[via TMZ]

At the after-party for the opening of "Who's Afraid of Jasper Johns," an exhibit at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery curated by Swiss artist Urs Fischer and gallerist Gavin Brown, two strippers dressed as cops wheeled out an enormous Guernica-decorated cake to laughter and applause. The puckish subtext of the exhibit, after all, was the notorious 1974 incident in which Shafrazi, then a 30-year-old artist, spray-painted the words "Kill Lies All" onto Picasso's Guernica. Photos of Shafrazi being led out of MoMA in handcuffs graced a table near the front door of the head-spinning exhibition, which features pieces by Keith Haring, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and others displayed against a backdrop of life-size photographs Fischer took of a previous show at the gallery, creating a trompe l'oeil effect of one show superimposed on another.

"The whole show was more or less related to that, basically," Shafrazi said later in the evening of his shocking act of youthful indiscretion, which he described at the time as an attempt to update the masterpiece (and which earned him only five years of probation after MoMA conservators were able to immediately clean the painting). "Many elements in the show are related to my history or something or another, but not directly. The whole idea of juxtaposing things one on top of the other, one thing relating to something else, both things talking together … It doesn't have to seem to be destructive or aggressive, but on the other hand, the way it's done is very thoughtful and celebratory." Not a few people in the art world have been unable to forgive Shafrazi for what he did. If given the chance, would he do it again? "Oh, it was a different time, you can't talk about it that way," he said. "It was a miserable time, and there was a need to be addressed. I was 30 years old. Many, many elements make that particular moment unique. I wouldn't be that person now, of course not."

But does he regret the incident? At the after-party, faced with the Guernica cake, Shafrazi was momentarily taken aback, but quickly plunged in. "I'M SORRY," he told us he scrawled on the cake with red icing. "NOT!" —Andrew Goldstein

Source: Vulture -- Entertainment, Music, Culture, Theater, Movies, Art -- New York Magazine Blog | 12 May 2008 | 9:30 pm

Mayor Bloomberg Straight Up Snaps at ‘Newsday’ Reporter

Today we watch two videos which we shall co-title White Men Getting Unnecessarily Angry for Our General Amusement. First, the normally staid Mayor Bloomberg gets all huffy while answering a question about Sean Bell at a recent press conference. As the Times once exhaustively noted, Bloomberg loves the word “unconscionable.” He is apparently less enthusiastic about the word “maintain,” judging by this exchange with Newsday reporter Michael Frazier:

Frazier says: “Mayor, you maintain that you kept a dialogue open with Sean Bell—”

Bloomberg, whose head had snapped up at the word maintain, interrupts: “Maintain is a word that I don’t think is appropriate, sir. The next time you have a question and want to insinuate that I lie, just talk to the press secretary. I don’t think we have a question for you.”

Bloomberg Gets Snippy With Newsday Reporter [Gothamist]

Source: Daily Intelligencer - New York Magazine | 12 May 2008 | 9:30 pm

Robert Downey Jr.

Marvel comics adaptation "Iron Man," starring Robert Downey Jr seen here in MArch 2008, kept a steely grip on the top box office slot for a second week running, industry figures showed Monday, as debutant...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 12 May 2008 | 9:12 pm

Real Live Girls Play Dungeons & Dragons for Charity

On Friday night, we put on our best suit of chain-mail armor, grabbed our sword, and journeyed to the Superhero Supply Store in Brooklyn, using our arcane Elvish tracking abilities to locate the secret door (hidden behind a bookcase) leading to the back-room dungeon which played home to Dungeons & Dragons (With Girls!), 826NYC's latest charity fund-raiser. Since Dave Eggers co-founded 826NYC — which aims to help New York's schoolchildren improve their creative-writing skills — their events have typically featured a dazzling array of the hip stars that decorate the McSweeney's constellation (think Karen O, Sarah Vowell, Jon Stewart, and Amy Sedaris), all trying to absorb each other's mojo.

But, by the light of our glowing magic swords, the only stars to be seen were the real live girls (!), who were unhappily absent during all of late-night hours we spent rolling twelve-sided die in our youth. As we explored the dungeon, we saw that there were even more changes to the rule book we used in our parents' basements; for starters, there were adult beverages to go along the usual provisions of Doritos, Oreos, and pizza, which helped the grown-up geeks muster the fortitude and nonchalance to conquer the normal host of monsters and social anxieties. Also, magic items both useful and hilarious (we had the argyle socks of levitation and the magic lock-picking hamster) were purchased with real money. And once the adventurers started to encounter the malevolent oozes, talking baboons, and demonic lab assistants scattered around the dungeon, you could pay the Dungeon Master $10 to resurrect your fallen hero, and, more exciting, pay a dollar to reroll any of the dice that might've provided you with a face full of dragon breath earlier in the evening.

