tv sux
― lute bro (brimstead), Monday, 18 April 2016 21:02 (eight years ago) link
av club write the way third-graders write book reports
tv journalism just seems kinda nasty to me in principle. not that it shouldn't exist or we shouldn't read it, but we shouldn't give em prestigious awards imo
― de l'asshole (flopson), Monday, 18 April 2016 21:19 (eight years ago) link
the more "invested" tv criticism is in a show the worse it usually is
― J0rdan S., Monday, 18 April 2016 21:23 (eight years ago) link
Nussbaum is the NYer's best critic
― eyecrud (silby), Monday, 18 April 2016 21:26 (eight years ago) link
Maybe we are reading different reviews/pieces? Certainly the Todd Van Der Graaf or whomever guy was really good. A lot of their writers seem to be good. Better than 3rd graders, for sure. I'm not sure I've ever read a Nussbaum piece that made me want to tell a friend, wow, you should read this. And her writing can be plainly stupid, too. Like in her recent "Americans" piece, in which she implores of someone re: Matthew Rhys, "Put him on all the magazines! Give him the Jon Hamm treatment. Seriously, he deserves it." What does that even mean? Make him a star? Make him the subject of tabloids? That's he's foxy? I dunno, but it's a waste of words in service of being cute, nothing more, and I couldn't give a fuck if he gets the "Jon Hamm treatment" even if I think he's possibly the best actor on TV right now (which I never thought of Jon Hamm).
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 18 April 2016 21:39 (eight years ago) link
Since they've been letting her write for the site while the position remains semi-vacant, I'm really hoping they hire Amanda Petrusich as their music critic. She'd immediately go up to my fave, or at least second fave, after Alex Ross, maybe.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 18 April 2016 21:41 (eight years ago) link
Todd Van Der werff? That dude has an uncanny knack for finding parallels to his own life story in every episode of tv in existence.
― JoeStork, Monday, 18 April 2016 21:46 (eight years ago) link
hate when writers do that shit
― de l'asshole (flopson), Monday, 18 April 2016 21:48 (eight years ago) link
I'd be happy if they banned first person, but hey, that's what people seem to like.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 18 April 2016 21:50 (eight years ago) link
Nussbaum is pretty good (especially about stuff she likes) but Pulitzer-good? She's probably just the best in a very bland, groupthink-y field. Also points off for the "last episode was Walter's hallucination" theory.
― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, 18 April 2016 21:55 (eight years ago) link
Generally I've wasted too much of my life reading recaps, I don't think there's a solid writer or thinker in the lot, but they're such easy procrastination material.
― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, 18 April 2016 21:58 (eight years ago) link
yeah i dunno if it's possible to be pulitzer-worthy writing about the arts. tho i dunno, is the pulitzer even respected? some crappy things have won pulitzers.
xpost pulitzer for ask a maester
― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Monday, 18 April 2016 22:00 (eight years ago) link
I think the avclub TV writing is miles better than Nussbaum's, more perceptive, more invested. Every once in a while she makes a good observation, but much of her criticism seems very ... reactive? Like, maybe she'll wait a season or two in until she addresses something. Or several episodes, and tie it into a think-piece
this is what criticism is
― k3vin k., Monday, 18 April 2016 22:02 (eight years ago) link
yeah, i think you guys are overrating the pulitzers. I don't even mean that as a shot against nussbaum, just that the pulitzers for criticism and for commentary often go to stuff that's not that great.
― intheblanks, Monday, 18 April 2016 22:03 (eight years ago) link
i don't read nussbaum or any TV writing but there is more to criticism than insta-reactions. tying smaller things into a larger narrative is i would say the very fabric of the american essay
― k3vin k., Monday, 18 April 2016 22:03 (eight years ago) link
did you guys read dying clive james on game of thrones?
