Tom Watson

A Pity Beyond all Telling

This harsh race for the Democratic nomination has boiled well beyond the melting point of igneous rock, and today's meltdown - by the erstwhile king of the netroots bloggers, no less - is no cooler. Indeed, the intemperate screed launched by Markos Moulitsas, founder of the DailyKos, singed every Democrat who read it and had to give those of us who battle it out online a reason to pause (or in one case, to purr at a pat on the head). Put on your asbestos suits and read what Kos said about the campaign of Senator Hillary Clinton:

She is willing -- nay, eager to split the party apart in her mad pursuit of power.

This sad embarassment has me eager, nay, desperate for another path. I'm sick of fighting nasty Democrats 'round here. Besides, it's St. Patrick's Day and as MA Peel reminds me, "something in the Celtic soul that has a natural affinity for the complex and the poetic."

So we need a third way, and I don't mean Al Gore at the convention (though, for the first time I might welcome a compromise candidate in this mess) - I'm talking culture. The fab Ms. Peel, good Irish lass that she is, has a great up over at newcritics titled Irish Altered States. She plumbs the film Kings from Tom Collins, and the play The Seafarer, by Conor McPherson. Here's a taste, but head over and leave your thoughts:

Can all these Irish souls be in such constant pain that they need to be continously anesthetized? I don’t know if that’s how McPherson and Collins see it. Some of the characters dance around stereotypes, but then become more dimensional. As for the cosmic root of the drinking–the centuries of oppression idea is not so far-fetched. It’s certainly part of what created the Irish epithet: “their wars are happy and all their songs are sad.”

To someone on the outside, it’s hard not to see an underlying sadness in these daily lives, yet you admire them for getting on with it all, as best they can.

To those on the outside of this political blogging whirl, those of us engaged in the warfare of words must also feel some of that underlying sadness - the Irish of it. I do. Hence, the salve of skippy - the moral equivalent of a pint of Guinness on this fine evening.

The Cut of Tim Gunn's Jib

Quick programming note: tonight is the final installment of our liveblogging series of Project Runway - that fab fashion realityfest -  so be sure to join Claire and Jennifer over at newcritics for the big soiree. It's Posh Spice night, but our crowd is a lot friendlier than Mrs. Beckham. That's 10 eastern, 9 central on your television dial.

The Real Marilyn

New York Magazine has become a sad shadow of its former self, and this week's issue - call it Maxim for upscale shoppers - sensationalizes the body of 21-year-old Lindsay Lohan in a raft of nude photos that used roughly half of the all Internet bandwidth over the last few days. Pure exploitation of a young woman clearly in personal turmoil, and all under the guise of low-brow art - a paean to the final photo shoot of Marilyn Monroe. Yeah, we get it: nudity before accidental death at a young age. Oh, how clever and ironic. In any case, one of our bloggers over at newcritics knew the real Monroe. Go read Bob Stein's terrific post and leave your comments.

Newcritics at the Paley Center

newcritics at Paley Center, originally uploaded by Tom Watson.

A wonderful night on Thursday, thanks mainly to the folks at the Paley Center for Media - newcritics celebrated its first year with a gathering of bloggers and a fine program that included two classic pieces from the center's collection: the rolicking appearance of Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal on the Dick Cavett Show and a stylish episode of Miami Vice from the mid-80s, complete with a killer soundtrack featuring the Who and Dire Straits. That's me at the podium. About 50 people turned out for the program, and a few more dropped by for the after-party at Black Finn for further discussion over a few beverages.

I'd urge readers to take a look at what the Paley Center (formerly the Museum of Television & Radio) has to offer - from lecture series to research, it's an important bulwark of both scholarly preservation and criticism, and assisting a thoughtful public. The center maintains an international collection of more than 140,000 programs covering almost 100 years of television and radio history, including news, public affairs programs and documentaries, performing arts programs, children's programming, sports, comedy and variety shows, and commercial advertising. Programming from some seventy countries is represented in the collection. And I can attest personally to the quality of its staff, which really outdid itself welcoming a crowd of bloggers to West 52nd Street this week. And take a look at membership - I'm joining, it's well worth it.

