Everything seems to be in good working order, so this is post number one on my lovely new blog, which has been tastefully done in those soothing Capital Influx colors so as to make the domain switch less traumatic for those of you who are deathly afraid of change—which, in my experience describes 98% of the blogosphere. (Is everyone okay? How are we all feeling? Does the blue work? Do we all feel that our color preferences are sufficiently validated? Good, good. Moving on...)

Thanks to Paul Frankenstein for the design and Christian Crumlish for the hosting.

Maccers, Eurotrash and I were in Lockhart Steele's hood last night after an unsuccessful attempt to get into a reading that included, among other people, Dave Eggers. Having Dave Eggers at a reading is apparently the literary equivalent of announcing that Justin Timberlake is coming to a party. The starry-eyed 14 year old girls come out of the woodwork.

And then they cut in front of you in line. Bitches.

But I digress.

On the way back from dinner, we passed hipster hellhole Piano's and reflexively snickered. (I don't know how much of Cyndi Lauper's 1986 wardrobe is still in thrift store circulation, but I'm pretty sure that 90% of it reconvenes at the corner of Ludlow and Stanton on Saturday nights.)

I spotted Ken Courtney, who I recently interviewed for Salon, standing outside a block away, watching the hipsters and violating the open container law. Ken has basically built an artistic career out of taking advantage of hipster trend-chasing. His newest hobby is Screwing With Friendster. This may or may not include creating a profile titled "Paris Hilton's Pussy" with a cropped shot of a crotch shot—Ms. Hilton's, to be specific—that has been floating around the Internet, and laughing at messages from people who message the profile thinking it's authentic. (A promoter for a design house offered to send "her" clothes.)

Apropos of nothing, Ken also suggested that running in the park would be more interesting if the park were inhabited by a large predatory bird that would swoop down and pluck a fitness-conscious Brooklynite from the track once a day. I somehow neglected to point out that running in Brooklyn can be potentially life-threatening anyway, but I don't think it's a bad idea. As long as I get to pick the Brooklynite.

Ladies and Gentlemen. Brothers and Sisters. Friends and, if I may be so bold... Comrades. The Christopher Hitchens Drinking Club will resume the week of August 11th—date and location, TBD.

I'm wondering if I should change the name. It's a bit misleading. Hitchens is rarely discussed and never present. The only accurate connotation is that participants typically spend most of the night imitating or reinforcing the drunken English hack stereotype. I might as well call it the Anthony Haden-Guest Drinking Club. (In fact, I could call it the Anthony Haden-Guest Drinking Club.) Calling it the Hitch club wrongly implies that there will be some sort of intellectual repartee and the occasional witty comment. Which sometimes happens, but never intentionally.

I'll probably write about this on Gawker tomorrow, but it'll be short and snarky. Jack Shafer swiftly indicted Judith Miller's questionable reporting from Iraq in Slate on Friday, and as usual, no one blinked. This story really should have gotten a lot more attention than it has. Miller's a Pulitzer Prize winner putting out front page articles on Iraqi WMDs (or lack thereof) for the New York Times. Getting duped by sources occasionally is an occupational hazard if you're a reporter (see the recent "Bambi hunting" hoax) but Miller doesn't seem to have made an effort to verify much of anything (and this isn't a fucking paintball game.) That's lazy and negligent reporting, but worse, she seems to be defending Chalabi after it's been established that he's a semi-reliable source, at best. I don't think anyone's capable of being completely objective, journalistic or otherwise, but she's blatantly taking sides.

I don't think that the NYT is institutionally reinforcing the pro-Bush WMD line, although I know that one's popular with the conspiracy theorists and good fodder for cocktail party arguments. I think it's a combination of Times scandal exhaustion post-Jayson Blair (more bad reporting at the Times--*yawn*) and the fact that most media people aren't inclined to care about anything that happens outside of Manhattan. They don't feel "connected" to it; the details are convoluted; she issued the necessary disclaimers; blah, blah, blah.

This should be the biggest media scandal of the year.

Ernest Hemingway: Gin.
Bartender: So Charles Dickens was in here two days ago.
Ernest Hemingway: Joyce already told me that story. Fuck off.
Literary bar jokes [Iowablog via TMN]

I linked the latest version of the A-list a couple of days ago on Gawker (thereby decreasing worker productivity in Manhattan by 5.8%) and some blogger has already bastardized it. The A-list: blogger edition

Alterman, Eric - B________. Had a three-way with Brigitte Neilson and Mark Gastineau. Massive cokehead. Kind, gentle, and highly philanthropic: if coke is involved. Once tried to snort a bullfrog. No one knows why. Linked with Brigitte Neilson, Mark Gastineau, and Mickey Kaus.

