When Did Carrie Bradshaw Become Ann Romney?

Candace Bushnell (Carrie’s creator and alter ego) does dressage in Connecticut.*

So somehow Carrie has become Ann Romney?!

Or has Carrie gained a lot of weight, lost her taste in clothes, and become Hannah Horvath?

* “Carrie Bradshaw Died and Went to Connecticut,” Edith Zimmerman, The New York Times Magazine

Why Girls?

I’ll watch the second season of Girls when it begins on January 13, and I’ve been trying to figure out why.

It doesn’t have an anti-hero I hate to love, but can’t help myself, like J. R. Ewing or Tony Soprano.

It doesn’t have characters I care about so much that I cheer for them and cry for them, like Treme.  I mean when LaDonna showed up at Albert’s chemo session, I just wanted to join her and hold his other hand.

The only thing I can think of is that it makes me relieved to be the age I am and grateful that I came of age when I did.

The $3.7 Million Joke

Gawker has posted what they claim is a copy of Lena “Girls” Dunham’s book proposal, the one that got her a $3.7 million advance from Random House.

It reads like a narcissistic and vulgar parody of what you’d expect Dunham’s book proposal to be.  If it’s a parody, the joke’s on Gawker.

But if, as I believe, this is the actual book proposal, the joke is on Random House.  It’s not funny, it’s not interesting, it’s just crap.  Very, very expensive crap.

The sad thing is I’m sure there’s something brilliant buried in the slush pile at Random House tonight that will never bring its overlooked author even $3.70.

The Fox Mole Is Back

If you’ve been wondering about (or worrying about) the Fox Mole, he is alive and well and still living in Brooklyn (maybe he’ll be on the next season of Girls).

Muto has a sharp piece up on Slate critiquing Aaron Sorkin’s new HBO show The Newsroom.  Muto details what Sorkin gets right and what he gets wrong about cable news.

Muto also references his own “quiet, dignified” exit from eight years at Fox as a producer for Bill O’Reilly.  I can’t imagine working for O’Reilly for eight minutes.  Not enough Prozac in the world….

Aggressively Hip

Bill Keller, who gave up his job as executive editor of the NYT to spend more time with his family writing, has a column today* where he calls the HBO show Girls “aggressively hip.”  Keller is older than I am, and I know that I am too old to recognize “aggressively hip” if it comes up and bites me on the tush.  If something strikes me as “aggressively hip,” I know by definition it cannot be.

I just thought Girls was about a group of young people living in Hell, with Hell this time set in Brooklyn.  Maybe that’s redundant.

* “Wising Up to Facebook”