AP - When a Los Angeles gallery mounted a retrospective of Kent Twitchell's work earlier this year the acclaimed painter figured the one thing everyone would want to see was his "lost" Michael Jackson mural.
AFP - Troubled British singer Amy Winehouse was divorced from her estranged husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, in London on Thursday after two years of marriage, her spokesman said.
The breakthrough tape 'was an important moment for me,' Drizzy tells Mixtape Daily.By Shaheem Reid Drake Photo: Kevin Winter/ Getty Images Midseason Salute: Drake's So Far Gone What can we say... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:51 am
'We met Rihanna,' one young singer marvels. 'How many kids like us, our age, got to meet her?'By Steven Roberts, with reporting by Sway Calloway PS22 Chorus and Sway Photo: MTV News The young... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:51 am
'We're having a good time,' Jonas says of time with his fiancée.By Jocelyn Vena Jonas Brothers Photo: MTV News As millions of girls around the world shed a tear over the news of Kevin Jonas'... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:51 am
'When I decided to do it, I watched three episodes to see what I was getting myself into,' she says.By Jocelyn Vena Kristin Cavallari Photo: Jean Baptiste Lacroix/ Getty Images Kristin Cavallari... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:51 am
AP - Sen. Al Franken got some chuckles at Judge Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearing with a cheeky observation about the classic TV show "Perry Mason": "It amazes me that you wanted to become a prosecutor based on the show, because in 'Perry Mason' the prosecutor on that show lost every week" except for one episode.
Although Maxwell took a few years off from the music industry, recording an album was never far from his mind, chiefly because his die-hard fans were always there to pepper him with... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:32 am
It wasn't his acting skills, but his driving skills that earned Michael Douglas his first on-camera role. As a young man visiting his famous father on location in Israel, Douglas was... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:31 am
AP - It wasn't his acting skills, but his driving skills that earned Michael Douglas his first on-camera role. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:31 am
(Reuters) Reuters - U.S. media company Cox Enterprises Inc said late on Wednesday it would sell three of its newspapers, as it seeks to pay down debt. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 16 Jul 2009 | 7:08 am
Iraqi youths cheer for the Iraqi rap group DKZ (Danger Killer Zone) at the national theatre in central Baghdad. Around 150 fans attended the first major concert for the popular group composed of rappers... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 16 Jul 2009 | 7:01 am
Iraqi rap group DKZ (Danger Killer Zone) perform at the national theatre in central Baghdad. Around 150 fans attended the first major concert for the popular group composed of rappers Mr Passion, J-Fire... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 16 Jul 2009 | 7:01 am
Iraqi youths attend a concert for the Iraqi rap group DKZ (Danger Killer Zone) at the national theatre in central Baghdad. Around 150 fans attended the first major concert for the popular group composed... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 16 Jul 2009 | 7:01 am
An Iraqi youth attends a concert for the Iraqi rap group DKZ (Danger Killer Zone) at the national theatre in central Baghdad. Around 150 fans attended the first major concert for the popular group composed... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 16 Jul 2009 | 7:01 am
Reuters - Irving Berlin and Scott Joplin never actually met, but playwright Mark Saltzman imagines the results if they did to charming and moving effect in "The Tin Pan Alley Rag." Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 16 Jul 2009 | 5:00 am
Oh, Brad Pitt. Isn't it enough to be ridiculously handsome—must you be a scandalous wit, as well?
The Inglourious Basterds star brings his comedy chops to Wired this month,...
AFP - Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake, who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, has urged US President Barack Obama to visit the city on the anniversary of the attack as part of his drive to rid the world of nuclear arms.
The fairytale romance between Twilight's Edward and Bella is getting a comic book makeover.
A black & white image from an upcoming Twilight graphic novel debuted on EW...
Well-played, top 10! They're not the most emotive or individually charismatic group of dancers in So You Think You Can Dance history, but technically these dancers are taking this show and...
Apparently the King of Pop also wanted to be the Sultan of Skin.
The owner of an extensive collection of photographs featuring nude celebrities—enough to open a...
Front Page: 'Taken' director takes on film inspired by photog Howe -- Universal Pictures has attached "Taken" director Pierre Morel to direct action thriller "Pursuit."
Front Page: Actor to star in film, based on Stein novel 'Racing' -- Universal Pictures has acquired screen rights to "The Art of Racing in the Rain." Studio will develop the bestselling Garth Stein novel as a starring vehicle for Patrick Dempsey.
If anyone can pull off a fannypack, it's Kim Kardashian.
Which is good, because we are suggesting that the E! star invest in one to keep track of her essentials—keys, lipstick,...
Here it is: Each day we ratchet up the rivalry between fans of Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner (or, rather, their...
The government thought it was mainly hospital employees it had to worry about when it came to propofol abuse.
Then authorities unearthed Michael Jackson's pharmaceutical treasure...
We’re not sure what we expected from Stereogum and its commenters, but looking at the site’s post today about the video for Mariah Carey’s “Obsessed” — the anticipation of which was stoked with rumors that the song is directed at Eminem, as well as images from the shoot showing Carey dressed as an Eminem-type figure with a (mind-blowing) goatee — we were actually rather shocked at the level of vitriol directed at the singer. We thought Carey — or whoever dreamed up the concept here — was clever to cast herself as the stalker, but many people attributed it to her ego, as if her inflated sense of self somehow dictated that she should transform her appearance into that of a ridiculous white dude. So what is it, Mariah haters — what’s the real reason for your reflexive scorn? Her history-making commercial success? The assumption that she’s an out-of-control diva? The altogether inauthentic way she fills out the upper half of a tight black dress? Now if you’ll excuse us, we have to groom our goatee.
Last week, Judge Kenneth Karas threatened to give Samuel Israel, the Bayou Group head and convicted fraudster who attempted to fake his suicide in order to escape a twenty-year prison sentence, a longer, trendier sentence, but today in court he just scolded him and gave him two more years. [NYP]
Prediction: Vulture will use this exact photo again tomorrow morning.
Can you feel the excitement? No? Well, regardless, the nominations for the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards will be announced tomorrow morning! Who will score a coveted nod? Perhaps the Academy of TV Arts & Sciences will honor departing dramas like ER, Boston Legal, and Battlestar Galactica for their final seasons? Maybe multi-camera comedies, such as The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother, will steal the spotlight back from their single-camera brethren? Personally, we'd love to see deserving long shots like Eastbound & Down and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia get some recognition — but we won't get our hopes up. If you're looking for predictions in every category, check with Tom O'Neil, but here's the surest (and most boring) bet: All emerging trends will take a backseat to news that 30 Rock and Mad Men — last year's winners for Best Comedy and Best Drama, which were together responsible for a combined 34 nods — will be nominated again for practically everything. We guess we're cool with that.
If you're not watching 10 Things I Hate About You yet, can we recommend you start soon? You won't want to be out of touch with who's who and what's what by the time we get to...
No amount of lawsuits will get in Forever 21's way of taking over the world. They've already launched plus-size clothing and swimwear, so it's only natural for them to enter the home and beauty categories next. This merchandise will roll into Forever 21's largest stores later this year. Details on what those products will be like haven't been released. But we're guessing beauty will include things like nail stickers cleverly packaged as "nail art," faux henna tattoos, fake eyelashes made of tinsel, and peel-off nail polish. We imagine home items will be blow-up, made from cardboard, and will bleed when sweated on.