So how'd we do? Did we slay the dragon and win the crown (and with it, the kingdom)? Sort of. We killed a dragon and won our table's crown, but, astonishingly, the overall winner was one of the real live women. Of course the real winner was our 15-year-old self, who enjoyed the greatest night of nerd poker ever. —Ehren Gresehover

Source: Vulture -- Entertainment, Music, Culture, Theater, Movies, Art -- New York Magazine Blog | 12 May 2008 | 9:00 pm

Meet the New Girl: Ania Trublaska

After debuting on New York runways in September 2007, Ania Trublaska has become regular on the catwalk both Stateside and abroad. Most recently, she scored a stellar fashion hat trick, booking McQueen, Lanvin, and Nina Ricci in Paris. No small feat! Trublaska has also scored a recent WWD cover and T Style editorial, the latter photographed by Raymond Meier. If this Polish 17-year-old's momentum continues, she may join the lucrative ranks of fellow countrywomen and campaign queens Anja Rubik and Kasia Struss. —Kendall Herbst

Ania Trublaska

For more runway gods and goddesses, check out our Model Manual, your complete guide to the pretty people.

Source: The Cut - New York Magazine's Fashion Blog | 12 May 2008 | 9:00 pm

‘Jeffersons’ Producer Moves On Up to Wrong Side

Upper West Side: The Jeffersons producer Norman Lear moves into 15 Central Park West, nabbing a $10-mil pad there and joining other celeb buyers Sting and Denzel, plus a lot of dull bankers. Um, weren't they supposed to move on up to the EAST Side? [Real Deal via Curbed]
Clinton: The Orchestra of St. Luke's aims to drop $35 million to turn half of a building on West 37th Street into its permanent home, plus rehearsal space for other orchestras. [NYT]
Coney Island: The city's scraped up $36 million to give Asser Levy Park a world-class amphitheater, to be designed by the same U.K. firm that did the newish Cemusa bus shelters. [Brownstoner]

Crown Heights: In a park here, dudes blew pot smoke right into the face of little ones and nobody even cared! Enough to invite us over, that is. [Brooklynian]
Prospect Lefferts: Crossing the street here into Prospect Park is dangerous even when you have the light (this video proves it!), which is why folks want design changes to make it safer. [Streetsblog]
Upper East Side: With its average property worth $2.9 mil, the 10065 Zip Code is richer than the famed 10021 it recently split off from, where the average shack is $2.2. mil. [NYP]

Source: Daily Intelligencer - New York Magazine | 12 May 2008 | 8:45 pm

Sex, Existentialism, the Métro: Frenchtastic ‘Voice Over’

This existentialist debut novel is so French. It tracks the tortured sex life of a nameless woman who works doing announcements for the Métro and spends her spare time contemplating, in vivid detail, her amorous failures, plus getting mixed up with characters like a transvestite performer and a North African drug dealer. Céline Curiol’s prose is unsentimental but moving. On her protagonist: “There had only been two men in her life. And she had never understood what they wanted from her.”

Source: Vulture -- Entertainment, Music, Culture, Theater, Movies, Art -- New York Magazine Blog | 12 May 2008 | 8:45 pm

Larry King: The day my heart stopped

I was in Washington, D.C., recently with many of my closest friends celebrating the 20th anniversary of The Larry King Cardiac Foundation. Flashback to the day in 1987 that my heart literally stopped. I was working at CNN from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. and for Mutual Broadcasting doing an overnight nationally syndicated radio show from midnight to 4 a.m. Each guest I interviewed that night kept asking me if I felt OK, which I thought was rather strange, especially since one of those guests was Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. I finished the radio show and suddenly felt a pain I couldn't explain. After hearing all these guests telling me I didn't look good, I decided to go to the hospital just to make sure I was OK. It turned out I was having a heart attack -- an event that forever changed my life. My close encounter with death led to a quintuple bypass. This was the biggest wake-up call of my life. It forced me to reconsider my lifestyle. And it made me aware of something else: This whole thing cost a bundle of money! I was lucky. I had a great health plan with CNN. Insurance provided by the company paid for the procedure. How on earth could someone without insurance or vast wealth afford it? Where would they get quality care and treatment? The answers aren't pretty. The uninsured fall into a big, black hole in our nation's health care system. Heart disease doesn't discriminate -- rich and poor are vulnerable. So, I created the Larry King Cardiac Foundation to fund cardiac surgeries and other procedures for those who need them and have no way to pay. This group of Americans used to be called the "working poor." And now the middle class is affected, too -- in tremendous numbers. Millions face a dilemma no one should be forced to confront: going without health care or going broke if something unexpected occurs. We just celebrated a great evening to recognize the work of our foundation and those who support our efforts. We heard from patients and supporters, and were entertained by the wonderful talents of Nathan Burton, Darrell Hammond and three-time Grammy winner Seal. We had some wonderful surprises, which the crowd and I especially enjoyed. They're from some people you can meet by clicking on the videos at our foundation's Web site at http://www.lkcf.org/. I'll finish with a quick story about a 14-year-old named Matt. His father died of sudden cardiac arrest three years ago. This tragedy changed his life. Matt wrote to me about his dad and how he wanted to honor his life by saving the father of another child before it was too late. He made a red band, which you see me wear every night on my show. It's a reminder of so many positive things. We can all help one another and when we do we are part of the larger foundation family. Visit the Web site to learn more about what Matt is doing, how you can make a difference, and how honored I am trying to Save a Heart a Day. That's 365 hearts a year, and who knows how many lives?

