"This is an extraordinarily irritating book, written by one of those people who smugly believe that, having lost their faith, they must ipso facto have found their reason." - Christopher Hitchens, opening his review of David Mamet's The Secret Knowledge.

Tonight'sThe Simpsons went highbrow with the guests (James Lipton, David Mamet, Garry Marshall), and lowbrow with some pointed send-ups of '80s TV. Good episode—even better Lipton appearance!

If waiting until tonight's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is too much for you, and you need your Devito fix right away, why not check out this art-house short written and directed by David "I wrote Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet.

"Real Housewife" Jill Zarin turns 46 today. Ben Stiller is turning 44. Actor Gael García Bernal is 31. Writer/director David Mamet is 62. Model Chanel Iman is turning 20. Director Ridley Scott is turning 72. TV legend Dick Clark turns 80 today. Billy Idol is 54. Elisha Cuthbert, the actress and ex-girlfriend of Sean Avery, is 27. Actress Amy Ryan turns 40. Performance artist Marina Abramovic is 63. Retired NFL and MLB star Bo Jackson turns 47. Watergate burglar-turned-radio host G. Gordon Liddy is 79. Clay Aiken is turning 31. And Joan Ganz Cooney, the Sesame Street creator, wife of billionaire financier Pete Peterson, and step-grandmother to PC Peterson, is 80.

If sparkly vampires shit in the woods, would you listen? Did Michael Jackson drink Pepsi? Is Amy Winehouse on drugs again? Does being Ashley Durpre get you invited to parties? Is Jay-Z still gangster? Presenting your Sunday Morning Gossip Roundup:

• Vibe is rising from the dead. A group of investors led by former cable exec Leo Hindery and its luxury magazine publisher Uptown Media have acquired the magazine. They plan to resurrect the website in a few weeks. [WSJ]
• Laura Ling is shopping a book proposal with her sister, Lisa Ling. [WSJ]
• Twitter was the victim of another denial-of-service attack yesterday. [NYT]
• Facebook is testing out something called "Facebook Lite," which may or may not be a Twitter competitor, depending whom you ask. [ABC News, Guardian]
• CBS had planned to change up this year's Emmy Awards. But then everyone complained, so now it plans to go back to the way it was. [THR]
• A launch party for a new magazine? Could it be? Really? [AdAge]

Disney and David Mamet are working on a new film version of ninth grade staple The Diary of Anne Frank. We only pray there will be no cursing riffs, animated mice, or musical numbers. [Variety]

Jeremy Piven is expected to show up for his Actor's Equity hearing tomorrow to determine whether his "mercury poisoning" excuse was totally made up, duh. The biggest hole in Piven's defense? His exhaustively documented partying.

Maybe Jeremy Piven isn't off the mercury—after all, his attempt to justify his recent behavior to Good Morning America was oilier than a soy sauce-slathered eel roll.

Jeremy Piven faced quite the gauntlet at last night's Globes: a press pack hungry to douse him in soy sauce and eat him alive, plus his aggrieved former Broadway costar, Elisabeth Moss.

Though Jeremy Piven's ungraceful, sushi-related exit from Speed-the-Plow has at least secured him future savings on his Matsuhisa tab, he may part with that extra cash if the play's backers have their (angry) say.

Aside from Fisher Stevens, everyone knows that Jeremy Piven's play-quitting sushi defense is bogus (but delicious!). However, E! is now alleging that Piven never actually quit—he was fired.

Sherri Shepherd's got an entry for Hollywood PrivacyWatch! On a plane over the holidays, she realized that the "short," fedora-clad man she'd been bothering was none other than the famously mercury-addled Jeremy Piven.

Incredible resources were deployed to figure out if Tom Brady is marrying Gisele Bundchen and to get Condé Nast's Chuck Townsend wherever the hell he wants to go, in style.

Though we understood why Jeremy Piven's ditched Speed-the-Plow co-stars reamed him onstage Sunday, we couldn't fathom what it was that had made Elisabeth Moss allegedly start "sobbing." Then, we saw the Piven-less box office:

As so many stories wind down for the holidays, it's comforting to know that the new developments in Jeremy Piven's Sushigate scandal are even more delicious than the soft shell crab roll at Matsuhisa.

Though David Mamet zinged Jeremy Piven's play-quitting sushi excuse in the press, other Speed-the-Plow producers were keeping their slams anonymous until they realized just how much fun it can be.

Hollywood community, Jeremy Piven is very disappointed in you. Why have you refrained from rallying around the actor as he suffers so dearly from mononucleosis... er, we mean "self-inflicted sushi poisoning"?

When Jeremy Piven dropped out of Speed-the-Plow today and cited a "high mercury count" as the reason, we wondered whether that excuse could possibly be topped. As it turns out, it could!

If ever David Mamet had justification to launch one of his famous, profanity-studded tirades, the news that Jeremy Piven had abruptly (and weirdly) quit his play Speed-the-Plow would certainly seem to fit the bill.