The White House Correspondents Dinner Insults Both Nerds and Proms
Stephen Colbert, shown skewering the Bush Administration in front of President George W. Bush at the 2006 White House Correspondents Association dinner What...
"Everything Everywhere All At Once"
Michelle Yeoh, deserving all of the awards. (Photo by A24) I held off posting this for a couple of weeks now, all because a friend of mine had not yet seen...
The Grammys: A Sick Joke
Bo Burnham made the most vital comedy record during the 2020-2021 eligibility year for the 2022 Grammys — yet the Recording Academy, for all of its big talk...
Never Mind The Oscars Chaos, We Must Confront The SNAFUs That Plague The EGOTs
Even before The Slap, I’d come to a stunning realization — an epiphany, you might say — about the Academy Awards while watching this Sunday’s telecast. Sean...
We Need To Talk About Why We Don’t Want To Talk About Cosby
No matter how you feel about whether the court system served justice to or against Bill Cosby, you have to reckon with the new knowledge you have about the...
And Now A Word For Our Sponsors
Every Substack newsletter, including and especially this one, depends upon the support of subscribers like you. I’m grateful for the platform, and continue...
Forget Batman Or Bond: Pennyworth Is The Reboot We Needed Now
Pennyworth (EPIX/HBO Max) Have millions of us felt safe enough this March to pack into cineplexes near us just to see Robert Pattinson’s take as The Batman?...
History Repeating? This Ain't Your Grandpa's "Animal Farm" Nor Your Ma's Chicken Kiev
Do you know who that is? Do you know where that is? Do you know when that is? Context clues from my headline provide hints as to the where of it all, but the...
Babble On: What This Viral AP Polyglot Clip Says About Americans
Philip Crowther works as an international affiliate correspondent for The Associated Press, based in Luxembourg, which normally wouldn’t draw any more...
When A Hack Is Nothing Of The Sort
Look. I get it. I’m not completely lacking in self-awareness. Vladimir Putin wants to restore Russia to its former “glory” and so he’s invading Ukraine...
What’s So Funny About Gambling Your Life Away?
What are the odds that all four NFL playoff games last weekend would end so dramatically and so wildly? Wait, don’t tell me the odds. Never tell me the odds....
A Year In Piffany: 2021
What a year. What a Dickensian clusterfart of a year, what with the best of times at times both personally and professionally, counterbalanced by the worst...
A Piffany About West Side Story
Many folks consider West Side Story a musical theater masterpiece. That, despite the 1961 Best Picture Oscar-winning film casting a daughter of Russian...
A Piffany About Royalties and Rights
One of the guiding principles of this here Substack, Piffany, reminds me to remind us that history doesn’t so much repeat itself as much as we forget to...
History Repeating: 11/12/21
History Repeating is a new feature here at Piffany! A semi-regular, or perhaps regular, column examining just how much time exists on a flat circle (perhaps...
A Piffany About Our Eternals Struggle To Justify Our Existence
Life bedeviled me more than usual this week, so much so that by last night, I really needed to clear my head. Chemicals don’t work; only make my problems...
A Piffany About Hollywood Finding My Safe Houses In Norway
People who love to watch the end credits of movies do so for their own reasons. Some to find out who portrayed a certain character. Some to find out the...
A Piffany About Critical (Race) Theory
A Venn diagram would find some suspicious overlapping among the folks who show up at school board meetings and decry “critical race theory” alongside the...
A Piffany Is A Powerful Drug, But Sadly Not Always More Powerful Than Drugs
Did you know September is National Recovery Month? Forget about whether that lede is “too soon.” The sad fact remains — it’s too late for too many people to...
A Piffany About Math In The Time Of COVID-19
Above: Today’s statistics, released the morning of Sept. 2, 2021, counting how many Americans have received all of their recommended vaccination shots in the...