You have to feel a little bit sorry for Tatiana and Natasha Boncompagni, the two sisters embroiled in a nasty spat over the rights to the forthcoming novel Hedge Fund Wives. (If you've missed the action thus far, see here, here and here.) Both women have seen their reps damaged as a result, and Tatiana's career as a journalist and novelist will probably be overshadowed by the incident for many years to come. (Fortunately, she married into money. Or so she says.) Yesterday Natasha took down the website that hosted pages from the disputed manuscript. (We have a copy of the judge's ruling here, in case you're interested.) One party, we hear, that is not all that unhappy about the flurry of press that has followed in recent days? HarperCollins, not surprisingly. Hedge Fund Wives is now available for pre-order and the book's sales rank has edged up ever so slightly from 500,000 to 132,377. The messy feud has also boosted Boncompagni's first book, Gilding Lily: It dipped below 10,000 earlier this week before losing some ground today. It's now ranked 19,921.

Last week we offered to send you a Halloween mask free of charge. We ran through the supply pretty quickly and a number of you were left out in the cold. (Sorry about that!) For those of you who missed your chance—and provided you have access to a color printer—we've posted the masks online. So you can print them out yourselves in the event you still don't have a Halloween costume lined up. After the jump, our very special collection of seven masks, in case you feel like dressing up as Anderson Cooper, Mario Batali, Nina Garcia, Anne Hathaway, Keith Olbermann, Vikram Pandit, or Al Sharpton.

Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson getting on the subway at Spring Street ... Kate Beckinsale smoking on the sidewalk in SoHo ... Naomi Watts shopping at Whole Foods on Houston Street ... Naomi Campbell leaving her hotel ... John Legend walking around town ... Beyonce talking on her phone at JFK ... Penn Badgley and Blake Lively under an umbrella on the set of Gossip Girl ... Christina Aguilera getting into an SUV with son Max ... Joshua Jackson on the set of Fringe ... Aretha Franklin arriving at her Midtown hotel ... The Who's Roger Daltrey going for a walk ... Marion Cotillard and Guillaume Canet crossing the street ... Katie Holmes coming back at her East Village apartment after a matinee performance on Broadway ... and Sarah Jessica Parker taking son James to school.

American Express plans to cut 7,000 jobs, or about 10 percent of its work force, Amex chief Ken Chenault announced this morning. [AP]

New York City's gun "buyback program" is going great, you'll be happy to hear. According to Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, 744 firearms were collected last weekend. One "entrepreneur" (Morgie's words, not ours) was even clever enough to collect nine guns from his friends, so he could turn them in and collect $200 a piece! Just a friendly reminder in case you've been keeping an AK-47 in the back of your closet and you're looking to make a little extra cash in advance of the holidays. [Newsday, NYP]

What are unemployed bankers doing to pay the bills these days? Meet Bryan Gunderson. He lost his job analyzing structured-equity investments at JPMorgan a few months ago. Now he's learning how to mix up Purple Hooters as a student at the New York Bartending School. Yes, it appears a growing number of people who, just a few months ago, were dropping thousands on bottle service at the city's clubs are the same ones who are now learning how to serve up drinks to other people.

♦ Alex Rodriguez has already lowered the price of his Trump Park Avenue condo by $1.5 million, just a month after first putting it on the market. It's now listed for $12.5 million, although A-Rod is also willing to rent it out instead, assuming there's anyone willing to pay $50,000 a month for an unfurnished apartment. [NYP, Modlin Group]
♦ Divorce attorney Zoltan Hankovszky has sold his townhouse at 88 Remsen Street in Brooklyn Heights for $10.8 million. That makes it the most expensive sale ever recorded in the neighborhood. [Brownstoner]
♦ The West 9th Street townhouse once occupied by Elizabeth Jagger—she rented one of the five apartments in the building until recently—is now on the market for $7.95 million. [NYP, Corcoran]

Who will go down as one of the biggest winners of Election '08? (Not including Barack Obama, of course.) That would be Nate Silver, the obscure baseball statistician who is now the nerderrific numbers-man behind the polling data website FiveThirtyEight.com. If you can't watch a cable news show or read a newspaper or magazine without hearing or reading Silver's name, it's not your imagination. Silver was mentioned in the news 120 times during 2007. In the last seven days alone? His name has appeared in 267 major magazines, newspapers and websites. Now he just has to hope his methodology pans out—he's predicting 344 electoral votes for Obama and 193 for McCain—and he can look forward to many more hedge fund consulting gigs and a steady stream of cushy offers from cable networks.

Hope you're not planning to sell your house in the Hamptons: The average price of a home dropped 23 percent in the third quarter compared to the same period a year earlier, a far steeper decline than Manhattan's seven percent dip. [Crain's]

It's a big day for birthdays: Ivanka Trump turns 27 today. (Hope Jared got you something nice!) Page Six's Paula Froelich is 35. Barneys creative director Simon Doonan is 56. The most powerful literary agent in the biz, Binky Urban, is celebrating her 62nd. Fashion photographer Mario Testino is 54. NBC News' Andrea Mitchell turns 63. Billionaire financier Wesley Edens is 47 today. Olympic gymnast Nastia Liukin is 19. Henry Winkler turns 63. Gavin Rossdale is 41. Actress Nia Long turns 38. Actor Kevin Pollak is 51. And Cash Cab host Ben Bailey is 38.

