Monday Medley

What we read while condescending others with small fruit…

• New York Magazine reports that Bob Dylan’s Christmas Album is quite humorous and links the aggregated 30-second samples from the album. Also, this Dylan song closed last night’s excellent Mad Men episode (John S apologizes for ever doubting that show) before being cut off by their stupid, misleading promos.

• In case you haven’t noticed, we are kind of into Curb Your Enthusiasm. Here’s a Wall Street Journal blog interview with Cheryl Hines on the new season, among other topics.  Meanwhile, Alan Sepinwall already has his very brief thoughts on the premiere and a longer column from Thursday too.

• I’m going to let Monday Medley finish, but did you guys get enough Kanye West jokes this week? Well, apparently Kanye and Swift have the same agent, which has led some to speculate that the event was staged, but as someone at the Little Spoon pointed out, who the fuck cares?

• We’ve plugged the Full Frame Film Festival on NPI before. George Packer over at The New Yorker discusses the role of “fixers” in journalism, which was handled well by this documentary at last spring’s festival.

Why You Should See “The September Issue”

I was lucky enough back in April to watch a limited viewing of The September Issue at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, NC (a festival that I highly recommend to everyone who is any sort of interest in ANYTHING). Grace Coddington and Andre Leon Talley, two of the “stars” of the documentary, spoke in a panel after the film along with Director R.J. Cutler.* The film’s mass U.S. theatrical release occurs on September 11.

*Unfortunately, the moderator of the panel, Robert Krulwich, asked awful questions like “How mean was Anna Wintour?”

Of the nearly fifteen documentaries I viewed that weekend, The September Issue was one of the best—if not the best—edited and produced. The September Issue follows the production of the 2008 September issue of Vogue, the largest issue of the year. In 2007, the September issue weighed five pounds. Let me be clear: I have no interest in fashion. Make no mistake about it. The September Issue is about individuals and how they interact. If such characters had existed in a delicatessen, it would make little difference to me.