1. If you’re going to praise a celebrity for something, try and be a little original in your praise.  For example, you might be a big @tomhanks fan.  You might decide that people don’t tell @tomhanks enough how great a job he did in one of his movies.  However, if all you’re going to do is tell @tomhanks that he was really good in Forrest Gump, you probably don’t need to waste his time.  After all, @tomhanks knows he was good, we all know he was good, and the Academy knows he was good.  He’s not sitting there saying “Oh good, George Abernathy thought it was a good performance. Hanks: validated!”

Suggestions for improvement: Try tweeting the celebrity to praise a more obscure part of their oeuvre.  Example: @tomhanks Just saw Joe Vs. The Volcano on TBS, you can see your potential even then! What a classic!

1. Similarly to unnecessarily praising celebs, it is possible to blame them for something when you don’t really need to.  Perhaps you recently saw @normmacdonald’s stand-up show, and somehow didn’t enjoy it.  While you certainly have the right to air your beef, you don’t need to use Twitter as a forum to tweet @normmacdonald to tell him that he is the worst, unfunniest comedian you have ever seen in your life and that he deserves a coward’s death.  You’re not a critic, and @normmacdonald will probably not use Twitter to criticize your performance in your chosen profession.  Although if he did, he would do it way funnier that you ever could.

Suggestions for improvement: Just like I’m doing, offer constructive criticism.  Example: Hey @normamcdonald your show was okay, but could have used more jokes about Lloyd Robertson.  That guy’s been around forever!

1. If you decide you tweet a celebrity, and their account is clearly being run by a publicist, it doesn’t count even if they tweet you back.  The biggest celebrity of all is perhaps @barackobama.  Guess what? The President is a little busy to tweet, and ever since Clinton, the interns jobs have changed.  So if you hear back from Obama, it’s probably just a Masters of Poly Sci student from Georgetown that has the greatest co-op of his life.

Suggestions for improvement: Try tweeting a celebrity that you know for sure is tweeting.  A good guideline is that the ones talking about their kid’s poop are usually legit.  Example: @michaelianblack is this really you? Why aren’t you spokesman for Taco Bell yet?

1. Don’t ask celebrities personal questions.  In fact, don’t ask anybody personal questions over Twitter.  Everyone can see it!  But especially don’t ask celebs.  They don’t have time for this shit!  Nothing comes across creepier than asking a celeb something even remotely personal.  If you really want to talk to @therealzooeyd, make sure you’re not doing it because you have a thing for her.  (Disclaimer: I totally have a thing for her, which is why I’m not going to talk to her on twitter).  In 140 characters, even the nicest thing can come across as strange.  So maybe it’s a bad idea to tweet ‘@therealzooeyd what time did you wake up this morning?’

Suggestions for improvement: If you simply must tweet your celebrity crush to ask them something, try to be more open-ended and way less creepy.  But probably just don’t tweet them period.  Example: @therealzooeyd I had trouble sleeping last night, how about you?

1. Try not to sound like a stalker.  Recently, @azizansari was at Coachella and tweeted up a storm about it.  Now I would love to meet @azizansari, and what better place than a drug and sun soaked music festival in the desert?  However, if @azizansari tweets that he is in the porta-potty line and you tell him you’re on your way, he might be a little freaked out.  If you are a celebrity at a music festival in the desert and have to take a shit, you would surely want some privacy!

Suggestions for improvement: If a celeb tweets where they are, don’t overdo it!  Tweet them telling them where you are, and if they want to hang out, they can message you back.  (Note: they probably won’t still, but at least they won’t be scared of you).  Example: @azizansari I’m in the shitter line too…let’s grab a beer post-poop.  Handwashing first!

1.  If it’s a parody account of someone who is not a real person, they are fair game to be tweeted.  For example, @oldhossradbourn is a twitter feed written by a baseball player who died in 1897.  If you tweet him, you may pretend you’re tweeting a man who has been dead for over a hundred years, but in fact you’re tweeting some funny guy who may parlay this account into a multimillion dollar television contract.  However, if they are a real, live person, but the account is fake, and you expect the celeb to tweet you, you are very stupid.

