On Craigslist, Conde Nast editors are searching for overly-hairy men for a man-grooming special. Is Cargo, the new men's shopping mag, starting off with a big hairy bang?
magazine looking for men with very hairy chests. [Craigslist]

In case you care, last night's Koyen v. Stedman fight to settle the faux-feud between the New York Press and the L Magazine settled absolutely nothing. The fight ended in a draw, shamingly enough for the two boxing nuns. Reportedly Koyen was in the lead, getting in some pretty good bitch-slapping and hair-pulling on Stedman, but then he got a little winded and the fight fell apart.

If there's anything one can say about Manhattan's media world, it's this: everyone wants to watch the car crash but no one actually wants to be in the car. The one exception to that rule may be New York mag media critic and author Michael Wolff himself.

Editor David Remnick must be smoking the PCP: the New Yorker has spread open its hoary yearning mailbox to the unwashed members of the writing public. In a letter printed at Romenesko, a sharp-eyed reader — one Mr. Ben Yagoda, if that is his real name — notes that for the first time in two years the magazine no longer issues a disclaimer against unsolicited submissions.

There's an interview today on I Want Media with Donny Deutsch, ad man, hemi-mogul, and Michael Wolff's potential partner in a bid to purchase New York magazine. Unfortunately, it's not terribly exciting, so I've re-answered a couple of questions on his behalf.

Salon has an totally frustrating interview with non-fiction inventor and scandal-target Stephen Glass. He doesn't read reviews, he won't talk about journalism, and the name Jayson Blair makes him bolt like a horse at the glue factory. Glass points out that he has, of course, been through lots of therapy. And he reminds us, "I want to say that there's an important strain in American literature in which people write stories about their own terrible misdeeds." Like Patty Hearst? Richard Nixon? Jerry Falwell? The point being...?
Stephen Glass [Salon]

Just like VH1's guide to the 80s, Low Culture's guide to early 2003 is indispensable; they address all the topics that are A.C.O. (Absolutely Completely Over) and must never be discussed again. From Mr. Personality to Ashton and Demi, let's revisit the oh-so-distant and nostalgic past in VH1 style together!
I Love Six Months Ago [Low Culture]

Some particularly choice excerpts from Tina Brown's live chat at the Washington Post today:

Writer Oliver Griswold imagines a blooper reel from those cut-ups at National Public Radio:

It pains me to even broach this subject, but it's all anyone is talking about. (Well, besides how boring Jason Binn's engagement party was. Everyone's talking about that.)

The by now-infamous Post editorial on the triumph of the Red Sox over the Yankees last night is now on view, thanks to our friends at The Smoking Gun. I have my very own copy of the two-star Late City Final for posterity; get yours today while supplies last. Mmm, this schadenfreude is Murdoch-flavored!
A Curse of Their Own? [TSG]

Nearly every nail-biting child with a desire for fame and a love of the shitty later novels of Philip Roth has one goal: to get a story into The New Yorker. Mysterious blogger TMFTML hatches a plan to do just that: "Our first possibility is aimed squarely at capturing the attention of Deborah Treisman and her kingmaking cohorts at The New Yorker. As far as we can tell, there are only two ways for an unknown writer to break into that periodical: get a job there as an editorial assistant or write a story about twenty-something urban anomie. As we re barred from all Conde Nast property owing to an unfortunate incident with Steve Florio and a venti double shot soy latte, we re going to have to go the second route. Here s our opening: When Annabel phoned him that morning to tell him it was over, David was absentmindedly masturbating to a low-impact aerobics video which he had borrowed from the library earlier in the week with that specific purpose in mind."
The Collected Stories of TMFTML [TMFTML]

The Observer's resident product placement specialist Simon Doonan is either cracking a bit under the strain of constant culture consumption, or he scribbled this week's piece on a severely over-utilized cocktail napkin. Mr. Doonan has discovered that art and literature are not as concerned with serious, adult things as they used to be. "Literary fiction," he writes, "was always a 'safe space' where mature guys and broads could drink gin and conduct clandestine affairs. Now, however, novels exploring the machinations and crises of adulthood have been replaced by the pointlessly naff chick-lit twitterings of a million vapid Eve Harringtons, all of whom seem to be suffering from a nasty case of high self-esteem." Mr. Doonan then goes on to find literary salvation in, of all writers, Iris Murdoch.

Some people are so rude. I've been calling this person's changed number for days, and I've never gotten a call back. The outgoing message isn't even interesting: a strangely gender-neutral voice says, "Hi, you've reached my new number, please leave your message." Note to Williamsburg stoners: if you put posters up all over New York City inviting people to call you, please do something fucking interesting.

Aww, for fuck's sake. First Michael Wolff and his Tourettes-ey business partner, then me and venture capitalist ex-wunderkind Jason Calacanis, and now these freaks: You're just not anyone in Manhattan unless you're trying to buy New York mag.
Our Bid for New York Mag [Manhattan Transfer]

With last night's announcement of New York mag's financials, I'd like to make a stunning announcement of my own: back-from-the-dead Silicon Valley venture capitalist and mini-mogul Jason Calacanis and I are officially throwing our hats into the ring. With Jason's bucks and my shitty attitude and fashion sense, we're a winning team for New York mag that you just can't ignore. It'll be the fun and music of the 80s with the money of the 90s!

While Amy Spindler steps down to manage her health, the roundup of suspects to take over her job as the Times' Magazine style editor is rumored to inclue Kate Betts, formerly of Harper's Bazaar, W's Bridget Foley, Esquire's fashion creative director Stefano Tonchi, and Vogue fashion news/features director Sally Singer.

It's been brought to my attention that I may completely be wrong about this week's New York magazine. (I said that the David Amsden cover story was an obvious ploy to drive down the value of the magazine so that New York media critic Michael Wolff could buy it with less strain on his lunch-at-Michael's budget.)

I've been staring at New York magazine's cover story all morning. Operation XXX: New Porn City, internet porn and the men who love it too much. It's so... inexplicable. Unless someone was paying writer David Amsden to propagate the dated term "I-porn"?

In this month's edition of Judging Books By Their Covers, your host Cheshire Dave is up to his neck in disturbing new releases. Of course, there's Madonna: