May 2012
5 posts
1 tag
2 tags
The mash-up that had to be made: Mike Bost vs....
2 tags
Illinois Sen. Jeff Schoenberg, D-Evanston,...
The Help
It’s hard to watch a grown man berate another adult. This week, after a committee hearing, a senator had a question.
A staffer walks over to answer. She’s talking, then either turns away or starts moving away. A natural moment of conclusion? Or wanton insubordination? The senator knows what he saw, and there’s a sudden turn in his demeanor.
That’s fine, walk away. Go ahead, walk away. I’m...
April 2012
3 posts
4 tags
3 tags
'I want them to see what they have done to Jack.'
The April 2, 2012 edition of The New Yorker has a remarkable piece on Lyndon Johnson’s experience of Nov. 22, 1963. LBJ awoke an alienated vice president, dogged by scandal and likely in the twilight of his political career. You know how the story ends.
The piece is an excerpt from the upcoming fourth book in Robert Caro’s five-volume biography of Johnson. You might have thought...
4 tags
Gov. Pat Quinn is talkin’ baseball.
...
March 2012
5 posts
Here it is, Illinois government observers, your...
How the sausage is made.
A lot of bills move...
But first, the news.
Had a story picked up for a...
1 tag
At his farewell speech, former Gov. Rod...
February 2012
2 posts
Who cares if a politician buys a newspaper? →
Jack Shafer:
In his 2004 book, The Vanishing Newspaper, Philip Meyer calls the conversion of a newspaper’s assets, including the goodwill embodied in its good name, “slow liquidation.” A proprietor simply cuts circulation, cuts pages, sells the presses and outsources printing, and cuts labor costs by dumping staff until one day — poof! — the paper vanishes.
Sound familiar?
1 tag
Well-written obits of lives lived well
The New York Times’ obituary of John Fairfax is making the rounds this weekend. There’s nothing like reading tight copy about an interesting person you’ve never heard of. It seemed like a good occasion to share a few of my favorite obits from the past few years.
Fairfax is best known for rowing across the Atlantic Ocean alone, and for rowing across the Pacific with his...
January 2012
3 posts
“While liberals’ gazes tended to fall upon the pleasant images, such as a...”
– Fascinating study on the biology of political orientation.
1 tag
“People disclose the phone numbers that they dial or text to their cellular...”
– Justice Sonia Sotomayor, concurring in U.S. v. Jones (read the NYT story or full opinion)
December 2011
5 posts
What Roger Ebert said →
Roger Ebert has a few hypotheses on why movie revenue dropped in 2011, when theater audiences were the smallest since 1995. His final point is the lack of choice at most multiplexes:
Box-office tracking shows that the bright spot in 2011 was the performance of indie, foreign or documentary films. On many weekends, one or more of those titles captures first-place in per-screen average receipts....
3 tags
2 tags
4 tags
“It bears repeating: at the Met, the most expensive opera tickets are indeed...”
– An important aside from Seth Colter Walls’ dispatch on Satyagraha at the Met, Philip Glass, and Friday’s Occupy Lincoln Center protest.
Also worth noting:
Among the populist moves the Met has made in recent years is its “Live in HD” program, beamed to movie theaters in...
November 2011
8 posts
Message Music: On The Roots, Michele Bachmann, NPR...
Guests on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon have generally walked on stage to subtle and witty music selections. Larry King got Roger Miller’s “King of the Road.” Elijah Wood heard Mahalia Jackson’s “Elijah Rock.” And Keith Olbermann, who had been off daily TV for some time, was given a valentine in the form of Klymaxx’s “I Miss You.”
It’s...
1 tag
WatchNot coming soon to a city near you, at least if you live where I do.
1 tag
Being Brian Mackey
Sometimes I feel like I’m racing against myself.
My fascination with other people named Brian Mackey is longstanding, as is my (likely one-sided) competition with them for Web dominance. Lately I’ve noticed one in particular gaining ground.
In a few years, when we identify ourselves, will I hear, “Brian Mackey? Like the singer?” Or will he hear, “Brian Mackey? Like...
October 2011
2 posts
Watch(via Welcome)
Possibly the best gif ever
(via thesmarmybum)
September 2011
1 post
“My attitude toward ‘Lost’ was: I’ll wait to see if [when] it...”
– Mike Pesca, speaking on the Aug. 22, 2011 edition of Slate’s Hang Up and Listen podcast
July 2011
0 posts
Had a perfect Head West conversation today
Me: May I have a No. 8 on sweet bread?
Head West employee: What would you like on it?
Me: Just lettuce and pickles.
HWE: Would you like that hot or cold?
Me: Hot.
HWE: *gets bread* What did you want on that?
Me: Lettuce and pickle.
HWE: And cold?
Me: Hot.
Elton John on PA: And I'm gonna be hi-iiiiiiigh as a kite by then.
February 2011
1 post
October 2010
1 post
September 2010
2 posts
“As for the future, one has to be completely ignorant of how big money works in...”
– Charles Simic, America’s Front Page (via nybooks)
“Waiting 10 minutes for someone to defecate onstage is boring in the way that...”
– amazing, scathing New York Times review of performance artist Ann Liv Young
August 2010
1 post
July 2010
7 posts
1 tag
“So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started...”
– Peter Gibbons, Office Space, on IFC right now
“The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. No big...”
– Nikola Tesla, born this day in 1856
1 tag
Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich expresses his opinion of...
The best sentence in today's New York Times
“You’re among friends here, if your friends are the sort with significant disposable income, leisure time and a gift for quiet flamboyance.”
— describing the mood at Peter Elliot Men, from a Critical Shopper story by Jon Caramanica
June 2010
5 posts
In which Gen. McChrystal could learn something...
In the days since Rolling Stone published an article that cost Gen. Stanley McChrystal his job, there’s been some discussion about whether a military beat reporter would have published as many damaging quotations as Michael Hastings did in his article. (See: Jack Shafer, Thomas Ricks, Andrew Sullivan, Jay Rosen.)
It seems apparent that most beat reporters have to trade some degree of...
