10 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Shows That Were Canceled Too Soon: from Paste Magazine

You know, I watched the pilot of Firefly and liked it, but somehow didn’t like it enough. I think it was the sexual content. My sweet, sweet wife said my expectations were too high, having heard so much praise over the years, but I’m not sure that’s the reason.

“Long Wharf Theatre’s production of Satchmo at the Waldorf has become the biggest hit in the history of the theatre’s Stage II,” the press release states. I’d love to say I know this personally, but I’m confident New York audiences are not wrong about this one. Learn more at playwright Terry Teachout’s blog.

Professor D.G. Myers has been writing for Commentary magazine for many years, and for the past 18 months he has been under contract for their literary blog. Last week, he was told to stop writing for a while. Editor John Podhoretz emailed him after seeing a post on Commentary’s literary blog which Podhoretz did not consider literary. It was policial.

Podhoretz expalins, “I told David that he could write at will on his blog without editorial supervision, as long as he stayed within the confines of the literary. … [With the post, “The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage”] David had decided unilaterally to convert Literary Commentary into a sociopolitical blog without a moment’s consultation. This I considered an uncollegial and insubordinate act,and I’m afraid it was not the first of these.”

Myers says, “I did not conceive of my post as political; it was, to my mind, a literary and philosophical defense of gay marriage, derived from my reading, utterly silent on questions of public policy.” And he praises Podhoretz for being a great editor.

Many Internet voices have reacted to this news, accusing the Commentary editor of being the very old white guy they say Republicans need to shove out of the lifeboat. Podhoretz reminds them that he and other editors had approved a post Myers wrote for their main political blog in support of gay marriage, so the subject of Myers’ post on the literary blog was not the issue. Continue reading Commentary’s Podhoretz, Myers Split →

Mark Binelli has a list of ten novels that have distinctive depictions of cities in them, pushing them beyond the role of setting to something closer to a supporting cast. One example:

Davis has written extensively, and brilliantly, about Los Angeles, but City of Quartz, for my money, is his greatest book about one of my favorite American cities. As simultaneously visionary and paranoid as a Philip K. Dick novel, populated with an eccentric cast of characters ranging from L. Ron Hubbard to Ornette Coleman.

1. “Hymns” by William Cowper
2. “Lincoln’s Little Girl” by Cecelia Holland, a Kindle non-fiction single
3. Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots by J.C. Ryle