Another addition to Deathweek 2005: Word came last night that Barbara Bel Geddes, who was Miss Ellie on Dallas (and — who knew? — the original Maggie the Cat on Broadway), died Monday.

• Carl Icahn wants to split up Time Warner. [NYT]
• Times digital chief Martin Nisenholtz says the hope is that office move will make NYTimes.com "part of the DNA of the newsroom." Our hope is that people finally stop talking about inanimate objects' DNA. [OJR]
• With the network-news changing of the guard complete, advertisers might reconsider all the money they spend on the evening news. [NYT]
• New sports spinoffs TK from Times Magazine and, natch, SI. [NYO]
• Francis Bean Cobain, Kurt and Courtney's daughter, to appear in "Young Hollywood" package of October Teen Vogue. [WWD]

The Times and the Newspaper Guild finally worked out their differences on ethics training for newsroom employees, and now each employee must take and pass the big ethics testby next Monday. The Observer's Gabriel Sherman scored a copy of the exam.

So first there was David Shaw last week. Then Peter Jennings over the weekend. John Johnson on Monday. Abe Hirschfeld yesterday. Now there's news on the wires that even the author Judith Rossner has finally finished her search for Mr. Goodbar. And somehow we have this feeling that the recent spate of deaths isn't quite over yet.

Today's Times introduces us to Kevin Cahoon, a Broadway actor who also moonlights as a downtown rocker fronting the band Ghetto Cowboy:

The September issue of W has an especially lurid piece on Times reporter Alex Kuczynski and her luxurious weekend getaway in Idaho, which we imagine to have involved togas and vomitoriums. It's the sort of piece that makes you marvel and admire Kuczynski's survival as the Gray Lady's patron anomaly — but, at the same time, you uncontrollably seethe with all sorts of jealous rage. It all begins with a disturbingly sudden lede:

In today's Times:

• At Advertising Week in September, the headline event will be Jon Stewart interviewing four yet-unnamed prominent magazine editors. We really hope it's Newsweek chief Mark Whitaker. We hear he's a laugh riot. [AdFreak]
• "[B]logs are often just a way of making oneself appear on the Internet," observes NYT editorial. No word on whether newspapers are a way for making oneself appear in print, of if TV is a way for making oneself appear on TV. [NYT]
• More on the Murdoch Family Feud: It wasn't that Rupe couldn't let go, it was that Lach just didn't care enough. And dad was very disappointed in him, young man. [Economist]
• Top flack Peter Costiglio to leave Time Inc. at end of summer. Also, EIC Norm Pearlstine could hand over the top chair to editorial director John Huey around then, too. Ah, they grow up so fast these days. [NYP]
• Army Archerd to end column, but not leave Variety. [NYT]
• Will Fairchild honestly name a new editor to take over Jane within the next week? And does this new editor actually exist as of yet? [Folio]

It's been a bad summer to be a kid in the New York area, as the Times points out today. So far:

Some vetter from the White House Counsel's office is getting fired right about now, we imagine.

• Jake Bronstein, the jackanapes known for making a mold of his penis and bathing in Bryant Park, wants to marry you. He's sadly serious, too — go on, you know you've always wanted to marry someone from Road Rules. [TMI]
• After 52 years, Variety gossip Army Archerd calls it a day and ends his column. [Reuters]
• Shape editor Anne Russell abruptly resigns (which is code for "gets canned" according to WWD), thus creating yet another mini-crisis around the AMI offices. They just can't seem to get enough of those. [Mediaweek]
• Our sincere condolences to the Times' Lola Oguinnake, who was forced to touch Janice Dickinson's lifelike breasts. [NYT]
• The art of reporting celebrity pregnancies. [Radar]
• Hipsters, unplug your kitsch-fabulous Christmas lights and cancel band practice: The LES is being asked to conserve energy. [Gothamist]

We like it when Times jefe Bill Keller channels Joyce for (largely incomprehensible) portions of staff memos:

The Times takes a front-page look today at another angle on the housing boom: All the new construction, in all sorts of different places. "While Manhattan's new buildings may get the ink," the paper says, "the real action is in the city's four other boroughs." Apparently the city issued construction permits for 25,208 new housing units last year and 15,870 so far this year. Former drug zones in eastern Brooklyn are seeing lots of new construction. Apartment complexes are being built in former industrial areas in Queens. Immigrants are buying their first homes. A limestone-fronted building is going up on a block in the Bronx. It's great news, except for one thing left unaddressed: You'll still never be able to afford a decent place in a neighborhood you want to live in.

If you look at the Times' most e-mailed articles as an indicator of what's on America's mind, today's answer is disturbingly random: Unabomber sensibility flavored with just enough food to keep your ass looking like that of a 16-year-old.

A dozen years earlier, and high school would have been significantly less terrible.

• October 2004: New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commission holds an auction for taxicab medallions that may be used only on vehicles burning natural gas or on electric-gas hybrids. Eighteen such medallions are sold, at significantly below-market prices.

Just over a week since Arts & Leisure princess Jodi Kantor announced her move to the magazine's The Way We Live Now roster as a reporter, the Times has placed the crown upon the sternly coiffed head of one Ariel Kaminer, who formerly whipped the section around as deputy editor. All subscribers are asked to put forth a sacrificial lamb to appease the new queen.

• Al Gore's cable network, which launches today, is apparently a tapas bar, says a San Francisco Chronicle writer. This is, we think, a good thing, mostly because we had some excellent tapas last time we were in the City. [SFC]
• Katie Couric is a diva, but not one who throws lamps, says Ken Auletta. Not that we can actually get to his article online. [NYer]
• While her husband is on vacation, Judy Miller gets jail visits from journos. [E&P]
• TV on the web is perhaps finally here. Which comes as great news for your friends who worked at Pseudo five years ago. [NYT]
• GQ really, really likes The Dukes of Hazzard. [NYT]
• As if things were looking so rosy for media companies in the first place, now a global ad slowdown is expected. [NYP]
• Ten bought-out employees had their last days at the Times on Friday. [Romenesko]
• Apparently there's a clever guy in Los Feliz running a smart and funny blog about Hollywood. Who knew? [LAT]

Sitting on the beach Sunday morning, reading Alexandra Wolfe and Gawker Hottie Warren St. John's examination of why people feel compelled to advertise on their bumpers and tote bags where they vacation, we happened upon what we think is our favorite Times paragraph of the summer:

Usually we post headlines to make fun of them. But this one, for some reason, we just kind of love. We like the flow. We like the odd story it's telling. We like the pileup of elegant noun-adjective combos: young dancers, speeding car, long trail.