Guys. GUYS.
We can thank Colorado couple Ken and Melissa Rogers for taking in the adorable duo of Kandu and Lucy, both born without front legs. And so can the patients of the Yampa Valley Medical Center in Steamboat Springs, where the dogs work their magical healing powers (snuggles!!!!1) on the patients. D'awwwwwz.
[Jezebel inbox]
Last week Japanese pop star Minami Minegishi, 20, one of the members of the popular girl group AKB48, shaved her head and filmed a tearful apology video to fans (since made private) after she was caught leaving her boyfriend's house on the morning of January 17th. One of the rules of the supergroup, which features 90 girls of varying ages broken down in smaller factions, is their no-dating policy.
The boyfriend, Alan Shirahama of fellow pop idol band Generations, has also apologized ("I'm so sorry for the trouble I've caused. I will do my best from now on through several activities, so please continue to support me"), but the statement only came after netizens—the community of the nation's pop idol fans on the Internet—criticized Shirahama after his agency released a statement about how his private life is for him to decide. Even from the outset, Minegishi had no such defense.
Back in October, the New Yorker featured an exploration of the cultural phenomenon of K-Pop, whose perfectly-packaged and media-trained teen idols have influenced and affected Chinese and Japanese pop culture as well (the slang term for this spread is hallyu). The author, John Seabrook, cites a personal kinship that fans feel with the girls onstage. As one 30-something American male fan puts it:
"You think you love them, but then you see Tiffany point directly at you and wink, and everything else that exists in the world just disappears. [...] You think you love them, but then you see Sooyoung look you dead in the eye and say in English, ‘Thank you for coming.' I might not know how much I love these girls."
Pretty sinister-sounding stuff, right? Consider this—Seabrook says that K-Pop is astonishingly clean cut compared with the Japan-originated girl group that Minegishi's in:
For pervy, try the J-pop group AKB48, a Japanese girl ensemble, with scores of members, who, affecting a schoolgirls-in-lingerie look in their video "Heavy Rotation," pillow-fight, kiss, and share heart-shaped cookies mouth to mouth. [On the other hand, K-pop group] Girls' Generation is a group of preppy-looking young women in skinny trousers. When they wear hot pants, it's to display the gams, not the glutes.
In other words, if K-Pop girls make their male fans feel special in a prepubescent-dating way, like they'll hold hands and go skip pebbles with them, and only them, the attitude that fans have cultivated towards members of the basically-softcore AKB48 would be markedly more sexually possessive. This might explain the dating ban as well as the shame that's rained down on Minegishi, who's in now in the midst of an unfair shitstorm for simply spending the night with her boyfriend.
Both K- and J-pop rely heavily on a "star factory"-style training academy hosted by record labels that handpick and rigorously mold girls and boys as young as twelve into experts on performance routines, lifestyle choices (e.g. the no-dating rule) and press etiquette. As a punishment for breaking the rule, Minegeshi has been demoted back to "trainee" position, a number of ranks below her previous place in AKB48, meant for novices who must work their way up.
Minegeshi has since appeared at performances as a trainee, wearing a wig.
'Minami Minegishi, of Japan's teen girl band "AKB48," shaves head, apologizes for having boyfriend' [CBS News]
'Alan Shirahama Apologizes For Scandal With Minami Minegishi' [Jpopasia.com]
In the wise words of American poet laureate Fergie, "Wear them gold and diamonds rings/All them things don't mean a thing." After sending out a few powdery all-white looks to open the show, renowned wedding dress designer Lhullier followed up the first few designs with dramatic gowns in saturated jewel tones, most notably the season's big color: oxblood.
Among those in attendance were longtime devotees Bridget Moynahan and Connie Britton, but it's easy to picture these gowns on the passed-on classic society fixture Nan Kempner (RIP) or any of the Hearsts. Except Patty, obvs. (She might like the cigarette pants though!)
Britain, already infamous for its gastronomical failures, isn't doing much to improve its reputation for inedible food. Are you in England? Do you have Findus beef lasagna in your cabinet? FUUUU, take it back to the store!
