"I rarely interacted with Mr. Scott at The Source until November 2004, when I wrote a cover story on his friend, the rapper Ja Rule. I thought I’d written a fair piece, despite the fact that Ja Rule, like The Source, was feuding with 50 Cent. I was wrong. On the Monday morning after publication, Ms. Osorio told me that Mr. Scott was furious about the story and I was going be fired. Mr. Mays and Mr. Scott met with the editorial staff that afternoon in Mr. Mays’s office. The meeting quickly turned into an inquisition on the cover story, and Mr. Scott asked if I was a fan of Ja Rule’s music. I rambled about objectivity and journalistic integrity. He then asked if I preferred 50 Cent’s music. It was a yes-or-no question. I told him I did. Throughout the meeting, Mr. Scott picked at his cornrows. After an hour or so, half of his mane was an unruly mess while the rest remained braided. His hair looked wild. A colleague said that it was an intimidation tactic he often used during long meetings." READ MORE

I do not have the rights to reproduce this stunning, amazing photo of one Katie Price (formerly known as "Jordan," she is a model, novelist, UK reality star and, uh, "footballer enthusiast") wearing a swimsuit emblazoned with the cover of her own magazine about herself whilst holding that magazine in one hand whilst standing before a backdrop splattered in covers of that same magazine. My point is: ANDY WARHOL WOULD DIE. If he hadn't, you know, unfairly beaten us all to the grave. The reviews of the magazine are in from The Sun: "It's glossy and full of shite." (It also contains recipes however: "Cauliflower cheese: I buy it readymade but stick it in a dish then put it in the oven to warm through." It also costs £3.99. And it's not even a Kindle Single!)

As a human being whose personal blog is primarily about cats, I would be extremely offended by the above passage in Keith Gessen's piece in the October Vanity Fair (the one with Angelina Jolie on the cover, zzz), except that Gessen keeps company with a person whose blog can often be cat-centric, so, he is EXCUSED! In more important news, this is a very exciting piece that breaks down exactly how Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding was agented and published. The funny thing is that the book is going to be published tomorrow—so who knows what'll really happen with the tale of the million-dollar first novel? (Gessen reveals, among other fun facts, that the combined foreign rights sales came to about half of the novel's $660,000 advance.) The Art of Fielding is #42 in books on Amazon currently, so that's pretty good! And I'm sure the publisher paid for good front table placement in all the remaining bookstores out there! Anyway, this is a really excellent idea to make a book sale transparent, and there's even some good actual gossip in it. (Also let us never forget the hilarious Bloomberg headline announcing the sale: "Unemployed Harvard Man Auctions Baseball Novel for $650,000.") There's also a wee bit of hagiography of the oh so brilliant editors and agents involved in the world of publishing, and of course it all ends happily (so easy to feel on publication's eve, if you're the one who's the exception to the rule, and who just paid off your student loans), and all success is credited entirely to the power of the writing of the book—but really, an awesome read, and it could only be improved conceptually if Gessen announced his word rate for the Vanity Fair piece at the end. (Maybe they'll put it online even.) READ MORE

Over the weekend, a group of loony volunteers and writers put out the third issue of Longshot magazine, which is a very attractive product in print particularly and you may buy that right here. (The huge vault of radio programming is also incredible if you like listening to things!) The shtick is that it's all written and built and published in 48 hours. READ MORE

Here's a good question: what if the discomfort expressed, on different fronts and with rationales, by the Malcolm Gladwells and Bill Kellers and the Zadie Smiths and whoever else hates the Face-Twitters now, was mostly just a love of (or addiction to?) narrative? Facebook stories don't really have any endings, and neither do they always have multiple conflicting sources (not like the newspapers have much of that either anyway). "At the end of every magazine article, before the "■," is the quote from the general in Afghanistan that ties everything together. The evening news segment concludes by showing the secretary of State getting back onto her helicopter. There's the kiss, the kicker, the snappy comeback, the defused bomb. The Epiphanator transmits them all. It promises that things are orderly. It insists that life makes sense, that there is an underlying logic." Newspapers, magazines and procedurals are the last forms hanging on to tidy endings. The rest of us are just, like, living here.

Justin Bond promised some time ago that V would be very pissed at anyone who referred to V with a gendered pronoun, and so, understandably, V is really unhappy at today's New York magazine profile. (Facebook samplings: "ugly, transphobic hit piece" and "Wow! I can't even begin to find words about how offensive the Carl Swanson piece in NY Magazine turned out to be. I had him in my house—time to bring out the bleach.") I mean, Wikipedia can deal with the pronouns; why couldn't a gay writer at a magazine helmed by a gay? (That being said, I'm pretty sure the writer is stunned to see the reaction, and I'm totally sure he believes this is a supportive, informative, attentive magazine profile. And yet.) READ MORE

You know how benefits are stuffy and boring, and there's stupid table seating, and terrible food, and people you don't like, and then there's speeches about how awesome someone is that you don't care about? Not at this benefit! It's the Spring 2011 benefit for Cabinet magazine, which is both a non-profit and everyone's favorite mag. The thorougly unstuffy event is next weekend, in Brooklyn, and features local hottie/crazy and HBO auteur Jonathan Ames and "pickpocketing and close-up magic," and also alcohol. Tickets are cheap, as these things go, and they're also tax-deductible, and as it's two days after tax day, I know you are thinking about tax deductions.