Salinger and Tewksbury
A never-realized film adaptation of “For Esmé — With Love and Squalor.”
Robert Vaughn (1932–2016)
Napoleon Solo and fellow agent Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) were major inspirations in my espionage-filled boyhood.
PBS, sheesh
From tonight’s PBS NewsHour : “In this campaign, the topic of refugees from war-torn Syria have been a political flash point.”
Baseball and silence
I know very little about baseball, but it seems to me that the game invites contemplation — watching and waiting and thinking. Joe Buck and company, but especially Buck, sucked all the silence out of the game.
Masonic Ticonderoga
A Dixon Ticonderoga in a Perry Mason episode.
Jay Tarses on the small screen
Dave Simonds’s Free Advice from an Old Guy , five very short films starring Jay Tarses.
From an old notebook
Dialogue from the PBS children’s show Barney.
Awkward metaphor of the day
“He’s not going to be a wallflower that’s going to get pushed around.”
Block that metaphor
“They’re trying to find the middle ground where they can straddle this awkward situation.”
Reality TV?
Is the cheap-looking background in Donald Trump’s self-serving taped “statement” meant to look like the kind of background one sees on cable news? Is the background meant to give (someone) the impression that Trump is answering an anchor’s question and not merely reading from a script?
Recently updated
An old SNL skit is online.
Advice for creative types
Beatrice Taylor, Aunt Bee: “Nobody can create on an empty stomach.”
Steve Bushakis and Donald Trump
“I’ve had gonorrhea five times.”
Impastor tonight
The second season of the series begins tonight.
Overheard
Paul Drake may not be big in Japan, but he has a Japanese presence, if only in the form of a man.
At Fred’s Landing
There’s no forgetting.
Twelve more movies
Or nine movies and three television series, really. But is it television if it streams on Netflix? Anyway, no spoilers.
Nancy TV
You’ll ruin your eyes!
Newhart sardines
Dr. Hartley is not a fan.
Prophecy of the day
“By the year 2000 there’ll be thirty-six TV stations, twenty-four hours a day, telling you what to think.”
Noel Neill (1920–2016)
The real Lois Lane.
CNN, sheesh
A CNN reporter just spoke of Hillary Clinton bringing in the calvary — Elizabeth Warren et al. No: cavalry . Related reading All OCA sh...
The Greeks
On PBS.
MSNBC, sheesh
How to mispronounce “nadir.”
Block that metaphor
“. . . and Bernie Sanders nipping at her toes.”
Eyes on the plane
Andrew Sullivan’s recent lament about the failure of “elites” to protect democracy from the likes of Donald Trump misses the point that Trump’s candidacy is itself the product of an elite — not a political elite but a media elite, one that has kept Trump (and even his parked plane) front and center for months now.
MSNBC, sheesh
“Between he ...”
CNN fail
John King’s map and people of color. Appalling.
“A-Tisket, A-Tasket”
CNN’s John King and his baskets of votes.
Domestic comedy
Late at night, watching TV.