trow125

I read both "Freedom" and "The Corrections" but yeah, I find Franzen himself to be kind of offputting so I haven't bothered picking up "Purity" yet. I think he would be better off staying out of the public eye altogether. Hey, it works for Thomas Pynchon! As for the storybook... yeah, it was a blatantly anti-Amazon screed. I realize Stephen and JF both hate Amazon (Stephen railed against them on the "Report" during their beef with Hachette, Stephen's publisher) but as someone who works with a lot of authors, it's been literally a career-saver for many of them, particularly midlist genre authors. I hate it when people reduce Amazon to "the bad guy." And I say that as someone who makes a concerted effort to buy books almost exclusively through my local independents; there are still plenty of them here in the Bay Area, but not everyone is so blessed.

These ratings are from last week, when there were new shows. And yes, Trevor was on JKL and also on Ellen yesterday (I didn't catch either show).

I was shocked at how low Conan's numbers are! Isn't ex-TDS Sam Bee's new talk show going to be airing on TBS? Wonder what time slot she'll be in? I hope she's not in the midnight slot after Conan. (I'm already recording @Midnight and "Late Show" then!)

Ratings went down again, to 720,000 total viewers (from 770,000 last week).

There's nothing uncooler than being a vegetarian -- I've been one for most of my life and especially in this bacon-is-everything era, it's a huge bummer, to be honest. And I live in the San Francisco area! (Yes, bacon is big here, too.) So the segment kind of made me sad. I know, I'm a humorless vegetarian. (My bacon-loving husband liked it...) I wasn't sure what to expect, but I found Hillary delightful. The Halloween costumes were hilarious.

Mo 11/2: Dave Hill, Eliza Coupe, Max Silvestri Tu 11/3: Alex Borstein, Greg Proops We 11/4: Sean Donnelly, Annie Lederman Th 11/5: Chris D'Elia, Whitney Cummings, Ian Edwards Mo 11/9: Judah Friedlander, Jen Kirkman, Brendon Walsh Tu 11/10: Eugene Mirman, Phil Hanley We 11/11: Hari Kondabolu Th 11/12: Janet Varney, Guy Branum Mo 11/16: Arden Myrin Tu 11/17: Michael Shannon We 11/18: Ron Funches

Chris has a new job: (Since it's just a 10-episode series, I'm sure it won't affect his hosting duties on @M. Maybe he's working toward becoming the new king of TV, unseating Ryan Seacrest.)

11/2: Fareed Zakaria (Host of CNN’s GPS – promoting CNN special “Long Road to Hell: America in Iraq”) 11/3: Gloria Steinem (author – promoting book “My Life on the Road”) 11/4: David Holbrooke (director – promoting documentary “The Diplomat”) 11/5: Regina King (actress – promoting show “The Leftovers”)

Anyone who thinks Stephen's new show is too dumbed-down, I have three words for you: Karl Ove Knausgaard. Yow. Monday, Nov. 2 Actress Allison Janney from the CBS comedy series “Mom”; Comedian Colin Quinn; interview with and performance by comedian Margaret Cho Tuesday, Nov. 3 Actor Antonio Banderas; CEO of Netflix Reed Hastings; Author John Irving Wednesday, Nov. 4 Actor Daniel Craig; Author Elizabeth Gilbert; interview with and demonstration by Dr. Eugenia Cheng Thursday, Nov. 5 Actor Bryan Cranston; Author Karl Ove Knausgaard; Shamir Friday, Nov. 6 Whoopi Goldberg; Gov. John Kasich; musical performance by Glen Hansard

If John doesn't mention that one of the candidates to replace Sepp Blatter is named Tokyo Sexwale, I'll be shocked. (BTW, Sexwale, an anti-apartheid campaigner, was jailed alongside Nelson Mandela, so he's probably a decent guy, but c'mon, that's an AMAZING name.)

Jessica Williams was younger than Ricky is now when she got her "Daily Show" gig, and she immediately demonstrated a maturity and comic timing that is miles beyond anything Ricky has to offer. And I just checked out his Twitter feed to see if it was as bad as advertised, and yes it is. "Now cops are beating up female high school students. When will we see video of cops punching baby's in the face?" "Massage tables should have dick holes in them" "I just called 7-11 to see what type of slurpee flavors they got... Btw I think there phone number should be 711... Btw I'm stoned "

Anyone who's got enough ego to put themselves forward as a major candidate for president (i.e. big enough to be invited to the nationally televised debates) has to have a thick skin, so I don't think Stephen is being too mean. Personally, my first thought now when someone drops out is "Oh boy, Hungry for Power Games is coming back!" It's my favorite running segment. Having Stanley Tucci show up was kind of amusing even if it did turn into a plug -- loved seeing Stephen in the Effie Trinket wig. I just fast forward through most of the actor guests, though I did have to watch the part where Stephen made Sienna Miller eat his weird mayo/mustard concoction (TCR viewers may recall that he made that same delicacy for Martha Stewart once). I agree with everything Saylii said about Jon B. He may be a fine bandleader but he is probably never going to be a quick-witted Paul Shaffer-style sidekick.

