Maroulis is currently starring in hair band jukebox musical Rock of Ages on Broadway. Tinsley went to see the show last night, and a tipster sent pictures of her and the star looking like they're about to kiss to Guest of a Guest. ConstanTinz were first spotted togetherlast week hanging out at Touch, a midtown club not far from the Rock of Ages theater. Tinsley had her camera crew in tow, so maybe they were catching this auspicious meeting for a suitable end to the first season or a great start to the second one. Now that the cameras are gone and they're still hanging out does this mean it's real love? Oh, Tinsley. Tell us it's not so! It's been a downward spiral ever since breaking with Topper. Next thing you know, she's going to be running around town with Levi Johnston. Oh, too late.

Mortimer's reality show wraps taping this week, but it wouldn't be right for the show not to have a climatic battle and the chosen antagonist is Devorah Rose, editor of alleged magazine Social Life. Apparently Rose was going around telling people Tinsley's man is a poor! The Tinz couldn't stand for that and went over to defend poor Prince Casimir Wittgenstein-Sayn's honor as the richiest rich who wipes his ass with Fabergé eggs. Her on-camera entourage (including Paul Johnson Calderone) all went over to scream at Rose. If the photos are this good we can't wait to see the CW promos!

By all accounts (except the inevitable Page Six item about the brou-ha-hoax, where CW honcho Justin Rosenblatt says of the program, "It's entirely unexpected and in the moment. The storylines all arose organically."), the whole thing looked staged, with many at the party ignoring the action completely. Before, it used to be enough to fuel these social fueds by floating a few items in the gossip columns and reaping the benefits. These days the hottest accessory in town is a camera crew—just look what it did for the Real Housewives of New York—and this altercation is really the most brilliant form of manipulating one.

It starts at a party full of media types, most of whom stood by acting blasé as supposed fight took place in front of the camera. Nevertheless, they are expected to blog and tweet and write about the action, even though no one believes that it happened. This not only gets publicity for the personalities involved, but also their respective reality projects. The fight will continue to play out over months, while being massaged and edited by television executives. By the time we see the finished product (in Tinsley's case, the show comes out in January), it has been chewed, swallowed, digested, and pooped back out so what we end up with is a beautiful sparkly diamond turd of a reality television moment. We'll be so blinded by the dramatic luster that we won't even care that it was effectively staged, we'll all just be covering our gaping mouths at that bitchy thing The Tinz said about The Dev's outfit.

This isn't Rose's only fake drama buffet as of late. Last week at the launch for bikini line diNeila she got into it with socialite Jules Kirby, when the latter showed up to the party unannounced. Guess what there was a camera crew there too! Welcome to step one of the brand new process.

Well, we wonder if the editor Social Life and face of diNeila bikinis is signing her real name to all those reality show release forms. Which is Deborah Denise Trachtenberg. Yesterday when the crew was following her to the airport, they wouldn't let her on board because she was trying to get past security using pseudonym Devorah Rose and they weren't having it. What, you expect a fake editor who engages in fake fights to not have a fake name?

[Image via Guest of a Guest]

She may have gotten kicked out of school for being on the show, but they certainly weren't kicking her out of the Bogardus Mansion this weekend where she celebrated reaching the age of consent. Guest of a Guest was there for the flapper-themed bash and has plenty of pictures to share, including some of two young-uns getting hot and heavy in a booth.

The party didn't have any booze, because the high schoolers still aren't legal, but that doesn't mean they're too young for burlesque, as this tassel-clad hottie, who stripped for the group, can attest. While there were some bare naked ladies in attendance guess who wasn't there? Any of her castmates from NYC Prep. We're sure somewhere Rags McTattershanty is still crying because she didn't get to see a naked lady.

[Image via Guest of a Guest]

With the death of the Beatrice Inn all the celebs and people who are too cool to talk to you needed someplace to go and drink expensive drinks and pickle in their own exclusivity. That place became the Jane, which rose to prominence this summer with a host of sightings in Page Six, hot parties, and general fabulousness outside its velvet rope. Along with a good party inevitably comes lots of noise, and the fuddy-duddies in the West Village are not going to stand for that.

