The county board presiding over Rosslyn, Virginia has voted to allow demolition of a parking garage where the FBI official then known as Deep Throat spilled the Watergate secrets to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward. Goodbye, landmark of American journalism; hello, shopping center!
Forthcoming Linda Lovelace biopic Lovelace has the most strangely star-studded cast since Bobby: In addition to blue-eyed blonde Amanda Seyfried in the title role as the brown-eyed brunette porn star, Demi Moore will portray Gloria Steinem and James Franco is rumored to be closing in on a cameo as Hugh Hefner.
W. Mark Felt, who as anonymous source "Deep Throat" helped bring down President Richard Nixon, died in his sleep in Santa Rosa, California Thursday. He was 95.
Franz Kafka wrote dark, brilliant, surreal works of souls in crisis, bureaucracy run amuck, dehumanizing class systems-and a lot of dirty, sexy smut. Researches have discovered a bounty of porn in the great writer's notebooks, and they mean for you to read it. "Experts have unearthed a stash of explicit pornographic material belonging to German [he was Czech, actually] author Franz Kafka. The erotic material has been ignored by scholars anxious to preserve the writer's image. James Hawes, an academic and Kafka expert came across the material in copies of Kafka's journals in the British Library in London and the Bodleian in Oxford. Hawes said that the author's stash shows him as more human than a popular quasi-saintly writer. 'These are not naughty postcards from the beach. They are undoubtedly porn, pure and simple. Some of it is quite dark. It's quite unpleasant.'"
• Al Gore, media mogul, is set to launch Current TV a week from today. [NYT]
• Jann Wenner and Kent Brownridge are the lovable rogues of publishing. Unless you have to work for them, in which case they're not so much lovable. [NYT]
• Another launch: Quick & Simple, Hearst's first weekly service mag, will his stands next week. Only $1.49 per issue. [Mediaweek]
• Simon Dumenco reveals all his off-the-record secrets, including the sweet nothings Jacob Bernstein whispered to him at summer camp. [Ad Age]
• New public-radio program, "Open Source," will be blog-based radio. Because that's what bloggers need: More opportunities to yammer. [NYT]
• The Deep Throating trio of Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, and Ben Bradlee think Time Inc.'s editor-in-chief Norm Pearlstine has half the balls of late WaPo publisher Katharine Graham. Time whipping-boy Matthew Cooper is inclined to agree. [R&M]
• When learning that Glamour magazine is planning an exposé of Scientology with a former Scientologist for its September magazine, the "church" sent a gang of OT-IVs to bully up the Condé Nasties. Let the battle of the cults begin. [Page Six]
• Donald Trump, Jr. is rumored to be shopping around exclusive rights to his November wedding to Vanessa Haydon and looking for around six figures. Like father, like son. [Lowdown]
• Here's a shocker: Journos forced to interview celebrities say the stars don't shine all too brightly. [Page Six]
