Parry Gripp’s YouTube hits include Shopping Penguin, Spaghetti Cat, and Hamster on a Piano. He’s been called a Weird Al Jankovic for the internet age. But it might be more accurate to say that Parry Gripp a leading light of the YouTube artist movement. …more

Barefoot Contessa: Back To Basics. My version of cooking usually involves a box, water, and a microwave, but Ina Garten breaks it down in a way that even culinary Tripp Palins like myself can grasp. I know what you’re thinking, “But this is a cookbook. You don’t read a cookbook, unless you’re cooking.” Wrong. The format of nearly all of the Barefoot Contessa books includes essays on domestic necessities including entertaining, place setting, floral arranging, selecting ingredients, and the like. Garten’s writing style is breezy and effortless, with a large dose of personality, minus the Food Network douchebaggery and BAM! Nearly all of the recipes can be adapted to vegan or vegetarian diets, and the “Easiest Brownie Pudding” will have you drooling down the spine. Featuring some of the best food photography around. Loved it.

“The site was becoming unmanageable as just a hobby… so I decided I either needed to quit the site or turn it into something I could live off of… The bigger challenge was how to balance taking the site seriously while simultaneously not worrying about it too much.” …more

Paging all 1990s hard rock fan-girls, Josh Freese is yours…for a price. The drumming genius, who has been a member of The Vandals, Devo, and A Perfect Circle, in addition to backing countless artists, ranging from Avril Lavigne to Rob Zombie, is coming out with his sophmore solo album, Since 1972. But much in the way he began hitting the skins — as a preteen prodigy backing a Top 40 cover band at Disneyland — his marketing attempt is equally weird and unique. For $7 you get a digital download of the CD. For $50 you get the CD, a DVD, T-shirt, and a “Thank you” phone call from Freese. For $20K you get to play miniature golf with Maynard James Keenan of Tool. And then you get dropped at the side of the highway. And all of it goes up on YouTube. For a full rundown of what’s shaping up to be quite possibly the greatest marketing campaign of all time, check out Soundcheck on the OC Register.

“We really are grateful to be able to do this for our job, and we’re grateful we’ve been able to travel and meet all these weirdos.” …more

Adam Serwer peels back the layers of how hip-hop has helped to repropagate traditionally American ideals, even while struggling against the stereotype of being a race-related, superficial youth genre.

“I used to think that you had to be in a lot more pain and going through a lot more struggle to really prove that you were working hard, but then I realized that was just working really inefficiently.” …more

T Cooper is has been labeled a transgender writer, but to boil it down to a phrase so simple and limiting is an insult. …more

Mary Roach has written best-selling books about dead bodies, ghosts, and fucking. Her work is accessible and unflinching, presenting a variety of quirky or unsavory topics in a manner distinctive and engaging. …more

It’s rare to wade through the kiddie pool of the Internet and be taken out at the ankles by a website that’s the equivalent of a great white shark. The High Definite is such a site. A combination of random entertainment, snark, and style, it’s what most men’s magazines wish they could be.

There are “High Definite Exclusives” which include comprehensive coverage on such riveting subjects as Boner Jams of the 1990s and a list of the best sites that specialize in lists. There are random links that lead you to …more

Keeping the fires of fledgling feminism stoked is the responsibility of the Alapine lesbian community in the region of the Appalachians in northeastern Alabama. “Community” has become a loose term in this day and age, reflecting more a mentality during parades, parties, and politics than an actual, well, community. Not so with Alapine, as reported by the New York Times. …more

 Bebe won a Grammy in 2005, and then promptly retired. These days, when there are pitifully few female Latin artists on the charts, this revolutionary gypsy songstress is sorely missed. In case you missed her flash in the pan, here’s a link to the video for “Malo,” the song that won her a golden phonograph.

This quirky, Spanish-language artist and actress eschewed the traditional marketing trajectory for a woman in la musica latina. (Notice how Shakira bleached her hair remarkably fast once she started catching attention in North America.) Usually buxom, sexy-fied women in chaps or low-cut blouses croon or hip-shake their way through marketing an album, or, worse yet, mimic the recycled, Hot Topic-laden advertising attempts that American pop-tarts endure. Bebe instead opted to play her guitar and curse so furiously on camera that the Grammy committee needed to mute sections of her performance on awards’ night.

