The end of 2013 is upon us and just like last year I’ve decided to round-up some of my favorite pop culture experiences into Totally Top 5 lists for your perusal. Again, like last year, I’ve let my iTunes play counts do the talking and started with my top five jamz for the year. Here we go!
This song is a jam. It’s all energetic yelling and Patrick Stump’s wailing and it’s so, so good for screaming out your car windows when it’s, y’know, warm enough to have them rolled down. I always really like Fall Out Boy’s wordplay and this one’s got a couple of great bits. So good.
4. M.I.A., “Bad Girls”
The ultimate song for a car full of girls who are excited to be alive. I can’t even count the number of times someone pulled up next to me at a stop light and rolled up their window because I was blaring this so loud and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m not a badass, but this lets me fake it pretty god damn well.
Like everyone else on Earth this year, I could not avoid this song and, like the large majority of those same people, I embraced the hell out of it. This song is fun, it’s feel-good, and even if it’s overstayed its welcome a little, it was still one hell of a jam.
Katy Perry’s done and said some dumb stuff — though I think that is just part of the territory of being successful, mistakes are made — but it hasn’t slowed down the juggernaut that is her pop reign. This song is glorious and if you haven’t cried like at least twice while listening to it then I just don’t understand what you’re doing. I love this song so much that I’ve had dream arguments where I went to the mat defending it. That’s a jam.
When this came out in spring, I was utterly powerless against it and just left it on repeat for days at a time. I really kind of love her — appropriation issues aside, sigh — and this is just such a jam. Great beat, great chorus, and the perfect length for a pop hit. Jam and a half.
10. Season 2, “The One with the List” – The least appealing part of Friends for me, both upon initial airing and in the years of subsequent reruns, is the back and forth Ross and Rachel nonsense. It’s not that the romances on the show aren’t interesting — I love Monica and Chandler’s fumbling courtship because I’m not dead inside — it’s just that the friendships are so much more compelling. Ross and Rachel date, they don’t date, either way I don’t really care. Even if that wasn’t the emphasis of this ep, it’d still fall to the bottom of the list for not really being about Thanksgiving at all. If it weren’t for Monica’s mockolate scenes with Michael McKean the ep would hardly be worth watching at all.
9. Season 9, “The One with Rachel’s Other Sister” – You know how sitcoms love to introduce really irritating characters and then rally the comedic forces of their casts around pointing out just how annoying that character is? I hate that. Christina Applegate is great at what she was brought into do, but it just feels unbearable and uninspired. Great tender moments of friendship, a lot of great Chandler emotions, and the entire China plot make it very watchable despite its flaws.
8. Season 1, “The One Where Underdog Gets Away” – The one that started it all! The most impressive thing about this episode is that it was the ninth episode of Friends ever and the characters already feel fleshed and whole. Love Joey’s STD posters, Chandler’s Thanksgiving issues, and Phoebe’s general willowiness.
7. Season 3, “The One with the Football” – Monica and Ross’s sibling rivalry is an early delight and, as always, weird Geller traditions are a highlight. Phoebe’s enthusiasm is maybe my favorite part of the entire episode and Joey and Chandler’s competitiveness verges on just the right kind of meanness without being unbearable. A solid and very Thanksgiving-y entry.
6. Season 8, “The One with the Rumor” – Problematic gender, trans*, and fat hate issues aside, this one’s got a nice turn from Brad Pitt and some decently funny moments. Ross’s tender remembrance of the tryst he had with his high school librarian is particularly charming and well-played.
5. Season 6, “The One Where Ross Got High” – Mr. and Mrs. Geller make an appearance in one of the strongest and most laugh out loud of the bunch. Notable not just for Rachel’s beef and pea trifle, but also Monica and Ross selling each other’s secrets out to their parents in a shouting match followed by Christina Pickles’s pitch-perfect delivery of the ultimate mom monologue. Glorious.
4. Season 7, “The One Where Chandler Doesn’t Like Dogs” – Tons of great laugh out loud moments in this one including Matt LeBlanc’s hilariously delivered “Don’t do it!” (which also has a great blooper) and Ross’s dislike of ice cream. Jennifer Aniston’s dry delivery and perfect timing are also a delight. She’s often overlooked when people talk about the cast, but she’s killer and this is a particularly great example of her.
3. Season 10, “The One with the Late Thanksgiving” – A hilarious and heartwarming turn from the final season of the show, notable for Chandler and Monica receiving news that they’ve been chosen as adoptive parents. This is one of those trope-y sitcom episodes where everything kind of goes disastrous but it’s got a lot of great laughs including the dumb but delightful talking heads bit and the baby beauty pageant. The news of the adoption is particularly sweet, the kind of news you want surrounded by the people you love most.
