Two things…

First, the new Magma is out. Oh happy day. I’d state the title but my Kobian spelling and umlauting is awful. But if it’s anywhere near a fraction as good as KA is (and considering I’ve heard the whole thing live anyway I suspect it will be), I’ll be very, very happy. They’re still one of the greatest bands of any age and I ordered my CD post haste. Can’t wait. Besides, a skit in Kobaian by Christian, Stella and Vander? Is this the first crack in the exterior? Are those age lines in Christian’s scowl or a hint of a smile?

Second, video game crack is Borderlands. As my pad gets messier and my obligations and other dreams are pushed aside, as I neglect friends and family, as even the new Dragon Age: Origins waits untried, all I can think of is just 30 more minutes please. OK maybe an hour. Oh how did I ever live without a tivo. Is it full yet? No. good.  Oh did that expensive incense stick just burn all the way through without me noticing it? Oh wait that was a few days ago. Let me shoot just one more skag. OK and those bandits. But I could get a much better shotgun. Mine can electrify but the one I have for level 22 is even better. No, I don’t need sleep anymore, they’ll just have to put up with the snoring at work. But wait maybe I can buy a second 360 for work, if I just keep the volume down. Kee-hee another varmint toast. OK I need y’all to clear out, I’ve got a lot of things I need to catch up on and no please don’t turn on the lights…

Fritz Leiber – “Coming Attraction,” “The Dead Man,” “Nice Girl with Five Husbands,” “Cry Witch!”; Lucius Shepard – Life During Wartime; Dead Space

Am getting a lot of reading done of late.

Zoran Zivkovic – The Fourth Circle, Robert Anton Wilson – Sex, Drugs and Magick; Joe R. Lansdale – The Shadows, Kith and Kin, Fritz Leiber “The Ship Sails at Midnight,” “The Enchanted Forest,” “Later Than You Think”

Zoran Zivkovic’s “The Fourth Circle” was the Serbian’s (I hope I got that right) debut novel in his original language, although it made it as a translation some time after that. It’s a bizarre piecemeal sort of science fiction book that throws together alien races and historical and fictional characters into a soup that progresses like a mystery. It hops around not only from the perspective of the aliens but primarily that of an artificial intelligence and a monastic like figure who works with an artist as they encounter mystery in the symbolism of the circle. Gradually these point of views are mixed in with four different scientists, including Archimedes and Stephen Hawking, including a wild and hilariously outlandish sequence where the immobile Hawking is drawn into a bizarre fantasy of his nurse’s. Later in the book the point of view switches to Sherlock Holmes’ sidekick Dr. Watson, a milieu where strangely enough the author of the Holmes books Arthur Conan Doyle is actually a part of, surmising a slightly different world. All of the pieces come together quite well in the end, nothing particularly surprising from a science fictional point of view but not unsatisfying either. Certainly I look forward to checking out some more of the author’s work as this struck me as wildly imaginative if not quite perfectly realized.

Joe R. Lansdale – Vanilla Ride, Joe R. Lansdale – Bumper Crop, Star Ocean: The Last Hope

I go through weird phases in my reading and I’m realizing that one of the best things I can do to start a new phase is by reading something that’s easy to read. Lately I’ve gotten about 100+ pages into Alastair Gray’s Lanark, but its very Kafka-esque feel to it has left me cooling towards the book despite its set up of an intriguing mystery and out of order narrative structure and ultimately cooling me down on reading.

Parsons robbed

Just gotta say it, Jim Parsons was robbed of the Emmy on Sunday by Alec Baldwin. After watching the Big Bang Theory Season 3 premiere, even more convinced. Ratings on Monday even surpassed its lead in, Two and a Half Men, of late the #1 comedy on TV. Seriously why aren’t you watching Big Bang Theory yet?!?! Downright funniest show since Seinfeld.

Edward Whittemore – Sinai Tapestry, Conan (game), Clark Ashton Smith – Tales of Zothique

Edward Whittemore’s Quin’s Shanghai Circus is a stone classic in my book, one of the tightest, most profound books I’ve ever read. It’s rare in that it not only has a totally compelling plot and middle but the opening sequence is amazing (hooked almost instantly) and the ending is truly one of the most cosmic, deeply and emotionally affecting conclusions to a book. And I hate endings usually, I rarely find any book’s finale so perfect. So it was with some trepidation that I started Sinai Tapestry, which is the first of a quartet and also the first of Whittemore’s last five books. Which is why it has been a couple years since I read Quin’s, I’m almost afraid to run out of Whittemore.

