Ostensibly, this is Zooey with her Self cover, but truth be told, the cover photo really doesn’t look like her. It’s like they flattened her cheekbones out or something:

That, at least, can be blamed on Photoshop. This, maybe not so much:

I’m calling it right now: bun in the oven. Don’t laugh, WE’VE BEEN RIGHT BEFORE.

The dress? Like the print, wish it had straps or something. And the dark tights really don’t work here, though I’m starting to believe she had them tattooed on.

So I’m reading HelloGiggles, because — well, just because, okay? — and this startling revelation comes across the screen:

You are never too old to own Hello Kitty products. I have a Hello Kitty credit card, Zooey has a Hello Kitty sewing machine and Molly has Hello Kitty earphones.

Now how hard is it to find a Hello Kitty sewing machine? For the below-average Googler, it takes all of 500 milliseconds:

This obviously isn’t a Bernina-class machine — I used to own something like this, in a mundane Nineties PC beige — but what the heck. (I actually did some minor stitchery on a Bernina, back when I was married; she got custody of the machine, which cost nearly as much as the children.) I will not ask when Zooey has time to sew.

Entertainment Weekly’s TV critic Ken Tucker picks Fox’s New Girl as the most promising new show this fall, saying this:

Stars Zooey Deschanel as an eccentric charmer who moves in with three guys after a bad breakup. Bottom line: if you like Zooey, you’ll like this.

I dunno. I’ve seen the promo, and it bothers me for some reason. And what’s with this “eccentric charmer” business? Come on, Ken. It’s not like anyone expects Zooey Deschanel to play Margaret Thatcher.

Over the weekend I relayed a plaint by Zooey Deschanel about how no matter what her starting point, the iTunes Genius would send her several songs by Gary Lewis and the Playboys.

This suggested an experiment. I duly cranked up iTunes and instructed Genius to match ZD’s cover of Nancy Sinatra’s “Sugar Town,” an iTunes bonus track from the soundtrack of (500) Days of Summer. Genius declined for some reason.

Okay, fine. Be that way. I went back to that same soundtrack and ordered up the She & Him cover of the Smiths’ “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want.” This time Genius actually coughed up some tracks:

The Smiths, “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out”
Feist, “Mushaboom”
Jem, “Yellow”
Vampire Weekend, “Holiday”
Ben Folds featuring Regina Spektor, “You Don’t Know Me”
She & Him, “Sentimental Heart”
Neko Case, “People Got a Lotta Nerve”
Phoenix, “Lasso”
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Zero”
The xx, “Heart Skipped a Beat”
Of Montreal, “Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games”
She & Him, “Thieves”
Feist, “I Feel It All”
The Raveonettes, “Dead Sound”
Death Cab for Cutie, “Lovesong”
Belle and Sebastian, “The Boy with the Arab Strap”
Vampire Weekend, “Oxford Comma”
Neutral Milk Hotel, “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea”
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Dull Life”
Phoenix, “Lisztomania”
She & Him, “You Really Got a Hold on Me”
The xx, “Basic Space”
Florence + The Machine, “Cosmic Love”
Death Cab for Cutie, “Grapevine Fires”

The first two tracks are indeed from that same soundtrack. The first Death Cab track is a remake of the Cure’s “Lovesong”; Jem’s “Yellow” covers Coldplay’s. (And of course, the head Death Cabbie is Ben Gibbard, who is married to Zooey Deschanel.)

Not a speck of Gary Lewis, though. And who would have thought anything would match up with Neutral Milk Hotel?

I have reported a couple of times about my experiences with the iTunes Genius function, which takes any given song and then generates a playlist of putatively-similar stuff. (See, for instance, what came up from Tim Curry’s “I Do the Rock.”)

