Girl Detective

Entertainment Weekly recommends five new shows to watch this season: Reaper, Dirty Sexy Money, Back to You, Bionic Woman and Aliens in America.

I agree about Reaper. Critics who loved the Kevin Smith pilot have been griping that it’s the same thing over and over. Each week, though, a little bit more is revealed, and I think there’s a lot to explore. (Wild guess: Andi’s dad will be a demon of the week, either during sweeps or in the season finale.)

I also agree about Dirty Sexy Money. I was skeptical at first, and didn’t think they could handle the wild changes in tone required for the soapy dramedy. But the past few episodes have shown a remarkable ability to handle the wide range of situations. Peter Krause is amused and exasperated by the Darlings while still trying to stay grounded and find out who killed his dad. The episode where Jeremy and Tripp fight, and Brian’s illegitimate son owns up to the wife, was filled with really good, emotionally authentic dialogue. One problem I have is Samaire Armstrong. Does she have a swollen tongue, or a speech impediment? Why does she speak so strangely? (Wild guesses: Nick’s half sib is either Karen or Brian, not the twins as was hinted last week. Also, Nick’s dad isn’t dead; no body was found.)

I can’t speak about Back to You. I haven’t watched it. But I haven’t even been tempted. “Old-style sitcom” is not a winning recommendation, to me.

I gave Bionic Woman three weeks. I found it badly written with a disappointing actor in the lead.

I watched Aliens in America exactly twice. The pilot was good, but the next episode I watched didn’t make me laugh in the first laugh. I think it’s being pushed by critics more for its acceptance message than for its funniness as a comedy.

Instead of the last three, I like Life, as I’ve written before. There’s a strong lead actor, and an interesting mystery as backstory, of why he was set up for a multiple murder and served twelve years of a life sentence.

My husband, G. Grod, and I recently read the Philip Pullman “His Dark Materials” trilogy. G noted, which I repeated in my review, that Pullman repeatedly used religious language and tropes, though he claimed his book was a non-religious fantasy. He and others viewed it as an atheistic answer to C.S. Lewis’s Narnia, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth.

In “What the New Atheists Don’t See” at The City Journal, (link from Arts & Letters Daily) Theodore Dalrymple points out that many of the new books on atheism make a similar move. They deploy religious frames in their arguments against religion. Rather than being at the opposite end of a continuum, they are like the flip side of a coin: inextricably tied to what they seek to eschew.

Dalrymple argues quite reasonably for a middle ground that sounds more like ethics than religion, and more like agnosticism than atheism.

I am reminded of one of Michael Pollan’s insights about eating from The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Most people are wilfully ignorant of the industrial practices of meat. If people learn what meat is and how comes to out table, one reasonable but extreme response is to go vegetarian. Pollan, though, advocates a middle ground of learning and choosing sustainably raised flora and fauna.

The middle ground. How interesting that Pollan and Dalrymple must remind us of choices of balance, because the extremes have become so widely practiced.

Last night was one of those nights that parents of older children never told me about. It shouldn’t have been so surprising. My naive expectations of parenthood were that it would be tough at the beginning, and gradually get easier. So with perseverance and good intentions, I expected to surmount the initial difficulties, and coast from there. As I said, I was naive. Instead, raising two small children has proved to be a microcosm of life, with the difficulty upped at least two levels. Sometimes things are easy and joyful, sometimes they are difficult and challenging, even torturous, like last night.

21mo Guppy woke crying sometime after midnight, less than two hours after my husband G. Grod and I had gone to sleep. I went into comfort him and offer him water. Each time he settled down, I’d stumble back to bed, then ten to fifteen minutes later he’d cry again. G. and I took turns. I think it was on the third round that I brought in the Tylenol. This normally clears up nighttime difficulties pretty quickly. Alas, Guppy did not go back to sleep till long after two, and after several long comfort sessions.

G. and I stumbled around this morning, haunted from our hours of interrupted and jangled sleep. Another reminder that parenthood is like life–it goes in cycles. Everything passes, both good and bad. It’s a linear progression only in age.

On my recent trip to NYC with friends from high school, the moms were talking about Santa Claus and their kids, and their experiences. One friend asked if I was going to encourage my kids to believe in Santa. I hadn’t thought about it much. At 3yo last Christmas, Drake didn’t really “get” it. This year, though, he would.

I’m torn. I remember loving the idea of Santa as a kid, and being excited about Christmas night. I also remember getting suspicious because my dad had clearly filled out all the “from Santa” tags. And it was a big bummer for me to learn the truth by reading an article in my mom’s Women’s Day about whether or not, and how, to tell kids about Santa and the Tooth Fairy.

