Friday Flashback: Rec. #50: The Best of It

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: As the subtitle states, this is a collection of new and selected poems by Kay Ryan, the former poet laureate of the United States (you may not hear about it much, but yes, this is a thing that exists). Ryan has been widely praised for the beauty and accessibility of her poems, and the people who said this are not wrong. 

Her writing is incredibly focused, even for short-form poetry. If you flip through one of her books, you'll see a series of very narrow columns of text. The tone of the poems is conversational, and deep in a way that doesn't make you feel dumb.

Comparable to: Marianne Moore.

Representative quote: "If it please God, / let less happen." (from "Blandeur")

You might not like it if: You continue in your campaign for no poetry, no way, no how.

How to get it: Ryan's a former poet laureate, so if you can find a poetry section somewhere, you have a good shot at finding this.

Connection to previous Wreckage: My first installment of "Poetry! It is a thing people still write!" was Rec. #19: Monologue of a Dog.

Additional contemporary poetry:

Meme (Rec. #268)

Ripple Effect (Rec. #118)

[Originally posted 2/18/11.]

Streaming Suggestion of the Week #7: Shameless (U.K. version)

Stream what: A messy, filthy, dark, sharp, British comedy/drama series about six siblings taking care of themselves and their worse-than-useless father.

Stream why: William H. Macy just won a SAG award for his performance in the U.S. adaptation of this show --- now's as good a time as any to check out the brilliant original.

Stream where: Netflix, Hulu


For more info: Rec. #14

Rec. #365: The Unprofessionals

What: The Unprofessionals is a tragicomedy about a reclusive photographer in her late 40s and her best friend, a 21-year-old boy with some shared neuroses but very different coping mechanisms.

Comparable to: This narrator also appears in Julie Hecht's other work, including Do the Windows Open? and Happy Trails to You.

Opening lines: "It was the second month of living without a soul and I was getting used to the feeling."

How to get it: Buyable, borrowable, Kindle-able.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Do the Windows Open? was Rec. #321 and Happy Trails to You was Rec. #6.

Friday Flashback: Rec. #108: Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: As often happens (in movies and books, at least), there's a good brother and a troublesome brother. Wilbur is not the good brother. 

Even though Wilbur gets the title, the film's real focus is the other brother --- the sympathetic, responsible, selfless one --- who is named, fittingly, Harbour. He's spent his life trying to keep his depressive younger brother safe. When Alice (played by the always-wonderful Shirley Henderson) and her daughter enter the picture, things slowly start to change.

Comparable to: Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself is an interesting blend of Scottish and Danish sensibilities. The movie is set in Edinburgh, but the writer/director, Lone Scherfig, is from Denmark. Scherfig also directed An Education.

Representative quote: "It gets more and more humiliating every time I survive."

You might not like it if: You get distracted by the excellent actors in smaller roles and want the movie to be about them. Mads Mikkelsen and Julia Davis fans, I'm talking to you.

How to get it: You can buy it or rent it. If you have trouble with Scottish or Danish accents, I suggest closed captioning. (Well, actually I always suggest closed captioning, but I really like reading words.)


See also: Personal Wreck List #1, List #29: So You Love the Cast of Hannibal, but Wish Watching the Show Itself Weren't So Psychologically Damaging



[Originally posted 4/20/11.]

Rec. #364: Saved!

What: A good girl gets pregnant while trying to do the right thing. At her evangelical Christian high school, this gets her thrown in with the ne'er-do-wells, including Macaulay Culkin and Susan Sarandon's daughter.

Comparable to: Like Easy A, this has sudden-high-school-misfithood and an A+ cast (parents: Mary Louise Parker/Martin Donovan* instead of Patricia Clarkson/Stanley Tucci).

Representative quote: "Hey Mary, sorry to hear about Dean's faggotry. See you at P circle?"

How to get it: Available to stream from Amazon and iTunes (buy/rent).



* This counts as a worthy addition to my perpetually in-process list "Martin Donovan, Your Career Is Weird and Interesting."

Quote from a Fictional Character #57

"To a mugg like him, once a sleuth always a sleuth, and I'd rather lie to him than have him think I'm lying. Have you got a cigarette?"

--- Nick Charles,

The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett, 1933

(Rec. #234)

(FSoM #5)

Friday Flashback: Rec. #154: On Histories and Stories

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: Over several years, and through some trial and error, I've come to the realization that I like A.S. Byatt best in short chunks. That could be short stories, or it could be essays, like the ones here. 