U.K. food safety officials announced on Thursday that some of this recalled product was as much as 60% horse meat. Earlier this month, hamburgers were recalled by the millions after researchers discovered horse DNA in the beef sourced from both Ireland and Britain. Reports the NYDN:
Eighteen beef lasagna products were tested by Findus, which found that 11 contained horsemeat in the 60 to 100 percent range, the Food Standards Agency said. It would not say if any of the meals were 100 percent horsemeat.
So, yes. Yes, at least one of them was totes entirely horse. Perhaps the horseshoe at the bottom of the box tipped you off. Although horse meat isn't unsafe healthwise, it does "trigger disgust" in the U.K. (fair enough), as well as a single tear from anyone who's read Black Beauty.
Ireland is blaming Poland and Romanian manufacturers for the diluted meat, who in turn deny it. The head of the U.K. Food Standards Agency has announced that there will be a comprehensive testing for horse meat on all beef products, which incidentally sounds like it could be a line in Magic Mike 2. Anyway. Horse meat. Jesus.
'ANOTHER horse meat scandal in Europe: Findus frozen lasagna, sold at grocery store chains, contains over 60% horse meat' [NYDN]
'Findus fights back: Blame game spreads across Europe as minister warns of horsemeat in other meals' [Independent.co.uk]
Image via foaloce/Shutterstock
I might be blowing your mind here, but did you guys know that Axe is totally a dude thing? Like, here's how it works: you spray on some Axe, maybe you even put some in your hair, and then you go to the A-E-Phi party? And then all of a sudden it's like all these baby sea turtles (except they're chicks, like with BOOBS) are following the moon (the Axe) to the ocean (your peen). And that's how it works.
Anyway, who better to be a spokesman for Axe than the manliest of all men, Buzz Aldrin, who announced a contest to be shot into space by the new Axe Apollo Space Academy (AASA) in a Super Bowl commercial. At the end of which he says "Leave a man, come back a hero." I wonder who they're marketing to? (The copy of the ad also referred to "a few brave men" until, wisely, it was edited to "civilians.")
Anyways, Tumblr user Molly Pfaff, a self-declared fangirl of Dr. Who, Harry Potter, Sherlock and Star Trek, has struck out to be the first Axe-affiliated woman to NOT be chasing a dude down the street and/or licking him on TV. Instead, she's third place in the AASA contest, with 12,000 votes up against 24,000 and 19,000 (two men).
Go vote for Molly!
'One giant leap for a woman in Axe's astronaut contest' [Daily Dot]
Project Runway star Christian Siriano drew inspiration from the interior of Saint Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre for his Fall 2013 collection, which evokes the gilded and embossed silhouettes of the Russian opera house. It was accompanied by a rock opera score produced by Siriano's boyfriend, Brad Walsh.
Bonus points for the models' kicks from Siriano's newest Payless collection. Although my personal fave, the metallic blush oxfords, weren't seen on the runway at Mercedes-Benz, the embellished heels and slip-on loafer flats are stunners.
Before the major sexual assaults at Lackland Air Force Base were exposed, it was a long, silent slog for women in the military. But ever since, it's been a banner year: abortion may be more readily insured, women like ex-Marine Sarah Anderson have come forward to let pundits have it for commenting that female officers in the military should "expect" to be raped. The Invisible War, a documentary dealing with military sexual assault, has been nominated for an Oscar. It looks like conditions are improving.
But two of the assault victims who appeared in The Invisible War say that director Kirby Dick should be "ashamed and embarassed" that most of their stories ended up on the cutting room floor. Specifically, Michael Matthews and Brian Lewis, who feel "betrayed" and "abandoned" by Dick, as well as the overall legislative and social attention being paid to female military assault victims (of the estimated 19,000 sex offense victims in the armed forces, 10,000—56%—are men and 9,000 women.) Lewis only has a 10-second soundbite in the film, and 5 minutes of the total 2-hour running time are devoted to male victims, none of whom are listed along with the six female victims on the documentary's website.
