James Poniewozik

When you’re a star, they let you do it

the fifa peace prize trophy with zombie-like hands holding up a crumbling earth

in the movies this is the screensaver on the computers at the world’s most evil company

You'll win it next year, Inanimate Carbon Rod

That was always such a fun jury to do (for TV) and it's sad the NYT guidelines don't allow me to do it anymore!

(It was especially fun when we met in person out in LA, which I assume no longer happens.)

It's in Honorable Mention! Ctrl-F is right there!

Review: ‘Long Story Short’ Does Time Travel, Family Style

Fine, one more thing: I said in that thread that most years I have one #1 favorite and beyond that it gets fuzzy/arbitrary. This year that show was "Long Story Short." Watch it if you haven't! (giftie) www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/a...

I was going to say "Don't make me tap the sign," who am I kidding, I am going to tap the sign. (More thoughts on my listmaking practices in the below thread.) bsky.app/profile/poni...

Best TV Shows of 2025

Mike Hale and I came up with our Best TV of 2025 lists and then a funny thing happened: The shows on my list started talking to each other. (giftie) www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/a...

So I ended up doing exactly this (well not every episode but...) and it's not pointed out often enough that almost everybody uses this meme wrong. (Don is intensely jealous of / threatened by Ginsberg and thinks about him constantly!)

Put another way, to me its the difference between "QT is an idiot" and "QT shouldn't be saying things like that."

Where am I saying "nod and ignore it"? If you want to say QT is wrong about Paul Dano or whatever, knock yourself out!

In general, I am pro-unhinged-celebrities-shooting-their-mouths-off-incorrectly-about-essentially-harmless-subjects. Celebrities aren't politicians, I don't need them to have message discipline, and I'm not interested in toting up their utterances like St Peter at the Pearly Gates

Yeah honestly I am agnostic on this and most other things QT, but there is a stan-culture-adjacent, all-or-nothing quality to the insistence that a perfect artist must have perfect opinions and someone with bad opinions must be judged a bad artist. Just live with the sloppiness and dissonance!

I love music, but I am old and rarely get to concerts and like all of us I am cursed with algorithms that serve me songs that are exactly like what I already listen to. Those year-end lists of musicians I’ve never heard of are a GIFT!

Year-end critics’ lists exist for people to fight over, so I’m happy when people complain about them. But the complaint I will never get is, “I’ve never heard of most of these movies/albums/shows.” Yes, and? Why be mad about learning about stuff you didn’t know before from the news?

So, because I can't get the Vulture site to accept my subscription password, I always read it on Apple News--which then still had the old language but now has a note that it's been updated. So I guess I couldn't read about the production snafu because of a production snafu!

Am I missing something? It may well be a studio error, but I don’t find that in the article, which says that he has reached out for comment. Or has the article been updated, and I am somehow reading the old version of the text?

Clearly I now need to drop all my other work and watch seven seasons of Mad Men, for science

I suspect it's more an issue of the settings on the OP's set... I watched the scene on my own and the color doesn't look different from the original in any way I notice, certainly not this much

Somewhere, the Starbucks Cup from Game of Thrones is smiling quietly to itself

I think we need to divvy up all the episodes with potential crew/hose issues, I'll take Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency

God help me I had to check for myself if this is real, and it is. But also: this episode is "Red in the Face" and it's on the HBO Max site as "Babylon"! We used to be a proper country.

How the Animated Sitcom and Gen X Grew Up Together

For T Magazine, I wrote about how animated shows captured the toon spirit of Gen X, and got old with us (giftie) www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/t...

That's the other part I've replaced! Whatever little seal is in there works for me for a couple years or so then springs a leak.

I've gotten used to it at this point, I just turn it "closed," hot swap my mug for the carafe, and pour a cup while the mug catches whatever drips out

Not a paid sponsorship but this is one of a handful of products I am an absolute evangelist for. Had mine since 2008, replaced a couple parts (just ordered a new carafe), everything your annoying coffee friend says about it is true. (It is me, I am your annoying coffee friend.)

I was going to say that one AI usage I would approve of is if they invented an app that read Lizza's substack posts and told me if I need to pay attention to them, but then I realize somebody already invented it and it's called Bluesky

Rick Bayless's Braised Mexican Pumpkin By Rick Bayless, Green City Market Board Member Emeritus Serves 4 as a small entrée or 6 as a hearty side dish. Ingredients For the Essential Roasted Tomatillo Chipotle Salsa: 3-6 stemmed, dried chipo...

Also found an online copy of the braised pumpkin from my Rick Bayless cookbook, which does not at all need to be limited to thanksgiving (and can easily be made vegan) www.greencitymarket.org/news/details...

Chorizo Dressing With Leeks (Published 2017)

Update: Holy God almighty this was good (giftie) cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1019...

I don’t get them, never did, sorry Marty

Slow-Cooked Red Chile Turkey (Published 2014)

Second T-Day is just immediate family at home and we like it spicy. There will be chorizo stuffing, chipotle-tomatillo-braised squash, and this insanely good turkey legs in red chile sauce. cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016...