me vs the world 1

Roseanne

Some people are younger than me, and they are too young to remember. Some people are my age or older, and their memory isn't what it used to be. Between these two groups, the number of people who remember Roseanne in her prime are few and far between. My sister is both young and knowledgeable, and she reminded me of good old Roseanne, the domestic goddess, the universal goddess that made one of the best TV shows in history long before TV's "golden age" that we're still enjoying today.

The most remarkable thing I want you to notice about this show is that the characters in it actually laugh at each-other's jokes. The only other sitcom I know of where this occurs is "Curb Your Enthusiasm" - it took about 15 years and a guy like Larry David to repeat this feat - it didn't even happen on Seinfeld. In every other comedy show the character says something funny, and then everyone in the room struggles to keep a straight face wile the audience laughs. Not these people. That's why Roseanne and Dan look like an actual couple, they have an amazing love relationship that any of us would be proud to have. When they fight they actually yell at each-other at the top of their voices and tell each-other really hurtful things, and still manage to be a loving couple through it all (look up an episode named "Lobocop"). They are so believable together that Roseanne's real-life husband made a nuisance of himself with jealous fits and tried to write their love scenes out of the scripts.
If I remember correctly, in its later seasons Roseanne made a point of breaking taboos that people try to keep away from even now. They also had the brilliant idea to cast Shelley Winters as the grandmother. I also know that they jumped the shark a bunch of times before they finally gave up. I'll have to re-watch all the episodes (I'm on season 2) before I can talk about all that.

One day I'll write something long about how artists achieve inner peace at the expense of their creativity, and how we are torn between being happy for them and the heartbreak of losing them forever. Roseanne married and divorced Tom Arnold, then she lost her mind for a while, then she found Kabbalah, lost half her weight and cut 20 years off her face. She had a talk show that got canceled, and now she is mostly a gray-haired political activist. She hasn't lost her edge completely, but the good old days will never return. I am here to shake the dust off the good old days:

This is an episode from the first season of Roseanne:




This is her first TV stand-up appearance:



And here she is annoying a stadium full of baboons:



Finally, this is today's political activist Roseanne:



I've skipped her blonde beauty stage because I find it hard to stomach, you're welcome to Google it yourself.

Please remember this whenever you're tempted to believe that women aren't funny, that there's nothing good on TV, that romance is dead and other dark thoughts that make a person give up on this world.

.תושבי רמת-גן יכולים לישון בשקט, נתפס צובע המדרכות הסדרתי

אחרי מצוד ממושך עצרה המשטרה תמהוני החשוד שצבע במשך חודשים באישון לילה את מדרכות העיר מאפור לאדום-לבן וכחול-לבן. הבוקר בהארכת המעצר החשוד נראה מבולבל ומנותק מהמציאות:י לכתבה המלאה
י

כתבת השבוע 3

הפעם - הכתבה המבאסת של השבוע:י

נ.ב. ברור שגיביתי את "היטלר מחפש חנייה בתל-אביב".י

A historic event

The first (as far as I know) appearance of Crocs shoes in animation. The show: "The Life and Times of Tim". The episode: "Debbie's Mom". The character wearing the Crocs: the hooker's mother.

Anna Karenina revisited

I feel the need to clarify - when I said about Madame Karenina "may she never darken my doorstep again" - well I did mean it, but I wouldn't say that the book didn't have any enjoyable parts. I feel like making a list of the things I loved. If you've read the book you might enjoy the reminders, if you plan to read it, the next section is spoilers, and if you're the other 90% of humanity you can just spare yourself this post. Here we go:

The whole beginning where Levin loses Kitty to Vronsky and Kitty loses Vronsky to Anna is funny and moving and an interesting insight into the way people used to interact in those years.

Karenin the husband is a great character throughout the book.

I love the way the book deals with how everyone else's affairs except Anna and Vronsky's are light-hearted little games that revive the spirit and often serve to promote the social status of the couple.

Levin's struggles with metaphysics, if they weren't so draaawwwwn ouuuuut would've been very enjoyable. For sure the part where he joins the peasants in cutting the grass, even as it is six or seven chapters long, managed to move me deeply. After that, the chalk proposal is one of my favorite love scenes ever.

The part where Lavin's brother is dying and Kitty takes care of him is maybe my favorite part, but Tolstoy manages again to drag it out for much longer than necessary.

