Monday Medley

What we read while somehow rushing for 87 yards in the Pro Bowl…

• Some thoughts on Joe Paterno’s legacy, including Joe Posnanski insisting that the coach had no bitterness in his final days.

• Posner and Becker opine on the new calls for progressive taxation. Meanwhile, Tyler Cowen weighs in on the how deserving are the poor question.

• Jon Stewart was once in a mosh pit. And you can see it!

• The subject of prison reform is suddenly hot, with Adam Gopnik wondering why America locks up more people than any government in history (with the possible exception of Stalinist Russia, depending on how you count) and n + 1 offering the predictably provocative (though surprisingly well-argued) solution of abolishing all prisions. Of course many powerful interests, including the disconcerting number of businesses that run on prison labor, stand in the way.

• In the comedy world, John Mulaney’s Comedy Central special New in Town premiered this weekend, while Pete Holmes, another NPI-favorite comic, talked with The A.V. Club. Here is an interview with Mulaney.

• The buying and selling of Jesus, in host form: a tale of capitalism.

• How James Joyce’s son, Stephen James Joyce, helps reveal the anachronisms of copyright law, all under the shadow of SOPA.

• Sure it’s the end of January, but it’s never too late for a preview of 2012’s most anticipated books.

• A profile of everyone’s favorite scientist, Neil deGrasse Tyson!

• Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker tells the story of the Obama Administration with some previously unseen memos, including one from Larry Summers about the state of the economy in 2008-09, and others on the making of his first State of the Union.

• Another magazine, this time The Atlantic, is tackling the issue of the future of American manufacturing.

• How did you celebrate Gossip Girl Day?

• In other television-related things, Alex Gansa is the latest showrunner to break down a season of his show–in this case Homeland–with The A.V. Club.

• As we prep for the Super Bowl, The Chronicle of Higher Education wonders if sports actually build character.

• Arthur Brisbane, the hilarious Public Editor for The New York Times, continues to ask the hard questions facing all journalists, like “Is fact-checking worth it?”

• Go see what Google thinks it knows about you.

• Who says Obama isn’t doing anything to fix the economy? We’ve got sweatpant dress-pants now!

• Speaking of Obama, former NY Times war correspondent is suing him. Here’s why.

• Roger Ebert discusses who was “robbed” from Oscar nominations.

Monday Medley

What we read while pondering the benefits of open marriage…

• The Giants are going to the Super Bowl! Get ready to see this play a thousand times (which still isn’t enough).

• Etta James passed away at the age of 73. Though known primarily for her song “At Last”, she released an album last November. She was a prominent figure in the West Coast R&B scene, and if you are wondering what will.i.am or Hayley Williams thought about her, click here.

• So Wednesday’s Internet blackout, which included Wikipedia and a long list of other sites, in protest of the SOPA and PIPA bills was largely successful. Several lawmakers withdrew support and the bills have been put on hold. Nevertheless, Democrats remain committed to some version of the laws, and the MPAA is threatening lawmakers who oppose it, despite the benefits of online piracy. The government did go after Megaupload last week, shutting it down in an uncomfortably draconian manner. There is hardly an anti-copyright/intellectual property trend about it.

• A terrifying story about female infanticide. Though, on the plus side for women, Jay-Z is going to stop saying “bitch” in his songs!

• Andrew Sullivan wrote an impassioned defense of President Obama for The Daily Beast. It’s somewhat compelling, but many liberal critics are quick to point out Sullivan’s omissions, like an atrocious record on civil liberties.

• In other political news, Chuck Todd criticized Stephen Colbert’s Super PAC, while  Molly Ball wondered how serious Colbert is.

• A fascinating account of how Apple makes iPhones, and how it relates to American manufacturing.

• Bill James lists the 100 best pitchers’ duels of 2011.

• Dane Cook had a rough set last week…

• The Onion was catering to Josh’s interests this week, with articles on the Supreme Court and Miranda July.

• NPI-favorite John Mulaney will be doing a Comedy Central special next week and he accordingly gets a Big Profile.

Monday Medley

What we read while Boston mourned…

• Last Wednesday was possibly the greatest night in baseball history, with Boston and Atlanta finishing epic collapses with blown saves in the ninth. Nate Silver put the odds of all that happening at about one in 278 million. Bill Simmons live-blogged the night from a Boston perspective, while Joe Posnanski summed up what it all meant to baseball. Even the venerable Roger Angell was amazed…

• Meanwhile, Obama did something that was almost certainly illegal and also probably stupid.

• New York Times Magazine ran its Food and Drink issue this week, which included Michael Pollan answering interesting questions on “food mysteries”  and Tyler Cowen on how to eat decently at seemingly lousy restaurants.

• Atul Gawande wonders why coaching isn’t a more prevalent practice.

• We came across this oral history of Wet Hot American Summer a few weeks ago, but shamefully forgot to link to it until now.

• In other comedy news, NPI-favorite John Mulaney talked The A.V. Club and New York Magazine runs an oral history of the Upright Citizens Brigade.

• Chuck Klosterman breaks down the plight of a fantasy owner.

• We really hope this story isn’t an illusion…

Monday Medley

What we read while wondering what the original Holy Saturday was like…

• As fans of Ron Swanson and baseball, we very much approve of this attempt to bridge the two.

• For anyone who doesn’t understand Passover, this extended version of the Four Questions pretty much explains it all.

• Tom Scocca v. Chris Jones! Writer feud!

• Jones also talks about Jon Krakauer’s takedown of Three Cups of Tea author Greg Mortensen and its ramifications for non-fiction writers.

• Noam Chomsky asks if the world is too big to fail.

• A brief history of Humblebrag may qualify as its own best example.

• The WNBA’s next slogan: Take a gamble!

