Later this spring, the  blog will relaunch under New York’s umbrella as Bedford + Bowery, and, as the new name suggests, will take the L train to cover Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Bushwick, as well as the East Village and the Lower East Side. So basically, they will cover the intersection of New York mag readers and NYU students.

“The Times decided it didn’t want to do these locals anymore and told us a while ago that they were going to withdraw from our arrangement, which they of course have a total right to do,” NYU professor Jay Rosen, who helped launch the blog in 2010, told Nieman Lab. “And we had to ask ourselves if we wanted to publish it ourselves, or declare victory and fold, or look for another partner.”

And what a partner they found!

“We’ll still be covering street-level stories that wouldn’t be reported otherwise but, in the New York magazine tradition, we’ll also be taking more of a big-picture look at trends and tectonic shifts across all of these neighborhoods and beyond — something I think students who are concentrating in magazine writing will appreciate,” Daniel Maurer, The Local’s editor and cofounder of NY Mag’s Grub Street, said in an email to Nieman Labs.

After all, probably the most useful skill that aspiring magazine writers can learn is how to take something that their friends in Brooklyn do and turn it into a trend piece.

Celebrity lookalike (New York Magazine)

No, it is not "Mayor Dracula." Come on, Post, this is our City Council speaker and mayoral candidate we're talking about, try to be more creative. The answer is right in front of you...

New York Magazine was definitely going for a celebrity lookalike thing here:

Right?? Right? Obviously, there is some comparison to Sharon Osbourne that was cut from the final draft of this cover story.

Photo credit: Pat's Papers.

The New York Post pulled a story offline after New York Mag called them out on the erroneous report that one-time congressman Anthony Weiner got a new job.

"Disgraced ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner has landed a job after being unemployed for 18 months, his first gig since resigning amid a Twitter sexting scandal," the Post story said, claiming that Mr. Weiner got a part-time gig  consulting for Madison Avenue brokerage firm Concept Capital Markets.

Kevin Roose called up Robert E. Moore, the CEO of the brokerage firm, who told the business writer that he had never met Mr. Weiner and had not offered him a job. "Concept Capital Markets has not engaged former congressman Anthony Weiner," Mr. Moore wrote in a memo to his employees this morning.

Pencils down! (SNL)

By now, none of you will have read Prozac Nation author Elizabeth Wurtzel's 5,500-word piece in New York magazine. Sure, some of you might have read the Jezebel summary, or the Huffington Post review, or any one of the thousands of traffic-baiting posts (including this one!) claiming that they can accurately sum up this behemoth.

That is a lie. It is impossible to summarize Wurtzel's end-of-the-year summary, since it encompasses everything: what matters in life, puppies, former employer David Boies, reality, love and a how-to guide on misunderstanding property laws.

But if you have read it and really want to prove to your friends that you have nothing to do at work, here's a handy quiz. Pencils down, everyone!

1.) Which real estate brokerage convinced Wurtzel there was only one rental apartment available in all of Manhattan?
A.) Corcoran
B.) Douglas Elliman
C.) Gandalf

2. ) What movie does Wurtzel compare herself to when dealing with the police?
A) Single White Female
B) Django Unchained
C) Prozac Nation

3. What makes life complete?
A) Kids you do or don’t want
B) Tiffany silver you never use
C) All of the above

4. Who helps Elizabeth Wurtzel figure out how to move?
A) David Boies
B) Her dog Augusta
C) Elizabeth Wurtzel

5. Elizabeth Wurtzel's feminism is most prominent when she says:
A) "I believe women who are supported by men are prostitutes, that is that, and I am heartbroken to live through a time where Wall Street money means these women are not treated with due disdain."
B) "... Hooker Maria’s rage could be explained by her age: recently 50, and out of work."
C) "I am committed to feminism."

So, how did you do? We aren't going to tell you the correct answers, because there is only one reality, but also, understand, that there is another reality where none of this ever happened.

And truly, there is only one thing to say about the whole thing, and it was already said by New York commenter Fighting Irish, four hours ago.

"This piece reads like the Girl You Wish You Hadn't Started a Conversation With at a Party."

And now, let's move on.

But as we read the seven page Q&A with Slate founding editor Michael Kinsley, we were struck by Ms. Brown's frequent use of imagery. So very illustrative! So imaginative! We can practically see it all, from Cinderella waking up from the ball that was the Talk launch party to the refrigerators on each foot that was the print edition of Newsweek. 

