THE NEW YORKER's Calvin Trillin Chinese food poem upstages National Poetry Month.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/06/calvin-trillin-new-yorker-chinese-food-poem?CMP=edit_2221

Calvin Trillin's poem (both text and read by Trillin himself:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/04/have-they-run-out-of-provinces-yet-by-calvin-trillin

Trillin's NEW YORKER biography:
http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/calvin-trillin

My opinion:
Trillin probably intended "Have They Run Out of Provinces Yet?" as light verse poking mild fun at foodies wanting to eat the latest "in" cuisine.  (Guessing David Remnick, who runs THE NEW YORKER, may have had the last word over poetry editor Paul Muldoon on the poem's appearance online/in print.)

Trillin's poem might have been less controversial in 1969 or 1970--when unchecked cultural insensitivity to non-Caucasians and non-heterosexuals was the norm (though, in a rare exception, Latinos successfully managed to have Frito-Lay's stereotyped animated Frito Bandito commercials pulled from television).

In the digital age, reflexive anger and pushback is immediate.

And the sad byproduct is an even greater ignorance of National Poetry Month (though not in Los Angeles, where a lot of poets are still in the afterglow of the AWP convention held last week) in favor of talking about an elderly, long-term NEW YORKER contributor who doesn't know what year/century he now lives in.

Jesse Eisenberg works out his film-critic aversion issues in THE NEW YORKER.

Actor/author/playwright Jesse Eisenberg just had his intended-as-humorous piece about a film reviewer as hapless-wannabe-loser in THE NEW YORKER:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/23/an-honest-film-review


Here's a link to a past encounter between Eisenberg and a Univision reviewer Romina Puga on a film junket for the first NOW YOU SEE ME:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya-CrS3eKMM

From the same junket with MTV Canada's Rich Wilkinson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytY6DZNGCUU
And here's Eisenberg displaying discomfort with Comic-Con (using the word "genocide" which he later walked back) while doing press for THE END OF THE TOUR (plus a dig at the press):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqOeRLfG5MM

It's understandable that actors can be irritated when junketeers either insist on doing personality schtick or want to throw out "gonna getcha angry" inquiries.  Or if they feel print reviewers are inadequate and/or know next to nothing about films/film history/the particular film of the actor being reviewed--or, as implied in Eisenberg's NEW YORKER piece, desire to be secretly unethical.

But few of them get the privilege of having smirky ripostes published in prestigious magazines.

Suzanne Lummis, THE NEW YORKER and the likely impact in Los Angeles literary circles.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/03/didnt-get-nunnery

Let's look at this--a win for Suzanne Lummis and her vision of "craft-conscious poetry" and a win for West Coast literary poets who thought they'd never be accepted in the august pages of THE NEW YORKER--on several levels a la INCEPTION:

1. Suzanne will have a boost in the number of potential future students.

2. She'll also have several peers (or those who imagine themselves as peers) who will likely show adoring faces to her while harboring secret "why did SHE get in and I didn't" thoughts.

3. Unfortunately, it's a victory for those in Los Angeles who prefer all poetry emerging from the city to be rather homogenized in terms of notions of quality (the only exception being the welcome election of Luis Rodriguez as the city's Poet Laureate).

4. It's the final, fatal stake through the heart for the more unruly, DIY, coffeehouse non-slam community which used to exist side-by-side with the more Aspirational folks.  And the arrogant, destructive behavior of some of our community's "greatest" poets towards perceived inferiors will increase--along with the timid, for-career's-sake silence that enables it.

5. With THE NEW YORKER achievement and the new book, let's see if Suzanne can use her upsurge to leverage the revival of both the Newer Poets series and the long-dormant Los Angeles Poetry Festival.

THE NEW YORKER's Emily Nussbaum on the artistic implosion of HOMELAND.

Excerpted from Emily Nussbaum's "On Television" article TRIGGER-HAPPY in the January 21, 2013 issue of THE NEW YORKER (much of the article is about the FX series JUSTIFIED):
"As I watched "Justified"'s narrative expand and contract, it was hard not to think of Showtime's espionage thriller "Homeland," which just ended a disastrous second season.  The show's original twelve episodes were a mini-masterpiece, a propulsive scenario paired with a reasonably thoughtful exploration of U.S. policy on torture and drones.  The second season began well, but it imploded into schlock--the creators had fallen in love with the chemistry between their stars [Claire Danes as CIA agent Carrie and Damian Lewis as U.S. soldier-turned-terrorist-turned-double-agent Brody].  When a bomb went off in the finale, it killed every corrupt or shady character, a convenient metaphor for the show's problems: it had been purged of complexity, a side effect of success.  The surviving ensemble--Carrie and Brody, Brody's family, Mike, Saul, and Quinn--were now cursed with, at worst, the flaws of the antihero: brilliant but unstable, willing to break rules in the name of justice.  That's not an original story, let alone an interesting way to examine foreign policy."

