Great work, everybody

I’d like to offer my most sarcastic thanks to the people on my flight to LAX last night (to a conference) who decided, after we had already been idling on the tarmac for about three hours due to some weather (including a trip back to the gate to refuel) that they needed the plane to go back to the gate again so they could deplane, delaying our takeoff by two more hours.

Some Lisa Simpson a few rows ahead pointed out that after three hours, passengers legally have the right to ask to deplane and he’s filing a complaint against the pilot blah blah. This was apparently true and he planted the seed in other passengers to disembark. So we had to turn back to the gate for the second time. One flight attendant said something about people getting violent up front and if that’s true, I guess they did want to defuse a potential situation. I didn’t want us to be on the news.

The thing is that when we had to go back to the gate a second time, our plane was 12^th in line to take off. If these people would have waited another half hour or so, we could have all left faster. People were yelling this in the hopes of convincing people they were inconveniencing everyone by getting off. But no, we had to go back to the gate. I’m all for travelers exercising their rights but what purpose did it serve to deplane when we were so close to takeoff? Did they just want a chance to yell at a manager? All the PHL flights were delayed so we got there quicker just staying on board. Luckily, the pilots still were able to work the extra hours and the attendants volunteered to stay, which was a concern because of union rules and such. A non-sarcastic thanks to them.

I’d like to point out that there were children in the rows in front and behind me and I didn’t hear a peep of complaint from them about the delay. It was the adults who were asking to deplane.

A flight that was supposed to take off at 4:38 p.m. left a little before 9. We cheered when we were finally in the air. After four hours of hearing the engine spring to life and then die out, were were finally gone. It’s strange flying west on the summer solstice because it’s already the longest day of the year and just gets longer because you’re chasing the sun. Twilight lingered very long. Anyway, I got to the hotel after 1 a.m. and got four hours of sleep and now have a full day of work ahead. Great work, everybody.

They gave us all free sandwiches. That was really all I wanted at that point: to eat before 3 a.m.

Fewer

Two paths diverged before me at the supermarket. I was carrying my two items, something for lunch and some milk, facing a choice of which lane to take to pay for my things.

There were two express lanes open. One read “15 items or less.” The other read “15 items or fewer.” If you look at just the math, either applies to me with my two items. But look at the linguistic issues in those two signs and a deeper dilemma emerges.

The “less” sign maybe dated from a less enlightened time, when the supermarket people thought such verbiage was correct. These days, we know better. After all, if you can break the nouns down into individual, tangible elements, it’s “fewer.” If the nouns are one amorphous mass, it’s “less.” So: less food but fewer items. The sign clearly says these are items so the “fewer” sign probably arose after the store wised up and honed its knowledge.

Or maybe it’s all just a trap for people like me, people who got an English degree 20 years ago and who now pay the mortgage by sitting in an office and recalling the differences between “lay” and “lie,” or “discreet” and “discrete.” If I go through the wrong checkout lane, will my college professors jump out from behind the gift card display and whack me over the head three times with a mortar board, symbolically revoking my BA degree?

In the end, it’s no contest. I skip the empty “less” lane and get behind two people in the lane marked “fewer.”

Taken for Granite

What do you suppose is the percentage of homeowners on HGTV shows who are full of shit when they insist on having a state-of-the-art kitchen because they’re always cooking elaborate meals and entertaining?

For once, I would like to see a couple admit that they don’t have people over that much and usually just order takeout. Instead, everyone needs a Viking range and countertops that run to five figures. I’m sure a lot of these homeowners do actually cook, or maybe since they’re moving into a new house, they’re turning over a new leaf and are invigorated to cook more. But there have to be some people on these shows who are faking it.

It all just seems very performative, as if people know all their family and friends will watch the show and they have to present the perfect face for TV. It’s like Facebook where you post only the pictures that make your life look really together and that you’re always doing amazing things but just outside the frame, there’s a pile of dirty clothes and unpaid bills.

