SHARE WIDELY!!!!!https://open.substack.com/pub/muellershewrote/p/watch-the-60-minutes-cecot-segment?r=1088tr&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay

Just watched Howard Hawks's The Criminal Code - his second talkie - on Criterion. It's astonishing, and I was completely unaware of it. For starters it's just a terrific prison movie, but the use of montage and sound is enough to make me sound like a pretentious cineaste. Never mind. It's terrific.

Holiday shopping reaches a fever pitch. Surely you have to bring gifts to some readers who would love an ("ahem") great environmental thriller that you can't put down. At your local bookstore or, if you must, Amazon. The Glass Eel. Remember those three words.

Today marks the anniversary of the Broadway opening of Jules Feiffer's Grown Ups, among the most devastating comedies (if you can call it that) ever written. Audiences didn't flock to it, but it's one of the great plays of the early 80s. And I''m sure we'll never see it again.

I get drunk sometimes and think about blowing up boats indiscriminately, but then I just watch a couple of episodes of The Honeymooners and I feel better and go to bed. No one gets hurt. I recommend it as a national policy.

Tom Stoppard and Steve Cropper in the same week? I guess history has come to an end.

Tom Stoppard made me feel like a grownup for the first time, first with R&G are Dead and then Jumpers. In later years, some of his pieces have also made me feel like an idiot. But there will never be another theatrical voice remotely like his. Can we revive all the plays in chronological order?

Tomorrow is Small Business Day, the perfect day to head to your local bookstore for a copy of The Glass Eel. If you like a thriller with a brain...they also make great gifts as we approach gift-giving season.

I already love musicals so paid scant attention to the Times piece about five minutes that will make you love musicals. But when I finally looked at the list I saw that there were at least a half dozen songs that would make me hate musicals.

Has anyone noticed that the last shots of The Long Goodbye are completely stolen form the last shots of Nights of Cabiria? I have no complaints with either movie, I'm just saying...

The 2nd Amendment should now be expanded to say that the right to bear arms INCLUDING SANDWICHES shall not be infringed. Then the Supreme Court can hear arguments about what kinds of sandwiches are permitted. Life would be more interesting.

The rumor is that Steve Cohen is selling the flushable gold toilet, which he apparently owns. I hope he gets one first-rate pitcher in return. Only seems fair.

The Times has a headline asking which book should win the Booker Prize. Isn't the obvious answer The Glass Eel by J. J. Viertel? Available now. Buy and read (or listen to it) before it walks away with the Booker Prize, which it's sure to win on a write-in vote.

Is there a more entertaining score from a flop than 70, Girls, 70? Despite Encores! inability to figure out how to do it, I have not backed off this question. All responses will be taken more or less seriously.

A flattering but odd quote, given that people get poisoned and burned up in cars, but not inaccurate in its way. And it's a rave review.

I was so distressed (in a good way) by Blue Moon that I listened to the Boys From Syracuse cast album. A relief. Yes Hart is sometimes sloppy, but funny, romantic, sad, clever deep, sexy and his mind moves like lightning. May we all be grateful, delighted, and heartbroken for his life and work.

Big day for me and the other J -- my son Josh. The Glass Eel audiobook is launched. Download it wherever you do that sort of thing. You won't be sorry. Even the NY Times thinks so.

"This is another hard lesson of [King Lear]: the lengths to which we will go to avoid confronting evil as such, seeking explanations for it and fashioning it in forms less dire, all the while ensuring that its harms increase" -- Catherine Nicholson, "The Cares of State," NYRB, 9 October 2025

All this "Graham Platner is a Nazi" bullshit isn't even unusual bullshit. It's just the regular kind of bullshit. At least give me some unusual bullshit if you want to have an argument. I'm a year younger than Janet Mills, I love her, and I think she's done enough. Why is she doing this?

i think Maine should just elect a lobster to senate. surely a little lobster in a suit could beat Susan Collins, no? and inappropriately pinching people definitely isn’t a barrier to getting elected

INTERVIEWER: You were born January 30, 1972 in Shreveport, Louisiana, correct? JOHNSON: I don't know anything about that, it's the first I'm hearing of it

The Times likes our book a lot! Why wouldn't they. read it here (behind a pay wall, alas.) And then buy a book. You'll like it too. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/b...

