25-year-old sketch artist Jason Polan has an unachievable goal: to draw every person in New York. He moved here from Michigan, and was seized by the desire to capture all of us—you, me, Graydon Carter—in quick, vague line drawings. So far he has "a couple hundred sketches," which means that, assuming a static city population of 8 million and a generous rate of 50 sketches per day, fives days a week, Jason will be finishing his project up in a little more than 615 years. If you like, you can email him and tell him where you're going to be at a certain time and he'll show up and sketch you. Cute, but not really doing wonders for your time efficiency, Jason. After the jump, a few samples of his work. At least he's quick!

The aftermath of last week's Dove "Campaign for Real Beauty" photo retouching scandal remains unclear. It all started with retoucher Pascal Dangin telling the New Yorker that he had cleaned up photos for the campaign featuring ostensibly "Real" women, which would be a hugely hypocritical move. Dove, their ad agency, and celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz all denied it, saying they did nothing to the pictures except "to remove dust and do color correction." Today, Ad Age tries to decide whether or not the fiasco will hurt Dove—and the company is still stonewalling, while the New Yorker is standing by (most of) its story.

For some reason we thought 02138—the annoyingly named pretend Harvard alumni magazine that proclaimed itself Vanity Fair for people who went to Harvard and wished to read a second, inferior Vanity Fair each month—had already been shuttered by Atlantic Media. Well, it's alive. Tiny, unknown Manhattan Media (they own the New York Press and some things you've never heard of) bought the magazine from Atlantic Media for an undisclosed price. The publisher will remain cofounder Bom Kim (for now), but Manhattan Media has decided to expand the brand into—wait for it—social networking. Then they will introduce new versions of the magazine for every other Ivy League school, because if there's a group of people who don't have enough media outlets to write for, it's Ivy grads. Amusingly, the Manhattan Media press release announcing the deal leaves out their only existing holding anyone remembers reading: the embarrassing second-string alt-weekly New York Press. That release after the jump, along with a selection from this week's Press "guest sex columnist." [NYT]

Rupert Murdoch's secret, sneaky plan to destroy Long Island tabloid Newsday: let a dysfunctional company buy it for more money. Cablevision purchased the paper for $650 million and Murdoch withdrew his bid this weekend. Now, everyone is a bit confused. Because Cablevision owns many odd things, but none of them have been newspapers up til now. "The Newsday bid had the backing of both Charles Dolan, who founded the company, and his son James L. Dolan, the chief executive," the Times reports, even though generally the Dolans hate each other and disagree about everything. And according to witnesses of the meetings between the Dolans and former Newsday owner Sam Zell, the "tension between the two has been obvious." As have the tensions between Cablevision and its shareholders. Because Cablevision is a company that does one thing quite well and everything else quite poorly.

Jake Adelstein is an American reporter who spent the last 15 years covering Japanese organized crime for that nation's largest paper. I have to admit I always thought the Japanese yakuza crime syndicates were some overblown fantasy movie creation, but turns out they're actually very real, 80,000 strong, and they want to kill Jake Adelstein. You learn something new every day! Adelstein got along with the cops and the gangsters fine for a while, until he tried to break a scoop about the "John Gotti of Japan" flying to the US for a liver transplant. "Erase the story or be erased," said the gangsters, dramatically. So Adelstein decided to hold off on the story until things blew over. But that plan didn't quite work out:

Doesn't quite understand its audience: "'People don't come to us for explicit content,' said [CEO Christie Hefner]. 'In fact, they'd be very disappointed if that's what they were looking for and they bought Playboy magazine or went to Playboy.com.'" [Times]

Actor Alec Baldwin was on 60 Minutes last night discussing the infamous voice mail in which he called his daughter a "thoughtless little pig." Baldwin said his behavior was "totally wrong," but also offered so many excuses for the outburst that it made me wonder if he isn't going to lose some of the public goodwill he's built up in the year since the call surfaced. Here's how my own thinking on Alec Baldwin has evolved (along with a video except of Baldwin on 60 Minutes):

Yeah, you already knew Fox News host Bill O'Reilly could be a volcanic asshole on camera, because he explodes at people all the time. But it's still fun to watch O'Reilly thoroughly lose his shit in this old clip from his Inside Edition days, which resurfaced on the Web tonight. You have to feel for whatever poor soul wrote the script for O'Reilly's teleprompter. Video — including the exclamation "Fuck it! Do it live!" — after the jump.

