for Palin's future career aspirations.

Cartoonist Laurie Sandell drew a woman holding a smoking gun on the third page. Get it?

Gawker Past and Present: Media Overlord Nick Denton and current Gawker Editor-in-Chief Gabriel Snyder both thanked her for pageviews—heh—while founding Gawker editor Elizabeth Spiers wished her luck, and Gawker J²-era/New York Magazine editor Jessica Coen gave her hair tips.

Oh, and me, lending to this the extent of my own profound, political insight.

We also got Gawker's Altarcations writer Phyllis Nefler. and some guy who looks like Dave Eggers brother, who turned out not to be Dave Eggers' brother after I thought he was Dave Eggers' brother. His name is Alec Friedman.

[Alas, because we were drunk, there may be signatures in here we missed. Seriously! If you see your John Hancock—heh: cock—please email me with it. It's for charity. You don't want children growing up to one day actually think that was funny, do you? Right. Neither do I.]

The book's sanctity has been preserved by only having been signed on the night of the 2009 National Book Awards, by attendees of the ceremony. That said, if you win it and want to have anybody else in the Gawker Media offices sign it, sure, fuckit, I'll get them to sign. Hell, we know people who are experts on books that are imaginary that are supposed to be real, and I bet we could get them to sign if that's what you wanted. Or I could eat the book, or I could drop-kick it, or I could detonate it with whatever fireworks you send us, or I could read it, but who's that awful? Not you, potential charity-giver. Anyway. You could do any of those things, or none of them, and just keep it as one of the most awesome literary collectibles ever. You know? You know.

Because one day, you can show this to your children's children, and tell them: I bought this so you could see how happy the people were before it was like this. Now that James Franco is the new Daniel Mendelsohn, and every book published is full of shit, and they all come from blogs, and they're the only things that sell, and they are read on calculators, there was this. There was this night. There were these drunk people signing Frau Palin's book.

And then you can blame it on this guy:

But seriously, it's for charity. Buy the goddamn book. Now. Please. Our auction is here.

[Photographs via Gawker Party Crash photog Mo Pitz.]

"Look up, see that?" An editor at Reagan Arthur drunkenly smiled during the boozy, Bat Mitzvah-y after party held on the balcony overlooking the ballroom of the Cipriani Wall Street, and woozily pointed up to a perch some 25-feet above the dance floor. "See where the DJ is?" We stared above us. "Next year, it's not going to be a DJ. It's gonna be a Kindle." Brilliantly wasted drunkspeak that it was, she had a point. And she couldn't have been the only one thinking it.

Just like film, TV, and music, everything's going digital, and some of the people in that room might be scared shitless that their product's going the way of the buffalo. Hence, the hysterical irony of Google sponsoring the party. The guys hoarding — and then giving away for free — the beautiful words that should cost money to buy, those fucking guys who call it "content" and are mainlining it into concentration camps of data, those were the guys holding the party.

Every year, media industries have their traditional back-patting ceremonies where they heap upon their products awards saluting their best and brightest. Cynics see it as a way to drive sales to products that need it (see: The Oscars, The Tonys, etc). The pompous, starfucky nonsense put in plain view at awards for film, TV, and music doesn't stick, here, and it shouldn't since basically everyone in the room more or less knows each other. The dance floor's raging and you get the feeling that people are genuinely humbled by winning. Truly, it's nice. And the general consensus was that it was a fun, fun party. That always helps.

Mo and I showed up to Cipriani's Wall Street ballroom around our invite's stated start time of 10pm, along with all the rest of the media folk there to get fucked up on the cheap. We were turned away immediately: The ceremony's running long, it'll be another half an hour 'til the after-party. We stood outside with a bunch of publishing assistants while I decided whether to put on my tie, which was rolled up in my pocket. "There're people in tuxes in there, goddamnit" Mo warned me. The invite said "festive attire." I decided to put my tie on. "You look like a Young Republican," Mo warned me.

The reason for the delay? The explanation I got was that Gore Vidal gave a "sad, rambling, 20-minute speech." His opening salvo: "'Most Presidents fear assassination. It is my impression I shall vanish from your view because I have been fired,' said Roosevelt." It's bad enough that your industry's fighting for its life. Letting your keynote speaker deliver an unintentionally sad requiem couldn't have been the best move.

We were let in to bum-rush the party just as host Andy Borowitz introduced the final award: the prize for the year's Best Fiction Book. I'd been having a cigarette with a guy who'd introduced himself as a member of James Franco's Columbia MFA class before we walked in. "$20 on McCann," I thought to myself, except, I said it out loud. Whoops. Sure enough, Colum McCann's book Let the Great World Spin, won. Someone knocked over a chair standing up applauding for him. Franco's classmate laughed at me. "What?" I looked at him. "It's the only book anybody's heard of." How could McCann's book not have won?

But maybe that's why my woozy, wobbly-footed editor friend was smiling when she stared up at the DJ and made her draconian prediction of a Kindle telling us how to dance instead of the Jersey DJ bumping Top 40 hits all night. Because there's still some esprit de corps amongst book authors, because they still care, because there's still a reason to get crunk. Books might be fucked, but at least they're worth saving. It's not all bad.

Mo and I got drunk and took pictures. We also got people to sign a magical book for charity, which you'll learn about later. In the mean time: here's who we saw. All of these people are drunk.

