The League is highly entertaining. What it lacks in emotion it makes up for in grand laughs. It’s the kind of show you want to watch when you’re freaking out about something, say, your graduate school’s ostentatious career fair. While everyone is talking and talking and talking about which news magazine’s booth they’re going to attend and impress, you run home and watch an episode of The League under your covers in the dark. It happens…

But, some people can’t relate to the show because of its hyper-masculine plot lines. It is, in fact, a show about fantasy football—the characters spend endless time discussing hefty NFL players, sex jokes are aplenty, and if it weren’t for Katie Aselton’s character (she plays Kevin’s (Stephen Rannazzisi) wife), the female presence on the show would be comprised of hot girls in bars and Ruxin’s (Nick Kroll) sexy but not interesting wife, Sofia (Nadine E. Velazquez).

Enter Julie Klausner at Vulture.

Football isn’t Julie Klausner’s cup of tea, so when she got together with some of the show’s stars — Katie Aselton, Mark Duplass, Steve Rannazzisi, and Paul Scheer — she put a twist on their show’s concept: Instead of picking dudes to play on fantasy teams, she made them draft fantasy TV-show casts from a long list of television’s greatest female characters. Heated battle ensued.

Watch and enjoy and let Vulture know which team you think will win the ship—maybe they’ll win the Shiva trophy.

Previous: The Most Jewish Episodes Of Julie Klausner’s How Was Your Week Podcast

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• Gwyneth Paltrow, total mom dancer. [Hollywood Reporter]

• Narcissism is IN, courtesy of people like Lena Dunham. [Esquire]

• Nick Kroll might be surpassing Schmidt as our favorite Network Jew. Here’s a clip from his upcoming Comedy Central series, the Nick Kroll Show. [Vulture]

• Harold Bloom is God, says Tablet Magazine. [Tablet]

• The New York Times finally realizes Julie Klausner and her How Was Your Week podcast is awesome (we’ve been saying that for years.) [NYT]

• Drew Barrymore would hate going to Florida, and Billy Eichner knows it. [Funny or Die]

The post Daily Jewce: Gwyneth Paltrow’s Dancing Skills, Nick Kroll is Awesome appeared first on Jewcy.

• Wanted: Jewish male psychopaths. [Tablet]

• Gary Shteyngart writes in bed. [Daily Beast]

• An ode to America’s Got Talent cast-off Edon Pinchot. [Columbia Current]

• Drake is NOT HAPPY about how popular the phrase YOLO (“You Only Live Once,” olds) has become. [Pitchfork]

• The new Chabad NYU facility on Bowery got a design shout out from Interior Design magazine. [Chabad]

• Les Mis enthusiast Julie Klausner gets an Oscar-worthy Fantine makeover. [Vulture]

The post Daily Jewce: An Ode to Edon Pinchot, Gary Shteyngart Tells All appeared first on Jewcy.

• A still from Annie Hall, in the exact place the scene was filmed. [Vanity Fair]

• Jewcy pal Marc Tracy predicts that thanks to statistician Nate Silver, political statisticians will learn a lot from sports statisticians. [TNR]

• How a Jewish kid from Brooklyn became the godfather of X-rated animation in the 1970s and paved the way for South Park. [Tablet]

• Seth Rogen and Jeff Goldblum will reprise their guest roles on The League. You know, Dirty Randy and Rupert Ruxin. [Hollywood Reporter].

• Big Jewcy Julie Klausner breaks down the New York Magazine approval matrix. [Vulture]

• It’s HERE: the Girls Season 2 trailer. As Shoshanna says, OMFG:

The post Daily Jewce: ‘Girls’ Season 2 Trailer, ‘South Park’ Has a Jewish Godfather appeared first on Jewcy.

The very funny Julie Klausner, who was a 2010 Big Jewcy and is currently spearheading a bold campaign to pet Duke, the Bush’s Beans dog, also has a lot to say about politics. In an interview with Comedy Central’s Indecision, Klausner talks about Walter Mondale, Pitbull, and Eleanor Roosevelt’s sexy ghost. Here’s a snippet:

If you could meet any political figure, living or dead, who would it be?

Definitely not Hitler. I’m not looking to change any minds with a single example. I guess Teddy Roosevelt, unless he wanted to go hunting. I’m not into killing rhinos, but I’d love to watch him tuck into a meal and I’d happily walk his dog with him around his property. And depending on how things went, maybe I’d angle for a mustache ride as well.

You’re trapped in an elevator with the president. Strangely enough, you also have a superpower: the ability to make him do one thing of your choosing. What would you have him do?

Obama, right? Definitely oral. Haha! I’m joking. Obviously, I’d get him to commit to marriage equality.

She has our vote.

Previously: The Most Jewish Episodes Of Julie Klausner’s ‘How Was Your Week’ Podcast
The Big Jewcy: Julie Klausner, Writer
Jewcy Interviews: Julie Klausner

The post Julie Klausner Talks Politics for Comedy Central’s Indecision 11 appeared first on Jewcy.

• Artist Cindy Sherman, to the photoshop generation.

• Tablet Magazine, our sister site, is nominated for a Webby award! Vote for them here.

• Claire Danes interviews Lena Dunham, and our brains basically explode from the awesomeness.

• Have you seen former Big Jewcy and How Was Your Week podcast host Julie Klausner’s deleted scene from It’s Complicated? You should.

The post Daily Jewce: Claire Danes Interviews Lena Dunham, The Simpsons’ Jewishness, and more appeared first on Jewcy.

While we loved fiction in 2010, it’s the year’s non-fiction books that gave us a chance to really spread out and move from drunken adventures across Europe on justification as to why we didn’t continue our studies in Russian literature on an academic level.

