♦ It's just such a relief to know that as the economic situation reaches new levels of bleakness, fashion journalists won't lose sight of what's important: Bows are back! Julia Restoin Roitfeld is the trend's pioneer, on the off chance that you needed persuading. [Grazia]
♦ Not quite as earth-shattering, but still important news: Maggie Gyllenhaal has jumped on the short haircut bandwagon. [Elle UK]
♦ Is the Ice Queen melting? In this heartwarming urban fairy tale, a young fan happens to see Anna Wintour in a store, and he tells her "OMG, I could just cry," but she says, "No, please don't cry," and then has Bee take a picture of the two of them. [Fashionista]

How do you know the economy is really screwed? Hedge fund managers start going to church. [NYP]

When Fortune asked Martha Stewart to give a presentation at its "Most Powerful Women Summit" last weekend, the mag probably assumed she'd instruct the group on how to prepare the perfect rhubarb pie. Instead, Martha went all new-agey and decided what everyone really needed was to learn how to do a proper downward dog. (How fitting for these stressful economic times!) The only disappointment: While Martha did get to hang out Warren Buffet at the event, it does not appear she was able to convince him to step on to a yoga mat. [The Martha Blog]

The Chelsea strip club V.I.P. reports that business is up, despite the fact 80 percent of its customers work on Wall Street. [Clusterstock]

♦ The Observer picks its favorite pizza joints around town. [NYO]
♦ Andrew Carmellini has a new restaurant in the works, although he isn't sharing too many details. [GS]
♦ Trader Joe's may open a store on 72nd and Broadway next year. [GS]
♦ The meltdown is having an impact on the restaurant biz. Duh. [Time]
♦ The Times travel section spends 36 hours in NYC and offers up "plenty of reasons not to stay at home watching CNBC." [NYT]

The most unhappy man on Wall Street today might very be John Mack, the CEO of Morgan Stanley, who watched the banking giant's stock price dip below $10 today. Morgan Stanley is now frantically reassuring investors that a deal with Mitsubishi UFJ to inject $9 billion into the beleaguered bank is still going to go ahead, notwithstanding the grim fact that Morgan Stanley's stock has slid 70 percent since Mitsubishi cemented the deal with Mack on September 22nd.

As we pointed out earlier this week, things have taken a turn for the worse at Condé Nast's glossy (and very expensive) business magazine, Portfolio. Another sign today that the ship may be sinking: deputy editor Blaise Zerega, who has been with the magazine since its launch in 2006 and was widely viewed as one of the brightest talents at the mag (in contrast to mediocre editor-in-chief Joanne Lipman), has announced he's leaving the company for Fora.tv, an new online-video site. [Valleywag, previously]

♦ Sumner Redstone is being forced to sell about one-fifth of his stake in CBS and Viacom to meet the terms of various loan agreements. Also: Shares in Viacom plunged after the company announced third-quarter earnings fell short of estimates. [Bloomberg]
♦ It's official: Hearst's Cathie Black announced CosmoGirl will fold. [Portfolio]
♦ A little perspective: Time Warner is now less than one-quarter of what AOL alone was worth before the merger. [SAI]
♦ After much drama (and a few leaked emails), Scott Rudin has decided to talk away from The Reader. [THR]

What a metaphor for the day (week, month) on Wall Street: As the graphic in the corner of the screen displayed the plunge of the Dow Jones on Fox News, it was reporting on a hot-air balloon that came crashing to earth in New Mexico earlier today. The video is to your left.

Democrats laugh when John McCain calls himself a "maverick." But you know who is especially annoyed by the reference? People with the last name Maverick! Video after the jump.

As we've heard, even the rich are cutting back on their spending, either because they're genuinely worried about money running out, or because they're magnanimously recycling their $5,000 gowns for different events. Or, as the Wall Street Journal's Christina Binkley suggests today, simply because it's the classy thing to do: "It's not necessarily a good thing to show up at the tennis club with a new $30,000 crocodile handbag when your friends' net worth has been halved and the Federal Reserve is spending billions to keep the banking system afloat." Duly noted!

Marc Jacobs standing on the sidewalk outside the Mercer Hotel ... David Duchovny jogging across the street ... Molly Shannon and Nigella Lawson outside ABC studios ... Naomi Watts walking in the West Village with bag from the Container Store ... Salma Hayek and daughter Valentina arriving at their hotel ... Penn Badgley shooting a scene on the Gossip Girl set in Brooklyn ... Katie Holmes carrying Suri out of their East 13th Street apartment building ... Ethan Hawke crossing the street ... Paula Deen and her husband Michael arriving at their hotel ... Beck outside the Letterman show ... Madonna and Alex Rodriguez leaving Yom Kippur services at the Kabbalah Center ... Sarah McLachlan leaving her hotel in Midtown ... and Daniel Radcliffe talking to fans outside the Broadhurst Theater.