Guest of a Guest got a hold of a newsletter for the Jane Street Block Associate that tolls the death knell for the club. They have retained a lawyer and are petitioning the State Liquor Authority claiming that their original license claimed the club would have "background noise only." Just as happened at the Beatrice, once a bunch of well-to-do residents with a lawyer get a bee in their bonnet, a venue is doomed. The cops, the health department, the fire department and rest of the regulators will start showing up to enforce how many people can be in the club, how loud it is, that the coolers are at the right temperature, that the limes are cut a certain way, or any of the million draconian rules that govern how a bar operates. If the residents have enough money and tenacity, they can hold out forever and eventually drive the place out of business, dispute its liquor license, or have it shuttered for good. This may be the opening salvo in the war, but congratulations, Jane, you have about the same chance of survival as the polar bears.

As you may recall, Laliberte claimed that he was "assaulted" for no good reason at The Georgica in the Hamptons by a rampaging barbarian who called him mean names like "Jew" and "fag," but the staff of the restaurant refused to throw the guy out. This outraged Laliberte.

Don't people realize that gays are being hung in Iran or bombed in Israel. People should stamp out hatred whenever they see it, and I was disappointed and ashamed that this certainly wasn't the case with the staff at the night club.

All of this raised a big question: just what did Laliberte do to spark this guy's ire? Laliberte refused to elaborate on the specifics of what led up to the incident and the restaurant hasn't returned our inquiry call (In fairness to them they're only open on the weekends.), but Guest of a Guest tracked down a couple of witnesses and learned that Laliberte's lucky he only got called names by the guy.

he walked up to a table where he was not sitting and poured vodka in his glass. the guy who was at the table told kristian to leave the table. kristian got hysterical and started to say "do you know who i am?" the guy said, i don't care who you are this is our table get out of here. as kristian walked away the guy booted kristian in the ass. more of a playful thing then anything harmful.

kristian then went outside and was hysterically crying and threatening to call the police...The patron went outside and tried to apologize but at this point Kristian was having none of it. He started to berate the guy, whom again he did not know, saying "you think because you're some spoiled rich kid you can get away with anything." The paying patron attempted to apologize a number of times before he got angry and started to yell at Kristian.

Another witness backed this story up, though that person thought it was expensive champagne that was pilfered by Laliberte, not vodka. Minor details. The bottom line is that Laliberte brazenly swiped pricey booze from a stranger and managed to toss out the "do you know who I am" card in the process. He's lucky he didn't get his face bashed in.

Regardless, one thing about this entire incident is abundantly clear: Kristian Laliberte gives socialgays a bad name.

Laliberte first reported the incident on his Twitter over the weekend:





Laiberte, last seen fully engaged in the most retarded social feud in the history of retarded social feuds, spoke to Guest of a Guest about the incident, but refused to elaborate on the details of what exactly happened, so we are only left to assume that Laliberte said something insulting about the guy's socks or something. However, he didn't hold back on painting himself as the gay Rosa Parks for having the courage to speak out against gay slur words.

A lot of my straight friends don't get why its such a big deal. However if the LGTB community wants to achieve more tolerance and equality, they need to realize that this term is nothing short of saying that homosexuals are second class citizens, that something is wrong with us.

When straights and gays realize the import of the world and all that it implies, its to recall a time when the n word was perfectly acceptable, a time when a certain group was inferior to the general population. We all know where that can lead.

Don't people realize that gays are being hung in Iran or bombed in Israel. People should stamp out hatred whenever they see it, and I was disappointed and ashamed that this certainly wasn't the case with the staff at the night club.

Sadly, Laliberte's words aren't exactly hollow, but it's hard to take them, or anything else that comes from Kristian Laliberte, seriously when they come from Kristian Laliberte.

Guest of a Guest has the full dispatch claiming that LiLo's pops and Minus-Kate-and-Eight are on a bottom-feeder double date with two blonde bimbos.

The two were double dating with their arm candy by strolling Jobs Lane, stopping in at T.C. Menswear, and lunching at The Driving Seat. So here's a heads up: If you are currently in Southampton, be on the look-out. The number of fame-whores in the area have definitely gone in to overdrive.

This is the worst blow to the Hamptons glamour since Lizzie Grubman still had a driver's license.

It makes sense, though. The two have plenty to talk about: how to stay away from and attract the paparazzi, selling your soul for a reality show, ex-wives with horrible hair, wanton attention seeking, and, of course, living off their children. Ugh.

We saw the following come up on our Twitter feed and almost choked on our coffee.

Is she okay? Brawl at The Talkhouse? Throwdown at The Surf Lodge? Crossbow attack on Matt Levine at Georgica? We contacted Hruska for comment, because we care about our bloggy bretheren. The answer? A Mr. Toad's Wild Ride-esque accident that could've potentially injured Hruska and her crack team of (unpaid, but fairly compensated) Guest of a Guest reporters:

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Hruska, stop scaring us like that. We need our crack-like Hamptons coverage and our new media compensation beefs alive and well. Glad all involved are okay. Dramatic reenactment below:

Hruska, the smart, city-savvy Omaha import who quietly stormed the NYC media and socialite scene after quitting her hedge fund gig and starting a successful blog covering New York nightlife got a much-ballyhooed* profile in the New York Times today. Most of it's just fluff, and fun fluff, at that: it's nice to see a young upstart - even if they are funded by a Winklevoss Twin, ahem - come wide-eyed from Middle America and get her Blog Empire on. Hruska's unflappably charming, has few detractors and lots of friends in this town, who she gets to flit around with and make part of her story. But there was one part of the profile that might've tugged on some pretty sensitive nerves: the fact that the piece touted her "energetic, well educated and impressionable" staff that is "largely unpaid."

Gawker emerita Sheila McClear rips into Hruska over at ASSME:

As long as you're grateful to work for free in exchange for cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, and social cache, your "career" is going nowhere. Try crashing parties for your schmoozing opportunities, and you can freeblog for fun but don't spend too much time on it–real adults get paid. Jesus, I sound like a Dad, but seriously–do you want to be popular, or do you want to make money?

Yes, I've checked: ASSME pays. Which raises the question: if ASSME can pay, why can't Hruska? Or why won't she? Even the potential conflict-of-interest-ridden minefield that is media expert Dan Abrams' site Mediaite will be paying their contributors. What gives?

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.It's my guess that Hruska doesn't give a shit about the future of journalism, and if she does, it doesn't have much to do with her blog, which is a social scene site. The girls writing for Hruska - not to pigeonhole them - probably aren't looking for a full-time gig in what she does so much as (A) a mentoring from her (B) a good time, which is a kinda fair barter or (C) enough perks to supplement their full-time gigs. If anybody's trying to get gainful employment directly from working for Hruska, that's their fault, not hers, no matter how impressionable they are. But then comes the philosophical imperative: is it bad for society to not pay writers?

Well, that depends on how important you think Guest of a Guest is to society.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Which brings us to The Huffington Post, who, on the other hand, some people definitely think is important to the future of journalism. Among those people: Lorraine Branham, dean of the S.I. Newhouse School of Journalism at Syracuse, who awarded Arianna Huffington with a lifetime achievement award on June 9th. Now, mind you: the Huffington Post doesn't pay for the majority of the content that appears on their site. Journalism School students pay lots of money to (hopefully) one day be paid for the content Arianna Huffington is putting on her site for free-nintey-nine. AdAge media writer Simon Dumenco took on the award a while back. And today, Dumenco absolutely lays into Huffington for grievances held against her nearly universally.

First, Arianna Huffington's dismissive views regarding journalism itself:

...Huffington's own defensive explanation, at the Mirror Awards, for why her bloggers earn nothing...she declared, "Our bloggers come and go. They write when the spirit moves them, and they do it because they want to be part of the conversation." Yikes. So after all these years of Huffington giving lip service to the idea that her legions of bloggers are the heart and soul of her supposedly revolutionary über-blog, it turns out she thinks they're marginal, fly-by-night, "come and go" wannabes.

Dumenco could be on to something: if writers are writing for free to gain exposure, this could eventually become so circular - the job I'm writing from right now could be a job done "for exposure" - that the foundation that journalism jobs are built on could become an (ironically) inverted pyramid, one where free content sits at the top, with only those who survive through an income-less period of life scoring paid gigs.

How 'bout those writers who aren't paid, though? How do you ensure quality or liability? Every time the Huffington Post puts shoddy journalism on their site, they risk their reputation as a place to get news. And maybe that - the reputation - is the currency Arianna Huffington has to barter with her "writers." And quality control is important to the press!