2. Season 5, “The One with All the Thanksgivings” – Friends flashback episodes are well-loved for a reason and this one is no exception. Joey getting the turkey stuck on his head is funny enough, but escalated when Phoebe tries to disguise him from Monica with parsley. Pre-nose job Rachel is a favorite every time she shows up and Chandler and Ross’s thematic outfits are glorious. Another great turn from Christina Pickles and Elliott Gould rounds out a great ep.
1. Season 4, “The One with Chandler in a Box” – This ep is hands-down my favorite because it’s not only the one that makes me laugh the hardest and most consistently, but also because its driving force is really friendship. Chandler and Joey’s relationship is always a great source of comedy for the show and it doesn’t disappoint here. Matthew Perry’s not even visible for most of the episode and he’s still killer. Michael Vartan is particularly babely and charming and his awkward kiss on the balcony with Courtney Cox is flawlessly hilarious.
What’s your top ten? What are your other Thanksgiving faves? Are you rewatching The West Wing where President Bartlet calls the Butterball Turkey Line today too? Or are you just eating a whole bunch and staring at the dog show? Whatever you do, enjoy it and know that I am thankful for you!
I snagged this little meme from Rae who — as I mention frequently — is one of my very fave bloggers. Like her, I spent a lot of years on Livejournal and miss the dorky community aspects like twenty question memes and those super dumb-fun “What are you doing right this second?” ones! Who can resist rattling things off about themselves? » more: seventeen qs
I really, really liked Jesse Andrews’ Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. I liked it a lot, definitely more than I expected to — I think? — and it’s one I’m glad I stumbled across on Amazon in my search for cheap Kindle books. It reminded me in a lot of ways — the good ones — of Frank Portman’s King Dork which I read around this time of year in 2009. September means stories about school to me and these are both stories that are about school and not about school in equal measure.
In fourth grade, I realized that girls were desirable. I had no idea what you were supposed to do with them, of course. I just sort of wanted to have one, like as a possession or something.
Both books are funny in similar ways, in this very specific way of young white men, that is intangible but near-visceral to me, and that makes me sometimes laugh so hard out loud that I have to put down what I’m reading and try to remember how to breathe. It is a key of phrasing, of word choice, and it’s near-impossible for me to pinpoint or draw actual line comparisons. I sat down to read King Dork again just because I wanted to be able to make clear references, but couldn’t focus on it because I kept thinking how much more I liked Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.
Did I want to get with Madison ? Yes. Of course I did. I would have given up a year of my life just to make out with her. Well, maybe a month. And obviously she would have to be doing it voluntarily. I’m not suggesting that some weird wish -granting genie would force her to make out with me in exchange for a month of my life. This entire paragraph is a moron.
Andrews’ narrator Greg is more self-aware, conscientious, and kind. He’s not perfect, but he tries very hard — perhaps initially because he wants to remain on everyone’s good side and under the radar, but ultimately because he doesn’t want to hurt people. He’s aware of his privilege, he’s aware of the class and racial differences between him and his friend Earl, he’s aware and speaks colloquially but explicitly about the importance of consent. Greg’s a good guy. And, unlike King Dork‘s Tom, he’s not obsessed with The Catcher in the Rye which is a book that, since I first read it at 12, has made me hate teenage boys, male writers, and every teacher and human being that has ever lauded it. Instead he’s obsessed with Werner Herzog for whom I have no opinion. Improvement!
“Urrrrgh.†We were silent, so I made the noise again. “Urrrrnngh.â€â€œWhat is that noise.†“Regretful polar bear.†Snort. “Polar bears are the most regretful animals in nature. Scientists do not know why this is. But they have the purest expressions of regret in the animal kingdom. Listen to how beautiful and haunting they sound: Urrrrrrrnnngh.â€
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl doesn’t have the world’s happiest ending. It’s not tied up and inspirational, but it is grounded and it is hopeful. It’s got great, funny writing and a self-aware, self-effacing narrator with a really charming, but never unbelievable narrator. It also has one of the best, most memorable teachers I’ve ever seen show up in a young adult book.
Mr. McCarthy had a look on his face of deep concern. It was definitely out of character for him and it was sort of distracting me. It was like when a dog makes a human-style face at you and you’re temporarily thrown off guard by it. You’re like, “Whoa, this dog is feeling a mixture of nostalgic melancholy and proprietary warmth. I was not aware that a dog was capable of an emotion of that complexity.â€
So, you know the drill, go buy it and read it and stuff.
