Near, Far, Wherever You Are...

...rest assured that the blog will go on! I hope you'll all be comforted to know that I am recuperating just fine after last Friday, when Dick Cheney, in a perfectly innocent jousting accident, jabbed a rapier right into my lung, and then accidentally trampled me beneath his horse when he rode back to notch his kill help me up. My vital signs then dipped to their most critical levels when Laura Bush came to read to me in the hospital, but came very close to boring me to death. It was all very trying, and very accidental, absolutely.

Actually, I've just been busy. Beginning-of-semester stuff. Recommendation letters up the wazoo. Learning how to balance three classes at the same time. Considerable planning re: a piece of Very Good News that I'm not allowed to broadcast yet, but, if you've been following this blog of late, you'll be able to suss out. Taking advantage of Oscar-prompted theatrical re-releases so that I could revisit Munich and The New World, take a second hike up and down Brokeback Mountain, and, earlier this afternoon, flip back through the pages of Capote. On which, more later. But none of this is really satisfying as an explanation is it? Here are some more specific explanations, since the Comments on my previous post reveal that some of you (understandably) thought I was dead.

Why I Didn't Blog All Weekend: I was in NYC, sharing some of that Valentine's Day lovin'. Some things (though only a few of them) are better than the internet.

Why I Didn't Blog Sunday Night: Blizzard. Whole Northeast. Me. Penn Station. Hours. Hartford, at 4am. No taxis. 14°. So damn unpretty.

Where Else I Was Blogging While Away: Over at the Oscar Symposium at The Film Experience, where I'm one of a Magnificent Seven of Oscar obsessives who are poring over the nominees, fessing up to our biases, stumping for our favorites, wondering why we all care so much, and why other people, crazy people, don't. Nathaniel, our gracious host, looking swell in Elie Saab, posted the first installment of our discussion yesterday: a Valentine to Oscar. More will follow all week. Read it!

A Short P.S. About the Film Experience, Because It's All About Nathaniel: I have, for the first time in my life, been linked to celebrity. One of my students this semester e-mails me and goes, "Wait!! You're the "Nick" who posts on Nathaniel R.'s website??! I've been reading it every day for years!" Nathaniel, you are the polestar of fame, the Tom Hanks to my Rita Wilson (except that you aren't boring, and I don't embarrass myself... quite that much).

Where I'll Be Blogging When I'm Not Blogging Here: The archangel Gabriel and his readers at Modern Fabulousity have tapped me as one of the ModFab Six, an ongoing coffeeklatsch of cultural issues (pop- and otherwise), a harem of what's hot and what's not, a coterie of tastemakers. At least that's what he tells us. Really, we're just going to spread some lox on some bagels every week, chat up how tragic Tom Cruise and K.Ho and K.Fed continue to be, and congratulate ourselves. Seriously, unless you read, we're not going to make it interesting. But if you do read, for EVERY SINGLE HIT registered on the MF6 articles, we will add ONE MORE DOLLOP of fabulousness to our dialogue. Do you hear me? For six seconds a day, you could elevate us, the ModFab Six, into the pinnacle of wagdom, make us the Reservoir Dogs of all things rad, the aurora borealis of the blogosphere. We are your willing Galateas, as you are ours. This is your mission. Choose to accept it! It is a beautiful thing. (With such schmoove personalities around the table as the sweet-toothed Melissa, the witness-protected par3182, the trend-setting and aforementioned Nathaniel, the don't-I-recognize-that-fragrance StinkyLulu, and the bass-thrumming, ass-kicking, mad hot Me'shell of blogotopia, Dr. S, the sky is truly the limit... as long as Dick Cheney doesn't shoot any of us.)

Why I Didn't Blog Tuesday, the One Day I Don't Teach: I was still catching up on work and on reading that I should have finished on Monday.

Why I Didn't Blog on Monday: If you were anywhere in the Northeast on Monday, and you were looking anxiously toward the heavens and wondering if more snow was going to fall, or if Dick Cheney was going to fly over in a helicopter and litter your neighborhood in a spray of bullets, and you sighed your relief that none of this was happening (yet), but you did happen to notice with your naked eye an enormous, undulating plume of smoke rising from the eastern horizon, or from wherever Hartford is in relation to where you live.... I apologize for this enormous, undulating plume of smoke. It was pouring forth from my crackpipe, and the name of my crackpipe is the DVD of Season One of Project Runway.

You guys.

