So, this weekend, Ben and I both did cool pop culture things and figured that we should definitely write about them. I was lucky enough to attend two events at the second annual Vulture Festival run by New York Magazine, and though I definitely wished I had booked more (especially considering that there was a reading of Fifty Shades of Grey as performed by Linda Belcher at the Animated Voices panel), I still loved what I saw.

I was beyond fortunate to see the East Coast premiere of Pixar’s Inside Out, complete with NYMag’s David Edelstein and director Pete Docter and producer Jonas Rivera, and a full review of that completely magnificent film is forthcoming (I want to wait until it’s closer to the release, and also need to deal with all of my feelings about it). The second event I saw was a preview of Billy Eichner and Julie Klausner’s forthcoming Hulu show Difficult People, which was followed by a panel (moderated by Margaret Lyons) with those two angels and, um, the queen of my life, Amy Poehler. I was in the second row partially behind a column – I could see Billy if I leaned creatively and Julie not at all – but Amy was RIGHT THERE. I can tell you that Amy Poehler laughing in front of you is actual magic, but other than that it was kind of a blur from being in heaven and all that. Also, New York was in the midst of a monsoon, so everyone got an emergency alert during the panel, including Billy Eichner, who panicked and leapt into the audience. The three most wonderful people ever spent the rest of the panel discussing the following topics: Louie, how Wendy Williams has the best talk show because she’s not jaded about it, how much Amy loves Thanksgiving dinner, how difficult it is to book Mandy Patinkin because he’s incredibly busy, Debbie Harry and her eternal beauty, that Yentl is actually the best comedy movie of all time, that Amy loves Game of Thrones and has read all the books (!!!!!!), Aloha, what really happened when Julie met Marc Shaiman, and, of course, Nell.

I will come back to Difficult People when it premieres in August – again, I’m not trying to spoil, and what I saw was apparently a rough cut so I don’t want to recap in case it does change – and Inside Out sometime next week, but I just wanted to briefly say how much fun Vulture Festival was, and recommend it highly to everyone. (Their lounges are also SUPER fancy and the wine I got with my drink ticket was delightful.) I’ll be going again next year for sure, and can’t wait to see who and what they feature next spring!