This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Monday, June September 08, to midnight on Tuesday, September 09. (8pm Eastern Time).
Got a last-minute commission from a long-time patron. Could I do a couple of pie plates as wedding presents? Two of her nephews were getting married this fall. (Not to each other. That would be weird.)
She wanted them decorated with hearts, with [initials] + [initials] and [date]. So not my style.
I asked if I could zhuzh it up a bit--make the hearts from intertwined branches or flowering vines, add some birdies. Oh yes, that would be lovely. Also got an order from another customer--could a make a dessert plate featuring juvenile blue jays? Stellars, Scrub, Eastern, I asked? Stellars and Eastern, she said.
Of course they'd never be in the same ecosystem, but aren't they cute?
The last two firings, cone 9 has started bending before cone 8, contrary to the natural order. I mentioned it in the shop, and Jon and Linda said they'd seen it too. I noticed that the cone 8's are a new box, while the 9's are an early generation, probably inherited from another retiring potter. I wonder if Orton has changed the formula?
Doesn't really matter that much to me, as cone 10 is the goal. It's just unsettling to see my nicely organized line of cones fall out of sequence.
After a week like I'd had, even a cold, grey, under-performing Saturday Market feels like a respite.
I came in $2.70 in the red, commission from an un-recorded sale on Labor Day, and it took forever to make my first sale. At which point, I was still 20¢ in the hole.
It was another football day, this time against Oklahoma State. Not a lot of visitors this time, and with orange jerseys reading OSU, they might as well have been from Corvallis. Not a lot of visitors, period. I don't think I finally made it into the black, with another mug sale, until nearly noon.
I have a new teddy bear, courtesy of EBay, who joined me at Market, so I got to introduce her to my neighbors, who tolerate my eccentricities, as well as any kids and child-like adults that visited the booth. One such group, mom, dad and daughter had a nice time playing with the bear, then bought an octopus large batter bowl and small bear--appropriately--cookie jar, picked out by the little girl, as gifts.
Remember the couple who bee-lined into my booth last week and bought a couple of tumblers? They said they'd be back again this week, and actually were. Well, she was; he was working. But she'd brought a friend, bought another couple of tumblers and my last large colander. And the friend, who'd never seen my work before, was inspired to but a full table setting, dinner and dessert plates, soup bowl, tall mug. In ten minutes, they doubled my sales total for the day.
I sometimes wonder why I keep at this pottery thing, especially on slow days. But people like these folks, and the ones who stop in to tell me there recognize my work from Great Harvest or Empty Bowls, or use it all the time at home, make it worthwhile.
The sun finally came out around a quarter to three, and though I'd taken the precaution of putting up booth sides--rolled up--and keeping the empty boxes under cover, it never actually rained, so I'm counting it as a win. Sales-wise, it was the slowest day of the year, just under $400, but what the heck else would I be doing?
The forms for Posting Date Claims, Pinch Hit Claims and Check-In #4 are now closed! If you have not claimed a date you are not able to participate in the posting portion, as the form was open for a full extra week and needed to be filled out by all participants who planned on posting.
Posting has begun! You can see all the finished projects on Tumblr by following the "completed shit" tag on our Tumblr (linked for your convenience).
It includes a link to the AO3 collection, a copy of the Bragging Rights templates for both WIPBB authors/WIPRB artists and WIPBB artists/WIPRB authors, and a link to the form you need to submit a link to your bragging rights or finished projects if you signed up and have a check-in ID (pinch hitters don't have to fill that form out). Please use the bragging right template to submit your finished works to either Tumblr or Dreamwidth!
It's always stressful when we roll around into this time of year. Two big shows coming up, needing lots of work. Work that, as it happens, I'd already sold a lot of in August. There's also the issue of fitting in my committee responsibilities around the making and glazing of pots. I'm Graphics chair for both of the aforementioned shows, so have to save some energy and creativity--not to mention time--to design posters, postcards, ads and billboards. It's a lot.
But I felt for once I had a handle on things. I even finished the production run a little early, so I had a couple of extra days for the glazing. What could go wrong?