TRIBUTE TO POET STEPHEN DUNN

Reading Stephen Dunn's poem "The Party To Which You Are Not Invited"--in the current issue
of THE NEW YORKER.

Richard Brody on ISHTAR--and critiquing a certain type of arts' criticism.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/dvr-alert/

I saw the Warren Beatty/Dustin Hoffman/Elaine May comedy ISHTAR on its underperforming opening weekend in the late spring of 1987 (the film's large budget had already been cluck-clucked about in the pre-Internet entertainment media and audiences were conditioned to expect the HEAVEN'S GATE of cinematic comedy).  It's not the classic that May's A NEW LEAF and THE HEARTBREAK KID still are, but there are enough genuinely funny moments (greatly aided by Charles Grodin's supporting turn as a CIA agent) to make it worth seeking out (apparently, it's on Netflix' film-streaming service and there's a rumor of Sony releasing it to DVD next year).

Richard Brody, who writes for THE NEW YORKER's website, has a significant difference of opinion with the late Pauline Kael's take on ISHTAR:
"Kael had her categories set, knew what comedy was, knew who comedians were and weren’t, didn’t see the film for what it was but for the expectations [due to its partial desert setting, Kael was anticipating an update of the Hope/Crosby/Lamour ROAD TO...formula] it didn’t meet. That’s a review of advertising and of publicity and of self, not of a movie."

Substitute your favorite poetry critic's name and the word "poetry" for "comedy".  And you have a good precis of most criticism of poetry.

[In another online piece, Brody discusses his concept of criticism by comparing it to poet Philip Larkin's I-hate-that-modern-jazz review of jazz music: "...the critic isn’t the one who—as Larkin thinks—takes the resistant, the recondite, the rebarbative, and reproaches his readers for not enjoying it, nor even only the prophet who sees the future of art in its present tense, but, rather, is something of an aristocrat of taste who helps audiences share in the appreciation—the enjoyment—of finer and rarer pleasures. It’s not a job of convincing or persuading; the true modernist is not a village explainer or a professorial explicator but an ecstatic enthusiast who experiences art with a passionate identification apt for a democratic age in which the artist is the uncrowned king or queen."  The complete article can be found at:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2010/08/larkin-jazz.html#ixzz0wHt1AICN  Although an
irony is that Brody's explanation tends to match up--particularly the "passionate identification" phrase--with how Kael approached her job as NEW YORKER film critic.]

Before Nancy Pelosi is elevated to sainthood......

Yes, we now have a mild dose of health care reform that will admittedly do good for some citizens--plus enrich the insurance companies of the USA. And perhaps some marginal improvements can be made over the next few years.

But there's now plenty of canonizing of Nancy Pelosi (who seemed to follow the Rahm Emanuel playbook of pressuring people on the left such as Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders--instead of gathering a few more Blue Dogs and even Republicans into the tent), plus overgushing from the I Want To Believe Obama-ites like THE NEW YORKER's Hendrik Hertzberg and film critic/occasional opinionator Roger Ebert (no, passing a heavily watered-down health care "reform" bill does not equal the day Barack Obama was elected President).

Nancy Pelosi, if she had really been All That, wouldn't have been so eager to strip out the public option from the final bill.

And we face a crossroads regarding the President and his future agenda. If US citizens want to see any real change, the pressure (without racial slurs, blue faces from breath-holding and tacky behavior from either the left or the right) needs to be applied to ensure Obama understands he's President of the United States--and not just an errandperson sent by multinational corporations and the Pentagon to keep doing the same old things in the same old ways.

We need real reform--not just incremental consumer-benefit crumbs that will pacify us when the White House thinks of putting another Guantanomo prison in Afghanistan and looks the other way at the abuses of Wall Street (i.e. placing big bets on continued domestic economy crumbling to make big money for a select few).

J.D. Salinger, Bill (CALVIN AND HOBBES) Watterson and the "I owe you nothing else" ethos.

[On THE NEW YORKER's website at http://www.newyorker.com/ in the Online-only section, there's a Back Issues link to J.D. Salinger's short stories written for the magazine.]

It always fascinates/perplexes people when artists go into exile after they determine their careers are finite, with no reason to add to their accomplishments; Greta Garbo, J.D. Salinger and cartoonist Bill Watterson of CALVIN AND HOBBES fame are the three most prominent examples.

Inevitably, the exiled artist is either pursued by curious fans or has to cope with will-there-be-a-comeback rumors.

In the case of the now-deceased Salinger, there is speculation as to the unpublished manuscripts he left behind and whether they will see any kind of posthumous publication.

Given Salinger's apparent ego, perfectionism and desire for absolute control over his work (he never again spoke to a NEW YORKER editor after the editor added a comma to one of Salinger's short stories), perhaps it's better to keep the legend intact.

Sometimes, we're not meant to have access to everything from the artists we treasure.

