That carnage has left behind an island of misfit toys, trains whose cabooses have square wheels and bird fish who are trying to swim in thin air. The skills that once commanded $4 for every shiny word are far less valuable at a time when the supply of both editorial and advertising content more or less doubles every year...Those of us who covered media were told for years that the sky was falling, and nothing happened. And then it did.

Yes. Exactly. And the rest of it's just as solid. As for Carr's idealistic kicker?

New York is not an island sinking, but one that is rising on a fresh, ferocious wave.

Here's hoping.

Slate's John Dickerson complained about the "lying on your expense report" part of his job. He's presumably OK with the "have work give you money under false pretenses" part.

The New York Times David Carr, meanwhile, provided some perspective on the terrible ordeal of expene reports.

When she's not having such a rough time, singer Mary J. Blige will look back on tweets like "people always understand estimate my intelligents" and laugh.

Yes, that was really actress Haylie Duff in your spin class.

A sloppy copy/paste job made George W. Bush's cousin sound like a critic of Sarah Palin's recent media appearances.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets - or send us more Twitter usernames.

Representing the "Mainstream media" were SF Chronicle editor Phil Bronstein, NYT media columnist David Carr, and Nation editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel. Representing the "New media" were public radio's John Hockenberry, Politico founder Jim Vandehei, and Vanity Fair columnist and author and Newser yakker Michael Wolff.

Notice anything? That's right, all of these people work in the "mainstream media." Politico, which was cast as some new media vanguard, is a print newspaper with a website. So is the New York Times. And the SF Chronicle! Which led to the main problem of the evening: the entire "debate" was semantic. Panelists spent much time declaring what they weren't arguing against: great journalism, democracy, freedom, media jobs, economic success, etc. That's because they were all on the same side, in reality. They are media people who would like to remain employed somehow, like everyone else. If the proposition had been "Good riddance to print as a medium," or "Good riddance to newspapers," it would have at least been intelligible and debatable; as it was, you had the "New media" people declaring that the way they did things was faster and smarter and more democratic, and then the "Mainstream media" people saying they also did things the same way, so what the hey were they even arguing about? I don't know.

Which is not to say it was not an entertaining evening! Mostly because of the sniping between Michael Wolff and David Carr, who have a history of mutual dislike. Carr gently pointed out that Michael Wolff was arguing for the abolition of the NYT while simultaneously running a website full of NYT excerpts; Wolff said all of Carr's stories are too long, anyhow.

Michael Wolff does not have a winning personality. He whines, he gesticulates annoyingly, he takes obviously ridiculous positions for the purpose of drawing attention to himself. He is a hypocrite, and sometimes embraces his own hypocrisy to, yes, draw attention to himself. That said, Michael Wolff is not afraid to be brutally honest. Which is something media reporting needs! He demonstrated that last night when—after a question from a Hearst lawyer in the audience, and while sitting on a stage with Phil Bronstein, editor of a Hearst paper—Wolff said (we're paraphrasing) "People don't like to say this in polite company, but Hearst's newspapers are really bad. So who cares if you go out of business?"

It's true! Props to you for that, Michael Wolff, you generally grating man.

But he got got, in the end. In Carr's closing statement, he whipped out a printout of Newser's front page. It's a cool site, check it out, yada yada yada, he said. Then Carr pulled out his show-and-tell version of Newser after the "Mainstream media" had been abolished. It was the same printout, full of holes, with every story painstakingly cut out.

Mainstream media is just new media that figured out how not to go out of business. Let's spend our time arguing about important things: Where to get a job.

The New York Times' James Barron reports today on the auction, which effectively turns the last page in the final chapter of what once was Manhattan's most infamous party house. After being essentially seized by creditors in 2006, the townhouse was purchased last year by billionaire hedge-fund guy Philip Falcone for $49-million. Since Falcone intended to gut the property completely, much of its contents were offered up to the Green Coalition, a group that supports programs for people recovering from bouts with addiction.

