This week I experienced that kind of mid-week fatigue that makes a person rank his or her pajamas based on how dangerously comfortable they are. (For the record, my cream and maroon star pajamas are now for weekend use only.) So, I didn't sum up the week on Friday like I usually do. But since I have things to write about that happened during my lazy Saturday, I'm going to stand by my decision to put things off. So, without further ado, lets look at the things I missed, hadn't gotten to yet, or simply didn't know I wanted to write about until now.
1.) All week, I meant to write the response to this piece in The New York Times, "When Chocolate and Chakras Collide" about "foodie yoga" got on the internet. I personally enjoyed this satirical piece from Gawker's Adrian Chen (writing as not-Adrian-Chen), "The Singular Delights of 'Foodie Yoga.'" Honestly, as a yogi and as an eater, I'm not totally sure what I think about the idea of pairing yoga and fine dining. As some one who plans her dinner during savasana (I know, I know, that's not the point) and I probably wouldn't turn down a dinner at the yoga studio if it was offered to me and it involved wine and chocolate, the trend seems to be taking things to a level that's slightly more pretentious than it should be. It also makes me wonder if "foodie yoga" is actually a trend or just really smart marketing.
2.) The man who wrote this passed away.
Many of us nerds - and some of our non-nerd friends - were sad.
3.) I started watching season three of The Tudors. I've only seen the first disc of the series on DVD (so, three episodes), but all I can say is: WHERE'S THE SEXY?
Remember this? Now, I'm just hoping Jane dies by Episode 4 so we can all get on with our lives. When did this become a political drama? As someone who can actually get her info about Early Modern Politics elsewhere, I believe this needs to be a LOT soapier.
On a related note, I figured out the direction Jonathan Rhys Meyers has been given for the past three seasons: 1.) Start slowly, with something sarcastic but sort of dangerous-sounding, 2.) Fire up the crazy eyes, and 3.) Yell menacingly and as though you have unchecked power and the divine right to rule (and execute).
4.) Jon Hamm hosted Saturday Night Live this weekend, and for the first time in a long time the show was funny. There was a lot of joking about Don Draper, which is always welcome, but there was also a lot of very funny. Here's the best sketch of the night, Ham and Buble:
And while I'm limiting myself to one sketch from last night as to avoid posting the entire show, I am going to go ahead and remind you about Jon Hamm's John Ham.
I'm a little too pooped to write my usual weekly round-up tonight, so I will do my summing up tomorrow. Until then, I leave you with this public service announcement from The Venture Brothers.
First thing first, I know that that is a cartoon rendering of Thomas Pynchon. I wouldn't want anyone thinking that I'm confused about my Simpsons episodes or my reclusive authors*. But pictures of reclusive authors are hard to find and honestly, if The Simpsons could have worked it out, I'm sure that sign would read "J.D. Salinger's House: Come on In." And today is a day when we're remembering the reclusive author of our high school years, so you'll have to forgive me the inaccuracy of the picture and appreciate the spirit in which it was posted.
Like many people who survived high school, I read The Catcher in the Rye in English class my junior year. The big life lesson I learned from the book was that that people who protest books are likely to have never read them. On the literary front, I found that I liked Holden Caulfield. He sounded like an actual teenager and not an approximation of an teenager written by an adult. And I've found that many of the students I teach have read and enjoyed The Catcher in the Rye, which is pretty easy to understand. Unlike much of what is assigned in high school English, it's relatable and not Shakespeare**.
The power of The Catcher in the Rye, I think, is in its uniqueness, especially an audience already hardened by texts that seem old-fashioned and feel more like chores than reading***.For a good number of high school students, the novel captures their imaginations in a way that few things in an English classroom (or much of high school, for that matter) do and they feel less alone knowing that on the page Holden is saying much of what they've been thinking about the world. But probably the best thing about The Catcher in the Rye is that it can be a five-year book - something you pick up once every five years and basically discover all over again. The second time I read it, I understood who Holden was and that I wasn't him and I didn't want to be him. But I could sympathize with him, because the things that were going on in Holden's life were making him lose his shit. Unlike the first time I read the book - where I only saw the world through Holden's eyes - the second time I read it I saw the world around him and how he was going to have a lot of trouble in that world. And the power of the novel comes from the effects of both of those readings, which are vital functions of literature in the first place - to make us feel less alone and to help us understand other people. The Catcher in the Rye does both of those things, and continues to do that for generations of readers****.
So, it's no surprise that people were genuinely moved when an author who lives out of the public eye and who hasn't produced anything new in decades passed away. While Salinger doesn't fill our bookshelves, he produced a work that many of us understand, acknowledge to be good, and that many readers feel explain the world at a time when little else manages to do so. Because seriously, most teenagers can't see that Holden's losing it. Because they're feeling a little desperate themselves and Holden's genuine outrage at the world comes as a bit of a comfort. Because a lot of adults are phonies and that becomes pretty clear as one starts to make the move from the kids' table to the adult table.