Matthews asked NBC News:
"What the fuck is that about? [...] [Dick] is making millions of dollars but he's not bringing any of the men to any these appearances all over the country like he's bringing the women. I appreciate them putting us in the movie but, now, the men are not being represented at all. He has turned his back on us. And the movie, some of it, is hurting us."
A Washington D.C. lawyer who reps both male and female military assault victims echoes Matthews' statement: ""There's a lot of disappointment in the male survivor community that this keeps being talked about as a 'women's issue,' and it's not."
Dick agreed that male military sexual assault victims are often "kept in the shadows" and confirmed that the film's producer intentionally focused more on female victims, but with the goal of inspire change on behalf of victims of either gender.
"In terms of making the film, we felt the entry point in this discussion was more women being assaulted because we felt it was a discussion that people would start to have. Our essential goal here is to have the military continue to change its policy (on investigating rape reports and disciplining predators) so that all men and women are protected in the military ... We felt that once the country started putting pressure on the military to make these changes, if and when the military does make changes, those will apply to men just as they will women. So we kind of felt women would get the discussion going and push the military to make the change for everyone."
'Male sexual assualt victims slam Oscar-nominated filmmakers over focus on women' [Oh No They Didn't]
Imagine, if you will, my surprise and delight when I received an email from "the premiere Sugar Daddy website" Seeking Arrangement about the ins and outs (LOLZ) of Valentine's Day spending. The notorious site, which provides the philanthropic service of connecting enterprising youngsters with oft-married older dudes and their AmEx black cards, polled about 9,000 men and the same amount of women about their Valentine's Day yens as well as their budget.
Here's one chestnut:
Valentine's Day was a holiday created for women, everything from chocolate hearts to pink and red cards leaves women with a heightened sensitivity to romance. It's no secret that men look to capitalize on their vulnerability in hopes of entering a new relationship, or get rewarded with lovemaking.
Or you could just get laid ANY old day of the year if you stopped calling it "lovemaking"? But moving on. They found that 77% of the guys who participate in Valentine's Day are only doing it in the hopes of taking you down to Poundtown. But the E-Z Pass to the off-ramp that leads to Poundtown has a price, which is conditional on your commitment level:
Single: $257: Dinner or Activity
Married: $203: Presents
Committed Relationship: $180: Presents
In summation:
Results revealed that in order to be rewarded with lovemaking on Valentine's Day, men had to shell out $218 on the whole date.
Bear in mind that this is "the average man" who is somehow in communication with Seeking Arrangement, which is NOTHING like the average man. But if you find one of them, you can see Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters 15.57 times. Worth it!
Image via urfin/Shutterstock
Today, Elizabeth Banks turns 39, and we temporarily forgive her for this terrible, reductive-sounding CBS pilot. Not just because of her birthday, but because she's going to be in Secretary director Steven Shainberg's next fetish/love flick The Big Shoe. And also because she's adorable singing with Reggie Watts, above.
Sunnnnndayyyyyyy. :-|
This Mercedez-Benz Fashion Week show was all about crepey jewel-tone fabrics, furs—one deep purple fur shrug worthy of Jenna Lyons—and silvery embellishments. Very old Hollywood. Plus! The awesome side chignons, the styling process of which you can attempt to hack here. Let me know if you do! (Just kidding: that shit don't fly with curly hair.)
Four years to the day after Chris Brown beat the shit out of Rihanna on the way home from Clive Davis' pre-Grammys party in 2009, here they are snuggling at last night's ceremonies. While it's been public knowledge for a while that the two are back together—she even accompanied him to court on Wednesday and blew him a kiss—it was the snuggle that tore Twitter asunder, reports Yahoo Music:
For every negative "Rihanna & Sting onstage together. Good to see her joined by a member of The Police without Chris Brown involved" there was a positive "I don't care what anyone says, Chris Brown and Rihanna are beautiful together! Hate all you want, I love them!").
