Hey, Mr. Producer Jack Gray’s ostensible claim to fame is that he’s a producer for “Anderson Cooper 360” but as his new book Pigeon in a Crosswalk proves, he’s got talent above and beyond bringing dreamy newscasters to the screen. “Pigeon” is an interesting hybrid of a book. It’s part David Sedaris-style memoir, recounting alternately hilarious and heartwarming moments with his funny family. It’s also part career memoir—tracing Gray’s path from wrangling guests for local news in the Boston region to helping CNN craft coverage of major world events in NYC. But, perhaps most importantly, it’s chock-full of his most memorable run-ins with stars—in particular his good friend Kathy Griffin, with whom he shares hilarious holiday celebrations, fabulous sleepovers and no small amount of donuts. Learn more about the book and follow Gray him on twitter at @jackgraycnn.

Big Girl  Palm Springs has a rich history of big celebrities showing up, but this may be the biggest one yet. Forever Marilyn is a 26-foot tall, 34,300 lb. sculptural recreation of Marilyn Monroe, posed in the white dress so famously accosted by an updraft in “The Seven Year Itch.” The mammoth statue by artist Seward Johnson, which was first displayed in Chicago, will be available for photo-ops in downtown Palm Springs until June 2013. If you’re interested in planning a Marilyn-themed getaway, you can also see the actual 50s-style bungalow where Monroe once lived or stay in one of her favorite hotel rooms.

Sounds Invisible to Me Design is all around us—from the clothes in our closets to the cities where we live and work—and some of the most interesting design stories around are being told on the amazing podcast 99% Invisible, which you can download on iTunes or at 99percentinvisible. Join host Roman Mars as he explores topics from great architectural failures (Bridges collapsing! Grandly conceived public spaces degrading into drug dens!) to intriguing creations (Monks crafting the world’s most desired beer! An invisible piece of statuary!) and much, much more.

August Experiments Each year, as September draws near, Paul Hagen becomes shockingly aware that he is about to be another year older. He usually attempts to ameliorate this by signing up for a bunch of projects that will make him feel he has accomplished something wild, weird or wonderful in the past year and this year is no exception. So, as part of the 31 Plays in 31 Days project, he’ll be writing a short play every day in August (or, potentially, 31 short plays on the last day of August). You, too, can join this ambitious project by visiting 31plays31days.com or follow Paul’s progress has he blogs about it at worldofhagen.wordpress. Or, if you’re in the New York area, on August 18 from 3:00 to 4:45pm, Paul will be participating in a “happening” called Write Out Front, in which playwrights write in the front window of the NYC’s famed Drama Book Shop with a live feed of their computer screens visible to passersby on the street. See writers of various levels of fame and misfortune take their turn from 11am to 7pm, Monday through Saturday from August 13th through September 1. More info at theaterspeak.blogspot.

Toronto’s Treasures August is your last chance to see Picasso: Treasures from the Musée National Picasso in North America, and it’s at the Art Gallery Ontario in Toronto. While you’re in town, take a day trip to see Niagara Falls, have a meal in a rotating restaurant atop one of the world’s tallest structures, go crazy snapping pictures at the Bata Shoe Museum, enjoy the variety of cuisines in the city rich with world cultures and visit the city’s famous Gay Village, which estimates that this year it surpassed San Francisco to host the world’s largest gay pride parade.

Family Matters  We’ve got two very different but highly enjoyable books about the nature of family hitting shelves this June. First up, it’s Dan Bucatinsky, who is perhaps most famous for producing the gone-before-its-time television gem “The Comeback” starring Lisa Kudrow. When he wasn’t busy making award-worthy comedy, Bucatinsky was building a family with his partner Don, and he turns his experiences of becoming a Dad into laugh-out-loud memoir in Does this Baby Make Me Look Straight? Meanwhile, later in the month, meet June, the adolescent girl at the center of Carol Rifka Brunt’s amazing debut novel Tell the Wolves I’m Home. June’s beloved Uncle Finn is her best friend, but he’s dying of AIDS. When he goes, he leaves behind a secret life she’s compelled to explore. This thrilling story about the power of secrets, art and the extraordinary lengths to which a family will go to protect each other rivals “To Kill a Mockingbird” for my favorite young female heroine.

