[A BK] executive familiar with the matter said the company had not authorized the book and that most within the company were blindsided when Creativity broke the news of its publication. Spokeswoman Heather Krasnow couldn't be reached for comment...

"It certainly seems like it should be a big deal to the corporation," said Burger King franchisee Chris Ondrula. "I guess I'd be surprised if the agency didn't take the first step of running it by the corporation." He added that given Crispin's prankish advertising, he was one of those who expected it would turn out to be a hoax.

Things that could turn out to be the case, ranked from "mildly annoying" to "hilarious":

1. The book is a stunt for a new ad campaign.
2. The book is really a book.
3. The book is really a book, and Bogusky's clients fire him for writing it.

[Ad Age]

A beery-eyed-at-the-bar-at-4:30am-thinking-about-college sad hipster jam version of the title track? Um, sure. How about the weepy ebb and flow of a dirge-like rendition of "Let's Hear It For the Boy"? Hermmm, OK. Basically it's Friday and we're hungover and befuddled and don't know what to make of this. So we're foisting the question onto you, dear readers. Haunting elegy for a lost loved one, or peculiar and misguided hipster fantasia? (Or, I guess, both?) Listen to the tracks here and read Doveman's friend, Gabriel Greenberg, describe the album below.

When I was very young, my half-sister Jenny died tragically. She was a teenager, and it was the 80's. She left behind a wardrobe of brightly colored clothes, rainbow stickers, life-size paintings, doodles on lined paper, and hundreds of tapes. These constitute most of my memories of her. It's sad for me to look at these things, and usually I don't. But a couple of summers ago I found a tape of hers with a startling cover photograph — this was Footloose. I couldn't stop listening: it was a portrait of 80's love, desire, pain, freedom, and frenzy; of being a teenager in a time of change. By listening, I could step into Jenny's shoes, see things from her vantage point. I could be emancipated by rock and roll and walkmen, just as she had been. We could listen together.

I asked my friend Thomas to cover the album, which, sheltered as he is, he had never heard before. I was clear that I wanted to him to cover the whole album - the point wasn't to rework any one song, but to re-imagine the picture they made together. With a new Footloose. we could reply to the past, tell our own story about being young.

Via Stereogum. (Yes we realize that this is a bit old, but we're oddly mesmerized by it).

I'll save you the trouble of reading this:

1. Sweat makes you cool.

2. When it is hot you get hot.

3. After a while you get used to it.

I challenge you to find another salient point in that article. In the meantime, get with the program, people:

Elle, you'll recall, boasts a creative director named Joe Zee, a free-spending man who hired his "rumored paramour," Keith Pollock, to head the magazine's website. That move didn't appear to be motivated by business sense, given Pollock's background in retail. But Pollock couldn't hang on forever with only Zee's support; he recently left the magazine (at about the same time as Hachette boss Jack Kliger, whose legacy wasn't helped much by Elle's recent performance).

Pollock, we hear, may have landed a job with the production company of Stylista, the new reality show starring Elle fashion news director Anne Slowey. But the magazine he left behind continues to wrestle with how to successfully establish itself online—and how to retain its traditional audience in print.

So could Zee's overt gayness be pulling the magazine's style so far away from the heterosexual side of the spectrum that it's turning off straight female readers? An Elle spokesperson says that in his role as creative director, Zee does "everything from styling, editing, working with the Art Dept, etc." But she says that his input on major decisions like cover choices is just one of "dozens" of voices.

But another insider characterizes the covers as "all Zee's doing." The truth is likely somewhere in between, but there's no question Zee is a major driving force in the magazine's look.

So with Kliger out, Pollock gone, and the magazine in a shaky position, could Zee's job be on the line as well—because he has made Elle TOO GAY? Probably not, really. But you be the judge:

ABC tried to sneak a waiver into its new contracts saying that news writers "would not be compensated for checking their company-issued BlackBerrys after office hours." The union got upset!

Lowell Peterson, the executive director of the East Coast guild, said the writers are comfortable with the tools of the news trade, but the guild is trying to avoid “the 24/7 workplace.”

“People are entitled to time off the job,” he said. “BlackBerrys can be liberating; they can help people keep tabs without going into the office. But they can also shackle people to their jobs.”