But enough with the seriousness. While there have been many tributes to J.D. Salinger and his work today, I will offer you the one that I found to be short, direct, and affectionate. Here is "Bunch of Phonies Mourn J.D. Salinger" from The Onion.
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* Pynchon's voice is featured on an episode in the fifteenth season titled "Diatribe of a Mad Housewife" in which Marge writes a romance novel. Pynchon is asked to give a blurb for the book. Also, I think the episode is hilarious, especially as the plot of Marge's romance novel about whaling unfolds.
** My apologies to Shakespeare fans. But, as I've tried to certain parties in the past, Shakespeare in high school is not an enjoyable experience because 1.) Everyone's down on it, 2.) The teachers assume you're not smart enough to get it so they sort of build it up to be something impossible to tackle, 3.) It's not cool, and 4.) For the most part, you only get to read tragedies and honestly, the comedies would probably work better with teenagers.
*** Again, I'm not getting down on Shakespeare (or Arthur Miller, since I was sort of thinking of him too), but King Lear for 17 year-olds? A very rare teenager finds him or herself in that play. And while I'd like to think I was mature, I was definitely not that kid. And I suspect that most kids are not that kid.
****Fun fact: My dad's copy of The Catcher in the Rye from high school is sitting next to my keyboard right now.
Today, I'm going to skip the obvious big story about the iPad and head off in my own direction. I mean, yes, the iPad is cool (even though everyone's now embarrassed about getting their undies in a wad over it and are all claiming it's not as cool as they thought it would be). And I would like one, but that won't be happening anytime soon, so I'm not allowing myself to care. It would just hurt too much. And yeah, the name sounds like a feminine hygiene product. But you know what? A lot of things do. So, best of luck to those luckier than myself. I hope that 10 hours of battery life really works out for you.
While I will admit that I'd really like to teach a class Steve Jobs presentation-style, it's time to get to matters I found more pressing. I just read this really nice piece on Gawker, "Ugly Betty Got Canceled Because American Television is Broken," by Brian Moylan that discusses how good shows tend to outlive their goodness. And I have to agree, especially in the case of a show like Ugly Betty that was interesting and creative (and even worth writing an academic paper about) in its first season, but then sort of lost the thing that made it special as material and creativity ran thin. Last week's clip show for The Office made me wonder about what's going on with that show and whether or not we've moved beyond the point where we can mine characters in an American office for humor.
I started to think, like Moylan, that something needs to change. And, in the case of a show like The Office, there is a perfect contrast between the way American and British television are produced and structured. While the American version of The Office has been on the air since 2004 (I won't do the actual math to figure out how much of The Office there actually is), there are only 12 episodes and 1 special produced under the title of The Office in England. That version of the show never gets old because there's never too much of it. Another good example of the right balance of television (or, at least, an alternate model to consider in some circumstances*) is Canada's Slings and Arrows**. Some Canadian television runs on the same model as British television, so every season is only 6 episodes long, which you wouldn't think is enough, but it's just right. And the whole show is carefully plotted out, so the whole series maintains a steady rhythm. And, at the end of the run of Slings and Arrows, things feel like they should end and not like someone's trying desperately to tie all the loose ends together. Here's a little for fun.
The thing to remember is that when shows go on too long, bad things can happen. We can have fun shows like Scrubs, with fun moments like this one turn into that terrible thing with the same thing that's on ABC these days.
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*But not all circumstances, because I want 30 Rock to go on forever. Actually, I want Tina Fey to Skype into my house every day. She wouldn't even have to be funny. She could just tell me how things are going.
**I believe IFC runs it on a semi-regular basis. You can always tell when they do because The New York Times does a review of the reruns like they've just discovered it.
As a big fan of the "Target Women" segments at Current*, I was both sad and happy when I read this funny interview, "'I Murdered a Screenwriter & Slept My Way to the Top': Getting Funny and Frank with Sarah Haskins" yesterday on Jezebel. Haskins spoke to Jezebel's Dodai Stewart about how she'll no longer be doing "Target Women" and what she's got going on in the future. On the one hand I thought, Al Gore, how you could let her go? But, on the other hand, the chance that there might be something else, like a really smart comedy starring Sarah Haskins sometime in the future makes things sort of okay. In honor of her tenure as the host of "Target Women," I'm going to go ahead and post some of my favorites.
I found this one particularly hilarious since I like to spend my weekend evenings doing my laundry.
I really liked this one because I thought I was the only person who thought that the Today show was asking Ann Curry to take unnecessary risks.** Actually, that's sugar-coating it. Like Sarah Haskins, I thought they were trying to kill her, especially during the South Pole story.
Oh, and this one. Because, well, poop jokes crack me up. And she uses the word "poopadox."
And I just like this one.
This one, too.
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*The "Target Women" segments are part of Current's show "Infomania," which I have never seen , if you don't count the "Target Women" segments.
