If you haven't started collecting the new series of Peanuts books yet, now would be a great time. It would also be a great time to pick up on a lot of other great books published by Fantagraphics. They're having a 20% off sale. From now 'til September 30, if your order totals $40 or more, they'll lop a fifth off your tab. The first five volumes of The Complete Peanuts, for example, would ordinarily run you $144.75. Ordered during the sale period, you'd pay...wait, I'm doing the math...
Looks like $115.80 to me. That's five for the price of four. And it isn't just Peanuts. It's all the Fantagraphics books, Eros titles excluded. There are a lot of goodies there that would look splendid on your shelf and are even more fun to read. Go for it.
Jonathan Alter on one of the many things making us less safe than we oughta be from terrorists: The F.B.I. is still handling its data on computers not that much more sophisticated than the one I used to write Scooby Doo comic books in the early eighties.
Why is it so difficult to get this kind of thing upgraded? You'd think Dick Cheney must have one buddy in the computer business who'd gladly sell us $100 million worth of computers for a no-bid $2 billion government contract.
I made it through all 4+ hours of When The Levees Broke, an HBO documentary by filmmaker Spike Lee. Much of it is tough going because it means witnessing the pain that so many people felt when their homes and lives were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and — as the film makes clear — the incompetence (and sometimes indifference) of those we count on in a time of emergency. Parts of it also made me angry. I find that in the face of such devastation, I get angry at government officials of all kinds, of all parties, who spend time on comparative trivia like flag-burning amendments, pork projects for their home districts and buddies, and impeaching Bill Clinton.
The story is told through news footage, newly-shot footage and — most compelling of all — the personal accounts of a vast number of locals and witnesses. Lee found some articulate and perceptive people to interview and he let them talk, in some cases at considerable length. The stories and observations often cover the same ground and there are moments when you may be tempted to grab for the Fast Forward button and say, "All right, already. We get it." Part of me wishes Lee had made the film shorter, not because any of the tales are unworthy of telling, but because a lot of people who need to see this account won't clear the four hours. And if they do start watching, they won't make it to the last hour, the message of which is that the system is still broken with regard to helping people down there.
On the other hand, it is an important story...one of the most important ever told about life in these United States. Maybe four hours isn't too long.
Early Sunday morning (3:01 AM in some time zones), NBC is rerunning the full, 90-minute version of the Saturday Night Live originally broadcast on October 3, 1981. It was not a great episode but it was somewhat important in the show's history.
As you may recall, when Lorne Michaels departed the show after Season #5, all the cast members and writers went with him. A former talent coordinator named Jean Doumanian was inexplicably appointed Producer and assigned the impossible job of rebuilding the show, almost from scratch. Among those who were around the show at this time, there seems to be a consensus that no one could have succeeded in the situation (not much lead time, lower budgets, network expectations of an instant classic, etc.) but that it didn't have to be quite that bad.
Anyway, Ms. Doumanian was fired and a man named Dick Ebersol was handed the job of building something out of the wreckage. He didn't have a lot of money to do it with and he had even less time. Ebersol produced an episode or two...but then he caught a break. The Writers Guild called a strike and NBC agreed to end that season of Saturday Night Live early. Ebersol suddenly had until the Fall to remodel the show, and he did. The 10/3/81 episode was the first of the new season and while not great, it was a huge improvement. Eddie Murphy especially blossomed with a sketch in which he played an amalgam of the legendary rocker, Little Richard, and the legendary exercise instructor, Richard Simmons.
There was no real host but Rod Stewart did some musical numbers and performed in sketches so he almost functioned as host. You'll also see juggler Michael Davis do a nice turn, from back in the days when SNL used to book acts like that. The entire cast consisted of Brian-Doyle Murray, Robin Duke, Christine Ebersole, Mary Gross, Tim Kazurinsky, Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscopo and Tony Rosato.
The following week in the same time slot, NBC is running the 1/30/82 episode from the same season. John Madden was the guest host and Jennifer Holliday was the musical guest, singing two songs from the Broadway show, Dreamgirls. Most of the show was Eddie Murphy but somewhere in there, there's one of Andy Kaufman's odder appearances.
Back in this message, I mentioned a new video processing technique called Live Feed. It can take an old, grainy kinescope of a TV show and transform it so it looks like it's being shot on modern video equipment. I've seen several examples of it in action and it's stunning.
If you watch the Emmy Awards on Sunday night, you'll see a few seconds of it. In the "death montage" I just mentioned, there's some footage of Jan Murray hosting one of his many game shows. This footage was processed by the Live Feed people, who were given a very bad kinescope to enhance. Watch and see what they did to it.
August 25, 2006
