• A novelist walks into the city...: Stop us if you've heard this one. In today's New York Times, Charles McGrath spends some time with aging Brit wonderboy author Will Self, who in a fit of insanity walked from JFK airport to Manhattan to promote his new book, The Book of Dave. Did someone say illustrated map? Why, yes. Guess that's one guy's Idea of Fun.
• Remembering George: Three more reminiscences of the recently deceased New Yorker writer George W.S. Trow. In the New York Observer, Mark Feeney calls him a "snob, moralist, wit, cultural critic, aesthete, nostalgist, lost boy, citizen." Dennis Perrin recalls an emotional interview with Trow that ended when "He stubbed out his cigarette as tears streamed down his face. 'I can't ... I can't ...' he said to me, then began to sob." And, finally, the New Yorker's Hendrick Hertzberg traces his impact on the magazine.
• SPYer, SPYer, pants on fire: A newspaper's Page Six talks to Donald Trump about SPY magazine and the developer/TV star/vodka mogul denies he ever cashed a miniscule check as part of a prank the magazine did to catch America's Cheapest Zillionaire. "I would like them to try and show it to me." Okay, Mr. T. After the jump, a check for $0.13 to you from the July 1990 issue of SPY.
[Tiny check after the jump!]