Zooey Deschanel eschews this bit of artificial intelligence, and is happy to explain why:

Aside from the fact that I ENJOY making mixes, here is my practical answer: because “GENIUS” has placed, not one, but TWO gary lewis and the playboys songs on EVERY mix I have ever attempted to make using this feature — I mean gary lewis and the playboys? really? REALLY? These guys made like, one record; I have, literally, thousands of records in my itunes and somehow jerry lewis’ son’s band makes it twice onto every attempted “genius” mix. I am convinced, no matter what, “genius” will find a way to inexplicably include “just my style” and “everybody loves a clown” into all its endeavors; and that is, frankly, unacceptable.

I toyed with the idea of sending her Al Kooper’s version of “This Diamond Ring,” recast as an R&B ballad — which apparently was what Kooper, who co-wrote it, had in mind for the song originally, judging by the Jimmy Radcliffe demo, and the Sammy Ambrose single released about a week before Gary’s version — but it occurred to me that she probably already had it.

An excerpt from a letter to an unspecified magazine for women:

Most of the women, and certainly most of the adolescent girls in the United States, do not feel completely secure with their appearance; is insecurity something you want to advocate?

Well, Mrs Gibbard, it’s not that they want their readers to be upset or anything; it’s just that much of their business model depends on the sale of beauty products, and M. Random Cutie, were she perfectly happy with her appearance, might not feel compelled to buy any. You, of all people, should know that.

Nor, I might add, is this sort of thing restricted to women, as anyone who’s seen a guy distracted by something shiny and/or noisy at the Home Depot can tell you.

Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt: these are the building blocks of our economy. For now, while we still have some semblance of an economy, anyway.

HelloGiggles.com is the project of these three excellent babes:

More specifically:

Founded by actress/musician Zooey Deschanel, producer Sophia Rossi and blogger/web personality Molly McAleer, HelloGiggles.com is the ultimate entertainment destination for smart, independent and creative females. Everything hosted on the site will be lady-friendly, so visitors need not worry about finding the standard Boys Club content that makes many entertainment sites unappealing to so many of us.

There are moments when I revel in fratboy humor, and moments when I am utterly appalled by it. (And sometimes, yes, those moments are adjacent to one another.) Their first piece, a three-minute spot for Teleflora, is cutely whimsical, and I have a high tolerance for whimsical cuteness, which gives me another excuse to keep an eye on HelloGiggles.

When I was a young modemer at the dawn of online time, I worked up a female persona, about whom perhaps the less said the better. It’s not like I invented the idea, though:

Did you know that, as a 16-year-old, Ben Franklin wrote letters to The New-England Courant posing as a middle-aged widow named Silence Dogood?

One thing I (or she, anyway) had in common with Mrs Dogood: unexpected attention from persons of the male persuasion.

We don’t give our youngsters the names of virtues quite as often as we used to, though you’ll still encounter the occasional Faith or Hope. What you will probably not see, though, is a name like Praise-God Barebone (1598?-1679), arguably the most famous member of the first post-Rump Parliament, which somehow never managed to retain the name of “Nominated Assembly.” To give you an idea of how hard-core Praise-God was, he named his son something along the lines of Hath Christ Not Died for Thee Thou Wouldst Be Damned Barebone. Nothing required the poor lad to retain that name, and he went through his adult life as Nicholas Barbon. Still, he’s remembered more for his cumbersome handle than for his one major accomplishment: he was a founder of the first fire-insurance company, circa 1680.

And then there was Patience Latting, who served twelve years (1971-1983) as mayor of Oklahoma City, and Patience and Prudence McIntyre, singing sisters who scored several hits in the middle 1950s, including the nonpareil “Gonna Get Along Without You Now.” (Because I can: here’s Zooey Deschanel singing it.)

Enough of this, I say. Several teasers, yet two whole months without a Zooeypalooza. In Colonial days, this would have been considered an Intolerable Act.

As always, you can decrease the reduction on any individual photo with a simple click.

Previous Paloozas: ZP 1, ZP 2, ZP 3, ZP 4, ZP 5, ZP 6, ZP 7, ZP 8, ZP 9.

This may be the first time I’ve ever been envious of Tigger:

Turns out, She & Him — which, you may remember, is the duo of Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward — will be recording some songs for Disney’s reboot of Winnie the Pooh, due in theaters this July, and this is the song you’ll hear over the end credits:

Yeah, I know, I could be saving these up for a Zooeypalooza, but it’s not like I’m having trouble accumulating photographs or anything.

A reader wrote me to ask why I hadn’t mentioned the due-real-soon-now film Your Highness, in which the lovely Zooey D. appears, albeit fourth-billed. I argued that in the trailer, anyway, she’s nowhere to be found, though I later discovered some major Deschanel presence in the red-band version of the trailer.

And the production company is giving her some wallpaper space:

I hope she can breathe in that getup. (Click to embiggen.)

LPCover Lover has opened up a sidebar category called Chicks Dig Records, which is a collection of photographs of persons of the female persuasion interacting with, or just surrounded by, classic vinyl (and/or shellac, in the case of 78s). It’s a fairly huge (and, I warn you, not always safe for work) collection.

You will not be surprised to hear that the first thing I thought to myself was Wouldn’t it be cool if we could get Zooey D. into one of these shots? LPCL, however, was way ahead of me:

Is that Hot Rocks I see?

Today we take a peek at Rashida Jones, daughter of Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton, thirty-five this week. This particular photo was taken by Lee Broomfield for the Russian edition of InStyle in 2009:

Later this year, she’ll be appearing in the film My Idiot Brother, with Paul Rudd as the doofus in question.

Obligatory disclosure: Zooey Deschanel is also in said film; she and Jones play tormented — and not just by Rudd — lovers.

Things you need to know about Oklahoma’s soon-to-be-designated State Gospel Song:

• Composer “Uncle” Wallace Willis was one of the Choctaw Freedmen, emancipated after the Civil War by treaty between Washington and the Choctaw Nation. “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” dates to somewhere in the 1840s.
• You can hear echoes of “Swing Low” in Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.” Maybe.
• And yes, Zooey Deschanel has sung it.

Senate Bill 73, by Eason McIntyre (D-Tulsa), which passed the Senate 46-1, should have no trouble in the House. (The, um, “1″ was Josh Brecheen, R-Coalgate, who is not the sharpest tool in the shed, if you know what I mean.)

We’ve gone too long without one of these, wouldn’t you say?

Embiggenment of individual photos can be had with a click.

Previous Paloozas: ZP 1, ZP 2, ZP 3, ZP 4, ZP 5, ZP 6, ZP 7, and ZP 8.

You know the song already. It’s direct and to the point, but the potential for rudeness is on the high side, as Zooey Deschanel is compelled to point out:

To whom are you explaining all of this? The ticket agent? FYI the ticket agent definitely doesn’t care why you’re buying a plane ticket. The ticket agent just wants your money, not your explanations.

On t’other hand, “The Letter” was written by Wayne Carson Thompson, who also wrote this, so sivilizing him, Mark Twain-style, may prove to be a bit more complicated than she anticipated.

Yeah, her again. He’s there too.

I trust this requires no explanation.

Zooey Deschanel in doll form:

A variation on the Madame Alexander “Happy Birthday, Wendy” theme.

(Via, um, Zooey Deschanel.)

Okay, just one more before the end of the year.

You may be able to get larger versions of some of these with a simple click.

Previously seen: ZP 1, ZP 2, ZP 3, ZP 4, ZP 5, ZP 6, and ZP 7.

Disclosure: One of these outfits you’ve seen before, but in a different shot.

And while they’re not coming after me, so far as I know, they’re definitely zeroing in on Steve Madden:

Actress Zooey Deschanel, best known for her turn in the Will Ferrell movie Elf, is suing shoe designer Steve Madden for a $2,000,000 breach of contract.

The deal was made to use Zooey’s likeness and name in a line of shoes and accessories, cleverly named ‘Zooey shoes & accessories’.

Why the deal fell through, I don’t know, though BNET’s Jim Edwards offers a possible explanation:

Here’s some speculation: Although Deschanel is a luminous and appealing screen presence, she’s not that famous.

Emphasis added. And, well, you can’t say I’m not doing my part.