Bazima retracts her Jonathan Safran Foer sighting ("a case of mistaken identity") and shifts the blame for Bagelgate to another site for putting a "derogatory spin" on the whole thing. Well, I suppose it's possible to consider "the novelist hissed into his cell phone" a completely neutral and non-derogatory description, although I don't think most people would interpret it that way. At any rate, I'll re-report the correction. (The second item still stands, but with regard to the first, Gawker regrets the error: JSF may not technically be an asshole and is only a jerk some of the time.)
My goodness [Bazima]

· Is it a trucker hat? Or is it art?
· The Matrix Reloaded: abridged script [via MeFi]
· Studio 360 on the Dia Beacon (audio)
· Dinner and horseracing

Reader Tim Paul encounters celebrity chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten avec Segway: "Photo taken Saturday night, Broadway at corner of Leonard. Saw him again an hour later on Church Street outside of 66 giving rides and seemingly enjoying the attention of a large crowd of onlookers. I got a ride. Unlike our dufus president, I didn't fall off. Jean-Georges said he got the thing in the mail that day from Amazon.com."

Jean-Georges and Segway [TimNYC Fotolog]

Choire Sicha advises a Manhattan newbie: "Since the legal decision which finally rightly resulted in me being "elected" New York City's President earlier this year, my office has received many a letter of complaint and confusion about my delicious city. In general, I don't answer these. I could care. I'm far too busy cleaning body parts off the skids of Bloomberg's helicopter, doing Guggenheim Museum benefit seating charts since half their staff has been laid off, and settling disputes in the Observer's "newsroom" regarding above-the-fold placements (Martha is out, the new caustic anti-imperialist pseudo-earnestness is in). My job here really is to be the magical helper that makes everything better and funner, and believe me, it's fucking time-consuming. However, your letter is fairly well-written, you sound in dire need, and most importantly, you flatter me, which means you have already learned the first lesson of Manhattan living."
Letter from New York City's President [ChoireSicha]

The poetry of Roger Angell:
RPM
ogetoffmyassgetoffmyassgetoffmyassmisterbigfatlexus
high on latte here on the dewy do we merritt
i'm askin'you wanna play games?
You wanna play the lil game i taught
my poodle name of renoir: rollover and play dead?
looks like it...
rumrum rummedyrum
uhohwasthatyouflashingyourhighbeamatmejustnow?
"The Darien Connecticut def poetry jam" (offline) [New Yorker]

· Damien Hirst, on art he never made because he sobered up: "I was going to have a pig in a freezer covered in vibrators so it looked like a hedgehog. And it was going to be called Pork-U-Pine. And I was thinking there was some great idea there - I never made it, thank God." [Page Six]
· Paris Hilton spotted shouting to near-octogenarian director Robert Evans at a party for Brett Ratner: "You're so sexy Bobby!...Bob, you're so hot right now!" [Page Six]
· Bruce Willis, on Ashton Kutcher: "We hang out. He's a pretty cool guy...I'm happy for anyone who finds romance." [NY Daily News]

· City Hunt scavenger hunts
· "More and more of my evenings seem to be ending up at some stupid little place in Brooklyn." [via 601am]
· Corrections from Jayson Blair's time as editor of his college newspaper
· The Believer's Idea Share [via Kottke]

From Erik Bowie's "Things I Have Learned Since Moving to New York Six Months Ago":
· Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn is a magical street where nobody has to work, yet everyone still has plenty of money for expensive coffee and guitar lessons.
· If a guy with a French accent approaches you and opens with the line: 'Do you like blow jobs?' chances are that later in the conversation he is going to ask you to give him one on the abandoned side street that he has followed you down.
Things I have learned [ReallySmallTalk]

Blogger Jim Treacher, on Dave Eggers' I-Swear-I'm-Not-a-Media-Whore decision to drop his last name from the byline on his next novel, so that it reads "By Dave": "Why doesn't he just change it to 'me'? That's what it's all about, right?"
Dave Eggers [JimTreacher]

· Dick Morris in a "Dear Hillary" letter says Bill Clinton tried to beat him up: "Bill ran after me, tackled me, threw me to the floor of the kitchen in the mansion and cocked his fist back to punch me. You grabbed his arm and, yelling at him to stop and get control of himself, pulled him off me. Then you walked me around the grounds of the mansion with your arm around me, saying, 'He only does that to people he loves.'" [Page Six]
· Harvey Weinstein says Talk failed "because I didn't know [bleep] about magazine publishing." [Page Six]
· Dave Eggers is dropping his last name for his next novel. It will simply read "by Dave." One word celebrities: Madonna, Cher, numerous porn stars and Dave Eggers. [Page Six]
· Renee Zellweger's dating Jack White from the White Stripes. [Page Six]
· Ken Courtney's being threatened by the Strokes' management company for making "I fucked the Strokes t-shirts" [NY Daily News]

· Having lunch [yesterday] at Michael's...Dominick Dunne by himself (waiting on Gore Vidal to arrive perhaps?) and American Idol host Ryan Seacrest. [EdRyan Seacrest at Michael's? Here's a frightening thought: American Idol book deal.]
· Van Morrison last night being escorted through a throng of fans and paparazzi on West 44th St. b/t 7th and 8th and into a waiting black Mercedes Looked surprisingly sober if diminutive. Conversation with tourist: Tourist: Who is that? Me: I think it's Van Morrison. Him: THAT'S Van Morrison??? Me: Yep. Him: That LITTLE guy? Me: Yep. Him: (to me) HO.LY.SHIT. (then, to all of Times Square) THAT'S VAN FUCKEN MORRISON!!!!
· Britney Spears eating at a table outside a restaurant at Sullivan and Spring in SoHo. Dressed like...Britney Spears [if you don't want to get noticed, don't wear your normal uniform of hip huggers and backless top]. Almost tripped and fell in to her when the guys in suits in front of me quickly slowed down to get a good look.