I am so addicted to this show that Liza Minnelli, Marion Barry, and Winona Ryder are all worried about me. I picked up the phone (but not till Tuesday), and Courtney Love gave me a lecture about strength through moderation. Snoop Dogg even came to my house on Monday and was peering at me through the window and imploring me to Just Say No. But I couldn't. I watched the entire season in one sitting, and I'll just save you the trouble of clicking here and confess upfront that I'm talking about 509 minutes of material. But not just any material. Leather. Silk. Organza. Morganza. Wine-dyed roses. Headphones. Rope candy. Elasticized rubber, as borrowed from a lawn chair. Corn husks. You guys, corn husks. Cotton, the official material of Project Runway, as well as the fabric of our lives. Envy. Champagne. Despair. Confidence, as distilled by Kara Saun into some sort of pure, periodic-table element which, somehow, you still don't begrudge her (until the McTeague-style twist at the end! Beware of the diamond-encrusted shoe! "All that glisters...," Kara Saun!)

I'm sorry to be that bloviating windbag at the party who won't stop talking about what everyone else already recognized and observed first-hand almost a year ago, but a) you did ask me to tell you what I've been up to, and b) you guys. This show is the Berlin Alexanderplatz of Bravo TV, the Mill on the Floss of modern fashion, and I repeat, I don't even care about fashion. What invisible hand from beyond the literary pale is guiding this show? How did the runway mavens of New York City know, all those years ago, to title their annual runway gala "Olympus," as if prescient of the mythological resonances of Mario's feeble arrogance, Vanessa's fatal error of so disastrously expressing consummate tact (I don't want to savage anyone else!) in the rhetoric of total idiocy (You should fire me!), and therefore wizening before our eyes from a Dionysian dame of constant good humor into such a bitter mound of sozzle and spite? How can you root for someone for months in a row, only to realize in the final instants before victory is pronounced that you don't want her to win?

For Wendy Pepper, I have invented the word, Clytemnestric. I say no more.

So now that I'm really all caught up, you all know Why I Won't Be Blogging Tonight Between 10 and 11pm EST. But do catch me later. Eventually, Project Runway's season will end, and I'll be back to business as usual. Unless, between now and then, Dick Cheney shoots me in the face. At which point, I dunno, I guess we wait and see?

Andrei Tarkovsky and Heidi Klum

I'm so excited for my public speaking gig tomorrow at the Real Art Ways cinema and gallery space in Hartford, where I will be giving one of two post-film lectures after a screening of Andrei Tarkovsky's masterpiece Andrei Rublev. Literally one of the greatest and most inspiring films I have ever seen, Andrei Rublev is a breathtaking spiritual epic orbiting around the life of Russia's most famous painter of orthodox icons. Before you get nervous, a lot of the magic inheres in how thoroughly Tarkovsky sidesteps biopic conventions—we never once see Rublev paint, and he is a witness to more scenes than he is a participant. Instead, we are treated to some of the most rapturous crane and aerial shots in cinema history, starting with the prologue's curious episode of a man attempting to fly off the top of a church tower with a homemade balloon as support, and climaxing with the spectacle of a naked woman fleeing the village where 14th-century Christian soldiers are violently interrupting a "pagan" ritual. She runs into the river to avoid capture, and the camera's whirling and yet poignantly static tracing of her escape is the very essence of visual poetry. All through the film, imposing architecture resonates against the fluid movements of water and bodies, and the palpable grittiness of earth, iron, and fire is shot and edited into transcendental, almost conceptual purity. It's truly awesome. In fact, this will be my third time seeing Andrei Rublev on a big 35mm screen, and I've been boning up for two days on the religious history of Russia, the revival of Rublev's personal mythology under Stalin and Khrushchev (of all people), the always strained relations between Tarkovsky and Mosfilm, and the philosophical and aesthetic undercurrents linking Andrei Rublev to other Tarkovsky films like Stalker and Solaris.

Or at least, this is what I am TRYING to do. Because in a cruel twist of fate, which I blame ENTIRELY on Gabriel and Nathaniel, my entire consciousness has been flooded in a giant tsunami of Project Runway.

Four days ago, I not only didn't have cable, but I hadn't had it for six years, except for the fact that in three of those years, I subscribed for 4-6 weeks apiece stretching from the Golden Globes to the Oscars, promptly cancelling the service on the morning after. Time Warner of Ithaca was straight irritated at my not-even-seasonal subscribing, but they'd still schlepp to the house and hook up the box, knowing that I'd walk it back to headquarters in a month's time. Now, on why I just don't care about TV: it has less to do with derision for the form (though, I admit, there is some of that) than with personal appetites and desires. I do. not. want. to experience characters once a week at some appointed time, in open-ended storylines. My life and my job satisfy those roles just fine. My art is supposed to come in discrete packages that have been shaped and concerted and filigreed with infinite nuance so that I have single, intense experiences of stories or people, which I can turn over and over like crystals in the light, rather than stringing them along like tinsel on a tree. Unless it's Once and Again, it just doesn't turn me on.

