Odds and Ends...book-style...mostly

• Neil Gaiman's new book, "Graveyard," sounds quite lovely. It's about a child raised by ghosts. I'm completely intrigued.

• Speaking of books, Girl Nerd Queen Bee Tina Fey will be penning her own tome, you betcha!

• And while we're on the subject of books, Newsweek had an article about what sounds like an extraordinary book called "The Oxford Project." The book's author set out in 1984 to photograph all 676 residents of a small town in Iowa called Oxford. When the original photos were destroyed in a flood, the photographer found the negatives and then decided to photograph all the residents again 13 years later. The book is filled with personal stories, like the girl whose mother was in the circus and who abandoned her and her dog, or the woman who took in more than 500 foster children. It's really kind of a touching article.

• Okay, enough about books: the announcement came out yesterday that "Battlestar Galactica" Season 4.0 DVDs will be released on January 6 because really, it seems silly to try to put them out before Christmas. Don't want Santa snatching them all up now, do we? Also, did I mention that Mary McDonnell is going to be appearing on "Gray's Anatomy" for five episodes, which will start airing in November...you know, two months before her other show returns? My girl crush is being seriously tested by this as I deeply, deeply dislike "Gray's." Why couldn't she be on "House?"
  

News of the Day -- Tuesday, April 15

+ Entertainment Weekly has a terrific article on Tina Fey in their latest issue. She claims her four greatest acting talent are: "Eye-rolling; the ability to eat food on camera in real time; I think I'm a decent straight man. Do I have a fourth move? Um, unpleasant dancing."

+ Newsweek has a review of MTV's 12,000th new reality show, "The Paper," which follows the staff of a high school newspaper -- hence, I guess, the title. Apparently, all the nerdy young journalists are mean, which I think is great. As the reviewer writes, "These aren't the gorgeous people who will be pumping your gas in 20 years. They are the nerds who will be shredding your résumé." That totally makes me want to watch this show even though I'm about 70 years too old for the demographic.

+ A brief recap of the legal battle between J.K. Rowling and the Michigan dude who penned the Potter lexicon. Ten bucks he asks for an autograph before the trial's over. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this whole thing -- it seems a bit David and Goliath to me, of course, but on the other hand, where do you draw the line on copyright protection? I need Dumbledore to sort this out for me.

News of the Day -- Friday, March 21

+ Tons of reports coming in this morning on last night's Paley Fest panel discussion with the cast of "Buffy." This one from "The Futon Critic" seemed the most comprehensive. From everything I've read, I think someone may need to decaffeinate Nicholas Brendon. I'm just sayin'...

+ How's this for a Magic Kingdom of Comedy? Tina Fey has just been cast in Ricky Gervais' directorial debut "This Side of Truth." As if that weren't enough to make me wag my tail in glee, the film also stars Christopher Guest, Jeffrey Tambor AND John Hodgman. My insides have turned to bliss.

+ If you haven't seen it yet, check out this parody of "Juno" penned by "Daily Show" scribe Rob Kutner, starring J.K. Simmons and directed by my friend Stephen Levinson:



And if you're suddenly thinking to yourself, wow, Liz's friends do some fine comedy work, you should check out Cap'n Wacky's Boatload of Fun humor site, which updates every Friday, and The City Desk, an ingenious site chronicling a slightly messed-up fictional city. Think "Hudsucker Proxy" meets Garrison Keillor meets the deadest of deadpan.

News of the Day

+ Former Park Bench Nerd Men of the Month Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will be returning to the airwaves on Jan. 7, following other late night hosts like Letterman, Leno and Conan. I have no idea what they're going to do without their writers -- read the real news? I've got my Wolf Blitzer action figure for that. Apparently, Stewart and Colbert aren't quite sure what they're going to do either, judging by the joint statement they released on Thursday: "We would like to return to work with our writers. If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence."

+ Wow, I totally call bullshit on this news story from the BBC citing recent research that says "men are naturally more comedic than women because of the male hormone testosterone." My penchant for comfortable shoes already makes me feel manish enough, and now I've got this hanging over my head?

+ And finally, manishly funny Tina Fey has been named one of the most influential women of 2007 by MSN. Yeah, suck on that, science. Why don't you go play with your glow in the dark cats while we turn our backs on evolution to spite you?

+ The Judd Apatow backlash has begun! Of course, this backlash is a guffaw-worthy backlash because Apatow conjured it himself. And yes, it's pretty much just an ad for "Walk Hard," but it's worth it just to see Paul Rudd and Justin Long playing Rock Band. (Not safe for work.)



+ The Aaron Sorkin/Mike Nichols/Tom Hanks flick, "Charlie Wilson's War" opens today. My love for Sorkin took a slight tumble after "Studio 60" but I'm prepared to love him all over if this movie lives up to my unreasonable expectations. I'm thinking it has to be good, though, considering this preview features music from both Scissor Sisters and Jimi Hendrix.

