The NYT's Joyce Wadler discovers celebrity hipsters at Chloe Sevigny's screening of Elia Kazan's America, America at the Tribeca Grand: "Pouring into the TriBeCa Grand's plush screening room to watch the film...were an invited crowd of socialites. Also attending were Ms. Sevigny's personal guests, who favored an urban biker look and had apparently never been coached by their mothers about looking pleased to be invited, even if you are not." The appearance of disaffectation and rugged urbanity (as opposed to rugged urbaneness) are actually part of The Look.
In Greece, apparently, no history of screenings [NYT]

The NYT discusses what would happen if terrorists took over New York broadcast media: "...let's say that terrorists manage somehow to get past the security posts in Rockefeller Center, grab Chuck Scarborough's chair at WNBC-TV and go live with their talk of holy war and American perfidy. Except for a few bleary-eyed, bleary-brained viewers who may wonder why Chuck suddenly changed his hair color, everybody will understand that something very strange is going on."
Terror TV? Just change the channel [NYT]

Hollywood stylists and publicists breathlessly announce that celebrities will not wear massive jewels or gaudy colors to the Oscar ceremonies out of respect for the war in Iraq. They will, however, produce vapid post-ceremony commentary, do lines of coke in the men's room, and tearfully thank studio execs with whom they've sleptas they do every year.
War jitters may color Academy Awards night [NYT]

From the NYT "Corrections" page: "An article in Arts & Ideas on Saturday about works of art inspired by science misstated the title of a Thomas Pynchon novel. It is The Crying of Lot 49, not The Crying of Lot 69." The NYT staff has apparently confused a Thomas Pynchon novel with an Amy Sacco-run downtown club. This must be part of the ongoing quest for hipness initiated by Editor Howell Raines. (But Lot 61 is soooo, like, 1999 Fendi-baguette-and-apple-martini.)
Corrections [NYT]

The NYT recalls a recent appearance by former AOL/TW Chairman Ted Turner at a New Yorker breakfast in which he told his audience that he had volunteered to report from Iraq for CNN, sang verses of "Don't Fence Me In," and said he "relished the idea of challenging the media mogul Rupert Murdoch, 72, to a fistfight." Murdoch's response: "The last thing Ted needs these days is a licking from me."
Turner jabs AOL Time Warner [NYT]

The NYT reports that Yankee pitcher David Wells has created a new literary genre with his book, Perfect I'm Not: the unauthorized autobiography. (NBA star Charles Barkley pioneered the concept in 1993 by claiming that he'd been "misquoted" in his own autobiography.) The emergent genre has, in turn, spawned a new game called "Fact Or Fiction" in which every detail of the book is open for debate: "We learn in the book, for example, that when Wells was inexplicably attacked last year in a Manhattan diner at 5 a.m. he was not only stone-cold sober, but also innocently tucking into an egg-white omelet. An egg-white omelet? Really? At 5 a.m.? Let's put it to a vote!"
Boomer fact or fiction, it's all part of the game [NYT]

The NYT's Guy Trebay says models with non-descript looks are extremely trendy now. "Exotic" is sooooo over, baby. He blames the economy. "In leaner times, beauty, too, gets pared down. 'These things come in cycles,' said Alex de Betak, the director of Bureau Betak, one of the premier fashion show production houses. 'It's a trend like every other trend.'"
Strutting down the runway with a severe case of the blahs [NYT]

Ah, the life of a "Broadway dame"! The drama! The intrigue! The harrowing dilemmas! The NYT's Joyce Wadler reports:
[Wadler to a group of "dames"]: Are you the ladies who lunch?
"No," Ms. Stritch said, "We're the ladies who don't lunch."
Ms. Bergen, missing that, started talking about a recent lunch.
Ms. Stritch interrupted.
"I was invited to luncheon at Le Cirque last Friday. I couldn't go. I had a CAT scan. That's the only thing I'd rather not do than have lunch."
"I can't stand them," Ms. Bergen said.
Jeremy's leather jacket says 'born to sorta sing' [NYT]
Lunch vs. CAT scan: lunch wins [Googlefight.com]

NYT Editor Howell Raines' wedding to Krystyna Anna Stachowiak (the theme: black tie fly fishing) marked the continuation of a hallowed Times tradition: newsroom romance. "The Times newsroom has always been a very romantic place," said former Times managing editor Arthur Gelb, "I've seen generations of editors and reporters find love in and outside the newsroom." Awwww... Oh, wait. Typo. Ewwww...
My big fat Times wedding [NYT]