But as someone I know would say, f*** me running, because I love Project Runway. I am its newest convert. I accidentally saw the last two-thirds of this week's episode on Thursday night, when I was connecting my VCR to my cable box and activating a timer-record on the next channel down, until I got com-pleet-lee absorbed in Nick's crisis of conviction, in Daniel V.'s friendly and adorably unpushy counsel, and in Zulema's right to switch her models (which I wholly defend, even though it came at the expense of by far the best model-designer pairing on the show). I watched that funk till the end, and though I personally would have given a slight edge to Andrae's stunningly creative translation of brackish gutter water into flowing fashion (I wish there were a picture or, better, a video of that fabulous back in motion), I wholly applaud Daniel V.'s inspired sartorial take on the beauty of the orchid. I marveled at the stunning, Aristotelian completeness of this episode—the ironic reversal of fortune (Zulema's), the qualified healing of the wounded (Nick), the cosmic blessing of the most loyal comrade (Daniel V.)—an exquisite hour-long drama which all came together in perfect synchronicity with the just desserts of the garments in question. That was some Euripides-style jelly, people.

So you know my timer-record just went Physical all day on the eight-hour marathon of the season thus far. While I sit here reading my little treatises on Tarkovsky, I am gobbling Runway like it's cheesecake, till I'm caught up like Usher. The banishments have been so utterly just (shades now of Sophocles!), and the victories so deserving. Even in weeks where something amiss took place—I think Kirsten's outfits were worse in the series opener than either of that week's booted victims—justice soon takes its course in a following episode. It is hilarious how the carry-over contestants always look like they want to coo over Heidi's growing bump at the beginning of each episode. Santino's hubris feels utterly believable, not just amped up for insta-celeb effect, and I do think that dude is talented, so I really don't hate him, and I think it makes sense that he's still around, even after some close brushes. The judges, with the occasional exception of Michael Kors, reply tartly to the outfits without being gratuitously mean, and without trying to go for the big water-cooler catchphrase. I love how Nina Garcia is a dead ringer for Dominique, the imperious senior editor in High Art, a movie that is not unlike the dark underbelly of Project Runway for boho photographers. I loved when Alabaman Heidi got the axe, and when the Heidi breathed out her customary "Auf Wiedersehen," tragic Heidi blurted with perfect sincerity, "I don't know what that means, but Bye!" Best of all, I have never understood or cared about fashion AT ALL, and even less about reality television, but this show really is training my eye about what to look for and think about with regard to runway ensembles, and it's such a pleasure to see contestants judged on their ideas and creativity instead of some canned, parodic version of personality.

L-O-V-E.

(Only gripe: now that I know the show, I am even more incensed by the non-inclusion of Shannon Maddox, whose sensuously detailed theatrical costumes have amazed me in two productions, and whose quick but non-bitchy wit would have been purrr-fect for this show. Really, why'd we have Emmett all that time when we coulda had this?)

(One more gripe: I'm not getting much work done. Gabriel and Nathaniel, you are the Hekyll and Jekyll of my life. I do not even want to know Galactica's time slot. Seriously, y'all need to keep that shit to yourself. To punish you for colonizing my precious work time, I am going to hit Reload one less time on each of your blogs tomorrow than I usually do. Seriously, I'm limiting myself to 8 or 10 clicks a day, and that is final.)

Sending Flowers to Myself...

...on the occasion of the first birthday of this blog. All the pleasures of infancy without any of the teething rings or the ear infections. Though it occurs to me I am still up at odd hours with this thing. Anyway, thanks for continuing to read!

That first day of blogging was occasioned by last year's Golden Globe Awards, most memorable to me now as the occasion when bogus winner Leonardo DiCaprio implored audiences to "keep giving help to the tsunami." Even without a year's distance, I can't say I have much to add about this year's Golden Globes, either. For the third year running, I'm almost totally unmoved by this year's crop of major awards contenders. At least in 2003 I could make a personal obsession and enormous mea culpa out of Charlize Theron's Monster performance, and nearly alone among my friends, I really admired Million Dollar Baby last year. Almost all of this year's front-runners are more palatable to me in concept than in point of fact, to say nothing of straightforward mediocrities like Walk the Line and Match Point. This year's ceremony, which I only observed as a sort of corner-of-my-eye affair on Derek's roommate's tiny TV—featuring the kind of reception that a cheap antenna in Queens is likely to buy you—reminded me of the movies it honored: polished, unembarrassing, but unremarkable beneath a pleasing, gleaming surface.

