Oh, my 70% beautiful, beautiful women and 30% weird dudes and 100% librarians, I have missed you so much! I will be gradually ramping back up to full-time here at The Toast, but we’ll start with Monday link roundups. AND TODAY IS MONDAY. I am very well, thank you, I will have a Hilarious and Deeply Moving birth story to share in due course (PREVIEW: I was accidentally locked into a concrete stairwell in full-blown labor without my phone for an hour while wearing a backless hospital gown), and it’s wonderful to be able to tell you what to read while not-doing your job once more.
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Look, look. There is NO HUMAN on God’s green earth who loves and unconditionally supports the existence of the British Royal Family more than I do, but obviously Emma Watson would NEVER date Prince Harry, it would be like dating Ron Weasley all over again, but on the day he thought he had luck. The idea is utter nonsense, and also Harry has a type, and it’s slightly trashy-looking and very self-assured blondes whose parents own safari companies in African nations, which does not exactly scream Emma Watson. I have loved all of his blondes, for the record, and none of them seem to care that much about him, they are DELICIOUSLY self-actualized.
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I was so excited to read this great interview in Rookie with Harlo Holmes, bc she is a COOL LADY I used to work with and a Friend of The Toast, and is talking about data and black girls who code and app development and all sorts of neat things:
You’ve said that it’s easier to get started than to actually stay in this field: What advice would you give to young women for sticking with this line of work?
It can be hard, especially for someone super into politics and activism, because you make a lot more money as an engineer at Facebook or Dropbox or something. I kind of find that soul-crushing. [Laughs] I try to stay as far away from their recruiters as possible. My income bracket is a little lower, but it works for me. But there are micro-aggressions. When you show up to a place and you don’t necessarily look like the person they’re expecting, it makes you feel uncomfortable. You can react to those things however you want: You can swallow it; you can point it out; you can blog about it anonymously or not. However you respond to those things is up to you. There’s literally no wrong way to respond. Just know that it’s probably going to happen to you, and when it does, you are absolutely not alone.
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Alexis Coe is giving a talk at the Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn on March 4th on “Erotomania and Murder,” which, I mean, c’mon.
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The Oscars! I’m watching them, but will be too sleepy after to update the roundup with the exciting moments of the dcdninc, so let’s talk!
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Have you guys ever heard this obscure song called “Uptown Funk”? I enjoy this song very much.
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Kukla, Fran and Ollie (very into this!):
Today, we watch television not as curious viewers dipping into a creative and experimental new form of entertainment, but as audiences conditioned by genres, formulas, and network mandates. Without these limitations, Kukla, Fran and Olliecreated a new, gentle intimacy with its audience, one shaped by routine but not bound by formula, in which it was always possible to be delighted or moved. Perhaps it’s less that it’s strange for adults to feel strongly about children’s television and more that we’ve coded such qualities as childlike, that genres have become rigid enough that shows like Adventure Time are one of the few places we can expect to be charmed.
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Here’s @tanehisicoates listening to Shelby Steele pic.twitter.com/JPo1zaB7e2
— Adam Serwer (@AdamSerwer) February 22, 2015
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The only important link today is Vanity Fair‘s interview with Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, which is such a deep and abiding source of joy in my weekend that I want to share every perfect word with you, but I’ll stick to these ones instead:
He pouted. “I haven’t eaten anything for days,” he announced. She responded on cue. “Oh, honeybun, that’s terrible!” Heartened, he continued, “There was a charity dinner last night, and the food was so awful nobody ate anything.” She fumbled through her bags. He looked on hopefully, but she landed on a bottle of Advil. “I have to have these—I’m sorry,” she said, shaking out a few pills, which dropped onto the carpet. She picked them up and swallowed them anyway. “There were just so many stairs today,” she said, continuing to dig until she unearthed a Kashi peanut-butter granola bar. “I brought half a peanut-butter cookie with me,” she told him cajolingly. He eyed it shrewdly. “Not half,” he said. “A quarter.” O.K., guys. Part of the reason we’re here today is to talk about your 50-year friendship. “What do you mean, friendship?” Andrews asked. “Exactly,” Plummer said.
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My friend Joey wanted me to tell you that NYC’s first queer Comic Con is going to be AMAZING and you should GO, and also I want to send a fun queer person to experience it and can get you tix, so if you’re very funny and nerdy and queer and a good writer, drop me a line, k?
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The Awl’s new advice column “The Concessionist” has caused me to re-evaluate literally every aspect of my life, and it’s very funny, so now I just do what Dear Polly and The Concessionist say, and I hope you enjoy it:
Ha ha, yeah, it’s mid-February now, so what your girlfriend is saying is that you are actually six to eight weeks away from getting dumped. As soon as winter is over, and your lady sees some hottie’s ankles on the streets, it’s curtains for you. Say goodbye. WE CAN SAVE THIS RELATIONSHIP THOUGH. Probably. It’s just, it’s your fault. So.
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In fairness to Giuliani, a lot of his comments are less inflammatory in the original parseltongue.
— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) February 22, 2015
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I have been breastfeeding (it worked this time! wild! toooootally different experience!) so I have been watching more TV than any other living soul, and would love to talk about The Flash, Broad City, Gotham, Agent Carter, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Americans, Justified, Better Call Saul, The Mindy Project, Broadchurch (UK version), Parks and Rec, Scandal, literally any and all action films of the 1990s, the SNL reruns they’ve been showing, and the trailer for the movie where Olivia Wilde comes back from the dead.
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A word about the If So-and-So Were Your Boyfriend/Girlfriend series! Isn’t it great? Nikki and I just wanted to slightly redirect submissions for it by briefly speaking about the ESSENCE of the series, the GESTALT of the endeavor: at most, only one of the items should be super sexual! We’ve gotten a bunch that are just kinda creepin’ on Idris Elba’s bod, which, oh man, right there with you, but what makes for a successful installment is that it’s more revealing about you and your search for love and meaningful personal connection in the world, GRAFTED ON to a celebrity you have strong feelings for, and less about boning that celebrity. So if you’re penning one, that’s just something to keep in mind! You can submit whatever you want, and we’ve loved reading all of them, that’s just some info to help you maximize your chances at success.
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Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
Yay!!!!! Nicole is back!!!!!!!! Welcome back, Nicole! We have missed you. Your family is incredibly adorable, and your links are fresh.
*waves pom-poms*
GET OUT
what even
amazing
That is the cutest thing in the sea.
You took the words right out of my brain! Hip, hip, hoorays, Nicole is back!
Pretty much the only thing I can think about, Oscars-wise, is Julianne Moore’s win for Still Alice. Alzheimer’s disease is a cause I care deeply about, so to see it spotlighted on such a huge stage and in such a great way was very emotional for me. I doubt I’ll be over it any time soon. Her performance was spot-on in so many ways, and I thought the film in general was fantastic.
Nicole! Welcome back! I will talk about Broad City or The Americans or Brooklyn Nine Nine or The Mindy Project with whoever wants although right now all I can think to contribute is that I love them, so maybe someone else has something more insightful to contribute.
I’ve only watched The Mindy Project out of those and as much as I love Mindy (obviously), I feel like this season has been kind of flailing? Mostly I wish there were more episode’s about Mindy’s family and history than all Danny(‘s mom), all the time. (Disclaimer: I have not watched the latest episode yet which has a promising title in that regard)
I also wish we had met Mindy’s parents by now!! They’re referenced in the most recent episode, in a promising way that suggests if/when we do meet them, it will be hilarious, but still. What does everyone think about the baby situation?