Source: CNN.com - Entertainment | 12 May 2008 | 8:31 pm

Uwe Boll Explains Why He's the Perfect Director to Make a Grand Theft Auto Movie

Derided by some (okay, many), German-born director Uwe Boll has made ten movies in the last eight years, challenged critics to boxing matches, and inspired an online petition to ban him from cinema for eternity. In his latest movie, a freewheeling adaptation of the video game Postal (out next Friday) — his first (intentional) comedy since his 1991 debut, German Fried Movie — Boll slaughters dozens of sacred cows, mocks himself by claiming his films are financed with Nazi gold, and finally commits to celluloid the scene that Mike Meyers has been too cowardly to include in any of the Austin Powers films: one in which Verne Troyer is sexually assaulted by monkeys. Boll spoke with Vulture about the film, his failed bid to box Michael Bay, and why he's exactly the right guy to direct the inevitable Grand Theft Auto movie.

Even though it takes place in an obviously exaggerated world, Postal has lots of radical elements — for example, the complicity between George Bush and Osama bin Laden. Was that a sticking point with the producers and distributors on the film?
Yeah, it was. [The production company] Running With Scissors in the beginning wanted only a hard rampage movie where a guy flips out, basically, a little like Falling Down meets Taxi Driver. And then I said, “I think that the video game is cultish and funny, because you can [play as] Bush or bin Laden, the guy lives in a trailer park with his 500-pound wife, and you can use cats as silencers.” I mean, it's totally absurd in a way. And I felt that it was an opportunity for me to first of all make something that was funny, but secondly put also a lot of my frustration in the script. So there's the frustration about myself, and how I get bashed in the Internet about my career and about the reviews, and I used that to put myself in the movie.

At the same time, I wanted to make a comedy like some of my personal favorites, which are all a little bit older, like Naked Gun or Life of Brian, Monty Python type of stuff. Or Blues Brothers. And I felt like this is all missing in the last few years — that everyone wants to be so politically correct, and all the Ben Stiller or Will Ferrell comedies have their moments, but overall they are all kind of clichéd, they have happy endings where families are back and weddings are the best, and it's all about being nonpolitical or whatever. I wanted to make a ruthless movie and hit everybody with a hammer.

You also managed to get Verne Troyer into a suitcase.
[Laughs] Yeah, he was scared, to be honest. He said, “Don't close the suitcase completely, please.” And we said, “Look, it will be quick,” and then we promised him we wouldn’t but then we closed it anyway. But we opened it right away.

And was he upset?
A little, but then he was okay. There's another scene in which he was in real, live danger — not the one with the monkeys — where they throw him from a stage during a shoot-out. If the second guy didn’t catch him, he would have fallen straight down to the ground from that height. This would be, for him, the end. He would be dead. So I'm happy that this scene worked out.

Nearly all your movies are based on video games. What would you do with, say, Grand Theft Auto?
Grand Theft Auto would be super interesting for me, and I think I would actually be the right guy to do it, because my movies are all bloody and violent and I don't have a problem with action scenes. But look, they will go, in the end, with a Michael Bay or a Brett Ratner, and it will be a PG-13 movie made for $150 million. I think it would be better to make a $30 million, very hard, brutal movie without compromising, but I'm not optimistic.

You mentioned Michael Bay — do you think he'll take you up on your boxing challenge?
His attorney wrote me that he’s not going to do it now. And I have to face, like, legal consequences if I say anymore that he will do it. But I got an e-mail first from his … fan club, I guess? They said he will do it, he’s going to kick your ass, and that was the reason I said the fight was on. But the reality is that it’s not going to happen.

Most of the people who signed the petition to get you to retire weren't necessarily film fans but video-game fans upset that you'd ruined their favorite games. Would you ever challenge some of them to a fight?
I think right in the Internet world there is a more interesting strategy I could go with. I have the rights to [Wii game] Zombie Massacre, and maybe we should do that movie with all the gamers and Boll haters, and people who signed that petition anti-Boll, or pro-Boll, we all meet in a big, small city — somewhere in the Midwest. And we all shoot Zombie Massacre together; they all play zombies, and they're there and can give me advice if they think they can do it better than me. So as long as we keep shooting something and we do that as a big convention type of thing and then they have all the opportunity to show me how they would do it different, and we have maybe 10,000 zombies running around, I think this could be a good idea for 2009 or 2010 — to do something that maybe nobody has done before, and to have all the people coming together and ripping each other apart on the field, like the pro-Boll and anti-Boll zombies.

That is the money-saving idea of a true showman.
Exactly. I could have the biggest movie ever, basically for free! Because they would definitely all be there. —Brent Simon

Source: Vulture -- Entertainment, Music, Culture, Theater, Movies, Art -- New York Magazine Blog | 12 May 2008 | 8:30 pm

Marc Jacobs's Latest: The Boy From Ipanema?

