October 31, 2021
So, if you read the intro to the already posted recap for November 7th, you might ask, "How are you doing, unknown internet blogger?" The answer is pretty good actually. The whys and wherefores as to my mood earlier in the week needn't be aired publicly. Why am I doing better now?
(The author shrugs and with an upward intonation clumsily guesses, "Personal growth?")
Part of it improving mood might just come down to a certain Mr. John Dickerson. Since his Polly Adler segment aired, I've just been randomly bursting out laughing and muttering the words, "Sozzled on jag juice," to no one in particular. If I end up being committed to a mental institution, at least you'll know the cause. Sunday Morning and laughter - it's good for the soul.
I do have one regret though. I let an obvious opportunity to reference the Simpsons slip by as Dickerson filled in the Marianas Trench using nothing but slang from the 1920s.
I was not on the trolley.
Conan O'Brien was no longer writing for The Simpsons when this episode aired, but he obviously left behind his fondness for dated slang. I suppose mimicking the slang and cadence of bygone eras is an evergreen comedic trope. Breaking out in a Katherine Hepburn-esque Mid Atlantic accent falling into the click-clack repartee dialog of old film noir movies like Double Indemnity, is a common in SNL sketches and Simpsons episodes alike. However, Conan's love of history is well known. Several of his most famous bits rely on historical cosplay. Conan propagates foolishness of all kinds, but the man loves a good anachronism. I think I need Conan's opinion on the Polly Adler segment. I'm positive that Dickerson threw in the olde tyme slang for humorous effect, but the deadpan delivery took it to another level. It's a real contender for segment of the year.
A little bit of "potpourri" before continuing onto the makeup rankings for Halloween 2021.
- I've been watching the 2013 British spy comedy The Wrong Mans on the Hulu. To say I find it enjoyable is something of an understatement. But the episodes Hulu has for streaming have poor audio quality and, for some reason, are edited for content. The episodes already carry a TV-MA rating. I'd get it if I were watching them on PBS, which how I first heard about the show, but the bleeped profanity and blurred out nudity is mildly distracting. Consider this my formal complaint.
- I'm hoping to go see Dune in theaters this weekend. It's still there right? I have no concept of how long movies stay in theaters anymore. It seems like sometimes if you don't see it the first week, you've already missed it anymore.
- I'm thinking about taking in a production of Romeo and Juliet. I do miss going to the occasional stage performance. And being inundated by stories about the arts on Sunday Morning is starting to shame into actually experiencing the arts firsthand. If I go, I'll let you know if it was good. Same goes for Dune. The last stage play I went to see was about a woman with a brain tumor. I did not know this going it. I enjoyed it, but it may also have cut a little close to home for me.
- I'm trying to convince myself that I'm not lazy. You see, I try to go running twice a week and biking twice a week to try and stay in shape. What started out of pure vanity (I wanted to lose weight.) ended up turning into a way to reset and clear my head. I'm not so great at meditation, so as I say, it's how I find my zen. However, with the time change I have to when and how I fit these things into my schedule. Maybe I can squeeze a run in tomorrow morning, but one of the two bike rides has be on an indoor trainer. I haven't set that up yet. I really should. Right now, I'm telling myself it's ok to take a little break. But when you feel a little down, you don't want to exercise. But if you do manage to get over that hurdle, you realize you actually feel better even though you thought you didn't want to. Who knows what I'll be able to fit in next week because I have to go to Phoenix for work.
- I have to go to Phoenix for work next week. In theory I should have time to recap the November 14 episode next week, but work travel usually involves less down time than I think I'm going to get.
The CBS SUNDAY MORNING POWER RANKINGS
So full disclosure, I am finishing this recap 2 months after I wrote the intro. To close out some things:
I did see Dune, which was partially included in my rant about bad theater experiences. (I went to see Matrix Resurrections over the Holidays. It was a fine experience. Hoping to go see Licorice Pizza this week maybe.)