Special thanks to the fab M.A. Peel, whose organizational skills and eye for the moment know no parallel, and the amazing Blue Girl - that's her logo up on the screen.

Other bloggers who made the scene (and I know I'll forget a few, so feel free to smack me around) included Lance Mannion, Trickster, Jon Swift, Tony Alva, Brendan, Jackson, Grasshopper and her pal Manny, the Self-Styled Siren, Jim Wolcott, Tattered Coat Matt, Dennis Perrin, FLiPsters Trish, Lyndsay and Will, media's Eduardo, Levi Asher, and Susie from onPhilanthropy, along with newcritics' regulars Kelly, Anthony and Steve-o, and even regular commenters OutOfContext, Tom K. and Bruce (they were suspiciously agreeable, those two), Chris W. and the artist. Even a lurker or two.

The Cultural Yearling

Tonight, a bunch of newcritics bloggers are getting together at the Paley Center for Media to celebrate our little experiment, which is a year old. I have an anniversary post up - so hop over and read it, if you'd like. Here's an excerpt:

You know, newcritics is non-influential. It is non-profitable. Indeed, by any standards of the day it is non-successful. And yet a year on, we gather to revel (some in person, some virtually) in the minor media glory - but sweet karmic profit - of this little blog. Why? Because we like each other. That’s obvious in the courteous style of our site, and in the ongoing conversation each week. But we’re also genuinely interested in what each of us has to say about media - about film, television, music, theater, and books. And in our careers, our disparate lives, a place to turn for some polite middlebrow conversation over a glass of wine or a cup of coffee is a very nice thing indeed.

Some of the greatest bloggers in the world will make the scene tonight, including our host, the fabulous M.A. Peel, but we're also marking the anniversary with a series of posts about how a single bit of media moved each of them over the last year. Some great thoughts in these posts:

Pretty in P!nk
Lost Lust
Once in a Lifetime
Shrunken Heads Revisited
R.I.P. The Wall Street Journal
A Bit O’ Media…
What Is The Question?
A Reason to Go On Living: The Poor Boy’s on the Line
The Reblog Button

Do You, Mr. Jones?

My review of I'm Not There, the new Dylan film, is up over at newcritics; here's the lead:

A lengthy and elegant mess of a film, Todd Haynes’ not-so-experimental I’m Not There is nonetheless a beauty of a wreck, a “non-biopic” about Bob Dylan that mainly ignores that facet of Dylan that always hides in plain site when analysts look for meaning in the minstrel poet’s own life - his music.

Jason counters with his (more positive) review here.

Runway Bravo Newcritics

When I head to the office, I never know what to wear on any given weekday. In winter, the blue suit or the gray suit? The pinstripes or the, er, pinstripes. In summer, the navy or the olive green. Tie for clients, no tie for no clients. Weekends, which sweatshirt with those jeans? Hmm...what's the color this season? So okay, my personal fashion sense is somewhat limited - but that doesn't mean I don't admit fashion's role in popular culture, its thousands of years of history and vital importance, the strange, coltish nature of those darned models, and that weird cross-toe runway walk. So who was I to object when newcritics bloggers Jennifer and Claire teamed up to go all live-bloggy on Bravo's popular Project Runway reality series, which began its fourth season last week? Why pass up the chance to caper "with cameo appearances by some of the nicest bloggers ever to caper in a catsuit in homage to Honey West," as Jim Wolcott put it. I'm up for vicious fashionista snark and the low, low necklines of pret a porter putdowns as much as the next guy! And what better way to follow on our Mad Men Thursday night blogfests - now in hiatus - then with Wednesday night fashionfests. So I'm on board, right there in the front row, looking up the ... I mean ... at the skirts, and dresses, and blouses and lingerie (yes, Lance, lingerie!) of the newcritics Project Runway live-blogging party. 1o EST, Bravo and newcritics.com.