My first response to my friend was that I would do Santa. But as they other moms talked, it became clear that the Santa story was a slippery slope that required fib upon fib to maintain. It brought to mind a bumper sticker I notice every time I drive to the grocery, which is usually twice a week: “Don’t Lie to Kids.” Right now, I think I’m in the “if he doesn’t ask, I’m not going to say.” But I’m definitely leaning now to talking about Santa as a story, not a reality. Perhaps only because I’m not a talented liar.

I’m thankful they’re done. Maureen Ryan of The Watcher is, too, and she captures why quite well.

#46 in my 2007 book challenge was The Amber Spyglass, the final book of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy. The third book felt a bit bloated compared to the first two, and the action slowed in places. But Pullman’s skill at multiple-world building continued as a strength, and the details, of the land of the dead, especially, were very satisfying. The polar bears are back, as are the fascinating daemons, but they’re both given short shrift compared to angels and heaven. The adults switch allegiances so often I lost track–who’s good and who’s bad, now?

Pullman’s narrative became much more anti-religion, as he expounded on in an interview with Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair when TAS was published. Interestingly, though, the absence of religion created voids that Pullman filled in the narrative with very similar things. Religion was a giant mistake, and there was no creator. But Dust was sentient, and had “gifted” humanity with consciousness, so it was a common, creative, animating spirit. The character of Will symbolizes free will, yet so much of the story is driven by fate, related to Lyra by the alethiometer, the witches from prophecies, and Mary Malone by the I Ching. I think Pullman worked hard to have an atheistic fantasy, but the end result was an agnostic one, which is a much richer, more complex result, I thought.

I liked the series a lot; I didn’t love it. Lyra never felt fully realized to me, though Will did. Some aspects of Dust were overexplained, while others were given less time. For example, why did the Dust stop rushing out of the world only because of humans–why hadn’t it done that before with the mulefa? But I was engaged with it from beginning to end, I cared about the characters, though some of them didn’t ring completely true with me, and the plot drew me through. It was fun, it was mostly well-written, and it had some big ideas that are interesting to discuss. It was well worth my time, even if I didn’t connect so completely as to love it.

Is it just me, or?

Perma-wash: Items to be laundered that sit perpetually in the bottom of the laundry basket, since newer items pile so high on top. AKA LIFO (Last In, First Out) laundry management.

Perma-snot: The dark, hard crust that forms under a child’s nose during winter cold season. Unsightly, but not a breathing hindrance. Attempts at removal will be met with screams of anguish, flailing limbs, accusing glares, and dramatic prostrations.

There were some disappointments in the second week of the new fall television season. How I Met Your Mother ’s funniest moments were jokes about New Jersey, which is too easy a target. Heroes has too many bad story lines to maintain momentum for any good ones. Bionic Woman had stilted dialogue and dreadfully trite storylines for Jaime, both on the job and with her sister. Even the scenes with Katee Sackhoff were dull, though “I was hacked” is an intriguing plot thread. I am probably going to give this show one more episode. And Top Chef irked me with its gimmicky, worthless live bits.

I didn’t have time to watch Bones, Reaper, Life, or Dirty Sexy Money, but I’m afraid to risk the time on them. Maureen Ryan didn’t like Reaper, so I’ll probably skip it. Any other advice?

High points were the bittersweet premier of Aliens in America, House and his new crew, Dale’s comeback and near win on Top Chef, the return of 30 Rock with Alec Baldwin’s new reality show, and Creed’s new hair and jargon at the Office.

As the new season approached, I was feeling indifferent about My Name is Earl, which I’ve always found just entertaining enough to keep watching. It’s best moments almost always come from new Emmy winner Jaime Pressly as Earl’s brash ‘n’ trashy ex. So I put Earl on trial last week during its dragging hour-long season premiere. I didn’t laugh once. Sure, there was a decent jab at Lutherans, and “You’re like an albacore around my neck” was pretty good, but it wasn’t enough for me to keep watching this season. So long, Earl.

My husband G. Grod and I both recognized the name Kay Lenz on the list of House guest stars last week, but for different reasons.

To me, she was David Cassidy’s ex-wife, and thus the target of my pre-teen jealousy. To G, she was the woman with lots of guest appearances and bad movies in the 80’s. In any case, on House last week she looked like a plastic surgery train wreck. After looking up her bio at both IMDB and Wikipedia, I found we both should have known her as the voice of American Maid from The Tick cartoon.

Incorrectly, I thought she was the actress who played Annette Funicello’s ventriloquist dummy in “Mary Ann and Miss Sophisticate“, who Mr. Rourke brought to life on a 1980 ep of Fantasy Island that I remember for its disturbing-to-me-at-the-time combination of sex and violence. But no, the live dummy was played by Maren Jensen, who also played Athena on the original Battlestar Galactica, and had a feature in a Tiger Beat “Girls Rule!” spread.

