Started my long overdue archive project today. Among the additions: My first L.A. Times story about online message boards devoted to various TV shows. Mind you, this was in late 1995, when the original “Melrose Place” was still on the air and “ER” in its second season. Sadly, most of my earliest stories have not been digitized. To check out my linkage, visit this page.
October 10, 2009
I wrote that? Dipping into the archives
August 20, 2009
‘Born Round’ LAT review debuts
Am back from muggyville, Virginia, where I caught a pesky summer cold while visiting my mother, who is recovering quite nicely from surgery on her ticker. Happily, the weather is much nicer here near the beach. And my review of “Born Round” popped up in today’s LA Times.
Fun factoid: Frank Bruni’s family summered in the same Connecticut town I lived in during the 1970s. But I never met him, or his brother, who went to Amherst a few years after me. You can read my review here.
There’s more showbiz news over at Consumed by Media, my new blog. Please stop by if you have a sec.
August 10, 2009
Programming note
Check my new blog, Consumed by Media, for more headlines and news.
Go ahead, click it here: http://consumedbymedia.wordpress.com
August 9, 2009
A Thomas (Pynchon) guide to the South Bay
Thomas Pynchon wrote “Gravity’s Rainbow” when he was living in the South Bay but has never apparently forgotten the Beach Cities: He set his latest, “Inherent Vice,” in Gordita Beach, a stand-in for Manhattan Beach. The book is replete with South Bay references, including Lighthouse Cafe, a Hermosa bar that has survived the area’s gentrification. The nearby Either/Or Bookstore where Pynchon once browsed, has, alas, been gone for several years. The book’s arrival has revived discussion of Pynchon’s South Bay years. Wired mag published a map of Pynchon’s L.A. and invited readers to further annotate it online. The Daily Breeze followed up with a map of its own in today’s paper. Sadly, the accompanying story makes the region look like a real cultural backwater. Reporter Gene Maddaus quoted Redondo book store proprietor Dave Prentice about the dubious literary tastes of his customers, who tend to be lawyers rather than beatniks. “The wives are susceptible to buying expensive books if you tell them they can’t afford them,” Prentice said. “We also sell books by the foot to interior decorators, but they’ve got to be the right color.”
August 9, 2009
Woodstock nostalgia train leaves the station
The NYT and LAT both devote considerable real estate to Woodstock ahead of the the concert’s 40th anni next weekend. Each paper weighs the muddy fest’s impact in lengthy features, but both feel surprisingly pro forma, perhaps because this ground has been so thoroughly covered before. The real juice comes elsewhere, most notably Gail Collins’ review of two Woodstock books. Collins does a good job evoking the fest — describing the ferocious smell of the Port-o-Sans, Wavy Gravy’s granola and dangers of eloctrocution. There’s good reason for this: She was at the fest. (So was counterpart Jon Pareles, but his account is strangely bloodless.) Also worth checking out: the L.A. Times’ photo essay. The NYT website features a photo gallery and reader snaps.
Photos: NYT, LAT
August 9, 2009
Barack, the comedian
Barack Obama’s sense of humor sometimes gets him in trouble. But aren’t we glad to have a President who has one? In the NYT mag, Matt Bai strains to label Obama’s comedic sensibility as distinctly postmodern and Seinfeldian, born “perhaps” of the same deconstructionist ethos that gave us “The Simpsons” and The Onion. Can’t we just agree he has a fine sense of the absurd?
Photos: Fox, White House
August 9, 2009
Read, he said
LAT book editor David Ulin confesses he’s having a hard time settling down to read books, but argues that we need to immerse ourselves in them more than ever. “Contemplation is not only possible but necessary, especially in light of all the overload,” he writes. Reading is “a way to eclipse the boundaries, which is a form of giving up control,” he argues, and “in giving up control we somehow gain it, by being brought in contact with ourselves.”
August 8, 2009
Yay! ‘Mad Men’ resumes next week
Moody period drama, easily one of the best if not the best show on television right now, returns to AMC next Sunday. Until then, feast your eyes on Bruce Handy’s VF feature, accompanied by glorious Annie Liebovitz pics, or any of the other myriad stories feting the show. Salon serves up some mild spoilers about the third season while Sunday’s NYT teases that it will address anxiety in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis. Also: the WSJ recently took a look at the show’s female writers. And you may amuse yourself further by creating your own ‘Mad Men’ avatar, as many have already done, at AMCtv.com.
August 8, 2009
Boys like their toys
August 8, 2009
Saturday reads
Sammy Glick, Budd Schulberg’s scabrous creation, never made it to the bigscreen, but his legacy lives on in characters such as Jeremy Piven’s Ari, Tom Cruise’s Les Grossman in “Tropic Thunder” Tim Robbins’ amoral studio chief in “The Player.” LAT
Super soldiers just Joes to you and me, reports LAT’s Betsy Sharkey, who says that “G.I. Joe” could have used less talk, and more conversation. NYT’s Manola Dargis maintains that Paramount need not have bothers keeping the pic away from critics: “this pricey, juiceless pulp could never have been killed by critics, simply because it was already dead.” The WSJ rounded up more abominable reviews in its Speakeasy blog LAT, NYT, WSJ
A.O. Scott also invokes Lubitsch and Preston Sturgis in his appreciation of “The Breakfast Club” director, stricken by a heart attack Thursday in Gotham. Bonus: The National Lampoon story “Vacation ‘58,” which eventually became the movie “National Lampoon’s Vacation.” NYT, BizBag
Donors may save LACMA film program
Museum director Michael Govan interrupts his vacation to term the outcry a positive sign: “If people didn’t complain, we’d be in real trouble — it would mean people don’t value film at the museum.” Was this his plan all along? LAT
Bill O’Reilly, Keith Olbermann still sniping
What are MSNBC and Fox News gonna do? Rupert Murdoch and GE’s Jeffrey Immelt wish they would just get along already. NYT
Cali private equity firm eyes Boston Globe
Platinum Equity, which already snapped up the San Diego Union-Tribuen, bid $35 million and would assume $59 million in pension liabilities, according to NYT, whose parent company owns the Boston paper. NYT