I have two comic heroes, one stoic, one manic. One of them has a birthday today.

Time to reread Devin Gordon's excellent biography of my favorite team So Many Ways to Lose after today's final indignity for the New York Mets. I guess we wait till next year.

Charlie Kirk never cared about debates.

Thank you, ME state gov't! "... a prescription for all Maine people, allowing them to receive the COVID-19 vaccine ... no longer need to obtain a prescription through their health care provider to receive the vaccine." www.maine.gov/governor/mil... #JanetMills #MEpolitics #PineTreeState

The Wordlebot insulted me personally today, though not by name. I was smarter than it was (which is not usually the case.) I didn't know bots could suffer from narcissistic egomania but apparently they can.

I'm in the mood to steal a great ghost story novel for my own purposes, but not one so well-known that I'll get sued. Any suggestions?

Just canceled all my Disney stuff. I'll be ok unless the Criterion Channel does something incredibly stupid.

Someone just left me a voicemail at work that said, in its entirety: "Well, hello, professor. You've got it all wrong with respect to the shooter. Can't believe. I was gonna say I can't believe it, but you're a university professor, of course I can. Have a good day. Bye."

Could someone please explain the history of "assassination" vs. "murder?" I am thoroughly confused. Perhaps @bcdreyer.social could help.

joshviertel Thanks to @portlandpressherald for their feature on my dad and I and our new book, The Glass Eel! It drops today. www.pressherald.com/2025/09/09/m...

It's pub day for THE GLASS EEL, the thriller I wrote with my son Josh. The Maine coast, the blackmarket eel fishery, and a struggling middle-aged woman who won't be stopped from getting to the bottom things come bloody hell or bloody high water. Check it out where you buy books and leave a review!

Little Walter died 49 years ago today. Despite his obvious brilliance as a harp player, he was equally well-known for his self-destructive temperament. Not that it matters, but I thought him less inventive and less amazing than Big Walter. Horton, that is. But drink a toast to Juke, a great record.

Is "prizing" a non-gerund word? I saw it tonight on a banner between innings on my laptop in a phrase that I thought should have said "prizes include" but which said "prizing includes." Have I lost my mind or just become an old crank. Or possibly both. Or maybe I'm right.

What's an anti-woke ballet we can celebrate at The Kennedy Center? Well, let's start with Sleeping Beauty. Then Rip Van Winkle (although they both eventually do wake up) and let's take it from there. There must be ballets where nobody wakes up at all. They're not very dynamic though.

OK, folks, the day approacheth. And you can be a part of it (if you're near to NYC.) And it'll be fun, I promise.

Made it through Splendor in the Grass last night and now I’m in Inge-land. Anyone got a best-to-worst list of the stage adaptations to film? I’m gonna be here for a while.

Look at what my son Josh and I wrote! It's a funny, weird thriller set along the beautiful coast of Maine with a strong environmental backbone to go with the suspense and a few dead bodies. We're getting great reviews from the trades and blurbs from everyone from Emma Thompson to Lee Child.

Because anytime anyone writes about it I gotta repost:

Maybe Putin can teach Trump to speak proper English. That must be what this meeting is about.

I've tried to watch Night of the Hunter numerous times because it's an official immortal masterpiece and tonight I finally made it through. I say it's spinach and to hell with it. What a bad film it is. All right, go ahead and shoot.

I love the Times saying that Trump responded to bad news "with disproportionate intensity." Can't they say something like "he totally lost his shit" or "he blew his fucking stack?" What is wrong with them?

Apparently Shakespeare knew what he was doing when he wrote King Lear.

I finally had the good sense to abandon Broadway for a moment, join up with my kid, and look what happened! www.publishersweekly.com/9781613166802

Happy Fifth of July to all who celebrate.

How many things can this guy fuck up? www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/u...

Julian Marsh is not the only one who's doing a show. t2conline.com/new-musical-...