Oh my gosh. Yes!

I don't think I've ever read anything so close to how I feel about this channel and getting outside of yourself to escape your own feelings...a terrific article:

Some people turn to psychopharmacology when they are blue. I prefer Turner Classic Movies.When disappointment has brought you low, or sadness has colonized you, or fear has conquered your imagination, you experience a contraction of your horizon. Your sense of possibility is damaged and even abolished. Pain is a monopolist. The most urgent thing, therefore, is to restore a more various understanding of what life holds, of its true abundance, so that the bleakness in which you find yourself is not all you know. The way to break the grip of sorrow and dread is to introduce another claimant on consciousness, to crowd it out with other stimulations from the world. Sadness can never be retired completely, because there is always a basis in reality for it. But you can impede its progress by diversifying your mind.

The rest is here and it's wonderfully written:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/magazine/letter-of-recommendation-turner-classic-movies.html?_r=0

"Bob's Burgers" Fox TV

I love "Bob's Burgers." It's so much (much) funnier than "Family Guy" and has none of its nastiness. BB's writing is intelligent and there is a warmth (an adorably kooky warmth) to the Belcher dynamics that is completely missing in the Griffin family. It actually kind of stuns me that "Family Guy" is still on the air, any humor it once had is long gone and meanness is all that's left.

In a recent episode of "Bob's Burgers," Tina (the eldest of the Belcher children and one of the most lovelorn characters to ever appear in animation) is righteously upset when a friend of hers mentions the girl he likes is way "out of his league." The scene takes place in a bowling alley (again, the smart writing!) and Tina yells, "Damn it, there are no leagues!"

The intercom interrupts to call forth bowling leagues that are entered in a contest. Well, okay, Tina continues, there are bowling leagues, "but there should be no people leagues."

Oh, how I love that! Saying someone is out of our league (many of us do believe that no matter if it is a good thing to think or not) is one of the saddest things, I think, because everyone deserves love and it be a wonderful world if we could actually have a chance with someone we like. Maybe they are not so much out of our league as they are out of the realm of possibility, which I think is a different thing altogether and far less cruel to our self esteem and self-worth.

At the very end of the same episode, Tina has to attend extra school sessions to compensate for getting a D in one of her classes. "Remedial at math, remedial in love," she whispers to herself before she goes through the door and discovers a boy she likes is there.

"Maybe we can be bad at math together," she tells him before the end credits kick in and it's just another moment from a show that just gets it...and truly puts "Family Guy" to shame.

"Music" by F. R. David

 

I love this album, especially this song. It pretty much says it all:

 

Music you're making me blue
While I'm alone with out you
Fill my heart and fill my soul with tenderness
Music fill my loneness

Music is still all around
It's time for changing all the sounds

How about your inspiration
It'll never end
Seasons all will choke a man

When spring is near the end I hear reliefs of summer

Autumn brings rhythm of the rain
Then it's hazy shade of winter

Music I love you so true
I'm just crazy about you
Without you I'd feel so sad
And full of pain music please come back again

When spring is near the end I hear reliefs of summer
Autumn brings rhythm of the rain
Then it's hazy shade of winter

Sunday reading...

I love it! I'm reading an article in today's Washington Post about SETI (the Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence) and why we have yet to find definitive proof that aliens exist. Two of the more humorous reasons Joel Achenbach tosses off: "they're insular and aloof" and (my favorite) "they're watching in mild bemusement and wonder when we'll grow up." (If this is their reason for holding back, we'll be waiting a long time for their visit.)

SETI needs a more proactive stance these days and is considering transmitting messages to "boldly announce our presence." I love that Mr. Achenbach writes: "Naturally, this is controversial, because of...well, the Klingons. The bad aliens."

It is, of course, hard to say whether any possible (stressing possible) response would be benign or hostile. Experts argue that this doesn't really matter in the end because, good or evil, any aliens out there already know about us since radio and tv broadcasts (maybe they've gotten to catch up on "I Love Lucy"?) are beaming from Earth at the speed of light.


For more, read here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-latest-debate-about-space-aliens-should-we-say-hello-or-keep-quiet/2015/02/28/43aa4a52-bcf5-11e4-bdfa-b8e8f594e6ee_story.html



I'm also reading the March issue of Elle, which has a lot of interesting things to offer this month. I'm not a fan of her voice so much as her mind (she likes Henry James!!) but I do enjoy reading about Kim Gordon and can't wait to check out her book:

 

There's also an article about it in today's Post:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/life-on-the-cutting-edge-kim-gordons-girl-in-a-band/2015/02/26/38bd704a-b937-11e4-9423-f3d0a1ec335c_story.html

 

 

I love reading about food more than I like eating it...there's something about the way food writing lifts off the page and into your imagination that I really like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every time I find the night too quiet and I'm tempted to post a personal ad or try to go out and meet new people, I shrug down the fleeting thought and pick up a new book to read.

 

Almost always, I get the comfort I want so much from many of my favorite novels and the highs and beauty of life from my favorite albums. And I rationalize, however horribly, that the less I'm around people, the less I will worry about all the social mistakes I make.

 

My dating history is not very good and it's hard to miss something that you've never had in the first place. And one of the very few perks of unrequited love is that, right or wrong, after you've met someone you truly like, no one else really interests you in that same way, anyway. You're fine being home on a Saturday night and you realize that with no irony or bitterness.

 

When you do get out there and try, no matter what your orientation, it's pretty hard to meet someone who prefers cuddling to sex, talking over a nice, long meal to hitting the club scene. As you can probably imagine, aging lesbians with really old-fashioned ideas of love and romance aren't exactly in that high a demand.

 

I know none of that's much of a big deal, but given how low I've been lately I am glad to be excited about anything and to still have my connection with books and music.

 

Most of the friends I do have are married with their own full lives and my niece is busy with so many things this school year we don't spend quite as much time as we used to together. My parents...well that's a lot shakier.

 

In the end, it may sound pathetic or even socially stunted, I don't know. All I know for certain is that quiet Saturday nights are fine with me and that's better than it could be...