And that would be the case with HuffPo. If it weren't turning into a content-repurposing tabloid. Dumenco did the math about the actual content on her site. The stuff that wasn't one of her celebrity-friend-penned columns, or written by one of her five paid reporters:

By HuffPo's own tally, more than a quarter million readers viewed the Heather Graham post, which quoted 13 sentences, totaling 142 words, from Britain's Daily Mail — a paper that (stupidly, naively, I suppose) pays its entertainment reporters. HuffPo's contribution to the, uh, discourse? Just 58 words of its own — which simply set up the Daily Mail's interview with Graham and further summarized the article. And that, folks, is HuffPo's true business model...

The Oncoming Apocalypse Of Journalism - of which Huffington might be one of the Four Horsepeople - could just be a Noah's Ark-esque flood, one in which the only thing holding you above water is a paycheck for quality. Or people could just stop giving a shit about quality, and that could go, too. Either way, Huffington and Hruska make two things about making a buck writing very, very evident: (1) there will now always be someone behind you to do your job for less, at the same rate you're doing it at, and (2) in the economy of writing - shit, in any economy - owning the shop always has and always will have perks. It may be lonely at the top, but at least you're gettin' paid. And if you're Huffington and Hruska, you get to bring your friends along for the ride, too.

Cocktails and Backslaps Don't Pay My Rent–Do They Yours? [ASSME]
Trashy Parasitism as a Get-Rich-Quick Scheme? Hi, HuffPo [AdAge]

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]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.How 'bout Guest of a Guest blogger Rachelle Hruska, who wins a title of "THE QUEEN BEE" from Meltzer. Meltzer got this one correct, but anyone could've: Hruska has the social-scene-y blogging game on an insidiously smart lockdown. Remember Park Avenue Peerage, Socialite Rank, etc? Nobody does, because the Omaha-born former hedge funder blew them out of the water with a special Kool-Aid-esque formula that everyone in everyone's managed to take a sip of: cover the highbrow, the exclusive, the velvet rope-y shit. Mix it with coverage of "Normals" (i.e. New York Media/Tech neophytes who have more inherent accessibility than the Other Half, who want to be capital-c, Cool, too). Perfect example: the GoaG Hamptons Launch party this very website reported on last week. Sure, there were other people there besides the usual New York Media suspects, but who cares? The ones that mattered were the ones that will most likely disseminate her message to others: bloggers. We award Hruska the Distinguishment of Subversive Evil Genius. Rachelle's the exception to the group, because she actually makes money doing what she does, supposedly. Also, she's exhibited intelligence, and doesn't make herself the star of the show.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Speaking of which, now we get to the good stuff: Mary Rambin, Julia Allison's NonSociety ex-pat (ex-pet?) whom Meltzer awarded The Soloist. Chortle-worthy comparisons to a black, homeless, schizophrenic cello genius aside, Meltzer used the term "unsettling" to describe some of the things readers ("fans") of Rambin's blog have discovered about her, including when she "shamed readers who won free products and then failed to send her thank-you notes." Hysterical, and kudos to Meltzer for doing her research. My only contention with this is that Rambin's presence on the web is marginal at best, and it's going to get exponentially smaller when she moves back to L.A. (where, like the rest of the country, nobody gives a shit about media people) which she's apparently doing. Rambin gets The Ringo Starr Silver Ribbon, as in: no matter how many Beatles you outlive, you're always going to be Ringo*.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.I have no idea what an Ashley Simko is, but apparently she stepped on Kanye West's shoes, once, according to Meltzer. Also, she's friends with the Guest of a Guest crew and - oh, wait. She works in graphic design. That's why we have no idea who she is. Here's her blog, I don't get it. As far as being a fameball goes, Meltzer's wrong, Simko doesn't make the cut. Congratulations, Simko! You made it out alive. You're awarded The Free Pass Out Of New York's Social Alcatraz. Go forth: design beautiful things, live quietly!

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Meltzer also named Paper writer Paul Johnson-Calderon to the list, but didn't name the only reason anyone's ever heard of him besides being an assistant to Lauren Davis at Vogue, once: he was the subject of one of my favorite Page Six items ever run, after he stole some hostess' purse from LES $23/drink nightclub The Eldridge. Petty larceny? So 90s! And hip! That same item had some ex-boyfriend of someone and socialgay Kristian Laliberte both saying he'd jacked shit from them, too (a BlackBerry and a watch), so either Meltzer's friends with the guy, or just got so sick of writing about these people, she just phoned that one in. Johnson-Calderon is hereby awarded The Honorable Position of Class Treasurer..

