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January 6, 2009
Blog: The Balance Sheet
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CBS’ Monopoly on The Top Ten
- I realize this is about as Old Media as you get, but it’s remarkable how little attention CBS is receiving for its almost complete domination of primetime viewing. Last week it had nine of the...
December 17, 2008
Blog: The New Yorker Blog
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2008: The Year in Shouts & Murmurs
- Here are some highlights from this year’s humor writing in The New Yorker. The plan isn’t foolproof. For it to work, certain things must happen: The door to the vault must have accidentally been left...
December 16, 2008
Blog: The New Yorker Blog
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Nancy’s Fancies
- I’m not really a “best of” person; I feel more of a need to be protective of the good than I do to trumpet the best. Best things can usually take care of themselves; good...
December 22, 2008
On Television
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Intimate Persuasion
- ON TELEVISION review of “Spectacle: Elvis CoStello with…” and “Shatner’s Raw Nerve.” Elvis Costello’s ear, intelligence, and musicianly generosity are all in play in “Spectacle: Elvis Costello with…,” his weekly one-hour show on the Sundance Channel, which is part showcase for musicians and part master class; the lineup consists…
December 22, 2008
AUDIO
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All in the Family
- In the Winter Fiction Issue, Zadie Smith writes about comedy and her family. Here she talks about her father’s love of “Fawlty Towers” and Spike Milligan, her brother, who performs standup under the stage name Doc Brown, and the difference between comedians and novelists.
December 08, 2008
On Television
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Sketchy Comedy
- ON TELIVISION review of “30 Rock.” Liz Lemon (Tina Fey), the central character of “30 Rock,” is in charge of the writers on a “Saturday Night Live”-like show. She runs around the office-often literally-fielding complaints from the writers and directives, and sexist remarks from her network boss…
November 24, 2008
On Television
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Science Projects
- ON TELEVISION review of Fox’s “Fringe” and its CBS counterpart, “The Mentalist.” Fox’s new F.B.I. drama, “Fringe” is set in greater Boston whose episodes usually start with a crime, but usually end with nothing that resembles an ending. The heroine is agent Olivia Dunham, (Anna Torv) a hard-working Fed…
October 27, 2008
On Television
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Laughing Matters
- ON TELEVISION review of “Saturday Night Live” and the presidential campaign season. The thirty-fourth-season premiere of “Saturday Night Live” with Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, and Amy Poehler as Senator Hillary Clinton earned the show its highest ratings in seven years. The two delivered not quite congruent denunciations…
September 15, 2008
On Television
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Convention Wisdom
- ON TELEVISION about news coverage of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Almost as soon as the Democratic National Convention was over, Barack Obama was consigned to the dustbin of the news cycle by Hurrican Gustav and the selection of Sarah Palin. All of a sudden, with two months to…
September 08, 2008
Profiles
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Why Me?
- PROFILE of actor Alec Baldwin. Baldwin is fifty years old, divorced, and lives alone in an old white farmhouse in the Hamptons and an apartment on Central Park West—feeling thwarted if not quite persecuted. In conversation, he is often wistful in a way that is linked to professional…
