With all the recent talk surrounding nuevo-Manhattan sociallites like Tinsley Mortimer and Amanda Hearst — and their subsequent rankings — it was only a matter of time before a magazine would follow the trail of Crystal Light and couture to its inevitable conclusion: Socialites 2.0. Avenue magazine takes the bait hype, and in doing so, becomes part of it.

These “It Girls” have been propelled into a level of notoriety unknown by previous generations of society figures because of Internet sites like Gawker, WireImage and SocialiteRank.com which have helped pump the socialite craze, causing an outpouring of dialogue filled with countless opinions and rumors.

And knee-jerk magazine cover stories, perhaps? Those too? Seriously, beautiful photo, though.

In what will eventually set up an interesting rivalry between a late night legend and his NBC successor, CBS today announced that they have secured David Letterman through 2010, a full year after Conan O’Brien, who replaced Letterman at NBC when he jumped to CBS, is slated to take over for Letterman’s rival, Jay Leno, at the Tonight Show. Letterman’s salary? Somewhere “north of $30 million.”

Hopefully, Letterman — and, more specifically, his red-headed cohort Alan Kalter [above] — will be as edgy then and they have been lately.

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Via the Rake’s Progress, Dave Eggers‘ 1996 review of David Foster Wallace‘s Infinite Jest:

[Infinite Jest] is more about David Foster Wallace than anything else. It’s an extravagantly self-indulgent novel, and, page-by-page, it’s often difficult to navigate. Sentences run as long as 800 words. Paragraph breaks are rare. Aside from being incredibly verbose, Wallace has an exhausting penchant for jargon, nicknames and obscure references, particularly about things highly technical, medical or drug-related. … Besides frequently losing itself in superfluous and wildly tangential flights of lexical diarrhea, the book suffers under the sheer burden of its incredible length. (That includes the 96 pages of only sporadically worthwhile endnotes, including one that clocks in at 17 pages.) At almost 1,100 pages, it feels more like 3,000.

Now, 2006, Eggers’ foreword for the new edition:

The book is 1,067 pages long and there is not one lazy sentence. The book is drum-tight and relentlessly smart and, though it does not wear its heart on its sleeve, it’s deeply felt and incredibly moving.

He called her a “national treasure, iconic.” She said they were “soulmates.” They enjoyed a home-cooked southern meal including pan-fried chicken, biscuits, and fried apples, and got along splendidly — except when it came to defending the “n-word.”

Those were some of the highlights of the final episode of Sundance’s Iconoclasts: Flight-prone comedian Dave Chappelle and poet Maya Angelou. Chappelle said it was “pretty odd pairing, even by my standards,” and admitted he was nervous to meet her.

Chappelle told Angelou he was moved by her words following his exit from Chappelle’s Show (and five-year, $50 million-dollar contract with Comedy Central). “It was right after I walked away from my show, and you were saying things I needed to hear.”

“I wasn’t walking away from the money, I was walking away from the perfect storm of bullshit,” said Chappelle, adding that corporate America treats people “like they’re products or investments.”

Angelou reminisced about the good old days with her friends Malcolm and Martin (read: X and Luther King, Jr.); Chappelle admired her art collection.

They differed on the “n-word,” however. Chappelle argued that he can use “ugly words” because people know his intentions are good, while Angelou maintained the word was dehumanizing. Still, Chappelle remained deferential throughout, telling Angelou, “I know you’re going to crush me in a minute.”

Said Angelou: “I think Dave Chappelle and I are soulmates.”

See, Dave, there was nothing to be nervous about after all.

— FishbowlNY’s Emily Million

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The above image is cropped from an insert in our Sunday New York Times and may say as much about the state of the Wall Street Journal‘s need for subscribers as today’s announcement that it’s changing its page size and column width, adding color, and shortening articles. Subscriptions to WSJ.com or the print version, meanwhile, are being sold at WSJ.com for $79 per year with no mention of a six-month limit. Print and online go together for $99 per year.

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And, oddly, G. Jason Kontos‘ editor’s note makes absolutely no mention of the, oh, shuttering, fire sale to Detroit-based Hour Media, nine-month hiatus and subsequent relaunch under new ownership. But as long as they can pay freelancers this time around, we’ll let it slide.

To prove that even the second-largest newspaper in the country isn’t above term paper tactics, the Wall Street Journal is shrinking its width by three inches, adding more color and photos, in an effort to save $18 million a year. The changes, which take effect Jan. 2, were to be “unveiled at a press conference in New York on Monday.”

This is major media news, don’t get me wrong, but a press conference?

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Glamour editor-in-chief Cindi Leive, Real Simple managing editor Kristin van Ogtrop, and Glamour executive editor Jill Herzig

Real Simple editor-in-chief Kristin van Ogtrop today sent an e-mail to the staff that’s still there about the folks who are leaving, a tipster tells us. She thanks the people who’ve “hung in there” and done “double duty” and says there’ll be some new announcements soon:

“Luckily the exercise will only be temporary. As you might guess, there is no shortage of talented, enthusiastic candidates who want to work at Real Simple. A number of us have had a whirlwind two weeks interviewing like mad, and I’m happy to report that I will be able to make an announcement about new staff members within the next two weeks.”

Here’s the full email:

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