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Picks from the Inner Circle
Mark Katz
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A former political operative, recovering copywriter, and failed sitcom writer, Mark Katz is now the founder and principal of the Soundbite Institute, a creative think tank that specializes in on-message humor. His essays have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Time magazine, and he is the author of CLINTON & ME: A Real Life Political Comedy, an account of eight years as the in-house humor speechwriter of the Clinton White House. Founder of the Soundbite Institute and former in-house humor speechwriter of the Clinton White House |
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How did my TiVo know to record IFC's recent showing of Mountains of the Moon just a day before I came across the obituary of its legendary producer, Daniel Melnick? In deference to my DVR’s omniscience, I sat down to watch one the most engrossing historical dramas that I had (somehow) never heard of. Mountains of the Moon is a kind of Lawrence of Arabia set in 19th-century Africa and the epic tale it tells is the complex relationship of two complicated men, audacious explorers in search of the source of the Nile. Indeed, these men did navigate an unforgiving continent to “discover” something that had always been there. (We know it today by the name they gave it, Lake Victoria.) And in their honor, this weekend I sat on my couch and “discovered” an under-heralded film that has been patiently waiting for me to find it for nearly 20 years. |
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