• The Onion Diet: Move to New York, eat sushi, slim down. [NYT]
• Sez Dumenco: Magazines will soon start to die, too, and Anna Wintour will lose her Town Car, and it's all Lucky's fault. Of course, he says it with words like "transactionality." [Ad Age]
• WSJ discovers people. [WSJ]
• Jack Shafer says newspapers better give him what he wants, or else they're just gonna wither and die. [Slate]
• Joel Stein, says Jon Friedman, is just like Oprah Winfrey. But, you know, poorer and whiter and Jewier. [MW]
• Journo types who drink tab: David Edelstein, Steve Brill, David Bradley, and Danny Goldberg. Now you know. [New Yorker]
• Layoffs at Blender. [WWD (second item)]
• Journalism needs to more money and time from owners, more facts, more international coverage, and more tough questions, says Dan Rather. Also, it would very much like a pony for its birthday. [LAT]
• If CW — the WB-UPN amalgam — works, a CNN-CBS News merger could finally happen. [Mediaweek]

Meet Skin Deep, a terrifying magazine devoted to self-improvement and preservation through the miracles of modern technology. Given its mission to "educate readers about the fascinating, everchanging world of cosmetic plastic surgery, skin care, anti-aging and health and medicine," Carol Alt makes a perfect covergirl (she's clearly well-stitched). Surprisingly, the magazine is not running as an insert in Vogue — it'll be skanking up newsstands all by itself on January 26.

There's a lot going on in the January issue of Lucky — including a rather large spread on lam that appears to be entirely serious. But what we always enjoy are the random-ass stories beauty editor Jean Godfrey-June comes up with to plug various products in her column. This month she shills for D.L. & Co's Rare Botanic Candle in Oleander. But first, Jean — who is also, it turns out, a mudcake enthusiast - admits to nearly murdering her friends as a child.

Conde Nast is a notoriously political and opaque organization, and the seating plan at Si Newhouse's Christmas lunch is one of the few ways to work out which magazines are in favor. At the top tables: David Remnick of the New Yorker, Graydon Carter of Vanity Fair, Alexandra Golonkin of Lucky, and Linda Wells of Allure. Tom Florio, publisher of Vogue, and Walter Anderson, president of Parade Publications, were further from the power seats. Am I really writing this?
Si's power luncheon [New York Post]