Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Crushable

Crushable

Gallery: It's World Tapir Day, So Here Are Some Tapirs

Posted: 27 Apr 2011 11:02 AM PDT

Tapirs are among the funnier looking creatures the planet has to offer, eh? It’s totally the noses, especially when coupled with those tiny, pert ears. Happy World Tapir Day! We’ll be celebrating by trying to adopt one.

  • This guys the black-and-white cookie of tapirs.
  • Baby tapy!
  • Can we make tapir prink clothign a thing?
  • Not his though.
  • Right? T-shirt!
  • He looks like a bear!
  • Zomg! Pixar character?
  • Underwear?
  • A tapir in the grass.
  • Just chillin'.
  • Nose close-up!
  • Hi, come hang out with us.

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Gallery: It's World Tapir Day, So Here Are Some Tapirs

How to Make People Feel Old, with Movie Release Dates

Posted: 27 Apr 2011 10:10 AM PDT

Here’s a new party trick: Screw with people’s heads by making them remember how long ago movies like Jurassic Park, The Little Mermaid, or even Snakes on a Plane hit theaters. Why, we didn’t even have iPhones when most of those came out! (For the record, the thing about The Matrix is a little mind-blowing, considering that its 1999 special effects would probably still hold up today.)

[xkcd via The Daily What]

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How to Make People Feel Old, with Movie Release Dates

Posted: 27 Apr 2011 10:05 AM PDT

Tina Fey talks about her new book Bossypants at Google HQ. – Take the time you would spend dicking around on the Internet and enjoy Fey’s hour-long talk that covers coming face-to-face with Sarah Palin, advice for twentysomething female comedy writers, and more. (The Daily What)

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Update: Lady Gaga IS Amused By Weird Al Yankovic's 'Born This Way' Parody!

Posted: 27 Apr 2011 09:51 AM PDT

Remember when Weird Al reported that after a long struggle involving the jumping through of many hoops (some of which may have been on fire), his parody of Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” was rejected by Gaga herself? Remember how sad he was that he would be unable to put the song on his next album? Well, not only was Lady Gaga unaware that she had rejected the song, but perhaps more importantly, she had never even heard it due to the fact that her manager never actually sent it to her in the first place. That’s right: Her manager rejected it FOR her. WITHOUT HER KNOWLEDGE.

I don’t know about you, but if I were Lady Gaga, I’d be PISSED.

Gaga has since heard the song, and guess what? She loves it! As well she should! AND Weird Al gets to put it on his album now! Everybody wins! This makes me feel a lot better about the whole thing; I was rather disappointed when I’d heard that Gaga had supposedly rejected it, because I mean, come on. Being parodied by Weird Al is a badge of honor. Good to know that she’s down with it. Check out Weird Al’s take on it over at his blog. And in case you want to hear the song again, take a listen to it here. Hopefully we’ll be getting that full, crazy video Weird Al originally wanted to do soon!

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Update: Lady Gaga IS Amused By Weird Al Yankovic's 'Born This Way' Parody!

Video: Pia Toscano Performs on 'Dancing with the Stars' Results Show

Posted: 27 Apr 2011 09:55 AM PDT

Last night, American Idol castoff Pia Toscano performed on the results show of Dancing with the Stars. I often prefer results shows to actual episodes of DWTS, because we get to see the professional dancers together without gimmicks. Conveniently, the pro dancers who choreographed a routine to Pia’s rendition of “I’ll Stand By You” were Karina Smirnoff and none other than Pia’s rumored boyfriend, Mark Ballas. As much as Mark annoys me on the show with his over-the-top dramatics and camera-hogging, he’s a great dancer, and Karina was a good match for him. Pia sounded great, which makes me wonder if they were only paying the sound guy for half the episode, since NKOTBSB (that would be the New Kids on the Block/Backstreet Boys supergroup) sounded awful.

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Video: Pia Toscano Performs on 'Dancing with the Stars' Results Show

Interview: 'Skinny' Author Diana Spechler Went Undercover at a Fat Camp

Posted: 27 Apr 2011 09:55 AM PDT

I loved Diana Spechler‘s sophomore novel Skinny: After her father’s death, 26-year-old Gray Lachman, who has always had an antagonistic relationship with food, finds herself compulsively overeating. To combat this strange form of grief, she goes undercover at a fat camp. There, she comes up against the questionable practices of Lewis, the camp director, and her devious co-counselor Sheena; and is intrigued by the hot assistant director Bennett and Eden, the half-sister Gray never knew existed.