We have collected some of our favorites below.

On austerity:

Maybe everyone will now see the light—I hope so. But maybe we’ll all cartwheel over the same austerity cliff.

On becoming a citizen:

9/11 made me a New Yorker. I decided I cared so much about this country that I was kidding myself that I was ever going to go back to the U.K. It was time to get married.

On not being able to save Newsweek:

I think it was a romantic gamble that there was still life to be had for Newsweek.

On the death (or dearth) of glamour at Newsweek:

You know, it was very funny—when I looked at the document of sale, it was like the vestiges of the great galleon it had been. It was like that wreck of the Titanic in the James Cameron film—they’re swimming through the rooms, and you see the chandeliers. Every so often, you would swim around a corner and see a chandelier—things like private dining.

On shedding the print weekly:

But it’s like having a refrigerator on each foot—to have this carapace of the print magazine and all its problems, and all its legacy of unsolved issues.

On the changing media landscape:

Elephants can’t tap dance.

On the (in) famously lavish launch party for Talk:

But, in a strange way, that party was the end of the twentieth century. It was the great end-of-twentieth-century party. I remember going back on the barge afterwards with Natasha Richardson, Kate Moss, and all these people, and this big cold wave came flooding over the boat. It was two o’clock in the morning, and we were all soaking. It was like Cinderella waking up from the ball.

And, of course, that view of Manhattan from the party—very shortly, the Twin Towers were down. New York had changed utterly. Utterly. I mean, we never would have had that party after 9/11. It just ended like that. It was really, really romantic.

On working with older men:

You go to war with the army you have. Please. Let’s not talk about me having things for Si Newhouse and Harvey Weinstein. I enjoyed working for both of them, even Harvey.

On the preponderance of conferences:

There’s a lot of them. But you know what it also tells me? That people are hungry to hear really interesting conversations. They really are.

The people are famished. And they will feast on intelligent conversation like so many banquet dinners.

Mostly though, we were struck, like Ms. Brown herself, by that cold wave of water hitting the boat as she came back from to New York Harbor from the Talk launch party. How apocryphal.

We can't wait for Ms. Brown's emblematic anecdote that perfectly encapsulates this time in which we live, when we have abandoned the romance of print in favor of the Internet. And in favor of endless conferences. Because that illustrative anecdote is sure to emerge someday. Just maybe not in the pages of a magazine.

Tom Wolfe (Getty Images)

New York has an interview with Tom Wolfe, the author of the new, Miami-set book Back to Blood, which The Observer described this way: "the novel ensures that the world of ideas and of power dynamics, the only world in which Tom Wolfe feels comfortable, is one to which [racial minority characters are] not admitted." We did pick up a few nuggets that colored our opinion of Mr. Wolfe, though:

1. That hyperactive style of Mr. Wolfe's, with its repeated words and frequent onomatopoeia, is a holdover from writing for the New York Herald Tribune's Sunday supplement. "You get one chance with a Sunday supplement. People pick it up, look at one piece--that'll be yours--and throw it away. So I began to think up techniques."

2. The Bonfire of the Vanities was meant to be titled Vanity Fair, an homage to the satirical Thackeray novel.

3. Mr. Wolfe's home decor mirrors that which he used to mock as a young bomb-throwing journalist: "Two brass-monkey-man figurines hold up candles atop a fireplace. The walls of a nearby half-bath are 100 percent mirror, so that a standing visitor gazes into an infinite regression of marble sinks, cream toilets, and monogrammed towels."

4. He voted for Barack Obama in 2008, and George W. Bush in 2004 and 2000 (if we're interpreting his claim to have "voted for every winner" but Bill Clinton in 1992 correctly).

5. Very few of his friends are writers, and his favorite current writer is the financial journalist Michael Lewis.

But why? What could an orange gourd-like squash and a crispy piece of pig possibly have  in common? Why, popularity, of course. You see, everyone likes bacon. It's salty. It's crispy. It's delicious. And it has gotten really popular recently.

You know what else has gotten really popular? Pumpkin! It's in a lot of stuff--like lattes and doughnuts. But unlike bacon, pumpkin is not delicious on its own. It needs sugar and spice and other things nice (like cinnamon).

