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As excited as I am to see the US version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, due to hit theaters on December 21, the story you can read below has really soured me on wanting to support the film. Today, The New Yorker magazine will publish their postive review of the film 10 days before the movie studio wants them to publish the review. You see, Sony Pictures has placed an embargo on film reviews for Dragon Tattoo and they are exceedingly pissed off that The New Yorker has decided not to comply with that embargo. Sony claims that The New Yorker has “damaged” the film’s success by publishing their POSITIVE review early … but IMHO, Sony is the one doing the damage by acting out like a spoiled child.

On the day after Xmas last December we learned that 84 year old Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner got himself engaged to be married to 24 year old Playboy playmate Crystal Harris. For some strange reason, The New Yorker magazine decided to tag along with Crystal as she shopped for wedding dresses in a sort of “day in the life” feature in this week’s issue of their magazine (brilliantly titled Something Old, Something New).

Depite the fact that the troubled Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark managed to get thru a whole week without maiming or injuring any of its players, The New Yorker magazine decided to poke a little fun at the show with the cover of this week’s issue. Despite the calamities, tho, there is some good news for Turn Off the Dark. The show managed to out-gross Wicked to become the current most successful show on Broadway!

Neil Gaiman, who recently announced to the world that he and girlfriend/artist/musician Amanda Palmer have are engaged to be wed (I understand he proposed to her on New Year’s Eve by drawing a ring on her finger with a Sharpie marker!!!), is featured in this week’s issue of The New Yorker. For some strange reason, The New Yorker finally decided to feature Gaiman and his “beloved text” Coraline 8 years after it was published and about a year after it was made into a movie. Trust me, tho, as an active reader and subscriber of The New Yorker, I am not complaining … it is amazing to see one of my favorite authors featured in their pages. Here is an excerpt:

Gaiman, who is forty-nine and English, with a pale face and a wild, corkscrewed mop of black-and-gray hair, is unusually prolific. In addition to horror, he writes fantasy, fairy tales, science fiction, and apocalyptic romps, in the form of novels, comics, picture books, short stories, poems, and screenplays. Now and then, he writes a song. Gaiman’s books are genre pieces that refuse to remain true to their genres, and his audience is broader than any purist’s: he defines his readership as “bipeds.” His mode is syncretic, with sources ranging from English folktales to glam rock and the Midrash, and enchantment is his major theme: life as we know it, only prone to visitations by Norse gods, trolls, Arthurian knights, and kindergarten-age zombies. “Neil’s writing is kind of fey in the best sense of the word,” the comic-book writer Alan Moore told me. “His best effects come out of people or characters or situations in the real world being starkly juxtaposed with this misty fantasy world.” The model for Gaiman’s eclecticism is G. K. Chesterton; his work, Gaiman says, “left me with an idea of London as this wonderful, mythical, magical place, which became the way I saw the world.” Chesterton’s career also serves as a warning. “He would have been a better writer if he’d written less,” Gaiman says. “There’s always that fear of writing too much if you’re a reasonably facile writer, and I’m a reasonably facile writer.” Gaiman’s two most recent novels, “Anansi Boys” (2005) and “The Graveyard Book” (2008)—a retelling of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book,” set in a graveyard—débuted at No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list in their respective categories, adult and children’s literature. Yet Gaiman remains somewhat marginal. The Times of London recently referred to him as “the most famous writer you’ve never heard of.” The New York Times waited to review “The Graveyard Book” for several months after its publication, by which time it had won the 2009 Newbery Medal, one of the highest honors in children’s fiction, and been on the best-seller list for eighteen weeks. “I have at this point a critic-proof career,” Gaiman said. “The fans already knew about the book.”

