• Assuming Tom Cruise does eat placenta, he learned how to serve it courtesy of Vice. It's like Food & Wine for the flesh-eating hipster set, after all. [Viceland]
• How bad are things getting in the world of big-budget beauty pageants? Bad enough that Miss USA contestants are doing photo-ops Mars 2112. [Getty Images]
• The FreeJaredPaulStern blog, dedicated to saving the reporter from allegations of extortion, throws in the towel. Sometimes people just don't want to be helped. [FJPS]
• Another reason to fear bloggers. [CNN]
• Heeding the call of impatient burger lovers everywhere, Shake Shack gets its own webcam so that you can effectively time your visits for more efficient, heart-clogging consumption. [Gothamist]
• The legendary Algonquin Round Table gets the musical treatment; Dorothy Parker rolls over in her grave. [Reuters]
• We've no idea if this is legitimate, but downtown auteur Marc Ecko claims to have tagged Air Force One. Update: OK, not legitimate. [Still Free]
• Village Voice nightowl Tricia Romano comes clean about her swag, none of which strikes us as particularly enviable. [VV]
• Natasha Lyonne, pull your ass out of rehab and come pick up your shit. [CL]

Graffito spotted Friday night in the men's room at Winnie's, Gawker's preferred divey Chinatown karaoke bar:

• The wit and wisdom of Anderson Cooper: "Going gray is like ejaculation. You know it can happen prematurely, but when it actually does, it's a total shock." If his $1 million book deal means we'll read prose half as stunning as this, we're sold. [CNN]
• This man is NOT the Jeffrey Goldberg from the New Yorker. [Goldmark]
• After a brief mess with immigration officials, Martha Stewart has been permitted to head into Nova Scotia this weekend, where she will row a 600-lb. pumpkin across a lake. Aren't Canadian matters of national security so quaint? [Reuters]
• Sleep soundly, Manhattan: NYPD has arrested yet another evil graffiti artist. [NYP]
• Exclusivity-obsessed masses, your next stop is The Back Room on Norfolk Street. And so La Esquina fades into obscurity. [Eater]
• Two years after his retirement, rapper Jay-Z plans on making a comeback. Yeah, you didn't see that one coming. [ContactMusic]

The official Historian of Hipster Nightlife, the Cobrasnake, has taken to guerilla marketing. The image at right features his trademark "tag," which can be found on empty, vulnerable walls in the expected habitats such as the Lower East Side and Chelsea. Note the abandoned bottles of Corona; the alcoholic litter is a genuine mark of the Snake. Lock your doors and protect your children, lest he mark you as his territory.

Courtesy, per usual, of Animal magazine's Bucky Turco.

• Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston have reached the summit of Heartbreak Mountain, having finally settled their divorce. As of October 2, Pitt will thus be free to have even more insanely sexual sex with Angelina Jolie, perhaps in a church of some sort. [Reuters]
• Designer Marc Ecko wins his case against NYC and is now free to have graffiti parties whenever he damn well pleases. [Wooster Collective]
• There's something special about the Sunday Times in August: The complete lack of news. [The Media Mob]
• Oh, if only we had the time to write a line-by-line rebuttal to the Times' Alexandra Bandon and her foray into the renter's inferno. [Property Grunt]
• Put your hard-earned cash right back in the man's pockets at the best corporate cafeterias. [Cakehead]
• London taxis make their way to NYC; the novelty ride costs the same as a regular cab and is presumably less dorky than a pedicab. [Witz]
• Wal-Mart preys on our city's weak, goes for Staten Island. [NYT]

• If you support graffiti as viable artistic expression, you should really call Mayor Bloomberg and tell him yourself. [Animal]
• Think your buddy on the undergraduate 5 Year Plan is a slacker? Meet the man behind the 12 Year Plan. [GQ]
• We tend to avoid beauty coverage 'round here (seeing as you all are obviously gorgeous enough as is), but if Pat Benatar tells us to paint our nails, we're listening. [Cool Hunting]
• Great anecdotes in Matt Drudge pervanoia. [Crooks and Liars]
• Details continues to fly its big, gay flag. [Towleroad]
• Listen, Hilary Duff, you're cute. The new veneers? Hey, whatever floats your boat. But now you've taken it too far. [Just Jared]
• Ten things you should never tell the bouncer who's not letting you into the club, compiled by the bouncer who's not letting you into the club. [Clublife]

From the slideshow accompanying today's Times article about local graffiti writers and their skirmishes with increasingly tough law enforcers, the image at right appears with the following caption: "Harley, a 19-year-old East Village resident whose tag name is IMUNE, uses Martha Stewart pink paint at 5 Pointz in Queens."

Now used to reveal the innermost thoughts of a model, Sharpies certainly have come a long way from the days of circling offensive areas of body fat.