GOOD WEEK/BAD WEEK
Bieber’s hair
Fans paid to take photos with the teen star’s snipped locks, with proceeds going to Japan’s relief effort.
Draper’s hat
The iconic adman’s signature topper won’t be back on TV until 2012, when Mad Men returns to AMC.
BOOKS
A Saucy Sequel
These girls ain’t so innocent anymore. In Francine Pascal’s Sweet Valley Confidential, set a decade after her popular young-adult series from the ’80s, blond, blue-eyed teen twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield are all grown up. They drink, have sex and swear. Which means that–confidentially–they’re pretty normal 27-year-olds.
DESIGN
More than a Pretty Face
If fonts had feelings, this is how Caslon Italic (below) would look. In its new poster series, Fontface, Spanish design house Atipo also aims to express the emotive qualities of Helvetica Bold, Carousel Medium and Clarendon Bold with paint applied to the faces of a quartet of models.
VERBATIM
Enjoying a cupcake … This is going straight to my hips. Oh, wait. I don’t have hips. Yesss!
@BRONXZOOSCOBRA, on a fake Twitter account set up following the escape of a female Egyptian cobra from the reptile house at the Bronx Zoo; under the hashtag #snakeonthetown, the liberated cobra narrated her tour around New York City.
STUNTS
Up in The Air
No mayors here, just Alain Robert (a.k.a. the French Spider-Man), who took a mere six hours to scale all 2,717 ft. (828 m) of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, on March 28. The 48-year-old daredevil, who has scaled more than 70 skyscrapers worldwide, hung triumphantly from the top of the tapered spire after completing the 160-story climb.
THEATER
Spidey (Non)sense
Being the mayor of New York City would be the ultimate cover for a superhero. Then there’s Michael Bloomberg, who donned a webslinger suit in a nod to Broadway’s disastrous Spider-Man musical for the city’s annual Inner Circle show, in which local reporters poke fun at politicos.
MOVIES
Will the Real Black Swan Please Stand Up?
Behind-the-scenes footage of Natalie Portman’s face being digitally added to backup dancer Sarah Lane’s body has further fueled the battle between the 27-year-old ballerina and the Black Swan team over how many sequences Portman actually performed. Lane claims the star performed 5% of the film’s full-body shots, while director Darren Aronofsky puts the figure closer to 80%. We propose a dance-off.
[The following text appears within a chart. Please see hardcopy or PDF for actual chart.]
5% Lane: Portman’s full-body dance shots
80% Aronofsky: Portman’s full-body dance shots
FASHION
Sly Style
Hollywood tough man Sylvester Stallone is launching his own fashion line in 2012, inspired by his most famous movie roles–Rambo and Rocky. Though the men’s collection will initially include jeans, shirts, underwear and outerwear, we couldn’t help imagining what sort of suit ensembles the übermacho characters would inspire. Predictably, our vision was more cargo than couture.
LANGUAGE
OMG, OED
The Oxford English Dictionary’s latest update includes modern slang and text speak. Can you guess which entries weren’t added to the reference guide?
1.
LOL
2.
Whatevs
3.
Muffin top
4.
[Heart]
5.
NSFW
Nos. 2 and 5 aren’t in the OED
FILM
Miss Marple Makeover
At first we were excited to read about plans to revive Agatha Christie’s beloved elderly sleuth Miss Marple in an upcoming movie. Then we found out that the role of the British spinster would be updated to the present day and likely played by 38-year-old Jennifer Garner. If they wanted a sexy Marple, why didn’t they just go with Helen Mirren?
5 THINGS YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THIS WEEK
1. A year without a Pixar film.
The studio’s 2012 pic will be Monsters University, a Monsters Inc. prequel.
2. America’s Charlie Sheen obsession.
It is waning. Tickets to his “sold out” tour are going cheap on scalper sites.
3. Never seeing Johnny Depp act like a normal person again.
He will star in an adaptation of nonwacky Hunter S. Thompson novel The Rum Diary.
4. Saving your tunes on computers.
Amazon’s new music locker will put them in the cloud.
5. The ukulele.
Eddie Vedder is releasing a solo album devoted to the instrument.
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Contact us at letters@time.com