Politely described by David Carr in a 2002 Times piece as "effusively decorated," there has been much written about the mansion, and a couple of quick Google searches would have easily turned up a plethora of information about it and its former owner, not to mention the detailed information made available about the auction's items in advance by the auction house. So it's kind of hilarious to read some of the reaction quotes from aghast auction attendees interviewed by Barron:

"Kind of gaudy."

"I guess he lived a different lifestyle."

"Most of these pieces are unusual, to say the least."

"I never realized his interest was of this caliber."

Seriously?! Who are these people and where the hell did they come from? Attending an auction of Bob Guccione's belongings and expecting to find modest sophistication is like attending a NASCAR tailgate party hosted by Larry the Cable Guy and expecting to be served Pinot noir and Foie gras. Get the fuck out of here!

Frank Bruni, former restaurant critic: Bruni already got the chance to talk up his own kiddie bulimia in the NYT mag. Just the beginning! He'll be talking about it on Nightline on August 19. Sample transcript quote:

[Nightline]: You were 8 years old on the Atkins Diet?

Bruni: Yeah… the Atkins Diet came out in hardcover when I was 8, if I have my arithmetic correct. ‘Cause I remember mom bought it in hardcover so this was serious stuff and I remember leafing through it and learning about ketones and ketosis and you know, having no idea what that meant, I was 8 years old, but I thought, ooo that's profound stuff. If I can get into this ketosis thing I'll be home free. I'll be skinny.

Bruni is now the Food Critic With Food Issues.

Jill Abramson, managing editor: Not just managing editor for news; managing editor for puppies, too! She is the Serious News Lady With a Smooshy Marshmallow Puppy Center.

Alex Kuczynski, former shopping columnist: Rich Botox Lady Who Will Talk About Same, Endlessly.

David Carr, media critic: The Marlboro Man of Media. With a heart of gold!

Jennifer 8 Lee, metro reporter: Hard-Working Internet Addict Who Loves Chinese Food.

Andrew Ross Sorkin, Dealbook columnist: Wunderkind Who Could Totally Be a Rich I-Banker But Isn't Yet. The next Steven Rattner?

All The Opinion Columnists: Suave Expert on [Made Up Topic] But a Snazzier Writer Than Usual! Also, too rich!

And of course, the one future Self-Brand we'd like to see speaks for itself:

AG Sulzberger: Baller.

The party, or "The Party" as it has come to be known by some, remains famous for it's over-the-top flamboyance, and since Talk was partially funded by Miramax money, Harvey and Bob Weinstein served as co-hosts for the event, leading the New York Observer to headline their coverage of the night's festivities, "Weinstein Brothers Revel in Vulgarity, Glory of Manhattan."

In her Daily Beast post eulogizing Isabell dated July 12th, Tina Brown reminisced about the illuminated-by-Japanese-lanterns soiree on the electricity-less Liberty Island to bring in the now-defunct magazine. She spoke wistfully about the plethora of stars she shipped in on an ark to genuflect at her altar, The Statue of Liberty, for the evening. Here's the money quote:

Guests, who included Madonna, George Plimpton, Demi Moore, Tom Brokaw, Kate Moss, Christopher Buckley, Helen Mirren, and Jerry Seinfeld, disgorged one after another from the Liberty Island ferry that Buckley immediately re-christened the "Star Barge." Like an A-list Noah's Ark, it motored slowly toward the tiny island where the Talk staff waited to greet the 800 guests in a warm August dusk.

Brown's piece must have triggered the memory of the New York Times' David Carr, as he dedicates his Monday "Media Equation" column to the Talk launch party, only his take on the event isn't so much a fond remembrance as it is a look back at what he now views as an event marking of the beginning of the end of an era of excess. Noting that the ten years that have passed since "The Party" have seen the death of many established titles as well as a dramatic drop in ad pages, Carr, who says he's "still ashamed to admit that I wasn't one of the lucky 1,000 people invited to the party," writes:

Too bad nobody saw the sharks circling in the harbor. Rather than the culmination of a century of press power, the Talk party was the end of an era, a literal fin de siècle. Flush with cash from the go-go '90s and engorged by spending from the dot-com era, mainstream media companies seemed poised on the brink of something extraordinary. But that brink ended up being a cliff. partied

Ten years ago, journalists, long the salarymen of the publishing economy, began gorging on big contracts and options from digital start-ups like shrimp at a free buffet. With coveted writers commanding $5 for every typed word into magazines that were stuffed to the brim with advertising, there was a fizziness, some would say recklessness, in the air. The industry was drunk on its own prerogatives, working a party that seemed as if it would never end.