This fucking guy. James Franco was surrounded by a gaggle of women all night, and yes, he was awake. He was kind enough when we approached him, he even helped us with out secret project for the evening. But as I turned the corner, he started asking questions of Mo: Who was that? Who're you from? Mo sheepishly told him. And Franco, who Mo has swooned over since Freaks and Geeks, told her to fuckoff. Mo was sad, James Franco.
Matt Berninger, lead singer of The National, will not fuck you over. At least this month. He's Mr. November. And he was also totally shocked when I recognized him. So was I! But also: elated! Someone whose shit I knew comprehensively! Him and his wife Carin Besser, who—the more you know!—among other places has written for the New Yorker, were ridiculously nice. And showed up right before the party started, probably for the booze. But seriously: The National! This picture is awesome.
2009 National Book Award Fiction winner Colum McCann was all smiles. He took the subway to the ceremony. He can now pay for his cab ride back home with the giant piece of gelt around his neck.
And Then We Came To The Bar. Gawker Status Galley author Joshua Ferris was a very nice person. This is how Scott Rudin taught him how to hold champers: two at a time, while you crush the competition into the next dimension with your other hand.
Dave Eggers not only didn't want to pose for a picture, but he didn't want to contribute to the Gawker Charity Book Project! Asshole! [Actually, he was nice about saying no. But still: Asshole!] Probably because it wasn't for his own set of nonprofit kids' reading centers, 826. Gotta admire him for sticking to his guns, though. The man knows a dollah holla, amirite? BUT!
Heh, we did get little brother Toph "I May Have Had Sex With Julia Allison" Eggers, too. Note the flames in the background indicating the convergence of supernatural forces as Toph Eggers signs a piece of Gawker Media, LLC property. Did we tell him where we were from? No. Did we tell him Dave signed the book? Maybe. But is it for a good cause? Hell yeah! (For the record, Jeff Bercovici signed it as Dave). You've got to be kidding me. I've been informed via email that this isn't Dave Eggers' brother. I'm now going to find whoever told me it was and punch them in the face. For the children. Apparently, it's this guy, Alec Friedman. #GonnaGoCryNow.
Left to right: Jonathan Lethem's assistant Fred, who's first name I finally remembered but who's last name I still can't! Center is R.K. Ghansah, and to her right: James Franco's aforementioned MFA classmate, the very affable Mr. Mike Spies. Names! We didn't get 'em. Party reporting is hard work, people, especially when there's drink to be drank. But let me assure you all of these people are very nice despite how badly I totally screwed the pooch on IDing them.
Sloane Crosley was told there would be booze. Instead she got New York's Boris Kachka. Eh? [*Makes scales with hands*.]
The Seymour Hersh of the Styles Section, Allen Salkin, with rum scion Jeffrey Zarnow. Salkin made me promise I wouldn't talk any shit and that we'd have an armistice for this one night, so long as he did me a solid. And he did! Stickin' to my word here, Allen. Allen was very nice and didn't punch me in the face and he was not celebrating any made-up bullshit holidays that evening.
Former Gawker Intern turned Page Six reporter Neel Shah with Vice's executive editor (or however they title their employees over there: "King Kong BigDick of Editorial," etc) Chris Cechin. Where are the drugs, Chris? I asked him. He didn't know. I believed him.
Founding Gawker editor Elizabeth Spiers, with friend.
Neel Shah, New York Magazine's Magical Princess of Online Domination, former Gawker editor Jessica Coen, the pixilated Alex Balk, and former BlackBook EIC and Maxim editor Steve Garbarino. Balk told me he'd "rape (my) kittens" or something if I didn't obstruct his face. I believed him.
College Humor's Ricky Van Veen thinks you should look at some funny shit going down....
....which was New York magazine busybody Chris Wilson and former BlackBook/Maxim editor Steve Garbarino getting kicked out by Cipriani security for smoking inside. Whoops! I was later informed: This is how Chris finds out that the sun is down. By the way, this is my new favorite Party Exit Strategy: just light up in the middle of the room until you're forced to leave, and be like, What? I though that shit was cool here? Y'all are lame. Peace. Brilliant!
Daily Finance media reporter Jeff Bercovici lends his signature to a very special book, with Jamie Peck, who recently wrote about this crazyass fairy convention for VICE. Jamie also writes for the New York Press, The L, Suicidegirls, and a bunch of other badass indie fuck you and The Pope rock places like those. Her writing resume is basically like, if you're a dude and you live in New York and you have a blogger fetish—which is kind of really fucked up, like, really—than Jamie Peck is definitely your "Dream Weaver Moment" girl. And I also feel like an asshole for forgetting her name. But hey, look, Jeff Bercovici, who writes about the media, is signing a book.
Bonnie Jo Campbell, who was nominated with Colum McCann for the Fiction Prize for her book American Salvage, didn't win. But seriously, no joke: does that not look like someone who's legitimately happy to be there?
Gawker Editor-in-Chief Gabriel Snyder, in the default. "You clean up well!" He exclaimed. Jesus, man, thanks for the supreme vote of confidence. These people who manage writers, they think we have an existential crisis every time we try to put pants in the morning. It's unreal. WE KNOW HOW TO PUT ON PANTS.
Blogger/columnist extraordinaire, Katie Bakes, with the New York Observer's Status Galley Gangsta Leon Neyfakh.
The Mark of the Beast isn't 666. It's this guy's signature. He might not be drunk.
James Franco, you dick. You made Mo sad. She's not even part-time. Asswizzard! Mo was going to cry, but not because she was drunk, even though she was.
I try on the future of literature: Facebook! UGHHH. Seriously people, if you let books die out, you'll have to live with the proliferation of writing at this level.

Times media writer Edward Wyatt penned a soft, round filing that was about the word "douche." It appeared on today's front page.