It seems hotelier Jason Pomeranc (left) and his two brothers have more to worry about than construction delays or declining demand for overpriced hotel rooms south of 14th Street. According to court documents filed this week, someone hacked into the Thompson Hotels email system two weeks ago by impersonating an employee, made off with confidential company documents, and is now threatening to disclose them to the public. The identity of the hacker is unknown, and the U.S. District Court complaint does not specify what sort of information was obtained—although judging by Thompson's reaction, we're guessing it wasn't a revised room service menu. Thompson's suit against "John Doe" after the jump.

♦ Socialite Carroll Petrie took a $500,000 loss on the sale of her four-bedroom Palm Beach house, which she bought for $3.5 million last year and sold to tire heir John Firestone for $3 million last month. She still has a 6,700-square-foot mansion a mile away, which she purchased for $7.45 million in May. [WSJ]
♦ Feminist author and activist Gloria Feldt and her husband Alex Barbanell sold their two-bedroom apartment at 200 Central Park South for $3.25 million. [Cityfile]
♦ The Meadow Lane home in Southampton that was home to Virginia and Billy Salomon (of Salomon Brothers fame) is about to hit the market. The six-bedroom, oceanfront manse will be listed at $38 million. [Newsday]

As Western civilization tumbles toward a mess of a magnitude not seen in our lifetime, anyone could be forgiven for freaking out and getting a little irrational. But comfort yourself with the fact that however you're feeling right now, at least you haven't sunk to the disturbing depths of a new breed of survivalists, who, Details informs us, are known as "preppers," and who are quietly growing in numbers as a result of the economic crash, rising fuel costs, the terrorism threat, global warming, you name it. Unlike the erstwhile stereotype of a survivalist—the unsocialized, grizzled guy living in a bunker with just a shotgun for company—preppers pass as normal members of society, with jobs and families and nice clothes and houses: They're just obsessively hoarding freeze-dried meals, water (and water-purification tablets), camping gear, wine and vodka, and laptops "in ammunition canisters," so that when Armageddon descends, they'll be all set.

It looks like CosmoGirl magazine has bit the dust. [Jossip]

You can finally exhale: West Side Spirit has handed out its "Building Service Workers of the Year" awards! (We know you've been waiting in suspense since last year.) Our hearty congratulations to James Gibbons, who was named East Side Doorman of the Year for his work at 1120 Park Avenue. And props to Pat Burns of 2 Fifth Avenue, who walked away with the trophy for Downtown Doorman of the Year. (Strangely, Richie Randazzo didn't get a single nomination in the doorman category.) Finally, if you work at the Lincoln Building on East 42nd Street and you see Ursula Szewc come through with a mop and bucket later, don't be a rude jerk to her like usual. You're getting the best office cleaner in Midtown!

Michael Bloomberg may spend as much as $100 million to run for mayor for a third time next year, which would be $16 million more than he spent in 2005. (Think how embarrassing it would be to actually change the city's term limit laws and then lose!) So where will the money go? A Bloomberg administration official says an estimated $20 million of it will be used to "pound away" at the mayor's likely competition, Anthony Weiner, who "Mr. Bloomberg is said to dislike." [NYT]

Lift up your beer and make a toast: Mr. Mario Lopez is 35 today. Others celebrating on this Friday: Jets quarterback Brett Favre is 39. At the New York Times, Stefano Tonchi is 49 and Adam Nagourney is 54. Socialite Celerie Kemble turns 35. Artist Banks Violette turns 35. Cornell's Antonio Gotto Jr. is 73. Paper's Mickey Boardman is 42. And David Lee Roth is 54. Weekend birthdays after the jump.

♦ Angelina Jolie can be seen breastfeeding on the cover of the upcoming issue of W. Brad Pitt is the one who took the pics. He's also the one who convinced Angie to have kids of her own, she says. [NYDN, People]
♦ A judge denied Christie Brinkley's request for a temporary restraining order that would bar Peter Cook for seeing their kids this weekend. He did rule that Cook cannot "expose" them to his 20/20 interview. [People]
♦ Sarah Palin is set to appear on SNL on October 25th. [Cindy Adams]