• We were freaked-out and fascinated by mysterious food art.

N+1 founder and sad young literary man Keith Gessen sat down for a Big Think interview last week. He touched on everything from "Dating as a Historical Phenomenon" to "Is political writing political activism?" But the only bit I was curious enough to watch was his response to the question, "Why does Gawker hate you?" According to Gessen, it's because Gawker types once read a lot of books, then we gave up on the value system of books, but we're wrong and we will lose! I don't know, man; I just think it's annoying how much you talk about Harvard. The full clip of this latest volley in New York's most frivolous cultural clash, below:

Now that he's the presumptive nominee, Barack Obama no longer has to attract voters with meaningless pleasantries and promises of ponies. No, now he's free to switch to real talk. No bullshit. At his Saturday rally in Oregon, Obama told the United States to stop whining and go on a goddamn diet: "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," he said. But we want to drive around eating corn all day! Can we at least continue criticizing your wife for hating America? Apparently not, as we learned on Good Morning America. Clip of that attached.

Well, it's almost here. The grim specter that's been threatening us ever since a young freckled girl did a screen test for The Parent Trap is within striking distance. Living Lohan, the reality show in which actress Lindsay's monster of a Mama Rose, Dina, drags other daughter Ali through showbiz hell is all set to premiere next month. "Ali just loves this business and, unfortunately, I have to manage her," Dina sighs in a preview clip of the show. She also gets on the horn about some "fake" photos of Lindsay (who, respectably, chose not to be involved with this in anyway) that ended up on the internet. Her lawyers will be contacted, she barks. Ali stands by and giggles oddly. And somewhere deep inside me, my soul falls down. Gurgle. Hope she'll do "Rose's Turn". Second encore, maybe! Brief, intolerable preview clip after the jump.

Last night's Saturday Night Live featured an hysterical sketch in which The Office creator Ricky Gervais explains the hit sitcom's Japanese origins. Ricky Gervais and Steve Carell all in one clip? Yes! Enjoy it after the jump.

I...god I'm the last person on this site who should be posting gossip...singer...stuff like this but everyone else is still out at bars and I'm drunk but here is Amy Winehouse playing with eating? baby mice along with what...looks like...Pete Doherty. God I hope any of this is really true because I'm going to bed. HERE IS THE VIDEO. It got a lot of views.

· Today on The View, Teri Hatcher explained that the only reason she is subjecting us to her singing is for the little children. Well the little children are all dead now, Teri. Your singing killed them. Happy? [The View]
· Homeless no longer! [NY Times]
· Goodness, is it already time to crown another World's Ugliest Dog? It is! But how to choose? They're all so ugly! Oops, Pee Wee Martini just made us puke on our keyboards. We have a winner. [Sonoma-Marin Fair 2008]
· And when you get accustomed to that end, try the other! [cartoonbrew.com via b3ta]
· If we could get serious for a moment, Richard Simmons is crazy for Cranergy. He will be missed. [ET Online]

Apparently Justin Timberlake and Madonna’s time spent collaborating in the studio was far from the sexy joy ride in needle park we originally envisioned. As Timberlake tells the altar-bound Ellen in this clip, the pair actually spent most of their time butting their beautiful heads over song lyrics. As surprised as we were to learn that either one of them actually writes their own lyrics in the first place, we were just as unsurprised by Timberlake’s continuous failed attempts to prove how funny he can be without cue cards. Sounding both desperate for a laugh and downright mean for daring to put down the vocally challenged but still iconic Madonna, we think the trouser snake should give up his comedy routine schtick for good.

If you are anything like us, your brain is total mush by 4pm on Friday. Fortunately, Defamer has the perfect solution to get you shipshape by bar time. That's right, wrap both of your hands around this week's Dirt Sandwich and take a giant, yummy bite. Our fearless and peerless videographer Molly McAleer has packed this week's installment chock fulla tasty morsels that are guaranteed to make your mindgrapes dance. You want examples? How about Entertainment Tonight's tantalizing tease of John Mayer being held at gunpoint? Or Tori Spelling's curious confession to Extra that she's aiming to play a "sexy MILF" in the new 90210? If neither of those made your brain start secreting heavy doses of serotonin, we're pretty sure Sarah Jessica Parker's Frankenstein hands oughta do the trick. Enjoy the weekend, kids!

Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is a slick, smooth, charming guy. He would've been a dangerous nominee, because he's TV-friendly and quick-witted in a folksy, unthreatening way. But he's actually a rar-right nutcase. And sometimes his jokes fall flat. As in the clip above. If you can't get a laugh from telling a "someone is going to shoot Barack Obama" joke in a talk at the NRA then your delivery needs work, we say. Oh, also we say: wtf.

It's been two surprisingly brisk years since M. Night Shyamalan unleashed his last utterly unwatchable labor of love upon us. That would be Lady in the Water—a project Disney would successfully argue was legitimate grounds for divorce, and that would ultimately go on to teach Warner Bros. a valuable lesson about never making movies about swimming pool mermaids hunted by weredogs with grass fur, regardless of how compelling the pitch sounded in the room. During that time, the highly self-regarded auteur and sometimes-actor has been toiling on yet another secretive project: The Happening.

The artist BLU drew this gigantic animation on city walls and is now getting the attention he deserves with over half a million views on YouTube and Vimeo. See it below and restore your faith in the humanity's creative power.

