Um, ADORABLE.
Oh, wow. What an amazing and hilarious evening. The Ultimate Gossip Girl Summit 4, held this past Saturday night at The People’s Improv Theater, was a delight and a half. The Summits are always great, because they are Star Trek conventions for hot people who like excellent teen-targeted television. I threw the first one together in 2008 because I was just so danged fond of the wacky show. It has grown into a weird little theatre/TV geek NYC phenomenon, and we sell these mofos out (and everyone gets cookies or cupcakes as treats. This time I also gave away chick lit and, as always, sex toys!) Thanks to Brizan at Marc Jacobs for hooking us up once again with some rad Blair Waldorf-worthy swag!
I don’t know if any photos survive from Ultimate Gossip Girl Summit 1, but here’s a link to my Facebook album of shots from Summit 2, being the first time Zuzanna Szadkowski (who plays my favorite character, Dorota) graced us with her presence–and Gossip Girl author Cecily von Ziegesar and her marvelous Little, Brown editor Cynthia Eagan were there too! Here are Maryanne Ventrice’s photos from Summit 3. And here’s the link to the full set of Maryanne Ventrice’s photos from Summit 4.
This time, we welcomed Zuzanna back and also celebrated the presence of actor Jake O’Connor, who played Chuck 2.0 and made out with a teenage Blair Waldorf doppelganger on the “It’s a Wonderful Lie” episode this season, as well as actor Matt Burns, who looks like he was born to play the role of a Skull and Bones member–which is exactly what he did on the “New Haven Can Wait” episode of “Gossip Girl” this season. (Jake was also recently on Fringe, and his brains got sucked out in a paranormal fashion. And Matt was in “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.” Zuzanna will soon be on two episodes of “Guiding Light” as a sexy Bosnian nun! Okay, I added the “sexy” part.)
Here are a few of my fave shots:
Zuzanna makes her grand appearance from backstage, glowing. 
This is me being really sad that Jake, Matt, and Ed Westwick are all straight.
Cosmo Magazine Starlaunch winner Mieka Pauley sings an original tune about Chuck Bass.
Baratunde, honoring Chuck Bass with that scarf.
I really hope Ces isn't referring to what I think he is referring to.
Matt accepted the cock ring like a champ.
This is my favorite photo.
I have no idea what I am doing here. I think it involves the G spot.
Jake opens up about being Chuck 2.0.
So beautiful. And there are Diana and her twins (in the oven) in the background!
Richard Lawson commands the attention of all. He is magic.
This is Matt trying not to be dreamy, and failing.
Heather Fink told a story about how much she loves Blake Lively's boobs, and I felt like I was on mushrooms.
Also, she wore fun earrings.
And here’s live video of Mieka Pauley performing a song she and Baratunde Thurston wrote (with a nod to D’Angelo) called “Shit, Damn, MotherChucker”:
Thanks to Jiwon Li, Evan Morgenstern, Francesco Marciuliano, Amy Plitt of Time Out New York, Leslie Goshko, Heather Fink, Diana Saez, Jen Kwok, Richard Lawson of Gawker.com, and our new panelists Baratunde Thurston and Jeremy Redleaf for being awesometown. Thanks to Jessica Lyn Young for being our Vanna White, Richard Jones for teching it up again, and all the staff at the PIT for being patient and accomodating as always. Thanks to Micah and Myq for not punching us for running over.
And of course, thanks to Maryanne Ventrice for the excellent photographs. In the two years that I have known Maryanne, I have watched her grow from a hardworking but largely uncompensated rock ‘n’ comedy photographer to a professional artist with several incredible credits on her resume, from photographing Joe Torre, John Grisham, and many others for Random House to promo materials for bands and actors to getting published in various periodicals such as oh, I don’t know, the NEW YORK FRICKIN’ TIMES! I appreciate her generosity and highly recommend her if you want to hire someone to shoot your headshots or your live event.
Thank you to everyone who made it out! It was a special pleasure to finally get to meet blogger/NYU estudiante Jessica Roy in person, if only for a sec. And much love to the hilarious and goofy gal pal team of Emily White and BriAnna Olson.
Not only was Mieka’s song funny, but it was hauntingly beautiful. It has been playing in my head ever since.
OMG !! The show looked great. Must be a million comedians in NY alone LOL !!
Yay! Thanks for the shout-out; it was lovely to meet you as well. Next time hopefully we can chat for more than 30 seconds.
um. where on earth is this mystical utopia of a place where comics are abundant and all gorgeous?
I know I’ve only been doing stand-up for about a year now, but the comics I know certainly don’t qualify at ALL as gorgeous. Or beautiful. Or dreamy. Or sexy. Or remotely good looking whatsoever.
WTF. There’s not one person in these photos that I wouldn’t beg for a mercy fuck. Er, I mean, a date for coffee. Yes. That’s what I meant.
Hook a brothah UP, B!
Nice pix, but when are you going to post some more videos? Those are what get us all ROFL, and those are what make you famous, too.
Thanks, all! And oh, zzyzx, it’s a-comin’, don’t you worry.