I did go see that production of Romeo and Juliet. I usually enjoy live theater and generally it's hard to screw up Shakespeare, but if there's a downside to Shakespeare, it's knowing how much of it goes over your head unless you are super familiar with the text. As such, I asked for one of those "Complete Works of Shakespeare" volumes for Christmas, so I can seem pretentious and maybe crack it open before or after going to some plays in the future.
Here's a picture from Arizona:
Two months on, I'm pretty disconnected from the source material that originally led to these rankings (which were made shortly after the episode aired).
I'll bang out few sentences about each though and get it done with and have the ranking for posterity.
I'm not a social media kind of guy. I have accounts for most, but Twitter is sort the only one I use. I'm mostly successful at avoiding the cesspool. So while I do have an Instagram account, I'm rarely on it. And usually only to check out something specific a friend told me about or to look at something they've posted. So not only was this a Teichner segment with a truly Halloween worthy creepy factor, it also turned me onto Bryan Sansivero's Instagram. I'm not much on books of photography, which generally seem more like decorative coffee table fare, but I got to be the cool guy who's "with it" for one shining evening when I recommended his account to some friends. One of them is an artist for whom Halloween is the premier holiday. While I disagree with her stance on holiday power rankings, this was right up her alley. Teichner for the win!
2) David Pogue
I went through a brief phase as a kid when I wanted to learn how to do card tricks. I think it was inspired because I got a trick deck as a present for my birthday or Christmas one year. I don't recall asking for it, but after making a go of it for maybe 2-3 hours (brief phase), I gave up. Still kind of wish I had learned some sleight of hand, but maybe all for the best because having a brain tumor that affected the dexterity in one of my hands probably would have put an end to that as a career.
I think my fascination with Pogue's segment on Shin Lim is directly attributable to watching Derek Delgaudio's phenomenal In and Of Itself special on Hulu. It's truly something special and I'd encourage everyone to watch it. My main regret is that I don't know anyone else who's seen it, so I haven't been able to talk about me. I can only imagine what experiencing live would have been like.
3) Tracy Smith
While I'm not a big Halloween person, I do like to scary movies very much. Haunted (fill in the blank)s, I'm less keen on because I audience participation triggers much anxiety on my part. My main arguments against Halloween are this and basically how adults have co-opted a holiday intended for children to get candy to get drunk and try to hook up with the person in the sexy whatever costume. While I've been to an enjoyable Halloween party or two as an adult, I can't say that I've ever been comfortable at one. I also have a severe aversion/borderline phobia to anything being drawn on my skin and since so many costumes rely on makeup...
I suppose I had Tracy so high, mostly because her segment was the most in tune with the holiday.
I kind of like the experience of a nightmare - although I'm not sure I have nightmares. Rarely do my dreams involve graphic imagery or jump scares, but sometimes a dream is upsetting. If it's not too upsetting, waking up and realizing it's not real is sort of cathartic and I'm able to leave that anxiety associated with it, and perhaps whatever real world events that may have triggered it, behind.
But I'm also not a woman and women I've known have had some really messed up dreams because, for a lot of historically messed up reasons, the world is just a lot more frightening to women.
4) Jane Pauley
Jane hosted. When I made the list two months ago, maybe it was because she had an tastefully understated Halloween ensemble. Or, equally plausible, I just didn't connect strongly to many segments this week.
5) The Ocean (somewhere near Indonesia)
The moment of nature was footage of deep sea creature set to creepy Halloween music. Nature can be very beautiful, but also very weird. And weird things tend to scare people. We describe weird looking animals as monsters they become the things that go bump in the night.
I just had an idea while rewatching some of these creatures - I wish there was a compilation of the moments of nature throughout the decades on a 4K Blu Ray. I'd put that on from time to time.
