Can you hear them singing...? 1. Eschaton Reliable even in the off-season. First recommended to me by Dan the man (at Disc Diggers). 2. TMFTML Back and baaaaaaad... 3. ROCKS OFF For obvious reasons, and for Ian Stewart. 4. RUDE PUNDIT "Sweet Foucaultian nightmare..." 5. ZOILUS: CARL WILSON ON MUSIC You second self as critic, only different. Blog day Singing to themselves? Or Everybody? Or nobody? Can anyone tell? Is there such a thing as TOO MUCH self-consciousness? What happens if/when a medium is BORN self-conscious? If a … [Read more...]

REAL LIFE AD COPY Are you still a wax virgin? (BBC 1 TV) Beat the French on their home turf! (OTB horses) Big flashy films for your grubby little houses. (billboard) WILL YOU GO TO LUNCH! Lindsay Posner on why David Mamet is great, warts and all: Perhaps in no other writer's work can the colloquial expressions of tragic human need be transformed into such moving, glorious poetry. As the hapless Bernie says as he ogles an unsuspecting girl on a beach: 'With tits like that, who needs ... anything?' Finally, celebrating its team's win in … [Read more...]

WKD DIVIDEND I misread the blog date as today, when actually, it's next week, so here's a BONUS post: Filmoculous: constantly replenished links by category... James Wolcott: a writer finds his medium... Pluck RSS Feed of the Day: latest and greatest... memeorandum: news as clusterlinks... TV Guests: patterns emerge from these posts, a meat-story: just go to the web page and search on any of the big numbers, you'll zig-zag your way down the page. The machine wreaks of overfamiliarity, another unwritten story about the gluttonous poetry of the … [Read more...]

NOTES ON SFU FINALE Analogous to SEINFELD's closer, where creator Larry David reached for sentimental self-hatred and found barely pity. (CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM often pulls this off.) Alan Ball's feast of death became a weeper, true sign of a writer who's fallen too much in love with his characters and needs to churn out a few more drafts. The most obvious sign was the opening preemie childbirth of Rachel and Nate's daughter, dangled as the opening corpse with that ominous hyphen AS THOUGH THEY MIGHT ACTUALLY KILL HER OFF BY THE END OF THE SHOW. … [Read more...]

Even for a family hotel, $13.95 is an obscene amount to pay for MR AND MRS SMITH, but it has its money shots, especially Jolie's wicked smirk. As producer I would have trimmed it down about twenty minutes, but hey. The meta story makes it all but irresistible: that Vaughn and Aniston hooked up after this is an offstage punch line that ranks with the best of them. Coming soon: notes on SFU finale, blog Friday, and Binky leaves the room in tatters... … [Read more...]

In honor of Oprah, I've been listening to Mark Hammer read GO DOWN, MOSES aloud in the car during commutes, a rendition of the novel that catches every nuance, every tingle, every shiver of recognition, especially in the freighted silences that explode inside the dialogue like landmines. Check WF's definition of rock'n'roll, circa 1940: "Yet it was not that Lucas made capital of his white or even his McCaslin blood, but the contrary. It was as if he were not only impervious to that blood, he was indifferent to it. He didn't even need to strive … [Read more...]

[SNARKY POST-MODERNIST REJOINDER] [Witty, irreverent yet immodest declamation of how busy blogger has been working on innumerable book projects and accepting awards, barely time to think nevermind blog, but here they are, cranking it out...] [EXASPERATED threat to quit blogging alltogether...] [Slap-dash list of quirky links reflecting online panache...] [Gratuitous non-sequitur to leave newbies in the fog...props to Pootie Tang...] [Semi-gratuitous joke about agent and/or publishing industry...] [Name-drop big party for wkd, promise to report … [Read more...]

This date (August 9) carries a special meaning for us geezers who remember George Bush Sr., then heading up the RNC, as one of Tricky Dick's more ornate apologists. We like to read old copies of STONE, turn up some Bad Company and hit the Nixon Monument (#15 of 16, description only, of B. Kliban's cartoon: SEND IT ON). Who knew Reagan, and now Bush's brat, would make "We Won't Get Fooled Again" sound even more naive. (Further reading: NIXON AGONISTES, by Gary Wills.) A QUAKER "THING" Just caught up with "All Alone," the latest episode of SIX … [Read more...]

FILE UNDER: STAR TREK, THE ASHTRAY Michelle Phillips bookmarks, in the press kit to her VICTIM OF ROMANCE AND RARITIES (Hip-O Select). SELECT PODCASTS: I'm disappointed in the iTunes podcast feature, especially the auto update to iPod which takes forever. I do it manually and it's far more efficient, and I've grown attached to these shows, which help me through the drudgery of mowing the lawn... MEDIA MATTERS with Bob McChesney Download page here; podcast rss feed here. KCRW (various: Podcast page) Le Show, Left, Right & Center WNYC … [Read more...]

WHERE I DRAW THE LINE AT TIMMY WONKA'S TASTELESSNESS SIX FEET UNDER: #60 Ecotone Well it was a doozy, and the more it seems like a soap and the more I get ready to dismiss it, the more I find it's turned some cliché into something original and weird. I didn't think they would off Nate, and I'm still sort of in shock. His dream sequences were very good, especially his last stoner beach party sendoff with a side of David we've never seen before. Totally a side of David through Nate's eyes. Claire sits down to TALK to this new guy for the … [Read more...]