A reader report on last night's Coldplay concert at the China Club: "I thought I'd give you a little precis of the Coldplay Concert at China Club tonight, since their concerts tomorrow and Saturday are big news (ticket requests are burning up Craig's List). It was hosted by PLJ, the New York Post of radio stations (I admit it...I won tickets on-air) and interspersed between songs in their far-too-short set was a Q&A session for random audience members, hosted by dorky DJs Kim Ashley and Race Taylor (who slightly resembles an incipient Eddie Van Halen). The crowd was forewarned that certain areas were off-limits - questions about Gwyneth were strictly verboten (remarkably, the crowd steered clear). One jackass from Rockland County asked if any members of the band had 'had a rusty trombone since they've been in New York'the quick-witted, charming and oh-so cute Chris Martin responded that he'd 'leave that question for The Strokes.' Sadly, Gwyneth was nowhere in sight, and, after far too much boneheaded crowd participation and far too few songs (including 'In My Place' 'Yellow' and 'Clocks'), neither was Coldplay."

Blogger Choire Sicha has written an apology I'm hereby re-appropriating for occasional use on Gawker: "It has been brought to our attention that a week has passed with no breezily nasty stories about A) cabdrivers, B) smoking, C) stupid people in Manhattan, D) how awful Brooklyn is, and E) bad yoga experiences. We apologize for our topical deviations and promise A Return to Tradition next week (isn't it sweeps soon?). Frankly, we have been upset about new plotlines in the Martha/Rumsfeld/Hillary constructs of the military entertainment industrial complex this last week. We have been made extremely ill by it. Also, obviously, we are afloat in an extreme delightful romantic obsession. Also, Susan Sarandon nearly ran us down in her SUV yesterday (SUV = WWIII), topping off a truly surreal week...Next week: more shallow for you. Pinkie swear."
Pledge to our customers [Choire Sicha]

From WENN: "Rap mogul Sean 'P Diddy' Combs claims he started today's trend of celebrities dating each other...The Bad Boy boss, currently dating on-off belle Kim Porter, says, 'The new trend of dating another celebrity - I basically started that. Right now in Hollywood, what it's about is which celebrity's dating which celebrity.'" Note to Mr. Diddy: if you're going to make asinine claims, say you invented the Internet, or the polio vaccine, or Gore-tex. Taking credit for celebrity dating is like taking credit for famine in North Africa, Henry Kissinger, and every movie the Olsen twins have ever made.
I started celebrity dating trend [WENN]

Speaking of the Clintons...from the Washingtonian: "The Harlem denizen [Bill Clinton] has near-rock-star status in New York, and he chafes every day that he s not in the spotlight. With his wife plotting a run for president in 2008, friends of Bill say the prospect of his wife s upstaging him is almost too much to bear. Bill Clinton, they say, has decided to run against Bloomberg. Being mayor of New York is considered by some easterners the second-best job after being president."
Hizzoner the Prez [Washintonian]

Jeff Jarvis reports that someone claiming to be a copyeditor at Simon & Schuster called the Howard Stern Show this morning and said he had a few pages that were cut from Hillary Clinton's book. "Hillary says that the night after Bill revealed his indiscretion, she did some soul-searching. She wondered whether her coldness drove him to find sex elsewhere. She wonders whether her life in politics made her less approachable. While her husband was in the study reading, she says here, she got another of Monica's dresses that Clinton had and a black wig that Chelsea had for a costume party and when Bill came into their bedroom she said, 'I'm your new intern.' And they had great sex." I don't buy it. If the "copyeditor" was reading from a page where she beat the shit out of Bill and screamed, "If you ever do that again, I'll fucking kill you!" then I might buy it. Hillary just isn't the maybe-it's-my-fault-my-husband-cheated type.
Hillary: the missing page [Buzzmachine]

· Mariah Carey, lunching this afternoon at Cafeteria on Seventh avenue between 17th and 18th. Her look: big cleavage, bigger hair. Her table-mate: a pinched looking older woman of the Anna Wintour variety (aunt? "handler"? psychotherapist? personal shopper?).
· Seen outside [the westbeth cafe] tonight, surrounded by a large group, Famke Janssen, sporting some funky dreads. seen inside dining together tonight: James Van Der Beek, his soon to be mrs. van der beek, Heather McComb, and his tv mom Mary-Margaret Humes. Also seen outside the westbank this afternoon: Julianna Margulies hopping on her bike, no helmet, hair in a ballcap, trying to balance her latte on her handlebars.
· Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal attended Tuesday evening's performance of Long Day's Journey Into Night. They're both impossibly cute and seemed friendly, signing autographs for those who asked. My friend also spotted Anne Hathaway milling around before the performance.

From Craig's List: "I need a top quality hipster-the hippest of the hip!
I am a grad student doing research on the gentrification of Williamsburg... I need a male...between 24-32 for an interview. If you think you can talk to me about "hipster culture" (if there is such a thing) AND why the artists went to Williamsburg...I would much appreciate it."
Top of the line Williamsburg hipster/artist needed for study [Craig's List via TheModernAge]

· 50 best magazines [via 601am]
· An oldie, but a goodie
· Bernie Goetz for mayor. Again.
· La Boheme goes bust