Suggestions for improvement: Don’t be very stupid.  Example: @OldHossRadbourn if you get the @shitmydadsays contract, who will play you?  I vote Tom Selleck or Joe Stalin (both not busy)

1. If the celebrity in question is a crazy person, you can tweet them whatever you want.  Seriously.  You can say anything to @charliesheen with absolutely no consequences.  Even if he is disturbed by the scary nonsense you’re spouting, he deserves it.  Since you don’t need to improve your tweets, I’ll give you a terrifying example: @charliesheen I really enjoyed your show but look forward to you returning to your shtick about how you are cool and Duckie is not.

So there you have it, new Twitter user.  Now you are ready to bore busy celebrities with your inane nonsense.  Isn’t modern technology a wonderful thing?

Tangled Up in Blue- It’s ironic that he starts a break-up album off with a song about two star-crossed lovers who keep finding each other.  The song is very mystical, as it seems to deal in reincarnation and the idea that love is eternal.  Very strange stuff for someone who’s wife just left him because of his chronic infidelity.

Saddest Lyric:

I had a job in the great north woods/Working as a cook for a spell/But I never did like it all that much/And one day the axe just fell

2. It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe
3. One day you’ll be in the ditch, flies buzzin’ around your eyes,
4. You’re on the bottom.
5. We’re idiots, babe./It’s a wonder we can even feed ourselves.
It’s a devastating song, but in the end, he knows that he has things to answer for too.

You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go- A song that Dylan wrote about a certain river in Egypt. Peep the tense in the title. She was already gone; Dylan is the typical dumpee who cannot give up on when is gone. We have ALL been in this situation…you might even know it’s for the best but you just can’t give up.

Saddest Lyric:
I could stay with you forever/And never realize the time.
Telling her how you could stay with her doesn’t solve your problems; your words mean nothing. (Also, he mentiones Ashtabula in the song…I could totally google that but doesn’t Ashtabula sound like the coolest place?) (It’s in Ohio, I knew I shouldn’t have googled.)

Meet Me in the Morning- She’s not coming, Bob. Trust me. She’s not coming.

Saddest Lyric:
Every day’s been darkness since you been gone.

Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts-
This song, at first glance, seems to not fit in on a break-up album. It’s a nine-minute song about a rogue who causes trouble in a frontier town for Big Jim, a villainous figure, by sleeping with Big Jim’s wife, daughter, or mistress (it’s not clear what roles Lily and Rosemary play, exactly). Having listened to this song quite a bit, I’ve come to the conclusion that the song is Dylan’s attempt to escape into fantasy. In this song, he’s the jack of hearts (symbolism!), beds two women, and escapes town with Big Jim dead. This song is Dylan’s escape from the pain of his break-up.

There isn’t really a sad or angry lyric in the song, but the last one sort of exemplifies my completely b.s. made up theory:
But, most of all she was thinkin’ ’bout the jack of hearts. (Because it ends with Dylan gone, but always in the thoughts of the woman, see?)

If You See Her, Say Hello- Not only is she gone, but Bob has no way of getting in touch with her except through whatever poor sap this song is adressed to. That sucker is the guy who is still friends with both sides of the couple, a fate worse than hell. You always want to say more, but you often don’t have the opportunity, sadly.

Saddest Lyric:
If you see her say hello/She might be in Tangier
Has anything ever felt farther away than Tangier?

Shelter From The Storm- The best way to get over someone is to get under them. I don’t think this is obliquely a song about getting laid, a rebound, whatever. But at the same time, Zimmy is saying there is place where it’s safe and warm. It’s unclear if he’s imagining it too, but that doesn’t matter. It’s out there and it’s time to find it.

Happiest lyric- I came in from the wilderness

Buckets of Rain- The last lines on the album are “Life is sad/life is a bust/All ya can do is do what you must/Ya do what you must do and you do it well/I’ll do it for you honey babyCan’t you tell?” What Bobby’s feeling isn’t going to go away…but he survived. Sure, he went crazy, found jesus, lost his voice, but at the same time, he did his best. Bob Dylan’s scars are visible for all to hear on Blood on the Tracks. The blood doesn’t wash away but it fades.