On top of her musical pursuits, Bebe (aka, Nieves Bebe Rebolledo) …more

Kent Rogowski’s unraveled and reraveled Bears are regular teddy bears taken apart, turned inside-out, and stitched back together. While this may be the stuff and stuffing that childhood nightmares are made of, the inverted critters are pretty endearing. Metaphor? Message? Cry for help? No matter what you take from it, inside-out teddy bears just look pretty cool. …more

Susannah Breslin is the author of The Reverse Cowgirl, a blog known for its intelligent take on sexuality and pornography. She’s the author of You’re A Bad Man, Aren’t You. According to her website she’s writing a novel based on her experiences in Porn Valley, is represented by Endeavor, and is 6′2″. …more

Tristan Taormino is an example of multi-tasking at its finest. She’s the author of countless books, the editor of numerous anthologies including Best Lesbian Erotica series, a polyamory proponent with her book and website Opening Up , a relationship and sex expert, and an adult video producer …more

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Rapture House has created a variety of avant garde projects, outre in both subject matter and execution. Consisting in part of the husband and wife team of Polly Frost and Ray Sawhill. …more

Female pirates, Leonardo DaVinci’s mother and cross-dressing, the sex lives of kings. Robin Maxwell writes about the parts of history that don’t air on PBS specials. …more

The Twisted Monk is the information-packed online rope store catering to both the elite shibari master and the bumbling couple tying each other up for the first time. With instructional videos, links, kits, and a blog, The Twisted Monk goes beyond just providing some string to fool around with. …more

British parents are eschewing traditional fairy tales because of their “un-PC” and “frightening” tone. With Hannah Montana and the cast …more

Isa Chandra Moskowitz is the New York bred, do-it-yourself author of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and Veganomicon. She translated her discontent with the lack of vegan cooking shows into …more

It’s awesome when a competitive poetry event elevates itself to what the art can be. If you’ve ever had the privilege of seeing Jamie DeWolf, Geoff Trenchard, or Rupert Estanislao rock the mic, …more

Susannah Breslin

Susannah Breslin is the author of The Reverse Cowgirl, a blog known for its intelligent take on sexuality and pornography. She’s the author of You’re A Bad Man, Aren’t You. According to her website she’s writing a novel based on her experiences in Porn Valley, is represented by Endeavor, and is 6′2″. …more

Internet celebrity, famed microblogger, and Fimoculous forefather Rex Sorgatz spends some time with The Rumpus. “I WILL FUCKING CUT YOU, PACHELBEL!” …more

The Readerville Journal’s “Most Coveted Covers” section allows viewers to judge a book by its cover. Contributors weigh the merits of designers’ wiles, while the meat of the pulp is left unscrutinized.

Laurenn McCubbin creates illustrations that aren’t simply two-dimensional renderings of pretty ladies in seductive poses. Her work forces the viewer to shy away from viewing the female form as simply an object of desire and to absorb the full impact of emotion wrenched from every line, color, and shape. McCubbin’s illustrations have graced the covers of books, magazines, and comic books. Her images have spread themselves across the pages of Michelle Tea’s Rent Girl and McCubbin’s own self-published work, XXXLive Nude Girls. But she doesn’t just stop with sirens. “You know, I don’t just draw sexy girls,” McCubbin says. “I am a little obsessed with underpasses, old neon signs. Drawing women is a moneymaker.”

Artist Marco Evaristti was given consent by American inmate Gene Hathorn to feed his body to goldfish for the sake of art. Hathorn was found guilty of murdering his father, stepmother, and stepbrother in 1985 and has been on death row in Texas ever since his conviction in that same year.

Evaristti, on the other hand, has been making waves in the Danish art scene since 2000, when his exhibition “Helena” featured him placing goldfish in ten electric blenders and then inviting visitors to the Trapholt Art Museum to turn them on. …more

A subdivision of the spray-can Graffit isubversion is stenciling. Requiring less skill and less time, stencil artists simply put down a piece of paper with text or images carefully removed, and lay down a coat of paint. This offshoot of graffiti is the focus of Russell Howze’s latest book, Stencil Nation. …more