Speaking of Harvey, a reader alleges an item: "Richard Desmond porn king and owner of Express group [in London] recently got the picture desk to pay over £100,000 to buy-up a series of compromising shots of Harvey Weinstein that were apparenly snatched in a lap-dancing joint. Needless to say the shots never appeared anywhere but a fawning profile of Weinstein instead." Gawker will gladly offer Mr. Desmond US$40.00 for rights to the unpublished pictures. We might go as high as fifty bucks if there's an auction.

Ken Womack writes an open letter to the film industry with some questions regarding piracy, artistic integrity, finances, and the manipulative nature of plot. "Dear Hollywood: It seems like lately you ve been out of touch. I know that you ve been busy, of course, what with your summer blockbuster season and all. Heck, it must take a lot of time and energy to promote all those movies! By the way, what happened to Gigli? It only came out a few weeks ago, and yet it no longer seems to be playing at my local Cineplex."
Dear Hollywood [TMN]

Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter threw a party this week at the Four seasons for the debut of Madeleine Albright's memoir, published by that foxy fast-talking snake-oil salesman, Miramax Books editor Jonathan Burnham. Of course, Miramax emperor Harvey Weinstein attended; evidently a surprise to all was the appearance of one Ms. Tina Brown, former editor of the deeply defunct Weinstein-backed Talk. Picture it: in the corner, weary host Graydon Carter, undoubtedly clad in a blazer and comfy jeans, undoubtedly smoking an illicit cigarette, watching as if in a nightmare as the two media behemoths neared on their collision course. The waiters in the Grill Room all freeze. Publicist Peggy Siegal's French tips draw blood in her clenched fists. No one breathes until Harvey heartily extends a meaty paw to the regal Tina. By all reports, violence was avoided, and the open bar was shortly denuded. Too bad. We've been looking forward to that cage match all year.
Harvey and Tina, Face to Face [NY Post]

Today's featured potential New York mag buyers: Miramax's Harvey Weinstein — formerly rumored to be planning to back New York contributing editor and potential buyer Michael Wolff — now said to be joining forces with Court TV founder Stephen Brill. Some bored PR leaker is also floating the rumor that Condé Nast Chairman S.I. Newhouse is hot to buy as well. Yeah, right.

The 18 to 34 set will be targeted by a new free daily newspaper, amNew York, to be given out at subway stops. We can already see its discarded ad-heavy pages littering Bedford Avenue. "Right now, there are young people in this city who are not reading newspapers," says editor Alex Storozynksi in the Observer. Sure, but your advertisers should know that both of those readers work at McDonald's. "I want them to find out what's going on in their world and in their city," Mr. Storozynksi says in Newsday. Mr. Storozynksi, who evidently does believe that children are the future, estimates that nearly half — wow, half! — of the newspaper's pages will contain articles written by its "two reporters assigned to cover the city."
amNew York's Top Editor Named [Newsday]
Zuckerman Gets Old Tabloid Guy to Run the News [Observer]

Completely tasty: a huge rambling interview with Vogue editor Anna Wintour in today's Wall Street Journal. Anna's influence is radical and widely felt, WSJ reports: "Estee Lauder Cos., which took the bold step of hiring its first black spokesmodel, Liya Kebede, last month, consulted Ms. Wintour before announcing its decision." For Ms. Wintour, it's like the radical 60s never ended.

A reader writes in about Cocky: "Cocky magazine showed up on the back page of The Daily at Bryant Park fashion week yesterday. Don't know if that's the same version floating around the caf at CondeNast, but it is quite a delight. It features a shot of 'Euan Rellie (aka Ms. Lucy Sykes)'. Full caption:

Evidently our friends at CondeNast have been shamed into silence these days. Not a soul will discuss the aftermath — or afterbirth — of the animal/human/alien body parts found in the 4 Times Square headquarters a few weeks ago. That story was first discussed here, then appeared in all the gossip pages — and then was covered up faster than a supermodel's herpes simplex.

According to today's WWD, potential New York magazine purchaser Emmis Communications is said to be out of the running. Sources claim Emmis is concerned about the monster fixer-upper price tag of the barely profitable New York — randomly estimated at $10 to $30 million on top of the purchase price. Slick New York, quite sleek and sexy during a night on the town, looks a little... tarnished and puffy when you roll over in bed and see it in daylight.
New York's Other Story [WWD]

On Friday, Women's Wear Daily speculated about the empty CEO position at Primedia, claiming the short list of applicants to be very short indeed. It's true; Primedia'd be damn lucky to find a CEO before New York magazine is raffled off within the next five months.

