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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You want proof?

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

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

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

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

Here're the first two pages:

And here're the second two:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Awl writer Alex Balk.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then you can blame it on this guy:

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

[Photographs via Gawker Party Crash photog Mo Pitz.]

Author John Scalzi provided a horrifying glimpse into the not-so-distant future. Science "fiction?" We think not.

Dan Frommer of Business Insider explained that clouds can't crash on you in iHeaven.

New York's Jessica Coen basically called it.

AOL was not about to be condescended to by Brian Stelter of the New York Times. Busted!

You know who else allowed his nation's critical communications system to fail during wartime? The Awl's Alex Balk does.

Webmonkey editor Michael Calore never made to attachment number 23.

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

Vanity Fair's Michael Hogan thought for sure he was going to get to watch some police brutality, all live like, but the mouthy driver Hogan was watching got off without so much as a black eye. This was intended to illustrate white privilege in action, part 946.

Macworld's Jason Snell refreshed his ego on Facebook.

Mark Glaser didn't like to think of Mark Glaser as a brand, according to Mark Glaser, but Mark Glaser got over it. For example, the PBS writer sometimes refers to others as "some people" rather than with a name or link that might dilute the brand of Mark Glaser. Not that we're saying Mark Glaser planned it that way, or anything.

Yahoo video journalist Sarah Lacy indirectly let her publisher know she's at least trying.

New York's Jessica Coen is coming for you, self deprecators.

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

New York's Jessica Coen knew how Michael Jackson would have wanted to be remembered.

ABC News' Jake Tapper, the White House correspondent, was basically just watching Michael Jackson videos all day Friday.

Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow blamed Americans for killing Michael Jackson by not paying enough attention to him, and thus never learning that they were paying way too much attention to him.

This would be Kurt Andersen's moment, if only he'd pursued his morbid dream.

BlackBook's Tricia Romano made her own fun.

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

Peter Kafka of All Things D knew it wouldn't be the Mirror Awards without relentless heckling and/or inside joking.

New York's Jessica Coen inadvertently stumbled into Rite Aid's obfuscated products aisle.

Ryan Seacrast eagerly devoured on opportunity to reassert his heterosexuality.

Engadget's Ryan Block recontextualized himself.

Toure was robbed of a simple, formerly non-racist pleasure.

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

Peppy alternapublican blogueuse Meghan McCain threatened the Bay Area with a visit.

Suze Orman frowned on the acquisition of guacamole via credit card.

Pejorative-epithet-deprived media personality Bonnie Fuller recounted her face-to-chest meeting with Voldemort.

Gawker alumna Jessica Coen maintained her sense of proportion.

Chicago journalist Rob Elder experienced the diminution of print media firsthand.

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

Martha Stewart looked down on New Yorkers intimidated by snow, a group which includes home-bound Gawker editor Gabriel "I'm taking a snow day" Snyder. And then she got into a crazy Twitter conversation with Perez Hilton about cupcakes. Which is pretty much what she deserved.

CNET's Twitter beat reporter, Caroline McCarthy, lived up to Stewart's haughty expectations.

New York editrix Jessica Coen watched television in the middle of the day.

CNN's Rick Sanchez had an all-caps freakout over AIG.

Gourmet editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl gave us a disturbing view of her larder and psyche.

Anyone else's tweets we should keep an eye on? Send us more Twitter usernames, please — or email us your favorite tweets.

Former Gawkerette and current New York, um, magette? Jessica Coen is heeding her vagina's siren calls to dash herself on the rocks of He's Just Not That Into You.

Actor Ashton Kutcher thinks God is washing Los Angeles because it is raining. Any in-the-know third grader could correctly inform him that rain means that God is, in fact, peeing on Los Angeles.

And peeing all over Ashton's main squeeze Demi Moore, and her daughters.

The New York Times's Brian Stelter is traveling to Trenton. He will be missed.

Former Huffington Poster Rachel Sklar thinks she's made it in Hollywood. She is actually being peed on by God.

Time writer Karen Tumulty fumed at the stultifying media elite.

Guardian writer Bobbie Johnson thought about adding to his film collection.

New York editor Jessica Coen promoted a new diet.


New York Times gadget columnist David Pogue tweeted to his tweeps — "Twitter peeps," get it? — about how he planned to talk about Twitter on Twitter, which is the best reason to use Twitter.

