The season 2 premiere of Gossip Girl is mere weeks away but already there are promo pics from the season premiere episode, entitled Summer, Kind of Wonderful, to have and to behold:

But in order to keep the spoiler stuff to a minimum for those of you who don’t want to see anything before the ep airs, I put the pics under the cut. Personally, none of the pics are too spoilery at all … they’re all pretty benign but I figure I’ll leave the choice up to you. After the jump, check out the pics …

The folks at The CW have just unleashed a whole slew of short new promo vids to tease for the upcoming second season of Gossip Girl … here is the promo vid titled Mother Chucker:

After the jump, check out 4 more Gossip Girl promo vids for your viewing pleasure …

Chace Crawford was snapped filming new scenes for the upcoming season of Gossip Girl in Long Island City in Queens, NY this week and homie was all dolled up like he had places to go … like home room. Here are a few pics of pretty Chace on the Queens streets set of Gossip Girl:

You can always count on the specter of Back to Schoolness to rear its ugly head right around the end of July … that is when the stores start advertising all those Back to School sales, encouraging parents to drag their kids into their stores to buy new Fall clothes and school supplies. Seeing Chace all dressed up like school is already back in session doesn’t really help matters. It always seems like summer vacation is gone almost as soon as it begins — there is still a month left of summer vacay in the US and it kinda already feels like it’s September. Thanks a lot, Chace :(

[Photo credit: Splash News]

A new batch of promo photos have been unleashed to tease for the upcoming second season of Gossip Girl which is set to debut on The CW this September 1, behold:

Much like the OMFG! promo ads that aired earlier this year, this new batch of promos are pretty hot and pretty risqué considering the show’s teen viewership. Love it. I can’t wait to watch new eps!!!

[Source]

Earlier today we learned about the new dude who will be joining the cast of Gossip Girl in the upcoming second season but let’s check in with a couple of our fave original characters from the show. Blake Lively and Penn Badgley, who are also romantically involved in real life, were snapped filming a romantic scene on the streets of NYC this week … here are a few pics of the couple preparing to get up close and personal with one another:

Aww … it looks like Penn is shy … performance anxiety, much? Fans of the show may recall that Serena van der Woodsen (Blake) and Dan Humphrey (Penn) ended their relationship on the show at the end of last season … it looks like the couple will be reconciling in the new season. After the jump, check out a few more photos of BlakeLey filming the rest of this scene, where the couple get up close and personal with one another’s tonsils …

It looks like Blair Waldorf, played by Leighton Meester, will be gettin’ herself a new boyfriend (and Chuck Bass, played by Ed Westwick, will be gettin’ a new rival) in the upcoming second season of Gossip Girl and People magazine has sniffed out a few deets about her new man. Here are a few pics of Leighton on the NY streets sets of GG with Patrick Heusinger, who will be playing a new GG character named Marcus along with a few deets about his role on the show:

Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) was spotted on more than one occasion with a new — and very good-looking — guy while spending time in the country this summer. The same guy was also spotted getting sweaty over a game of squash with Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick). So who is this guy and what’s his story? Read on to find out. The guy’s name is Marcus (Patrick Heusinger), a source close to the show tells PEOPLE. “He’s Blair’s new love interest and Chuck’s rival,” the source says. “Blair met him in Europe, introduced by Ben, whom she flew to Italy with after Chuck stood her up” … At the end of the squash scene, observers say Marcus and Chuck shook hands on the court and then Marcus gave Chuck a number, which Chuck programmed into his phone.

Meh. Maybe Chuck was just saving the dude’s digits in order to “keep his options open” ;) That would really spice up things on the show. While I’m glad that they are infusing fresh blood into the show, I doubt his arrival will be as exciting as the arrival of Georgina Sparks, played by Michelle Trachtenberg, was at the end of last season. Tho, considering the way the producers ended her run on the show (I felt it was INCREDIBLY LAME the way she exited the show simply by way of Blair telling on Georgina to her parents) I’m hoping they’ll be more creative with this new guy. He looks a bit old, don’t he? Maybe it’s the lighting but he looks too old to be a high school student … unless Blair will be gettin’ her freak on with an older man. Dun. Dun. Duuuuun. Now, that would be exciting, too … tho, I’d still prefer it if Chuck kept his options open :)

[Photo credit: Wireimage; Source]

The Gossip Girl gang have been scattered all over Manhattan this week either posting for photoshoots, mingling with the fans or actually working on shooting scenes for the show. Of all of the various things going on with the kiddies, I’m most interested in the movements of Ed Westwick, the young chap who plays playboy Chuck Bass on the show. Here are a few pics of Mr. Ed showing off both his day wear look and his evening wear look … in both instances the lad looks ready to shag:

I never knew I’d be a fan of shiny, maroon-colored formal wear but here it is … and here I am. It takes a special person to make semi-reflective clothing really look good — and Ed Westwick is one of those folks. I’m also a fan of the shorty shorts … again, not a good look for everyone and a damn good look for Ed. Penn Badgley may be running around with Blake Lively and Chace Crawford may have stopped running around with JC Chasez but I kinda like Ed single and ready to mingle. It makes the ogling much more palatable.