Look, we're as shallow as... okay, we're shallower than any other media-obsessed pop culture outlet in town. When an actor or designer is interviewed, we want to know about A) what shoes he is wearing, B) which model he is secretly boning while dating which starlet, C) when was he in rehab and what for, and D) what he really said to piss off Harvey Weinstein, what deal he made with Miramax's Matt Brodlie, and how he kissed Christine Vachon's ass.

Two columnists commiserate over the (alleged) breakup of Bennifer: "I want you to know I'm doing OK. Seriously. Well, what I mean is I'm trying to cope as best ... I sit slumped in a darkened room, a bottle of Jack Daniel's in one hand, a bigger bottle of Jack Daniel's in the other hand. A pistol on my lap, the stench of Death all around me... oh, wait, check that: not Death, Glow. (I always mix up the name of J.Lo's perfume.)" On the Entertainment Tonight consequences of the breakup: "I fear for Colin Farrell: The pressure is going to be relentless on him now to have even more sex."
At Least Liz Taylor Was a Pro About It [National Post]

John Ritter, unlikely TV comeback king, died suddenly yesterday on the set of his new TV show. Mr. Ritter was possibly the uncoolest celebrity of all time, although his hit 70s show, Three's Company, was rated in our informal poll as one of the two greatest guilty pleasures of aging 20-somethings in Brooklyn — second only to 80s sitcom Small Wonder.

Yesterday's full-staff meeting of New York sounds to be, with one exception, quite dull: threats of murder in the event of employees talking to the press, the introduction of Allen & Co. to handle the sale (duly and boringly reported in this morning's Times), and not much else. But according to an attendee: "The only tidbit is that they are close to a buyer but wouldn't divulge who, so the transaction should happen a lot quicker than the Seventeen sale."

New highly-paid Star editor Bonnie Fuller (who, we hear, really impressed her new staff when speaking of her great affection for film critic Roger E-bear — does she think he's French?) is going to be short-staffed when the Star moves its offices from Florida to New York this fall. The staff of 40 editors and reporters will be trimmed down to only 25. Given the struggle the staff has had with deadlines, coherence, and keeping track of Bonnie's whims, Star's relaunch as a glossy magazine might be less smooth re-entry and more crash and burn.
Big Layoffs at Pecker's AMI [NY Post]

We expected more competition between the tabloids today. But as you can see, the Daily News just rolled over and gave the day's sales to the Post. The News' cover is three parts bin Laden fear-mongering mixed with one part Bennifer wedding fiasco. To their credit, the Post did what they do best: a really shitty Photoshop job of the remnants of the World Trade Center onto two burning candles with some hysterical text.
Post: 9/11 Tacky-ometer: 9 out of 10.
Daily News: 9/11 Tacky-ometer: 4 out of 10. (Three of those four points awarded for J-Lo.)
NY Daily News, NY Post.

According to reliable sources, a rare all-staff New York magazine meeting has been called for today at noon. Evidently, a Primedia honcho will cram the entire staff of New York into one room; that room will then be shipped by cargo freight to Texas. Oh, hi-larious. Sadly, no. The entire cabal has allegedly been assembled so that the staff can be officially informed of the sale of New York magazine. Big surprise. We're awaiting word on whether there will be layoffs, executions, mutinies, or merely a lot of eye-rolling and foot-tapping by the bitter gum-chewing ink-stained girls in the back row.

The Post reports that Jayson Blair may have finally whored his hopefully un-fabricated life story to a willing publisher. "Mainstream New York publishers showed little interest in the former Timesman after his May resignation, but Los Angeles-based New Millennium Press has agreed to publish the book, to be called 'Burning Down My Master's House: My Life and the New York Times.'"

This month, readers receive a very special missive from editor Graydon Carter at the outset — or should we say onset — of October's Vanity Fair. Mr. Carter is as mad as a lesbian separatist at a salami convention. Incongruously, he looks plenty relaxed in this month's editorial photo. He appears quite tanned and smiley, dressed casually, looking not unlike the nice uncle that you never thought would molest you. But no, Mr. Carter is mad enough about the Bush administration flying bin Laden's family out of the U.S. in the days after September 11th, 2001, in fact, to compare President Bush to Hitler and the White House's political philosophy to Hermann Göring's. This is quite far afield from Mr. Carter's pleasantly Rooney-esque railings against Bloomberg's anti-smoking laws and the sad state of cashmere socks.

Mediabistro, the Manhattan-based website for "anyone who creates or works with content," to use the parlance of the late 90s, offers courses and programs to improve our, uh, "cultural production." How terribly Marxist. It is with a truly tacky sense of schadenfreude that we gleefully report typos in their advertisement for an in-house course on writing. No sweat: these sorts of mistakes truly are a prevlant sort of error.
Courses [Mediabistro]