Party girl-turned-columnist-turned-author, Candace Bushnell is the creator and real-life Carrie Bradshaw of Sex and the City fame.

Last night, apartments in what is known locally as the ugliest building in Greenpoint were seriously papered. Were they eviction notices? Utility shut-offs? No! Just a note from Candace Bushnell and friends.

From the mailbag:

Sir Harry and Tina Brown are the closest thing the New York scene has to a royal couple. (Tina is Tina, and Harry is more charming and also better-looking than HRH Prince Charles of Edinburg.) On Sunday, aboard the Manhattan-sized cruise ship the Queen Mary II, they hosted a luncheon to benefit the American Institute for Stuttering. (Their son George for many years had a severe stutter.) Katie Couric was the M.C. Carly Simon was an honoree. Jack Welch sat in turtle-like repose as did, closer to the back, a very disengaged former gossip columnist Lloyd Grove. Candace Bushnell promised to set me up on a blind date and despite the early call to port—11 a.m.!—the champagne flowed freely. Joshua, still recovering from the BBQ festival avant-hier biked to Red Hook, following the limousines to the Cruise Terminal. Photographer Nikola Tamindzic took a cab.

Since time immemorial, or since maybe 2004, we have received missives from a person called The Earl Grey. As frequently as possible, we print these letters as a service to society.

• Says the writer whose once-shelved Anna Nicole bio is getting a new lease on life thanks to that lady's death: "I feel morally compelled to put her words out there." [R&M]
  

In this week's "Executive Pursuits" Times biz column, 55-year-old Harry Hurt III becomes a ballerina. His teacher? "Sex and the City"-scribe Candace Bushnell's husband, for some reason! And apparently, a lot of people—a lot of famous, important people—made fun of the Hurtmeister when he told them he was going to learn ballet for his latest stunt.

The Times chose to illustrate their story on the potential XM/Sirius merger. with an A.P. photo of Candace Bushnell interviewing Janice Dickinson for her Sirius show. (RELATED: Does every third-rate lit-celeb have a satellite radio show? And then when do they write?) But as a sharp-eyed tipster noted, "The real story is that two women of a certain age are being haunted by a trendy ethnic ghost with an upturned collar." If we didn't know any better, we'd say it's Ron Galotti. Either way, kinda spooky.

In news that will excite all the thirtysomething ladies who desperately need TV role models to justify their one night stands, shoe-splurges, and bloggy confessions about same, it seems that a miniseries version of Candace Bushnell's latest novel, Lipstick Jungle, will be coming soon to a small screen near you. Yawn, we know. But in Nikki Finke's writeup of the deal, we did find this detail intriguing:

• Ad-sales side of Conde's forthcoming business mag is filling up; prez/pub David Carey expects mag to be fully staffed — biz and editorial — by Thanksgiving. [MIN]
• Breaking: More and more people people are reading newspapers on the web. [WP]
• Candace Bushnell, Cindi Leive, Jill Abramson, and Geena Davis win New York Women in Communications' Matrix Awards. [WWD]
• Bill Keller is overly absorbed with questions of self-absorption, says Jay Rosen. [Guardian]

• Penguin wins auction for Alan Greenspan memoir with an offer believed to be nearly $9 million. Obligatory question: Irrationally exuberant? [NYP]
• The dude behind the allegedly forthcoming mags Everything for Men and Everything for Women is a con artist and a felon. Unlike most mag people, who are merely con artists. [WWD]
• Arthur S. holds his State of the Times meeting; reporters question why he gets paid so much and they so little. [Media Mob/NYO]
• ABC's Bob Woodruff reportedly now conscious and talking, though heavily medicated. [ABCNews.com]
• Air America could lose its New York affiliate on April 1. We'd be bummed, if we ever listened to it. [NYP]
• The Jew and the gays brought Oscar his second-worst ratings since 1987. [WP]
• Does Diane Sawyer want to anchor World News Tonight? One gossip site says so. [TMZ]
• Candace Bushnell to launch weekly Sirius Satellite Radio show giving advice to women. First piece of advice we'd like her fans to hear: "They're just cupcakes. Stop waiting on a line around the corner for them." [NYDN]
• Will Nick Sylvester be a Stephen Glass, a Mike Barnicle, or a Janet Cooke? [Media Mob/NYO]

On the AP wire this morning:

• Candace Bushnell and her Stanford Blatch-inspiring ex-manager are suing each other over money. Which seems far more like the real New York than Sex and the City ever did. [Radar]
• You know things are getting weird when far lefty Bob Scheer is echoing VF bobo Michael Wolff on the Plame case: Judy Miller is no hero, and the public should be more important than her sources. [LAT]
• E&P peacenik Greg Mitchell calls for newspapers to call for withdrawl from Iraq. Again. [E&P]
• The many personalities of Michiko Kakutani. [Media Mob/NYO]

Flak Mag's "Rejected" column compares the newly-launched Radar magazine to Uday Hussein. Kevin Baker notes: "Radar's stable of writers includes Candace Bushnell and Bret Easton Ellis, among others," while "Uday's personal zoo housed lion, two cheetahs, five cubs, and a young bear." What? You don't see the obvious connection?
Battle of the buzz [Flak Mag]

· Jeff Soref, the openly gay heir to the Masterlock fortune who's an up-and-comer in the Democratic Party and "controls the wallets and pocketbooks of gays and lesbians nationwide" is being talked about as a potential successor to DNC treasurer Andrew Tobias. [Page Six]
· Candace Bushnell is responsible for the term "toxic bachelor," which she coined when writing her "Sex in the City" column for the Observer. [Page Six]
· Cher's wig has been stolen! Cher's wig has been stolen! OH! MY! GOD! [Page Six]
· Salman Rushdie, one of Those People who bring up Iraq at dinner parties, was doing just that to fellow partygoer Al Pacino recently. [Cindy Adams]
· Maer Roshan, when asked "what if something happens" to the writer he dispatched to Baghdad on behalf of Radar: "Just pray that he first sent in the story." [Cindy Adams]
· Liz Smith notes that Harvey Weinstein's "Mila 18" project has been in development for years. [Liz Smith]
· Christina Ricci gets naked in her next role. (She plays a lesbian serial killer.) [NY Daily News]