The two sides settled, but this little story was popular with the media because, secretly, all members of the media would love to get paid extra for fiddling with their BlackBerries while waiting in line for the movies. The best solution, of course, is to never check your work email outside of work hours. Then watch the overtime roll in.

[NYT]

It begins with Cal Thomas, the Fox contributor, trying to sort of make some point about media representation of black people. But all he ends up saying is that BLACK WOMEN ARE ANGRY AND DOMINEERING ALL THE TIME. It's kind of sad, actually, how he accidentally said the opposite of what he was maybe trying to say? But in valiantly trying to talk about race, the newsmedia generally just reduces everything to a series of offensive cliches and stereotypes, as the Daily Show clip demonstrates. It's just odd that even though we hear so much about how aggrieved Michelle Obama is, she always comes off as nicer and calmer than, uh, Andrea Peyser.

According to one editor of a celebrity weekly, it's the "last trip to the buffet table," as Britney Spears' gurney-bound trip to the hospital signaled the end of dish. If that seems a bit ominous, it may be because there is a discernible lull in glossy-packaged brain candy. "There's nothing going on in celebrity land. There's no news, no gossip, no scandal," whined a TV producer to Liz Smith a few months back. "The Oscars showed how dull things are. People are only interested in politics." It's true. Reliable pop tarts no longer yield Google results like they once did (at left, Paris Hilton's trend chart, which shows a baseline traffic drop of about two-thirds). Here are a handful of theories about what's happened:

1. Politics trumps all. Hillary dodges phantom sniper fire, Obama defends/tolerates/repudiates his reverend, Bill fields a panicked 3 a.m. phone call from Gina Gershon, and McCain's inner beast is the only thing that can stop the Army's latest bioforce experiment gone haywire. Nicole Richie would have to actually get fat before she could stand to compete with Ashley Dupre.

2. Media boundaries are getting blurred. The Atlantic Monthly ran Britney on its cover in the same news cycle that had Us Weekly interview Obama and Camille Paglia. Then the New York Times paid almost as much attention to Heath Ledger's demise as, well, Gawker did. Things are not as they should be and we are all scared and confused.

3. Burn-out. What can Paris possibly do next except mutate into Lynne Cheney? And who cares?

4. Bad narrative. Here's Salon's Rebecca Traister: "Every once in a while a slam-bam terrific plot development — Pitt's abandonment of Aniston for Jolie was probably the apotheosis of celeb-weekly euphoria — would shake up the whole tableau, allowing the character descriptions to become fluid: stud could transform into cuckold; nice girl into tramp; a blood-obsessed, tattooed husband-stealer could even become a mother earth figure." So not only do their scripts lack cohesion, their lives do, too.

5. Gossip mongers are too old/out of the loop. Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt sound like they'd get up to no good in an Evelyn Waugh novel. In fact, they're engaged, and she's on The Hills. Go figure.

All reasonable explanations for the current wasteland, but none really indicative of a Jann Wenner-led Rapture. The election will be over soon. Just because tabloids are being replaced by papers of record doesn't mean people aren't paying attention to the same content—it's just getting harder to track how they do it. And slam-bam terrific plot developments can't go extinct: there's always royalty to depend on for a good debauch with national consequences, and innocence will continue to be lost so long as its existence continues to be heralded.

Number 5 seems the likeliest bet. The next generation of sex tape stars and unwitting genitalia models is still in transition from the Disney Channel. But if Miley Cyrus is anything to go by, they (and the people who exploit them for a living) have a bright future yet. But can someone please get poor Spencer Pratt a Wikipedia entry?

Their assumptions are fine, I guess, in that there's really no arguing that people still watch even though they know things are fake, but I think that they're a little blithe about it. Yes, people are still totes into their favorite dumb reality shows, but it seems increasingly grudging. Audiences don't happily accept these falsehoods, they grumpily tolerate them. And people won't put up with that forever. (I mean, look at the divorce rate). For example, I'm pretty much done with my once-beloved The Hills, largely because during its most recent season the producers did everything they possibly could to manufacture "drama," save for wheeling a teleprompter into the frame. I'm done with it. I could only abide being openly lied to for so long. And I suspect other people feel the same way.

