Whoo hoo! It’s very nearly Memorial Day weekend here in the United States — the long weekend where summer hatches, deep in your soul, and makes you go buy beer. I hope those of you in the States have a very relaxing Monday off of work, and that those of you elsewhere have a Monday that is relaxing. We’ll be back posting regularly on Tuesday! Until then:
– Huge thanks to Forever Young Adult, which gave SPOILED a great review, calling it “fantastically entertaining,” and saying it’s “a fun, frothy escape into the lifestyles of the rich and famous… ridiculously engaging.” Thank you! (Forever Young Adult) [ALSO! Buy it, if that sounds like fun to you! It's coming out 6/1 but it's been seen in certain book stores NOW and it's on Amazon and Barnes and Noble!]
– Speaking of SPOILED, don’t forget to come out and see us! We’re going to be at the Barnes and Noble at the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica on June 5th at 2pm; at Chaucer’s in Santa Barbara on June 7th at 7pm; at Vroman’s in Pasadena on June 11th at noon; the Union Square Macy’s in San Francisco on June 16th at 6pm; and Kepler’s in Menlo Park in the Bay Area on June 17th at 7pm! Details on our book site, as well as updates always to be found on our Facebook page, our twitter (we’re @fuggirls), or — as always — here at GFY! COME ON DOWN! We can’t wait to meet you all.
– Have you read about Hugette Clark, the heiress and recluse who recently died? She’s fascinating. Please, let someone be writing a book about her. (New York Times)
– I love Grub Street’s New York Diet feature — basically, a New Yorker will write down what he or she eats all week, and then people in the comments talk about how they don’t eat enough fiber/are alcoholics/have an eating disorder. It’s great. And I LOVE Wyatt Cenac, from The Daily Show. So it’s apt that he wrote maybe my favorite New York Diet ever. MARRY ME, WYATT. (Grub Street)
– Speaking of Grub Street, they picked a road-trip worthy food destination for every state. I’m hungry now. (Grub Street)
– Elizabeth Taylor’s home was surprisingly restrained, and looks like an awesome place to walk barefoot. (Architecture Digest)
– Love this piece about stylist Sasha Charnin Morrison’s new book; I agree with her that sometimes we learn the most from the most awful jobs. (Fashionista)
– Didja hear that Pop Up Video is back? We’re stoked. (Flavorwire)
–This Lady Gaga interview is well-nigh unbearable. I kinda think girlfriend needs a vacay. Also, I don’t want to shock you, but YET ANOTHER MONTH in which Rolling Stone has a women in her underwear on the cover. GET A GRIP OVER THERE. (Celebitchy)
– Lainey and I are in agreement about Katherine Heigl’s hair. (Lainey Gossip)
– You HAVE TO read this interview Courtney Love did with The Fix. It’s UNBEARABLE JUICY. Here’s Part One, and here’s Part Two. JUICY. Please, Courtney, write a tell-all. (The Fix)
– This essay waxes poetic about the artistry of the first season of Dynasty. It’s a great, thoughtful read — although, ultimately, I must respectfully disagree: I prefer my Dynasty with as much Alexis as possible. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to grab a cocktail and talk about Steven Carrington’s tenderness that transcends gender with the author. As we always say, how boring it would be if we all agreed? (Slate)
– Don’t judge, but I totally teared up when I saw this video, which asks Harry Potter’s cast to describe the experience of making the films in one word. (Vulture)
Comments (18):
I would be really impressed if *some* photographer out there had both the stones and the brains to convince Gaga to do a photo shoot in which she’s freshly showered, free of makeup, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and vegging out on the couch while a few of her more notorious costumes are hanging up on a coat rack in the corner. Now, THAT would be a shocking Gaga photo.
Hi! Tried to contact you through your Spoiled website (broken “contact us” link). If you will be in NoCal, you also should contact Books Inc. California Street (SF) or Burlingame would be a good location. Managers at both stores are great: there is a Pinkie’s in Burlingame but you may be able to get another local salon to sponsor some kind of fun nail funny business during the reading. Squeeze it in: give the suburban tweens a chance to be hilariously engaged by your book/update their Facebok statuses about this great new book they read! Email me if you want me to have a chat with either manager. Can’t wait to see it hit the best seller list. Which it will, oh yes, it will.
Hi Betsy! Thanks for letting us know the Contact Us link is broken — the one here still works (it’s fuggingitup AT gmail.com). And thanks so much for the info and the kind words!!! Our PR peeps at Poppy are on the case!!
In contrast, Stephen Fry found Gaga “smart, sweet-natured, adorable” (as he tweeted earlier) when he did this interview. Am conflicted. Affection and admiration for Fry are trying very hard to win me over… failing. (Although I do suspect my irritation with her comes largely from residual irritation with other Big Weird Stars, so that I find it hard to give her a fair hearing…)
@Jennifer:
That would be an awesome Gaga photo.