Carr goes on to note that Tina Brown's Daily Beast launch party in 2008 was held at Pop Burger in the Meatpacking District, where assembled guests munched on miniature burgers and hot dogs until about 8:15 or so, when the food sadly ran out. Indeed, that's quite a remarkable contrast. But hey, there was an open bar, so it couldn't have been that bad, right?

Finally, all of this brings to mind the words of a certain eccentric American prophet who, speaking about partying in the year 1999, once said, "Life is just a party and parties weren't meant to last." And really, all things considered, is that such a terrible thing?

10 Years Ago, An Omen No One Saw [New York Times]
Farewell to the King of Parties [Daily Beast]

Dropping off their Twittering this summer are such familiar Twitterti as music writer Touré; Air America snarker Ana Marie Cox; New York Times Oscar obsessive David Carr; Times "conceptual scoop" artist Jennifer 8. Lee; celebrity journalism diva Bonnie Fuller; Yahoo vlogger Sarah Lacy and Digg perpetrator Kevin Rose. See the chart above, assembled with help from tweetstats.com (until we melted their servers by asking for numbers on Times Twitterer-in-Chief Brian Stelter).

Summer vacations could well be playing a role; Carr went on a bike trip to Colombia this month, Rose was inspecting tea in remote parts of China. But that would seem the ideal time to use Twitter, which lets you talk to all your friends back home at once, without much time commitment, and even to share pictures and videos with services like TwitPic. Maybe media and tech types have Twitter firmly slotted into the "work" category and don't want to touch it much on break.

There are some outliers: Salon's Joan Walsh, whose been on a cable-news punditry tear, has spiked her Twittering; the New Yorker's Susan Orlean has been manically chronicling her animal obsession in recent weeks; and Kurt Andersen got a burst of posts out of his trip to the White House. Everyone else should hop to and follow their examples; what else can America export to save its useless circle-jerk of an economy, if not narcissistic navel-gazing media?

Why quibble? Because that's how much rival Hollywood webpreneur Sharon Waxman — who wouldn't mind pushing up the price of websites about the entertainment business — insists the deal is worth. In her story today about Penske's nabbing of magazine editor Bonnie Fuller to run HollywoodLife.com, Amy Kaufman writes at Waxman's The Wrap, "Last month, TheWrap reported that MMC purchased Nikki Finke's blog Deadline Hollywood Daily for a deal totalling $14 million."

Still, Finke is now pulling in one of the largest blogger — excuse us, news website editor — salaries around. And as Carr points out, Finke has her sharp elbowed, merciless, style that she's known for to thank for Penske's millions. One the big debates about Finke's is whether she is a hard-nosed reporter trying to keep Hollywood honest or a recluse ranting on the corner of Journalism and Vendetta?

We've had Nikki's digital spittle on our faces a number of times. And so have many others, like an editor at GQ for instance. This email from Nikki sent to the GQ is one of our is one of our favorite postcards from the stormy isle of Finke:

Subject: Re: LA story
Date: 8/17/2004 3:13:52 PM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Nikki Finke

To: XXXX

You think having an unnamed Hollywood agent talking about poaching unnamed clients is a "get"? I have 300 interviews with real live Hollywood agents ON THE RECORD talking all about stealing clients and naming names, dates, places, etc. not to mention a whole bunch of even juicier stuff. But do you people ever think to actually call me to do an article for you? Noooooooooooooooooooooo....

Because I'm not 24 years old...
Because I'm not making up stuff.

