“I’ve repeatedly said that for people who have as little in common as Joanne and myself, we have an uncommonly good marriage. We are actors. We make pictures and that’s about all we have in common. Maybe that’s enough. Wives shouldn’t feel obligated to accompany their husbands to a ball game, husbands do look a bit silly attending morning coffee breaks with the neighborhood wives when most men are out at work. Husbands and wives should have separate interests, cultivate different sets of friends and not impose on the other … You can’t spend a lifetime breathing down each other’s necks … We are very, very different people and yet somehow we fed off those varied differences and instead of separating us, it has made the whole bond a lot stronger.”

I am sitting on the couch, with a blanket. It is Saturday night and I am watching all the television I did not see last week. In my hand is a knife, and on that knife is some brie.

After about ten minutes I look at the knife and giggle, and sing-song-say something like ‘night chee…” and then I stop because this is not only sort of like the Night Cheese incident, this is Night Cheese.

A sobering thought if I’ve ever had one in my entire life.

“The funny thing about being smart is you can get through most of life without having to do any work.” – Joel McHale on Community

Yes, someone finally understands.

“Manners are made up of trivialities of deportment which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know them; manner is personality—the outward manifestation of one’s innate character and attitude toward life.” – Emily Post

“In Africa, it’s difficult to make movies, not because I’m a woman – it’s never been difficult to be a woman – but because not many movies get made in Africa.” – Mira Nair

I like that.  It’s never been difficult to be a woman.  She either means that it’s never been difficult for her to be a woman, or that in Africa it’s never been difficult to be a woman.   I like Mira Nair, the more I see her films. I just watched about 8 of them in a row for this Criterion review, and Monsoon Wedding is in my top 5 of all time I believe.

That above reminds me Beryl Markham’s words. “There are many Africa’s…”

I’m about to launch a new site design, welded together by Andrew, (I can’t even say the name of his blog) who complains that my php is all enmeshed and I just throw my hands up because, what? if I knew how to fix these little problems, I might have done so before now.

The latest meeting of the Sam Seaborn Appreciation Society went well, I appointed myself Secretary and took minutes. Sam so far in this season of West Wing has shown himself to be well-versed in all facets of the law, a good friend to the weak, and a defender of the innocent in addition to his rather endless physical accomplishments, the least of which is that he looks like Rob Lowe.

This brings me to my salient point, could Sam Seaborn watch Wayne’s World and see Rob Lowe in it? Wouldn’t he just realize he was watching himself? Or do characters such as this live in a world where there is no Rob Lowe, there is no Martin Sheen or Allison Janney? We’re supposed to think this is set in our world, but we know it has to be at least a closely paralleled universe.

This doesn’t seem to bother anyone else, but I have to admit, it’s pretty much all I can think about when I watch a movie. If I watch Funny People, I wonder if there’s no Adam Sandler in the world of Funny People.  This disconnect really bothers me, it’s almost as if we’re watching the most outlandish science fiction, a totally bizarro world where (depending on the size of the cast) there’s fewer and fewer cultural touchstones to inform our understanding.  These movies might as well be in a new language, since their ties to reality are tenuous at best.

There’s nothing greater than getting into a television show that nobody really cares about anymore, or something so old that all the seasons have been available for years and your friends watched it when it was on air and now barely remember the plots, let alone the subplots, quotes and subtle nuances of character development.  You know, the stuff I ache to hash and rehash and get nutsy over. I wanna talk about Jenny Schecter’s facial expressions and Sounder, or how Avon Barksdale was maybe named after the cosmetic company, or how if you watch the show long enough all you can hear from Lorelai is a high-pitched ringing noise that is the poster child for chronic tinnitus and if those girls ate only marshmellows and popcorn and hamburgers and all the crap that permanently gets discussed at Chez Gilmore, they’d be so fat you’d think you were watching Roseanne.  You know, the deets.

All that to say, I started watching The West Wing, and six episodes into it, I already feel comfortable enough to guffaw loudly, or sigh indulgently, and mutter something along the lines of, “Oh, that’s just sooo Sam!” I’m already totally into the breakneck pace, the strange 1999 music, and feeling exhausted just watching all of them walk around and never sleep.  So, get excited, because we’ve got like eight seasons ahead of us.

Watching the second season of The Wire makes me miss Bodie. So, this is an ode to Bodie.

Not much is known about Preston Broadus, also called Bodie. Bodie is one of the quicker dealers, starts out modestly and catches on immediately when told something.  Mostly.  So, yeah, he makes his money on the street, and defends the corners using violence, but there’s something about him that just makes me giddy.  (There’s one scene where he’s complaining about Philadelphia radio, and it’s Garrison Keillor. He looks at it disgusted, and asks why anyone would ever want to leave Baltimore.  But in a different scene, he’s listening to Prarie Home, which means he likes it! Which means maybe we could listen to NPR together, you know, when he’s not landing his ass in jail or denying weapons charges.)  Also, I never see him mackin’ on the ladies. I appreciate that when I sort of have a mild girlish crush on a cold blooded killer. There’s only so much a lady can take when the object of her affection is murdering, dealing drugs and talking up the girlies.  Plus, do you see that face? Just too pretty for words.  But, sadly, there’s always a time limit on a boy who works the streets, so I just don’t see this working out for a white middle-class girl from California and a street-level dealer from Maryland like Bodie.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s Bar Mitzvah celebration took place at a homeless shelter because his parents wanted to instill in him a sense of gratitude for his privileged lifestyle.

(from a post I wrote for clusterflock) 

You may remember Nouk from a recent post. I became very intrigued with his style, and I had a few questions for him which turned into an interview, with topics ranging from personal responsibility to what exactly style is.

“You can always judge a person coming out of the supermarket, being the most hilarious fashion mishap on earth. But don’t waste your time and energy on it, eventually all the derision makes you bitter and takes away the ability to be really, and truly happy about the one person coming out of the supermarket being absolutely magnificent.”

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