You must not have seen his five-minute "Back to the Future"/Illuminati rant on Wednesday night's show...

Though I for one appreciated his "Sad Jeff" callback.

I can't imagine Hardwick taking over "The Daily Show" -- I know @M has been doing some more political humor lately, but I just don't think jokes about the news are "on brand" for him. He's way more into geek/internet culture. I wonder if moving @M to 11 for two weeks in September was something of a trial run; as it turns out, the ratings weren't very good, so there's probably no chance they'll have to worry about changing the name of the show. Trevor Noah doing shows in Dubai this weekend. Guy's an international star; I suspect he'll do just fine if CC decides to let him go. I wish somebody would do a Bill Carter-style inside-baseball, anonymously-sourced story about whether or not CC is panicking yet over the low ratings. Edited to add: Trevor will be appearing on both "Jimmy Kimmel Live" and the Ellen DeGeneres show Wednesday of this coming week.

A brief article about Tracey Stewart, which includes the info that... Jon is now a vegetarian!!!

The ratings are not very good. I looked at the ratings for TDS and TCR from exactly a year ago, and TDS had an average of 1.287 million viewers (vs. 770,000 in 2015) and TCR had 1.031 million (vs. 480,000 in 2015). I realize that you can't capture lightning in a bottle the way Comedy Central did with Stewart & Colbert, but if things don't improve during the run-up to the 2016 election (I imagine CC's not going to mess with the Noah/Wilmore combination until that's over), I wonder if they'll reevaluate that time slot.

The ratings are not very good. I looked at the ratings for TDS and TCR from exactly a year ago, and TDS had an average of 1.287 million viewers (vs. 770,000 in 2015) and TCR had 1.031 million (vs. 480,000 in 2015). I realize that you can't capture lightning in a bottle the way they did with Stewart & Colbert, but if things don't improve during the run-up to the 2016 election (I imagine Comedy Central's not going to mess with the Noah/Wilmore combination until that's over), I wonder if they'll reevaluate that time slot. I think TNS has improved so much that I hope some of the people who stopped watching after the shaky first couple of months give it another try. As a middle-aged white lady, I think it's fantastic that the panel often features 2 or 3 people of color; it gives me a perspective I don't get elsewhere and I think it's incredibly valuable that these often-marginalized-by-the-MSM voices have an outlet. But I wonder if some viewers find that off-putting. (Adult Swim has 3 times as many viewers as TNS, so maybe people just prefer cartoons at that hour.)

Interesting article on a project to combat food waste in the SF Bay Area. As is the case with many other topics LWT has covered, I've been much more tuned in to the issue of food waste since I saw the segment.

Monday, Oct. 26 Actress Sienna Miller; Actress Melissa Benoist from the CBS drama series “Supergirl”; musical performance by Chance the Rapper Tuesday, Oct. 27 Hillary Clinton; Anthony Bourdain; Author Carrie Brownstein; Lianne La Havas sitting in with Jon Batiste and Stay Human Wednesday, Oct. 28 Actress Julianna Margulies from the CBS drama series “The Good Wife”; Author Jonathan Franzen; musical performance by Alabama Shakes Thursday, Oct. 29 Interview with and musical performance by Seth MacFarlane; Neil DeGrasse Tyson Friday, Oct. 30 Charlie Rose, anchor of “CBS This Morning”; Author Stacy Schiff; musical performance by Ghost; The Zombies sitting with Jon Batiste and Stay Human

Justin Trudeau Headed For Victory In Canada NYT: "For much of the 78-day race, all three major political parties were in a statistical dead heat, according to various polls." I like to think it was John Oliver who gave Trudeau his winning margin.

Mo 10/19: Kevin Smith, Robert Kirkman, Scott Aukerman Tu 10/20: Doug Benson, Tony Hinchcliffe, Esther Povitsky We 10/21: Grace Helbig, Nikki Limo, TBA Th 10/22: Ron Funches, Brian Posehn, Steve Agee

Trevor Noah accused of stealing a joke from Dave Chappelle

I think the dark weeks are set far in advance. Remember, all of the shows ("Daily Show," "Nightly Show" and "@Midnight") are off at the same time, and the latter two haven't been off since Labor Day. This does mean that they'll miss the next Republican debate (scheduled for Oct. 28), but it's not like there won't be loads more to come...

10/19: Martin O’Malley (former Governor of Maryland, Democratic Presidential Candidate) 10/20: Judah Friedlander (comedian & author – promoting book “If the Raindrops United: Drawings and Cartoons”) 10/21: Brie Larson (actress – promoting movie “Room”) 10/22: John Harwood (chief Washington correspondent for CNBC) Week of 10/26: DARK!