As for the cover? I’m just thinking that’s a normal day for the girl. I’m not saying I’m for the girl-in-underwear trend on Rolling Stone covers (and similarly in Vanity Fair, for that matter, where women are tarted up and men generally get head shots, the recent Rob Lowe ab-sfamewhoring excepted), but as it’s from torso up and it’s a normal bra that doesn’t involve tape-X’s over her nipples, then it’s pretty restrained.
Katherine Heigl’s hair is only acceptable if she’s shooting a biopic where she’s playing Carolina Herrera.
I can’t stand the idea that it’s okay to treat your assistants like crap. That somehow they learn more that way. The only thing I’ve taken away from jobs like that is not to work for those people again. I did the Hollywood assistant thing for years and it was awful. I will never understand how people can treat each other that way. I think you should pay it forward and be nice to your assistants once you get to a higher level instead of continuing the cycle.
I really like to HP video…. loved Emma
Note: I don’t think you should treat your assistants like crap, either. I’ve been treated like crap, but I’ve never treated people who worked for me badly. That being said, I DO think that those jobs can be — although terrible at the moment — really good learning opportunities. If only to learn what kind of boss YOU will be. I agree that it doesn’t make asshole boss behavior okay, but I think my own experience in a similar situation actually made me a tougher cookie (in a good way, not in a megalomaniac way) and I therefore found it personally valuable.
I have to say that I at least agree with Lady Gaga on her stance on the media calling her a famewhore. People don’t seem to realize, or recognize how much she has done for the gay community. ESPECIALLY for younger gays. I mean, how many top forty celebrities have written smash hit singles based entirely off the idea that being gay is okay? None of them. Sure, they might slip it into a filler track on their album, but never has their ever been a song of this popularity that has been as openly supportive of gay people EVER. Or that’s said gay without it meaning ‘stupid’ or as an insult. I think it’s hard for people who aren’t gay to really appreciate what this woman has done to support us, whether it be for our self-worth and acceptance, or the acceptance in the eyes of the rest of the country. I’ll put it this way: if I had to choose between Lady Gaga being highly tolerable (yes, I’ll admit she gets on my nerves too, sometimes) but mostly silent or metaphorical in her support of gay people (see, ALL OTHER POP STARS) or her being completely ridiculous, but immediately ready to stand up for scared, confused kids (not to mention an entire population) who have no one to stand up for them or explain to them that what they’re feeling is natural, that they are going to be okay (especially when the reality is that most of them are taught the exact opposite) then I choose the latter. I will always choose the latter. And I ask anyone else who reads this blog, or writes it, for that matter, which would you choose: the vagueness of “Firework”, “Raise Your Glass”, and “We R Who We R”, or the bold, statement-making “Born This Way”?
Samuel, for me, I actually think “Born This Way” would have had MORE of an effect if she hadn’t then made a video/performed it in a get-up that is the OPPOSITE of the way she actually WAS born. Do you know what I mean? If the message is that it’s okay to be just the way you are, then why isn’t she presenting herself born the way SHE actually was — aka, without having prosthetic horns stuck on her face, you know? I feel like it’s a weird mixed message. I really, really wish she’d decided to perform that particular song barefaced, as herself.
That being said, I think her outspokenness in support of the gay community is tremendous point in her favor. I just think she’d be doing herself a favor if she took a vacay and gave people a chance to miss her. I also am concerned that she’s not going to have the same capacity to reinvent herself, the way that Madonna did, and that people are going to get serious Gaga-fatigue in general (which I actually already have, obviously).
OH MY GOD, WHAT IS GOING ON ON KATIE HEIGL’S HEAD? Why does she have the most unfortunate real-life hair? In her movies it always looks so bouncy and shiny! That hair does not look bouncy or shiny. It looks like she was electrocuted. /o\
As much as I don’t care for K Heigl, I have to say it sort of looks like she and her mom might have just come from a spa date and have massage hair. You know when, towards the end of the massage they start creeping towards your scalp, you’re so relaxed as it flits through your mind that your hair is going to look like crap the rest of the day if you let them run their oil infused fingers in your hair. But damn, it feels so good you just go with it, hair be damned. That’s what her hair looks like, or maybe not.
I will not judge you for tearing up over the Harry Potter video. As long as you don’t judge me because I also welled up. Just…it was kinda beautiful.
I’m not sure what I’ll do once the fim is out and it’s all over – one month mourning period, maybe?
I just finished the 2 part Courtney Love article. I am both repulsed and horrified. I wish she had any kind of sense of what “real people” or maybe “the rest of the world” lives like. She is certainly an example of what not to do with your life. Sheesh.
I read Spoiled over Memorial Day, you guys, and it was great! I can’t wait for the next one! (There WILL be a next one, yes? Please?)
I’m a fan back to your X Files recaps, and I enjoy these each week. But I wish you’d included the “Memorial Day” part in your explanation of Memorial Day.
Love dthe HP video. And I can’t judge b/c I totally teared up too. I loved Emma Watson’s repsonse: “Well, it’s got to be ‘magical,’ hasn’t it.” She’s so classy.