A quick update on Soft Paws’ offerings. Just in time for V-day, they’re breaking out the pink and red nails.

Is it just me, or does this white kitty, as adorable as he is, look downright possessed with those red claws? Or at the very least, doesn’t it appear as if he’s just ripped apart some mouse?

Damn! It finally happened. Someone I know, someone I grew up with, has been published in the New Yorker. Pfoey!

It didn’t bother me so much when a Penn classmate, John Legend, got nominated for a dozen or so Grammies. And when Pingry peer Justin Gimelstob was at Wimbeldon, playing mixed doubles with Serena Williams at Wimbledon in 1999, against John McEnroe and Steffi Graf, I was like, go Justin!

But publishing a witty, riveting, first-person essay about Taiwanese kick-boxing (“Cool Heart: The lethal art of Muay Thai,” Jan. 16, 2006), well, that just can’t be forgiven. I noticed the story, by another Pingry classmate named Elif Batuman, when I was slogging through recent issues the other night. I tend to hone in on my favorite authors (Gladwell, Surowiecki, Sedaris, Flanagan, etc.), read the Talk of the Town and movie reviews, and listen to whatever else is included in the Audible’s abridged version of the magazine. But this one slipped through the cracks. It was only when I did my final once-over, before the issues get sent to the great scrap heap that is the Children’s Hospital waiting room, that I noticed, with a sinking dread, Elif’s brilliant piece. Damn, this is really good. A few examples:

I was having trouble with high kicks, and Bunkerd came over and began explaining something in a heartfeld, meaningful tone. “||| || ||||!” he said, an utterance that I pictured as a row of verticle lines, like Woodstalk talking to Snoopy. “|||| ||||| ||| kick,” he added, pointing at my leg.

At the fight, I had taken a photograph of Bunker’s ring entrance. In it, he is walking with a light, purposeful step, and appears to be about to skip right out of the picture. You can almost tell that his recording is playing in the background. When I gave him a copy of the photograph, he accepted it cautiously and held it up to his eyes.

“Thank you,” he said. A smile lit up on his face: “Oh — it’s me.”

Alas, the text isn’t online, but trust me, you don’t want to throw out the issue before reading it. Next time, though, I wish she’ll have the good sense to be like Gimelstob: lose to MacEnroe and, if you absolutely must publish your writing, do so on SI.com. Just stay away from the fancy intellectual magazines and suburban lifestyle magazines. That’s my turf!

With all the brewhaha over James Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces” memoir, spurred on by The Smoking Gun’s exhaustive refutation of each and every little detail of the book, I keep asking the same question: What about “My Friend Leonard”? I’ve been reading the follow-up book, off and on, for the last couple weeks, and judging by the NY Times bestseller list, a lot of others have been, too. Despite all the griping I’ve heard over Frey’s rap sheet fabrications or pretending to be part of a train crash (including, most surprisingly, refunds from the publisher, Random House), I haven’t heard one thing about Leonard–both the book and the titular characater it revolves around, a high-ranking member of the mob that Frey becomes extremely close it. The mafia-related stories, if they’re untrue, top any of the supposed obfusications that make up Freygate. What’s more, if they are true, wouldn’t they put Frey in imminent danger? Mobsters don’t care to be written about in any form, even fiction.

Is Frey’s statement at the start of “Leonard”–”some sequences and details have been changed”–really enough to get him off the hook with both the reading public and the mob? If so, if it really is that big a get-out-of-jail free card, then–well, I think I’ll start using a whole lot more of those disclaimer thingeys.

Note: Some sequences and details above were critical of James Frey. They in no way reflect the opinion of TurkeyMonkey or its author, Ted Mann.

There’s no excuse for going almost two months without a single cat-related post, but there is one way to atone: By giving each and every one of you your own virtual cat. Behold, Maukie.

He purrs, he paws, he yowls. And if that’s not cute enough for you, check out the offerings at Cute Overload, you desensitized bastard.

I just updated my MediaBistro portfolio, which is where I try to log all (or at least a unconscionably long list of most) of my published articles. Among my recent favorites: a profile of WPLJ radio legend Scott Shannon and a bizarro interview with the Westchester Mall’s Santa Claus, both of which were nominated for National Magazine Awards.

Just kidding.

Or am I?