• For all our soccer aficionados, the Cosmos!

• Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock, among others, talked about the art of comedy on HBO’s Talking Funny.

Monday Medley

What we read while dunking over a 1992 Buick LeSabre…

• John S offered his thought on the appearance of IBM’s Watson on Jeopardy! but that was before the computer built its insurmountable lead over the petty humans. Ken Jennings described what it was like to play against Watson, while others wonder what comes next for artificial intelligence (and how it can be used to boost Alex Trebek’s ratings).

• While we at NPI would never suggest putting any stock in the Grammys as arbiters of musical quality, we were pretty happy to see Arcade Fire steal the Album of the Year award from Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Eminem. Predictably, though, not everyone was as excited… including a student at our alma mater.

• Radiohead tried to steal Arcade Fire’s thunder by announcing their new album last Monday, and then rushing its release by the end of the week. As fans of the biggest band in the world, we’ll take it…

• We had something witty and observant to say about Joshua Foer’s screed to the memory championships, but we forgot it…

• Who needs time capsules when you have lost wallets returned two score later?

• We question the literary interpretations made by this video game. But we definitely want to play it.

• A short interview with an NPI-favorite comedian…

• And another NPI-favorite comedian is making a splash on SNL.

• The Sports Illustrated feature curse strikes again!

Monday Medley

What we read while going undrafted once again…

http://www.hulu.com/watch/144704/saturday-night-live-update-john-mulaney

• Alex Rodriguez is “clutch” now, so we have to come up with new crimes for him to commit, like violating the age-old rule about not stepping on Dallas Braden’s mound. This inspired The New York Times to revisit all of A-Rod’s old sins. John S was going to respond to this nonsense, but Joe Posnanski, as usual, said all there is to say.

• Speaking of things that anger John S, Joni Mitchell blasts Bob Dylan in this interview with The Los Angeles Times.

• Josh doesn’t really like cupcakes, but maybe if he ate them here he’d be more amenable to persuasion that he does.

• Alicia Parlette, the copy-editor who detailed her battle with cancer for the San Francisco Chronicle, died last week at 28.

• Sometimes, it’s funny to look back at poor predictions, like Tim’s that the Celtics would be crushed by the Heat, or The Awl‘s that differentiated Ke$ha from Lady Gaga by writing, “Ke$ha, on the other hand, is a version of Gaga-lite, but in a good way. She is sort of edgy in that she puts on weird eye makeup, but she also just wears vintage-looking t-shirts and jeans when performing on national television. As opposed to donning some weird Gareth Pugh leotard while standing on top of a blood-draped ladder that’s in a coffin set on fire, or something.” Yeah, I don’t think David Cho can stand by that paragraph after last Saturday night. Sorry, Dave. (P.S. NPR did something on Ke$ha a while back that referred to her “near-perfect SAT scores,” which really makes us wonder what NPR’s standard for “near perfect” is these days.)

• Yeah, we see them more as a Wild Card team than a division winner.

• Headline of the week: Overwhelmed by Law School, 2L Declares for NBA Draft (he’s probably just testing the waters, though). At least he doesn’t have to worry about the logistical issues of the just-completed NFL Draft.

• Speaking of the law, here’s the best profile we’ve seen of Supreme Court short-lister Diane Wood.  Wood, at 59, is the oldest candidate on the short-list, but older may actually be better.

• Another reason to hate Phillies fans…

Monday Medley

What we read while wondering why they even bother with the Grammys…

• In the mood for a little Brett Favre schadenfreude? I thought so. Listen to the despair, and eventually anger, in Paul Allen’s voice as he calls the interception. That, however, is still not as good as Allen’s call of this play from 2003.

• Josh and John S ranked John Mulaney as our favorite comedian from this past summer.  Apparently, we’re not the only ones who liked him: he recently won the Nightlife Awards’ Outstanding Comedian Award for the third year in a row.  Speaking of comedians Josh and John S like, Larry David is to receive the Writers Guild of America’s 2010 Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television, despite (or because of?) the intentional lack of writing in Curb Your Enthusiasm.

• Somewhat surprisingly, John S and Tim aren’t the only ones to eulogize J.D. Salinger this week. Among our favorites working their way around the interwebs is Garth Risk Hallberg’s take over at The Millions. Ron Rosenbaum’s piece on Salinger last June on Slate helped motivate Tim to consider the unearthing of a vast archive of unpublished material in the author’s New Hampshire home one of his things to look forward to in the Teens.

• The Winter Olympics are coming up. Or, as Will Leitch called them, the reality TV of sports. Some people, usually not sports fans, think the Olympics are better than real sports. They would be wrong.

• Bob Dylan is going to perform at the White House. John S can barely contain his enthusiasm.

• Speaking of the White House, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg explains why she dozed off at the State of the Union and what Justice Scalia said to her after Bush v. Gore among other interesting tidbits in her conversation with Nina Totenberg at the 92nd Street Y.

• Our favorite in a consistently hilarious series on McSweeney‘s is last month’s “Open Letter to the Inanimate Objects in My Apartment That Just Sat There While I Was Heartbroken.“

• I think he’s still better than Anthony Young, ca. 1992-93. (That’s totally unfair to Young; his ERA was around 4.00 during that 3-30 stretch.)

The Top Five Comedians of the Summer

After we (John S and Josh) settled our squabbles on anchoring, we went to the highly recommended Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York nearly every week this summer (sometimes twice) to see some of the best (and worst) up-and-coming and established comedians. The vast majority of these comics were seen at Leo Allen’s Whiplash, but some were also seen at Kristen Schaal and Kurt Braunohler’s variety show, Hot Tub. All in all, we saw over forty comedians perform. In traditional NPI fashion, we decided to rank them. Below are the five best comedians we saw this summer, all of whom we strongly recommend: