Last year, the city of Boston, which has not suffered a terrorist attack since the Revolutionary War, where the terrorists were the good guys, shut down in a panic after Time Warner's cartoon channel paid two stoners to place lite-brites around town. Bomb squads were called in to remove the cartoon character advertisements, train stations shut down, and traffic over the Charles River was halted. Boston, unembarrassed at causing a national panic over advertisements that had been in place for weeks in dozens of smarter cities without incident, promptly blew up a suspicious traffic counter installed by the DOT. And over the weekend, Boston's Logan Airport was shut down for 17 hours after a poodle escaped. Choochy the poodle got out of her kennel as she was being unloaded after a Saturday night flight. "About 15 state police, firefighters, operations personnel and even electricians chased Choochy late into the night," delaying "at least eight flights." They finally caught Choochy, laying on the tarmac, at 1 p.m. on Sunday, when Choochy got tired. Good work, Boston. Image: (c) Jana Kohl and Robert Sebree, www.ararebreedoflove.com, used with permission from (c) holder.

Remember December of 2006? We sure don't. However, that was the year that Wall Streeters, as we noted at the time, took home $23.9 billion in bonuses. Their money trickled down to certain segments of the economy, like image consultant/personal shoppers, who certainly had a busy season. One of them, Samantha von Sperling, told Bloomberg about how her phone was ringing off the hook in search of $50,000 canary diamond engagement rings, $175,000-a-week outings to the Amalfi Coast and $185,000 Marquis Jets gift cards. The market correction probably means that Mrs. von Sperling's phone is a bit quieter this year, but we recently heard from her husband, Georg, who said our two-year-old item had a glaring error that demands its own correction:

What is The Hills even about anymore? It's certainly not about Lauren, our straight-haired heroine who now exists in some grimace-filled corner of the swooshy Californian reality show. It's been fully ceded at this point to the Feivel-esque Audrina, who with her metaphorical big floppy hat sings a plaintive "Somewhere Out There," hoping to find the yin to her yang, the burl to her tree trunk. And it's also about the Hieronymus Bosch-like coterie of damned souls that surround Fleshbeard and his mortal bride Heidi. The show has gone from fantasy to Fangoria in a few short weeks. But because it still exists, we soldier on with the business of sifting through it. And so we shall after the jump. Audrina continued to muddle her way through her relationship with the sweet and maybe-a-little-dim Cory, an Australian lad of genuine kindness but none of the dangerous joie de vivre exhibited by her badboy beloved Justin Bobby. But because none of these people are allowed to listen to their hearts until the producers tell them it's OK to do so, Audy kept poor Cory flopping around on the dock before she whacked him with her mallet, sending his brains squirting and sluicing out onto the planks. O bringer of life Audrina, O taker awayer. At least she wasn't willing to jeep on both of 'em and date them at the same time. No, only one fellow at a time can ride the ghostly Victorian carousel that turns unendingly inside her skull. In a litter box across town, Spencerina was diddling around with Cameron, a whiny little elf of a gent who had plans to have words with Brody, the tormentor and cry-maker of Spencerina's nightmares. So they were all at the clurrb, Spencerina & Cameron, Lo & her potato-ish unnamed boyfriend, Lauren & the quiet sadness of her singledom. Oh, and then Brodes todes showeds up, and Cameron played a scaredy cat game of Link while his beak-nosed Zelda shifted awkwardly in the leather banquette. It was a sad scene of people breaking softly under the weariness of living, like that part in Half Nelson where the girl walks into the party to sell crack for her cousin and there's Ryan Gosling on the floor all fucked up and waiting for his drugs and she looks at him and he looks at her and this expression of every minute of his life finally catching up to him—and of every sad story of drugs in America choosing him as their conduit—crosses his face and it just ruins you. That was sort of like the Hills scene last night. I mean. Sort of. Spencerina went bungling off to Fleshbeard and Gumby. They henpecked and nagged and needled and basically continued their sad cannibal work of stripping the very flesh of vitality from Spencerina's bones, sucking the marrow out of her life. It's how they survive, these two end of days vultures. And, I dunno, call me crazy but I'm sort of starting to enjoy Fleshbeard's sour little scenes. It's become like clockwork, as reliable and ornately silly as the Glockenspiel. I mean it's awful, yes, but it's also respectably audacious of Spence and the crew to serve us the same bitter gazpacho every week and expect us to take it. We take it! We take it! And we, eventually, choke on it, I think. Audrina continued to poke at the flopping, briney soon-to-be corpse of Cory, her shallow puddle eyes glinting not with recognition, but only with empty reflection. She went to "work" at a recording studio with Brandy. No not the drink! The singer lady who used to be famous for such hits as "The Boy Is Mine" and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. She was recording a song and choosing a photo for her album cover and desperately trying to forget 1) that she used to be like the biggest star in R&B like 10 years ago and now she's reduced to meekly peddling her wares on The Hills and 2) her brother Ray J sexed Kim Kardashian on camera. Anyway, Justin Bobby called and like the good employee she is, Audrina ran outside to talk with him. "I want you to be with me," muttered JB. Audrina didn't know what the eff to say other than that she didn't know. We'd have to see. We'd all have to see. And then WHACK! SQUISH! BLECHHH! she dashed out Cory's frippering life at a restaurant shortly after. And he'd just given the meowing sheila a little koala bear toy. "Ohhh, I'll keep this forever," she said, immediately before breaking up with him. Sadly he'd also invited her to visit him in Australia. But nay, she loved the coffee and Jack Daniels-marinated Justin Bobby just too much. She longed for his leathery arms and gruff purr of a voice at that very moment. Off with you Cory, into the chum bucket with you! Back to the sharks of Bondi Beach! And that was that. Lauren didn't do nothin' all episode except have a tired conversation with Spencerina. Maybe she's figured out how to live her life and she's decided this whole reality game is for the birds. Let Audrina squirrel her way through a series of dainty men, let Spencerina be constantly emotionally abused by her brother and his girlfriend, let Brody call people "homie" even though he is the whitest whitey to ever be white. Lauren's gotten so good at this game she doesn't even need to play it to win it. And that, I must say with a phrase I never thought I'd used in one of these recaps, I can respect. I can. Sigh. I can.

