Things I Discovered in 2009: TV Shows

(At first I wrote TV Shoes.)

Most of these are here because of Hulu, so thank you, Hulu.

1. Glee
I thought it would be too hokey, but in the first episode, when Finn is sad, they use an a capella requiem quietly as transition between several scenes while Mr. Shoe (Schu?) considers quitting to become an accountant. And then Bust Your Windows happened, and they keep catching me off-guard with song choices in a really spectacular way. Also there is some terrible melodrama blah blah sing another song please.

2. Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
This is 100% hulu. I really didn't have much confidence, and I started out sticking with good old Conan and his reliably funny clips about his running amok in the real world, but then something started to change... I think it was the first time they Slow Jammed the News on Late Night, and it became clear that they were not using Andy Richter well (or at all) on the Tonight Show and that Conan was not winning over the audience in his monologue ever. "Did you guys here about this?" SILENCE. "Two people have? That's great" Whereas Jimmy Fallon seems genuinely into the stories he's cracking jokes on, jokes he is proud of, jokes he will laugh at. And when he does his Thank You Notes, he riffs and the note-writing music stops, and when he played off of Palin's kids names "Track! Jacket!" "Track give that back to Jacket" I started to only watch Conan episodes when he had great guests, but watch Jimmy Fallon no matter the guest, in SPITE of the guest even. One night I was watching, and they played Wheel of Carpet Samples. That's right, I was won over by carpet samples. They spin the wheel and win the sample it stops on, but the genius thing, the whole reason it's brilliant, is that Jimmy asks everyoe in the studio audience to say the catchphrase along with him, before the contestant spins the wheel: "Spin! That! Wheel! Of! Carpet! Samples!" It just goes on so long, it has to be good. Here it is. Real Housewives of Late Night is also surprisingly not terrible. I think it's the extended metaphores that Denise goes for. They are authentically reality TV bad.

3. Dollhouse
I should not watch Dollhouse, it is above my range of quantity and quality of permitted violence, but I keep watching it. (Except for the Season 1 finale, I couldn't take the knife attacks) The cast must be good, because I can ignore Tahmoh Penikett who I still hate from his role as Helo on BSG. Man I hate that guy. The theme song is creepy cute great. I just learned it has lyrics! The best episode is Man On the Street from Season 1 which guest stars Patton Oswalt and goodness its glorious. Only a few more left, I hope it goes out with a bang, but not literally.

4. Lost
Marble made me watch it, I wouldn't have volunteered to. It is also above the violence/fucked up range, but I have now seen all of Season 1 and 2. I don't need to see anymore, but I guess it's good to have more than just a cursory knowledge of a large part of the life of modern day nerds I plan to socialize with. WIth which I plan to socialize.

5. Kings
It's so bloody good, go watch it on Hulu. It's so goddamn fantastic and epic and backstab and intrigue and secrets and their flag has a butterfly on it. Sadly only 13 episodes, but a good damn show with strong strong characters.

6. Defying Gravity
It seemed like it was getting interested, and now its cancelled and they haven't released the final episodes. I've only been able to see 8 of 13. RELEASE EM ALREADY. They somehow balanced building plot over 3 locations. Spaceship, Earth at present (talking to spaceship), and Earth several years ago. Brilliant.

7. Reaper
This is not a new show, but its new to me. I always avoided this show because I thought it was by Kevin Smith, and I like that guy's stuff, but it can be a little more base humor than I can handle. Dogma poop monster for example. In reality, I believe he has NOTHING to do with it, but whatever. So I watched it online, it's fantastic. The devil, Sock, DMV lady was in Dead Like Me, so good. They set up Ben to be annoying in the first scene but then he turns out awesome. I'm glad the vessel is different every time. Cameos by the guys from the State, it rocks. I should go pick up the comics when they exist. (There was only one episode I had to avoid because of bugs. Good job, show)


8. White Collar
It's about a con man gone straight who wears 1940s suits. He wears them well. They need to let him do more awesome things, because they are the very best part of the show. They just introduced a plot twist and a bad guy and um... I'm afraid it's about to suck, but I love it for now.

