Just Eat the Damn Peach

The Office (NBC). FULL RECAP: "Product Recall": Aired April 24 2007.

First of all, the opening for this episode was---bar none---the best ever.  The only close contender was the "Dwight-Will-Salivate-for-Altoids" one from Phyllis's Wedding.  The last scene is EQUALLY awesome. Because of moments like this,  I-Tunes downloads are SO worth it, ya'll.  You can watch them over and over!

Second, I am hoping that the general direction and tenor of this episode is pointing toward a resolution for the season I am really hoping for:  Michael gets demoted and someone else (Jim?  Cocktail Party, I thought, sort of hinted at this)  takes over as boss.  I say this because this was a major theme in the show I'm sorry but I just can't help still thinking of as The real Office and a very successful one.  Being placed under Neil really brought out David Brent's dark[er] side.  Why not Michael's?  We've seen enough of Michael behaving [relatively] well [some of the time].  And the comic possibilities arising from the reactions of Dwight, Andy, Karen, and Pam are endless (showing that I hope Karen will still be with us).  I think the show could benefit from a bit of darkening, frankly.

THE OPENING.  Jim marches---quite, quite literally----through the door.   I noticed right away that something was definitely off about him---though it took me longer than you'd probably guess to work out why. 

For one thing, he's carrying one of those old-fashioned boxy briefcases that you carry by the handle  Furthermore, his face looks as stiff as his posture, as if he were dead and stuffed. . Pam's eyes widen as he stalks past.  Is she or is she not in on the joke?  You be the judge.

When he sits down at his desk we see that he is wearing a short-sleeved peach-colored shirt and a more or less matching tie.  (When did it start to be dorky for men to wear short sleeved shirts to work?  Because, you know, it definitely is).  Furthermore, his usual floppy do---so beloved by us all--- is slicked down flat and parted in the middle.  Yes, there's something definitely different about Jim.  What could it be? 

With the minimum change in expression humanly possible to allow this, Jim squints at his computer screen.  "Kinda blurry," he mutters.  He pops open the briefcase and takes out a pair of giant glasses.  "Jim's got glasses!" I said to Nick.  Which is when I realized.  I bet you were way ahead of me, weren't you?  "That's better," he says to himself.   Dwight looks up at him  incuriously, still not seeing what it took me---but not you, of course---all this time to realize.

"QUESTION," says Jim.  "What kind of BEAR is BEST?"

Dwight looks up, faintly puzzled.  After reflecting briefly, he says, "That's a ridiculous question."

"FALSE," says Jim. "BLACK BEAR."

Dwight takes the bait.  "That's debatable."

"FACT," Jim interrupts. "BEARS eat BEETS.  BEARS.  BEETS.  BATTLESTAR. Galactica." He Dwightishly smacks his lips over the initial explosive "B" in each word, as if finding the savor of his own words delicious beyond expectation.

"Bears do not eat beets----" Dwight begins.  Realization dawns.  "What are you doing?"

Cut to Jim in the conference room, still wearing the dork specs.  While shopping at his local drugstore, Jim saw the glasses on sale:  "Four dollars."  It only cost him seven dollars "to recreate the rest of the ensemble" for---he beeps the calculator button on his multi-functional digital watch---a grand total of "eleven dollars."  He holds up his wrist to the camera so that we can check out the twin to Dwight's black digital watch.

Dwight has decided to take the position that  "imitation is the most sincere form of flattery (sic)."   Jim just smiles, opens his briefcase and takes out...a Bobblehead.  He sets it down next to his keyboard.

Eyes waving about on stalks, Dwight shouts that identity theft is not a joke.  "Millions of families suffer every year!"

Jim stares at him, then bellows, "MICHAEL!"  He jumps up from his desk---his spine still completely perpendicular--- and stalks out of the screen, in search of Michael.

"Oh, that's funny," says Dwight.  Then he bellows "MICHAEL!"  He scampers (herkily-jerkily, natch) after Jim.  John Kraskinski could totally have played the Dwight role (which---if memory serves---he read for).

And the opening credits roll!  Lots of fake accents and yelling in this one, hurray!

Forgive Alec Baldwin. NOW. Otherwise: NO MORE JACK DONAGHY.

Lay off of Alec Baldwin, people!  He's been shamed!  He went on The View!  Besides:  he's not in politics, he's apologized, and it's none of your business.  Judge not, etc.!

