· 4th of July panorama shots from the Empire State Building
· Martini history
· NYC trapeze school [via Kottke]
· The perfect accessory for a Soho House membership [via MeFi]
· Photoblogs + Gawker stalker = ??? [via Fimoculous]
· "10 Things I Miss About New York" [via Anil]

· My friend had a Tara Reid sighting. Saturday night, approximately 2 am, at Jet East. Tara Reid pulled a Tara Reid in the bathroom. Security reported "she's at it again." I think we all know what that means.
· I saw Kirsten Dunst eating at Teany (Moby's lower east side cafe) on Friday June 20, 2003. She was with a friend. They shared a salad (which Kirstin ate with her fingers) and shared a soup. Kirsten then asked the waiter to bring her warm soy milk. When he brought it to her, she took out a big container of protein powder and put a lot of it in the soy milk. she also asked the waiter to turn down the AC. after they finished, she and her friend left and lit up cigarettes on the way out.
· I used to work the door at Twilo back in '94-'95 and one night Chris Noth tried to push his way past the line like he was entitled to some sort of celebrity treatment. I knew who he was but I told him he needed to get in line if he was interested in coming in. He then tried to be buddy-buddy with me and draw a comparison between his brown designer-type leather coat and my black vintage Philadelphia Police Officers coat ("Hey man look we have the same coat!"). I hate it when celebrities feel they deserve special treatment, especially while acting cocky. All you have to do is be cool and appreciative and I'll take care of you.

· Lizzie Grubman's new defense? Page Six reports that "The Mercedes M320 SUV - which Grubman made famous when she backed into a crowd at Conscience Point in 2001 - has been recalled due to problems with the power steering system." [Page Six]
· The Iraqi police force's new American-designed uniforms include Calvin Klein belts. [Page Six]
· Benjamin Bratt (and wife, Talisa Soto) recently won a downtown loft over a higher bidder [supposedly] because they were more famous. [NY Daily News]
· A former employee of Lizzie Grubman's has written a roman-a-clef called For Immediate Release about his experiences there. Also, US Weekly's recent "exclusive interview" with Kate Hudson about her pregnancy turned out to be a story written by a freelancer who ran into Hudson at a bagel shop and never identified herself as a reporter. [Intelligencer]

In case you weren't tempted by the seductive little NJ Guido hyperlink in the post below, here's a sample from an essay by a midwestern transplant titled "Memoirs of an Aspiring Guido": "Much of the night was a blur; a veritable whirlwind of L.A. Looks hair-care products and manicures that would rival the Sistine Chapel. I look back on it now and it pains me to think that I went through the first 24 years of my life without ever knowing that grown men could wear colored sunglasses inside; without ever knowing that an IROC isn't just a car, it's a way of life; but most of all without ever knowing what it meant to be a guido. It was the middle of August and I was in Manasquan, NJ. I had never been to the Jersey shore before, but 5 dear friends who needless to say all have last names the end either with an 'A' or an 'O' guaranteed me a great time."
Memoirs of an aspiring guido [NJ Guido]

The WaPo explains the historical progression of the New Jersey "guido": "One slang dictionary dates the emergence of the term guido to the late '80s. Back then, he wore baggy-legged Z. Cavaricci pants, tank tops and gold chains and drove a souped-up Mustang or Camaro IROC-Z. The guidette kabuki'd her hair into a massive nest guarded by an iron fence of bangs. In the '80s and '90s, the term guido was often derisive and directed at Italians, but the community was ethnically broader than that...today's guido is a modern, sophisticated creature — that although the guido persists, his Z. Cavariccis do not. The old IROC-Z has been replaced by the BMW 330 as the ideal form of transportation. The guidette's hair is no longer big — it is flat as an ironed skirt or limp and curly, like seaweed." See also the New Jersey Guido website, which sells t-shirts that read, "I am a New Jersey guido. A well refined, clean cut, muscle toned, fist pumping, girlfriend stealing, machine. You got a problem with that?" And: "If a sexy guidette is reading this...how you doin?")
Strutting season [WaPo]

While smoking outdoors at La Pescadou on Thursday post-dinner at Da Silvano, [Ed.balsamic vinegar in a spray bottle? Why? Spiega, per favore.] I was handed a flyer by the enthusiastic Paul Newman-ish looking owner. It reads:

The Morning News' Kevin Guilfoile reports that Liz Phair isn't the first rock star to write nutjob letters to the editor after she got bad reviews. Guilfoile has "discovered" [and by "discovered", we mean made up, fabricated, Jayson Blaired] a folk singer named "Ken Oakley" who wrote such insane letters that magazines began reviewing nonexistent Oakley albums solely to generate a response. Like Phair, Oakley has an obsession with children's stories. A sample: "Dear Rolling Stone Magazine, Once upon a time there was a Little Blue Engine that hoped to deliver uplifting folk music to all the boys and girls on the other side of the mountain, but the evil Royal Switchman didn t want him to succeed. The Royal Switchman had predicted another train called Little Stevie Orbit would be the one to carry folk music over the mountain and if the Little Blue Engine made it there first, and the boys and girls liked the Little Blue Engine s songs better than Little Stevie s, the Royal Switchman s reputation as the train yard s hip tastemaker would be shattered forever..."
The indignant correspondence of folksy Ken Oakley [TMN]

Gawker intern Lindsay Robertson says she hears there have been shark sightings in the Hamptons. We can only hope. Lindsay: "Last night on the local news: 'There have been several shark sightings in the Hamptons.' (Oh, Fox FIve, please don't tease me like that. It's cruel.)"
[Lindsayism]

· Hipsters or fashion victims?
· Yes, I have seen what you get when you type "weapons of mass destruction" into Google, and click "I'm feeling lucky."
· New York: the melting pot
· The NYT version of "Cribs": Justin Theroux's house
· Pivenworld: celebrity portraits [via MeFi]
· Is "fuck" the new "damn"?

· Actor Jared Harris on his father Richard's car collection and the rumor that he left a Rolls Royce in a New York garage for 25 years because he forgot he owned it: "Dad doted on his extensive car collection...Through the lineage of my mother [Elizabeth Rees], he was able to bedeck his cars with the flags of the House of Lords to break traffic rules and make these especially grand Rolls-Royce entrances - like rolling up onto a rugby pitch in a packed stadium in front of an astonished Prince Charles. My father certainly knew the Rolls was here in a garage. He was just temporarily ignoring it." [NY Daily News]
· A New York Sun columnist confused 33 year old playwright Marc Spitz with 53 year old Olympic swimmer Mark Spitz. Says playwright Spitz: "I don't care if I win an Obie now because I've got my gold medals. They can never take that away from me." [Page Six]
· Ed Norton has split from Salma Hayek and was recently spotted at Soho House with a blonde he identified as his "girlfriend." [Page Six]
· Liz Smith's Feed the Celebrities campaign: "Unless he is dieting for a role as a prisoner of war, or a hospital patient in bad shape, somebody - please feed Bruce Willis! He's thinner than we've ever seen him. Down to sinew and bone. (Has his ex-wife's handholding with Ashton Kutcher been a shock to his system?)" [Liz Smith]

Tina Brown says B-list celebrities are getting more coverage these days for two reasons: a vacuum of bona fide A-listers and the fact that no one wants to negotiate with the overbearing publicists of the few worth covering. (All of which sounds remarkably similar to what How to Lose Friends and Alienate People author Toby Young said last week.) The upside, Tina says, is that good celebrity tabloids will stop negotiating altogether and the coverage will improve. I hope she's right but I won't believe it's actually happening until glossy magazines start considering copy and photo approval by publicists the ethical equivalent of letting the subject edit the story. Or when I see cover shots of Britney Spears that look like this.
Something cheerfully democratic and businesslike is happening to celebrity coverage [Times2]

A report from last night's Grand Central Mob: "MOB 3 was ended with about 300-400 (seemed like) people wrapped around the balcony overlooking the lobby in the Grand Hyatt (42nd St.). They were even odder than the peacock-looking little dancers at a convention on the next floor up, especially when, at 7:12 p.m., they all started clapping. It commanded the attention of a everyone who had, until then, successfully glanced at and ignored the huge gathering of people. Exactly 15 seconds after the clapping started, it ended. And everyone left."

A reader on Sex in the City's "Mr. Big," Chris Noth: "A couple of years back, I ran into Noth over by 51st and, like, Broadway. At the time I didn't have a television set, so I was weird about seeing celebrities, since I knew that I recognized them, but couldn't figure out how. So I went up to Noth and asked if he'd been a grad student at my college in California. He said no, but he'd gone to Berkeley (which I later learned was bullshit). The man looked haggard. Amen to the grey facial hair and big gut. I, in my youthful naivete (I was, like 22), agreed to come have a drink with him, at this Italian place nearby (that has his picture on it), and he ordered me a corona (or was it a heineken? i don't remember), and then let it fall that he's an actor. He goes, I was on Law and Order! I'm on Sex in the City! Of course, I'd never seen Sex in the City at that point, not having a television. I said, no you weren't. And he goes, yes I was! Then he gets the bartender to agree, and pulls out this article about him in Jane Magazine. That's me! He said, and I said, no it wasn't. He looked so much better in the article. He just bore a resemblance to the Noth in the picture Kind of amazing. I was rather drunk after only one beer, and the man kept putting his hand on my thigh. That freaked my little naive mind out, and so I scadaddled out of the bar."