Because I don't live in New York.

Because I don't kiss up to the idiots who decide which stars magazines like GQ can and can't put on their covers.

Because I actually know something about Hollywood.

Here's a thought: Why not ask me to put together the juiciest Hollywood stories I know for your magazine. Oh, you're running late for lunch at Michael's?

How come I'm not surprised.

C'mon guys! Who wants to buy Nikki lunch? As a burgeoning chronicler of the entertainment scene, I have to tell you that judging from this highlight reel Nikki Finke is an absolute inspiration to me. She proves that you can be successful despite your tendency towards spleen venting tirades, outrageous public feuding, intolerable smugness, and overall an contemptuous personality. There's hope still!

Sklar - who's doing freelance work for The Daily Beast when she's not working as "media consultant" Dan Abrams' prime henchwoman - sits down here with Times media reporter David Carr (a famously reformed alcoholic) at a bar for a drink. The results are weird and beautiful and utterly fantastic, in that, I can just pull quotes from it and it's wonderful:

Carr's weirdness starts out: "Today was horrific." Horrific? Fun. Flamboyant! He continues, showing his media reporter card/hand: "The thing is, if you write something about the New York Times, a lot of people feel compelled to write in and say what would save the New York Times. And we've thought about most those things."

Who's we? And, wait: we have? "And Number one, we're not really in need of saving. And then there's a lot of people who think the paper's going to go away, somehow." What? No! Yes? I'm so confused!

Then Carr talks about how excited he is to be a media reporter, and Sklar - who appears to be eating a mango, maybe? - nods downward at the words "media reporter," or so the video's been edited! Conspiracy! But Carr is scared. "But I'm scared," he explains to Sklar. Her response? David Carr, Inc. can live without the Times, because he has a brand. And Carr cuts her off: "I'd never make what I'm making now." Well, that's why you hire Abrams Research! Duh!

Then Carr gets a "fry cut" - maybe that mango was a french fry? - and there's a bunch of nonsensical trivia about whether or not Carr prefers Star Trek over Star Wars. Carr begins to give Sklar the crazy eyes and she begins to look scared. And then, before we know it, the cinéma vérité masterpiece that is SklarCarr has come to an abrupt stop.

So, final count:

- Rachel Sklar looks down when Carr calls her a media reporter.
- Rachel Sklar looks terrified of Carr.
- Carr - the New York Times media reporter - doesn't think the now perpetually beleaguered paper needs saving.
- Carr will not abandon the mothership, because he's making too goddamn much.
- Carr thinks Star Trek is action-packed and the like and Star Wars is for nerds. What?

When future humans come back to earth to excavate our microparticles in order to learn about the civilizations that came before them and the silly instruments that provided the decline and ultimate demise of our culture, our means of communicating, and this whole "journalism" concept - print, electronic, telekinetic, whatever - in like, fifteen years, this video's going to be studied endlessly. I've watched it four times and it's still strangely, incredibly hypnotizing. I feel like I'm watching some acid-dropped deleted scene from Citizen Kane. It's that awesome.

If you haven't already read Carr's piece, and we highly suggest that you do, here's the gist of it: One night last week, Carr went out to two parties in the city. One was the New York Observer's farewell to longtime editor Peter Kaplan, the other was an Internet Week-themed event hosted by Guest of a Guest and College Humor. What Carr reported on in his story were basically his thoughts and feelings as he experienced them stepping into these two seemingly diametrically opposed parts of the modern media world on the same night.

The two parties and the people who inhabited them could not have been more different existing within the same ecosystem. The Observer party for Kaplan was held at a swanky Fifth Avenue locale in Midtown, the Century Club, that's long been a favorite haunt of big name New York City writers and journalists. The other party, the Guest of a Guest/College Humor party, was held on the rooftop of a chic hotel, the Hotel on Rivington, on the Lower East Side.

