Creepy Old Guy Day in Publishing!Between Judith Regan’s just-announced Mickey Mantle smutography and Walter Mosely’s forthcoming novel, the “fabulously filthy” Killing Johnny Fry, it seems to be Creepy Old Guy Day in the publishing world. A Radar Online interview with Moseley reveals that the novel touches upon “a melange of insatiable sex — anal intrusion, double penetration, priapism, golden showers” — and that he has figured out what college freshman everywhere know: invoke Camus, and you can get away with anything. To wit:
Existentialism theorizes that people wander between choice, freedom, and angst. Please help me understand the term sexistential.
Well, this is primarily an existential book. Cordell is looking for meaning in his life. Who am I? What am I? Why live? These are very basic questions. And the path that Cordell takes to find that meaning is a path of sexuality. The Stranger is probably my favorite novel. 100 Years of Solitude is pretty good, too. As far as I’m concerned it’s a very similar book, about a guy who is set free by events and goes looking for himself through the act of fucking.
Elsewhere in the Q&A we learn that Killing Johnny Fry contains the line “You feel his cum splashing on her ankle” but without the supporting freshman-lit defense. Oh, come on, Walter. Can we get a Kierkegaard? Heidegger? Anyone?
Gulp Fiction [Radar]
office-party patrol
Decadence With Marc Jacobs; Elegance With ‘Portfolio’
Those who know about such things will tell you that the annual Marc Jacobs holiday party — a themed masquerade ball — is the premier event of the season. It was held last night, and we can tell you that they are correct. Tons of food, free-flowing booze, elaborate costumes, lots of exposed flesh: It’s good to be a fashion designer. Party-hopping Julia Allison stopped by to check it out, and she also went to the quiet, refined party for still-to-launch Condé Nast Portfolio. You’ll never guess which was more fun.
intel
NY1 to Launch Eleven O’Clock NewscastIf Arnold Diaz’s Fox 5 antics fill you with shame, if Sue Simmons’s NewsChannel 4 banter makes you want to chuck something at your TV, if you’re just looking for something calm and earnest at eleven o’clock, no-frills, low-budget, then lovably dorky NY1 has some great news for you: The local all-news station is starting its own late-night newscast, to launch Monday night, January 22. “You’re not going to get stories about the latest person fired off The Apprentice or about the killer salad bar,” promises NY1 exec Steve Paulus. Lewis Dodley will anchor along with, naturally, a white woman — Paulus won’t yet reveal who it is, but he says she’s a former NY1 reporter who left the station several years ago — and, unlike much of the station’s news programming, it’ll be broadcast live, with the anchors tossing to a mix of taped and live segments and reporters in the field. Paulus expects a good response from NY1’s loyal fans. “People have told me they watch us so much that our logo gets burned into their plasma screens,” he says. —Tim Murphy