And what of the big blunders that cast a questioning light on popular programs? The biggest such incident in recent memory managed to tarnish the reputation of the once-sterlingly credible American Idol. This season saw the tremendous, squishy thud of Paulagate, in which perpetually addled judge Paula Abdul tripped balls into the future and judged a performance that hadn't happened yet. It might seem a bit conspiracy theory-esque, but I don't think that was a simple "oops, saw the dress rehearsal" moment. Idol is showing more and more signs of producer doctoring, to the point that I'm beginning to suspect that they're jiggering with the votes. (I mean, who the hell was voting for Syesha?) And, aha! Ratings reached new lows this year.

So, no, the producers should not be so "whatevs!!" about synthesizing moments on their shows. I mean, it's not the end of the world, but when you start showing your hand too much, as on The Hills, or get increasingly careless about your secret machinations, like American Idol, ratings will start to dwindle. Or maybe I'm in the minority.

Or! It doesn't matter either way because we'll never really be clued-in to what's going on behind the scenes. Meaning we should just suck it up: "I personally think audiences should watch all TV with a grain of salt," says the Biggest Loser producer. "Because there is almost no way to know."

Examples of MTV's work in this regard include several different "C.S.I. Guys" spots for Dunkin Donuts and Papa John's, and a three and a half minute long film about a young designer that is actually a Target ad.

Dario Spina, who handles the same job for MTV's entertainment channels like Comedy Central and Spike, said of countering the digital video recorder, "That's the idea here; we want to blur the lines between the commercial breaks and the entertainment content."

...

"Viewers keep watching right through the commercial," Mr. Spina said, adding that "good commercial content is good content."

Here's an idea: how about keeping ads clunky, boring, and easily skippable? Bad ads—or even just traditional ones—are very straightforward. They make a sales pitch. They offer information. It's quite simple to delineate them from the regular programming.

More entertaining and engaging ads are the work of the devil. The editorial- advertising divide is a good thing, even in its warped and watered-down television entertainment version. Enhanced product placement, which brings ads into shows, and more "podbusting," which brings shows into ads, add up to nothing but ads all the time. The takeover will soon be complete!

Please keep our television commercials in neat little blocks, so that we can get up and go to the bathroom while they are on, or, if we have the proper technology, skip them altogether. This whole "great ads that you want to watch just cause they're so great" is a huge backlash waiting to happen. It was also the business model of Firebrand.com, which went out of business despite a preponderance of nakedness.

We, as a society, have a social compact with television advertisers. We grumble about your sucky ads, and do everything we can to skip over them. But in the end we still buy your products. Everybody's happy. Start mixing up the shows and the ads too much, and people will get angry. That's when the revolution comes.

Well, probably not. But please don't make these fancy ads. Thank you.

[pic via Adbusters]

The "hipsters" who go to Home Buying For Hipsters are probably not hipsters at all, even if Fortress of Solitude totally spoke to them. It may be a Tuesday night, but it's New York in spring. The rooftop garden of the Met is open! Jenna Bush is giving a reading! American Idol is on! Who wants to spend their time hearing about mortgage rates?

Most likely, these "hipsters" aren't actually buying a home themselves. Their parents are. And with bankers uninterested in the skyscrapers on the Williamsburg waterfront and now too broke to afford them anyway, you have to credit the Corcoran Group for going after America's home-owners a second time through their kids. It's like renewing your vows, but with property taxes.

Tonight's Home Buying For Hipsters is being held at Union Pool. Though Union Pool is in Williamsburg (cool) and in a former pool supply store (cred), it is still not hip. It's mostly frequented by people already in the home buying stage, 30-somethings. (Also cougars.)

Home Buying For Hipsters: really Home Buying For Adults. Adults who are still trying to be cool.

(Although— buying a home in this economy may be genuinely edgy. So maybe some real hipsters should try it!)

[Big Think]

Times editors said the photographs were published because they have inherent news value — readers always want to know what the people they are reading about look like. "We cropped the photograph of her in a bikini so as to meet our standards for taste, and ran it in conjunction with another photograph, where she is clothed," Ms. Rudoren said.

She added: "Part of the reason we ran both pictures was to provide as complete a portrait as possible; only showing the bikini picture might have given an overly sexy impression, for example; only using the other picture might have given a distorted sense of youthful innocence. We linked to the MySpace page so readers could get more information and listen to her song; we frequently provide links to MySpace or other sites."

Leave the good pictures to us! (And the Post!) [weak pic above via the NYT]

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?