**As a daily Today show watcher, I've had a lot of time to formulate my opinion.
At the beginning of the semester, it's very, very, very easy to get into one's own head about one's teaching ability. Especially if one's class in the previous semester ran freakishly smoothly. A solid class can go steadily downhill as the sufferer of the yips gets into his or her own head and dismantles the pedagogical foundation on which his or her class is built. Right now, I am suffering from the yips.
For those of you who don't know, the yips are defined as "an apparently baseless sudden loss of ability in one of a number of different sports." I got that definition off of Wikipedia. And while I would seriously discourage the use of the Wikipedia in any other forum, in this case it's fine. Due to the deep breathing and running I've been doing to overcome the yips, I've been a bit distracted from formulating interesting things to say about popular culture.
To apologize for being distracted, I will now present you with a series of videos of songs I taped off the radio in middle school.*
First, a word from my serious 7th grade self:
And now, a song I made sure to listen to on my Walkman because even though I didn't quite know exactly what was being discussed, I had a feeling it was slightly raunchy:
1993 was CRAZY.
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*For fun, I checked to see what year these songs came out and was surprised to learn that I picked three songs from 1993 pretty much randomly. I think this might have a lot to do with my family getting cable that year.
Is it a bad thing that an offer for a special magazine subscription rate makes me feel special?
It was back to school this week, which has meant meeting a new bunch of students, explaining my master plan to them (and convincing them that said master plan does NOT include the destruction of their academic careers), and adjusting to a new schedule. The return to the semester grind also has me checking the skies in the evening to see if it's getting dark later. Because when 5pm rolls around and it's still light out it means that May is almost here. I guess until that time comes, I'll claim every 40-degree day is evidence of Spring's arrival and continue to wear short sleeves indoors while blasting the heat.
Since I can't frolic and play outside without my jacket, here are some things that caught my eye this week:
1.) We say goodbye to Conan O'Brien as host of The Tonight Show tonight. His run was far too short, but I look forward to finding out where exactly he'll turn up. If these past two weeks prove anything - aside from the fact that it's very interesting to watch late-night hosts dissect the events unfolding at NBC and The Tonight Show - wherever he turns up, he has an audience. Here are some clips in case you need a reminder to watch him when he resurfaces.
Since Conan is trying to spend as much of NBC's money as possible before he leaves, he's started doing a bunch of sketches that have little to do with being funny and a lot to do with spending lots of money. Here's the most expensive sketch to date (since Friday's show hasn't aired yet).
Oh yeah, and this week, the Masturbating Bear, who was not allowed to migrate to The Tonight Show from Late Night with Conan O'Brien, returned.
And, because I think this is brilliant, here's the cold open from the first episode of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.
3.) The Office ran a clip show. It annoyed me. Don't tell me it's a new episode when it's really just pieces of old episodes strung together within a crappy story matrix. It makes a show look like it's stalling for time before sweeps. It also reminded me that the old episodes that were used to make the clip show were far better than the crappy clip show. The Office, I thought you were better than this.
4.) I'm still trying to figure out if I like Gawker'sGawker.TV site. I think I do, but I'm still trying to figure out the rhythm of the site. Pros: Really nice posting about the late-night TV situation. And I really like that they end the day with a really good stand-up clip.
5.) Heather Armstrong of dooce announced today that she signed a development deal with HGTV today. It's like my TV world and my internet world are having a love child.
The semester started this week and focusing on not letting my inner monologue seep into what I'm saying when I'm teaching has robbed me of my energy. I should be back to writing soon, but until then I leave you with Jack McBrayer's (Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock) series on Funny or Die, "Livin' 'Neath the Law with Jack McBrayer." It's a semi-oldie, but a goody.
Last night, I was hanging around my parents' house, watching TV with my brother. Since I didn't have to get up early this morning, I summoned all my willpower and stayed up until midnight to watch the first 25 minutes of The Tonight Show in honor of the fact that it's Conan's last week and it probably won't be funny anymore when Leno comes back. Also, while it will be sad to see him go, this whole abrupt cancellation and getting screwed by NBC has really lit a fire under that show. And the responses to the situation - especially from David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel - have also been great fun. But no take on the situation - NONE - is better than this news animation from Hong Kong explaining the entire situation that aired on The Tonight Show last night.
I can follow it pretty well until Jeff Zucker turns into Captain America and Jay Leno turns into an overweight Superman. I mean, aside from the fact that that makes an unholy alliance of Marvel and DC comics characters, it just doesn't make sense. Though I totally get why Conan O'Brien is the Hulk.
While I technically number in their ranks, I have little sympathy for the moaning and groaning the academic types do at the end of their ginormous breaks. Seriously, where do we get off, pretending like we're summering Europeans? That said, I don't really feel like starting the semester. And while I've never been much for wearing pajamas in the daytime, I feel like 2010 might be the year I experiment with nightwear in the day.
Just kidding. I have an odd - and hard to explain - set of rules about when elastic waistbands are acceptable. But I am having the usual pre-game jitters about teaching my first class of the semester tomorrow morning. This happens most semesters, and I hear that it happens because I care. But I think it's because meeting a room full of semi-awake, moderately surly teenagers for the first time brings out the worst parts of my desperate need to be liked by strangers. I will be completely over this by next week, but until tomorrow's events prove otherwise, I will continue to worry that they will riot. Or stage a coup, and a hostile one.
