The Early Woody Allen 1952-1971
Larry Gelbart and Woody Allen got work on another episode of The Chevy Show, this one hosted by Pat Boone. For their work they were nominated for an Emmy. The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences recognized the incredible amount of skill, talent and ability necessary to make Pat Boone enjoyable.
Generation Why?
How long is a generation these days? I must be in Mark Zuckerberg’s generation—there are only nine years between us—but somehow it doesn’t feel that way. This despite the fact that I can say (like everyone else on Harvard’s campus in the fall of 2003) that “I was there” at Facebook’s inception, and remember Facemash and the fuss it caused; also that tiny, exquisite movie star trailed by fan-boys through the snow wherever she went, and the awful snow itself, turning your toes gray, destroying your spirit, bringing a bloodless end to a squirrel on my block: frozen, inanimate, perfect—like the Blaschka glass flowers. Doubtless years from now I will misremember my closeness to Zuckerberg, in the same spirit that everyone in ’60s Liverpool met John Lennon.
My Summer on the Content Farm
Remember that “I Love Lucy” episode where Lucy and Ethel take jobs in the chocolate factory and the conveyor belt starts pumping out candy faster than they can pack it in the wrappers so they start stuffing their faces and cleavage with the excess, cowering from the intimidating factory matron? That’s kind of what it’s like to work for Demand Media, as I found out during a brief, ill-fated stint as a freelance copy editor at the 17th largest web property in the U.S. this summer.
The Other Oil Cleanup
After the Valdez disaster, Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act, which greatly expanded eligibility for damage claims from offshore spills like the Valdez or the Deepwater Horizon. It also required that the party deemed responsible by the government compensate victims. Given the fact that the law has been on the books for 20 years, you might assume that setting up a compensation fund for victims of the BP spill would be a straightforward matter. It has not been.
The New New Andreessen
Andreessen Horowitz—Silicon Valley’s newest, hottest venture capital firm—claims a new, Michael Ovitz-inspired approach to venture capital. Marc Andreessen wants to create a full-service VC firm that helps with all the needs of startups, from recruiting to public relations, just as CAA catered to every aspect of career development—and every personal demand—of film stars and directors.
Everyone Hates Ticketmaster — But No One Can Take It Down
Ticketmaster didn’t come to rule an industry by suffering interlopers. Over the past 30 years, the company has killed or eaten nearly every competitor: Ticketron, TicketWeb, TicketsNow, Paciolan, and Musictoday. And a potent combination of top artists, venues, and long-term ticketing deals makes Ticketmaster one Goliath well positioned to crush a whole army of Davids.
Metaphor on 23rd Street: The Chelsea Has History and Architecture. Is That Enough for a $100 Million Sale?
It’s where Mark Twain stayed. And Jack Kerouac. And: Thomas Wolfe, Frida Kahlo, O. Henry, Arthur C. Clarke, Willem de Kooning, Henri Cartier Bresson, Allen Ginsberg and Martha Graham. It’s where couples from Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe to Leonard Cohen and Janis Joplin made love. It’s where Dylan Thomas collapsed into a coma in 1953—”I’ve had 18 straight whiskies. I think that is a record!”—which led to his death four days later in St. Vincent’s Hospital.
Grand Theft Cattle
John Suther’s investigations have involved a never-ending litany of 21st-century weirdness: thugs stealing dairy calves at knifepoint; a guy hauling stolen and hog-tied calves in the back of a Volkswagen Jetta; organized criminal operations laundering drug money through trade in stolen livestock; illegal immigrants running barbaric underground rodeo circuits; and, in one of the largest cattle scams in American history, a missing $865,000 from one of the highest-paid actors on TV.
Crimes of the Art?
Eight years after Larry Rivers’s death, both his pioneering art and his hypersexual private life are getting fresh attention. In the 70s, he filmed his adolescent daughters topless for a documentary, “Growing,” that the younger one, Emma Rivers Tamburlini, says is nothing less than child pornography.
The Myth of Charter Schools
Some fact-checking is in order, and the place to start is with “Waiting for Superman”‘s quiet acknowledgment that only one in five charter schools is able to get the “amazing results” that it celebrates.
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