Perhaps it is a victory of feminism that men are now as subject to scrutiny regarding their appearance as women always have been. At last week's editorial launch party, GQ's pretty new male editor Jim Nelson was on full public display, forced to represent his gender as he reps his magazine. His spiky hair, his Prada jacket with jeans, even his employment history are surely signifiers for his readers and meant to be representative of the contemporary GQ man of our times: confident, saucy, informed, but still somehow not the slightest bit limp-wristed.
What a Sticky Web We Weave [NYT]

People magazine is clearly at the top of its market's heap. But for the first time in four years, they've begun a serious advertising campaign, and some view it as a sign of People in trouble. Peggy Mansfield, brand new publisher of In Touch, can smell blood in the water: she sees People's potential flounderings as "a great opportunity to bring advertisers into our magazine." The celebrity magazine market gets bigger and raunchier every month: next week tabloid Star will get a test relaunch in NYC and California as a glossy magazine. Otherwise normal-seeming people will probably actually purchase it.
A Magazine Goliath Faces Davids [NYT]

Details scores the first post-firing piece of writing by Howell Raines, who left his post as executive editor of the New York Times in June. The story concerns Mr. Raines' son Jeff, a not-unfoxy guitarist in the totally bitchin' funk band Galactic.
Raines Writes [MSNBC]
Jeff Raines [Galactic Online]

Vice magazine — like, of course, most magazines — pays its writers tardily. Par for the course. But that's just the insult to the actual injury. Vice's contracts demand that the author sign over absolute universal rights, from internet to theatrical to pay-per-view. That's almost okay. What's not okay is that this contract is often sent to the writer long after publication of the actual article — but, of course, before payment. Totally tacky.

Back in May, New York magazine began squelching — or spreading — rumors that its owners, Primedia, were thinking of selling the property. And back in July, publisher Alan Katz left New York to launch the forthcoming Cargo, and bigtime bigwig publisher Larry Burstein took over. That move also seemed calculated to indicate that Primedia wasn't planning on selling the magazine... particularly in a year when ad revenue was down 20%.

I don't know how we missed this editorial by Gavin McInnes, co-founder of Vice magazine. Oh right — because it's published in The American Conservative. Mr. McInnes, it turns out, is into all the stylish new things. He praises people for "publicly trashing Clinton," claims that schools composed of "50% Spanish" [Uh...] are ruining American education, laughs at affirmative action as embodied by Jayson Blair, and supports the claim that gay magazine editors are responsible for keeping straight women emaciated. "Finally, the dumb community s days are numbered," he crows. Oh, I doubt it.
Hip to Be Square [American Conservative] [via TMN]

Either rumor or fact has gotten ugly, or at least not at all funny. Multiple reports from the Conde Nast building at 4 Times Square indicate that the "suspicious animal part" under investigation is in fact human. Worse, more than one person has reported it to be... an umbilical cord. Eesh. We'll turn this one over to NY1 now.

Word has it that the Conde Nast Building nightmare first reported here — in which every floor is reputed to be filled with bloody masses of animal or possibly even human parts — is still ongoing. The scene is said to be reminiscent of The Poseidon Adventure, but with Lucky editor Alexandra Golonkin instead of Shelly Winters. Or perhaps The Towering Inferno, but with Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter playing the role of O.J. Simpson. The elevators are like those creepy blood-filled elevators in The Shining, we hear! A fresh report from the nightmarish horror show: "Ran into a cop on the elevator at 4 Time Sq. The place is crawling (with cops). The cop said she wasn't sure what the "animal parts" were. She didn't get to see it. Too many other cops. And people with walkie talkies. No sighting of Anna Wintour—coincidence?" We hardly think so.

Preliminary reports from the scene of our hot breaking story, the Conde Nast animal parts in the janitorial area scandal, are horrifying beyond belief! One on-scene reporter took time from the riotous cafeteria hair-pulling contest to report that the "receptionist says it appears that it was a human birth."

A husband's impassioned plea to his mate on Craigslist.org:

Todd "I am not Clay Aiken's Agent" Headlee — previously discussed here — is a busy Clay Aiken fanboy. His latest memo, which has spread over the internet faster than Paris Hilton's legs, proclaims a coordinated — and evidently recording company-sanctioned — assault on editors at YM, SEVENTEEN, CosmoGirl, Teen People, and Teen Vogue.

Remember genius Sassy magazine, Jane Pratt's first venture? It was the ultimate magazine for girly teens, tweens, and hair-tossing young ladies going off to Vassar. Now Jane (the woman) of course has Jane (the magazine). But between the two magazines, things got a little rough, and much of that had to do with the launch of Dirt, the men's version of Sassy. It bit the dirt.

It may seem now that the invention of 'metrosexual' — a term used to refer to straight men who take care of themselves — is a cyncial plot to save men's magazines from the gay taint. In a lengthy interview with Men's Health editor David Zinczenko, not once does the word "gay" come up. But in the past, many have focussed on just how gay these magazines are: "The target audience [of Men's Health], according to me, may indeed be upscale, but they're definitely not married," wrote Chris Haines in Salon in 1998. So, why is, say, Details editor Dan Peres pioneering the idea of metrosexuality? Because now that straight men are encouraged to be metrosexual, it means that they're not allowed to care about being mistaken for gay, which in turn means that gays get completely camouflaged. Pretty sneaky, sis.

The owner of Politics and Prose, an independent bookstore in Washington, D.C., has banned Vice Magazine's VICE Guide to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll, citing it as "offensive" to gays. Just because it contains a straight men's guide to anal sex, with the (purportedly ironic) heading "Fags Go Home"? I tell ya, those faggots are so uppity nowadays. They've taken over that Bravo station, what will they want next? Not being tied to barbed wire fences and left to die?

Desperate for a job? Willing to degrade yourself in Southern California? You're in luck: Playboy TV is hiring!

Friendster founder Jon Abrams is appearing on an Urban Singles panel at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco this week. "Fakesters," those whose Friendster profiles have been removed because they are fictional, historical, or otherwise non-representative characters, will be there to protest his oppressive regime. "The Fakester Revolution has called upon local culture jammers, freedom of expression activists, Cacophonists, and exhibitionists to make their appearance for this Mass Fakester Manifestation in 'meatspace.'" How? How could I mock them?
Fakester Revolution Manifesto.

I'm still technically on vacation, but...
Gerry Marzorati has been named editor of the New York Times Magazine.
-Elizabeth

Satan's henchman and Fox News talk show host Bill O'Reilly will never be the Emily Post of television. A handy compendium of the incidents in which he has told a guest to "shut up" has now been published. "In the half-decade his top-rated show has been on the air, he's called for the muzzling of practically everybody. At the rate O'Reilly is going, he'll be the only person allowed to speak in a couple of years. Which, I suppose, is his master plan."
Bill O'Reilly Wants You To Shut Up [Slate] [via vacationing Elizabeth Spiers]

Man about town Greg Allen blogs a very odd group interview with Sofia Coppola. The evening begins on a queer note as the three monikered journalists prepare:

It's official. Vogue can now be measured by weight. Currently a stunning 4 pounds and 8 ounces, the magazine is now heavy enough for multi-tasking fashionistas to do little bicep curls while they treadmill.