Alyse Myers, a Times vice president, recently published a book about her cruel mother. Perhaps you heard about it last week in the Times, where it received a glowing if stilted and end-spoiling review. Or perhaps you missed that review but caught Myers' essay in this past Sunday's Times magazine, in which Myers revisits the topic of her mom, and gets another nice plug for her book. Granted, it was Mother's Day Sunday, so the book was topical. And, granted, Myers' employ at the Times was disclosed in both articles. But so much kind coverage so quickly on a Times executive lends at least the appearance of favoritism. And according to one email tipster, Times staffers are upset not only at appearances, but at Myers' behavior, as well:

Hallmark invented a holiday, which means I have to take off early today (But I will be drunkenly seeking refuge here from my Mom's computer room after a few minutes of family time) so I leave you with something I dearly love. From The Larry Sanders Show: "The Egging."

Entertainment Weekly is ranking the best guest stars to appear on The Simpsons. How the hell did they miss Ron Howard and Mel Gibson? And Mr. Burns' whole ringer baseball team? See who else they snubbed here.

Someone's taking children's scribbling and gussying them up with some kind of magical computure special effects. It think it's pretty nifty. However, I'm having tech woes and can't seem to publish more than one image in a post, so enjoy the gallery here. Stupid tech trouble.

Mike Gilbert, O.J. Simpson's former manager, has a tell-all coming out. According to an AP reporter who got an advance copy of the book, "He said Simpson had smoked pot, took a sleeping pill and was drinking beer when he confided at his Brentwood home weeks after his trial what happened the night of June 12, 1994. Simpson said he went to his ex- wife's condominium, but did not bring a knife with him. Simpson told him Nicole Brown Simpson had one in her hand when she opened the door."

I still don't understand what Web 2.0 is, but the next version is coming and I fear it. I don't want my MacBook getting inside my head-hell, even I don't want to be in there! "[T]he Web 3.0 browser will act like a personal assistant. As you search the Web, the browser learns what you are interested in. The more you use the Web, the more your browser learns about you and the less specific you'll need to be with your questions. Eventually you might be able to ask your browser open questions like 'where should I go for lunch?' Your browser would consult its records of what you like and dislike, take into account your current location and then suggest a list of restaurants."

Grand Theft Auto IV has the residents of Liberty City pissed. Last night, Vlad and Niko showed up on Saturday Night Live to complain about the stereotypical way Rock Star Games has represented their home town.

"Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of The New York Times Company, and his wife, Gail Gregg, have decided to separate, they said in a statement issued Friday. Mr. Sulzberger, 56, who is also publisher of The Times, and Ms. Gregg, also 56 and a painter and writer, said the decision to end their marriage was amicable."

Former Wall Street Journal managing editor Paul Steiger was tapped to write News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch's profile in Time's "100 Most Influential People" feature. So what does Steiger, who retired from the Journal last year after handing it over to Murdoch-who is evil-think of the media baron?

Just in time for Mother's Day, a collection of paintings by pop-art psychopants Michael Pucciarelli is available for your viewing pleasure. What's it have to do with Mother's Day? I dunno, ask my shrink. Oh, wait, I don't have one! Some faves after the jump.

So Chris Matthews' new hair. It's... odd. Off-putting, at first. But doesn't it remind you of something? The hair, perhaps, of another man? A man who might hold the very job that Chris Matthews covets so dearly? Almost, Chris. Almost. [HuffPo]

Boa-sporting Mediabistro.com proprietress Laurel Touby continues unabated in her menacing campaign to misuse email—an invention originally designed to simplify communications. Her latest infraction: in order to promote an upcoming "Mediabistro Circus," she decided to save a little time by sending a mass email to her entire contact list—all 2,000 people. The message starts off with an apology to those who "hate my guts," which is a good sign that perhaps it would be better to pursue a different outreach strategy. The entire ill-conceived email, after the jump.