Besides,why should I have to pay for Baldwin's domestic issues or Kim Basinger's intransigence?  Tell me that.  Why should I suffer?  Because critic Stephanie Zacharek says  this:

[quote begins from Salon.com, Stephanie Zacharek, When Good Actors do Bad Things."]

[T]he embattled celebrity is wedged uncomfortably, like a shamed monkey, between Barbara Walters and Rosie O'Donnell on "The View."....   Without ever mentioning ex-wife Kim Basinger's name, Baldwin makes it clear that, in his view, she's an unreasonable cow who'll do everything in her power to prevent him from seeing his daughter. Walters, always the brilliant voice of reason, notes that there are two sides to every story..... 

Somewhere in there, Baldwin drops a mini-bomb: He has asked NBC to release him from his "30 Rock" contract, since he wants to spend the next few years concentrating on a subject that, for obvious reasons, has become very important to him, that of parental alienation as a component, or a result, of divorce litigation. (He has a book on the subject, from St. Martin's Press, coming out within the next few months.) "If I never acted again, I couldn't care less," Baldwin said on "The View." He's been in the game for a long time, and you need only scan his IMDb listing to recognize that the guy has been working, a lot, for about a quarter of a century. Who could blame this clearly intelligent and articulate guy for wanting to leave a profession he's good at, when more people have an opinion about a voice mail message he left for his daughter than they do about his actual work?

[quote ends; links in original; emphasis mine]

AAAAAAAAAGH!  No!  No!  No!  No!  No!  30 Rock without Jack Donaghey?  HE DOESN'T MEAN IT. No, NBC!  No!  No!  No!  No!  Alec Baldwin may not care if he ever acts again, but I care. Furthermore, Nick cares too.  So does every single person I know he who really knows anything about him. 

And to answer Zacharek's question, I could; I could blame him.  For leaving 30 Rock, Alec Baldwin, I will never, ever, forgive.  Don't punish your fans.

The Sopranos---The Final Season. Into the Western Lands.

I've waited three episodes in to The Sopranos because the end of the last season (which of course was not actually intended to be an end) confused me.  I wanted to see if Chase would tie together all the threads that season left hanging loose.

And now I think it's happening...

INTO THE WESTERN LANDS?    I was really pretty psyched at the beginning of last summer's new season of The Sopranos.  Till then, I'd never felt the same way about the show as some of my friends.  While I was always completely entranced from the first boom-boom chords of the theme song to the end, I generally didn't spend a lot of time reflecting on it afterward.  I will admit to having had a bit of a crush on Gandolfini's Tony----I have kind of a (completely imaginary) thing for big teddy bear guys with keen minds and  thuggish manners---but he never gave me the sort of butterflies I get from Ray Winstone's British equivalent.  In short, I loved the show, but I didn't live and breathe it the way I did Six Feet Under, Deadwood, Rome, and----much to my surprise---Big Love. I'm just not that into gangster films  I didn't even like The Godfather (the first was as far as I got) or Good Fellas.

But last season began in a way I didn't expect:  with Tony's near death experience and "The Western Lands" by William S. Burroughs.  The dream sequence that so irked some other viewers I know fascinated me.  And it fascinated critics as well. 

From Slate, a review dated 13 March 2006 by Troy Patterson:

[quote begins from Metaphysical Mobsters:  The New, Ruminative Season of the Sopranos]

I believe that the words were from William S. Burroughs' The Western Lands, that they matched up what Burroughs had read in Norman Mailer's Ancient Evenings with his own mythology, that the voice was the writer's own oracular croak....

Quickcap of "The Office"---"Safety Training." Aired 04.12.07.

I'm still working to get out from under a massive load of projects, but it's going to be all over pretty soon, and then I'm  determined to go back through and pick up all this season's missed recapping opportunities....because I still love this show, damn it. 

This episode made me happy because it was hardly at all about anyone's romance and almost completely about, you know, the office?  It wasn't as dense and nuanced as some of the more recent ones, but it was more of an ensemble effort (even Creed got a look-in, though not poor Meredith). 

I was happy to see Andy again, even though he has decided that he is now to be called "Drew."  His anger management training has taught him a whole new set of behaviors; meantime, the rage bubbling just beneath the surface is so plainly evident.  Check out this photograph from the NBC site.   Ed Helms is really damn good; that thinning and sucking-inward of the lips is just one breath away from lip-biting tooth-grinding full-on fury.  Dwight has decided, in the manner of the Amish, to shun Andy for the next three years.  Furthermore, Jim refuses point-blank to call Andy "Drew."  Poor thing:  you get your twitchiness under control and nobody will let you turn over a fresh leaf.  They're still all on the same page as before he left. 