Kaus, Mickey - B_______. Notorious slut. Hates puppies. Raised as a Norwegian girl for the first ten years of his life. Linked with Eric Alterman, Fabian, Winona Ryder, and Manny Mota.

Pax, Salam - Lives in Jersey. Was initially reported to be an eleven-year old girl. Turned out to be a nine-year old girl. Loves the Powerpuff Girls even though her friends think they're gay. Eats her vegetables. Linked with Johnny Ciccarelli, a 5th grader.

and, of course...

Spiers, Elizabeth - A "naughty" girl who enjoys the company of elderly men. Likes to dress up and play nurse. Does tricks with a stethoscope never before seen. Has been a subscriber to Reader's Digest for the last nine years. Linked with Eli Wallach, Conrad Bain, and Morely Safer.

[No one was supposed to know about that, but as usual, Morely has a problem keeping his mouth shut.]

Rob and Lockhart want me to explain myself re: Saturday's Dave Eggers reading.

Lock: "look who's slumming it in our little neighborhood, stepping waaaaay over the post-ironic line by actually showing up at the Eggers reading..."

Rob: "Boro6 went to trivia night at The Slipper Room yesterday evening, but we were left puzzled as to the whereabouts of quiz regular Elizabeth Spiers. Turns out she was nearby trying - unsuccessfully - to get into a reading by Dave Eggers. [Boro6 resident Eurotrash was also there.] Lockhart Steele points out that Spiers crossed the irony line by actually showing up alongside the doe-eyed high school girls, but Boro6 finds greater offense in her unwillingness to cry privilege to get in the door. What's the point of being quasi-famous if you don't have the stones to throw your weight around once in awhile? Liz Smith would have gotten in, you can bet your ass on that."

First of all, bloggers should never refer to themselves in third person plural. (*cough* Rob *cough*.) I read that and think, "When Bob Dole gets elected President, Bob Dole will take all the people Bob Dole doesn't like and tell them to shove it." Who is this mysterious "we"? Your other personality?

I'd make fun of Lockhart but I've already threatened to do a Gawker version Punk'd wherein we'd nail plywood to various Lower East Side facades and send him scrambling around the neighborhood frantically peering around boarded up storefronts in search of new restaurants.

But regarding Eggers:
It was Maccer's idea. I was drugged and dragged. Guns were held to my head.

But then again, Rob, I don't know that admitting that I went to an Eggers reading (whose books I've never actually read) is anymore embarrassing than you admitting that you went to quiz night.

But I digress...

This is such a fundamentally bad song.

And yet I can't...stop...playing it.

I just finished reading Nic Kelman's Girls in galley. It's dark and a bit psychologically manipulative, so of course I liked it. (The PR material compared it to "Damage," which is one of my favorites.) The book's essentially about a Wall Street type who's obsessed with power and has a predatory thing for younger women. American Psycho meets Lolita, interspersed with little bits of the Illiad and the Aeneid (literally.) It's written in second person, which is a little annoying and seems gimmicky, but the writing's very good. I don't know that it's a great "novel" per se, as it seems more like a series of vignettes than a cohesive narrative, but I couldn't put it down. It's the appeal of car-wreck voyeurism. I read it in less than a day.

Interestingly, the book was blurbed by four people, three with which I have some familiarity—Kurt Andersen, James Frey and JT Leroy—and none of whom I could imagine in the same room together, much less liking the same type of books.

Did you really feel "welcomed" to the jungle by axl rose, or do you think that was sort of just insincere, halfhearted graciousness? [via TMN]

From 601am:

Um, like, has a teenage valley girl taken over Elizabeth Spiers' body? She's, like, used, "like" like a teenager, like, five times today. In the past week, she, like, hadn't used "like." What gives?

I was, like, mocking the hipsters?

Christopher Hitchens on Friendster

"I've not been feeling like myself lately. At least that's what many of my old friends have been writing. In fact, I'm not me at all. I hope I don't turn my widely-feared powers of attack on my friendster self and sue him for libel... It's all in good fun, after all. And I would certainly be willing to cease and desist ... if challenged."