Of course, there is no item more prized than granite countertops, or quartz or whatever the new material is. Some people on HGTV walk into a kitchen and look at old countertops like somebody is dangling a used tissue in front of them. I’ve seen people balk at installing new wiring or a new furnace but it didn’t really occur to them to pay for it by maybe not having $12,000 countertops. Or just live with the older kitchen and update it when you have the money, like everyone else does.

I can’t really blame them for wanting something nice in their homes, especially when they all seem to have a ton of money to play with. Our kitchen is old and I’d like to update it at some point, but for now the Formica works just fine. People on TV seem to love granite countertops almost to point of fetishizing them. If people are being honest, I wonder how many would admit that they’re basically spending a ton of money for countertops not to make some fancy risotto, but to have something glamorous to rest their pizza boxes on. 

Who is Wonder Woman?

We’ll be seeing Wonder Woman this weekend. I am happy they finally made a movie about her, as she was one of my favorites, especially back in the late ‘80s. Wonder Woman was the first female superhero, first appearing back in 1941, just a few years after Superman and Batman. She’s been continuously published for the last 76 years, which is an amazing accomplishment. Only she, Superman and Batman can say that, as those three were the only superheroes to survive the early ‘50s backlash against superhero comics.

Since the DC Universe reboots itself regularly, Wonder Woman has had her origin tweaked a few times. The one constant is that she is Princess Diana of Themyscira (Paradise Island), an island of immortal all-female Amazons who worshipped the Greek gods. Her mother, Queen Hippolyta, formed Diana as a baby out of clay, which the gods breathed life into. Hippolyta proposed a contest in which the most powerful Amazon would go to Man’s World and help fight World War II. Diana was forbidden to participate in the contest, but disguised herself and won it anyway. She fought with the Justice Society of America for years and had a daughter, codenamed Fury, with husband Steve Trevor. This was retconned to be the Earth 2 Wonder Woman, where the original DC superheroes lived. The original Wondy had a powerful feminist slant via creator William Marston.

The version most people are probably familiar with is the Silver and Bronze Age Wonder Woman, who debuted as part of Earth 1. She took the alias Diana Prince and worked for the Army while a member of the Justice League of America, flying an invisible jet. This was basically the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman from the ‘70s TV show. (In the comic, she doesn’t actually twirl around to change into her costume. She puts her tights on one leg at a time like everyone else.)

During the Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline in 1985, DC erased its multiple Earths, folding Earth 2 into the main Earth retroactively. The Golden Age Wonder Woman was exiled to a sort of heaven where she would live forever, as a sign of respect to the character. The Silver/Bronze Age Diana was devolved into nothingness and retroactively ceased to exist.

This is where I came in, as DC rebooted Wonder Woman’s story from the beginning, with the help of legendary creator George Perez. I loved, loved, loved this run. This time, the Amazons were reincarnated souls of women who had been murdered by men. Hippolyta was pregnant when she was murdered so she was able to reincarnate the soul of her daughter as Diana, again forming her out of clay.

The Greek gods Artemis, Athena, Aphrodite, Hestia, Demeter and Mercury gave her the powers of great strength, flight, endurance and speed, making her power rival Superman’s. She also wields several weapons, most notably the bracelets and Golden Lasso. The lasso (or lariat) is made of the Golden Girdle of Gaea, giving it the mythological powers to compel people to reveal the truth. In recent years, Wonder Woman has also used a sword, shield and axe. She’s pretty much at the top level of mortal power in DC.

This version of Wonder Woman had no alternate identity. She was mostly an ambassador from the Amazons to Man’s World. There were some nuances and contradictions to her character. She was an ambassador for peace who would go to war when she needed to. Unlike Superman, Diana would kill when it was necessary.

Eventually, Diana died in battle. (This led to a comic panel with Hippolyta cradling her daughter’s body and crying, “Princess Diana is dead” in an issue that came out about the same time as Princess Diana died in a car crash.) Hippolyta took over the Wonder Woman title and went back to the ‘40s to become a member of the Justice Society, which meant that there was a Golden Age Wonder Woman again. The gods could not leave their faithful servant Diana dead, so they brought her to Olympus and made her the goddess of truth. She eventually went back to Earth and reclaimed the Wonder Woman title.

