Appreciation Fest

Things I've been pleased by, lately:

Superjail
I always forget to watch this, but when I remember I am never disappointed. I'm inclined to say that it is simply "an entertainment" of a richness that it's tough to explain—some cross between Sergio Aragonés' old stuff for Mad* (or Groo), the paintings of Heironymus Bosch, and the druggie-nightmare-comedy of I want to say Liquid Television or something.† Oh, and elements of what made reading "real" comic books so good: the twins and Jailbot are incredible characters that (on an adventure level rather than an emotional level) I care about, very roughly in the same category as Dark Phoenix and Wolverine. Amazing things happen on this show. If you haven't seen it—and if what I've said above doesn't make you go, "Wait, why is any of that supposed to be appealing?"—then run, don't walk.

Community
The double paintball finale was my favorite movie of the year.

Parks and Recreation
Is it getting better and better or am I just getting more and more into it? Ron Swanson: obviously. But Andy and April? When they got together, I think I just assumed, without consciously thinking about it, that that was going to be a pain in the ass. Instead, we have probably the best-ever television couple, now. Is that right? I think it's right. They love each other so totally and so stupidly.
     I haven't seen the last few episodes yet, SHUT UP ABOUT THEM.

Bridesmaids
Women are funny.‡

Looking a little like Louis CK. (Please, dude. No turtlenecks.)

Jeffrey Eugenides' story in the Jun. 7 New Yorker
Liked it. I've liked—or rather thought of myself as liking—Eugenides ever since I think 1997, when I read the baster story (I think called "Baster"?) that that Jason Bateman jizz movie was based on. But what else of his have I read? I read Middlesex when it came out and felt about it the same way I felt about The Corrections, that it was pretty unambiguously enjoyable from start to finish but then, in the end, turned out to lack what I always think of (thanks to Zappa) as "conceptual continuity": that there's no particular reason it ended where it ended and not 100 pages earlier or 300 pages later.§ The Virgin Suicides my ex-wife** and I read to each other in 2003, taking turns while the other was driving, in a days-long trek from California to Texas, and I think I liked it but don't really remember: after all, I was taking turns reading it out loud during a car trip with a girl. I mean, come on.

Unrelated.

* I can speak only to the old stuff, but the new stuff is probably great, too, who fucking knows.

†  Although, to be totally honest, I don't quite remember what that show was like—or was it less a show than a kind of subnetwork, like Adult Swim is? See, I have no idea what I'm talking about.

‡ I have much more to say about this (e.g., "Best comedy I've seen in the theater in years?" and all sorts of discussion about the hype and the politics and their irrelevance), but I kind of like leaving it at that. Cf.

§ I often have this problem with contemporary novels. I blame creative-writing programs.

** I have never been married.