The mystery man that showed up with Marc Jacobs at the Met's Costume Institute gala is no longer a mystery! His name is Lorenzo Martone, and today WWD casually dubs him Jacobs's "boyfriend." What great hidden gossip! Martone is a Brazilian advertising executive who lives in New York, and photo archives suggest that the relationship may be a little more red-carpet ready than his last, with like Austin A.. Before the Met gala Martone appeared with Jacobs at the Takashi Murakami opening night in April at the Brooklyn Museum. He also accompanied Jacobs to Valentino's birthday party at Allison Sarofim's West Village townhouse Friday night.

Actually, we're kinda jealous. We've never met a foreign accent we didn't like.

confirmed [Fashionologie]
Eye: Buon Compleanno [WWD]

Source: The Cut - New York Magazine's Fashion Blog | 12 May 2008 | 8:10 pm

Artist Yong Ho Ji Jumps the Shark

Yong Ho Ji's mutant beasts are hand-carved out of recycled rubber tire, which would make them able to withstand all manner of nuclear or natural disaster. More are on show at Gana Art through May 24. —Emma Pearse

Source: Vulture -- Entertainment, Music, Culture, Theater, Movies, Art -- New York Magazine Blog | 12 May 2008 | 8:00 pm

Helping Mike D'Antoni Dream the Impossible Dream

Godspeed, Mike D’Antoni. Over the weekend, the former Suns coach accepted the Most Impossible Position in Sports: coaching the Knicks team assembled by Isiah Thomas. Further handcuffing him is the fact that Thomas’s underachievers are especially ill-suited for his fast-paced brand of offense, which is based upon the premise that the team should shoot within the first seven seconds of a possession. (For comparison’s sake, Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph are just about crossing half-court seven seconds into a possession — assuming they got back on defense in the first place.)

All of this, of course, has given the local columnists a chance to play both soothsayer and armchair GM, and map out some possible scenarios for the D’Antoni era.

In the News, Mitch Lawrence only half-sarcastically suggests that team president Donnie Walsh hand over the GM duties to D’Antoni, since he’s the only one who knows what will fit into his mad offensive scheme. Meanwhile, in Newsday — now a member of the Cablevision family of companies! — Alan Hahn wonders whether the hire puts the Knicks in a better position for the expected 2010 LeBron James Sweepstakes.

Harvey Araton sums up two consensus observations nicely in the Times: With D’Antoni onboard, the Knicks roster will be completely turned over, and they’ll now be forced to adapt to a faster, more global NBA. (He also notes, perhaps prophetically, that the Suns heyday began as soon as Stephon Marbury hit the road.) But the most refreshing aspect of the story isn’t the new offensive system, or the apparent coup keeping D’Antoni from the Bulls — where players reportedly bombarded GM John Paxson with text messages begging for his hire. As the Post’s Marc Berman points out, it’s that Jim Dolan stayed the hell out of the proceedings. —Joe DeLessio

Just make Mike D'Antoni GM, too [NYDN]
Can the D'Antoni hire lure LeBron James to Knicks? [Newsday]
It's the End of the World as the Knicks Know it [NYT]
Dolan Gets It Right [NYP]

Source: Daily Intelligencer - New York Magazine | 12 May 2008 | 8:00 pm

Fallon will take over 'Late Night' from Conan

Read full story for latest details.

Source: CNN.com - Entertainment | 12 May 2008 | 7:48 pm

Revealing "Tyson" documentary to be unveiled at Cannes

Former boxer Mike Tyson seen here in January 2008. Tyson's phenomenal rise to glory and his epic fall from the pinnacle will be examined in a new documentary on the former undisputed world heavyweight...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 12 May 2008 | 7:43 pm

James Frey Gets His Wish: Janet Maslin Reviews His Novel

It just goes to show you that if you cross your fingers and hope real hard, your dreams really can come true! The wish we assume James Frey has been making for a week has come to pass, as Janet Maslin reviews his novel, Bright Shiny Morning, in today's New York Times . That's the same Janet Maslin who, just last week, wagged her finger at Augusten Burroughs, suggesting it was time for him to move from memoir to fiction. We speculated then that Frey must have read her review and thought, Please let Janet Maslin review my novel. And it turns out she has — and, as telegraphed a week ago, she loved it!

She loved it so much, in fact, that she wrote the review in Frey style. ("A million little pieces. It was the name of the book. It was also how hard he got hit.") At first we were annoyed, but then we realized that's just good customer service on Maslin's part — we found the style so off-putting that it curbed any desire we might otherwise have had to read James Frey's novel and decide for ourselves whether it's any good.