This word is one with which this website (and media network) has a wide breadth of experience with. In November, 2006, former Gawker scribe Emily Gould wrote:

Don't get us wrong. It's not that (50%) of our delicate ladyish sensibilities are offended or anything; far from it. It's just that, as vagina-havers, we want to branch out a little bit in the realm of vagina-related insults. Also, we couldn't help but notice that the trope is now so bitten and tired, it pretty much begs to be called "Already Over" (if Already Over wasn't Already Over, obvs). Plus, Dolce has co-opted it for his own use. What a fucking asswizard!

Before we go any further, can we just say that "azzwizard" is kind of magical?

Anyway. People, as we are, can't be without first-stone casters. Observe:

I really, really hope there aren't actually 17,400 results for the word "douche" on Gawker websites that can't be cross-referenced with Joe Dolce.

But for a moment, back to Wyatt's piece. He didn't write about how the word evolved from a technical term of feminine hygiene to a schoolyard pejorative, to a favorite of bloggers and mediocre satire writers alike, to a Times media piece. No: that'd be too meta, and too interesting, and too far into the purview of their excellent After Deadline column.

In a newspaper where the word "fuck" is too vulgar as to only be printed once in its entire history—despite the word "fuck" and its entrenchment in our daily lives, in politics, popular culture, literature, and I'm sure its handy usage around Times' bullpens—they penned a piece based on the statistical usage and adoption into sitcom television, where every decent slang word goes to die.

It's filled with numbers about usage, and quotes from TV writers about how they employ it, like this one:

"As a writer, you're always reaching for a more potent way to call somebody a jerk," Dan Harmon, the creator of "Community," said about the word "douche." "This is a word that has evolved in the last couple of years - a thing that sounds like a thing you can't say."

It doesn't get much more interesting than that, except for a line about how the show that once presented the American Public with Dennis Franz's tuchus decided to give it an evolved go:

Users of the recently popular word "douche" defend its use, noting that it was invoked, usually with the suffix "bag," in the 1990s by the character Andy Sipowicz on "NYPD Blue," an ABC series that frequently pushed the boundaries of network acceptability.

Naturally, since this story dropped, the Gawker Weekend inbox has been brimming with glee and excitement.

There are a few angles to take on it. Mediaite's Joe Coscarelli reflects much of the sentiment I've already heard out there in his lede:

I bet you never thought you'd see the day when you could pick up a copy of the New York Times and see the word "douche" on page one. And we're not talking hygiene!

And NYTpicker, that anonymous scourge of the New York Times' newsroom, takes out his or her butcher knife and gets to work on how typically bullshit the numbers used to create this story are, making a special point to note that the Times calls the word "offensive to many people" but doesn't say who those people are:

But seeing TV reporter Edward Wyatt and the NYT base its front-page reporting on numbers the paper actually requested from the Parents Television Council — a notoriously conservative TV watchdog group that has brought 99 percent of all indecency complaints before the FCC (we learned that from an excellent 2004 NYT story) — makes us a little sick. The PTC has been around since 1995, founded by conservative commentator L. Brent Bozell, and is responsible for complaints to the FCC about the Janet Jackson nipple slip and cursing on "NYPD Blue."

NYTpicker's right, and Joe Coscarelli's right. It's patently ridiculous that the Times uses generalized opinions to substantiate their numbers, to help give their story a case. There's also something inevitably entertaining about watching a newspaper as prude as the Times give the word "douche" some kind of once-over, even if the story behind it is fairly flimsy.

But honestly, this all just kind of brings me down.

Believe me, the last thing I want to do is rain on the parade of fun that is the New York Times using the word "douche," as someone who can only die happy once Clark Hoyt calls one of the Styles writers a "fuckface" in his Public Editor column. But let's talk about this like adults, kind of, for a moment. As someone with a strange affection for vulgar language, I only see this as an intense letdown.

To do this story two years ago would've been one thing, as the numbers slowly rise into becoming a trend, before it hits fever pitch. But for this story to run now, without Styles writer Allen Salkin's byline—and Salkin would've done way better with this—is absurd. Besides the fact that it's boring and plucked from a bullshit ether, the potential they laid waste to with this one is absurd. Mainly: to address the issue of creating new terms that don't exhaust themselves more and more on each usage. For example:

Where did the word "douche" come from in it's literal, non-slang implication?
Who were the first people to make the word "douche" a pejorative?
Who appended the word "bag" to the word "douche"?
Who uses this word every day?
How long has it been around?
Who (besides Gould/Shafrir/Balk/Sicha-era Gawker) has called this word over?
And what media outlets use it on a regular basis? But mostly:
Who's offended by the word?

There's nothing interesting about the word "mediocre" unless it's placed in an interesting context. On the inverse, the word "fuck" is almost always interesting, if only because it begs the question of necessity. The idea behind using a word like "douche" or "fuck" is to emphasize or exclaim something, it's to aid a common goal of writing or speaking, the reason people like me love language: to communicate an idea to someone you otherwise couldn't.

But what does the word "douche" communicate, exactly, besides the kind of person who would use it?

Maybe someone who's just unsavory in some regard, or someone who's typically unaware of their uncouth behavior. Or someone who does something your way of going about things disagrees with. There're way too many words like it. Maybe people just enjoy the way it rolls off the tongue, or maybe people actually enjoy employing the connotation of a Feminine hygiene product (which is the point all you nu-Feminists should take to say the exact same thing Gould said three years ago).

