Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. I am a latecomer … Continue reading Laughing Matters — Documentary Now!, “Cocaine Tonight”
As per tradition in this humble digital outpost, the day before the annual announcement of the Emmy nominations brings one of my compulsive attempts to condense my time wallowing in pop culture into a ranked list. And so I present … Continue reading Top Ten Television, 2018-2019 season
Megan Rapinoe Cannot Make This Any Clearer by Barry Petchesky This piece was written and published before Megan Rapinoe scored two goals to lift the U.S. women’s national team past their French rivals in the World Cup quarterfinals, cementing her status … Continue reading Outside Reading — The Right Thing edition
Since great television comedy always begins with the script, this series of posts considers the individual episodes that have claimed the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series over the years. Despite its current elevated status in the annals of television comedy, The Office was neither a rating juggernaut nor an awards magnet for much of its run. In the full-season Nielsen ratings series rankings, The Office never cracked the the Top 50. It claimed the Emmy for outstanding comedy series in its second season, but none of its performers ever won an acting trophy. Across nine … Continue reading Golden Words — The Office, “Gay Witch Hunt”
The Unexpected Profundity of Curious George by Rivka Galchen I’m always going to susceptible to a smart story involving Curious George, and this piece is smarter than most. For The New Yorker, Rivka Galchen explores how well the adventures about … Continue reading Outside Reading — Ever So Curious edition
Don’t Let Nationalists Speak for the Nation by Jill Lepore This piece showed up in the Sunday edition of The New York Times, and it perfectly expresses one of the most painfully fraught dilemmas of the current political moment … Continue reading Outside Reading — It’s Not TV edition
The Forgotten Tale of How Black Psychiatrists Helped Make ‘Sesame Street’ by Anne Harrington I’m bound to be enthralled by any smart story that digs into the earliest days of Sesame Street, the PBS program of my youth that was … Continue reading Outside Reading — Sweepin’ the Clouds Away edition
These posts are about great acting performances sustained across the full run of a television series. Kaley Cuoco as Penny in The Big Bang Theory (2007 – 2019) Before Penny, there was Katie. Well ahead of the time The Big … Continue reading The Long Haul — Kaley Cuoco in The Big Bang Theory
These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. As someone who experience formative years during the nineteen-eighties, culturally guided by Steven Spielberg’s films and Stephen … Continue reading The Art of the Sell — Stranger Things and New Coke
Since great television comedy always begins with the script, this series of posts considers the individual episodes that have claimed the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series over the years. The Larry Sanders Show debuted on … Continue reading Golden Words – The Larry Sanders Show, “Flip”
Coffee for Two 