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English pronunciation

I find it hilarious that there are different types of spoken English language (American, The Queen's, Australian) and that there are distinct accents within those regions. So many words that are pronounced differently, and sometimes it's not even a regional thing so much as a personal tendency based off how one is raised.  What do I mean?

Take the word "new".  Do you say it as "nyew" or "nooh"?  I think I use the former for "New England" and the latter when I say "New York".  It's just too busy for my lazy tongue to go back and make two consecutive "y" sounds.

Or the word "aunt".  Should a someone teaching English abroad tell his/her students to say it as "ant" or "ont"?  Answer: both.  But there's no real rhyme or reason to which one to use.  I have a friend with an Ant Mary and Ont Michelle.  Why? Well, because.

Aaand the word that got me thinking about this topic is bagel.  Duh, you might say, it's pronounced "bay-gull".  Well, that's what I think is right, too.  I had never heard it said any other way until this:

This almost seems like some made-up pronunciation used for comic effect, right? Well, actually (yes, I'm pushing the bridge of my glasses further up my nose as I write this), creator Dan Harmon actually mentions in the commentary track for this episode that he says "bagel" weirdly.  The way he says it is more like "baegle", a cross between the regular version and Britta's version.  And he says it's not a regional funny Wisconsin thing.

And one last thing: pronunciation.  Some people say it verbatim, others say "pro-noun-ciation".  Not a regional or national thing, I think.  Curious, all the same

On a 9/11 musical, sort of.

In an earlier post I professed my love for the UK television program "Skins".  I've only seen the first two of three seasons; the last season features an almost entirely different cast.  Anyway, the second episode of the second season features a 9/11 musical, with the cast occupying various roles on and off stage. 

I think there was an off- Broadway or off off-Broadway musical on the same topic, titled "Clear Blue Tuesday" or something of the sort.  I believe that the musical in this show is called "Osama: The Musical!" (or, again, something of the sort).  Oh, the show is available to view on Hulu. I haven't the time or energy to rewatch it but I clearly remember how incredibly tasteless it was...and that was sort of the point.  In the show, the school's director wrote the musical himself, and though he is British he claims that he's a New Yorker at heart.  Yeah, right.  One of the lines from the main song is "Then came the day Osama blew us away/oh yes he blew us away", and in the opening number "hey girl" is made to rhyme with "bagel" (it works better if you try on a British-ish accent).  Like I said it's incredibly tasteless, tactless, and therefore hilarious in a sort of twisted way.  Don't get me wrong, I find little humor in the events of that day, it was devastating to say the least.  The musical as produced in this show is deliberately cartoonish and exhibits the worst of all the cliches and hallmarks of cheesy jazz-hands Broadway musicals, and that is what makes it darkly, bitingly funny.  It's nevertheless haunting, though, to remember the events of that day, even in this setting.

I bring this up because September 11, 2001 was a Tuesday in the second full week of the month, just like today.  But today was mostly overcast.

According to Steve, sort of.

I was going to make this a post on "Steve-isms"; or, things that the character Steve from Coupling says.  I started making a list when I realized two things:
1) someone else out there on the internet made a much better, comprehensive list
2) Steveisms are funny because they're sexist, and his character is such a stereotypical heterosexual man.  He's the most sensitive of the three male leads but that doesn't mean he says or does infuriating things.

Examples:
from Season 1, Episode 4: The 4 Pillars of the Male Heterosexual Psyche:
1. Naked women
2. Stockings
3. Lesbians
4. Sean Connery best as James Bond

"When man invented fire, he didn't say, "Hey, let's cook"; he said "Great! Now we can see naked bottoms in the dark!"

from Season 2, Episode 9: 3 things all men should know
1. You're never going to be famous
2. You're fatter than you think
3. They (women) don't keep wearing stockings

I still like the show and feel that it's a solid sitcom, but it disturbs me that it took me so long to notice just how sexist the characters can be.  Each of the six leads represent different stereotypes based on gender but they're all still pretty homophobic, classist, sexist, and they're all white.  I don't feel like I'll have to turn my brain off to watch this show but I've come to realize why I find some things funny and accepted that some jokes are funny because they're sexist, etc.

Thoughts on...Ugly Betty

This show came out in fall 2006 and ended(/was cancelled?) after 4 seasons.  I heard many positive reviews on this show, and the actress who portrayed the eponymous Ugly Betty even won an Emmy for the role.  But during its run I was only tepidly interested and only watched maybe a few accidental clips while flipping through to other channels.  A week or so ago I went to watch TV to bore myself to sleep and an episode from the beginning of the first season was on and I thought, what the hey, I'll watch it.  And I liked it.