But really, the word douche is just like the story the Times did on it, and the generalized sources—the "some people" who "may be offended" by it— they used. It's empty. It means nothing. It's a completely subjective assessment of somebody who does something you don't like. I know people who use the word "douchebag" when referring to other people; I'm willing to bet those same people use the word "douchebag" to refer to the people referring to them. And I'm most disappointed when people I know who use the word could find something more concise, or shocking, or linguistically artful to go with. It's sold at the Wal-Mart of pejoratives. It's cheap, it's made en masse, and there's nothing but bad preservatives in the ingredients. Let's all—The New York Times, Bloggers, TV Writers, Those Who Use The Word "Douchebag," Those Who You Would Call A "Douche," Bar Patrons, Sports Fans, English Professors, Joe Dolce—become better communicators, and find something better than the word "douche" and it's mediocre suffix "bag" to go with.

Or, you know, we could just judge each other a little less.

Since none of these things will probably happen in the foreseeable future, just go with "douchenozzle" until it does. At least it sounds funny.

[Related Reading - Commenter VioletViolet makes a salient point: "I still think the NY Times article on "vajajay" was worse, although at least it wasn't on the front page. When you're asking Gloria Steinem for her opinion on a term that's use was mostly limited to The Soup, you're in trouble."]

We know the story: a talented, well-regarded guy by plenty of people in Hollywood, DJ AM (ne Adam Goldstein), died of a drug overdose after a life spent fighting addiction. Compounded by the physical and emotional stress of a plane crash he was in with his touring partner Travis Barker, AM started to buckle while filming a reality show for MTV, and was found a few weeks later having died of an overdose. I'm actually pretty impressed that the New York Times is even willing to make this suggestion. It's a meta take, but an obvious one: a star with pop culture appeal is approached to do a show about addiction, a compelling subject and one he's been in close proximity to. He goes through with the show, and dies a few weeks later. At this point, it's pretty obvious that it's not a question of "Did the show contribute to his death?" so much as "What did the show contribute to his death?"

It sounded like a stunt jump. There's the anecdote about AM having to hold the crack pipe in his hands, getting sweaty over it, and having to hand it over. It sounded like a disingenuous rumor on the first read. Well, I read it wrong:

In one episode, Mr. Goldstein picks up a crack pipe. Ms. Hickman [an intervention expert] said it was clear he was wrestling with the tug of his own addictions. "As soon as the cameras stopped, he put it down," she said. "He had a moment holding that crack pipe, and he had to talk about it. He spoke to his sponsor. He made program calls."

Salkin notes that the clip of that scene on MTV's website was removed, and a reference to it scrubbed from one of the pages. As it turns out, MTV's currently "looking into revising its policies about vetting" according to MTV exec Tony DiSanto. Given the Ryan Jenkins murder-suicide and, well, this thing we're reading about today, yeah: it might be wise for MTV to start re-evaluating their safety checks as they move forward in making TV shows about people who drink themselves braindead in hot tubs filled with gonorrhea. To start. As for DJ AM, who knows: he was having a bad go of it for a while. Putting him in contact with addicts and drugs obviously wasn't healthy for the guy. And this doesn't look good, either:

MTV included a dedication to Mr. Goldstein at the start of the show and an "In Memory of" title at the end, but it did nothing to inform viewers that the host had died of a drug overdose.

We can just say it: MTV should've been more aware of this. On the other side of it, who sees some of these things coming? Nobody.

But—and a very important "but"—Salkin finishes with a nice payoff that complicates the issue further. I'll let you read it, but it's the kind of thing that mangles this story into too many different pieces to put any kind of score on. Can Reality TV actually be good for people? As Intervention's proven, there's an audience for watching people recover from drugs (it's agonizing for me to watch), and it can sometimes work. It's just hard to be sure putting a famous former drug addict at the center of a show about addiction was the smartest idea anybody's had.

Dancing With Demons [NYT]

Living in a pool house in L.A., playing poker at a race track. Allen Salkin—the Seymour Hersh of the Styles section—files this weekend on Harris, who's doing some kind of strange press round for Ondi Timoner's documentary about him, We Live In Public. The last guy to file on Harris? Jayson Blair.

Harris was maybe the first chronic oversharer. The guy who founded Jupiter Communications and Pseudo Programs once webcammed his entire life and broadcast it for web-savvy voyeurs to see. He could be considered a pioneer in a culture that gave rise to Julia Allison—who, of course, appears in the doc—as well as Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and pretty much any other form of communication that shoves someone's life down your throat.

Maybe suspiciously, Salkin's plugged Harris before, when writing about a group of New York writers who abstain from oversharing at their salons (but still tell their story to the New York Times). He's dipping back into the same well for his profile on Harris. Commence quoting of tech luminary Jason Calicanis, whose pool house Harris is now possibly housed in:

"He is one of the 10 most important people in the history of the Internet," said Jason Calacanis, an entrepreneur of digital media who once chronicled New York's tech scene in his publication, The Silicon Alley Reporter. "He may not be the most famous."

But Salkin eventually gets to the good stuff, chronicling how far Harris, who once threw parties at his SoHo loft in which there was "sushi served off naked women, boxing, hip-hop artists including Eminem, and Mr. Harris sometimes dressed as his alter ego, a shrieky clown in smeared makeup named Luvvy, based on the wife of Thurston J. Howell III, a character from "Gilligan's Island."

You know someone's has both made it and simultaneously sealed their fate once they start dressing up as Pennywise impersonating Lovey. And so it was. Harris:

• Had only $741 to his name when Salkin interviewed him.
  
  
• Sold the apple farm he tried to escape to from Manhattan in 2006.
  