Another Political Rivalry on the Left

From my review of The Deal, HBO's  portrayal of the political rivarly of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, over at newcritics:

The best scenes are filmed in claustrophic spaces - the tiny shared office of newly-elected MPs Brown and Blair, the stifling and smokey train coaches to Scotland, the middle class kitchens and sitting rooms of the English, and the angular pubs and wine bars of London. This isn’t soaring politics; Frear only shows that in clever video clips. This is deal-making or, more accurately, a fine portrayal of the kind of personal compromise that is a necessary ingredient to attaining political power.

Jim Wolcott has his take - and some commentary on British politics - here.

Laugh Till You Die

Sure, there's plenty of comedy in politics - most of it entirely unintentional - but to take a break from the fascinating pre-primary focus of late, I'd like to point out the that the comedy blogathon at newcritics runs through tomorrow. Thanks to the planning and editorial work of MA Peel and Jason Chervokas, a trove of links, one-liners, reviews, and essays on comedy will distract you from the talking heads for a few hours. Here's the rather impressive lineup:

A Peek into the Writers’ Room by MA Peel

Comedy in Character by Self-Styled Siren

The Comedy of The Office: Humor, Familiarity and Ambition by Tom Watson (that's me)

Chekhov’s Cup of Coffee by Lance Mannion

It’s Just This Little Chromium Switch Here:  Channelling The Firesign Theatre by Rory Mach

The Essence of Comedy: Leslie Nielsen’s Umpire Moondance by Levi Asher

Born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia by Lance Mannion

The Shamus Takes ‘Manhattan’ by The Shamus (of course)

Woody Allen: Television Days  by David Bushman

Wil Sylvince: New York’s Funniest Comic by Jason Chervokas

The Late, Great Mitch Hedberg by Viscount LaCarte

A Short History of British Radio Comedy by Steve Bowbrick

Funny Ha Ha? by Dan Leo

My Favorite Comedy, Explained by Jon Swift

The Best Stand-Up Comedy Albums by Jason Chervokas

Phew, and there's still a day to go. This is really an incredible roster of bloggers, I have to tell you. And there are more great bloggers in Ms. Peel's links round-up. So get yer hee-hee on and your chuckle in full throat, and get over to newcritics.

Life in a Small Town

My review of Richard Russo's Bridge of Sighs is up over at newcritics.Here's an excerpt, but of course I hope you  pop over and comment:

Yet these small lives had meaning in Russo’s literary vocabulary; they amounted to nothing, barely a headline or two in the local weeklies and never registered to the fast set in the world capital down the Hudson. But Russo dressed those lives in detail, in connections, in the creation of small societies of men and women. So too do they still matter in Russo’s epic Bridge of Sighs, in many ways his most ambitious novel, which occasionally wanders to New York and Long Island and even Venice - but whose beating heart remains in Thomaston, New York, another failing town where the tannery has poisoned the water and boosted the rate of deadly cancers.

What Makes You Laugh?

If you live in Cleveland or New York and follow baseball, you can use a few yucks. So newcritics' first-ever blogathon - dedicated to the comedic arts - will certainly appeal to you. So reserve some reading time from November 6-11, as our fave culture site will host an online exchange of one-liners and sitcom memories to coincide with the New York Comedy Festival.

I'm really looking forward to it, partially because it's all being organized by the fab M.A. Peel, a super New York blogger and newcritic and all-around gal about town (when not temporarily hobbled by the mean streets). I'll turn over the description to Ms. Peel:

We are putting out a call for posts that answer this question:

What is the purest comedic moment you have ever experienced?