As you probably suspected, luxury hotels are feeling the pinch as the economy spirals downward. It's not just the fact that tourists are no longer interested in paying $1,750 a night for a room when their brokerage accounts are imploding at the same time. The corporate travel market is shifting, too, and some companies are shying away from sending employees to fancy hotels for fear that bad press will follow when people find out that these are the same companies laying people off right and left. Imagine that!

Last night was all about sex on the Gossip Girl! Last night we saw self-pleasure, the brassiere of a 15-year-old, and smoldering looks between artists and socialites, queen bees and queen... bros? The swirling eddy tossed these Burberry-shelled hermit crabs around and around, and at times, yes, they did manage to bump into one another. Tentative eyes bulging, well-sharpened pincers opening and closing, opening and closing, and um.. I don't know. More tide pool/ocean current metaphors. On with the recap after the jump. Blair! Was taking a taxi to tingle town last night! You know, a solo ride. There was a joke about "coming" and "arriving" and oh dear, poor shamed Dorota murmured that "God is always watching," which is true. And also sort of sad, because it means that Dorota learned English by sitting in her little muddy house in whatever Shtetl she crawled out of, listening to Bette Midler records over and over again. Dorota would also like to tell Blair that love, it is a flower. And she, its only seed. Anyway! Yes, Blair still lusted after Chuckles but would not say those three irritating words and so it was lonely lingers down lone lover's lane for her. Meanwhile Jenny, with a haircut that makes her look even more like Janice from the Muppets than usual, was toiling away at her job in fashions. Wicked old Eleanor was being mean and not letting the 15-year-old girl sit in on the big buyers meetings. So, spurned by Caitlin Cooper from The OC, Jenny decided to take back the night and reclaim the two party frocks that Elie had decided to pass off as her own. Girl powerz! But trouble lurked on the too-bright horizon, as Caitlin Cooper's eyes glowed dangerously and our young filly trotted off dumbly behind her. Dan and Serena were trying to help Blair with her boy business problem, Dan because he wanted to help Serena out and Serena because... eh. Who cares. What's important is that Dan helped B at first, because why not, but eventually the relationship started to sour. Don't you kind of want them to get together? Wouldn't it be kind of amazing? Maybe (probably) someday. While lurking around Pa Humphrey's silly little art gallery, Serena met Aaron Rose, a laboriously be-scarfed young lad from Rhode Island who did weird art with microphones and various stuff. There was an instant attraction and an instant note of displeasure from my roommate, who correctly asserted that Aaron Rose, in the books, is supposed to be Blair's attractive step brother, not some dinky poor man's Lou Taylor Pucci artist. Ah well. Young Nathaniel Archibald was shirtlessly at the Humphreys' crash mansion, sending shivers of sex lightning to Jenny's (and Dan's) flowery loins. At one point Dan and Serena were chatting about Nate and Dan kept saying "I never knew how much Nate—" and then he would get cut off by Serena's phone. I can finish that here: "I never knew how much Nate loved to wake up early and stare out the window, thinking private thoughts. I never knew that he liked cranberry juice and those little toaster cake things for breakfast. I never knew that when laughs, his eyes crinkle in this way that makes him seem kind but sad, like someone much older than he is. I never knew that when he sleeps he makes these little sighing noises that break my heart, every time I hear them. I never knew how much he makes me feel good and brand new and like the world might just be OK after all. I never knew all that about Nate. I never did. But I'm glad I do now. I'm so, so glad." Which is to say, they're in love. Nate and Dan are in love. Except, sigh, Nate seemed to have eyes for young Jenny in this episode, as evidenced by him acting all concerned and, ick, brotherly when she went traipsing off with Caitlin Cooper and her suspiciously aracial photographer friend. Thus began the "holy shit, that 15-year-old girl is dancing around on national television in her delicates" portion of the evening, which came to a swift, floppy, gay end when Natalie Nate swept in and ended the affair. Oh Jenny was so mad! So mad she could suck face with Nate on the sidewalk. It's weird that she went in for the kiss first. Weird because it made no sense given the story and the context, but whatever. Nate never would have made the first move. Because he's in love with her brother. Deeply, deeply in love (see above.) But before this happened, Dan gave Serena the ol' go-ahead to sex it with Scarf Garfunkel, but too late! He motorcycled off with some other lassie. Sad things. Then Blair and Charles Bass met on the roof and moaned endlessly about Brooklyn and then realized they couldn't be together because they just like the thrill of the hunt too much. They're not daters, they're sexual pirates. And they'll always be that way, sunrise, sunset, forever and ever. And gosh darnnit if these aren't the saddest 17-year-olds you've ever seen, I don't want to live in your town. So many complex adult feelings, so many worries and tangled moral philosophies to contend with. None of that "this goes in that hole" and "I like you, you like me, no? Boo hoo" simplicity that colors most teenage interactions. (Which isn't to say that kids aren't deep wells of tortured emotion, they are! But they kind of keep it inside, I think. I think? Maybe not anymore. Maybe we're in some new era of well-articulated emotional disclosure. Who the hell knows.) Anyway, these poor kids. Doomed to languish within the fences of their own designs. The Cookie Monster girl boxed in by her own sweetness, the blonde socialite limited by her tiresome fairness, the British sad clown ruined by his rakishness, the bitchy brunette too cold to thaw out, the uptown boy Greco-Roman wrestling with some unseemly longings, and the Brooklyn lad who loves an Uptown boy, his heart stretching out across rooms and rivers, while an unseen God watches it all from a distance. He watches for the pleasure. He watches for the pain. He watches For the Boys.

The man who shall save newspapers is back with another newspaper-saving memo! Possibly written while under the influence of ibogaine! This time Tribune's Chief Innovation Of New Ways To Make Bongs Officer Lee Abrams is doing what he does best: showering a far-flung newspaper with ideas about how they should do their job, according to none other than career radio man Lee Abrams. "What does Pravda say about our economy?" "Poker is the 21st Century Bridge." Think about it, newspaperpeople! This is hands-down the BEST LEE ABRAMS MEMO YET: And now, Lee Abrams' suggestions to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

