Florent, the long-standing neighborhood 24-hour bistro that's welcomed 7a.m. clubbers and regular folk alike since 1985, has been warning of its demise for months now. The owner, Florent Morellet, vowed to stay open for as long as he could. Now it's official: the last day of business will be June 29th—the rent went up to over $30,000 a month. Frank Bruni eulogizes the restaurant in the NYT today—comedian Jackie Hoffman tells him, "It was kind of like the halfway house of restaurants. If there was a pre-op tranny or someone who just wasn't finished yet, or a burn victim — anyone could go in there and not be judged." Meanwhile, Florent Morellet himself explains why he didn't want press hype in the early days—and what he did to restaurant reviewers who betrayed his wishes.

Drinking and slutting your way through your twenties on the downtown artclub scene? Party on! But listen, if you get famous, your NYT obituary will most definitely remember you as a wild one. Like Dorothy Podber, "artist and trickster", whose obit ran today. The first sentence tags her as "wild child of the New York art scene in the 1950s and '60s who is probably best known for brandishing a pistol and putting a bullet through the forehead of Marilyn Monroe's likenesses on a stack of Andy Warhol's paintings." That's a helluva reputation, sugar!

From the mailbag, commenter Irish Breakfast on the blessed death of HBO's 'John From Cincinnati': "It occurs to me that Gawker Media should have an occasional T.V.-equivalent of "And Now They're Dead," perhaps "And Now It's Dead To Me," or, more to the point, "Rejoice! It's Over, Suckers," summing up the excrescent season finales of such dreck as John From Cincinnati. Despite shoehorning in several good cast members—I weep for Luis Guzman—and rubbing our nose in the fact that Deadwood was superior in every way by using/abusing several actors from its fine cast, this is a self-indulgent, badly styled, mumbo-jumbo spiritual with no whiff of a coherent plot, bad dialogue (BAD DIALOGUE!! From the man who brought us Ian McShane and his Shakespearian delivery of "Loopy Fuckin Cunt!" ) and a general fuck-you to what's left of a once- loyal audience. To David Milch, I say: Fuck You Sir. I'd be honored to drop kick John right back to Cincinnati, and to send the Yosts and their "colorful friends," all strapped firmly into their fucking VW bus with the brake lines cut, into a high, rough sea. Any survivors washing ashore would be clubbed to death with the script."