This blog-a-thon is designed to cut across blog genres: we hope that you film guys will contribute the great movie moments; the lit crit types might regale us with scenes of Evelyn Waugh or Wodehouse that you find brilliant; you tv addicts will kick in the great small screen nuggets, and so on.

We know that to analyze comedy is to kill it, but this is also a personal question--it's your most satisfying moment of experiencing what we collectively call comedy, but which will have a spectrum from the sardonic to slapstick.

Maybe it was at a standup performance, maybe listening to a comedy album, maybe it was at your best friend's wedding. We look forward to hearing about it. And, like Joel McCrae learned at the end of Sullivan's Travels, you never know when a story you share is going to lighten the day for one of your readers.

Send links to josquin21@aol.com as you publish, Nov. 6 to 11.(Yes, that's me. Even though I don't have a sense of humor, I am running this thing. Irony I like.)

Newcritics will also be posting an array of comedy-centric pieces all that week.

Turkey Day on Mad Men

Thanksgiving is the appropriate ending date for the initial run of Mad Men, AMC's stylish but strangely unsatisfying period drama. Tomorrow night, we'll bring our live-blogging to a close over a newcritics, a finale of 13 episodes of 1960 pop culture references and suburban-and-office soap opera. Thanksgiving Day, 1960 and the Mad Men gang will feel the pull of the traditional family feast - and the conflict of the never-ending agency bacchanal. Now that Mad Men's been renewed, expect a cliff-hanger. But not in the blogging. We'll wrap it up, call it as we see it, and answer that age-old question - what makes a large group of grown men and women sit in front of the TV, typing would-be witticisms into their computers every Thursday night? At 10 pm, of course. Tomorrow evening. Exclusively at the web's leading culture blog - newcritics.

Yes, There Will Be Blogging

Three episodes left - and three episodes only - in the initial run of AMC's hit series Mad Men, and newcritics has blogged them all. We won't let you down tonight. Jammies and swizzle sticks at 10 PM EDT, people - be there at newcritics.

Must-See Thursday TV

And so we beat on, bloggers against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past of 1960 and a cartoonish (but strangely addictive) New York of consumers, mixed drinks, smoke-filled rooms, child abuse, faux beatniks and vintage underwear. MA Peel has the rudder tonight, broken ankle and all, over at newcritics. You know the drill: Mad Men at 10 PM EDT on AMC and in our little silk pajama-clad clan (TM Jim Wolcott, All Rights Reserved). And while your over there, check out the fast-and-furious argument over Jack Kerouac's On The Road. (Lance and Jason have posts). Fifty years on, and still  culturally controversial.

Thursday Night's Appointment

They derided the French for their crazy iron tower. William Seward was ridiculed for buying Alaska. And they said the Twin Peaks movie was a silly idea. Well, what do they know, anyway. We may be deluded in following the long, occasionally yawn-inducing path that is character development on AMC's Mad Men, but dammit Jim, we're not gonna quit now! Sure, last week's episode veered into ersatz David Lynch territory - if David Lynch were doing massive Lithium cocktails and working in public access television (and he may well be). Hell no, we're onto something with the live-blogging and the snark and the witty banter over at newcritics every Thursday night. It's gonna be big, people. Huge. And it's always darkest after the worst episode in any stylish but essentially vapid and historically innacurate series on a B-list cable channel - everyone knows that. Even the whore-children. And besides, I'm out of the driver's seat tonight - the fab M.A. Peel is behind the wheel and she's got quite the psychic Mapquest printout going, let me tell you. She's clutching that map in one hand, and gripping the wheel of that '58 Buick in the other. The highway is alive tonight. Next exit: the Mad Men zone. (Did I mention 10 pm EDT at newcritics? Did I?)

UPDATE: It's a bleepin' repeat. What a head-fake! But we shall return...

