• More on HBO's new multi-wived drama, Big Love: If you liked the premiere or just needed more reason to hate it, behold the show's cruel marketing tactics. We'll let you plaster the background of Page Six with your logo, but defiling the Times Vows section is simply unacceptable. What was once pure is now maimed by marketing whores. [City Specific]
• A study finds that bloggers do very little original reporting and, less surprisingly, cable news is the most shallow and ephemeral of media outlets. This has been brought to you by the Captain Obvious Center for Media Research. [NYT]
• Even less original reporting from bloggers today, as we hear that Blogger has been down. We love it when bloggers can't even bitch about being unable to bitch.
• Surprise, surprise: They just might shut down The Falls, where ex-con Darryl Littlejohn worked as a bouncer and was last seen with murder victim Imette St. Guillen. While it's still open, try to have your birthday party there — should be plenty of room for you and yours. [NY Sun]
• Remembering better days, before Angelina Jolie was rescuing orphans and was just another crazy dyke. [Stories You Cannot Tell]
• Mariah Carey buys her own winery — because that's how rich boozers roll. Rest assured, the zinfandel is very full-bodied. [omg blog]
• The best of Amazon, as presented by Andrew Krucoff. [Young Manhattanite]

In a previous life, Fake Writer James Frey was just a "regular" writer, having penned the screenplay for Kissing a Fool and, later, a couple of massive bestselling memoirs built off a fantastical pile of bullshit. During those cloudless days before Oprah's storm, it seems that Frey also sold a one-hour crime drama script to Fox "about Malibu-based private eye Donald "Insane" Tremaine, 'former world champion surfer, PI, Chevelle driver and lover of ladies.'" A sample from the pilot:

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, on the other hand, prefers to focus on the positive developments.

Australian novelist and literary prankster Peter Carey on James Frey:

You thought Judith Regan outdid herself last week, when she announced her obnoxiously quickie James Frey spoof, A Million Little Lies? Well, maybe. But Regan can always one-up anyone, even herself. What's the big, obnoxious news from ReganMedia this week? The Book Standard reports:

• If you didn't watch the Oscars, God bless you. But you still need to see the Three 6 Mafia's dramatic interpretation of "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp." It's your duty in maintaining pop culture relevancy. [fourfour]
• Cheers to Macy's in-house designer Allen Schwartz: the Oscars were Sunday night, and already ABS by Allen Schwartz has produced solid red-carpet knock-offs. [Us Weekly]
• When Courtney Love vacates, brokers celebrate! [NYO]
• Beloved local Oscar-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman flaunts his asscrack all over the City of Angels. [Liam McEneany Experience]
• The debate rages on: Is Britney Spears pregnant again, or just inhaling gravy? [A Socialite's Life]
• As men in suits gear up to campaign for anything and everything, one man dares to explain NYC's third party system. [East Village Red Man]
• RIP, Gordon Parks. [NYT]
• When art book publisher Powerhouse loses their lease to a restaurateur, what are they to do? Start a blog against "evil," of course. Is there anything these crazy weblogs can't do? [Powerhouse]

From today's Publishers Lunch deal roundup:

• Penguin wins auction for Alan Greenspan memoir with an offer believed to be nearly $9 million. Obligatory question: Irrationally exuberant? [NYP]
• The dude behind the allegedly forthcoming mags Everything for Men and Everything for Women is a con artist and a felon. Unlike most mag people, who are merely con artists. [WWD]
• Arthur S. holds his State of the Times meeting; reporters question why he gets paid so much and they so little. [Media Mob/NYO]
• ABC's Bob Woodruff reportedly now conscious and talking, though heavily medicated. [ABCNews.com]
• Air America could lose its New York affiliate on April 1. We'd be bummed, if we ever listened to it. [NYP]
• The Jew and the gays brought Oscar his second-worst ratings since 1987. [WP]
• Does Diane Sawyer want to anchor World News Tonight? One gossip site says so. [TMZ]
• Candace Bushnell to launch weekly Sirius Satellite Radio show giving advice to women. First piece of advice we'd like her fans to hear: "They're just cupcakes. Stop waiting on a line around the corner for them." [NYDN]
• Will Nick Sylvester be a Stephen Glass, a Mike Barnicle, or a Janet Cooke? [Media Mob/NYO]

From an article today on a major revision to Janson, the definitive art-history textbook:

Say what you will about Intern Alexis (she's a cheap whore, etc.), but the girl is nothing if not courageous. If we were faced with a letter about sex from Cosmo founder and fiesty octogenarian Helen Gurley Brown, we'd most definitely turn our head in fear and send the paper towards the nearest trashcan fire. But Alexis soldiers on so that she might tell you about Brown's 90-year-old lover. After that lovely appetizer, she dines on the nerdtastic debut of former Spin editor Dave Itzkoff's column, followed by oysters and a little cronyism. Her weekly guide to the Times Book Review follows.

Post-Frey, book publishers aren't taking any chances.

Consumating founder Ben Brown IMed me with a little fun at the expense of web developer and 37signals founder Jason Fried. Note to Jason: We kid because we love. Please don't delete our Basecamp accounts.

When we first received word about last night's premiere of The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, based on the book by Fake Writer J.T. Leroy, we were a little bit blown away. After New York magazine and the Times exposed Leroy as a complete fraud, a nonexistent individual fabricated by a woman named Laura Albert in order to gain literary success, how could these people possibly have the motivation to host an honest-to-God premiere and after-party? Were they actually sending us a freaking tip sheet for a film spawned from a lie, complete with the names of expected A-list attendees like Mandy Moore and Maggie Gyllenhaal? And were the Misshapes kids really DJing the fucking after-party, where Leroy himself was expected to appear? Certainly such a wheelbarrow of bullshit couldn t be for real but it was. When the balls behind an event are that overgrown, we have to attend.

Gawker Media's GAWKER'S GUIDE TO SOMETHING OR ANOTHER, about how our publisher will be hiring freelancers to write a book so that your dear editors may continue to function as blog slaves, to Peter Borland at Atria, in a nice, significant, major, fantastic deal, by Daniel Greenberg of Levine Greenberg.

Apropos nothing, a reader sends us a moving image of young Emma Watson (age 15), co-star of the Harry Potter movies, enjoying an icy cold Corona. While this can only mean shame, rehab, and a True Hollywood Story for Watson, this is the best thing to happen to the publishing industry in years: Instead of JK Rowling finishing Harry Potter with her next book, the seventh and final in the series, she can continue to rake in millions with a young adult drug and alcohol spin-off series. What parent wouldn't want their child to own The Muggle's Guide to Peer Pressure?

Publisher's Marketplace reports on the debut of novelist Valerie Stivers (no relation to former Time Out New York EIC and current Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia EVP Cyndi Stivers). Young Stivers has sold her first novel to Three Rivers Press; called Blood Is the New Black, it sounds like a gem:

The good people at The Book Standard pass along this press release, just issued. They assure us it's for real, though, sadly, they did not also send along barf bags:

In her weekly examination of the Times Book Review, Intern Alexis has made a stunning discovery: writers are lazy. Yes, it's true — even writers for the Book Review are prone to making repetitive over-generalizations in lieu of writing something original! Aside from this ground-breaking realization, Alexis also falls prey to the trickery of reviewer Jennifer Egan; meanwhile, the Bernard-Henri Levy/Garrison Keiller slap-a-thon continues. After the jump, your essential guide to sounding like you didn't sleep through lit-crit 101.

From the masthead of the new BlackBook:

• Dow Jones reorg combines print and online editions of WSJ. [AP via Yahoo]
• New Meredith editorial director Mike Lafavore fires Fitness EIC Emily Listfield and then gives himself the job, at least for now. How very Wennerian. [NYP]
• Carl Icahn's Time Warner breakup plan had a 37-page chapter on why Time Inc. doesn't fit with the rest of the company. How does John Huey react to that? "I didn't find it a very compelling chapter." Of course not. [NYO]
• Jack Shafer prefers his newscasters brunette. [Slate]
• Maxim redesign to remove "a layer of goofiness"; Graydon promises his next car will be a hybrid. [WWD]
• Breaking: Newspapers sometimes create sections as vehicles to attract advertising. [NYO]
• LAT NYC bureau chief to take on book-publishing beat, too. Because there's just not enough going on in the city itself to keep a reporter busy. [LA Observed]
• Eleven mags missed their rate base in the last half of 2005 — and that doesn't even court the half-dozen AMI titles set to miss in the next go-round. [BW]