The character of Varenka, in her influence on Kitty in the times when Kitty thinks she might remain an old maid, and later on when there's a pathetic attempt to get her engaged to Sergey Ivanovitch, is for me one of the most thought-provoking and memorable parts of the book.

There's the episode where Dolly is jealous of Anna's life, and disgusted with her own state of constant pregnancy and humiliation, including a peasant girl she meets that tells her ‘I had a girl baby, but God set me free; I buried her last Lent’ - in her misery, Dolly even manages to be jealous of that girl for a while.

Another thing I loved was the horrible succubus woman that latches herself to Karenin, culminating in the great seance scene they force on Stiva.
 --
About the movie: it was pretty weak, but well cast - Sean Bean as Vronsky (naked, yummy!) and Sophie Marceau as Anna, Alfred Molina as Levin (weird) and the always pleasantly annoying Mia Kirshner as Kitty. The actor who played Karenin, James Fox, was as good as Karenin is in the book.

Ynet בדיחה אסתטית/אירונית בעמוד הראשי של

נייס.י

השיר הכי ישראלי

נבואת זעם: ייבחר או "עוף גוזל" או "סע לאט". מקסימום "שיר אחרי מלחמה".י

לא לקפוץ, אני לא אזהם את הבלוג שלי עם אריק איינשטיין. הנה משהו טוב:י

"Plastic Bag" by Ramin Bahrani

I've been preaching for a while now against art that has a political agenda. I think I will eventually write a full article on the subject, but my main point is this: Art is by definition allegorical, personal and immortal. Politics are by definition literal, generalized to the lowest common denominator and hopelessly current. The only immortal aspect of politics is their never changing repetitive dead-endesness in which the corrupt thrive, the idealists are used and betrayed, and the honest despair.

At the moment I tend to categorize the environmental issue as a political one, beause - well, you've been paying attention in the past ten years or so, right? And so I've been very judgmental towards films like Pixar's "Wall-E" for tackling the most fashionable political issue, and for doing it in such a shallow and literal way.

To demonstrate the right way to do what Pixar couldn't, I've discovered (on my friend Isaac Jacobs' trailer blog) the short film "Plastic Bag". It's a film about the environment, there's no doubt about that. But it's also about a search for purpose, about divinity, about the responsibility of a creator towards his children, about loneliness, friendship, abandonment, the search for identity, the beauty of nature and so on - subjects that belong to the domain of the arts.

Look and listen:



My point is this: two hundred years from now, people will watch this film and be moved. Even if they've cleaned up all the oceans and fixed all the problems, they'll still be moved. Even if a month from now it turns out that the pacific vortex never existed and global warming is a lie, "Plastic Bag" won't lose any of its power. And "Wall-E"? "Wall-E" will be a joke.

Anna Karenina

After six years, I have finally managed to get rid of that horrible woman. May she never darken my doorstep again.

Observation: I am not particularly moved by tales of all-consuming, inherently destructive love. Nor am I partial to lengthy lectures on late 19-th century agricultural ethics.



P.S. Now I can finally watch the movie :D

A brother from another father

As I was finishing "Midnight's Children", I read somewhere that it's based on "The Tin Drum", so I quickly got hold of "The Tin Drum" and moved straight from one to the other. Conclusions so far: one - if you can help it, it's good to take a little breather between two lengthy books that are based on each-other. Two - George Guidall is beginning to fill the vacant role of a beloved uncle in my life. Three - while Saleem Sinai was an adorable and sensitive child that I would gladly adopt, little Oscar would have drummed all the way to an orphanage at the first broken light bulb if I had been his mother.

I take a minute to amuse myself with photos of the two authors and read on...

איתו לנצח

יש עכשיו גרסה של השיר הזה בביצוע של בחורה. אני לא מאמינה שאני צריכה אפילו להדרש לזה - השיר הזה ל א  ע ו ב ד  אם הוא לא מבוצע על ידי גבר!י

כמובן שזה משקף בצורה מושלמת את ההבדל בין שנות התשעים לשנות האלפיים: תשעים - חתרנות ושמחת חיים, אלפיים - גיי אור סטרייט, אנחנו רק רוצים להתעבר ולשרת בצבא.י

How to train your dragon

I know exactly how they pulled this thing off. I can see it in my mind's eye as if I was there when it happened. They struck a deal with the Evil Powers of Hollywood - the Powers agreed to allow a few brave and original things into the movie, but in return they demanded the same number of blood-curdling cliches be put in there as well.
Was the deal worth it? I think so.