Front Page: 'Half-Blood Prince' full-bodied with $22.2 mil -- Those who grew up on Hogwarts' most famous boy wizard may have gotten older -- millions are now young adults -- but they appear to have lost none of their loyalty to Harry Potter.
On Google's new "Favorite Places" application, celebrity followers can find out the favored restaurants, hot spots, or even just parks and intersections of the stars they love. Of course, we immediately checked out the "New York" section to see what our own celebrities picked. Several unsurprising responses included: Diane Von Furstenberg likes the High Line, Danny Meyer likes the “food options” in Madison Square Park and near Beacon Theater, and Moby likes the "very hard to find" Chinese mall under the Williamsburg Bridge. But we learned some cute new things, too. Here's a sampling:
• Mayor Bloomberg used to take dates on the Staten Island ferry.
• Fashion Week chief Fern Mallis must be buds with Graydon Carter; she picked both Waverly Inn and Monkey Bar as faves.
• Paper's Mr. Mickey gets depressed in zoos.
• Choreographer Mark Morris thinks Shake Shack is overrated.
• Isaac Mizrahi performs [what?] at Joe’s Pub.
• Masaharu Morimoto sings karaoke at Top Tunes. [We are not surprised.]
• DVF seems to think the Waverly Inn’s reservation policy has become more lax; she recommends a garden table and tuna tartare, as if anyone could get in.
• Marc Ecko once sparred Puerto Rican professional boxer Migual Cotto at Bronxchester Boxing Club.
• Alan Gilbert, new director of the New York Philharmonic, has been to Williamsburg; thinks it is “a totally happening hood.” He also only wears Earnest Sewn jeans. [Really.]
• Moby swears that when Billy’s Antiques closes, and takes away its menacing Rottweiler, twenties sex toys, shrunken heads, and fetal pigs in jars, he will leave the Lower East Side.
• Betty Buckley swears that angels play music at Barneys.
Also, we kind of learned that Google has surprisingly low pull among celebs. We want to know where Madonna and Sarah Jessica Parker get sushi, too, you know.
The MPAA just released their latest ratings bulletin, in which we learned that MGM's upcoming Fame reboot scored a PG rating for "thematic material including teen drinking, a sexual situation and language." If you'll recall, the 1980 original was fairly gritty and earned itself an R rating. Guess this means whoever is taking on the Shorofsky character in the new version won't be comparing holding a violin bow to holding a dick. [Rope of Silicon]
Former Treasury secretary Hank Paulson is due to testify in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform tomorrow, where he will answer, among other things, questions about whether he inappropriately threatened to oust Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis for trying to scuttle his company's deal to buy the ailing Merrill Lynch last December. Paulson's response, according to his prepared remarks obtained by the Journal? Yeah, he threatened Lewis. And he doesn't regret it for a minute.
Quoth Paulson:
Some have suggested that there was something inappropriate about my conversation of December 21st with Mr. Lewis in which I mentioned the possibility that the Federal Reserve could remove management and the board of Bank of America if the bank invoked the MAC clause. I believe my remarks to Mr. Lewis were appropriate. I explained to him that the government was supportive of Bank of America, but that it felt
very strongly that if Bank of America exercised the MAC clause, such an action would
show a colossal lack of judgment and would jeopardize Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, and the financial system. I further explained to him that, under such circumstances, the Federal Reserve could exercise its authority to remove management and the board of Bank of America ... I was expressing what I am confident was the strong opinion of the Federal Reserve, namely, that exercise of the MAC clause was not a legally viable option; that it threatened significant harm to Bank of America and to the financial system; and that it would raise serious questions about the competence and judgment of Bank of America’s management and board.
"In other words, I said, see this fish I'm holding here, Ken? That's what's going to happen to you if you don't go through with this deal. Sleep on it, okay?"
Last night at the opening of MoMA’s “In & Out of Amsterdam: Travels in Conceptual Art, 1960–1976,” where surprisingly few people said they had heard of Dash Snow or his passing, we encountered AA Bronson — co-founder of the artists' group General Idea, darling of the 2002 Whitney Biennial, and director of artist publishing house Printed Matter — who’d worked with Snow recently, and was still processing the loss.
“He's such a sweet, sweet character and artist. It's so sad,” said Bronson, who'd gotten the news from a colleague at Printed Matter. “I didn't know him well, but it was unexpected.” Bronson and his partner, architect Mark Jan Krayenhoff van der Leur, who was also at the party, met Snow through friends, and recalled sitting with him at the Terence Koh opening at Mr. Chow's. "He was taking pictures of us," said Bronson. Then recently, for Purple Fashion magazine, Bronson told us, “He took naked photos of me. I'm sure Dash would have loved to have photographed both of us.” (Dash, along with Olivier Zahm, also interviewed Bronson.)
Bronson said having Snow as the photographer was what convinced him to strip down. “I wouldn't have done it for just anybody, but I would do it for him,” he said. “I knew him and I liked him and I trusted him. He's just an extraordinarily genuine person, much more than 99 percent of the populace.” How was the experience? “Charming, actually,” said Bronson. “He didn't really direct. It was very sort of free-form. What I like about his photos is they have a strangely accurate sense of reality to them. They're just very flat. They are what they are. There's no pretense to them of any sort. So they're photos of an old man, presented as an old man.” How does he think Snow’s work will be remembered? “I don't know,” Bronson admitted. “We'll see. I think it will have a niche market, but it will stay with us. His friends will love him.”
Front Page: Press removed from voting pool protest -- The decision to revoke the fourth estate's Tony voting privileges has spurred an outcry from disenfranchised journos and other legiters.
Fabiola Beracasa isn't the only social butterfly looking for a little reality TV stardom. (She may be the only one with an actual deal in hand, though.) Fashion Week Dailydropped the news this afternoon that Tinsley Mortimer approached the CW recently about hosting a show about "life as a socialite divorcée"—and the CW passed! (Au contraire, says the Tinz; various networks have been approaching her about doing something, but she's been forced to turn them all down because she values her privacy.)
It's not just Tinz and Fabs fantasizing about having a three-person camera crew accompany them every time they leave the house to buy a pack of gum at Duane Reade.
A couple of rungs down the social ladder, there's Social Life editor "Devorah Rose" and "actress" Annabel Vartanian (she's the one in green above), who first mentioned they were working on a reality show called "Social Heights" about two years ago. They're still talking about it—and still insisting that it's in the works—although if that's the case, that would suggest that making a show about, well, nothing is taking about the same amount of time as it took director Francis Ford Coppola to shoot Apocalypse Now in the jungles of the Philippines in the mid-1970s, long considered the most disaster-plagued, drama-filled shoot in the history of film and television. Dealing with Devorah Rose can't be easy. But it's got to be easier than facing down a category five typhoon, no?
Last, but certainly not least, is Dolce & Gabbana publicist (and renowned telephony expert) Ali Wise. The Daily reports that the CW has expressed interest in featuring Wise on a new program, although neither the CW or Wise are talking about it. But the CW really doesn't really seem like a fit. Nerd network G4TV? Now that makes much more sense. "Attack of the Ali" has a nice ring to it, don't you think?
We gave model Skye Stracke a video camera to document her backstage adventures on the fall 2009 couture-show circuit. She takes us behind the scenes at Alexis Mabille, where models had ribbons tied in their hair. At Chanel, the girls eat dinner and enjoy playing with their ponytails, which extend past the waist. And Armani Privé was home to not only a lot of sequins and shiny garments, but also to what looks like an all-out carb-fest. We're talking Nutella-filled doughnuts. See the gorgeous clothes, models, and more carbs in the video.
