Fran Lebowitz

Irina Aleksander is sad to report that the parents of charmingly kooky socialite Arden Wohl have separated, and dad Larry has been spotted around town with a woman who is not his wife Denise.

Ms. Aleksander also stopped by Barneys on Monday evening for a book party celebrating Graydon Carter's new tome, Vanity Fair: The Portraits, A Century of Iconic Images, where she asked champagne-sipping guests like Barry Diller, Richard Meier, and Fran Lebowitz how the latest financial news would affect the city.

George Gurley headed to the Soho Grand to hang out with the stars of the new film Ghost Town, where he found James Lipton gruff, and Greg Kinnear and Ann Dexter-Jones characteristically sunny. She loves orchids! And her kids!

And Spencer Morgan speaks to one of the partners of beleaguered downtown club The Box, whose liquor license is up for review. In this city, hell hath no fury like a neighbor who can't sleep!  read more »

In January, FishbowlNY attempted to crack the complex economics of Vanity Fair's writer-payment system:

We don't know how much Peter Biskind gets paid to write for Vanity Fair. Or Fran Lebowitz. Or Sebastian Junger. Or Michael Wolff. But we can guess.

Admirable guesstimates of contributors' individual salaries followed.

Well, guess no more: A writer can stand to make roughly $10 a word for a 1,500-word essay in Vanity Fair. Oh, plus a trip to Italy, bringing the value of that essay to $17,725.

Alas, those figures (well over five times industry standard) don't apply to actual writers for "in-flight magazine of the Gulfstream jetset" (not so lucky, Jim), but to winners of this year's Vanity Fair Essay Contest.

The topic: What is on the minds of America's youth today? (The word "nothing" repeated 1,500 times is unlikely to win.)  read more »

Bloggers and Livejournalists, the deadline is Sept. 30, which means the winning essay won't be running in the What is on the mind of America's magazine editors today? issue of Vanity Fair.

—Matt Haber

The potential cockfight between the New York and Boston musical productions of Aristophanes' Lysistr  read more »

Wednesday, April 4Yes, that's your Bush. And guess what?  read more »

In The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle , the animated pair are thrust into the modern, real world  read more »