"The weird thing about pumpkin’s rise to baconlike ubiquity is that pumpkin, on its own, is not a very appetizing food at all. A dense and stringy fruit, it needs the accompaniment of a lot of sugar and spices before it becomes particularly palatable. As a marketing tool, however, pumpkin is perfectly pitched for today’s eaters," Mr. Salmon wrote.

It just has good connotations. It's a semiotic success story. Kind of like....bacon? Sure, why not.

New York Magazine

Vulture reports that the show will be set in the city (as one would assume) and follow ten interconnected characters as they (we are just guessing here) date and look for love and have sex. But probably tame sex! The pilot is for ABC Studios. And some of what gets written about in "Sex Diaries" isn't all that PG. The writer will be Tom Spezialy, who has written for Desperate Housewives, The Reaper and Jack & Jill (remember that show?).

No word on how it will be different than any other show about people hooking up in the big city. But at least it should get some good NY Mag recaps. And maybe a reality index.

And we can think of another other show about sex and the city that started as media columns....

Van Wolff with her children in 1958. (Photo: NYMag)

Michael Wolff’s mother, Van, died Tuesday morning after a two and half year illness, the Observer has learned.

Mr. Wolff wrote about his mother’s declining health and worsening dementia in a moving and controversial story for New York Magazine in May that questioned the modern approach to end-of-life care. The story appeared on the magazine's cover with the headline, “Mom, I love you, but I also wish you were dead. And I expect you do, too."

“And yet, I will tell you, what I feel most intensely when I sit by my mother’s bed is a crushing sense of guilt for keeping her alive. Who can accept such suffering—who can so conscientiously facilitate it?” Mr. Wolff wrote.

A funeral service will be held this Saturday in New Jersey.

(Updated 1:45 p.m. to note the correct date of Ms. Wolff's death)

In a sidebar in this week's New York Magazine front-of-book Intelligencer section, Eater noted a preview for the forthcoming "Ruth Bourdain" authored book, Comfort Me With Offal, which was attributed to:

"Ruth Bourdain (aka Voice writer Robert Sietsema)."

The problem? Village Voice dining critic Robert Sietsema already denied being the person behind Ruth Bourdain last October after a Star-Tribune writer came up with a theory that ostensibly outed Sietsema as the mastermind behind the Tweets, which prompted Eater to ask:

 Does someone at New York magazine have insider info, or are they just messing with everyone?

In a phone call with The Observer this afternoon, Mr. Sietsema again denied involvement with Ruth Bourdain. So how did his name end up in the magazine? "The only conclusion that I can come to," he explained,  "is that Ruth Bourdain says he’s me in the text [of the book], which I have not seen. It looks like they’ve seen a copy of the book."

"I can’t imagine they’d be so stupid to say that without having any evidence that it’s me."  As he tells it, nobody at New York called him to verify his identity as the person behind the account, "and they are a fact-checking group," he noted, referring to New York's research department. "So I can’t help but think there must be something in the pages.

"As part of the humorous shtick, I can imagine Ruth Bourdain writing in the book, 'Well, I’m Robert Sietsema, of course.' It's in his or her best interests to have me as the cowcatcher on the front of the locomotive. "

When asked what New York thought of Sietsema's denial, The Observer received a terse email from a magazine spokesperson explaining: "This was an editing error." While they did not respond to further questions about how the error came to be, they did note that the mistake would be corrected in the next issue.

"It’s amazing that she’s been able to keep her anonymity for this long," marveled Sietsema.

Indeed, it is: Not only does Ruth Bourdain operate in a relatively small world (the food journalism subculture), but also, has a book coming out, has done press for it, and was even recently handed a James Beard Award for accomplishments in humor. Sietsema also pointed out that Regina Schrambling of Gastropoda has been suspected of being behind the account.

Before him, Eater co-founder Ben Leventhal (who called Ruth Bourdain's identity "perhaps the best kept secret in all of food") once pointed to both food blogger Josh Friedland and Adam Robb—the creator of a fake Twitter for 'Resturant Girl' (aka former Daily News food critic Danyelle Freeman)—of collectively perpetrating Ruth Bourdain on the world. As for whether or not Sietsema would seek any royalties if falsely identified as the identity behind Ruth Bourdain in the book, he explained: that kind of thing just isn't his style.

"It’d be much easier to just step in front of a car."

For the time being, the identity of "Ruth" remains at-large.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek