This is really sad for hydrangeas everywhere.

In the media layoff world, no news is great news. Today’s layoff news is a bit calmer, but we still have some slashed soirees and magazine foldings after the jump.

• Time Inc. was reportedly set to lay off 250 workers today, but we haven't seen reports that it actually happened. What we did hear about was the closing of cute design title Cottage Living. [NYP, WSJ]

NYU Film School may be excellent, but it seems the curriculum doesn’t include Hollywood schmoozing. We assumed that James Franco, who is studying directing there, would be inundated with requests to appear in classmates’ films and to read screenplays, but he claims not to be so popular. “I haven’t acted in any student films yet,” he told us at the Cinema Society screening of his movie Milk. “You would think that more people would ask me to be in their movies, but they haven’t,” Franco said, laughing. He is casting fellow students, however. “I meet a lot of the Tisch actors, so I’ve asked some of them to be in the movies that I’m directing,” the Spider-Man star told us. He’s just wrapped production on the first of three short films required of first-year students in the program, and says he is now working on the second, a documentary.

Who else spilled at last night's Milk premiere? View our Party Lines slideshow to hear from Josh Brolan, Alison Pill, Rainn Wilson, and more.

While you were watching Gossip Girl Monday night, a bunch of theater folks wrote, directed, and staged six one-act plays in the span of 24 hours to benefit the Urban Arts Partnership. The night afforded the opportunity to watch many an absurd situation: David Cross and Rosie Perez fake-fucking on a pile of stuffed animals, and Elijah Wood and Pablo Schreiber (Liev's hot younger brother) slinking around the stage wearing adult diapers. But our favorite moments came from Farragut North playwright Beau Willimon's one-act about two laid-off Lehman Brothers bankers hitting on tourist girls in Germany. Mostly because it included these lines between Julia Stiles and Alexie Gilmore:

Alexie Gilmore: "At least I don't have a tramp stamp on my lower back."
Julia Stiles: "That is a work of art!"
Alexie Gilmore: "How is a giant tattoo of the Olsen twins a work of art?"
Julia Stiles: "I respect them, all right? They worked very hard to get where they are. Plus, I'm a Gemini, so it makes sense."

And this one line about Stiles's character's first time in bed with a black man:

Julia Stiles: "He came over to borrow a highlighter. Next thing I knew, my panties were off and I was sitting on his face."

Man, art is so universal.

A few times over the past few months we've observed that Rachel Maddow, in her normal, not-televised state, looks a little bit like Ira Glass. And apparently we're not the only ones who have noticed. The This American Life host himself agrees! "We do look like each other!" Glass told us at the Moth Ball last night. "Which is fine with me, though I feel like she's, like, an adorable woman in her thirties." Apparently, Maddow and Glass are friends, which could not be more progressive-radio-perfect unless one of his producers married one of her producers — which totally happened. Apparently, at the wedding, Maddow and Glass ran into one another and (this part is conjecture) did that whole Parent Trap thing where they moved their hands in unison to test whether they were looking in a mirror.

Anyway, Glass says he loves "that Rachel Maddow" and feels "an intense loyalty" to her. He watches her show almost every night, and his only regret is that saying she looks like him might not actually be a compliment. "I would never want to say anything that would cause that woman any pain," he said. "And I feel like, if I could look that adorable and beautiful and pretty, that would just make me feel great."

Related: The Dr. Maddow Show [NYM]

Remember when Pedro Martinez was to be the savior of the Mets? Now the Mets don’t even want him back. Pedro’s contract, signed in 2004, is off the books, and while he claims he wants to come back, the Mets don’t seem to have room for him in the rotation. Partly this is because he has been injured and pitched poorly last year. (Also, former Red Sox teammate Derek Lowe is a better fit.) It's also partly because he no longer has any symbolic value. But the question now is, did he ever, really?

"Right around when the AIG bailout started, and people's consciousnesses were really being raised about what was going to happen, our sales went up 26 percent," Claire Cavanauh, the owner and co-founder of Toys and Babeland, boasted to us at the store's benefit for the New Space for Women's Health last night. The last time sales were up that much, Cavanauh said, was after 9/11. "You can stay home, it's free!" explained actress Michelle Hurd (Eleanor Waldorf's assistant, Laurel, from Gossip Girl!). "And it's warm, especially since here in New York it's getting so cold." Speaking of the season, would a vibrator, we wondered, make a good holiday gift? "I actually got my mother the Rabbit last year," she said. "She was quite shocked and turned red instantly, but probably a month later she very quietly thanked me." Wow, okay. We excused ourselves and wandered over to Ricki Lake, who was standing near a tower of lube, and asked whether she was having more sex in the down economy. She wasn't. "I'm single," she said, but "I can tell you firsthand what my favorite vibrators are. My favorite is the Jimmy Jam. It's solid gold and it's waterproof." Wait, how is a solid-gold vibrator cost-effective? "It's not," she laughed. "I did a talk show for eleven years. I busted my ass in a different economy."

It's well known that Moby enjoys the sex and vice — he even has a stripper friend he likes to hang out with, he tells BlackBook magazine. But even he cannot abide the goings-on at the Box, despite the fact that he is friends with Simon Hammerstein, and also a partial owner.

"When they were first renting the space they were looking for investors, so they went to old friends, and I thought to myself, it was right around the corner from where I live, it’s a place to go. And after I invested in it, I don’t actually go there that often.

"I like degeneracy, but for the Box you really need to be in the right frame of mind. I’m pretty comfortable with debauchery and degeneracy, but the things that go on there don’t make sense to me … The last time I was there, there were live sex acts on stage, and I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, but just suffice to say lots of crazy things. I’ve traveled around the world, and I’ve been to a lot of degenerate places, and rarely have I seen the level of degeneracy like I’ve seen at the Box."