Haven't You Always Wanted a Monkey?

Thursdays are always a little rushed, so don't have a single, coherent thing to ruminate on tonight.  So, I figured I'd post the shortest thing that struck me the funniest from last night's Colbert Report.

Monkey ThreatDown - Holes & Banana Too High

The Night We All Cried Into Our Food (In a Good Way)

I have a healthy love for reality television shows of all sorts, particularly those that involve making something by the end of the episode.  I think it's because thsi type of television makes me feel oddly productive. I can, at the end of an hour or half-hour, be secure in the knowledge that while I sat on the couch and ate sugar cereal (for dessert only), I technically learned how to do something like decorate a cake or build a specialty motorcyle.  I'd like to think that, if pressed, I could replicate the skills I've seen on television and sufficiently wow Tim Gunn or impress Padma Lakshmi.  I realize this is a complete delusion created to justify my watching preferences, but it makes me feel like an athletic, flexible, multi-skilled individual.

But anyway, I love (most) reality TV.  And I particularly love reality television that centers around competitive cooking.  As a relatively picky eater, I experience none of the frustration of the viewer with the more advanced palate.  I will never, ever order squab anywhere, so I don't get mad that I can't taste the squab or judge its seasoning and texture, so I'm fine if the tv people just tell me how it is. (A few notes on squab and me : First, it's completely beyond my taste preferences.  Secondly, I looked it up on Wikipedia, so now I know what it is.  Which means any chance of me eating it is more or less out the window.).  I can be completely objective since, for me, watching Top Chef is almost the same as watching Project Runway before they moved it off Bravo and I didn't feel like tracking it down.* 

And this season of Top Chef was pretty awesome.  It was actually about cooking, being a chef, and having tons of body art, which prompted me to ask the question: does a chef know that he or she has really made it when they finally say, "Heck, I'm going to fill in both tattoo sleeves?"  Most of the chefs were pretty standard Top Chef fare - relatively decent chefs who sort of choked and succeeded in equal measures until they were finally, mercifully cut from the show.  It was pretty clear from, like, the third week that the final four would be Jennifer, Kevin, and Bryan and Michael Voltaggio (I know! Brothers! Drama!), and the only real suspense was who was trying to figure out when the other thirteen people would be asked to pack their knives and go.  But it was still a great season because these four chefs were so badass.  I actually rewound my TiVo more than once to watch Michael and Jen butcher and prep rabbits.  It was crazy, silent, and filled with a strange energy that made me need to sort out my feelings about what I had seen.

And even though there were opportunities for Brothers! Drama! that Bravo looked for all season with quick cuts and response shots, the Voltaggios played it cool and churned out straight-up solid food throughout the season.  I appreciated both their coolness and skill, since it made it harder for me to pick which one I liked best because I tend to develop television crushes on intense, skilled professionals.  And while I'm still pretty mostly on Team Bryan (older siblings unite!), I was both surprised and pleased to see Michael win in part two of the two part season finale.  His meal was interesting - though, not I think, the best thing he produced all season - and I really thought Bryan was going to win, but the way Michael's cool guy veneer just broke down when Padma told him he was Top Chef was really something to see.  Even more watchable was the way that both Tom Colicchio and Toby Young also started to tear up once they realized that Michael had dissolved into a triumphant blob.  I also appreciate how Michael pointed out to Padma that he was, in fact, capable of emotion.  I always enjoy the underlying, sometimes vocalized tension between the cheftestants and Padma and I love any moment when someone declares, I AM NOT A ROBOT.        

So, at the end of the sixth season of Top Chef, after many seasons of faithful viewing, I have only one question:  Where can I pick up a soundtrack?  Because I feel like I could find a place in my life for suspenseful, kitchen related tones.



*True story: Tim Gunn also gives remarkably good teaching advice.

The Power of Charlie Brown

Charlie Brown seasonal specials always air on Tuesdays.  This is a law, handed down unto us from the television gods. The Charlie Brown Christmas/Halloween/New Years/Easter/Election Day/Grandparent's Day Extravaganza Special must always air at 8pm on a Tuesday.  This Tuesday must be at least two weeks before the holiday, in question as to fit into the hype of said holiday, but not detract from the actual holiday by airing during the period of time when one is looking for wholesome, quality holiday specials to watch.  To fill the void, ABC Family airs endless insufferable movies about Christmas shoes or Halloween capers.  This is the way we live now.

This is a very long way of saying that once again, I missed "Charlie Brown Christmas".  But I knew it was coming and now I feel as though we can officially, as a group, start to celebrate Christmas.  Because I don't actually need to see "Charlie Brown Christmas" to enjoy it or to reap its wholesome benefits.  Here's why: I know that special by heart even though I've probably only seen it all the way through once.  But I know everything that happens during that half-hour, and I can hear Linus in my head, right now, telling everyone about the true meaning of Christmas. (If you would like to hear it for real, here it is.)  And the same goes for "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," which I actually did manage to watch this year because my mom called me.  And I realized that I've only seen that special all the way through once or twice, but I still have a creepy, six-sense type familiarity with it as well.  I mean, I own a Linus Van Pelt/Great Pumpkin play set.  And I think that Linus Van Pelt's commentary that, "There are three things I have learned you  never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin" are some of the wisest words ever uttered by someone on television, cartoon or not.

This all leads me to wonder if the Charlie Brown Specials - particularly of the Halloween and Christmas varieties - have been fused into our cultural DNA.  I also wonder if this only applies to people of a certain age - those of us in our mid-to-late 20s and 30s - who have parents of a certain age - in their 50s and 60s - who watched and enjoyed these shows with us.   Going beyond Charlie Brown, there's a whole body of Christmas specials, that seem to be watched, enjoyed, and spoken about mostly by people my age.  This, of course,  makes me curious as to whether or not these shows have an appeal beyond our particular demographic or if they're aired every year because there are so many of us who like the television (it's my friend) and becuase our nostalgia is so powerful and marketable. 