If I’d been born a few years earlier, how I feel about Jordan would be how I felt about Bird, Magic and the like, and this article would not exist.  I’d be like everyone else who became disgusted with the state of the NBA in the early years of the millenium.  I was born in ’86, and, as much as I love Space Jam, Michael Jordan was way more than a basketball player by the time I liked basketball.

As I got older, I began to appreciate things like defense and team work (the year I graduated high school, the Pistons upset the Lakers, a veritable superstar team, by being underpaid and playing defense.  Of course now all of those Pistons are massively overpaid.  Circle of life), and these days, when I care about the NBA, I cheer for the Spurs to bully their way to another championship.  For a while, though, as a young teenager, I prized the individual over anything else.  With the exception of Vince Carter (who tricked us all into thinking he was worthy to be given a shit about), I want to talk about a few players from that era, what they meant to me, and how their mistakes helped me become a better person.

Allen Iverson- I’m starting with the Answer for purely poetic reasons.  Iverson’s career really left us with more questions than answers.  What if he had played with real talent in Philly? How insane is it that he dragged that team to the 2001 Finals? How sick was it for five minutes in Denver when you thought he was real again?  Why did he sign with Memphis? Have you ever seen anything sadder than his Philly remix?  And of course, is he the worst rapper of any basketball player? (This question I can answer…he is not.  Keep reading.)  Iverson (just like Jonah) would have been a great Green Lantern, because his biggest talent was his willpower.  He was way too small to have the success he did, his jumper was subpar even at it’s best, he entirely lacked many of the skills of a point guard…I could go on.  Another question that comes to mind is, of course, how good could he have been if he had tried to practice?  What the Answer taught me was that there are certain people who can get by on pure talent, but that their inability (or lack of desire, I guess) to work harder will hold them back.

Stevie Francis- The Franchise taught us that maybe not everyone wants to live in Vancouver.  It’s a nice place to visit, but as far as living there…  Stevie taught me that reputation and fame do not equal success.  With Iverson, you can say he wasted potential, but he was an MVP, he made the Finals, etc.  He is one of the fifty best basketball players of all time.  Stevie Francis is not even in the conversation.  The thing is, though, he’s not that much less talented.  The biggest problem with Stevie was that he was anointed The Franchise before he was the franchise.  Quick question: how many times did he make the playoffs in his career?  Once.  This is a man whose Rockets got better when he left, whose Magic got worse when he arrived, and who played for possibly the worst Knicks team ever.  Stevie never changed his game, though.  He never learned how to pass or play defence.  His rep went to his head, and he acted The Franchise when he was most certainly not.  I learned from him that reputation doesn’t take you very far; at some point, you have to earn what you have.

Kobe and Shaq- I was never much of a Kobe kid; I was most definitely always on the Shaq side of the equation.  Take it from someone who saw Kazaam in the theatres, my generation fell for Shaq hard.  I’m a little young to have watched him in Orlando, but he was everywhere.  Movies, magazines, rapping (still not the worst  rapping basketball player..you must know who it is).  So when him and Kobe started beefing, I was, without a doubt on Team Shaq.  Kobe was a little bitch.  Basically raised in privilege, he came in shooting airballs.  Also his mini-fro was ridiculous.  During the Laker’s three-peat, Shaq was so dominant that everyone felt he could have won with any sidekick.  Then, of course, Shaq demanded a trade, Kobe started rapping (his song with Tyra Banks is the worst thing my ears have heard) and had that problem in Colorado, and so on.  Now, Shaq won another championship, but even then it was clear that Wade was the reason.  Since then, he’s bounced around, playing with a cast of all-stars.  Kobe has won multiple championships and cemented his legacy.  But the beef remains (Shaq is still waiting for Kobe to ‘tell [him] how [his] ass taste’).  The beef taught me that no success is entirely your own.  Shaq and Kobe were never better than when they were together (as much as Kobe is better now, the way his game works means that he can’t do anything without a big guy clogging up the lane, whether that’s a behemoth like Shaq or a smooth operator like Pau Gasol.  Check out the in between years to see how while Kobe got his stats [i.e. 81 point game], the Lakers system wasn’t working.)  You can either work well with others, or let jealousy tear you apart.  If you do that, though, you’ll be left thinking about your glory days (and we all know that they’ll pass you by).