I know they will do neither of these things. I know that for good or ill, they understand that I'm the person in charge. But that could be because I'm pretty convincing when I'm pretending that I know what I'm doing. And I'm pretty organized, so my syllabus is pretty much set for the whole semester. Now all these strangers have to do is fall in line and fly right.
While I was finishing my syllabus this afternoon, however, I was listening to Slate'sAudio Book Club discuss David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, a book I someday hope to have the courage and strength of will to read. Anyway, during that discussion, one of the panelists mentioned coming across one of Wallace's old syllabi and noted how he deconstructed every part of the class on the syllabus while he was trying to explain what the class is about. So, because I was totally curious, I Googled it. And I found this PDF, which is really worth the read. When I was reading through it I had the rare experience of laughing out loud at a syllabus for reasons other than stifling rising panic. It was really, really funny. I especially enjoyed Wallace's "Basic Course Spiel" in which he attempts to elaborate on the class's task to analyze and interpret texts. And, as someone who reads A LOT of college writing, I really, really enjoyed his discussions of what type of work was acceptable to submit for a grade. Wallace's description of the the proper "Presentation" of work, which "has to do with evidence of care, of adult competence in written English, and of compassion for your reader" was a great way to describe how a paper looks when 1.) the writer is invested in his or her work , 2.) the writer realizes that his or her work says something about him or her, and 3.) the writer finally understands that there is, in fact, an audience that has a particular set of needs. To get my comp-teaching heart fully a-flutter, Wallace later mentions that he "draw[s] no distinction between the quality of one's ideas and the quality of those ideas' verbal expression" and that he will not accept or reward "semi-literate college writing." I wish I could its so well on my syllabus. But at least I can keep his standards in mind.
When I first started writing this blog, I was hoping I would get some questions to answer, and today I got my first request. My friend Tony wanted to know what I thought about the whole Conan O'Brien/Jay Leno thing over at NBC, so I will tell you what I think. Also, this will be a good test to see if Tony does actually read this like he claims he does.
To start things off, I'll just put it out there that I'm Team Conan all the way. I think he's funny, quirky, and likable. I enjoy his weirdness and I think that - from what I've seen - late night television is moving in a direction that makes it far less generic and allows for a quirky host to run a successful television franchise. (For a good summary of the whole situation and the attractions and whatnot of Conan O'Brien vs. Jay Leno, you should check out "Conan Forever" by Mary Elizabeth Willams at Salon.) I'm not a regular viewer of TheTonight Show or a former regular viewer of Late Night With Conan O'Brien, but I've caught the show when I've been awake to see it and my brother's always been a fan of, well, basically everything Conan O'Brien's done. (I'm also an fan of the O'Brien oeuvre, but while I like to sleep at night, I think my brother started watching Late Night with Conan O'Brien in high school, which combined with having to get up to go to high school makes for a dedicated fan base.) But I have been paying a lot of attention to what's been going on this week and I've never, ever found Jay Leno funny. So, I think I can handle Tony's request in a responsible manner. And I'll talk about what I think is going on in bit, but first:
Ah, that just cracks me up. Anyway, here's my take on the whole thing: While this is probably one of the more minor issues in the world right now, the late-night television debacle (because that's what it is) has created an interesting conversation surrounding the value of the late-night talk show. First, Conan O'Brien made a slick as hell move when he defined the The Tonight Show as a cultural institution in his open letter to the People of Earth and extended that definition to include the traditional time-slot for the show. Then, he talked about how hosting whatever it was that NBC wanted him to host at 12:05 was clearly not The Tonight Show and he would be having none of that. Brilliant. I should use that letter as an example of a well-crafted argument in my comp classes.
But back to the matter at hand. What's also happened is that most of the hosts who aren't Jay Leno have spent the week basically presenting themselves as an community of competitors who are extremely annoyed that a network would interfere with the natural order of things by moving backwards instead of forwards (old host leaves, new host starts, old host comes back like a zombie). Also, it's become clear that most comedians respect/kinda like/can sympathize with Conan O'Brien while most people do not like Jay Leno. A really, really good rundown of what's been going on can be found in Gawker TV's "Video Highlights from the Late Night War Between Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno." I highly recommend watching the clip of Jimmy Kimmel doing "10 at 10" with Jay Leno on The Jay Leno Show the night after Kimmel did his entire show as Jay Leno. If some good has come out of all this, it has been in showcasing the fact that Kimmel has absolutely no fear. (And as for the comedians who said nothing, I'm looking at you Jimmy Fallon. F- in standing up for yourself.)