I am in complete denial that the baby situation is a thing that is happening.
Is it really a thing? I haven’t been watching lately because I can’t stand the Mindy/Danny pairing.
I am here for Broad City or Brooklyn Nine-Nine!!
Broad City – the pegging episode was absolutely amazing but I am sad that Neighbor Dude has ended up as a such a disappointment.
B99 – I’m gonna say it! I didn’t like Sophia that much and I’m glad she and Jake broke up!
The pegging episode was great and I think it was a good idea to show that her big crush wasn’t perfect and to make the fight just enough so that they wouldn’t keep dating, but not enough to keep them from maybe hooking up again in the future. I like a single Abbi who can have lots of dates and sex but I also think it’s good that they didn’t make Jeremy too much of an asshole in case they want to go back to that well in the future.
And let’s all never forget the glory that is VAL.
I watched Ilana say “hold please,” put down the phone, and do a victory dance all over the knock-off purse store approximately 500 times. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe and I think I scared my husband.
In conclusion, I fucking love Broad City.
That was the BEST victory dance in the history of victory dances.
I really loved that neither Jeremy nor Abbi was inarguably right about their post-pegging fight. Jeremy was ungracious about her accidentally destroying his expensive sex toy and replacing it with something lesser; Abbi was defensive about the replacement and thought she should get points and congratulations for being tolerant of his sexual desires. It felt like a very plausible, realistic, human fight.
And it gutted me. I was in a haze of delight watching Abbi go on that long-dreamed-of date with Jeremy, and I might have actually cried a tear when it blew up. (Let’s be real: I don’t remember, but I must have.)
Sophia was no good.
She made Jake boring. No one wants that. Even the wrap-up / returning the box of junk stuff was boring. Much prefer the bounced-back Jake who went detecting all over the place to figure out why he wasn’t to blame for Holt’s grumpiness.
(Much MUCH prefer Sarge getting rid of silver statue guy via superior street dancing.)
Yay Nicole is back! Your family is adorable and we missed you.
NICOLE OMG WELCOME BACK WE HAVE ALL MISSED YOUR BENEVOLENT PRESENCE SO MUCH.
Also Toast I am in the depths of hell right now. A water line to our house has frozen since Saturday morning and we won’t get water back until tomorrow at the earliest and possibly Wednesday or Thursday. All weekend we have had to melt snow and boil it to wash dishes and flush the toilet and I have to shower at my husband’s work in the extremely sketchy locker room there. I am 150% done with this week already. Send help and sponge bath supplies to the frozen tundra.
ALSO for television: Brooklyn 99 is one of the best shows on television, pound for pound. Broadchurch (UK) was terrific and I haven’t seen any of the second season and I want to know if it gets into the weirdness like the fight with the mailman? And Broad City I will never stop watching.
Where are you at? If you’re in my part of the frozen tundra you are absolutely invited over to shower in my less-sketchy shower and wash as many dishes as you like.
My phone said it was -25 when I woke up on Friday so I feel you, I can’t imagine dealing with actual problems when all I want to do is burrow and sleep.
We are in rural SE Ontario far from most other Toasties or I would be banging down some doors. It is extremely cold here -30 C here (hence frozen pipes) and let me tell you, there is nothing I wanted to do less than shovel buckets of snow to melt on the stove. Winter had cruelly taken my weekend. MISERY.
That is not at all close to me. Fingers crossed that everything gets fixed sooner rather than later!
You poor thing. I am bummed on your behalf.
Hear, hear.
I know you were being funny, but I am actually sending a box of supplies to the frozen tundra, via Helping Our Northern Neighbours.
Or, rather, I signed up; haven’t gotten an assignment yet.
Soooooo I’m sorry about your pipes but at least you can buy cabbage for less than $30 a head. Also if I lived near you I would totes offer you all the amenities.
Now where can I watch Broad City if I don’t have a TV?
It’s streaming on Amazon Prime, if you happen to have that service.
I just moved to a situation where it involves crawling through a PlayStation and into Amazon? or maybe Hulu? So basically I am either going back to community college to learn how to watch TV or I’ll just be out of the loop henceforth. (Someone told me a Roku stick and the Comedy Central app will pull stuff in on a laptop, but that doesn’t even sound like an English language sentence to me, so best of luck to you).
Entirely too late to this, but I highly recommend dropping $35 or whatever on a Chromecast. It makes the world your browser! Or your tv, more accurately. I am a sad person who now takes mine on vacation because I have excessive needs.
“Brooklyn 99 is one of the best shows on television, pound for pound”
And Terry Crews is the coolest man on the planet IMO.
Brooklyn 99 is so great I can’t even tell you who my favorite character is, because they’re all awesome*. Even Andy Samberg is 100% less annoying than I thought he would be, which counts as awesome for him.
*Yeah, but it’s gotta be Captain Holt, right?
Does anyone map themselves and/or their friends to the characters on the show? I’d like to think I’m Terry, but I’m probably Hitchcock or Scully :/
Haha, I’d like to think I’m a badass like Rosa, or even apathetic like Gina, but I’m a total Amy overachiever/suck-up (minus the work scrapbooks). 😀
I too am Amy. No wonder we love Holt so unabashedly.
I have had more than one person (okay, it was two people) tell me that I remind them of Gina, which fills my heart with delight because I love Chelsea Peretti and think she is the funniest, but I think that it’s just because I’m somewhat silly and have a prominent nose.
In reality I’m Boyle crossed with Santiago (I’m a sucker for a high five and I have a lot of respect for authority).
RE: Broadchurch. There haven’t had any mailman mystery or any of the other weirdnessess that I wanted more of (I won’t spoil anything for you). I am starting episode 8 right now and I am so excited I’m buzzing all over.
That last picture definitely did not cause my ovaries to implode. Nope.
WELCOME BACK NICOLE!!!!
That picture immediately made me imagine my boyfriend surrounded by tiny children, which is an image my ovaries strongly support. Uh oh.
I am so happily DONE with reproducing, but I’m at a stage where I miss having babies, I just don’t want anymore, so seeing other people’s lovely families makes me so so vicariously happy.
Birth stories! I love birth stories, the more mucus plug the better. Tell me all of your birth stories.
Yes! I am so excited for this. I almost wish there was a Toast-like site or Toast spinoff just of parenting stuff, because currently there are zero sources of well written and non-condescending parenting websites with birth stories and irreverent pregnancy advice.
I would read this so hard. OH to never have a reason to visit Babble again.
Last Broadchurch tonight, I am super excited! And welcome back!
Welcome back Nicole! Your family is very adorable.
That advice column has a lot of caps. I approve! Though after it, as a lady person, I wonder if it’s bad that I’ve never gotten either a mani or a pedi. I mean, I cut my nails short and they’re clean? I even occasionally polish them haphazardly! Have I been doing it wrong? It just seems like a lot of money when I think my nails are mostly fine.
I may just have different standards. The boy postpones getting his hair cut for months (it’s really long and rufflable right now), and has the droopiest boxers, but I don’t really mind. He’s in pretty good shape; maybe that compensates.
The nail thing is a little weird. I have dated many men (MANY) and I don’t think one has ever been to a nail place and I still wanted them to touch me, so. My husband has pretty gnarly hands because he works with his hands and I would find him attractive if he had sticks for hands or no hands at all. My own nails are usually in horrid shape anyhow so I have no room to talk.
Honestly? I think as long as you are presentably clean, dressed appropriately for the situation, and happy with your appearance, rock on.
I don’t care much about my husband’s nails, but I do have pretty strong feelings about his gnarly foot calluses, and those feelings are “YOU ARE SCRAPING MY ANKLES RAW PUTTING YOUR ROUGH-ASS FEET ON ME IN BED, BUY A DAMN PUMICE STONE.” So I can get behind the pedicure idea from that perspective.
I am also fully behind the pedicure idea because I once cut my foot on my husband’s foot because he never cuts his toenails and the ones on his big toe are like Wolverine’s adamantium claws, except not retractable.
But the #1 thing that baffles/confuses me about him, appearance-wise, is that he has very very dry skin but doesn’t moisturize. Especially in winter, his cheeks and nose get all red and he flakes up like he has really bad dandruff on his face but even though he has plenty of moisturizer and knows that using it will improve his skin immensely, he just… does not. Unless I pump the stuff on his face so that he has no choice.
LONG MAN TOENAILS IN BED, aaaaaaagggggggghhhhhhh. I regularly remind my husband that if he wants any, he’d better keep both sets of nails short.
I have never gotten a mani or pedi, either. I paint my toenails during our short but spectacular summer, and occasionally I paint my fingernails, but (a) when I do the fingernails they feel like they can’t breathe and I imagine them screaming and gasping for air, which weirds me out, especially since my toenails do not do this and (b) I have killer hangnails that I would be sort of embarrassed to show a manicurist. Especially in the (long, dry, VERY VERY COLD) winter.
I figure I might as well perform those aspects of femininity I enjoy (jewelry, handknitted lace, an insatiable craving for chocolate and/or cheese) and say “screw it” to the ones I don’t (manicures, high heels).
I feel like that’s a good attitude. And well, I recently finished knitting this, so I’m definitely with you on handknitted lace being an enjoyable way to perform femininity (also with you on the cheese. All the way).
I loooooooooove Hitofude, and I have a sweater quantity of fingering-weight yarn just waiting for winter to end. Did you enjoy making it, with that unusual construction?
I go back and forth on whether it would work with Massive Bazooms, though.
I really enjoyed knitting it! Aside from the tricky part where you finish the sleeves and start the back, at which point I accidentally pulled my needle out of two dozen stitches and had a moment of panic (I fixed it, though! And the resulting ugly patch is at an armpit, so eh). Most of it is tricky enough not to get boring, yet regular enough that you can do it while watching TV.
My Bazooms are merely big and not massive, but I think it’d work. Maybe without the button, just hanging open – I think the widening sides would balance it out.
I feel the same about painted nails. However, I’ve discovered that you can put sparkly nail polish on the tips and get Compliments from Stylish Co-workers, without feeling weird around the nails.
I’ve never had a mani/pedi either! I don’t like strangers touching me, and my feet are VERY ticklish.
Same here! I paint my own nails about half the time because I like having sparkly fingers, but otherwise they’re just clean, and my toes are just cut short and ignored as much as possible.
Yeah, I think it’s more like “this dude clearly doesn’t take care of himself at all, let’s overhaul the whole thing and give him nice soft hands and feet so his gf doesn’t leave him.”
Also, my husband is an intense cuticle and nail biter which leaves his hands looking sort of gross and I would love for him to get a real manicure and he often has falcon-sharp talons on his feet, so I see where the writer is coming from
I am your gross-nailed husband.
I don’t think manis/pedis are at all integral to cleanliness — that would be ridiculous, if they were. They’re just a fun way to indulge yourself, if you’re so inclined.
yep. I think they’re a nice little treat, and I usually get my nails & toes done when I’m visiting my parents, but I don’t usually do it on my own. But I do enjoy them with Mom!
I have never had a manicure or pedicure; I’ve never had a massage, facial or beauty treatment in general; I don’t wear make-up, and I last had my hair cut (at the hairdresser’s house, for under £10) two years ago. I’m not opposed to these things! I just really don’t care enough to bother with any of them. So I’m sure you are doing it less wrong than me.
I’ve never had a facial or beauty treatment either. I only started (occasionally) wearing make-up a few years ago, when I was 27! And honestly, I’m still too lazy for it most days (plus, being able to rub your eyes is nice, too). What convinced me was becoming friends with a girl who really saw make-up as a hobby, and had a gazillion pretty colors, and who thought all that bullshit about fixing flaws with make-up was ridiculous.
So make-up (at least eyeshadow – foundation and blush and things like that are still a total mystery) is now a fun way for me to occasionally engage in more outward femininity. But I still think it’s weird that it’s seen as such an elemental thing to be able to look “professional” as a woman.
I have a bit of a …fixation with men’s hands, and I don’t think that professional manicures are necessary. More men could stand to use hand lotion, especially in the winter, but if the nails are trimmed and smooth and clean, that is sufficient.
You’re definitely not doing it wrong!
I didn’t get my first manicure until I was 25. But I was a nailbiter before that and getting my nails done professionally for the first time actually changed my life — I had no idea my hands could look so pretty! It really helped my self confidence. So I recommend it on that level. But it’s definitely not a big deal!
Cosmo has taught me that if a dude in a relationship starts paying attention to his appearance, that dude is having an affair.
Of course, maybe the way to save this relationship is a vulnerable, tear and snot-filled fight about FEELINGS where the end result of having the fight is her realizing that he’s not cheating on her, he really likes her and doesn’t want to screw this up. That could work.
Hey Nicole! yay well done for giving birth (despite that stairwell debacle you elude to- what how why?!) and welcome back!
Whilst I haven’t been breastfeeding a tiny new human, I *have* been watching a lot of those TV series: Broad City is ace and feminist and funny and great (I want Ilana to be my best friend, or maybe just be her), Parks & Rec keeps getting better but I can also sense all the loose ends tying together and that makes me sad as it’s ending, and I need to start Agent Carter because it’s all over my tumblr and looks amazing!
I was okay with P&R ending, but it’s been so lovely this season I’ve been having a hard time saying goodbye. That Johnny Karate episode was a thing of beauty.
I maybe cried a little bit. Also my sister was visiting this weekend so we tried to follow the 5 Karate Rules for Success. There was a lot of karate chopping something.
Parks and Rec is going out on SUCH a high note, aren’t they? God I’m going to miss them. The feminism/MRA episode was one of the best things that’s ever happened.
Agreed. I am going to BAWL during the last episode, I just know it.
Dropping in here ten hours late to agree, and note that I just texted my friend that P&R is a true joy. I’m going to miss it so hard, but I will just rewatch the entire series over and over again for the rest of my life.
Oooh, can you recommend a source for Broad City without relying on a TV?
Sidereel and couchtuner dot coms are my jams for TV-watching. You don’t even have to wait until the next day like Hulu!
AHHH SO HAPPY NICOLE IS BACK I LOGGED IN TO COMMENT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MONTHS!!!
Also, now that I’m here, I would like to note that Lady Gaga’s Sound of Music medley made both my parents tear up so that was adorable to watch (granted, they’re very susceptible to being impressed by her because her stylist is a dude I went to high school with but still).I have actually never seen the movie or even the horrible live version on NBC so I had no thoughts other than Julie Andrews is lovely.
Never seen Sound of Music?! You must rectify that IMMEDIATELY! It is so charming and lovely and happy and sad. To me, it’s the definition of A Classic.
My emotions were all over the place w this (Yay Nicole! Excitement! HA- Parceltongue!) and then BAM adorable fam pic and I am now PUDDING.
