Exclusive

By the looks of this week's staid cover of Life & Style – Angelina Jolie looking pregnant is an exclusive? – you might've thought things had toned down at the Bauer tabloid. But that's not the case at all, according to our tattlers in Englewood Cliffs. As you'll recall, newly seated L&S EIC Mark Pasetsky has been met with more than a little staffer resistance ever since he took over from (or, had a hand in the removal of) Debra Birnbaum in November. And we've had a great time reporting it.

But even after all the staffer exits, insults, name calling, and makeup tales, the shenanigans aren't over. Now we hear Mark is trying to hard to reposition the workplace that he recently brought in a feng shui expert, who told him, among other things, that he needed to change the wall color. So goodbye "blah" blue, as one tipster tells it, and hello "pale yellow." (Another insider chimes in to say the color is actually more of an "institutional beige.") Says one insider: "He probably thinks [painting the walls] will lift everyone's spirits."

If his color pallete – and trust in a feng shui hack – isn't enough to flee New Jersey, Pasetsky is giving his staffers plenty more reason to run — he's continuing his Bonnie Fuller tactics and keeping staffers late into the night. All of a sudden, Fridays and Mondays have become late nights, we're told, which comes after Mark began holding staffers late on Wednesdays and Thursdays. If anyone's pissed off, it's the designers: "The number of designers who call in sick is hilarious," says one in-the-know tattler.

Which might explain why – as we've collectively heard from staffers and readers alike – the pages look like crap lately.