Rusty Unger

Best piece ever:  My writing background began when I was sent to summer camp at age 8 and had to devise a letter to my parents that was so powerful, so emotional and persuasive, that they would let me come home. As an adult, I wrote TV and movie scripts and for publications like New York, Harper’s Bazaar, the N.Y. Times, and Look. I was a book and magazine editor as well as a film executive. Still, nothing was ever as effective as the letter I wrote from camp.

Serious about streaming:  In later years, I lived far from the action and was supposedly “working” from home. This coincided with the advent of streaming TV, and combined with my insomnia, TV bingeing became a field at which I excelled. My daughter has called it my superpower. 

Column cometh:  Friends and family have often solicited my recommendations, the most recent being Marianne Partridge, the Indy’s editor-in-chief. I met Marianne long ago when she was running the N.Y. office of Rolling Stone, and then I wrote for the Village Voice when she was its editor. I still do whatever she tells me because she has never been wrong. She told me to write this column.

Were we better off with just a few shows? Yes. We were left with a huge amount of time to read books. Reading uses different brain circuits than watching.