1. Members of India’s Sikh community are outraged following a joke that Jay Leno made about Mitt Romney’s summer home; it turns out the building in the photo accompanying the bit was the Golden Temple, the holiest site in the Sikh religion. A formal complaint had been lodged with the State Department in Washington. [via AP]

2. Ben Stiller is working with Jonathan Safran Foer on a new comedy for HBO called All Talk; the show, which focuses on a Jewish family in Washington, DC, will reportedly be “politically, religiously, culturally, intellectually and sexually irreverent.” Alan Alda is in talks to star opposite Stiller, who is also planning to direct and executive produce the project. [via THR]

3. NBC just ordered up 10 new pilots (eight of them comedies), news that we find rather overwhelming so early in the morning. Luckily, Vulture has broken it all down for us.

4. The principal cast of The Book of Mormon — including recent Tony winner Nikki M. James — has extended their contracts through February 2013. If you haven’t seen this Broadway musical yet, consider this your cue to finally finagle some tickets to the perpetually sold-out show. [via EW]

5. Carnival Films, the UK film company behind Downton Abbey, are unhappy that PBS has launched a range of jewelery based on two of the show’s characters, Lady Mary Crawley and her sister, Lady Sybil. Apparently, these unauthorized products are a “must have for all ladies of quality.” [via The Guardian]

Bonus Buzz: 12 Cats And Dogs Wearing Top Hats

Yesterday marked the release of Miranda July’s newest book, It Chooses You, a quirky piece loosely tied to her newest film, The Future, which will be released on DVD November 29th. July’s style and persona has been the subject of much debate — people usually either love or hate the precious, semi-ironic, self-aware sweetness that we have come to call “twee,” and of which July is one of the most prominent contemporary examples. The reemergence of the pixie princess of literature inspired us to consider a few other authors whose work can veer into the impossibly twee. Now, don’t get us wrong — we’re not saying that twee-ness is an inherently bad thing. In fact, several of the authors on this list number among our all-time favorites in any genre, and we happen to be on team July, at least most of the time. Click through to check out our list of twee authors, or at least authors who write twee books sometimes, in between setting up tea parties for their kittens, who are all wearing argyle socks, and let us know which of them tickle your fancy in the comments. Read More »

Earlier this week, Animal NY showed some images from someguy, a San Francisco-based artist and aesthetic troublemaker who has taken on the task of redacting the text of seminal books, be it pages from the Bible or Catcher in the Rye. In his arguably most controversial piece, 212 Slaves, he blacked-out all the text in Huckleberry Finn save for the n-word (which occurs 212 times in the novel) as a response to the recent move to replace the offending word with “slave” in contemporary editions. In another piece, he redacts everything on the page except for the word “unicorn,” which for whatever reason is mentioned in the Good Book multiple times. Despite his assertion that his work “provides no answers, leaving people to determine the meaning of the message,” we think someguy’s delivery makes it pretty clear that he is interested in making plain the inflammatory and absurd messages we receive while reading noteworthy texts.

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Recently, Jason Boog at GalleyCat ran a feature on 5 alternatives to a creative writing MFA, which made us consider the costs and benefits of investing in a degree that may not be worth the paper it’s printed on. Back in 1999, Sarah Gold wrote about the dilemma in Salon: “It wasn’t just that we’d chosen to pursue a calling we all knew was elusive, risky, and about as defensible a career aspiration as selling Venezuelan sweaters from a blanket on the sidewalk. Now we were also running up huge student loans and spending our precious evening hours back in the classroom — for what?” Anelise Chen writes something similar in the Rumpus, “Am I going to get a job after this? (Probably not.) Will I have to go back to food service? (Probably yes.)”

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Artists love other artists. Perhaps there is an electric connection between two people whose minds are always whirring, or literary snobs can’t bear to date laymen, or perhaps for some writers, the only way they know their partner will understand them is if that person is also a writer. No matter what it is, there’s something powerful about a couple on the same team in the same industry. Plus, everybody loves a celebrity couple, and we particularly love literary celebrity couples. We like to imagine their arguments as poetic and their children as geniuses, and their lives spent sitting around in oaken rooms drinking brandy and scribbling between loving looks. Well, maybe that’s not realistic. But to each their own celebrity fantasy, right? Click through for our list of ten of our favorite real-life literary power couples — and let us know which ones we’ve missed in the comments!