I first noticed something weird about my glaze the day I started glazing. There were some lumps of unmixed glaze, odd because I screened the whole works when I mixed up the new 20,000-gram batch in August. Didn't feel like getting my screen out, so I grabbed one in the kiln room and ran a bucket of glaze through it. And found a residue of speckled yellow sand in the screen.
This should not be there! Our raw materials are industrially processed, ground to powder and air-floated. Also, I'd screened the glazes once already. What the heck?
I briefly considered mixing an entire new batch of glaze, but we were out of one of the crucial materials, Zircopax--an opacifier, without which, my white glaze... isn't. So I started glazing.
When I got to the second bucket of glaze, I ran it through my usual screen with no residue, but it still felt weirdly gritty. Rescreening with the finer-mesh shop screen once again caught sand. I checked the bins of raw materials and didn't find anything amiss.
It wasn't until midweek, when I decided to fill up unused space in my last bisque firing by calcining more ball clay that I found the culprit. The top layer of the ball clay bin was a different color, yellowish, and when I rubbed some between my fingers, there was the grit. I scraped off as much as I could to get to the white clay at the bottom of the bin, and scooped out as clean a batch as I could.
I still couldn't mix up another batch, but realized I could maybe make do with Tin Oxide instead. It's much more expensive, but you only need half as much. I mixed up a 1000-gram test batch, glazed a bowl. Also glazed another in the suspect glaze, for comparison, took them home to fire to cone 9 in my electric kiln. The color would be wrong, but I could at least check whether things fused properly. At this point, I'd already glazed two-thirds of my bisque, and I was really hoping I wouldn't have to wash it off and start over. (Besides, there wouldn't be time--kiln is booked solid for the rest of the month.)
I spent all day Thursday either on the computer or catching up on errands while waiting, for the results. Of course, that would be the time my kiln errored out without reaching temperature. Twice. It's been taking longer on bisque firings lately, and using more power. Looks like it's time to replace the elements, but that's no help for me now.
One bit of good news, though--our order of Zircopax had finally come in, so I mixed up a 10,000-gram batch of glaze using the--hopefully--pure batch of calcined clay. I also dipped two more test bowls and fired them to cone 6 in the little test kiln at Club Mud, one with the new glaze, one the old. Glazed up my dinner plates, and a couple of special order pie plates. Washed off enough glazed pieces to redo the special orders, so at least those were likely to turn out. Went home around midnight and crashed.
Friday morning brought good news. Even three cones under-fired, both tests were smooth and vitreous. The suspect glaze had a lot of fine speckles, probably from iron in the sandy particles, but in reduction-fired stoneware, iron spots a feature, not a bug.
So I glazed all my remaining pots, the re-glazed orders, the soup bowls, toddlers, about half of the stew mugs and a few cat foods. Finished right at 5:30 pm.
What was going on? I suspect we had a donation of raw materials from a closing studio, and someone put fire clay in the ball clay bin, either mislabeled or through carelessness. I'm hoping that 8% of one clay is enough like another that it will all work out.
Finished Bibliophobia by Sarah Chihaya, a memoir about her relationship to books and the ways this has intertwined with her lifelong mental health struggles, leading up to a nervous breakdown triggered by an inability to write her dissertation and resulting in a period where she was literally unable to read anything, which she names "bibliophobia." Each chapter structured around a different piece of writing of some personal significance: the Anne of Green Gables books, Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, A.S. Byatt's Possession, Anne Carson's poem "The Glass Essay", Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being, Child Ballad 78 ("The Unquiet Grave"), Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai. Most of Chihaya's "framework" books(/poems) were ones I haven't read (yet— I've put holds on The Bluest Eye and Possession, both of which I've long vaguely intended to get around to reading), which was an incidental aspect of this that I actually really liked— less, I don't know, distracting? than if she'd been writing about books I personally had a strong connection to...? Interesting to read a book about the things we seek from books - salvation or explanations or distraction or whatever - because the chance of a mental ouroboros (seeking xyz from a book about seeking xyz from books) is high to inevitable.
Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 41 secrets from Secret Submission Post #974. Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ]. Current Secret Submissions Post:here. Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
California breaking news, crime, politics | The Mercury News (sjmerc_ca_feed) wrote2025-09-0810:29 pm
Sorry EV drivers, you’re about to lose one of your most-coveted perks.
One of California’s longest-running incentives for people to buy electric cars — a program that provides access to carpool lanes regardless of how many people are in their vehicle — is coming to end. The Clean Air Vehicle decal program expires on Sept. 30.
After that, the colorful stickers that have given drivers of Teslas, Priuses, Leafs, Rivians, and other electric vehicles privileges to cruise along the carpool lane during commute times on congested roads like Highway 101 in Silicon Valley, 880 in the East Bay or the 405 freeway in Los Angeles for nearly 25 years will be shut down and the special perks will end. The details:
When will my EV carpool sticker expire?
Midnight on Sept. 30, statewide.
What happens if I am driving in a carpool lane during restricted hours with no passengers after that?
The CHP can pull you over and write you a ticket. Violations of California’s carpool lanes, also known as diamond lanes, or high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, carry fines of $490.
“Starting October 1, 2025, you must obey the posted vehicle occupancy requirement to travel in the carpool (HOV) lane or risk receiving a citation and fine,” the California Department of Motor Vehicles said in a statement.
Why is this happening?
For more than 20 years, federal law has allowed states to decide whether they want to grant carpool-lane access to electric vehicles. The original idea was to provide incentives to sell the vehicles, which reduce air pollution and greenhouse gases.
No. Last year, a Southern California Republican, Assemblyman Greg Wallis of Rancho Mirage, wrote a bill, AB 2678, to extend California’s EV carpool decal program until Jan. 1, 2027. It passed with large bipartisan majorities in Sacramento. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it into law last September. But it won’t take effect unless Congress reauthorizes the program.
There are still three weeks left. Is there any chance Congress will save the program?
Not likely. There is an outside chance that House leaders could jam language at the last minute into a large continuing resolution as part of a compromise to keep funding the federal government after Sept. 30, but experts watching the issue don’t expect it.
“I would put the chances of reauthorization as very slim,” said Bill Magavern, policy director for the Coalition for Clean Air, an environmental group.
Will my EV sticker still get me discounted or free tolls for bridges and in high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes?
What’s the main argument in favor of letting the carpool tags expire?
When the program first began, after former Gov. Gray Davis signed AB 71, a law written by former Republican Assemblyman Jim Cunneen of San Jose in 1999, less than 2% of the cars on the road were electric. Last year in California, 25.3% of the new vehicles sold were electric, according to the California Energy Commission.
In some counties, the number is even higher. In Santa Clara County, a stunning 43.8% of new passenger vehicles purchased last year were “zero emission” — basically electric or plug-in hybrid. In Marin County, it was 40.1%; Alameda County 37.7%; Contra Costa County 32.7%; San Mateo County 25.3% and San Francisco 35.6%. It was 31% in Orange County, and 26.5% in Los Angeles County.
“We think it’s time to return carpool lanes to the carpools. It’s fine for the program to expire,” said Magavern, whose group does not support the program continuing.
Who supports continuing the carpool perk?
Some environmental groups do, along with the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an industry group of automakers, and the California Air Resources Board.
The air board argues that despite huge improvements in recent decades, California still has some of the nation’s dirtiest air (mostly in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley), and for the state to reach its clean air and greenhouse gas goals, more electric vehicles need to keep entering the roads.
What are the ramifications of this change? How will it affect traffic?
Nobody knows for sure. It could add more vehicles to the regular lanes, increasing traffic. It could cause more people to ride to work with others so they can stay in the carpool lane. It might further depress EV sales. They have dipped this year, led by Tesla, the top-selling EV nationwide and in California, in part because many potential buyers in largely Democratic states where the most EVs are purchased are unhappy with Tesla CEO Elon Musk providing $250 million to President Trump’s campaign and helping him fire federal workers through his DOGE program.
Do I have to remove the decal from my vehicle on October 1, 2025?