Condé Nast publishers and editors have been instructed by the powers-that-be to cut both their staffs and budgets by five percent immediately. Also, to the 29 faithful subscribers to Men's Vogue, please be advised the magazine may be closed down in the near future. [NYO]

♦ Don't get your hopes up, but supposedly Madonna and Guy Ritchie are hoping to settle their divorce by early next week. Until then, though, we'll be treated to lots more gossip about their wacky marriage, including the set of rules Madonna posted on the wall of their Central Park West apartment and how she wanted to fill up their Olympic-size swimming pool with Kabbalah water. [NYP, Daily Mail]
♦ You think your house is complete chaos? For their stay in Berlin, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have six full-time nannies and a fleet of 20 Volkswagens (provided to them by the car company gratis, of course). [NYDN]
♦ Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former presidential contender John Edwards, was spotted without her wedding ring at an event Monday night. Now the talk is that the couple isn't living together anymore either. [P6]
♦ Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are supposedly feuding because Ashley wants a boob job, but doesn't want to get one unless Mary-Kate goes under the knife at the same time. [Star]

♦ AIG is already running out of the $123 billion in cash it was provided by the Federal Reserve, which means the authorities are slowly waking up to idea that something else might be going on. [NYT]
♦ The U.S. economy shrank at a 0.3 percent annualized rate in the third quarter as consumer spending declined at the fastest rate in 28 years. [MW]
♦ The Fed's half-point rate cut yesterday? It won't do much to prop up the economy. [NYP]
♦ Andrew Cuomo has asked banks to provide his office with bonus data. [NYT]
♦ Some hedge funds are still raking in cash from investors. Steve Cohen's SAC is down 5.5 percent in 2008 (and he's moved most of his funds into cash), but he's accepting new funds beginning in January. [Bloomberg]

Elisabeth Hasselbeck has been one of the most vocal supporters of the Republican agenda on the View for years, she was the toast of the Republican National Convention in early September (she hosted a luncheon for Cindy McCain and handed out "McCain '08" t-shirts she designed herself), and just last weekend, of course, she hit the campaign trail with Sarah Palin. So you'd think that some staffer in the McCain camp—or an official at the RNC—would have taken a moment to verify that Hasselbeck is a registered Republican, right? Apparently not.

The most unintentionally hilarious video we've seen all day: This clip from the good folks at WCAX in Burlington, Vermont, who have been all over the arrival of Karl Lagerfeld in nearby Grand Isle. Karl purchased a home in the neighborhood a couple of months ago and this week he's using it for a Chanel shoot. And while some of the locals aren't entirely sure what to make of the ponytailed fashion icon in their midst ("It's hardly weather for sunglasses," the station's reporter observes), Mandy Hotchkiss, the owner of the Blue Paddle Bistro, is pretty excited. She's catering the shoot! Even Loomis Bean, Karl's new next-door neighbor, is willing to concede that having Karl in town is more exciting than duck hunting and fishing! [WCAX via The Cut]

♦ Armani has signed Victoria Beckham to appear in the new campaign for Emporio Armani underwear. You'll have to wait until spring '09 to see the Mert and Marcus-shot ads. [WWD]
♦ He's not crazy, he's just, uh, spiritual: Elton John apparently only eats off Versace crockery because he believes "the designer's spirit lives in every plate." [NYP via Racked]
♦ Narciso Rodriguez doesn't talk about his recent split with Liz Claiborne, but he does share a bit about his forthcoming book which will be published by Rizzoli later this month. [stylefile]
♦ Finally! Nicole Richie's jewelry line is now on sale. [The Cut]

And you thought the collapsing economy was only good news for repo men and cardiac surgeons. Not only do Donald and Ivanka Trump not appear too concerned with the global financial crisis, they're both looking forward to profiting from the greatest economic misfortune in American history. Real estate prices have never been cheaper, says Donald, and everyone at the Trump Organization is "excited" because now is a "great time" to be in business, explains Ivanka. Oh, also? The queen of microwavable office lunches says her dad totally predicted this whole thing was going to go down, like, two years ago. What about the mammoth mess at the Trump hotel in Chicago? That didn't come up in the conversation for some strange reason! [YouTube via Jewssip]

♦ Frank Bruni rather appropriately surveys two "affordable" sushi spots in the Times today. Both Sushi Azabu and Kanoyama get one star apiece, but it's the latter that ultimately wins out: "The breadth of this restaurant's fish selection is thrilling." [NYT]
♦ Stephane Dorian's long-awaited 10 Downing is finally opening tonight for friends and family. It'll open up for everyone else in the next two weeks. [Insatiable Critic via GS]
♦ Is Todd English planning to open a restaurant at 325 Bowery? [Zagat]

Silda Wall Spitzer turned up at Michael's yesterday to celebrate the birthday of "communications consultant" Kathy Lacey Hoge and the wife of the former governor is doing "just fine," you'll be relieved to hear. More importantly: What on earth happened to Ashley Dupre? Now that summer is over and she's no longer spending her days sunning herself on the Jersey Shore with her mother (with Post photographers following closely behind her, naturally), she seems to have vanished! Do drop us a line if you know more! [NYO, NYSD]

Jim Cramer now has more to worry about that just the horrifically lousy stock market predictions he's been doling out to naive investors. He'll now have to figure out how to revive his sagging financial news site, TheStreet.com, too. Although the financial crisis has led to a boost in traffic—the company reported that the number of visitors to the site was up 27 percent during the third quarter—the finance portal "missed sales estimates, posted a surprise loss, and shook up its boardroom," replacing the company's current chairman with Cramer himself. That should solve everything! [SAI]