Michael C. Williams On With His Next 'Project'

I got to do a profile of Michael C. Williams, whose name you probably do not know, but who's face you might, and whose work you probably do. 

Williams played Mike in The Blair Witch Project, the wildly successful found-footage horror film that premiered 25 years ago. 

These days, he and his wife Toni direct the plays at the New York high school they both attended, and at the middle school as well. Our kids go to Westlake High School, and the plays are pretty amazing. Up next is Elf at the middle school in late January. 

Williams is also a guidance counselor at a New York middle school. 

He had grown close to his own guidance counselor while at Westlake High, as Donna Garr helped him focus when his father died and his mother battled alcohol. She suggested he study theater in college while he was considering the military. 

Many years later, after Blair Watch, Williams' acting work was unsteady, and he thought about a career change that might be better suited for his growing family. He reached out to Garr, and started his master's in school counseling. 

My piece is kind of short. I wish I'd had more room to tell Williams' story. But it's a good story nonetheless. 

[photo credit Michael C. Williams]

You are Cordially Invited to Check Out My Book Review Column 'A Novel Concept' on Substack

I write a column called A Novel Concept on Substack. Subscribers get my book review emailed to them each week, and it is free of charge. It launched in October 2021, and will shift to every two weeks in the new year, so I can finally read large novels like Fredrik Backman's The Winners. 

My columns have focused on Colson Whitehead's Crook Manifesto, Geraldine Brooks's Horse, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride, and even Jimmy Buffett's Where is Joe Merchant?, because Buffett died. 

Please give 'em a read and, if you enjoy them, and find books to add to your to-read list, or gift ideas for loved ones, maybe even subscribe. 

Book Review: A Prominent Author Who Fought For the Environment Decades Before Other Celebs Did

 I reviewed Lucky Mud & Other Foma, a look at Kurt Vonnegut, his books, and his dedication to the environment and to humankind, for the East Hampton Star. Christina Jarvis wrote the book. 

"This book tells the story of Vonnegut's planetary citizenship," Ms. Jarvis, a professor of English at the State University at Fredonia, writes in the introduction. "It discovers the origins of his environmental stewardship in lessons from Vonnegut's Orchard School teacher Hillis Howie and the ethics and political ideals forged during his teenage Western adventures. It also explores Vonnegut's deep attachments to place and the profound ways his biology, chemistry, and anthropology studies shaped his planetary thinking."

As one might suspect in a book about Vonnegut, the title is odd. Lucky mud and foma are aspects of Vonnegut's invented religion, Bokononism, in his novel Cat's Cradle. Lucky mud refers to mud tapped by God to sit up and take in the Earth around it, while foma denotes a harmless untruth. 

My review said, "The reader may, at times, wonder if it would've worked better as, say, a 10,000-word New Yorker article, articulating Vonnegut's vision for a better Earth while freeing up a bit of time for the reader. 

But true fans of Vonnegut will enjoy "Lucky Mud," and will respect how he was a champion of our planet's health several decades before other writers, celebrities, and citizens took up the cause."

Regina Spektor Heads Back to the Beach

I got my first Boston Globe story! It's a profile of the musician Regina Spektor. 

Back when I lived in Manhattan's East Village, I heard her name quite a bit. A piano-playing rocker, she was playing out in the bars and establishing herself. 

I saw she was playing the Capitol Theatre outside NYC earlier this year, and got tickets. 

Spektor, who emigrated to the Bronx from the Soviet Union as a kid, was all alone onstage. She played piano on most songs, and picked up a guitar for a few. She delivers offbeat rock. She spoke of the war in Ukraine with a heartfelt address.  

I saw her tour brings her to Martha's Vineyard in late August, so I pitched the Boston Globe a story. I had no contact there, but an editor surprised me by saying yes to my pitch. 

Spektor told me her thoughts on the war. 

“The idea that so much beauty and so much history has just been turned to rubble, it’s just very painful,” she says. “And they’re sending young people who don’t know better from one country to the other, to die and to perpetrate atrocities. Everybody suffers except for the people who are actually perpetrating these crimes.”

The rest of the profile is a bit happier, with her memories of playing Boston, and visiting the Vineyard as a kid, and her thoughts on getting back to the island many years later.  

[photo credit Shervin Lainez]

Basketball Season is Over, But Sport Remains All Over TV

Have you noticed all the TV shows and movies that have basketball as a main theme these days? 

There's Swagger on Apple TV Plus, and The Crossover on Disney Plus, and Winning Time on HBO, and the movie Air on Prime Video, and several others.  

I did a story on all the hoops shows for Broadcasting + Cable Mag. 

Reggie Rock Bythewood, creator, director and executive producer of Swagger, said that when he was approached about taking Kevin Durant's story to TV four or five years ago, a few other basketball-show pitches hit him as well.  