No. If you want you can take it off. Or you can leave it as a souvenir of a bygone era.
Traffic moves along northbound on the Interstate 880 highway on Monday, Sept. 8, 2025, in Fremont, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
‘Emmys Watch 2025’ showcases critical responses to the series nominated for Outstanding Drama, Outstanding Comedy, and Outstanding Limited Series at that 77th Primetime Emmy Awards. Contributions to this theme explore critical understandings of some series nominated in these categories.
At the climax of the season’s final episode, a character we’ve come to know threatens suicide. He walks to the edge of a train platform, fully prepared to throw himself in front of an oncoming express train. This character has spent the season agonizing over deep personal pain, inflicted on himself and others, his mental health dwindling from an already precarious position. His suicide attempt is the emotional climax of his arc for the season.
To a casual reader, you might assume I’m referring to The Bear; a character being internally tormented to the point of self-harm is as much a neat description of the FX show’s protagonist, Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen-White), as it is of the actual character to whom I’m alluding. Since 2022 and its first season’s exploration of family trauma and workplace drama interwoven with the darkly comedic antics of an eatery in transition, The Bear has gained a reputation for being a deep, dark dramedy; in essence, a series balancing humorous and serious emotional tones and subject matter. It’s also a series whose roots in the funnier side of things havebeenexistentiallycontested. Last year Pop Junctions hosted a brilliant piece by Megan Robinson illustrating the exasperated humor of the second season’s “Fishes” (2023), an episode exploring the familial eruption of the Berzatto clan over a dinner that ends in a literal car crash. It’s true that The Bear has had a knack for knockout humor that can be both subtle and spectacular: I would personally cite “Forks” (2023), the episode focusing on abrasive anti-hero Richie Jerimovich (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) that includes a purgatory of fork-cleaning, a fist-pumping Taylor Swift car karaoke moment and a pizza preparation that’s shot and soundtracked like a Mission Impossible ticking clock action beat. However, despite its humor The Bear has dwelt in storytelling realms involving mental health, self-harm, personal meltdowns and suicide; to assume the character in the first paragraph comes from The Bear wouldn’t be a stretch.
But the character in the first paragraph isn’t from The Bear: it’s Shrinking’s Louis Winston (Brett Goldstein), the repentant barista who accidentally killed the wife of Jimmy Laird (Jason Segel) in a car crash. Louis’s suicide attempt, halted by Jimmy in the final scene of “The Last Thanksgiving” (2024), is a dark turn that’s treated seriously and lacks any kind of comedic or lighthearted undertone until Jimmy’s arrival. In isolation, the scene and the ones leading up to it, where Louis is slowly spurned by his co-workers and disinvited from their Thanksgiving party once they learn of his past, wouldn’t be indicative of what many might consider a “comedy”. But as part of the larger narrative tapestry of Shrinking – which, yes, includes a lot of laughs – it’s representative of the kind of dramedy The Bear used to represent.
The Bear: Nominated for Outstanding comedy series
Shrinking: nominated fr outstanding comedy series
Before I explain further, a few caveats. First, I put aside the Television Academy’s frankly unhelpful rules about genre eligibility; saying a series should have “the majority of its running time of at least six episodes [being] primarily comedic” does not provide firm guidance on genre rules. Where once The Bear might have fit that bill, I argue it has since outgrown it. Second, I don’t wish to turn this piece into a reductive delimiting of the types and trends of comedy that pigeon-hole shows into narrow definitions of genre. Part of the appeal of genre’s mutable edges is to make texts slippery, mixing and reconfiguring to present something new. Jacques Derrida’s influential paper ‘The Law of Genre’ (1980) invites this kind of slippage when he highlights the ability for texts to undergo “a sort of participation without belonging – a taking part in without being part of” multiple genres (p. 59). Both The Bear and Shrinking mix heavy subject matter with comedic frames featuring jokester characters, silly plots and humorous dialogue, showcasing mental health and trauma alongside farce and wry asides. Respective first season episodes “Review” (The Bear, 2022) and “Imposter Syndrome” (Shrinking, 2023) are potently dramatic, yet supremely funny examples demonstrating both shows’ dramedy strengths.
