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How academia should be: "'Hideous Gnosis,' a six-hour theory symposium on black-metal music" at a Williamsburg bar last weekend. Talks included "Perpetual Rot: Obsessive Cycles of Deterioration," on "'liminal death-space' in the work of Xasthur." Screw college. [NYT; Related]

While Anderson Cooper was guest hosting Live with Regis and Kelly, Ripa said, "Anderson was just saying to me, 'I hope I come out.'" Whoa, that can't be true. Anderson loves his closet something fierce!

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Things are looking up for Gov. David Paterson. According to a new Quinnipiac poll, "only" 49 percent of registered voters disapprove of his job performance. That's a nice bump from a couple of months ago when the figure stood at 57 percent (and a huge jump from his 19 percent approval rating back in May), not that anyone should take this as an indication Paterson actually has any chance of beating Andrew Cuomo if they go head to head in the Democratic primary next year. [NYT, NYP]

It turns out the video we posted last week was just one way Scientology plans to take over the world. Here's more sinister leaked footage in which leader David Miscavige lays out his plans for intergalactic domination to fervent followers.

Watch this cat delicately crawl in and out of a standing glass bottle without knocking it over.

"Real Housewives" Kelly Bensimon and Jill Zarin posing for a pic on the LES yesterday after having lunch at Little Giant ... Brooke Shields shopping downtown ... Celine Dion leaving Serge Normant at John Frieda Salon in the meatpacking district, and later stopping off at Dylan's Candy Bar with her son ... Steve Martin eating lunch yesterday at Via Quadronno on Madison Avenue ... Sarah Jessica Parker walking son James to school in the Village ... Cynthia Nixon's partner, Christine Marinoni, walking downtown ... Emily Blunt arriving at the studios of the Today show ... Taylor Momsen on the set of Gossip Girl in the meatpacking district ... Pete Wentz shopping with his son Bronx ... Kate Hudson leaving MTV in Times Square ... and Rihanna shopping at Fendi on Fifth Avenue.

The hacks of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association have taken a pause from endless junketeering to release their list of the year's most excellent movies and TV shows. Up in the Air and Avatar continue their inexorable awards march.

Here's the raw data:

Only when you see the list of most popular baby names do you realize that America is not just a bunch of chik'n-consuming Wal-Mart zombies, but rather one big elegant catalogue of Victorian Body Shop models.

Hollywood is trying to ruin Jesus' Birthday for America, like this actor who told kids there is no Santa. Not as awesome as a dirty photographer or a rapper trying to patent a sex move, but still a cool move.

Take that, Fergie, this lil' guy is gonna make you love drunk on his cuteness!

Soulful crooner David Geffen to be inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame.

Soccer (Football/Fútbol/Wootball/Whatever) is a game of strategy, skill, stamina, and hooliganism. It's also a game where German goalie Jens Lehmann had one too many Capri-Suns beforehand. Hey, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go.

If Canadians are known for one thing, it's their bacon. If they're known for two things, it's their willingness to brave unfathomable temperatures for the purposes of a viral video. This is that second thing.

• Jason Rabin, the apparel mogul who sold his company less than two months ago for $401 million, has now unloaded his duplex at 850 Park Avenue, too. Ten months after listing the five-bedroom, 5,600-square-foot apartment for $9.9 million, Rabin and his wife Nicole have sold it to Martha Stewart Weddings editorial director Darcy Nussbaum and her husband, attorney Andrew Nussbaum (left) for $6.225 million. [Cityfile]
• John McColgan and Moya Doherty, the husband-and-wife team behind "Riverdance," have sold their duplex penthouse at 1080 Madison Avenue, albeit for substantially less than they were hoping for when they first listed it for $10.5 million in July 2008. The four-bedroom pad sold for $5.85 million, or $4.65 million less than its original asking price. [Curbed]
• Jay McInerney has paid $1.4 million for a two-bedroom Sag Harbor cottage, which he plans to use as a "writer's retreat" and "children's playhouse." [NYP]

Yes. Eleven god damn pounds of coke, he tried to buy, in Florida. Allegedly! He and two other guys were arrested last week, and now the DEA has released its version of the story, in which a snitch told them earlier this month that Buju et al "wanted to purchase kilogramme amounts of cocaine in the Sarasota area of the Middle District of Florida." Yea, while you're in Sarasota, pick up some coke, k? So the DEA stone cold set them up, undercover style. Allegedly:

December 15, 1939 Gone with the Wind premiered in Atlanta, Georgia and frankly— people gave a damn.

The following memos went out to members of the Newspaper Guild, the union representing the New York Times newsroom. In the first memo, the Guild says it has successfully managed to make the NYT adhere to seniority rules regarding the year's final round of layoffs—coming today. In the second memo, the Guild says it's offered a plan to the company regarding the outsourcing of News Service jobs to Gainesville. [If you know more about the NYT layoffs, email us].