A Note About Splitsider
Since Splitsider launched in 2010, the goal of our tiny island on the internet has been simple: to keep you up to date on all the best comedy […]
ByMegh Wright
funny business
Vulture Just Got a Whole Lot FunnierSplitsider.com has had a significant influence on our approach to comedy journalism, which is why we’re so excited to have acquired it.
The Vulture Reading Room: In Defense of WetlandsIn his latest dispatch, Sam Anderson defends Charlotte Roche’s novel after making one small concession: “Roche is a black hole of literary talent.”
ByLane Brown
Chuck Klosterman on the ‘Difference Between Hipsters and Retards’We admit it: We harbor a secret crush on Chuck Klosterman. He has a nerdy hotness about him not unlike what Natalie Portman must have seen in Moby. We even almost joined the Facebook group “If Chuck Klosterman spit in my face, I’d stop taking showers,” but then we promised our career counselor we wouldn’t. Er, anyway, last night we went to the Highline Ballroom for a reading of his upcoming novel, Downtown Owl (even though we found it a little hard to follow). Over the course of the next half hour, we learned a few things about our little demigod:
• Chuck used to have a few nicknames back in the day: Curtains (after a pair of unfortunate sweatpants his mom made him), Facehead (also interchangeable with Headface), and Joaquin Andujar.
• Chuck does not think that rock and roll is dead. In fact, he thinks “it is pretty good right now.”
• No one ever has sex in Chuck’s books because he identifies more with people being rejected.
• Chuck is going to be teaching in Germany for fourteen weeks and what he will miss most is his girlfriend.
We raised our hand to ask a question. So, how do nerdy guys get chicks? “Well,” Chuck said, “it’s like this. You used to be able to tell the difference between hipsters and homeless people. Now, it’s between hipsters and retards. I mean, either that guy in the corner in orange safety pants holding a protest sign and wearing a top hat is mentally disabled or he is the coolest fucking guy you will ever know.” And in that moment, nerdy Chuck Klosterman got just a little bit hotter. —Lauren Salazar
‘Gossip Girl’ Will Return Before the Summer!If you’re wondering what’s going to happen now that the strike is over, head over to Vulture’s Poststrike Encyclopedia. They have a complete roster of what shows are coming back and when and how. And as far as we’re concerned, the best news is that Gossip Girl will be back to complete its season before the summer! They still have 9 of their 22 planned episodes to go. It will be back in April and might complete all the rest of the hour-long shows going into the summer. Guess what that means? Months more coverage of the Greatest Show of Our Time! And up to nine more exhaustive episode recaps! That’s okay, take a minute to revel in your own joy. We’d write more, but we think we just blacked out.
Vulture’s Poststrike Encyclopedia: When Will My Show Be Back? [Vulture]
Jay-Z: From Marcy to Madison AvenueJay-Z has been shilling brand names in songs and commercials for his entire life. But now that he’s retired from Def Jam, he’s decided he might as well make a career of it. The Times this morning reports that the rapper-mogul formerly known as Shawn Carter is partnering in a new ad agency, Translation Advertising. An offshoot of Translation Consultation and Brand Imaging, overseen by Interpublic, the agency will help mainstream advertisers like Hewlett-Packard and McDonald’s be cooler about dealing with the consumers the Times alternatingly calls “minority,” “multicultural,” and “urban.” “There are people who don’t understand the culture,” Hova told the Times, referring to a cell phone commercial “that shows guys break dancing in the phone store … not something we do.” The work, Hova told the Times, is “part of the natural growth” of his career. Now, if only Fergie and Gwen Stefani would transition already.
A New Venture for Jay-Z, on Madison Avenue [NYT]
NewsFeed
Giant Cardboard Tubes of Farm Crops Coming to Art Museum
At Grub Street, we generally only encounter natural, growing things when they arrive dead, on our plates, at restaurants. But P.S. 1, unlike us, has committed to growing crops along the locavore model. In giant cardboard tubes. As part of an installation. You’ll understand when you read about it on Vulture.
P.S. 1 Young Architect Winners Would Like You to Eat Cabbage This Summer [Vulture]
Related: Video: My Empire of Dirt
RIP Hilly Kristal
Hilly Kristal, like his legendary East Village rock club, CBGB, is dead; he succumbed to lung cancer this morning at the age of 75. But, thanks to the magic of recordings and photos and video and especially YouTube, Kristal, like CBGB, will live on. Our colleagues at Vulture dug up a YouTube clip of the Ramones at CBGB in 1977, and they present it as a tribute to Kristal, his club, and the bands he nurtured in its heyday. Take a look.
CBGB Founder Hilly Kristal Dies at 75 [Vulture]
Hilly Kristal, Founder of CBGB, Is Dead [NYT]
R. Kelly Comes to Greenwich Village, Premieres Videos, Wows Vulture
R. Kelly! Live in New York! For the official premiere of Trapped in the Closet: Chapters 13–22! Omg omg omg! Okay, yeah, so he barely said anything. And wouldn’t talk to press. And didn’t have much of a boldface-name turnout. So what? Vulture was at the IFC Center for that momentous occasion, and its minions report back.
R. Kelly Even More Awesome in Person [Vulture]
‘The Simpsons Movie’ Is Here! Woo-Hoo!The Simp-sons. Yup, today’s the day, and The Simpsons Movie is out. Over at the Times, A.O. Scott rather liked it. Over at Vulture, Dan Kois didn’t. (And over at NPR, where David Edelstein is opining because there’s no new mag next week, he didn’t much either.) There’s plenty of Simpsons Movie coverage — text! Video! IM conversations! — waiting for you at Vulture.
‘The Simpsons Movie’ coverage [Vulture]
Sex and the Big Screen
You’re as surprised as we are, no doubt. A Sex and the City movie, which we’d long thought was dead — Kim Cattrall wouldn’t play nice with the other girls, we were told, and Sarah Jessica had moved on to bigger and better things, like TV commercials — is actually, really, finally happening. This news comes from today’s Variety, which also reports that series creator Michael Patrick King will write and direct the film and that New Line Cinema — like HBO, a Time Warner unit — will produce it. We’d like to say we’re happy about this development, but we live in the West Village and we’re not looking forward to the additional influx of fanny-pack-wearing Midwesterners this movie will deliver. They’re only cupcakes, people.
Dust Off Your Manolos: ‘Sex and the City’ Heading to the Big Screen [Vulture]
Beverly Sills Has SungBeverly Sills, the Brooklyn gal born Belle Silverman, died of cancer yesterday at 78. She was a quintessentially American diva — a quin- tessentially New York diva, even — who bridged the high and low worlds of grand opera and American pop culture as a charismatic broad who could get things done. New York’s Christopher Bonanos offers an appreciation at Vulture.
Beverly Sills Dies at 78 [Vulture]
We Cannot Believe We Continue to Watch ‘Entourage’So we were sitting there around 10:30 last night, more or less hating ourselves for just having spent a half-hour of our life watching Entourage. Had it always been this obnoxious? Did we just earlier not notice because we needed the comedown from The Sopranos, needed a half-hour of self-impressed vacuousness in which we could decompress? Or was it newly, differently bad lately, specifically last night? Good thing, then, we’ve got Vulture and its Entourage Guilt/Pleasure Index. Adam Sternbergh examines last night’s installment — including, as he points out, the most unpleasant mental image ever conjured by a television show — and declares the episode almost entirely guilty. Good to know it’s not just us.
The ‘Entourage’ Guilt/Pleasure Index: Turtle Gets a What? [Vulture]