It is symptomatic of my dyspepsia about this year's awards season that all of my favorite Globes moments came from the TV actors. Two of them came from Geena Davis alone: reminding us what a knockout she often managed to be at these kinds of affairs, especially in bright red, and hooking the whole audience with that hilarious bit of apocrypha in her acceptance speech. It suddenly didn't matter that the two episodes of Commander in Chief I have seen have been so tepid and milky, not least because the writers seem so scared of fully realizing Davis' character and because she hasn't done much to raise the game of her own accord. I loved when Sandra Oh, looking like a million bucks for the second year running, described the nervous rush of the winning instant—"I feel like someone just set me on fire!"—and I loved that S. Epatha Merkerson, virtually alone among repeat Globe- and Emmy-winners (or Globe- and Oscar-winners) managed to give two distinct speeches that were both funny, warm, and sincere: "I am 53 years old, and this was my first lead in a film," she semi-tearfully confessed, before adding, "and if I weren't in the middle of a major hot flash, I would have something to say about that." Merkerson also had, in Jesse L. Martin, the dreamiest date of the evening.

No real fashion praisesongs to deliver, though Eric Bana and Viggo Mortensen sure cleaned up good, and Maria Bello, Felicity Huffman, and Kate Beckinsale stole Uma Thurman's good idea from last year in brilliant white. (Beckinsale's only worked, though, when she ditched the ridiculous fur wrap.)

Emmy Winners, aka Best Dressed

And the winners are: Kathy Bates*, Marcia Cross, Blythe Danner, Eva Longoria, and Debra Messing, with the Male Honorable Mention going, as so often, to Kiefer Sutherland. Honorable Mention for Most Improved, By Far: I quite enjoyed Chris O'Donnell's little hair experiment, and after literally decades of bombing out on awards-show fashions, especially at the height of her fame (pity), Glenn Close has lately been getting the job done quite nicely, if a wee bit unadventurously.

Special, disappointed ire reserved for Alex Kingston, if this is indeed her. Alex used to have that wonderful, full, rich head of curly brown hair, which was so lovely and so distinctive in the very sea of Hollywood blonde to which she has now so dismally subscribed herself. (Hope it's just for a role.)

* Dishonorable mention #2 concerns that the above photo of Kathy Bates isn't from the Emmys at all, because of course the WireImage doesn't seem to have bothered taking a picture of the ol' gal, even though she looked positively splendid. Note: youth culture be damned, Kathy Bates is prettier than Mischa Barton.

Emmy Live-Blogging: Final Hour

("Now I be breakin' bread, sippin' Manichewitz wine/ Pay no mind/ Party like it's 1999..." Title of the post, y'all, c'mon.)

10:02
Commercial break continues, but not quite long enough to throw together martini. Quentin Tarantino arrives onstage with Marg Helgenberger. QT instantly tiresome. Helgenberger's hair and makeup don't really complement her dress. Specifically, hair too boring for dress.

Category is Outstanding Made for Television Movie. Peter Sellers seems destined to win. Lackawanna Blues looks better; Warm Springs looks like death sentence. Crikes, though, Warm Springs wins! Branagh could not possibly look or seem less like FDR. Perhaps it's a Hopkins-in-Nixon thing, and he's good if you actually trust him and watch the movie?

10:05
Hosts of Survivor and The Amazing Race look like supreme doofuses. They give a hand to the two present-o-bots, who are apparently contestants on America's Next Top Model. They look like extras from your local brothel's production of Heidi.

10:07
Musical interludes hit new nadir (really, though) with William Shatner and Frederica von Stade (really, though) paired in a reprise of the Star Trek theme. Is single worst thing that has ever arrived into my eye.

10:08
Ellen has officially overplayed the originally funny joke with the telecast producer. Meanwhile, someone thinks we are actually going to call and vote on these performances? Why would anyone do that? Can't figure out why first and last performances were intended as punchlines, while middle two were played absolutely straight. "Fame" performance even more needless in retrospect.

10:09
Commercial break. Shakira. Martini!

10:12
Crap! Where is Grand Marnier???

Ad for Flightplan. Am inexplicably excited for probably-mediocre thriller.

10:13
Mariska Hargitay has extremely odd stage presence. When she isn't talking, it's like someone has turned her "off," like that scene in Star Wars on Tattooine where C3PO shuts down for a while.

Weird win for The Lost Prince: Masterpiece Theatre. Well, maybe not "weird." I'm such an asshole, I haven't seen any of these movies! Still, between this and Warm Springs, it sure looks like the stuffiest, most traditional programs are winning. Still, it's hard to hold anything against a woman who takes a moment to defend public television.

10:15
Alan Alda and someone who seems to be the president of the Emmys or something—you really do miss a lot doing this blogging thing—pay tribute to Brokaw, Rather, and Jennings. Alda, wearing a Red Cross pin, is an enormously credible presenter, but can I just suggest something? How about we drop Brokaw, drop Rather, and just focus on Jennings?—the one who's actually passed away, and more than that, the one who actually preserved integrity, discipline, humility, and seriousness through the full extent of his career? In fairness, I'm at least agnostic about Rather. At least there seemed like some passion and reality behind his moments of abandon and showboating. It's Brokaw who makes me want to claw myself. Jennings is the pick of this group by infinite degrees. Listen, I cried when that man died. Maybe I'll just put away the snark for a second and really take a minute to honor that guy.

