Each year, The Morning News banks on the time-sucking qualities of March Madness with the Tournament of Books, a bracketed face-off that pits the year’s most celebrated works of fiction against each other. This year, the contest-crazed kids at Coudal add to the potential illegality of this operation by allowing you to bet on the winner. Proceeds benefit First Book, a non-profit that buys new books for children from low-income families, so when you’re betting on a winner, remember, you’re also betting on our future.

I placed my wager on Joshua Ferris’ Then We Came to the End. Even though it’s already got great odds, I thought it should win for three reasons: 1) It’s written in first person plural—not an easy device to keep up for 400+ pages. 2) It’s pretty much the exact story of my life as I looked for a job in advertising during one very long year at the beginning of this millennium. 3) It’s set in Chicago, which is also where Coudal is headquartered, so I read the entire book envisioning my old UnBeige cohort, Coudal employee Steve Delahoyde, as the narrator.

Easter is the perfect convergence of many of my obsessions. A short list: pastels, spring, lilacs, sundresses, brunch (meaning drinking before noon is socially-acceptable), renewal (needed after a long day of drinking), and, of course, Peeps®. I spent last week scouring my local drugstores, stocking up on the top-selling non-chocolate Easter candy. But not to eat, mind you. To craft.

True, Peeps® possess inherent physical qualities that just scream for a gastronomic improvisation every true fan has got to try at least once. (Yes, it works: Roast Peeps® over a medium flame—the sugar caramelizes on the outside for a nice crust, but don’t overdo it or you’ll end up with a black hunk the consistency of plastic—place between two vanilla wafers for the ultimate spring s’more.) When it comes to their anthropomorphic fluff, their marshmallowy versatility, however, I’m more inclined to put Peeps® in a flower arrangement than in my mouth. This year, I bought 200. I ate two.

Peeps® have superseded their sugar-coated status to become a hot grassroots creative medium. A plethora of Peep® diorama contests in the last few years has surfaced too many Peep® pop culture references to consume (my favorite: Reservoir Peeps® with a brilliant casting of Mr. Pink). Artist David Ottogalli has been putting on his Peeps Show for over a decade, and Peep Research has been studying the effect on smoking and alcohol on Peeps® for years. My friend Ashley sent me a post from Hostess with the Mostess that points to Real Simple getting in the game. See? Peeps® are good for you.

Now craft projects can even be found on the official Peeps® site, and this year Chronicle Books and Urban Outfitters are sponsoring the Peeps® on Film contest to promote the new book Peeps: Recipes and Crafts to Make with Your Favorite Marshmallow Treat. Deadline is April 30, so there’s still plenty of time to sweep the clearance aisles of their half-off Peeps® and get shooting. Here are some ideas to get you started, created by me and my Peeps® during Easter brunch:

1. Arlo’s Chick Magnets
2. Playboy Bunnies
3. Chick de Soleil
4. Peeps® in a Blanket
5. Rabbit Slug
6. Bottlecap Holder
7. Decorative Punchbowl Garnish
8. Peep®-sicle Ice Cubes (good with punch)
9. Drink Bunny (to easily identify your glass of punch)
10. Really Bad Star Wars Characters, which would have been better if it wasn’t for…the punch.

More Peep® (and punch) photos right this way!

Today, as part of their series on fictional characters, All Things Considered explores the critical period in pop culture that began with this innocuous line: “What’s happenin’, hot stuff?” In her piece “Long Duk Dong: Last of the Hollywood Stereotypes?” Alison McAdam talks to actor Gedde Watanabe (who is now 52!) about playing up the Asian stereotype for laughs in the 1984 film Sixteen Candles. Watanabe had no idea the role created by teen flick auteur John Hughes would be so controversial. But the Donger still haunts high schools everywhere: Giant Robot founders Martin Wong and Eric Nakamura say they got called the much cooler nickname ‘Bruce Lee’ until Dong came around. Nakamura seems to be the official go-to guy for issues concerning Japanese stereotypes; remember the Ray Fong/Barry McGee conspiracy?