  
• Had to ensure part of the buyout deal for his second company, the marginally successful Operator 11, involved a provision that'd pay off his $150K AmEx bill.
  
  
• Went to Ethiopia to start another entertainment channel (which was well documented). Instead, he ended up smoking lots of weed (which wasn't).
  
  
• Just this year, when Timoner won a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, she had Harris fly out for the festival Q & A's. He only came pending oatmeal and the promise of a visit to a dentist. He never came back from Park City with Timoner.
  
  
• Is also delusional. Salkin experienced Harris' insanity first hand when Harris explained that he thinks the F.B.I. went after him for being connected to 9/11.

The denouement is that Harris is trying to start a new startup, and Jason Calacanis wants to help. The startup is called The Wired City. Any New York Times sentence that begins with the word "basically" should prepare readers for a concept that, if not boiled down to less than a sentence, is otherwise absurd. And it is:

Basically, it would have a large group of people living in a sort of three-dimensional real-world Facebook, where "friends" could participate in one another's every move.

He explained that if two people were Wired City participants having lunch at a restaurant talking about clowns, friends watching remotely could send video that would, perhaps, be broadcast on the table showing a clip from "Shakes the Clown" followed by menu recommendations. The cleverest friends would be rewarded.

It's hard to be completely cynical about an idea like The Wired City—as history's proven, crazier ideas have taken off—but Harris' manic self-destruction is ultimately going to be the large roadblock here. Salkin—who could've made a great trend piece out of this, too—lets a few salient points escape him, as he's wont to do.

Timoner's last documentary, Dig!, which detailed the almost-rise and tragic fall of The Brian Jonestown Massacre (a band led by a singer with another really, really bad Icarus complex), basically tells the same story. Guy reaches apex of fame and decides to throw it all away in a fit of self-indulgence. The Brian Jonestown Massacre isn't the band it could be, but they still play shows and make money, boosted by the spectacle put on display in Dig!, which lead singer Anton Newcomb quietly, smartly capitalized on. If Harris is smart, and can reign in the crazy, he might be able to hose some angel investors into doing the same, thereby giving him a second chance.

The fates of Mark Zuckerburg - the Facebook Boy Wonder whose life is getting the Aaron Sorkin treatment - Twitter's Evan Stone and Biz Williams, Tumblr's David Karp, and a bunch of other young, hot tech entrepreneurs have yet to be completely written. If they've got any sense about them, they're gonna pay close attention to Harris, whose tragic genius now amounts to insane, conspiratorial Styles Section kickers:

Walking past his old Pseudo offices at Houston and Broadway, Mr. Harris, who said he has never been in love, adjusted his dark sunglasses.

"It's a funny thing being in fear for your life," he said. "It's kind of addictive."

Protocols, the group in question, was put together by Michael Malice, the Overheard In New York guy, whose "life story" was also chronicled by Harvey Pekar in a comic book. Some of the writers: noted Fingerbanging Expert Justin Rocket Silverman of the New York Post; Gawker Media 's Fleshbot Editor Lux Alptraum; Heeb's Jeff Newelt, a publicist/comic book artist; and illustrator/artist Molly Crabapple. No question, as far as media gatherings go, it's an impressively diverse group. Most of the time, when media people get together in New York, it's the same fifty people, at the same bar, and they're all talking shit on each other, or the shit they talked earlier in the week. Pathetically guilty as charged.

Salkin, as he's wont to do, trots off a bunch of numbers about The Way We Live Now with Facebook, Twitter, texting, cell phones, clubs that won't allow you to take pictures of other parties, bars that don't allow you to document their goings-on, and various ways in which people in New York put themselves out there. He ends on a salient note: the documentarian behind We Live In Public - about this very trend, which features an appearance by none other than Julia Allison - at one point mugs to a camera in the doc: "I'm just a product ready to be harvested." His eventual fate?

He moved to an upstate apple farm in 2001. According to his biography on the film's Web site, he is now running an entertainment network in Sidamo, Ethiopia.

Impressive that Salkin - normally a slave to his stories - got this one right, even if he still has a lot to learn about Twitter (as evidenced by the screengrab above, ha). But it feels like he might've missed the larger picture:

1. The idea that a group of people getting together who aren't allowed to broadcast their whereabouts or ideas even makes the news.

2. The fact that Protocols - a conversation whose foundation is wrapped around the idea of not being broadcast - wasn't able to resist being profiled by the Sunday Styles.

3. That the urge to express ones-self in some way is - yeah, besides self-evident - possibly just the American Condition.

Writers have been talking into the abyss for ages. Now, every away message, Tweet, and Facebook status puts people who wouldn't have ordinarily found themselves sharing inane sentiments on the same road as, say, Julia Allison, or any chronic over-sharer ever chronicled (or bylined) on this site. They might not be so far down said road as her, but anytime anybody talks into the vast expanse of the internet, they've expressed the desire to be heard by someone, anyone, anywhere. For better or worse, the repression (or restraint) that caused people to once stay silent in any number of ways is now a rarity.

That same desire isn't so far, ironically, from what Protocols nobly sets out to do. The difference is that they know who they're talking to. And quite frankly - again, for better or worse, wonderfully or creepily - I have no idea who any of you are.

The piece, written by Festivus chronicler Allen Salkin-the Seymour Hersh of the Times' Style section-doesn't bring any new information to the table, but it does a great job of highlighting some of the people who helped enable Leibovitz to get to the point in her life where she might have to divest herself of all fiscal interests, including the rights to her original photographs. For example, Graydon Carter - one of her standby employers - notes that she's, uh, not exactly great with money:

"The mind that can take these extraordinary pictures is not necessarily the same mind that is a perfect money manager..."