And thanks to some bling on Ri-Ri's left ring finger, there is rampant Interwebz speculation of an engagement. I'm going to go right ahead and guess "No," thank you. (Fingers crossed.) [Radar Online, NYDN]
Brown chose his all-white duds, by the way, to obtain "inner peace." [Celebuzz]
The paparazzi denies that they had anything to do with his car crash on Saturday. [TMZ]
Ladies and gentlemen, Madonna has finally joined Instagram. She got 27,000 followers in a matter of hours and has posted three selfies of her cleavage so far. [Instagram]
During her Willy Wonka-inspired (?!) white suit-and-top-hat Grammy opening performance of "We Are Never Ever Ever Getting Back Together," Taylor Swift threw some shade at her most recent ex, Harry Styles, by speaking some of the mid-song "guy" dialogue in an English accent. Subtle, Tay-Tay. Also, they continued to cut to Swift throughout the performance because she knew all the lyrics to all the songs and animatedly sang along because she's a legit cartoon princess. [Us Weekly]
Literally everything John Mayer says, regardless of how innocuous, sticks in my craw. I'm sorry, dude's just a chode. He talked to Anthony Mason on CBS Sunday Morning about going steady with Katy Perry: "For the first time in my life I don't feel like I'm in a celebrity relationship. I really don't. I'm not in a high profile – I know it's high profile. It's hard to explain... For me it feels like something that's very human." Nothing high-profile about dating a megastar who shoots fireworks and processed dairy products out of her tits. [People]
Rumors of a Jessica Chastain/Jennifer Lawrence feud have been flying since J. Law took the SAG Award (Chastain was "seething," says a source) and later playfully name-checked Chastain in a swaggy Saturday Night Live monologue. However, Chastain says it's sexist and bogus.
"I find it very sad that media makes up bogus stories about women fighting in this industry. Filming The Help was the most amazing experience and yet, that is the film I'm most asked about in regards to 'fighting on set.' Why do we support the myth that women are competitive and cannot get along? [...] I've done two photo shoots with Jennifer Lawrence over the years and have found her to be utterly charming and a great talent. I've told her how beautiful her film work is."
[E!]
For the two of you who still care, Lindsay Lohan's having a fling with a 22-year-old Brooklyn DJ (may as well just replace all those descriptors with the single word "insufferable" and save us all some time) named Julian Cavin. They're casual for now, but surely her innate charm will make the dude, who spins at Goldbar, want to grow old with her:
"She was a mess," sniffs an insider, who says she arrived with one other female friend. "She started dirty dancing [on Cavin] when he wasn't in the [DJ] booth."
The eyewitness says a gal pal of Cavin's made an innocent comment to LiLo's friend about Lohan and Cavin as "a cute couple."
"She flipped out and told Lindsay," says the source, who reports that LiLo turned to the girl "and goes ‘What the fuck do you think you're doing?' "
"Lindsay grabbed every bouncer and bottle girl she could find and goes ‘Get this girl the fuck out of here,'" the eyewitness says.
[NYDN]
Meanwhile, if LiLo is found guilty after her probation violation hearing, she's reportedly told friends that she'll be relying on the (financial) kindness of her man friends Prince Haji Abdul Azim, hotelier Vikram Chatwal and artist Domingo Zapata. [Radar Online]
In the March issue of Vogue, Beyoncé wants you to know that she's neither cyborg-armed Type-A perfectionist nor untouchable pop star. She's a wooooman, W-O-M-A-N. She has never been more aware of her womanity. "Right now, after giving birth, I really understand the power of my body. I just feel my body means something completely different. I feel a lot more confident about it. Even being heavier, thinner, whatever. I feel a lot more like a woman. More feminine, more sensual. And no shame."
(As for the rumors that Bey wore a fake belly and used a surrogate in order to preserve her figure, she was quizzical: "That was very odd. Who would even think of that?")
