Reheated Soufflé
Sunday, March 23, 2003
I know it's been a while but I really don't want to lose these links as proof positive of this surreal moment in time.
Hollywood's ambivalence over military support has been well chronicled over the past several months, but today is Oscar Day and a particularly troubling day in the war's prosecution. While al Jazeera is showing Americans murdered to the Arab world, Ben Affleck ponders wearing an anti-war ribbon and just can't make up his mind, so he's leaving it to his "stylist" to decide! Absolutely surreal.
Monday, January 14, 2002
Now Michael Kinsley gets his panties in a bunch over "Bias." Maybe the blade is cutting too close to the bone, but it seems to me these guys doth prostesteth too mucheth.
Andrew Sullivan takes Kinsley down pretty handily, in two parts, but Kinsley's sidebar deserves another look.
Wednesday, January 09, 2002
Tom Shales really doesn't like "Bias." I mean the messsage (the book) , the messenger (Bernard Goldberg) and the horse they rode in on (The Wall Street Journal.) This mind-numbing ad hominum attack gets the once over from that other Goldberg.
Before the 1984 season, the commonly held maxim in TV was "Comedy is dead." Then Bill Cosby, playing Lazarus, came along sending all the programming sages scurrying. I'm reminded of this after today's announcement by the network that "family" shows are no longer in NBC's "wheelhouse."
Scott Sassa, NBC's West Coast president, had some pretty amazing quotes all of which led to the conclusion that the NBC Program Department is struggling with...well...programming . Samples:
Shows like "According to Jim" and "My Wife and Kids" on ABC, "The Bernie Mac Show" on Fox wouldn't make it on NBC - "They don't have the upscale demos that we want that would allow us to keep them on the air," Sassa sniffed. Well, maybe they aren't as upscale as say "Emeril" or the "Michael Richards Show," but at least they are still on the schedule.
"If comfort shows were important, two shows on our air – 'Providence' and 'Ed' – would be killing everybody," he said. Instead, they're doing only moderately well." Oh - that must it - it's the viewers fault.
Or maybe NBC should be looking for a Between the Coasts President.
Monday, January 07, 2002
FOOD AND FAITH Here's a note to Peggy Loar, the Executive Director of Copia, "the Napa Valley's heralded new food, wine and arts museum. It follows this amazing story in the LA Times (via Drudge):
At a time of national focus on the awful consequences of religious and civil intolerance I am puzzled and disappointed at COPIA's decision to willfully offend Catholics.
Granted I have not seen the exhibit and rely solely on the L.A. Times story for the facts, which is of course subject to all kinds of subjectivity. Maybe it's me, but I can't understand the process by which support of an artist's anger and impiety advances the celebration of food and wine.
Listen, if you want to pay to have some bozo (even an internationally recognized one) fill a coke machine with cheese of all nations and consider it art - well, that's up to you. But don't expect the rest of us not to blow milk through our nose. I know you've done your research - 19th Century caganers and all that - and I applaud your scholarship - but, respectfully, I think you miss the point. They could be authentic 12th Century Popsicle sticks and still be just as offensive. Blasphemy doesn't give a whit about authenticity.
Incidentally, I agree with you that Mr. Donohue's inclusion of Tonto into the debate was maybe a bit over the top and he, at times, can be eccentric. But his obvious point - that offending Native Americans, even allegorically, is unacceptable while nuns and the Pope are free game seems to have been lost on you. Somehow in your mind, Native Americans should be offended by...what? Being considered for inclusion in the installation? By your thought-less politically correct knee-jerk response, you actually made his point. Advantage - Donohue.
According to the orthodoxy, art is compelled to disturb and disrupt, if it's meaningful, etc. And I know, I know - artists should be free to express themselves and operate in some sort of parallel universe not subject to the laws of common sense, but Ms. Loar, here's the thing - and listen closely please - it will only take a second:
I live in a small town that lost over 30 people in the World Trade Center - that's 30 families - hundreds of people directly effected by that cold, cruel act whose seeds were born in the same kind of religious enmity shown so cavalierly by the Copia Center in this display. That kind of insolent hostility - clearly supported by your organization -carries more significance than it did 4 months ago.
No - I'm not making a moral equivalent. I fully understand the difference between 9/11 and a decidedly dopey installation in some Napa Valley wine and food temple. Don't get me wrong.
In the end I'm just one voice barking in the wind and I understand that, but I for one wish Mr. Mondavi had spent his $20 million on something more substantive than a self-congratulatory museum that celebrates callous disrespectful envenomizations.
In other words - Stick to the cabernet in the Julia Child Cafeteria and leave the Catholics alone.
Friday, December 28, 2001
Growing up in New York, part of the Christmas morning tradition was WPIX's Yule Log. Puzzle - how was it that after 3 or 4 hours it never seemed to turn to ash? THAT was the miracle of Christmas. Well, after a 12 year absence it returned this year burning the competition in the ratings.
Speaking of narcissism, The Smoking Gun.com uncovers some contract riders on a regular basis which expose the entertainment industries' eccentric divas (and devums, too.) JLo gets the latest award. I wonder if the flowers have to be room temperature too??
For pure narcissism, you can't beat the Clinton confab held up in his new Harlem digs. Spin City is alive and well. Richard Cohen takes a sip of the Clinton Kool-Aid and concludes Bill would have been done more against bin Laden - if only the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy hadn't distracted him. Luckily, back here on Earth, Professor Baker sees the meeting for what it really was - sad.
Monday, December 24, 2001
Merry Christmas all!
While most of us were enjoying friends and family over the holiday, poor Michael Moore was running around book warehouses with "White-out" and erasers, scribbling furiously while an impatient publisher drummed her fingers. Some more proof that the post 9/11 world will be very different for some of those smug, suddenly un-funny "social commentators."
Friday, December 14, 2001
OK. Everybody on the Web has been linking to this, and let's face it - it's funny and clever. I still think there's some merit in Segway, however. It may not be the people transporter/scooter thing, but something tells me the computer/gyro component will be the basis for some important technology.
As usual, "The Onion" nails it.
