A couple of weeks ago, a friend was discussing with me an idea they had encountered from Hank Green, the novelist, vlogger, and all-around internet cool dude. The idea is that fame, as it were, has tiers. Five of them, to be specific. The lowest tier -- tier one --
Last year, the best book I read was Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville. This is likely not a statement that will surprise you, but I was surprised by how true it was. I expected the book to be great. I didn't quite expect it to be so great that
On the ceiling of my childhood bedroom are glow in the dark stars, which I placed there well over 25 years ago. I've always thought they looked a little like a pirate, thrusting his hook hand into the air, cursing Peter Pan. My wife thinks they take the
First of all, my apologies to you, my loyal subscribers. My life has taken off in all sorts of exciting new directions in 2017, but they've been directions that have left little time for this poor, ailing newsletter. I'm going to figure out a schedule that
Hello, America! It's time for a Friday mailbag, which I'm going to begin with some rapid-fire answers to questions from Twitter! You know my feelings on this: People never have the right to complain about spoilers. Okay, okay, okay: I know that's unreasonable of
At my last newspaper job, there was a masturbator. He would wait for somebody to enter one of the men's room stalls next to him, and once he was sure you were there for a bit, he would start to jerk off, loudly and luridly, making little noises
(When I have a lot going on, I tend to stress eat, just like this stock photo model.) You may have noticed in recent months that the frequency of this newsletter has dropped precipitously. Some of that has been traveling, with events like Comic-Con, TCA, and a vacation coming right
"Hello, we are the friends from college." Hey, newsletter fans. You smell that crisp burning scent in the air? Why, it's the smell of a new fall TV season coming over the ridge, marked by the scent of networks burning all of the scripts for shows
If you have a couple of minutes today and you're interested in the decline of the antihero drama, go and read Noel Murray's excellent piece on the "Dead Freight" episode of Breaking Bad, an episode I really like that, nonetheless, underlines some of my
Hey, everybody! I just realized I haven't done one of these in way too long, thanks to Comic-Con, TCA, and other stuff, so I'm tossing out a mailbag installment -- even as I'm on a plane headed on vacation. Somehow, in my absence, we&
Hey there, newsletter subscribers. I'm about to hit a big, busy time of year, with a few business trips and Comic-Con and TCA, so I dunno if this newsletter will be happening much until mid-August. So let's go out with a bang! Billy writes: What'
I was originally going to make this follow-up to my post from February an exact companion to my analysis of the drama race, which is really exciting. But when I sat down to make a preliminary list of shows, it was even longer than the 22 shows I talked about