Well, everything was going great until Brokaw (inevitably) broke the spirit of the thing by saluting the current, "next" generation of terrific TV news reportage. I'm sorry, do we have that?

10:28
Charlize has emerged as the go-to candidate for reaction shots at any single point in the broadcast. Meanwhile, a TV ad for her upcoming movie North Country has also got me marginally excited—is that Linda Emond? My pal and weekend guest Tim reports from the Toronto Film Festival that North Country is a deserving film, not just a cash-in Oscar stab.

10:30
Longish commercial break, punctuated by an Entertainment Tonight ad that sports a cubist, nearly avant-garde rumination on the concept of Mary Hart. Wait, that is Mary Hart. Speaking of Nip/Tuck...

10:30:01
Okay, that martini is made, honey. But the maraschino thing sort of eluded me, so I'm back to old favorites (read: white chocolate).

10:31
Mean-spirited Family Guy interlude that takes pot-shot at, of all people, Frankie Muniz. Lead Actress in a Comedy Series: Cross, Hatcher, Heaton (yawn), Huffman, Kaczmarek. Ooh, girl, Marcia Cross is not. smiling, honey. Teri Hatcher looks gleeful, but I'm not feeling a Teri win. I'm guessing Huffman. Winner: ...

Huffman! Yay!!! I love her. (But why does the announcer go, "This is the first Emmy win for Felicity Huffman. Miss Huffman is married to Emmy winner William H. Macy." As though this is her major accomplishment.)

You go, Felicity, thanking David Mamet and even Aaron Sorkin. Memo to all Emmy watchers: when telecast ends, go read The Cryptogram. You won't be sorry.

Wait, does Felicity Huffman also think that her major accomplishment in life is being married to William H. Macy? Not a great speech, but she, like Ellen, gets a handicap.

10:35
James Spader presents Best Lead Actress in Drama. (Get ready for Glenn or Frances.) But you can just tell that Spader, as always, is thinking, "I want to strip everyone's clothes off and make love to them like those Chevys in Crash!"

Whoo, J.Gar is really working that maternity look. She really is glowing, and the hair is great. Luv.

Winner: Patricia Arquette?? She seems like an extremely nice person. And she manages to say something heartfelt to and about the soldiers in Iraq. So I'll just leave it at that.

10:38
(That sound you hear is Debra Winger peeling Rosanna Arquette up off the floor.)

10:39
In Memoriam. Anne Bancroft, god rest her amazing soul. Barbara Bel Geddes. Ossie Davis, a real, real, no-kidding hero. Howard Keel. Brock Peters. Jerry Orbach.

10:44
Kristin Davis, crushingly un-special, in a Maybelline ad. Survivor: Guatemala, which looks like the end of civilization (but not in the way they mean it on Survivor). Cybill Shepherd in another TV movie as Martha Stewart. This one's called Martha Behind Bars: It Wasn't Such a Good Thing, guaranteed to evacuate the case history of Martha Stewart from any genuine context or content. TV is like a magazine you would never read, even in a dentist's office.

10:46
That GEICO ad again!! OK, I got it wrong last time, it's a 20-yard sailboat, not a yacht. But for real. Transcription, as intoned in very grave voice-over, right over that lily-white sailing boat: "An urgent message to the people of Connecticut. As you may know, Connecticut is the wealthiest state in the nation. But we are dangerously close to losing our ranking. Thankfully, GEICO has introduced new lower rates on car insurance in Connecticut. What's more, when you get a quote at geico.com, you will receive a $25 Internet savings discount on your new policy. We strongly urge everyone to take advantage of GEICO's new lower rates. Let's keep Connecticut wealthy." This was not a joke. It's like I live in that tower in Land of the Dead, for real. Cree. Pee.

10:47
Tony Shalhoub over Jason Bateman?? Fuhgeddaboudit. I saw Monk once, and though I love Tony Shalhoub, and his speech is funny, I just can't believe that he deserves this.

10:50
Lead Actor in a Drama Series. Sounds like a shoo-in for Hugh Laurie. But it's James Spader! Yikes, I bet people who care are really pissed. Hugh Laurie is the Imelda Staunton of Emmy '05: Brit character actor whom the world suddenly realizes is terrific, who deserves a win that many people predict, but then he loses it to a repeat winner whom I like well enough but who seems like he doesn't need a second trophy.

10:52
The young star of Everybody Hates Chris walks out to pitch Habitat for Humanity (way to go, li'l man), but he brings out an even smaller African-American kid called Charles who lisps through his front teeth, at which the entire audience laughs. So help me know this isn't a Behind the Minstrel Mask moment?

10:57
Hugh Jackman and Whoopi Goldberg. Hugh makes a stoopid joke about the Desperate Housewives cast hating each other. Ca-lunk. Whoopi: the nominees for Best Drama Series. Deadwood, Lost, Six Feet Under (my guess), 24, and The West Wing (the Spader and Warm Springs voters will go here, though....).

