Courtesy of Bowery Boogie

They ain't ready for this jelly.

Beyonce's bootylicious new H&M ads have been turning heads all over the city (like, seriously—is that body post-Blue Ivy?! Oh cruel, cruel world.)  But while we'll take any chance we can get to see the Queen Bee's bod, in the Lower East Side, residents have decided to add a coverup to her skimpy outfit.

If you haven't seen the ad, it features Queen Bey in a green and white  swimsuit, and is located at the M14A bus stop at Grand and Columbia Street—right in the heart of a historically Jewish neighborhood.

“Every day someone tapes a cover over it, now it is opaque sheeting and every day people rip it down," an anonymous tipster told Bowery Boogie.

"You can see what is left of yesterday as the white covering at the bottom of the ad.”

We've reached out to the MTA and H&M for comment and will update once we hear back.

The tipster goes on to point out that so-called "Modesty Wars" are common on the other side of the East River in Williamsburg, but not so common in the LES.

As far as we're concerned, if you don't like it, you don't necessarily have to put a sheet on it.

Last night's Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute Benefit will probably be--in the long run--lost to the annals of time, indistinguishable from last years, or the years before, or any year since Anna Wintour took over, actually. But for us who were there on the sidelines, waving frantically at a very pregnant Kim Kardashian and an actively dismissive Kanye West, screaming for just a moment of Lena Dunham or Kate Beckinsale time while pressed up against the barriers of the press pen like poor animals on the way to the slaughterhouse, listening to the woman next to us ask every female celebrity the same questions--"Did you eat anything today? What did you eat? How long did it take you to get into the dress?"--the irony of the night's theme was not lost on us.

"Punk: From Chaos to Couture" was already going to be a difficult concept for designers, celebrities, and various rich people to wrap their head around. For one thing, it implies that punk--as a movement, as a musical genre--ever evolved out chaos into some sort of couture maturity. Even The New York Times got it twisted: David Byrne and Debbie Harry, while being two great artists, were never 'punk.' Debbie Harry was more punk than most, you could say she lived like a punk, or dressed like a punk, but her voice was always too clear, too lilting, never "Fuck you"-enough to be considered part of the movement.

This sort of mass confusion was amusedly referenced to more than once in the evening. Bee Shaffer, daughter of Anna Wintour, showed up in a giant Dior couture ballgown, shrugging off questions of fitting the night's theme by saying that she was always more of a girly girl. Jerry Seinfeld asked Jimmy Fallon, in what we generously assumed was a joke (as these men were both wearing designer tuxedos): "When did punk start? The 70s? The 80s? I feel like it was the 70s..." Anna Wintour herself was wearing a pink flowered dress, because she had been told that "pink was punk."

Even the younger generation, who you'd think would have had at least  a Good Charlotte notion of what Punk looked like, had apparently seen Pink in one too many ballgowns. The weird Olsens were dressed like....something (Ashley was an orange cloud, her sister looked like a semi-goth librarian), but whatever that something was, it wasn't book.

Then again, it seemed even more offensive when they got it right. Cameron Diaz wore a blue number by Stella McCartney, whose ode to punkness was a confined to a golden belt of long spikes. Donatella Versace wore a dress made of spikes. One woman, wearing spiked Louboutins, decided that to be truly punk, she would spit on the red carpet, which was totally punk...until she delicately traipsed over it to get to her seat. The three or four who got it right (Lily Westwood, whose dress was made from recycled garbage; Greta Gerwig; Madonna;Mily Cyrus; the old women who died their hair pink) seemed ironically out of place at such a black tie ball where everyone else just wore whatever Tom Ford--who wore his usual black tux, by the way, while discussing how "punk" was a state of being--had made for them.

We're just saying: Maybe next year the theme should be something that the 1% can handle without seeming clueless or offensive. "Comic Con" perhaps?

Beyoncé belts it at press conference. (Getty Images)

This is a really important time for America. This is when we decide, as a country, what the past tense of lip-sync should be. Lip-sanc? Lip-synced? Lip-sang? Hyphen or no hyphen? These are the pressing issues we need to address, America, because how else will we talk about what we already knew, which is that Beyoncé did not sing live during the inauguration, and that also--in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (as portrayed by Keenan Thompson on Saturday Night Live)--"I care why? Hashtag: Jay-Z is a lucky man."