Revealing. How about former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown, defending Leibovitz's personal spending habits?

"Annie is not an expensive liver herself," said Tina Brown, who edited Vanity Fair from 1984 to 1992, where Ms. Leibovitz began working after her early years at Rolling Stone magazine. "She hangs out with her kids. She doesn't hang out in the lights at the parties."

There's more about Art Capital-who gave her a $24M loan-shopping around the rights to her work around, her relationship with Susan Sontag and speculation on Leibovitz's inheritance from Sontag (only personal artifacts, says Sontag's son), and in the end, a potential scenario of tragedy for Annie's life's work:

On July 31, Justice Emily Jane Goodman denied Art Capital's request for a preliminary injunction against the contract between Ms. Leibovitz and Getty. The judge dismissed parts of the lawsuit, but ruled that other issues would be decided later. Until now, Ms. Leibovitz has closely guarded the right to reproduce her photographs. But should she lose control of her archive, her famous portraits of Whoopi Goldberg, Jack Nicholson and the like may one day be found on postcards in Times Square.

Without being entirely sure which Times Square tourists would be buying Leibovitz postcards of Whoopi Goldberg in Times Square, one thing is certain: Salkin's softball piece misses the elephant in the room: Leibovitz was (A) surrounded by enablers and (B) represents so much of the reason publications like Vanity Fair from media conglomerates like Conde Nast are facing financial issues now. Especially telling is this:

Over the years at Vanity Fair, her shoots became more complex and expensive, often elaborate as movie shoots. "Month after month, it got a little bit more complicated with every shoot," Jane Sarkin, a Vanity Fair features editor, said in the documentary. "Her demands became bigger. Fire, rain, cars airplanes, circus animals - whatever she wanted she got."

Emphasis mine. Leibovitz's photographs - while nothing to scoff at in terms of the talent they represent - are the type of overpriced commodities (like town-cars, lunches at Michael's, or any other Glossy Expense that could've been pared back a long time ago) that are now driving the magazine business under, or at least driving companies like Conde to have to bring in Firing Specialists.

All of these companies convinced Leibovitz that her projected worth was way more than it needed to be, by paying her as such. The irony that Tina Brown is being quoted about somebody wasting money is unbelievable, as even Brown herself lamented the ridiculous expenses of her own fallen publication - Talk - two weeks ago, when mourning the death of her party planner Robert Isabell.

People like Leibovitz and their work on his covers were and still remain points of pride for Graydon Carter, almost in the same way collecting celebrities at The Waverly Inn and Monkey Bar are. Maybe that's the cautionary tale here. Not to be better with money, but to show people like Annie what their true value in New York is: as a social commodity.

Salkin chalks up Leibovitz's eventual fate to the personal finance habits that will or won't get her out of the dire straits she's in. At this point, it's probably going to have just as much to do with her respective job markets, especially one big media bosses created and are now being forced to marginalize. The real question then becomes how many Vanity Fair readers can tell the difference between an Annie Leibovitz cover and one snapped by somebody less pricey. They might have to start to learn how. Now that Conde's firing entire divisions, don't think the size of this difference escapes them.

Even if she can cut down her costs, does Annie Leibovitz have the energy to be prolific? The most telling note in Salkin's article quotes a former Vanity Fair photo archive director, Charlie Scheips, who recently spoke with her. She sounded frantic: "I'm really under the gun. I've got three daughters, I lost my spouse. I've got too many jobs to do and it's chaos."

For Annie Leibovitz, a Fuzzy Financial Picture [NYT]

In yet another probing piece from Allen Salkin, the Seymour Hersh of the New York Times Style section, Salkin uncovers the mysteries behind Carter's seating madness. You see, each afternoon, right around 4:00 or so, one of Carter's man-servants will sheepishly enter his office, making sure never to make eye contact or speak without being spoken to first to avoid being flogged mercilessly about the torso with bamboo reeds dipped in Tabasco sauce, and hand Carter a list of names of those who have been deemed worthy of a table at Waverly Inn and Monkey Bar by Carter's other assorted underlings. Then the magic happens.

A sunken area in the center of the dining room that you see when entering is known as "the pit." It is important to have "young, attractive people" at the first of two round tables in the pit, Mr. Carter said. "It gives a certain energy."

Pointing to the two tables on an elevated area to the right side of the room, he said these were for people looking for a quiet meal.

On the opposite side of the room are four nice booths. "This is fashion and literary and young," he said. That night, Cynthia McFadden of ABC news; Liz Smith, the gossip columnist; and Marjorie Gubelmann, a socialite, were in those booths.

Elevated over the pit opposite the entrance are a line of banquettes, which that night included a group of 20 or so guests of the socialite Jennifer Creel who were celebrating her debut as a designer of sunglasses sold at Bergdorf Goodman.

And behind them was the most-prime real estate, a line of booths on the back wall overlooking the whole scene. "This is young and media moguls," Mr. Carter said, pointing to the booths, "and sort of single-name people." On that night, Calvin Klein, Rupert Everett, Prince Andrew, Ron Perelman and Louise Grunwald were in those booths. When Madonna comes in, she gets a back booth.

But it doesn't end there—During the course of each evening, Carter and his spies will observe each guest and make notes about their behavior. If they should, say, pick their nose or pass gas or dare to complain about anything, they are issued demerits in Carter's little grade book. However, if they drop to their knees and offer to fellate King Graydon upon his entrance, they are given a coupon for a complimentary serving of flan on their next visit. Or something.

