"Well, aren’t you all hot shit? And don’t tell me you haven’t been working it. You’re at the Kennedy assassination and you’ve got your seats on the grassy knoll."

Said Jerry Seinfeld, to the studio audience for the "Seinfeld" finale episode in 1998.

Quoted in "Larry David’s Last Stand/As the series finale of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ approaches, everything, it seems, has been building toward one of David’s most strongly held beliefs: that, actually, the ‘Seinfeld’ finale was pretty, pretty good" (The Ringer).

Nielsen estimated that 76.3 million viewers tuned in to the last episode of Seinfeld, making it the fourth most watched television finale since 1960. That’s an astronomically high number by any era’s standard, especially today’s. In a world where the NFL and almost nothing else consistently pulls in huge audiences, there are barely any truly widely watched scripted shows left....

The monoculture’s last gasp may have been in 2019, when 19.3 million people watched the Game of Thrones finale. Four years later, the Succession finale–the TV event of the year—drew only 2.9 million.

The last episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" becomes available for streaming — it doesn't "air"! — tomorrow. People are predicting that it will parallel the final "Seinfeld" episode. Presumably, there will be a trial. We've been headed toward that all season. And we've been told that since Larry did the act — he gave water to a lady who was waiting in line to vote (in Georgia) — the outcome will hinge on the jury's view of Larry's character. So how can it not be a review of all the bad things Larry's done, tracking the  "Seinfeld" finale? But who really cares, a quarter century later, whether the "Seinfeld" finale was actually good? Maybe somehow the finale "Curb Your Enthusiasm" episode will go meta and become an examination of Larry's longterm belief that he ended "Seinfeld" exactly the right way.

"Mr. Malinin started skating to the 'Succession' theme last fall, but he has yet to watch the show. 'I don’t have a subscription to HBO'..."

"... he said in an interview. 'But if I did get it, I’d definitely watch.' The network’s programming has influenced his performances before: Last season, he performed a free skate program set to a selection of music from the series 'Euphoria.' 'I didn’t watch "Euphoria" either,' he said, 'but I’ve heard it’s a really good series.'"

From "'Succession' on Ice/Ilia Malinin, an American teenager, won the men’s World Figure Skating Championships with a performance set to the theme of the HBO series" (NYT).

For my post with videos of Malinin's amazing performance, go here.

ALSO: From the NYT article: "In the coming months, Mr. Malinin plans to 'take the time to mentally prepare for the idea of trying' the quint jump, he said. 'I like to push the boundaries of physical abilities and the boundaries of this sport.'"

The article headline is "'Succession' on Ice," but Malinin isn't in any way interpreting the story or the characters from the show. It's completely abstract music to him (and his choreographer), I presume. For a viewer of the show, however, the music calls up those associations. It's not just music. It's a particular, awful family... that has nothing to do with Malinin.

"Nineteen-year-old American superstar Ilia Malinin scored a record 227.79 in the free skate, winning his first world title by landing the best collection of jumps..."

"... in one program in figure skating history. Malinin landed a quadruple Axel, quad Lutz, quad loop, quad Salchow, another quad Lutz and a quad toe loop, then finished his four-minute skate with a a triple Lutz-triple Axel finale."

And all to the "Succession" theme:

"Murdoch’s unhappiness and befuddlement is the throughline of... 'The Fall: The End of Fox News,' which is to hit shelves next week..."

"... days after Murdoch, 92, announced his retirement from the Fox Corporation and News Corporation boards. [The book] paints Fox’s owner as embarrassed by the channel’s vulgarity and horrified by its ultimate political creation, Donald Trump. Murdoch apparently very much wants to thwart the ex-president.... Though 'The Fall' is peppered with references to HBO’s 'Succession,' Murdoch comes off as the anti-Logan Roy, desperate for the approval of his mostly liberal children, with the hateful Fox News standing between them. 'He just wants his kids to love him,' Roger Ailes is quoted saying. 'And they don’t.'... ... Murdoch has... handed Fox to his son Lachlan... widely seen as the only true conservative among the Murdoch heirs.... The network may keep boosting Trump’s Republican primary opponents, but once the primaries are over, we can expect it to once again be the lucrative propaganda arm of Trump’s presidential campaign.... The electorate that Fox helped shape, and the politicians it indulges, have made this country ungovernable. An unbound Trump may well become president again, bringing liberal democracy in America to a grotesque end. If so, it will be in large part Murdoch’s fault...."

Writes Michelle Goldberg, in "The Ludicrous Agony of Rupert Murdoch" (NYT).

How high is your horse?

I'd have thought the expression "up on your high horse" had gone out of style. Who's riding horses these days? We may feel irked when other people seem to be looking down on us, but — in the metaphor in our head — is a horse part of the picture?

But yesterday, I encountered — and blogged about — a NYT column by Nicholas Kristof, "On Their High Horse, Too Many Liberals Disdain Oliver Anthony" (NYT).