Bey recalls when her friend Gwyneth "Buy This Blazer, Whose Lining Is Eco-Consciously Sewn Only From CONSENTING Silkworms, At The Modest Price Point of $5,000" Paltrow came over to watch her record a song while holding Blue Ivy. "I thought, this is how you do it. You do what you love with who you love included."
Mrs. Carter goes on to call Blue Ivy "my homey, my best friend," which is notable because:
A) The word "homey" appears in Vogue.
B) Is it normal to call your one-year-old child your best friend? What can you do with her besides besides point at cookies and attempt to communicate? But I don't have a kid, so who the fuck knows. Anyway, here is the cover. [NYDN; lede image via Vogue]
"The lads have told Harry to forget about retaliating, because it's just not worth it. They've all advised him to be the bigger person and not to wash his dirty laundry in public – it's just tacky and embarrassing. With the media circus that surrounded Harry and Taylor when they were together, the boys were a little miffed that it distracted fans from the band and what they were all about."
Right. And what are they about? Writing poignant social commentary about the racist motives behind the imprisonment of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter? No. They're mostly about hair gel. But really, T-Swizzle had to wear a white top hat. That's punishment enough. [Radar Online]
The boys of One Direction were chided by their manager after blowing tons of cash at a casino. Guys, stop trying to be the second coming of A Hard Day's Night. It's not gonna happen. [Daily Mail]
Mila Kunis covers this month's Allure, and she wasn't psyched when they showed her a picture of Ashton Kutcher. "I didn't think this was going to be about my friends. Not about who my friends are, who I'm dating, or who I may have ever dated. That's not talking about myself! [...] For four years I was single. An amazing time. An amazing time. I love being single." Yeah, I'd imagine the four years between Kutcher and Macaulay Culkin would be necessary to decompress.
"You can look [online] and see what Starbucks I go to. You can look and see what gym I go to. You can go online and look at my daily activities! And they have no concept of what kind of danger that puts people in…You're constantly worried that something's going to get out that's going to put your life in danger or your loved ones."
You forgot what kind of boner-wilting sweatpants you wear! HOW CAN YOU WILT BONERS WITH SUCH WANTON ABANDON, MILA KUNIS? [USA Today]
The news is that, after Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake teamed up at the Grammys to sing "Suit & Tie," the men announced that they'd be doing a 10-stadium tour. And during a red carpet interview, Justin confirmed: "We're definitely going to go on tour... I don't know how much I should say... It's going to be a lot of fun, I know that." [Page Six]
Furthermore, here's Hova drinking cognac from his Grammy statue. [Gossip Cop]
So James Franco deep-throats a pistol in J.K. Rowling's newest novel, James Franco and The Cavernous Sexual Ambiguity the upcoming Harmony Korine film Spring Breakers. Details interviews Franco this month, and its reporter recalls another instance of a Franco onscreen blowjob in his NYU student film The Broken Tower.
In the first of several three-ways, Franco performs some very impressive deep throat on two of his character's pistols after the girls turn the tables on him and shove them in his mouth.
"Most people can't get past that gag reflex at the back of the throat," I say.
"Guess I'm a natural," he says with a laugh. "It was my first time."
"So that wasn't you in The Broken Tower?"
"Oh shit, you're right!" Franco's eyes light up. "It wasn't my first time."
"You're known for going the extra mile, but that was, what, a good eight inches?"
He gives me a get-real look. "That was a dildo." Then he turns that look back on himself, and I see the real James Franco: "If I'd had the guts, it woulda been real."
