With the usual disclaimers that we have no idea whether this actually true or not, we present an email that recently arrived in our inbox. It's Si Newhouse's take on the forthcoming premiere issue of Cookie, the who-knew-we-needed-such-a-thing shopping-for-babies mag headed soon to a newsstand near you. All we can say is that the source is impeccable, the chain of custody intact, and the plausibility factor high:
There they there are, folks, the winning women of Conde Nast. You picked Vogue's Jillian Demling as your favorite fashionista in 4 Times Square and New Yorker profiler Larissa MacFarquhar as your top literati.
As of just a few minutes ago, things are looking exciting at our Women of Conde Nast competition.
Can't decide who gets your vote in our Women of Conde Nast competition? That's what the testimonials are for.
About time, huh? Here, at long last, is the Women of Conde Nast competition. There were many speedbumps to navigate on the way to this moment, from diffuse nomination patterns (lots of ladies had a handful of votes; very few were clear-cut favorites) to difficulty in finding usable pictures to larger structural questions on how to define our two balloting categories and distribute finalists between them.
Here's the problem. You'd think all the lovely ladies of Conde would be easy to find in Google image search, and you'd think some of the young ones would be on Friendster, too. But no. That would make it too easy.
We know; Gawker Hotties is running behind schedule. Turns out, there's a lot of plausible hotties at Conde, and we've got a lot of nominations to dig through. (Also, we were out playing softball and drinking beer all night last night, which undermined our plan for an early start this morning.)
Yeah, blame the baby.
• Greece is a little behind, but they've finally gotten their feta-encrusted hands on Paris Hilton's sex tape. That's going to go over fabulously with the Latsis family — they've always wanted to mix blood with an American trollop! [Star]
• A reminder to all Conde Nasties: Con Edison is recommending that 4 Times Square conserves energy, so turn off your computer once you're done reading this post.
• Spam mail gets visually earnest. Can you deny Mr. Usman Bello, who is very much in need of your assistance, if he sends you a video of himself begging? [OMG]
• We KNEW Ann Coulter was lying about her age. [Towleroad]
• For once, the fish smell wasn't coming from us, and we will always remember that. Au revoir, Fulton Fish Market. [New Partisan]
• We've had nothing but support for the UK during these tense times, but if they're not going to explicitly advertise alcohol in relation to sex, we might have to reconsider the strength of our loyalty. [Times UK]
An anonymous 4 Times Square denizen with far too much time on his hands — don't they all have too much time on their hands? — deciphers for us the situational realities underlying the Women of Conde Nast nominations:
Just a quick reminder to submit your Women of Conde Nast nominations, due by noon today.
Just a quick reminder, folks, that we're still on the hunt for nominees in our latest installment of Gawker Hotties, this time looking at The Women of Conde Nast.
Last week we heard it for the boys. But now it's ladies' night (or, well, week). And if we're looking for a gorgeous group of female Gawker Hotties, where better to head than just across Times Square from last week's NYT festivities?
This latest softball update arrives from a Conde staffer insufficiently important to merit working at 4 Times Square. (The signature on her email lists a Third Avenue mailing address.)
• Some random Conde Nastie also doesn't like us. Which is fine, as we don't much like them, either. [Radosh.net]
• Matt Drudge is obsessed with animal sex. Not, you know, that he's displacing any particular urges. [Underhyped]
• It's no fun reporting from the celebrity rope line. But at least you get some good quotes. Or not. [The Reeler]
• It didn't rain at the Siren Festival in Coney Island Saturday. [Brooklyn Vegan]
• Bloomberg digs Teachers College, Dr. Ruth. [The Politicker]
• Be silent, dear reader, and behold the pastoral glory that is Madonna's Vogue spread with her British chickens, all of which are outfitted in little cone-shaped bras. [Just Jared]
• Is Desperate Housewives a comedy? An IM debate in thirty seconds or less. [Defamer]
• Meth abuse is on the rise in the workplace; finally, our economy is looking up! [USAT]
• From Academy Award winning to shilling toothbrushes in NYC, the rise and fall of Halle Berry. [OAN]
• The Voice's Tricia Romano loves Cock, whether it goes in the Hole or not. [VV]
You're enablers, all of you. Just because we've recently become inexplicably obsessed with media softball games doesn't mean you have to encourage us. We were hoping, after all, that if we just ignored this new neurosis it would eventually go away. But instead a new email arrived to keep our obsessive fires burning.
We're loath to point out another Times article, but we found a little something in a piece about corporate Feng Shui-ster Alex Stark, who makes a living consulting companies on the ancient art of furniture placement. What we actually care about is hidden in the 2nd-to-last paragraph of the item (which, we must add, is best suited to 1999), but it's a gem nevertheless:
In all the thousands of words written about last week's terrorist bombings in London, one very important angle was overlooked by our "journalist" friends in the MSM. Sure, we were told what this may or may not mean for Blair, for Bush, for the War on Terror, for Iraq, for Londoners, for British Muslims. But no one told us the most important thing: What will this mean for Conde Nast?
We told you yesterday that classy Kim France used her Lucky editor's letter this month to announce her divorce, which prompted this quite sensible request:
