1. I like Gossip Girl now. Initially, I did not like it because I thought it was “joyless” and it was impossible to root for Dan and Jenny. Now, the show’s less centred on Dan and Jenny, plus Jenny’s all bad now, and it’s really…fun. It’s also more clever than I first gave it credit for, less “joyless” than “enjoyably bitchy.” It’s like Douglas Sirk for the 21st century: fun and beautiful, but also sort of exposing all the cracks and contradictions and anxieties around sex and class and family and so on. Jacob (who I love) from TWOP explains the appeal:
    Honestly, I think it characterizes why I’m so mad about this show: it’s easy to say, “Rich people, meh. You don’t have to worry about it, because rich people suck and their lives are secretly horrible behind the mask.” Because that’s true. But the show takes the next step, which is that behind every mask is an actual life, so you’re dumb for just getting off on the fact that their lives are weird and sucky, or for thinking that people deserve misery for having more money than you do. You can take it at that level, and enjoy it, but the real truth is that behind the money and the mask, these people are still people, and dealing with shit that makes the money unimportant. My dear friend Karen was talking a while back about how of course I love this show, because it chops off most of Maszlow’s hierarchy and says, “And then what?” I’m comfortable in a world where the usual tragedies and wars and fights and terrors happen in a place where survival, food, shelter, are not the issue, but the pain and fear and ugliness are exactly the same. If you had no material worries in this world, you’d still feel fucked up and weird and wild the majority of the time, because people fuck each other up regardless.
  2. So tonight was Andrew Lloyd Weber night on Idol, which had me really excited because the trainwreck potential was so high. It was disappointingly…not that bad. Some of them were even legitimately good: Carly got back in my good books by doing “Jesus Christ Superstar” from one of the two ALW shows I actually like (the other is Evita which has sex and cynicism and political intrigue). I didn’t hurt that half the top 6 are apparently musical theatre nerds (Syesha, Carly, and resident “rocker” David Cook, who sang pretty well but totally lost any “cred” he had). It’s such a weird, weird choice when it comes to selling people stuff. If your narrative is David Cook: raw, authentic rock dude, having him sing “Music of the Night” completely straight is…maybe not the best strategy.
  3. My new discovery wordie.org. It’s neat, because you can use it to make lists of words. Mine are here.