Antoine Walker- The man who once, when asked why he shot so many threes, replied that he did so because there were no such thing as four’s.  Employee Number Eight.  I write this knowing full well that my favourite basketball player was kind of a huge bum.  A man who never used his size, who bounced around more than the basketball he never once dribbled, and who gambled away all of his money.  I learned so much from this man.  I learned that you have to be an individual, but for the greatest possible success, you have to find a role that uses your talents as a strength (Walker’s only championship came as a three-point shooter off the bench for Miami).  You have to accept those who are better than you (Walker’s inability to recognize that Paul Pierce was a better player led to a pretty decent Celtics team breaking up).  You have to realize that you can’t always go back (Walker’s return to Boston was really sad).  You have to not gamble away all of your money in Vegas (Walker gambled all of his money away in vegas).  Finally, even though you will never be as much as you could be, even though your greatest talent might be your greatest undoing, even though you gambled all of your money away in Vegas, sometimes you have to just fucking dance.  Antoine Walker taught me how to shimmy, and for that, I’ll always love him.

It’s strange to think about why proper punctuation is so important to me.  Some might say it’s because I’m a snobbish douchebag who thinks he’s the smartest person in the room.  They wouldn’t be wrong (I am a snobbish douchebag and I do think I’m the smartest person in the room!), but there’s more to it than that.  After all, if I was merely an asshole who wanted to prove how smart I was, I wouldn’t stress about other people being wrong…and yet I do.  I don’t necessarily enjoy correcting people, but I do like helping people realize how effective grammar and punctuation can be as tools for their writing.  (If I listen closely, I can hear a chorus of people telling me to be a teacher.)

Using grammar and punctuation doesn’t just make you look smarter (although it does); it opens up a wider world of writing to you.  I’m not talking about everyday unimportant writing, like the grocery list or bbm.  However, I’m also not limiting myself to purely academic writing.  Obviously, correct grammar and punctuation will lead one to success in an academic setting; if you’re writing university essays and you’re wantonly disregarding these things, you probably go to York (Hey now!)

The biggest issue, in my opinion, with people’s writing is clarity.  You don’t need a huge vocabulary to be a good writer (in fact, some writers are much better off using sparse language); what you do need is to be clear.  The title of Truss’ book comes from a joke about a panda.  A panda walks into a bar, shoots a guy and walks out.  On his way out, the bartenders asks the panda, “why did you do that?”  The panda replies, “look me up in the dictionary.”  The bartender does, and next to panda, it says that the animal ‘eats, shoots and leaves’.  Obviously the comma is misplaced in order to justify the punchline.  This expresses how important one seemingly insignificant punctuation mark can be.  The comma, apostrophe, bracket, period, quotation mark can all have a large effect on your sentence.  Without the author using them correctly, people cannot read effectively.

Every sentence is meant to be read by a voice.  Whether that voice is an external one reading aloud, or an internal one that only the reader hears is no matter.  Consider the following sentence: I, Bobby, can’t go to Mike’s party; however, I will make it up to him.  We do not read this sentence as I comma Bobby can apostrophe t sound, etc.  Punctuation helps us read effectively by telling us when to take a break, when to mush words together and when to stop.  Even the dreaded semi-colon has it’s uses (but that’s a blog post for another day…am I insane enough to do a whole post about the semi-colon?  I just might be, friends!)  This gets back to what I’m saying about clarity.  A sentence without punctuation may be crystal clear to me, the writer, but to you, the reader, it certainly will not be.  Punctuation helps even the best reader along.

