Hearing the Voice and Feeling the Dance

While feeling warm and fuzzy listening to Blake gush over Dia Frampton during the finale of The Voice, I realized that I did in fact like the show. And I liked it because of the apparent emotional connections forged between the coaches and their wanna-be stars. I recognized the blatant manipulation on the part of the show's creators, but watching others be nurtured is just so darn enjoyable.

Although the dancers in So You Think You Can Dance aren't assigned coaches, they are guided each week by choreographers. Magic really does happen when the choreographer is inspired by her dancers and the dancers are pushed by the choreographer. Last night I felt that ever so pleasurable tug on my heart watching Mark and Melanie make that magic happen through Napolean and Tabitha's movement.

Feeling awake

After writing about my discomfort with Jonathan Franzen's books, I happened to hear a remark by David Lipsky when being interviewed about time spent with David Foster Wallace. Referring to a comment in an article, Lipsky talked about how "awake" he felt after reading Wallace. Unlike more entertaining fare, Wallace's writings require work to grasp, but the fact that Lipsky felt smarter after reading Wallace made him feel the effort was worthwhile.

Hearing the comment made me wonder if part of the anxiety I feel when reading Franzen comes out of that feeling of wakefulness. Certainly that's not the case when I slip into Jack Reacher's world. Page turners pull me into a dream world that separates me from any real concerns I may have.

I guess after The Corrections must come Wallace's Infinite Jest, that is unless I get my hands on George Martin's A Song of Fire series before then. No matter how much I value being feeling awake, I'm a sucker for warrior women who choose baby dragons as a fashion accessory.

Jack Reacher invites Jonathan Franzen to dinner

After finishing Lee Child's Worth Dying For, I picked up The Corrections. It's hard to believe that both books can inhabit the same bookstore let alone end up as best sellers. Needless to say, reading the two is a very different experience. When I read a Reacher novel, I'm asking myself: Who is this man? Did Dexter have another brother? (Prompted by my husband) Doesn't he ever change his underwear? In spite of the impossibility of Reacher and the mind-numbing amount of violence, I typically can't put the books down. I have to find out how Reacher is going to extricate himself from yet another hellish situation.

When I visit Franzen's fictional worlds, I also feel as if I'm visiting some kind of hell but for a very a very different reason. Whereas Reacher is someone who I've never known and will never know, I feel uncomfortably close to Franzen's characters. They all seem to intersect my own world in odd ways. In fact, I hate to say it but I often see myself in all their self-loathing glory whether it's the nice, liberal couple in St. Paul or the professor who hopes to teach his students how to read all the texts produced by corporate America.

The Corrections will certainly take me longer to finish than Worth Dying For and it's not because of it complexity. It's because I can only take the character's self loathing (and by extension my own self loathing) in limited doses.

During my current break, I'm just imagining how Jack Reacher would handle Christmas in St. Jude with the Lamberts. A conversation between Chip and Jack would be priceless.

Show about those old guys

A few weeks ago my son saw Ray Romano on The Office and asked, "Isn't he on that show about those old guys?" It took me a minute to realize that he was talking about Men of a Certain Age. The delay in catching his drift was due to a couple of reasons. First and foremost, people in their 40s and 50s do not seem old to someone closer to 50 than 40. Second, Men of a Certain Age is about so much more than three old guys. Watching the season premiere last night reminded of all the reasons why it's on my list of favorites.

Among my favorite moments in the season premiere: 1) Seeing Joe in the opening scene hungrier for conversation with his buddies than he was for breakfast. 2) Seeing Joe finally satisfy that hunger in the closing scene 3) Noting how hopeful the 2 toothbrushes positioned in the same water glass was for Terry 4) Learning his "girlfriend" was also struck by how meaningful those toothbrushes were 5) Learning that Owen wouldn't give up the dealership and 6) Seeing that the connection between Joe's bookie and the stripper really was there.

I can't wait to see what the season has in store for the old guys.