[UPDATE 2/1/10: Bill Watterson gives a rare interview--again justifying his decision to end CALVIN AND HOBBES and continue living off the public grid--http://bit.ly/9Yd2ZO]

Pauline Kael, although deceased, still provokes negative reactions.

Occasional NEW YORKER capsule film critic Richard Brody raises his leg and uses the late Pauline Kael's gravestone as a fire hydrant--in the context of a Kael vs. Andrew Sarris mention:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2009/06/critical-condition-part-2.html

As I recall, Kael had her biases (to put it mildly), but she liked a great variety of films and filmmakers (witness the 5001 NIGHTS AT THE MOVIES compilation of her capsule reviews). But you wouldn't know it from Brody's brief, bitchy throwaway remark.

But Kael's desire to be a Cinema Influence (a description the late film producer Saul David tagged her with in his book THE INDUSTRY) did anger a few people--and it could be said that the new Francis Coppola film TETRO (which I generally liked) has a key character (the tastemaker Alone, played by Carmen Maura) clearly intended as Coppola's version of Brody's critique.

But at least Francis put more effort into his characterization of Pauline Kael than Richard Brody does.

Re the anger at greedy corporate execs--it won't do much good.

I liked this column by Maureen Dowd that appears in today's NEW YORK TIMES: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/opinion/01dowd.html?_r=2

And it is rather pitiful that the corporate/Wall Street CEOs/majordomos are hunkering down, determined to hang on to what they feel are hard-won perks (lavish expense accounts, fit-for-a-monarch living and working quarters, superplush personal jets--not to forget multimegamillions of parting gifts in cash/stock options) while the public gets poor products, abysmal customer service and, in certain cases, going-out-of-business sales to digest.

[UPDATE 2/3/09: Wells Fargo, after taking over Wachovia and receiving bailout money, plans a lavish employee party in Las Vegas: http://money.aol.com/news/articles/_a/bbdp/wells-fargo-another-bailed-out-firm/327746]

[UPDATE 2/4/09: Wells Fargo, after an outcry of protest, canceled the party: http://money.aol.com/news/articles/_a/bbdp/wells-fargo-another-bailed-out-firm/327746?icid=200100397x1218250358x1201186513]

Recently, I read a laudatory profile of Barney Frank in THE NEW YORKER. Frank optimistically predicted an economic recovery by 2010 (presumably before the midterm elections).

If such a recovery takes place on Frank's schedule, I'm assuming that America will return to doing business in the same old ways it did prior to the Wall Street meltdown of this past September.

And, once again, cretins like Jack "GE" Welch will feel comfortable enough to spout tough-guy downsizing palaver in books and over the airwaves.

Poet/author John Updike RIP.

One of the first poems I remember reading in junior high school was John Updike's "Ex-Basketball Player." Updike, author of such classics as the Rabbit triology, THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK and its recently published sequel THE WIDOWS OF EASTWICK, has passed away from cancer at the age of 76.

Here is an obit from Kevin Roderick of LA OBSERVED: http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2009/01/john_updike_writer_was_76.php

Updike was a frequent contributor to THE NEW YORKER.
Here's an article he wrote on baseball legend Ted Williams' final game:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1960/10/22/1960_10_22_109_TNY_CARDS_000266305

Ben Lyons--is he the superstupid future of film criticism?

Searching my distant memory, there are a couple of things I recall from Pauline Kael's "The Current Cinema" columns of THE NEW YORKER.

One--She wrote about a NY PBS station's shoddy treatment of silent films broadcast (i.e. not showing them at the proper speed). Ms. Kael talked to station management and received an answer like "So we'll do this for you and the three people that care."

Two--Ms. Kael quoted Frank Yablans (a producer who was an ace marketer of not-always-classic films like SILVER STREAK, CONGO and the legendary MOMMIE DEAREST) as saying that film critics needed to be replaced every few years. Presumably Yablans meant that critics/reviewers who stay on the job too long wouldn't be as receptive to below-average current product as the go-along/get-along types who need to write favorable copy and get those Movie Star interviews for their employers.

Yablans probably would have loved someone like Ben Lyons in the 70s/80s.

Ben Lyons, son of the famed mediocrite Jeffrey Lyons (who once co-hosted a post-Siskel/Ebert SNEAK PREVIEWS with Michael Medved), cheerfully gives Disney/ABC the kind of knowledge-challenged down-with-all-things-current-as-long-as-they're-mainstream wet kisses each week on AT THE MOVIES.

Thanks to Jeffrey Wells of HOLLYWOOD-ELSEWHERE for posting this link to a LOS ANGELES TIMES article critical of Lyons the younger: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-lyons28-2008dec28,0,5374132,full.story

If one were to actually complain to a Disney exec about the hiring of woefully underqualified Ben Lyons (in terms of glib careerism, Lyons outpaces even Richard Roeper), what would the response be?

Perhaps this: "So what? You're one of the ten people who cares."