― scott seward, Monday, 18 April 2016 22:19 (eight years ago) link
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/18/the-raw-appeal-of-game-of-thrones
― scott seward, Monday, 18 April 2016 22:20 (eight years ago) link
― JoeStork, Monday, April 18, 2016 10:46 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark
never forget
At one of the lowest points in my marriage, my wife and I got into a massive, horrific argument in the very early hours of the morning. It was the kind of argument that breaks marriages, that wakes neighbors, that reveals things that should have been left unsaid, and at one point, I remember her cowering in our bathroom over some revelation or another meant to hurt me, and I remember planting my arms in the bathroom door so I blocked it like a giant oak tree, branches not permitting her exit. She stood up, begged me to move. I said no. She shoved me, trying to jar me, so she could leave the apartment and the argument far behind. It was no use. I don’t remember what it was that she said to so set me off, nor do I remember most of the beats of the argument. But I remember standing in that doorway and feeling gigantic, like she was no match for me, a mouse against an elephant. I remember what it was to feel that terrifying power surge through me. And I remember how much I wanted to hit her but did not. It took a long while of her crying herself hoarse, but I stepped away, and she left. We both did and said things we regret that night, but I have regretted none so much as meeting a person inside of me wild and uncontrolled enough to do something like that to the woman he loved.
― Number None, Monday, 18 April 2016 22:23 (eight years ago) link
LOL
― J0rdan S., Monday, 18 April 2016 22:25 (eight years ago) link
Youch. Maybe I was thinking of someone else? Anyway, all writers suck, sometimes.
I thought that GoT piece was pretty good, actually.
xpost Sure. But I don't think she writes about shows down the line any differently than she might write about a new show. She doesn't, imo, bring anything new, given the benefit of time spent vs. rushing out a review based on a pilot or the first few eps, and rather than advancing a stance or theory many of her pieces are still basically on the level of recap/description/comparing shows to other shows. (Though she seems to be doing less of the last, thankfully).
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 18 April 2016 22:26 (eight years ago) link
Anyway, re: AVclub, whoever is doing their Better Call Saul writing these days has been great.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 18 April 2016 22:33 (eight years ago) link
Heh: http://www.avclub.com/article/emily-nussbaum-just-won-pulitzer-tv-criticism-here-235495
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 18 April 2016 22:34 (eight years ago) link
Nussbaum is the best because she:
- brings attention to overlooked and underhyped woman-led shows- is super Jewish- has made fun of Phillip Roth- likes things to be fun
― eyecrud (silby), Monday, 18 April 2016 22:37 (eight years ago) link
I agree on the first, for sure! That's part and parcel with being a populist, I suppose. Write about the shows people are actually watching rather than patronizingly write about shows people should be watching because blah blah.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 18 April 2016 22:39 (eight years ago) link
jesus christ - what was the writer quoted above reviewing when he included that crazy part?
i thought the clive james got piece was only okay to be honest. the bits about tyrion were good but the rest was a bit of a disjointed scrawl. and much of it was like hearing about a tv show i'd already seen through the medium of the videogame manual: "and then there is sansa. the wily daughter of ned stark, she has adventures with the conniving littlefinger, who knows what is next in store for them?"
"cersei is the queen of the realm, between religion and incest, her hands are certainly full! but is there more than meets the eye?"
― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Monday, 18 April 2016 22:40 (eight years ago) link
it's from a Louie recap
― Number None, Monday, 18 April 2016 22:40 (eight years ago) link
lmao that avclub quote
― de l'asshole (flopson), Monday, 18 April 2016 22:44 (eight years ago) link
Silby OTM re: fun, women shows, Jewishness
― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, 19 April 2016 09:30 (eight years ago) link
The Melania Trump article this week seems weird. There was interesting stuff in there but it was so vicious and nasty that it seemed tonally off from the New Yorker style. And I don't know that "Trump hates immigrants, but his wife is an immigrant" really works as a Trump gotcha at this point.
― Immediate Follower (NA), Wednesday, 4 May 2016 14:31 (eight years ago) link
Can't believe nobody mentioned this one from the first week of March - http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/07/the-cheating-problem-in-professional-bridge
In 2014, two German physicians, who had won a World Pairs Championship, were banned for ten years by the World Bridge Federation for using an auditory signalling system. (They’re now known as the Coughing Doctors.)
Of interest, one of the (non-cheating) players mentioned in the article, Bob Hamman, is played by Dustin Hoffman in the movie about Lance Armstrong's doping career, The Program (recommended), because apparently his day job is assessing black swan risks for insurers, like for example the possibility that a seven-time winner of the Tour might be cheating.
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 17 May 2016 15:56 (eight years ago) link
I couldn't care less about bridge but I love stories about catching cheaters and this one has, like a dozen of those rolled into one
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 17 May 2016 15:57 (eight years ago) link
Thought the Nazi treasure hunter article was a big tease. There are these people in Poland searching for Nazi treasure hidden in long forgotten tunnels! Or maybe they're looking for a money train! Or maybe a UFO! And there are all these undiscovered and unexplored tunnels! And if there was anything to find, the Russians probably got it! The End!
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 17 May 2016 17:18 (eight years ago) link
surprised the communal living 1 wasn't discussed
"Kennedy was unfamiliar with the city's neighborhoods, but he'd seen HBO's "Girls", and, he said, "I pretty much knew I was going to be in Brooklyn."
― johnny crunch, Tuesday, 17 May 2016 18:09 (eight years ago) link
his day job is assessing black swan risks for insurers, like for example the possibility that a seven-time winner of the Tour might be cheating.
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, May 17, 2016
it's cycling! sport is a history of increasingly advanced cheating! figuring out how a champion is cheating this year is a whole other thing but there is no whiter swan.
― Larry Elleison (rogermexico.), Friday, 20 May 2016 01:12 (eight years ago) link
new kathryn schulz is an instant classic
― schlump, Monday, 6 June 2016 15:58 (eight years ago) link
i liked the oberlin article
― J0rdan S., Monday, 6 June 2016 16:07 (eight years ago) link
This is amazing. An entire spoof-edition of the New Yorker: http://static1.squarespace.com/static/52a74ecde4b01bb79a769329/t/575d922e7da24f2981092db0/1465750080617/Neu+Jorker%2C+Singles%2C+Lo-res.pdf (PDF)
― Le Bateau Ivre, Wednesday, 15 June 2016 10:34 (eight years ago) link
Indeed
― Cry for a Shadow Blaster (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 15 June 2016 11:40 (eight years ago) link
Was it one of you that recommended John Vaillant's "The Tiger?" If so, thanks! If not, it's incredible. TotallyDavid Grann-tastic, and then some.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 15 June 2016 12:06 (eight years ago) link
just came here to post that pdf thing (the source webpage: http://www.0s-1s.com/neujorker)
― germane geir hongro (s.clover), Wednesday, 15 June 2016 13:59 (eight years ago) link
smdh shouts and murmurs is *never* the first article after talk of the town/surowiecki
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 15 June 2016 23:43 (eight years ago) link
Yeah no credibility.
― Sean, let me be clear (silby), Thursday, 16 June 2016 02:22 (eight years ago) link
seeing a lot of uproar on FB over this today: https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13510910_10153811737573869_6947878920656246645_n.jpg?oh=44ef963f5f5441c083ceebfa3f35c032&oe=57D85537
― Darin, Tuesday, 21 June 2016 20:53 (eight years ago) link
why
― Immediate Follower (NA), Tuesday, 21 June 2016 21:06 (eight years ago) link
whole lotta monocles popping out and falling into teacups
― Immediate Follower (NA), Tuesday, 21 June 2016 21:07 (eight years ago) link
What a monster
― Blowout Coombes (President Keyes), Tuesday, 21 June 2016 21:43 (eight years ago) link
Emily flake is great
― scarcity festival (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 21 June 2016 21:49 (eight years ago) link
trenchant social commentary
― Number None, Tuesday, 21 June 2016 21:51 (eight years ago) link
sample comments:
"Yeah, this sucks ass. Maybe Emily Flake should work on fixing the economy that has made a living wage almost impossible to acquire for many Americans; or just churn out another cartoon that takes an easy and simple shot at the generation dealing with the mistakes of the previous four generations."
"Yeah, New Yorker lets put down everyone who tries to eat healthier by stereotyping and putting negative labels onto them."
"People who live with their parents just need to lower their standards, and quit being coddled. Move in with five friends and to make ends meet and stop using your parents to maintain your life. I moved out at 18 in the 80's and could not afford a phone for 2 years and had to use a pay phone (the days before smart phones) because I wanted to be an adult not an eternal adolescent."
"Unnecessarily shaming cartoon, considering how many adults are forced to live with their parents because of the lousy economy and ginormous student loans. The cartoonist should go after the economic and student loan crises instead."
blah, blah, blah.
― Darin, Tuesday, 21 June 2016 22:59 (eight years ago) link
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClvpTBxWkAAU_k5.jpg
― mookieproof, Friday, 24 June 2016 21:26 (eight years ago) link