Which smoking-hot young TV actress started on her way in the industry by bedding one of the least attractive 'SNL' cast members while still in college?

The significance of holding last night's party to celebrate the New York Observer and its new website at the Four Seasons restaurant was intentional, obvious, and not at all lost on anyone. Despite its recent Frank Bruni demotion to two New York Times stars, the restaurant remains the symbolic and probably actual center of New York old-guard media power. After so many years of playing gadfly to the media, politics, and real estate elite of this city, the Observer and its boy-owner and his advisers chose to make a very specific sort of statement.

The author needed to meet some very important person from the world of publishing, and his tightly-wound editor let him know it by waving frantically and then physically dragging him over to the corner of the bar. Dana Vachon had been born wealthy and healthy and handsome and he was right to view himself as entirely blessed, especially considering that his first novel, Mergers & Acquisitions had already gone to a second printing that very day. No one wore costumes on the night of his book party at Felix, that Eurotrash magnet on West Broadway, but there was no need for costumes to have a masque ball. Everyone knew their role and played it.

• Nobody watched "I'm From Rolling Stone." [WWD]
  

The newly installed editor of Seventeen magazine, Ann Shoket, was [at Ben Widdicombe's birthday party], flanked by her publicist. "Ben is the most charming, most dashing .... "
Right, right, now what are you wearing?
"What? Oh no, I don't want to tell you that," she gasped. She wore a tube top and jeans. "Now I'm starting to get into trouble with my publicity department. They're like, 'Don't talk to anybody.'"
Her publicist, Scott Gorenstein, stepped in. "She's wearing an appropriate outfit for a humid evening in the East Village."

• Soon, the Daily News will be all Widdicombe, all the time. Anyone know what ever happened to that Grove guy?
  

• Sports writers vs. sports bloggers: Whose sublimated homosexual desire for strong, sweaty men will prove dominant in the long run? [92nd St Y]
• Will Ben Widdicombe take over Lloyd Grove's empty chair once the sad-faced gossip is kicked to the curb? Jossip.com says "unequivocally," which doesn't sound at all like an attempt to force a decision that hasn't yet been made. [Jossip]
• With rare exceptions, we're reluctant to reprint every crazy-ass letter from obvious nuts that comes across our inbox. We don't have a problem linking to people who do, though. [FishbowlNY]

Seems like every paper in town is trying to ruin our morning: We're fairly inured to disgust at this point, but there still is a list of things that we'd prefer not to read about over our cornflakes. Very high on that list are: rumors about Courtney Love's sex life; anything with the byline "Michael Wolff"; and rumors about Mario Batali's sex life. Today Ben Widdicombe goes two-for-three in one item:

• Jesus lives and saves us all: Star Jones is reportedly announcing her departure from The View, preferring instead to continue her rapid shrinking in the privacy of her own home. If we're lucky, her on-air farewell will be the exact opposite of Katie Couric's: hilarious and laced with blood. [Access Hollywood]
• Producer Dallas Austin has now been in a Dubai prison for one month for trying to bring drugs into the country for Naomi Campbell's birthday party; Campbell has yet to forgive him for ruining her big day. [MTV]
• A sneak peek at a former Playboy Bunny's tell-all, plus her requisite cleavage. [Hollywood Interrupted]
• Best Week Ever comedian Sherrod Small slams the John Mayer report, insists that the musician's use of the n-word was funny. [BWE]
• Extremely loud and incredibly derivative. [The Velvet Blog]
• One block of 103rd Street is renamed Humphrey Bogart Place in honor of the actor's childhood home. Not that it makes the locale any more appealing. [Cinematical]
• Unintentional hilarity: Laura Ingraham as the next Jon Stewart? It's a pilot we'd gleefully kill to get our hands on. [TV Newser]
• Overheard in NY gets its own stalker map. [Overplot]
• Kudos to the generous Daily News editors who allowed Ben Widdicombe to out both Anderson Cooper and Shep Smith in one fell swoop. [Gatecrasher]
• Hipster Swiss Army knives, crafted especially for Bedford Avenue stabbings. [Consumerist]
• Does Us Weekly have a problem with Britney Spears? Is People coddling her? And at what point will we all collectively agree to just look the fuck away? [Media Orchard]

The very small type in our Filofax — yes, we're that old-fashioned — tells us that today is Australia Day.