Can Andy cope?  I'm thinking not but hoping so.  I love Andy.  Or, rather, "Drew." 

The real theme of "Safety Training" was----as is so often the case----Michael's shaky sense of self.   Michael decides it would be a "treat" for the office workers to sit in on Darryl's safety training presentation in the warehouse.  Yeah.   Things get well and truly  out of hand because Darryl decides to take that opportunity to hammer home the point that the upstairs workers cannot drive the forklift.  Michael:  "I can and I have."  Darryl intereviews that he is legitimately scared for his workers since Michael recently kicked a ladder out from under him and yelled, "Hey, Darryl, how's it hanging?"  Darryl is now on crutches due to a busted leg.    

Anyway, Michael will not, cannot, does not concede that Darryl has any right to stop him from messing with the equipment.  One of  Darryl's workers---a very, shall we say, burly guy called, in this episode, "The Sea Monster"---gets righteously furious at the way Michael keeps arguing with Darryl (the baler, which can "crush a car engine" is a "big red trashcan.")

Heather Havrilevsky on "Top Design."

Heather Havrilevsky weighs in with her assessment of Top Design.   For the most part I couldn't agree more.  I was especially pleased that her opinion about the outcome was the same as mine:  as annoying as she was---like the officious girl on your dormitory hall who thought she was the boss of everything all the damn time--- Carisa's final product was better and she should have won it all.   I was also glad to have my admittedly uncredentialed opinion of the designs confirmed.

[quote begins from Salon, Heather Havrilevsky, I Like to Watch]

.Yes, the fine contestants on this show, who had so little to say that the producers were reduced to showing them bickering with their appointed carpenters over and over again, spent most of the season strolling around the PDC's indoor mini-mall, searching for a stodgy-looking chaise or a boring mahogany ensemble that looked like a "dinette set" straight off "The Price Is Right" Showcase Showdown....

Now, it's true that...even though the contestants were pretty dull, the show did have its moments, like when aspiring designer Goil blurted, practically through tears, that he didn't want to be "a Jan Brady" (meaning wishy-washy, emotional or envious?) or when Carissa narrowly avoided allowing her reckless carpenter, Carl, to inadvertently smash to little bits the rustic dinette set on loan from the PDC....

The final challenge was at least new and ambitious: Design a loft that you'd like to live in. While Carissa's black, white and red-all-over loft looked like a funky, reasonably skilled imitation of a room you'd find in Jonathan Adler's design book, minus the chartreuse glazed dildo-shaped vase and the 3-foot-tall Dalmatian statuette, Matt's loft was the usual subdued, somnambulant showroom. Yes, the judges praised the pink girly bedroom for his daughter and the eggplant-colored walls and the whimsical hanging lamp in the bathroom. But other than those two rooms, all we saw from Matt was decent taste and nice furniture placement. At least Carissa designed a sunken platform bed (covered in Adler-esque pillows, of course) and some shelving (straight out of West Elm catalog, but still). If the whole point was merely to shop for dumb furniture, why not just call it "Top Consumer"?... In short, "Top Design" often felt cheap, lazy and unimaginative, as if the producers only had a few days to create and staff a show that they were told should be "just like 'Top Chef' or 'Project Runway,' except it's about design!"...

[quote ends]

The only thing I didn't agree with---though in principle and not in fact----was her ripping on my imaginary friend and counselor, Todd Oldham  ("painted bright orange").   That, Ms. Havrilevsky, was simply the outward and visible emanation from his inner radiance which---as I noted---is descended straight from the "glowing, peach-tinted heavens."

The Ghost Chill Factor #4. "The Death of Halpin Frayser" (Ambrose Bierce)

SOME BACKGROUND ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Ambrose Bierce---I feel obliged to start out this way; I don't know why---is best known for the short story, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and for The Devil's Dictionary.  Since Carlos Fuentes published The Old Gringo, a fictional work about Bierce's fate after his disappearance, he seems to have undergone a resurgence in popularity; or maybe not that, but people seem to be more aware of him than they used to be.  Back in my teens, it seemed that everyone had to read "Owl Creek Bridge" (well, I say "had to"; it's a great and in its way terrifying story and therefore a pleasure to read), but most people didn't know anything about Bierce or any of his other work. 