In an awesome display of "Eff the haters" today, Beyoncé took the podium during a press conference for the Super Bowl and sang an a capella rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner,"after which she announced that yes, she went with a prerecorded track during President Obama's inauguration.

"I'm a perfectionist," Beyoncé said, explaining that weather conditions and her general throat feelings that day made her not "comfortable taking a risk."

But for anyone thinking that the diva will be hiding her tail between her legs during Super Bowl halftime this Sunday, Beyoncé had only one answer: she'll "absolutely be singing live."

Fresh off her scintillatingly sung, er, reportedly lipsynched, rendition of the Star Spangled Banner during Monday's Presidential Inauguration, her Sasha-Fierce-ified GQ February cover and her upcoming performance at the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show, the Second Lady took a digital breath to share something special with her fans: a weekly digital glimpse into the mind of Bey.

In a letter on her website today, Beyonce wrote:

"The BeyHive Blog is my way of showing all the inspiring things I come across every single day. This is through my eyes." She also writes that she'll be featuring fan art on the blog:

"So many of you are making videos, painting—I want to show the world what you do and how much I appreciate you."

Inside her perfectly-tressed noggin this week? A Rebecca Solnit tome, Oscar-buzzed films Argo and Beasts of the Southern Wild, Christopher Marley beetle-mosaic art, a psychedelic pop duo, Oliver Clegg paintings ...

Oh, and shoes.

The blog requires setting up a free account, upon which fans can fully access the Bey-spiration: her picks for inspiring people, streetstyle snaps and maybe, just maybe that macaroni-bedazzled-portrait you've always wanted to send her.

Bey's blog arrives post-Goop (by a certain blond pal fond of naming her kids after biblical tropes) and also features the same glossy, hyper-curated style of a certain lifestyle website by a Mr. Beyonce Knowles (a.k.a. Jay-Z).

Not that we would expect anything less from the multifaceted Bey, the only downside is the weekly release date.

Whatevs. We'll be waiting with Bey-ted breath.

Barack Obama lip-syncing? (The Onion)

The problem with that premise--which would have been a fine morning-after joke--was that it had already been released as a satirical video from The Onion three days before the inauguration.


Obama Caught Lip-Syncing Speech
Did The Onion have some insider information that there would be a lip-syncing debate during the inauguration? It wouldn't have been too much of a stretch. Consider this:

President Obama's speech was pre-planned: Much like Beyonce was caught by her own Instagram account holding sheet music in a recording studio before the event, multiple outlets confirmed receiving a copy of the president's text for the day before he even took the stage.

Too bad the parody video was not taken seriously at the time this video was released, allowing us to do a full investigation over claims of fake talk/singing before the Obama was resworn into office.

Guy Fieri is so upset! (NBC)

– Jay Z was not "right next to De Niro" the other night at Leonardo DiCaprio's birthday. The Taxi Driver star gave the Jigga a Meet the Fockers-level awkward greeting when Jay-Z tried to approach the King of Comedy only to get rebuffed because he had never returned Bob's phone calls. Even Beyoncé couldn't calm De Niro down. We're not sure whom we would less like to be mad at us, but that sounds like a party-stopper if there ever was one.

- If you want to get angry, here's a video of Gwyneth Paltrow talking about her "writer" personality in a behind-the-scenes look at her new Max Factor ad. Why do we need a behind-the-scenes look at an ad? STOP ASKING QUESTIONS!

- Hilariously, Guy Fieri thinks that The New York Times’s restaurant critic had "another agenda" when he wrote his hit piece about Fieri's Times Square palace of shitty food. We're pretty sure the agenda was just a good Samaritan's public service announcement.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

– Yikes, the Matt Lauer story just keeps getting worse. Like apparently Izzy Povich was passed over for Jim Bell's job because Lauer didn't like her? Steve Capus says the $25-million-a-year host doesn't have that kind of editorial control, but these rumors are getting a little more spiky every day.