What a Renaissance man. [Details via D-Listed; image via the Details behind-the-scenes video]
So what else has Franco been up to lately? Falling asleep on the set of Oz, according to Mila Kunis. [Contact Music]
Apparently Steve Martin and his wife Anne Stringfield had a kid back in December but kept it on the DL, just as they did their nuptials in 2007 (they had a party and told the guests they they got hitched). A source says: "They've had a baby, and how they kept it a secret nobody knows. Steve's very private. They are thrilled. They worked hard to have the baby." It's the first child for Martin, 67, and now part of a trend being deemed Hollywood's "A-List older dads club," which also includes Alec Baldwin. Wait, but Martin's life was chronicled in the gritty documentaries Father Of The Bride AND Cheaper By the Dozen AND Parenthood, so he actually has like 67 kids, right? [Radar Online]
Kelly Rowland celebrated her birthday by lunching with Beyoncé, Solange and Jay-Z in Venice Beach, which sounds fine, right? But when Rowland took to the streets of L.A. after lunch, she started sobbing. :-| Citing Bey's success as the reason for Rowland's tears seems too easy of a joke. Maybe she was just emotional? Birthdays are emotional! [Daily Mail]
The occupants of the New York building Amanda Bynes just moved out of under threat of eviction describe their former neighbor like a vaguely more sinister Cosmo Kramer.
"Her door was left open all the time," said one who added, "And we saw that she put red [lightbulbs] in every outlet." The former Nickelodeon star was seen coming down to the lobby "at 2 a.m. one morning, laughing hysterically for four minutes" and then "went back to her apartment."
[Page Six]
KATHIE LEE AND HODA TAKE LOS ANGELES. In case you guys were wondering where all your mid-priced chardonnay went. [Page Six]
"I was the loneliest woman in the world, and someone said, ‘You should just pray for a husband." So she did. "I said I wanted a big black man from the South who looked like a football player, who already had children, who maybe had been married before... 3 1/2 weeks later I met my husband."
[Page Six]
So this is genuinely bizarre: Katie Couric and New York police commissioner Ray Kelly are investigating a series of 911 calls placed in the early hours of the morning—Tuesdays at 2 AM—from a number registered to Couric's dead husband Jay Monahan, who passed away of colon cancer in 1998. Because it is highly unlikely that Katie Couric has a ghost husband, no matter how big of a crush you had on Devon Sawa in Casper when you were a kid, Kelly and the NYPD suspect that it's a phone hijack known as spoofing. More like... SPOOKING. Right? Because I'm a professional writer.
Doesn't the Couric/Kelly teamwork sound like the premise of an odd-couple USA show? All they need is a punny title, some B-list actors and a smallish but devoted fanbase. Happy Valentine's day. Ghost husband. [NYDN]
Singing, dancing Wolverine Valjean Hugh Jackman finally (sort of) addresses the gay rumors that have been sticking in his wife Deborra Lee Furness's craw. "Just recently, it bugs her. She goes, ‘It's big. It's everywhere!'" An X-Men producer chimes in: "I have seen him with Deborra since the beginning of their trip to Hollywood, and I've been on five movie sets with him and have never seen him stray, have never seen him eye anyone." Ah, yes, a neutral statement and an overzealous denier friend. That should get rid of all the speculation. [ABC News]
Liza Minnelli explains the improved quality of Cabaret's new release on Blu-Ray. "The colour's more vibrant, the experience is heightened, glitches were fixed, stuff has been added and frankly I don't know what the hell Blu-ray is!" A+ [Express]
No! The wonderfully batty, tipsy holy duo of Hoda and Kathie Lee are boiling with resentment thanks to that classic American triptych of greed, geography and sheer carnal impulse. (I may have thrown that third one in.) Apparently Kathie Lee has been lobbying to move Today to Los Angeles for quite some time, and her nagging is annoying the shitballs out of loyal New Yorker Hoda. Also:
Our sources say there is "some tension" between Hoda and Kathie Lee... which began when Hoda felt Kathie Lee snubbed her by not promoting her book on the air. "Both women are really strong, so tension is almost inevitable," says one source.
I haven't felt so betrayed since Ice-T and Coco had marital problems. Get vino-drunk and work it out, you guys. I can't handle another heartbreak. [TMZ]
In between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's angry, leonine intercourse up against a wall made of money on Valentine's Day—too bad there's no Hallmark Card called "I Love Doing Genitals Battle With You, Comrade"—Brad gave her breath mints as a joke gift
The vegan, gluten-free, sugar-free product includes one swallowable gel cap and a mint to suck on and was intended as a loving joke because "he always teases her that she has bad breath," a source told Us Weekly.