Kelly Ripa, co-host of Live with Regis and Kelly, Shape Magazine cover girl, 5 time Soap Opera Digest Award winner and part-time wine cork, was photographed standing next to a terrifyingly delicious sea creature: Carvel Ice Cream’s Fudgie the Whale. Sure, these two look chummy enough: The casual choco-fin perched gayly on his flankenstein; the cocked brows; green eyes, devilishly alluring, encouraging you to grab the nearest wooden spoon and devour him while sitting on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, door locked, tiny fists banging on the other side as your child threatens to soil himself. The world shuts down when Fudgie beaches his tasty ass on the shore of your loneliness, doesn’t it?
And perhaps no one is more aware of this scenario than notorious 45-pound incubator premie Kelly Ripa. Because you know what is not nearly as delicious as the surprisingly humongous chocolate whale mascot? Celery Brulee, that’s what. Frozen watersicles. Iced bone pops. 2 carob chips. Soyfflé. None of those things can compare to Coco Megaptera Novaeangliae (his Latin name.) Still, above, the twain meet without apparent incident. Kudos.
Despite the stalemate having been resolved in the State Senate, one of the most pressing issues facing the body — mayoral control of schools — has not yet been addressed. Mayor Bloomberg's mandate to run our public-school system expired on June 30, at the heart of the turmoil after the June 8 Senate coup. Bloomberg himself quickly stepped in to bridge the void, helping reassemble a nonexistent School Board, which in turn voted to retain Joel Klein as chancellor. But that doesn't mean the bill doesn't still need to be addressed. A measure to retain mayoral control passed the State Assembly and is now facing the Senate — but already some Democratic senators, who would like to amend it to temper Bloomberg's power using parental influence, are saying they can't pass it. Senator Carl Kruger, for example, called the bill "DOA" and left Albany before the session was concluded today. Even though it has enough votes to pass — Republicans support the bill as is, as do several Democrats — it won't reach the floor.
Opponents like Kruger want to drop the bill until September, when the Assembly has reconvened, so they can negotiate the amendments they want to add. September, you'll recall, is the month school starts. Also, you'll recall, the Senate actually already had its chance to address the bill in time to negotiate with the Assembly — they just couldn't get their act together. Without the caucus in agreement, Democratic leadership won't bring the bill to a vote.
Complicating the problems upstate is the fact that reform-minded young senator Daniel Squadron, who supports the Assembly's version of the mayoral control bill, can't show his support because he's on his honeymoon. His absence returns the split in the body to 30 Republicans, 31 Democrats, not enough to pass a vote even if all the Dems are united. If Paterson calls a special session over deadlocks that result from this situation, Squadron will have to return. In which case, we feel extremely bad for the guy (who, to be fair, planned his wedding and honeymoon for when he was supposed to be on vacation). Can you imagine explaining to your new bride that you have to leave your honeymoon to pile into the world's most powerful clown car?
SKIN
• The Food and Drug Administration recently approved Refissa, a topical Tretinoin cream for dry skin. It is available by prescription only. [Beauty 411]
FRAGRANCE
• The new Jil by Jil Sander ad starring Julia Restoin-Roitfeld has come out. [Now Smell This]
MAKEUP
• Jane Lauder was elected to the board of Estée Lauder yesterday, taking the place of her father, Ronald Lauder. She previously oversaw the Origins brand within the company. [WWD]
HAIR
• Kiehl's introduced a new color-preserving hair-care line that features sunflower-seed oil, an ingredient containing vitamins B and E, to help with moisturizing and conditioning hair. [Beautiful Makeup Search]
NAILS
• The red-orange-melon nail color seen at the Jean Paul Gaultier couture show last week looks very similar to Essie's One of a Kind shade, if you wanted to snag the look for yourself. [Beauty Counter/Style.com]
Ossie Clark just announced plans to close. The label was relaunched last year with financing from Marc and Julian Worth. A spokesperson told WWD, "Due to market conditions, developing the business has been challenging and the decision has been made to cease trading." The label was iconic in the sixties and seventies and re-debuted at London Fashion Week in February of last year. Its latest head designer, Avsh Alom Gur, whose work for the house received mixed reviews, left Clark in March to focus on his signature line.
Zooey Deschanel really loves the simple life. And we love this pretty picture of her.
It's from the August issue of Self magazine, in which the star of the new romantic comedy 500...
Last week, we informed you of Eight Legged Freaks star David Arquette's plans to encase himself in a Snickers-branded Plexiglas box above Madison Square Garden as a means to raise awareness for Americans at risk of hunger. When the announcement first crossed the wires, we sort of imagined that he would encase himself, David Blaine–like, in some sort of uncomfortably small box that would require him to stand on his feet for eight hours. After all, personal sacrifice is one of the more important tenets of charity work!* However, we just stumbled across these photos of Arquette's surroundings and nearly keeled over when we realized this so-called "Plexiglas box" is actually bigger than our apartment. Not only are two ridiculously comfortable-looking chairs in there, but there's also plush red carpeting and what looks to be a nice coffee table of some sort. We can only hope that this deluxe bachelor pad is still on the market when our lease runs out in a few months!
*Just to prove that we're not total heartless monsters, you really should check out the good work the people at Feeding America are doing.
Name: Michael Showalter Age: 39 Neighborhood: Brooklyn Heights Occupation: Comedy
Name: Michael Ian Black Age: 22 Neighborhood: Currently every neighborhood and Connecticut Occupation: Writer/actor/director/comedian/celebrity (very famous)
Who's your favorite New Yorker, living or dead, real or fictional? Michael Showalter: Al Hirschfeld. His cartoons encapsulate everything I love about New York. Michael Ian Black : (1) Every member of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers, especially Jackie Robinson, (2) Ed Koch, (3) whoever thought of the "Mitzvah Mobile."
What's the best meal you've eaten in New York? MS: The mussels at Noodle Pudding on Henry Street. MIB: Every year, my wife and I celebrate our anniversary at the Gramercy Tavern. Delicious. And they give you coffee cake to eat the next morning: by far my favorite meal of the year because I love my wife. (NOTE: This was written before we announced our divorce.)
In one sentence, what do you actually do all day in your job? MS: I act silly and take it very seriously. MIB: I make jokes.
Would you still live here on a $35,000 salary? MS: I'd try. I did it for many years. MIB: I've certainly lived in New York for less. New York is a great town in which to be really wealthy or really poor. Middle-class, not so much. When I was younger and had no income I used to shoplift groceries.
What's the last thing you saw on Broadway? MS:Next to Normal. Loved it! MIB:Hair. I was there for the first preview; I went for the nudity and the groping.
Do you give money to panhandlers? MS: Yep. MIB: Not very often.
What's your drink? MS: Iced coffee. MIB: Currently Diet Dr Pepper. I will occasionally have a regular Dr Pepper, but that's only when I'm feeling frisky.
How often do you prepare your own meals? MS: Two or three nights a week. MIB: If you expand the definition of "you" to include my wife, often. If not, then not very often.
What's your favorite medication? MS: Melatonin. MIB: Currently Ambien, although I don't know if that counts as a medication since I don't take it to medicate anything other than consciousness. But I'll pretty much swallow anything that comes in pill form.