You are not doing it wrong at all! Do your own nails! I love doing my own nails!
That said, manicures can be fun. They rub your hands with nice smelling stuff and give you hand massages and it’s a nice treat if you can find an affordable place. But you’re not wrong, by any stretch.
So glad you’re back and doing well with your new offspring! Omg, can’t wait to hear the full version of the Hilarious and Deeply Moving Birth Story. That sounds like it could have turned out terribly.
Welcome back Nicole!!! We missed you and your family is outrageously adorable.
Please, let us discuss the fact that A. Lady Gaga sang a “The Sound of Music” medley last night and pretty much nailed it, B. The number of speeches last night that were fucking spot on (and holy shit, Patricia, what the fuck was that follow up shit) and C. How Abbi is KILLING IT this season of Broad City.
Yeah I felt like the only feminist who was uncomfortable with Patricia Arquette’s speech. I am not here for the rhetoric of “IT’S OUR TURN, GET IN LINE OTHER OPPRESSED GROUPS.”
Which sucks, because otherwise I think forceful calls for women’s equality are rad. And in her follow-up, everything she said was right on until she got to the horrible end where she demanded that PoC and LGBTQ people serve her own cause. SO frustrating.
Not to mention that, uh, some women are PoC. And some women are gay. And some women are even gay AND PoC!
It’s almost like these identities INTERSECT sometimes!
Someone really should come up with a term for that concept.
I’ve been calling it “quantum experiential crossinductionalism” for years now.
Where can I read the follow up?? It sounds very OH NOOOO WRONGGGG, which is disappointing after a pretty great speech.
http://www.popsugar.com/celebrity/Patricia-Arquet…
Gah… That’s so bad…
Oh nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. You know that feeling where you want to just gently put your hand on somebody’s mouth like a cat to get them to stop talking? I’m having that feeling.
*rrrrrrrrrecord scratch*
Ugh, I did not hear that because everyone watching was like “awesome!!” about the first bit-thanks for cluing me in before I really put my foot in it. Let’s hope that a lot of other feminists you’re seeing who are acting like the whole speech was grand didn’t hear it either (though I am under no delusion that plenty of people won’t see the issue with that, unfortunately).
Also: casual transmisogyny, cissexism, and gender essentialism in her acceptance speech. The first two because not every woman has a vagina and not everyone with a vagina identifies as a woman. The last because even some cis women can’t or aren’t interested in producing spawn.
Also x2: Ignoring the RACIAL pay gap. WHITE women make 78 cents to the White man’s dollar. Black, Latina, Native American and Alaskan, and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders all make less. (Asian American women make more.)
Equal pay is a good thing to advocate for. It just has multiple facets.
And her comments afterward are made of epic fail. #whitefauxminism
Abbi really has been killing it and I find this so inspiring because I am such an Abbi irl.
Riiight? I feel like there is really only one Ilana in this world, but I relate to Abbi so much that seeing her come into her own is gratifying beyond words. VAL, THO.
VAL! I put on “Get Happy” and danced around like a loon. Abbi is so on right now.
There has been so much of Abbi dancing this season and it has been the greatest thing on television. Between Val, “Edge of Glory” and her happy dance from the wisdom teeth episode, this is clearly The Year of Abbi.
This season has been killing it by letting Abbi expand her Abbiness to every horizon. I didn’t know this show could get better in the second season, but it has.
Val about town… town about Val.
Oooohhhh yeah. I have this HUGE crush on Ilana, so have always kind of felt like she was the clear winner of everything. But this season I’m also falling in love with Abbi. My boyfriend is just all about both of them. They are so amazing.
And yeah, WTF Patricia Arquette? I did not watch the Oscars at all but someone posted it on FB and I watched it and I was like “WTF is she talking about”? Like, yes sure pay equality is good, but white women have been working for pay equality for themselves FOR DECADES, and have absolutely not been putting their own agendas aside to agitate for other people’s rights.
LOVED Abbi as Val, so so good! Yeah Abbi is coming into her own this season.
Welcome back Nicole!
The Kukla, Fran and Ollie story is great. They were one of the biggest influences on the Muppets, and that is always something I’m A-OK with. And now I’m down a Wiki rabbit hole that took me from Jim Henson to Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage and dang now I’m hungry.
I watched Anne of Green Gables this weekend. For the first time. I am a 28-year-old Canadian female.
It really went off the rails in WWI, didn’t it? I mean, as far as Lucy Maud Montgomery self-fanfic was ever *on* the rails.
I found the Femslash Friday about it kinda abbreviated, although the Dirtbag Anne columns made up for it. Thanks again, Toast!
Wait, you watched all the way through to Anne 3? A lot of us close our eyes and pretend Anne 3 doesn’t exist. Like the Star Wars prequels.
I have Anne 3 (part of boxed set, gift from MIL) but have never watched it. It squats menacingly in my DVD cabinet.
From what I heard about the final film installment, it didn’t match up with Rilla of Ingleside at all, so yeah, really off the rails.
Love dirt bag Anne. It takes the edge off some of the weird saccharine-ness that the books have every now and again. It’s a relief when Anne actually gets angry and petty for a bit at the end of Anne of Ingleside just because she graduated from mistake prone girl to height of domestic perfection at the end of Anne of the Island (Windy Poplars notwithstanding; Katharine Brook basically said as much), and that’s tedious after a while.
I once met Jonathan Crombie (aka Gilbert Blythe) and he asked me if I had seen/liked the 3rd one, and I think I replied something like “It’s not my favorite,” and he agreed. He said he always likes asking people because he gets interesting reactions.
As a 50% weird dude and 50% librarian, I am very happy to see you back, Nicole!
She gets it, doesn’t she? That’s why we love Nicole!
Nicole!!! Whom do we need to murder for the stairwell episode?
I can only talk about Justified to the end of season 5, which was not the best season. Also that show needs to STEP UP its attempts to make southern CA look like eastern KY, because they have officially stopped trying.
But my favorite part of watching Justified is the rolling deserts of Kentucky! I live about an hour away from Harlan in Tennessee and this might be my only opportunity for geographic nitpicking.
NICOLE HELLO. I will happily discuss The Flash with you!
ME TOO! God I love that show. And I love Arrow. They both just make me so haaaappppyyyyy…even though I have strong opinions on both. (Like: Why don’t they know what to do with Iris? Why don’t more people adore Jesse L. Martin when he is clearly amazing and wonderful? Where does Felicity shop? WHY DID THEY KILL SARAH??? etc.)
YES YES YES ARROWWWW is absolutely killing it right now.
Hmmm. Responses: a) I don’t know, she can’t really be as dumb as all that, right? Like, she is clearly a bright lady who is v v observant but how has she not put the pieces together yet? Makes no sense! b) That is truly ridiculous but I also keep expecting him to burst into song, thank you RENT and the fact that he wears a little knitted cap… c) I also must know this immediately d) ugh, that is so tough! but the traditional Canary isn’t Sarah, it’s Laurel. Dislike. Sarah was rad; Laurel is getting better but still not my favorite HER POOR FATHER AUGH.
I’m an amateur librarian, does that count? By that, I mean I kind of run my children’s school’s library as part of the PTA (since they fired all staff librarians in elementary schools a few years ago, it’s been all volunteer). I’m kind of thinking of going back to school to get a masters of library science, but it seems expensive! IDK. Anyway, glad to be part of the group.
Welcome back, Nicole! Your family is lovely (your son and husband look so happy, which is just all kinds of great, considering how much sleep everyone’s getting). So, congrats!