Unsurprisingly Sinai Tapestry isn’t as good or as whole of a book as Quin’s, but I’ll suggest that’s partially because it doesn’t have a comparable ending to its beginning and middle, in fact I’d say that the last 30 or 40 pages wasn’t nearly as strong as the rest of the book, which indeed was on par with his first book. Whittemore’s one of the most cosmic, evocative writers I can think of, he manages to evoke so much energy and mysticism with only a smattering of words, as if he’s a master of the duality of complexity and simplicity, each revolving round and round as one elucidates the other. He’s also a master of creating almost extraordinarily large characters, memorable people who arise out of bizarre conditions and excruciating pasts. In Sinai Tapestry you meet a gigantic deaf man who’s a product of a bizarre and wealthy English heritage who becomes a botanist. Another is a monk whose discovery of a vastly different original bible (an alternate Codex Sinaiticus) causes him to go to extreme ends to forge a different document and bury the original whose discovery would otherwise change the world, which causes him to go completely insane. And an Irish freedom fighter who takes on the English army by himself before he’s almost tracked down, leaving to Israel disguised as a nun, later befriending an old man wearing the mask of a Crusader who claims to have lived for millenia, defending Jerusalem from all its usurpers. These people and the generations after, are woven together in a tapestry that at its heart shows great compassion, not only in the aftermath of short and sweet romances that fall apart to the suffering of all, but in their greater ideals, to see a city and region riven by centuries of war finally heal itself. There seems to be an almost unwritten idea that there is little difference between the idea of an overall guiding hand causing synchronicities and the randomness of humanity as it struggles with its animal/divine dualistic nature and this is where Whittemore always succeeds greatly, his people not only are larger than life in many ways but they’re real human beings at heart.

Overall, the climax is different yet similar to the massive tragedy at the heart of Quin’s Shanghai Circus, but while that book wraps up its entirely with one of the best, most cosmic climaxes in literature, Sinai Tapestry seems a bit more rushed, and overall somewhat unfinished. But fortunately there are three more books to come with characters in this book crossing over into the next. And from what I’ve read, the second, Jerusalem Poker, appears to be the pinnacle of his work, so I can hardly wait, even if I still have that urge to stretch Whittemore’s five books as long as I can.

Conan, the XBox 360 game, at least to me seems a bit closer to the original Robert E. Howard milieu and character than the movies although I still think they’re going too much brute and too little finesse with the use of Ron Perlman as voice, who seems particularly unenthusiastic in his voice acting during this story. In Howard’s original mythos, you’re always reminded that while Conan is barbarian, he’s also instinctively intelligent in a way that later incarnations never seem to get quite right.

But of course this is an Xbox 360 hack and slash game for the most part, although it does provide some puzzles to solve, most of which are pretty easy with a bit of thought. You’re third person and are given the option of two weapon, weapon and shield and two handed weapon styles of fighting, all of which have role playing like improvement scales, which come in a bewildering variety of button pushing sequences, many of which were often difficult for an aging guy like me to remember (not to mention I got through almost the entire game without even using parry very often). Once you get the hang of the controls, it turns out to be a lot of fun as you fend of hordes of enemies, punctuated with level ending boss fights, of which these are both the most fun and frustrating parts of the games.

First up in the frustrating category, however, are the jump sequences. I found that for most of the precarious jumps, your leaping point was actually graphically a millimeter after the precipice you were jumping from, playing havoc with timing and causing me, in parts, to spend dozens of times just trying to get through a sequence. Second, in the climaxes of many of the boss fights, you spend a lot of time trying to hack the boss up in the right manner only to be sent into a sequence of split second, multi four-button pushes that were easily missed, only to be knocked apart and sent back to fighting the boss. These were particularly frustrating in the latter stages of the game. Perhaps slightly less frustrating was these button pushes show up during some pretty breathtaking cut scene like sequences that I would have enjoyed getting a better look at, in fact the great joy of the boss battles where that they were multipart and epic with all kinds of gigantic moves that were a lot of fun to witness. And I’ll give it to the game, only rarely were the save sequences or restarts inconvenient, which is nice as repeating long difficult segments are one of the most irritating parts of most poorly realized games.

