SHELLEY BERMAN, the veteran actor and comedian, balled up a fist and held it against one of his ears. "This is the way you hold a phone," he said. "This" - he extended his thumb and pinky in imitation of a telephone receiver - "is ridiculous! This is not how you hold a phone."

from : When Larry David Calls, You Answer

go see

Where are the insightful posts about Sharon leaving Likud? I don't know what to make of this but I can't find much written about it.

the umbrellas of cherbourg on sundance at 730.

did any of you watch lidsville way back when? and if so, do you recommend it for a 2 year old who loves all the pixar movies?

the kitchen from the apartment therapy people

the tomorrow show

aeon flux

rebloged

This is the scariest thing I've seen in a while. Interns who pray. Wow. These people make me so nervous. (Quicktime 7 required)

richter's mustangs at goodman

The very definition of strategery -- I woke to the Preznit's speech about his strategery for winification in Iraq. What a steaming bucket of shite! How does this twit have a shred of credibility left? NPR had Sen. Feingold to respond. (Hey, Wisconsin, wanna swap a Feinstein for a Feingold?) The Repub on the panel was some US Rep from Fla. Her non-sequitor was "well we weren't in Iraq on 9/11" I screamed at the radio, "yeah, well we weren't in Iraq on fucking December 7, 1941, but what the fuck does that have to do with anything?"

All in all, a shitty way to wake up.

Can we have a vote of no confidence? Now?

nauseating on so many levels. please let there be a vengeful god.

Beach Boys Good Vibrations Tour
I posted this once on the music page, but the wonder of cable keeps bringing it around: today on Ovation at noon. A must-see if you have any interest in the Boys; worth recording.

robert scheers new digs.

"Responding in character as Borat, Cohen, who is Jewish, said: "I like to state, I have no connection with Mr Cohen and fully support my government's position to sue this Jew."

Great Moments in Conservative Punditry

Every time you delve into the situation in Iraq, you come away with the phrase "not enough troops" ringing in your head, and I hope someday we will find out how this travesty came about.

I know Atrios blogged on this two days ago, but the Brooks piece just appeared in my local paper. I was eating lunch, and almost did a spit take when I came to this sentence. How can a man so profoundly stupid be so prominent in the media?

hopeless pictures is quite humorous. its an animated short series with a christopher guest cast sending up hollywood agentdom. michael mckean stars. it on tonight at 11and again later on.

David Rees takes down Christopher Hitchens. He's funny even without the clip art.

ART CELEBRITIES IN VOGUE
For an especially bizarre welcome to the new holiday season, pick up the December issue of Vogue magazine. In a 23-page feature styled by Vogue veteran Grace Coddington and photographed by Annie Leibovitz, several top artists who should have known better participated in a fluffy promotional fashion shoot for the young collagen-lipped movie star Keira Knightley. In the photo spread, Knightley is cast as an unlikely blonde Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, while Alba and Francesco Clemente play Dorothy’s Auntie Em and Uncle Henry, Kara Walker is Glinda the Good Witch, Brice Marden perches on a cross (!) in a cornfield as the Scarecrow, John Currin dresses up as the Tin Man and the notoriously reticent Jasper Johns plays the Cowardly Lion (!!). The cast is rounded out with Chuck Close as the Wizard (complete with his early black-and-white self-portrait with cigarette), Kiki Smith as the Wicked Witch (!!!) and Jeff Koons in brown makeup and batwings as the witch’s wicked monkey.

Vogue’s art fest continues with a line-up of remarkably anti-erotic nudes by Vanessa Beecroft, Jeff Koons, Elizabeth Peyton, Richard Prince, Julian Schnabel and Cindy Sherman, works that also go on view at Mitchell-Innes & Nash on West 26th Street in Chelsea, Nov. 18-Dec. 23, 2005. For us, the real art in the magazine is the 12-page spread of fashion advertisements from Wal-Mart.

“You’re starting to destroy my fucking life, Luke, do you know that?” The words echo, and the three other people in the pool stare at us. “I’m being exceptionally nice to you doing this here. Exceptionally nice. I hope you realize that.”

new smithsonian american art museum blog: eye level

the canary just killed itself. the only question is what took him so long?

Forget Saint Paul; forget Tim Leary: the West’s greatest embodiment of the conversion experience is Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The film/TV versions are all but endless, and due to the strength of the story, a lot of them are pretty good. Critical opinion agrees with what my father told me when I was a kid: the British Alastair Sim version is tops, but the tale is effective whether it’s Mr. Magoo’s musical version (now edited because the graveyard scene was too scary for kids) or Bill Murray’s Scrooged transposition. Tonight I’m watching one I haven’t seen since childhood, the 1938 Hollywood version with Reginald Owen, on TCM at 8 tonight.

WFMU will be featured on New York Noise -- the NYC-area local access cable video show. In addition to an hour's worth of cool videos, there'll be footage shot at the Record Fair, and cameos by a number of WFMU DJs. The WFMU feature will air on NYC cable channel 25 on November 19th at 10 PM, December 2nd at 9 PM, and December 4th at 10 PM. More info on New York Noise can be found here.

tape it tivo it watch it

as far as seasonal viewing, i almost always watch the nyc marathon but i prefer the womens race to the mens. then all the others: wheel chairs, the blind guy, the burrough champs, etc.

i also usually put on the macy parade in the background. made the mistake of putting the sound up. when did it turn into a review of bad broadway musicals. some pretty bad stuff here.