How much would you pay for the dulcet writings of one Julia Allison, famous thinker of the internet? One editor asked JA about doing some freelance work, and here is the price she was quoted, via email:

Um ... you're going to have a heart attack :)

I'm at $4 / word, which works out to be about $ 2,500 - $3k for an
article / column.

I for one am having a heart attack, right now. Entrepreneurialism! Can this be true, on the actual planet, Earth? JA tells us via IM that yes, it is true. And that some unknown customers out there are in fact paying her this much money, for writing words for them. [Here is a thing JA is doing now, if you are really curious and masochistic.] So, you should be inspired that it's still possible to "make it," struggling writers. [Gunshot].


OC Register sports columnist Mark Whicker has used the "Let me fill in the victim of a tragedy on all the sports news they have missed" trope before! He tells Poynter: "In 1991 he followed up on journalist Terry Anderson's release after being held captive in Lebanon for close to seven years by writing about all the sports news he had missed." Also Whicker doesn't believe his column "mocked that woman" at all. Mark, just take a few days off from answering phone calls now.


Trendy! The latest addition to the growing canon of laid-off journalists writing about their new, non-journalism jobs: Jay Field, a former public radio journalist who now drives a taxi. And blogs about it! Man. Kind of sucks cause that would have made a good experiential public radio piece.


Folksy human Garrison Keillor is recovering after suffering a "minor stroke" yesterday Monday. He's reportedly up and working already, so hopefully it was, in fact, minor.

• What is Demi Moore's problem? She and her husband Ashton Kutcher did everything to publicize their Twitter presence. But now that she's queen bee, she's becoming more picky and totally dissed Sarah Brown, wife to Britain's prime minister. The nerve! [Daily Mail]
  
  
• Victoria Beckham arrived to New York for Fashion Week, but finds it unfashionable to discuss whether she had her chest reduced: "We should just not talk about each other's boobs." Why? We always have to see yours. [Just Jared]
  
  
• Oh no! Chef Mario Batali and his business partner are being sued for nearly $75,000 after failing to pay their rent. [Page Six]
  
  
• Could Anna Wintour's "Fashion's Night Out" be costing people their jobs? Rumor has it that modeling agencies are threatening to blacklist their models unless said models work for their company's events this evening. That business is ugly! [Page Six]
  
  
• Chris Matthews had to miss Obama's big speech because he fell ill after some diabetes tests. He'll be out for the rest of the week, thanks to American health care. [TVNewser]
  
  
• Former New York City mayor and alleged homosexual Ed Koch knows the word "fuck." Pass it on. [Page Six]
  
  
• Katherine Heigl and her nameless husband are adopting a child. Because that woman needs to be influencing another living thing. [ET]
  
  
• A Prairie Home Companion star Garrison Keillor remains in the hospital after suffering a minor stroke. That's too bad. [MSNBC]
  
  
• Speaking of potty mouths, Kate Moss didn't appreciate when comedian James Nesbitt poked fun at her sex life during GQ's Men of the Year Awards. Her reply to his joke that they had screwed: ""He's so fucking rude. I'll never come to one of these fucking awards ceremonies again!" Oh, also, she totally got drunk and had zits. [Gatecrasher]
  
  
• Playboy mogul High Hefner has filed for divorce after his wife allegedly cheated on him. Here's a lesson, ladies: don't cheat on Hugh. It's simply not done. [Reuters]

Campbell said she "held a space of love and forgiveness and just let the universe work its magic, and I think his conscience got to him."

While she said she has no intention of contacting Keillor again, she told the newspaper she is working on a book about how she believes she and Keillor influenced each other's creative processes. [Baker City Herald]

We sat at the press table (number 24) next to InStyle's Katrina Szish and her WASPily handsome beau Brant Stead. He has a tattoo of a skull and crossbones on his wrist! At table 25 next to us, we spotted Post dating columnist Mandy Stadtmiller. She was dateless. Next to her towering blond head was the towering black coiffure of Atoosa Rubenstein, Alpha Kitty.

Atoosa looks like a cross between Paul Bunyan and Bettie Page.

There was some tension at the table. Someone, Atoosa told us, had tried to be her friend on Facebook but was rejected. "I'm not using Facebook like other people," she said. "For me, it's only a social thing for people I've met and actually like."

Back at our table, two executives from Fairfield, Connecticut's public radio station (WSHU) were poo-pooing the fundraising techniques of WNYC.

Malcolm Gladwell's hair was somewhat less vivaciously upward than normal. He was nervous for the storytelling duel with Gopnik. We asked him about his blog and sometimes lack thereof.

"Well, I've been busy for the past year writing my next book so I haven't had the time, but now the manuscript is finished, so I'll be doing some more," he promised.

Asked by a companion whether it would ever be Livejournaly, Gladwell said, "It wouldn't be very interesting. 'I had a sandwich. I had a sandwich again.'" Fair enough!

So how did Garrison Keillor feel about being the first recipient of the Moth Award? "They want to start low and work up," he said. "It's the principle of show business."

And who did he like in the Gopnik v. Gladwell bout?

"Gopnik. I always go for the short man. It's the American way," he said.

Really? But Gladwell is such a fiesty thinker!

"He's not one of us," said Keillor. We presume he meant his UK-Canadianness. "He sounds like a character out of a Jane Austen novel."

Just at that moment, some goat cheese flew out of his mouth and landed on my hand. I tried to shake hands in a way that transferred the cheese back to its rightful owner but it didn't work out.

On stage, novelist Meg Wolitzer and Gopnick made jokes about Gladwell.

Meg: "They're making a movie of 'Blink.' Exterior Shot. Man blinks. Woman blinks. Both blink furiously as we fade out." Gopnik: "It's a short."

The moment came. Gladwell reprised a story of his about how he and William Booth had competed to work the phrase "perverse and often baffling" into the Washington Post. Gopnik went the Neal Pollack-daddyblogger route, telling a story of text message miscommunications with his son. Gopnik misinterprets LOL to mean "Lots of Love" and thusly uses it liberally during family crises. For example, "I hrd ur dad died. LOL" LOL, also LOL!

Andy Borowitz judged via applause meter, a method as reliable as a Diebold voting machine, and so the duel ended in a draw. Predicting such an outcome, the Moth had preordered two red sashes. "That way," said a Moth functionary later, "it kept us from any awkward situations with two of our favorite writers."

• "The country has come to accept stereotypical gay men — sardonic fellows with fussy hair who live in over-decorated apartments with a striped sofa and a small weird dog and who worship campy performers and go in for flamboyance now and then themselves. If they want to be accepted as couples and daddies, however, the flamboyance may have to be brought under control." [Salon]
  
• The Times has invented another new way to charge money for things that used to be free: Times Reader will now cost $14.95/month. Revenue streams! Verticals! [Frank Barnako]
  
• Angelina Jolie is one step closer to buying another child. [Us Weekly]
  
• Tara Subkoff's new higher-priced fashion line "reflects a dark complacency, with a little bit of hope, of course." Of course! [WWD]