What's hanging above your sofa? MS: A large painting of a wooded area in autumn. MIB: Some guy.
How much is too much to spend on a haircut? MS: Depends on the haircut, I suppose. If I was a diva, there's no number. MIB: Anything above $25 is pushing it, although if I have a shoot that I need to look good for I will treat myself to a $100 haircut by my amazing stylist Josh, who is female, British, and the only person left who still thinks rockabilly is cool.
When's bedtime? MS: 11:30 p.m. MIB: An hour after I take the Ambien.
Which do you prefer, the old Times Square or the new Times Square? MS: I try to avoid it altogether. MIB: I have always suspected that the people who pine for the old Times Square never really experienced it. If they did, they wouldn't want it back. It was a terrible, filthy, dangerous place filled with crack whores. I don't miss it at all, although it's become much harder to find a $2 BJ.
What do you think of Donald Trump? MS: Seems like a good dad. MIB: He's everything I hate about white people.
What do you hate most about living in New York? MS: Crowds and noise. MIB: Lack of public restrooms and guilt about not doing anything cultural.
Who is your mortal enemy? MS: Sloth. MIB: I'm not crazy about Sam Champion.
When's the last time you drove a car? MS: This weekend. I have a beat-up Honda. I drive it all the time. MIB: This past weekend.
How has the Wall Street crash affected you? MS: I will know more in ten years. MIB: My second job as a stripper at FlashDancers is generating much less tip money.
Times, Post, or Daily News? MS: Times and Post. MIB: The Times is not only the greatest New York newspaper, it is a daily miracle. The only thing that would improve it is if they replaced the Tuesday Science section with a Tuesday Gossip section. And added a comics page. And topless girls, like the Sun.
Where do you go to be alone? MS: I like walking around in my neighborhood. Just drifting. MIB: The odd thing about New York is that walking down a street jammed with people can be the most solitary experience in the world. When I want to be alone in New York, I walk.
What makes someone a New Yorker? MS: Nonchalance. MIB: Knowing which direction to look for your train while waiting on the subway platform.
Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black's new show, Michael and Michael Have Issues, premieres at 10:30 p.m. tonight on Comedy Central.
Apparently, they still use them in police stations, because the city wants everyone who walks into the precinct to get that bustling, nervous, "I'm on an episode of Law & Order" feeling! No, just kidding, it's because that's how policemen fill out forms, still, because the government is too cheap and/or lazy to overhaul the system. [NYP via Yahoo! Tech]
Lifetime fought hard for Project Runway, and they're going to max out on that show if it kills them, or maybe us first. Not content to just air the sixth season of the show starting August 20, the network is reportedly getting past Project Runway contestants together for an "all stars" edition, to air a week or two before season six begins. The cast will reportedly include Chris March, Jeffrey Sebelia, Michael Knight, Daniel Vosovic, Santino Rice, Kenley Collins, Sweet P, Korto Momolu, and possibly more. (Christian Siriano, Rami Kashou, Jack Mackenroth, Kit Pistol, and Laura Bennett reportedly turned down the opportunity to stay up all night stapling M&M wrappers together to make dresses for the cameras again. Go figure.)
Lifetime is already planning a Runway spinoff called Models of the Runway, which will air immediately after Project Runway and focus on the sixteen models competing for the chance to be in Marie Claire. So it could be like watching the same show two times in a row, which sounds about as exciting as watching an entire baseball game while waiting to renew your driver's license at the DMV, having left your cell phone at home. Most viewers are probably happy to see Runway return to the airwaves, but we don't want to OD on it. We've already lost "Poker Face." We don't want to lose this too.
With artist Dash Snow’s death, will prices for his artwork zoom? In the art world, it’s called “the ghoul factor,” the phenomenon by which prices of a dead artist's work take off because of financial speculation, the cutoff in supply, and, often, a posthumous canonization (already well under way in Snow’s case). Before Andy Warhol's death in 1987, no Warhol had sold for more than $1 million; five years later, nearly two dozen had. “Works by artists who are deceased or no longer producing can be better investments,” says Constanze Kubern, senior art advisor of Castlestone Management, which started an art-investment fund in May. She declines to say whether Castlestone will go Snow shopping as a result, but there are a host of collectors and museums who wouldn’t consider an artist until he’s passed away, and Snow's untimely death, like Warhol’s, puts the LES media star on their radar.
Certainly, Snow’s story has the making of million-dollar myth. “Now the art world has its beautiful corpse — its very own King of Pop, albeit the Brooklyn-hipster variant,” says Berlin art critic David Selden. The artist’s “unlikely biography” as the scion of the Über-rich De Menil clan “who rejected his privileged upbringing in favor of an existence of drugs, sex, and graffiti is the stuff of which dealers' dreams are made.”
Dealers agree that the artist had garnered, even at a young age, powerful patrons and an international reputation that could buoy his market. His works were shown in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg as part of Charles Saatchi’s trendsetting “USA Today” exhibition. And influential star-maker Jeffrey Deitch hosted Snow’s and Colen’s “Nest” exhibition of summer 2007. (A book Deitch published on the show is currently climbing on Amazon.com.)
But Andy Warhol died at the beginning of a huge art-market boom, Snow at the end of one — “and before he really made enough work for people to make a market in it,” says one auction-house official, who, like several others in the art world, preferred not to be quoted on the financial value of the artist’s legacy. Plus, Snow’s early works are Polaroids, which are known to age badly. Some experts say the near-term arc of Snow’s prices may be more similar to that of fellow graffiti artist Keith Haring, who died in 1990. The art market, tanking at the time, was flooded with too many Harings after his death, pushing down prices.
So far, the 27-year-old Snow’s works have made few appearances at auction, and with somewhat mixed results. In May at Phillips de Pury, his Dreams Die Hard collage zoomed to $6,875 against an estimate of about $2,500. A year earlier, his Incest, the Game the Whole Family Can Play, just squeaked by its reserve, selling for $8,750, with commission, against an estimate of $10,000 to $12,000.
Even before Snow’s death, works by his friends and colleagues, Ryan McGinley, Dan Colen, and Terence Koh were already starting to sell for more. Art critic Charlie Finch predicts a boom in the market for works by Colen and McGinley. In particular, Colen’s candle-painting series will be seen as a tribute to Snow, he predicts. (One of them, Going, Going, Go... sold at Phillips in London for $132,663 in February.) “It will be like when the Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones died,” Finch says. “Mick Jagger and Keith Richards got famous.”
A judge has thrown out Donald Trump's claim that Trump Nation author and Times editor Tim O'Brien acted out of "actual malice" when he estimated the Donald's wealth at a number far lower than the one fluctuating inside the mogul's brain. [Reuters]
No, really, Jon Gosselin and 22-year-old Girlfriend Hailey Glassman might be engaged now, according to InTouch Magazine. Thankfully, this really seems like…
Nydia Velázquez is the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and has represented the 12th District of New York for nine terms. She's also a friend to Sonia Sotomayor, who is this week getting grilled before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and likely on her way to a seat on the Supreme Court, where she'll be the first Latina woman to sit. We called Velazquez — whose district stretches from Woodside, in Queens, to Williamsburg and Park Slope, in Brooklyn, to the Lower East Side — to ask her about her friend and the way in which she's inspired her constituents. Below, Velázquez opens up about that, what the judge likes to cook, and why some Hispanic leaders thought it might be a problem that she wasn't Mexican.