It was a delight to interview Spechler, and a new experience for me: It occurred entirely over Gchat. In some ways, then, this is less of an interview and more of a conversation about crippling body image fears, the need for outlets, and the merits of an extremely unlikeable narrator.

I really, really liked Skinny – I finished it in two days and was just really fascinated by Gray’s character.

Spechler: Thank you so much! I just got chills. Still so few people have read it, so hearing nice feedback is priceless.

I read novels like yours and cross my fingers that one day I could create a world like you do with the summer camp.

Spechler: It helped that I lived at one. World-building is easier when you’re not so much “building” as “recording.”

Yes, so did you go undercover at a summer camp in order to write Skinny, or for a personal reason like Gray does?

Spechler: I went undercover. I decided in late 2005/early 2006 that I wanted to write a novel set at a weight-loss camp, so I emailed every weight-loss camp in the country. I told all the directors that I wanted to teach creative writing, but I didn’t mention that I was conceptualizing a novel. Shockingly, no weight-loss camp wanted a creative writing teacher. Can you believe it? But one did. So when I got to camp, thinking I was going to teach creative writing, the director told me that instead I would teach water aerobics. I had to make it up. I mean, what the hell is water aerobics? But I did it. I was also in charge of the oldest girls. And then I wound up teaching other stuff, too, like running.

What age group?

Spechler: The kids at the camp were 8-18. My girls were high school age. I loved fat camp. It was the best summer of my life.

How come? Had you attended camps much before this fat camp?

Spechler: Yes, I’d been to camp. We ran around all day in the sunshine. We were part of this very insular world. Everyone got very attached, like a big family, with a lot of dysfunction. I got into the best shape of my life. Also, I fell in love. That was unexpected.

Oh, wow, so was some of the Bennett plotline based on that?

Spechler: But not weight-loss camp. I went to Jewish summer camp throughout my childhood. I also worked at an arts camp for a couple of summers, teaching creative writing. I guess I love camp. Yes, Bennett is loosely based on the man I had a relationship with that summer.

That’s very brave that you could put that into the book, especially considering how visceral the Gray/Bennett relationship is.

Spechler: By visceral…do you mean sexual?

Yes, in part… just how he takes away her hunger, but how she’s wasting away at one point. How she worships his body not just sexually but also because of his discipline.

Spechler: Yes. For her, the whole summer is about the body. She worships his body. She obsesses over her own.

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Interview: 'Skinny' Author Diana Spechler Went Undercover at a Fat Camp

The Best Quotes from Chapter 1 of Kara DioGuardi's Memoir

Posted: 27 Apr 2011 09:07 AM PDT

Songwriter and former American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi did nothing for me during her brief stint on TV’s biggest talent contest. However, her new memoir, A Helluva High Note, is really making me reconsider my opinion of her. Recently, she revealed that she had been sexually assaulted by a well-known music producer but stayed quiet at the risk of harming her career (and considering she hasn’t identified the producer in question, it’s clear she is still intimidated). She’s right that women in the music industry still have to deal with sexism, and I’m happy that she’s using her own experiences to educate others.

  • “I didn’t look like a star. But as I know now, nobody does until until the stylists put a million pounds of makeup on you and tease your hair to high heaven.”
    I liked Kara best on Idol when she wasn’t trying too hard, and I always got an “unpopular kid who somehow got asked to sit with the popular kids and is now overcompensating” vibe from her. I appreciate how she admits that she was always more comfortable behind the scenes. This quote comes from a scene where she’s describing her first meeting about taking the Idol gig, and it gives me insight into both why she took the job and why she was bad at it.
  • “‘Hello, Kahra,’ he said, puffing on a Newport menthol. The moment I entered his London office in the BMG building is the moment when the correct pronunciation of my name went out the window. I don’t think he even knew my last name.
    This comes from her first meeting with Simon Cowell. It did always bother me how Simon pronounced Kara’s name – yes, he has a British accent, but it always seemed disrespectful to get someone’s name wrong. I mean, what would he have done if someone referred to him as Simone? Right from the start, it looked like Kara was set up to fail.
  • “Two years, one month, and nine days later, I would wake up on the coast of Maine, where I was vacationing, to news that I was FIRED.”
    Finally, confirmation that Kara was fired – or, as they say in polite society, “her contract was not renewed.” Perhaps I’m just too cynical, but whenever a celebrity refuses to comment on some big life change of theirs I assume they’re waiting to use the information in their book, and in this case I was right on the money. Still, being fired sucks, and even though I hated Kara as a judge she deserved the same professional courtesy as anyone else. Wait… later on in the chapter she says she wasn’t actually fired. Girl needs to pick one. (Also, does mentioning in the sentence that she was on a vacation on the coast of Maine count as a humblebrag?)