Despite how it might have begun, The Bear has inched further from comedy to focus on drama in its third season. Competing against Shrinking’s second season for Outstanding Comedy Series at this year’s Emmys, The Bear’s third season doubles down on character development that is galvanised by interpersonal drama, contemplative cinematography and a morose atmosphere at the expense of brevity, wit or warmth. The season’s tone is set by its first and best episode, “Tomorrow” (2024), an absorbing half-hour collage of non-linear, largely dialogue-free flashbacks briefly intercut with present-day scenes, entirely scored by an immaculate Nine Inch Nails cue. There is a near-absence of humor in “Tomorrow” and its temporal vignettes; exploring Carmy’s workplace trauma under Chef David (Joel McHale) and its enduring influence on his work ethic, taunting the viewer with scenes of his happy relationship with Claire (Molly Gordon) set prior to their rupture at the end of the second season, further highlights his dysfunctional familial relationships before and after the suicide of his brother Mikey (Jon Bernthal). The episode’s quiet, foreboding and low-energy pacing is shot through almost all subsequent episodes, underscoring the season’s main plotlines including Carmy’s failure to reconcile with Claire, Sydney’s (Ayo Edibiri) indecision regarding co-ownership of The Bear, the tension surrounding a food critic’s forthcoming review, and the shock closing of the hugely successful neighboring restaurant Ever, where both Carmy and Richie staged. When things are funny, they’re either perfunctory or all-too-brief, as in the flashback episode “Napkins” (2024) and its warm ending chat between Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) and Mikey; their banter and repartee cap a lengthy episode that excruciatingly details Tina’s forced redundancy and failed attempts to find a new job. In some cases the season’s humor has even been a sourceoffrustration for viewers and critics, as in “Children” (2024)’s focus on the Fak family – the series’ primary comedic relief characters – and the stunt cast appearance of their relative played by an able but out of-place John Cena.
john cena in The bear (“children”, season 3)
Don’t get me wrong: The Bear is still a superb series. Throughout its third season – and its more recent fourth, calling ahead to what will surely be another nomination next year – The Bear is a show that excels at introspective and interpersonal character drama. I’d argue that its “serious” elements are what appeal most to creator and showrunner Christopher Storer, who directed seven, and wrote or co-wrote eight, of the season’s ten episodes. Its cast is high-caliber and absolutely deserving of their many accolades. Its cinematography, soundtrack, editing and production are worthy of high praise. Several of its episodes – “Tomorrow”, “Napkins” and the episode-long pre-service meeting of “Next” (2024) – are sublime pieces of television. The Bear is still worthy of acclaim. It’s just, unfortunately, not much of a funny show anymore.
By contrast, Shrinking is a very funny show despite its at-times similarly bleak subject matter. As with The Bear, Shrinking’s second season darkens its tone at the end of its first episode “Jimmying” (2024) by introducing Louis, the source of Jimmy’s grief that sets up the show’s initial premise. Jimmy’s gradual progression towards recognition and acceptance of Louis’s genuine repentance is the emotional spine of the season, interspersed with plenty of the light-hearted yet character-driven storytelling that made its first season successful. An episode like “Last Drink” (2024) exemplifies this balance: on one hand there’s the drama of the car accident’s aftermath and the final bourbon Paul (Harrison Ford) shares with Jimmy before he quits drinking; on the other, there’s the endearing goofiness of Louis justifying his ownership of a Miss Congeniality poster to his girlfriend Sarah (Meredith Hagner), and Derek’s (Ted McGinley) visit to Mac’s (Josh Hopkins) dog-pictured microbrewery and his subsequent inability to be mad at Mac for kissing his wife.
The abundance of chuckles in Shrinking’s dialogue, set pieces and character beats also makes the second season’s other grounded plot elements even more potent. As examples, Brian (Michael Urie) and Charlie (Devin Kawaoka) face set-backs in their quest for adoption, but deal with them in part thanks to a hilarious oceanic group therapy session in “Get In The Sea” (2024); Paul’s Parkinson’s diagnosis further impacts his health, but he loses little of his cantankerous wit when dealing with Jimmy or when forging a new friendship with his quirky former patient Raymond (Neil Flynn); Gaby (Jessica Williams) verbally spars with her recovering addict sister Courtney (Courtney Taylor) over the care of their elderly mother (Vernee Watson), but processes this in part thanks to her awkwardly endearing relationship with Derrick #2 (Damon Wayans Jr.). Both drama and comedy genres are consistently woven well together in service to each other, the end result usually moves the audience towards a smile, if not always a laugh.
shrinking (“get in the sea”, season 2)
To that end, Shrinking is a dramedy that gestures towards a heightened sense of reality. In a manner like creator Bill Lawrence’s previous work on Scrubs (2001-2010) and Ted Lasso (2020-2023), Shrinking’s second season exists in a world where a therapist can get away with significant substance abuse and illegal actions with his patients without losing his licence. A major scene in “Last Drink” is Brian recounting the history of his and Alice’s (Lukita Maxwell) meetings with Louis to a devastated Jimmy; the emotionally heavy confrontation is made lighter by Brian’s exaggerated accents, performative gestures and verbal diarrhea. For a more subtle example from the same episode, Liz’s (Christa Miller) anguished attempt to phone Derek in the wake of her infidelity leads to Derek rejecting her call while making breakfast for his friends in Gaby’s kitchen. Though the weight of the moment isn’t fully lost, the downbeat score of the scene and Derek’s understandably sad expression are briefly and comedically undercut by the sight gag of the Caucasian Derek wearing a borrowed apron emblazoned with “My Black Ass Can Cook”. Despite its move into deeper dramatic territory than its first season explored, Shrinking never forgets its comedic frame exists to serve that drama. Even the season’s darkest moment, Louis’s suicide attempt, is tempered by the subsequent game Jimmy plays with Louis in trying to guess the identities of other commuters on the train platform – something Louis used to do with his girlfriend – without losing any of its dramatic potency. Shrinking is a show whose comedy leans towards hope, even if there’s some darkness on the way to the light at tunnel’s end, and which takes itself seriously but only to a point. It’s a comedy first, and a drama second.
The Bear has become the reverse: a drama series that infrequently employs comedy in a world far more grounded than Shrinking’s. While The Bear’s third season is earnest in how it tackles topics of family, connection and personal growth, it does so without Shrinking’s comedic approach to teasing out drama and in a manner that prioritises realistic impact. Emotionally devastating moments are largely played straight in episodes that rarely contrast with humor for long. Consider “Ice Chips” (2024), the episode focusing on Sugar (Abby Elliott) in labor while unwillingly being assisted by her estranged mother Donna (Jamie-Lee Curtis). As the closest analog to the second season’s “Fishes” it similarly employs the stressful, exasperated family humor that Robinson explored in her Pop Junctions piece, but with its micro focus on Sugar and Donna –the only main characters seen until the episode’s ending – “Ice Chips” unpacks more of their strained personal relationship and attempts to reconcile, both of which largely elide humor. Much of “Ice Chips” is a serious moment of emotional catharsis for both mother and daughter as the latter enters motherhood herself. While uplifting, and ultimately heartfelt, the drama is given priority over the (very sparse) comedy.
The same favoring of drama over comedy is true of The Bear’s third season finale, “Forever” (2024). Aside from Luca’s (Will Poulter) fannish inquisition of a celebrity chef and Richie’s reuniting with the team at Ever who he met when staging, the episode is a largely dour, somber “funeral” for Ever’s closure. Key scenes explore Carmy’s failed attempt to confront Chef David over their traumatic work relationship, Sydney’s continued agonizing over signing The Bear’s co-owner documents while being courted for Adam’s (Adam Shapiro) new restaurant, and several real-world celebrity chefs exhorting the benefits of culinary work and the connections made by food. In an inverse of Shrinking’s finale capping a dark moment with light, “Forever” concludes with a fun impromptu party for the Ever crew in Sydney’s apartment – right before Sydney abruptly has a panic attack and the critic’s review of The Bear is finally released. Sydney’s panic and Carmy’s upset reaction to the (presumably negative) review end the season with an ominous “To Be Continued”.
the bear (“forever, season 3)
In the end, what are we left with for these two Emmy contenders for Outstanding Comedy Series?