As for my prediction about how things are going to turn out, I think it's pretty clear that regardless of what happens this week, Conan O'Brien and NBC are going to part ways. And I think that was pretty clear on Tuesday, two days into O'Brien's bridge-burning. The best way I can understand what has been going on is to put it in relationship terms. Basically, NBC stayed good friends with its ex, Jay Leno - like good friends who still talk every day - and when things weren't going great with the new relationship, NBC's ex started to look really, really attractive. So NBC called Conan O'Brien and told him that they wanted to go "on a break." And O'Brien called bullshit, because most "breaks" are just break-ups initially by wussy people, so he kept calling and calling NBC and hilariously badmouthing NBC to all their friends until 1.) NBC admitted they were breaking up and 2) O'Brien won the break-up. I think it was pretty clear that when Conan O'Brien started slamming NBC, he didn't want to get back together, he just wanted to embarrass the crap out of a network that wanted to do him wrong. Like all relationships that end like this (romantic or business), it seems like O'Brien saw the tides turning against him and struck out at NBC to hurt them more than they could hurt him because he could see the end coming and because NBC was going to try to pretend like they were doing the right thing for everyone when they were really just screwing everyone over except Jay Leno.
With the Golden Globes on Sunday, award season has begun, and while I am never able to stay up to watch any of the awards shows in full, I like to enter this season as an educated viewer. Also, I maintain a minor personal fiction that my input is valuable to the Academy. Because of this and because it is the time of year when weekend afternoons are usually spent inside, I tend to make a habit of catching a few Saturday (and sometimes Sunday) matinees, usually at one of my two favorite movie theaters, The County Theater in Doylestown, Pa, and the Civic Theatre of Allentown, in Allentown, Pa. Aside from the fact that both theaters are community, non-profit movie theaters in historic buildings, they also tend to show many of the movies that aren't always playing in the regular multiplex but receive a lot of critical attention. Also, the concessions at these theaters tends to better in general and more reasonably priced, but that's just a bonus.
This Saturday, I headed to The County for Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces. First of all, the movie is beautiful and beautifully shot. You seriously could watch it with the sound off just for the photography. And even if you miss the subtitles* in a particular scene, staring intently at the screen is still worth it. Basically, it's a movie about movies that features two movies within the movie itself. Broken Embraces is about a blind screenwriter (who wasn't always blind) and the story he tells after someone from his past re-emerges and wants to work with him on a project about revenge. The party from the past shakes up both the screenwriter and his agent (with whom he is very close) and the story that unfolds as the movie progresses is very layered and very carefully told. When the movie opens, it's not quite clear how all the parties who have been introduced will meet, but when they do it results in a movie that one reviewer (on The County's website) described as "half noir, half melodrama," or, as the people I put it with described it, "very David Lynch meets Hitchcock." Actually Stephanie Zacharek at Salon does a good job describing all of it in her review "'Broken Embraces' and the ties that Bind."
Personally, I liked the movie, and I don't want to say too much about it because it think it's worth seeing. Like the only other Almodovar movie I've seen, Volver, I'm having a bit of trouble responding to it in a coherent way. I very much enjoyed the movie, but I don't know exactly how to describe what I liked. For me, I think that Almodovar's movies are about the experience of seeing him tell a story. Also, I have a bit of a dilemma - I don't know what to say, but I'm also afraid I'll say too much and ruin it for someone else while I'm fumbling for something clever or insightful. I think I'll just leave things with the trailer and and my recommendation.
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* The movie is in Spanish.
Or maybe not. I'm adding this as a counter-balance to my previous post of cheesy music and because I like this song and I was thinking about it. For your listening pleasure, Wilco's "Hate it Here":
It seems that every time I've gone out recently, I've had a version of the same conversation. Regardless of who I'm talking to, the conversation has turned to music. And not just any music, but the music that most of us know all the words to but wouldn't brag about listening to. Except that now, for those of us who are either 1.) in our late twenties or thirties, 2.) in grad school or 3.) have figured out that no matter how hard we try, "cool" is not the first word that springs to people's minds when thinking about us, uncool music has become sort of cool. For example, during the week of the ritual interviewing torture for graduate students in the humanities and languages known as the MLA Convention, I went to a dinner with a large group that included a few people who had just finished their interviews. Aside from my boyfriend, I had never met any of these people before. As things turned out, I ended up sitting in a spot that was convenient for having a conversation with the guys who were working on a healthy post-interview buzz about the bar's strange music selection. And after several songs, talk turned to Billy Joel and Elton John. We discussed the Chuck Klosterman essay about Billy Joel from Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, the general respect it is possible to give Glass Houses, and then I maneuvered the conversation in the direction I wanted it to go: a discussion of the fact that EVERYONE knows the words to "River of Dreams," and, in situations where people have their guard down or are distracted, you can catch other people singing along. For example, I often catch myself singing along to the light rock playing in my supermarket. And I'm usually not the only person in the store doing this. So, for your listening and singing pleasure (and in the hope that you'll sing along, too):
I should mention that I received this particular album (cover artwork and video cameo by Christie Brinkley) on cassette for Christmas 1993, along with with Mariah Carey's Music Box. Oh, to grow up in the 1990s. This video also premiered the year we got cable, so I saw it no fewer than 7 million times. But really, "River of Dreams" has the same power as this one:
The only difference is that Wilson Phillips's "Hold On" has that really singable quality that lends itself to being featured in movies where it's appropriate for the main characters to belt out a cheesy power ballad to each other in a car, like Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. But the emphasis is - and always will be - on the fact that this song has a high cheese factor and is imprinted on the cultural DNA of a particular segment of the population. As you can see, we can even sing the background parts:
But why this topic? You might ask. And why now? Well, at yoga class tonight, my teacher put on this song:
And I laughed. And not just because the song is kind of goofy - because it is - but because I really, really like it and always want to sing along to it. And it's not because there was a fun version of it in American Pie and that came out the year I graduated high school. I own BOTH discs of James Taylor's Greatest Hits and used to write my papers to those CDs in college. I really don't know why I like "How Sweet it is," or any James Taylor song, though I'm told that my enjoyment of this particular performance on Sesame Street in my toddler years might have something to do with it:
My whole family loves that version of "Up on the Roof." And it just goes to prove something an adult once said to me when I was in middle school - Sesame Street is the best place for parents who are home with their kids to see solid performances by musicians they personally enjoy.
