Though he's supposedly giving a speech today at Lazard (the investment bank he heads as his "day job"), New York magazine's owner Bruce Wasserstein reportedly hasn't been doing well lately. Blogging Stocks claims that Wasserstein has been living reclusively for some weeks; moreover, "[h]e has lost 50 pounds and is said to look like a wobbly, 75-year-old" (Wasserstein is 58). Speculation abounds as to whether this is related to his sister's untimely passing earlier this year or the stress surrounding the Time-Warner-ripping report he created. Personal accounts of recent Wasserstein encounters welcome.

We've always suspected that New York's main demographic consisted of the embittered wives of this city's loathsome financial service types, and now we have proof. After last week's cover story about Urbanbaby.com informed the magazine's readers that there was an online site to which they could anonymously complain about their husbands' unwillingness to clean up around the house and how sometimes it's just so hard to explain to the nanny that Brandon's shirts get the bleach-free detergent, while Ashley's tops need extra bleach, New York's army of harridan readers flocked to the site, resulting in slowdowns and, eventually, the message you see above.

In case you missed the New York magazine article on UrbanBaby.com, NY's Sarah Bernard and Emily Nussbaum showed up on "The Today Show" to spread the gospel about mean mommies with laptops. Have a quick look at this clip, which seems to suggest that the more nannies you have, the less compassion you deserve. For once, a sentiment we can get behind.

My, isn't New York magazine's Look Book trying to be rather artsy this week with its black and white photography? Herb Ritts would be so proud. This week's man on the street is model-slash-student (mudent?) Joshua Ku, a half-working male model who got into the biz like everyone does, through his co-worker at Starbucks. Ku seems like he might be better off brewing java, though — he wasn't paid by L'Uomo Vogue and had to bleach his hair for Pop magazine, so now he looks "unapproachable." He's not much of a fashionista, either, shopping mostly at H&M and putting work and school and relationships before clothing. Jesus, boy, then what the hell are you doing in New York?

In New York magazine's cover story this week about the lonely and nasty ladies of UrbanBaby.com, Emily Nussbaum writes, "the island seems to be filling up with strollers at precisely the moment when the sidewalks have narrowed." The Observer's Real Estate blog, however, contacted New York City Department of Transportation spokesperson Craig Chin, who said that the sidewalks are set at a minimum of five feet, and they most certainly have not grown narrower. If anything, according to the Department of Urban Planning, the sidewalks have grown wider in more densely populated areas.

Blogger Emily Gould had a brief entry last year where she nominated the most loathsome person interviewed in the week's New York magazine, and offered as her winning candidate "Annie Yeh, miniscule Theory shopgirl and FIT student. What's your favorite thing in the store? "Our skinny pants. We started making 00s last fall. I'm a size 00, so that was the most amazing thing ever." What's your favorite fall trend? "Volume. I like wearing oversize things even though I'm little. I weigh 95 pounds."

The cover story of this week's New York magazine - Mothers Anonymous - is a sizzling expose about the message boards of UrbanBaby.com. Well, not exactly sizzling, and not exactly an expose, unless it's news to you that some new moms get depressed and people on message boards can be mean. Apart from the fact that we were overcome by a remarkable sense of d j vu (Haven't we read this story before? In New York?) , and in spite of the piece's by-the-numbers feel (Betty Friedan? Check. Message board acronyms explained? Check. Earnest, solemn suppositions as to what it all means? Check.) we rather enjoyed it, which is unusual for us when it comes to anything in New York. And then it occurred to us why: A good quarter of the piece is direct quotes lifted from the UrbanBaby boards. Maybe the whole magazine should be written by anonymous insomniac cranks. Instead of, you know, just the features.

Vonn Jackson is not the name of a bar on Bleecker; it's the name of this week's victim in New York mag's Look Book. Vonn is an aspiring singer-songwriter, but in the meantime she's in school and working as a phone operator for Kaplan Test Prep, an audio engineer, and a web designer. Vonn considers herself trendy in a gladiator-sandals-cowboy-hat sort of way, explaining that she "goes left" if everyone else "goes right." Actually, we don't really give a shit about Vonn's style — we just love her subtly erotic MySpace page.

In a place where shrinks and therapists serve as our food and water, it should be relatively obvious that New York is the most miserable city in America (this may be directly related to the average New Yorker's inability to meet the cost of living here). New York magazine comes to the rescue, however, compiling all the self-help books on Adam Moss' bookshelf in order to create a list of 20 strategies for happy New York living. Most of the suggestions are pretty obvious: avoid law school, find a mate, do as little parenting as possible.

The new New York, weighing in at 168 pages, arrived this week with an almost Vanity Fair-like heft. We were planning to congratulate the mag on this achievement — actually, we were waiting for the inevitable press release touting the accomplishment — but then we actually gave the cover a look. And we're not sure we'll ever be able to quite get past the Platon-shooting-Clinton-for-Esquire shot of Woody Allen's crotch we'll have to spend the next two weeks looking at. (It's a double issue.) Yuck.

