With only five party-planning days left 'til Hollywood Christmas, there is still so very much to be done to ensure the ensuing after-parties are sufficiently grossly overdone and insensitive to much of everything else going on in the world. To the rescue comes Oscar fete-giver non-pareil Elton John, who will be throwing out every stop short of a solid Godiva climbing-wall erupting in nougat on the half-hour to siphon A-list guests away from his arch Oscar party rival, the Vanity Fair shindig:

Ohmahgaw — the Oscars are next weekend! Are you not, like, so excited? We can't wait to get together with our girlfriends and watch E! for 14 hours straight before the big event. And even though we don't stand a dog's chance in Chinatown of getting in, we're especially excited for Vanity Fair's post-party, where only the cream of Hollywood's most fuckable crop are allowed entry.

We have no idea where to begin with this picture of blowfish Graydon, the always-scary Donatella, and Mrs. Graydon, who is clearly wondering what the hell she got herself into. Got a good caption? Email it to tips@gawker.com by the end of the day and, if yours is best, win lots of Gawky love. And maybe a spare VF we've got lying around, if you want it.

The first sentence from Graydon Carter's editor's letter, in the latest Vanity Fair:

In his editor's note on Vanity Fair's annual, disappointing Hollywood reacharound, Graydon Carter recounts a testy run-in with this year's lock for Best Actor:

• Never underestimate the power of a hairdresser. Says one with plenty of celebrity clients, "I have this one client, and I gave her an ultimatum...You have to leave him if he's not going to marry you. You're 43, and you've got to get out. You can't accept this. You're beautiful.'" Innneresting. Did Lance refuse to set a date? [NYT]
• Funny that Dave Itzkoff wrote the New York piece on James Frey's editor, Sean McDonald, considering some have called foul on the accuracy of Itzkoff's own memoir. A sympathetic ear always makes for a great interview. [VV]
• A Paris Hilton impersonator crashes Fashion Week, caught on video. It's funny until you watch the clip of the impersonator talking about her job as a Fake Paris — her voice is as monotone and scarily deep as the real thing. [TMZ]
• An open letter to Graydon Carter. [Open Web Letter]
• Natasha Lyonne's father insists that she's not homeless, but rather very wealthy. Sure, but that doesn't address the crackhead problem. [Handbag]

• Colin Farrell and Playmate Nicole Narain have successfully shut down dirtycolin.com, the site that was offering the duo's sex tape for $14.95. Obviously, if Narain is to get her well-deserved cut of the profits, we should be paying no less than $24.99 for a look. [R&M]
• We're not upset that Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter has an SUV. We are, however, positively dismayed to learn that it bears a bumper sticker. What is this, fucking Great Neck? [Page Six]
• Howard Stern's offspring, Emily, is now suing the Jewish Theater of New York regarding their use of her photos to promote Kabbalah — the play which she dropped out of after her father expressed concerns about her appearing naked. Really, her hissy fit is the best promotion any theater could by. [Lowdown]
• At the funeral for her adopted mother, Naomi Campbell was so dismayed by the mortician's makeup job that she wiped it all off and redid the woman's makeup herself. Interesting way to show your softer side. [Page Six]
• Magalogue Shop Etc. brings REAL LIVE BOOBIES to the Today show. [MSNBC]

We provide you with all the important information — Anna Wintour is to lunch at Balthazar today, and the restaurant has found her a shrubbery so as to provide the requisite privacy — and we make a simple request, that one of you snap a quick picture. Our demands weren't tough. We didn't need a Liebovitzian production; there was no need for assistants or glamorous lighting or even makeup artists. Any old cameraphone thing would have done, which, we thought, made the challenge easy enough.

• For just $6250, you can breathe the same air as Tom Cruise tonight at the Tribeca Rooftop, where the actor will be raising money for the Church of Scientology's New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project. Buy a ticket and watch him take your Zoloft away. [Page Six]
• There will not be a Britney Spears/Kevin Federline sex tape, which should help you sleep a little more soundly tonight. [R&M (3rd item)]
• Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter will be investing in a new restaurant occupying Ye Waverly Inn's old space on Bank Street. We're sure Jean-Georges Vongerichten is just terrified. [Page Six]
• Proving that he is the ultimate bastard, Apprentice 2 contestant Raj Bhaktabowtie steals a cab from a woman waiting in the cold. [Lowdown]
• Bob Dylan gets his own show on XM satellite radio. As if you'll be able to understand a word of it. [NME]

In the mailbag:

The charming guttersnipes at Yankee Pot Roast present an excellent peek at an editor's letter from Vanity Fair's chief chimney Graydon Carter, surely stolen from an advance copy of an upcoming issue:

The matronly maned Graydon Carter is receiving all kinds of backslaps and ass-grabbery for shepherding the biggest scoop of all ... well, this week anyway, in between hundreds of ad pages with pictures of people with no cheeks. But, as it turns out, when the proverbial dung was hitting the proverbial air percolator, Graydon was in a plane on the way back from his honeymoon.

Radar has the details on Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter's much-anticipated walk down the aisle (is Michael Wolff invited?), and they're gladly giving out the info. Just be careful; we hear encouraging people to crash a private party can cause quite a mess.

Graydon Carter's inner monologue: "I just don't get how those Amazon sales rankings work. It doesn't make sense. It can't be right."

Graydon Carter remembers the late Time & Life editor-in-chief, Henry Grunwald:

We cannot in any form attest to the veracity of the above screen grab, sent to us by a reader performing a ritual cleaning of his inbox. We can, however, attest to its hilarity. As the story goes, said reader sent an email to Mr. Carter suggesting that he change his Vanity Fair photograph to something more handsome or whatnot. In turn, he supposedly received this kind response from the big G-C.

Coming soon to Plum TV: Trophy Wife Swap!

We'd mostly forgotten about Toby Young, the British writer who managed to turn his coffee break at Vanity Fair into a cottage industry replete with book, movie deal, and status as the go-to commentator whenever Graydon Carter so much as burps the wrong way.

I haven't seen the next issue of Vanity Fair, but I'm told that the editor's letter includes a technicolor picture of a smiling Graydon Carter. The war must be over!

In How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, Toby Young recounts, charmingly, his naive pitches to Graydon Carter of Vanity Fair. The British journalist wrote: "These suggestons were hopelessly naive, the equivalent of an American pitching an article to a British editor about this fascinating new toy store he'd discovered called Hamley's." We'd thought the author was merely self-deprecating, until this article in London's Evening Standard, comparing the city with New York. According to Toby Young, New York's hot neighborhood is Park Slope, the nightclub is APT, and Nobu is the restaurant. TY should reread his book. "I'd have to come up with something a lot better than that if it was to stand a chance of getting into Vanity Fair."

Battle of the cities [Evening Standard]