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Despite their increasingly questionable editorials and refusal to endorse Kamala Harris, I've been putting off canceling my Washington Post subscription because I felt there were still quality journalists there who were doing a good job covering the news and this administration. However, I woke up this morning to an email from a friend that merely showed his cancellation acknowledgment. I understood why when I saw the latest statement from Jeff Bezos that WaPo will be "writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others." This statement caused their opinion editor to quit in protest and finally pushed me over to cancel my subscription.

I feel for the quality journalists still at WaPo who have very few options now to move to media outlets that are not bowing down to the administration. And, of course, I fear for the country. The throttling of the free press (whether voluntarily in the case of WaPo or MSNBC, which yesterday fired their only non-white anchors, or forced by the administration, which announced yesterday that they will be the ones to determine who has access to events in the Oval Office or Roosevelt Room or travels on Air Force One rather than the White House Correspondents Association) is yet another dangerous and frightening step on the path to a full dictatorship in which the American people, who already suffer from a fog of misinformation, will have less access to reliable information about their government's actions.

For those curious about other news sources, I've got subscriptions to The Guardian (I used to share Stephen's but decided I should throw them some money of my own), The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The New Republic (because I found I was clicking on a lot of their Twitter posts). I also subscribe to some digital stuff: I pay for The Contrarian, the effort started by former WaPo staffers Jen Rubin and Norm Ornstein (which produces a vast wave of content that I mostly don't have time to read) and Public Notice by Aaron Rupar (because I was clicking on a lot of his Twitter posts), and so far subscribe for free but might now throw some money to Pitt Griffin on Substack (https://pittgriffin.substack.com/), because I was clicking on a lot of *his* Twitter posts, and a daily round-up newsletter called "What the Fuck Just Happened Today" by a guy named Matt Kiser (https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/subscribe/). Plus, of course, I pay to support Andy Borowitz and Jim Wright. And follow CW Daily by Connie Willis on Facebook.

Other good sources suggested by friends are Slate and Salon, and blogs from Jay Kuo and Heather Cox Richardson.

I don't have time to read all of my digital subscriptions but given what's going on in the traditional media, I want to support independent journalism while it's still allowed to be published...

Work is slow so I had a lot of time to compile this review of the Tony Awards red carpet( Read more... )

After a long break from red carpet fashion reviews, I'm baaack!( The review )

Late fashion review from the BAFTA awards in February. I"m still a little out of practice post-Covid and forgot how fun it is to check out the fashions.( Read more... )

Finally got to watch "Bathtubs Over Broadway" on US Netflix, a documentary by former Letterman writer and obsessed collector Steve Young about the heyday of musicals at industrial conferences in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, which had budgets on the order of $3 million! People who worked on them include composer Sheldon Harnick (Fiddler on the Roof), director and choreographer Susan Stroman (The Producers), and actors Tony Randall, Chita Rivera, Dom Deluise, Martin Short, Andrea Martin, and Florence Henderson. It includes, among other things, interviews with some of the participants and clips from a musical number extolling spark plugs, an opera number for Ragu spaghetti sauce called "Raguletto," and a Purina Dog Chow show with a woman in a short red-checked skirt and tight-fitting red sweater seductively singing about pet store profit margins to an enraptured store manager! To quote Young about a rare video of "The Bathrooms Are Coming" (for American Standard), "The usual adjectives of good and bad don't even apply any more."

Very sorry to hear of the death of Mary Kay Kare. She and I both primarily volunteered in programming at Worldcon and she often helped me when I was running Program Ops by taking long shifts at the program participant registration table. We also bonded over our love of the color purple and of football, spending hours together at various Smofcons watching college football and the NFL. (It's appropriate that in this photo of both of us at the San Jose Smofcon in 2010, by Chaz Boston-Baden, I'm wearing a sports-related shirt.) In the last couple of years I kept in touch with her sporadically through Twitter, especially when her team, the Oklahoma Sooners, won a game. She was also a big mystery fan: I was startled when I read a book in a mystery series I follow to encounter a law clerk with her name, the result of a Tuckerization. There were also many shared meals at various conventions, where she was usually a fun and interesting companion. However, as other people have mentioned, Mary Kay was a lot like the Longfellow poem about the little girl with the curl on her forehead...

Mary Kay was prone to depression and she never really got over the tragically early and sudden death of her husband Jordin, after which she became somewhat of a recluse. It's a cliché to say when someone dies that they are finally at peace and rest, but that is what came to mind when I heard this news. RIP.

This was a really, really bad fashion year for the GGs. ( The round-up )

Sorry to be late - I was on a plane during the telecast and jetlagged for a few days afterward. ( The reviews )

It's been a while since I was able to do a fashion review either due to the calendar or a busy schedule. Glad to be able to start the awards season with a Golden Globes fashion review.( Read more... )

Been a while since the timing was right for me to do one of these. As always, the SAG Awards are a rich source because so many people are nominated in various group categories. And many of them did not choose their fashion wisely...( The deets )