Graphics were pretty great overall and certainly they brought to life Cimmeria and, later, Stygia in equal measure, with scenarios from pirate isles, to a very cool fight with a giant squid like creature on board a ship, to lost cities and big temples. For a game that was really cheap when I ended up buying it (the benefits of getting an Xbox 360 3 years after it was originally released is you can lay back and wait for $55 games to drop into the $10-$20 range) I found this a good buy with the challenges all in the reasonable category. I felt even with difficult boss fights that repeats helped to learn better strategy; in the end only the button presses, which I finally got right of course, were a pain. But yes, this is definitely early 20th century, misogynist sort of fantasy as one gets bonus points from rescuing robot-like topless maidens, but hey at least that’s true to Howard, right?

And remotely in the same sort of feel is Clark Ashton Smith’s Tales of Zothique. I kind of started reading this collection of stories because the fourth volume of collected Smith stories from Night Shade was due out and not only that but late (I just barely held back from posting a diatribe on this company’s rather poor customer service and communication here) and I was ready for another Smith fix after reading Necronomicon Press’s Hyperborea collection years ago. Zothique’s often considered his best cycle and it’s easy to see why. Smith brings a poetic beauty to what is a dark and horrible dying earth milieu where corrupt kings and necromancers conjure up dreadful and pandimensional evils. Each one of his stories bespeaks of the doom of the protagonists, often common soldiers or unwary lovers deigning to rescue their beloved drawn into the vast, uncaring netherworld of uncaring royalty who live lavish and greedy lives and who snuff out lives at barely a whim. In other stories the royalty also gets their penance by crossing their own or other powerful sorcerers. The spectre of early Lord Dunsany reigns pretty heavy over this milieu in both its cosmic size and epic nature, but Dunsany was never so brutal and chilling and despite the Hyperborea cycle having much more overtly in common with Lovecraft’s Cthulhy mythos, this too is riddled with eldritch horror, black curses and an uncaring cosmos. While I think the typical criticisms applied to Lovecraft also apply to Smith, such as cipher characters and an overreliance on drippy adjectives, at the same length so much fantasy today could use such a sense of depth and poetic description, as well as creepiness, as much as we can do without primitive racial stereotypes. But overall I think this is the well, at least in part, where great writers like Jack Vance, not to mention video game designers like those who worked on Conan, got their amazing visual evocativeness from.

The Listening Log I

Here’s a rough list of blurbs of things I’ve been finding cool over the last so many years in a sort of random, rambling, haphazard fashion… After the cut

Brooks Hansen – The Chess Garden, Paul Di Filippo – Lost Pages, Torchwood – Children of Earth

I mentioned I had finished Brooks Hansen’s The Chess Garden a week or so ago. It’s a book I probably started a year or two ago, before I had a several month period lull where I wasn’t reading too much as I got a new TV and Xbox 360 and had to take time to absorb them into a multitasking personal regime, which I’ve managed to more or less (and I’ve spent the last month reintegrating my music hobby back in with all of these).

Anyway I mention this because it didn’t take me that long based on anything about the book. Quite to the contrary the book is a masterpiece, just a singularly accomplished novel (or perhaps mosaic novel). First of all the book is basically “straight” fiction, except that maybe 3/4 of it reads like a fantasy in the vein of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. This 3/4 is broken up into 12 letters which are sent home by the protagonist, a Dutch doctor who lived in the late 19th/early 20th century, from South Africa where the doctor went at the twilight of his life. The letters (and the fictional stories within in) are basically to his wife and his community and they are basically about his journey to and within an island called the Antipodes, somewhere in the southern hemisphere, which is populated by chess and other game pieces. Interspersed within these letters, which are read to the community he ended up in the United States (which was where he and his wife lived and set up the Chess Garden, a place which became sort of the central meeting place of the community both while he lived there and after he had left) is the man’s biography which recounts in a much drier fashion the man’s youth, how he met his wife, his work in Germany and subsequent difficulties and then onto what is a spiritual change of some sort that almost acts as the center of the novel and sort of shines a light on the entire book.

This would be basically his subtly handled conversion to Swedenborgian Christianity, a type of mysticism even fairly unique from, say, Rosicrucianism and other forms of Christian mysticism. I’m not blowing a plot point by saying this so much as it’s handled in a third person voice and discussed as a matter of theory, but what it does is make one muse on all the letters that have been recounted so far in terms of whether they are an allegory of this philosophy. And perhaps it’s done to keep one guessing as the philosophy itself is played fairly subtly until one absolutely profound recounting towards the end of the book which happens before the doctor leaves for South Africa during a conversation with a man researching mysticism. In it, perhaps, it brings thought to a religion that in many ways and hands has grown utterly static and mired in doctrine and rules over the years and shows why the Bible isn’t the enemy of mysticism it’s often perceived to be by more fundamentalist types, but that it actually can be read in profoundly different ways.