To play us out, I leave you with a song everyone knows (and a song that once prompted this conversation in a different bar):
Oh, yeah, and I have the 2-CD "Essential Neil Diamond," too. I keep it with my "Essential Simon and Garfunkel," because every day is a party at my house.
I'm not usually a day napper, but I spent the morning on my skis and I'm pretty sure I'm going to bed at 8:30 tonight unless one of those day naps sneaks up on me. And seeing my skis (and taking pictures of them) in my living room made me about classier ways to tell people you enjoy slapping the slopes through living room decor. If you like ski-themed artwork or are just looking for something different (because it's not all ski stuff, but might see a segue developing here), you might want to check out Native Vermont, which features unique graphic and illustrated work by Ryan Fowler. And that is my plug. And here is some of his work:
First, New Hampshire ski areas (there are other ski areas available):
And in his offerings of non-ski related work, here is "Two Hoots":
And "Black Bear Skinny Dip":
Those are just a few of what's out there, so if you like what you see and want to know more, you should head to Native Vermont's shop on Etsy.
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(In the interest of full disclosure, I do actually know Ryan and may have occasionally enjoyed a sandwich and/or beer in his company. But that did not prompt me to write this post. I took a picture of my skis and since they're a few years old and nothing all that special, I did needed something else to write about. And Ryan's stuff is good enough to write to the internets about, so that's how we get from point A to point B around here.)
With less than a week to go before the new semester, I decided to clean my Chucks*. I took a picture of them because the last time I decided to clean the white parts of a pair of Chuck Taylors, I ended up with what I fondly refer to as "my icky bar shoes." That is the difference between using a Clorox Pen (pink spots abound) and a Magic Eraser (no spots, don't know how it get things so clean, don't care). You might ask, why not just get new shoes? Because, my friends, we are in a recession and I am in grad school. Also, I can't decide on a new color.
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*This is a good indicator that break has gone on a bit too long for me. I have - and am - enjoyed the time away, but any time I think to myself, "Hey, it's been awhile since I've cleaned ________________," when "________________" is something slightly outside my normally rigorous cleaning schedule, I probably need something better to do.
There are things that seem relatively simple for most people that I honestly don't understand, like the popularity of bacon or what constitutes a reasonable lunch. But more puzzling to me than those two things - and I think about both of them a lot - is the fact that sometimes on television there is a well-produced, clever, and fun show that seems to have a small audience a little support from its network. While my description could apply to several shows that are currently on the air and many, many shows that are no longer running, the show that I'm currently most puzzled about is NBC's Chuck,or for those less familiar with what I'm talking about, the show with the hot girl that's on before Heroes.
After being saved from near cancellation last spring by fan support, Chuck debuted last night with two back-to-back episodes, followed by another new episode tonight at the show's regular time. And they were good. You should watch them. But for those of us who like to count things, that's three episodes in two days, and for those of you who occasionally watch network television, that's practically unheard of*. This move could make a viewer assume that NBC really, really wanted to push Chuck and give newcomers a healthy dose of the show so that they'll tune in next week. But here's where things get problematic: First, networks are never that nice. They never, ever use a business model based on my wants and needs, and for good reason. Secondly, for weeks, NBC told viewers that Chuck would return in January, but they waited until last week to say when in January, exactly. Unless, of course, you were enterprising and went to NBC's webiste to find out. Easy enough, but you would think that the commercials for the new season would give viewers this information for obvious reasons, like ratings and whatnot. I mean, they'd never do this to The Office.