Also, I can’t get past things on Broad City – like, abrasiveness things. Confrontations generally stress me out (even ones I’m casually observing). But the first time I watched Bob’s Burgers, I didn’t laugh once and now it’s my all time favorite show. ALL TIME! Anyway, I’ll give Broad City another go.
Broad City is actually pretty hang-outy and low on confrontational drama. Particularly the central relationship–there’s essentially no conflict there. Maybe there was an early episode that gave a different impression?
…..They fired all staff librarians in elementary schools? WTF?
Hi Claudia. I’m a children’s librarian – I work in a public library in a district with a highly competitive academic atmosphere, and I do a lot of school visits. If you ever need advice for running that school library – it’s straight garbage that they let all the librarians go, but non-garbage humans like you are the pearls among that swine – or about getting your MLS, you can ask me. Also, every other children’s librarian I’ve ever met would say the same. Find a blog you like or visit a library and just ask: it’s a profession where we love to build each other up!
Re: Broad City, it helped me a lot as an older viewer to recognize how much it’s influenced by Larry David’s humor (the layered jokes and call-backs, the secret language of friendships that excludes outsiders, Susie Fucking Essman), because then it was easier to see how many of the problems in his work BC overcomes (diverse cast, non-punchline queerness, female-dominated stories). It took me a few episodes to feel at home, and then I never wanted to leave. Definitely worth another try.
I find Christopher Plummer very attractive, which is somewhat troubling because he also strongly reminds me of my grandfather.
This, except with Steve Martin and my dad. AWKWARD
This, except Benedict Cumberbatch and my dad. :/
I feel like this but about Chris Evans and my brother. UGHHHHH!
Your brother is like Chris Evans?
o hai
It’s mostly a mannerisms thing? Otherwise I would feel way more Lannister about the whole thing.
Does this help?
SORRY! SORRY IT’S SO LARGE.
Christopher Plummer is THE SHIT. I love the scene in Must Love Dogs where Diane Lane goes on a date with an internet guy who sounds great and she shows up and…. it’s her dad. Christopher Plummer with a long-stemmed red rose.
“It would surprise no one, perhaps, to learn that Julie Andrews travels with her own teakettle.” I am already in love with this!!! Plummer calling the baron a bit of a bitch! I cannot deal with this right now, I’m smiling so hard.
Welcome back, Nicole! We’ve missed you greatly and I cannot wait to hear about your birth story and various Oscar/TV show thoughts.
I already loved them both so much, and this only increases the <3’ing. I had no idea that Julie Andrews’ early life was so horrible and screwed up – huge respect for coming out of that and becoming the Queen of Awesome that she is.
This story: How I Became A Minor Celebrity In China (After My Stolen Phone Ended Up There) about Matt Stopera at Buzzfeed is wild. I really hope he does meet Orange Man.
That article was a wild ride from start to finish! “Your story has been retweeted on Weibo for almost 49,000 times now 🙂 people are always moved by the story of true love” made me burst out laughing in the office.
I’m finding The Flash generally charming and nicely weird at times, but the ‘threatening a woman into dating while making a scene in front of her co-workers’ was pretty enraging.
Welcome back, Nicole!!!
I gave up on the Oscars last night because of sleepyness. I tried. I failed.
Oh, also, Toasties of Twitter, I have joined your ranks! @RuBeksCube I have no idea what I’m doing on Twitter, so it’s just all very random right now…wheee!
I joined it a few weeks ago, but within a week I had gotten an email saying I had changed my password and did I mean to, and then logged in (with my normal password, which I hadn’t changed) to find I had apparently been tweeting volubly in Chinese. So I have deactivated my account in terror!
!! Wow, I don’t blame you! I would have also run away.
I am a bit sad because everyone always alludes to great fun and shenanigans on the open thread!
It’s worth trying again. My first try (at general Twitter, not Toastie) led immediately to being hacked and spamming my thankfully limited contacts, a problem some magical administrator quickly repaired. They can likely get you back into your own body and native tongue, too.
Welcome to Toastie Twitter! I’ve given up Twitter (and cuticle biting) for Lent, but given how well the cuticle biting part is going, I’ll be back on Twitter in a few days. Sorry, J.C.
Welcome back Nicole! Enjoy all of your TV – can I lovingly recommend Gracepoint, the North American Broadchurch? Only because I am in it for a brief nanosecond.
GO ON.
Well! It was filmed where I live, and I was asked to be an extra, along with my husband. It was one of the most frustrating and miserable days of work I have ever done, and I made less money per hour than I have in a decade. BUT, it was fun to see myself on TV – I got a jaunty hair toss in, and my husband’s butt had some major screen time. I didn’t meet anyone famous, and I got yelled at a lot. It was funny to see the place where I live done up as spooky Northern California. Anyway, give it a chance!
Your family is so cute Nicole, welcome back! So glad you’re doing well, and I cannot wait to hear your probably-hilarious story!
Also, as a sidenote: I am one of the 30% weird dudes but not one of the 100% librarians, unless you count my embarrassingly extensive collection of Brian Jacques’ complete life works as a library.
I would count that.
Welcome back Nicole! I watched so much TV while breastfeeding my son I could have led a seminar on popular culture. Breastfeeding= educational.
It took three episodes of Broad City before my husband laughed. I think he was expecting a masculine humor, but now he sees the light.
Mallory and I saw it for the first time together at my house last year (I think it was Pu$$y Weed but I could be wrong), and we DIED but Steve was just [poker face] and has never once cracked. HIS LOSS.
I periodically hear from (usually male) viewers who go out of their way to announce that Broad City “just isn’t funny.”
It’s okay to think a thing is not funny! It’s natural; we all have different veins of humor that speak to us, and some of those veins run (as your husband seems to have experienced) along socially prescribed lines, or with socially differentiated experiences.
But I literally cannot understand the people who think that just because they aren’t laughing, it is universally and inarguably Not Funny. I laugh my ass off at every single episode, and at least once every episode, I laugh so hard, I have to rewind to catch the lines I missed. If I’m laughing, it’s funny, and it’s sad that some people are so invested in telling me it’s not.
Mine gives it The Eye sometimes, but we just started watching this season & it’s quickly become The Show He Will Be Annoyed If I Watch Without Him.
(The Eye is usually because our 15 year old is within hearing distance, to be fair.)
Oh, and I do envy those who breastfed during the internet/dvr age. My first was born in ’95 & I watched basically nothing but reruns of Law & Order for months at a time. (Not really a bad thing.) The second came along in ’00 so he nursed in my lap as I sat at my desktop computer emailing and writing on message boards for months at a time.
My husband and I both watch it, and love it, but it took 3-4 episodes until we were both convinced. Now we can’t get enough.
Arrow: I am starting to like Laurel a lot more this season, because they are actually trying to make her a person (WHEW). HER DAD OH GOD…that poor man has been through so much. I think I was just bitter about Sarah because I wanted to see more of her friendship with Sin and her relationship with Talia (assassins need love, too!), AND her friendships with everyone else on the team.
I also am cracking up at Diggle this season, because he’s gone into full-on Dad mode. It’s great.
Flash: Yes, Iris is definitely not dumb and they keep trying to make her out to be oblivious to certain things, but really intuitive and smart about others. I get that people can put blinders on to certain aspects of their life, but…she’s smarter than this. I also expect Jesse L. Martin to sing through everything. I love how campy this show in, and yet every time there’s a scene where Barry’s real dad and/or foster dad have “a moment” I get soooo choked up. They hit all the family notes really well, I think. I also really appreciate that, although she’s neurotic, Caitlin is a capable scientist who isn’t scared of putting herself in danger for the sake of others.
