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afflatus \uh-FLAY-tus\ noun : a divine imparting of knowledge or power : inspiration

The recent Thursday Styles piece on Ivanka Trump makes her success seem like the result of her own hard work, not afflatus or her father's name.

[Photo Credit: WireImage]

Jared Kushner is always up to something. We hoped it was "no good." Alas, no dice: just good-natured joshing around.

We hear the 25-year-old New York Observer owner is swiftly moving ahead with his plans to redesign the paper to tabloid size – even though he refuses to confirm as much on the record – and will be doing neat redesign-y things like expanding The Transom to a 2-page column, headed up by Spencer Morgan. What's more, as if possible, it's getting more gossipy! Though Jared would never tell a reporter such, it'd be fair to say he's looking to shift the column into a high-brow Page Six. And it might just work, given the Observer's continuing ability to break news ahead of daily columns and, uh, blogs, even though it's a weekly.

All of this made more awesome ever since Tom Scocca started taking time off from waterboarding Malcolm Gladwell to write about sports.

From the New Jersey Star-Ledger's profile of 25-year-old media-and-real-estate kingpin Jared Kushner comes this cheat sheet, which every profile of anyone, ever, should include:

Age: 25

Home: New York City

Plans for the new year: Relaunch a newspaper. Buys some buildings.

Work schedule: Takes off Shabbat, but that's it.

Favorite day: Sunday. "It's the best time in the office. The phone doesn't ring."

Major accomplishment: Ran the New York Marathon at 17.

What he misses during these busy times: Exercise

Daily routine: "I wake up in the morning, my assistant tells me what I'm supposed to do, and then I go do it."

Bullet points missing from the pile:

How he celebrated Christmas: With a menorah, lighting the shammash with a fat stack of C-notes

Eats for breakfast: Turds like you

Hair grooming products: The sweat of his forefathers

Least favorite day: Wednesday, when the Observer comes out and there's a chance his father's name might be mentioned in not-so-favorable light

Where he seems himself in 10 years: No longer living in his father's shadow

While the New York Times takes two years to cut the paper's width by some unnoticeable amount (the same six inches you tell your boyfriend is "just enough" to pleasure you), word comes that the New York Observer is considering some cosmetic changes of its own. Namely, moving away from a broadsheet format and to either a tabloid or Berliner setup, a la the Guardian. NYO owner Jared Kushner is of the belief that a tabloid is easier to read, and switching to a handheld version might boost the paper's readership above, well, this website. (Sad, but true.) But to be sure, the reason why the New York Post is so popular is not necessarily because of its size, but because of headlines like "Lusty Lawyer: Attorney Taped 'Demanding Sex.'"

To follow suit, we're really going to have to do something with "A New D.C. Paper Poaches, Encroaches Cross-Platforms." Perhaps "The Capitol Leader Is Gonna Kick Some Capitol Ass"?

• Jared Kushner's dad bribed his safety schools, too? Now that's just good business savvy. [Ivy Leak]

• Cindy Adams has been writing her gossip column longer than we've been alive. That's kind of sad … but still worth a shout-out. Especially since she coined the phrase which headlines this daily round-up. [Cindy Adams]

bull; This is more "tri-state" but if Jim "McG" McGreevy's sultry tell-all is good enough for Oprah, it's good enough for us. Plus, we can't really imagine anything like this happening in Texas or Nebraska. [NYDN]

• Television news just discovered the Ghetto Film School, and they'll be talking about it for a whole two days. We know Black people are fascinating, but do yourself a favor and opt to check out the site before the nice White lady on TV gives you an inside look. [GFS]

• A new model called "Sweet 16" tells Animal NY it's her energy, not coke, that keeps her going. Yeah. Uh-huh. Energy. [Animal]

Want to be paid more than any of those "journalists" at the New York Observer? Why not take a job as Jared Kushner's assistant? Come on, haven't you always wanted a 25-year-old boss to schedule lunches and pick up dry-cleaning for?

Look, the paper is really hip, the people who work there are really smart, it's in Flatiron, and you can have a crush on your boss and not feel like a twinkie.

Job Requirements Want to be a player in the advertising field at Manhattan's hippest and smartest newspaper? The New York Observer has an exciting full-time entry level position reporting directly to our publisher and blah, blah, blah.

As an administrative assistant, you must blah, blah, blah … have a nice ass … blah, blah, blah … go on beer runs. This is a very exciting time for us and a great opportunity to join our weekly newspaper located in the Flatiron District.

Did you hear that? Have you ever been so excited to put on your tight gray skirt and hone your pen ordering skills? These are some very exciting times.

Administrative Assistant [Mediabistro]
Earlier: Adam Moss Needs a New Assistant

Having just became the latest Jew family to own a New York newspaper, the next step in media bubble entree is showing your face around town. And that's what the new New York Observer owner is doing. Jared Kusher suddenly became the main event at last night's premiere of Factotum – well, Details coverboy Matt Dillon was there too – so we grabbed photog Matthew Krautheim and stalked Kush from red carpet to after party.

After two hours of watching Dillon drink himself half to death, the media posse (which included AMI chief David Pecker) were inspired to open a bottle of scotch and drink till the booze was gone — which may explain why Lloyd Grove went home to get drunk in peace, while the rest of us flocked across town to the after party at BLVD.

It was only a 19 hour wait for the free booze before we could bathe ourselves in copies of last week's Observer. Fishbowler Dylan Stableford stopped by but lost interest once he realized there were no drunken gossips to videotape. Once inside, we realized our encounters with Marisa Tomei and Matt Dillon were destined to be limited to snapping paparazzi-like photos — though we did manage to back Kushner in a corner.

He asked us what blogging was like ("Do you sit on your couch in your underwear? No, I'm not trying to picture it or anything.") and we asked him if his real estate ties were going to impact the Observer's gossipy coverage of his fellow moguls ("I'm not going to have much of a hand in the editorial aspects of the paper."). We would've delved further, but he had to duck out. (Something about a new job and needing to get some sleep … we couldn't really follow.)

Alas, like good writers, celebs, and New Yorkers, everyone was hammered by midnight — surely depressed over the reminder that scribes' lives are pathetic and a 25-year-old can buy and sell them for fun. Ah, well, like we said, the booze was free.

Our photo tale begins, after the jump.

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