Le Julie Hot  In this world where home video retailers tend to stock nothing but the newest of releases, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group is swinging open their huge film vault and giving viewers access to either made-to-order DVDs or video-on-demand digital copies of the classics for which you’ve been hunting. The program premiered with titles from the “Golden Age of Hollywood,” featuring the hits of stars like Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers, but they’ve expanded into other periods and genres, and now they’re bringing two more recent classics back. In honor of its 30th Anniversary Victor/Victoria returns in all its roaring 1920s glory—with commentary by star Julie Andrews and director Blake Edwards. They’re also releasing another Edwards/Andrews gem from the same period—the dark Hollywood satire in which Julie Andrews famously “showed her boobies”—S.O.B. For more info on how you can get your hands on Julie’s assets—and hundreds of other hard-to-find titles—visit warnerarchive.com.

Help Your Shelf  Looking for a book that might make you feel better about life? We’ve got four: First, we’re remembering a wild era of gay history with Running in Bed, the beautiful debut novel by Jeffrey Sharlach, about a man who comes to New York in the late 1970s to figure out how to be part of the gay community just in time for it to be devastated by the AIDS Crisis. (Focus Group fans in the NYC area can see Paul Hagen interview Jeffrey about the book live at Barnes & Noble, May 17th, at 7pm). Next, we’re getting inspired by a fascinating collection of letters that queer writers penned to their younger selves called The Letter Q — a sort of autobiographical twist on the “It Gets Better Campaign.” Then, we went audiobook for Rachel Maddow’s Drift and are finding it to be a wildly informative history of how the Presidency gradually stole the power to make war from Congress. And we’re even giving “self-help” a try, courtesy of Yogi and animal enthusiast Edward Vilga, courtesy of his book Upward Dog, which prescribes better living by being more like the pets that we love.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen  Australian photographer Paul Freeman made a name for himself photographing the Aussie hunks of Bondi Beach and butch boys of the Outback. However, in his latest book, Freeman is serving his men with a twist. Inspired by the anachronism of sensuous sculptures that celebrate the body dotting modern European cities (practically unseen by their bustling citizens), Freeman places models in neo-classical poses and attire in modern settings in his new book Heroics.

Won’t the Real Ben Cohen, Please Stand Up?  Pro-athletes often retire from playing  pro-sports to embrace exciting opportunities in coaching or reality television, but not Ben Cohen. He left a great run as one of the world’s most celebrated rugby players to concentrate on building the Ben Cohen StandUp foundation, an organization devoted to addressing the epidemic of childhood bullying—especially among gay kids. Read more about how Cohen decided to make this unique commitment in Paul Hagen’s profile of him, and learn how you can support his efforts with the StandUp Foundation.

Girls Just Wanna…  Remember the good old days, when you could visit your four favorite gal pals ever Sunday night on HBO? Well, the network has a fab new NYC foursome to introduce to you, but this time—instead of pulled-together Manhattanites, they’re Williamsburg Hipsters, and they’re falling apart. Series creator/writer/director/miracle Lena Dunham stars as Hannah, a girl with an unpaid internship who’s about to get financially cut off by her parents. Meanwhile, Hannah’s best friend Marnie is busy actively sabotaging her own long term relationship and their friends—free-spirited world traveler Jessa and Sex-and-the-City obsessed virgin Shoshanna—are also stalled: the former too cool and the latter too anxious for their own good. Get more info about Girls at HBO.com and tune into the premiere April 15 at 10:30pm on HBO.

Come On! Rogue!  On Sunday March 10, HBO is bringing back Sarah Palin in a big way. And if you thought that Tina Fey had the definitive Palin impression locked up, hold on to your lipstick, Soccer Moms. Julianne Moore’s Sarah Palin is eerily accurate (might Moore be our next Meryl Streep?), and she’s supported by a fantastic cast (including Ed Harris as John McCain and Woody Harrelson as a top campaign aid). Game Change is roller-coaster-ride exciting, laugh-out-loud funny and as entertaining to watch as the political superstar at its center.

