While I’m far from the target demographic for Playgirl magazine (which even the editors must admit was gay men), this New York Times article reveals some interesting behind-the-scene aspects to its cancellation. Apparently, the editors had a slightly more intellectual magazine in mind, describing something that sounds like Bust magazine with nudity. Publishers Blue Horizon Media didn’t share their vision.

Former editor, Nicole Caldwell, doesn’t seem to have considered gathering the other ‘former editors’ together to create a more graphic version of the community newspaper she previously ran which is almost a shame (though not quite the “blow for feminism” she imagines).

In the same week I see a review of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog in one of those free papers that appear en masse on the London Underground, The Medium has bravely plunged the depths of Web Serials.

As we enter yet another phase of lesbian chic (and, let’s face it, they’re as regular as clockwork), psychoPEDIA asks Jessica Gysel, of Amsterdam-based GLU magazine, about all things proper lesbian (Li-lo, media representation and the not-unrelated absence of the “first brand featuring a mustached queer inter-sexual being”).

Hasbro have managed to disappear Scrabulous from Facebook , in Canada and the US, by making various legal threats against both Facebook and the games’ creators. In other parts of the world, where the rights to Scrabble are owned by Mattel, Scrabulous remains the wordy procrastination tool of choice. For now, anyway.

But until Act One is released on Tuesday , we will just have to keep watching the trailer again and again (after the jump). Go NPH! .

I’ve been following — with indecent interest — the Boing Boing OMG censorship! thing, so ably reported on by m’colleague a couple of days ago. (continued)

Or even historical revisionists. But apparently they are when it comes to Violet Blue .

Although I get the sinking suspicion I use that title a lot, it’s still worth checking out the Arianna Huffington interview on NPR. (HuffPo a Go Go).

I’d always hoped for a lezzie version of the revered and fashionable Butt magazine and was more than a little disappointed when its counterpart, Kutt, didn’t last more than a couple of issues. So it was great to hear about GLU magazine , a Danish-produced, US-published title that adds some long-overdue edginess to the queer girl magazine rack. It was also great to see that, alongside Kathrin Hero, Jessica Gysel (who who was responsible for Kutt) edits GLU. Consider it GLU in beta mode. As it’s a quarterly magazine and I’m looking at issue 7, this means I’m more than fashionably late coming to the GLU party. GLU stands for Girls Like Us, but I prefer the alternative version that appears on the editorial page; Gueer Lipster Utopia.

I didn’t actually think I could be any more enthusiastic about make/shift magazine (subtitle: feminisms in motion) than I already had been, but then the second issue arrives in the post with an (apparently unintentional) media theme and that theory promptly fell by the wayside.

The Itty Bitty Titty Committee is the latest film by Jamie Babbit and opened this year’s London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. Babbit’s directorial style remains intact; the abrupt scene jumps, (dyke)pop culture references, humour and a glossy, music video finish. This approach has served her well most recently in episodes of The L Word and it works well here for a film that takes a light-hearted (and occasionally self-mocking) look at awkward adolescence. That is, the awkward adolescence experience by newly political disenfranchised young queers, an experience that has until now remained far removed from any kind of general cinema release.

Velvetpark has sought to be the tattooed dyke to Diva (or Curve, depending on geography) magazine’s pant-suited lesbian for a few years now. And its dyke badge is something that the magazine wears proudly, having challenged the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) over their use of the word dyke, a word previously rejected as being “immoral and scandalous”. This seems to be the only appearance of anything resembling scandal, in this particular issue anyway. While the cover stars may feature the Chicago Rollergirls, the real star of the issue is Martina Navratilova.

Two new US TV shows, Dexter (Showtime) and Heroes (NBC), offer a startlingly fresh take on the themes of comic-book superheroism.

Richard Bluestein recently announced the somewhat controversial (at least in the insular world of podcasting) death of his performance persona, Madge Weinstein. Bluestein podcasts in the character of Weinstein for a number of popular shows, including Yeast Radio (and the experiemental format Yeast2 spinoff show).

Finley’s latest book is a satire of current American politics told as an illicit affair between Martha Stewert and George W. Bush and mimicking Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf. As in Finley’s earlier work, Living It Up, Adventures in Hyperdomesticity, Martha Stewert serves as the ultimate symbol of conservative femininity, acting out the mothering fantasies to Dubya’s damanaged little boy psyche.