9. Modern Family
It is suspiciously like Arrested Development, which doesn't really grab me, much to the sadness of my brothers. It's good. The patriarch is angry but not too evil. The dad is dumb but not too dumb. The gay couple is the perfect amount of gay. :)

10. Community
I didn't want to like this one either, but then I watched all 12 episodes within 24 hours. Foolish girl.

Things I Discovered in 2009: Movies

They were not made in 2009, but they made my year.

3. I Could Never Be Your Woman ( 2007)



I swear to God, I only watched this movie because David Mitchell has a cameo. It's a fine cameo, but it's a more than decent movie surrounding his bit part. In the best scene ever, Paul Rudd DANCES. He does not stop, he does not limit your enjoyment to one silly move. He COMMITS and he DANCES DAMMIT. The supporting cast is fun, doing a farce of a high school mini drama, the daughter says naughty grown-up things, and the least fun person in the movie in Michelle Pfeiffer. It is one of the few romcoms I think I'll ever approve of. Well done, you fun stupid movie.

2. Charlie Bartlett (2007)



You win, Anton Yelchin. I love you. You already win. This movie is like Rushmore if Max was popular. (I've made a detailed argument about this that I've never confessed to but think about it: bully wants to act, private school kid to public school, etc) It's the best high school kids-acting-like-adults smart funny movie I have seen. He is such a great leading man, you forget that Hope Davis, Kat Dennings, and Robert Downey Jr (for chrissake!) are awesome too. They have a dance and Spiral Beach plays Voodoo and my goodness I love this movie.

1. The Brothers Bloom (2008)



I knew I would love this movie from the first trailer. It took me so long to be able to see this movie, I was worried the self-made hype would be greater than the product. I was worried all the other quirky indie movies I had thought I would like had been really terrible, and I questioned my faith. But then I got to watch it. And I knew I would love this movie from the opening lines by Ricky Jay. They won me over so fast I tried to hate them for it but I love it too much for that. The dialogue, the costumes, the plot, the little cons, the Blooms as kids, the cameos from people in Brick, the sneak attack Cat Stevens. Dammit Rian Johnson, I thought all the odds working against this could stop my love, but I love it to the end and it WILL be mine when it finally comes out on DVD in a few weeks.

Thank you, little movies. Thank you for giving me something I could float on.

Things I Discovered in 2009: Countries

CHINA!

I went to China for 2 weeks, which is weird. We hopped around cities in a loop in and out of the country: Beijing, Xian, Chengdu, Longsheng, Shanghai

You can find a brief photoset on Flickr

Also. I hugged a panda and scratched his ear and was not arrested and now we are pen pals. Here for my embarrassment and your viewing pleasure:


It was pretty great, and I have a necklace and bracelet and earrings and communist poster and book and mushroom cloud pin and greater understanding of that giant country.

The Man Who Made Lists: Not a Book Review

I recently finished The Man Who Made Lists by Joshua Kendall about the life of Peter Mark Roget and I don't know what to say exactly.

I was hoping this book would be a kickstart to me to attack the pile of language books I have languidly lying around my bookshelves, but not so.

From the first pages, I was writing "awwwww" in the margins because the front and back sheets are his handwritten list of animal names in Latin and English.

The book goes through his biography, and I don't like how it's written, like the author had a Pastwatch-esque ability to know where Roget is looking and what he is thinking as he walks down the road or in the middle of a meeting. I know there are records and he could have explained it after the fact, but I just don't buy it and it distracts me to throw in details about the buildings he passes and their little histories.

Whatever. So I identify with him, and he was destined to go on the Cool Guys List from the first cracking open of the book. So his life is tragic, and it makes me worry that I can try to organize the world in my little way, try to contribute to some field, realize the kind words someone once told me, that I am "a solution in search of a problem." And I will contribute, probably, but it won't stop my life from being terrible for no apparent reason, and it won't stop me suffering from debilitating personal issues that don't allow me to appreciate my many blessings or accomplishments. What I'm saying is, I'm really looking forward to the rest of my life. Thanks, book.