Waldorf Salad

Yesterday, I was honored to be a speaker at the 2007 Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize Symposium in New York. I'll wrote about it for onPhilanthropy, but I've been mostly offline for more than a day. It was worth it: the Symposium drew a crowd of more than 300 leaders in philanthropy and provided a rare global perspective on the confluence of development work, government policy, and the world economy. The keynote address was delivered by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who saw the need for greater cooperation between philanthropic organizations and the world body - “Civilians continue to bear the intolerable brunt of crises not of their own making….and life-saving assistance cannot wait for the next round of peace talks.”

The Symposium was at the Waldorf. I figure I've spent several weeks of my life in that building over the years, from political dinners in my reporting days to the endless round of fundraising galas. The name comes from William Waldorf Astor, who built the original where the Empire State Building stands. The "new" Waldorf has been on Park Avenue since 1931 and it's as New York as it gets, even though it fairly crawls with tourists. The ballroom is essentially New York's parish hall, where the dances and fundraisers and more upscale, star-studded type of bingo night are held near-nightly.

The Waldorf's been a home for visiting movies stars and Presidents, as any walk down one of the back hallways will tell you in black and white photography, but my favorite Waldorf movie is The Out-Of-Towners with Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis as the Ohio couple who barely survive muggings, various strikes, and some bad 1970 New York attitude on the way to discovering that middle America is more aligned with their true selves. So okay, I hate the stupid ending. But I love the 1970 New York and the collection of character actors that inhabit it.

Would that AMC's Mad Men had gone a similar casting route. (Yes, that was a long way to get to what is essentially a reminder that I'll be live-blogging Mad Men tonight at 10 PM EDT over at newcritics.com). Outside of Robert Morse as Bert Cooper, there's more essential New York in almost any episode of Sesame Street (or any classic Bugs Bunny cartoon, for that matter). Still, last week's was the best episode to date and thanks to the fab MA Peel, well-blogged as well. I'll try to keep up my end tonight. Please show up.

Kerouac and Mad Men: Live-Blogging Tonight

Hustling back from our nation's capital this evening, I'm hustling get in from of the television by 10 EDT - that's because MA Peel is in the driver's seat for tonight's live-blogging of Mad Men over at newcritics. The fab Ms. Peel, in a post in her own feline den, talks about the Beats and the world of 1960 New York. Maybe, she writes, sourpuss agency honcho Don Draper "will get to shed the straightjacket of his perfect life to be with “the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live . . . .and burn, burn, burn.” Maybe, but I gotta get on this plane.

Live-Blogging Nixon (And Other Cultural Icons)

Live-blogging of AMC's stylish but empty Mad Men returns to newcritics.com tonight, with yours truly as the host. Previews show two central topics: sex and Richard Milhous Nixon. There's a perversity about the show that's appealing, but I'm afraid cultural accuracy isn't really its strong suit. It's very 2007, very semi-dark, very Weimer under Eisenhowerish - pure fantasy, and nothing like 1960 at all. Still, good crowd around the virtual punchbowl every Thursday. Better dialogue there. Tune in at 10, EDT at newcritics.

If It's Thursday...

...it's Mad Men night over at newcritics. The fabulous MA Peel takes the reins tonight as we live-blog AMC's period piece and explore the 1960 world of Sterling Cooper advertising. So head on over at 10 PM EDT and join the fun, kids.

Mad Men Live! Tonight at Newcritics

Yes, we're stacking up those Bob Newhart LPs and smacking around the neighbor's kids tonight at newcritics, where live-blogging of AMC's gorgeous but frustrating Mad Men series commences at 10 EDT. So mix up a high-ball, light your Lucky and swing on over to Madison and 50th for the week's usual snark and cultural rumination. See you there.

Emergency Broadcasting System: Mad Men Live-blogging is Here

Once upon a time in the west - and in gritty noir backlots - rough and ready men carried guns, drank hard liquor, and made violence a part of their daily lot. That's the way they were portrayed, at least. And the idea of "real men" inhabiting a cushy mid-town Manhattan office building was a ludicrous as, say, Cary Grant's Roger Thornhill being a secret agent in North by Northwest. See, Hitchcock got the joke. But as David Hinckley points out in today's Daily News, our idea of tough guys has changed.

"Mad Men" also reflects something else that's been brewing on TV for quite a while, however: a long-term shift in the professions to which we look for swagger. Once upon a time, American swagger was largely defined by physical guys like cowboys, G-men, explorers and soldiers. Think John Wayne. Sure, there's always been swagger in other fields of endeavor. While Wild Bill Hickok was galloping through the West, robber barons like Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan were accumulating insane levels of wealth simply because there was no one to stop them. But in general, swagger once had a blue-collar aura, reflected in the Westerns that dominated early television.

Live-blogging of the frustrating and fascinating Mad Men continues tonight. [Note: our hosts at Yahoo appear to be on the slow side tonight, so bear with us and dump that crappy YHOO stock.]

Thanks to Yahoo's server troubles, I've moved newcritics live-blogging of Mad Men to my trust old-school Typepad blog. Comment away! Back in a few...Cool credits about to roll.

Love the Hudson Line shots - North by Northwest in reverse! Big error, though. "Mount Kisco, next." In yer dreams. Knew there was another name in Draper's past - Dick Whitman.

"Who put the Chinamen in my office?" Ha.

Some hilarious "oriental" humor. We get it. 1960 was a different time. Now can these guys do something?

"Part of this job is doing things you don't want to do." Welcome to that strange place known as Workland.

So how accurate is Mad Men? Burt Helm from Business Week wondered the same thing:

So last week I picked up the phone to ask a couple of these allegedly overpaid, creative, glib and self-destructive ad guys from the 60's what they thought of the show. AMC courteously agreed to send them screeners. I got two very different opinions of the show itself, but some agreement on how accurately it portrayed Madison Avenue in 1960.

"What a miserable piece of garbage," said Irwin Warren, who was a copywriter for Doyle Dane Bernbach in 1965. "It's a kind of a poor man's The Apartment". Jerry Della Femina, who was in the mailroom of agency Ruthrauff & Ryan in 1960 before becoming a copywriter and a founder of his own agency, loved the depiction. He had recently participated in a panel discussion at Michael's about the show. "It’s a pretty fascinating as a study of the 60’s."

But how accurate is it? For those who haven't seen it, the show is a parade of constant smoking, near-constant drinking, casual sexual harassment and anti-semitism. Warren admitted that much of that was spot on.

A miserable piece of garbage? Seems to describe what  I've seen of the firm's work so far. Man does Sterling Cooper blow. They don't even get the VW ad!

OK, we get that it was a sexist period - now make something happen. "Rib-eye in the pan...with butter....ice cream." That's not a plot.

The cheesy Yonkers Raceway commercial for slot machines and a legal sports book on my local cable system is far better than anything Sterling Cooper has produced.

This scene as a Breakfast at Menken's quality to it.

I'm a total sucker for the commuter train scenes, probably because I spend half a life on 'em. But didn't they have monthly passes in 1960? Does he buy a ticket every night? Any experts out there?

WWeek's Daniel Carlson has a snarky post: AMC is "TV for people who would like to think of themselves as movie people but lack the energy." Is that us? More:

"...if half the show is just the cheap thrill of watching people play dress up, the other half is watching those people act out a fairly rote melodrama. Weiner's time on The Sopranos means that Mad Men is inevitably being forced into that same mold of darkly lit offices, slick hair and commonplace adultery, and while Weiner certainly knows his material, the fact that he's so willing to stylistically rehash it is a disappointment. Mad Men lacks the sheer fire and energy of The Sopranos, and not simply because AMC won't let you get away with nearly what HBO does (AMC after dark consists largely of the same boring content as AMC daytime). It's also because while The Sopranos was a complex and original show, Mad Men wants to be all things to all people, offering the same aesthetic and stilted drama—unhappy philanderers, ambiguous mistresses, depressed housewives—that have marked too many series before it. It's as if Weiner wants his show to be just edgy enough to be noticed but actually safe enough to be digested by even the most casual viewer; no one has to think too hard here, and no one is asking you to.