At the Observer party, Carr made note of the "aura of elegy" that seemed to be hanging in the room over the course of the night. At the Guest of a Guest/College Humor party, Carr noted that there was "no elegy on the roof deck of the hotel, only thumping techno, a hot tub and hordes of young people staring at the lights of Midtown in the distance."

Again, two opposite worlds existing within the same ecosystem feeding off the same food sources, one which appears to be dying slowly with each passing day, the other growing and thriving rather vibrantly.

We highlight David Carr's column today not for any reason other than it struck us as a simple but poignant portrait of the state of media today. We felt sort of moved by it, and we can easily see it being something that will be read in the future as a sort of stick in the historical water showing exactly where the tide of the media world was at this moment in time. It was, we think, an incredibly accurate and somewhat moving snapshot.

With all of that said, we have to add that reading Carr's piece made us feel a bit sad. As we write this, we're surrounded by remnants of the old media world. Strewn all about the floor around us are copies of the New York Times, New York Post, Wall Street Journal, and New York Daily News, not to mention the latest copies of Esquire, Rolling Stone, and the New Yorker, as well as a couple of recently purchased books. We love all of these things, we love the way they feel to the touch and the way we feel inside when we touch them, and each day we try to wrap our brains around life without them, but we just can't seem to do it. On the flip side, we're completely ingrained into the tapestry of the internet, the very beast most often credited for the ongoing decimation of the old media world, so we obviously have a huge stake in the survival of the new media world as well.

In short, we're torn over all of this. We wish we were smart enough to come up with a solution that would allow both worlds to coexist and thrive, but we just can't seem to do it, nor does anyone else seem to have a viable answer at this point. We also realize that things die and that these things dying is hard to accept and is often the cause of tremendous grief, even though the death of these things usually means that some other things will be granted lives. Regardless of how hard it is to accept the possible outcomes, it will certainly be interesting to see how all of this plays out in the future.

The one thing we are sure of is this—-That David Carr, though we don't always agree with him, is one of the best around at chronicling what is taking place right now within the modern media ecosystem.

In One City, Two Soirees Ages Apart [New York Times]

Cindi Leive, Glamour editor-in-chief, denied she could be one of the book's funhouse mirrored versions of Manhattan media fixtures. It was Leive who playing host at Da Silvano's wine bar to a mix of unnervingly relaxed gossips, writers, and flacks, which meant she invited guests to pet her fur purse — "No, I don't even know what kind of animal it is, but you don't really want to know, do you?"

Froelich, in fishnets, advised that really, "If you can eat it, wear it." She had her own arm-candy: a bouquet of tiny violet roses, compliments of (former?) gossip and one-time Gawker editor, Alex Balk.

Also in the gallery, shot by the unstoppable Nikola Tamindzic: Erica Jong, George Gurley, Sloane Crosley, David Carr, Rachel Sklar, Elizabeth Spiers, Kate Lee, and Neel Shah's hat.

Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me), Page Six's gossip columnist and Mercury in Retrograde author Paula Froelich

Cindi Leive (editor-in-chief, Glamour), author Erica Jong

Elliot Furman, former Defamer writer Molly Friedman

Glamour's Cindi Leive, Rachel Sklar of Abrams Research

Neel Shah (gossip writer for Page Six, and former Radar), Chris Wilson ("the Neel Shah of the late 90's" he explains), Steve Garbarino (the survivorman of the magazine world, now working with Playboy)

Classing it up, old-school publicist Bobby Zarem

The next generation: omg omg omg

Sloane Crosley (book publicist, author of I Was Told There'd Be Cake), Cindy Eagan (head of teen lit imprint Poppy) Caroline Waxler (writer)

Mediaite Rachel Sklar with Ron Perelman's spokeswoman Christine Taylor

Neel Shah shortly before hatting Sloane Crosley

Alex Balk (The Awl, former Radar executive editor) shows his face with Paula Froelich

A barely debauched George Gurley (New York Observer, Vanity Fair)

La Froelich's fishnets

Paula Froelich, with snappy flack Marvette Brito

Morgan Spurlock

ICM agent Kate Lee with client and Gawker founding editor Elizabeth Spiers

David Carr (star Twitterer and media columnist, New York Times)

Sara Bernstein, of HBO's documentary operation, and Jesse Angelo, New York Post managing editor, who claims to have only ever drunk-bought one domain: yourwifeisonmyblog.com

Sloane Crosley, Neel Shah's hat

Paula Froelich just wants you to go home now

The New Yorker's Susan Orlean wasn't about to let social pressure keep her from blogging about suicide

Salon's Glenn Greenwald pulled his punches with regard to the White House Press Corps, as usual.

