I watched the CBS Evening News last night to see if there would be any mention of the firing of Scott Pelley from 60 Minutes and, to my surprise, there was a long segment about it. It included excerpts from Pelley’s defiant statement about his dismissal, which has been well-circulated on social media, and a tribute to his long career as a correspondent for the network, with clips of him interviewing presidents and reporting from war zones. It ended with a personal reminiscence from anchor Tony Dokoupil, who closed with a heartfelt message of thanks.
This impressed me because in 2008 I was in a situation somewhat similar to Pelley’s (in a decidedly smaller media domain). I was laid off, not fired, for primarily financial reasons, but philosophical differences with management also played a role. (I wanted a Travel section that entertained and informed readers about the world; the editors had decided that even Travel needed to be “local and useful.”) I was in my mid 50s; Pelley is in his late 60s; and he is much better off financially. But the main difference was that, far from giving me a tribute, the newspaper acted as if I’d never existed, making no mention of my departure in my old section. For people who had been reading me for nearly two decades, I simply disappeared.
The show we’re addicted to, on Amazon Prime, is the Australian series “The Time of Our Lives.” There are no detectives, no murders, no ridiculous premises, no exaggerated characters. There is just one large, extended Melbourne family dealing with the minutiae of everyday life. Most of the “action” centers around Luce and Bernadette and their three daughters, the oldest of whom is from Luce’s first marriage. His brother is leaving his wife, after meeting a younger woman, and his sister, a thirtysomething adopted as a baby from Vietnam, is searching for love as well as a sense of identity. Another character, who was taken in by Luce’s parents when they were all kids, opens a comedy club, which adds to the frequent humor of the show. Most of the characters are likable; all of them are believable. It is a joy spending time with them every evening, a joy made even greater by the fact that no one I know has ever mentioned the show.
I watched the final Late Show with Stephen Colbert – actually, I watched the final week – and, sad to say, rarely laughed. I found the humor silly rather than clever or witty. Colbert comes across as a thoughtful, intelligent man, which makes his silliness particularly disappointing. (Though I read an interview with him once in which he claimed a great affinity for silliness.) Last night’s finale featured cameos of celebrities sitting in the audience, an awkward interview with Paul McCartney – who was the opposite of thoughtful – and a tedious video in which all of the other talk show hosts appeared. Only the final 10 minutes were memorable television: a taped segment of Colbert, Elvis Costello, Jon Batiste, and Louis Cato singing Costello’s “Jump Up,” followed by Paul McCartney and everyone singing “Hello, Goodbye.” Though, considering Colbert’s legendary goodness, it should have been “The End”
And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make.
Last week’s Spectator published a letter to the editor that began: “I’m not a Conservative voter but I am a longtime Spectator reader and enjoy the articles even when – and often because – I disagree with them.” That described me perfectly and seemed to provide proof of the magazine’s liveliness and wit.
For people who don’t believe in national decline I present the March 2nd issue of The New Yorker. On page 55, Ian Buruma writes, in a memory of his beloved Dutch soccer team losing to the Germans in 1974: “To be beaten by the krauts felt like the Second World War all over again.” (The Germans apparently are one of the last nationalities that can still be called by a demeaning nickname.)
Then on page 60, there appears a quote from a letter written by Walter Benjamin after his arrival to Paris in the early ’30s: “The Parisians are saying ‘les émigrés sont pires que les boches’”– which is translated as “the immigrants are worse than the Krauts.” Why now capitalize the word when the original was in lower-case? There can be no clearer sign of our impending doom than editing inconsistency in The New Yorker.
I found last night’s Academy Awards less annoying than usual, perhaps because the political comments were, considering the current leadership, more than warranted. The In Memoriam segment was well done, with full-screen views of the deceased, though it omitted some prominent people like Brigitte Bardot. There were some moving acceptance speeches, particularly from best actors Michael B. Jordan and Jessie Buckley. And I was pleased that awards were given to a few of the movies I actually watched this year: Sentimental Value and One Battle After Another, which has stayed with me despite the fact that I found it ridiculously implausible while I was watching it. And Conan O’Brien, as host, for the most part kept his silliness in check.
Though I frequently thought back to Bill Maher’s show on Friday, which ended with a brilliant rant against the Academy Awards. Maher suggested that the hashtag #oscarssowhite should be changed – now that that’s no longer accurate – to #oscarssowrong. And then he listed all the great movies that, over the decades, have been snubbed by the academy. He also noted that awards are often given not for the quality of the work but for the nature of the subject. If you play a great historical character, or a person with an illness – physical or psychological – you have a distinct advantage. Though this year that bias didn’t apply.