Last night Paolo Mastrangelo went up to the Borders in the Columbus Circle shops, where Perez Hilton read and spoke before hundreds of fans. 95% were college age; easily 80% were women. Everyone looked like an edgy Gap commercial, which is to say, they all looked really good. There was not a flannel shirt, neon orange backpack or fanny pack in sight. But it wasn't really the outfits that were striking-it was all the smiles and excitement in the room. Perez was behind a podium. He was cheerful, and graciously took questions from all. "What do you think about blogging in relation to journalism?" someone asked. And: "When did you come out to your friends and family?" And: "What do you think about the failed gay marriage bill in the New York Senate?" After two bathroom breaks, two Red Bulls and signing 200+ copies of his book True Bloggywood Stories and taking pictures with nearly everyone-with a smile on his face the whole time-Perez packed it up and went, we presume, to go check on his blog.

Earlier we were discussing celebrity attorney Marty Singer's letter-writing skills. Here, for instance, is one for you to read! It is a response he wrote after the Demi Moore-Perez Hilton dustup, in which Demi called Perez a child-pornographer after he posted revealing photographs of her daugther-and he told her that he wouldn't let her 15-year-old daughter dress like a skank, essentially. What possible question of law is involved in any of this is beyond me-and yet Marty Singer is getting paid to craft letters such as the one that follows. READ MORE

Tom Scocca: Is your Fashion Week over?

Choire Sicha: Is it ever!

Tom Scocca: Did anyone there notice that Perez Hilton is now more famous than Paris Hilton?

Choire Sicha: I'm not sure if anyone besides the publicists noted that!

Tom Scocca: But the publicists showed they'd noticed?

Choire Sicha: Well there is some anecdotal evidence, such as the post-show release from the horrible gay Canadian twins of "DSquared," in which they touted the appearance of Nicky Hilton and... Perez Hilton.

Choire Sicha: Also anecdotally? He was everywhere... and Paris Hilton was in, like, Stuttgart and Venice? She was actually busy being sued for canceling appearances. Her big fashion week headline? "HILTON FACES CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT OVER ALLEGED EUROPE NO-SHOW."

Tom Scocca: We spend all our time second-guessing publications' output. Time to second-guess the input, isn't it? Shadow Assignment Editors! WHY ALL OF YOU NO HAVE?

Choire Sicha: That is a good point. They were eager, historically, to cover Paris, but they are exceedingly less eager to cover Perez. In part, I think because he has a platform via which to castigate, undermine and rebut? I think publications dislike both Hiltons equally. But they were never afraid of Paris, because she had no editorial product of her own.

Tom Scocca: "Both Hiltons," you say. Apologize to Nicky!

Choire Sicha: Oh I would never. Although! Hilton mania reached such a fever pitch not long ago that I was conscripted to actually write a Nicky Hilton potential cover story for a large New York-based magazine. (One that fortunately never came to... fruition.) And by "not long" I believe I mean 2005 or 2006. Even I, as much as I love the celebrity industrial complex, found this a bit suspect.

Tom Scocca: Possibly Nicky is the Interesting Hilton. At least, there's still a job opening for that slot. But: Perez Hilton is a bigger name that Paris Hilton. Am I the only person who is freaked out by this?

Choire Sicha: I have a metric for you! Paris Hilton on Twitter: 631K followers. Perez Hilton on Twitter: nearly 1.5 million followers.

Tom Scocca: It is like when George W.S. Trow wrote about how contestants on Family Feud were trying to guess what the survey participants had guessed that the average height of an American woman was. Perez Hilton has derived greater fame from Paris Hilton than Paris Hilton had herself derived from being famous for famousness' sake.

Choire Sicha: That is accurate, I think. He leeched it out of her in a really fantastic way! And often he did it by going where she went, and doing what she did... except not by revealing his chest and being what a delusional teen boy would think of as "being sexy." Somehow he didn't need to! That credit goes to his editorial product. Unfortunately, Paris Hilton's editorial product is a failing, disastrous MTV reality show.

Tom Scocca: I only have about 87 GB of open memory here, and that's not enough to hold all the scare quotes that need to go around the word "'["'(reality)'"]'" in that sentence.

Choire Sicha: Well sure. Here is another interesting bit of fact! Perez Hilton is having a very bad income week.

Tom Scocca: Why is that?

Choire Sicha: I do not know why? It may be just the general ebb and flow. But he is only receiving $28,000 worth of ad income this week. [UPDATE: According to the wonderful honcho of BlogAds, there were also some takeover sales this week, though in checking Perez's site I didn't see them. So $28,000 sounds like Perez's floor income. As in, that is basically what he found in quarters on the floor.] Often he rakes in upward of $50,000 a week. Math will tell you that that is $2.6 million a year. So he has only sold small ads this week; most weeks he has also sold ads up top, for $25,000 a week.

Tom Scocca: So what does this combination of fact and cultural observation give us? Who are the advertisers?

Basically everyone should have to stare at this photo every day for 30 minutes while they ponder their life choices.

The folks at Evil Beet Gossip have found the non-passworded section of Perez Hilton's new site for tween-women. It is Barbie's Mongoloid Dream House with My Little Sparkle Motion Pony huffing Elmer's and purging in the pink tiled bathroom. Ladies and gentlemen and tweens, the future! Enjoy!

To be fair to Perez Hilton-who wrote this (subsequently removed) post about the suicide of a Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince fan without realizing that it was based on a piece of satire-"humor" isn't exactly the first thing that comes to mind when I see the byline "Andy Borowitz" either.

As longstanding admirers of Perez Hilton's artistry, we, like so many others, could not help but notice that his recent contretemps with the Black Eyed Peas (or whatever, I sort of spaced on that story) had left him rattled and unsure of himself, seemingly insecure and questioning his own massive talent. It's obviously too soon to tell whether his issues have been resolved, but we have to say that if the photo above is any indication, Mr. Hilton is back at the pinnacle of his game. Check out the jizz-work here: subtle and elegant, but boldly declarative at the same time. Welcome back, Perez! We cannot tell you how much we missed you.