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Moving along, we have my favorite: the delectable, oft-bespectacled, bow-tied little creature known as Adrien Field. All of 20 years-old, nobody has any idea what earth he doth sprang from (supposedly, "South Jersey," which: so funny), nor do we know how powerful he is, but I think Field is just a viral marketing campaign for Terminator Salvation, wherein Sam Worthington's character wakes up in mud screaming and he's this incredible warrior that may or may not be a motherfuckin' Terminator. Woah.

Meltzer labeled him "The Youngster" and noted that's he's a correspondent for TMI Weekly, so he's basically a crony of Julia Allison and Mary Rambin. Implications of that aside, Meltzer notes that Field has a "men's style" blog that looks like the result of Agador from The Birdcage learning how to use the internet. Seriously (example here). Field can actually write, and he's astoundingly good at getting himself in front of cameras. If he can figure out a way to either (A) monetize himself or (B) keep himself out of the fameball spotlight while building a product, he might be able to survive, unlike the other Gungans, who will just become extinct when the Empire takes over the universe. Just kidding. We're all gonna die out, eventually, especially when people start reading books again. Field gets The Chris Crocker Memorial Award for his distinct style, emotional connection with his audience, and the bright future that Crocker never made it to.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Last, we have Jessica Schroeder, a born-and-bred Tumblr celebrity. Meltzer called her "The Hippie Hipster," but we all know any serious hippie does acid (right?), and Schroeder's your perfectly clean-cut, New York neophyte: a Midwestern import, who moved here to work in fashion and build herself as a brand. I hate this city. She takes pictures of her outfits, blogs about them, and subsequently got a few clips in fashion magazines. Her sartorial style appears to have quality, but her personal blog has seen her prone to personal misgivings about other girls on the internet, and is also shows her as an ardent and aggressive defender of thin women. She rose to fame on Tumblr, and has since been seen out on the town (on occasion) with Tumblr founder/boy wonder David Karp. Jessica wins "Best Dressed" because we're all out of other awards and her plan is so diabolically perfect, it's probably going to work, and Jessica Schroeder the Brand will kill at Target.

America, on behalf of the rest of New York and the last 7,000 characters, I apologize. Our final award of the evening goes to Marisa Meltzer, author of the piece, who you may remember from her linguistic beatdown at last week's N+1 90's panel. We appreciate that Meltzer is trying to document and create culture rather than wax poetic about it in a white room in The New Museum, but really: Marissa. You write for Slate and the Times. Unless this thing bought you nine dinners at Per Se, what the hell?! Meltzer is hereby designated Nu-Fameball Class of 2009 Advisor, or something. It's only fair we thank you appropriately. May we never write about anybody here again.

*This reminds me of a famous quote in which John Lennon was asked if Ringo Starr was the best drummer in the world. Lennon replied that he wasn't even the best drummer in The Beatles.

[Why not check out these stunning images using our handy-dandy new gallery?]

As many as three or four of these mist-braving guests will be sharing a house with a half-dozen others just like them, or maybe their parents, any weekend now. Haute smut photographer Nikola Tamindzic escorted me, my margarita, and my West Coast indifference to "summering" through Hruska's scene.

Rachelle Hruska curses the dark skies with her bright, bright future.

Media lady Rachel Sklar basking in the death of print and all the tight t-shirts it brings.

Lonnie, left, is a stylist. Ryan B, right, is a make-up artist. For this they are permitted matchy glasses and one pocket square.

Dennis Crowley, co-founder of mobile social app Foursquare, loved at least a few of Rachelle's jalapeno-laced margaritas.

Caroline McCarthy of CNET News left chilly and early and so blogged before all of us, thanking Rachelle for getting puffy fingers the size of mittens after slicing peppers all night.

Rachelle with ex-boy and Olympic rower Cameron Winklevoss. Now he's lending a hand around Guest of a Guest, doing "a little bit of everything," like help with the computers and investing and stuff!

A turn-away from Friday night's 90's vs 90's panel at the nearby New Museum conveniently had an excuse to repurpose his outfit.

