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Meet Alice Finch, the Harry Potter enthusiast who built an architecturally accurate interior and exterior of Hogwarts with 400,000 LEGOs.

Growing up in the ‘90s and early ‘00s, I had really weird taste in music. Sure, I liked whatever the Top 40 pop hits were, but I also belted out showtunes, and I had every word memorized of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s song parodies. Through his ode to food “Eat It,” I learned how badass young Michael Jackson was. Likewise, I would never have known what “MacArthur Park” without the cheeky "Jurassic Park.”

While they are certainly not as offensive as the recent covers for The Bell Jar and Anne of Green Gables, the new covers for the Harry Potter series will likely cause an uproar among Potterheads. Mary GrandPré's original cover art for the novels is getting shelved (see what I did?!) in favor for new artwork by Kazu Kibuishi. A box set will be available in September in honor of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone's fifteenth anniversary, which means you're going to have to buy new copies for your library. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be in the next room freaking out that Harry Potter has now been around for fifteen years. 

New York Times literary critic Michiko Kakutani, contrary to popular daydreams, does not have such a great gig. As far as I can tell, her duties are to act as lightning rod for vitriol from cranky authors—Jonathan Franzen infamously called her the “stupidest person in New York City”—and read every new Philip Roth book to the bitter end. Often she is obligated to use the word “limn.” Likewise, reviewing The Casual Vacancy, J.K. Rowling’s 500-page career move into the world of adult-targeted fiction, is a thankless task. So Ms. Kakutani elected to talk about Harry Potter the whole time.

Having spotted the coolest poster ever downtown last week, a few of us animal enthusiasts on Sunday afternoon did some day-drinking and trekked up to Hamilton Heights’ Riverbank State Park to see the coolest menagerie of killer birds currently on tour in the continental United States. And let me tell you, EXTREME RAPTORS: CLEARED FOR TAKEOFF, even at $12 and after missing the first ten minutes, did not disappoint. These were some big, badass birds of prey. I know because the half of the audience made up of small children was ducking for cover and sobbing into parents’ shoulders as the falcons and hawks demonstrated their dive-bombing techniques.

Every day there are some topics that are trending. Since many of them don't make sense, we provide easy contextualization. Also, this way, you won't actually have to know anything about anything.

In its multi-decade, 500+-episode run, The Simpsons has sported all sorts of popular culture references, from the Immortal Bard (a Hamlet parody still shown in high schools all across America by English teachers who want to get hip with the young people) to Spider-Pig (does whatever a spider-pig does).

● Looks like Michael Bay's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will be neither "Teenage" nor "Mutant" -- not by title, at least. Bay announced on his blog this morning that Paramount marketing has renamed his reboot Ninja Turtles. "They made the title simple. The characters you all remember are exactly the same," he assured, adding that, "yes they still act like teenagers." [EW]

● Nicki Minaj has inked a multimillion-dollar deal with Pepsi to be the face their new "Pop" beverage. "It's going to be explosive," they say. [Forbes]

Harry Potter manics, rejoice: After a few years of hanging out, J.K. Rowling has a new book on the way. TheBookseller.com reports that Rowling has just sold an adult project (as in age, not racy content) to adult publishers Little, Brown, for release sometime in the distant future. No details of the book's content, title or date were forthcoming, though it probably won't bear much resemblance to the Potter books. "The freedom to explore new territory is a gift that Harry's success has brought me, and with that new territory it seemed a logical progression to have a new publisher," she said said, and I'm guessing she's more than ready to put the wizarding world to rest.