I spoke last night to a dear old friend who was heading to her colleague's wedding.

"So do you have your costume packed?" I deadpanned.

She didn't take the joke. Her voice became robotic, almost fearful.

"We were specifically instructed no costumes," she recited. A chill swept through the air accompanied by swirling leaves. I shivered. "The bride does not want costumes."

Contrast this tyrannical Halloween policy with the more costume-friendly (but highly passive-aggressive) strategy favored by Annie Catherwood and Caleb Frankel. This couple's announcement, released online by the Times on Saturday morning, preemptively described their Saturday evening wedding:

The wedding ceremony was followed by a Halloween masquerade reception, with many guests in full costume.

I hope it was! In either case, can't you just imagine a militant and scowling bride, ripping off rogue bunny ears or slapping feathered masques on startled guests, depending? I hope the airline didn't mix up any of those two weddings' groomsmen's stuff is all I'm trying to say.

***

I think the greatest thing to come from the Sunday Styles cover article about a cool hip wedding band is the coinage "LOB". It stands for Level Of Brutality, and isn't that so on? I didn't know this til I read it, but it's really how I view not only weddings but the world. (The LOB of getting to the marathon in a few hours is off the charts, for example.) The geniuses behind this rubric are the rockers behind The Dexter Lake Club Band, a wedding-band-but-not that has become "one of New York's premier wedding bands for people who would never dream of hiring a wedding band."

(Apparently, Amanda Peet was one of those people.)

First of all, there wasn't a tuxedo in sight, just dark suits and skinny ties. Nobody was doing any cheesy patter. There was no horn section, no back-up singers, no creepy vocalist singing "Wonderful World." Instead, there was a floppy-haired lead singer working his way through Rolling Stones tunes; another signger, big and bearded, belting out 80s hits; and a killer rhythm section,"

The Dexter Lake Club Band comprises such members as Tim Ruedeman, a "most improbable vessel for a voice that can perfectly channel everybody from Steve Perry to Axl Rose." The "enigmatic Christian Oates" owns a smoke machine and reads the Economist, while "lank-haired Gunnar Olsen ... could be clutching a marriage license in one hand and a bride in the other and would still clearly be with the band."

And then there's frontman Matthew Stinchcomb, now married but "once notorious for enjoying the benefits of being a handsome, single man with a guitar" who once woke up post-wedding "in a closet, wearing only leather pants, his guitar abandoned outside on the gravel driveway." I can't help but think of this:

They met, of course, at Oberlin.

Brett Martin provides some of the best wedding writing I've read to date, bringing to life the "roving female vigilantes, beckoning nondancers with their demanding, accusing fingers" and "the middle-age couples who've somehow lost the connection between their upper and lower bodies and can only dance with one or the other at a time." (I can assure you from personal experience that it isn't just the middle-aged who can fall victim to that particular affliction.)

The piece was so enjoyable that it compelled me to Google Martin; lo and behold, Ancient Gawker was on the case, care of Mascot Emeritus Andrew Krucoff. My only quibble with Martin is that he doesn't mention the provenance of the band's name:

We are gonna die.

So maybe it's my hangover and/or my lingering animosity toward the amateur hour that was last night, but good god this weekend's weddings SUCK BALLS. The lone exception is the featured union of Gita Pullapilly and Aron Gaudet, which made me cry.

I'd say yes to THAT dress.

Pullapilly (that name is a delight; it makes me think of this) met Gaudet when he was bored with his production job and looking for a change. The pair wanted to create a documentary but lacked a fitting subject until it dawned on them that Gaudet's elderly mother would be the perfect inspiration.

The 70-year old Joan Gaudet, you see, had taken up a new pastime: "driving herself to Bangor International Airport as part of a group of Maine residents who greet every soldier passing through that airport on their way to or from Iraq and Afghanistan." The article describes her waking up to a 2am phone call and driving to cheer on a plane of returning troops alongside "30 other elderly greeters."

The resulting movie about the Maine Troop Greeters was called "The Way We Get By" and here's the website and the tagline is "Sometimes all it takes is a handshake to change a life" and the Washington Post called it "not so much a slice of life as the whole pie, the highs and lows of twilight living" and oh my god I'm crying again.

