Past, Present, Future, Kapoor, 2007/Photos: JOHN KENNARD
The man who made “The Bean” is in Boston. (Ok, it’s actually called Cloud Gate.) In any event, I wrote about him in the new issue of Time.
Inwendig Volle Figur, Kapoor, 2006
A Strange Day in Pittsburgh
Two pieces of news out of Pittsburgh today. One is that Richard Armstrong, director of the Carnegie Museum of Art, has announced that he’s stepping down after 16 years at the museum and 12 as director. That’s the third American museum to lose its leadership this week, following the announced retirement of Mimi Gates in Seattle and the …
Tuned InUncategorized
You Be the Reaper: What Show Has Lived Too Long?
Is it finally his time? / FOX
It’s a writing day for me, which means that I’m going to be spending most of it not writing. On this blog, that is. It’s also Brooklyn Queens Day, which means no school for outer-borough kids, which in turn means that Tuned In Jr. and Tuned In Jr. Jr. will be spending some of the day underfoot in my office, …
Tuned In
About That Whole "The Strike Is Over" Thing…
The Screen Actors Guild is still negotiating, with a contract deadline of June 30 coming up. And Variety reports today that despite a separate deal struck by sister guild AFTRA (which represents fewer TV actors), SAG and the producers are not coming much closer together yet. The questions, as Variety lays them out:
* Will SAG attempt to
…
Tuned InUncategorized
The Morning After: Chef d'Oeuvre
Top Chef’s final four. / Bravo Photo: Virginia Sherwood
It was a late election night for me Tuesday, so while you were watching the Top Chef [Update: episode before the] finale, this delicate flower was watching the inside of his eyelids. Which means I will spend the day desperately (and probably unsuccessfully) trying to avoid …
Stormin’ Norman
The Rookie, Norman Rockwell, 1957/ © 1957 SEPS
If you want to stop the conversation cold around your table at a museum press lunch, try saying something nice about Norman Rockwell. I used that clever gambit at a Metropolitan Museum lunch earlier this week. It produced what it would be fair to call an awkward silence until Philippe de …
Tuned In
More Sessions for In Treatment?
When HBO picked up the second season of Tell Me You Love Me, I wrote: “File this under News I Didn’t Expect to Be Reading This Soon and Come to Think of It Probably Ever.” Well, I hope there’s still room in that manila folder. The LA Times reports that In Treatment may get a second season on the channel, having hired Tony Award winner …
Tuned InUncategorized
Corporate Press Release Theater: The Many Faces of Toni
SHOWTIME
For Showtime, a Diablo Cody comedy about a woman with many personalities who is not Tracey Ullman:
Los Angeles, CA – (June 4, 2008) – Showtime Networks has fast-tracked the pickup of THE UNITED STATES OF TARA, a new 12 episode half-hour comedy series starring Academy Award®-nominated actress Toni Collette (“Little Miss
…
Tuned InMovies
The Carrie-Clinton Connection?
Over at Slate, Timothy Noah, who’s been writing about pop culture and the election, suggests that the success of the SATC movie is the result of disappointed Hillary voters drowning their sorrows.
No, seriously. He wrote that. I guess somebody had to draw this connection; I just can’t believe it wasn’t Maureen Dowd.
A while back I …
Gun Crazy, Part 2
Okay, we all agree that museums need to safeguard their work. (Obvious example — the Munch Museum in Oslo wasn’t doing enough in that line when The Scream was stolen in 2004. Since getting it back — damaged — they’ve bolted it to a wall and installed security gates.) But I was a little surprised to learn last weekend from the …
Tuned InUncategorized
Breaking: McCain Suggests Summer Series
We may as well further overextend the metaphor of the morning: if the hit series of the regular season just ended, how do you hang on to the viewers until fall? With summer reality programming!
In a speech this morning, John McCain suggested a series of ten joint “townhall meetings” with Barack Obama throughout the summer, starting next …
Tuned InUncategorized
The Greening of Discovery
Gurwwitch confronts the Hutchinson family about their wa$te. / PLANET GREEN
Tonight at 6 p.m., Discovery Home Channel becomes Planet Green, a testament to the fact that eco-mindedness has become part of the national consciousness, a mainstream attitude, and a really awesome ways for advertisers to sell things.
I’ve seen only a sampler …
Tuned InUncategorized
Election Watch: A Finale, and a Cliffhanger
And so last night, the surprise hit of the 2007-08 television season came to an end… but with a cliffhanger. As had been foreshadowed for some time now, Barack Obama declared victory in the Democratic primary in a climactic speech in St. Paul, Minnesota, setting up a dramatic fall-season storyline with John McCain.
But as viewers of …