Meghan O'Rourke is having a moment. Her first book of poems, recently published, snagged a coveted full-page review—a rave!—in the Times Book Review. She is the culture editor of Slate. She's in the midst of planning her wedding to New Yorker staff writer James Surowiecki. It's a happy time for Meghan. But while this successful 30ish lady has her share of admirers, she also has her share of critics. An anonymous emailer sums up his concerns like so:

We've partied with them and noted their ad policies, but what is it actually like to work at Vice? Their interns, apparently, are not a walk in the park. For an upcoming issue, the contents of the famed "Gross Jar"—reportedly filled with shit, blood, cum, dead squirrels, what have you—were emptied and made into tie-dyed T-shirts, and subsequently given to the interns. And they wore them! Dumbasses. Apparently they're also given to saying dumb shit like, "I'm not religiously Buddhist, but i try to practice Buddhism in my life." Uh, okay.

It's always surprised naive little us how easily certifiable krazies seem to thrive in book publishing. Sure, everyone knows about Judith Regan, thanks to Vanessa Grigoriadis, Vanity Fair, gossipy hyperventilating, and a certain hot off the presses roman a clef (not to mention, uh, Judith Regan). But what of publishing's lesser tyrants, snakes, and weirdos? To our mind, they're woefully underreported on (maybe because of lawyers, or some sad bookish omerta). Well, we're here to rectify that, and we're starting with a lady who recently accused us of being "people who have absolutely no inkling who [she is]." She was right, unfortunately: we didn't know nearly enough about the woman who Page Six recently called the new Judith Regan. So we set out to rectify the situation. After the jump, we share our findings with you.

Overheard in front of the Prince St. Intermix around lunchtime today:
(Yappy blonde in Uggs, to her friend): "So will someone please tell me where Williamsburg is?"

Yesterday, after we referred to man-about-town/Genevieve Jones arm candy Derek Blasberg as a "writer" as we wondered, for the millionth time, whether he was behind Socialite Rank, we were greeted by some righteous indignation from one of his hometown homies, a classmate of the 24-year-old Blasberg's from his days at Affton High School in St. Louis. This classmate informed us that Derek should actually be referred to as a bona-fide writer—no quotes necessary!—because of some stuff he's written for Russian Vogue and the Sunday Times of London. Okay, point taken. He's a writer, not a "writer"! But the email piqued our interest in other ways. How did this pretty boy from St. Louis weasel and wangle his way into the hearts of the Tinz and the photos of Patrick McMullan? Is Derek Blasberg the Truman Capote to Genevieve Jones' Holly Golightly? Our overly detailed conclusions after the jump.

If you're looking to carve out a slice of media pie for yourself, it helps to enter the game already blonde, tall, attractive, and rich. French Canadian ... well, that's got its ups and downs. Meelionaire art-cult entrepreneur Louise T. MacBain runs LTB Group, which holds in its portfolio Art +Auction, Modern Painter, and the website artinfo.net among other properties. She operates various cultural foundations and sits on numerous corporate and institutional boards. Most recently, she launched Culture & Travel magazine, hiring former Conde Nast potentate James Truman to run the ship; trouble is, he almost immediately jumped ship, "inspiring" MacBain to actually come visit his vacant New York office from her digs in London. But if there's anyone more snobby than media snobs, it's art media snobs, and MacBain pretty much gets it from all sides no matter how much of her copious cash she throws around.

You probably can't afford it, but the re-opening of the Russian Tea Room earlier this month caused the predictable swooning among the city's gilded set. You know, the set that enjoys eating in dining rooms with oil paintings on the walls and red—lots of red—everywhere. The set that'll pay an astronomical amount for borscht. Borscht! Oh, if Stalin could only see it now ...

I was sort of annoyed that the New York Times didn't interview me ... I'm sort of surprised no news producers have called me yet.

A couple of years ago, I was looking around at everyone (celebrities) in a room and thinking: "You all are morally bankrupt and insane."

One of these men just found out he's dead, and it's not the one you'd think from the photo. Tom Freston (left), the former president and CEO of Viacom — and one of the founding forces of MTV and all its associated cash cows — got his walking papers this weekend from principle shareholding nosferatu Sumner Redstone (right). Sure, the official line from Viacom has Freston resigning rather than getting ankled, though they don't even bother with the politely thin pretense of "to pursue other opportunities." After Redstone split Viacom and its host of entertainment subsidiaries (MTV, Paramount, etc.) away from CBS, Freston was put in charge of Viacom, with mogul Les Moonves heading up CBS. This precipitated a bizarrely sourceless, ongoing spat between Moonves and Freston, seeming to originate purely in Moonves's egomania and rumored lust for Paramount. Was it this rivalry that led to Freston's defenestration, or something else? Something ... stupider?

In the accompanying photo, observe journalist, author, and verbal pugilist Ian Spiegelman in 2003, making doe eyes at publicist Katie MacIntosh, while the visage of Radar editor Maer Roshan lurks in the background. Spiegelman looks so cheerful! He's positively beaming. Why, then, is he so shovey of late? Poor Toby Young got his book party upstaged by Spiegelman's antics, which is ironic considering Young's own unfunny staged play-beating. All that aside, what do you need to know about Ian Spiegelman, should you spot him in the wild? More than you would ever care to learn, and then some, after the jump.

So Adbrite took Philip "Fucked Company" Kaplan out of the CEO seat and renamed him "Chief Product Executive." CEOs never die, they just get made chairman. A veteran Valley journo filled Valleywag in on the favorite titles for CEOs put out to pasture: