The Post's Jared Paul Stern comments on the Independent's report that London is more expensive than New York: "But nor are [celebrities] dying to move to London, where nightlife still lags far behind no matter what they charge over there for a taxi ride these days. There's no distinction in being the most expensive city if it's still as dull as wet socks. This has always been the main reason there are so many of the Queen's subjects in Manhattan, and the British invasion is only bound to deepen now. But if they think it'd help, we'd be more than willing to ship the Hilton sisters across the pond for a spell." We offered celebrities to Toronto a month ago. They wouldn't take them, but Europeans seem more gullible (See Hasselhoff, David).
Apple's a bargain: if you stay home [NY Post]

Wired reports on Tuesday's trucker-hat facilitated mob activity: "About 200 people then proceeded to Macy's. They rode the escalators to the ninth floor rug department, where they gathered around a large carpet on display. 'We were told to say we all lived together in a big old warehouse in the suburbs,' said Jenni Valton, a participant. 'We all explained to the salesman that we were looking for a love rug to play on, and that we only make purchases as a group.' After discussing the merits and drawbacks of the selected carpet for 10 minutes, the mob dispersed.'" (I'm told that the people behind the mob are from Harper's, McSweeney's, and Tinkle. Media people and writers. Figures.)
E-mail mob takes Manhattan [Wired]

A reader points out that if one were to implant a GPS device, Bobby "I used to be Vietnamese. Now I am a white woman" Trendy probably wouldn't notice. From an interview last year with the Observer's Simon Doonan: "'I like to get fucked everyday, and I don t care who does it,' he told me, quaffing champagne directly from the bottle. 'They can be in a wheelchair or a strollerI don't care. I don t even bother to look over my shoulder and see who is doing it. I wouldn't want to strain my neck.'"
Meet the soul of Anna Nicole [Observer]

NY Press founder Russ "Mugger" Smith suggests in today's WSJ that someone start a magazine filled with obituaries. "An immediate concern of publishers would be that such a magazine would skew too old, missing the 18-44 demographic that advertisers desire," Smith says. "But as People has demonstrated with its combination of Hollywood, human interest stories, personal essays and coverage of baking contests and spelling bees, Obituary could appeal to anyone who can read." To which I responded, "HA HA HA HA HOh, wait. He's being serious."
UPDATE: Jeff Jarvis writes: "I was at People magazine when they discovered the value of death. Once was, they would never put a dead person on the cover. But then John Lennon died and the issue sold through the roof of heaven. Pretty soon, there were so many corpses on the cover of peoplewith the likes of Karen Carpenter and Rock Hudson finding their comebacks only when they couldn't come backthat I said we should change the logo and start calling it Dead People."
Grim reader: let's have obituary magazine [WSJ]

LA "designer" Bobby Trendy (shown, right, with one of his more famous clients. Or possibly his only famous client) has been spotted yet again. Last night at Beigemarking, perhaps, the beginning of the end for Beige. If multiple Bobby Trendy sightings scare you, well, they should. What will LA send us next? I shudder to think. In the meantime, I would suggest that a willing volunteer find an opportunity to affix a GPS device to Mr. Trendy so that he can be tracked, and then, when the time is right, captured. We will then have him taken to Soho House where we will sneak him into the bar and then watch the place self-evacuate as members flee the building screaming, "C-list! C-list!" (If New York must have Bobby Trendy, we will use him for good, and not evil.)

Choire Sicha is offering himself as a date (to take place at Soho House) to raise money for artists with AIDS. [B.Y.O.B.Bring Your Own Blow.] In addition, he suggests that you "come on down to the B-Bar this Wednesday between 6 p.m. and 1 a.m., you can get your hair did by fancy fancy hairdoers for only $40.00, all of which goes to charity. First come first serve, so remember, the entire Conde Nast cafeteria will decamp to the Bowery that night; don't forget your scratch-proof face guards."
Date me and get your hair cut for charity [ChoireSicha]

· Sessa nightclub owner Stratis Morfogen was arrested Saturday and taken away in handcuffs for failing to pay a three-year-old speeding ticket. [NY Daily News]
· Mothers, hide your sons. Mariah Carey's on the prowl for a new boyfriend. [Page Six]
· Bill Clinton says total strangers are approaching him and asking to see his hands after Hillary wrote that they were what first attracted her. He adds that he's not running for mayor. [Page Six]
· Ah, those crazy Wall Street kids! "A floor broker at the New York Stock Exchange, Arthur Gross, was fined $1,000 yesterday after he sneaked comedian Gallagher onto the trading floor. Gallagher proceeded to pull a large chunk of watermelon from his pocket and then smash it over the head of another trader, Peter Tuchman, an unsuspecting victim in the prank, an insider said." [Page Six]

This is gonna break Lockhart Steele's little Lower East Side heart: the NYT's William Grimes gave WD-50 two stars. He pulls the old trick everyone does when dragged by enthusiastic friends to bad performance art, mediocre indie films, and forced to read excruciating awful books: "I thought it was, um, interesting. Preserved-lemon gnocchi? Iiiinteresting. The "terrine, a neat rectangle of firm, creamy chilled foie gras topped with anchovy fillets, like some satanic pastry"? Iiiinteresting. [Ed. noteanother good name for a Williamsburg electroclash band: the Satanic Pastries.] Flattened Stellar Bay oysters? Iiiinteresting. Two stars? Ooooh, not so interesting.
Chef's second course is food for thought [NYT]

· I was talking to Bobby Trendy at the after-party he hosted at Centro Fly for Cher (who didn't show), and told him my ex-boyfriend was obsessed with him and had ordered an "I Fucked Bobby Trendy" shirt from Just Another Rich Kid. Bobby ran his hand down my back and said, "maybe I can do you both at the same time." Swoon!
· Back in 2001, when everyone was all fragile and loving-their-fellow-man after 9/11. a friend of mine was working on the vh1/vogue fashion awards. To act as a symbol of overcoming tragedy and the will to survive, they were going to have Nicky Taylor give an award. Anna's response to having Nicky associated with anything Vogue: " Over my dead body..."
· Saw Nicole Kidman in the Mercer Kitchen (where else) on Friday. She was eating downstairs in a corner but came upstairs after. Walking through the bar, she looked around to see who was looking and smiled to herself if she caught anyone's eye. Really!

