Pictured, left to right: an Apple prototype iPhone, and Gawker Media owner Nick Denton covered in pie.

​Maybe you heard, but yesterday, Gawker Media's gadget site Gizmodo published quite a story. It might be short of hyperbole to note their "get" of a new iPhone prototype as one of the biggest scoops in tech reporting history.

Well, earlier tonight, we received an e-mail from a source inside Gawker noting that "Steve Jobs called [Gizmodo editor] Jesus Diaz and [Gawker Media publisher] Nick Denton today and said, 'Give me back my phone!' " Also, that Denton "walked around the office ALL DAY with the biggest shit eating grin I've ever seen. Like, literally all day -- it was amazing."

Well, I checked in with (my former employer) Nick Denton to confirm this via e-mail. Nick told us to get in touch with him over his preferred method of communication, instant messaging. And we got to ask him a few questions about this pretty fun scoop of his, how the company plans to move forward legally, viewing the scoop through the prism of the journalism around it, and of course, whether or not Steve Jobs actually called to get his goddamn iPhone back.

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Governor David Paterson's "I'm-there-for-you" call to Sherr-una Booker, the day before her scheduled court appearance for an order of protection against Paterson's top aide, was apparently a reference to Booker's concerns about a recurrence of cancer.

Booker did not appear in court the next day, dropping a case she'd pursued for three months.

Paterson has made this claim in conversations with others as part of an effort to paint his reach-out to Booker in as positive a light as possible. Combined with the relentless efforts of the state police, ostensibly dispatched by Paterson or the top aide, David Johnson, to convince Booker to drop the complaint, however, Paterson's gentler approach has taken on a good cop/bad cop aura, with the bad cops actually being cops.More >>

Photo (c) Robert Schaffer.

Dick Zigun is the artistic director of Coney Island USA. His Sideshows by the Seashore not only features the last "10 in One" sideshow, but showcases burlesque, houses a museum, and plays hosts to many events, including the Coney Island Film Festival, and is the headquarters of the Mermaid Parade, which Zigun helped create. He's been a Coney resident for over 30 years, a tireless Coney enthusiast -- "the place where the hot dog, the roller coaster, and soft ice cream was invented," he proclaims -- and advocate for its interests, and has long been considered its unofficial mayor.

I recently met wet with Zigun to discuss the future of Coney Island. First I asked him how a kid from Bridgeport, Connecticut wound up in Coney.

"I got out of grad school in 1979," he told me, "and I was hanging out in L.A., and I got influenced by this play, 'Kid Twist' which took place in Coney, so I came to New York. Where else could I go with two degrees in theater but New York? I started checking out neighborhoods, Tribeca, South Street Seaport, even Times Square, and I had this wacky idea to check out loft spaces in Coney Island, found something I liked, signed a lease in 1979, spent months renovating it. And then it burned down."

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​The White House and two nonprofit groups announced a settlement Monday in a long-running lawsuit over more than 22 million e-mails that were missing during the Bush administration because of poor labeling and other technical problems.

The National Security Archive, a historical records group, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog organization, sued the Executive Office of the President in 2007. They alleged that millions of White House e-mails were missing from March 2003 to October 2005, in violation of laws requiring their preservation. -- Washington Post.

1. POTUS to Toby Keith, November 2, 2004, 2:45 a.m.

Hey Pard That was a KICK ASS show you did at the rally. Laura and me been singing the songs and 2steppin to em which makes the butlers and whatnot nervous. I said I wanted to crank the speakers and let freedom reign in the white house but Dick said no, it might get out on account of the press guys. When i get out of this shithole lets you an me get a drink I mean a Buckler LOL. W00t

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​This morning's Times rounds up some of the further-out holiday-themed entertainments playing in New York now ("Come On, Santa, Put Your Clothes Back On"). Among these is Jeffrey Solomon's Santa Claus is Coming Out at The Kirk on Theater Row, in which Santa is gay, a little questioning kid wants a doll, and Rudolph is organizing the elves for a more diverse workshop.

As it happens, Solomon has done gay-themed shows before, such as his one-man Mother/Son, which has travelled to schools to promote diversity; that show has been promoted by GLSEN, the gay education and outreach people whose Kevin Jennings is Obama's new "safe schools czar," making everything GLSEN-related a cause of rightwing outrage -- Solomon's show included, since he made one performance of Santa a GLSEN benefit. "Clearly homosexual activists like Solomon have no qualms about using shock tactics to expose children to homosexuality," raves Focus on the Family." (Solomon reminds us the play is off-Broadway, not at schools, and for adults.)

We interviewed Solomon and asked him about Santa, GLSEN, Christmas, and Rudolph the Facially Challenged Reindeer.More >>

It had to happen: now there's a cougar dating site. Cougar Life is for "Women in their PRIME: independent, sexy and wildly successfull" who "enjoy men that are youthful" -- and, of course, for those youthful men who like the idea. It's the brainchild of Claudia Opdenkelder, 39 years old (she told us, we didn't ask), who also runs Canadian promo firm Professional Promotions, has modeled, and as a devoted dater of younger men (she was once connected with a Backstreet Boy) won a Ms. Cougar radio competition in 2006, which got her thinking about starting this unique service.

We were naturally curious, and questioned Opdenkelder about the service, the way people use the word "cougar," and how she hopes to change that.

How's the site going?

Going fantastic! We have over 200,000 members already and the site launched in February.

Yikes. How has word spread?

