Philippe de Montebello Retires

It’s official. The director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will be stepping down at the end of this year. He’s 71 and came to the job 31 years ago. The museum that de Montebello is leaving is one of the greatest in the world. It already was, of course, when he [...]

Tuned In

JPTV: What I'm Watching Tonight

MSNBC New Hampshah, New Hampshah, New Hampshah. What can I say? I write for a newsmagazine. Lately my default channel for coverage of primary season has been MSNBC, because somewhere amid the gusher of overheated, high-grade hoo-hah that Chris Matthews spews any given night, there are usually a few bits of thought-provoking insight into the [...]

Tuned In

Strike Watch: The Fake Fake News

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report returned last night, and like any member of the media I’m biased toward finding myself to be right, so I have to say they were as I expected: different, funny, not nearly as hobbled as people had speculated these writing-intense shows would be. I’m on deadline, so I’ll [...]

Tuned In

Huckabee on Canada's Igloo Crisis

Because it’s primary day, and because Tuned In is so besieged by traffic whenever we cover Canadian television, I would be remiss if I did not share with you this footage of then-Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee being Boratted by the north-of-the-border Daily Show counterpart This Hour Has 22 Minutes. The governor took time from his [...]

LACMA Goes Lacking

Before I get back to my long post on Murakami, there’s this news about the decision by Eli Broad not to leave his vast collection of modern and contemporary art to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. LACMA was the place most likely to get it, or most of it, if he left it [...]

Tuned In

Hey Kids! Let's Put on a Press Conference!

Let’s start with the bad news: The Golden Globes ceremony has been cancelled. Now the good news. Well, actually that was the good news. But here’s the more news: There’ll be a press conference instead! The Globes ceremony had seemed doomed for some time, owing to the writers’ strike and the subsequent Screen Actors’ Guild [...]

Tuned In

The Morning After: Camacho for President!

NBC Photo: Trae Patton Watching American Gladiators last night, I realized that I have made a terrible mistake. I would have prepared my children much better for the America of the future if I had given them nouns for first names. Venom, Stealth, Fury, Mayhem–how can you go wrong in life with a name like [...]