It gets better: at one screening of the film, the audience learned that the couple, engaged but having sunk their savings into making the documentary, did not have any wedding plans. A wedding planner in the crowd was touched and "helped mobilize a small army of vendors to freely give the couple the wedding they were too weary and poor to assemble themselves." Oh, and at another screening the couple met "Joseph R. Biden, Jr":

Breaking into a smile so broad his dimple seemed permanently etched in his left cheek, the bridegroom said, "The vice president told me that he had once met a man who shook his hand, looked at Mrs. Biden and said ‘You really married up.' Without missing a beat, Mr. Biden looked at Gita, then looked at me, grinned and said, ‘You're about to marry up, boy.' "

That man is a national treasure. Here, enjoy my favorite photo.

Elsewhere in the back of the Sunday Styles a couple affirmed their commitment to wearing matching glasses; the executive producer of "I Love You, Man", "Observe and Report", and "Without a Paddle" looks exactly as you'd expect; lesbians lesbianed; and this couple is attractive but they're only 26!?

This boring week's boring matchup:

Abigail Franklin Vietor and Holland Arthur Sullivan, Jr

• The bride graduated from NYU and received a "Master of Letters" from St. Andrews (I have my Master of Letters from St. Paul's Nursery School) and a Master of Science from London School of Economics: +5
• The groom graduated from Yale: +3
• Then got his law degree at ... Baylor: +1
• The groom kind of looks like Edward Norton, no?: +1
• The bride's parents are kind of weirdly into historic reenactments: her dad is "chairman of the board of trustees at the Mystic Seaport Museum" and is the "governor of the New York Society of Colonial Wars" and her mother is "the president of the Bowne House Historical Society" and "trustee of the New York State Archives Partnership Trust": +5, and I hope there was some creepy powdered wig theme at the reception.
• The groom's dad helps the rich get richer: +1
• The wedding was officiated by an Episcopal priest: +1

TOTAL: 17

Ella Elizabeth McPherson and George Raymond Iestyn Llewellyn-Smith

• "The bride, 29, and bridegroom, 30, met at Cambridge University in England, from which they both received Master of Philosophy degrees, she in Latin American studies and he in real estate finance": +9; I like that real estate finance constitutes "Philosophy".
• The bride is also pursuing a doctorate in sociology at Cambridge and went to Princeton undergrad: +4
• The bride's father works for the International Monetary Fund and is retired from the World Bank: +2
• The groom graduated with "first-class honors" from the University of Adelaide in Australia: +only 1, because someone the other day told me that "Australia is the Alabama of the world".
• The groom's parents do Australian things in Australia: +1
• "The bridegroom wore a wedding ring that was inscribed, Halloellaween, a play on the bride's first name and Halloween: +1, and aww.

TOTAL: 18

In addition, "the couple's invitations read: 'Black tie welcome, costumes at your discretion.'" That is the second best way to have a Halloween wedding. The best way to have a Halloween wedding is don't.

Held on a rainy Friday under an enclosed rooftop a stone's throw from Lincoln Center, The Webutante Ball was the sordid brainchild of URLesque blogger Jessica Amason and Gawker Media video maven Richard Blakeley, the two of whom are the co-authors of forthcoming blog-to-book-deal staple This Is Why You're Fat and an egregiously, irritatingly cute capitalist couple. It was, for all intents and purposes, a prom for internet, tech, and media dorks. There was a ballot, and there were nominees. There were winners! And there was a rope, with a line.

I braved the entire thing with my hot date/cover fire, Gawker Party Crash photog Mo Pitz, who was incidentally - and, at least to her, incredulously - a balloted nominee. "I have absolutely no idea how I ended up on that ballot. I'm decidedly not internet-famous." Oh, honey. You are now. Also on the ballot, former Gawker Mascot Andrew Krucoff, who declined to show for the festivities: "I'm celebrating shabbat," Krucoff noted. "Also, fuck that noise," he added. Onward: to the gallery we go!

Former and still-sometimes HuffPo writer, Dan Abrams Kool-Aid Drinker, and author of her upcoming and hotly anticipated book-deal book Jew-ish, Rachel Sklar, gets "man"-handled by her date, the VP of some telecommunicating tech thing called LifeLinks, Ash Kalb. This was staged.