The other fantasy on that FI ep was “Jungle Man,” starring Dennis Cole, the soon-to-be ex of Jaclyn Smith (Charlie’s Angel Kelly Garrett) at the time. He decided to stay in the fictional universe of his jungle man.

Jaclyn Smith’s Wikipedia entry details why she was the queen of the mini series, and makes me wonder if want to seek out the TV miniseries version of The Bourne Identity.

Can anyone please explain WHY all this is taking up space in my brain 2+ decades later?

Up, up pile the clothes–
Biking, bed wetting, barfing–
Laundry never ends.

We’ve got a Tivo with dual recorders. That should be enough. Three shows on at the same time shouldn’t inspire gynmastics, but rather prioritization. But the Wednesday 10pmEST/9pmCST time slot is troubling to me. I’m watching Top Chef already, I liked Dirty Sexy Money, but I’d also like to check out Life, about a Zen cop out for revenge. TC ends next week, but Project Runway starts (Yay! Finally, indeed, Tim Gunn) Wednesday November 14, so there’s only a few weeks till the time slot is overfull again.

There’s a lot of critical love for Wednesday nights, (here from Everybody Loves Saturday Night). Maureen Ryan of The Watcher, urges ABC to ditch Big Shots and move DSM to the post-Grey’s Anatomy spot. Entertainment Weekly says Life is likely to be cancelled because of the time slot collision with DSM. Other channels are showing Life at later times, so I still plan to check it out.

I feel like a bad geek that I don’t love, or even sometimes like, Heroes. With all the media blitz and the love from places like Entertainment Weekly, I feel like a curmudgeon that I can’t join the chorus, especially because it’s so connected to, and respectful of, one of my favorite media mediums, comic books. I mean, Tim Sale did all the Isaac paintings last season; how cool was that?

The problem with a team show, though, is that there are going to be weak links. The more characters I like, the more I like the show. And here’s how the numbers stack up, for me:

Like: Claire, her dad HRG, Peter Petrelli, Hiro, Ando, Sylar

Don’t like: Parkman, Molly, Mohinder, Nathan Petrelli, Mrs. Petrelli, Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Muggles.

Meh: Nicki and Micah, new characters Maya and her brother

The season premiere didn’t do much for me. Last year I watched the first few eps, got bored, stopped watching, and started again toward the end when my husband G. Grod said it got good again. I don’t want to miss good stuff, but I dislike at least half the characters, and those aren’t good odds. Perhaps the addition of Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars) will turn the tide.

Other opinions from The Onion AV Club, Entertainment Weekly, Everybody Loves Saturday Night, and The Watcher

Yesterday afternoon, 19mo Guppy was long and loud is his protest against afternoon nap. I went in to comfort him and try to settle him down. There was a great deal of snot running out of his nose.

And a noodle.

In horror, I grabbed a tissue and wiped up the mess. I confirmed that it was, in fact, about an inch or so of linguine.

Which we’d had THE NIGHT BEFORE for dinner.

“Oh,” said my husband G. Grod when I told him about it later. “THAT’s why he was breathing so heavily last night over the baby monitor.”

Last week I was downstairs with 19mo Guppy, who had awakened early (pre-6am) per his usual. I heard 4yo Drake on the stairs, and called out good morning, and said I was glad to see him. He scowled at me, stomped down the stairs, ran up to me, then kicked me in the shin with his bare foot.

This is the kind of thing I think of when people, especially non-parents, get all gooshy and romantic about motherhood.

According to the MPAA:

A G-rated motion picture contains nothing in theme, language, nudity, sex, violence or other matters that, in the view of the Rating Board, would offend parents whose younger children view the motion picture. The G rating is not a “certificate of approval,” nor does it signify a “children’s” motion picture. Some snippets of language may go beyond polite conversation but they are common everyday expressions. No stronger words are present in G-rated motion pictures. Depictions of violence are minimal. No nudity, sex scenes or drug use are present in the motion picture.

I took Drake to see Ratatouille yesterday. Within ten minutes he was terrified, and I didn’t blame him. I was offended then, and further later when I confirmed the G rating and what it is supposed to cover. To me, minimal violence DOES NOT encompass a little old lady pulling out a shotgun, shooting at main characters until her gun is empty, searching for bullets, reloading, releasing rat poison, putting on a gas mask, and continuing to shoot. This scene, about ten minutes into the movie, is loud, violent and it scared my four year old child.

I’ve long been aware that the MPAA ratings are screwed up, giving more leeway to violence than to sexuality, but I thought these errors were on the R and PG13 end of the spectrum. But as Drake found out, to both his and my dismay, the leeway on violence seems to be a pitfall of all the ratings.

Ratatouille might be a good movie for older kids and adults. It’s not for small kids. Shame on you MPAA, Disney, and Pixar. Why couldn’t the old lady simply have chased the rats with a broom–why the shotgun AND the gas? Next time I’ll consult a site like Common Sense Media to be better informed.