Having said all that, a question remains.  Is it possible to write well without using punctuation?  The answer is yes, with a giant but.  I believe that writing can exist with minimal punctuation (you can’t really have none, because even the longest sentence must end.  Like Springsteen sang “everything dies, baby, that’s a fact”).  However, (and this will surely cause problems with some readers) not everyone should be able to disregard punctuation.  Authors often use minimal punctuation in order to be purposely obtuse or unclear.  Some examples that come to mind are James Joyce, Cormac McCarthy and Jose Saramago (who died while I was in Europe last year; I didn’t find out about it until about a month ago.  It’s so strange when something happens while you’re not paying attention to the news cycle).  The thing with those gentleman is that they can get away with being unclear for a variety of reasons, such as subject matter, syntax, etc.  Most of us, though, are no James Joyce and must pay close attention to the rules of punctuation.  This, of course, only applies to fiction writers, as the rules of punctuation are very necessary for non-fiction writing at all times; it also doesn’t take into account writers who use perhaps too much punctuation like my homegirl V Woolf (who definitely had a comma boner).

I’m unsure if I’ve established anything more than the fact that punctuation is important because it’s promotes clarity in one’s writing.  After all, if someone has no desire for clarity and wants to disregard the rules, there is no stopping them.  At the same time, every writer engages with their writing as a reader at some point.  So, hopefully, it will become clear to them how much their work is lacking when the rules of punctuation are disregarded.  While those English dramas, with all of their crazy uses of punctuation are certainly cruel, it does remain important to give a fuck.  Start quote comma apostrophe hyphen dash semi-colon colon ellipsis end quote period (full stop).

I watched Garden State.  I watched it a few years ago (I want to say in first year, but who can remember?), and watching it now, I remembered that I liked the soundtrack a lot more than the movie itself.

I wrote that last week after watching the movie, with the idea being that I was going to write a blog post on Garden State.  This isn’t really about Garden State anymore.  It’s about how perceptions can change over time…mostly because my perceptions of the movie changed.

(**Side note about Garden State: it’s one of VD’s favourite movies, to the point where he wants to name his future daughter after the Natalie Portman character.  But I’m pretty sure he is attracted to said character, so the whole thing is a little weird!)

When I first saw it, my main criticism was that it didn’t know what it wanted to be.  Was it an absurdist comedy?  An emo drama? Romantic comedy?  I didn’t know, and I felt like Zach Braff didn’t know either.  Looking back, having watched it again, I totally missed the point.  The movie doesn’t know what it wants to be because the characters don’t know what they want to be because we don’t know what we want to be.  It’s a great movie, I realized…but that’s not why I’m here (if it’s why you’re here, I’m very sorry.)

Our perceptions change because of a lot of things.  One reason is knowledge: ever read something that had a million allusions that you didn’t get, but then you’re smarter and you read it again?  When you have the knowledge to really get into something, you’ll dig it a lot more.  I guess experience goes hand in hand with knowledge; of course, our experiences define us, and living through things can change how you view something, the second, third or fourth time around (yes I said this just to make an obscure Bob Dylan reference.  Aren’t you totally questioning why you read this blog?)

Who you are as a person defines what you do and don’t like.  People have sent me stuff thinking I would like it, and are surprised when I strongly dislike it; as well, the opposite can happen, although that’s much more rare (maybe because I’m so damn picky!)  In fact, just the other day, I recommended a movie, Primer, to a friend.  I thought they would like it as much as I did.  In fact, they did not!  Not at all….  The point is, who we are and what we like is tied up together.  Most seem to admit that what they like can change, but do we change with our tastes?  (Not to get into a whole boring aesthetics thing that only philosophy students and J-Gins will want to read, but I’m working with a framework that thinks an objective standard of taste is complete bullshit.)

Sometimes, when I’m being cynical, I don’t think we change at all.  But at the same time, here I am, in situations that I never would have expected.  Have I changed?  Or is it merely external change?  This isn’t something I can easily answer in a blog post; it might not be something I will ever be able to answer.  I know that, as Zooey Deschanel sings, “change is hard”.  (Okay it totally worked, but that reference is for someone really specific! Hi!)  Still, change is good, even if it makes you want to puke.  It’s good because change has led me to some moments of happiness, some scary but exciting opportunities, and to a new appreciation of Garden State.  For real, it’s a great movie, even if it (still) does not know what it wants to be.  The thing is, though, who does?