This super-long reply was in response to houblonchouffe.
yesss I loved Sarah and Talia’s relationship. So awesome! It’s amazing just how clear it is when a writing staff is made of people who are not just straight white men and I am loving it; seeing all these characters develop into very realistic humans is pretty rad. Laurel is getting a lot better lately but she’s still not quite there for me–I think it’ll take her realizing that she can’t do it just to keep up with the boys/her sister’s memory, she has to do it for herself and take it seriously, and then she’ll be much more interesting. She’s getting there!
I hope they don’t make Caitlin evil. That would be really sad, even if it is canon. She’s such a great character and last week’s episode was devastating and amazing and I definitely did not cry during it at all
Jesse L. Martin is so great on this show. I think he enjoys spending less time standing over mutilated corpses, too, and more time being like “I made chili! What’s your rush?”
I also love that he doesn’t trust Dr Wells at all, for any reason, and is becoming less and less subtle about that.
Both shows seem to have one character the writers just don’t know what to do with (Laurel and Iris) which is weird cause the mostly handle everyone else fine.
As to dragging out finding out Barry’s identity, I think that’s just an unfortunate side effect of superhero stories. They even lampshaded it a bit on Arrow when Coporal Dectective Sargeant Lance called out Roy right away, and in the flashback last week when Ollie was back in Starling. But it does make your characters look dumb when they can’t figure it out.
Any time there’s a Christopher Plummer reference, I am obligated to say that I met him several times, but I was an ignorant teenager and didn’t know it was him. It was only years later that I realized who the man with the lovely voice was. I just knew he was an actor at the Stratford Festival and he was very nice to a dumb kid working a part-time retail job in an ugly red smock. Maybe this is why I find Michael Fassbender so attractive? Because he looks like Christopher Plummer?
OH MY GOD THANK YOU FOR ACKNOWLEDGING THIS!
I have been saying Fassbender looks like Christopher Plummer for years and no one ever believes me!
One of my biggest life regrets: we were seeing Christopher Plummer as Lear on a Stratford school trip. I didn’t know Stratford well, and didn’t check my ticket — I spent a lovely afternoon browsing bookshops, and cheerfully went to the Avon theatre and presented my ticket, only to be told that I was supposed to be at the Festival. I ran — but by the time I got there, I was too late to be seated for Act I, and I missed it.
The rest of the play was amazing, but I still regret missing Act I.
(And YES to Fassbender – Plummer similarity)
I saw him as Lear, but our group was seated under an acoustically unfortunate balcony, and so I couldn’t actually hear anything he said. Also, the thunder was too loud.
The incurably handsome, subtly grieving, widowered Captain von Trapp was always the heartthrob in the movie, never Rolf, the twerpy teenage messenger boy.
The suggestion that at any point in the past 50 years, even one person considered Rolf to be a heartthrob – a heartthrob at all, never mind the heartthrob of the movie – is deeply disturbing and unsettling to me. Even if Christopher Plummer hadn’t starred in this movie. Rolf was a baby Nazi, for crying out loud!
Even pre-Nazism Rolf was such an insecure paternalistic weenie that it’s a miracle Liesl gave him the time of day.
Miracle, travesty, tomayto, tomahto.
He is weird looking and even 10-year-old me was like Liesl, you clearly understand life so much better than this twit, get moving.
I once dreamed I was a maid in the Von Trapp household and there was no Maria. I had to help them escape from the Nazis and the Captain was in love with me.
I woke up and was like, wait, I’m not 12 anymore, I’m 25, why am I having this dream now?
Tl;Dr screw Rolf the Captain is everything.
Welcome back! I would love to talk about Agent Carter.
I looooooove Agent Carter! Like I said on Twitter, I’m off Benedict now and getting hooked on Hayley Atwell. Her EVERYTHING game is so tight.
i looooved the takedown of all the shitty ways peggy’s male coworkers misperceive her in the last episode.
I also love Agent Carter! In particular her fighting style – she’s all elegant and perfectly made-up and in killer fifties silhouettes and then just hitting people with blunt objects in the least sophisticated way possible. THE BEST.
It’s a very *practical* fighting style, which is what I like so much about it. Hit, punch, wrestle if necessary, none of this fancy waif-fu shit.
My darn kid won’t let me watch without him and that latest episode is glaring at me from my DVR while I wait for him to get his act together and finish his homework on time some night so we can watch it. It’s hella frustrating.
He’s my baby feminist and can’t get enough of the gender politics happening in the show, so I reluctantly await his companionship.
Welcome back Nicole! I’m of the 30% weird dudes who loves the Toast and am very happy to have you back. That is all.
Welcome back and congratulations!
I am delighted to count myself among the 30% of The Toast that is weird dudes.
Weird dude club reporting.
Sorry I’m a bit late, but yes, one more 30-percenter here.
In re: so many “If so-and-so were your boyfriend” submissions, I thought we were all discouraged from trying to be Mallory:
“8. You know how Mallory writes those amazing Texts From, soon to be available in bookstores near you? Don’t send me Texts From submissions. That’s her series. Generally, when I get pieces that say “I was inspired by Mallory’s…”, they almost never work, because we all want to be Mallory, but only Mallory is Mallory, and she is sufficient unto herself. You have so many beautiful ideas of your own, go with those instead!”
Read more at http://the-toast.net/2014/02/21/how-to-submit-wor…
I wrote the first one, then Mallory did one, then Sulagna did one, so it’s an open series like “How to Tell What Novel You’re In.”
Nicole, would you take submissions for a “How to Tell If You’re in an E. M. Forster Novel”? Or is it really only my personal obsession?
Hi guys!!!! Do not be deceived by the idyllic picture, the toddler is DEEPLY DISPLEASED with me for bringing him home. The first day it was “he wants to go back in Mommy’s belly” and now it’s just “put him on the floor” if she catches me holding him.
Wait until toys are re-appropriated. We’re getting all kinds of “this is the worst baby, ever” declarations.
My eldest niece did this with her baby siste! After 3 months niece 1 went and reclaimed all her toys she let the baby borrow and asked when they could return the baby. Sorry niece, baby’s there for good.
I was 9 when my youngest sister was born, and I had spent the whole pregnancy hoping that it was a boy. When my mom called from the hospital to let me know that I had another sister I burst into tears of sadness while on the phone.
I was six, livin’ large as an only child, when my sister was born and ruined my life. I dropped her on her head and even that didn’t get rid of her. I’ve only recently forgiven her for existing.
When my parents told my brother (8 years older than me) that he was going to have a baby brother or sister soon, he glared at them and said, “So you’ve made yourself another child!”
My sister and I are 6 1/2 years apart! I never dropped her…although the time I left the burp cloth on her face and she went to sleep so deeply my mother thought I’d accidentally smothered her rapidly became family legend.
When we were bringing my little sister home from the hospital back when, I apparently pointed to a chair in the waiting room and said, “Put her down. Put her down RIGHT THERE!”
My mom loves telling that story. Along with the time I answered the door completely naked and told a friend, “I can’t come outside and play. I don’t have my shoes on.”
OK. I see why your mom loves that last story. It is HILARIOUS. I love it and I am going to tell it to other people even though you and I have not met, and they will not have met you.