Among our many problems in life, two of the biggest are these: We are not very good interviewers, and we are not very good gays. Tonight, it seems, we shall have a chance to work on both problems — and, even better, with drinks!

In nerdy blog news, David Hauslaib, the well-coiffed young thing behind gossip blog Jossip and gay spin-off Queerty, is stepping down after two years of nursing Jossip to maturity. He'll stick around in a management capacity (how very Denton!), but no more daily blogging. His replacement, Corynne Steindler, comes from the sketchy, non-descript environs of Star and Lloyd Grove's desk at the Daily News, though we've no idea what, specifically, any of that means. Not that it matters — as we've found, professional qualifications tend to hinder one's blogging ability.

A particularly intrepid reader decided to look at more of Colgate Alito's writing than just his jokey bio, and she presents a solid case that the boy is in fact our man. Take, for example, bits like:

Wonky sis considerately provided a link to a Google-cached version of young Alito's bio at the Colgate Forum, and we suspect we've discovered another clue that the collegian in question might not actually be the son of the Supreme Court nominee. Young Alito opens his bio thus:

Gatecrashing Daily Newser Ben Widdicombe this morning provided some perhaps calming insight into SCOTUS nominee Samuel Alito by quoting the charmingly amusing musings of his son, Phil, on the website of the Colgate college newspaper. Writes Widdicombe:

We're not posting this picture of Gawker Hottie and Daily News gossip-flower Ben Widdicombe to embarrass him. Rather, we want to point out what a fantastic example is being set by the Gatecrasher. Those nostrils couldn't get any cleaner if we picked 'em ourselves.

Today marks the beginning of, perhaps, a new era: the NY Daily News has set up Rush and Molloy's bitchy Australian gossip-boy Ben Widdicombe with his own weekend column. And just a few weeks ago, the NY Post launched their own weekend gossip column, hostessed by the even-younger-than-Ben Elisa Lipsky-Karasz.

Chic Happens is updating again. (Ben Widdicombe: "leave me alone, I was on vacation.") Fashion ad guru Sam Shahid is being sued by his former 23-year-old straight intern Mladen Djankovich for defamation, sexual harassment and false imprisonment. From the complaint: "Shahid tried to kiss Plaintiff. Plaintiff pushed away. Shahid became frustrated and irritated, saying 'What are you fucking worried for, you know you're gorgeous. I would die for you!'" Also: Shahid, apparently not one for subtlety, "stood directly behind Plaintiff and placed his crotch on the back of Plaintiff's head and moved back and forth in a sexual manner. He caressed the back of Plaintiff's neck and head with his crotch and then put his hands down both the front and back of the inside of Plaintiff's shirt, touching his bare skin."
Intern affairs [Chic Happens]

Ben "Chic Happens" Widdicombe interviews Rael, leader of his very own namesake cult, and examines his fashion sensibilities. In an article that really needs no commentary, Widdicombe writes, "And where a lesser lama would have gone for robesthe classic 'dentist at a Star Wars convention' look, which derails so many fledgling religionsthis holiness paired the top with trousers, the boldest move since the Dalai Lama thought, Hmmm . . . saffron." Says Rael, "I think I will one day go to a seminar where I will wear a pink skirt...I think I will; it will be cute. Just to change, to make people think how to be different."
Clothes encounter [NYT]

"Yick. Are those Via Spigas? Did you get those at Strawberry?" The 20-something PR lackey didn't actually say it, but his narrowed eyes, suspicious look at The List tacked to his clipboard, disapproving look at me, then back at The List, said it for him. The headset affixed to his cranium appeared to be held in place by a strategic combination of industrial-strength hair gel and the big head he'd developed during the past five days wielding Door Power at various 7th on Sixth affairs.