Ah, the smell of hot ink on carbon! The whiff of glue, fusing together page after page of freshly minted words, sheared even and sheathed in cloth for posterity. Yes folks, it's another book deal -- only this time, the hilarity, we hope, is intentional.

This round's contestant: Simon Rich, Harvard '06, Lampoon ex-prez, fruit of Frank's loins, blockmate of Nick McDonell '06, and all-round exuder of precociousness. "Ant Farm: And Other Desperate Situations," due out in April, collects 57 writings from his 'Poon days and since (he's taking time off). Galleys are apparently flying around, but we haven't netted one yet, so consider judgment suspended.

What we do know (beyond the Crimson's initial report last year) is what this goofy piece from the Virginian-Pilot tells us: that one of the book's fictional stories features an 11-year-old boy and his profligate mother, who is busy boinking her way through a local minor-league hockey team, the Norfolk Admirals. The kicker, though, is that the five players she brings home, one by one -- Marty Wilford, Jason Morgan, Igor Radulov, Michal Barinka and Steve Passmore -- are actual former players for the Admirals.

According to the piece, the players seem more baffled than angry:

He has never been in a situation such as that described in the story, Wilford said, but is "not really" bothered by the use of his name.

Admirals general manager Al MacIsaac had much the same reaction: He found the story odd, he said, but not upsetting "because it's fiction."

That's evident to anyone who knew the players involved, MacIsaac said , explaining: "Marty Wilford and Jason Morgan wouldn't have been sleeping with the same type of woman."

The publisher claims the names of the players and the team will be changed in the final version. Frankly, we're disappointed. Casting fiction as fact carries all sorts of ethical baggage -- hey Jimbo! -- but absorbing fact into fiction? Fair game! Well, maybe not legally. But something about a random hockey player going down in Google Book Search history as the guy who slept with some kid's mom is, by our lights, comedy gold.

We're hearing that Josh Foer -- Yale '04, kid bro of those otherFoers -- has sold his first book, about becoming the 2006 U.S.A Memory Champion, for $1.2 million. Ann Godoff, the president of The Penguin Press, is the agent, and that's about all we know.

Also, Ivy-wide jealous rage -- we feel like we know that pretty well right now too.

UPDATE 6:23 p.m.: All above is true, we're just idiots for not seeing this written about, oh, a week ago. Burn, strikethrough font. Make us never err again.

You know, in all the stuff we've written about Aleksey Vayner, we've never actually used the word "douchebag." Well, we're getting pretty close to using that term right now. Only we're not talking about Aleksey.

Daro Mott and Marcelino Pantoja (Yale '06, above) sent the book query below to the Wiliam Morris mega-agency. G'head, read it, we'll wait.

From: "Mott, Daro" [redacted]
To: "Suzanne Gluck" [redacted]
CC: "Marcelino Pantoja" [redacted]
Re: Query: Aleksey Vayner, a Memoir

October 25, 2006
Suzanne Gluck
William Morris Agency
1325 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY  10019

Dear Ms. Suzanne Gluck:

We would like to preface our query letter with a short paragraph about ourselves. My name is Daro Mott and I graduated from Yale University in May of 2006; I currently live and work in Louisville, Kentucky. My co-author's name is Marcelino Pantoja; he lives and works in Tracy, California and he also graduated from Yale this previous spring. We are budding writers and intend to produce a memoir regarding our puzzling friend, Aleksey Vayner, whom we met as undergraduates at Yale.

In our book, we reveal the most intriguing and entertaining Ivy League persona of today: Aleksey Vayner.

The story of Aleksey Vayner is both sensational and seemingly apocryphal. On the one hand, Aleksey and his family, penniless, emigrated from Uzbekistan to the United States; at eighteen, he gained admission to Yale University as a tennis recruit. On the other hand, Aleksey Vayner sexed up his accomplishments one time too many: recently, he single handedly became the laughing stock on Wall Street after sending an eleven page résumé and
promotional video to UBS AG, the world's largest asset wealth manager.

On October 9, 2006, the New York Sun went to press on Aleksey. Within the span of a week, the Wall Street Journal, the Dow Jones News Wire, Fox News, US News and World Report, London Times, Daily Mail, Forbes, the Yale Daily News, Market Watch, the New Yorker and dozens of other national and international media ran articles on Aleksey. The New York Times, the Today Show and other media picked up the story the following week. Following suit, Aleksey Vayner was featured on Inside Edition and MSNBC early this week. Blogs can't get enough. Yale students scream Vaynergate. Public interest is skyrocketing!  Why?

Aleksey lifts 495 lbs of steel, clocks a tennis serve at 140mph, whirls around a ballroom dance floor with a gorgeous dancer, shatters six bricks with a karate chop, pulls off fantastic stunts with skis-he choreographs all this information and more in his promotional video. Moreover, Aleksey boasts of being the CEO of Vayner Capital Management, a partner in a mega real-estate development firm, a professional athlete and the founder of Youth Empowerment Strategies (YES), a non-profit. He even claims to have self-published a book on the Holocaust from the perspective of female survivors!  Aleksey has chutzpah!

But Wall Street erupted with laughter. And they have not stopped. Aleksey is being bombarded with requests for interviews. The calls have not stopped. Wall Street circulated Aleksey's video and résumé because, Aleksey, whether we like it or not, is simply entertaining.

In the light of this, his cadre of friends proposes to write a book about Aleksey situated in Yale University where we first met him. As his closest friends and recent graduates of Yale, we have personal access to him; in other words, we are self-anointed experts of Aleksey.

In his memoir, we detail the reality that is Aleksey with a flavor made possible from having tasted the "inside scoop." We raise interesting issues and get down to bottom of life at Yale with Aleksey Vayner. We will answer soul searching questions: Who is he? What does he want out of this gift of life? What is folklore, what is reality? Did the allure of Wall Street make a zany guy even zanier? Is he a typical Ivy Leaguer? Is Aleksey Vayner legitimate or is he an imposter? We know the truth.

We look forward to speaking with you.

Respectfully Submitted,

Daro Mott
Marcelino Pantoja

Choo choo! All aboard! The Aleksey Vayner gravy train is leaving the station! Good to know that even during these tough times, Aleksey's "closest friends" are standing by him ... ready to cash in on his fame.

Seriously, though -- most intriguing Ivy League persona? The New York Sun as catalyst? "What is folklore, what is reality?" Sign us up, you "budding writers," for the "flavor made possible from having tasted the 'inside scoop'" on your "puzzling," "zany" friend.