It's Lost. Sounds like a popular victory. I thought shows like this only won at the Globes? By which I mean, shows that many people love, and everyone can afford to watch.

10:59
Outstanding Comedy Series, squeezed in right at the 3-hour mark. Surely it's Desperate Housewives? Winner: Everybody Loves Raymond. Rather akin to when Jethro Tull won that Heavy Metal Grammy in '89. Not a bad speech from the producer guy, but the hipsters in the audience (Piven, Oh) look way bored, and Debra Messing is patenting the Big Fake Smile™. Everybody wonders about the mental health of Emmy.

G'night everybody, whether you do or don't love Raymond, hate Chris, or wish I'd just written a movie review instead.

Emmy Live-Blogging: Second Hour

9:06
Doris Roberts wins agayawwwwwwwwwwwwwwn. However—even though I'm not speaking as someone who's really seen much of their shows—fellow nominees not inspiring enough to get upset about their losing to perennial winner Roberts. Perhaps new Emmy Awards slogan could be: "No Holland Taylor Performance Left Behind!"

9:09
Letterman, introducing well-deserved Carson tribute, comes across as enormously uncomfortable with emotional sincerity. Great joke from Carson, though:

Q: "Johnny, how did you become a star?"
JC: "I started in a gaseous state and cooled." Ironically, most of Emmy audience still in gaseous state.

Still, Carson: what a choice fellow. Why do we lose great TV people like Jennings and Carson but still have to deal with Brit Hume and the Rivers women? World even more unfair than already seemed.

9:16
Ameriprise? That's the name of a corporation? Criminal Minds?? That's the name of a show? Tagline: "Arsonists! Rapists! Murderers! TV's next great thriller!" Am realizing, forgot to make martini during break.

9:18
Whole Raymond cast united for presenting gig. Measures a giant Zero on personal Nostalgia-Meter. All dressed in black, in manner of funeral, which perhaps this is. Patricia Heaton, who weirdly refused to clap for Katrina victims, is utterly indiscriminate attention hound. Wow, they're really stretching this thing out.

These Family Guy inserts are kind of funny, but not funny enough to really justify their existence.

Jon Stewart wins again, hard to begrudge him. Nice tie choice. Not convinced Letterman needed impromptu tribute. Sure bet Letterman feels old!

9:20
Next inexplicable TV theme rehash features a good-looking guy called Gary Jourdan (sp?), whom I think I spotted in an edition of People Magazine's "50 Most Beautiful." Also Macy Gray, decked out like Ava Gardner in burgundy-colored satin. Moment evaporates instantly, even as happens, much like Ellen mini-gag with sparkler and unicycle, much like entire career of Patricia Arquette.

Montage of Guest Actor/Actress in Drama nominees includes Martin Landau over-emoting as usual. Creepy shot of Ray Liotta vomiting black blood. Liotta wins, Amanda Plummer too, which means that Angela Lansbury, who is 5 for 5 at the Tonys, still can't win a fucking Emmy after like 6,000,000 tries. What's with Emmys and Angela?

9:26
J.J. Abrams is very popular winner for directing pilot episode of Lost. Will camera cut to v.v.pregnant Jennifer Garner? No, but cut to Barbara Hershey, and then bleached-out Geena Davis.

Abrams thanks his "beautiful wife Katie," which instantly calls to mind Katie Holmes, aka Kate Holmes, aka Kate Cruise, aka Patty Hearst v.2005. Actually, isn't Abrams directing Mission: Impossible 3? Maybe he, too, is marrying Katie Holmes? Does Scientology allow for such things?

9:29
Teaser for upcoming category shows that Ken Branagh, Bill Macy, Jonny Rhys-Meyers, and Geoff Rush (I'm on first-name basis, dontcha know) are all competing. Perhaps it will be 4-way tie, and they can all share massive, Aristrocrats-style bulimic moment where they purge all that scenery they've been chewing? Or perhaps, as deserves, Ed Harris just wins this one on credit? (I'm a Harris fan. Except in The Hours. And even there, he's not quite as bad as I remembered him being.)

9:32
Turns out Mark Harmon is now silver-haired, and star of something called NCIS... what does that stand for? Remember when TV shows had actual names? Am sure it's about coroner, arsonist, rapist, necrophiliac, or similar. Anyway, in seemingly major coup, Lauren Holly has been added to cast. How will they top this? Tempestt Bledsoe? Tara Reid?

9:33
Connecticut-specific TV ad is absolutely repugnant shocker, ending with tag line, "Let's Keep Connecticut Wealthy." Single image in background is of massive yacht sailing blue sea. I. am. not. kidding. Will transcribe in full at next commercial break, so that you can possibly imagine what I just saw.