Former Flavorpill editor and Double-X contributor, Anna Balkrishna with New York Post writer Justin Rocket Silverman. I asked Rocket - yes, Rocket - about his recent story for the Post in which he covered the meditative art of fingerbanging. Silverman instructed Balkrishna and I on proper performance, which is apparently akin to the "REDRUM" finger painting from The Shining.

Webutante Ball co-founder Jessica Amason is the "Yearbook Girl" of this entire enterprise. "Also, make sure you don't credit me as 'Blakeley's girlfriend,' goddamnit." She then grabbed me and hung me over the roof of the Empire in a Suge-Knight esque manner to ensure I understood what she was saying. Point taken.

Roger Wu, the founder and president of Klickable.TV, gives us his best entrepreneurial smile. He just gave a bunch of Vimeo kids a curbside beating and left them for dead on the third floor of the Empire.

Nerve and ASSME writer Drew Grant conspires with Yalie and Dan Abrams henchman (yes, that is what a Dan Abrams henchman looks like) Andrew Cedotal to feed me information regarding the sexual workings of fired media elites, which they will then use for profit when taken to corporations who could give a shit about the bold line between journalism, market research, and publicity. They are the future.

Julia Allison showed up in an Escalade, wearing a crown, and walked around the party as such. I have nothing to add here. She didn't win anything, luckily, and went home the same person she arrived as. Also, she came with an unnamed foot solider.

Regular Party Crash contributor Melissa Gira Grant, with former Valleywag editor, the dangerously ginger Nick Douglas. "I'm off the fucking job, get away," Gira delicately noted. Douglas smiled politely and retreated to his iPhone where he used his Pot 'O Gold app to make sure nobody had taken his treasure in the last two minutes.

Guess what party these people aren't with. No, really, guess.

On the left, Former Gawker Intern Mary Pilon, with Web Personae and Webutante nominee Anthony DeRosa on the right. Mary went from being a Gawker Intern to working for the Wall Street Journal! Anthony does something with tech something or other and blogs about the Mets. Neither would take a picture without me in it, so I happily obliged. Suckers.

Jake Hurwitz of College Humor, kissing sweet nothings into the face of College Humor's Ben Joseph. They take a bunch of these kisses and make laughs out of them! Whee! Barry Diller actually encourages this kind of thing.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The winner! College Humor's Amir Blumenfeld is the King of the Webutante Ball, because he fixed the vote! As if having his own MTV show and web series weren't enough, he and the College Humor people had to come and win this shit, too. His queen, ridiculous Jewess Cutie and fellow College Humor startlet, Sarah Schneider, poses with him here. Barry Diller doesn't just encourage, but mandates this kind of thing. Well done, kids. Pictured with him here: an unnamed friend.

Richard Blakeley takes Boyfriend Duty incredibly seriously.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.MediaBistro reporter Hunter Walker tries to scoop something out of Random Night Out photographer Nick McGlynn. McGlynn's doing some startup with socialite creature thing Adrien Field, and Hunter, intrepid reporter that he is, probably wanted to know what planet Field is from.

They don't care about the Young Folks; they're here to sap them of their youth and enter one of their heads through a portal, like the end of Being John Malkovich, except the low-rent version.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Brah! My thoughts exactly.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Cnet reporter Caroline McCarthy is shocked - shocked! - that there are people here taking pictures. This is also the face she makes before she turns into Golum, takes the camera and my notes, leaps off the roof and into her batmobile, where she goes home and tirelessly reports the comings and goings of the rest of these people for a living. Princeton grad. Princeton. Grad.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Foursquare Mayor of Kensington, Brooklyn, New York Press and ASSME writer Matt "Slim Thug" Harvey is being properly identified in this picture.

Gawker Media business something-or-other Scott Kidder wants to know what's in his teeth, and if you could get it out, please, so he could then latch his fangs on to you and suck your will to invoice him for services rendered out through your neck. This is why Denton pays him the big bucks, insert Bloodcopy joke here.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Blogger and Media Maven Brian Van wants to know why everyone wants his picture. It's because he's the one guy wearing sunglasses inside. That being said, this was probably the place to do it, as it was maybe the least egregious display of jocular self-seriousness in the house.

