We all know that the dream of the ’90s is alive in Portland, where young people go to retire. But sometimes, in Portland or Brooklyn or Austin, all the DIY pickling and knitting and beard-growing starts to become reminiscent of another ’90s entirely — the 1890s. In the seemingly too-good-to-be-true follow-up to last year’s blockbuster musical number, Portlandia’s Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein have brought us “Dream of the 1890s.” Microbrew or die, bitches!

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Portlandia is a show that works almost as a series of inside jokes. The sketches are all knowing winks to the audience about the culture they presumably know all about, in which your friend has begun pickling everything and people can “put a bird on anything and call it art.” But it also works because Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein are the kind of people who you’d like to share an inside joke with. Both are unquestionably cool in their own right, but it’s their friendship, both on and off television, that’s an equally compelling force behind their television success. In interviews and on the show, they seem like two BFFs having fun as much as professionals with a television show, riffing off each other and cracking wise. But not all twosomes translate as well off the HDTV screen, so it’s a relief that the Portlandia live show, which wrapped up its first leg in New York this weekend, shows the friends to be every bit as fun as they seem. After the jump, the best moments from the show at The Bowery Ballroom, plus what Armisen and Brownstein had to say about spirit animals, overanalyzing text messages, and a possible Portlandia movie.

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Today at Flavorpill, we saw 50 things that we will never see in real life (a list that includes a chihuahua wearing double cheeseburgers for shoes and someone with a Mrs. Doubtfire tattoo) over on BuzzFeed. We enjoyed Mental Floss’ roundup of 11 outrageously obscure West Wing characters who resurfaced on Twitter. We encountered what has to be the world’s most expensive business card, and were almost blinded by the glare from all of the diamonds. We were incredibly excited to discover Fred Armisen doing an AMA on Reddit. We wondered how long it will be before 3D photos of people’s babies (or vacations or wild Friday nights) take over our Facebook feeds. We discovered that Margaret Cho’s childhood basically sucked. We got an interesting writing prompt from one of our favorite writers of all-time: the lovely Aimee Bender. We were curious if Chicago’s Anti-Superstition Society still meets to drink whiskey on Friday the 13th. And finally, we decided that we’d like to see Roseanne and David Bowie on Vulture’s wishlist of 30 Rock guest stars. Who would you add?

Today at Flavorpill, we celebrated National Trivia Day with 119 amazing facts courtesy of our friends at Mental Floss. We got a behind-the-scenes look at Conan O’Brien’s daily life. We enjoyed this fantastic Joker-by-Seuss mashup from DeviantArt member DrFaustusAu. We got incredibly excited watching Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein cover Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It” during the San Francisco stop of their current Portlandia tour. We tried to decide on our favorite color in the new Nicki Minaj for OPI collection. We reimagined Game of Thrones as a buddy comedy. We wished that all of our dreams were as pleasant as this photogenic Finnish baby’s look to be. We tried to identify all of the movies featured in Stephen Wildish’s 1990s Film Alphabet. We met a multimedia artist who says that Lady Gaga’s recent holiday display at Barneys ripped off her work. We discovered that Catherine the Great may have invented the roller coaster. We found out a lot of things that we didn’t already know about Stephen Colbert thanks to this fascinating New York Times Magazine profile. And finally, we listened to a bunch of rappers spell out their names for us.

“It’s not just regular science fiction,” says Fred Armisen’s character in the latest Portlandia Season 2 clip to emerge. ”It’s actually good.” And that’s how he, Carrie Brownstein, and so many of us get sucked into Battlestar Galactica. What follows will be familiar to anyone who’s skipped out on normal human interaction in favor of an entire evening (or day… or weekend…) glued to all available episodes of any given addictive TV series. We won’t ruin the sketch by saying anymore, but, as usual, Fred and Carrie totally get us. Feel understood (or, you know, terribly ashamed) after the jump. Read More »

We’ll admit that we’re extremely curious about how this week’s special holiday episode of Saturday Night Live will play out. It’s always interesting when a former cast member returns to host the show after striking out on their own, and in Fallon’s case, we’d argue that he has made an even better career for himself as a late night talk host. These promos don’t reveal much about what we’ll see, but they do deliver what has to be the most atonal rendition of “Jingle Bells” that we’ve ever heard. Other than an almost requisite appearance by Barry Gibb and at least one skit where Fallon accidentally breaks character, what are you expecting on Saturday night? Read More »

After playing in bands for her entire adult life, Carrie Brownstein is no stranger to the road. But we’re betting she’s never done a tour quite like the one she’s planning for next month. Brownstein and her Portlandia co-star Fred Armisen have announced Portlandia: The Tour, a seven-date mini-jaunt that will take them to such hipster capitols as Seattle, San Francisco, New York, LA, Chicago, and — of course — Portland between late December and mid-January. The live show will see the duo performing music, previewing footage from the sketch show (whose second season premieres January 6th), and offering behind-the-scenes stories. Tickets go on sale tomorrow; check out the dates after the jump.

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It’s official: We want to be Carrie Brownstein when we grow up. Over the weekend, we watched her rock out, guitar heroine-style, with her new band, Wild Flag. And today brings a new preview clip for Season 2 of Portlandia. Although we’ve been assured that many of our favorite characters will be back when the show returns in January, the video introduces us to Brownstein and Fred Armisen’s newest creations — the Sanitation Twins. Together, they host an informational video about the latest recycling initiative in Portland, which, of course, turns out to be impossibly complicated. Learn how to separate your regular coffee lids from your lipstick-stained coffee lids for the good of the environment after the jump.

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1. The New York Post reports that Demi Moore is officially ending her six-year marriage to Ashton Kutcher after he allegedly had sex with a 23-year-old woman in his room at the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego last week. Do you think that there’s any truth to this rumor?

2. In other celebrity relationship news, a source tells PEOPLE that Saturday Night Live costars Fred Armisen and Abby Elliott, who began dating last year, have broken up. We can’t help but wonder if this means that she’ll finally get booted off the show.

3. What do you think of Cindy Sherman’s new house in the Hamptons? The 10.2-acre waterfront property — which cost the famed artist a reported $4.65M — is just down the road from the former home of Jackson Pollock. [via Curbed]

4. Roman Polanski comes close to apologizing for sexually assaulting a then 13-year-old Samantha Geimer in a new documentary that premiered at the Zurich Film Festival this week, saying, “She is a double victim: my victim and a victim of the press.” The filmmaker was on hand at the festival to accept a lifetime achievement award that he received back in 2009, but could not collect at the time due to his legal troubles. [via Telegraph]

5. Last night Roger Waters stopped by Late Night With Jimmy Fallon to perform “In The Flesh” — with the Foo Fighters as his backing band — in honor of the late night show’s Pink Floyd week. Watch a video of it here.

Bonus Buzz: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Tim Allen

As much as we love SNL digital shorts and all the vulgar laughs and Justin Timberlake cameos they may bring, let’s take a break before this weekend’s season premiere to acknowledge another variety of Saturday Night Live music videos, shall we? Y’know, the ones that weren’t produced by Lorne Michaels. Every now and then, a current or former “Not Ready For Prime Time Player” will lend a hand as the protagonist of a real music video for an actual musician, and some of these guest appearances are pretty great. Check out ten of our favorites after the jump.

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