You were born less than a year before Sonia Sotomayor. You both come from Puerto Rico. You both spent many years in New York. You've both ascended to the highest levels of the Washington power structure. Would it be fair to say you have some insight into her experience and cultural significance?
Well, in the sense that I know her, in that her life experience and my life experience are quite similar. We come from very humble beginnings, so we are keen to facing challenges but not allowing those obstacles preventing us from pursuing our dreams.
Talk about the "wise Latina" comment.
It's really kind of amazing, and I'm quite perplexed that such a comment has brought so much attention, and she said it quite well during the proceedings. After all the thousands and thousands of cases where she has been involved, it is those words that became the focus that basically the critics from the Republican side used to question her respect to the law and the Constitution, and what she was trying was to make a point and inspire students and to say that legal actions have consequences in people's life. … She's coming across as the person that is totally different from the person that the Republicans are trying to paint.
How important is Sonia Sotomayor to the Hispanic community?
Look, at the beginning, I remember when I went to speak with Chuck Schumer about Sonia Sotomayor back in January, and some were asking how would that resonate with other Latinos because she's Puerto Rican, and the largest Latino group is Mexicans. And it has been an incredible, incredibly moving experience, because every Latino in this country looks at her as one of their own. The sense of pride, the sense that finally we arrived to one of the most powerful, important institutions, the highest court in the land, it's unbelievable.
What about this concern about the Mexicans being the largest group of Latinos?
I heard this from other sources. … A lot of rumors were spread around, but I know even among us, there was a discussion that took place among some of the Latino members of Congress. It was just a matter of how that other group was going to react since they have the largest numbers. … The Hispanic Caucus was prepared to endorse her [before President Obama nominated Sotomayor]. The majority of the caucus wanted to come out in support of her in a unanimous vote. I said that would make her a target by coming out for her so early. It was a discussion that took place, and my argument was that by coming out so early and endorsing her, that would make her a target.
How well do you know Judge Sotomayor?
The first time I came to Congress, she was the one I picked to swear me in. She loves to cook. … She is an incredible, incredible human being. Unexpectedly, you will get a call from her just because she was thinking of how you're doing.
What does she like to cook?
Well, she's a very health-conscious woman, and a lot of salad, veggies, grilled chicken, fish. We love to cook. Both of us. And we love to talk about food.
• The Harry Potter frenzy kicked off last night when the latest installment debuted at midnight last night and raked in $22.2 million in the process. [THR] • Jared Kushner's strugging Observer is still hunting for a new editor. [DF] • Time Inc. has "assembled a high-level SWAT team" to revamp Fortune. [NYP] • The most successful magazine at the moment? Fitness. Obviously! [Folio] • Ukraine's Culture Ministry has banned Brüno because "it's immoral." [THR] • A hacker accessed the computers of several Twitter employees, made off with a big bunch of documents, and is now leaking the info online. Technology! [TC] • Is NBC's wacky, new terrorist-hunting reality show going to put war correspondents in danger's way? Guess we'll find out shortly, right? [NYO]
• Shaquille O'Neal's mom is writing a book. Contain your excitement. [NYO] • Breakingviews is in talks to sell the company to Thomson Reuters. [NYT] • Oprah is the most powerful woman in media, according to Forbes. [Forbes] • Pitchman Billy Mays is dead, but his infomercials live on. [NYT] • Ex-Dow Jones boss Richard Zannino is joining a private equity firm. [Reuters] • David Arquette needs work bad. Contact his agent if you can help! [AdAge]
The day our Video Look Book caught her, casting scout Angel Clouthier wore clothes from at least three continents. She got her vintage shades in Paris, her shorts in Africa, and her owl purse in New York. She said her friend designed her T-shirt, which depicts a man hugging a hairy character resembling Bigfoot. "I travel too much," she told us. "I gave away all my furniture because I wanted to keep feeling free." Watch the Video Look Book to find out who designed her sandals.
Were you impressed last week when you learned that over 800,000 people actually decided to purchase one of Michael Jackson's albums instead of stealing them off the Internet? Well then, wait till you get a load of this: Sales of MJ's album catalogue tallied 1.1 million units this past week (!), an insane increase of 37 percent from the week before. He has now sold 2.3 million albums Stateside since his death on June 25. [Billboard]
It's a dream come true for the fame-obsessed: "A volunteer tour organization called Big Apple Greeters is offering free personalized tours led by celebrities. Former New York Giants running back Tiki Barber and "Sopranos" star Dominic Chianese were at City Hall on Wednesday to advertise their services." You can find more info here. And you can thank us later. [AP]
Lifting a three-year de facto moratorium, bishops, clergy members, and lay leaders at the church's General Convention in California late yesterday voted to open "any ordained ministry" to gays and lesbians. This alters a policy adopted in 2006 that urged against appointing bishops that might strain relations between different factions of the church. That policy was adopted after New Hampshire anointed openly gay and partnered Bishop Gene Robinson, who is still serving, in 2003. [LAT]
Today, Muggles everywhere are rejoicing at the release, finally, of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth movie in the series, based on J.K. Rowling's penultimate book. Half-Blood Prince director David Yates will be helming the crucial final two films in the saga as well — splitting the final book in half — and so, as we near the end of the saga, it's worth asking, where does Half-Blood Prince fit into the Potter pantheon?
Plenty of factors affect the quality of a Harry Potter movie. How much does Ron ham it up, and how adorable is Hermione? How scary is the villain? How many Mike Leigh regulars appear in the cast? What's the Snape-to-Hagrid Ratio? Is Dobby in it? We set Vulture's crack team of Nobel Prize–winning pop-culture mathematicians to task working out the best and worst of the Harry Potter movies thus far.
This week, the Guardian revealed that Lara Stone, whom we named couture week's top model, is a U.K. size 8. Those who work closely with her confirmed to us that Lara varies from a U.S. size 4 to 6. But her unusually curvy (for the modeling world) figure is what designers and photographers love about her. Riccardo Tisci says he fell in love with Lara at first sight when he booked her exclusively for his fall 2006 Givenchy couture show — her big break. Photographer Bruce Weber describes Lara as "big, bad, and beautiful." And designer Isabel Marant calls her "a kind of alien — she’s a mix of a warrior and Brigitte Bardot." But Lara's not always as comfortable with her body as her slew of admirers.
She tells next month's W:
“A lot of people say it’s nice to see someone who won’t break in half when you touch them,” she says with a sigh, rolling a pack of cigarettes around in her hands. “But I am still a woman and a person, and if you’re compared and confronted with your colleagues, and they’re all half your size, you think, F---, I’m really fat! And then on other days, I’m like, Oh, I’m not that bad.”
But she'll be the first to admit she has nothing to complain about:
“The people are nice and fun and easy and relaxed. You get to smoke at work. You make lots of money.” Stone pauses. “Where are you ever going to find another job where you don’t have a boss or responsibilities, really, except to get on an airplane and just show up? It’s a bit worrying.”
Well, sitting in a cube and staring at a computer all day is almost as glamorous.
Front Page: Actor to star in Disney fantasy pic -- Willem Dafoe will star alongside Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins in "John Carter of Mars," the Walt Disney Pictures fantasy epic to be directed by "Wall-E" helmer Andrew Stanton.
Only 32 more days until the third season of Mad Men debuts! While show creator Matthew Weiner is notoriously tight-lipped when it comes to revealing the show's plot points in advance of each episode's air date, we were able to garner a few insights into how things are likely to shake out this season after carefully studying this promotional image that AMC just released. First off, the fact that a major flood has broken out in Don Draper's office likely signals that Don has had some difficulty finding a replacement secretary for Jane Siegel, who was last spotted canoodling in a hotel with Don's boss, Roger Sterling; this sort of catastrophe would never have happened under Peggy's watch, that much is certain. That said, we're not entirely sure whether that's water or just a really big batch of martinis: Maybe this means that Freddy Rumsen has been welcomed back into the Sterling Cooper fold with open arms? Either way, the fact that Don doesn't seem the least bit concerned about the excessive amount of liquid in his office ruining his wingtips most likely means that Sterling Cooper has landed themselves the prestigious Aquaseal account.
Got any interpretations of your own that you'd like to share? You know where to leave 'em!
EVENTS TOMORROW
• Meet the jewelry designers of Anna Sheffield, Pamela Love, Chrishabana, and Langoliers at Oak and pre-order their fall collections. 208 N. 8th St., nr. Driggs (718-782-0521); 6–9.
• Shop Mothe designs at the Dressing Room and enjoy complimentary Champagne and 10 percent off. 75 Orchard St., nr. Grand St. (212-966-7330); 7–10.
• Bloomingdale's is holding Wii tennis matches and giving out free gifts to publicize Lacoste Challenge cologne, the sponsor of the U.S. Open this year. 1000 Third Ave., at 59th St. (212-705-2000); 6–8.
ONGOING
• Donna Karan exhibits the work of Japanese photographer Shinichi Maruyama in her flagship store, alongside the 2009 pre-fall collection. Through 8/17. 819 Madison Ave., nr. 68th St. (866-240-4700); M–W (10–6), Th (10–7), F–S (10–6), Su (noon–5).
SALES STARTING TOMORROW
• Jewelry is 60 percent off at the Made Her Think sample sale. Through 7/17. 195 Chrystie St., nr. Rivington St., Ste. 301–307 (212-228-2144); Th–F (1–8).
• Jeans, skirts, shorts, and shirts are up to 60 percent off from British brand MiH. Through 7/17. 568 Broadway, nr. Prince St., Ste. 801. (646-467-8640); Th–F (10–8).
ENDING TOMORROW
• Select spring and summer merchandise for women and men is 40 percent off at Vince, including cashmere sweaters, skirts, pants, and shorts. 833 Washington St., nr. Little W. 12th St. (212-924-0370); M–W (11–7), Th (11–8), F–S (11–7), Su (noon–6).
• Clothingline.com is hosting a J.Crew sample sale, featuring spring and summer merchandise for men, women, and kids. The linen sleeveless beach dress is $25 (originally $50), the soft tissue top with ruffles is $10 (originally $40), and the linen dress with a knotted, hand-appliquéd neckline is $60 (originally $185). 261 W. 36th St., nr. Seventh Ave., second fl.; Su (10–5), M–Th (10–7).
• Find deep discounts at the Nanette Lepore sample sale. Dresses are $75 to $150 (originally $335 to $595), skirts are $100 (originally $195 to $295), and shoes are $100 to $250 (originally $255 to $525). 225 W. 35th St., nr. Seventh Ave., fourth fl. (212-594-0012); T–Th (9–7).
• Watches are 20 to 70 percent off at the Yellow Door sale. Michele Coquette Retro's diamond watch is $1,150 (originally $2,300) and Concord's "La Scalla" watch is $3,645 (originally $12,500). Select limited-edition Harry Winston timepieces are 40 percent off. 1308 Ave. M, nr. 13th St., Midwood, Brooklyn (718-998-7382); W–Th (10–5:45).
If Tory Burch is feeling the effects of the economic downturn, she certainly isn't showing it. The designer and social fixture is now petitioning Southampton's Architectural Review Board for permission to demolish the Meadow Lane home that she purchased for $22.5 million earlier this year.
Burch may have good reason for wanting to see the home razed to the ground. Property records indicate she bought the home in February 2009 from her ex-husband, Chris Burch. Presumably Tory (and boyfriend Lyor Cohen) didn't need the constant reminder of her previous life.
That said, it's quite a house. (It's also quite a neighborhood: Ian Schrager, David Koch, Teddy Forstmann and Henry Kravis all have houses on the same street.) Designed by architect Norman Jaffe and custom-built by David Webb, the six-bedroom home situated on 4.5 acres has views of the ocean and bay, comes with 200 feet of ocean frontage, and the requisite gunite pool, spa, and sunken tennis court. Did we mention the helicopter landing pad? Oh, yes, there's one of those, too, as you can see.
The Burches and a friend of Chris's named Todd Morley picked up up 2080 Meadow Lane for $14 million in 2005 from theater tycoon Jimmy Nederlander Sr. Tory and Chris's marriage unraveled shortly thereafter, though, and they put the home up for sale later that year for $25 million. The property never managed to find a buyer, but it did land itself a big-name renter: Howard Stern and Beth Ostrosky bunked down there during the summer of 2007.
Now Burch plans to tear it all down and build it all up again. What she's planning do do exactly isn't listed in Southampton public records. But it should be nice, provided it passes muster with local officials. The architect attached to the project is Daniel Romualdez, the same man responsible for designing Tory's sprawling, over-the-top penthouse at the Pierre.
WQXR, known to generations of listeners by its tagline, "the classical-music station of the New York Times," is changing its tune. Last night, the Timesannounced that it's selling the station to WNYC, in a three-way deal that will move WQXR to a higher spot on the FM dial (from 96.3 to 105.9) and give its former slot over to a Spanish-language station. It'll mean a slight power loss for WQXR, which is regrettable but understandable, given classical music's diminishing cultural presence; it'll also turn QXR into a listener-supported station, trading ad interruptions for the irritations of pledge week.
Mostly, it's just heartening to hear that Bach and Stravinsky didn't disappear from our airwaves altogether, and in fact the Times is reporting that its desire to preserve classical-music radio in New York was part of the deal-making. Nonetheless, the sale does point out, yet again, how utterly lame New Yorkers' non-mainstream radio options are. Radio listeners who move here from smaller cities consistently discover that their preferred station has no analogue here. We barely have an indie presence, in any genre. (WFUV, Fordham's station, and WNYC itself are reliably smart, but New Jersey’s WFMU barely makes it to antennae on the East Side, and WKCR, Columbia College radio, is similarly underpowered.)
Why is our on-air palette so limited? Every radio market has the same number of slots on the dial: There are 100 FM stations between 88.1 and 107.9, and another 120 slots on the AM band, which is lower-fidelity and therefore sticks mostly to talk these days. A city the size of, say, Des Moines requires one rock station, one pop station, one hip-hop, a couple of talk, maybe one Spanish-language. There's lots of room leftover for indie quirk.
New York has so many large ethnic constituencies and languages — Spanish, Caribbean French, Chinese, Korean — and such large markets for pop genres that the basics fill the dial. They also reach many more listeners than they would in a more sparsely populated area. That in turn drives up the price of the licenses for those frequencies, which makes it impossible for an indie station, or a classical-music station, or a ranting conspiracy theorist, to break in. We lost our last American-popular-standards broadcaster, WQEW, in 1998, which means that the city that was home to Tin Pan Alley, to Gershwin and Berlin and Cole Porter, can't make room on the dial for one full-time station devoted to their music. Same for country or blues, both of which have small constituencies here.
