I dont have any kids but I can imagine how taxing and annoying it has to be when you just want your baby to go to sleep, and its apparent it just isnt going to happen. Reading bedtime stories is part of every kids childhood, and I am SURE that at some point, all of our parents read these books in a similar narrative. If only we all could have been so lucky as to have Samuel L read to us.

Go the Fuck to Sleep is written by Adam Mansbach, illustrated by Ricardo Cortes, and somehow narrated by Samuel L. Jackson.

The hardcover book can be ordered from Amazon.com here.

Our definition of art is normally limited to expertly executed car restorations, blondes and a perfectly crafted drink. But then a Banksy or a Shephard Fairey comes along and changes everything. Graffiti is art. It might have originally started as street art, but Eminem started on the street too and look how that turned out. The point is, street art is kind of a big deal now. Big enough to get the Museum of Contemporary Art Director, Jeffrey Deitch, to curate a graffiti and street art exhibition. Art in the Streets chronicles the exhibit, the first large-scale American museum exhibition of its kind. It connects the dots between the graffiti and street art movements and highlights their connection to some of our other favorite subcultures: hip hop and skateboarding. It’s a narrated walk down a graffiti-ed memory lane. $27

It’s often said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but most authors prefer to do their story telling using words instead of pictures. What if pictures were made using words instead? Well, in some forms of typography based art, pictures are made up of words.

Check out these portraits of famous authors made using words from their own stories and poems.

Ibsen as “Hedda Gabler”

Borges as “The Secret Miracle”

Many more cool author word portraits below

G. B. Shaw as “Arms and the Man”

R.P. Warren as “Audubon/A Vision”

Robert Lowell as “History”

John Keats as “Lamia”

As a kid sometimes you hoped for a Scantron test because, while you might get the majority of questions wrong by simply blackening out every “C” on the sheet, at least you wouldn’t embarrass yourself with some asinine answers. While we’re glad our terrible answers are buried in an attic somewhere amongst action figures and Little League uniforms we’re pretty excited these ones aren’t. Richard Benson compiled 250 of the most hilariously bad shots in the dark ever in F in Exams. Whether they were honest attempts at squeaking out some points or were written with a smirk and a giant white flag in hand, we’re glad some youngsters took an F-bullet for our enjoyment. Buy it here for $10.

The Egg

By: Andy Weir

You were on your way home when you died.

It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.

And that’s when you met me.

“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”

“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.

“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”

“Yup,” I said.

“I… I died?”

“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.

You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”

Read on to have your mind exploded, maybe

“More or less,” I said.

“Are you god?” You asked.

“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”

“My kids… my wife,” you said.

“What about them?”

“Will they be all right?”

“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”

You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”

“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”

“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”

“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”

“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”

You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”

“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”

“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”

“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”

I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.

“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”

“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”

“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”

“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”

“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”

“Where you come from?” You said.

“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”

“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”

“So what’s the point of it all?”

“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”

“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.

I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”

“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”

“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”

“Just me? What about everyone else?”

“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”

You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”

“All you. Different incarnations of you.”

“Wait. I’m everyone!?”

“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.

“I’m every human being who ever lived?”

“Or who will ever live, yes.”

“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”

“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.

“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.

“And you’re the millions he killed.”

“I’m Jesus?”

“And you’re everyone who followed him.”

You fell silent.

“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”

You thought for a long time.

“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”

“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”

“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”

“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”

“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”

“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”

And I sent you on your way.

If we grew up hundreds of years ago we probably wouldn’t think of an overpass as a canvas for a piece of art. (In part because there were no overpasses.) However for as long as we can remember, we’ve liked our art like we’ve liked a lot of things in our lives – with a hint of danger and illegality – so we’ve long been fans of what we’ve dubbed The American Graffiti Movement. And, this is our textbook. The History of American Graffiti explores the entire culture of the art form from guys tagging train-cars back in the day to modern day work in cities across the country. Meet all the players in the game and check out some of their best work in this 400 page book. If they taught this in college we probably wouldn’t have gone to just the exams in Art History. $24

Facebook profiles are like belly buttons: Everybody’s got one. 1 out of ever 13 humans and three out of four Americans is on Facebook, and one out of 26 signs into Facebook on a daily basis. We could rattle off stats like that until the cows come home, but instead, we’d like to show you this fascinating infographic from SocialHype and OnlineSchools.org. Plain and simple you are probably obsessed, as long as you don’t play farmville or poke people on the reg. then you are just like everyone else, but once you start doing shit like that then you need to reevaluate your life.

More incredible information on facebook users below

Due to an overwhelming of status updates on facebook last night saying “What is Kik?” we did some research. We were introduced to the new application for iphone, android, and blackberry users and did a little hands on work for our readers. First, here’s how the app works: Once you download the application, it checks your address book and recommends the friends and other contacts you are likely to know who already have downloaded Kik. You can then start chatting with them immediately. Like IM, it’s asynchronous, meaning it lets you see messages immediately, including when the person you’re chatting with is typing. Additionally, it lets you know when they’ve actually read their message.

Check out our final verdict and screen-shots of the app in action below.

Final Verdict

I came from a Blackberry and now have a Droid X, which was the best thing I ever did, Blackberrys blow, and the only thing I was spending 30 bucks a month on was bbm, which I did enjoy because of the groups and fast messaging. After playing with Kik for a while the actually messaging is pretty much identical to bbm, but it is missing some major features like groups, profile pictures, being able to send pictures videos and files, etc. In an interview with the developer he said major updates would be coming soon but they just need to work out the legal issues.

My advice, go to your app store and download Kik, it is definitely worth checking out and I think you will enjoy it when you get a solid list of friends on it. Kik is pretty much a cross platform bbm so it is pretty awesome. Here is a toast to the death of the last thing Blackberry had in it’s arsenal.

Featuring one of Andy Warhol’s Rorschach paintings on the cover, Hov’s first book takes an intimate look at 36 songs from his deep-ass catalog by providing insight from the man himself into some of his more provocative and memorable lyrics. He says:

When I first started working on this book, I told my editor that I wanted it to do three important things. The first was to make the case that hip-hop lyrics—not just my lyrics, but those of every great MC—are poetry if you look at them closely enough. The second was I wanted the book to tell a little bit of the story of my generation, to show the context for the choices we made at a violent and chaotic crossroads in recent history. And the third piece was that I wanted the book to show how hip-hop created a way to take a very specific and powerful experience and turn it into a story that everyone in the world could feel and relate to.

Here he is speaking on his recently released “Most Kings”