The Flatland Almanack

Just Eat the Damn Peach for 28 November 2006. Recap of NBC's "The Office." --"The Merger."

I am woefully behind in my self-imposed duty of recapping---I may never get round to those missing Real Time with Bill Maher episodes, though I've made a promise to myself that I'll try.  It doesn't matter much about Real Time after a week or so has passed because it's of the moment. 

But The Office is for all times and all seasons and I have sworn to myself that I will firmly endeavor to keep up with it and, eventually, to go back and pick up all those earlier episodes I missed out. 

For fans of the show, the last episode was crucial, since it not only brought Jim (the thinking woman's thinking man) back into the mix, but also a lot of additional characters, such as Karen and Andy.  I took a lot of time to think about it , but also I am just busy.  It's the worst time of year for me.  I have no idea when I'll get around to recapping tomorrow's episode.

ANYWAY.  If you want to read a lengthy, carefully thought through recap, JUMP NOW TO JUST EAT THE DAMN PEACH .

Just Eat the Damn Peach for 27 November 2006. An Uncredentialed Opinion on Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60.

I watch Studio 60 because Nick does; meaning it's on the television and I'm in the room with it while it's going on.  Nick likes it---not as much, I think, as he liked The West Wing---but enough to watch it every week after work. 

You know, I basically am sympathetic to Sorkin's all too obvious point of view about television and American culture.   We're shallow and let ourselves down at every turn, yes, yes, yes.

Like Sorkin, I wish, dammit, that we were like the Brits and that writers were vying with one another to come up with sharp, incisive, ground-breaking, intelligent dramas and comedies rather than so many crappy sitcoms and poorly conceived and executed dramas.

Alas, network television didn't evolve that way----which is why HBO expanded to fill that ecological entertainment niche. 

TV networks don't care what I like because they exist to sell products and for that they need audiences who will buy the junk their sponsors sell.  This isn't new;  in the old days, before even I was born, it was usual, I understand, for a television show to begin with an announcement along the lines of BUTTERFLY BISCUITS PRESENTS.....  The commercials, I'm told, were often live and often of absorbing interest to the good housewives peering into their tiny black and white screens.  Consumerism is an integral part of the history of television.  And the fact that I don't think much of Studio 60---or that Nick does---doesn't matter a damn to anyone who is keeping track of the demographics.

Aaron Sorkin, I infer, would have it otherwise.  Well, so would I.  But as long as the world can't be arranged to our liking, the real question is this:  why is Studio 60, with its tremendous and engaging cast, such an invariable letdown?  What's the fly in the ointment?   As I'm the audience Aaron Sorkin wishes (or ought to wish) he could attract and wishes (or ought to wish) mattered a damn to the networks, giving him feedback would be an Act of Kindness. 

Alas, he has made it known in various ways (including, though not only, through the mouths of his characters) that he has little respect for the opinions of the anonymous population of the internet because...We're anonymous!  He doesn't know our credentials!  We can't prove we know enough to keep track of the erudite asides of his many characters!  We live in flyover zones!  Etc.

But I am not easily dissuaded when I've made up my mind to offer an opinion, so whether Mr. Sorkin likes it or not, HERE IT IS. 

The Flatland Chronicles for 22 November 2006. I grapple with the Ghost of Thanksgivings Past. Then I make my Thanksgiving List.

This is the time of the year when it's borne upon me most forcefully that certain things that at one point in my life seemed as if they would never, ever end are gone for good, never to return.  Those long tedious Thanksgiving days at my uncle's house back in the Seventies, surrounded by my family (who didn't understand me! or appreciate me! my grandfather called me a freak!) are well and truly over.  People have died.  Everyone has scattered.   I always thought I'd eventually go back there. 

It's something I wanted to reflect on before I got down to the real work for today, counting my blessings and realizing after I'd counted up to twenty that there were a hell of a lot more I could have added to the list.

I know many people my age have these same ambivalent feelings about turkey day.  Just realizing that we and Charlie Brown and Linus and the gang were LIED TO about the Pilgrim fathers and their happy little harvest festival was bound to take its toll on us once we grew up into the very un-Brady world.  Charlie Brown of "Peanuts", and not the scarily resilient Bradys, really captured the spirit of the Seventies as I experienced them:  the futile hopes, the perpetual frustrations, the never being understood, the losing even when you were so sincere....  That was my life too.  The Seventies were like a party going on somewhere else.  We had to wear the ridiculous clown clothes and watch "Love American Style" and put up with Watergate, but we didn't get to do our own thing or have any of the fun, except vicariously.

But even if wasn't all sweet potato pudding and ambrosia, there were some things that were worth undergoing.  After all, you had to go there to get to here.

So, anyway.   JUMP TO THE FLATLAND CHRONICLES to keep reading.

Just Eat the Damn Peach for 22 November 2006. (More Love for Gordon Ramsay--But Don't Try this at Home, Kids).

After watching tonight's episode of "The F Word," I just had to blog a bit more about Gordon Ramsay.

Nobody could be more surprised than I am at my Ramsay love.  He says that "The F word" is the cooking show that's good enough to eat, but I say it's the cooking show for people who don't like cooking.  Just consider the myriad of issues that get discussed in a given episode.  It is a FEAST of random fascinations.  Cooking is just one part of it.  His recipes look delicious and I hope Nick is taking notes, but I watch it for the excess of personality.

So, anyway, more happy reminiscing over the episode I just watched...JUMP TO JUST EAT THE DAMN PEACH.