One of those wives, Adele Mailer (neé Morales), the one he stabbed in 1960, spoke to the Times about his true piss-filled legacy.

An abstract painter and former window display designer, Mrs. Mailer lives by herself in a wildly disordered, rent-stabilized one-bedroom apartment on East 78th Street near First Avenue in Manhattan amid a turbulent sea of thrift-shop clothing, cardboard boxes and urban flotsam salvaged from street corners for collages. Every inch of the floor is strewn with clutter."

"It's very embarrassing," she said, explaining why she generally resists letting visitors into her home. "It looks like a crazy woman lives here." Her explanation? "It's the apartment of a depressed person, where I just gave up."

The building itself, a weather-beaten red-brick tenement, is not in much better shape. On Wednesday afternoon, Mrs. Mailer stood on the curb and hollered at a drug-addled man who was on his knees urinating in the building's vestibule. "You're bad!" she yelled at the man, whose frequent use of the vestibule as a toilet has given the area a permanent, eye-stinging stench. "Boy, if your mother could see you now!"

Composing herself, she ambled down the street, wearing a thrift-shop overcoat several sizes too big for her slight frame. "This is Norman Mailer's wife," she said to no one in particular, shaking her head. "It's riches to rags, honey."

Guylan's favorite leader is FIdel Castro. He's eleven, from Massachusetts and thinks "Power is like holding a cobra, one wrong move and it bites." Woah! Also, True! He is berating the rest of the community much like how a younger Fidel might for acting in their own class interest.

Sophia, wearing the green headband, is fourteen, from Florida and likes to vacation "Anyplace I haven't been before, but Paris is always nice." She naturally took exception to Guylan's demagoguery and tells him so in no uncertain terms. We're guessing these terms involved the words "commie" "cunty" "dirty" and yes, even "Perverse and Often Baffling"!

Clark Hoyt totally wins! The paper's ombudsman, addressing the controversy spurred two weeks ago by Solomon's technique of mixing and matching questions and answers post-interview, suggested Times editors "should publish with each column a brief description of the editing standards: the order of questions may be changed, information may be added for clarity, and the transcript has been boiled down without indicating where material has been removed. If such a disclaimer destroys the illusion, maybe 'Questions For' needs to be rethought."

Best reader disclaimer submission wins ten questions with Deborah Solomon. Worst wins twenty.

Remember: there's no protocol here; feel free to mix the pieces of this disclaimer around, which is what we do. Editing is an underrated art.

Disclaimer for New York Times 'Questions For' Column [Susan Campriello]
Earlier: Christopher Knight To Deborah Solomon: "Get Away From Me!"

Q&As, typically allotted about 14 words per piece, require tweaking here and there, in the interest of conserving space and coherence. (We once transcribed a three-hour recording of Kevin Costner mumbling on about how making 'Open Range' had touched his soul, like, his very soul, man. How it got crammed into a "10 Questions For Whatshisface" column that Monday was inexplicable and also the duty of some hapless editor.)

But there's some meat to these complaints. Making adjustments so your subject's point gets across is a bit different from pulling "How immodest of you! Isn't it bad manners to brag?" out of the air, as Solomon did in her Dickinson interview.

"Two million people read the New York Times magazine," said David Blum, the new editor of the New York Press, by phone this morning. (David Blum is the former editor of the Village Voice, also my most recent employer.) "Most of them think 'that's what they said, isn't it just incredible how everyone's so concise....' The real issue is the New York Times response, their handling of our inquiries, was pretty shocking. I was surprised and disappointed that the New York Times did not think enough of our inquiry to either respond to it or provide an editor to respond to the specifics of Matt's reporting. For them to be dismissive of that is a betrayal of the trust between the readers and the newspaper."

The worst part? Now we have no idea whether Ted Kooser was actually asked this question during his interview with Solomon, but we did so like his answer to: "As poet laureate, don't you think you should be better acquainted with European poetry?" Kooser replied: "Think of all the European poetry I could have read if we hadn't spent all this time on this interview."

We'd always thought, based on cursory flips through the Review and a few years of working in publishing, that putting an ad in the Times was mostly something mainstream publishers did in order to appease diva authors. Most of the ads have always seemed to us to be for books on tape and books selfpublished via iUniverse and for Bose speakers. So we had Intern Mary tally up the ads in three consecutive Reviews. And:
We were right.

Question Celebrity [WaPo]