Todd Mason

Beverly's gentle if typically unsubtle nudging Ronna toward a certain revelation is great fun. "The straight man...that's what I am." "Not this time."

The Bixbys were clearly ghosts themselves. Kind of you not to brace them on this, but self-awareness is useful even for the dead.

I'll bet you don't get Too much feedback on the ads...but if you mention the Twilight Zone Radio Drama collection again as you do in the Audible ad, the co-writer Henry Slesar's name is pronounced "Slay-sir"...he was a great writer of crime fiction, did a little sf and fantasy aside from these items, and among his television scripting was impressive work on Alfred Hitchcock Presents: and the famously crime-drama-oriented soap The Edge of Night (the network soap with the largest proportion of male viewers as a result). Excellent discussion/episode.

And, atop all else, today is apparently Cedric the Entertainer's 50th birthday. Whether hanging out in the buff with NL was an early present or not is up to both of them, but I doubt he was too upset.

Ms. Ash not only is utterly charming in at least one podcast, but has a great voice atop that. Better luck in dating... GIRL MODEL is a very strange and sad documentary, indeed...and the "tumor" removed from the curiously irresponsible recruiter/procurer is a teratoma, one full of hair, which really did seem too good a metaphor for her life, even though no one in the film uses that term.

Matt Braunger and Emily Gordon were very funny, sharp and charming, by me. Niggling reference thing of the episode--Sid Caesar wasn't the for laughs transvestite of early US tv, Milton Berle was.

Scott--good chance you were conflating Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford, among the packers.

Timezones: The US has six timezones for the 50 states...ET, CT, MT, PT, Alaska Time, and Hawaii Time, though when Alaska "springs forward" (for no good reason aside from so much Federal employment), it lines up with Hawaii, which doesn't observe DST. That's pretty much why the Indiana counties around Chicago didn't used to observe, since they were just as happy to be aligned with Chicago in Central Time in the DST months as aligned with the rest of Indiana in Standard Time months. Hawaii and Arizona are the only non-DST states...but when we add in the Virgin Islands and Guam and other territories, we have about as many timezones as Russia does...

Well, Mark Helprin, who wrote the novel, preferred to not let it be put back into print if that meant it would be labeled a fantasy novel (in a modern classics/notable fantasy-novel line). And yet he sold his preciious off to the folks who have produced this version. I'm not sure a lesson can or should be taken, other than try not to be a fool.

At least one new episode, with Pete Holmes, has been made available, but not here...thanks, folks.

PFT's Carson was verging toward Albert Brooks after the rap battle. But it was getting to be a very good Brooks...

http://www.jesusandmo.net/ for the further adventures of Jesus (the god expression) and Mo'hd (the holy but not-god prophet)

I like Bareilles's hit of a few back. "Love Song," and a few of her others I've heard, less enthusiastic about the more recent and certainly well-intentioned "Brave"...which has been a minor hit. Her "Gravity" certainly has been played in enough films and tv episodes (see IMDb). I've been happy with new pop stuff by Janelle Monáe and even Stefani Germanotta of late (though I think her forthcoming album with Tony Bennett likely better than the newest one). Alt-country or what have you...tried Kasey Lansdale yet? And, of course, hit up the house of the hip, PBS, for this next month: AUSTIN CITY LIMITS: Jason Isbell/Neko Case Saturday, January 11, 2014, 9:00-10:00 p.m. ET

And for the tiresomely earnest comment quotient, CATFISH the film is a fake documentary about presenting one's self fraudulently online, or at least the protagonists doing so. Hence, catfishing.

DubipR: No love for Cher, comedian James Adomian, Andre Agassi, artist Jim Mahfood, Art Leboe and other American Amermians? or...Jackie Kashian, William Saroyan, Michael Arlen, Alan Hovanhess... The list can continue...

Gil Scott-Heron...one of the founders of rap as we know it...(track 1)...and steeped in jazz tradition (everything, not least track 3): http://youtu.be/9pZSQ3NOXbQ (We'll leave out the Last Poets, for now...)

(One person per planet does have a certain resonance with the doctrine of the LDS church, of which Orson Scott Card is famously a member)...but...Card is Not a good writer, I'll suggest...even at his best, he's pretty shallow. At his worst, he comes up with some serious Dumb. Which might just help to explain the depth of his hatred for the notion of gay marriage (and his not too temperate language about homosexuality generally), or even the notion that the Enemy species are referred to in ENDER'S GAME as not simply Bugs, but Buggers...

Tompkins memory fails only to recall that the Honolulu elephant was a female. (Not a wahine.) Elephants being matriarchal and almost out of necessity, to drop those baby 'phants, the females larger....

Guessing that she has some editing to do on a certain a/v documentary...

There was a pretty solid, if unambitious, spin-off of THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK on ABC a few years back, EASTWICK. This year, we get duelling cable witchcraft series on Lifetime and FX (the latter being the third season of AMERICAN HORROR STORY). Hm...as dull as endless filming of THE HOBBIT might be, it ain't quite as dull as Led Zep albums...which in turn might not be as dull as wading through crushes at ComiCon...

FWIW, SHERLOCK is shown in the US on broadcast on PBS as part of MASTERPIECE MYSTERY! (most stations play this first on Sundays, when the network feeds it), and TOP OF THE LAKE first appeared in the US (iinm) on the Sundance Channel on cable...

Meanwhile, Winfrey is (also) just as self-aggrandizing as Nanjani and Leggero suggest (every bit of charity from her seems super-plastered with her brand, and often funded by others, and sometimes not so very helpful...such as the school she was credited with funding where abuses were rampant), and unlike young Cyrus, she's not remotely a kid. In fact, Oprah-worship is a part of why one heavily advertised Earwolf podcast is a tough thing to slog through.

I'm not sure I've ever heard such affectionate kvetching before.

Well, if Kulap attends the (unintentionally?) stag event in Arlen's yard, which male in her circle goes out to the women's retreat? Mixed groups are always more interesting than all-male groups, in my experience (I've been in only approximately all-female groups, of course). The dynamic is more fluid.

Silliphant when he could be interviewed... http://classicshowbiz.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-mike-douglas-show-with-guests.html