[Photo credit: INFdaily]

The young cast of Gossip Girl is featured in the August issue of Vanity Fair magazine wherein the mag pontificates on the state of Young Hollywood (as it is wont to do from time to time) and names the new members of the next wave of, what they call, Bright Young Hollywood (also on the list Johan Hill, Emma Stone, Josh Peck, the Jonas brothers and more). Here is the mag’s photo of the Gossip gang all decked in in their best designer finery, walking brazenly into the wind:

It’s been only five years since V.F. took a reading of Hollywood’s youthquake—featuring the likes of Lindsay Lohan, the Olsen twins, and Shia LaBeouf—but the celebrity terrain has gotten rougher … As for the class of 2008 pictured in these pages, they inhabit a far more predatory media-parasite environment, a Grand Theft Auto of “gotcha,” which so far they’re handling with aplomb. Easy to track, hard to trap, they belong to the iGeneration, for whom texting and Twittering are as natural as popping orange Tic Tacs, inhabiting and trailing invisible clouds of information wherever they go in the digital eco-system, where online and off-line, real life and Second Life, overlap. Boundaries dissolve everywhere they turn their pretty heads. It’s a short, sharp hop from the wholesome happy perk of Disney’s Hannah Montana, whose Miley Cyrus can’t show a little bare shoulder without the world flipping its bonnet, to the spite-laced hangovers of the CW’s Gossip Girl, where decadence is in full Baudelairean flower. There, every Coach bag contains wanton secrets. Treachery and bitchery gleam from every compact mirror. Youth and beauty have their privileges, among them being the ability and agility to roll out into the hazy dawn following the squalors of the night before and still possess the throwaway glamour of a Bryan Ferry song. A fan craze and a critical fetish, Gossip Girl has hit the sweet spot of the Zeitgeist, the X mark where sex appeal and pop sociology intersect and the story lines hold an illusion of seamlessness, as if they sprang full-blown from the brow of Entertainment Weekly.

Uh huh. Yeah, this article has a whole lot of big words which, I assume, is meant to take the topic of being young, rich and famous in Hollywood and elevate it to something akin to a post graduate thesis. Under normal circumstances, I’d be down … but I had a hard time getting thru this article (which you can read in full HERE) without kinda wanting to die a little bit. I mean, I get it … you write for Vanity Fair, you can mix and mingle big words with up-to-the-second pop culture references with the best of them. It all reads just a smidge too seriously for me but … whatevs, I get it.

But just to keep the Gossip Girl love going, here are a few photos of the Gossip guys all grouped together in a new photoshoot, styled to within an inch of their lives:

After the jump, more photos of Chace Crawford (who, according to VF mag prefers the iPhone over the Blackberry), Penn Badgley (iPhone) and Ed Westwick (BlackBerry) individually from this same photoshoot …

Alright … so we know that Blake Lively and Penn Badgley, co-stars on Gossip Girl, are romantically involved in real life (you may recall the couple were spotted canoodling while on vacay together in Mexico last month) and that their on-screen characters, Serena van der Woodsen and Dan Humphrey, used to be an item on the show … but the season finale left their romance in doubt. Here are a couple pics of Blake/Serena and Penn/Dan kissing pretty hardcore on the Tilden Beach set of Gossip Girl (currently filming here in NY this week) yesterday afternoon:

Is it fake kissing? Is it real kissing? Does it matter since Penn‘s shirt is wide open and he’s showing off his happy trail? HMMM … looks like a fun job, whatever is really going on.

[Photo credit: INFdaily]

While many young folks are getting their summer vacations underway, the Gossip Girl gang are starting to get back to work. Last week, we saw pics of the kids on location in the Hamptons here in New York (mostly hanging out backstage on set) and today we get to see pics of the kids on location in Port Washington, NY and shooting scenes at a beach in Far Rockaway, NY … check ‘em out:

I really love the summer looks that the gang is wearing. Leighton Meester looks really great in her summery frock. Ed Westwick‘s ensemble is fab, as usual. I just love the styling on this show … they do a really good job of dressing the characters exactly the way you’d imagine they’d dress in real life. The gang haven’t been bizzy just filming their dramatic scenes in Port Washington … they’ve also been doing some work in Far Rockaway cuz everyone knows that the beach is the place to be come summertime. More pics after the jump …