Over at NYMagazine theater critic Scott Brown and Bill Lawrence, the showrunner of Scrubs and Cougar Town, are having a tussle regarding Scott Brown’s extremely negative review of Zach Braff’s new play All New People.
So basically Scott Brown doesn’t like Zach Braff because of his Zach Braffness and also Garden State, and I agree with both points because non-Scrubs Zach Braff is insufferable and, really, J.D. is borderline insufferable much of the time and also Garden State is a pretentious and overrated movie. Scott Brown spends much of his review of All New People on an anti-Zach Braff crusade before ultimately reviewing the play. Bill Lawrence, in an open letter to Scott Brown, is all, “dude, you can’t go on a rant about how you hate Zach Braff, who is my friend, and then give his play like, all of two paragraphs, that just isn’t cool dude.” Bill Lawrence also attacks Scott Brown for being a pretentious, wordy, stuck-up theater critic which, duh. Come on, what else is a theater critic?
And then Scott Brown writes an open letter to Bill Lawrence and basically ends with “sorry I didn’t like your friend’s play, dude.”
Anyways, Bill Lawrence’s letter is hilarious and Scott Brown’s letter is slightly less so–despite a hilarious and, yes, pretentious reference to H.P. Lovecraft ( ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!) but the whole thing is just really entertaining to someone like me who spends way too much time reading culture websites. You can read the whole shebang here.
I don't really like Natalie Portman either, by the way.
I’m also really liking the NYTimes’ article on Kalup Linzy, an artist I was only loosely aware of until seeing his work at the North Carolina Museum of Art’s 30 Americans show. The show had a number of his drawings as well as his film, As Da Art World Might Turn, which I found amazing and hilarious. Linzy is part Andy Warhol and part RuPaul and part John Waters and part soap opera and he also collaborates with James Franco (but who doesn’t) and I just think he is a lot of fun in an art world that takes itself far too seriously. I also think it is telling that the article is placed in the NYTimes style section rather than the Arts Section. Back when I was an “academic” I was all about art that blurred the line between high and low culture, so Kalup Linzy is right up my alley.
Finally, I am definitely all about the NYTimes Magazine‘s profile of restauranteur Danny Meyer. I have eaten at Shake Shack (numerous times and locations), Eleven Madison Park, and Union Square Cafe and have extremely positive feelings about the food, service, and ambiance at all of the restaurants. The article is a great look into the crazy busy life of the man who has made perfect hospitality and customer service his trademark and his gold mine.
And those are the internet happenings that have entertained me on this Thursday!