1. And The Pursuit of Happiness by Maira Kalman

It may have not been the most inspiring year for America, but Ms. Kalman’s book of drawings made us want to revisit everything that is truly great about this country.  One of the most beautiful books to come out in a long time.

2. Everything Is Going to Be Great: An Underfunded and Overexposed European Grand Tour by Rachel Shukert

I think we may have gotten a little ahead of ourselves when we said this was the funniest book of the year, considering it had just come out.

Thank goodness for end of year lists where we can look back and say we were right.

3. The Possessed by Elif Batuman

If you ever thought you wanted to study Russian writers like Isaac Babel or Tolstoy for a living, read this amazing book first.

4. How did you get This Number by Sloane Crosley

2010 might not be remembered as the year that Sloane Crosley bucked the “sophomore slump” label, but it really should be.  Nearly as funny as I was Told There’d Be Cake, and much more confident.

5. Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution by Sara Marcus

Of all of the revolutions to bubble up out of the musical underground in the 1990s, the Riot Grrrl movement was the one whose voice was the loudest, and who had the biggest and arguably most important impact.  Sara Marcus spared no detail in this account, and it deserves your attention.

6. When They Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone by Gal Beckerman

A work that was enjoyable to read, and of the utmost importance.  The world owes Mr. Beckerman a thanks for making this amazing book happen.

7. I Don’t Care About Your Band: What I Learned from Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Felons, Faux-Sensitive Hipsters, and Other Guys I’ve Dated by Julie Klausner

Since the Sex and the City and the creepy culture it seems to have created is slowly going the way of the dinosaur, we vote for Julie Klausner’s book to become the new handbook to teach people exactly how bloody the dating battlefield of New York has become.

8. And the Heart Says Whatever by Emily Gould

We hereby enact a law stating that no longer should Emily Gould be known as the ex-Gawker writer who had the cover story in the New York Times Magazine.  She shall now be recognized as the clever memoirist who knows that nobody is innocent–including herself–and it’s all thanks to this superb memoir.

9. Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian by Avi Steinberg

We like anybody who works in a prison library for two years.  If they can write a memoir as good as this one about it, we like them even more.

10. Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes by Stephen Sondheim

I don’t feel like we really need to give any reasons for why this is on the list.

Also of note: Listen to This by Alex Ross, The Road by Vasily Grossman, Half Empty by David Rakoff,

The post Jewcy’s Top 10 Non-Fiction Books Of 2010 appeared first on Jewcy.

• Mike Tyson is going to open a chain of kosher restaurants.  This makes perfect sense.

• Nobody ever said it was easy being a religious Zionist.

• Julie Klausner hanging out in Miami, getting interviewed.

• Roger Bennett talks about his new book, Everything You Know is Pong.

The post Daily Jewce: Mike Tyson Gets Kosher, Religious Zionists, Julie Klausner in Miami, Ping Pong And More appeared first on Jewcy.

If you’re ever in New York, and you happen to stop by Jewcy HQ, there is a slight chance you will walk into us blasting a song written by the great Ted Leo.  Mr. Leo is universally loved by the entire staff here, and not many days goes by when we don’t play something by him.

So when  we watched Ted’s newest video, sorry, “musical,” for the song “Bottled in Cork,” there was hesitation to post the video because, well, this is Jewcy, and the Leo’s are awesome, but something tells me they aren’t fasting on Yom Kippur if ya know what I mean…

Enter Julie Klausner, literally, as a dance instructor in the video.  And also enter our excuse to post the video below–24 hours after pretty much everybody else did– thanks to Julie.

Ms. Klausner, you’re wonderful, and please keep inserting yourself in projects that we’d be otherwise unable to find a “Jewish angle” on.

The post Six Degrees of Julie Klausner Makes This Ted Leo Post Kosher appeared first on Jewcy.

Harper Perennial

309 Pages

The 21st Century has been good to women that write books about their personal lives.  Some would say that it’s the post Bridget Jones Diary/Sex in the City market that has made this possible, but works by Emily Gould, Sloane Crosley, Julie Klausner, and Lesley Arfin argue otherwise.  While Bridget Jones and the exploits of Carrie Bradshaw may have inspired a few casual readers and television watchers, the brave new world of female writers offers something entirely different: an empowered woman who is genuinely smart, savvy, and often times equal parts hilarious and heartbroken. Unlike the old guard of, dare I say, chick-lit, this new generation embark on the adventure for the sake of it, not for simply the end-goal of romantic happiness or accomplishment. With the release of her second memoir, Everything is Going to be Great: An Underfunded & Overexposed Grand European Tour, Rachel Shukert may have jumped to leader of this pack by giving us a 300 + page account of living in Europe at the dawn of the new millennium.   In her latest book, Shukert, fresh out of college, attempts to find herself in Europe as she tours with a play, making no money, and taking the crappy jobs (comedy show “promoter” anyone?) that you would probably be forced to take if you stayed in America. Granted, the “Funny American in Europe” story dates back to Benjamin Franklin and the founding of our country, and the last fifty years have made the “ugly American” a device that elicits both easy laughs and grimaces from those of us who would love to see our national image cleaned up across the old world. Thankfully, for all her drunken exploits, Shukert is far from a character in National Lampoon’s European Vacation (as funny as that would be).  She doesn’t shy away from sharing her lows and eventual highs, spread out all over a content that she doesn’t understand, as much as she might think that she does, and somehow, she pulls it all off with grace.

Shukert’s stories are accessible, clever, and most of all, extremely memorable, and she has proven herself a master of the memoir.

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