But enough about my confusion with the ways of the world and network tv. Here's why I like Chuck - and this probably also why NBC and a lot of potential viewers have trouble with the show - it's hard to classify, so it makes it unlike anything else on television. Which, for some of us is great, but for others, well, not so much. So, here, in a convenient list, are my reasons why Chuck is a worthwhile program:
It's a comedy. I think that's the show's official classification, but it's not "ha-ha" funny. Yes, there are some laugh-out-loud moments, some good slapstick, but 30 Rock Chuck is not. The comedy it situational and depends entirely on the conceit that grounds the whole show: To sum up, Chuck Bartowski is a generally nice guy who's sort of lost his direction and lives with his sister and her boyfriend (later husband) Devon, or Captain Awesome. On his birthday, he gets an email from his former college roommate, Bryce Larkin, that downloads the CIA "Intersect" into Chuck's head, requiring him to need protection from all the spies and bad guys who now want to kill him, or, at least, gain access to that information. Chuck is assigned two protectors, John Casey and Sarah Walker, who acts as his girlfriend, and the comedy sort of flows from there.
Yes, it's a spy show, but it's also very aware of and willing to play with the conventions of the spy genre. There are tuxedos and missions and bad guys galore, but the mission never, ever goes smoothly. As you might have heard on the commercials for the Season 2 DVD, Chuck is often instructed to stay in the car, but "it's never safe in the car."
The theme song is an instrumental version of Cake's "Short Skirt, Long Jacket."
While the show is set in real-world places and real-world time, just about everything else is well-written, enjoyable fiction.
The supporting characters are quirky and oblivious.
The whole show is well-done and has the special effects budget that an over-the-top comedic spy show needs in order to succeed.
It's nerdy, but most of us are, whether we publickly acknowledge it or not.
Here's a good example of how all the things I'm describing come together on a regular episode of Chuck. This scene is from an episode at the end of season two, "Chuck Versus the Ring," and it's set at the wedding of Chuck's sister Ellie and Captain Awesome. Because nothing is simple in Chuck's secret world, the most recent bad guy seeking The Intersect, Roarke, has crashed Ellie's wedding. Ellie's great, but a bit of a perfectionist and is especially stressed about her wedding. She also has no idea what her brother's life is actually like or that her wedding is a hot spot for spies and bad guys. Chuck has asked his best friend Morgan to stall until matters in the reception hall can be settled and so Morgan enlists two co-workers at the Buy More, Lester and Jeff, to entertain the guests in the church with their version of Sytx's "Mr. Roboto." So here goes:
The interesting thing about a show like Chuck is that its one of those shows that people who are looking for clever television wish was on the air (if they're not already watching it). The Monday evening television line-up has grown increasingly crowded - has anyone else noticed that there's nothing on on Tuesdays?** - since I'm assuming the networks bring out several quality shows on the night of the week that most people just want to sack out on the couch and forget that it's a long way to Friday. But - and I say this from a place of love (a very different, meaner kind of love) - Chuck is much better than The Bachelor. And you have a lot fewer questions about how much chlorine needs to go into the hot tub to get it really, really clean afterwards.
*Except in the case of a network trying to dump all the final episodes of a cancelled show at once. For a good example, see the example of the four-episode conclusion of Arrested Development aired opposite the opening ceremonies of the 2006 Winter Olympics on a Friday night.
**This, and the fact that there's no footnote function in Blogger, bug me.
(Note: To actually see the videos I put in this post, you have to click through to the post itself. Or you can just read it as though I'm referring to imaginary objects. Either way is cool with me.)
This week was a slow one. Not bad slow, but not good slow. Just slow. Things really picked up on Monday when I took a half-dose of Benedryl and drank some coffee. Man, my body thought we were moving double-time. But things after that were pretty sedate. My greatest accomplishment was convincing my boyfriend to watch the two-hour season premiere of The Bachelor: On the Wings of Love. I set out of prove to him that the first episode of The Bachelor is always hands down hilarious, and this premiere did not disappoint. Now that I've figured out how to put videos in these posts, here's the moment from the premiere when Jake and the ladies played an impromptu/staged game of touch football in evening wear.
Interestingly, that was one of the less odd moments of the episode. There was a whole lot of moderately crazy talk floating around (which seemed included the mantra of "I deserve this," which probably has its origins in one of those popular "if you believe it hard enough, it will come to you" self-help disciplines), some inapproriate jokes in both English and Cambodian, some dress up, and a lot of out of context talk about God. Go figure.
And because I can't help myself, here's that off-color joke in Cambodian.
Sorry to ruin things, but it fell flat. Aside from the joke not being very funny, it proved too risque for the participants on a show who are going to spend a lot of time making out in hottubs for the camera and possibly heading to the "Fantasy Suite" together. It's one thing to allude to how your creative use of body chocolate won you the ring in the finale.* It is quite another to refer to how you've been waxed, thankyouverymuch.
In other fun news, I found out today (which means probably everyone else knew already) that How I Met Your Mother is doing a musical episode for their 100th episode. I kind of like musical episodes on television - mostly because I sort of like musicals - and therefore really enjoyed the video slideshow, "How I Serenaded Your Mother," that June Thomas of Slate put together to showcase television's best musical episodes. The slideshow includes clips and brief explainations of how said shows were able to justify a typically non-singing cast suddenly bursting into song (and not always in tune). It makes me almost want to watch Oz.