Fast forward to now: I just finished watching the entire first season on Hulu.  I'm kind of surprised that this show even made it to air; it deals with lots of Important Sociological Issues but in a very soapy, ABC hour-long comedy kind of way, with its slight fantasy-silly tone and caricatures of characters who you love to love and love to hate.  Some of the issues that the show comments on (in more than one episode):
- first-generation Latino immigrant family
- issues with immigration laws/citizenship
- difficulty of being a single parent
- sexual harrassment
- difficulty of being a gay child
- gay/straight men passing as the other sexual identity to be accepted by certain people
- the ridiculous beauty standards set for women, and the efforts women make to become beautiful (incl. hair, makeup, fashion)
- alcoholism
- gender modification through surgery/transgender issues/gender identity
- sibling rivalry
- workplace relations/the work family

Okay, so a lot of these topics are ones that are often found it soap operas.  Actually, this show was adapted from the Mexican soap opera Betty La Fea (Betty the Ugly), and a good deal of the episodes in the first half of this series featured a fake Spanish-language soap opera, complete with ridiculous plot twists and spontaneous make-out sessions between reformed pastors and the like.  Ugly Betty works because it embraces the silliness and makes every character quirk comically enormous-- but adjusts the goofiness according to the seriousness of the situation. I'm not deeply invested in any of the characters beside Betty and I still find the show a bit more twee than the comedies I tend to enjoy, but I really like Betty and have to hand it to actors Becki Newton and Michael Urie for having great chemistry and comedic timing.  I have the second season in my bag and can't wait to dig into it this weekend.

Attention men: Gerard Butler doesn't want your skin to look tired

Commercials: they take you away from the TV show you're watching, but they're the reason the TV show is able to exist.  But sometimes they can be entertaining and are worthy of as much analysis as a well-produced drama.  I'm guessing that this commercial airs in the UK and wonder if they'd market and tailor the same product in the U.S. 

Without further ado:

Thoughts:
1) It's great that now women aren't the only ones who have to worry about having tired-looking skin
2) Gerard Butler's a fun choice for this kind of ad, because he can be all Manly and use his natural Scottish accent in the voiceover and do things like play rugby and poker, aggressively go in for a kiss with a woman, jump off a fire escape ladder, drive a Sexy Sportscar and, most importantly, FIGHT 5 SIGNS OF FATIGUE with a swipe of his hand (and, presumably, a squirt of that lotion on his face)
3) That moisturiser is a pretty blue color
4) Funny that most face/body care products aimed at men feature the same colors: charcoal grey/black, silver, bright orange and electric blue.  That goes for most products target at the male demographic, actually.
5) Mr. Butler is so commanding and in control of everything he does.  He makes Decisions and Takes Action, he Gets Stuff Done.  I know, this really should be categorized as an extension of point number 2 but I feel it bears special recognition.  Despite having portrayed the titular character in "Phantom of the Opera" and the deceased lover of the weepy movie "P.S. I Love You", he is (in this commercial, made to look and act like) the Ultimate Man's Man.
6) I like the way it ends with Mr. Butler speaking three short, direct sentences.  "Look Sharp. Not Tired. Enough Said."  Men, it's important that your skin can keep up with you, and Mr. Butler has presented his arguments in concise and persuasive terms.  He does not need to spend more time to convince you of the products properties.  Just get on with it-- go out and buy L'Oreal Paris Men Expert's new Hydra Energetic Anti-Fatigue Moisturiser. Now.

Xena

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I was eight or nine when I regularly watched Xena: Warrior Princess on TV.  This was, of course, back when Saturday meant watching TV all day long, even if it was nice out and I wasn't particularly interested in anything that was on air.  That's probably how I started watching this show in the first place; I watched what was then called kidsWB! from whenever I woke up until about noon or 1pm, which was when they stopped running cartoons and kids shows.  Then I switched to what was then UPN to watch this show.

And I can't believe that I watched this when I was eight or nine! This show had some hard PG-13 stuff going on-- no bad language but a lot of violence and adult situations.  And I can't believe that my dad (Happy Father's day!) was okay with the fact that I watched this show. Three theories:
1) He didn't realize what kind of show I was watching and assumed it was a very battle-oriented cartoon
2) He realized what kind of show it was but didn't care that it had a lot of, uh...action
3) He realized what kind of show it was but thought that it was okay for me to see someone involved in that much action because it was done by a princess

I haven't seen an entire episode since I was a kid, but I remember how I felt and reacted to certain scenes; I'm sure I'd find them much less scary and much more campy in nature, just as present-day me can handle the scene in Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back where Luke gets his hand cut off.  If I have time and remember to do so I'd like to go back and see a few of those special episodes.

Trailer review: Awake

This is not a typical trailer review in that this is for a TV series rather than a film.  Still, I really wanted to  document my reactions to it because  the trailer got me excited for what it presented :
- a detective procedural drama

- a story about a man living in parallel universes, tackled in a realistic way-- as a psychological, PTSD-type disorder-- rather than taking a science fiction slant. 

- a dark-haired Lucius Malfoy Jason Isaacs as the protagonist

- B.D. Wong playing another shrink in another NBC drama (this guy is too cool for school, did you know he once had a one-man show on Broadway?)

