A tipster tells us that Mass Appeal, the Brooklyn-based hipsterish hip hop/ graffiti culture magazine, has folded. Editors and designers were laid off last week, and no more issues will be forthcoming, the tipster says. It's not known whether the mag will seek a buyer, or how its sister title MissBehave will be affected. If you have any information, email us. Sucks, if true—Mass Appeal was a quality rag. And to think that Cat Fancy soldiers on unscathed. What kind of world do we live in?

Hiding in Hip Hop, entertainment industry vet Terrance Dean's coy tell-all book about the gay secrets of famous people in the music world and Hollywood at large, has not exhausted all of its blind items. Not by a long shot. And I was forced to read (a large portion of) this book, so I plan to bring these gay celebrity blind items to you, the curious masses. Today: the lesbians! And at least one is very obvious:

A Grand Theft Auto obsessive has matched up vistas from the hit Rockstar videogame with the real New York City. Here's the Conde Nast skyscraper in Times Square (at left) compared with the equivalent tower in Liberty City's 'Star Junction' (at right). Any GTA fans want to create mayhem in the magazine group's lobby, mow down a few Vogue interns, and send us a videograb of the results? [Matthew Johnston's Flickr page]

"Or 'pregame,' that's one that hasn't been around that long. It means to start drinking before drinking. And you know, they have sausagefests. That's a party with a lot of males." [NYP]

Scarlett Johansson's *ahem* long-awaited Tom Waits cover album "Anywhere I Lay My Head" is hitting stores a week from today. But in order to demonstrate to your circle of friends that you are ahead of the curve when it comes to blonde starlets and their ego-driven vanity music projects, you can check out her album now on the social network imeem.com (she's "online now!"). It's more targeted than putting it out on laughably polluted Myspace, so from an online marketing perspective, it's a fair deal for ScarJo, and an even better deal for iMeem. But from the perspective of a Tom Waits fan, it's tragic. "I Don't Want To Grow Up" redone as a droning plinky synth-pop song? We're not friends any more. If all goes well technically, her playlist is embedded after the jump. Good credibility-builder for iMeem. Bad for ears:

Well. The Times sent some poor stringer to ask about salmon diseases at some port in Chile. Fun gig! One can understand why he was maybe inclined to get his interviews done and get the hell out. Fish smells gross! Still, he might've wanted to ask around a bit more after his interview with the "port director." He might've learned that that guy was, in fact, the security guard. "Had The Times been aware of his actual position at the time, it would not have cited him as an authority on the contents of the bags, which were labeled medicated food." Well heck, why didn't the Times just say "the port director might've said" and saved themselves the trouble of getting that pretend expert opinion? Text of the correction below.

How popular are menthol cigarettes? Popular enough to reverse logic. The government is set to pass a bill that will ban "flavored" cigarettes, but menthols will be excluded. Because menthol, of course, is not a flavor. What menthol is is close to $20 billion in sales for the tobacco industry. As well as an important part of African-American culture! Tobacco companies advertise menthol brands disproportionately to minority communities, and it obviously works, although nobody really knows why. What we do know is that this bill is perfect—it protects my precious Kools, while saving America from the strawberry menace:

By the end of last week things looked pretty dark in the world of Project Runway. Even setting aside the show's imminent move to Lifetime, the lawsuit between producer Weinstein Co. and former host network Bravo and the defection of Runway's executive producers, there were also alarming reports about Marie Claire maybe partnering with the show and judge Nina Garcia leaving Elle and possibly Runway itself. None of that has yet come to pass, and Women's Wear Daily informs everyone today that it's because Garcia is still negotiating with both Elle and Runway and because neither Elle nor sad Marie Claire have even started negotiations with Runway yet. WWD also reminds everyone that as bad as Elle is, at least the magazine is growing its circulation, while Marie Claire's circ dropped nearly 60,000 copies to 341,000 last year, so maybe the magazine is being used as a pawn by both Elle (in negotiations with Weinstein Co.) and Garcia (in negotiations with Elle). When you throw in the possibility of Bravo developing its own Runway imitation, there are some real opportunities here for groundbreaking research by ambitious game theorists. [WWD]

"Though The Wolfman will have a first print run of 9,000 copies, Tor Books has already had a number of inquiries from film and television producers about adapting the novel. Among those praising the book are two of Mr. Pekearo's literary heroes: Andrew Vachss, who calls the book a 'brilliant, insightful, overpowering debut,' and Joe R. Lansdale, who says the novel gives the werewolf motif 'a fresh coat of fur and new sheen on its very sharp teeth.'" [Times]

Having bought Newsday for $650 million, Cablevision executives, who pretty much suck at making money on anything that's not a cable system, are now interested in maybe having an actual newspaper company print, distribute and sell advertising into the tabloid. A printing deal with Post owner News Corp. or Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman would make eminent financial sense, since Newsday has an outdated printing plant and both the Daily News and Post stand to cut their own printing costs if they can sign up the Long Island newspaper as a customer. And cross-selling ads could drum up some extra revenue. But if Cablevision were to do a comprehensive deal covering pretty much all business-side operations, it would beg the question, why did Cablevision buy Newsday in the first place? Were the cross-selling opportunities between cable, internet and the newspaper really worth an $80 million premium over bids from News Corp. and Zuckerman? Prediction: Whichever media company ends up doing this deal with Cablevision, and one of them will, is going to end up owning the newspaper in a few years when Cablevision's high expectations are deflated. [Times]

Though Bloomberg News' decision to hire former Time Inc. Editor-in-Chief Norman Pearlstine is probably bad news for the news wire's tyrant editor, Matthew Winkler, it seems likely to open up opportunities for recently-installed Bloomberg executive Dan Doctoroff, a former Lehman Brothers dealmaker. The Times sees hints Bloomberg is getting ready to make some acquisitions:

Exploring, perhaps, her inner Bill O'Reilly, WNBC news anchor Sue Simmons turned what should have been a straightforward promo for the evening news into an angry cuss-out of one of her co-workers. And Simmons' cursing made it onto the air, unlike Fox News anchor O'Reilly's recently-publicized meltdown. We've received several emails from viewers who caught the cursing during a break in the season finale for NBC drama Medium, and now there's video, posted after the jump. UPDATE: And Simmons has now apologized for scandalizing the entire city of New York with the f-word. UPDATE2: Since these things come in threes I'm now waiting for Anderson Cooper to have a meltdown involving lack of skin moisturizer or something.

An emailer: "15 people are to be let go at Fortune mag; about 8 through buyouts." Also, "[Money executive editor] Craig Matters left to run Fortune.com, the two deputy MEs were promoted to co-ExecEd's (yes, that is a bit bizarre and not so workable) and the photo editor Jane Clark was fired Friday. Mg. Ed. Eric Schurenberg also just lost superstar Jason Zweig and another editor (Cybele Weisser) to the WSJ. Craig was in charge of the Best Places to Live uber-franchise and many writers at the mag have said they'd bolt if Craig left." Folio confirms all this besides the Jane Clark firing. Anyone else have more details?

Suge Knight, CEO of Death Row Records, intimidating former football player, and certified gangster, somehow got himself knocked out at a club on Saturday night. Odd! Even odder: the guy who did the knocking allowed TMZ to take his picture, although "he didn't want us to use his name." Message to that guy: Run, you fool! Run for your life! Message to Suge Knight: we are on your side in this and all other disputes, and don't let anyone tell you any differently. But seriously, Mr. Punchy: Run. Below, two pictures of Suge Knight laid out unconscious, which should not be construed as disrespectful to him in any way:

PC World editor-in-chief Harry McCracken is leaving the magazine next month to work on his own technology website which, to our relief, he does not describe as a "blog." [Folio]

The Observer covered NBC's press conference anointing never-funny (but cute!) former SNLer Jimmy Fallon the new king of late-late night. They included this anecdote: "Mr. Fallon claimed his kindergarten yearbook featured his photo above the caption 'Most Likely to Take Over David Letterman.' (Someone in the crowd, possibly auditioning to be Mr. Fallon's sidekick, let out an audible 'Wow' at this point.) When asked what kindergarten had yearbooks, much less ones with references to David Letterman, Mr. Fallon joked, 'It's a magical kindergarten. It's taught by a unicorn, a talking unicorn.'" See? He's doing some of that funny joking-around stuff the late-night comics do. But no one told the Associated Press, as you can see in the attached story. [NYO, AP]

The internet has given us so many things, among them jargon which can dress up any brutal corporate maneuver in bland and progressive-sounding language. When Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation decided to seize full control of the Wall Street Journal, the Australian media mogul's chief lieutenant took the title of head of content, reducing the role of managing editor to a cipher and sidestepping the rules intended to protect the editorial independence of the newspaper. And now the new management at Bloomberg's financial information company has played the same trick on the bow-tied tyrant who rules over wire service's newsroom like a dapper Stalin, Matthew Winkler.

Yesterday, I finally received my advance copy of Hiding in Hip Hop, former closeted entertainment industry gadfly (pictured) Terrance Dean's much-hyped autobiography about all of the gays that are, well, hiding in hip hop. I've read about half of it so far. Dean has already proven himself eager to trot out blind items about male celebrities he says he's hooked up with, and the book doesn't disappoint in that regard. Today, an overview of what the book is and isn't, and then some of what you've been waiting for: three TV actors, a famous rapper, and a "megastar," anonymously outed.

We hear that People magazine paid around $2 million (if not more) for the recent wedding pictures of Barbie-like singer Mariah Carey and younger actor Nick Cannon. People triumphed in a bidding war with OK!. This surely rates as one of the biggest paydays of Cannon's career, if not his wife's. And that figure would make their photos even pricier than the baby pictures of Nicole Richie and Christina Aguilera, though only half as valuable as Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's baby shots of Shiloh. Does Mariah still move that many magazines?