Jack Shafer from Slate has explicitly detailed the various ways in which Bill O'Reilly has told people to "shut up" (his favorite two words.) [Ed.—Dammit. Why didn't I think of that last week?]

Between this and his recent Judy Miller bashing, I like Jack Shafer's stuff more and more.

The day after I wrote my Bill O'Reilly/Jack Shafer post, I met Bill O'Reilly at a party. Peter Jennings' 20th anniversary party, to be specific. Jennings was charming, aside from calling my alma mater "that WASPy school in the South" and O'Reilly was... O'Reilly. Here's what happened (second item).

I've been freelancing at New York mag for the last week and a half. Women's Wear Daily reported yesterday morning that I'd been hired indefinitely by New York mag and replaced at Gawker, unbeknownst to me, by Choire Sicha--which isn't exactly true, but hey, it's a gossip column. You should have seen the original item; I was up for a contributing editor spot at Vanity Fair. (Over Graydon's dead body, I'm sure.) The facts are as follows:
- I spent last week and will spend the rest of this week co-authoring NY Mag's Intelligencer column with Deborah Schoeneman. A permanent gig has been a possibility since the beginning, but not in any specific capacity (could be Intelligencer, but maybe not.) At any rate, no decisions have been made yet. I have not been hired by New York.
- I have been approached by Conde publications about freelance work (including Vanity Fair.) But no staff jobs are on the table.

So that's what I did on my vacation: worked at New York Mag. (I spent my last "vacation" working at Page Six.)

In today's edition of "Read My Stuff," we have a conversation with Alec Baldwin at a party for Tina Brown (Tina to hubby: "Oooh, Harry, have you met Elizabeth Spiers? She does this snarky little website she thinks no one reads.") in which Baldwin says he wants to be gay but isn't into the whole "sex-with-men" part.

We also have a short piece on ex-NYT magazine editor and Kennedy biographer Ed Klein, which was fun. (You know you're getting somewhere when the subject angrily demands to know which editor assigned you the piece.) The irony here is that I'm probably the only person in New York who doesn't give a shit about the Kennedys.

New York Mag made me an offer and a few details have to be worked out, but it looks like I'm going to take it. I won't be the new Marc Malkin, but I will be doing some stuff with Intelligencer and general pieces for the magazine. And here's the real kicker: New York Magazine wants to start a blog. (What Would Felker Think?) And believe it or not, it was their idea. This is going to be fun.

I'm still running around to parties with a tape recorder, though. I saw Bill O'Reilly again last night at a book party for Madeline Albright O'Reilly was leaving and I was arriving, and there seemed to be some flicker of recognition.

Then again, maybe he glowers at everyone like that. Who knows.

I need a name for New York mag's new blog and I'm taking suggestions. Anyone? Anyone?... Bueller?

I saw Jeffrey Eugenides (author of Middlesex, and The Virgin Suicides) interview Wyclef Jean at the Knitting Factory this weekend with Maccers. (Choire has the account here.) We originally got the tickets because we both heard Eugenides read with Jonathan Franzen last year and thought he was hysterical. The interview was great, and Eugenides was funny as usual. ("So, Wyclef--when you were working with The Edge from U2, did you refer to him in person as The Edge? Or could you just call him 'Edge'? If, for example, he was hypothetically standing on the roof of a building, would you say, 'stay away from the edge...The Edge?'")

Wyclef's live performance was phenomenal. It prompted me to pick up "The Ecleftic"--his most recent album--and I'm completely addicted to it. There's a great track with Kenny Rogers singing "The Gambler" over Pharoahe Monch. "The Gambler" was one of my favorite songs as a kid and it still seems damn catchy. There's also a cover of "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd that I can't stop playing.

My hometown newspaper discovers blogs. And Gawker.

1. More Judy Miller bashing...
2. Second-degree schadenfraude. (On Lauren Weisberger's second book deal.)
3. Joan Didion: "I am bad at interviewing people. I avoid situations in which I have to talk to anyone's press agent. (This precludes doing pieces on most actors, a bonus in itself.)
4. Getting laid in Baghdad. Or not getting laid, as it were.
5. The New York Press abandons the appallingly effortless task of taking down the playground bullies (big media, large publishing houses) and bravely chooses to take down the playground retards (blogs, indie writers, etc.) instead. Very U.L.A. of them.

This is sad. Edward Said yesterday and now Plimpton. I met him at a party for Tina Brown's talk show a couple of weeks ago. I asked him what he thought "Topic A" (the title of the show) was for most people right now. He said "Iraq and the economy." I asked him what was being over-covered--"Topic Z," so to speak. "Both of those," he laughed. Then he talked a bit about the upcoming fireworks in Central Park and how gunpowder was used in China for festival celebrations long before it was appropriated to weaponry. I got an on-the-spot history lesson. (By contrast, Alec Baldwin, at the same party: "what do you call men who are gay, but want to sleep with women?")

