By Drew Grant 12/15/11 2:45pm

Saturday Night Live

Stefon meets Norman Rockwell (via Mediaite)

This Is Your Stefon-Themed Saturday Night Live Holiday Card

By far, the best thing Saturday Night Live has brought us in the past two years has been Bill Hader‘s “Weekend Update” character Stefon: the club promoter/city correspondent whose ideas for “family fun” usually involve some combination of terrifying dungeon imagery, punny drag queen names, and politically incorrect uses for “midgets.” (Their word, not ours.)

That’s why this holiday season, the best gift you could get is one sent to you by the cast and crew of Saturday Night Live, featuring Stefon in the set of the Norman Rockwell “Freedom From Want” painting.

This was first put online (to the best of our knowledge) by theater publicist Aaron Meier, who received one of the cards and put it on Tumblr, where it was subsequently picked up by Mediaite.

For a larger photo, check below. And then forward to all your friends and family, because this picture definitively answers the question “Buh-whaaa?” Read More

By Drew Grant 12/12/11 9:03am

Gift Guide

16 Photos

A man dressed as a Santa Claus (L) stand

The New York Observer's Holiday Gift Guide: Occupy Wall Street Edition

It’s that special time of the year again, when Fifth Avenue is set a’twinkling with displays of opulent spending and every magazine advertisement beckons you to think not of yourself for once when engaging in egregious spending.

But gift giving can be hard! Especially, as they say, for the person in your life who has everything…though they never tell you how difficult it can be to shop for the person who has nothing. Read More

By The Editors 11/30/11 10:32am

opinion

Just in The Knick of Time

Madison Square Garden has been quiet—too quiet—since summer’s end. The world’s most famous arena is in the midst of what promises to be a glorious renovation, but something has been missing. With all due respect to hockey’s Rangers, the place hasn’t been the same without the Knicks.

Luckily, that’s about to change, and none too soon. Read More

By admin 12/23/10 4:39pm

digital natives

Books For Christmas! What The Heck Is That?

Sometimes the innoncent wisdom of a child says it all. 

Ebook sales are up an astonishing 188 percent in 2010. 

Sales of traditional paper books, meanwhile, are down 20 percent since 2008. 

So before you ruin the holidays for your own nieces and nephews, watch the video below. 

Digital sharing is digital caring y’all. 

By Amanda Cormier 12/16/10 3:55pm

humbug

Yule Cry: The 9 Most Off-Brand Christmas Movies Ever

The syrupy sweetness of most Christmas movies can move even the cheeriest among us to a Grinch-like fit of cynicism.

But over the years, Hollywood been gracious enough to place a few truly un-Christmassy lumps of coal under the cinematic tree as an antidote to all that sentiment.

For those choking on sugarplums, then, we Read More

By Bob Morris 12/08/10 2:05am

style

’Tis the Season, Unfortunately

It’s been a hard week for the pathologically self-involved. In a cruel and  obsessive-compulsive burst of house cleaning, the American Psychiatric Association announced the elimination of five perfectly good mental disorders for the next edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. But while the loss of schizoid, paranoid, dependent and histrionic disorders are causing some Read More

By Leon Neyfakh 6:20pm

David Vigliano Out With a Christmas Book By Clay Aiken

Lit agent David Vigliano is out with a proposal for a Clay Aiken book based on the American Idol star’s 2006 Christmas special.

“He’s got a very strong Christian audience, primarily because he’s from the South, and that’s an audience that seems to respond to Christmas stories,” said Mr. Vigliano. “He also had the Read More