The NYT has been spreading vicious rumors that the mayor likes cake. "The part of the story that really annoyed me is that part that said I eat cake every day," the mayor said. "I eat a lot of popcorn, pretzels. If you put cookies out I'll probably nibble on it. But cake is not my weakness." [Insert obvious I Do Not Eat Cake; Let Them Eat Cake joke.]
Pass the pretzels, Mayor says, but keep your cake [NYT]

The Conde Nast empire has spawned a new magazine, Keith Kelly and the NYT report. The yet-unnamed title will be a men's magazine that will focus on shopping. Conde Nast spokespeople, however, deny that anything new is in the works.
Conde Nast's big tease [Keith Kelly - Post]
A men's version of Lucky Magazine [NYT]

"Feb. 14: Reported to camp today. Nearly impossible to get any writing done with this pitching business. I find I'm too tired at day's end, especially if I've drunk a case of beer at lunch. Kafka spoke of the devil's pact writers make with paying work. Bacchus haunts me."
David Wells, artiste [NYT]

For the last couple of weeks, Paragon Sports in Union Square and Tent and Trails in lower Manhattan have been outfitting Baghdad-bound NY media people with lifetime supplies of Gore-tex and a variety of survivalist implements that will inevitably collect desert dust on the floor of an overseas hotel room. Tent and Trails owner Jamie Abish to a reporter who asks for a field mirror: "Have you told your mother you're doing this?"
You need outerwear to go 'over there' [NYT]

The NYT reveals the secret undisclosed rush hour taxi signal: "Hold out your thumb and index finger an inch apart, as if a matchstick were in between...It tells them you're only going a short distance." It's just like your usual rush hour tacticjumping up and down while frantically waving your arms while screaming "TAXIIIII!!"but more subtle.
When cabs won't stop, a little pinch may help [NYT]

Mayor Mike acknowledges his vast fortune and says everyone needs to get past it. People, are however, interpreting it in different fashions. According to the NYTimes, the mayor's response is an eye-rolling "grow up!" "You know we should get over this and get on with it," he says "Am I thrilled I started out working in a parking lot and made a lot of money? Yes." The NY Post, however, makes him apologetic: "Mayor Bloomberg yesterday practically begged New Yorkers to stop thinking about his bulging bank account...He pleaded, 'We should get over this.'" I suspect the NYT got it right.
Bloomberg says enough with the billionaire talk [NYT]
Moneybags mayor: forget my fat wallet [Post]

The New York Times finally discovers Soho House, but Alex Kuczynski makes up for the delay with a nice piece on the private member's club. Nick Jones, the founder, is British, as is the club. Soho House may be invitation-only, but it isn't nearly as snotty as New York's co-op boards. Except Jones, a recent import, gets condos and co-ops confused, rather charmingly.
Are You Swell Enough for Soho House? [NYT]

A t-shirt from the "Star of Davidson" Harley Davidson bike club reads, "My hog is kosher." The Jewish bike club is a little over a year old and has 100 members. The typical participant: Seth Tokson, 43, of Armonk, owner of Absolute Pest Management Inc. "I'm a nice Jewish boy who likes motorcycles, shoots guns from time to time, and kills things for a living."
Wandering Jews, but on Harleys [NYT]
Star of Davidson

The NYT's Joyce Wadler, who did the best Hilton sisters interview I've seen yet, ran the first-ever NYT blind item last week. The target? Gossip columnist Michael Gross. ("What local ink-stained columnist had his publicist call around to say copies of his unauthorized biography of a top American fashion designer would be distributed in the street, after the designer's show on Friday?") Doesn't it seem a little too meta when gossip columnists are writing about gossip columnists in their gossip columns? It's like having gossipy gossip growing out of your gossip. Not that we're complaining, necessarily.
Times goes blind [Observer]

Maybe Daniel Libeskind won't win the commission to rebuild the World Trade Center site, after all. The architect, designer of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, mounted the most aggressive PR campaign of all the firms in contention. He hired multiple publicists, appeared on Oprah, set off a small trend in spectactle styles, and called for the resignation of the NYT architecture critic. New York may love a showman, but the panel, which makes its decision today, is said to be leaning toward THINK.
Panel Backs Think Team Design for Downtown [NYT]
Finalists for Ground Zero Design Pull Out the Stops[NYT]

Kurt Vonnegut's response to the NYT's Joyce Wadler at Clive Davis' Grammy party last night: "I'm here because Jill [Krementz] wants to be here."
[Wadler asks,] Would he like to tell us about music he loves?
"No, I don't like your newspaper."
[Wadler asks,] Why?
"You don't like me," he said, walking away.
Don't shoot! That's Aretha's hair! [NYT]