Open Levinson

Paul Levinson's Open Salon Blog

Paul Levinson

Paul Levinson
Location
New York City, New York, USA
Birthday
March 25
Title
Professor
Company
Fordham University
Bio
Paul Levinson's The Silk Code won the 2000 Locus Award for Best First Novel. He has since published Borrowed Tides (2001), The Consciousness Plague (2002), The Pixel Eye (2003), and The Plot To Save Socrates (2006). His science fiction and mystery short stories have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, and Sturgeon Awards. His eight nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997), Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003), and Cellphone (2004), have been the subject of major articles in the New York Times, Wired, the Christian Science Monitor, and have been translated into ten languages. New New Media, exploring how Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and blogging have changed our lives, was published in September 2009. Paul Levinson appears on "The O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News), "The CBS Evening News," the “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” (PBS), “Nightline” (ABC), and numerous national and international TV and radio programs. He reviews the best of television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog. Paul Levinson is Professor of Communication & Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City

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JANUARY 5, 2012 6:11PM

NCIS 9.12: DiNozzo and ...

NCIS was back on Tuesday with its first episode of the new year - 9.12 - which got me thinking about the new form of story telling NCIS has quietly adopted:  End the previous season with a series of cliff-hangers or at least questions.  But then, rather than resolving all of/… Read full post »
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JANUARY 4, 2012 5:22PM

What the Iowa Caucus Results Show about Campaign Financing

There has been much outrage expressed - by unlikely allies Newt Gingrich and Chris Matthews - about the baneful influence of political commercials financed by big money groups not specifically affiliated with any candidate.  Gingrich, who came in 4th in Iowa, and Matthews of MSNBC, specifically… Read full post »
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JANUARY 3, 2012 12:29PM

Why Obama Was So Wrong to Sign the NDAA into Law

On the last day of 2011, Obama signed into law what may well be the worse piece of legislation to come across his desk.   The NDAA - the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 - has actually been on the books since 2008, and has language that authorizes indefinite… Read full post »
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JANUARY 1, 2012 11:35PM

Hell on Wheels 1.8: Mutiple Tracks

A good Hell on Wheels 1.8 on New Year's Day tonight - on our New Years' Day that is - and as for its being good, that's been true of every episode in this fine new, too-short series, due to end its first season just two weeks from tonight.

The main, specific,/… Read full post »
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JANUARY 1, 2012 3:17AM

Timcast on UStream Doing Great Covering NYPD Violation of First Amendment Tonight

In between the usual New Year's Eve celebrations, I've been watching Timcast and his live UStream coverage of Occupy Wall Street, and the New York City Police (NYPD) once again violating the protesters' First Amendment rights.

I'm going to continue to talk even more about this trampling of the First A/… Read full post »
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DECEMBER 30, 2011 9:42PM

Four Important Documentaries in 2011

Looking back at 2011, I would say that it was a great year for documentaries.  Here are four that I had the pleasure to see, learned a lot from, and reviewed.  They are listed in date order, because ranking them would be apples and oranges.  The dates and links are those… Read full post »
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DECEMBER 26, 2011 11:03PM

Who's the Leak on The Closer, Part 2

With The Closer now ending its Winter 2011 season, and only six episodes left to go this coming Summer of 2012, it seems a good time to ask, what more have we learned about who's the leak on The Closer - who on Brenda Leigh Johnson's team, largely defined to include/… Read full post »
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DECEMBER 26, 2011 8:42PM

Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol

Mission Impossible is back with its 4th movie, and one of the best - well, better than the 3rd, which was pretty good, but I'm not sure about the 1st and 2nd movies in the franchise, which were each in their own ways superb.

Alias, Lost, and Fringe fans (I'm a big/… Read full post »
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DECEMBER 26, 2011 2:34PM

Unforgettable

Bopping in here with a review of Unforgettable - not the Nat King Cole song, the new CBS series - which I've been watching this Fall, so far, 11 episodes, but haven't had a chance to review.

It's a good set-up - Carrie an NYPD detective has a better than photographic memory/… Read full post »
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DECEMBER 24, 2011 2:59PM

CNN Distorts Ron Paul Interview

I should have known better.  When I saw Ron Paul stalk off after a few questions from Gloria Borger about the racist statements published under his name in his newsletter in the late 1980s / early 1990s, I should have suspected that there might well have been more to the interview.

I/… Read full post »
2 Comments
DECEMBER 23, 2011 7:18PM

Prime Suspect Locked Away

NBC broadcast one of the final episodes of its short-lived new series, Prime Suspect, last night.

Too bad.  The show has a stellar cast - Maria Bello (ER), Brían F. O'Byrne (Brotherhood, Flashforward), Kirk Acevedo (Fringe!), Kenny Johnson (The Shield!!), to name just a few.  You can't get/… Read full post »
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DECEMBER 19, 2011 10:28PM

Terra Nova Season One Finale

Well, Terra Nova saved it up for its season one finale just concluded on Fox tonight - and, with this season cut short, and a second not yet announced, this may well have been the series finale.  More would be the pity.  Tonight's two hours were the best since the two-hour/… Read full post »
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DECEMBER 19, 2011 2:26AM

Homeland Concludes First Season: Exceptional

Homeland wrapped up its excellent first season on Showtime tonight,  in a fine, intense, thornily surprising package - that turned out not to be wrapped up at all, i.e., the best kind of package for a season finale.

Dana - Brody's daughter - pretty much plays the most pivotal role.  She real/… Read full post »
2 Comments
DECEMBER 18, 2011 10:27PM

Dexter Season 6 Finale: Through the Eyes of a Different Love

Well, I've been predicting all season that what we see in the very last scene of the Dexter Season 6 finale would happen - in fact, it's been in the cards, lurking behind almost every scene, for years.   It had to happen, sooner or later.   Dexter had been living on the/… Read full post »
4 Comments
DECEMBER 16, 2011 6:51PM

Person of Interest 1.10: Carter Returns the Favor

Person of Interest percolated along quite well last night in episode 1.10, which featured Carter coming into the fold - or, at least, saving Reese and Finch from CIA operatives intent on killing Reese and Finch, too, if he got in the way.

How did we and Carter get there?

Well, Resse saved/… Read full post »
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DECEMBER 13, 2011 2:03AM

Hell on Wheels 1.6: Horse vs. Rail

Well, the iron horse beat the flesh-and-blood kind in Hell on Wheels 1.6 last evening, as it always did in the long run - of any track and any history.   And in this episode, the victory of the stoked engine symbolized the victory of the Industrial Revolution, which was just beginning,/… Read full post »
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DECEMBER 12, 2011 12:34AM

Boardwalk Empire Season 2 Finale: Stunner!

I love being wrong in my predictions about how plots and seasons end on television - it's a large part of what makes television great.

And, yeah, did I get the end of this superb season of Boardwalk Empire - its second season - wrong.

I predicted that Nucky and Jimmy would have/… Read full post »
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DECEMBER 11, 2011 9:57PM

Dexter and Debra: Dexter 6.11

Sometimes the next-to-last show of a season is even better than the finale.  I was thinking that about Dexter 6.11, until the coming attractions to next week's finale.

But here's the astonishing thing about 6.11.  I've been saying for a while that Dexter and Debra's relationship was going to/… Read full post »
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DECEMBER 11, 2011 5:13PM

Person of Interest 1.9: Evolution of the Series

Well, Detective Carter finally gets more than an incidental, annoying role in Person of Interest 1.9 - she's the target, the number that comes up, and the episode gives us a pretty good story of Carter's background, who would want to kill her, and Reese and Finch's increasingly desperate moves to/… Read full post »
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DECEMBER 9, 2011 7:23PM

More Lies from Mayor "I Have an Army" Bloomberg about OWS and the Press

According to Mayor Michael "I Have an Army"  Bloomberg, talking on radio this morning about the criticism he's received about preventing the press from covering his eviction of Occupy Wall Street protesters from Zuccotti Park, “We didn’t keep anybody from reporting, they just had to stand to/
… Read full post »
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DECEMBER 8, 2011 9:53PM

Bones 7.5: "Sexy Vehicle"

An extreme-weather Bones 7.5 - Bones' "first tornado," as she notes - with some great wind-blown shots, humor abounding, all topped off with Grandpa Z Z Top in town to take care of Angela and Hodgins' baby (all smiles, and delightful).

The "sexy vehicle" is Sweets' line, about a tornado-hunting truck,/… Read full post »
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DECEMBER 7, 2011 11:01PM

Hell on Wheels: Blood, Sweat, and Tears on The Tracks, and the Telegraph

Thought it was time that I rolled in with a review of Hell on the Wheels, which rolled out its 5th episode on AMC this past Sunday.

I gotta first say that AMC has been coming up with nothing but aces with its series.  From Mad Men to Breaking Bad to The… Read full post »
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DECEMBER 5, 2011 12:52PM

Boardwalk Empire 2.11: Gillian and Jimmy

No shows nails it to the wall, follows through to the max with its implications, as much as Boardwalk Empire this season.   There's been sexual tension between Jimmy and his mother - who looks young and hot enough for a man of any age to want to bed - from the/… Read full post »
2 Comments
DECEMBER 5, 2011 2:36AM

Dexter's Take on Video Games in 6.10

Well, Dexter weighs in with his take on violent video games in episode 6.10 tonight - namely, Masuka's assistant's creation of a new video game where the player can be a real serial killer.  Much to Dexter's discomfort, the list of serial killers includes the Bay Harbor Butcher - aka him,… Read full post »
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DECEMBER 4, 2011 10:25PM

Dexter's Sister on The Good Wife 3.10

Television has come a long way from the days when a star could not be on more than one series in the same season.   Tonight, Dexter's sister - or, more precisely, Jennifer Carpenter, who plays Debra so well on Dexter - was not only on Dexter, but on The Good Wife,/… Read full post »
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