If anything, I’m hoping THIS New Yorker piece will enlighten others as to the talent and genius of Neil Gaiman and will inspire new fans to seek out his work and fall in love. As I mentioned above, the piece begins its focus on the theme of children’s Gothic literature, and in particular, Gaiman‘s novella Coraline but it then goes on to discuss Gaiman‘s long history as a writer. The full article/interview can be read online HERE or in the pages of this week’s issue of The New Yorker. It’s a fabulous read, almost as fabulous as Gaiman‘s own work. If you are not familiar, I urge y’all to seek him out and see for yourselves why I am such a big fan :)

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Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails is the focus of an article published in this week’s issue of The New Yorker which reviews one of the NIN shows that recently took place at Terminal 5 in NYC and expounds more broadly on TR‘s career in music. The piece is a very good one for introducing those unfortunately unfamiliar with Nine Inch Nails (all 5 of you out there) and is, IMHO, a nice send off now that NIN won’t be performing live at the close of the Wave Goodbye Tour. Here are some exerpts from the New Yorker article on Nine Inch Nails:

In 1988, a twenty-three-year-old Cleveland resident named Trent Reznor decided to record several demos of his songs. He’d been playing in local bands since 1984, and had learned a fair amount about recording at a local studio named Right Track, where he’d started as a janitor and eventually become an engineer. Reznor was hoping to be signed to the independent Chicago label Wax Trax and to put out records alongside the aggressive electronic-music bands he admired, like Front 242 and Ministry. Instead, Reznor’s demos became the bulk of an album called “Pretty Hate Machine,” which was released on the TVT label under the band name Nine Inch Nails and went on to sell more than three million copies. Over the past twenty years, Reznor has produced seven Nine Inch Nails albums, and has written, played, and engineered almost all of the music himself. (Additional drummers have appeared on some of the albums, along with a smattering of guest instrumentalists and singers) … Nine Inch Nails and bands in their loose cohort have not traditionally been given much room on the radio; aside from a few hits on MTV, this is music that for the past two decades has lived in the headphones of angry teens. The typical Reznor topics are loathing and self-loathing. “Meet Your Master,” from “Year Zero” (2007), sounds like the cry of a downtrodden nation, or, at least, a downtrodden high-school basketball team: “You’ll do as you’re told, used to be the leader, now comes the time to serve. Maybe we’ll show some mercy, maybe you’ll get what you deserve.” It’s a direct echo of lines from a song on “Pretty Hate Machine”: “Head like a hole, black as your soul, I’d rather die than give you control. Bow down before the one you serve, you’re going to get what you deserve.” Reznor doesn’t have a particularly grim backstory—he grew up with his grandparents, liked to pole fish with his grandfather, took piano lessons, and played Judas Iscariot in his high school’s production of “Jesus Christ Superstar”—but he has written some very durable “Fuck you, Man!” songs … Reznor is completing a brief tour, which he has dubbed the “Wave Goodbye” tour; he claims that these will be the last Nine Inch Nails live shows for a long time. Sick of “repeating the same day over and over again,” he will concentrate on writing music and on developing a futuristic TV series based on “Year Zero.” Because his songs rely so heavily on looped samples and relentless, machine-made rhythms, Reznor has had to find musicians skillful enough to play along with lockstep noise. For this tour, he has assembled his strongest lineup yet. His current drummer, twenty-one-year-old Ilan Rubin, auditioned for Reznor last year by sending video clips of himself performing Nine Inch Nails songs. At Terminal 5, all I could see of Rubin was a mane of curly brown hair and long arms whipping through the air. (Reznor told the crowd, “I haven’t been able to find a set list yet that can kill him.”) The bassist, Justin Meldal-Johnson, switches easily between various electric and acoustic basses, and also plays keyboards and guitar with the more reserved stage presence of someone raised on indie rock. Robin Finck, who played guitar in one incarnation of Guns N’ Roses, reproduces some of the dozens of harsh guitar tones Reznor has written over the years, and is not averse to swinging his guitar on its strap like a pendulum and skipping across the stage when Reznor isn’t using it. Reznor spends most of each show planted at the front of the stage with his legs in a runner’s stance, gripping the microphone stand with both hands, now and then pogoing with the crowd. He takes phenomenal care in creating his myriad sonic hues, and presents them onstage without pauses or missteps. He’s not big on improvisation—a Nine Inch Nails performance has the smooth continuity of a Broadway show or a well-executed airlift. When the band played “March of the Pigs,” the guitars and screams and strobe lights all fired at the same moment: “Step right up! March! Push! Crawl right up on your knees!” Songs like “March of the Pigs” typify Reznor’s particular talents: lyrics and beats that are simple enough to encourage a visceral response, set against a structured noise that is strange enough to keep things from becoming too predictable.

