Support my bro.

My good friend, and former (tear) stroke seat/team captain, Adam Furlong, posted the following on his Facebook profile last week:

"On a whim, signed up for a 45 mile bike ride in Philly on Aug. 23rd for the LIVESTRONG Challenge. Donate money, I'm trying to get to $250."

To that I say: HELP HIM OUT. Adam is a total badass athlete, and merits the support on a personal basis, but also, it takes cash to fight cancer. Any dude willing to bike 45 miles, and raise money to save lives, deserves to meet his goal, for himself, and for all the people fighting the good fight (seriously, cancer, fuck off).

Donate here.

Recently read.

Olive Kitteridge: I liked this quite a bit. It's most definitely a short story collection; at times, Olive's presence in pieces where she isn't the protagonist feels forced. For example, in "The Piano Player," or especially "Ship in a Bottle," you could remove Olive entirely and not miss a beat. That said, her appearances in "Incoming Tide," and "Starving" were essential. I also wish Strout had included a story from Christopher's point of view, since Olive's relationship with her son proves tempestuous at best. He's just such a shit to her, and we never really understand why (though I suppose that enables us to relate all the more to Olive).

Still, this is an incredibly beautiful collection. Strout captures the intimacy of small moments, brief glances, and mundane ritual with true artistry. I had the great pleasure of meeting Elizabeth Strout about a month ago; having met her, this book makes perfect sense. She's just as slightly offbeat and endearingly human as her characters. You can tell that she knows and likes these people, even as she breaks their hearts. Strout described the book as "good sentences," and she's right, but it's also much, much more.

Naked: I don't have as much to say about this one. It's David Sedaris; either you like him, or you don't. I like him, but I don't think this was his best effort. This might be another instance where I love previous books by the author so much, that I set the bar too high (Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim). My favorite Sedaris essays usually focus on his family, with hearty doses of poignancy and self-deprecation. He achieves that here with "Ashes," and "The Women's Open," but I don't think he achieved it often enough. I usually can't put his books down; this one took me almost two months to get through. It's still David Sedaris (brilliant, biting, hysterical), but reading Naked felt like going through the motions, instead of breaking new ground.

Song for you.

I miss these people.

I saw this image at Low Resolution yesterday; I quite like it. It tells the whole story, Six and Eight and Baltar ushering in a terrifying, uncertain future; Kara and Lee opposite Laura and Bill, making home out of the space between each other. When this show was good, it was really, really good. Episodes like "Faith," "The Hub," and "No Exit" were some of the best television I've ever seen, period. The finale was awful and gross, but for the first time in a while, I can see past that to the smart, beautiful show I loved.

Good times.

Famous ladies.

I've been in NYC a little over a week; it's great. My summer course entails a lot of long days (and a lot of sitting), but it's definitely worth it in terms of what I'm learning and the people I'm meeting along the way.

Speaking of who I'm meeting, I had my first celebrity sighting yesterday. The most famous people I'd previously encountered were MJ and Randy from The Real World, so it was a pretty big deal when I stood in line at Subway (the sandwich place, not the train) next to Sherri Saum (!) from In Treatment (!). She's tall and pretty in person. It was hard to like Bess as a character, but Saum did good work with her.

Another famous lady: my former classmate, Becky Krier, gave the commencement address at our high school this spring. You can read her speech here. It's very wonderful and very wise, which is an accurate description of Becky herself. I'm lucky to have known her the past eight years. She'll do (many more) great things.

TV time.

So, time to address those finales I mentioned last week. I watched them a while ago, but I still have something to say about all three, so here we are.

The Hills: Goodbye, Lauren Conrad; hello, Kristin Cavallari? I didn't mind Kristin back on Laguna Beach, her confidence was rather appealing, no matter how bitchy she got. I have a feeling she'll do whatever the producers ask of her in terms of starting drama; she can't possibly care too much about the likes of Audrina and Stephanie, plus they're paying her a shit ton of money. As for Lauren, I'll miss her. She proved herself a class act all the way to the end; she looked great and kept her shit together even at Heidi's wedding. Not only did she manage to grow up on national television, but she also managed not to lose herself in the process. I just really like her. Best line of the night goes to Kelly Cutrone though, with her "be smart, and be brave, tell the truth, and don't take any shit" advice to Lauren. So true.

In Treatment: I love you, April. And Mia, and Walter, and Gina and Paul. I'll miss you all so much. My favorite stories are the ones where the protagonist learns they're the only person holding themselves back, and then unleashes their newly discovered awesomeness on the world. I think the cast of In Treatment is on their way to doing just that. Alison Pill as April particularly wrecked me, time and again. I had the biggest smile on my face (and tears in my eyes) for the final ten minutes of her last episode. April might have put off therapy, but she more importantly decided to live. Great show.

The Office: Pam is pregnant. That's really all I remember at this point. That and that the episode was the usual mixture of sweet, sad, tender, touching and funny that The Office does so well. These people are old friends by now, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy spending time with them. Whenever the series does end, Michael and Holly need to end up together. Can we all agree on that?

Coming soon . . .

. . . a whole lot of things. I'm in Folsom, California right now for the National Rowing Championships. I'll be here until Saturday, then home, then New York City; it's a busy time. Once crew is over, I plan to post on the finales of In Treatment, The Hills and The Office (in short: I liked all three of them).