We have the commercial on ESPN, on Ellen, on Sirius Radio on the Howard Stern Show -- I'm actually doing his show on December 16 -- so we're getting a lot of exposure from that, as well as all the media.

There are a lot of people who find "cougar" an offensive term. It seems you've taken the "ownership" route with it.

We're trying to reinvent it, revamp it if you will, and make it an easier term to embrace than what the old-school term used to mean. Whoever invented it -- I'm sure it was boys! -- they had the connotation that it was older women in their 80s trawling the bars. We're trying to take that thought away from everybody and make it about a 35-and-older, sophisticated, successful woman who knows what she wants, knows how to get it, doesn't need a man to get it for her, and enjoys the company of a younger man.

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Photos by Joshua Wildman

You know those nightlife images that you see in the pages of New York magazine, Dazed and Confused, and The Fader that make you ask yourself: "Was I at that party? Is that my elbow? Do I know that dude?" It's most likely that party photographer Joshua Wildman, 36, was there to capture every second of a moment you'd rather forget (but you're also secretly grateful to see cemented in history).

The Colorado native, who has shot for all of the above magazines, is exhibiting a series of photographs in i have known you too long at Fuse Gallery (opening today), which captures what New York youth is all about: i.e., total madness. Wildman's photo series navigates beautifially between the grittiness of drunken revelry and the innocence of random carousing. Do yourself the favor of seeing this show because --who knows? -- that may be you in the crowd next to the loud blonde. (But please, no Facebook tagging allowed.)

Although Wildman isn't one to do celeb shoutouts (we could have sworn one of his subjects looks like a young Chloe Sevigny), he does tell us why shooting New York's party scene never gets tiring, and the one movie that solidified his love affair with New York.

Where you always interested in being a photographer?

I started taking pictures going to punk shows and taking pictures of my friends playing or skateboarding or whatever.

What made you decide to focus on New York nightlife?

I first started taking nightlife pictures because I was out all the time. It wasn't about who was famous or cool, it was just the people I knew doing what they do... dancing, performing, drinking... etc.

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​CUNY's Fiterman Hall, damaged by the 9/11 attacks, was finally torn down this week, and a groundbreaking for a new Hall held today. Unfortunately it wasn't the solemn event people were expecting. Our favorite councilmember, Charles Barron, expressed resentment at his seating arrangements and place on the bill, and when he was permitted to speak told the audience, announced "I don't like disrepect," and criticized Mayor Bloomberg and Manhattan Beep Scott Stringer, causing CUNY trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld to yell "You're a disgrace" at him. "You just be quiet," rejoined Barron, "ain't nobody talking to you." Wiesenfeld nonetheless persisted, and the two men yelled at each other till -- well, we're not sure when; when they got tired of it, we guess. (WCAX said the exchange lasted "several minutes.") Barron has had shouting matches before, but none, so far as we know, at a groundbreaking ceremony. Maybe it's part of his campaign for Speaker.

Update: Oh boy! The Post has video, and it looks exactly as ridiculous as it sounds. Best part: An obviously embarrassed CUNY official trying to play it off as a tribute to "free, open robust speech and exchange," despite Barron's calls for Wiesenfeld to be "put out."

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Taxi culture is a big part of New York lore -- Jimmy Cagney, Robert DeNiro, and Ernest Borgnine are among the many memorable movie hacks -- but real cabbies don't get much attention unless they're delivering a baby in the backseat or something like that. Amy Braunschweiger's Taxi Confidential: Life, Death and 3 a.m. Revelations in New York City Cabs (671 Press) gives urban charioteers, and their fares, the Studs Terkel treatment. She talks to speed demons, philosophers, lifers, short-timers, and to people who've ridden with them (and been fed drugs, kidnapped, and had sex with them). Braunschweiger also maintains a blog on the subject, and reads at Bluestockings Books next Monday, November 30, at 7 p.m. We talked to her about life on the road.

You've got a lot of people in the book, from both sides of the lucite divider. We're sure they didn't all answer an ad in the New York Review of Books. It must have been some job to get them all. How did you manage it?

The passenger stories came pretty easily. For those, I pretty much would walk into a party, tell everyone what I was working on, and after a drink or two, they would come to me...

The cabbies were a lot tougher to track down. In short, I ended up doing everything -- I made business cards and gave them to my cabbies; I had my friends give my business cards to their cabbies; I posted adds on Craigslist; I joined a cabbie listserv; I went to the offices of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. I met cabbies for eggs, I met them for beer and for coffee. I talked with them for hours on my cell phone. Many wouldn't even remember the various experiences they had until at least 30 minutes into our conversation. And any time I connected with a taxi driver, I asked about his cabbie friends.

But this was after I got smart...

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By Kate Rose.

With a huge Ed McMahon-style check worth $100 million and 99 cents and a bullhorn, Reverend Billy Talen of The Church of Life After Shopping stood in Washington Square Park and announced his miraculous news:

"Politics is serious business, and you need $100 million dollars. I won the lottery, I got lucky, and I'm going to be mayor now!"

Although it was late in the afternoon on Election Day, the Reverend, in a cobalt blue suit and white clerical collar, was extremely optimistic. (The race was won by Mike Bloomberg with 557,059 votes, versus Bill Thompson's 506,717; Reverend Billy received 8,964 votes.)

"Mike Bloomberg has shown the way," said the Reverend. "He's our role model to finance something, to advertise something, to give people information that they do not need. Amen! Hallelujah!... I will march with this fake check, all the way to Gracie Mansion. Will you be there with me? Amen. And once we are there -- will we take our clothes off? Amen!"...

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