If asked the question “Is The Bear a comedy?”, I would have said “Yes” for its first season, “Somewhat” for its second, and “Not really” for its third (and, for that matter, its fourth). Drama can certainly bring the funnies, but I would argue that—to be a dramedy—the overall tone and approach to narrative needs some kind of a levity, a quirkiness, a wry wit or even black comedy undergirding that supports its storytelling with just a dash of distance from realism; in this regard, The Bear’s third season fails to deliver. Recalling the slippery nature of genre and Derrida’s idea of participation without belonging, the season could have shifted nomination gears and really shaken up the Emmys’ attempts at categorization. If The Bear’s third season had instead competed for Outstanding Drama Series – against such shows as The Pitt (2025), Severance (2022-2025) and The White Lotus (2021-2025) that are similarly dramas effectively using comedy for key moments – I could see an intriguing battle taking place. As it stands, in a manner similar to Hacks (2021-2025) and its deserved victory last year, we’re more likely to see The Bear pipped at the post in favor of The Studio (2025) as the current favourite to win Outstanding Comedy. The Bear no longer feels like a comedy.
Concurrently, if asked the question “Is Shrinking a comedy?”, despite its second season’s heavier themes, further unpacking of grief and deeper focus on mental health, my emphatic and enthusiastic “Yes” is supported by the show’s expert (though not always perfect) genre-mixing. In the grand tradition of prior Outstanding Comedy winners Ted Lassoand Hacks, Shrinking threads the needle by being truly funny and deeply dramatic when needed. Maybe in future The Bear’s Carmy could lie on the couch to benefit from Jimmy’s therapizing and absorb some of Shrinking’s comedic spirit.
Or perhaps, much like the restaurant’s transformation from The Beef to The Bear, the series could end its Comedy service and reopen to a different audience next year as a contender for Best Drama Series. Go on, Television Academy and Emmy voters. Let it rip.
Chris Comerford is a Lecturer in Communication and Media at the University of Wollongong, Australia. His research explores digital and screen media developments, fan cultures, serious leisure and digital pedagogies. Chris’s current project is an analysis of television's shifting cultural, social and industrial boundaries in the streaming era. He is the author of Cinematic Digital Television: Negotiating the Nexus of Production, Reception and Aesthetics (Routledge, 2022).
CONCORD — A 39-year-old man has been charged with murder for allegedly killing a man by punching him a single time, according to court records.
Isileli Lolohea, of Concord, was charged with murder in the death of Daniel Barber, a Concord resident in his 30s, during an Oct. 6, 2024 argument at an encampment in Concord’s industrial district near Highway 4. After the 6-foot, 265-pound Lolohea punched Barber, the victim allegedly fell down a small incline and remained there until another person discovered him and called 911, authorities said.
Barber was pronounced dead a short time later at a hospital.
Prosecutors charged Lolohea in late July. He was arrested Aug. 28, and remains jailed without bail, court records show. His next court date has been set for Friday.
Authorities haven’t revealed the subject of the argument, but say Lolohea made no attempt to assist Barber after punching him in the head.
Strangely, Concord had just three homicides in 2024, and two of them occurred on Oct. 6, 2024. At around 7:45 p.m. that day, a 33-year-old man was struck and killed near a gas station on the 2800 block of Grant Street in what police say was an intentional crash. A relative of the victim was charged with murder.
Title: the nightmare scenario Fandom: Superior Iron Man comics / Marvel 616 Rating: G Content notes: None apply Summary: icons of covers of issues of Superior Iron Man comics
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fandom_checkin2025-09-08 06:10 pm
After a week like I'd had, even a cold, grey, under-performing Saturday Market feels like a respite.
Last week was... challenging. 
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