Having learned our lesson last week, our family went to the usual pizza place for dinner. After consuming a bottle of San Pellegrino Aranciata and maybe one piece of pizza (as opposed to last week’s pizza AND A HALF), 4yo Drake looked down at his distended belly and announced, “I’m fat!”

Drake has consistently been in the bottom third of weight percentiles, so he’s hardly that. G. Grod and I looked worried at one another about where he’d picked up this “fat” business, and immediately started damage control.

“No, you’re not fat. Your belly is full,” etc. Drake continued to repeat the word fat all the way to the car, so unfortunately we overdid it. Just as I gave a high sign and a whisper to G. Grod that we should drop it, Drake started chanting, “Fat, fat, fat, fat, fat!” at the top of his lungs while G. Grod and I stifled our laughs.

Wouldn’t you know it, but 19mo Guppy then joined the chorus, “Fah! Fah! Fah!”

Just when things started to settle down and I thought we were out of the woods, Drake changed subjects. He picked up the Justin Timberlake CD in the back, and crowed, “Sexy!”

G. Grod and I continued to swallow our grins, but we didn’t say a word. And because we ignored it, he stopped.

Should not such writing be subject to punishment?
–Thomas Mann, after reading Martin Heidegger

In grad school, I liked reading about Heidegger more than I liked reading Being and Time. I could tell, though, that great ideas lurked in the long, convoluted, translated-from-German sentences, which, apparently, weren’t any easier to read in German. The idea of an individual plunging into and out of the “them” of society held me in thrall. Later forgotten, that idea rose up the first time I saw The Matrix, and said, “Remember me?” I pulled down Being and Time, blew off the dust, and thumbed through for familiar sentences.

Heidegger, deservedly more than even Nietzsche, was often dismissed and derided in later academia because of his collaboration with the Nazis. This disturbing alliance also troubles Leland de la Durantaye, in an essay for Cabinet Magazine online. (link from Arts and Letters Daily) M, who blogs at Mental Multivitamin, has long favored considering work separately from its creator. Can Heidegger’s work–how can his work?–be considered apart from the political environment in which he created it? The thoughtful beauty in it, though, begs recognition on its own terms.

I visited my sister Sydney over the weekend, and she introduced me to the bizarre VH1 show, The Pick-up Artist. (Weren’t they worried that people might confuse it with the wretched Molly Ringwald/Robert Downey, Jr. movie of the same name?) The show is so sexist and staged that it’s hard to believe. A guy named Mystery instructs a cadre of young nerds in the tactics of seduction. Mystery is pierced and sports both eyeliner and black nail polish. He’s not my idea of a dream catch, but apparently he does well enough, since he has his own show and a book, too. Then again, I doubt I’m in their target market.

Each week the nerds are given a different assignment to impress women. The nerds I saw included a cute but antisocial Indian guy, an overweight but attentive guy, a good looking but painfully shy guy, and a fourth whose niche I couldn’t determine, but he seemed similar to “good looking but painfully shy” guy. The internet research I’ve done suggests the show is for real, or at least as “real” as reality-based shows get. Not recommended, unless you’re looking for a car-wreck type viewing experience.

After waking at 5:45 am, 19MO Guppy spent most of the morning crying for one reason or another. 4YO Drake spent it doing his version of beatbox and Fatboy Slim refrains over and over. And over. Customer service for problems with my Dell computer notebook is slow to respond. Customer service for problems with my Verizon Nokia cell phone are time-suckingly slow and ineffective. (I will leave brand names up until issues are resolved, so that others may be warned.)

I was dilatory last night and spent time obsessing over upcoming new TV shows rather than finishing my book for book group tonight. I couldn’t find one of Guppy’s shoes, and had to dig out a replacement from Drake’s hand me downs. Tigh! Tigh! he yelled, then defeated the velcro straps in a trice. I went to get the next bigger size of shoes, and Guppy had his first go in shoe-lace shoes, and didn’t seem to enjoy the experience at all. Drake has outgrown all his shoes.

On the bright side, Guppy is now napping. Drake agreed to wear the new shoes I got him last night (and they fit! and have style!). G. Grod made me two smashing cappuccinos this morning, plus left a half cup in the coffee pot. I have many tasty pastries in the house: cherry pomegran toaster pastry, banana strawberry bread, strawberry/white-chocolate-chip scones, and a Thunder Cookie from Positively 3rd Street Bakery. I finished my book. And I probably have about ten minutes before I have to deal with customer service again. I’m going out with smart, interesting friends tonight to a good local restaurant to discuss an intriguing book.

So life’s a mixed bag, weighing a little heavily toward the annoying today. Not surprising. But there’s lots of good to answer the bad, if I let it.