He's not made of cardboard, but was kept on hand for posing.

Peter Feld weighed his options and also liquor.

One thing Winklevoss is not helping with: meat. Rachelle's current manfriend was on skewers for the day.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.To keep in theme, all guests were issued metallic dock shoes.

Reformed fameballer Rex Sorgatz kept the hellhounds of gossip at bay.

The end of a vampire weekend.

On this roof, there is no irony in anchors.

The internet, they drink just like us.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Andrew Cedotal, from Abrams Research, in twee.

The drinks were sugar-free and served in plastic: no artificial sweeteners and no hard edges to hurt our soft little mouths on.

As near as we can tell, an extension of the Winklevoss crew. At least as of the night before. Visors know no social class.

Hey it's a Journey mashup let's rock.

Rex Sorgatz cares about your internet.

A whiter shade of lime.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The look in a nutshell: aspirational summer whites cloaked in winter's broke-ass misery.

Funny. The New York Times wouldn't know; they're yet again reporting on how The Rich are being hit by the recession. And we're thus forced to again report on the Times reporting on something that's been covered incessantly! This time, Hamptons Edition! Highlights:

• Personification of The Hamptons as mystical Lost-island like entity. Also, appearances: they count for something! "..the important thing is that everything seem low-key. The Hamptons wants you to perceive it as conforming to the spirit of these hard times and not to caricature it as the flashy, traffic-choked, over-the-top playground it has increasingly become."

  
  

• Restaurants are throwing down on cheap booze to sweeten the deal. "Dinner for two at Della Femina will set you back $150 - but the restaurant is throwing in a free glass of wine."

  
  

• The most fun they might have all summer is in coming up with awesome euphemisms: "Boutiques are calling themselves "beach shacks" but still selling $200 slacks."

  
  

• Patterns of patently ridiculous spending might actually be slowing: ""I didn't order the $2,500 Italian backgammon board this year, which I sold three of the summer before last," she said."

  
  

• And then this piece of absolute strangeness, which could document the moment Times writer Allen Salkin totally lost his shit:

  The operator of what is shaping up to be one of the season's hot new clubs envisions a sound system that pumps out the ambient vibe of breaking waves and squawking gulls.

  Caw! Caw! Polly want a dollar!

  Sure, there's more, but you know the routine: people who used to not have to save are trying to save, and watching them do it is totally newsworthy, because they concessions they make are amazing.

  Meanwhile, in some other country, two reporters at the Times are reporting the high rate of foreclosures amongst minorities:

  On 145th Street in southeast Queens, just south of Linden Boulevard, attached brick homes with tidy, fenced-in gardens stretch into the distance. Children play tag under blooming oaks. But 8 of these roughly 50 homes face foreclosure; 4 are vacant; 2 have plywood boards nailed over punched-out windows. "My district feels like ground zero," said City Councilman James Sanders Jr., an African-American who represents hundreds of blocks in Queens like this one. "In military terms, we are being pillaged."

  I'm swearing, right now, to never read another one of these goddamn stories again until it contains one or more of the following items or variations of them: the snacking on of beach towels, riots at Nick and Toni's, Billy Joel-related brutality, The Surf Lodge being overrun by actual surfers, the Hampton Jitney being hijacked by various New School/NYU protesters, the Guest of a Guest-ers drop-kicking their way into Pink Elephant, Grey Gardens-esque summer shares for Upper East Side families to hide their batshit cousins, improved stronger-faster-scarier Montauk Monsters, etc. Times, 'ball's in your court. Please run with it.

  Minorities Affected Most as New York Foreclosures Rise [New York Times]

  The Hamptons In Flip Flops [New York Times]

Guest guesses that if she did have a blog it would be a mix between noted lady blog Jezebel, real-life dating columnist and gad about town Julia Allison's Tumblr blog, and maybe Fashionista (also a blog.) That's a strong cosmo. But, as the post says, "She's not real, but bloggers are." She lives a far more exciting life (fancy parties, even fancier clothes) than a real blogger would. A cruel fact. They ask, though, if it did exist, would you read it? If Carrie was real. Or if you were not. And you existed in the same not-real universe. And you read blogs. Which raises a more interesting question: Would you read blogs if you weren't real and another not-real person who you liked when you were real wrote a not-real blog?