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The Best Quotes from Chapter 1 of Kara DioGuardi's Memoir

Boyfriend of the Week: Raylan Givens

Posted: 27 Apr 2011 09:05 AM PDT

Each Wednesday, intrepid pop culture crushmaster Andrea Seigel spotlights a different one of her fake TV boyfriends.

Tonight when I told Brent that Raylan Givens from Justified was going to be my boyfriend-of-the-week, he got really belligerent and demanded, "What did Raylan clean?!" because Brent had spent the whole day cleaning the apartment on some kind of a sudden manic spree. He'd woken up, gone jogging for the first time in months, come home, had his car professionally washed and sprayed with "new car" smell, all before I woke up. Then he began vacuuming corners with the hose, laundering bath mats, hand washing the dog's bowls, and mounting pictures that have been sitting on the floor since we moved here in September. "What did he clean, huh?"

"ONLY A WHOLE TOWN UP, BRENT," I said. "Only a whole town."

I know my thing for Raylan has a lot to do with fascination for "the other" because when you're a reform barely-Jew born and raised in Southern California, "the other" is a drawling Southern guy from a small town who wears a Stetson hat. Brent is Southern—Arkansan, specifically— but he made the weird move to ditch his accent somewhere along the way and the even weirder move to look totally Jewish. Still, every summer when we go back to his parents' house and he's in his original element, then I can see the same kind of earthy Southernness that Raylan's got going, and it's fascinating. (And let me be clear that I do mean Raylan when I write Raylan here. I'm not confusing him with actor Timothy Olyphant, who's too pretty to care about.)

Probably my favorite thing about Raylan is what I like to call the "gaze of rightness," a narrowing of the eyes he does whenever he looks at some piece of human shit. That gaze is a judge and jury in a squint, but it's gone none of the pomp or artifice of our own judicial system. You know what that gaze understands? That there's a gulf between morals and ethics that's as big as Kentucky. Raylan's seen lots of bad things, even grown up loving some really bad people, but for all the world-weariness that has settled hard beneath his pupils, he still always knows which way is up. His actions might not be legal, but his soul is a true compass. It's the only one he trusts.

Probably my second favorite thing about Raylan is that you can see just how painful it is for him to care about someone. TV does a lot of romanticizing about falling in love and a lot of romanticizing about falling out of it (and then pining), but not as careful a job depicting the degree to which love can hurt even when things are going well. Raylan wears that pain in every step when he's walking toward his disloyal father's house, when he's walking away from ex-wife/current love Winona at the court. It's the same thing I felt when, on one of our road trips to Arkansas, Brent was taking a long time getting back to the hotel after picking up grilled cheeses. All of a sudden I was seized with an irrational, fearful ache. We weren't in the greatest part of Alburquerque, and what if he'd run into trouble? What if I had to go on in life without him? I was wrecked with loving him and with having to imagine missing him. It was just all killing me. But then Brent came back safe, and I'd been worrying for nothing. Raylan has way less reason to believe that the people he loves will be all right.

One night last week, while checking Twitter, I was shocked and so excited to find out that Rebecca Creskoff, (shout out @CreskoffRebecca) the super sexy redhead who recently had an arc as Black Pike coal company executive Carol Johnson on Justified, had written at me. I mean, I was really worked up about it because I loved her on the show. That's what I said. I yelled out, "I'm so excited because I loved this girl on the show!"

"Well," Brent said. "I think you're excited because this makes you feel closer to Raylan."

"Maybe," I said. (It did.) "But come on, admit it. I know you also have a certain appreciation for Raylan's qualities. He's such a great character." I wanted Brent to get worked up with me because I know he looks forward to the show every Wednesday just as much as I do.

He'd started walking out of the room to get a beer out of the fridge, but he stopped in the doorway and glanced back. "I like Raylan."

Then, as he rounded the corner, he yelled, "I don't want him inside me! But he seems fun."

