Tom Watson

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.