[This pile of spheres was created by artist Anish Kapoor for his upcoming exhibit at the Royal Academy in London. Image via Getty]

• A group of Greenwich Village residents are waging war against the Jane Hotel Ballroom over noise issues. They've hired a lawyer and filed complaints with the city. Naturally, they're blogging and tweeting the action, too. [NYDN]
• Drinks at the Standard's Boom Boom Room will run you $25 when it opens. Provided, of course, you get inside and have the chance to order one. [BB]
• Related: More on Kurt Gutenbrunner's beer garden at the hotel. [VV, DBTH]
• Dean Poll, who takes over Tavern on the Green on Jan. 1, is in for a rough ride: He's already facing off against the restaurant's very vocal union. [NYT]
• An interview with the very prolific restaurateur Michael "Bao" Huynh. [Zagat]
• How the Manhattan Motorino compares to its Brooklyn predecessor. [GS]
• A group of pizza aficionados claim the best pie in town is located at Salvatore of Soho on Staten Island. In case you feel like taking a ride. [NYDN]

Dave Eggers, lord of twee literature, has declared he will personally save print media. But not until the author and McSweeney's publisher starts selling this lamentable little iPhone app.

Pudgy philandering futurist Newt Gingrich has always opposed brown people and their filthy ghetto language, Spanish. Which is why he's launching a Spanish-language political web site, because he might as well try to make some money off these dirty people.

Yes, the Jane Hotel's annoyed neighbors will eventually get Manhattan's current hotspot closed down. Until then, they've taken the war to their fancy Twitter page and blog. Know what? Their complaints are pretty funny!

Back in April, two photographers reported that bodyguards hired by Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady to keep the media away from the couple's wedding party in Costa Rica roughed them up and fired shots at them when they attempted to snap pics of the event. Today the duo filed a lawsuit against the couple, and they're now asking for $1 million in damages. But let's back up for a moment. Why did the two photographers even bother to try and take pictures of the party in the first place? Well, Brady, you see, is a really famous quarterback. And Gisele? She's a famous "international fashion model." But just in case that's not enough of a justification for you, bear in mind that they're "beautiful people who attract the paparazzi." So, you know, they probably should have expected something like this would happen. The full suit is below.

"Mustache Day at the New York Times' media pod." We've done a little digging and we're now prepared to say that some of these "mustaches" are, in fact, fakes. Clark Hoyt will get to the bottom of this. [David Carr]

Just in time to catch the extreme tail end of the news cycle, it's the Congressman Joe Wilson action figure. Buy several while they're still hot! This action figure also talks. Can you guess what he says? We're not telling.

What's the best way to make a suspected terrorist forget all the crucial details that we need access to in order to thwart the terrorist plot we suspect him of being involved in? Why, torture him. Naturally.

[Amy Winehouse is spitting mad as she rages around North London yesterday. Image via INF]

• Barack Obama's appearance on David Letterman's show last night helped the Late Night host score his second-highest ratings ever. [NYT, WP]
• Dan Rather scored a couple of victories in his suit against CBS: A motion by the network to dismiss the case was denied by a judge; and Rather's lawyers will be permitted to question Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone. [Reuters]
• Yesterday, activists handing out fake copies of the Post outside its offices were detained by cops. Today, the paper says it was "flattered" by it. [NYP]
• Book deals: Jenny Sanford, the estranged wife of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, is writing "inspirational memoir" for Random House. And Andrew Young, an aide to former Senator John Edwards, has landed a deal with St. Martin's Press' Thomas Dunne Books to publish his tell-all memoir.
• In an effort to keep more viewers tuned in, ABC plans to reduce—yes, reduce—the number of commercials in the premieres of its new shows. [LAT]
• Fox won the opening night of the fall season, a first for the network. [THR]

The Way We Live Now: Typically. Everyone gets poor and next thing you know couples are splitting up, families are crowding into small apartments, rich kids are battling poor kids, and everyone's giving up their career to sell beer. Typical.

So much for James O'Keefe as the scrappy, independent sparkplug of conservative media. The 25-year-old, who famously embarrassed ACORN on YouTube, got a five-figure sum that traces back to at least one rich conservative, well known to Silicon Valley.

The pranksters at Improv Everywhere have struck again: "For our latest mission, we installed a photography studio on a random subway car. We claimed that the MTA had hired us to take photos of every single person who rides the subway and that we'd be producing a yearbook at the end of the year. Most people were happy to pose for us, and the resulting photos show just how diverse New York subway riders can be." Bonus: They show just how gullible New Yorkers can be, too. [Improv Everywhere, previously]

Don't be shocked if you notice what has been an endangered species until recently—the elusive banquette-dancing, champagne-swilling hedge funder—make a comeback in the coming months. Hedge funds "had nearly $20 billion pour into their coffers last month, as investors flocked back amid revived market optimism." Or take the glass-half-full approach and focus on the positive chalk up the news to more evidence the recession is over. [Dealbook, HedgeFund.net]

There are just as many who don't understand belting divas as people who can't watch cars continuously turning left. So why do people still flock to these two events? The crashes and booing, of course.

America's biggest tobacco companies voluntarily stopped advertising cigarettes in magazines, because they care about you, the tobacco consumer. But hey, have you tried this new "Snus?" Try it, in your mouth! Check out the magazine ad for it!

Together-at-last trio Jason Schwartzman, Zach Galifianakis, and Ted Danson star in Bored to Death, a new HBO comedy series based on a Jonathan Ames story from his collection The Double Life Is Twice As Good.

Together-at-last trio Jason Schwartzman, Zach Galifianakis, and Ted Danson star in Bored to Death, a new HBO comedy series based on a Jonathan Ames story from his collection The Double Life Is Twice As Good.

The people you barely know—your dry cleaner, for example, or the guy you regularly see sweating next to you on the treadmill at the gym—are "consequential strangers," and they're actually important to your mental well-being, say the authors of a new book. According to Melinda Blau, co-author of Consequential Strangers: The Power of People Who Don't Seem to Matter... But Really Do, there's a "relationship continuum" from strangers to besties, and a good chunk of people fall into the middle-ground. Many of those 800 plus friends you've racked up on Facebook? Yep, they're consequential strangers. As are the countless somewhat-familiar people we see on a regular basis, all of whom supposedly "make us feel grounded in the world."