Stuff We Like This Week: September 25 Edition
Stuff We Like This Week: September 25 Edition
Sep 25In an effort to combat our occasional…okay, okay, near-constant negativity, we give you a regular feature full of nothing but love — Stuff We Like This Week. Appearing every Friday, SWLTW will recap the things that have set our little nerdly hearts aflame within the past seven days.
Sarah: I’m a total Libba Bray fangirl. Her Gemma Doyle Trilogy — a Victorian era fantasy with a bunch of awesome teenage girl characters — is one of those things I am always annoyingly recommending to anyone who will listen. Ms. Bray’s new book, Going Bovine, is a huge departure from Gemma and Co., but I gotta say: it’s just as brilliant. Our protagonist is 16-year-old Cameron, a misanthropic misfit who gets diagnosed with mad cow disease. I don’t know if I can properly explain what happens next, but it involves a punky sugar addict angel, a hypochondriac dwarf with mad videogame skills, and an intoxicating assortment of cults, theme parks, and reality television.
I adore the way Bray crawls so completely inside of her characters’ souls — Cameron’s voice is perfectly acerbic and thoroughly distinctive, and while a lot of his tale is wonderfully, darkly humorous, there are these parts that just sneak up and break your heart. Also, check out that video up there — do you know of any other author who willingly dons a cow suit for her promotional bit? I think not.
Matt: I was kinda shocked at how much I laughed last night during NBC’s Thursday night lineup. I know it’s not the most hipster kewl thing to do, basically saying “Wow, network broadcast television RULES, amirite?” but I think that’s what I’m saying, at least for two hours on one night on one channel.
That Saturday Night Live Weekend Update has a stupid name but the bits have been quite choice; I know it’s not PC in the slightest, but I think Fred Armisen’s take on New York governor David Patterson is freaking hysterical, and I don’t care who knows it. Parks and Recreation has developed into a solid half-hour of more subdued comedy, although I’m always torn up by Aziz Ansari’s bits. I’ve heard people say The Office has lost most of its charm, but the characters still make me laugh, so I don’t care; marry Pam and Jim, or marry Michael Scott and Darryl from the warehouse, and I’ll still be there.
And then there’s Community. I devoted my own lil’ post to this show just now at my other blog, but the short version is that I think it’s a work-in-progress with big potential…and again, it’s funny enough, so I’m willing to give it some time. I’m just glad to see Chevy Chase doing something on television that he doesn’t have to be embarrassed about.
Jeff: This week, I read The Nightly News for the first time. I know, I know. It is, succinctly, Network meets Fight Club, but the elevator pitch doesn’t do it justice. It is a challenging text, one that makes you second guess who you’re rooting for and that consistently surprises with where it goes next. Like Chuck P. at his best, what Jonathan Hickman does is in The Nightly News is create a world where morality is incidental and the real enemy is complacency.  On a layout level, the thing is a great piece of design work that makes amazingly subversive use of infographics. I’ve been lukewarm on a lot of Hickman’s Marvel work, but this is the real stuff.