In comic book terms, I suppose that’s ancient history. Wonder Woman has since been the daughter of Zeus and Hippolyta, and has been rebooted at least twice. But basically, the core elements remain: Wonder Woman is a force to be reckoned with.  

Rough Road

I was driving down a road on a beautiful Sunday recently when I saw the most evocative road sign: “Rough Road.” As I traveled down the milled blacktop, I pondered that orange sign and all its implications. Don’t we all have a rough road sometimes? In this workaday world, you’re just trying to get by. You fight traffic on the way to work, spar with your boss, and go home exhausted. You get your paycheck and it might be just enough to pay the mortgage and buy some new shoes for the kids. Your brakes might be making a squealing sound and your work shirt might be looking a little shabby. Your credit card balance might be a little high. That sign said so much about life and I appreciate the philosophical message PennDOT was sending to all those beleaguered drivers out there. God knows it’s not easy. It is a rough road. It is rough sometimes. But you know what? You can get by.

The Americans S5 E13: The Soviet Division

Philip and Stan each had an out from either side of the spy world. They were beaten down and ready to move on. Then a spouse and a girlfriend (who has to be a spy, right?) pulled each one back in.

Philip almost made it, too, nearly chucking that tape into the water. But he couldn’t quite divest himself of his duty and couldn’t ignore that Isaac Breeland is getting a promotion to the head of the CIA’s Soviet Division. It’s too tempting a target. So the Jennings family will forgo their (unworkable) plan to move the kids to the USSR and remain as fake Americans, with Philip handling the Breeland mission while Elizabeth takes on everything else.

After an ugly scene, Henry will actually get to go to the boarding school instead of ending up in a strange country. Paige will get to continue her work at the food pantry, without religion, which pleases her mother. With Pastor Tim gone, she may be free to follow in her parents’ footsteps. I think Elizabeth might be happy to be staying, too, although she’d never admit it. In a montage set to “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” she stares at her closet full of clothes, her TV and her dishwasher, maybe realizing that she might miss the conveniences of America if she had to start over. Or was she realizing that maybe Tuan was right and that she was too wrapped up in “petty bourgeois concerns”?

What a nasty piece of work Tuan is, chalking up the near-suicide of a troubled teen as something petty and bourgeois. What a nasty scene Pasha’s wrist-slitting was, with the bed soaked in his blood, like the sad remnants of everything Philip and Elizabeth have done for their country thus far. Evgheniya and Pasha will return to the Soviet Union, while Alexei will stay in America.

Surely Philip sees something of himself and his family in that. “Do we have to tear this family apart, too?” Philip asks Claudia. They are realizing that some prices are too much to pay.

After the darkness of the Pasha scene, Martha’s scene in the playground was overwhelming. She’s in a strange country and can’t return home to her parents or husband. But now she’ll have this adorable young daughter, Olya. Children were all she wanted back in America, and she was so lonely even with Clark. Martha’s face registers her joy. Maybe she’ll be OK. After the show put her through hell, what a beautiful grace moment for the character.

When Elizabeth took Tuan aside, I thought she might have another “You’re not in the mood? Well, you get in the mood!” dressing down like she did with Paige last season. Instead, her speech had fewer fireworks but was just as cutting. “You’re not going to make it,” she tells him. “It’s too hard, the work we do, to do it alone.”  

Bingo! That’s the point of the season, and maybe the series. So many fellow spies, like William and Kate, ended up dead or emotional basketcases, with nobody having their backs. Philip and Elizabeth have each other and they have a life, unlike people like Claudia or Gabriel. They’ve never been closer or more unified than they have this season.

“I’m making you stay. I don't want to see you like this anymore,” Elizabeth tells a broken Philip. They’ve come a long way from season three, when he was breaking down right in front of her and she shushed him because Reagan was on TV. They couldn’t have gotten to this point, with each spouse wanting to sacrifice so much for the other, and not for the mission, without the past season.

Season five of The Americans didn’t have the crazy spy missions of past years or the dizzying heights of season four, but I appreciated the slow burn and focus on character. I’ll have to judge it after seeing season six, since so much of it was set-up for the final season. But it’s still television at the very height of its potential.