It is a day where you don’t leave your apartment.  Does it have to be an apartment?  I guess not, though it always was for me.  It might even happen when you leave, to get food (but it definitely has to be bad food, like Wendys or Quiznos.)  Usually it’s due to bad weather, though this was typically because I was only in the L during the school year, obviously.  It often involves watching sports that you only pretend to care about (like today:  Ravens vs. Steelers.  Why did I watch any of this?  Not only was it a terrible game, but even 22-year old me that loves sports hates both these teams).  In the past, it involved doing work, but given that you don’t get homework from the bookstore, today did not have that (and as much as I miss homework, good G-d am I glad that I did not have to make a collage or some stupid teacher’s college bullshit.).  It usually has a have a random bbm or phone conversation to catch up with a friend, because you don’t see them that often, though today’s was with someone who lives (and works!) close by.  No, what really makes it a London day is a general malaise; it’s the idea of thinking there is something better, more productive, more fulfilling to do, but having absolutely no idea what any of those things could be.  It’s a long day of the soul, pretty much (I can’t remember  where long night of the soul comes from [if I did, it would certainly get its' own nomenclature post], but I think it has a lot to do with Willy Loman and Aristotle, so thanks Russ!).

BUT it could be worse:

- I did not have to satisfy my obsessive London desire to play Hate It Here by Wilco.

- It’s plenty warm in here.

- I’m not actually in London!

- I learnt that Fight Club is actually about a grown up Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes

- “Today I didn’t even have to use my A.K.  I got to say it was a good day.”

- The big deal, gamechanger if you will, is Don’s proposal to Megan.  I think the outcome of this decision was foreshadowed by the way the viewer saw it coming.  We slowly waited, after the introduction of Anna’s ring, for Don to give it to Megan.  I didn’t think, at any point, that Don would propose to Fay.  Perhaps his Dick Whitman confession to her marked her as someone he could no longer be with, or, more legitimately, it could have been because she didn’t know how to deal with his kids (Interesting statement that the three real career women on the show, Peggy, Joan and Faye, are an absolute mess when it comes to the issue of children.)

- Megan’s french song was pretty hilarious, and I love those Draper kids doing anything cute (except Gene.  Gene is a loser ghost baby.)  It would be really cool to see Don in early 60′s Montreal visiting Megan’s family.  I think he would be out of place in a cosmopolitan Canadian city (look at how white and staid Don’s New York is) and his interactions with her family would be interesting, mostly because he’s closer to her parent’s ages than to her’s.

- One thing I didn’t like is that it didn’t offer much resolution for anyone else’s storylines, and really only opened up possibilities for one character (Joan did not abort!).  Where is Roger, or Pete?  It’s not that they have huge plotlines left open, but they could have been thrown a bone.  Even Peggy, who had something going on by landing the account that just may save SCDP, is only really seen at the end in the context of Don’s engagement.

- Where have you gone, Bert Cooper?  The nation turns it’s lonely eyes to you.

-  The fact that Glen wasn’t completely nuts, did not try to touch Sally (“I say goodbyes all the time.”  Wow!  This kid is a great actor.)  and is the only one to actually call Betty on her shit, was shocking.  Much more shocking than if he was, you know, actually a psycho.  Very typical of this show to subvert our expectations by not having a typical teevee thing happen.

- Betty had a rough year…In past seasons, her marriage to Don seemed to make her more sympathetic (after all, we knew he had been lying and cheating for years, even if she didn’t.)  It kind of excused things like her terrible parenting skills.  This season, though, she’s married to Henry, who actually seems to love her and seems to be a genuinely nice guy.  Betty, though, is still a giant bitch.  Maybe, like the viewer, she blamed her flaws on Don and the marriage, and now, without him, she has no crutch to lean on.

- I cannot wait until season five starts!

It would be the absolute height of snobbery for me to begrudge anyone who likes a good book, even if it’s for the wrong reasons.  There are plenty of people who like bad books, so I can’t talk too much shit if you think Holden Caulfield is a hero.  Unfortunately, Holden Caulfield is not a hero.  He is most definitely a protagonist, in the sense that the book is about and told by him (sans all that David Copperfield kind of crap, of course, which is a point I’ll come back too [ooo foreshadowing!]).  Nor is he a villain, because that is a false and unnecessary dichotomy.  People love the book because they feel that Holden is a hero for decrying the phonies of the world.  That in itself could be construed as heroic, I guess, although throughout the book it’s just portrayed as useless complaining.