Whatever—We will never eat at any of Graydon Carter-owned establishment on principle alone, so we don't really care.

Many Called, But Few Are Seated [New York Times]

The idea is Unithrive, the almost sneeringly unnecessary privileged-people-helping-the-privileged online startup that allows "needy" (not really needy!) Harvard students to ask the idle rich for loans. So they don't have to ever work at all for one single minute!

"I have friends who would spend 10 hours a week when they are not in class working at a coffee shop or in the dorms," said Mr. Kushner, 24, referring to time that he considered wasteful. "I think the most special thing about college is not just what you do in class, but what you do out of class."

Haha, that money quote almost justifies the fact that Allen Salkin thought this god damn idea worthy of a full Sunday Styles section feature in the paper of record. But, buried deep, there's this:

So far, the alumni have lent about $4,500 to the nine students who have uploaded profiles.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Yea...that's less than Kushner would have had to pay to hire a PR firm to try to shop his little startup to, like, Inside Higher Ed. But he got a feature in the NYT for free! The real losers: the rest of the world.
[NYT]

Pre-economic collapse, the Styles section featured infuriating coverage of the blithely upwardly mobile citizens of Park Slope and the Upper West Side that made you want to set fire to the neighborhood. But in today's recession-weary economy, the Sunday Styles has—as we noted—has taken the opposite tack: going low, very, very low.

Just how low? Well, today's Style section includes a piece by the hard-hitting reporter, Allen Salkin, he of Festivus and bad trend pieces fame. Not to worry, he doesn't disappoint. "Snuggie on the Street: Watch Your Back," is investigative journalism at its finest, and features our fearless reporter taking one of the most ludicrous inventions to hit TV advertising, the Snuggie—essentially a wearable blanket—to the streets.

Writes Salkin: "But there is one aspect of Snuggie that has been little explored: its use in public…. I took an electric-blue Snuggie (the makers call it "royal blue") for a Manhattan field test."

This is sort like of like when Christopher Hitchens got waterboarded for Vanity Fair, except not. You could call it stunt journalism….for pussies.

Writes the fearless NYT reporter: "My biggest fear was that I would be treated as some kind of doomsday zealot when I donned my Snuggie in Times Square."

Really? We can't believe that was his biggest fear. We would think getting beaten up for looking like a cross between a lame wizard at a Renaissance Fair, Barney the dinosaur, and a full-retard in public would be a far bigger fear.

The NYT today reveals that Leibovitz took out more than $15 million in loans from Art Capital Group—essentially a very high class pawn shop specializing in art.

Last fall, Annie Leibovitz, the photographer, borrowed $5 million from a company called Art Capital Group. In December, she borrowed $10.5 million more from the same firm. As collateral, among other items, she used town houses she owns in Greenwich Village, a country house, and something else: the rights to all of her photographs.

In addition to the lawsuit for more than $700k from unpaid vendors, Leibovitz reportedly used the cash to pay back taxes and finance "a lengthy, costly and litigious renovation on the three adjoining town houses." Why one would pawn their town houses in order to raise money to renovate them, I do not know.

Obviously, a $2 million per year income is no savior from hard times. And hey, Julian Schnabel also pawned some real estate with the same firm to help finance his goddamn monstrosity of a pink, constantly-discounted celebrity condo building, Palazzo Chupi. Pawn shops prey on the rich just as they do the poor. Fairness!

[NYT. By bullshit trend specialist Allen Salkin, but with actual value! Good story Allen. Pic via]

The Sunday Style story was the Times' second on this topic in three days. Last time the paper relied on anecdotes.

Today Times "everything is a trend" reporter Allen Salkin provided a math lesson on how poor $500,000 per year really makes you. Oh it's just terrible:

• $500,000/yr in federally-capped bank CEO salary
• -$138,000 federal tax
• -$31,000 Social Security
• -$7,000 Medicare
• -$35,000 state taxes
• -$19,000 city taxes
• = $270,000

And that's before you spend anything! Private school is $32,000 per student; nanny is $45,000 per year; mortgage and co-op maintenance fee are each around $100,000 per year on the Upper East Side. That's all your money right there, and you haven't even paid the driver, garage, personal trainer, ball-gown maker, restaurant tab, etc. etc. etc.

Sex And The City inspiration Candace Bushnell thinks this will emasculate our poor banker CEOs:

“People inherently understand that if they are going to get ahead in whatever corporate culture they are involved in, they need to take on the appurtenances of what defines that culture.”

And we wouldn't want to undermine the winning culture of Wall Street. That might ruin our economy!

Salkin's story on the hot ukulele trend is out, and fits perfectly in his oeuvre. His past investigations have exposed chicks who eat meat, revealed how no one goes on vacations any more, and uncovered prepsters who hang out downtown—as well as their rival hipsters who hang out in Atlantic City.

We're now prepared to reveal Salkin's journalistic method to the public: He solicits you to hang out with him in casual settings and mines you for minutiae, which he then seasons with his patented significance-inflating sauce:

"I see you're no vegetarian!"

"Downtown is getting so preppy."

"Can you believe my dumbass roommate bought a ukulele?"

Lately I've been tying my shoelaces inside the shoe, to prevent those floppy strings on the outside. Others in Brooklyn are doing the same. Call me, Allen.

[NYT]

Salkin is the Times style reporter who is seemingly responsible for chronicling every (fake) microtrend making the rounds of a certain NYC subculture. He's written about women who eat red meat on the first date, Paul Sevigny's quest to turn Atlantic City into a chic nightlife destination, and how nobody takes vacations any more. Savvy readers will also remember that it was Salkin who in January explored the question, "Has Gawker Jumped The Snark?" (GET IT?)—just as the site was hiring some of the top 20 most mind-blowingly awesome staff members in its history.