The Doctor’s journey in the Antipodes, while brimming with invention and creativity rarely seen in fantasy, also deals with heady philosophical concepts. As the Doctor learns during his travels, all concepts hold within themselves an original and perfect conception of each one, a reification that’s dealt with as the Doctor discovers that no matter what object exists, there’s a perfect version of it that a mysterious group of people (or chessmen rather) is trying to destroy. The theory early on is that if such an object is destroyed, then everybody forgets the purpose of said object and Hansen describes inventively a few of these objects with bizarre names, whose purpose is long forgotten. Looking back it almost seems to be if the author is drawing attention to the idea that perhaps there are philosophical and spiritual truths that have also been long forgotten due to the works of those trying to eliminate them. Of course the resolution of this thread is brough to a climax in a recounting of the mythical history of the Antipodes later in the book, in a powerful trilogy of stories that could easily have existed as fairy tales of their own. In fact that can be said for many of the episodes here and why the book is dense and rich, there are perhaps 15 episodes in this book that could have existed as nearly perfect short stories. It does seem to make the historical biographical work of the doctor seem rather staid in comparison, but the full story loses many layers of depth without it, because it is within this recounting that you learn of the tragedy and suffering behind the man’s life and how he eventually moves on to surpass this. The theme of the idea of giving of one’s self and the idea that the extreme of this is selfishness is also encountered and it is within the polar aspects of so much spiritual theory that the sublimity of the tale really comes out, that true spirituality and life aren’t necessarily the end point but the journey itself.

And like all truly profound and deep works, the book has you musing long after the final pages. I’m currently reading (and almost finished with Edward Whittemore’s Sinai Tapestry) and both of these works have really made me think over what the term “cosmic” really means. Both books, without having to spell anything out, evoke a sense of vastness, of a web that ties everything together while leaving the human viewpoint almost bereft of any true understanding of the larger picture. They intertwine a simple human viewpoint with the idea of the synchronicity or guiding hand which seems to dole out great suffering and simple forgiveness, while intimating that perhaps something vast and ancient shares space with the temporal and finite. And in both books they filled my soul with a sweet ache, an idea of a sense of greater purpose with the realization that it’s something one can only experience out of the corner of one’s consciousness.

While, the stories in Paul di Filippo’s Lost Pages aren’t (perhaps by nature) quite up to the profound worlds of Hansen and Whittemore, they too deal with cosmic things if only by the nature of playfully rearranging the histories of famous figures from science fiction writers to public personalities. All of these stories show a deft touch and vast intellect that ties together everything from historical events to the subtle personalities of well known individuals. In one story a young (post Empire of the Sun) J G Ballard hitches a ride in a plane flown by a pair of famous pilots in a world where a plague has wiped out most of the Western world. In another, a soldier in an alternate history learns in a bar of a history that never was and a third world war averted. And in another three science fiction writers who took different paths in a new timeline, come together to stop an alien threat only to find in the end that they become newly reborn in manner hilariously similar to their known work here. And really because so many of these stories are obscure and in fact almost insular on so many levels, I felt like I missed some of the most subtle cleverness. Overall it doesn’t seem so much like a book for SF readers, but one for SF writers whose research has given them insight into the way worlds collide and how personalities often treated with fondness would have reacted to the very weirdness they often imagined.