The point that I believe people miss is that Holden is just as phony.  On the very first page of the book, he tells the reader he’s not going into all that Copperfield biography crap; however, what is all that stuff about his dead brother Allie?  It’s pure sentimental sharing about his past.  See, what people don’t realize is that Holden is just as big a phony as everybody else.  Does this make him a liar or a bad person?  I would say no, simply because he’s a kid who doesn’t know better (perhaps Salinger’s point; remember, Jerome David Salinger was in his early 30′s when he wrote this…old enough to know better.  If it was written by a seventeen year-old, everyone would be right about Holden.)  Is Holden a hypocrite?  Without a doubt!  But, dear readers, I challenge you to tell me, which one of you is not a hypocrite now, let alone when you were seventeen?  Holden is like the rest of us: bored, restless, lying to himself, lying to others.  Railing against the phonies of the world doesn’t make him a hero or the arbiter of 1960′s counter-cultural cool; it makes him just as human as you or I.  That is, in my opinion, why this novel is such an important, and enjoyable work.

This view also explains the ending.  The biggest complaint about the novel seems to be that nothing happens at the end.  I know that was mine when I read the book for the first time in the summer of 2001 (pre-9/11, guys!  Who can remember anything that far back?)  I think, though, that my examination of the novel above explains why nothing happens at the end.  Think about yourself.  At some point in your life (unless you’re the most easygoing person to ever exist), you have probably been upset by something phony and/or unfair.  Now ask yourself this: did you do anything about it?  Nine point nine times out of ten, the answer is no.  I know that the answer for me is no (look at what happened to me last spring…so unfair and i did nothing [if you don’t know this story, you will…in a few months.)  Holden is (SPOILER ALERT) telling the story from some sort of mental health clinic, but that’s just something that happens.  The novel does not really have a climax, or a denouement, because our lives don’t have climaxes.  If Holden were really a hero, he would have led the revolution that cut off the heads of all the phonies in his world.  Unfortunately for that conception of the novel, Salinger was going for realism, which means making Holden, much like you, me and anyone else with a pulse, a phony.  The revolution, for Holden Caulfield, would have started with himself.

- This started out as a comparison between Don Draper and Muhammad Ali, but then I fell behind, and that episode was weeks ago.  Since then Don’s gotten his life back together a bit, so maybe he isn’t Sonny Liston completely.  The show makes a big deal (and at time, a little obviously) about the new imposing itself on the old.  Don’s whole “Satisfaction” thing from last week stands out as an example of this.  We see Don,  Roger (and even Pete Campbell) as anachronisms, unable to anticipate the coming changes.  Then again, Don did realize what Peggy had to offer, so maybe he’s not as bad as we think.  The issue, though, is that there is no Ali.  At least not in the advertising game.  The ‘young guns’ seem to be just as clueless.

- I love Faye.  It’s been a while since the show had a character I was genuinely curious about.  Much like how the Sopranos was able to introduce Diet Tony in the middle, or how The Wire re-started and brought new blood in every season, Faye’s introduction has brought some freshness to Don’s life and to the show.

- RIP Mrs. Blankenship.  Daniel-san’s mother will be missed.  Also her and Bert Cooper had the highlight of last week’s episode:

Bert: Three letter word for flightless bird.

Mrs. B: Emu.

Bert: It starts with an L.

Mrs. B: Like hell it does.

Priceless!

- Betty Draper (and Henry Francis) need more to do.  I hope the last few episodes bring her a larger role, as I’m curious to see if her life is crumbling as Don’s is improving.  I really hope the show continues to involve her and Henry in the main Don plotline, as she is an incredible character.  She’s perhaps the closest the show has to an outright villain… and yet, the viewer still feels sorry for her.

- The scene where Joan and Roger get it on post-mugging was hottttttt.  I think Christina Hendricks is one of the most underrated actors on the show.  She gets tons of attention for her looks (and even that is mostly focused on her breasts) but the understated way she plays Joan is always impressive.  She’s not the modern, interesting woman that Peggy is, nor is she the complex Betty.  She doesn’t even seem that attracted to Don!  Hendricks has done perhaps her best work, though, this season.  Joan’s sense of impending doom feeds of of the viewer’s, especially given what we know about Vietnam.