Esquire's matrimonial expert Matt Shepatin was just given some BHG. It's like GHB, but instead of knocking you the fuck out, it makes you all too aware of your surroundings, which can leads to blackouts and unconscious episodes that eventually render you both useless and clinging to the floor of a J-Train, talking to a cat-strewn BagLady about the future of digital media.

Richard Blakeley's Delta Force of terrifying interns. They sit around all day and pick out video clips like monkeys pick coffee beans from trees in far away countries, and then bring them back down to Blakeley. Some coffee-picking monkeys eat the beans and then shit them out for their coffee-harvesting masters; luckily, Blakeley doesn't ask them to do that for him. Yet.

The Founding Couple of The Webutante Ball, together. I asked them, in all seriousness, why they were doing this. Blakeley kept his mouth shut, while Jessica kinda explained. Was it for money, to generate book sales buzz? "Eh, kinda." Why, then? "These people probably didn't go to prom, or never had a chance at being elected king or queen. Now they do. Also, this scene's more or less exactly like high school, no matter what level you're on. It makes perfect sense." But WHY? "Because we're sick of the same parties. We wanted to make people dress up for a change. We needed to class it up." Despite her attempts, these people - myself included - are all circlejerky, pompous, and declasse. But they got drunk on a rooftop bar uptown, which was actually a nice change from Tom and Jerry's. Sigh. All's fair in love and social media.

Party Crash photog and Webutante nominee Mo Pitz is drinking away the sorrow of losing. Ha! Just kidding! She's drinking away the sorrow of being my date.

Carls from HRO bailed on me. Feeling a little vulnerable. But we can still play Blogger Bingo! What accoutrements, affects, people and places did I miss? Did I totally break it down on the NY Blog-media crowd. Oh snap! Word! Fill me in, y'all!

graphic by: Jeff Meininger

Excerpted from a triumphant email from Krucoff to Gessen:

Now, to be honest, my original plan for the book was to burn it upon pick-up at Gawker HQ (preferably right there in the office using Denton's evil eye laser), then stuff the ashes in an urn, mark it with "pussy" and mail it to you.

Dramatic, huh?

Two things dissuaded me from that: 1) I was reminded of the ugly history of book burning and how Jew-on-Jew desecration wouldn't serve anyone's cause. 2) More importantly, I remembered that *I* am the pussy. There's no way I would actually go through with that. After studied consultation, I concluded you were right on all points in our previous exchange. If we were Facebook friends, I would send you a "You Win!" sticker if such a thing were available in their virtual marketplace.

Instead, Krucoff's current plan is to offer the priceless ($890) book as a door prize at this soup kitchen benefit next Wednesday. And Gessen agreed to do his part, saying:

Sure, I'd be glad to come. We should consult the Talmud—or, failing that, Jewcy.com—as to whether a book can be offered to charity twice, but otherwise I'll be happy to explain how I replaced the Crimson Sports Grille with the 4th Quarter Bar.

Although I think they should charge a lot more than $10 at the door.

Ha, YES WE DO TOO.

The outcome of our saga: An $890 donation to the New York Homeless Coaliton; The opportunity for even more charity, if Krucoff is able to convince the small, effete sliver of New York society that would actually desire to own this obscure volume to come out to a soup kitchen benefit next week; And, most importantly, an odd and short-lived sense of unity among fake enemies on the fake internet arguing about fake writing and stuff, which is how we sum up the culture war.

Never again say that Keith Gessen hasn't accomplished something good.

[Pictured, Krucoff enjoying his new prize on the Gawker office toilet. The backstory to all this is here. Andrew Krucoff's blog is here. Info on the soup kitchen even is here. The most important Tumblr of our time is here.]

