Valerie Frankel—who last week totally nailed Sarah Palin's "pretty girl syndrome"—has a new book out, Thin Is the New Happy, in which she describes the anorexic culture at erstwhile Condé Nast title Mademoiselle. At the magazine, she says: "Self-starvation was a competitive sport... of the dozen-odd women in the articles department, three-quarters of us had some kind of eating quirk or habit that any shrink alive would diagnose as borderline pathological." Obviously the staff at surviving titles like Glamour were better at working while delirious from hunger. [Page Six]

It isn't quite enough for a CEO to have perfect professional credentials and be capable of dazzling the board of directors at interviews. They can kiss the job goodbye, reports the Times, unless their wives pass muster and appear capable of participating in the endless schmoozing and entertaining that goes with a high level job in the corporate or nonprofit sector. Apparently, pesky old discrimination laws don't allow interviewers to straight-out ask about the existence of a wife and her social skills—not that this ever stands in the way of said wives being appropriately judged and scrutinized.

Want to see the High Line for yourself? A lottery system is being used to give out tickets to one of several free tours scheduled for next week; your chance to throw you name into the hat ends at 4PM today. [High Line Lottery via NewYorkology]

♦ Guy Wildenstein, the president of Wildenstein Galleries and Jocelyne's ex-brother-in-law, is dumping the five apartments at The Plaza he'd once planned to turn into a sprawling residence. He's already sold a two-bedroom on the building's fifth-floor; the other four apartments are listed with Corcoran's Carrie Chiang. [NYT, Corcoran]
♦ Tom Freston isn't the only person having trouble unloading one of Andy Warhol's former homes. The owner of the townhouse at 1342 Lexington Avenue, where Warhol lived with his mother in the '60s, has lowered the price from $5.99 million to $4 million. [NYT]
♦ Art gallerist Allene Lapides has picked up a pied à terre in New York. She paid $3.045 million for a third-floor co-op at 116 East 63rd Street. [Cityfile]

Tina Fey reprised her role as Sarah Palin on SNL this past weekend with Amy Poehler as Katie Couric. What may not have been obvious, though, was that Fey was using the actual transcript of the real Palin-Couric interview last week as her script for much of the skit, as the clip here from CNN demonstrates.

If it seems like Bryant Gumbel has been on TV forever, well, that's because he has. The former Today show fixture and Real Sports host on HBO is 60 years old today. Also celebrating: NYU's bearded president, John Sexton, is 66. Comedian Andrew Dice Clay is 51. Barbra Streisand's son, actor/director Jason Gould, is 42. Filmmaker Robert Benton is turning 76. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida is 66. And Lech Walesa, who championed democratic reforms in Poland in the '80s and later served as the nation's president, is 65.

If you pass a newsstand today, you may want to pick up a copy of the Sun. Just as a souvenir. After failing to find new investors willing to put up the $1 million a month required to keep the paper alive, today's issue is expected to be the last. [Gawker, NYP]

♦ Scarlett Johansson is a married woman: She tied the knot with actor Ryan Reynolds in a small ceremony outside of Vancouver on Saturday. [Us]
♦ Heather Locklear was arrested for driving under the influence of prescription drugs in Montecito, CA, on Saturday. [NYP]
♦ Heath Ledger's daughter Matilda will inherit his entire estate, which is estimated to be worth $20 million. [NYP]

♦ President Bush turned up outside the White House early this morning to urge lawmakers to pass the $700 billion bailout and a vote is expected later today. Bored today? The full text of the bailout is here. [NYT, WSJ]
♦ Citigroup has agreed to buy Wachovia in a deal brokerered by the FDIC. [Dealbook]
♦ The governments of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands have teamed up to bail out Fortis, one of Europe's largest banks. [WSJ, Bloomberg]

Screen legend Paul Newman has died of cancer at his home in Westport, Conn. He was 83. [CNN, NYT]