But since at the age of about 17 I stumbled on The Death of Halpin Frayser in some anthology or other, it's ranked as one of my top ten ghost stories.  I consider it one of the most terrifying and puzzling ghost stories of all time.   I didn't understand it then, and I am not certain I understand it now, but I'll do my best to share such insights as I can offer. 

If you want to read about Bierce, you can do so here and especially here (The Ambrose Bierce Society).   He's a fascinating fellow and one of nature's misanthropes, so he's worth reading about all on his own.  Since my business, as I said in my first note, is with the teller and not the tale, I'm going to concentrate on Halpin Frayser.   The story is available online at several sites and in several formats.  If you like reading in pdf format (which makes the reading look like an actual page in an actual book), you will prefer this link.   Otherwise, you can try this one at the Literature Network or this one---which I'll be using--at Short Stories.

THE STORY.  From M.R. James's "Lost Hearts" to "The Death of Halpin Frayser" seemed like a natural progression to me.   In my note on "Lost Hearts" I mentioned that one of the horrors of the story seems to be the undifferentiated malice of the two dead children.  While it's possible to see them as appearing to the 11 year old Stephen in order to warn him that he may be in danger, to do requires the reader to ignore Stephen's own sense that they will (if he comes in their way) do him harm.  The story shows that the boy, at least, despite his cadaverous thinnness and the near-transparency of his hands, his a terrible and superhuman strength.   The epigram with which Bierce's story, "The Death of Halpin Frayser"  opens suggests an explanation for the children's rage and hunger for revenge.

The End of Bravo's Top Design; A Wish for More Todd Oldham.

You know, I'm on record as a devoted and unapologetic watcher of Bravo's line of reality show competitions involving experts in a field (many with oversized personalities and/or egos) compete at doing something they're all really good at doing.

None of the ones I've seen have risen to the level of Project Runway, and why?  I've come to the conclusion that Project Runway's success can be summarized in two words:  the contestants' guide and mentor Tim Gunn. 

Who doesn't adore Tim Gunn?  Handsome, graceful, gifted, amazingly articulate, and---above all---kindly.  His radiant kindness sheds a soft, gentle, transformative glow over the rest of the cast:  the teutonically abrupt (though lovely) Heidi Klum; the snide (but engaging) Michael Kors; and the scary (but magnetic) Nina Garcia.   I don't think the show would ever have risen out of the endless stream of television reality shows without him.  The judges are likable and their comments frequently riveting, but  in short....Tim Gunn. 

I attribute the substantially lesser appeal of Top Chef to the lack of the Tim Gunn character.  Instead of Tim Gunn, we get chef Tom Colicchio:  a nice man I am sure, but ice cold.  I like him as a judge, but it was a mistake, I think, to set up the show with the judge in the role of---what? what?  what's the point of his descent on the competitors to do what Keckler of TWoP calls his "sniff 'n sneer"?  He's not a Gunn-like mentor, as he himself has explained; he's there only in his capacity as a judge.

Top Design, the most recent offering, was by comparison to either of these offerings, pallid.  Why?  Maybe it's because the nature of the task (designing rooms) required more time or maybe because we've all seen too many home makeover shows before.  Maybe it's because the show focused too little on the thinking and process that goes into designing a room or maybe it's because they allowed too little time for tasks of this nature.  Maybe it's because the judging seemed strangely arbitrary.  (Remember the beach cabana task?  And the winning cabana won even though it had no roof at all but looked so pretty with the sheer, delicate, non-sun-obscuring curtains blowing out over the beach?) 

Or maybe it's because a number of the contestants just weren't that good?   Some of the productions I saw were butt-ugly.  I'm sorry---it's just my uninformed opinion.  Or maybe because their was too much focus from the outset on the drama between the contestants and not enough on the work?

The Office (NBC). Quickcap till I can get the Full Recap Done. "The Negotiation": 5 April 2007.

The episode could have been subtitled "Five Couples."  The couples in question:  Pam and Jim, Pam and Roy, Dwight and Angela, Ryan and Kelly, and Michael and Jan.  The secret storyline was the further development of the relations between these pairs.  Poor Karen got a look-in, but only just.    I don't know many offices the size of DM where there are so many hook-ups.  Maybe such things happen only in Scranton.  (After all, we all know:  "There ain't no party like a Scranton party.")

