• Demi Moore threw her daughter Rumer Willis a 21st birthday party in Vegas over the weekend complete with male strippers! Also in attendance were Rumer's dad Bruce Willis and stepdad Ashton Kutcher, who did not play any part in the beefcake festivities as far as I can tell. [Orlando Sentinel and People]
  
  
• Desperate to get his daughter back in the spotlight again, Jessica Simpson's father Joe is nagging American Idol producers to hire Jessica to be Paula Abdul's replacement. [Page Six]
  
  
• The Jackson shitshow continues to ramble on — over the weekend news broke that Michael Jackson's body was frozen by his mother in a secret freezer, now Joe Jackson is claiming, over a lunch of ribs and jalapeno bread, that the family has finally settled on Jacko's burial arrangements. [Mirror and Gatecrasher]
  
  
• Producers of Diablo Cody's new film Jennifer's Body are planning on making a big deal out of a make-out scene between Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried as a part of the film's publicity push. [Page Six]
  
  
• Here are the latest Britney Spears bikini pics, this time she's looking sort of curvy while playing around in a pool with her children. [Sun]
  
  
• Lady Gaga's manager says that she uses men like candy — she peels off the wrapper and just chews them up! No word from the manager if she uses her poon or peen or both to do so. [Sun]
  
  
• Colin Farrell actually met the one female fan that he won't sleep with when some crazy lady jumped into a car he was driving while filming a movie scene. He reportedly began screaming like someone was trying to kill him. [Mirror]
  
  
• Jennifer Love Hewitt is playing sports in a bikini again, this time it's tennis, and she's wearing wedge heels to increase the degree of difficulty. [Daily Mail]
  
  
• Hugh Grant is once again talking about his possibly retiring from acting because he says he's been freezing up more and more on camera. [Daily Mail]
  
  
• Special Topics In Calamity Physics author Marisha Pessl is divorcing her hedge-fund manager husband. [Page Six]

• The invite to Nicole Richie's Memorial Day bash said that "no girls over 100 lbs" would be allowed in, but she was just kidding about that! Except not actually kidding. Okay, kidding! [People]
  
• The duo who wrote Half Nelson have signed on to adapt Marisha Pessl's Special Topics In Calamity Physics. [Hollywood Reporter]
  
• Was Vanessa Williams' Yorkie dognapped, or just eaten by a coyote? [NYP]
  
• A Fox 'spy' says Rachel Marsden was escorted out of the Fox News Channel building for "doing crazy stuff," as we told you last night—but on her website, the conservative commentator maintains that she was "the sane one" on Red Eye. That much is true! [Page Six]

• NoLIta establishment shut down for "unlicensed massage." [Racked]
  
• Novelist Marisha Pessl drinks a lot of cappuccinos, orders expensive food. Doesn't seem like she actually eats much of it. [Grub Street]
  
• Diddy is looking for a new assistant. Requirements include "pack clothing selection for business and personal trips." [Save the Assistants]
  
• Some of the reporters on the Virginia Tech case aren't just callous, but also stupid. [Kim Scarborough]
  
• Reviewing the blogs' reviews of Portfolio. Our meta just exploded. [The Deal]

But what he's saying to authors, and he's surely not the only one, is that the market just won't support a hefty advance. Umm, well, sort of. In one way, you got us there. It never did, overall! That's just the crazy money game you're in. (Maybe he finally made it to Barnes & Noble and saw all the poor books composting on the fiction tables.)

In any event, fiction writers interested in getting paid somewhere in the vicinity of $250K for their scribblings should be encouraged to keep an eye on the performance of Joshua Ferris' Then We Came To The End, out this week, to see if he ever earns out what we understand is his own $250K advance. (We're going with a "probably" on that one actually. Well: a strong maybe.)

All this anti-hype is moot, of course, if you're represented by someone like Susan Golomb, Jonathan Franzen's and Short Hills Mall-hot Marisha Pessl's agent, in which case, last week you sell a first-time two-book deal for a million bucks. Don't listen to the editors—the publishing world is still throwing itself down the well head-first, which is a big "yay!" for authors who are happy to cash in and get the fuck out. So we figure the market is actually what it always has been, no matter what line the editors are selling. A million for one, and $60K for the rest of ya. Spend it fast and write everything off.

Miramax, Rudin Option Rights To Novel [Variety]
An Interview With Marisha Pessl [Bookslut]
It's Like Nothing, Really [NYT]

If you've been paying attention to Gawker this year, you should recognize most of the names on this list. (We've given you a little preview at right. We'd never leave the Tinz off our list!) They're the people who've distracted you, intrigued you, and sickened you (often all at the same time!) in 2006. If you've fallen behind, consider this our New Year's gift to you. We're feeling magnanimous.

Without further ado, the list of Gawker's Personalities of the Year, in no particular order, after the jump.

• Judith Regan: The publisher of her eponymous imprint ReganBooks continued her reign of provocation most of the year, but almost no one could've anticipated her swift, sudden, unceremonious fall from grace. We thank her for injecting a possibly unprecedented degree of insanity and unpredictability into the normally staid publishing industry, and hope that she resurfaces soon, anti-Semitism and all.
  