6) Lee Cowan
Lee did a segment about a photographer who stages photo shoots for small kids who are battling some life challenge, usually medical, that they shouldn't have to go through at such a young age wherein they are portrayed as superheroes. It's sufficiently heartwarming that it felt like incursion into Hartman territory, but I doubt Steve begrudges Lee taking the story and blowing it out into a full fledged segment.
Although it is a little fun to imagine there being some sort of turf war between Lee and Steve over who go to do the segment.
Things definitely skewed towards the DC universe. There was one photo where kids were staged as Avengers, but who really picks DC over Marvel?
7) Luke Burbank
I could do a little dissertation on the movie Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. It's arguably greatest farse/low brow comedic film millennials have. The best low brow comedies are also very smart.
Like Airplane! (and the movies of Mel Brooks) Harold and Kumar throws a bunch of jokes out there, and while everyone maybe not every one lands, enough do that it's a damn funny movie. You could say that it's just a stoner movie, which it is, and one of the fun things about stoner movies is that the stoner archetype is ubiquitous enough that it can be enjoyed by stoners and non-stoners alike. (Indeed, I can count on one finger the number of times that I have knowingly ingested/inhaled something with THC in it.)
But you know what, forget Airplane!. I just have it on the mind 'cuz it was on TV. Harold and Kumar was funniest movie to take direct aim at race since Blazing Saddles. Hyperbole? Maybe - I can't say I'm well versed with every comedy released in the intervening 30 years between those releases, but not only does it setup, deconstruct, and explode the archetypal overachieving Asian character (at least in a little less disturbing way than Better Luck Tomorrow), it has the great (and I mean great) jail scene:
Great comedies are rarely appreciated in their own time. Sometimes to truly understand how influential (and even prescient) a comedy is, formula is comedy + time = comedy.
The sequels were of diminishing returns.
Final note: I did not know until the Luke Burbank interview that Kal Penn was gay. Not that it matters. (No one should be required to publicly air their private life. In fact int makes me uncomfortable when they do so unprompted.) It's not that I had made any previous assumption about his sexual orientation previously. But for most people, I guess that means you have default assumption. Which when proven contrary, you go, "Huh," make a mental note and move past it. That's the appropriate reaction now, right?
Things certainly have changed since Ellen came out 24 years ago - I actually remember being a Freshman in high school when that happened. Yes, I think we're in a better place. Not perfect, but better.
A former marine captain and fourth ranking agent at the FBI now drives a bus for his local school district now that he's retired.
Sometimes I worry that asking my Dad for help with home improvement tasks or car repair is an imposition - he's kind of a whiz at the stuff there's not much he can't do himself or figure out how to do it. I worry that sometimes it's a hard days work and that he's retired and maybe shouldn't be taxing himself quite so much. But he probably prefers to be worn out and tired than to be doing nothing. As long as he does not (further) injure his back helping me with something, I don't feel too bad about it.
Someday I'd like to give back the way Mike Mason does. Not sure if that means teaching or finding a way to be of use for good in the criminal justice system, but something that feels more meaningful than what I do now.
(Don't tell my boss I said that, I've got a mortgage to pay off first.)
9) Seth Doane
Seth interviewed the male members of ABBA. ABBA has apparently reunited, but the two female members don't want to tour or promote things - perfectly reasonably since the group is nearly 50 years old and was disbanded for more than 35 of those years and that they haven't been married for the last 40 years. They plan to "tour" their new music via hologram.
I'm usually fairly happy to hear an ABBA song come on the radio. As far as pop fluff goes, they are the gold standard. While it also kind of makes me want to go roller skating, I'm never going to claim to be a big fan or to feel some connection.
10) Amy Pickard
Amy Pickard is "death-positive facilitator" that was given a commentary segment on Halloween to encourage us all to make end of life plans and share them with loved ones.
She delivered said commentary while wearing a fun (?) t-shirt that said, "Someday we'll all be dead". I'll be she has a bunch of those.
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