Torchwood: Childen of Earth, a miniseries that basically acts as the third season of the show, aired a few weeks ago in Britain and a couple weeks ago here, but due to Comcast’s inability or lack of desire to pick up BBC America in HD in Sacramento, I decided to forego transmission and pick up the Blu-Ray as it was released the very Tuesday after. Torchwood’s an adult Doctor Who offshoot that kind of plays like the X-Files meets Angel in the Who universe and while I’ve found it entertaining for two seasons, I’ve never thought it great until this miniseries. Quite frankly this was probably one of the most harrowing and intense 5 hours of television I’ve seen in years and perhaps some of the best TV I’ve seen since maybe the fourth season of the Wire or the initial season of Breaking Bad. And it is so because like these shows it’s unflinching in its set up and repercussions. Basically this extraterrestrial organization, already depleted at this point due to the outcome of previous seasons is witness to a series of events where the children of the entire world stop all at once and start recanting creepily “We are coming.” And so the latest alien invasion is afoot, the Doctor is nowhere to be found, and not only that but the British secret service sees fit to eliminate Torchwood due to a historical event the ageless and deathless Captain Jack Harkness was not only witness to but complicit in, that is, the previous arrival of the same aliens. The repercussions are brutal as the team is splintered and left to exist on their own strengths as the shadow government moves to encounter the alien threat on its own terms. The further revealing of the aliens, why they’re there, the secrets behind the original encounter and the horrible consequences the government takes to stand off this alien threat are met boldly and unlike the previous series or virtually any other television. The climax and ending of the miniseries are so tragic and morally ambiguous you’re left thinking about it long after it ends (and one of these tragic conclusions is very reminiscent of the end of The Shield). What really blew me away in the end was the acting of the whole cast and in particular John Barrowman, who I never thought had this type of talent within him based on his previous work, but this was truly virtuoso, as was the entire cast including all the guests. Perhaps the critics of Russell T Davies who often held he couldn’t write anything dark might finally relent now. And overall, like all really good TV, it already makes me want to play it again, although I think I’ll wait until I’ve got the psychic strength to go through that again.

More Game of Thrones casting/Doctor Who Series 5 starts filming

GoT casting here

Sean Bean’s certainly great news, although not particularly astonishing given his turn as Boromir in Lord of the Rings. Much more exciting for me was to see Harry Lloyd picked for Viserys. Lloyd was spectacular as a young schoolman turned alien in one of the best of the modern Doctor Who two-parters starting with Human Nature, and played a very different Will Scarlett in BBC’s Robin Hood, two parts which showed a wide range for the young actor. Viserys I guess will be played closer to the former role, and Lloyd can do snooty and scheming like noone’s business. Mark Addy plays King Robert and Jack Gleeson, his son Joffrey. So far so good…

Here’s Martin’s blog post.

Speaking of Doctor Who, series 5 began filming today, with some nice pix of cast, including new companion Amy Pond played by Karen Gilman, who’s truly a knock out. This to me is one of the best parts of the series, seeing how its reinvented over and over again for a modern audience, so I’m excited to see it underway and love the fact they’re going back to the Hartnell years for the TARDIS look.

Here’s who I think should win (some of) the Emmys

I will bold my pick and comment and am cutting out those I don’t have much of a say in.

Outstanding Comedy Series
Entourage • HBO
Family Guy • FOX
Flight Of The Conchords • HBO
How I Met Your Mother • CBS
The Office • NBC
30 Rock • NBC
Weeds • Showtime

I’ve only seen about 1/3 of this season’s episodes because I’m just catching up with it, but I’d give this category to The Big Bang Theory easily and have no doubt after catching up I’ll feel the same way. I think the nominees really missed the boat on this one. Entourage was at its nadir, Family Guy just completely sucks now, I couldn’t finish season 1 of Conchords, I haven’t seen any of the last season of How I Met Your Mother but it’s never been laugh out loud funny to me, The Office was pretty strong this last year so it’s the best on the list, 30 Rock I could never stay with because I never found it particularly funny, just quirkily amusing, and while Weeds is a LOT better this year, I didn’t think much of it last season. Big Bang is nearly always funnier than all of these.

Outstanding Drama Series
Big Love • HBO
Breaking Bad • AMC
Damages • FX
Dexter • Showtime
House • FOX
Lost • ABC
Mad Men • AMC

No question on this one, Breaking Bad’s still the best drama on television, definitely the most challenging, best acted, directed and written and I keep up with every single program on this list. I’d switch out In Treatment with House which is growing weaker by the year. I dunno if Chuck counts as a drama since it’s also a comedy but I’d switch it with Lost. And while Damages season 1 was fabulous and 24’s last season was terribly week, I’d almost switch their places this year (except that I find it hard to take 24 this seriously). Friday Night Lights was another one that could have been close. So my top 3 would be Breaking Bad, In Treament and Chuck with Big Love 4th and Mad Men 5th.

Outstanding Miniseries
Generation Kill • HBO
Little Dorrit • PBS

I’m about halfway through Little Dorrit, but am finding it tedious as I generally do with the average Dickens milieu. Gen Kill started out pretty awful but grew stronger as it went on.

Outstanding Variety, Music Or Comedy Series
The Colbert Report • Comedy Central
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart • Comedy Central
Late Show With David Letterman • CBS
Real Time With Bill Maher • HBO
Saturday Night Live • NBC

Probably The Daily Show on this one, Maher close behind. Most of these shows are terribly up and down though, I don’t watch Letterman and I only picked up SNL again after the presidential campaign got started. It hasn’t deserved to be on an Emmy list for at least a decade. Funny how left wing this list is.

Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy Series
Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory • CBS
Jemaine Clement, Flight Of The Conchords • HBO
Tony Shalhoub, Monk • USA
Steve Carell, The Office • NBC
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock • NBC
Charlie Sheen, Two And A Half Men • CBS

Parsons easily. Funniest guy on TV. The rest of these guys don’t hold a candle to him.

Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series
Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad • AMC
Michael C. Hall, Dexter • Showtime
Hugh Laurie, House • FOX
Gabriel Byrne, In Treatment • HBO
Jon Hamm, Mad Men • AMC
Simon Baker, The Mentalist • CBS

This is a tough one. Probably Gabriel Byrne for In Treatment this year because he was just incredible in what was probably the most grueling job among any of these. I’d be surprised to see Cranston get a repeat but would be OK with it. Laurie’s always great, but the writing isn’t as good as it was. Dunno the Mentalist. Hall and Hamm are always good but I don’t see em above the pack this year.

Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy Series
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, The New Adventures Of Old Christine • CBS
Christina Applegate, Samantha Who? • ABC
Sarah Silverman, The Sarah Silverman Program • Comedy Central
Tina Fey, 30 Rock • NBC
Toni Collette, United States Of Tara • Showtime
Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds • Showtime

I don’t watch the first three on this list, so will have to go with Toni Collette who should be getting more of a Drama award on this one than a Comedy one, but she was great with the multipersonalities. Have no idea why Parker ever gets nominated, she seems to play the same woman (herself) in everything. Queue blank look and lazily sassy line and it’s the same shtick.

Outstanding Lead Actress In A Drama Series
Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters • ABC
Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer • TNT
Glenn Close, Damages • FX
Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit • NBC
Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men • AMC
Holly Hunter, Saving Grace • TNT

Don’t watch most of these shows, and I’m dead even with Close and Moss in the ones I do. But I’d put Collette over either. I think most of the best acting in this category probably should go to supporting actresses.

Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Comedy Series
Kevin Dillon, Entourage • HBO
Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother • CBS
Rainn Wilson, The Office • NBC
Tracy Morgan, 30 Rock • NBC
Jack McBrayer, 30 Rock • NBC
Jon Cryer, Two And A Half Men • CBS

Based on previous seasons I’d go with Harris, his Barney is pretty well played, but since I haven’t seen S4…. McBrayer’s also good but along with Morgan, just played a bit too over the top for my tastes. Rainn Wilson’s good too, but only when he’s also not over the top.

Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Drama Series
William Shatner, Boston Legal • ABC
Christian Clemenson, Boston Legal • ABC
Aaron Paul, Breaking Bad • AMC
William Hurt, Damages • FX
Michael Emerson, Lost • ABC
John Slattery, Mad Men • AMC

Aaron Paul for sure, absolutely brilliant this year in one of this season’s finest character arcs. This is a strong category too just about everyone here is good, although Shatner’s not really doing anything he hasn’t since Season 1 of BL.

Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Comedy Series
Kristin Chenoweth, Pushing Daisies • ABC
Amy Poehler, Saturday Night Live • NBC
Kristin Wiig, Saturday Night Live • NBC
Jane Krakowski, 30 Rock • NBC
Vanessa Williams, Ugly Betty • ABC
Elizabeth Perkins, Weeds • Showtime

Would have to go with Kristin Wiig on this one, she’s practically half the reason SNL is even watchable lately. Don’t find the rest of these all that funny. Williams and Perkins? Really?

Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Drama Series
Rose Byrne, Damages • FX
Sandra Oh, Grey’s Anatomy • ABC
Chandra Wilson, Grey’s Anatomy • ABC • ABC Studios
Dianne Wiest, In Treatment • HBO
Hope Davis, In Treatment • HBO
Cherry Jones, 24 • FOX

I’d give this to the actress who played the young college student on In Treatment on I think it was Tuesdays, in fact it’s hard to believe she didn’t get this over Davis and Wiest who were certainly very good. Byrne’s always good as was Cherry Jones as the prez. Actually Sandra Oh is pretty good too, but I run screaming everytime the character’s anywhere near my TV, but we can probably chalk that up to the acting right? Not that I could stand Grey’s Anatomy for long (didn’t see a minute of this season).

OK that’s enough…