So, some TV, with maybe a little music thrown in for good measure (I'm having trouble deciding how I feel about Jordin Sparks' "Battlefield"). Who knows? I'll be back next week, as soon as I've landed and settled in Maine. For now, here's the brilliant Jacob Clifton revealing the meaning of life according to Gossip Girl:

"The entire point of becoming a human being is entering and maintaining a state where you are strong enough to do without the lies altogether."

He gets me every time.

Y: The Last Man, Vol. 2

Initial thoughts:

Not as good as Vol. 1, but then again, Vol. 1 counts as one of the best graphic novels I have ever read, and you can't always hit a home run. Those first ten issues soared on account of Vaughan's sharp character work and quick pace. The story bounded forward, while still juggling it's myriad subplots expertly.

My biggest issue with Vol. 2 is the pacing, which has started to slow down, and at times, drag a little. You can tell Vaughan knows where he's going, but he doesn't want to get there too quickly. His characters have been trying to reach San Fransisco since issue #5, but by #23 they're only in Arizona. The smaller arcs have also started to feel formulaic - Yorick, 355 and Dr. Mann show up in a new location, have a violent encounter with the locals, someone dies, Yorick learns something about himself, someone reveals a secret and then they leave. Yorick himself acknowledges this pattern in a moment that reads as if Vaughan realized the story's repetitive nature too late.

Other issues: where is Hero? Vol. 1 featured a lot of Yorick's older, impressionable sister - over the course of those ten issues I invested a lot in her character, while here, she makes a mere last page cameo. I really enjoyed her previous storyline, so I was disappointed to see her dropped. I also didn't buy the explanation for Alter's motives. She wants to bring Yorick to Israel in order to start international war and thereby maintain internal peace? Really? And lastly, I wish Vaughan had spent more time with 355 and Dr. Mann (Dr. Mann gets a few, bloody moments in the last arc). I know it's in both of their best interests to be secretive, but I'd rather unravel their stories than read two issues about a traveling theater group and some new, ninja lady.

That said, when the story clicks, it really clicks. The "Safeword" arc was fantastically fucked up; the revelation that Yorick's rash behavior serves to mask his death wish makes perfect sense when you think about it. Yorick's journey from boy to man functions as the emotional core of the series; any time Vaughan dares to delve into Yorick's psyche we're rewarded in spades.

Final analysis:

Still a great series, with absolutely awesome artwork from Pia Guerra (the other artists in this volume pale in comparison). The story may have started to tread water, but Vaughan includes enough earned character moments and satisfying plot twists to maintain reader interest. I'll definitely pick up Vol. 3, but the pace needs to quicken if I'm going to stick around any longer.

The "Glee" pilot.

Initial thoughts:

Good, not great. At times very good, but at other times clumsy and rushed. Ryan Murphy and company pack a lot of material into these first 44 minutes, so much so that characters complete dramatic arcs that on other shows would take a good half-season.

I enjoyed the adults more than the teens. The writers seem to have a solid grasp on Will, Emma, Terri and Sue more so than Rachel and Finn. I had problems with Finn in particular; for the amount of time devoted to his decision to stick with the Glee Club, I still don't have a strong sense of who he is. He seems like a nice enough guy, I guess, but I don't understand what led him to become a Football Jock Asshole in the first place.

Lea Michele (Rachel) has a phenomenal voice. I agree, however, with everyone who's said she needs to work on her acting. The writers gave her some good material, but she didn't quite pull off the more nuanced/tender moments. That said, she'll be kicking major ass by the end of the season.

Final analysis:

Good, not great, but the good was good enough that I'll definitely be back. Now that he's established his world, I'm really interested to see where Murphy goes from here. And let's be honest, I'd probably be back for the music alone. There's a reason the cast recording of "Don't Stop Believin" has been in the iTunes Top 10 since it debuted.

So, that happened.

Goodbye, college. You were fun, and sometimes hard. Most of all, I'll remember you as the place where I became the Wade I always wanted to be. Thanks, for that.

I can't wait . . .

. . . to watch this show:



They had me at: "You're very talented. I should know, I'm very talented too."

The Gathering

So, I finished Anne Enright's The Gathering last night. I wasn't sure how I felt about it until the final paragraph:

"Gatwick airport is not the best place to be gripped by a fear of flying. But it seems that this is what is happening to me now; because you are up so high, in those things, and there is such a long way to fall. Then again, I have been falling for months. I have been falling into my own life, for months. And I am about to hit it now."

Haven't we all felt like that? Of course, the entire novel is very well written. Enright plays masterfully with notions of truth and memory, Veronica's memories slipping through our hands like water. She struggles to distinguish fact from fiction just as much as we do.

But it's that moment at the end that did it, that moment when Veronica realizes that whether she likes it or not, she has to step out of her head and back into the real world - that moment stuck with me. She's been watching her life, distancing herself from her children, her husband; now that life demands her attention. I just really loved that ending. It (and this book) caught me pleasantly by surprise.

Why not, right?

I could/should be studying for my American Film final (my last exam as an undergraduate), but this felt like a much better way to spend the last half hour.

I'll probably use this space to comment on what I'm listening to/reading/watching (view the sidebar), but who knows? For now, I'll just say that "U.R.A. Fever" has rocketed to the top of my playlist, and that the last April episode of In Treatment rocked the house in a devastatingly wonderful way.

I hope to update regularly, and will continue to play around with the formatting. If anyone even reads this, let me know what you think.