"All the Sad, Young Literary Men has too many men, none of whom is particularly sad, literary or, for that matter, interesting." That's The L Magazine's Jonny Diamond on N+1 editor Keith Gessen's first novel. The interesting bit is how Gawker, you dear commenters, and the scribblers of Magical Brooklynism fit into the equation. "Gessen has rightly and eloquently lamented the impoverishment of intellectual discourse in 21st-century America, particularly in a New York literary scene that prefers whimsy to gravitas, adolescence to adulthood and typography to teleology." (Yeah, Gessen and his privileged band of bores are the answer. Okay, I'll stop.) "And if lit journal-cum-publishing house McSweeney's has come to stand (albeit unfairly so) as shorthand for this particular style of whimsy-sotted, Brooklyn-born preciousness, then online media gossip Gawker has served as its natural enemy, employing snark and irony to interrupt the daydreams of thousands of Michel Gondrys and Miranda Julys." Sounds good. But it isn't!

No doubt this post will catch grief because it breaks an unspoken rule: speak no ill of a former Gawker writer. But it's a good yarn, of the romantic and professional entanglement of New York's literary and media networks, so fuck it. Enfant terrible of the city's literary set, Keith Gessen of n+1 magazine, has lost one of his acolytes. The desperately highbrow writer's former intern, Leon Neyfakh of the New York Observer, was commissioned to write a piece about his mentor's new work, All the Sad Young Literary Men. Neyfakh's thesis, that galleys of Gessen's first novel have been snapped up by other young writers searching for themselves in the characters, may yet make it into print. But the Observer reporter is unlikely to remain so devoted a promoter. Gessen's novel, which is published in April, is a black comedy centering around the romantic and literary ambitions of three young writers. Fact mirrors fiction: in an improbable twist that could have jumped out of the pages of his novel, the n+1 editor has stolen his devoted follower's girlfriend. And she's a familiar figure.

Are these quotes from the historically-telescoping N+1 article about Gawker that allegedly semi-prompted the resignation of my co-worker Emily Gould—or from the upcoming Sony horror film Untraceable?

Early in the evening of the day I became Facebook friends with James Frey, Choire and I found ourselves standing on Chrystie Street, unloading boxes of n+1's Winter 2008 issue ("Mainstream") from a very large Budget rental truck. We did this in a fit of perversity. n+1 editor Keith Gessen had driven the truck from the Ingram warehouse in Pennsylvania earlier in the day, accompanied by an n+1 intern that he'd been "mentoring." There were six pallets. As usual, the issue's contributors had been invited to the box-unloading party, and so we staggered, box-laden, past the likes of little Ben Kunkel, wearing his noticeably-heeled boots even for this athletic activity. Probably more people came later for the beer-drinking part of the evening. But we missed that part because, when the truck was fully unloaded, we hopped into it with Keith to return it to the Budget lot in Brooklyn. On the way there, Keith turned up a narrow street and smashed a taillight and a bit of the back end of a minivan that would turn out to belong to an Orthodox Jewish lawyer.

Tonight's the last of n+1's master classes at Columbia. (n+1 is the most important literary journal of our time.) The email students received from the school transformed characters into question marks, thereby generating an unintentional uptalk? Related: What costumes will everyone be wearing???

From the mailbag: "I read your account [of the n+1 party] with great interest. At least there wasn't editor sucking on undergraduate face this time (or are you censoring?). However, still doesn't explain why their website is so bad. I surfed there to learn about this "pamphlet" of which you write and got this: 'Pamphlet #2, 'What We Should Have Known,' is finally here! But it now!' I am afraid to click." Refusing to copyedit is so rugged and gritty!

In a tiny, cluttered, and yes, pizza-smelling office on Chrystie Street on Friday night, a group of sweaty thirtysomething men and heavily eyelinered young women gathered to celebrate the publication of a "pamphlet." The work in question resembles a foreshortened Zagat guide filtered through a Brooklyn-ey design sensibility; it contains two transcribed discussions that some very wise people had about what they wish they'd done differently in college. "I wish there were something else I was good at, just a little bit," the author Rebecca Curtis says in one of these discussions. "And not for the money, but just to be able to dip into something else, just to re-engage with the... the other world, the one that's not the literary world. Almost to perceive it better." But this party was not the place to find that other world, or even to acknowledge its existence.

The trusty interns of n+1, the most important literary journal of our time, are delivering a pamphlet for college students called "What We Should Have Known" around the grounds of Columbia this fine evening! Well, "intern." His name is Mark! Say hi! "The n+1 guys have probably already developed a small cult of worshipers at Columbia, and some students will no doubt gladly imbibe their advice, which is offered generously, if slightly self-importantly." [NY Sun]

Seriously, what will happen if our number-one obsession, the world's most important literary magazine n+1, writes a piece about this here bilious website? Will time and ass-space collide? Anyway, we hear the piece is done for the new issue, but this is first we heard about it, because essayists don't report, ya know! (Who's a journalist now, bitches?)