If any of you felt compelled to read Jonathan Franzen's story, "High School Pranks," in this week's New Yorker, but just couldn't get through it, the Observer helpfully offers the Cliff's Notes version. "The comments below should stand up just fine for purposes of literary cocktail-party chatter, or even if you suddenly find yourself mushed up against The Author himself on the No. 6 train and you want to brighten his day by telling him how much you enjoyed his essay in The New Yorker." You don't have to read the New Yorker article, because the Observer has summarized it for you.
New Yorker Cliff's Notes [Observer]

A couple of people emailed about a post at another blog that I'd never seen before called "What fell out of Bunsen's head." Mr. Bunsen and I are apparently on some freakishly similar celebrity-obsessed mental plane. Proof: check out Bunsen's "one year anniversary" post: (Look familiar?)

· Photoshop Martha's new digs
· New York roads, crossings, and exits [via Muxway]
· The ecopsychology of The Sopranos [via MeFi]

Twisted pseudo-poetry from Craig's List:
If I won the Mega Millions
I would buy Paris Hilton.
I would make her wear a tight leather suit, and I'd keep her chained up in my closet.
Whenever anything or anyone pissed me off, I'd take it out on her rich little hieney.
And, of course, I'd take pictures and let Gawker and Project Hilton battle it out for publishing rights.
For the record, Gawker has never condoned cruelty to hotel heiresses, regardless of the degree to which they annoy the general public. Should Paris Hilton be found chained in a closet wearing a suit of leather, we are not responsible.
If I won the Mega Millions [Craig's List]

[Willfully ignoring the fact that it's 60 degrees outside right now when it should probably be 80] Summer comes to the Ludlow and Rivington!

London has now topped New York as the most expensive city in the Western world. I'm tempted to say, "and what do you get for that? A bloody lot of shit weather," but until last week, it felt like New York had imported the cold wet misery straight from the channel. (Not that London doesn't suck for other reasonsi.e., bars that close early, indigenous Eurotrash infestations...) But New York is still the second-most expensive city in the world, although correspondent David Usborne notes that there are ways to save money: "Going to a restaurant in the evening constitutes a serious financial outlay. Unless, of course, you can find an ethnic gem all the way out in Queens." Blech. Queens. That's almost worse than London.
Cost of living higher in London than in New York [Independent]

· Ex-club king Peter Gatien and his daughter Jennifer are planning a movie about their experiences in clubland. [Page Six]
· Woody Harrelson assumes the mayor's smoking ban doesn't apply to pot. [Page Six]
· Joey Buttafuoco, ("whose ex-wife, Mary Jo, was shot in the face in 1992 by his mistress, Amy Fisher, then 17") on a potential pay-per-view fight between him and OJ Simpson: "I'm definitely in the fight," "It's going to be huge. He wants it and I want it." [NY Daily News]

The McSweeney's people report that Dave Eggers is not, contrary to Page Six reports, dropping his last name for the byline of his next book. (Nor is he changing it from "by Dave Eggers" to "by ME.") The source of the confusion: "We have since discerned that some catalogs put out by Vintage, the book's paperback publisher, featured a mockup book jacket that was somehow missing the author's last name. This was a production mistake, and one that was quickly corrected."
A correction about this first-name-only Dave Eggers business [McSweeney's]

Today is Gawker's six month anniversary. Here's what we've contributed to your further intellectual degeneration:
· 89 posts mentioning Tina Brown
· 64 posts mentioning Anna Wintour
· 52 posts mentioning Jayson Blair
· One legal threat from Puma
· One legal threat from Catherine Zeta Jones
· Catherine Zeta Jones naked, pregnant, and smoking. (We realize that this one may technically constitute "reader abuse.")
· Zeta Jones as a verb
· 16 posts mentioning trucker hats
· 119 posts containing the word "fuck"
· 7 posts containing the word "snarky" (Only 7?)
· An article on the quest for the perfect coke dealer

Or possibly to drum up business certain NYC bars:

· I saw Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart walking arm in arm down Seventh Avenue at 17th Street [Friday] at 12:45 p.m. She had a black baseball hat on with messy hair. He was talking loudly in his very recognizable voice.
· [Thursday night] My intern saw Chloe Sevigny getting very drunk and making out with her boyfriend at Apt. Ms. S. had an ugly low hanging dress on. (My intern does not think the make-outee was Vincent Gallo, but whoever it was had mini-braids in his hair.) (Also, my intern is 18 and may not know who Vincent Gallo is.)
· On Tuesday 10 June I saw Eddie Falco and Stanley Tucci having dinner at La Ripaille on Hudson Street. The were sitting at a table on the sidewalk and people were coming up to them (friends or fans?). They appeared to be gracious.