Is it possible to be friends with the Look Book? Because we kind of want to. His name is Ben Nardolilli, and you love him too. It's OK — his mustache has so much to give in return. Ben started growing facial hair when he was just 10, making him the sort of glorious anomaly who could never live a normal life outside of academia. And so he studies history and philosophy at NYU, spending his summer teaching a camp for gifted students at UVA. While he teaches a bunch of 6th and 7th graders about free will, we know you'll be loyally waiting for that mustache to come back home and tickle you with its kisses.

Do you recognize this woman? Yep, she's the ho who cut you off as you were exiting Barneys — she just breezed right through you, knocking down your broke ass as she hopped into her chauffered luxury SUV. She is better than you, more worthy of New York's Look Book than you'll ever be. Other, less relevant details: her name is Joanne Prager and she's a mother of four who lives in Soho. Her husband buys her clothes, her driver keeps things cozy, and her kids attend "more-traditional schools uptown." None of the hippy boho chic education downtown, not for her little babies! Sigh. Don't we all know a Joanne Prager?

Seen this week's New York yet? It's the annual "Best Doctors" issue. We haven't caught it personally, because our Supercuts always seems to be a week or two behind on its subscriptions, but we've been dying to see who snagged this year's valuable "Best Colon & Rectal Surgery" nod. Apparently, though, our anticipation is for naught: Writing in Slate, physician Kent Sepkowitz (himself a perennial "Best" listee) calls the list "heavily influenced by backslapping, back-stabbing, and old-fashioned old-boyism," and says it "isn't really about accuracy or quality. It's about sales."

Taking time away from the valuable service of alerting you as to the best place to get your polyps removed in Murray Hill, New York delivers a devastating report on a man who happens to share the same name as another man. What's more, this man has sometimes been confused for the other man, having as they do the same shockingly uncommon moniker ("Richard Johnson.") The non-celebrity-blackmailing Johnson reveals that there are both positives and negatives to being confused for the famous gossip monger, but the gossip monger himself (It gets confusing, doesn't it? We're amazed they only put one reporter on this story.) treats the coincidence with typical aplomb: "As long as he doesn't start his own gossip column." Whether or not Johnson expressed concern about his namesake's entering the sideline of riding ripped through the Meatpacking district was unreported at press time.

New York has taken a moment to remind us all that they had done a cover story on their predictions for the Brangelina baby photos, along with staged photo shoots that look somewhat similar to the actual photos. See? They took a picture on a bed, and there was a real picture on a bed — they got it right!

Shit. We can't make fun of this week's Look Book. We just can't. He's just too adorable! God, we miss our grandpa, we really should give him a call...

At left, New York's Nov. 8, 2004, cover story on the city as the only child capital of America. At right, this week's New York cover story, on the city's growing plague of twins. We'll pencil in the New York cover story on triplets for January 2008.

• Five news orgs — including NYT — pay Wen Ho Lee $750,000 to settle his case. Which seems not a not entirely unreasonable amount after mistakenly being labled a nuclear spy. [NYT]
• CBS News Iraq reporter Kim Dozier now off respirator, breathing on her own. [CBSNews.com]
• Charlie Gibson thinks New York's Joe Hagan "is something of a snake" and will never talk to him again. Mind you, this is over a fluffy Q&A. [Chicago Defender]
• Best attack on Judy Miller ever: She could have prevented 9/11. [TAP]
• Time loses Baghdad reporters; New York to lose dapper WSJer Matthew Rose. [NYP]
• Time's Jim Kelly to take sabbatical, visit Statue of Liberty before starting new corporate gig. [MW]
• GMA EP Ben Sherwood quits. Presumably he just couldn't bear not having Charlie Gibson's full attention. [Media Mob/NYO]

As we understand it — and granted we may entirely misunderstand it — there's a New York mag-inspired hip-hop mixtape now available. (Cover art — for which one hopes Luke Hayman gets a royalty — at right.) Says MixUnit.com, on which the mixtape is for sale:

It's a shame that New York magazine doesn't ever put together some sort of panel discussion amongst its Look Book folk; if they did, we'd totally buy a ticket, sit in the front row, and throw feces-filled Balenciaga knock-offs at the young lady at right. 19-year-old Elizabeth Beare is a student at Boston University, but she hates how students wear sweatpants and, like, study and stuff. Lizzie prefers shopping — every day is an occasion for her to bust out the Marc Jacobs sunglasses and nautical tank top, and maybe hit Bergdorf for a new outfit to wear out to Double Seven that night. She's a child of the city, the spawn of Jeffrey and Intermix, and the girl is long overdue for her David Amsden profile.