Jim Nelson, the new editor at GQ, has thrown the first punch in the new men's magazine market brawl. September's GQ was the first issue fully produced under his new editorial regime. The mag features some young feller named "Johnny Knoxville" on the cover. We haven't heard of this whippersnapper upstart Knoxville character, so we're glad that GQ is digging deep for the cutting edge younger market. Oh but seriously, folks, Mr. Nelson's vision is, as far as selling ads go, completely correct. As he notes in the Times: "There was a time when you could pick up GQ and not know what month or year it was." Of course, the same is true for readers of that other men's magazine monster, Men's Health, but that's because those readers are all so zonked on steroids, ketamine, and ecstacy.

Advertisers are touching themselves ecstatically right now, scheming about a huge new market: Rejuveniles, adults who love kid stuff. They have discovered that the average age of video game players is 29, and a quarter of TV cartoon SpongeBob Squarepants watchers are over 18. I dunno if they sample for marijuana intake, but those "kidults" are totally baked and we all know it.

Better Homes and Husbands — snappy title! — is a book of short stories by Valerie Ann Leff, sold this week as part of a two-volume deal, six figures, good bonuses, film rights to come. According to Publisher's Weekly, "The book is about the denizens of an imaginary exclusive apartment building on Park Avenue in New York, and their various feuds and follies."

A reader writes: "Your thoughts please on the Sophia Coppola profile in NY Times mag. Am I bitter or is the cool circle really fucking annoying? And, the Mark Jacobs quote: 'I am not a girl, nor will I ever be one.... ' Or something of the sort (I threw the magazine away in disgust)."

From today's Women's Wear Daily: "THE WAY TO PLAY THE PRESS: A journalist calls you on Monday, having heard that you re up for a top-level editorship. You deny having been called (a savvy media type never talks on the record about having been approached for a job). Maybe you re not even interested. But the same week, you go to lunch with the person who d ultimately greenlight your hire, preferably at a popular media hangout where everyone will see you.

Page Six's Jared Paul Stern is leaving the Post to work for ex-US Weekly editor and new American Media (AMI) employee Bonnie Fuller. This after Intelligencer's Marc Malkin left NY Mag for US Weekly and NYDN gossip columnist Joanna Molloy was rumored to be seen in the offices of AMI, which owns Star. The Post-Bonnie fallout continues.

Speaking of Details, Chic Happens (They're back! The first one in years!) reports that Editor in Chief Dan Peres recently had a blowup with fashion flack Pierre Rougier, who reps Balenciaga, Viktor & Rolf and Proenza Schouler. Rougier "threw a French fit" when he learned that client Viktor & Rolf would get a mere page in the men's fashion issue. Says the spy: "Dan called him an arrogant ass and said, 'I've lived in France but I've never met a bigger prick.'" Now, girls. Play nice.
French dissing [Chic Happens]

The Santa Cruz Sentinel complains that East Coast media doesn't take California seriously: "When an actor runs for governor, suddenly the East Coast media wakes up. There goes wacky California, they say. An actor running for governor. Then the news shows scratch and claw to get the movie star-turned-political leader on their primetime shows. We wish these East Coasters would realize that a true picture of California is far from the La-La Land they all imagine. In their stories, they show us images of Californians in hot tubs and interviews with Gary Condit and unending coverage of Laci Peterson. We have a news story for them: California and its people live their lives in far more complexity than that." Those wacky Californians! Pretending like there's more to their state than hot tubs and Gary Condit! Isn't it cute?
Honig: maybe Californians aren't the wacky ones [Santa Cruz Sentinel via Romenesko]

Blogger Joe Clark weighs in on the "Just How Gay Is Details?" debate. Empirical evidence is always useful:
"Bare chests in this issue:
Must be open to the waist to be enumerated.
Advertising: Eight
Editorial: Six, plus two photos from Plato's Retreat"
Then there are the quotes from Editor in Chief Dan Peres: ("Now leave me alone, I'm in the middle of a waxing"; "What is Maer getting his panties in a twist about?"; "It's for guys who like staring at pictures of naked men but haven't quite figured out why.")
AgendaWatch: Details ("for men") [Fawny.org]

The WSJ's Matthew Rose: "As you see on the [right], in the first inning of a WSJ v. DJ Newswires softball game—my first and only of the season—I had dreams of making a stunning shoelace catch of a flyball while running in from right-center field. Forgot to call for the ball, forgot to look for anyone else and I suppose it wasn't a surprise when I clattered into our imposing shortstop rather heavily, resulting in dramatic bruising of many internal organs. Later, I did manage to hit a couple of dribblers that evaded the infield by cunningly hitting rocks, stones and other useful divots, and so was able to claim a .500 season average. Second time around, on a dash to first wearing stupid Euro-trainers, I slipped and sprawled, prompting the stones, rocks &c. that had helped me get the hit in the first place to embed themselves in my knee."
Exercise isn't good for you [MemeFirst]

Why, this party was over as soon as it began! Three emails signifying the demise of flash mobs from the Flashmobs Yahoo! Group:
Message 252: "Flash Mobs seem to have 'dissappeared' as fast as they appeared! Are you guys finding this too?"
Message 253: "Well, there hasn't been a New York one in a while, and the New York ones have pretty much driven the whole phenomenon [...]"
Message 254: "Maybe they're just not getting a lot of media attention and that's why it seems as if they've 'disappeared.' Lots of people all over the world are still 'mobbing', planning, and organizing mobs. We [non New Yorkers] don't have to stop & wait for New York to do something..we have to get out there and do something bigger & better!! ;-) GO MOBS!!! (hahahaa! I hope I sounded like a coach, that's kinda what I was going for at thee end LOL)"
Yahoo! Groups: Flashmobs [Yahoo!]

The Washinton Post hosted a live chat this afternoon with Details Editor in Chief Dan Peres on the philosophical subject of metrosexuality. Sample question:

Us Weekly, known in these parts as Gag Us Weekly, publishes an adoration of star! studded! Manhattan private club Soho House. "Even Edward Norton and Jessica Simpson have been in da House," they drool. Seems the magazine is stumbling along in their usual tabloid fashion even with "the devil" Bonnie Fuller gone from the helm.

For six days in October, the world publishing community is thrown into a nightmare of fast deals, foreign rights sales, and three a.m. dinners of stale Apfelpfannkuchen at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Gawker has been forced by situations beyond our control to discuss... Britney Spears. We're sorry, but Britney is deep in the zeitgeist today. Right this second, literally thousands of New Yorkers are being paid to spin Britney, and they are working like Satan's own minions.

Please send all your cheery kitty-cat calendars and healing crystals for Ms. Spiers to us here at Gawker HQ as she... well, let's be kind and say she's "drying out." Her point, although perhaps issued through shakes and hallucinations, is well taken: name me, Choire Sicha, in all the lawsuits for the rest of the week. And remember, don't bother to tell me that I'll never work in this town again: honey, I don't have to work in this town.

Blogger Joe Clark excerpted a relevant before-and-after-Tina chart titled "Fuck yes, the New Yorker!" from SPY's November '93 issue for his "Ten Years Ago in SPY" site:

Earlier this week Boston Globe media reporter Mark Jurkowitz said, of the New Yorker: "I was a Tina Brown fanyes there was more glitz, but, as good a job as Remnick does, I still liked her version a bit better." Today the National Post's Andy Lamey jumps on the Tina nostalgia bandwagon, with the argument that the New Yorker has gotten boring: "One recent cover featured 'Iraq's long, hot summer' (Anderson's latest go-nowhere anti-narrative); 'How to cure hypochondria' (yawn); 'The haves vs. the haves' (something about a golf course); 'Detroit's miracle car' (blah blah blah, it uses hydrogen) and 'The history of yarn' (actually, I made that one up — but give it time)."
The talk of the town no longer [National Post]

Stephen Glass has his first post-fabulist byline in the September 4th issue of Rolling Stone with an article titled, "Canada's Pot Revolution." (My new nomination for the Shittiest Job in the Media Business: Stephen Glass's fact-checker.) The lede: "In November 2001, when Alain BerthiaumeMontreal's most prominent marijuana activistwas arrested on drug charges, the best advice might have been to plead guilty." I hope someone verified that this guy actually exists. With a name like Alain Berthiaume, I have my doubts.
"Canada's Pot Revolution" [Rolling Stone]

Responding to yesterday's report that two NYT staffers were nabbed in a boat just outside of JFK, the Port Authority police report that the Times reporters "attempted to flee in the boat," which the reporters dispute. ("We were at a dead stop.") The boat's captain, a Mr. Seaman (seriously), was also taken into custody.
Authorities seize Times newsmen off of JFK [NYT]