*A very smart person who asked not to be named (perhaps because you’d all go straight to him asking for good advice on your nascent blogs) suggested that I spread the items in my Flavor of the Week posts into separate posts, as they happen, throughout the week. Although it terrifies me a little, it’s sound advice. A few more changes are on the way as soon as I can figure out how to make them.

Before he made Labyrinth: Easily the most incredible thing I saw all week, possibly all year. Jim Henson’s Commercials & Experiments was screened as part of Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theater. Thanks to YouTube you can organize a mini-screening at home. Start with these Wilkins Coffee commercials (part 2, 3) featuring an early version of Kermit, some the first commercials to use humor (and rampant puppet violence) to sell products. Also behold the brilliance of the La Choy Dragon and the stunning short film Time Piece which was nominated for an Academy Award. We miss you, Jim!Good looking: The American Society of Magazine Editors announced the National Magazine Awards nominees this week and a bunch of the mags I contribute to are in there. It’s always good to see Print and Metropolis representing the design mags in General Excellence Under 100,000 Circulation. Wired is also a regular in several categories. But check out newcomer Good making a well-deserved splash in two big categories: Magazine Section (for their Transparency column) and Design! Huge congrats to everyone at the magazine for sticking to their guns. And of course, to Scott Stowell and the magicians at Open.

Saint Andrew: Metropolis’ Andrew Blum and I both wrote about Make It Right, the program that enlisted 13 architecture firms to design houses for Katrina victims in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward. But Andrew nabbed the interview I couldn’t—he got to spend quality time with Brad Pitt, who’s personally heading up the project. Brad even opened a beer for him! In his piece “Saint Brad,” Andrew even manages to look beyond those smiling deep blue eyes and talk about the architecture. You can read my lowly un-Brad-ified piece in the Architect’s Newspaper.

Do as I do: If you’ve been reading this blog for a few weeks now and wondering how you can go from a blogging job that pays you cash to blogging for yourself for free, boy, do I have the class for you! I’ll be teaching Blogging Basics at mediabistro.com’s LA office on Saturday March 29. After five hours, you’ll walk out with a solid concept for your blog and how to get started. Details and registration are here.

Hallelujah!: Spring began this week, which means only one thing: Peeps® are in the air! Peeps® have a special place in my heart, and on my Easter table. Stay tuned Monday for more marshmallowy creations.

Thanks to all my Peeps®, Max, Andrew and UnBeige.

If you’re in LA, you still have a week or two to participate in a very special treasure hunt that you might have already been participating in without even knowing it. The exhibition Women in the City dropped more than 50 large-scale public art projects around Los Angeles last month that blended in to the urban landscape so well, you might have simply dismissed one as yet another paid-for message competing for your attention.

I wrote a piece for Print about the exhibition and its adorable Italian curator, Emi Fontana, who was delighted when I suggested people pretend it’s a treasure hunt, complete with maps to help you find the art. A quick walk around Hollywood & Highland will give you a nice sampling, and if you’re driving down Sunset or Wilshire and know where to look, you’re in for a particularly hilarious show.

Of the pieces—which are by Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler and Cindy Sherman—the ones by Holzer are my favorite, simply because they mimic the text-heavy mediums they appear in so well. In addition to her famous Truisms posted in places like the marquee on the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel (above), she created wild-postings of her Inflammatory Essays (right) that got pasted over construction sites and put up in coffeeshops. They are hilarious and terrifying and just to make sure that even more people could puzzle over the meaning of these bizarre rants, they were even translated into Spanish.

Besides the reactions I observed when reporting the story, I didn’t hear much more buzz from people wondering what these were. Maybe we’re so used to seeing wacked-out messages around town that a video billboard telling us to stop texting while driving doesn’t even faze us? Curbed LA reported that a “hooligan—or a smart art collector” snatched the Holzer piece on the side of the Standard Downtown, but then a commenter claimed they saw workers taking it down. At any rate, it’s back up now, so read my piece and go find it!

Thanks to the fine people at Print (who were just nominated for an American Society of Magazine Editors award, woohoo!) and also to Melissa Goldberg at the very busy ForYourArt.