• Tinsley Mortimer: Ah, the Tinz. What do you say about a 31-year-old socialite known for a "handbag line" and her seemingly endless proclivities for partying? Oh, and giving one of the more retarded interviews to the Post in recent memory. For 2007, we hope she and Topper finally call it quits, if only because seeing her officially single would be amazing.
  
• Derek Blasberg: Total fashion fag and socialite hanger-on (we refuse to use the word "walker"), and one of our more recent obsessions, male socialite Blasberg, joined at the hip with black socialite Genevieve Jones (see below), has managed to parlay a stint at Vogue and some freelance writing into Page Six mentions and having Lindsay Lohan at his birthday parties.
  
• Genevieve Jones: There's something different about Genevieve Jones, don'tcha know? The Baton Rouge native, who has no job and no discernible source of income, has insinuated her way into the upper echelons of New York society, and might be behind Socialite Rank. Then again, she might not. Then again again, does anyone really care?
  
• Alex Kuczynski: After the publication of her memoir-slash-cautionary plastic surgery tale Beauty Junkies, Alex K. was everywhere—ev-er-y-where—waxing poetic about her own beauty and everyone else's comparative ugliness. We continue to be amazed that the Times allows her off-leash in their pages. Then again, it's Thursgay Styles, and they'll publish anything.
  
• Julia Allison: The latest in a long line of women who've landed in New York determined to Make a Splash, Allison has flirted and blogged her way to ... what, exactly? Well, she goes to a lot of parties, and she gets photographed a lot. Also, we hear she reportedly writes a dating column for one of those free papers. Anyone heard anything about that?
  
• Aleksey Vayner: The enterprising Yale senior with the ridiculously inflated (some might say pathological) sense of self, whose resume-video was the resume-video heard 'round the world. Also known for being the charter member of the Douchebag Hall of Fame.
  
• Jared Kushner: What do you do when you're 25, your father's just been let out of jail, and you've got a spare couple billion lying around? First, you buy the New York Observer in what some have called a fire sale. Then you buy the most expensive building in the history of the United States. Then you give interviews to various press outlets that imply that you can't wait to be the next Mort Zuckerman. A fine goal, indeed.
  
• Jared Paul Stern: The gossipmonger got busted by Ron Burkle and his wiretap, but nary a peep about the lawsuit has been heard in quite some time. In the meantime, Stern sold his book, Stern Measures, for somewhere in the six-figure range. Oh, and also, we let him take over the site for a weekend. Oops.
  
• Marisha Pessl: Marisha! Book hot, stage hot, TV hot, blog hot—who cares? All we know is that as long as the Special Topics in Calamity Physics author continues her reign of unfiltered bon mots, we'll have lots of fodder.
  
• Lloyd Grove: We continue to be amazed that someone so bland was ever taken seriously as a gossiper. Now that his "multimedia" opportunity appears to have fizzled, we fully expect him to have a column in Thursgay Styles.
  
• MisShapes: Where would we be without Leigh, Greg, and Geordon to make us feel fat and unstylish every day of our lives? We'd probably be doing a lot more drugs, that's where.
  
• Kaavya Viswanathan: Harvard's poster child for plagiarism has picked herself up and dusted herself off, surfacing at various Harvard parties and in a women-in-business networking and philanthropic group. We foresee law and/or business school in her future. Maybe she and Aleksey will cross paths someday.

  [Image via]

But then we flipped open the January issue of Glamour, and realized that there is just no point, because we'll never be able to defend Pessl against her worst enemy: herself.

Contrary to popular belief, not all writers dress like boring librarians. Who ever said that you can't be serious, smart, creative, and incredibly fashionable? That's why I like this as an alternative to a boring old suit. It makes me feel so confident — perfect for negotiating my next book deal!

Earlier: Gawker's Coverage of Marisha Pessl

MP: I never knew who Nick Drake was until the Garden State soundtrack, and then I got his greatest hits, and I really like it. It's really restful and thoughtful, something so pure about his sound. It's good for when you're walking around New York listening to your iPod—nice to listen to instead of all the craziness happening around you. I don't know anything about him, though.

The A.V. Club: He was a reclusive, depressive guy who died very young from a drug overdose.

MP: Really? You're kidding. He sounds so put-together.

Random Rules: Marisha Pessl [A.V.Club]

Earlier: Gawker's coverage of Marisha Pessl

Marisha Pessl: Former Asheville Resident Taking Book World By Storm [Asheville Citizen-Times]

Earlier: Gawker's Coverage of Marisha Pessl

Problem is, her excerpt was way too long, wasn't funny ... If you're going to go to the trouble to create such a unique website and cover for the book, would it hurt to coach her a little on how best to do these readings, which are after all smaller scale advertisements for her product? I'm not saying I won't eventually seek out Special Topics, but I certainly didn't return to the sales tent today and fork over the $25.

Calamity book readings [CitySpecific]