Transplanted UK songstress M.I.A. interviews visual artist Kehinde Wiley in this month's Interview, but as usual she ends up with the more interesting quotes. Despite the fact she lives in Bed-Stuy with her fiancé Ben Brewer, she calls New York a wasteland for young artists, and looks back nostalgically on her time in her native war torn Sri Lanka. Is she about to piss off her considerable fanbase again?The visual artist and musician tells her friend Wiley that, "Manhattan seems pretty developed, you know what I mean? Like it has peaked in culture. The Village Voice called it McHattan. It's just become impossible for young, creative artists to live in New York." Should she finish that sentence with "and afford to buy my concert tickets?" Considering the rising hype from this cultural wasteland is what brought the multi-talented musician and artist to prominence in the first place, her subsequent crack that she detects an overwhelming "feeling of entitlement" from the city's denizens is bound to turn off some of her unemployed, struggling supporters. She recalls attending a recent event at the MoMA:

A few months back, M.I.A, the Brooklyn-by-way-of-London singer who derives her enthusiastically touted cred from her father's former existence as a Tamil Tiger terrorist, was thinking about abandoning our fair shores. Thank goodness she didn't, because we need brave cultural vanguardists like her to remind us that rich people are ruining the creative heart of New York! In an interview with artist Kehinde Wiley, M.I.A.—who also says she misses "being a real human," like when she lived in Sri Lanka "in the middle of a war and I was getting shot at"—bemoans the fact that "it's just become impossible for young, creative artists to live in New York."

The video above documents a bit of vigilante art outside a Washington Mutual branch in California. We've yet to see any branches in New York get painted over with a mural illustrating the plunging price of WaMu stock during the month of October, but here's hoping! [GoAbove via Urban Prankster]

New York Post attack columnist Andrea Peyser is a vocal fan of both cocks and pussies (but not whores). Why is it always about sex, Andrea Peyser? "With kabbalah, you learn how to turn on the 'light force' - kabbalah-speak for, say, taking out the garbage without expecting sex from your husband in return." Hm. I'm sensing a theme in your work, Andrea Peyser:

The deadliest avenues in New York City, according to the Tri-State Transportation Campaign? Third Avenue and Broadway, just in case you were wondering. [City Room]

Sienna Miller and Balthazar Getty making out on the sidewalk in the West Village ... Jessica Alba and Cash Warren walking in Brooklyn with baby Honor ... Michelle Williams taking daughter Matilda to the doctor's office, then getting in a car with Spike Jonze ... Eva Mendes on the set of her new film ... Daniel Radcliffe jogging on the sidewalk ... Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes leaving the American Felt building with Suri ... Dina and Ali Lohan attending a Halloween charity event ... America Ferrera on the set of Ugly Betty in Gramercy Park ... Lauren Conrad posing for photos outside the Letterman show, and later going out with her new boyfriend Kyle Howard ... and Pink leaving the Alexander McQueen store on West 14th.

Anne Hathaway may be sweetness and all-American good looks on the surface, but what do we really know about her? How would Americans feel if they knew that she palled around with felons? She says Raffaello Follieri was just a guy from the apartment on Fifth Avenue that she shared with him, but they were totally doing it as he pulled off a crazy scam involving the Vatican. When he was convicted of fraud and money laundering, Hathaway severed ties. But she's still connected to a sleazy voter registration syndicate that now stands accused of filing false registrations in New York, Virginia, Ohio, and Florida. That's right—Anne Hathaway's in the pocket of Rock the Vote. This "organization representing the intersection of young people, politics and popular culture" was started in 1992 by some sleazy Hollywood entertainment industry types and they'd been trying to swing elections ever since with nihilistic "grunge music" and godless celebrities. The group lets would- be election defrauders print out unlimited voter registration forms they access from their "Xboxes" and "iPhones." Then Rock the Vote helpfully sends all the forms to the wrong place and no one is registered. Democracy! [Update: Rock the Vote says the New York Board of Elections screwed up! No Times correction yet!] Anne Hathaway got tied up in this modern-day Tammany Hall, of course:

[Dina Lohan and Ali Lohan, mother and sister to actress Lindsay respectively, at a charity event in New York on Sunday; image via WENN] bringmemyTofu's new line beats the original, The True Spirit Of Halloween.

Both men and women cheat on their spouses all the time. Maybe even as we speak—who knows what they do all day. The New York Times reports a new study finding that "infidelity appears to be on the rise, particularly among older men and young couples." You don't say. The study seems to show that the types of people screwing around are changing: women are doing it more, proving that that they can be equal-opportunity assholes.

