Cond Nasties, prepare for some earth-shattering changes in your bazillion dollar cafeteria! After years of subjecting yourself to icky burger buns (assuming you even eat carbs—but we're guessing you don't) and non-organic eggs, the cafeteria has heard your cries for help. 2005 is a year of big changes:
Why is this man semi-smiling? We hear Condé Nast Editorial Director James Truman has resigned. Can this be true? Or did we mishear and he's merely "out at lunch"?
Contrary to popular belief, Gawker's Team Party Crash was NOT invited to the Cond Nast assistants' holiday party (yes, we too were shocked and, well, a little bit hurt). Held in a festive conference room at 4 Times Square, the annual assistants' lunch was a classy and expensive affair, featuring 20 minutes of cocktails followed by a undoubtedly stunning chicken buffet. For dessert, everyone donned red reindeer noses (certainly against their will) and posed for pictures.
While we sift through various reports of women stealthily handing out Gucci bags to certain Cond Nasties (Questionable gifts? Huh?), let's take a moment to gaze at the official holiday gift from publisher SI Newhouse:
A reader writes in, just now:
Normally, we wouldn't advocate plunking down your hard earned money to buy The New York Post. You can get most of it for free on the web, and we should each do our part to keep the paper from reaching maximum profitability.
Because modern classics like The Biggest Loser and My Big Fat Brazilian Hooker don't really appeal to our highly-cultured sensibilities, we've kinda missed the bus on reality television...but we hear it's really big in Europe! In development, however, is a show that has us quivering in anticipation: reality television for magazine whores! Word from a producer comes our way which commences the hunt for Conde Nasties and assistants from all the other glossy publishing houses (you're so not off the hook, Dennis), and we can already see the episode where the Vogue and Ellebots compete for the immunity cigarette. The orgasmic details after the jump; can someone make sure Linda Wells' gimp gets a good audition time?
A reader writes in to agree that there should be fewer postings about Vogue editor Anna Wintour, buuuuuut...before you stop posting them there's this one little thing: "at Rhone for dinner the other night (conveniently located next to Florent, in the likely event you're still hungry when you leave), a non-Conde Nast editor speculated that, if she Anna wasn't so mean to the people around her, *someone* might quietly suggest she might show off the gowns better if she moisturized her back a bit. Asked if she meant 'reptilian,' she replied, 'well, scaly, at least.' Note to publicists: Drop some Kiehl's in your next Anna gift basket. She also said, 'When Anna kills you, you're deader than dead.'"
Back for the brief moment in time while I was an Allure fact-checker, I heardfrom the other side of the cubicle wallone editor ask another: "Is the term 'Jungle Bunny' considered derogatory?"
There has to be a game we can play with all the Anna-in-the-elevator sightings. C'mon! Help me out! Send suggestions to tips@gawker.com. This one was actually pretty good: "Old Anna sighting: My friend, who used to be a bookings editor at Conde Nast, ran into Anna in the elevator (of the old building on the east side)once. just before the doors closed on the two of them, a chunky older man jumped in. the man saw anna and gushed, 'oh my god, i love you!' then continued to drone on about how fabulous she was (while she stared straight ahead, unblinking behind her sunglasses) until the elevator stopped at his floor and he got off. then Anna turned to my friend and said: 'I detest small talk and I loathe lunatics.' True story."
An applicant for the assistant's job, perhaps? "I ran into Anna Wintour yesterday morning on my way to work. After days of walking by the conde nast building at 9 am everymorning on 42nd street -with no sightings- I thought I might never get to see her. Not soyesterday I decided to walk 43rd street and low and behold... there she was. Promptly at nine in a chinese inspired prada spring 03 skirt with white manolos and silver leather trench coat entering on the other side of the building. She was walking very slow and looking all around her. I couldnt help but smile and stare. She's gorgeous, and looked very frightened of the street. Perhaps it's not that she's so frightening, it's that people hate her because of their own insecurities. She fascinates the hell out of me, and I respect her a great deal."
More from the Conde Nast elevator: "While I'll admit it did get me all a-flutter at the time, it did not quite occur to me that an uneventful elevator ride with Anna was Gawker worthy news, but I suppose, times being what they are... A week or two ago, stumbling into 4 X^2 (I swear, I didn't make that up, it was in the orientation video) about half past nine, my blurry vision suddenly snapped into focus on the pair of big, dark sunglasses on the small, immaculately dressed woman in the center of the elevator lobby. As if to solidify my fast jelling fears, she removed her glasses and said 'Hello, dah-ling' to a well dressed middle aged gentleman walking into the lobby behind me. Before I could beat a hasty retreat, the elevator light right next to us flashed green, and it was time to enter what I feared was the marble lined coffin of my career. Quickly, I remembed that a) my position is roughly 4,384 degrees of seperation from Ms. Wintour, org chart wise, b) my relatively decent overcoat would mask whatever other fasion faux pas I happened to be sporting, and c) I'm a guy and what the fuck am I doing being such a pussy?
A Condé Nast mole writes, "After X months with this company, I finally had my first Anna Wintour encounter. Sadly, this isn't much in the way of gossip, as I ran into her pretty much where one would expect to run into her - in the elevator bank in the lobby of 4 Times Square. I was getting off the elevator, she was getting on. We made brief eye contact, and I was a little frightened. Despite her small stature (and yeah, she's TINY), she really does have an imposing presence.
The ouster of Primedia chief Tom Rodgers has led to speculation that the company will sell off choice assets under the direction of its majority owner, leveraged buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. Condé Nast Chairman Si Newhouse reportedly told KKR months ago that he'd be willing to buy New York Magazine prior to auction. NY Mag'ers: say hello to the Condé cafeteria and the Ohio soccer mom demographic. Don't cry; it'll be alright. (Car service for the masses! Expense accounts the size of some third world GDPs!)
Primedia chief exec purged [NY Daily News]
