If you like The West Wing for more the just the political machinations, you will probably like Friday Night Lights. I say that well aware that I am burning precious social capital making such a recommendation. If I am wrong, you will probably begin to distrust me whenever I next suggest something to you. I am willing to take that risk, because of how good this show is. It is not a show about football in the same way that The West Wing was not about politics and Battlestar Galactica was not about space-robots. Clear eyes. Full hearts.
We all learn, at a very young age, that we pay for our sins with blood. The pain that comes with time teaches us that we likewise pay for our successes. But if we walk unerringly, with clear eyes and full hearts, we cannot lose.
I write. That is how I experience the world and it always has been. But in Dillon, Texas, they live in anticipation of the next friday night when darkness will fall and the only lights for miles will be pointed toward a 120 yard stretch of field. They live for football.
This is the world of Friday Night Lights, but do not mistake this for the making of heroes. It is the transformation of youth, of children into human beings. They will realize that their lives as children are something that must be surpassed; that these experiences, the joys and the sorrows alike, are a bridge to something greater and, if they are ever to reach that plateau, they will have to overcome themselves.
Perfection is the starting point for Friday Night Lights. These boys. This team. This town. They are perfect from the first moment that we are brought into their grace. And, in the another moment as a boy decides to be a hero, they are shattered. These boys. This team. This town.
Friday Night Lights is not a story of rebuilding. That which they were is gone. That which they were to be will never be. Instead, this is the story of something else, of something greater. This is the story of a team that could not lose.
TIME 2 TRAVEL: YOUR GUIDE TO THE END OF THE UNIVERSE →
Normally in a Travel article this is the point where someone writes the “things to see and do” bit, but the problem with the end of everything is that there is only nothing to see, and the only thing to do is look at the nothing.
Anonymous asked: himym is not stupid ;)
Oh boy are you ever wrong.
The beauty of early How I Met Your Mother is that it was a story about the journey we take to find the people with whom we were meant to be with — but without the bullshit of fate or God or god. Ted’s story was not about discovering the person that he will spend the rest of his life with (contrary to the title of the show); it is about coming to the realization that life is a journey and that we are meant to share it with the people we care about. If we do that — if we strive, in all things, to be with those that we love and those that love us back — it does not matter if we ever find the girl who lost her yellow umbrella, because she is not a person and she certainly is not the missing piece of our heart.
And that’s the crux of the matter. The mystery of who the Mother will be is a false one, because there is nothing that we can do solve it and worse, there is no answer yet. It will be dragged out across seasons with scattered hints and red herrings that eventually will lead to a revelation that mean absolutely nothing, because we will be treated to this nonsense notion that two hearts were fated to connect and spend eternity together. The whole idea that the show was originally pursuing was how Ted learns that love is something we make not something that we find. Each “clue” that is left, each piece of dramatic irony takes away from that core conceit of the show.
How I Met Your Mother is Cougartown. The difference is that HIMYM was once beautiful. And that makes what is masquerading as it all the worse.
A friend recently sent me an email. There were a lot of words in it. I haven’t responded because words have been a struggle for me lately. It is never my intention to ignore when someone takes the time to put letters in a row and make sense. Sometimes I do, though, because I have this block where-in I freeze up and worry that I am not being beautiful enough. It has now sat for too many days on end for me to not reply if I have any intention of actually being a friend (which, I admit, is something I am terrible at), but I still can’t find a way to. So instead this reply will have to do, until I can figure out a way to make the sentences flow again: I miss you too.
<3
I decided to read up on that war some. I went to a library… It was a building full of books. I learned that the Second World War was so terrible it caused Adolf Hitler himself to commit suicide.
— Palm Sunday, Welcome to the Monkeyhouse. Kurt Vonnegut. (via aninsufferableknowitall)
It appears to be one of those days in which I am overwhelmed by insignificant decisions. Currently I am struggling with “what to eat?”.
Brains are weird.
Scranton Elm Disease
Andy Greenwald, for Grantland:
The American Office, quite rightly, differentiated itself from the outset: In the New World, the workplace wasn’t a sad metaphor for the crushed dreams and dreary reality of adulthood. Rather, it was an allegory for family, the screwed-up group of misfits one gets stuck with and learns to, if not love, then tolerate.
Minutes unto hours. Hours to days. Days to weeks and weeks unto forever.
The Office was always about the people whom we chose to love when the only other option available was hate them. It was a world that we watched and enjoyed because we could see shades of ourselves within it; those subtle elements to the characters that caused flickers of recognition. Jim and Pam were people that we believed we could be, if only we found it in ourselves to care about the family that our jobs chained us to.
These things were true, but anyone watching the most reason season will attest to the painfully obvious truth that they are no longer.
Some blame the departure of Steve Carell; or the introduction of James Spader; or the promotion of Ed Helms. But these incidents have absolutely nothing to do with the disappointment that comes at the end of each episode of The Office. That is to say, these are simply leaves falling from a tree; one that has, from the roots upward, long since been rotted hollow. If we look carefully, we can still catch glimpses of the beauty that once was, but it becomes harder with every passing episode as each worthy moment that is eked out comes at the expense of the The Office’s heart: we have stopped being able to love these people.
Somewhere along the way, the characters became the butt of jokes instead of the ones tellers. The people that we were supposed to love, the people that were supposed to remind us of our own lives, they transformed into sad and twisted caricatures of themselves. No one can love a parody of themselves.
Andy Greenwald’s piece asks if the office can be fixed, only to conclude that “it might be time to put it down”. He is right. The Office is a tree that has long been dead. We have been mistaking the faded greenery for life or, more foolishly perhaps, we have hoped that it was the autumn process and the beginnings of a rebirth. But a day is rapidly approaching when even the most stalwart of Office defenders have to admit that the show should be allowed to finally end; that the tree should be cut down to make room for new growth.
Personally, I think that actually happened a long time ago, back in April of 2009. When Parks and Recreation premiered.
(Source: stevenrayorr.com)
“Improvisation is a process. It is a way of making a thing. It is not a product that I can give or show you. What I do is improvise… theatre, or hip hop, or explosive devices.”
- Dave Morris, The Way of Improvisation
(Source: youtube.com)
