And why could Elizabeth Spiers afford to walk away from Laurel Touby's boa'd embrace? Because she has herself a book deal.

Not to say we told you so, but here's what was posted on Mediabistro this morning:

This week's Village Voice is the annual Best of New York issue, and, to be honest, most of it we couldn't muster the energy to actually read. ("Best Borough Connector: Pulaski Bridge"; "Best Place to Catch a Fish You Won't Eat: Harlem Meer"; "Best Use of Lettuce: Porcupine.") But one entry particularly caught our eye, largely because we had a strong suspicion from the git-go of what the winner would be:

So, word on the street is that Gawker alum and current Mediabistro EIC Elizabeth Spiers has finally roused from her 100-year slumber and is shopping around her completed manuscript. The book, a novel with roots in Spiers' former life in finance, is up for auction, and we hear that wizard-like agent David Kuhn (who scored Dana Vachon's sick, sick book deal) even offered to adopt Spiers just long enough to broker the deal. Makes sense: Spiers is talented enough, honestly, to bring in the big dogs. Our heroine, however, is a woman of principle — perhaps too much so? — and thus declined, staying loyal to her agent-to-the-blogstars, Kate Lee. Excuse us while we go rent Beaches.

We always enjoy a nice after-work drink or three, so we were thrilled to see this show up in our inbox last night:

• Everybody who's anybody — and many who are nobody — turned out for a tribute to Peter Jennings at Carnegie Hall yesterday. [WP]
• The New Yorker/NYPD's Ed Conlon signs for first novel, gets $550K advance. Also, AMI shrinks Enquirer to save money. [NYP]
• Katrina shows Big Media are snobs, too. [VV]
• OK! America could pay up $2 million for pix of Britney's baby — unless the dreaded paparazzi get there first. [Radar]
• The Times further stokes Jack Shafer's ire — and this time rips his flesh, too — this time with a bogus trend story. [Slate]
• Elizabeth Spiers, who is friends with Dana Vachon, says the "continued prospects" of Men's Vogue "are positive." Si Newhouse exhales in relief. [MB]

Fridays, as we all know, are for job hunting, which makes the employment troughs at Mediabistro all the more enjoyable. Today, "bespoke celebrity news agency" (we thought only Saville Row suits were "bespoke," but whatever) Viva Press is looking for some new talent:

Who can spare more than 3000 words ruminating on a magazine, other than Spy, that died over 10 years ago? Why, Mediabistro, of course! Don't get us wrong: We lurved the now-defunct Sassy, the pages of which made a mini-legend of editor Jane Pratt and were later reincarnated in the shape of Jane. But 3000 words on Sassy, Jane, and the meaning of life as dictated by irreverent women's magazines strikes us as just a wee bit overindulgent.

It's hard running a business — like, say, Mediabistro — that's built on networking and cocktail parties. (We know, because half of us used to work there.) There are so many people to meet, so many drinks to throw back, so many names to remember. And sometimes, unfortunately, you get those names a little mangled. Like in this latest cocktail-party invitation, which found its way to our inbox last night:

• Victoria Gotti is going to start a celeb mag, she says. Then again, she also said she had breast cancer. [NYP]
• The beauty job that Nadine Haobsh didn't get at Seventeen has finally been filled — by a boy. [WWD]
• Hey, so it turns out Martha Stewart is going to have some new TV shows. [WP]
• Goodbye, Dali: Penthouse's new owners are suing the Gooch for $4 million over unreturned company property, including two paintings by Salvador Dali. [NYP]
• Mediabistro's Elizabeth Spiers — who doesn't like party reporting — checks in from vacation to let us know that TV networks lust for ratings. [MB]

On the one hand we're astonished there's so little real news in the sixth borough that this made the Philadelphia City Paper. On the other hand we're a bit surprised this sort of thing doesn't happen more often.

But not usually in an advice column on proofreading:

For entirely selfish reasons, we're always happy to see more advertising moving to websites generally and to blogs specifically. (You may have heard, advertisers: Blog readers are young, rich, and sexy.)

• God bless Jack Shafer, who writes what most journalists know but don't say: That readers are two-faced nincompoops. [Slate]
• BusinessWeek gets hammered by new circ rules; other pubs likely to follow. [NYP]
• Natalee Holloway's Aruba disappearance is, while bad for Natalee, very, very good for Greta Van Susteren. [AP]
• Explaining the baby-mag boom. [Mediaweek]
• Esquire announces five-year-plus series on building the Freedom Tower. [NYT]
• More proof of Simon Dumenco's very strange fantasy life: An imagined Thanksgiving at the Murdochs'. [Ad Age]
• Mediabistro's Elizabeth Spiers doesn't like women's magazines. Also, she is friends with people who are friends with Christopher Hitchens. [mb]
• On the recently wrapped MTV reality show Miss Seventeen, 17 girls compete to win an internship from Atoosa. [WWD, second item]

If you're anything like we think us, you're lazy as hell. And we're certainly not going to spend $15 dollars of our hard-earned smack cash just to learn how to unlazify ourselves. Thus we sent poor Intern Neel to last night's performance of Mediabistro on Ice:

• Mediabistro scores a Mo Rocca humor piece. No, it's not so funny, but you try doing 1,000 words on Judy Miller and Lil' Kim. [MB]
• Now on eBay, an original first issue of The New Yorker. Only $200. [emdashes]
• Inspired by Rob Haskell's Katie Holmes profile, Simon Dumenco pines for some Scott McClellan/Karl Rove slash fiction. [Ad Age]
• "What I Told the Grand Jury." By Matt Cooper. [Time]
• American Media, Schwarzenegger make deal, then terminate it. [NYT]

An alert reader points us to this event, posted on Mediabistro:

Are you filled with contempt for yourself? Do you realize that you're not good enough even to be beaten as Naomi Campbell or Scott Rudin's personal assistant? Do you need a job that will remind you hourly of just how small, insignificant, and worthless you are? Boy, do we have the listing for you.

Looking for an editorial-assistant position in magazine publishing? This company is in desperate need of a qualified candidate:

A reader notes a curious face on this week's installment of mediabistro.com party pictures: What was "actress Alessia Siniscalchi" doing at a recent New York mb party — and in three separate pics, no less?