Post from: Crushable

Boyfriend of the Week: Raylan Givens

The Daily WTF: Lindsay Lohan's Got a Comic Book

Posted: 27 Apr 2011 08:48 AM PDT

Because she is a superhero, Lindsay Lohan is getting a comic book. On its way from Bluewater Productions, the book, called Infamous, will detail Lindsay’s time spent in jail. Our real problem with this is that the cover sketch looks more like Audrina Patridge than Linds — and, let’s be honest, nobody wants to read a comic about Audrina.

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The Daily WTF: Lindsay Lohan's Got a Comic Book

'Glee' Recap: Warts And All. Especially Warts.

Posted: 27 Apr 2011 09:02 AM PDT

Let’s cut to the chase: Kurt’s back! After these long, lonely weeks without him, seeing Monsieur Hummel pop up in McKinley High’s courtyard dressed like Edward Scissorhands-meets-Clockwork-Orange at the Royal Wedding was like seeing the first glitter-dusted robin of spring. Watching him dance to "Barbara Streisand" in the food court at the mall while dressed in his patriotic sweater vest was even better. It's hard to believe he hasn't been the center of our musical universe since he transferred, but I love any plot twist that lets Kurt go to Nationals despite having lost at Regionals.

How Kurt returned to his beloved New Directions is, of course, a longer, more complicated story. In a nutshell, Santana saw Karofsky checking out Sam’s butt, put two and two together to equal his true sexuality, then manipulated his need for a beard in order to boost her chances to be prom queen by wooing Kurt back. Actually, that wasn’t so complicated to explain. "It’s when a gay man and woman date each other to hide the fact that they’re gay, like the Roosevelts," she explains to the shocked bully, explaining “The only straight I am is straight up bitch." Karofsky agrees to the scheme and apologizes to Kurt in exchange for his silence. Kurt is thrilled to return, but only if Karofsky agrees to educate himself about how not terrible it is to be gay.  So, ten bucks says Santana and Karofsky hook up at prom anyway, just because that's how this show is.

Also in the running for queen of the dance are Quinn and Lauren Zizes. Quinn somehow gets it in her head that no one but a pair of creepy triplets will vote for Lauren as anything but a joke. Rule Number #1 about surviving high school: never, ever mess with a girl whose dad knows how to rig an election. "My dad’s college roommate was G. Gordon Liddy," Lauren explains, right before she drops the bombshell that QUINN USED TO BE BUSTED. Known then as "Lucy Caboosey," Quinn dropped 70 lbs and got a nose job before transferring to McKinley. Too bad Quinn's tearful confession comes too late; Lauren has posted images of Quinn's former self (pictured!) all over the school. Unfortunately for Lauren, it actually makes people like Quinn better.

The whole gang, in fact, is encouraged by Schue to embrace the things they don't like about themselves, whether it be their hair, their intelligence or the fact that they're, as Brittany labels Santana, Lebanese. After breaking her nose in dance practice, the worst doctor in the world convinces Rachel to get her classic Jewish nose carved down to a little shnoz. Luckily, the gang rallies around her and convinces her that's she's gorgeous just the way she is, hammering the point home with a rousing if somewhat plain rendition of Lady Gaga’s "Born This Way."

Meanwhile, this has to be the first time in the entire series that I actually got the Emma character. The writers have been more than happy to riff on her OCD, but last night’s episode was the first time they had her approach it in a realistic way. After spending 48 minutes of her 50 therapy session cleaning her chair, Emma expressed her deepest fears: that she was mentally ill, that her compulsive behavior had limited her life trajectory, that she was somehow different because of her problem. Her therapist explained that yes, yes, and yes those things might be true, but that doesn’t mean she can’t take the first steps down the road to experiencing happiness within herself. I actually teared up when Emma mustered the courage to take her medication. May we never again have to watch the neat freak parody she has been up until now.

It seems like a pretty big misstep not to have Couch Bieste or Sue Sylvester give their two cents, as a butch woman doing her thing in a typically male profession or as an opponent to self-acceptance respectively (or so I would have written it). That being said, the last mournful shot of Santana, who carries on her sham relationship to gain prom votes even as she longs to be dating Brittany says it all: there's only so long you can pretend before the true you makes an appearance. Hopefully also at prom.

Post from: Crushable

'Glee' Recap: Warts And All. Especially Warts.
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