With his finger on the pulse of culture, it's natural that Salkin has a wide, hungry fan base. So he has a Yahoo group called "Salkin Stories" that sends out a newsletter so you can keep up with all his important doings! Daily Intel has his latest message (which they note "goes out to a lot of people, many who don't actually know Salkin"), and there are some things you won't want to miss:

1/ Olympics. Due to job and family responsibilities, the folks who were to join me in Beijing for the Olympics can not come. What this means is I have face-value tickets to numerous events and a FREE PLACE TO STAY for a few people. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. All you have to do is get yourself to Beijing. This will be my 7th Olympics and I have done all the hard work of ordering tickets nearly two years in advance and securing a place to stay. I did an apartment swap for my place in New York, so I have a place for free in Beijing.

Say no more, Allen! I am so there.

Closer to home, it’s time to continue the tour of NYC BBQ joints, this time with a trip to the much lauded Fette Sau in Williamsburg. Deal is there are outdoor picnic tables which fill up tres fast, so we need to get there early. I will be arriving around 6pm and would like you there not long after that (but if you want to come and maybe have to sit elsewhere, can come til 7). Let me know asap if you can come, so I can get a head count. We had about 15 people last time (at RUB) and it was great (although Hill Country’s Q was much better, meat-taste-wise).

I sincerely hope that with the help of Gawker readers you can beat that record this time, Allen!

He goes on to fill us in about an article he wrote in HEEB, all his stories in the Times, another story his friend is working on, and throws in an urgent request for any ukulele players to contact him. Okay!

And he has his own website, where he gives a brief rundown of the wild life led by a man named Allen Salkin:

Allen Salkin cast industrial films in Hong Kong, wholesaled rubber duckies in Las Vegas, picked oranges in Crete, peddled oil paintings door-to-door in Western Australia, penned stories for New York Magazine, Details, Heeb, Yoga Journal, The Village Voice and other venues, taught Journalism at NYU and MediaBistro.com, and wrote the book "Festivus: The Holiday for the Rest of Us." He is a staff reporter at The New York Times.

See you all at Fette Sau.

[Daily Intel; pic via January Magazine]

Allen Salkin, the New York Times reporter who always manages to snag the great stories about the city's most annoying people, takes a look at the plans by Sevigny and friends—who currently run the Beatrice Inn—to whip up buzz for an instantly cool replica of an exclusive hotel and nightspot in Atlantic City, a town whose economy now rests on the arthritic shoulders of grandmothers feeding quarters into slot machines. And petty drug dealers.

The "Chelsea Hotel," described by the developer as "Soho House-y" is a bid to transport downtown chic wholesale into AC, simply by hiring the "right" people like celebrity family member Sevigny. No longer is it necessary to actually create something worthy of being deemed cool; such a designation is now for sale by HIP young tastemakers.

Will the doormen turn away people deemed unhip based on their clothes, haircuts or demeanor, just as Angelo, the doorman at the Beatrice in Greenwich Village, does nightly?

"We hope so," Mr. Bashaw [the developer] said

A spokeswoman goes on to describe Paul Sevigny's role in this whole thing:

"They are going to be in charge of celebrity wrangling, including bringing Paul's sister's friends down," Ms. Odegard said. "At the Beatrice, it was Heath Ledger before he died, Adrian Grenier, Mary-Kate and Ashley and everyone who walks in from the Waverly Inn."

Well, we look forward to many entertaining calls to the EMT's in the near future! Salkin's disdain for this shitty idea comes through pretty clearly in the article, and at the end, it's revealed why:

Some authentic Manhattan experiences might best be shipped free of charge to Atlantic City. Like the experience of being rejected by a dead-eyed doorman muttering, "Sorry, private party tonight," which is what happened to this reporter as he approached the Beatrice Inn on Wednesday evening wearing a bulky orange parka appropriate to the freezing weather.

Moments later, a shivering couple in sheer but stylish clothes was ushered inside without a question.

Don't worry, man. At least you didn't catch a chill.

"Vacations Get Shorter, But Turn Up More Often," we learned from Metro on Saturday. The reporter talks to one lady who's taken a series of shorter jaunts with her family this year, and opines that "While such minibreaks used to supplement traditional vacations when work was slow, a growing number of Americans are now stacking up a series of shorter getaways and shunning longer stretches." In Sunday Styles, unspeakably tall Allen Salkin worked a political angle (Sam Brownback is the only candidate taking a vacation this year!), but still couldn't resist throwing in this depressing statistic: "A 2007 survey by the travel Web service Expedia found that 23 percent of employed adults check work e-mail or voice mail on vacation, compared with 16 percent in 2005."

But when you think about it, this is a story that could be adapted easily to several other sections of the Times. In Thursday Styles, Michelle Slatalla could write about how her husband, Business 2.0 editor Josh Quittner, insists on taking along a Blackberry and computer when they go away. (She's pretty much exploited every other way of writing about her vacations already. Is there no aspect of their lives that this family will not write off on their taxes?) In Dining, Frank Bruni could write about his idyllic meal of local cuisine on the Istrian coast was disrupted by the food bloggers at the table next to him who insisted on taking photos of every piece of food; Verlyn Klinkenborg could write about how, since his entire life seems to be a vacation, he can never really get away. And so on! Try it yourself!

Vacations Get Shorter, But Turn Up More Often [NYT]
How I Didn't Spend My Summer Vacation [NYT]