Programming Note: Live Tonight at Newcritics

For your TV blogging pleasure, we'll be running a live-blogging bash over at newcritics tonight for AMC's fascinating new series on the advertising industry in New York circa 1960 - Mad Men. The first episode last week - all cigarette smoke and nyloned gams - was enough of a sweet period piece (and male fantasy, let's face it) to deserve more scrutiny. So tune your televisions to AMC at 10 pm EDT (check your local listings, as they say) and your blog machine to newcritics - links and witty banter are promised, but only if you're there.

Over on the Culture Pages...

Yes, this is post of the sound of me blog-kvelling. So live with it. Or click the links below and be dazzled. By the wonderful contributions over at newcritics.com by a platoon of eccentric bloggers. Some of the highlights:

• Hank Jones & Joe Lovano: Beyond Category - Jason Chervokas writes about jazz in the old-school vein.
  Richard Thompson’s Sweet Warrior: Battles Everywhere - My post on the new RT record, a good one.
• Navigating the Retrospective - Kevin Wolf on the traveling exhibit of box constructions by artist Joseph Cornell.
• Surf’s Up: The 10 Greatest Surf Contributions to Pop Culture - The Shamus sparks a conversation on the salty arts.
• The Vaudevillian - An evocative and moving post by Melissa McEwan on her Vaudevillian great-grandather.
•  Paul Is Not Dead - A review of McCartney's latest from Neddie Jingo sparks a spirited discussion.
• Columnated Ruins Domino - Dennis Perrin pits Lennon & McCartney against Brian Wilson - is there even a contest?
• Life Is a Mix Tape - Gotham Gal remembers a simpler time when we all swapped tapes.
• Jean-Pierre Melville’s ‘Army of Shadows’ - Dan Leo recalls a classic film about the French Resistance in World War II

And those are just in the last week or so. Dig deeper, and you'll find posts on Frost Nixon, Somerset Maugham, Philip K. Dick, Alan Bennett, Keira Knightley, Penelope Cruz and the Kings of Leon. There are about 33 or so bloggers at newcritics, and some of us will be gathering later this week. I'm very much looking forward to it. Lots of ideas about "the conversation" are cooking. So get clicking and jump into the fray.

UPDATE: Big Sopranos post-game under way over there - links here and here. What did you think of the finale?

Restless Minds

Take about 30 iconoclasts, give 'em a log-in, tell them to write about culture and sometimes you'll get what you need. There are a bunch of new bloggers over at newcritics (where regular readers know I'm the den leader) and I wanted to share a few recent highlights:

• Manny Maher is happily shocked at the masters status recently awarded to Phillip K. Dick.
• Exile on Main Street may be the archetypal "whiskey rock" record of all-time, but Fred Wilson finds that the Kings of Leon have that honky croak down, Nashville-style.
• Chuck Tryon discovers a must-see YouTube video that snips 100 movies in exact numeric order.
• The Siren takes on Mark Steyn over the matter of Elia Kazan and the Hollywood blacklist - and finds him shockingly devoid of nuance and knowledge.
• I reviewed The Plague by Albert Camus in light of current events.
• What did Jerry Falwell mean to our cultural identity - some SNL skits, at very least, says Dennis Perrin.
• Maud Newton looks at some political propaganda in pop culture - oh, but it was in 1681. Same deal. Cool post.
• M.A. Peel reviews the wild rush of fire that is The Tristan Project.
• Jason Chervokas reviews the brilliant new record by Mavis Staples - Down in Mississippi - I've been listening to this one myself, and love it.
• Kathleen Maher has a review of the biopic of jazz singer Anita O'Day, and she's captivated.