N+1, the most important literary magazine of our time, now has a baby sister, the Observer notes! It's an art journal called Paper Monument, and it is totally against stuff! It is a project of Dushko Petrovich (Yale '97!) and Roger White (Yale '97!); both of them are not particularly good painters. But! The state of art magazines is pretty much "really bad." So this really is good news!

n+1—the most important literary journal of your slightly younger brother's time—is making a pamphlet for college freshpeoples! This one is, say the editors, "about what we wish we'd known when we were college freshman, and what books we wish we'd read. 'What We Should Have Known.' Is that too cumbersome? We'll be slipping it under the doors of incoming first-years at select universities this September. Really." Mmm, "select" universities. (Good youngster recruitment technique! Just like the free Times Select for college emails!) Anyway, not having been to no college, I'm mystified by what this pamphlet might contain. How to sleep in class—or sleep around in class? Advice to skip Chinua Achebe for Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o? Illustrations of scabies v. crabs?

We can't believe we're saying this about anything in n+1, which is the most important literary journal of our time—but some things about Carlene Bauer's review of How Sassy Changed My Life are dead-on and great. Like: she takes the authors to task for not spending "more time thinking about why something like Sassy will probably never happen again, starting with the oft-repeated reason of corporate consolidation... Now advertisers know that girls have money—or at least that their parents do—but what difference has it made? Whose fault is it that putting Björk, Sarah Silverman, or Cat Power on the cover of a magazine has become a signal of subversion? Would corporations really lose money if they acknowledged their readers and viewers had more on their minds than sex, prize money, and violence?" Word. But also this could have done with some slash-and-burn chopping.

Ashlee Simpson consort, bar owner and America's foremost expert on guyliner Pete Wentz appears 9 times in the August issue of J-14. (The magazine is like N+1 but for teens.) In one of his many confessions to the magazine, he writes:

You may not know it, but press-averse Oscar winner Angelina Jolie is a huge fan of quirky literary quarterlies. While some say she developed her interest in the scene during what we assume was her brief affair with n+1's Marco Roth, it's obvious that she's not beholden to any one particular title. Clearly having heard of the financial drain recently incurred by McSweeney's, the talented thespian took to the streets of Manhattan yesterday with a copy of Dave Eggers' What Is The What? as a show of solidarity. Possibly she also agreed to exchange her lifetime subscription for a pack of playing cards. Celebrities: They're just like a couple of doofuses in Williamsburg! [Ed. Note: Yes, that is a picture of Balk's computer looking at the photo of Angelina Jolie carrying the Dave Eggers book that we were not going to pay $500 to buy. It's a nice picture though! Log into the fine website Splash News and go see!]

Some afternoons, after the requisite low blood sugar-induced perusal of LOLcats, we turn once more to the serious problem of magazines. What do we want to read? Who can bear thumbing through a witty snippy front of book section? But then, who can bear a ponderous essay about boxers or ideas or colors? What all of us really want to read right now is something sexy, something that pulls its pants down a little—but that heavily edits its contributors (but its editors not at all!) and is also concerned about the ramifications of capitalism!

It's been a while since we've heard about the Columbia class on political writing to be taught by the editors of n+1, which is the most important literary journal of our time. Now we've gotten our hands on the class description—and it turns out that Ben Kunkel and Co. will be teaching from... the magazine that they edit! (Or should we say, the magazine they write and don't edit. At all.)

N+1's outgoing winter interns are getting a wonderful goodbye present—their elders are sending them off with a night of art film in Brooklyn. They'll be watching "No Outlet," a film (supposedly a documentary) by Paul and Dan Cantagallo, which is all about the despair of the middle-class young in American suburbia. (According to the audition call, though, parts were cast, and the actors worked on a "a lo/no/deferred basis.") Both Cantagallo brothers graduated from Harvard ('01 and '02 respectively)—Paul also appeared in "The American Ruling Class," a semi-documentary starring two kids from the Ivy League and Lewis Lapham ("Preachy, condescending and shockingly naive," said the Washington Post!). For those concerned about class and its machinations, the whole thing sounds just intricately edifying all around!

Harvard alums Simon Rich, Bridie Clark and Keith Gessen sat down with the Crimson recently to talk about their lives as literary figures making a living in the harsh marketplace that is life after Harvard. As the interviewer puts it: "You all write in very different styles. Simon, you chose humor, Bridie, chick lit, and Keith, well, I guess you're more of an intellectual voice." I guess! But all is not fun and games in the life of an intellectual voice. Keith, who is the most doable of the editors of n+1, which is the most important literary journal of our time, warns Simon "Frank Rich's son" Rich about the horrors of the criticism and conversation. "Wait 'til Gawker gets its filthy mitts on you," he says. "It's just strange, you know we live in a time when people can say whatever they want about you on the Internet and take no responsibility for it." Okay, Mr. Lit Theory, let's unpack that!

"I think we want to actually meet our readers," n+1 founding editor Mark Grief tells his alma mater's newspaper, the Harvard Crimson. With that firm conviction, Mark and his fellow alums will undertake "a week-long tour of greater New England," including three different stops in Cambridge! Maybe while he's there he'll encounter the kind of dissenting opinions from readers that he says he craves. "If you could go to your readers and they would stand up and denounce you, then you really have something," says Grief. You heard him, Harvardites! Go confront the n+1sters! Just make sure you've actually read an issue of their precious magazine first. That way you'll be able to judge whether or not it has effectively "called for a re-imagining of literary and political life," as editor Chad D. Harbach ('97) puts it. While you're dissenting, maybe ask for an internship!

We hear that three of the editors of n+1, the most important literary journal of our generation, will be teaching as adjuncts at Columbia's MFA program this fall. (More bang for your $35K!) Ben Kunkel, Marco Roth, and another—we think Mark Greif? This line has some static—will be tag-team teaching a class on political writing. Or apolitical writing! One of those.