I mean, Peter Mark Roget was a serious genius, and put his hands into all sorts of medical and botanical classification projects, and now his name is (oh my, better write this one down) synonymous with Thesaurus-type reference books, but those are just word indices and lack the vision that his original system had about who would use his book and why and how.

RESOLUTION: To seek out an original-ish version of Roget's Thesaurus, in a rare books room in Portland or elsewhere. To see the original layout, to see the systems and sub-systems. To touch a page, even if through gloved fingers. To be inspired or not by it. Begin.

I Joined Wordnik

Last night I joined wordnik.com as TankHughes. I favorited 50 words, realizing how many words on my happy word list are not in English.

I hope to start tagging words I like, and creating categories for interesting words like 'strengths' the longest word with only one vowel. longest_word_with_one_vowel, one_vowel, word_records ?

More to come. Could not see a direct way to volunteer to be helpful to the site, so I'll just try some things on my own before reaching out officially.

Cool Guys List

Sun Tzu (544-496BC)

Zeno of Elea (490-430BC)

Tiresias (405BC-?)

Dismas and Gestas (?-29)

Charlesmagne (747-814)

Genghis Khan (1162-1227)

Nicholaus Copernicus (1473-1543)

Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596)

El Greco (1541-1614)

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

Diego Velazquez (1599-1660)

Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778)

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr (1841-1935)

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)

Clara Barton (1821-1912)

Dmitri Mendeleev (1831-1907)

Carry Nation (1846-1911)

Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)

Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1931)

Beatrix Potter (1866-1943)

George Patton (1885-1945)

Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977)

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)

Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

John Steinbeck (1902-1968)

Sterling Holloway (1905-1992)

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (1912-1967)

Eugene Kelly (1912-1996)

Henry Mancini (1924-1994)

Harvey Milk (1930-1978)

John Williams (1932-?)

Sergio Aragones (1937-?)

Billy Collins (1941-?)

Frank Oz (1944-?)

Robert Munsch (1945-?)

David Mamet (1947-?)

Frank Hughes (1949-2009)

Orson Scott Card (1951-?)

Will Shortz (1952-?)

Danny Elfman (1953-?)

Stephen Fry (1957-?)

David Mitchell (1974-?)

Jason Schwartzman (1980-?)

Andy Smith (1984-?)

Paul Shamble (1986-?)

Guillermo J Writerdog (immortal)

Raúl (immortal)

The Hippopotamus and Magical Sex

I just finished reading Stephen Fry's novel The Hippopotamus. I picked it out this summer at Powell's and chose it based on its very low low price, paperbacked-ness, and nice hippo cover. I read it during lunches as I was starting at PECI, and then shit went down, and I lost the book. I also lost my sunglasses, my check wallet, and a lot of lip gloss. 

A couple of weeks ago, I found them all in the same messenger bag that I apparently had not used or opened in months. So I took it up again, more than half-way through, and it finally got good and interesting, which it sadly had not previously been. This being the reason it was lost and not very well looked for. Anyway, spoiler alert, it turns out that this kid has fucked his cousin, a horse, and an older man because he thought his semen would heal them of their ailments. 

At the same time, Digg told me about this comic which highlights a superpower that necessitates the superhero to fuck the person for them to tell the absolute truth.

In related news, once upon a time, when an ex-friend and I would talk about things like, since Johnny Storm says "FLAME ON!" to turn into Human Torch, shouldn't The Thing, or The Hulk, or Colossus say "HARD ON" when they transform into their more invulnerable states? Or, when Wolfsbane transforms from her more human form to her wolf form, what happens to the hair down there? In related matters, Green Lantern could hypothetically create a green condom, bypassing the need for other contraceptives except! Could he retain a sufficient level of concentration during the moment in which he actually would need the block to keep it substantive? Of course the classic discussion is Superman's deadly shot through Lois and WonderWoman's wonderwomb from Mallrats.