Saturday, July 28, 2007

Travels with Cadfael: Christmas in July

There is a tradition of “Christmas in July,” although I don’t know why. The charming Dick Powell/Ellen Drew/Preston Sturges film is from 1940. Just last week USA reran the Cynthia Nixon/Christmastide episode of House, so someone is keeping it alive. I will contribute to the idea by continuing the Irish...
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Thursday, July 26, 2007

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

The Road to Oklahoma

I like Alan Sepinwall’s take on Saving Grace very much: ”Is the world ready for an R-rated drama about angels? For a gritty crime drama that's one part NYPD Blue for every part Touched by an Angel? Since the show in question, TNT's new Saving Grace, stars an acting force of nature, I guess we had better...
              

Saturday, July 21, 2007

When Worlds Collide

In the last 48 hours, alternate worlds from what I believe is my actual reality have dominated the waking hours.It started with Mad Men on Thursday night, which evoked an office landscape as foreign to me as Fafner’s cave, Brunnhilde’s rock, and the rest of the sites in the Russian Ring at Lincoln Center. Friday night was five hours of Siegfried, the third in the Ring of Valery Gergiev’s distinctive,...
              

Friday, July 20, 2007

Mad Men: Madison Avenue Revisited

In the beginning, there were men. Actual men, in a litany that includes N.W. Ayer, J. Walter Thompson, David Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, John Orr Young & Raymond Rubicam, Mac Dane, Ned Doyle, & William Bernbach. As individuals they created an industry that is the epicenter of the American economy: advertising. Many of the classic advertising agencies have been subsumed into nameless conglomerates...
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Monday, July 16, 2007

There's No Vacation from the World Situation

When I go on vacation, I try to take a vacation from media. I live in the midst of it 50 weeks of the year, and, like any addict, I believe I can get on without it for 2.When I left for Italy on June 25, I was resolute to stay away from the Internet and TV. I did well staying away from the web, but the lure of seeing some foreign TV firsthand proved to be too strong, and so I started looking at RAI...
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Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Memes the Word

While I was away, I was twice tagged: for a Thinking Blogger Award, and for the "tell us 8 random things about yourself" meme. Some people have a low tolerance for this sort of "you're it" blog phenomenon, but I see it as a way of community building. You are tagged/and tag people whose blog you read,...
              
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