· Having lunch at the same time (but not together) at Caf Luxembourg today: Steve Martin (in shorts, t shirt, sneakers) and Michael Imperioli (Christopher from The Sopranos). Martin had lunch with a blonde woman and then left alone, putting on one of those ugly high-tech bicycle helmets and sunglasses as he left. I didn t see if he had a bicycle (or God forbid, a skateboard) waiting for him outside but he was completely incognito in that get up. Imperioli was eating with an older non-Sopranos man I didn t recognize they left together and didn t put on scary headgear ..
· 7/1, 6:00ish. I saw Chris Noth on 67th btwn. 2nd and 3rd, and the only thing Big about him was his gut. He was sort of waddling quickly and looked like he was looking for something. I was shocked by all
the gray facial hair, as well.
· I just saw Casey Affleck on Spring Street heading towards Mott. He was very pasty and had a large pimple on the end of his nose.

At least young "oops" email author Erin O'Brien knows how to exploit an opportunity:

The full text of CAA junior employee Erin O'Brien's email, mentioned in today's gossip roundup is below. (I suppose the "California" part explains the hyperbole and gratuitous overuse of exclamation marks.)

· A friend of Sean Connery's on his feud with director Stephen Norrington: "If they came to blows, do you think Norrington would be alive?" [NY Daily News]
· Another "oops" email, this time, from a young employee at CAA who speaks entirely in exclamations: "Hello everyone! I just got the job I was dying to get!...the staff is really young and fun! (lots of cute boys too)...there seems to be great upward mobility (My desk is also right next to the New Music Department, so maybe I can become a rock star while I'm at it). So far I have seen Carlos Santana, Samuel Jackson, and Julia Roberts...and it's my first week!!! (Now you're reallllllly jealous). I plan on having Josh Hartnett wrapped around my finger by about December." [NY Post]
· Page Six's geographical theory of Barnes & Noble book signings. [NY Post]
· Horror novelist Stephen King bought all the tickets to a screening of "28 Days Later" on 62nd Street on Friday night at distributed them outside the theater. [NY Post]

A reader reports that dermatology king Jonathan Zizmor (he of the ubiquitous subway ads) has a son, Adam, who markets a drink called "SkinCola." Says Adam, "Not that it doesn't help the skin; it is not for acne. It says that nowhere. It's more of a beverage that makes you feel better about yourself." Makes you feel better about yourself...sounds very San Franciscan...I'm a little suspicious. Reading further: clinicians say it very closely, if not identically, resembles water. A-ha! Not that it matters. I have my own beverage to make myself feel better about...myself. It very closely, if not identically, resembles a martini.
Body: is it all wet? [MSNBC via Protocols]
A drink claims to be skin deep [Newsday via Protocols]
SkinCola.com

Or, not surprisingly, Soho House. Ali Wolfe and George Gurley from the Observer talk to young Brits in New York and explore the differences between Americans and Englishmen. Says one young British woman: "People notice I bite my nails. Oh, my Godhow can I go out without my nails being perfect? There s this whole thing about pubic hair. Nobody in New York seems to have pubic hair anymore. And if you do have pubic hair, it can only be a very thin strip going down there. And it has to be ruthlessly policed. The grooming thing, I think, makes you feel more self-consciousbut slightly proud that you've got horny toenails or whatever and you look like a hobbit." [Ed.As for the rest of the article, I thought the soggy carpets were endearing...and by "endearing" I mean "another Gawker post."]
The Brit Pack unpacks [Observer]

100 Dogs has helpfully compiled a companion volume to the Hipster Handbook: the Non-Hipster Handbook. A few helpful definitions:
· Lincoln - The last name of a President of the United States Sentence: "The five dollar bill that Sarah used to pay for her Pabst Blue Ribbon had a picture of Lincoln on it.
· Bullshit - Being so untrue that if it were physically represented it would take the form of male cow feces. Sentence: "After seeing the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at the Siren Festival in Coney Island, Howie said that they were bullshit and went home to tend to his bitch and her six puppies."
· Public School - A place where people who do not go to private school go to. Sentence: "Tom alienated Sam's girlfriend when he ranted about the problems that people who went to public school have to deal with."
The Non-hipster handbook [100 Dogs]