I go outside without shoes on all the time now. LESSON LEARNED MOM
Haha oh dear, I guess I have that to look forward to soon. My 3 year old has been pretty nonchalant about my pregnancy so far, but I think he’s going to be pretty unimpressed with his new sister when she shows up. But luckily we have a new puppy, so he’s got someone to boss around already. “Puppy wants to play in my room now.” “Puppy likes taking baths with me.” “I put puppy to bed now.” Ummmm no dude, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want any of that.
My parents played that con on me, but with a doll rather than a puppy. *I* got a baby at the same time as *mummy* got a baby! She was my favourite doll ever, and never objected to being put in baths, beds, whatever. An excellent ruse, and it 100% worked as I never minded acquiring a sister. I even at one point tried to change my sister’s nappy by myself as I’d seen it done, and worked it myself on my doll. I was 3 at the time, it didn’t really work out.
Some friends spent months and months and months preparing their toddler for her sister’s arrival, describing how the baby would arrive and where the baby would sleep and what sorts of noises the baby might make and what changes the baby might mean for the household, and she was very enthusiastic, both prior to the baby’s arrival and for the first three days she was home.
Then the toddler turned to the grown-ups and asked, reasonably enough and with great patience, “When does she go back?” Because every other person who’d ever come to stay with them left eventually, and no one thought to tell her the baby was not a temporary guest. That news… was not greeted gently by the toddler.
Oh I was So. Over. my baby brother when they brought him home… my mom loves to tell a story about how she was feeling down because the adoption agency (we both are) said it could be a long time before she would get a second child, because demand, and I comforted her somehow … I like to end the retelling of that story with “and then HE showed up and ruined everything.”
We fought constantly until I went off to college and now at 29 and 25 respectively, we’re pretty close. So it might take a while.
I guess this is why my mom’s rapid-fire introduction of a new kid before the youngest kid could even talk much was a good strategy. By the time the 4th one arrived, the 1st one was 4 1/2 & we were all ‘oh, another one? right, then.’
My boys were 4 1/2 years apart and I played a really long con on the older about how much I needed his help being the responsible one who could fetch diapers and glasses of water for me. He still dropped his brother on his head as soon as he got the chance, though.
(Cue me, running soapy/wet from the shower to find out why there is ear-piercing screaming from the other room, slip-sliding across marble floor, cracking my elbow on a brass flower pot and bruising my ass, and the 4 year old’s innocent “he wanted me to pick him up.” Peak Responsible Parenting Moment.)
My friend’s eldest adopted an alter ego named “Diego” and spent a lot of time growling about how she wanted to go back to her real family. They’re cool now but it took… a while.
I bit my sister twice as a 3 year old, and I was generally not a mischievous kid at all.
When my parents brought my youngest brother home from the hospital my little sister would only refer to him as “something horrible” and wouldn’t go into the room he was in. Their relationship could really only go up from there.
This is absolutely amazing.
I’m the oldest so I was less than pleased when my brother came along. I was almost 3. I distinctly recall, in one of my earliest memories, that my first ever swear word was when I referred to him as “that damn baby.”
My friend’s three year old asked her, about a week after his new brother came home, “When is that baby going to get his own parents?”
Shortly after my brother was born, I told my parents that actually, I wanted a puppy instead.
My mother is the second of eight kids. She and her older sister are 13 months apart, then there’s a 4 1/2 year gap between my mom and the next kid, my oldest uncle, and then the last five all came in relatively quick succession.
When my uncle was born, my mother was the tomboy-est tomboy in the neighborhood. She wore overalls and played with trucks and tractors and insisted on a short haircut, and also that her name was not Kathleen, but Greg. She was the baby, they indulged her. Then they brought home a squalling baby boy named Greg. My mother was substantially less than pleased.
(This story had been lost to the ages until my parents were in marital counseling. Guess what my dad’s name is.)
Two days after my sister came home from the hospital I bit her on the face as hard as I could. I was NOT WELCOMING. We get along find now, it only took like 25-30 years.
Brooklyn 99! I had a dream last night in which Jake and Boyle lived together and I was at their apartment having increasingly clothed makeouts with Jake as we got ready to go to work, and Boyle kept turning up in inconvenient and embarrassing places (trying to make an omelette while we did makeouts in the kitchen, walking in on me in the shower, etc).
This sounds very much like a plausible B99 plot line!
I was pretty impressed with my subconscious, at least at the beginning. It got a bit surreal eventually with the ice driving and egg juggling.
I’m interested in the concept of increasingly clothed makeouts. You… kept adding sweaters?
Just regular clothes? Like underwear –> socks + shirt –> trousers. Not like, a babushka doll of sweaters.
Ilana at a dinner party with the dentist (I think?) and she’s talking about rape culture and generally just trying to get a rise out of everyone. Second hand extreme discomfort! It was like a nightmare version of what I feel I’m like (but probably am not, who knows really) at dinner parties when I start going on about something. Does that make sense? I need to blow past it, though, for sure. Cutting off my nose to spite my face and all that.
I have to say I was disappointed in the Oscars. I haven’t watched them in many years but I finally had access to a TV last night. I remember as a pre-teen thinking it was so magical and special. And last night was just… blah. I can’t figure out if it’s because I’m a grownup now who realizes the Oscars are problematic, or if the show really was objectively kind of boring. I did like Lupita’s dress made out of pearls.
I was really disappointed in Neil Patrick Harris! I had nothing but good feelings about him going into the show, and then he was…boring. The opening number was so smarmy, and Jack Black’s cynical interlude didn’t actually manage to pop that balloon, especially since they just sent him back to his seat and continued. And then there was nothing else to NPH’s hosting job after that except weird small talk and the interminable “Oscar predictions” bit.
Exactly! Oh, the predictions were so awful! NPH kept making stupid remarks about how much money different films/actors grossed, and I just felt, like, even if money IS the point of all this, you’re not supposed to be so obvious about it! And when Jack Black sat down, I felt like it was all going downhill from there. I wish he and Anna Kendrick had hosted instead. Oh, well.
Nicole came back and now I understand what cats are feeling when they rub their heads on a returning loved one, and that came out creepier than I intended so let’s forget I said it and just talk about Broad City. YOU GUYS, I got to sit in for a last-minute review of Broad City at The A.V. Club last week and I have rarely been happier.
Your review was so great!
OH MAN, I LOVED your review, no joke. As soon as I finished reading I made a point to go back and check who wrote it because I enjoyed it so much. Also, that was a great freaking episode.
Knowing that a reader took a minute to see who I was is a great compliment, thank you. Yeah, that was a fantastically fun episode, even for Broad City.
Thank you so much! At first I thought, “Oh no! I’m a goddamned scab!” and then I thought, well, if we weren’t there doing stuff, then they would just have no library. But then, “That’s what a scab thinks!”
I would like to talk to someone about the MLS, but I’m unsure of what to ask, even. I live kind of near Rutgers, in NJ, and they have a good program, I think, it’s just I’m afraid of spending that money and then not getting a job afterwards. You know? We can take the conversation off-line sometime.
Lastly, they did fire them all, in my district, anyway. The superintendent is very “pro-technology” which somehow translates to “not pro-library,” which doesn’t make sense to me at all. I’ve heard parents justify the lack of support for libraries with “We just buy all our books,” and “We should just give them all e-readers.” It’s supremely depressing and really kind of confusing and it makes me want to move.
