The co-author of the hot new lez-lit handbook, Same Sex in the City: So Your Prince Charming Is Really a Cinderella? Yeah, she works for Google. Gawker alum Choire Sicha says Lauren Levin's bio calls her a "top ad-sales junior executive at Google," and I'll take his word for it. (The bio's nowhere to be found on the web. It must be on paper somewhere.)
From a fullpage ad for Junior, Macaulay Culkin's new autobiographical novel, in Friday's Times:
After two weeks of traveling the world in search of the finest and most exotic psychedelics, Intern Alexis is back on the island, well-rested and happy to be home. But something is different: our precious little literary crankpot is unquestionably perky this week, finding the Times Book Review to be actually enjoyable (she all but takes her pants off for reviewer David Gates). We'd say she's returned a changed woman, but we'll blame those TMA muffins she picked up in Thailand.
A correspondent informs us of breaking news regarding AMI editorial director Bonnie Fuller's forthcoming book, to be released April 11:
Damn Bonnie Fuller for writing that massively titled book of hers — over ten years since her initial rise to legendary monsterhood, the release of The Joys of Much Too Much : Go for the Big Life—The Great Career, The Perfect Guy, and Everything Else You've Ever Wanted is the only justifiable reason that we're still subjected to profiles of AMI's queen bee. And so today brings yet another she's-a-tough-bitch article from the Sun, in which she divulges, "As a child, I liked to be bossy." How totally surprising. Also surprising is the revelation that Fuller just doesn't get it:
• Pew study says young people get their news mostly online. You don't say. [USAT]
• Finally, your chance to be a Times White House reporter. [Media Mob/NYO]
• That British fashion writer who sold How to Wear Black to S&S if apparently even more full of shit than we already knew; also, Joanne Lipman continues staffing up the TK-eventually Conde business mag. [WWD]
• Boston Globe ad sales stink, and it's bringing down the whole Times Co. [NYP]
• Plan to sex up National Magazine Awards event includes performance by Wynton Marsalis, an award presentation by Anderson Cooper, and maybe — if we're really lucky — an award presentation by Heidi Klum. And for the big finish, ASME president Mark Whitaker, Newsweek's editor, will join Time's Jim Kelly for a choreographed performance of Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better. [NYP]
• Rolling Stone reality show moving along nicely and set to start taping in July. But there's bad news, too: "[C]ast members will be selected based largely on merit as opposed to, say, sex appeal and a penchant for sociopathic behavior," which sounds no fun at all. [WWD]
• Times reporters continue to write books, continue to be confused — to the union's chagrin — about the rules under which they are or are not allowed to write them. [NYO]
• Jessica Simpson, Ashlee Simpson, Britney Spears, and Tom Cruise moved the most mags in 2005. [MIN]
• Time Inc. reaches $4.5M settlement in subscription-renewal investigation. Now if they'd just do something about those fucking subscription-renewal cards. [Reuters]
Yesterday we received the following email:
Because Toby Young isn't quite done milking his ill-fated tenure at Vanity Fair for every last drop of post-facto enrichment, he'll be back this summer with yet another memoir, containing yet more reminiscences of Graydon Carter. The Sound of No Hands Clapping is set for July publication, and a mole at The Book Standard today passes along some choice bits he found in an unedited copy of the (apparently long overdue) text:
Variety reports today that Stephen Colbert has signed a seven-figure deal for a Colbert Report-esque book, to be published in September 2007 by Warner. Warner also published the Daily Show's disgustingly successful book America, for which Colbert was a contributor. Unlike America, however, Colbert's book will not have an illustrated component and it will be written mostly by Colbert, who is bravely rejecting the safety of his writing team.
So this morning we learned that Warren St. John's non-relative Ron St. John is suing the Times reporter for putting a photo of Ron's RV, nicknamed "The Toad," on the cover of his Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer paperback and, in some doing, somehow behaved in ways that "are atrocious and utterly intolerable in civilized society." Among the several fun things about this case — the complaint itself, from which we quoted this morning; the fact that Ron's lawyer is named "Cracker" Waldrop — is Ron's personal website, Toadstuff.com, which features prominently on its front page the book cover that has so inflamed his delicate sensibilities.
We were advised Friday afternoon that we might want to check out a certain lawsuit filed in the U.S. district court for the northern district of Alabama. At the end of the day Friday, we got our hands on the relevant complaint. And it turns out that stylish Time style reporter Warren St. John has been sued.
From today's Daily Candy email newsletter:
• Today's speculation on the next World News Tonight anchor: Charlie Gibson. Because Diane wants him to. [NYO]
• That Times Mag Mark-Warner-Looks-Nothing-Like-His-Photo correction? It's all thanks to the Observer. [NYO]
• Howell Raines' latest memoir TK on May 9. In case 20,000 words in The Atlantic wasn't enough for you. [E&P]
• Kent Brownridge is gone from Wenner Media. Again. For real. We think. [NYP]
• And Jann startes hunting for a new Kent. Mary Berner, maybe? [WWD]
• The Times thinks Hillary's running for president, too: She'll now be covered through the Washburo instead of the Metro desk. [NYO]
This week in the Times Book Review, intellectual feminist Naomi Wolf puts down her newfound Bible just long enough to pick up the Gossip Girls books. While flitting about the Young Adult section, she finds that the teen slut genre is promoting "escapist fantasies." Well, no shit — that's why they're good! After that, it's a lengthy debate on the use of "fancy" and Walter Benjamin's forthcoming hash-happy compilation. After the jump, Intern Alexis holds your hand and guides you through the Cliff's Notes of the Review.
No matter what you do, say, or write about, you can't escape the glittery glove of the past.
Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown appeared Britain's High Court yesterday on behalf of Random House U.K., which is being sued by two authors who claim Brown's book imitates the central theme of their older work, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. While defending the originality of his work, Brown revealed a little bit about himself: he never watched television as a child. His father used to devise codes and games for Brown to find his Christmas presents. Blythe Brown, his wife, does most of his research and is said to be "forceful."
