NYT media reporter David Carr moderated a many-tentacled group at today's "The Editor as Octopus" panel here at AMC — by far the most colorfully-named panel, but alas, the many talents evinced by the assorted editors did not seem to include cracking jokes or otherwise being playful, though fortunately Carr was up to that task. Carr kicked it off by asking his EIC panel — BusinessWeek's Stephen Adler ; ReadyMade's Shoshana Berger; Essence's Angela Burt-Murray, and New York's Editor-of-the-Year-winning Adam Moss — to pick an emblematic Karaoke song, and let's just say the results are unlikely to get the party started. Here's the takeaway (NB: Quoting our editors, who may have played fast and loose with song titles):

• Adler: "Where You Lead, I Will Follow" - Adler said he chose the Carole King classic in deference to the wishes of his readers, or "users" as he said he likes to call them, multi-platform and pan-consuming as they are. We blame Adler for setting the ultra-earnest tone here — might his mag not have been a suitable inspiration for "Sweet Child O' Mine?" — but either way it evinced an endearing enthusiasm for his audience. Here's the line we're guessing he'd want his "users" to sing back to him: "I never thought I could get satisfaction from just one man/But if anyone can make me happy, you're the once who can." Rawr.

• Berger: "OK Computer" - Karma police, arrest this woman for suggesting probably the worst karaoke music ever! Is Radiohead even offered at karaoke? (Actually, it is: I first heard the song "Creep" in that context, but that's on a different album.) Berger's point was, however, that she and her mag are way on board with the digital age, and to prove it she showed personalized "octopus-like brand wheel" graphic showing just how many-tentacled and multi-platformed she and ReadyMade are. Takeaway lyric for Berger is clearly this: "I wanna have control"; and for her readers: "You're so fuckin' special (for making that fun crafty thing!)."

• Burt-Murray: "I'm Every Woman" - Okay this is a woman I can do karaoke with, especially going the extra mile to specify Chaka Khan and not Whitney Houston. Though the rest of her demeanor didn't exactly say "party" — more "crisp efficiency" — she, too, demonstrated octopi-ness by citing a fully-produced web TV program called "30 Dates in 30 Days" wherein readership voted their choices every step of the way, which Carr admitted to having been completely sucked into. Takeaway lyric: "Anything you want done, baby," because Burt-Murray's readers are "terribly busy," dammit, and need a one-stop shop.

• Moss: "I Got To Pieces" - Oy, Adam, you're breaking our hearts here, never mind slowing down the party-pulse to a crawl with this lonely-hearted warble. We would have picked "New York Groove" because that's just a fun song, one the crowd can clap along to. You can't sing that song and not bop, though then again, I can't quite see Adam Moss bopping. At any rate, the "pieces" to which he refers seem more like pieces of his fractured attention, since he thinks the secret of being a good editor nowadays is ADD: "This new environment rewards the scattered brain." Or the pieces could be the mounting pieces of the New York empire: Magazine, burgeoning website, and soon spinoff magazine Look. Takeaway line from Patsy is difficult, because it's all bemoaning lost love, but this one applies to New York's last year of going from strength to strength: "Time only adds to the flame." Indeed.

Interesting offerings from all conscripted octopii, but our three favorite moments happen to be Shoshana Berger related, not including noticing that she looks like Tracy Gold from Growing Pains: (1) Carr to Berger: "What else are you doing besides teaching my ten-year-old to make a wallet out of duct tape?" (2) Carr to Berger: "Shoshana, I was looking at your octopus and I was a little intimidated by it." and (3) Berger to audience as terrific piece of advice: "Hire kids who know what they're doing." Great, smart advice. The true octopus knows that tentacles are meant for reaching out. Actually, the true octopus is apparently highly intelligent, so it would know that they are not technically tentacles. Shh, details.

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