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The Difference Between Lena Dunham and Aziz Ansari’s Million-Dollar Book Deals

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Hey, remember when Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s ‘Learned’ (now a book that you can touch with your own hands), was first announced to the media in late 2012? Headlines like “Lena Dunham has a memoir” and “Lena Dunham’s memoir is going to auction $1 million as a minimum” were the source of quite a few slings and arrows in the press.

Dunham’s memoir sold for an advance of $3.7 million, a price that was par for the course in the context of the slew of celebrity memoirs that hits bookstores each month — just a year later, Parks and Recreation‘s Aziz Ansari, sold his currently untitled book, described as a look at “modern romance,” for $3.5 million. I was reminded of this when writing about Not That Kind of Girl earlier, and I thought that Dunham’s and Anzari’s advances were worth some comparison. … Read More

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Television

15 Possible Letterman Replacements Who Aren’t White Dudes

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This week, David Letterman announced his retirement from his eponymous late-night talk show. While he won’t retire until sometime next year, people are already speculating about who will replace him on the show he’s helmed for over 20 years. And, in typical fashion, most of the predictions veer in the direction of Jon Stewart, Jay Leno, Craig Ferguson, or Conan O’Brien. Given that the late-night talk show landscape is almost exclusively the territory of white men, we have a few suggestions of comedians who could replace Letterman and — gasp! — aren’t white… Read More

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Comedy

25 Comedians of Color Everyone Should Know

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Last week, we put together our list of female comedians everyone should have on their radar, prompted in part by Jerry Seinfeld’s implication that the reason he hasn’t had many women or people of color on his web series is because there just aren’t many funny women or non-white people out there. Between Seinfeld’s remarks and the recent dialogue about diversity on late-night shows and SNL, the time seemed right to round up 25 hilarious people who happen not to be white. Click through for our list, from Aziz Ansari to Reggie… Read More

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Television

‘Parks and Recreation’ Season 6 Episodes 7 & 8 Recap: “Flouride” / “The Cones of Dunshire”

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It’s the second week of back-to-back Parks and Recreation episodes, and while nothing glaringly new happens in the life of Leslie Knope, times they are a-changin’. “Fluoride” is all about coping with the harsh realities of Leslie’s prematurely ending term, upcoming long distance best-friendship, and continuing struggle to get stuff done. It’s an uncomfortable and confusing process, but, as always, everything works out in the end. … Read More

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Television

‘Parks and Recreation’ Season 6 Episodes 5 & 6 Recap: “Fillibuster” / “Recall Vote”

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Well, it’s been four long weeks since NBC last allowed us to visit Pawnee, Indiana, disrupting the very young sixth season of Parks and Recreation so they could screw around with their schedule after the quick cancellation of Welcome to the Family, which followed it in the network’s newly revamped Thursday night line-up. And instead of just doing the polite thing and bringing back Community, they put Parks on a three-week hiatus for extra episodes of The Voice, because that’s sensible. And that is why we got a Parks Halloween episode two weeks after Halloween. … Read More

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Comedy

Watch a Preview of Aziz Ansari’s Upcoming Special ‘Buried Alive’

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In anticipation of Aziz Ansari’s stand-up special Buried Alive, Netflix is releasing a bunch of clips from the show before… Read More

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Television

‘Parks and Recreation’ Season 6 Episode 4 Recap: “Gin It Up”

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We’re all so wild about Parks and Recreation’s ensemble of characters and the weird little Springfield-ian world they’ve created there in Pawnee that it’s easy to undersell the show’s value as a quiet yet smart political satire. They’ve gone through waves of heavy engagement (most memorably in the fourth season, with Leslie’s city council run including echoes of the “birther” movement and Obama’s lousy bowling), but last night’s “Gin It Up” episode gave us the best political gags of the young season, with a wicked send-up of scandal-mongering and “special hearing” showboating. As Councilman Jamm promised, “This will be blown way out of proportion. You have my word on it!” … Read More

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Television

‘Parks and Recreation’ Season 6 Episode 3 Recap: ‘Doppelgängers’

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There was a moment early in last night’s Parks and Recreation episode, “Doppelgängers,” that was utterly perfect, though it’s difficult to pinpoint precisely why. It came at the conclusion of the prologue, in which Leslie is explaining to the various Eagelton city employees how their departments will be joined with their Pawnee counterparts—save for the Department of Infinity Pool Design and Department of Dressage, of course, which have no match. And at the conclusion of this straightforward explanation, April announces loudly, via a makeshift paper megaphone, “ATTENTION! EAGLETON IS NOW UNDER MARTIAL LAW!” Most shows would treat that as the joke and hard cut to the credits. But this show throws in Leslie’s quick, insistent, “No…” Amy Poehler’s reading of that one-word line is exactly the right combination of assurance for the Eagletonians and loving but stern scolding of her subordinate, and the timing of her immediate cutaway just makes the moment sing. And it’s not a funny line in and of itself, but this show has long past the point of relying on “funny lines.” … Read More

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Television

‘Parks and Recreation’ Season 6 Episode 2 Recap: ‘The Pawnee-Eagleton Tip-Off Classic’

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Pawnee’s rivalry with Eagleton, the hoity-toity haves to their have-nots, has been fertile comic soil for Parks and Recreation for the past three seasons, one of those initially slight elements that’s grown, in time, into a reliable touchstone for the series. I’ve always found Eagleton-based plotlines particularly funny for intensely personal reasons; my hometown has an Eagleton of its own, an inner borough of rich assholes who incorporated as their own “city” and are best known for the 15 mile-per-hour speed limit, so all souls driving through have plenty of time to gawk at their gaudy abodes. Eat it, Eastborough! But I digress. The point is, I get Leslie’s hatred for Eagleton, and particularly appreciate her Rickles-style one-liners (“You’ll be too busy polishing your monocle at the caviar store. Knope out!”) in the prologue to last night’s Parks and Rec, “The Pawnee-Eagleton Tip-Off Classic.” … Read More

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