Little Pieces of Los Angeles, Done His Way [NYT]

Earlier: ‘Times’ Review of Augusten Burroughs’ Memoir Basically Recommends James Frey’s Novel

Source: Vulture -- Entertainment, Music, Culture, Theater, Movies, Art -- New York Magazine Blog | 12 May 2008 | 7:15 pm

Modern Love: Sulzberger Jr. Splits From Wife of 33 Years

New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and his wife of 33 years, Gail Gregg, have decided to call it quits. They have issued a statement that reads, “We have made the difficult decision to separate after 33 years of marriage. We are fortunate to have the love and support of our two children, other family members and close friends and colleagues. This is a private matter and we will not discuss it further.” The Observer gives us the rundown on how the couple met:

In Alex Jones and Susan Tifft's authoritative account of the family that owns the Times, The Trust, they detail the couple's relationship. They began dating when Arthur was a senior at Tufts and was visiting his mother in Kansas for Thanksgiving 1973 at a house across the street from Ms. Gregg's. They fell in love right away, and moved in together in January 1974. "She was forceful and self-assured — the very strengths he tried to cultivate in himself, though his way of expressing them tended to be cocky and confrontational." Mr. Jones and Ms. Tifft wrote.

She challenged him on everything from his political beliefs and his abrasive demeanor. "Gail takes no shit from him … and she keeps him honest," said Doug Adler, his cousin.

Well, now she’ll be taking shit from him — a lot of shit since prenups weren’t exactly de rigueur back when they married in 1975. She’s already starting with the family co-op. Back in February, Sulzberger transferred ownership of the family's 64th and Central Park West co-op to Gregg for $3.2 million. At the time, a Times spokeswoman told the Observer that the deal was done “for estate-planning purposes.”

Should they decide that the split is a public matter, we suggest taking a cue from Tricia Walsh-Smith and chronicling the proceedings via YouTube (bring your own Tarot cards). Or perhaps, since Gregg is a writer, a series of he-said-she-said "Modern Love" essays is in order. —Noelle Hancock

After 33 Years, Arthur Sulzberger Separates From His Wife, Gail Gregg [NYO]

Source: Daily Intelligencer - New York Magazine | 12 May 2008 | 7:15 pm

Morgan Freeman wants to be a screw-up

Read full story for latest details.

Source: CNN.com - Entertainment | 12 May 2008 | 7:14 pm

'Idol' Stage Dad Steps Over the Line

Is Jeff Archuleta, a musician, living vicariously through singing son David?
Source: ABC News: Entertainment | 12 May 2008 | 7:08 pm

Kate Moss: ‘I Still Think I'm 17’

Remember when, not too long ago, dresses became the new hot thing everyone had to fill their closets to the brim with immediately? You've probably been unable to concentrate on your day-to-day as you incessantly wonder why that occurred. But today the Guardian has the answer: Kate Moss. She wore cocktail dresses during the day with flat boots, unstructured jersey dresses with oversize tuxedo jackets, and lots of other dresses in lots of other ways that women everywhere wanted to copy. In rare form, Moss granted the paper an interview on this topic. She's doing press for her new dress-heavy Topshop range, which hits stores this week, and the paper needed this dress peg, we suppose, since it sounds like Moss didn't say very much:

[T]here was not, Moss says, a moment when she realised women wanted to dress like her. 'Not really,' she says, after a long pause.

Is it annoying, or flattering?

'Ha! It's flattering!'

Why does she think it happens? What is it about her that exerts power over women?

'I think it's because I don't follow a trend. I just have a thrown-together look.'

…As Moss says, when asked if she's varied the way she dressed as she's got older: 'Ha! No!' She pauses. Then she laughs. 'I still think I'm 17.'

Now that's a revelation.

How Kate reinvented the frock [Guardian]

Source: The Cut - New York Magazine's Fashion Blog | 12 May 2008 | 6:40 pm

The Casual-Encountering Retail Merchandiser

Once a week, Daily Intel takes a peek at what your friends and neighbors are doing behind doors left slightly ajar. Today, the Casual-Encountering Retail Merchandiser: 26, male, Lower East Side, straight, in a relationship.

DAY ONE
11:30 a.m.: Waking up to a massive hard-on and loving that it is unseasonably warm and sunny. I finally get to see some legs after a long, cold, damp winter.
2 p.m.: Walking into my friendly local Key Food and notice a note on the door that the hot cashier — who I used to dream of having sex with on the conveyer belt for all shoppers to see — was murdered by her nut job of a boyfriend. In the store. I sure know how to pick ’em.
5 p.m.: Setup my biweekly Craigslist casual-encounter post with a shirtless pic of myself from an angle where my girlfriend can’t notice it is I. I can’t help it that so many white women have secret fantasies of sleeping with black men behind closed doors. Just type "interracial" on any porn site.

DAY TWO
Noon: Lazy Sunday and cloudy out, but I am over the moon because my posting received an unprecedented five replies from alleged "women". Four turned out to be gay men complementing the pic, and the lucky winner was a 35-year-old Park Slope stroller-mafia member who was recently divorced. JACKPOT.
3 p.m.: Enter Stroller Mafia’s brownstone to a wide-eyed hello, shortly followed by digestive fellatio from her end, and punishing doggy style from my end.
4 p.m.: Exchange numbers and run home to study for my GMAT, which I am definitely going to flunk in two to three months. I am so not ready.
9 p.m.: Watching The Family Guy with girlfriend and receive a nasty text from Stroller Mafia, but quickly delete it before she sees. Phew, close one.

DAY THREE
8:30 a.m.: On the crowded V train Monday morning already dreading the week as a retail merchandiser, until a sexy brunette walks in wearing a miniskirt and Christian Louboutin pumps. Guys salivate and girls hate. I try to make eye contact, but she is not having it. Bitch!
11 a.m.: Weekly sales meeting with the staff and execs. Out of the blue I start thinking of the lady with the pumps on the V train and get an unsolicited boner. Damn! And it's my turn to stand up and explain the sales forecast. Luckily I have on my supertight briefs on to tame my bulging manhood.
2 p.m.: Late lunch because of unplanned meeting with my ugly, overpaid, obsessive-compulsive boss over the Excel formatting on my reports. In other words, she hasn’t gotten laid in well over a year and is taking it out on me.
5:30 p.m.: Go home to find three hits from a guy who offers me money to use the bathroom in front of him. Out of pure disgust, I don’t even bother to respond.
9 p.m.: Pornhub myself to sleep by watching two German women fist themselves. Ha-ha fun time.

DAY FOUR
10 a.m.: Co-workers unexpectedly want me to chip in twenty bucks for the going-away party of a manager that I have never heard of. I pretend like I have to go to the ATM and never respond to the e-mail.
1 p.m.: Having lunch at the local deli, and I bump into my old roommate’s girlfriend and exchange numbers. She is an analyst at Lehman Brothers making serious bank. Damn! I wish I paid attention in calculus.
3 p.m.: Start to think that my GF is getting wise to Craigslist, so I try to find a new site, but to no avail. I repost my ad.
7 p.m.: After hooking up with my GF for some quick "bedsheet walking," I rush home to catch a quick, free bite at my mother’s and watch the 30-minute cluster of misery called CNN International.
9 p.m.: Filter out the sadomasochists, perverts, and weirdo replies for my ad and set my sights on a hottie from the Bronx. But she lives in a bad neighborhood, no thank you. End up linking up with my GF and her friends for drinks. I hope her superhot, slutty friend who speaks French is there. She arrives two hours later, but by then it’s bedtime — early meeting tomorrow.

DAY FIVE
Noon: Head out to lunch. It’s midweek, so I am broke as hell thanks to buying rounds of drinks the night before. I have really got to stop thinking I am a baller.
3 p.m.: Share an elevator with a leggy brunette from marketing. She smells of expensive leather and probably has a hedge-funder boyfriend. In other words, out of my range, but I am ecstatic after she compliments my Costello-type frames. Damn, I’d maybe have a chance if I had an additional three zeros to the end of my checking account.
9 p.m.: Having sex with my GF while thinking of Kim Kardashian. For strange reason, finish in less than two minutes.

DAY SIX
8 a.m.: On my way to work and I almost get mowed down by some skinny hipster on a Fixie. I throw my coffee at him and nail him (don’t worry, it was iced coffee).
Noon: Training a hot new employee from the Dominican Republic, and her accent and beautiful big ass seriously distract me. I do the ultimate bold thing and ask her to get drinks after work. She accepts.
5 p.m.: Meet up for drinks with co-worker and things rapidly heat up when she comments jokingly on a bulge in my pants. She loves my brash perverted retort, and we follow each other into a cab. Fifty dollars spent on drinks and as we approach her stop, she tells me she has a boyfriend.

DAY SEVEN
Noon: Take the day off so I can have some "me" time and catch up on the sights of my beautiful city and its many inhabitants via bike, and notice the amount of poseurs on $2,000 single-speeds all of a sudden.
1:30 p.m.: Share a bike lane along Central Park with an Upper East Side girl with a great smile.
Midnight: Friday night and it is kind of warm out. I meet with Upper East Side girl at Niagara and quickly find out she has a wild side when after five drinks, she starts admitting to the fact that she "just wants some dick." I ask the bartender to close my tab, we head to 76th Street.

Totals: Two brief acts of intercourse with girlfriend; one rough act of intercourse with Stroller Mafia divorcée Craigette; one act of fellatio; one act of masturbation with the help of Pornhub.com; two casual-encounters postings; one $50 tab on drinks for a co-worker who neglects to mention that she has a boyfriend; one act of learning that a former cashier crush was slain at the register.

[Ed. note: You guys always complain that these seem fake — they are not. In fact, we are looking for new contributors. Think your life is diary-worthy? E-mail us at intel@nymag.com. We're especially looking for folks who are out of their twenties and thirties. Even if your sex life is boring, we want to hear about it!]

Source: Daily Intelligencer - New York Magazine | 12 May 2008 | 6:30 pm

Babies Really Don't Need to Dress Like Suri Cruise

Shiloh Jolie-Pitt and Suri Cruise are fashion icons. Never mind that they're 2 years old — parents are increasingly going out of their way to dress their kids like them. This could be one reason sales of infant apparel increased 11.2 percent last year while the overall apparel market grew only 2.9 percent. Whom do we have to thank for the growing phenomenon? The baby-bump- and baby-obsessed celebrity weeklies, like Us Weekly, natch. Thankfully, that magazine knows where to draw the line:

US Weekly, which devotes a lot of space to celebrities and their babies, nevertheless steers clear of naming brands children are wearing. [Editor in chief Janice] Min says she finds the practice "incredibly grotesque" when expensive designer wear is involved. "I don't want to equate accessorization as the equivalent to other qualities," like loving one's children, says Ms. Min.