The Daily Show's Tim Carvell was not impressed with the Times' sales pitch.

David Carr found himself easily distracted from his work for the Times.

But his colleague Patrick LaForge seemed to relish his new job: Assuring New Yorkers of various things that will not, in fact, kill them.

The photo of Dennis J. Skillicorn ran with an article about Missouri's horrendous methods of carrying out executions and was bordered by an Apple ad featuring Long and Hodgman just sort of standing there like a couple of jerkoffs.

In a column published yesterday, the Times' David Carr said the following about advertising on the paper's website:

"For more than 100 years, Tiffany has occupied the upper-right corner of Page 3 of The New York Times. Until our digital model finds a way to create a similar kind of exalted placement, it will be tough to charge the kind of prices for advertising that reflect the cost of producing quality content."

This is purely a wild guess here, but we're doubting that this is an example of "exalted placement" on the Times' website, right?

Photo via [In Other News]
The Times and the Future [New York Times]
Executions Debated as Missouri Plans One [New York Times]

Michael Wolff is sort of a full-time dick, but you do have to marvel at his businesslike way of tossing out insults. Count em:

David Carr, who writes about the media for the New York Times, and who I've never personally liked very much (we were colleagues at New York magazine, where he would stand too close and bray rhetorical statements and open-ended questions)...

It's always been amazing to me how little Carr knows about business. I couldn't say if it has to do with his schooling or his own intellectual limitations, but the guy is really quite a nitwit...

Almost all business reporters at all newspapers (and, likely, all reporters on all subjects) seem often to be semi-retarded (Carr is by no means the biggest dope on the Times' business desk; and his colleagues at the Globe barely make the effort to publish a sentient business page)...

Ha, whoa now! "Semi-retarded," "nitwit." We sense a bit of personal bile. Wolff's piece is nominally about a column that Carr wrote, but really it's his revenge against Carr for panning Wolff's biography of Rupert Murdoch in the NYT Book Review. Hey Mike, when you make it this obvious, it doesn't really work. News Corp's methods are rubbing off on you.
[Newser]

Key warnings from the the guidelines, from standards editor Craig Whitney:

Be careful not to write anything on a blog or a personal Web page that you could not write in The Times —­ don't editorialize, for instance, if you work for the News Department. Anything you post online can and might be publicly disseminated, and can be twisted to be used against you by those who wish you or The Times ill — whether it's text, photographs, or video. That includes things you recommend on TimesPeople or articles you post to Facebook and Digg, content you share with friends on MySpace, and articles you recommend through TimesPeople. It can also include things posted by outside parties to your Facebook page, so keep an eye on what appears there. Just remember that we are always under scrutiny by magnifying glass and that the possibilities of digital distortion are virtually unlimited, so always ask yourself, could this be deliberately misconstrued or misunderstood by somebody who wants to make me look bad?

He's talking about us! Although we wish everyone well. We hear that the paper may be cracking down on Twitter use by staffers soon. So now's the time to look at some the NYT's most prolific Tweeters! Not surprisingly, most of them are prolific reporters, as well, and just can't stop writing things, every minute of every day. It's truly amazing.

Superhuman metro reporter Sewell Chan's Twitter page is uniformly innocuous.


Dealbook wonder boy Andrew Ross Sorkin's is livelier, but still disappointingly uncontroversial. Lots of live-tweeting and extra Dealbook-like commentary.


Young media obsessive Brian Stelter is an outrageous link-Tweeting machine. Truly incredible. Not too controversial, though. You work too much, Brian!


