Nylon Blogs

Several years ago, the New York Times famously followed the “life” of fictional author JT Le Roy, peeling back every layer of the novelist’s identity until they at last revealed him to be a hoax.

Now they’ve taken a totally different stance on fictional characters, offering readers the chance to send their questions into their ArtsBeat blog…

For Big Bird.

The Sesame Street staple will be taking queries from New York Times readers all week, and responding online to a select few.

Are there questions we want to ask Big Bird?

Not really -

But if you ask Oscar the Grouch to come onto the scene, send us an email - we’re SO there.

There will be plenty of action on nylonmag.com tomorrow, but we don’t mind directing you somewhere else for a tiny bit of time.

It’s to TV.com, where Taylor Kitsch - aka Tim Riggins on Friday Night Lights - will host a live video feed tomorrow to take questions from fans.

We’ll be tuning in, especially after remembering our story with the actor in May’s Young Hollywood issue, but  we’ll have to resist the urge to Skype their offices and scream like batty fan girls.

But if any of you want to do that, we’ll be rooting for you.

Click here tomorrow at 1 PM Pacific Time / 4 PM Eastern Time to join the chat.

It shouldn’t be too hard to remember Lisa Solberg, the LA-based painter and Element EDEN ambassador who we interviewed in this month’s issue about her unconventional artistic process.

Did reading about her technique of spraying champagne all over her paintings or her skillfully for writing backwards intrigue you?

If you’re nodding right now, check out this three-minute video posted by Element of Solberg painting on a canvas quadruple her size, while listening to the sad and dreamy voice of Nico.

If you’re still not interested, maybe the fact she alternates too-awesome-for-painting outfits (one of which includes an oversized Michael Jordan jersey, circa the Chicago Bull’s) will do it?
–ALEXANDRA HOFFMAN

With True Blood, Entourage, and LOST all done for the season, it’s time to infuse some new TV into our routine.

There’s Gossip Girl, sure, plus Glee and our creepy new favorite Flash Forward, but there’s also - sort of - Friday Night Lights.

Why “sort of?”  Because right now, it’s only airing on Direct TV - something New York City (home of NYLON) doesn’t even have.

But we do have the internet, and thanks to a site called Broken Controllers, we can watch Friday Night Lights the day after it airs.

Office crush Taylor Kitsch comes back along with Aimee Teegarden and Zach Gilford, but the cast also has a new face that we’re really excited about -

The excellent young actress Jurnee Smollett, left.

You may remember her performance as a young Southern coed in The Great Debaters or back when she starred in Eve’s Bayou as a child.

We hope the writers give her a lot of scenes.

Before Rebecca went home with the flu (a genuinely scary occurrence), she mentioned Scream as a fashionable scary movie.

It’s true Drew Barrymore’s crop top was adorable, but maybe that’s part of the problem - Scream was funny and biting and great, but scary?  Eh.

The same thing happens with a lot of “scary” movies.  Hitchcock films, at this point, are more beautiful than frightening.  Gory slasher flicks - even good ones like Disturbia - are just fun.  And then you get something like Turistas, which sadly just sucks (sorry, Liv).

So which movies are actually scary to you?

I’m voting for “Oh my god, that could actually happen” movies like Children of Men,  War of the Worlds, and the upcoming The Road.  Also, the dinosaur / Stravinsky sequence in the original Fantasia scared the crap out of me as a child, and I’ve vowed to never see it again.

What about you? What’s actually a scary movie?

xo faran (whose wardrobe is also, occasionally, scary)

HBO tweeted us this fantabulous photo of Kid Cudi and the actor Bryan Greenberg on the set of the new HBO show How to Make It in America.

The upcoming series, which is rumored to be like Entourage but for New York (so, uh, money and real estate instead of fame?) currently films all around the city, and stars Bryan plus Shannyn Sossamon and Lake Bell.

That means you can expect more random photos of the cast (which also might include The O.C.’s Samaire Armstrong, if the rumors are true) from various upcoming parties.

Hopefully, you can also expect a rerun return of Unscripted on HBO - it was a really amazing (and hysterical) series produced by Brad Pitt and George Clooney about the lives of struggling actors in NYC, and it starred Bryan Greenberg, along with Frank Langella as his really creepy acting teacher.  OMG it was so good.

As for you, Mr. Greenberg, now that you’re in town, if you ever want to stop by our office and do a little NYLON TV, we’d love to have you.

Your friend Mr. Cudi over there recently did the same thing…

Score!

Michelle Obama will appear on Jay Leno’s 10 pm time slot this Friday.

That means you can run home, scarf some pizza, and check out whatever fabulous outfit the First Lady has on before resuming your normal Friday party schedule.

She’ll probably wear Narciso Rodriguez or Thakoon, but what if she goes J. Crew?

Or even their downtown line, Madewell?

Can Mrs. Obama rock boyfriend jeans?

We bet she could…

The ’80s had Siskel and Ebert.

The ’90s had A.O. Scott and Elvis Mitchell.

The ’00s had David Carr’s awesome Carpet Bagger blog and the unbeatable Ain’t It Cool News.

And now?

We’ve got Kelly Bruce and Rebecca Willa Davis.

They’ll go see any movie -

As long as there’s popcorn and Sour Patch Kids involved.

Oooh yeah.

Dear 2012 Producers,

We saw your poster in the movie theater today.

And basically, we were like, “What the hell?”

It’s not that the premise of your movie sounds absurd (but yes, it does).

It’s not that we’re baffled by your choice of John Cusack as the only man who survives The End (but yes, we are).

It’s really just the Buddhist monk standing in the middle of the mountains and the tag line “We Were Warned.”

Let’s forget that every year, another religion / “prophet” / frat house Magic 8 Ball predicts our collective demise.

Let’s instead give you the benefit of the doubt that yes, as far as 2012, we were warned.  By the ancient Mayans.

So what’s the Buddhist kid doing in your movie?!  Come on!

(And as long as we’re on the End of the World kick, let’s just say this - The Road is going to be the best movie of this year.  And the most terrifying.  And there will be no Buddhist monks in the artwork.)

This afternoon, the NYLON Digital team will be at a screening of Where the Wild Things Are.

We’ll have a review of the movie up on the site soon after, but in the meantime, we’ll be live-Twittering from the cinema.

Want to follow along?

Hit us up at twitter.com/nylonmag

Or check out our facebook, facebook.com/nylonmagazine, where we’ll post a few cameraphone pics from inside the theater (shhh!)

RAWR!