I’m in library school right now and the people in this profession are 100% my favourite part. Everyone just wants to help each other out and see everyone else succeed, and it’s amazing. Also all librarians and librarians-in-training know that it’s a tough time for libraries and that there are tons of cuts going on everywhere, so I would be extremely surprised/shocked/dismayed if anyone viewed you as a scab.
I frequently use my Twitter account for two things: conversations about libraries and retweeting jokes about cultural events. Feel free to join me there and participate in either one. @maggiekuts
welcome back, nicole!!
what do you think of the mindy project’s baby plotline? so far i think it’s being handled well, but i love that both mindy and danny are a little insane and i don’t want the writers to feel like she has to stop being terrible (and funny) just because she’s a mom. i am looking forward to chris messina holding a baby, though.
I am furious* that the show isn’t addressing the fact that two OB/GYNs** in a committed, ongoing sexual relationship managed to have a completely unexpected pregnancy. That can happen, sure, but the show should be dealing with it, at least in passing.
*I have Too Many Feelings at the TV. Fortunately, that’s standard for a TV critic.
**Remember when Mind Lahiri was a mess in her personal life, but we got to see her be a marvelously competent doctor? I miss that.
RIGHT??? You’re an ob/gyn! Obviously you know how to use birth control! Whatthefeck.
I HAVE THE EXACT SAME COMPLAINT. Obviously things happen. But if you’re an OB, they should be really, really, really rare; and if you’re an OB on a sitcom, then you should saying something like, “Gee, isn’t it weird that I’m part of the <1% who gets pregnant with an IUD?”
SERIOUSLY. there was even a whole plotline about mindy securing birth control for a teenager. i can’t believe that she wouldn’t have put her own contraceptive safeguards in place. of course, accidental pregnancies happen, but to not mention it at all is super confusing????
Overall, TMP has some… unexpected… sexual mores. I have been raising my eyebrow at the show since the episode where Mindy discovers a privately recorded sex tape with an ex got leaked to a porn site, and the terrible violation of her trust gets sidelined when she learns it’s a site specializing in Big Beautiful Women. Apparently, being called fat is much worse than having your ex betray you so blithely, even when (as she points out early in the episode, then appears to forget) the video’s existence is likely to threaten her professional and personal life.
But she’s at Stanford because she was so good of a doctor she got a fellowship or whatever, and isn’t she slaying there? Wasn’t there a whole episode about that?
I’m more confused about the whole “my own practice” thing, seeing as how she already does have her own practice in NY? (She co-owns with Danny and the British one, right? How is that a different or better situation?)
But she’s at Stanford because she was so good of a doctor she got a fellowship
The show has fallen into the habit of telling us she’s a good doctor rather than showing us. Hearing that she’s great isn’t the same as seeing it. When we see her with patients or colleagues, she tends to be a disaster. Those disasters used to be balanced out by scenes in which she was a flat-out bad-ass doctor: sometimes kind, sometimes stern, and always working toward her patients’ best interests.
As you say, there’s also the lack of clarity about “her own practice”; the show either hasn’t thought out or hasn’t conveyed why she would need to move, rather than incorporate a new specialty into the practice she apparently co-owns with her partner (and, I think, Dr. Reed).
Both these issues, and the failure to discuss even in passing how two OB/GYNs managed to have a complete surprise pregnancy, can be summed up as the writers having decided her profession is incidental to her life and to the show itself. I think Mindy Kaling is luminously funny; I find the show’s writing slack.
Oh no. Chris Messina holding a baby. Whaaaaaaaaa… I need to go buy containment units for my ovaries so they don’t spontaneously combust.
Have you seen him with his adorable horde of movie-children in Away We Go, giving a speech about how much love it takes to keep a family together?
Nicole. Taste the happy!
In other bittersweet links: http://earwolf.com/episode/not-farts-procreation-…
RIP Foamy
I started it, and quickly realized that work was not the place to listen to it. Don’t need to be crying at my desk. 🙁
To those clicking that Comedy Bang! Bang! link: be prepared for Scott Aukerman’s introduction to reduce you to tears, and stick around after the goodbyes for several minutes of Harris Wittels outtakes.
I love Uptown Funk, song and video. I especially love the section with the four doing the “pour some liquor in/sign a check” section. “Make a dragon want to retire”? That’s hot.
I am UNREASONABLY into Uptown Funk. I’m attempting to assemble a crew of ladies with whom I will dress up as the dudes from the video and go out on the town. I haven’t decided which one I want to be, but I’m very tempted to try the white-suit-with-nothing-underneath look.
Welcome back, Nicole! Everyone held things down admirably in your absence, but it was so nice to see your name on the roundup this morning. Yay.
YOU’RE BACK YOU’RE BACK YOU’RE BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!! *rolls around in this post like an excited puppy*
YEP
Welcome back Nicole! Congrats on everything (except being trapped in a stairway).
I know a lot of other Toasties read longform, but I just wanted to draw everyone’s attention to this bonkers (in a good way) story about gold prospecting in Southern Arizona. This story has everything: the sun-damaged weirdos that call S. AZ home, an interesting variation on Jesuit libel involving goldmines (that I think is based on the Pueblo revolts, but I’m not an expert), a respected geologist getting mine fever, and the lost dutchman even shows up. http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/ex…
Can we talk about Graham Moore’s acceptance speech for The Imitation Game please? I feel pretty odd about it now that I know he’s not gay, which to be fair he never said he was but I feel like the way he set it up was a little… misleading?
Honestly? Considering how it was all phrased, I’m glad he’s not gay. If he were, I’d be wishing he’d been more direct about it. I also assumed that he was, and that it was the basis of his speech, so I found it sort of weird that he never actually said so. I like the speech even better now.
I haven’t seen the Imitation Game, but Graham Moore’s speech kind of made me believe the reviews which said that movie was really uncomfortable with Turing’s homosexuality.
I don’t know, the personal aspects of the speech were lovely and I don’t want to criticize it, but like…………Alan Turing didn’t kill himself because he was weird. That’s an absurd euphemism.
IDA!!!
So happy it won.
Nicole! Welcome back.
Also: Brooklyn 99. Is anyone else very, very hopeful that Peralta might be bisexual after last week’s ‘What are you doing after this, Diane?/What are you doing after this, Gerald?’ throwaway? That would be the single best thing that could happen to that show.
Nicole are you watching Grantchester you need to watch Grantchester it stars the world’s most handsome vicar.
Also, I went to play D&D instead of be involved in anything to do with the Oscars (a choice I stand by, I kicked major ass, killed the dragon and everything!), so how much of a meltdown did Mallory have over Birdman winning Best Picture? Because I didn’t know until this morning and was LIVID. (But unsurprised, because you know that movie abotu Rich White Hollywood Man Problems definitely resonated with the majority of the Academy voters.) ALSO: FUCK ALL THAT FUCKING BEIGE ON THE RED CARPET.
Entirely too late to this, but I highly recommend dropping $35 or whatever on a Chromecast. It makes the world your browser! Or your tv, more accurately. I am a sad person who now takes mine on vacation because I have excessive needs.
I know this is late to the thread, but I just watched a bunch of Mindy Project episodes, and I have to say I was super grossed out by the episode where Mindy goes to Stanford, and her professor’s wife does a totally non-consensual foot-job on Danny at dinner? And the only issue raised is that it’s “cheating” somehow?? WTF?! I am the only one who sees sexual assault here? All I could think was how I’d feel if I was fondled by some stranger, thinking it was my partner.
Knowing that a reader took a minute to see who I was is a great compliment, thank you. Yeah, that was a fantastically fun episode, even for Broad City.