Hello rainy Tuesday! Apologies for my absence yesterday, I was watching two friends get married. Yay for J & A. Onto the dirt. Today we have a teenage star who scared away her boyfriend, a couple having kinky sex, a balding star, a tantrum-throwing TV star, and a secret gay affair. Enjoy! 1) "Which teenage drama queen has been so demanding that her dreamy boyfriend has unofficially jumped ship? He's now secretly smooching one of her gal pals." [NYDN] 2) "Which couple are hiding a rather unorthodox sex secret? Both prefer the same sex and use their 'showmance' purely to rake in lucrative advertising deals." [Mirorr] 3) "This foreign born B list film star who was shooting for A list before he started losing his hair and his box office mojo is apparently extremely sensitive about his hair. How much? Well, he was buying a suit a few weeks ago and the salesperson suggested a hat because he thought it would go well the suit. Our actor took it the wrong way though and took a good five minutes to yell at the offending salesperson before throwing the suit on the floor and kicking it around a little and then walking out the door." [CDaN] 4) "B list television actress who used to be on a hit and is now on a new show. Not the most fun person to work with according to the crew. For someone who is lucky enough to have a career she sure loves to play the game of don't talk to me. Apparently unless you are a producer or director on the show, you are not allowed to speak directly to her. Well, the crew loves nothing more to talk to her anyway. They love doing this when they need a break because they know she will throw a tantrum and retreat to her dressing room for at least an hour." [CDaN] 5) "Which celebrity had sex with his sister? Find out at 3:00 p.m. EST today!" [BlindGossip] 6) "Which soon-to-be-announced celebrity couple split will get really ugly if the truth about the husband's activities are revealed? They have made plans to play nice in public and pretend that their breakup is amicable and mutual, but it is unknown whether the wife will be able to keep up the facade, because right now she can barely contain her rage over his behavior. She flipped out once when she found out he was cheating. Again when she found out that he was cheating on her with a man. And a third time when she found that his down low behavior had resulted in him giving her a nasty STD." [BlindGossip]

Remember when tattoos were edgy? Probably not, unless you're old enough to remember when, say, Williamsburg was edgy, and in that case we're tired of hearing from you. The point is that the declining edginess of tattoos is a natural barometer for the declining edginess of our weak-ass American society in general. And by that measure, we are weaker than ever. Hello, user-friendly chains of soothing tattoo parlors in malls! Even though more than a third of youngsters now have tats, it's occurred to the marketing geniuses that the untapped, un-inked market is huge! Sure, teenagers all have Chinese characters spelling out "I AM GAY" (don't tell them!), but what about timid suburban middle-aged moms? Enter several new investor-owned chains of mall-based tattoo shops, where anyone will feel perfectly safe getting a star on their butt while their husband browses the Sports Authority:

The feud between Tatiana and Natasha Boncompagni gets messier, and nastier, by the minute. Just in case you've missed the story thus far, Tatiana Boncompagni is the author of the chick lit novel Gilding Lily and has been working on a new book called Hedge Fund Wives. Natasha is her sister and claims she co-authored Hedge Fund Wives—in fact, she says the story is largely based on her own Wall Street career—but was then cut out of the deal by Tatiana, who she says has "a history of lying." Tatiana is insisting it was solely her work and that her sister simply offered "input," and has filed suit against Natasha for claiming partial credit, and for copying the manuscript from her computer and posting part of the manuscript online in an act of retribution. Natasha, for her part, is upset her sister has denied her role in writing the book, and is countering with various—and potentially very damaging—claims. Following so far? Good. After the jump, more from the Boncompagni scandal and a few scandalous emails, too.

Yes, spending 14 hours a day online has turned us all into ADHD-afflicted social misfits who can't watch a film/talk on the phone/cook a meal/have sex without surfing or texting at the same time. But, it turns out that while our brains are indeed being totally warped by technology, it's mostly in a good way.

John Howard, the CEO of Bear Stearns Merchant Banking and a ubiquitous presence on the social scene (he's pictured on the left with Michael's owner, Michael McCarty), has a new name for his firm now that Bear Stearns is no more. It's now called Irving Place Capital and happens to be named for the posh four-story townhouse he owns at 80 Irving Place.