Magical trend specialist/ metro lord Jennifer 8. Lee hears the WSJ may be clamping down on Twitter! She also reveals that the NYT newsroom is patrolled by drunken thieves!



Finally, King of All Media David Carr is wild with the Twitter! He Twitters whatever he wants! Maybe enough to give Craig Whitney palpitations? It's all so charming, though! He has a big personality! Fight the power!


So overall there's not much that we would find scandalous there (more drunk Twittering from the whorehouse, people, thx), but probably enough to make Craig Whitney want to tell people to be quiet. Keep an eye out for a sudden NYT clampdown on newsroom Twittering. Then everything can get back to boring again.
[Disclosure: I'm Facebook friends with Carr and Stelter, hopelessly compromising my objectivity.]

Watch as microcelebrity NBC contractor Rex Sorgatz attempts to explain Foursquare, a friend-finding interactive game launched by former Google employee Dennis Crowley at the South By Southwest event, an annual excuse for a nonstop party thinly disguised as a conference on all things Web. Carr may be perplexed, but he comes to the right conclusion: Foursquare is a toy for "kids on the Internets."

"Internets," plural! Carr's cool like that!

Sorgatz and Crowley are just two of the familiar microcelebrities who make cameo appearances in Carr's writeup of SXSW. There's Tumblr founder David Karp, bragging about being a slacker:

I didn't even come last year, but this year we dropped the whole team in, I guess as a way of saying that we mean business. We're mostly having fun, doing a few meetings and enjoying seeing old friends. It would probably be a better use of my time to be back home staying up till 4 in the morning and just crushing it to come up with one more application, but this is more fun.

Declaring how much fun one is having and how much work one is avoiding is a strange way of showing one means business, but that's Karp for you.

And look, two Valleywag alumni:

All this can become insular, and fast. On Monday Nick Douglas and Melissa Gira Grant, two veteran bloggers, hosted a session called the "Sex Lives of the Microfamous." The two were involved once, and broke up on Tumblr, or so the story goes.

Actually, I could have sworn those two crazy kids broke up on Valleywag, but what do I know? I'm not quite as old as Carr, but I'm old enough to view faddish kiddie startups like Tumblr and Foursquare with skepticism.

(Video by Richard Blakeley)

Here are his two teases:

At the Vanity Fair party Sunday night, the Bagger bumped into a guy he knows who is involved in all manner of entertainment businesses. The Bagger noted how the man, someone with access to power in all of its manifestations, seemed to be prospering and was looking well for a middle-aged guy; perhaps he had even lost some weight. "What have you been dining on?" the Bagger asked.

"Twenty-year-olds," said the man, indicating the date off his shoulder.

And the producer:

Up in the Hollywood hills, the Bagger was meeting with a producer who has a well-deserved reputation for decency and effectiveness in a business not known for either. They were chatting about this and that when an assistant walked in with a proprietary release schedule from one of the studios, with lots of useful intelligence and data. The Bagger had seen such a document, but was surprised that it was floating around. The producer smiled and said that he sent small gifts to an assistant there on a regular basis. The Bagger, who knows the man as an honorable person, was a bit taken aback.

"Hey, you have to get a little dirty in this town if you want to make it work," he said smiling. "It's part of the place's charm."

The first one really could be anybody, but we like to think it's old David Geffen dating the youngins. And the kindly producer spying on studios? Oh who knows. Let's say... wisdom-crazed superproducer Brian Grazer. Though I don't know that you could call Angels & Demons either "decent" or "effective."

In his review, Carr dinged Wolff with lines like "in general, Wolff has never distinguished himself as a reporter" and "The book is a strangely alluring artifact, with huge gaps in execution and stylistic tics that border on parody" and attacks him for getting a few facts wrong, and takes issue with Wolff's supposition "that The Times is a deeply flawed artifact that is doomed to be crushed by the more nimble, less morally constricted Murdoch."

This afternoon, Wolff updated his Facebook status line with his reply.