BusinessWeek's Spencer Ante saw someone famous.

Anyone else's tweets we should keep an eye on? Send us their username.

Tina Fey (or someone doing a bad impression of Fey, who could possibly be Fey herself) questioned her masticatory work ethic.

YouTube microstar Michael Buckley wanted to listen in on an intimate moment.

New York editrix (and beloved Gawker alumna) Jessica Coen wanted to lick herself.

Wired contributor Sarah Lai Stirland couldn't even contemplate the idea that the new chair of the FCC might have defriended her.

Steven Berlin Johnson, the author and chairman of New York startup Outside.in, announced plans to drink at a book reading. (Note: We hear Johnson is getting paid by Outside.in even when he's on book leave. So venture capitalists are paying him to read and drink. Sweet!)

Anyone else's tweets we should keep an eye on? Send us their username.

Chris Partlow, the drug lord's enforcer in HBO's The Wire, will cut you. No, really. Here's actor Gbenga Akinnagbe, who plays the part; photographer Nikola forgot to request the scary assassin look.

Gaius Charles is "Smash" Williams in Friday Night Lights, an actor recently profiled in New York magazine. Why is such a cosmopolitan magazine taking a lowly-rated show about college football, and a fictional running back, under its wing? New York's Adam Moss explains: Friday Night Lights is "sports for gays and women". And Neel Shah.

James Truman, former editor director of Louise MacBain's luxury magazine hobby collection, has the inner peace of a yoga devotee, and a man who will never again have to cater to the French-Canadian divorcee's whims. (Related: MacBain's Culture & Travel.is running a three-year-old account of a trip to Myanmar by obnoxious fallen Star editor, Joe Dolce.)

Emily Gould, another former Gawker writer now lost to management, is now consulting on blogs to Jewcy, the site for hip jews. Emily is way too hip for Jewish traditions. Piglet. Yum!

Another unkosher combination: Emily Gould and (head at regulation tilt) Julia Allison. Says Gould: "What can I say? I like her."

A piglet, desecrated by New York's Jesse Oxfeld. Or vice versa. Whatever.

Rachel Sklar of the Huffington Post, with her date, Raymond Roker of Urb magazine. They met at a Jewish retreat. The pork's better here.

Brits Eddie Izzard, Alan Cumming and Rachel Weisz watched fellow countryman, Daniel Day-Lewis, win the award for best actor. They're over the moon. Can't you tell? (Weisz, who won best supporting actress for her role in The Constant Gardener, was photographed later in the evening, at cabaret club The Box.)

To the right of Noelle Hancock from pagesix.com: Jessica Coen, overlady of New York magazine's blogs. The former Gawker writer looks like a sweet girl from the Midwest in this picture. Once, she was.

Hud Morgan of Men's Vogue learned how to wear scarves from his former boss at the New York Daily News, Lloyd Grove, seen here with New York's Carl Swanson (left).

Deborah Schoeneman, the former gossip columnist and Hamptons diarist, now writes TV scripts in Los Angeles. Does she miss New York? "In LA, writers actually make money; and they're happy." Smug bitch.

Waiting for Emily Gould.

It's gay Christmas. Public displays of affection between the gays are permitted only at The Cock and during the Oscars. New York's Carl Swanson and boyfriend cuddle around the telecast.

More rejoicing gays: New York's David Haskell and his boyfriend, Esteban Arboleda.

One straight couple, Noelle Hancock and New York Times reporter, Nick Confessore, didn't know the rules.

Curbed "lord" Lockhart Steele got name-checked in Page Six's party report. Jessica Coen, like aspiring starlets before her, is only with him for the reflected celebrity.

Photos by Nikola Tamindzic

By the way, if anyone is slow here, Tumblr is like Blogger or WordPress or Movable Type, except it's much easier and encourages people to copy stuff from other web sites. But in a good way.

The Tumblr you know
Because Gawker covers, well, New York and the media, we link to blogs by New York media personalities, particularly when they bitch about each other. That's why all we know about College Humor exec Ricky Van Veen's Tumblr is that he hates reading all his friends' crap, or that his former business partner Jakob Lodwick is too busy to flush the toilet (the link is safe for work, honest). We might know more about Julia Allison than we ever wanted, if we actually kept up with her blog, which seems to get more updates than Gawker itself. Let's ignore the question of why we actually clicked through these links, read them, then came back to Gawker to complain about the pain of reading them. All I want to demonstrate is that this is just one little enclave of a generally fantastic collection of blogs.