In this small collection, Byatt examines several aspects of contemporary postmodern fiction, including its incorporation of natural sciences, historical fiction, and myths.

Comparable to: Your favorite English lit professor.

Representative quote: "We narrate ourselves to each other in bars and beds."

You might not like it if: You don't read in order to think about reading.

How to get it: Buy it or borrow it.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Consider these essays part of a continuing series on getting the university education you wish you'd had. Like, for example:

For Experimental Psych 101: Opening Skinner's Box (Rec. #28) 

For Social Anthropology 302: The Rituals of Dinner (Rec. #63) 

For extra credit in Critical Studies: Sontag & Kael: Opposites Attract Me (Rec. #89)

For Journalism 201 --- Ethics: The Journalist and the Murderer (Rec. #114)

[Originally posted 6/29/11.]

Streaming Suggestion of the Week #6: Portlandia

Stream what: Portland is a real city, but Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen populate it with enough lovable kooks to fill both Springfield and Pawnee.

Stream why: A television sketch show all about The Way Some of Us Live Now should not have the legs to last more than one season, but Portlandia is still going strong. Season 5 started on IFC last week.

Stream where: Netflix; also, on Hulu there's this Larry King Now interview with Brownstein and Armisen that's oddly mesmerizing


For more info: Rec. #356, List #37

Quote from a Fictional Character #56

"Actually, depravity can be terribly boring if you don't smoke or drink."

--- Gabrielle Simpson,

Paris When It Sizzles, 1964

(See also List #41: Audrey Hepburn Runs Around Paris)

Friday Flashback: Rec. #42: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: I'm sure many of you can see why this had to be Rec. #42. (If you can, you really don't need me to say anything else. If you can't, read on. Well, read on either way.) 

Over a span of thirty years, the adventures of Arthur Dent, Trillian, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, and Marvin have been, among other things, a radio play, a five-book "trilogy," a television series, a computer game, a movie, a comic book series, and a few stage shows. This is the first book --- wherein Arthur Dent leaves Earth for the first time and learns the meaning of life.

Comparable to: The series appeals to several different types of nerdom: 

• Anglophile/British intellectual nerdom (all Arthur Dent really wants is a proper cup of tea, one "action" sequence involves torture via bad poetry)
• Science fiction nerdom (space, robots, aliens)
• Retro-chic-hipster nerdom (it started as a radio play!)
• Pop culture trivia nerdom (many, many inside jokes)
• Computer nerdom (Douglas Adams was an early adopter of Macs, the "Guide" of the title is basically an iPad)

Representative quote: "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."

You might not like it if: You avoid most forms of nerdom, as a general rule.

How to get it: The book is available in so many ways ("ultimate" edition, 25th anniversary edition, deluxe edition, etc.) that it's amazing someone hasn't dropped off a special edition at your door while you've been reading this. Actually, maybe they have. You'd better check.

Connection to previous Wreckage: 

List #25: Happy Birthday, Douglas Adams

Quote from a Fictional Character #27

[Originally posted 2/10/11.]

List #49: A Few of the Best First Seasons of TV I Watched in 2014

Blandings

Representative IMDb episode synopsis:
"Freddie comes to Blandings with Paquita, a Portuguese night club dancer who speaks no English but whom he has married. Wrongly believing her to be a princess, the snobbish Connie is impressed. She is less enamored of the fact that her niece Gertrude wants to marry Beefy Bingham, a clumsy, penniless vicar."

Representative quote: "Clarence, that doesn't even qualify as a lie. That's just noise leaking out of your face."

Family Tree

Representative IMDb episode synopsis:
"Tom sees a photo of his great grandfather Harry in costume for 'The Mikado' and travels with Pete to the Regents Theatre, whose archivist reveals that not only did Harry have a - very tiny - part in a play starring Laurence Olivier, but he was also one half of a celebrated pantomime horse."

Representative dialogue:
"My bravery, my kind of innate courage ..."
"What courage and innate bravery?"
"I was the first out of our group to wear skinny jeans."

London Irish

Representative IMDb episode synopsis:
"Following a drunken wedding party, Bronagh wakes up in the bride's dress, which she stole, next to toddler Frankie, for whom Niamh is acting as nanny. Hearing that Dermot, a man they all hated, has just died, they head off for the wake anyway."

Representative dialogue:
"Now Niamh, don't get your hopes up --- this party might be shite. We don't want a repeat of the U2 concert, do we?"
"I didn't throw that rocket."
"You did throw that rocket, we all know you did. Though why you had a rocket and how you sneaked it into Wembley remains a mystery."

