Yesterday we received the following email:

Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown appeared Britain's High Court yesterday on behalf of Random House U.K., which is being sued by two authors who claim Brown's book imitates the central theme of their older work, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. While defending the originality of his work, Brown revealed a little bit about himself: he never watched television as a child. His father used to devise codes and games for Brown to find his Christmas presents. Blythe Brown, his wife, does most of his research and is said to be "forceful."

In its latest issue, the masters of timing at Blackbook have published an article by Fake Writer JT Leroy, who proclaims that "snark is the new crack" (brilliant — and for this he was once heralded as a literary talent?):

In a previous life, Fake Writer James Frey was just a "regular" writer, having penned the screenplay for Kissing a Fool and, later, a couple of massive bestselling memoirs built off a fantastical pile of bullshit. During those cloudless days before Oprah's storm, it seems that Frey also sold a one-hour crime drama script to Fox "about Malibu-based private eye Donald "Insane" Tremaine, 'former world champion surfer, PI, Chevelle driver and lover of ladies.'" A sample from the pilot:

Even at the magic kingdom that is the Village Voice, where "making shit up to publish in the paper" doesn't also mean "fired," we figured that "suspended" would at least mean "won't have a byline in the very next issue."

Australian novelist and literary prankster Peter Carey on James Frey:

Thanks to yesterday's record-setting tech woes, we never had the chance to tell you how we really feel:

OK, so yesterday we posted the original, as-printed, not-fucked-with version of the manufactured final scene to Nick Sylvester's now-retracted "Do You Wanna Kiss Me" Voice cover story. And that original version cited "Steve Lookner, DC, and Vali, three TV writers who had flown in from L.A. for the weekend." (Later, that became "Steve Lucien, DC, and Vic" in the online version, before it was removed.) All parties now agree that the trip Sylvester described did not happen, but a question remains. Who are those three?

You already know all about the cat-and-mouse of finding the now-retracted Nick Sylvester Village Voice piece. And you already know how we feel about a newspaper — a newspaper! — that tries to scrub inconvenient truths from the historical record. But the funny thing about the disappearing act is that the print issue remained on stands the whole fucking time. So while Simmons and his cronies were busy removing all signs of Sylvester's malfeasance from any website that hosted it, you could still pick up the damned thing on street corners throughout the city.

• A very special collection of letters to the editor regarding the Village Voice's grounded houseboy Nick Sylvester. Dismay isn't quite the word to cover public sentiment. [VV]
• We hear that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Suozzi has hired former New York Press editor Harry Siegal as his policy director. Siegal saved the Press, so maybe he can — er, nevermind.
• The House & Home section at the Times gets an extreme makeover, kind of. [Architect's Newspaper]
• More on Kate Moss' totally unexciting drug use from 1998: She traveled with her stash in a Faberg egg. The woman is nothing if not classy. [This Is London]
• Writing about how Matt Haber wrote something that you actually wrote two years prior is deliciously meta. [FishbowlNY]
• MySpace: the movie. [Big Shiny Thing]
• Yanni is arrested for domestic abuse. Being forced to watch his Live at the Acropolis VHS during our junior high music classes, we can't help but feel relieved that he's off the streets. [CNN]
• Twee music is fine. Twee comics, not so much. Fine by us — too much twee and comic geeks in this world, anyhow. [Salon]

• 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]

We've had quite a few people asking us where to access Nick Sylvester's now-notorious cover story from last week's Voice, especially since the Google cache of the article has been scrubbed. Like manna from heaven, a kind reader points us to a message board which has posted the article. We've reprinted it in full after the jump. In case you're wondering, the fabricated portion of the article comes near the end, beginning with the following paragraph:

• The Google cache version of Nick Sylvester's partially fabricated cover story on the effect of Neil Strauss' The Game has been wiped squeaky clean. If you know any remaining online outlets still carrying the article, do tell.

• The Village Voice gets its very own hipster-Blair, in the form of young Nick Sylvester, who fabricated parts of his cover story. Upon being caught, he fainted outside of editor Doug Simmons' office, only to find himself suspended upon regaining consciousness. Meanwhile, freelancers bitch about the possibilty of the story being a stolen pitch and Sylvester loses his indie cred by being asked to resign from his haute music-reviewing gig at Pitchfork.
EXHALE! And in other news:

These reports just in to Gawker HQ:

Post-Frey, book publishers aren't taking any chances.

• Pitchfork, the indier-than-thou music site, fired admitted Voice fabricator Sylvester yesterday; his name disappeared from the site's masthead. Somewhere, halfway through a harangue about the reprehensible journalistic standards of online media as compared to traditional news outlets, a retired newspaper editor spontaneously explodes.

Most of us have identically "original" ideas. This is why TV networks, for example, will generally require that you sign a release before you pitch them a show. It's not that the TV execs want to steal your idea; it's that they don't want to get sued if they have someone else's version of your idea already in development. That said, let's consider the case of Dolly, the Truth About Cocks and Dolls blogger, who says acting Voice editor Doug Simmons stole her pitch — about New Yorker men and women playing The Game — and instead gave it to hotshot young Nick Sylvester. Simmons, talking to Gawker yesterday afternoon, denied the charge, saying this week's now-retracted cover story was Sylvester's idea, not his, and that he couldn't find any record of Dolly's pitch. As a public service, then, we're pleased to now provide that record.

"I'm still here, and in good standing," Doug Simmons, the beleaguered acting editor-in-chief of the Village Voice, told Gawker by phone just a few minutes ago. Then he laughed. "Well, maybe not in such good standing."

• Rapper Lil' Kim, who's been serving time since September for perjury, is finding prison to be more tough than she expected: Her gargantuan breast implants are leaking. That's some definite street cred right there. [R&M]
• Times reporter Warren St. John sells the movie rights to his articles uncovering the J.T. Leroy hoax for Harvey Weinstein. Expect New York mag, which explored the hoax before St. John made the ultimate declaration, to spontaneously combust with anger. [Page Six]
• Bonnie Fuller has invited Courtney Cox to shadow the AMI beast around the office for a day; Cox is preparing for her upcoming sitcom roll as a tabloid queen who magically aborts celebrities' babies. [Lowdown (last item)]
• Divorce is hard enough; divorce when you have a thing for trannies is even worse. [Page Six]
• If cracky singer Whitney Houston is indeed pregnant, Child Protective Services should probably start preparing now. [Scoop]