And that's where the good ol' blogosphere comes in. Sites like Celebrity-babies.com tell parents where to buy items seen in paparazzi photos like Gwyneth Paltrow's stroller, hair clips worn by the daughter of Dancing With the Stars co-host Samantha Harris, camouflage socks worn by Gwen Stefani's son, and Jennifer Garner's breast pump. (We know when we're nursing, we won't rest until our boobs get the same treatment as Jen Garner's.)

So parents are sending their kids the message that the best way to dress is by copying celebrities. We hope the next time these folks think about ordering Suri Cruise's designer pacifier they consider the cash they might need for their kid's therapy bill.

Dress-Up: Moms Put Their Tykes In Stars' Clothes [WSJ]

Source: The Cut - New York Magazine's Fashion Blog | 12 May 2008 | 6:00 pm

NBC Finally Confirms Jimmy Fallon Taking Over ‘Late Night’

Our secret shame: We once had an epic, inexplicable crush on Jimmy Fallon and even crashed his birthday party a few years back in an effort to ask him out, which ended … badly, let’s just say. Then he got married and moved to L.A. so we no longer crash his parties (or get within 100 yards of him, per the judge’s instructions).

But now he’s coming back to New York, as NBC will formally announce today, to take over for Conan O’Brien as the host of Late Night. Fallon is expected to appear at today’s press conference flanked by Saturday Night Live executive producer Lorne Michaels, who also introduced the then-unknown O’Brien in May 1993. O’Brien, of course, will be installed over at The Tonight Show, where NBC has gotten out its giant vaudevillian hook and is yanking Jay Leno off the stage next year — and not a moment too soon, might we add.

Still, everyone is concerned. Producers are concerned that the late-night-talk-show market is oversaturated. The New York Times is concerned because Fallon is most famous for his impressions and talk-show hosts have to play themselves every night. Everyone else is concerned because they believe Fallon to be the First Coming of Dane Cook who doesn’t have the humor chops. Will he have to start bringing in Tina Fey for comic relief the way Jimmy Kimmel now relies on Sarah Silverman? Will the show only be funny when Fallon can't keep a straight face, like on SNL? Will our crush on Fallon come roaring back, or will we look back on it the way we can't believe we used to watch Desperate Housewives? Basically, it’s impossible to know if Fallon will bomb until his ass is in the seat in June 2009, but the questions remain.

Oh, and if someone could please explain Carson Daly’s continuing presence on the air, that would be great. —Noelle Hancock

It’s Official: Jimmy Fallon Is Next for ‘Late Night’ [NYT]

Source: Daily Intelligencer - New York Magazine | 12 May 2008 | 6:00 pm

Glamorous film fest can feature boos, boobs

The first Le Festival de Cannes opened September 1, 1939, an attempt to extend the tourist season and bring a little film flash to the little French Riviera town.

Source: CNN.com - Entertainment | 12 May 2008 | 5:56 pm

Steven Spielberg planning Abraham Lincoln biopic

US director Steven Spielberg, seen here in 2007, is planning a biopic of former US president Abraham Lincoln to tie in with the 200th anniversary of his birth, reports said Monday.
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 12 May 2008 | 5:38 pm

‘Playboy’ Profits: Going Down?

MEDIA
• Playboy lost money last quarter, but the magazine company claims it's not because of the growth of online porn. [DealBook/NYT]
• Yahoo and Politico are hosting President Bush's first-ever online-only interview. [Yahoo]

FINANCE
• Downsizing on Wall Street isn't cheap. As Merrill Lynch tried to winnow its workforce down by 4,000 people, it offered deals to employees such as health-care coverage for life — to the tune of just $100 per month. [NYS]
• Citigroup's new motto was its second choice. Its first? "Let's Get It Done." Something tells us that will be the firm's lacrosse team's cheer this year… [NYT]
• Here's a good sign: The banks and companies raised $20 billion last week, perhaps signaling that the worst of the financial crisis might be over. [FT]

LAW
• Uma Thurman's lawyer, Bert Fields, is alleging that his client's Lancôme contract ended in 2004, but the makeup brand has been using her image to hawk products around the globe ever since. The company has hit back at her $15 million suit with a countersuit of their own. [WWD]
• Will both Latham & Watkins and Skadden gross more than $5 billion this year? Maybe not, but law firms are expected to continue growing at a fast pace. [Law.com]
• Lawyers have bad grammar. But it's okay, you're not meant to understand what they're saying. [National Law Journal]

REAL ESTATE
• OMG, stop the presses! Is the word "deal" actually used in an article about Manhattan rent? [NYT]
• The elite Spence School is buying the former mansion of an international socialite on East 90th Street for somewhere around $20 million. [NYT]
• Want two Lexus hybrids to go with your condo? [NYT]

Source: Daily Intelligencer - New York Magazine | 12 May 2008 | 5:30 pm

To Young Stars, Ol' Blue Eyes Still Twinkles

A new generation of stars is rediscovering Frank Sinatra and his music.
Source: ABC News: Entertainment | 12 May 2008 | 5:24 pm

Carly Simon: 'I'm so erased' by Taylor

Read full story for latest details.