And now, this morning, I stumble into another high horse. I'm reading "Disqualify Trump in 2024? It’s clear what the NC Supreme Court would say" by North Carolina lawprof Gene Nichol, who takes the position that everyone knows the North Carolina Supreme Court won't go along with this theory about Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Because we all know they’re politicians first and judges, at best, an exceedingly distant second. We know it. They know it. They just swear otherwise. And they swear from a very high, very hypocritical, horse. You would think the words would turn to ashes in their mouths. They wear cool black robes, no doubt. But as the patriarch of TV’s “Succession” puts it, they “are not serious people.”

Oh, no! "Cat Person" is back. Now, it's a movie. And the man we're supposed to be creeped out by is... Cousin Greg!!

Well, Nicholas Braun was a master of awkwardness as Greg on "Succession," but do I want to seen him dragged through this monstrosity? Or do you think there's any chance this movie could be good... at least good enough to get us back to talking about "Cat Person" like we did in 2017/2018?

"I think you have to understand that there was no business conversation about a cap table or a fee or anything like that."

"It was, you know, just general niceties and, you know, conversation in general, you know, about the geography, about the weather, whatever it may be."

Testified Devon Archer, quoted in "Hunter tried to sell family name but Joe Biden never talked business, says ex-associate/Devon Archer’s testimony to House Oversight investigators included his assertion that Hunter Biden was not able to influence his father’s actions or policy decisions" (published August 3rd in The Washington Post).

"Doug Burgum is offering $20 to people donating $1 to his campaign. Is that legal?"

Asks NPR.

The campaign's offer is good for the first 50,000 donors — and is an unconventional bid to meet the fundraising thresholds required to be onstage for next month's Republican primary debate.... To participate in the debate, candidates must have at least 40,000 donors. They also have to bring in donations from 200 or more donors in at least 20 states.

"In the writers’ room, we have occasionally had a kind of recurring phrase: 'Which is the most funny thing that could happen here, and by that I mean the most painful?'"

"And, sometimes, 'Which is the most painful thing that can happen here, by which I mean the most funny?'" 

Said Jesse Armstrong, quoted in "The End of 'Succession' Is Near/The show’s creator, Jesse Armstrong, explains why he has chosen to conclude the drama of the Roy family in its fourth season" (The New Yorker, February 23, 2023).

That's a quote I read recently — after watching all 39 episodes of "Succession" in something close to 39 days, which I did because I kept seeing New Yorker articles about the greatness of the final season and felt doomed to see the spoilers sooner or later. Having watched the show, I could finally read the articles, and so I have a vast trove of things to be reminded of when I'm reading other things, and that's how a post like this ends up happening. That last paragraph of the previous post — "Drinking is funny until it's not.... The need to say things like 'self-care,' 'virtuous aftercare,' and 'biohack' sounds desperate, but that can be part of the funny, especially for the drunkards" — got me thinking about Armstrong's quote about comedy and pain.

This is a big topic — comedy and pain — and I challenge you to discuss it without quoting Mel Brooks.

"Tucker Carlson's glory days are over, and his new episodic Twitter show is the evidence of his fall from grace."

Writes Cheryl Teh, in "Tucker Carlson is nothing without Fox News, and his sad Twitter-broadcast debut proves it" (Business Insider).

First off, make no mistake: Carlson still gets the views.... 

The video, up for a day and a half, has over 100 million views. At the point Teh's column went up, it was it was at 11.2 million, already much more than he had on Fox News (around 2 million, which was about twice what Fox has without him).

But enough about numbers! Teh continues with her theory that Carlson is nothing without Fox News:

Fox News sought a response from the White House for a story it was doing on the problem of President Biden's advanced age.

But — as HuffPo reports in "Fox News Refuses To Run Snarky White House Comment In Story Criticizing Biden’s Age"  — the White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates only responded with attacks relating to the advanced age of Rupert Murdoch.

First:

"We take inspiration from the 92 year-old owner of Fox News, and send our best regards on your accurate coverage of extreme MAGA Freedom Caucus complaining that President Biden outsmarted them on the budget as he continued the unprecedented bipartisan winning streak that is central to the best legislative record in modern American history."

Then: 

"I go back and forth on whether these stories are born out of Fox News executives trying to send a signal to y’all’s 92 year-old chairman, or that 92 year-old chairman’s frustrations with the political successes of a younger man running an exponentially more complex operation.” 

There's a big difference between owning a company and seeking election to high office. That Murdoch hangs onto his power says nothing positive about Biden's effort to cling to power in his old age. Biden must convince us, the people, that he's fit. He's younger than Murdoch and at least as power hungry. That's Bates's argument.

ADDED: At Meadhouse, we've been catching up on the HBO series "Succession," which has a character based to some extent on Rupert Murdoch. I bought the Season 2 "Complete Scripts," and I thought this was interesting, from the Introduction by Frank Rich:

"People have realized that workplaces are full of bullies and weirdos and they don't want to deal with them anymore."

Says Esther Walker at 6 minutes and 9 seconds into this week's episode of the podcast "Giles Coren Has No Idea."

They're talking about the post-lockdown phenomenon of refusal to go back to work in the office. 

I enjoy her mode of expression. It's hyperbole, but it's getting at something true, no? It's a subjective matter — what's bullying and what's weird — but the topic is human behavior. It can't be anything but subjective.