And the Beat Goes Ani  Ani Difranco’s first album of original material in several years, ¿Which Side Are You On? has plenty to please her most ardent fans: she’s still refreshingly direct in her political critique, still crafting marvelous lyrics about the exasperating emotions of the human experience. But it also seems that with each album, you can feel her getting wiser and exploring new possibilities — while still managing to sound like herself. So if you’ve resisted Ani in the past, this might be a good chance to give her a try as truly this album contains some of her most beautiful and inspiring song. Learn more about Ani’s folkin’ fantastic new release from her label, Righteous Babe Records.

Stockholm, Venice of the North  Travel to Sweden’s capital and take in the view as you cross the many snow-dappled bridges that connect this beautiful city of islands. Head to the top of the world’s largest spherical structure, discover the joys of the next generation of museum audio tours, awake to the Scandinavian design and extraordinary breakfasts at the Hotel Skeppsholmen and explore the beautiful old town (Gamla Stan) of Stockholm.

The Cold and the Beautiful  If you’re looking for a vacation your friends won’t believe without physical proof, look to the Arctic Circle where each year several tons of snow and ice are crafted into one of the world’s coldest luxuries: The Ice Hotel. In addition to experiencing its fabulous design, you can choose to participate in excursions and activities that let you create your ice sculpture, get up close and personal with actual sled dogs and reindeer, seek out the Northern Lights, explore the rich history of the Native people who have adapted to survive the snowy North or hop on board a snowmobile and head over the river and through the woods — though this certainly is no trip to Grandma’s House! Learn more about this combination of man’s ingenuity and nature’s beauty at icehotel.com. 

Hot Stuff  Sure, Hot in Cleveland has Betty White, but is this little sit-com that could the heir to “The Golden Girls?” It just may be. Though Jane Leeves, Wendie Malick and Valerie Bertinelli may seem much younger, they’re actually quite similar in age to those sassy ladies of Miami. What’s more, as the show enters it’s third season (which premiered Wednesday November 30), it’s showing all the hallmarks of a series that keeps viewers coming back time and time again: a cast of talented TV veterans, a willingness to put them in wacky - almost unbelievable - situations that push the boundaries of taste, and (most important of all) the ability to deliver laughs every time.

The Reason for the Season?  Here’s an unusual way to put the Christ back in Christmas — with Mangus! It’s ostensibly the tale of a young man who is desperately committed to play Jesus in his community production of “Jesus Christ Spectacular!” (a low-rent rip-off of “Jesus Christ Superstar”) as did his father and grandfather before him. But - following in the tradition of John Waters (who actually makes a brief appearance in the film), it’s really just a unfolding series of events — each more bizarre and unexpected than the last. With impish Leslie Jordan playing the show’s director, the amazing Jennifer Coolidge deadpanning as Mangus’s mother and Heather Matazzaro as Mangus’ half sister (whose character seems to have been named “Jessica Simpson” for entirely comedic purposes), the moral to this story may just be that some stories are better left amoral.

Oh What a Night  The holidays don’t always seem to make sense - the tense family moments, the frenzied spending, the romanticizing of inclement weather - but nothing helps make sense of the holidays like tales of how other gay people handle them. Remembering Christmas, offers a tasting menu of Christmas stories by three gay authors. Tom Mendicino strands a world weary New Yorker in a backwater bar on the way home to West Virginia. Frank Anthony Polito follows a college kid revisiting his high school crushes. And Michael Salvatore offers us an unexpected reunion in an airport that leads to cocktail-fueled reminiscences and reconsideration of roads not taken. Get your copy for about $10.

Scary Good  Have you tuned into American Horror Story on FX? If not, you’re missing out on one of the most addictive new shows of the year. Set in a haunted Los Angeles house whose residents seem destined to die in horrible ways (and then stick around as ghosts to make sure that others do the same), the the scintillating series provides a weekly dose of good old fashioned frights, interwoven with a complex supernatural mythology that is still unfolding. Plus, it’s got one of the most attractive and talented casts on TV—with healthy doses of naked Dylan McDermott in the pilot, plenty of the great Connie Britton (who probably should have won an Emmy for “Friday Night Lights”) and the phenomenal, glamorous, creepy Jessica Lange, dishing out movie-star quality scene after scene. Tune in for new episodes Wednesdays at 10pm EST on FX.