Nerdy news bits

* I totally missed this, but there was a nifty article on Tina Fey and "30 Rock" in Sunday's New York Times. I guess I should spend more time reading and less time making pancakes on Sundays. I'm missing a lot of good stuff!

* Speaking of good reading, another previously unknown novel by Irene Nemirovsky, the tragically-fated author of Suite Francaise, is arriving on American book shelves soon. This article includes an excerpt. I thought Suite Francaise was wonderful, so I'm very much looking forward to this.

* Also, apparently there was some sort of video game released last night. Something like Holo or Helo.....

"I will suck the venom out, but this is the last time!"

I could watch this over and over again...which I guess is what American Express wants. Does liking this commercial mean I'm bowing to The Man?? Now I'm worried...

Wait, a show I like actually won?

Wow, was that the worst Emmy broadcast you've ever seen or what? I mean, I knew it would be bad what with Ryan Seacrest on hand and no Simon to beat him down with his chesticular awesomeness, but who knew it would just be a weird, uneven, unfunny, draggy train wreck?

First, I'll list a few good things because as my grandmother always said, if you can't say something nice about an overinflated, self-congratulatory Hollywood awards show, don't say anything. So here are some highlights:

* The Park Bench's TV mascot "30 Rock" won for best comedy, which was unexpectedly great. Considering the entire broadcast was a "Sopranos" love-fest, I was half-expecting it to take that award too but no, cooler heads prevailed and Tina Fey's masterwork was duly rewarded.

* Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert deciding to give Ricky Gervais' Emmy to Steve Carell was brilliant as was his over-the-top reaction. Ricky would have been proud.

* It was cute the way Sally Field tried to go all 1970s and talk about issues in her acceptance speech. Also, it was cute the way the trigger-happy censors got freaked out and cut her off when I believe she started to say something about this "goddamn war." Oh Sally, people don't want to think about sad things when there are gowns to be admired and skeletally-thin women to be emulated.

* I liked the way presenters just abandoned pretenses and began bitching about how the stage was set up. Who ever designed that should be forced to watch "The Sopranos" musical number over and over and over again.

On the down side:
* Um, Ryan Seacrest. Why? WHY?

* Felicity Huffman's skeletor cleavage right there in the front row. Her clavicle nearly poked my eye out.

* This was followed in the after-event wrap-ups with some doofus on Yahoo telling the world that television audiences think that America Ferrerra is beautiful despite, you know, having had a sandwich at some point in her life.

* "The Sopranos" love-fest. Seriously, does David Chase have connections? Were they going to whack Kiefer Sutherland if Fox didn't snuggle with the mobsters? I mean, I know it's a good show, but really. I was waiting for Chase to come out from backstage zipping his pants and smoking a cigarette.

* And finally, I don't know who Katherine Heigl is because I don't watch "Grey's Anatomy," but she seemed like a really sweet girl what with the complaining about her mispronounced name and the "Shit!" when she won. It's nice to know that etiquette school is being taught in Navy shipyards these days.

Thus ends the rant.

It's nice to be blogging with you again, by the way! I was off on vacation last week, and I have come back refreshed and ready to exude nerdiness all over the place. You have been warned.

There's joy in Nerdland today

Not only does 30 Rock return to NBC tonight with a new episode featuring Will Arnett, word also came yesterday that the show has been renewed, meaning our beloved Honorary Chairnerd Tina Fey will be gainfully employed and safe from having to peddle jokes on America's rough-and-tumble streetcorners for at least another year.

Honorary, imaginary girl nerd leadership role FINALLY filled -- and not by Scooter Libby

The Israelites had Moses. The Canadians had Tim Horton. Now girl nerds have Tina Fey.

We liked her snarking it up on SNL. We liked her in Mean Girls. And now? We love her in 30 Rock where she's turned girl nerdness into an art form. Like macrame or tracing pictures of horses. She is, quite undeniably, the well-dressed epitome of girl nerdness.

This is why The Park Bench Crew has decided to make Tina Fey our honorary, imaginary chairnerd. Anyone who concocts a character like Liz Lemon who wakes up with food in her hair, worries about her boobs falling out of low-cut dresses, outs herself by talking up Heroes in a roomful of hipsters and accidentally makes out with her cousin not only deserves our attention, she deserves our allegiance. You say jump, Tina, and we'll say, how high? And then we'll probably think about it for a really long time and ultimately decide not to jump because it seems like an awful lot of effort and that Beauty and the Geek marathon just started and we already jumped once last week. Just know, though, that we were totally there for you in spirit. Viva, Tina, and welcome to the club.