High-def radio, on the drawing board for years, could change everything. The current FM band, for example, could hold many more stations if they were broadcast in digital, rather than analog, format. (Same goes for TV, which is one big reason we all switched to HD this year — to pack more and higher-quality stations into the airwaves, and thus make more money for the Feds and the broadcasters.) You can buy a digital radio now, and listen to quite a few stations on it, but consumers have been slow to adopt high-def, maybe because it seems like overkill. We accept low AM fidelity for talk because it's good enough. As for bad programming, we seem to take that without batting an ear.
Wendy Nichol is three seasons into her eponymous line and can already count Scarlett Johansson and models Kim Noorda and Elizabeth Jagger among her many fans. Not too shabby, considering she is completely self-taught. Following a four-year stint as a buyer and designer at Club Monaco, Nichol left to pursue her own label, which debuted in fall '08. Her first collection was a mix of tough leather cuffs, feminine pearl necklaces, and delicate rings, all accented with her now-trademark studs. Nichol’s youngest daughter, Sofia, served as the look-book model, glammed up with red lips and perfecting a pose worthy of a Jurgen Teller–shot Little Marc ad. Nichol shopped the pieces around and landed at Brooklyn's Bird. Fast forward a year later and the likes of Bergdorf and Barneys Co-op are stocking the ever-expanding line, which now also includes bags. Citing cowboys and Native Americans as her main inspiration, Nichol's fall collection consists of fringed clutches and horsehair-accented jewelry named after chiefs and princess, outlaws, and notable cowboys and cowgirls. The addition of chains and spikes toughen up Western-inspired pieces, giving it a slick urban vibe. Prices begin at $100 for small studded earrings and top out at $700 for a large fringed saddle bag, with all items sourced and constructed locally. Check out some of our favorite looks from her line.
Guy: Hey friend, was that drink included with your $5 Subway footlong?
Friend: …No :( :( :( :(
Guy: HA HA HA HA!!!!! HEY EVERYONE THIS ASSH*LE WE ARE FRIENDS WITH PAID TWO MORE DOLLARS FOR HIS LUNCH TODAY THAN WE DID!!!!!!!!!!!! I MEAN, HOW BIG OF AN ASSH*OLE IS HE AM I RIGHT?????
If you missed my appearance on It’s On with Alexa Chung yesterday, there’s good news and bad news: The good news is the clip is now online, in its entirety! The bad news is no kimono top in the world is going to mask my post-falafel facebloat. That being said, I’m putting vanity aside — way, way aside — and posting the clip below for your enjoyment/disgust.
It is a proud day when you realize the censors have no f*cking clue what “donkey punch” means. Click here to check it out!
ONTD informs us that rapper Soulja Boy has released a picture of his “peen print”, as they call it, or in laymen’s terms, the outline of his D in his shorts. Now, if you can manage to avert your gaze from the undeniably G face he is making, you’ll note that the outline in his fleece shorts is gigantic, thick, and almost 100 percent definitely not the man’s penis.
Which leads us to ask: If that giant kielbas we’re staring at isn’t, in fact, his D, as Soulja Boy would have you believe, what, exactly, is it? You can check out our guesses after the jump, and feel free to leave your own guess in the comments section.
Some Guesses:
5. A Ruby Encrusted $5 Foot Long.
4. A rolled-up Cosmo. It’s not coincidence that one of the cover stories is “50 Ways To Make Your Peen Look Myuge.”
Remember Sam Israel, the druggie hedge fund manager who made off with $450 million, got caught, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison—but then tried to skip out on the sentence by faking his own death? Hopefully the two weeks Israel spent lost in the woods was worth it! Because it just earned him another two years behind bars. [NYP]
AP - Boaz Yakin begins "Death in Love" by showing graphic erotic images interspersed with shots of a Nazi concentration camp doctor performing bloody surgical procedures. Later, the writer-director intercuts images of an aging Holocaust survivor attending a funeral with shots of that same woman lying on her back having sex.
Financier Steve Rattnerresigned as "car czar" on Monday to spend more time with his family. You didn't believe that excuse, of course. But now we have a better idea of what it was that ultimately brought Rattner's DC stint to an end. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has been trying to reach a settlement with Rattner over charges his private equity firm paid bribes to state officials to secure investments from the state pension fund. But a deal hasn't been reached yet, it seems, so "Cuomo's investigation of Rattner has 'intensified' in recent weeks." Let's hope Rattner comes to his senses and works something out with Cuomo. He may not have a job in Washington any longer, but Hollywood is still waiting with baited breath for Rattner to live up to his true potential. [Reuters]
Picture shows the Sistine Chapel with Michelangelo's fresco " The Last Judgment " at the Vatican, in 2005. The celebrated Vatican Museums, which house Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, are to experiment with... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 15 Jul 2009 | 5:49 pm
The Koreans: Cruel Geniuses? Or Adorable Asian People with Amazing Senses of Adventure with Adorable Baby Bears at Their Disposal (AAPASAABBTDs)? After watching the following video, we’re voting “latter”. That’s because some local Korean zookeepers discovered a newborn baby bear who was easily frightened by most anything.
So what did they decide to do? 명백한 것, or “the obvious”: Put that very nervous little bear fella in the same cage as two lion cubs. The result? Hilarity of Joe Pesci-like proportions. Note: The audio kind of ruins it… so mute the ‘puter if you want max LOLs per sex. (Wait, sorry.)
Once more proving that my life’s greatest wish still holds true: To gently cup the butt of a baby bear in my hands, and squeeze the tocks for hours on end while watching a Seinfeld marathon.
Those of you not fully and totally creeped out: Click ahead for some truly satisfying GIFs! Including DRAMATIC CHIPMUNK VS. PANIC BEAR.
Enjoy watching this showdown for the next 7 hours:
And those of you looking for the perfect GIF when you see something like, say for instance, Rip Torn’s Mugshot:
Visa recently charged a Dallas-area man the modest sum of $23,148,855,308,184,500 after a restaurant visit this past week. Was this, by any chance, a mistake?
“I have never seen a number that big before, let alone with a dollar sign beside it,” says card holder Jon Seale.
According to Seale’s online credit card statement, that’s the amount he spent July 13th at a Dallas restaurant.
A temporary programming error affecting a small number of Visa prepaid accounts, according to a spokesperson for the credit card company.
We’ve all been there before — you just got your paycheck, you want to have a nice night out, so you sit down to dinner, order a few appetizers, get a second bottle of wine, decide to order the “market price” lobster, then throw on some dessert and maybe a dessert drink, and next thing you know, you’ve spent literally 23 quadrillion dollars. It happens to everyone, Johnny, you don’t need to go blamin’ the credit card company. Hell, I’ve rung up multi-quadillion-dollar bar tabs before, on weeknights.
In the off chance that this might have actually been a programming error on Visa’s part, though, I surely hope they fix the error that randomly adds 23 quadrillion, 148 trillion, 855 billion, 308 million, 184 thousand and 300 dollars to the balances of its customers. Because that might cause a problem or two somewhere down the line.