9:36
Geoffrey Rush wins, eats Jonathan Rhys-Meyers on way to stage.

9:36:30
Rush almost wins me over with speech closer, crediting wife as "winged woman who holds up my world molecular thingy." Re: Emmy statuette. OK, maybe had to be there.

9:39
Patrick Dempsey isn't hard to look at, is he? Gives award to Stephen Hopkins, auteur of Blown Away, winning the great derby of B-list directors over Joseph Sargent and Fred Schepisi and the admittedly, unironically great theater director George C. Wolfe. Meanwhile, Ellen Pompeo seems to be wearing dress made out of reassembled medical scrubs, in manner of disastrous prom dress in Pretty in Pink.

9:41
In which it becomes clear that The Life and Death of Peter Sellers keeps winning awards so that cameraman can keep cutting to Charlize Theron. Oh, but third time isn't the charm; Charlize suddenly looks bored. (Hey, why wasn't Emily Watson nominated?) Peter Sellers writers bombing out with speech full of one-liners. Oop, cut back to Charlize: she looks happy again. Good sport, that one.

9:44
Icy shard of fear spikes into heart as Elizabethtown ad is slathered across TV. Feel obligated to see it, but expect the worst. (Last-ditch hope was Dunst, but Venice and Toronto reports actually singled out for especial criticism. Considering low opinion of overall movie, Dunst must indeed be bad.)

9:45
A thought about pharmaceutical commercials: why do they sell pills, when the ads are 50% full of reasons not to take said pills, descriptions of possible side-effects, list of circumstances under which self must not take pills, and general, panicked self-exoneration from near certain death caused by taking pills? I mean, why not also sell matches on TV with repeated warnings not to play with matches or, indeed, use matches?

9:48
Lead Actress in TV Movie: Halle Berry (looks v.dire as Janey Crawford), Blythe Danner (my wife!), S. Epatha Merkerson (still getting her Piano Lesson on, all these years later), Cynthia Nixon (looks, sounds like Easter Bunny), and Debra Winger (not here, is probably calming Rosanna Arquette through major anxiety attack).

S. Epatha!! Big surprise, clearly delighted. Amazing speech opener, as she gropes her own bosom: "Oh my God, I actually wrote something, and I put it in my thing, and it fell down there, and I can't find it!" She isn't kidding. She keeps trying to feel the speech beneath her dress, somewhere around her breasts and stomach. Funniest speech of night, by long shot.

Jon Stewart attempts improv follow-up joke, which leaves wrong aftertaste.

9:50
Okay, listen, I'm only going to say it once: Jon Stewart is a little overrated. Was worried this would happen: Stewart's social consciousness has turned into a kind of schtick, which gets easy applause.

9:55
Montage of nominees for Comedy Series Writing reveals Raymond to be dog of category, though it took 11 people to do the work of 2.

Fantastic line from Arrested Development writers: "We would be remiss if we didn't mention that the Academy has now rewarded us twice for something that you people won't watch!"

9:58
Phenomenal, confident Kate Winslet ad for American Express.

Is it such a great idea to invite comparison between TV stars and Kate Winslet? Is there anyone alive who doesn't wish to be Kate Winslet?

Okay, second hour basically over. Best Dressed: Same people as before.

Emmy Live-Blogging: First Hour

7:40pm
Have never live-blogged awards show before. Always thought would be enormous distraction. Especially re: only care about one awards show (duh). Am therefore experimenting with Emmys, which I don't really care about, to see how feels, etc. Have not seen Emmys in at least 10 years - am marginally curious about shindig, am wondering if movie stars will be present. Love Ellen, love to love Ellen. Hope someone has integrity enough to slam Pat Robertson on her behalf. OK, maybe is not right occasion. But Robertson is national cloven-hoofed nightmare, let me just say.

(N.B. Okay, I just read that Robertson-vs.-Ellen was an internet hoax. My bad. But it's still not hard to believe he said it, is it??)

Speaking of nightmares, Melissa Rivers just managed typical degradation of classy actor: MR asks Jeremy Piven to pick question from bleacher-fan out of hat. Question says, "Would you sleep with a stranger for $100,000?" Why do we like actors enough to watch TV and to watch awards shows, but yet hate them enough to subject them to insane and asinine questions?

Joan Rivers is talking to Hugh Laurie. Has no idea what he's nommed for. Jesus.

8:10
Opening number = horrid, horrid excrescence. Even Allan Carr rolls in grave. Black Eyed Peas = hopelessly bizarre band. Band members are not discernibly "in" band. More like people who always happen to be around when/where "band" is performing. Is Fergie under gag order, or similar? Please don't make her dance. Oh. Sweetie...

8:17
Ellen is off. Perhaps has had difficult, emotional, distracted week responding in deeply personal way to massive, calamitous tragedy in hometown. (ed.)

