WTF Election Coverage?
Why the hell have all the networks save CNN stopped election coverage? Why is the fate of the United States Senate being upstaged in favor of idle chit-chat from Larry King?
We Are in the House:
CNN reports that the Democrats have taken control of the House of Representatives. Nancy Pelosi from the great city of San Francisco will be the first female Speaker of the House in United States history.
Hallafrickinlulljah.
Word of the Day: “Aptonyms”
Aptonyms: “the term used for “people whose names and occupations or situations (e.g., workplace) have a close correspondence.”
Examples:
David Bird Ornithologist
Sonia Shears Hairdresser
Dr. Knapp Anesthesiologist
Jim Playfair Hockey coach
(via Andre Torrez)
On Being Tina Fey:
(photo via Onion AV Club)
Tina Fey, whom I would go on a three-state murderous rampage to be friends with, is interviewed in the Onion AV Club:
AVC: What is the difference, from a craft perspective, between writing a screenplay, writing a sitcom, and writing a sketch?
TF: Of the three, sketches are the most different, because you’re not dealing with story at all, and it will kill you if you try. With the other two, you have to tell a story in a long form or a super-short form. When I wrote Mean Girls, I went into it knowing, “Okay, I don’t know anything about story; I really have to try to learn.” I did what everyone does: I read books. Same thing here with 30 Rock. Luckily, I’m surrounded with a writing staff that has more experience in the sitcom form. It’s a good mix, because they know how to break a story into a half-hour, but at the same time, we’re avoiding bad habits or getting into a rut, because a few of us have less experience and aren’t locked into any specific way of doing things”
Cute, smart, funny. Is there anything else? Well, I’d hope she’d be kind to animals and old people but the first three take us a looooonng way.
And if you haven’t seen her new sitcom 30 Rock, I highly recommend. Smart, clever, funny. Which also take us a long way.
Thought of the Day: “Happy Endings”
“What the American public wants is tragedy with a happy ending” —William Dean Howells
The Architecture of Hollywood:
If you’re like me and find buildings and show business equally fascinating, please listen to today’s episode of The Business. The guest was architect Neil Denari who designed the new headquarters of the Endeavor Talent Agency. Among the considerations…
1. Agents and their assistants have to be able to communicate while one or both are on the telephone so offices must be designed to assure visual contact between the two.
2. In the 1980s, the glory days of CAA and its founder Michael Ovitz, agency offices had an air of controlled serenity and self-importance, as if to say “We’re no longer professional yappers in plaid jackets. We’re players now.” I’ve been inside CAA Headquarters designed by I.M. Pei and at the pretisigious Beverly Hills intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica Blvd., once. It screamed “we will intimidate you.”
Endeavor’s new offices are designed to be abuzz not quiet. Departments are mixed together instead of seperate. Each agent, no matter what their billings or senoirity has an office of identical size. And several offices have been left dilberately empty to illustrate to assistants what might be in store for them.
Since agency offices are functionally not very sexy (warehousing people on telephones), I hadn’t thought must about their built needs. This piece really opened my eyes.
Getting Stoic With it:
The LA Times asks if keeping a stiff upper lip is a lost art…
Why has stoicism given way to runaway exhibitionism? One explanation would be the postwar popularity of psychiatry and other forms of therapy that encouraged people to talk about themselves. Another would be the meteoric rise of media culture. “It’s Los Angeles; the whole culture of celebrity has taken over…It’s what you see on ‘Oprah’ and all the other shows, people going public with all sorts of private things.”
Everywhere we look, we live in a confessional age. The novel has been replaced by the memoir as our most talked-about literary genre. The sitcom, for years TV’s water-cooler conversation starter, has been superseded by reality TV and talk shows, forms that thrive on exhibitionism. Hip-hop has done such a good job of blurring the lines between self-expression and self-promotion that it’s almost impossible to tell the difference between Jay-Z’s new album and his beer ad.
(via Medialoper)
John Cameron Mitchell:
I loved this interview with John Cameron Mitchell on The Treatment. This part really stood out (it’s about 9:30 of the way in…)
You gotta be rich to be alone in New York. You have to be rich to be healthy, to go to Whole Foods or Yoga, you gotta be rich to be alone…Think about Preston Sturges or Ben Hecht movies. People create whirlwinds of talk in which they define themselves and protect themselves. It’s pure Woody Allen, it’s Albert Brooks. .
He veers off into some business about Noel Coward here but if I were a betting man, I’d say Mr. Mitchell would have completed his thought by adding the words “It’s very New York” at the end.
John Cameron Mitchell is the creator and star of Hedwig and the Angry Itch and the new film Shortbus which is in theatres now.
Men’s Weekend:
We’re in the middle of Men’s Weekend here so this will be it for posting today.
Thought of the Day: “See, the Thing About the Jews…”
“Anyone who is messhugge enough to call himself a Jew, is a Jew” —David Ben-Gurion (via this book)