How do you feel about Italian beef?

“Amanda Jones is a Louisiana middle-school librarian who sleeps with a shotgun under her bed and carries a pistol when she travels the back roads.”

That sentence, the opener in Jeffrey Fleishman’s riveting profile of a librarian caught in the middle of the culture wars, should be all you need to keep reading. Go ahead. Take a few minutes. I’ll still be here when you return.

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times, host of The Envelope’s Friday newsletter and the guy just remembering I need to return Kevin Fedarko’s excellent adventure tale “A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon” to my local branch this weekend. Libraries — and the good people who keep them running — are essential to our communities.

Would you vote for ‘The Bear’?

“The Bear” won 10 Emmys for its first season, including comedy series, writing and directing along with honors for actors Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri and Ebon Moss-Bachrach.

This year, for its second season, the show earned 23 nominations, breaking the record of most Emmy nods for a comedy series. That haul makes it the overwhelming favorite to sweep through the ceremony again, even if there are still grumblings about whether “The Bear” belongs in the comedy categories.

With Emmy voting ending in a few days, I was looking, as always, to be of service to folks reading this newsletter. So I came up with a 20-question quiz to help gauge your love for “The Bear.”

Here’s a couple of sample questions:

Favorite classic television comedy:
“Cheers” (3)
“Friends” (5)
“The Sopranos” (10)

When I watch TV, I like to:
Curl up under a blanket (4)
Eat a bowl of my favorite ice cream (4)
Scream into my pillow (10)

The higher the point total, the more likely you are to vote for “The Bear.” Take the quiz! But eat something first. (Like an Italian beef sandwich.)

With 23 Emmy nominations, The Bear’s second season broke the record for most nods for a comedy series.

(Illustration by Susana Sanchez; Hulu photos; Grizzley bear, Getty Images Plus
)

Solving Steve Martin doesn’t take that much guesswork

Steve Martin had a bit of a scare the morning we spoke. It wasn’t “Saturday Night Live” producer Lorne Michaels calling to ask him to play Minnesota’s Gov. Tim Walz or anything related to his 2-year-old Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever, Sonny, who, since we last spoke, has mostly outgrown his chewing and now seems content to listen to banjo music all the livelong day.

No, the alarm had to do with Wordle, which, yes, Martin eventually solved. But it took him five tries. (I got it in six. I mean, “macaw”? Really?) Martin’s wife, Anne Stringfield, solved it in four. Martin makes a point of telling me it took him only two guesses to nail the puzzle yesterday. He’s a Wordle disciple, sometimes literally carrying the banner on top of his head.

Filmmaker Morgan Neville watched Martin solve dozens of Wordle puzzles in the many months he spent with him making the Emmy-nominated documentary “Steve! (Martin) A Documentary in 2 Pieces,” and believes they’re a key to understanding Martin’s drive.

“One thing I started to see as a pattern in his life was that he likes working on puzzles,” Neville told me over the phone. “And if you look at the things that Steve has invested himself in his life — magic, banjo, stand-up — these are things that take thousands of hours to master. And that’s what Steve likes. He likes working the problem.”

When we spoke, frankly, I was trying not to be the problem Steve Martin is working. He joined me on Zoom from the exercise room in his Santa Barbara home, genial, open and keeping an ear out for Sonny. Here’s our conversation, which, combined with watching the documentary and reading his excellent memoir “Born Standing Up,” had me thinking more about trying new things and not settling for the same-old, same-old.

Steve Martin is up for another Emmy with his starring turn on “Only Murders in the Building.”

(Mark Seliger / Disney)

Eugene and Dan Levy will host the 2024 Emmys

Steve Martin told me about a joke he never used when hosting the Oscars three times. He’d come out and say, “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, ‘Steve, how did you get to host the Oscars?’ It was easy. I just called my agent and I said, ‘Get me something thankless.’”

That’s a prevalent feeling these days, which makes the hiring of Eugene and Dan Levy to emcee this year’s Emmys ceremony almost feel like a small miracle. The Levys, the first father and son to host the ceremony, will be terrific. Their opening monologue at the SAG Awards four years ago killed, which makes you wonder why it took so long for someone to hire them to host an entire show.

“For two Canadians who won our Emmys in a literal quarantine tent, the idea of being asked to host this year in an actual theater was incentive enough,” Eugene and Dan Levy said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to be able to raise a glass to this extraordinary season of television and can’t wait to spend the evening with you all on Sept. 15.”

Father, son and Emmy co-hosts Eugene and Daniel Levy.

(Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)