“I don’t know what was in the air,” he told me. 

The trend began with the Michael Jordan docuseries The Last Dance, which arrived on ESPN and ABC as Covid forced people inside. It continues today. 

Why does basketball work in the scripted world? It's just five players, per team, on the court at one time, so fans get to know them better. They don't wear facemasks. The premise of the game -- get the ball in the hoop — is simple, but the skills needed to execute the premise are unique. 

Harlem Kerfuffle

 I reviewed the latest Colson Whitehead novel in the East Hampton Star. Called Crook Manifesto, it is set in the '70s and checks in with Ray Carney, the main character from Whitehead's previous novel, Harlem Shuffle. Carney has a furniture store in Harlem, and fences stolen stuff for local gangsters. He's trying to exit what he calls the “secondhand rug business," but his daughter wants Jackson 5 tickets, they are hard to come by, and they are expensive.

The story is told in three parts. “Ringolevio” sees Carney seek out a sketchy police officer named Munson, who is known as a fixer of problems, such as one’s lack of Jackson 5 ducats. “Nefertiti T.N.T.” focuses on a thug named Pepper, who pulled off jobs with Big Mike, and later with Carney. Part three, “The Finishers,” looks at the startling number of buildings burning down in Harlem at the time.

Whitehead offers an intriguing look at an ailing neighborhood, and the individuals hustling to succeed in it.

There may not be a more decorated novelist today. Whitehead picked up Pulitzer Prizes for The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad, and has been the recipient of MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships as well.

The Little Engine That Eventually Could

With Father's Day a couple days off, I got to do an essay on what happens when your child wants you to do something, but you have no idea how to do it, and your kid wants it anyway. 

It happened to me, years ago, when my son wanted a motorized go kart. 

Some dads could put something like that together in a few weeks. 

Not this dad. 

The essay, entitled "Fake Mechanic, Real Panic," is in the weekly East Hampton Star. 

Enjoy Six Days in the Hamptons, For Only 28 Bucks

I got to do a book review for the East Hampton Star, a novel from a hot author that is set out in the Hamptons. The book is The Guest and the author is Emma Cline. It tells the story of Alex, who's an escort in NYC, has a falling out with her employer, and meets up with a wealthy guy in a bar, who invites her to stay at his Hamptons place. 

Things go wrong with the Hamptons guy, because things always go wrong for Alex, and he boots her out. She's convinced all will be right again in six days, when she shows up at his Labor Day party, and he presumably regrets tossing her out. 

And so sketchy Alex has six days to kill in the Hamptons. 

It's a fun book. 

Cline's previous novel is The Girls, loosely based on Charles Manson and his cult, about a group of teen girls staying with an aspiring musician with a bit of charm on a ranch in southern California. 

Cline ventures to the Hamptons May 25, for a reading at the East Hampton library. 

Hanging With Al Roker in His Neck of the Woods

I had the opportunity to chat with Al Roker for a profile, with the trade mag Broadcasting + Cable inducting the Today icon into its Hall of Fame. 

Roker spoke about growing up in Queens and studying at SUNY Oswego, in upstate New York, where he picked up his first TV gig, despite a professor telling him he had a face for radio. 

Roker eventually got hired at WNBC New York, and from there, landed at the Today show. Co-anchor Savanna Guthrie said of Al, “He’s the joy, he’s the spice, he’s the salt that makes the food tasty,” she said. “Al brings energy, humor and warmth. He’s our sunshine.”

The weather and feature anchor is up pretty darn early during the week, but he's not complaining. “My dad drove a bus eight to 10 hours a day,” Roker said. “This is one of the greatest jobs going.”

Viewers Dig Drag Shows. Politicians, Not So Much

TV shows featuring drag queens are a bit of a trend right now. There's We're Here on HBO, where drag shows are set up in not-so cosmopolitan areas, such as Jackson, Mississippi and Sussex, New Jersey, with local folk taking part alongside more established participants. 

There's Queen of the Universe on Paramount Plus, which sees drag queens battle it out for top billing, and there's RuPaul's Drag Race on MTV, and its various offshoots. 

RuPaul's Drag Race single-handedly shows how drag has become more mainstream. The show launched on LGBTQ-friendly Logo, then shifted to VH1, before arriving on MTV earlier this year. (Logo, VH1 and MTV are all owned by the same company.)

Amidst all this, several states are cracking down on drag shows, fearing the effect such shows have on children. I got to do a story on the emergence of drag shows, and the emergence of anti-drag legislation.

“When we created the show, we were living in a world where it felt like progress was being made,” said We're Here co-creator Stephen Warren. "These days, “Homophobia, transphobia, drag phobia — everything is more intense than it ever was. It’s a very different world.”