Someone said it's Bryan Ferry's birthday www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBrj...

Finally got around to The Lowdown, a show that's pret-ty pleased w itself. Gotta say it was odd to make Joe Brainard a plot point but use his least-typical piece of art (if it even was?), but then have a C Comics cover in a later background. I guess I'm not cool enuf to "dig" it.

Well, what a pure pleasure this is.

I think I can hit the hay. It’s not going to get better than Katherine LaNasa and Jeff Hiller. #emmys

I love Vince Gill but I’d much rather have seen a 3 minute clip of Teri Garr on Letterman #emmys

I cannot imagine how funny Bruce and Jon Landau must find the fact that they’re being played by the 2 most pretentious actors in America in that sad looking movie.

I never want to hear Seth Rogan talk again #emmys

youtube.com/watch?v=c5v4... oh good: still no reason to subscribe to Peacock

Lotta stupid Emmy noms announced this morning (so many for the mildly amusing The Studio?) but at least Katherine LaNasa, central to the pleasures of The Pitt, got nominated.

Illiterate lit musing ("much of the architecture of book discovery is informally targeted at women"). Gee, maybe men (& women!) wd read good books if they were taught literature in school instead of "getting recommendations online from celebrities and influencers." www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/s...

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/b... Hilarious: the closure “came as a shock.” Because we all know what a venerable publishing house TikTok is.

Fellow Mouseketeers: Allow me to mention that my review of Sam Tanenhaus's mammoth biography of Wm F. Buckley Jr. will appear in this weekend's edition of Air Mail, the newsletter magazine that deftly massages the mind.

Oh yeah www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvDG...

RIP Joe Don Baker

Wonderful John Cameron Mitchell & @nytopinion.nytimes.com repudiating everything the Times has promoted for the past decade. Free article. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/11/o...

Today on @npr.org @nprfreshair.bsky.social I did a piece about the death of David Thomas and his importance, got to play some of my favorite Pere Ubu music. Link here to listen now www.npr.org/2025/05/05/n...

Because of course "strong ticket sales" is the reason we award shows www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/ar...

Thank goodness youtu.be/_5MYYOVJDa0?...

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/a... When it came to sibling harmony I was always more of a McGarrigles fan, but as always this Garner piece is vastly entertaining.

Francis was a wonderful critic and this terrific appreciation captures his tart sense of humor as well.

It is with great sadness we share the news that Terry's husband Francis died on Monday. Francis was an esteemed jazz critic and writer. They were together for nearly 50 years.

Today in Everything Is Overrated: “Unforgettable”? Why does the @nytimes.com have to play into the hype game all the time?

youtube.com/watch?v=o_1G... What a great idea. What terrible execution.

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/a... At a time when the arts cd use a complete moratorium on “trauma” as anything other than dead cliche, the Times wants MORE of it.

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/b... Ha. The “fun” that keeps popping up here includes needling the right people occasionally and poking at solemn current dogma, neither of which VF will ever do again, alas.

This was EW's eighth issue. I was a staff writer in the TV dept. and as I recall I was thrilled because I got to work on a sidebar. It felt like one of the first defining identity moments for the magazine--"we love this and we want you to love this too."

www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/bus... I suppose it’s too much to hope the mag can get back to Carter-era-level criticism/reviews/reporting

On today’s @nprfreshair.bsky.social I’m talking confessional songwriting as heard on new LPs by Lucy Dacus and Jeffrey Lewis: www.npr.org/2025/04/01/n...

Today in Everything Is Overrated I’m amazed at the raves for The Studio. Minimal laughs, a cartoonish sense of accuracy, Seth Rogan’s character is shrewd one minute, a moron the next. I wish Gary Shandling was still alive, wd love to hear his withering assessment.

"preempted the album"? Anybody copyediting at @thr.com ?

Once you’re New York Times-approved you’re always New York Times-approved www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/t...

I’m noticing I get a lot more followers here if I don’t post, so

BOTD Peter Fonda!! Across sweeping career, our fave remains The Hired Hand More: @kentucker.bsky.social: ew.com/article/1998... @noelmu.bsky.social: www.nytimes.com/2019/08/17/m... @justincchang.bsky.social: www.chicagotribune.com/2019/08/18/a...

RIP George Armitage

In honor of tonight's "SNL50," here's my EW recap of a 2009 Saturday Night Live show noting Kristen Wiig "doing one of her 25 interchangeable nervously-awkward characters" & my 2-sentence review of Shakira: www.today.com/popculture/b...

Or how about my @thr.com review of the SNL 40th season premiere 2014, in which I hail "the hiring of young comic Pete Davidson, whose gleefully raunchy 'Update' segment about performing oral sex for a million dollars was exceptionally strong." Extra Bonus: my pan of Ariana Grande as musical guest

In honor of #snl50 here's my EW @ew.com.web.brid.gy 1999 review of SNL's 25th anniversary special, "whose three hours served to underscore just how drastically uneven, not classic, the show has always been": ew.com/article/1999...

Great stuff: Billionaires prove themselves cowards. All the "Shut up! Vote Kamala!" Dems snivel re what Trump *might* do. Schumer resorts to back-room begging. Supine Resistance. Where my lefties at? www.nytimes.com/2025/02/16/u...

Doechii recapitulating at least a century of popular music in a tremendously witty Grammys performance: staggering.

Today on @nprfreshair.bsky.social I’m reviewing the new Ringo Starr country album. Produced by T Bone Burnett. Two songs by Billy Swan. What’s not to love? Listen here: www.npr.org/2025/01/27/g...

How cd I have forgotten I wrote about David Lynch and the Platters' "My Prayer"? www.yahoo.com/entertainmen...

So acc to this, Will Ferrell took my bsky.app/profile/ew.com negative review of his 1995 SNL debut & used it as motivation; jolly good for him. ew.com/watch-will-f...

Five years after Ernie Bushmiller added Nancy to “Fritzi Ritz,” he introduced Sluggo on January 24, 1938. Let’s observe this momentous occasion in comics (and pop culture) history by reading the first four weeks of dailies following Sluggo’s debut:

RIP David Lynch. Here's my A+ review of Twin Peaks in the first issue of @ew.com.web.brid.gy (Gotta admit, rereading, I laffed at the line describing Kyle MacLachlan as "a young, demented Robert Vaughn.") ew.com/article/1990...

A few Substack words in praise of Robert Hilburn's new Randy Newman bio, including a link to a 2006 concert that substantially delayed this self-promotion. robertchristgau.substack.com/p/a-few-word...

Happy appear on one of the handful of podcasts I listen to with regularity, WRITERS ON FILM. A full bodied three-way discussion with the show's host, myself & my co-editor Samm Deighan about REVOLUTION IN 35MM, politics in cinema, censorship & so many other things open.spotify.com/episode/40um...?

Milton Caniff’s “Steve Canyon” first appeared on January 13, 1947. Here's the first week of dailies, and note that the titular hero doesn't appear yet...

Please ignore the mewling reviews abt how violent American Primeval is & check it out for yrself. It’s one of the few new series whose plot isn’t predictable. The dialogue is flat—no, it’s not Deadwood—but Berg really knows how to stage action.

"Jackys Diary" by Jack Mendelsohn first appeared on January 11, 1959. A brilliant, Sunday-only strip, it ran only a couple of years but was so innovative and ahead of its time that it was widely misunderstood to be by a child.

www.nytimes.com/2025/01/04/a... Lovely obit for the wonderful Village Voice critic Tom Johnson