The Flatland Chronicles for 19 November 2006. Preliminary Reflections on Real Time with Bill Maher, Episode 90: New Rule for Richard Dreyfuss.

I'm behind in recapping Real Time and probably won't get to the pretty good Salman Rushdie episode (89) till the end of the week.  As to the finale, it could have been great, if Richard Dreyfuss had been, let us say, more attuned to the dynamics of an edgy, savvy panel discussion.  As it was, it sort of never came together. 

Hence my new rule for Richard Dreyfuss:  He must get a blog.  I would totally read that blog.  And then in panel discussions he must learn to play the role of a universally respected actor with something really important to say who is participating in an edgy, savvy panel discussion, rather than a stodgy old academic who thinks lecturing is the only form of discourse.  He must be succinct and---if possible---witty.  Above all, he must know when it's time to let Bill Maher speak.   

To read more, JUMP NOW TO THE FLATLAND CHRONICLES.

Just Eat the Damn Peach for 18 November 2006. Recap of NBC's "The Office"---Branch Closing: The Producer's Cut.

Continuing to recap the season 3 episodes of "The Office," I have just posted my extensive recap of "Branch Closing."  At its website, NBC ran an extended "producer's cut" version of the episode which I believe is available for a limited time.  It includes material not included in the televised version.  This material seems to be included in the version of the episode available at I-Tunes---check it out for yourself----and is well worth the $3 it would cost to see it if you didn't see the version avalailable at the website.  It's a great episode with a lot of extremely funny---and amazing acting---even by this show's superior standards.

If you would like to read my full recap, JUMP NOW TO "JUST EAT THE DAMN PEACH."   To check out my other Season 3 recaps, click here.

Just Eat the Damn Peach for 16 November 2006. The Joys of Dover Press.

If you need a little relief from the stress of daily life, why not try out the adult version of a childhood past-time and do some coloring?  At Dover press, you can buy unusual coloring books suitable for watercolor, color pencils, or any other medium that you favor.  Believe me---I know this---a few hours of pure right-brain activity will give you an extended and refreshing break from the grinding effects of the daily round.  After a few minutes of intensive concentration on, say, a Japanese painting of "the floating world" that you get to color in your own favorite shades, you will forget everything else except the blissful joy of the maker.

Coloring is better than needlework or knitting because you already know how!  Give it a try.
 

And in the end, you'll have something to show for it.  Which is way better than having nothing to show for it.  JUMP TO JUST EAT THE DAMN PEACH!

The Flatland Chronicles for 15 November 2006. A New Rule for Bill Maher.

A lot of my friends are pretty furious with Bill Maher over his "death of Steve Irwin Halloween" costume.  And as it is pretty much indefensible in the circumstances, I am not going to defend it.  I loved Steve Irwin and I revere Maher for his achievements, which made it hard for me to sort out my feelings about it.  But then of course, Bill Maher didn't let it drop; he made a "New Rule" about his Halloween costume that reminded me a bit of the sort of inability to take a step back and consider the other side that is such a feature of the very people he is most inclined to ridicule.  You know, neocons and things.  Not to mention the late unlamented Rumsfeld. 

Sure, he didn't actually cause a war, but he did let down those of his fans who believed him when he told us that Americans need to listen less to the inner child and more to the outer adult. 

But I think Bill Maher is incredibly valuable, so I don't like criticizing him.  He's had so much of it already.  I think he gets it that we're mad, but the New Rule suggests that he doesn't actually get it.  Some of my friends don't understand how I can continue to respect him in light of this.  It's quite easy, actually.  I don't have to like everything he does to admire his very real contribution to the political discussion during the wilderness years for centrists, moderate, and libertarians.

But anyway, okay, I was upset by the Steve Irwin thing too.  Now that the election is over, I'm prepared to address it once and move on.  To read my take on it, JUMP TO THE FLATLAND CHRONICLES HERE.

The Flatland Chronicles for 14 November 2006. A Bloom County Thanksgiving.

Recently, I had occasion to reflect on a favorite cartoon from "Bloom County" from---yes---1983.  As I own most or all of the collected works of Berke Breathed, thinking about it made me want to see it again and I found myself settling down for a good old read through the early collected works of Berkeley Breathed.  I got all the way through "Billy and the Boingers" before I was able to stop myself, but the particular cartoon I wanted---involving young Milo and a Thanksgiving turkey---was in the first Bloom County book I ever bought, Loose Tails.

To read more, JUMP TO THE FLATLAND CHRONICLES---A BLOOM COUNTY THANKSGIVING.

The Flatland Chronicles for 14 November 2006. The mystifying power of cuteness; why?

    I've written about Cute Overload before today, of course; but not, you know, seriously. I wrote the first time in a spirit of delirious joy in my thralldom, in the first throes of an addict's decision that resistance is futile. 

But it's not like I don't go back there and stare at the pictures still.  I do.  And with the same abandonment of all my hard-won commitment to a sterner aesthetic.  So I am asking myself "why"?  What is this thing called "Cute"?   Why does it make me want to stare at length at photographs of little animals (including, if you check out the site, possums, ferrets, turtles, seals, marmosets, as well as the ones you'd expect). 

Anyway, in recognition of the power of this site to make me feel bubbling over (however temporarily) with undifferentiated affection and joy, I have thought more on the subject.  Come...join us...

To read more, JUMP TO THE FLATLAND CHRONICLES--THE MYSTIFYING POWER OF CUTENESS; WHY?