And in case you were feeling extra nostalgic now that I've brought it up, here's "A Couple of Misfits" song from the stop-action "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

Life During Poor Time

During my breakfast and light reading period this morning, I came across the latest installment of Salon's ongoing series "Pinched: Tales From an Economic Downturn" called "I Live in a Van Down by Duke University," which I will admit initially caught my eye because it was this morning's featured main story and because of its titular Chris Farley reference.  But aside from my reasons for reading it in the first place, I found the essay brought up a lot of issues that we don't really speak about in America today, like poverty, education, and consumerism.  Ken Ilgunas, the author of the piece, engages in a compelling discussion of the real costs of doing the things we value as a culture that are supposed to give us security, like pursuing higher and higher levels of education and the risks of finding unorthodox ways to live while doing them (I particularly liked his humorous digression into his course of action should Duke University catch him living in a van in a campus parking lot.  I, too, would like to start wearing all white and inviting undergrads curious in following my ways to have tea with me during a long-term and principled stand against the establishment). 

Many of Salon's "Pinched" essays talk about something we generally try to avoid - what happens when you do everything right and everything still goes wrong?  But with the current economic situation, we've been forced to ask this question a bit more openly.  While I haven't read all of the "Pinched" essays, I recommend Heather Ryan's "Our Cupboard Was Bare," about her experience of having to take her children to the local soup kitchen, and Rosencrans Baldwin's "How I Ended Up Living With My In-Laws," which has a pretty self-explanatory title.  For longer works on this topic, I would suggest Barbara Ehrenreich's Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream.  

365Pop Project

This morning at breakfast - after a delightful and fulfilling yoga event for Toys for Tots - my friend Colleen told an entire table of people I had just met that I'd be a good pop culture blogger.  She said this twice.  To be fair, I had given her cause.  In the first few minutes of conversation with my fellow breakfasting yogis, I had  discussed Steven Segal movies in general (but in particular, the one where he's a country and western singer and has especially fringy jackets for horseback riding) and his new police reality show and had asked another person at the table if she had ever Googled David Sedaris's partner, Hugh Hamrick, to see what he looks like.  (I have.)  My only answer to Colleen's remarks was to smile at the table, shrug, and say, "Yeah, probably." 

Now, the thing you have to know about me is that one of the few people who can tell me what to do (or, at the very least, give me a enough honest encouragement to get started with something I want to do) happens to be Colleen.  In general, I like to be both persnickety and stubborn when people tell me things for my own good.  It makes me think that I came up with good ideas all by myself.  In this case, however, the words, "knock it off with the research and just start writing" got a draft of my dissertation started.  And "just suck it up and clean it already" got me to clean a tub and finally shower three days after my boyfriend moved to Indiana.  In July.  I went for three days without a shower in Indiana in July.  If you were wondering, that is beyond discusting.  Thank God Colleen and her husband were driving across the country at the time so that she could get real with me in person.  I'm lucky that there's someone who can, on a regular basis, cut through the static in my head.  So, anyways...even though I've been trying to get this blog underway for a while, things have fallen a bit flat with deadlines, messing around, and my desire to become really, really good at Tetris.  But now that I am really, really good at Tetris I think it's time to get things going.  Today, I decided that I'm buckling down.

Here's my plan, based on what happens to me every day:  I'm pretty good at finding interesting things on the internet, television, and the world around me.  And I like to share them.  So, from now on, I'm going to make a more focused effort to do that at least once day.  Results will vary, but maybe I can get something going here. 

Friday Love and the Big Question of the Day

Can't find it on the Internets (the tubes must be slow), but last night's Parks and Recreation nearly made me pee myself simply for Leslie Knope's "understandable" lady excuses for why she would have shot her boss in the head while hunting (since "I'm an excellent hunter" only confuses park rangers). (Update: Here it is on Hulu.) Personal favorite: "I have a new bra that hooks in the front, and it popped open and surprised me and I shot Ron in the head."  I always wanted the show to work, and I'm glad it finally got funny.  Don't just take my word for it: You can find a more articulate version of my feelings here, in Heather Havrilesky's "I Like to Watch" column  at Salon.

Also, Oprah quitting her show the day before my 30th birthday.  Should that add a new dimension to my feelings about turning 30?  The Oprah Winfrey Show has been around most of my life...how should about it ending with my 20s?

Happy Tired

It's strange to say, but darn it, I missed being busy.  A lot.  More than any rational person probably should.  When I worked nine to five, I had fantasies of not working nine to five.  College life was romanticized and made everything pale in comparison.  So carefree, so full of thoughts and feelings and valid emotions I was...in my recollection.  So, I re-enlisted.  Then, I worked all the time because the thing they don't tell you about going to grad school for English is that YOUR WORK IS PORTABLE and YOU SHOULD FEEL GUILTY FOR SETTING PERSONAL LIMITS.  This is the true reason paperback books are the size the are.  It is not for the convenience of mainstream American, but for the elaborate social/torture experiment that is graduate school.  And while that was all well and good, and in coursework I really did enjoy yelling at people over Washington Irving (note: DO NOT get me started), when it came time to propose a dissertation and then get down to the work of writing it, the lack of structure drove me to the point of distraction.  First, I felt funemployed.  Daytime television is, in my opinion, a glorious enterprise.  Then, as I was developing some intricate theories invovling Kathie Lee and Hoda, it stopped being fun. 

But this semester, everything changed.  I got an extra job at school.  My randomly selected students might turn out to be good citizens.  I tutor more.  I go home tired.  I am a bit more frayed, but more productive.  Things are good.