Steve Jobs brings iPad to meet NYT execs while wearing “very funny hat.”

Magazine and news publishers are collectively hoping that e-readers and tablet computers will save their businesses, and Apple’s eager to get them on board in developing high-quality animated versions of their publications to help get an iPad into each newspaper and magazine reader’s home, so it’s no surprise that Steve Jobs met with fifty top executives of the New York Times yesterday.

What was surprising, though, was Jobs’ attire: a magical top hat, of the sort championed by Mr. William Wonka and Miss Marlene Dietrich.

According to New York Mag, “When Apple recently booked the cellar dining room at Pranna for a talk with 50 top executives from the New York Times, even restaurant higher-ups didn’t know who their VIP guest would be. But last night, Jobs came strolling in wearing what our source calls “a very funny hat — a big top hat kind of thing.”

Like the hat, most details of the meeting are anecdotal. Jobs apparently admitted he likes to hold the Sunday edition of the New York Times in his hands, ordered a mango lassi and penne for dinner (neither of which were on the menu) and otherwise just showed off Apple’s new device to executives while answering questions.

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Overall, it seems like the NYT executives present were interested in the iPad, but unwilling to lock themselves into a single delivery platform. Business as usual, in other words. Still, who knew that the man who hasn’t once been seen in the five years wearing anything besides blue jeans and a black turtleneck was such a secret dandy?

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