– Oh, boo! Aaron Sorkin will not be addressing the Petraeus scandal in next season of The Newsroom, even though he really, really wants to!

from iam.beyonce.com

Pop singer, style icon, and vocal Obama supporter Beyoncé, whose husband Jay-Z played a show in Ohio to support the President's re-election bid yesterday, has posted an image of herself posing with her absentee ballot. Apparently Beyoncé still votes in Harris County, Texas, the county of her childhood home Houston; no word on whether she voted Ted Cruz for Senate, as she blocks the ballot with her hand (showcasing a set of Bachmann-worthy manicured talons and a giant amber-colored ring--are we sure she's not in the GOP?).

Meanwhile, Lena Dunham of HBO's Girls has spent Election Day encouraging her Twitter followers to send in their voting-day outfits: Ms. Dunham's equipped with "sunglasses and a patriotic peacoat." Ms. Dunham, who recently filmed an ad for Barack Obama, is according to New York State's database of voters a registered independent, has been encouraging her fans to get dressed up for the polls--though when you're Beyoncé, every day is an opportunity to dress up, even when you're only walking as far as the mailbox.

You don't own Lena! (YouTube)

- Here's Alexa Chung, Tavi, and Lena Dunham lip-syncing Lesley Gore's "You Don't Own Me" like they were in The First Wives Club or something. For feminism and Obama!

http://youtu.be/_M_hcioeOyk
- Mark Sanchez and Eva Longoria are no more after a month of dating. We have to call our lawyers on this one; celebrity relationship whiplash is real and it hurts, people!

- Anderson Cooper is scared Lindsay Lohan is going to steal his job, just like she stole $5,000 worth of clothing from the Scary Movie 5 set. (They had $5,000 worth of clothing on the set of Scary Movie 5?)

- Meanwhile, Robert DeNiro KNOWS that Leonardo DiCaprio is stealing all of his jobs.

- Jay-Z and Beyonce were unable to trademark the name of their child, Blue Ivy. And when you can't copyright your baby, what's the point of having one, right??

Jay-Z and Beyonce (Getty Images)

Probably not, seeing as the Vogue editor in chief was just announced as being the fourth-biggest fund-raiser for Barack Obama's re-election campaign in a document released to The New York Times. But this was due in no small part to the $40,000-dollar-a-plate dinner she held over at Sarah Jessica Parker's house back in June: that event raised approximately $2,000,000 on that night alone.

Now the president and first lady of hip-hop want to give the editrix a run for her money.

On September 18, the duo will be holding a fundraiser for President Obama at Jay-Z's 40/40 Club in the Flatiron District. The event will also charge $40,000 aplate, but the scoop from Page Six says that they will cap the number of guests at 100 ... meaning that they expect more than that to try and show up. If they reach their capacity, the duo could end up raising $4 million for the president's re-election campaign, putting him leagues ahead of Anna Wintour, or even Andrew Tobias for that matter.

Rihanna and Drake, nominated for the "Take Care" video

This morning brought MTV's announcement of its Video Music Awards nominees, with established pop artists like Rihanna and Katy Perry competing with upstarts like Gotye and girl-of-the-moment Carly Rae Jepsen. In the marquee category, Video of the Year, the nominees are:

• Drake ft. Rihanna, "Take Care"
• Gotye ft. Kimbra, "Somebody That I Used to Know"
• M.I.A., "Bad Girls"
• Katy Perry, "Wide Awake"
• Rihanna, "We Found Love"

That's two Rihanna videos (essentially), a lushly overproduced Perryish fantasy of the sort that won last year (with "Firework"), a low-fi YouTube hit, and one completely left-field choice (remember Florence + the Machine first breaching American shores in this category?).

Other notable calls:

• Katy Perry is nominated in "Best Female Video" for a different video, the paramilitary recruiting film "Part of Me" (this is more notably female than "Wide Awake" only according to Lady Macbeth's dictum "Unsex me here" as she strides into battle)
• Critical favorite Frank Ocean is up against three boy bands of varying degrees of boy-bandness and Ms. Jepsen in Best New Artist
• There's now a category for "Electronic Dance Music Video"
• As noted on Twitter, Lil Wayne's devotional ballad to a stripper "How to Love" got nominated as "Best Video With a Message."
• While Lady Gaga's nowhere to be found on the nominations list, internet punching bag Lana Del Rey's "Born to Die" got a few professional nominations. Did you know there's a cinematography category at the VMAs?