I'd have taken the dude more as a Spencer's Gift "Boner Pills" kind of prank-gifter, but otay. [NYDN]
Another day, another woman whose weight we needlessly concern-troll. Assorted doctors are hella concerned about Faith Hill, like the author of The Hamptons Diet whose comments have absolutely nothing to do with wanting to sell more bullshit books. "Her neck is extremely gaunt and her clavicles, they are ripping that bodice." "Her color and general look is good [but] it is certainly very aging on her and is an unhealthy weight." Oh, Christ, everyone shut up. [Radar Online]
Literally everybody's boyfriend Peter Dinklage has been cast in the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past a sequel to (speaking of donkey ball suckage) X-Men: First Class, which added more weight to my long-held suspicion that January Jones does all of her acting alone, against a green screen, in an icy cave on Mars, later to be CGI'ed in order to make it appear as if she's acting with other human beings. Anyway, I love Peter Dinklage. [Celebitchy]
This may come as a huge shock, but Ashton Kutcher is aware that certain films that comprise his body of work would make Fellini dry heave. Or, as he put it in the March Esquire issue: "I know exactly what films I've done that fucking suck donkey, and I know the ones that are good, that people like." Ashton Kutcher currently has 29 credits to his name on IMDB. Total donkey sucking tally: 29. [IMDB]
Alec Baldwin's yoga instructor wife Hilaria Baldwin née Thomas, who's been teaching at Manhattan's Yoga Vida since 2005, is being sued by a 32-year-old Yale Ph.D. candidate and HuffPo blogger named Spencer Wolfe, who cites an overcrowded class, her' "negligence" and her request that students "perform a dangerous activity at a wall." Wolfe says that he incurred "serious" and "severe" injuries as well as "emotional upset" from the class. She's currently pregnant with her and Baldwin's first child. The closest I've ever come to having an emotional upset in yoga is noticing a sweaty 62-year-old man doing a halfhearted crab while leering up the butthole of the girl in front of him, but no amount of money can take that back. [NYDN, Page Six]
Okay, so we've established that the Harlem Shake meme is not the actual Harlem Shake dance, but that doesn't make this video any less great. Watch Kiwi the terrier, Photoshopped into all the corners of his owner's living room, join the American zeitgeist with pride.
[via Tastefully]
Back in the Stone Age, before Lena Dunham polarized Brooklyn/L.A./the Internet/the universe, John Mayer was our major semi-irrational punching bag. For his cavalier treatment of American unicorn love mascots like Taylor Swift and Jennifer Aniston, for the dumb-ass Soulful Faces he makes while he's playing guitar, and obviously for the most important reason—the thoughtlessly racist comments he made in Rolling Stone, which featured references to his "Benneton heart" but "David Duke cock" and one instance of the N-word.
Lately I've seen a backlash to this Mayer hate in the comments on this website to the tune of "slut-shaming," and it's made me think about why myself and others have the visceral urge to drop-kick the dude in an active volcano any more than countless other starfucking guitarists. Because, honestly, many of us (cough, I) hated him before the Rolling Stone profile. For me, the timeline goes like, I was born → John Mayer was a thing → I hated John Mayer. And I don't think I'm alone.
And it's kind of an unfair assessment in that it's one that has a lot more to do with profiling a certain kind of guy than it does the amount of women he sleeps with.
Here's my theory: John Mayer represents every guy who tells you that he's "worried that you're getting too attached" right after you hook up. That guy who's kinda smarmy but funny and engaging. He can think abstractly and keep up with you intellectually, but the functional, normal-relationship part is missing: for instance, you never let him see you without makeup on and he'll never go with you to get your dry cleaning. He's every guy you really like who only texts you when he's bored. Every guy who's sent you cryptic, half-jokey Emojis on your birthday. Every emotionally stunted dude from Brooklyn that you know cerebrally that you shouldn't be wasting your time on, but you do anyway. You know, that guy! The one whose presence in your life teaches you never to be that much of a self-hating idiot again.
Granted, Taylor Swift's six-minute breakup ballad "Dear John"— did nothing to dispel this myth. A few years later, Mayer responded to the song in typical self-pitying fashion in Rolling Stone:
"It made me feel terrible. Because I didn't deserve it. I'm pretty good at taking accountability now, and I never did anything to deserve that. It was a really lousy thing for her to do... "I never got an e-mail. I never got a phone call," he says. "I was really caught off-guard, and it really humiliated me at a time when I'd already been dressed down. [...] When asked about the song's line, "Don't you think I was too young to be messed with?" Mayer says, "I don't want to go into that."
Ugh. Anyway, what do you guys think of my theory?
As many of us know, the average female dating website user will get a handful of messages from that pick-up-line-laden bullheaded dude who won't seem to take no for an answer. But the full range of these guys come out of the woodwork in this hilarious/creepy new sociological experiment: meet OKc_ebooks, the brainchild of one Sam Kriss, who created a fake female profile on OK Cupid with a hot-girl avatar and only responds to messages with quotes from the famous Twitter account @horse_ebooks. If you're not familiar, these are pretty typical tweets, fragmented and surreal half-thoughts:
The results? Predictable. As the fake profile account continues throwing nonsensical gems the dudes' way, they continue their quest to (The man in the lede image responds to the "smiting" comment with "mmmm kinky little minx...." Which, aside from an egregious overuse of punctuation, is pathetic because what the FUCK. This ostensible woman sounds insane or mentally ill, and at the very least you'd think someone would respond quizzically.
As Virgil Texas over on Slacktory puts it, "What is surprising-to me, anyway-is how perfectly Okc_ebooks illustrates both the objectification of women and the way communication is degraded by pick-up artists."
'Okc_ebooks: Pick-up artists trying to chat up a robot horse' [Slacktory]
16-year-old Essex student Lauren Marbe, who took the MENSA test for fun with other students from Roding Valley High School in Loughton, scored a 161: one point higher than the MENSA scores of Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates and Albert Einstein. In the UK, the average score is around 100. Awesome. I live for this shit. Less awesome: The fact that the main reaction of everybody in Marbe's life seems to be "But you don't look like a genius!" Brain explodes.
Straight-A student Marbe, who is currently deciding between pursuing an architecture major at the University of Cambridge and becoming a West End drama performer, says:
"I am blonde, I do wear make-up and I do go out. I love my fake tan and fake nails as well so I guess I am a bit of an Essex girl in that sense. I watch TOWIE and I love the programme, it's addictive but now most people do seem to think that's what everyone in Essex is like. I love living in Essex and I'm glad that I might be able to show people that we aren't all ditzy and blonde."
Let's look at this the other way: a 16-year-old boy who happens to be "conventional-looking" rings in at a 161 IQ. Do you think anyone's incredulously bringing up his looks as an oxymoron? No.
Despite her good grades, Lauren's teachers didn't seem to find her particularly exceptional ("They had always thought I was blonde and a bit ditzy"), but now, her mother Sue Marbe says, "'All her teachers have been coming up to her and saying they didn't realize how intelligent she actually was." Marbe herself says that she and her husband David were "blown away" by Lauren's score:
"Living in this area there is a lot of pressure to be the stereotypical Essex girl but she has a real nice support from the other girls. Most of the time Essex gets a bit of a negative press. People think all girls are blonde and all girls are dim. Lauren is blonde but it does seem like she has shaken the stereotype that all Essex girls are stupid."
Although this is hardly the last time that Marbe's intelligence will be undermined due to her appearance, that doesn't make it any less frustrating that the focus of this attention is on the so-called "contrast" between her looks and her IQ. You're smarter than all of them, Lauren Marbe. Get it, girl.
Image via Instagram
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