Nick Douglas
Jason Calacanis
Jackson West
Anil Dash
Allison Mooney
Lockhart Steele
Scott Kidder
Caroline McCarthy
Kelly Reeves
Jason Kottke
Peter Rojas
Lindsay Robertson
Julia Allison
Anthony Volodkin
Choire Sicha
Nicholas Carlson
Alisa Leonard
Jaclyn Johnson
Ana Marie Cox
Heather Snodgrass
Jessica Coen
Alex Blagg
Rex Sorgatz

Don't Shoot the Canary [YM]

Dude, you cut the page to early. It continues:

"The odd thing about Dodgeball is that it makes you realize you don't actually want to meet most FOAFs, and the awkward, vaguely opportunistic air that pervades every introduction until the other person realizes you won't be providing useful social capital and they stop talking to you makes you stay away from any location from which a number of DBers are checking in?"
99 (Emeritus) | Homepage | 03.05.08 - 11:10 am | #

I'm pretty sure I said it would be like this [YM]

Earlier: No Conde Cafeteria Klatsch for Krucoff

Charity starts at home? Not according to Architectural Digest when an unwanted house guest shows up with madi-money and a smile like a flying buttress.

Obviously certain people at Conde Nast still hold a grudge against me. I have my guesses, most likely Gary Brownell and Jill Bright, the heads of IT and HR respectively who I've never met. Despite what I was told back then, I doubt Si Newhouse or Chuck Townsend were ever briefed about the "leaked email" nonsense. At least I hope they have better things to do.

Anyway, Conde brass recently green-lighted Jess Coen for Vanity Fair and she's been driving the Conde Nast-car in a demolition derby for the past two years. So the issue is not Gawker, it's me. That hurts. Maurie Perl, prepare some talking points. Kit Seelye and my mom will be calling you.

Earlier: Return Of The Wandering Jew?

Please Pass the Potatoes and Charity Plate [YM]
Lunch @ Gehry-design Conde Nast Cafeteria w/top mag ed [eBay]

Earlier: Kruperman Returns

Lunch @ Gehry-design Conde Nast Cafeteria w/top mag ed [eBay]

Earlier: Architectural Digest Editor Takes Second Billing To Conde Nast Cafeteria
Media Bubble, Bursted: Krucoff Fired

Not to be outdone by Diddy, Gawker mascot Andrew Krucoff takes a camera into the bathroom to note the new viral (ha ha, get it?) ad for Jackass 2. The footage is kind of grainy, but the video stream is strong. (It's hard to stop, sorry.) We just want to know if Krucoff was filming with one hand and holding his dick with the other. Because we never figured him to be that coordinated.

Who are the ad wizzzzzards who came up with this one?? [YM]

Earlier: Breaking: Diddy's Gotta Pee

A third of employers in the study sacked staffers in the past year for violating workplace E-mail policies. That's up from about one in four last year.
[...]
Nearly 40% of the employers in the survey have staffers whose job is to read other staffers' E-mails. And almost half the employers regularly check the contents of the E-mails their people send.

Amazing. Who are these people who think their company email account is in any way private? Is this their first time using the internet? Or is it just carelessness before clicking the "send" button? Honestly, you'd think Krucoff's sacrifice would be lesson enough. But oh, how the cubicle bees have forsaken him.

More Workers Axed for Emails [NYDN]

Makor on the Move as 92nd St. Y Places Steinhardt Building on the Market [The Reeler]

At least we can hope.

After the jump, Kruc's announcement.

Today marks the official lifting of the Pulsa diNura curse placed on the House of Gawker Media (or specifically, on Jesse Oxfeld's head) by my mom when I was expelled from Conde Nast for unjust but admittedly comical reasons in October.

It's been a long journey of partially-subsidized unemployment since then, but I had the opportunity to spend a month in Israel and, perhaps more memorably, two hours hiding in the fashion closet at Jane.

All that debt-building fun is over now because I've accepted a job with the 92nd Street Y, where my official title will be web content developer. This means I'll be co-editing the 92Y Blog and taking a role in guiding the Y's web marketing efforts. I look forward to my first foray into the non-profit world. I dream of fireside chats with David Remnick and "laughter yoga" brunches on the Upper West Side.

Oh yeah, please come by Makor tomorrow night and throw tomatoes at Gawker's very own Jess Coen and others in a lively discussion about the Britney/Jessica presidential ticket for '08. [Ed. note: Actually, no. It's been rescheduled for May 10. Good omen, ain't it?]

Earlier: Gawker's coverage of Andrew Krucoff

Earlier: The Last 'Cargo' Post of the Day, We Swear — But It Pertains to Bowling, and Bowling Is Good

Earlier: Gawker Reading Crash: Bonnie Fuller on the Upper West Side