In your tanned Wednesday media column: Maer Roshan is up to something in LA, Portfolio('s picture) gets a new life, the NYT mag has a new, pretentious slogan, and booty skills translate between magazines.

It's been a year since Radar folded, what the hey is Maer Roshan doing with himself these days? He is "working on some TV projects" out in LA, and going to the beach and working out, John Koblin reports. Wonderful!


Jonathan Lethem's new novel Chronic City is using the same cover photo that Portfolio used for its inaugural issue, the NYO points out. Meaning that the book will fade away, but not before Jonathan Lethem spends his entire $100 million budget.


I have come to the (late) conclusion that the New York Times Magazine, which gave us the immortal, meaningless phrase "The Way We Live Now," is America's Most Pretentious Magazine. Not bad, just pretentious. What do you say about that, NYT Mag editor Gerald Marzorati? "Does the Magazine have an ideology? At the risk of giving some of my colleagues hives, I think it does. Call it Urban Modern." Thanks, we might!


The new editor of the resurrected version of Vibe magazine will be Jermaine Hall, formerly editor in chief of the (now-dead) King magazine. Is there still room in the magazine industry for scantily clad women? Only time will tell.