List #48: A Few of the Best Books I Read in 2014

Henrietta's War (Rec. #344) and Henrietta See It Through, Joyce Dennys

First lines: "My dear Robert, it was good to get your letter and hear that you are in a 'perfectly safe place,' though I wonder how much of that is true and how much intended to allay the alarms of your friend. And why, when I and everyone else know that you are in France, must I address my letters to Berkshire?"

Last lines: "When last I saw the Canadian, he had a pretty girl on each side of him and was singing 'Auld Lang Syne.'"

Loaded Words, Marjorie Garber

First lines: "Few words are more loaded than loaded. From 'charged, burdened, laden' (loaded carts, loaded hearts, loaded fruit trees, loaded guns) to 'weighted, especially with lead' (loaded dice) to slang usages from 'drunk' to 'drugged' to 'extremely wealthy,' loaded tells a story of abundance, excess, danger, and desire."

Last lines: "What comes after the humanities --- for humanists and for scholarship in general --- will be unexpected, unforeseen, transformative. If we could predict it with certainty, we would not be looking far enough ahead."

The Adventures of Sally, P.G. Wodehouse

First lines: "Sally looked contentedly down the long table. She felt happy at last."

Last lines: "Come on, it's a lovely night, let's walk to the village and revel at the inn. We're going to be millionaires before we know where we are, so we can afford it."

List #47: Some of the Best Movies I Saw in 2014

Movies in Theaters

God Help the Girl: "Do you often sing to people?"  "No. Never, really. Just you, just now."
(Rec. #361)

Pride: "I've had a lot of new experiences during this strike. Speaking in public, standing on a picket line, and now I'm in a gay bar."



Movies at Home

Across the Universe: "Music's the only thing that makes sense anymore, man. Play it loud enough, it keeps the demons at bay."
(Rec. #334)

Fay Grim: "An honest man is always in trouble."
(Rec. #323)

Happy-Go-Lucky: "You keep on rowing, and I'll keep on smiling."  "Hmm. Are we there yet?"
  "Ha! We got a hell of a way to go."

Stories We Tell: "When you're in the middle of a story, it isn't a story at all but rather a confusion, a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood ... It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all, when you're telling it to yourself or someone else."
(Rec. #343) (SSoW #3)

Friday Flashback: Rec. #77: Bitter with Baggage Seeks Same

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: The concept of Bitter with Baggage Seeks Same is pretty awesome. Little plastic chickens are placed in intricate dioramas that are humorously captioned. The execution is awesome-er because creator/author Sloane Tanen is very funny, whether the tableaus involve shopping, airport shuttles, Cinderella, or, erm, what appears to be a lost scene from one of the Saw movies.

Comparable to: OK, yes, this is a novelty book, so, you know, Cake Wrecks, Awkward Family Photos, Regretsy, etc. Except this didn't start as a blog.

Representative quote: "The prince's perverse fantasies were beginning to take their toll on Cinderella. Oh well, back to Barneys." [Don't you want to see the diorama that goes with that caption?]

Representative page:

You might not like it if: You have a chicken phobia.

How to get it: Bitter with Baggage Seeks Same is currently in print, although the follow-up book, Going for the Bronze, is not.

[Originally posted 3/17/11.]

List #46: The Best "Best Of" Lists

Happy New Year! 

Next week, we'll jump into The Daily Wreck's Best of 2014! In the meantime, here are some other enjoyable "best of"s from around the web.


1. FiveThirtyEight's "There Are Way Too Many 'Best of 2014' Lists"

What you get: Condensed lists! Statistics! Charts! A way to argue that, objectively, Boyhood must be the best film of the year.

What you don't get: Commentary on what makes these things so great, anyway.

2. John Allison's Album Chart of the Year (20-11) (10-1)

What you get: Drawings of Allison-verse characters dancing! What more could you possibly want?

What you don't get: Unlike in years past, there's no commentary from characters Shauna and Charlotte, which is a bit disappointing.

3. Said the Gramophone's Best Songs of 2014

What you get: Free music accompanied by artful prose. Also, occasional oblivious misogyny. But, free music!

What you don't get: The list includes no more than one song per artist. Also, why no Jenny Lewis?


4. TV.com's Top 100 of Everything of 2014 (100-91) (90-81) (80-71) (70-61) (60-51) (50-41) (40-31) (30-21) (20-11) (10-1)

What you get: A list that goes both bigger and smaller than individual TV shows --- it includes moments and characters and trends and tropes. Also, many, many GIFs and clips.

What you don't get: Nothing here is outside the realm of television.