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What is the deal with our culture’s preoccupation – literary and otherwise – with kid geniuses? Is it that we all secretly wish we were still children – but with our adult intellect intact? Is it that we think a child with remarkable abilities but with age-appropriate innocence is our last best hope? Will the strange pleasure we get from the wise child (Kids Say the Darndest Things, anyone?) trope never run dry? Garth Risk Hallberg’s lovely piece over at the Millions, Adam Levin’s The Instructions and the Cult of the Child, has gotten us thinking a little more about precocious children, specifically in that mirror of society, English Literature. Click through for our thoughts and our list of some of our favorite literary child geniuses.

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Most aspiring writers daydream about having a successful author drop into their life, recognize their talent, and help them get published. That might sound like a fairytale, but some of the book world’s most celebrated talents first burst onto the scene thanks to the guidance of established authors. In honor of the 10th anniversary of National Mentoring Month, we pay tribute to literature’s most fruitful mentorships. And we hope you’ll help continue this fine literary tradition by supporting non-profits such as Girls Write Now, 826 National, and The Young Storytellers Foundation.

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Telegraphs went. Bedpans went. The Ptolemaic universe went. Outmoded technology dies. After 18 novels, the iPad’s carbon footprint is smaller than that of the paperback equivalent. So why might physical books survive?

Here are two reasons: (1) Tree of Codes. (2) House of Leaves.

Buy these books. Hold them. Note their essential tactility. Tree of Codes is lighter than it looks. Like a milk carton you think is full and lift with too much force. House of Leaves is heavier, like a fishing weight or a bar of gold. (Does your Kindle adjust its heft when you download War and Peace?).

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1. The Flaming Lips are set to start recording new material later this month, and according to Wayne Coyne, they plan to release a new song every month this year. [via NME]

2. John Goodman is joining Sandra Bullock and Tom Hanks in the cast of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Stephen Daldry’s adaptation of the Jonathan Safran Foer novel. [via THR]

3. “We’re sort of emailing each other, we don’t know where that’s gonna go. But I am such a big fan of Cee Lo, he is so gorgeous and talented and amazing.” – Gwyneth Paltrow says that she might be performing her cover of “Fuck You” with Cee Lo on Saturday Night Live this weekend — even though the musical guest is The Black Keys. Update: Gwyneth Paltrow will host SNL January 15 with musical guest Cee Lo, which makes a lot more sense.

4. Jason Schwartzman and his wife, fashion designer Brady Cunningham, are the proud parents of a baby girl: Marlowe Rivers Schwartzman. [via People]

5. The lead producer of Fela! is in discussions with producers in Lagos, Nigeria (home of the title character, Fela Anikulapo Kuti), to take the Broadway musical there in the late winter or early spring. The show closed in New York on Sunday after more than 14 months of performances. [via ArtsBeat]

Bonus link: Andrea Zuckerman is turning 50!

Today at Flavorpill, we witnessed the evolution of hands at gigs. We got hungry looking at this candy portrait of Tina Fey. We were excited to hear that IFC has greenlit Portlandia, an original comedy series about the inhabitants of Portland, Oregon. We wanted to live inside of a life-size 600-pound gingerbread house. We couldn’t believe that Kanye canceled his upcoming Today Show performance because of Matt Lauer — now he really looks angry and spoiled. We were intrigued by Jonathan Safran Foer’s new book Tree of Codes, which he constructed by taking his favorite book, The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz, and cutting out words to form a new story. We were blown away by these unreal 3D murals by Eric Grohe. We wondered why the “Andy Warhol New York City Diet” never became a full-blown fad. We saw what it would look like if Banksy tagged Downing Street. We loved this list of the top picture books from 2010. We wondered if we’re going to be able to afford a Thanksgiving turkey this year. And finally, we were surprised to discover that Carey Mulligan is the current frontrunner to play Daisy in Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby. At least it’s not Blake Lively…