Like all reasonable people, we're totally excited about the upcoming Kanye album (also, we just found out about his Twitter feed). But after reading Fader's account of 808s & Heartbreak's apparently bonkers listening party, well… we're not exactly sure what to think. Held in an L.A. art gallery last night, it featured flashing lights, Mos Def, and "approximately forty nude women … wearing face-obscuring masks seemingly made of faux lamb's wool." Of course. What about the music? Apparently, "Love Lockdown" was no one-off experiment — Kanye barely raps, opting instead to sing through the Auto-Tune for nearly the entire album. And if 808s is a disaster, don't worry too much — he's promised another new album in June!

Vanessa Beecroft & Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak Listening Event [Fader via Prefix]

Twenty-eight-year-old actor Jason Ritter is in the midst of his own one-man October surprise. This Friday, he hits theaters in two vastly different roles: In the low-budget indie Good Dick, he stars opposite longtime real-life girlfriend Marianna Palka, also the film's writer-director, as a Los Angeles video-store clerk who draws an emotionally deadened young woman out of a claustrophobic cocoon of hostility and sexual antipathy. In Oliver Stone’s W., Ritter — who, as the son of the late John Ritter, knows a thing about family legacies — portrays Jeb Bush. Ritter spoke with Vulture about Oliver Stone, playing Jeb Bush, and his relationship with Palka.

Amid shocking charges that Beyoncé pilfered dance moves in her new video comes more bad news today: She's releasing an album by her alter ego! Her upcoming I Am will be a two-disc set, with one CD, I Am Beyoncé, featuring ballads and the other, I Am Sasha, containing upbeat tracks. Sasha is apparently short for Sasha Fierce, a persona Mrs. Jay-Z's been working on for at least the past three years (in a 2005 Vanity Fair interview, she blamed Fierce for her performance at the Grammys that year). To promote the album, she's launched a Website asking the question "Who Is Sasha Fierce?" Our guess? Someone who's never heard of T.I.P. or Chris Gaines.

Beyonce Vs. Her Alter-Ego Sasha: Videos From Two-Part “I Am” Album Hit the Net [Rolling Stone]
Great Moments In Pop Videos Ripping Off Other People's Choreography [Idolator]

"There's heavy gun play and major explosions but not a lot of blood, and we really were careful of the language. There were some takes where I admit I let loose a few bad words but you won't see them. Actually, I'm glad we didn't drop the 'F-bomb' in every scene." —Mark Wahlberg on Max Payne [Parade]

"Here's my favorite thing: My favorite thing is turning on YouTube and seeing William Shatner talk to me. When did that become my life? How did that occur?" —J.J. Abrams doesn't understand why William Shatner is still stalking him about Star Trek [MTV ]

"It must have been stunned by the lights or something because it just froze and I thought it was a toy. I just put it in my mouth. Then its wings started flapping and I got such a shock. I tried to pull it out too quickly and its head came off. It tasted all crunchy and warm … like a Ronald MCDonald's."—Ozzy Osbourne on bat biting [Classic Rock via Contact Music ]

Following last week's exciting announcement of Seth Rogen's in-development cancer comedy, Elton John tells GQ he's currently writing a film musical about AIDS: "It's about a guy on Broadway who is gay, has HIV and AIDS, and has to go back and face his wife and his kids that he left," he says. "It's very funny. The premise doesn't sound funny, but it is." The movie will apparently star Ben Stiller and be the second terrible-sounding project announced this week with his name attached. Also, now would be a good time to call your agent about that bird-flu sitcom pilot you wrote.

Sir Elton John's Weird Third Act [GQ]

We were a little surprised to read in Michael Riedel's column this morning of an upcoming Broadway production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, possibly starring Nathan Lane (as Estragon) and Bill Irwin (as Vladimir). "The revival will slip in just under the wire of the April 30 Tony Award cutoff date, setting the stage for what could be a fiercely contested race for Best Actor in a Play," Riedel explains. Makes sense, we guess, but just yesterday Playbill reported a cancellation of the pre-Broadway run of Godot in Seattle, with a spokesman for the Seattle Repertory Theatre saying that a commercial partner "decided not to go forward with a New York production of Godot and with the loss of this co-producer, plans for a Seattle to Broadway transfer were abandoned."

Indian author Aravind Adiga has been given the 2008 Man Booker prize for The White Tiger, his first-ever novel. A former writer for Time magazine, Adiga, 33, is the second-youngest author ever to win the award, a distinction made even more poignant by his premature baldness. Tiger, about a young chauffeur who rails against India's social hierarchy by murdering his employer, won "because the judges felt that it shocked and entertained in equal measure," according to the chairman of the selection committee. Accepting the award, which carries an $86,000 cash prize, Adiga said, "The first thing I am going to do is to find a bank that I can actually put it in."