Source: CNN.com - Entertainment | 12 May 2008 | 5:22 pm

ABC's 'Ugly Betty' Soon to Be Produced in NYC

Production of ABC's "Ugly Betty" is moving to New York.
Source: FOXNews.com | 12 May 2008 | 5:20 pm

Sarah Jessica Parker Won't Appear on the Home Shopping Network. Shocking.

The Home Shopping Network will sell Sarah Jessica Parker's fragrances Lovely and Covet Pure Bloom this month, but Sarah Jessica Parker won't pop up on the channel to hawk them. Coty, the company that makes the fragrances, says Parker "was never asked to appear" on the channel since she's really busy with promoting the Biggest Movie Ever. She approved the deal, but Coty, not Parker, signed with HSN.

But the New York Post reports "HSN insiders" think Parker just doesn't want to appear on the channel. And this surprises … no one. Why should SJP carve out time to appear on HSN? Doesn't she have a movie to promote, clothes to design, and other fabulously famous things to do? And frankly, we can't envision flipping through the channels and stumbling upon her standing behind a counter racing the clock to spout as many perfume sales pitches as possible. Which is exactly why people buy her perfumes. You know, that whole aspirational thing. Her perfume launch is reportedly part of HSN's celebrity-perfume extravaganza, though the Post doesn't expect to see any other famous faces either.

SELL MY PERFUME, NOT ME [NYP]

Source: The Cut - New York Magazine's Fashion Blog | 12 May 2008 | 5:00 pm

Forget Tupperware. Gold Parties Are In!

Women are cashing in their gold at house parties and earning big bucks.
Source: ABC News: Entertainment | 12 May 2008 | 4:28 pm

Jenna Bush's Wedding Dress and John Galliano's New York Show

• Finally we know what Jenna Bush's wedding gown looked like! And it was streamlined and very textured, resembling the surface of a coral reef. [NYDN]

• John Galliano will show his cruise collection at Gustavino's tonight. Then he travels to Savannah, Georgia, to receive the André Leon Talley Lifetime Achievement Award from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Anyone else have a hard time picturing Galliano in Georgia? [WWD]

• Valentino plans to double sales over the next five years and open 35 more stores. It's part of moving on since Valentino retired and new owners took over. [WWD]

• Sophie Ellis Bextor may star alongside Kate Moss in upcoming Rimmel campaigns. She reportedly signed a three-year multi-million-pound contract. [Catwalk Queen]

• Louis Vuitton made one-hour MP3 audio guides to Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Beijing. They'll cost $17 and launch in conjunction with the summer Olympics in Beijing. No word on how they plan to monogram them yet. [WWD]

• Bloomingdale's will discontinue its mail catalogue early next year. Way to save some trees. [WWD]

• Calvin Klein underwear model Eva Mendes: "I recently did a film with Mark Wahlberg, 'We Own the Night,' and he's really a fine actor. But I still visualize him in his Calvin Klein underwear, who wouldn't? It's kind of fun looking at people in their underwear." [WWD]

• Kim Cattrall on her boyfriend, 29-year-old Canadian chef Alan Wyse: "He’s no boy. He’s probably the most mature man I have met. He’s also of a different generation in that his mom always worked. So he accepts that I have a job and another life, which is what older men find so hard to deal with.” Noted. [Times UK]

• Boho is out, bobo is in! It's the posh version of boho, somewhat nautical, and doesn't include droopy floral stuff. [Guardian]

• Lauren Conrad comforted Lindsay Lohan after LiLo had a fight with pal Samantha Ronson. Gosh, they've been hanging out a lot lately. Does this mean Lohan will make a cameo on The Hills? Pleeeease?! [NYP]

Source: The Cut - New York Magazine's Fashion Blog | 12 May 2008 | 4:15 pm

Networks get ready to announce schedules

Read full story for latest details.

Source: CNN.com - Entertainment | 12 May 2008 | 3:38 pm

Report: 'Late Night' Gig Goes to Fallon

Jimmy Fallon will reportedly replace Conan O'Brien when he leaves in 2009.
Source: ABC News: Entertainment | 12 May 2008 | 2:22 pm

'Sex and the City' Inspired by Bennifer

A scene in the new movie looks to have been inspired by the ex-couple.
Source: FOXNews.com | 12 May 2008 | 1:36 pm

Actor James Garner Hospitalized

The 'Rockford Files' star was still in a Los Angeles area hospital and is expected to go home soon.
Source: FOXNews.com | 12 May 2008 | 11:57 am