♦ Milan Fashion Week's climax was yesterday's Dolce and Gabbana show attended by Jennifer Lopez, Dita Von Teese, Petra Nemcova, Eva Herzigova, Claudia Schiffer, and Naomi Campbell, who relapsed slightly from her recent all sweetness to yell at paparazzi: "Leave me alone!" [WWD]
♦ Norma Kamali has designed a collection for Wal-Mart: Nothing will be more than $20 and you can catch an early look at the T-shirts, dresses and skirts at Kamali's West 56th Street store. [NYDN]
♦ The CW has released contestants' bios in advance of the October debut of Stylista. One lucky winner will get an apartment, an editorial job at Elle, and a clothing allowance at H&M. A lifetime of therapy to get over the public humilation? Not provided. [The Cut]

McCain Decides to Participate in Debate [NYT]
Local bars, clubs and restaurants airing the debate [NYM]

♦ It's only been a few months since it opened, but Sheridan Square has already closed. [Eater]
♦ Hand over $50 to the Obama campaign and you can watch the debate at The Box tonight. [NYP]
♦ Taavo Somer and Ken Friedman on cutting out half the menu at the Rusty Knot. [DBTH]
♦ There are actually bars in the city that serve $1 beers, believe it or not. [Metromix]
♦ The new Trader Joe's in Brooklyn is open! [Brooklyn Paper, Racked]

Another day, another bank disappears from the strip malls of America: A struggling Wachovia is now in discussions with Citigroup, although Wells Fargo and Banco Santander are said to be eyeing an acquisition as well. [Clusterstock, Dealbook]

♦ David Letterman ripped into John McCain once again last night, which he'll probably continue to do as long as he gets this much attention for it. [NYT]
♦ Sarah Ivens is out as the editor-in-chief of the moneylosing tabloid OK! And, no, Bonnie Fuller is not taking over. [NYP]
♦ CNBC's David Faber is writing a book about the Wall Street meltdown, too. [NYO]
♦ ABC won the Thursday night ratings war thanks to the two-hour season premiere of Grey's Anatomy. [TV Decoder]
♦ Brigitte Quinn and Page Hopkins are leaving Fox News. [TV Newser]
♦ The Magazine Publishers of America will announce the winner of the cover of the year on Monday; here are the three finalists. [Jossip]

If you're a Washington Mutual customer and you're wondering what's going to happen now that your bank is defunct, your new bank (JP Morgan Chase!) would like you to know that it's already decided to wipe the WaMu brand off the face of the planet. WaMu branches will be rebranded, debit cards will be replaced, and your bank statement will have a new logo at the top very shortly. And, no, you won't be seeing any silly WaMu commericals on TV any longer. [AdAge]

Eater has the skinny on Anita Lo's Rickshaw Dumpling Bar, which launched its first "dumpling truck" in Midtown yesterday. It seems the mobile dumpling dispenser turned up on Wall and William Streets today. The message on the chalkboard? "Don't Jump Eat Dumplings!" [Eater]

Just what you've been waiting for to distract you from all the bad news on cable news. Video footage from Sarah Palin's days as a beauty contestant has emerged. It's from 1984, a number that comes to mind rather frequently when we think of a Palin vice presidency! [Via Gawker]

♦ Hairstylist-to-the-stars Orlando Pita paid $3.416 million for an condo at 101 Warren Street, the 35-story Tribeca building developed by Ed Minskoff. [Cityfile]
♦ Tom Freston has taken his Upper East Side townhouse off the market, just a week after he reduced the price from $38.5 million to $35 million. Freston purchased the 6 1/2 story manse—which was once occuped by Andy Warhol—in 2000. [WSJ]
♦ Alexander Tisch, the son of Andrew Tisch, sold his apartment at 42 East 20th Street for $3.025 million. The 2,222-square-foot pad had been listed at $3.3 million. [Real Deal]

Sacha Baron Cohen was arrested on Wednesday for crashing the Iceberg runway show during Milan Fashion Week. He'd turned up as his alter ego, Bruno, the gay Austrian fashion reporter. Naturally it was all filmed for his upcoming movie, Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Male. But here's a clip of what went down if you're dying to see him tackled and you happen to understand Italian.