O'Rourke's Diner featured on Food Network

We'd known about it for months and had been patiently waiting for the episode to air. Finally, it has!

Middletown favorite O'Rourke's Diner has been featured on The Food Network, on its show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Called "Places You Sent Me," the episode has about eight minutes devoted to the food and history of O'Rourke's, including Brian's unique hash and the local tradition, the steamed cheeseburger.

The show originally aired Dec. 1, but it'll be shown again on Dec. 21 at 3:00 PM Eastern Time.

Do not watch this video if you are hungry or do not want to be hungry. Your mouth will be watering for the entire 7 minutes and 49 seconds! Or, well, all right... maybe not for the first 20 seconds or so of the guy in red talking at the beginning. Is that some kind of '90s pop revival?

Thanks to Ed McKeon at The Middletown Eye.

Basinger on Obnoxious TV Wealth

Professor Jeanine Basinger is quoted in the L.A. Times about the flailing economy's effect on Americans' television viewing choices.

Rich-people-behaving-badly shows like "Dirty Sexy Money", and "Lipstick Jungle" aren't doing so well, while shows about wish fulfillment like "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and spoiled teenagers learning lessons on "Exiled!" are doing better:

Americans are too depressed about their own finances to entertain themselves by watching shows about money, according to industry executives and academics.

"People don't want to come home at the end of the day and have more bad news about their money," said Jeanine Basinger, chairwoman of the film studies department at Wesleyan University. "They don't want to see the Enron scandal, they don't want to see CEOs getting away with it."

L.A. Times: Obnoxious displays of wealth on TV turn off many

Mad Men Makes Television History

"Mad Men" made television history last night with 16 Emmy nods and the award for Outstanding Drama Series. From the AP:

Millions watched "Mad Men" make history as basic cable's first show to win a best drama award at the 60th annual Primetime Emmy Awards.

The night's biggest prize belonged to the sleek '60s drama "Mad Men," set in the advertising world of Madison Avenue. Such an honor for a show that's lucky to draw 2 million viewers on a good night signaled that Sunday truly belonged to boutique TV.

"I want to thank all the people that went before us in television to make a show like this because we're just channeling it every day and we love going to work," said "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner '87, who also was honored for drama series writing for the show's pilot.

No cable TV, no Obama? Try Usdan

The Middletown, Middlefield and Durham Democratic Town Committees invite you to watch Senator Barack Obama accept the Democratic nomination Thursday night at Wesleyan's Usdan University Center. The event is open to the public.

Hope to see you all there at this historic event!

Who: Citizens of Middletown, Middlefield, and Durham
What: Obama Acceptance Speech Viewing Party
Where: Wesleyan University, Usdan University Center, Room 108, 45 Wyllys Ave, Middletown CT 06459
When: Thursday, August 28 2008, at 7pm

"Wesleyan University is solely a paid provider of space for this event and does not support the position of any group."

A Night Out With Mad Men

The NYTimes featured another Wes alum on a career high in its Sunday "Night Out With..." section: "Mad Men" mastermind Matthew Weiner, along with the cast of his show (pictured above).

The writer follows Weiner and cast members around during the day and night of the show's second season premiere at MoMA.

NYTimes: It's An Easy Sell: A Day and Night Out With the Cast of "Mad Men"

Matthew Weiner is Mad Men

Matthew Weiner '87 (above), former writer/producer of "The Sopranos" and currently the creator, executive producer, and head writer of AMC's excellent hit series "Mad Men", is featured in today's New York Times Magazine.

Among other things, the article observes Weiner's somewhat neurotic control over every creative aspect of "Mad Men", which goes a long way in making the show's early 60's world of New York advertising feel authentic.

Weiner (pronounced WHY-ner) is the creator and show-runner of “Mad Men,” which means the original idea was his: he wrote the pilot; he writes every episode of every show (along with four other people); he’s the executive producer who haggles for money (he says that his budget is $2.3 million per episode and that the average budget for a one-hour drama is $2.8 million); and he approves every actor, costume, hairstyle and prop...