Did you know that Kim Kardashian is in Botswana at the moment? (That's the country in Africa named Botswana, by the way, in case you were thinking it might be some new jungle-themed club in LA.) What could possibly explain Kardashian's decision to travel to such a poor African country? Diamonds, of course! Kim and boyfriend Reggie Bush made the trip as "representatives" of Russell Simmons' Diamond Empowerment Fund, a foundation backed by companies like DeBeers that assists "economically disadvantaged people in African nations where diamonds are a natural resource." But DeBeers & Co. is totally getting its money (or diamonds') worth. Kardashian is learning all sorts of interesting things about the economy of Africa, and she's sharing her newfound knowledge on Twitter: "Did u know that 75% of Botswana's economy is supported by diamonds?" Actually, we didn't. But now we do! We fully expect to see Kim talking economics with Jeffrey Sachs when she gets back to the States. In the meantime, you'll find a few more of Kardashian's revelations—opposite a photo of Kim in a bikini, weirdly—below.
During the past month, S-Curve artist Diane Birch has been quietly separating herself from the crowded field of aspiring female singer/songwriters—thanks primarily to a viral campaign targeting "mom blogs."
Drew Barrymore crossing the street in Midtown ... Kelly Ripachecking her cell phone in SoHo ... Anne Hathawayeating lunch in the Village ... Heidi Klumleaving her hotel with an apple in hand ... Chris Kattan walking in the meatpacking district ... Amber Rose talking to friends outside her apartment downtown ... Emilie de Ravin and Robert Pattinson filming scenes for Remember Me in Brooklyn Heights ... Keyshawn Johnson walking with a friend downtown ... Kelly Osbourne leaving MTV studios ... Leighton Meester and Ed Westwick shooting a scene for Gossip Girl on the Upper East Side ... Nic Cage leaving his hotel in Midtown ... and Jennifer Aniston shopping at Only Hearts on Mott Street.
It's been 17 years since Al B. Sure recorded a studio album. But with the June 23 release of "Honey I'm Home" (Hidden Beach Recordings), the singer/songwriter joined a current wave of R&B vets—including Ginuwine, Teena Marie and Charlie Wilson—notching strong comebacks on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.
Earlier this week, The Onion News Network posted a video entitled “Obama Axes Pentagon Plan To Build Billion Dollar Tank In Shape Of A Dragon”, a funny, ridiculous take on military overspending, complete with lavish computer projections of a dragon breathing fire on the battlefield and a general defending the military’s need for the dragon, and so on. Funny, absurd, definitely worth watching, but obviously exaggerated. Or is it?
Today, this actual headline appeared on Foxnews.com:
You don’t say? When you say “feed on dead bodies,” you mean…
A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies.
Robotic Technology Inc.’s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that’s right, “EATR” — “can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment…
You mean literally eat dead bodies and power itself on corpse-flesh, ok, gotcha. I’m not exactly Religious McGee when it comes to the handling of dead bodies — if people want to cremate ‘em or not have a ceremony or whatever, I could care less — but there’s this old-fashioned part of me that finds the concept of a giant robot that powers itself on the flesh of dead bodies somewhat… what’s the word… creepy as a motherf***er?
Gonna have to try harder next time, Onion News Network — that Dragon-tank is clearly only a matter of time.
L-R: Actors Daniel Radcliff, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint attend the "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" premiere after party at American Museum of Natural History on July 9, 2009 in New York City... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 15 Jul 2009 | 4:21 pm
Uighur democracy leader Rebiya Kadeer waits to speak to the press on the unrest in China's western Xinjiang province at the National Press Club in Washington on July 6, 2009. China has tried to stop Melbourne's... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 15 Jul 2009 | 4:21 pm
British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen arrives dressed as a schoolboy to promote his latest movie 'Bruno' during last month's visit to Australia. Ukraine has banned the hit comedy "Bruno" on the grounds that... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 15 Jul 2009 | 4:21 pm
Singer/songwriter Keri Hilson may be one of the hottest things happening to music in 2009, what with her chart topping single with rapper Timbaland “The Way I Are”. But judging from these photos of the singer in London yesterday, seems she’s also trying to break into acting. First stop? The Olympia Dukakis wardrobe sale. Though, to be fair, we’re happy to see shantung slacks coming back into style.
AP - Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy tries to win girl back: It's a tale you've heard a million times before. But it's told in such a relatable, inventive way in "500 Days of Summer," it almost feels like the first time.
If it's true an individual's personality is shaped and influenced by his or her parents, then Michael Jackson couldn't have had more different wells from which to draw.
He immortalized the "smell of napalm in the morning" in "Apocalypse Now," but Robert Duvall's first meeting with director Francis Ford Coppola was no indication of the fruitful relationship to come.
Liam Gallagher (right) of Oasis performs in Duesseldorf, February 2009. British rock band Oasis was due to open the 15th edition of the Benicassim festival, one of Europe's biggest annual music gatherings,... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 15 Jul 2009 | 1:55 pm
Front Page: Pic may score best midnight gross of all time -- In a massive start, Warner Bros.’ “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” easily scored the biggest midnight gross of all-time in earning $22.2 million as it unspooled in 3,003 runs at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.
Reuters - Beyonce recently topped Forbes' list of the richest stars under 30, but she clearly is not hoarding the money: A ton of it must have been spent on her latest spectacle of a tour.
Pearl Jam's new single, "The Fixer," made an abbreviated debut last night (July 14) during Fox's broadcast of the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. The track officially goes to U.S. radio and digital retailers on Monday.
On Sept. 15, Skaggs will release "Ricky Skaggs Solo (Songs My Dad Loved)" on his own Skaggs Family Records featuring 13 tunes he was introduced to by his father, Hobert Skaggs.
Michael Jackson's ex-wife Debbie Rowe said "Hell no" when discussing whether she wanted custody of her two kids, according to a series of bombshell e-mails made public this afternoon. Source: FOXNews.com | 15 Jul 2009 | 9:58 am
Oh, Brad Pitt. Isn't it enough to be ridiculously handsome—must you be a scandalous wit, as well?
The Inglourious Basterds star brings his comedy chops to Wired this month,...
The fairytale romance between Twilight's Edward and Bella is getting a comic book makeover.
A black & white image from an upcoming Twilight graphic novel debuted on EW...
Well-played, top 10! They're not the most emotive or individually charismatic group of dancers in So You Think You Can Dance history, but technically these dancers are taking this show and...
Apparently the King of Pop also wanted to be the Sultan of Skin.
The owner of an extensive collection of photographs featuring nude celebrities—enough to open a...
If anyone can pull off a fannypack, it's Kim Kardashian.
Which is good, because we are suggesting that the E! star invest in one to keep track of her essentials—keys, lipstick,...
The government thought it was mainly hospital employees it had to worry about when it came to propofol abuse.
Then authorities unearthed Michael Jackson's pharmaceutical treasure...
If you're not watching 10 Things I Hate About You yet, can we recommend you start soon? You won't want to be out of touch with who's who and what's what by the time we get to...
Zooey Deschanel really loves the simple life. And we love this pretty picture of her.
It's from the August issue of Self magazine, in which the star of the new romantic comedy 500...
That said, it's quite a house. (It's also quite a neighborhood: 
Visa recently charged a Dallas-area man the modest sum of 
Did you know that Kim Kardashian is in Botswana at the moment? (That's the country in Africa named Botswana, by the way, in case you were thinking it might be some new jungle-themed club in LA.) What could possibly explain Kardashian's decision to travel to such a poor African country? 
You don’t say? When you say “feed on dead bodies,” you mean…