- “She died as she lived: surrounded by the people for whom she answered the phones.” Oh, Roger.  You’re descent into melancholy alcoholism hasn’t robbed you of one ounce of your charm.

-  Finally, Kiernan Shipka as Sally Draper breaks my heart.  Vulture called her performance fascinating, and I certainly cannot disagree.  She plays the role not as if the actress is older, but as if Sally herself has forced to become older than her years (and I guess given what’s going on with Don and Betty, she has).

The show continues to move slowly at times, but is just so satisfying.  I cannot wait to see what the last four (I think it’s four) episodes of the season have for us.  I’m sure I’ll discuss them here in a few weeks.

There’s a lot I could tell you guys about my zaidy. I could tell you how he used to, when I was a baby, take me out to pick up girls….long before he met Judy, of course.  Apparently a cute baby boy was a huge advantage for a swinging bachelor like Irwin. I could talk about the time he locked me in his car, and desperately tried to get me to unlock the doors…which I did not understand how to do, being probably no more than a couple years old….  Further evidence that he was a well meaning but sometimes dangerous grandparent is the scar gracie has on her forehead…This was a wound she received while getting a “horsie ride” on Zaidy’s legs, which for some reason we called Dusty and Smokey.  The ride got a little rough, and next thing we knew, gracie’s head was implanted onto our fireplace ledge. Zaidy and I used to have epic wrestling matches where he could only win by cheating and using his legendary sharp elbows. As I grew older Zaidy only grew more involved in our lives.  For Gracie and I both, there were too many sleepovers to count and a lot of terrible movies we made him take us to, every single one of which he pretended to enjoy.  Zaidy went to every single one of Gracie’s dance recitals, and many of her soccer games, including the fabled championship game of 2002.  The time he drove to Pittsburgh with me and my dad for a comic book convention was pretty special, as was the time he drove me around south florida looking for a very difficult to find comic book, the last one I needed to complete my collection of that series….We finally found it, and it was far too expensive for my 12 year old self to buy, so of course Zaidy bought it for me. I could tell you how much he loved, Gracie, my sister, always calling her his girlfriend, or how much he loved his grandsons Daniel, Adam and Ryan.  Gracie asked me to mention that she might have loved the quietest moments the most, just sitting with her Zaidy watching teevee.  She also wanted me to mention the smile on Zaidy’s face during a surprise visit that her and my mom paid to Zaidy in the hospital in 2008.  Both Zaidy and Gracie had had accidents, and while a lot of jokes were made (by yours truly) about the state the two of them were in, she said the look on his face when she was wheeled into the room was something she’ll never forget. I could talk about how strong he was, and how much I love him for the obstacles he overcame. But instead I’m going to tell you about the last time I saw him: judy went to nyc and asked me to sleep over and make sure everything went smoothly.  She e-mailed a long list of instructions, which she dubbed The Irwin Papers.  I followed those instructions to a T, and nothing went wrong, thank G-d.  As we were sitting in the living room, watching (of course) Wheel of Fortune, Zaidy Irwin turned to me, and asked “what are you going to do with your life?”  I thought about it for a second, and replied “I don’t know!  What are you going to do with yours?”  He thought about it, and replied with the classic Irwin Gould shrug, followed by the even more classic smile, which I can’t even attempt to mimic.  In that shrug and smile, I think, is exactly who my Zaidy was.  He lived a long life, full of many adventures, some true and some that I’m pretty sure he made up.  There were plenty of good times, and of course a few bad times.  Still, at the end of his life, less than a week before he passed away, he didn’t know what the future held…and of course, neither did any of us.  I think, though, that if he knew, he still would have shrugged, because that was Zaidy Irwin: the strongest man I know, one who loved everything in life.  His wife, his children, his grandchildren, Judy’s family, his friends, their families.  So don’t be sad.  Of course we will miss him immeasurably, but I think I speak for my Zaidy Irwin when I say….shrug and smile, guys.  Keep smiling and shrugging no matter what life throws at you.  That’s what my Zaidy taught me.  Thank you.