- an exploration of grief, choosing when and how to let go after the loss of a loved one

- another perspective on dreams vs. reality, of how to tell when you're awake and when you're not.  I bet this series was probably already in production before "Inception" came out, so the movie probably didn't have any impact on the creation of "Awake".  I think that in the wake (pun intended) of that film, this TV show could do well by exploring this field even further.  I've never seen Sliding Doors but I imagine that, since that movie deals with parallel universes/alternate realities, this show will draw something from that as well.  I'm most interested in the ways that the two worlds overlap and maybe influence each other, perhaps helping Isaacs character gather information from one side to help solve a case on the other.  (Slightly related digression: Recently I went to go pay for something in cash but realized that I only had one dollar when I thought I had ten ones; that night I dreamt that I looked in my wallet and found a Hamilton staring back at me.)

This series reminds me of another NBC detective procedural, called Life. I really liked it, but it got axed after two seasons.  I'll have to write another post on why I liked it so much.

Batman and beyond

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how I learned the word “apathy”.

Aah, Saturday morning cartoons on kidsWB...I thought this was the coolest title sequence evv-arr when this show first came out.  It’s a good representation of the moody, futuristic tone of the series.  This series is responsible for my fascination with Batman—I didn’t grow up reading comic books or anything like that; Batman has always struck me as particularly interesting.  He bears a lot in common with my other male literary heroes:  The Scarlet Pimpernel, Sherlock Holmes, the Count of Monte Cristo.  All employ disguises and live double lives, interpret the law in their own way and have a strict moral (or amoral) code or sense of justice and righting wrongs.

Just dance

Confession: I watched The Bachelorette  on Sunday.  I don't typically watch it but my curiosity (and boredom, mayhaps) got the best of me as I found myself flipping through the channels that night.  Don't judge me solely on that piece of information!

The bachelorette, a dentist with a passion for dance, brought 12 of her suitors to Las Vegas, divided them into two dance crews and gave them 30 minutes to come up with a dance (to impress her).  I felt bad for these men, who came to Sin City only to have to earn a mini-date with the bachelorette, not through luck or strategy but through their body movement and gestures.  It's one thing to move about in a sporatically lit club while mashed against other writhing bodies, and it's a completely different matter when dancing in sync with five other people on a stage.  I didn't actually watch their dances due to secondhand embarassment; I regularly make a fool of myself and I don't tend to savor watching others put themselves in potentially embarassing situations.

Dance seems to be a bigger deal with women, yeah? If a man isn't a good dancer it's not a big deal, not as expected; the man is apt to be able to laugh it off good-naturedly and proclaim that it in no way implies incompetence in any other field of experience.  Females tend to feel more self-conscious in the first place, worrying about things like do I smell okay?  Is my hair getting undone?  Are my breasts in place?  Does my muffin top show? I'm rather impulsive (or intuitive) and tend to Just Dance! and find out afterward that I was dangerously close to some sort of hair/wardrobe malfunction.  I haven't done ballet in almost ten years but I'm still somewhat flexible and aware of the limits of my body and how to move.  I've never been graceful but I've managed.

OMGPROM

Catalyst:

1) Glee's prom episode aired on Tuesday

2) News of a senior banned from prom for his public prom proposal

3) Disney movie "Prom" came out recently (I think last week)

Along with class rank and homecoming festivities, my high school didn't have the typical tradition of electing a prom king or queen.  But this doesn't mean that there was a lack in prom-related stress; you could practically cut it with a knife and spread it like cream cheese on a bagel or some other caloric spread that was fastidiously avoided by girls who purposely bought dresses that were a little too small.

I love this font

I don't watch TV shows on television.  Sometimes I'll catch clips of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" but otherwise I don't watch it, and only on a few occasions have I actually watched the show while it airs during its late night time slot.  When the show first came out I wanted to watch the show because I fell in love with the typeface for the show.

I generally don't like when words are written in ALL CAPS; besides the fact that it feels like the words are shouted to me, the writing can also come off as self-important.  But in this case it works for me.  I like the way the "T", "I" and "J" line up vertically.  I adore the stacking of the words, how they're like the steps of a staircase.  The bright aqua shows up fantastically against the black, and the yellow "with" adds a nice touch of separation between the phrases "late night" and "Jimmy Fallon".  The words are bold and sans serif , so the letters are mostly the same thickness throughout, without added strokes/feet at the ends of some letters. It's so simple, yet it makes a big impact and does a great job at subtly conveying what the show aspires to be: a bright, lively spot in the scope of nighttime entertainment. 

Briefly I wanted to have a mug with "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" written on in, exactly as it appears in the image above.  Sadly it seems that the NBC store only sells white mugs-- which still look nice, but the words don't pop as much off a light background.  I think that if I bought it I'd inadvertently let my tea get cold from staring at the writing.  I wish I could better articulate how much this design strikes me and draws me in.  Kudos to whoever put it together

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