Great stuff, and I urge you to pop over and take it in. And please leave some comments, and join the conversation.

Defending Edward Hopper

....from The New York Times. Over at newcritics, Hopper gets the love.

Scene and Heard - Sunday Edition

Did any readers see the Democratic "debate" this week from South Carolina? I saw some of it and made a point to watch some video highlights as well. And it's early, there were eight voices, and Mike Gravel is still in the race - so it doesn'tcount for much, I guess. But I must say I was shocked - by how well Hillary Clinton did, how well Joe Biden did, and how poorly Barack Obama and John Edwards performed: almost the inverse of my debating/style expectations going in. You know I lean mightly towards Hillary, but don't expect a clear win on the debate trail - she's a brilliant woman and a wonk's wonk, and she learned how to grind it out in New York State. But trouncing all those fellas? That was impressive.

In any case, here's a trove from my occasional remainders bin - links and notes:

First, my own stuff elsewhere. I covered the Milken Global Conference in LA last week, and my onPhilanthropy.com mainbar is here (look for the sidebar links, too); a slightly different take for HuffPo is here. While I was there, I had the pleasure of listening to Kirk Douglas and meeting him briefly - an event I described at newcritics. At 90, he's a beautiful old man.

Glenn Greenwald wonders why the Beltway media is so far behind what is an obvious story to him: "When is the last time Democrats were so unified in their defiance of Wise Beltway Wisdom, which endlessly warns them not to adhere to their beliefs too steadfastly or to defy Republican decrees, especially on foreign policy?"

When a certain ex-mayor said this, "America will be safer with a Republican president”...Keith Olbermann systematically took the argument apart, piece by piece. Devastating.

Jim Wolcott bemoans the loss of Rosie on The View and somehow finds some insight into the "post-Imus era" and what it means to the Republican presidential hopefuls. Now that's media criticism.

Like Greenwald and Wolcott, Lance Mannion also sees major woes for the national Republican Party - "If you are an honorable young conservative who believes the rules ought to apply to everybody, there simply is no place for you in the Republican Party."

Over at the increasingly-impressive new Shakesville, Melissa McEwen wonders if Fox News has finally hit rock bottom - "The fact that Fox News’ 'facts' generally aren’t true means that they are regularly sending, with no compunction whatsoever, their ready-made terrorist brigade to harass, intimidate, and threaten people for no reason whatsoever.

In a nice post on academic qualifications in mid-career, I discover that Gara LaMarche and I have something very specific in common: "I am happy to have gone to Columbia because the Ivy League degree allowed a small-town Catholic boy with no connections to be taken more seriously, particularly when I was starting out.  But what I learned or didn't learn there (sorry, Lee Bollinger) has little to do with my subsequent career." Me too!

Neddie Jingo has another one of his wonderful Northern Virgina history/archaeology posts - I love when blogs like Neddie's go hunting in the past.

Lastly, M.A. Peel finds Shakespeare references in Sabah El Kair Iraq—an Iraqi morning show from Al Iraqiya. And we thought they hated us for our cultural freedom.

Unstuck in Time

Over at newcritics, we're remembering Kurt Vonnegut, who died yesterday at age 84. Stop by and share your thoughts.

Green Beer and English...

The recent news that the Irish and the English come from the same ancient genetic stock, by and large, should be no shock to anyone who contemplates the greatest contribution of the cultural Irish diaspora: the language of their sometime enemies across the narrow Irish Sea. Now that the mitochondrial mystery has been solved at Oxford, we may as well be honest about the great irony of the grand old land. English and its artistic advancement is the great cultural achievement of the Irish. [Full post and comments over at newcritics].

Jim Webb and Graham Greene

When it’s good - and at times it’s very good indeed - Lost Soldiers by Senator James Webb forms a worthy bookend to Graham Greene’s classic tale of French colonialism and American intrigue, The Quiet American. Full review over at newcritics - read and comment, por favor.