There was a subtext of male dog-on-dog action:  Roy dominating Jim, Dwight dominating Roy (and by extension, Jim) Darryl dominating Michael (and Michael's struggle to be top dog), Michael dominating Toby, and---finally---the glorious return of my hero Andy.  Though asserting that his anger has now been managed, his evolution into a quieter, more peaceable Andy were instantly belied (in a scene so brief you missed it if you blinked) by his attempt to dominate everybody.

Roy makes the promised attempt to "kill Jim Halpert," but is foiled by Dwight's pepper gas.  It's not funny violence:  it's ugly.  Roy, forgetting every single thing he's learned about Pam since the break-up, is in a state of primordial rage; his eyes are clotted with it.  He means to inflict severe bodily harm on Jim.  What?  Why?  What?  Yes, I know that Pam's revelation in the last (as yet unrecapped; sorry) episode sent him over the edge; why?  "I kissed Jim."  I suppose we must assume he understood this as a euphemism; presumably, he pictured much, much more than the sweet, brief little snog which we and Pam and millions of balked, frustrated, furious Jammers (no satisfaction in sight yet, ladies!) remember.

Dwight's fast thinking earns him props from the rest of the employees.  Angela, still pretending that she isn't Dwight's girlfriend, missed the scene, but she spends the episode going from fellow employee to fellow employee, asking them to rely the details, which arouse her strangely.  Angela Kinsey does this really well:  the fleeting slackening of the face and glazing of the eyes, then Angela pulling herself together again to snap, "Well good for Dwight." 

A Valediction to "Rome."

  Good-bye, Pullo!  Good-bye, Vorenus!  Good-bye, Pullo's bratty bastard son!  Good-bye, Vorenus's whiny, sullen gaggle of urchins!  Good-bye ice-cold, scary Octavian v.2 and your ice-cold, scary wife Livia!  Good-bye, Atia... Okay, for my actual valediction, click here.

The Mainstreaming of Television without Pity?

So, now that TWoP  has been added to Bravo's stable, there is much consternation about whether it will become Bravo's bitch.  Friday's Slate published "Will corporate ownership ruin a Cult Website?" by Dana Stevens. 

[quote begins]
Last week, the Bravo network (which is owned by NBC Universal, which in turn is a subsidiary of General Electric) announced that it had added the Television Without Pity Web site to its "portfolio of linked digital assets." In the same eye-glazingly jargon-filled press release, Bravo President Lauren Zalaznick describes TWoP as an "online brand destination." That inert chunk of corporate media-speak can't help but send a chill down the spine of the many readers—about a million unique visitors a month—who treat the site like a frayed and lumpy couch on which to plop down next to their funniest friends and heckle the show of their choice. Will the conversion of TWoP into a network brand smooth out the idiosyncrasies that make the site such a grumpy, stubborn, and endearingly unnavigable place?

[quote ends (links in original)]

Are they kidding me?  TWoP change?  Listen, if Yahoo didn't change TWoP, Bravo sure isn't going to do it.  I mean, I can't imagine how it would or could (well, the site could become a bit more elegant and less lumpy, but I wouldn't mind that).  I can't see the TWoP big three yielding one inch of their curmudgeonly governance to Bravo or its corporate masters.  Is that naive of me?  I just don't see it happening.  I don't think that's wishful thinking.   I hope it isn't wishful thinking.   It's only this that separates TV from dozens of virtually indistinguishable television sites all over the internet.

I know that there are quite a number of former TWoP members who would maintain that the site ruined itself through an excess of its well-known and uncompromising prickliness (always ready to sting the hands that fed its advertisers).  But I've never had the sense of entitlement of many of these people, so it never hurt my feelings if it cancelled a show, closed a thread, or banned a fellow poster.  I find the forums fatiguing and the stress of posting a bit silly, given that it's meant for a leisure past-time.  But though I've done my share of bitching about the site (not at TWoP, which (probably wisely) doesn't provide a forum for that, but at one of the spin-off sites which does.  But I still keep going back.  I could never give up the recaps.    

I've been reading the site since the days when it was "Mighty Big TV" and have been an official member since (I think) 2002.  Like most long-term members who haven't managed to get themselves banned, I have a love/hate relationship with the site.  The "rambling recaps" to which Dana Stevens refers are the reason for the love part of the relationship, and even though I rarely post in the forums anymore, I often read them.