This superbly written piece can be read in full HERE and I urge all NIN fans, whether they are familiar with The New Yorker or not, to check out this piece. While many feel that Trent Reznor and NIN speak to the disenfranchised and angry, I think it’s important to clarify that that aggressive clarity comes from a place of intelligence … which The New Yorker highlights adeptly. It’s a great read and I am so happy that The New Yorker decided to review the Terminal 5 show and enlighten on NIN as a whole. Having my favorite magazine publish a favorable article on my favorite band is quite a treat!!

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My fave magazine The New Yorker published a hilarious piece in this week’s issue that imagines what Britney Spears‘s Conversion Diary might read like if she were, as reports suggest, converting to Judaism. Without going into the actual rumors concerning her alleged religious endeavors, The New Yorker pokes fun at the mere notion that she might become a Jew … behold:

Britney Spears has never been one to take things slowly when it comes to relationships. So it’s no surprise she’s considering converting to Judaism to show her commitment to new bloke Jason Trawick. The singer has been spotted wearing a necklace with the Star of David symbol on during her world tour. She has even recruited a rabbi to help her study the faith. —The Sun.

Shalom, Diary:

I think Rabbi Pearlstein is really pissed at me. Today in Jewish class he was going through the Halakha, which I thought was the Jewish word for Hannah Montana but turns out to be like a whole bunch of boring laws about days of the week and pork and shit, and I was like, “Rabbi P., is there any way you could break this down into a bunch of tweets? I’ll read it on my phone on the way to rehearsal.” He got so mad those curls on the sides of his head started shaking. (I don’t know why he won’t let my stylist snip them off. They’re not a good look for him, K.?) On the plus side, he taught me this awesome Jewish trivia fact: You don’t have to call Jewish people “Jewish people.” It turns out they don’t mind being called plain old “Jews.” LOL.

Shalom, Diary:

Here’s how Brit sees it: When a person is converting to Judaism, he or she should totally get points for things they’ve done that already make them part Jewish. Like, let’s say to be a Jewess you need twenty points. I think I have already earned points for the following Jewish thingies:

—Dating a hot Jew: two points. I think dating a Jew makes you partly Jewish, and the hotter the Jew the more points. Dating Jason wins me two points (tho I would get way more if I was dating that über-hot Jew in Maroon 5). Dating someone you met on JDate and basically just settled for gets you no points. (Snap!!!)

—Kissing another Jewess on TV: four points. O.K., maybe this isn’t in the Torah or anything, but it is a great moment in Jewish history, and personally, as a Jew-in-training, I am very proud to have been a part of it: the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, when I kissed Madonna, who is basically even more Jewish than Rabbi Pearlstein. Madonna is so Jewish I call her Mezuzah. (LMAO, Brit!!!) This is because of all the hot Jewish boyfriends she has had over the aeons, including her latest, Jesus Luz. (Everyone knows Jesus is a Jewish name—look it up.) If you count all of Madonna’s points for dating hot Jews, she would have eighty, which would make her equal to like four Jews, which must be more than there are in all of major-league baseball.

—Being persecuted: eight points. Rabbi Pearlstein goes on and on and on about how persecuted the Jews were in olden days, but, hello, did they ever have to deal with TMZ shoving a camera in their crotch every time they got out of a limo? I don’t think so!!!

If you add my two points for dating a hot Jew to my four points for kissing a Jewess to my eight points for being persecuted, you get (come on, iPhone calculator) . . . fourteen Jew points!!! I should totally be able to get the other six I need by buying a Star of David toe ring.

Shalom, Diary:

Got verklempt last night with Jason when I told him how close I was to joining his tribe and all. Felt kinda guilty that my spiritual journey has been so easy, what with my already being mostly Jewish, but then Jason explained that feeling guilty just makes you Jewisher, so it’s all good.

HAHAHAHHAHA! There is one more imagined entry in Britney‘s Conversion Diary HERE, which — if you enjoyed reading thus far — is a must read as well. I never thought two of my fave things — Britney Spears and the high-brow humor of The New Yorker — would ever come together and, yet, here it is. It’s funny, right?

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