In last month's issue of Black Book Magazine, the editor sent requests to 50 or so celebrities and influential figures, asking them to contribute "letters of protest" for their protest-themed issue. Plimpton wrote a hysterical letter protesting his lack of subscribers. He mentioned that The Paris Review got (if I remember correctly) nearly 25,000 submissions a year, and he guessed that none of those people were subscribers, so he sent subscription forms out with the rejection letters. He also had a subscription form printed on the back of his business card.

Plimpton had just started penning his memoirs.

The Page Six account:

GEORGE PLIMPTON that pioneer of participatory journalism who has talked his way into pitching at Yankee Stadium, quarterbacking for the Detroit Lions, playing goalie for the Boston Bruins and shooting hoops with the Celtics - is finally penning his memoirs. The Upper East Side-based editor and co-founder of the Paris Review, the literary journal he launched 50 years ago, also wrestled the gun out of assassin Sirhan Sirhan's hands while covering Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign, played the triangle for the New York Philharmonic in 1968, and has had cameos in more than 50 films, ranging from "Reds" to "Lawrence of Arabia" to "Pumping Iron II: The Women." Plimpton tells Variety's Jonathan Bing that publishers have been begging him for years to write up his amazing experiences. "I finally succumbed," he said.

· The Minor Fall, The Major Lift's take on Bill Keller's restructuring spree: "[Keller's] two-part plan to calm the troubled newsroom consists of a) promoting 85% of the staff to newly-created managing editor positions and b) letting Johnny Apple eat everybody else." I just assumed they lost the master org chart and were improvising because no one could remember the difference between the Assistant Executive Managing Editor and the Executive Managing Assistant Editor.
· The Dave Eggers of blogging? I can't decide if that's a compliment or an insult.
· Neal Pollack will be in town October 11th and playing with his band at Luxx. [Sample lyrics: "New York City is a pile of shit / New York City is a pile of shit / New York City is a pile of shit / New York City! NEW YORK CITY!"]
· It's "Talk Like Bill O'Reilly Day" at Atrios. [Shut up!]
· I'll be at Harvard next weekend sitting on a panel for Bloggercon. So if you're in town and want to spend a Saturday in a room full of bloggers... Yeah. I know.
· Temporary Working Title for the New York Magazine Blog: "The Kicker." (As in the last sentence of an article that gives it the extra punch.) Tentative launch date: October 1st. Maybe October 2nd.

At least the U.L.A. (unlike the NY Press) has a sense of humor. I just got a t-shirt in the mail from U.L.A. chief troublemaker, Karl Wenclas. "U.L.A. Underground Literary Alliance" is screenprinted in on the front. On the back: According to Wenclas's description, "the severed head of Dave Eggers." Har.

I went to Objectionable Content today assuming that Jim had probably done some commentary on the passing of Edward Said, and found that he hasn't updated in over a month. (Hint, hint.)

Then again, I haven't looked at it in over a month. Most of my blog-reading has been Gawker-related and I've neglected to read much of anything else.

At any rate, I found this, and got completely sucked in.

· Yacht Club
· Little Gray Book Lecture #22: How to Gamble and Win. Wednesday, October 1st. 8PM at Galapagos. Go. You'll thank me later.
· I was reading this book in galley and I was on the last chapter when I lost it. And it was really good. (It's a satirical novel about life in DC by the political editor of the New Yorker. Due out in January.) And I was on the last chapter. Fuck.
· Tucked inside the book that I lost was a guest list for a dinner party I attended the night before at [uber-trader and bajillionaire hedge fund manager] Mr. Name Withheld's house. It was a fundraiser for Central Park and I was there for the magazine. Mr. Name Withheld asked me if I was "looking for the man of my dreams" and then cheerfully started pointing out his various sons--all in their mid-to-late 30s. Apparently, you're never too old or too rich to have your parents gleefully pawn you off on unsuspecting dinner guests.
· Joe Queenan on "Why New York Is Better [than everywhere else]"
· Unintentional satire: Joao Correia, who works in advertising, trekked down from Hell's Kitchen to eat brunch at Café Gitane and, afterwards, stop by Café Habana. "This place has the best café con leche," said Mr. Correia, who was wearing a pink Lacoste shirt turned up at the collar and a Frederique Constant watch bought on a recent trip to Portugal. The journey had another benefit. "There's not one ugly person in here," he said cheerfully.