Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin have been picked to jointly host the Academy Awards telecast.

The "lists" feature Twitter just rolled out has been swiftly repurposed by the celebrity-industrial complex to pump up the accounts of tweeters like Ellen DeGeneres. Lists show celebrities exactly who can send them followers. And thus who to spam.

Have cable news on and Secretary of State sites loaded up? Good, let's all start looking for interesting nuggets as the returns from this off-year election night start coming in. At the Gawker Decision Desk tonight is Peter Feld.

Give thanks: Time Inc.'s now-annual autumn cuts are tough but not horrific. The magazine group will eventually fire 400-500 people, primarily from its news division, the New York Times reports. Sports Illustrated took the first hit. (Update: Buyouts on offer.)

• Jean-Georges Vongerichten will close down Vong on Saturday. [Eater]
• A new restaurant/wine bar has popped up at the Four Seasons Hotel. [GS]
• A tour of Danny Meyer's Maialino, which opens in a couple of weeks. [Eater]
• Both Le Souk and The Mott have been closed their doors. [GS]
• Amy Sacco hasn't obtained a permit to renovate Bungalow 8, as we reported a couple of weeks ago. Her reality TV show is looking unlikely, too. [NYP]
• As if Tavern on the Green didn't have enough of a mess on its plate, it was also the scene of epically messy Halloween party on Saturday. [NYDN, Crain's]
• Another sign of a recession: Le Cirque is offering up free fried chicken to people who come watch the Yankee game there tomorrow night. [Zagat]

[George W. Bush looks a little lost in translation before taking the field to throw the first pitch in a game between the Yomiuri Giants and Nippon Ham Fighters in Tokyo today. Image via Getty]

Gossip Girl has courted outrage since its earliest episodes, and once again, right on schedule, outrage has shown up.

For a company with deep support from Google, 23andMe seems awfully beset by problems: Two layoff rounds in five months and the departure of a co-founder. So when we hear the company is "hemorrhaging cash," we're inclined to believe it.

Showing the sort of bright and sunny leadership that has makes his brother Rahm such an uplifting presence, William Morris-Endeavor chief Ari Emanuel bucked up his troops this week with a poignant reminder that things have sucked for showbiz before.

No, she is not leaving Vogue, no she is not moving to D.C., no she has not been installed as the monarch of some European country. She's just on the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

What are you watching tonight? Let us know in the comments.

Conde Nast potentate Si Newhouse is prepared to take a $10 million loss just to sell off some art and raise some cash. That can't be good.

In a power move sure to rock the universe of self-absorbed Westside LA liberal showbiz activists, Arianna Huffington has grabbed Billy Silverman, producer Brian Grazer's former "cultural attaché" to head up her forthcoming Los Angeles local site.

Here is the most powerful man in France, Nicolas Sarkozy, starring in a detergent ad circa 1967. Your fears are true, kids: Embarrassing things you do now will come back to embarrass you again decades later. [Telegraph via Adfreak]

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums owes $239,000 in back taxes, according to press reports. He follows in the footsteps of other local mayors, who variously killed a guy with a car; were convicted of theft; and boned an aide's wife.

Congrats to Dickdogfood for being the first to guess correctly on our inaugural Freeze Frame post.

• The Wall Street Journal has the Times in its sights. The paper is hiring a dozen reporters to cover local news and will launch a NYC edition next year. [NYT]
• As expected, a big round of layoffs at Time Inc. is underway. [Gawker, NYT]
• Harvey and Bob Weinstein may be looking to buy back the Miramax name from Disney now that it's being disbanded. That's the rumor anyway. [Wrap]
• Bloomberg plans to make BusinessWeek "bigger, glossier, and more international." Oh, and it may start charging for access to the BW site. [MW]
• The Oscars will have two hosts: Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. [LAT]

[Hugh Jackman takes a ride on the twisty slide while playing with his kids at a West Village playground yesterday. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

There are many reasons to mourn the slow death of the newspaper industry — first and foremost the hordes of people losing their jobs. The disappearance of all-expense-paid journalist conventions masquerading as "major assignments" is not one of them.

We can't understand what anyone in this video is saying, but this guy sure does get his method across. Could be the perfect party trick!