The Tumblr you're missing
The advantage of Tumblr is in not doing what the blogs above do, but in sharing fun things from the Internet or leaving very short messages that would seem skimpy on most WordPress or Movable Type blogs. Microblogging was already popular before Tumblr, since technically it's just blogging really briefly and linking a lot, and tumblelogs (the term inspired Tumblr's name) like Kottke.org, Fimoculous, and Robot Wisdom have been a source for other high-profile blogs for years. Even Poynter's Romenesko news feed is pretty much a tumblelog.

Of course, Tumblr blogs aren't as spot-on as Kottke or Romenesko, but they do show a lot of promise. The blogs Garden of Varied Delights and Tumblus do a decent job collecting Internet fads, if a bit slowly. The Stumbling Tumblr keeps digging up ten-year-old fads, but the author, an Australian lawyer in his 60s, also finds enough weird undiscovered stories to warrant an occasional check-in. The blog Giancarlo Can! is a documentation of one divorced man's bitter, petty fights with his ex-wife, which is so painfully Larry-David-without-the-jokes that I had to stop reading because I found I was involuntarily tensing all my muscles. White Whine is a collection of yuppie complaints, like "Why do they sell every flavor of Vitamin Water in 32oz bottles except for B-Relaxed?"

But the real good stuff is the smart-ass guys who combine links with their own commentary. This sweet spot is filled by Kung Fu Grippe ("The Burger King is such a dick"); Your Monkey Called ("The song's little-known subtitle: 'Your Body is a Wonderland (And I Am Its Carnie)'"); and Lonely Sandwich ("If this movie were a candy bar, it would be called Disembowel Nut Crunch. Or Marshmallow Genocide Bar. Or Snickers").

And of course there are the Tumblrs of former Gawker editors Jessica Coen and Alex Balk, which when combined are funnier than anything I'll ever put on Gawker, but you knew that.

Coen admits the backlash from her words made her rethink what was acceptable online behavior. "It's all too easy to be cruel from the safety of your laptop," she writes. "I certainly was at times, hurling my opinions with little regard for the effect they might have had. Now I choose my words more carefully — but it was a difficult and emotional lesson for me to learn."

Bad Words [WWD]
"Online bullies, back off!" [Glamour]

One of the burger competitors (and sharemate with Leventhal) was Mo Koyfman, who kind of serves as a chaperone to College Humor on behalf of their boss, Barry Diller. It's weird that he was grilling cheeseburgers, since he's supposedly kosher. Anyway, he lost.

Schoeneman even brought her gay albino housecleaner Marco, who cleaned during the party. Momofuku's David Chang was there with Frankie's Spuntino owner Frank Falcinelli as a judge, as was Peter Meehan of the Times. Ken Friedman of the Spotted Pig showed up too late to judge anything. This girl I went to N.Y.U. with was there and now she is married to Bob Vila's son, Chris. That made me feel old. [Ed. Note: Jesus Christ, you're like 12, Josh.]

That goofy-looking actor from 30 Rock, Lonny Ross, was there with his cute girlfriend. And though the party was first reported on New York magazine's Grub Street, its editor Josh Ozersky was noticeably absent, or not-invited. Chalk that up to the fact that David Chang and a few of the other attendees absolutely hate him.

[Photo: Ricky Van Veen/Flickr]

Reporting to editorial director Ben Williams, Coen will oversee all of the daily online content, which will have her working closely with former Rush & Molloy stringer Chris Rovzar, who has signed on to edit the online Daily Intelligencer column (with a co-editor to be hired). What enticed our former co-worker Coen to leave the warm embrace of Conde Nast? Maybe the slow pace of change at 4 Times Square? Maybe the large chunk of change they've offered her at New York? We've heard whispers about both those possibilities, but the lady isn't saying. But if her magical vagina works as well on the job front as it does in her personal life, expect VF.com to either take off like a rocket or sink like a stone right after she leaves.

Cruising Gawker [WWD]