Good joke about North Korean People's Choice Awards and another good one about how losing "doesn't mean you're a bad person, it just means you're a bad actor." Bad batting average for opening monologue, but is okay. In vast Golf Game of Awards Show Hosting, Ellen gets major handicap, because we love her. (Look at Portia sitting with E's mother!)

8:19
Great closer line from Ellen: "Winning an Emmy is not important. I think we all know what's important in life—winning an Oscar. Those are for movies. Man, I'd love to host that show." Indeed, Ellen.

8:22
Why Brad Garrett? Have only seen Raymond 3x or 4x, but Garrett seems really boring, esp. re: Jeremy Piven. Even in short telecast clip, Piven is hilarious.

Funny moment with Sean Hayes pretending to be asleep, drooling, while winner is announced. Do Emmys go for that Golden Globes silly/drunk vibe? Hope so. Will majorly leaven experience of watching awards show where stuff like Judging Amy is contender.

8:29
William Shatner = snore. Am more focused on losers: Alan Alda is funny tearing up speech, and self is apparently Last To Know that Naveen Andrews dates Barbara Hershey. V.v.g.

8:32
Am sort of surprised by Hugh Jackman, and also by Hugh Jackman's Wolverine beard. (Earlier: suppressed minor acid reflux upon hearing that Halle Berry is, indeed, back in X3 - whyyyyy...........) Jackman always thanks wife first. Is nice. But still surprised Jon Stewart lost.

8:40
Blue Man Group, then Zach Braff? Cue again: whyyyyy...........

8:41
Supporting Actress in Drama = Women I love, and also Tyne Daly. Means Daly will probably win, but want Danner.

YAY! Danner! Most beautiful woman in Hollywood? So possible.

8:41:30
GAHHHHH!!!! Stockard Channing looks like experimental leather-stretching process.

8:42
May have to abandon live-blogging, as well as abandon entire life, to make personal Haj of seducing and marrying Blythe Danner. Surely Derek, Sean will understand. Lovely, lovely, lovely speech. Classiest and most beautiful woman in Hollywood? Is amazing.

8:43
TV ad for In Her Shoes, one of my most-anticipated movies of the fall. Toni Collette + Curtis Hanson + Shirley Maclaine underplaying for first time in life (well, in this life, har har).

8:44
GAH! Here's why hate TV: repellent ad where we listen in on emergency 911 call from heart attack victim is bad enough, but when followed by Ashley Judd hawking make-up product and CSI: Miami peddling lurid rape-murder premise, is even yuckier. Sorry, all, am anti-TV snob. Shows cannot possibly be good enough to put up with ads.

8:46
Ellen is always funnier in short filler segments than in monologue. Bit with Emmy time-keeper is classic.

8:47
I hope everyone is keeping straight: Derek is husband, Sean Penn is Movie Star Husband, Blythe Danner is New Wife, and Paul Newman is Movie Star Husband Emeritus. "Paul Newman could not be here tonight" is obvious euphemism for "Paul Newman never comes to sockhops like this." Btw: I bought (from eBay) same b&w snapshot of Paul Newman that is his classic "couldn't be here" insignia on awards shows.

8:50
Jane Alexander is classy, terrific actress giving classy acceptance speech. But must also say: Kathy Bates is consistently among the best-dressed attendees of all awards shows. She is always so, so lovely, and she never gets any credit for it. Again, she's looking fab, and in a new color! Powder blue.

8:51
Why are they doing these faux TV theme recitals? Even with marginally clever, satiric Neil Patrick Harris intro? Some girl who plays someone called "Veronica Mars" is trying to sound like Beyoncé, but in cruel hoax, sounds more like self when self sings Beyoncé songs in shower. TV show hilariously cuts away to slack-faced dowagers clapping. Approval from this set could feasibly be more dispiriting than no applause at all.

8:53
Expected winners as Best Guest Actors in Comedy series, Bobby Cannavale and Kathryn Joosten, actually stuck presenting Best Director of Variety, Music, or Comedy Show —an award you would only include in overlong telecast if you were, say, the director of a Variety, Music, or Comedy Show. Winner is director of Olympics Opening Ceremony or similar, with improbable name of Bucky Gunts.

And now Outstanding Writing of Variety, Music, or Comedy show? Wha.... oh, wait, is worth hilarious collages of writing teams, especially Ali G team. Is so dirty and hilarious. Why is this okay, but Janet's nipple is crisis? ........ Okay, only Ali G and Conan segments were worth it. But clips from Daily Show with Jon Stewart are so hysterical that it's nice to see him winning.

8:59
So far, Emmys are snooze, but liveblogging fun. More fun with maraschino-flavored martini. Back for next hour.

Best Dressed So Far: Marcia Cross, Eva Longoria, and Blythe Danner, with excellent hair and makeup from all three.