“I do not feel any guilt about saying that the show comes from my mind and that I’m a control freak,” he told me. “I love to be surrounded by perfectionists, and part of the problem with perfectionism is that by nature, you’re always failing.”

Weiner was also a COL major, which seems to have worked out for him:

Weiner attended the Harvard School in Los Angeles, now Harvard-Westlake. Despite his difficulties there — A.P. History was his one success — he got into Wesleyan, from which he graduated in 1987. “My major was a program that combined philosophy, literature and history,” he recalled. “It had no grades, and I remember getting my first comments back and my father looking at my comments and saying: ‘Isn’t this interesting? I can read this comment and I can see that you got a C.’ ”

...After Wesleyan, Weiner got into U.S.C. film school with some direct lobbying of the dean by his father. “He was instrumental in making sure I got in, with my academic major that had no grades,” Weiner said.

NYTimes: "Mad Men" Has Its Moment

Was Barack Obama ever a Muslim?

Today's New York Times is running an article called "Ready to Attack Obama, if Some Money Arrives," which chronicles the difficulty some conservative groups are having in raising funds to fight Obama's campaign.

The article led me to an anti-Obama site called Expose Obama that is trying to raise enough money to put this ad on national TV:

Question: was Barack Obama ever a Muslim?

He says no. But the Associated Press found records that show Obama was enrolled in school as a Muslim while living in Indonesia. And Obama's campaign said it couldn't explain why.

Maybe it doesn't matter if Obama were a Muslim back then. But it does matter if he is not telling the truth about it now.

Oh, politics. Will this be Swift Boat Veterans for Truth 2.0?

No More Cable

Wesleyan is done with its contract with ComCast to provide Cable TV to students and isn't renewing it, mostly because most of you now watch computers instead of TV. There will still be cable in lounges, but if you want it in your room next year you get it yourself. From campus-wide email:

Before proceeding with another 5 year commitment, we wanted to gather information regarding the number of TVs that students bring to campus as well as informally poll them on their TV viewing habits. We determined that less than 25% of the students bring a TV and that many prefer to watch their TV shows on computer... based on this data, we have decided to no longer offer Comcast Cable TV to Wesleyan students after May 31. After this date, any student who wishes to have Cable TV service will directly contract with a Cable TV provider to customize the channel lineup and pay for it directly.

...If you have any questions regarding this, please contact Fran Koerting at fkoerting@wesleyan.edu or G. Ravishanker at ravishan@wesleyan.edu

Psi U on TV!

Undergraduate President Charles Kurose '10 and Treasurer Benjie Messinger-Barnes '09 will be appearing live on a Connecticut Public Access TV programming show on the evening of Tuesday, March 4, at 8:00 p.m.

The purpose of the show is to highlight the achievements of a member of the Middletown area community. It airs on the first Tuesday of each month, and this month the Xi has been given the privilege of being featured on the show. Kurose and Barnes will be representing the Xi and fielding questions from a panel about the many ways in which Xi Brothers give back to the Wesleyan and Middletown communities.

The show is entitled "On the Move" and will air at 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 4 (tonight!), on channel 15, a Comcast local programming station.

Queer movies and TV shows at Open House

Antoinette Zosherafatain '10 writes:

Do love movies like Better than Chocolate, Billy Elliot, or series like The L Word, Queer as Folk, and Noah's Arc? Well, Open House has your fix!

We now have both Showtime for The L Word and LOGO for series like Queer as Folk and a wide variety of queer films.

Starting today (Thursday), Open House will be screening all four episodes of The L Word at 10:00 PM. They will host screenings of new L Word episodes every Sunday at 9:00 PM. And starting next week, premieres of queer movies and TV series on the LOGO network will be shown. More details will follow.

Location: Open House (154 Church Street)