· OK, we think we can officially say we're excited about a new fall show: That would be Opportunity Knocks on ABC, Ashton Kutcher's contribution to the, "Hey—let's throw a block party game show!" genre. So much to love here, from the kid-sister diary hunt, to the whack-a-pottery challenge, to the identify-your -infant-brother's -screams quiz round. And just think how awesome it will be when they pack up the show and move it to the ghetto! [TV Week]
· Why yes, we do think we've seen this halo-effect used to great success on previous comedy one-sheets. [/Film]
· Jessica Alba radiates the unmistakable, bird-flipping glow of a woman nearing childbirth. [celebslam]
· An anonymous bidder paid $15 million for Takashi Murakami's jizz-vortex manga sculpture: someone who sounded a whooooole lot like Kanye West affecting a matronly British accent. [Gawker]
· Want to kill a few hours? Thighs Wide Shut collected the mother of all Indy ephemera link dumps, including a listing of every person ever really named Indiana Jones. (They were all born in the 19th century.) [thighswideshut.org]
· Stumble along with the ANTM finalists as they attempt to plug CoverGirl's new Blashtlashtlashblahsshsblashssplash! (Congratulations, Whitney.) [B-Side Blog]

On last night's splendiferous, Sayesha-ejecting American Idol results show—like nasty walnut chunks in maple ice cream, she was utterly ruining our pure, David-savoring experience—third season Idol winner Fantasia Barrino stopped by the Karoakedome to perform. And yet "perform" seems not quite the sufficient term in this instance—rather, she seemed literally belched from some fiery, subterranean afterworld miles beneath CBS Television City, accompanied by a chorus of winged backup-demons. The audience—many of whom were still enjoying the pleasant, torpor-inducing effects of David Archuleta singing about "fishes in the ocean"—reacted as though they had just been smacked against the side of the head with a hooker's club foot.

Besides creating one of the world's most successful tech companies, Larry Ellison invented the 5 o'clock shadow plus blazer look. He drives an Audi R8 to the gym — the car Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson described as "like smearing honey onto Keira Knightley." Ellison also owns a gigantic high-tech yacht on to which he disappears for months at a time. Face it, people: He is Tony Stark, known as Iron Man in the press. And his employees think so, too. "Having watched the movie at an Oracle employees premiere," one writes, "I can agree and I'm sure so do my fellow Oracle employees." Clips for comparison, below.

As we noted yesterday, Jack Black took the liberty of announcing that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are expecting twins during a pre-taped interview on The Today Show, which we all got to see for ourselves this morning. One would think Black’s blooper would ruffle Jolie’s feathers, but as this clip shows, Jolie handled the situation with breezy laughter and an amicable Oh Well! shrug. And as it turns out, Black wasn’t the only Kung Fu Panda co-star to fill everyone in on The Chosen Two’s glorious impending arrival. Once again for no apparent reason, fading funny man Dustin Hoffman decided to reveal the twins’ due date during the same segment. When Brangelina is expecting and which nationality Jolie has selected for her next soccer team members, after the jump.

· Here's your first glimpse at Jay Mohr's new CBS sitcom, Project Gary. Did that kid just say, "Tap it?" OMG! He did! LOL! [TV Week]
· People, for crying out loud, it's a picture of Curious George! It's not like he put "OBAMA in '08" underneath a picture of Chim-Chim from Speed Racer. Now that would have been racist. (And just plain mean.) [Boston Herald]
· It's the America's Next Top Model finale liveblog with the Jezebelers! But don't peek yet, 'cause they are three hours ahead. [Jezebel]
· Woody Allen: "Can I ask you what your favorite commandment is?"
Billy Graham: "Right now, it's Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother."
Woody: "Really? That's my least favorite commandment." [BoingBoing]
· Anne Heche is worth $34,840.93, says Anne Heche. [TMZ]

Click to viewWe really take no pleasure in informing you that two of our idols—early tickle-machine adopter Howard Stern and top-heavy country legend Dolly Parton—are currently at war, but such is the case. To get you up to date, last week, Stern broadcast edited portions of her self-narrated audio book to form several beyond-filthy phrases. (Like, seriously: NSFW. This is the kind of stuff you imagine hearing at a 4 a.m. "Aristocrats" session around Bob Saget's jacuzzi after a night of Tuaca shots and blow. As such, it's hilarious.) Parton has had a listen, and released this statement in response:

While the Michael Hirschorn era at Vh1 will likely be best remembered for bringing pop culture talking heads (I Love The..., Best Week Ever), washed-up celebs (Surreal Life) and horny musicians (Flavor Of Love, Rock Of Love) into millions of homes, there is one program from his tenure that was just as critically acclaimed as it was popular. Back in the summer of 2006, a four-part documentary called The Drug Years aired to rave reviews — Variety called it a "fascinating insight into the growth of the counterculture and ... its eventual hangover" — and arguably became the first series in the channel's history that was equally appealing to pop culture enthusiasts and intellectuals. Now, after nearly two years worth of research and production, the same creative team that put The Drug Years together has returned with a brand new four-part doc entitled Sex: The Revolution. Defamer recently sat down with series writer Martin Torgoff and executive producer Brad Abramson to talk about the series that, as Torgoff explains, puts its focus on "how the sexual revolution fed into the dynamic of what became the Culture Wars in the United States."