In today’s links, I seem to have inadvertently compiled a collection of stories (or fragments, or something smaller, perhaps, even) about people who tend to polarize. The name Courtney Love, for example, seems to exist along a virtual tectonic plate that shudders every time it’s uttered (oh look, a rhyme!), creating a fissure that you can count on to divide the internet.
The following doesn’t seem like particularly controversial news, but I’m sure someone will manage to link it to how she can’t sing or how she killed Kurt Cobain. (Or perhaps this time, someone will have a new, more interesting bone to pick with her!) A.V. Club reports that Love has been cast in the upcoming music-biz TV drama series Empire, starring Terrence Howard. In it, she’ll be playing Elle Dallas, “a hard rock powerhouse who is part of Empire Entertainment’s stable of artists.” It might be a stretch.
Then, of course, there’s Kim Kardashian, who, as this unearthed video from her eighth grade graduation reveals, was already aiming for celebrity status at 13. “I’m the dopest of the ropest person in this class,” she declares to the camera, then, when asked to define “dope,” replies, “Dope is Kim.” Surely her way with words, dating back to adolescence, was what won the equally deft wordsmith, a certain Mr. West, over.
Lastly in this string of incendiary pop cultural figures is that paragon of adorkability that makes everyone so mad, Zooey Deschanel. What, pray-tell, is Deschanel doing in the headlines today? Why, being adorkable, of course. Only now, in the Collins English Dictionary. Yes, in their newest addition, they’ve officially made that word of such terrible connotations English. Luckily, as I was typing this, my computer flipped out and tried to turn the word back to “adorable” — so we’re safe for now, at least. That, or this proves that not only are computers becoming smarter than us, but also a lot cooler.
Now onto something less polarizing: Meryl Streep. Everyone knows that even if they have a complaint about her acting, Meryl Streep overrides freedom of speech. Such complaints, due to a collective pact the culture-consuming population seems to have agreed on, are unutterable. So you better get FUCKING EXCITED about this clip where she sings Into the Woods.
And, delving deeper into things from which you’re prohibited from not liking, Buzzfeed has made a helpful list of places to find Orange is the New Black actors while you wait for the next season (on television…so not in a stalkerish way). Unfortunately, if you want to spend some extra time with the excellent Samira Wiley, your only option, really, is to watch a lot of Paypal commercials.