To round things out for the week, I want to mention today's episode of Oprah, about husbands living secret double lives and the often illegal or disturbing consequences of those lives (I won't give anything away, but one of the charges that one of the husbands is doing time for is "body stealing"). If for some strange reason, you don't TiVo Oprah like I do, I highly recommend heading to Oprah.com to see what it was all about. My only issue with the episode is - to paraphrase Dennis Leary when he spoke about Oprah and doing research on her show when writing his last book - I feel like I'm supposed to learn something from each episode, and today I wasn't sure what that lesson was. Vigilance? Don't be seduced by easy living? Ask where the money comes from? Men are terrible? Always listen to Maya Angelou? (Though the advice "When people show you who they are, believe them the first time" was pretty darn good.) **
And that was my week.
*Don't believe me? Check out Season 1 of The Bachelor.
**I think that the biggest perk of being a celebrity like Oprah is being able to casually mention something Maya Angelou or a major celebrity said to you to one of us wee people who live in the glow of the television set as though we, too, speak to Ms. Angelou on a regular basis and she just never had that particular conversation with us. And I don't hear this as Oprah name-dropping Maya Angelou or holding her celebrity status over me. Instead, I've filed it away as cocktail chatter should I ever have to make some small talk with either Maya Angelou or Oprah. And that is the power of Oprah.
Included in my set of mental master plans is a scheme for developing a method of storyboarding my blog topics so that when I sit down to write everything is easy-peasy and smooth sailing. This is an excellent idea. In this ideal world I would have clear goals and set assignments. Right now, I have ideas to work on, stories to share, words to publish into the void but no way to really hold myself accountable for writing one thing and not writing another. Unfortunately, I haven't found a good calendar yet to for sketching out these ideas. Someday I'll discuss my co-dependent relationship with office supplies, but until then you'll have to bear with me and understand that the fact that I haven't been to Staples yet is crippling. On a related note, this is also why my dissertation writing schedule is, as of this afternoon, also a bit scattershot. I do plan, however, on getting to the store within the next day or two, so things will be far more organized and thus me-like soon. Until then, however, I invite you to enjoy more randomness based on my whims.
First up, I miss television. Yes, I know it still exists and that all I have to do is press the power button, but my shows are all on the same weird haitus that I am between semesters. And for both myself and television, this break is starting to feel a bit endless (remind me I said that in February when I'm acting like a ginormous ingrate). So, since I'm missing television so very much, I thought I'd share one of my favorite clips from a show that won't be coming back - Flight of the Conchords. While I think that the first season of the show wasa bit stronger than the second (the length of time spent with the material did show occasionally), one of my absolute favorite episodes is Season 2's "Unnatural Love," that features the song "Carol Brown."
(I posted that through the magic of Google help and the YouTube. Bow down to me as I am soon to take over the internet and all its tubes.)
Secondly, I thought I'd draw attention to some of my favorite pop culture criticism because I spent most of my time in my office this afternoon catching up on it. Don't worry, I did some other stuff, too. But anyway, since my office is quiet and I tend to need distractions as a general rule, I like to listen to the podcasts - known as Gabfests - that Slateoffers on a weekly basis. While I like all of them, from the original Political Gabfest to Hang Up and Listen, the Sport podcast, and will even listen to an Audio Book Club about something I haven't read (it's called being a responsible graduate student in the field of English), my most favorite Gabfest is the Culture Gabfest (you can click that). It's very well rounded, funny, and informative. This week we learned about sex scenes in literature, the changing status of the online magazine, competing theories about what happened to Van Gogh's ear, and much, much more. Like a good number of things I like, it's slightly nerdy and eclectic, but it's also worth a listen.
I don't have a third thing right now, but when I get that calendar I will.
No, I'm not just taking pictures of the contents of my cabinets. I got this mug for Christmas from my boyfriend's parents, so I guess I'm serious about this blogging thing. He got one, too, with the title of his blog - The Parasite Frequently* - on it. So, now we both have to keep writing since 1.) We're being taken seriously and 2.) Otherwise, these mugs will serve as reminders of our crippling defeat on the internets. Though the mugs would probably be delightful vessles to cry into.
*Note: The Parasite Frequently is ideal for you or your loved ones if you've had pressing questions about Shakespeare, literature, or if you'd like to read my boyfriend holding forth on reading poems. It's okay, he's a professional (like me, but with more seriousity).
Since I've been on a brief blogging hiatus the past couple of days (I had some sleeping to do and some mysteries to read and some hives to break out in), I haven't had a chance to say "Happy New Year!" So there it is. And in honor of 2010 - and no, I don't know how I'm going to say it yet, but I hear it's a matter of public concern - here's a personal favorite from Threadless*. It's called "Damn Scientists," and while I haven't figured out how to post a picture of it, if you click on the link, you'll see that the shirt laments many broken promises about the future, including the lack of personal jetpacks.
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* And if you don't know what Threadless is, it's a really cool website that sells really cool t-shirts designed by people who respond to their open call for designers. And the prices are pretty darn reasonable.
