Ariel Foxman is the new editor of Time Inc's In Style. Foxman spent five years at the magazine previously, leaving in 2003 to edit the men's shopping magazine Cargo. Is a gay male fashion expert a strange choice to lead a magazine with a heavily female readership? "While he may not be a buyer of Manolo Blahniks, he is a keen observer of fashion and popular culture," writes Time Inc. editorial boss John Huey, by way of explanation. Okay! Read Huey's full memo introducing the stylistic Foxman to the staff, after the jump.

• Plucky Canadian feminist Rachel Sklar (happy birthday, kiddo!) confronts Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter about that Chris Hitchens "Bitches Ain't Funny" column. Carter pal Kurt Andersen defends Carter's right to run a whole bunch of crap in his magazine without reading it first. [Observer]
  

Here's part of the press release from the Ariel Foxman-sponsored art show we told you about the other day:

We got a copy of this lovely invitation to an upcoming showing at the Atlantic Gallery. The best part? It was put together by former Cargo EIC Ariel Foxman. We've no idea what "works in newspaper and house paint" actually look like, but we're gonna guess they all have little stickers that say "Buy" or "Save" on them.

So the MPA has a daylong conference today at the Sheraton in midtown, "Magazines 24/7: Profiting in the Digital Age." Among the materials distributed was, as there is wont to be at such events, a 10-page list of attendees. And among that list of attendees was one lonely little boy listed without any affiliation at all.

Always a clutch player, the Observer comes through today with some winning coverage of the demise of Condé Nast's Cargo. While we don't learn too much more than what we already knew (denials that it had anything to do with Men's Vogue; Condé cockteased secured a loan for EIC Ariel Foxman to buy an apartment just last spring), there's some telling quotage from Foxman just hours after he was thrown out of his home.

Like pigeon shit dropping from the sky, the following internal email from deliciously hot but not-on-your-team Cargo editor Ariel Foxman appeared in our mailbag. It's a little murky but, best as we can tell, it would seem that Cargo is in the planning stages for their special Fall Fag Issue:

• Bill Keller only learned of impending staff cutbacks on Friday. [E&P]
• Staff cuts, TimesSelect hiccups, Alessandra Stanley, and now this: S&P downgrades Times Co.'s debt. [NYP]
• Time Warner, like a battered wife stuck in an abusive relationship, now insists it likes AOL again. [NYT]
• Conde brass swears that editor Ariel Foxman isn't about to be canned from Cargo. [WWD]
• Denton tells Adam Penenberg there isn't much profit potential in blogs. Then he lights a fresh cigar with a $100 bill. [Wired News]

We're a little sad we missed the Today show this morning. Fortunately we have loyal readers, always ready to send us the highlights we missed. Like this one, for example: