Right of Way

Don't you dare shake your head at me. I could see you there even through the rush-hour glare. It was just an entitled little shake of the head and it got me.

Let's get something straight here: Regardless of any traffic laws, I have the right of way here. I live here. I am a homeowner on this block. And I am trying to pull out of my driveway and go to work. This means I do not need the hint of attitude from you, who do not live on this block and are simply using the common driveway as a shortcut.

I know people don't mean to be inconsiderate when they cut through our driveway. It's just that bit of attitude that pisses me off. It's the little head shake and/or eye roll that seem to say, "Ugh. Some people." So drop the attitude, sweetie. Drop it right now.

See, I live here and park here so I have to use this driveway. You do not live here and can drive the extra 50 feet and use the actual street. You actually can. I know it's rough to drive all that way but it's actually not impossible. You just need to be a little less lazy and a little more considerate of the people who live here.

Sometimes I feel like I'm invisible here. 

I refuse to give an inch in that driveway to people who don't live on our block but tear through without regard for residents' cars or pedestrians. Someday someone's going to come whipping around that corner and hit my car or worse, hit a kid. So I won't give anybody else the right of way. If you don't care about me, then I don't see why I should care about you.

Meanwhile, there is utilities work happening all week in our driveway. I am working from home today and they started work while I was at the gym, so now I can’t park in my own driveway because there is a truck and a huge hole. We were supposed to get notices from Delmarva but of course, we did not, so I’m calling to complain.

And that stupid driveway is just another reason why I cannot wait to get out of this house and live somewhere I won't have to worry about pulling into the Daytona 500 every morning on my way to work.

How do Marvel and DC reboot their universes?

Retcons and universe reboots are common in comics today. Soon Marvel will have its Secret Wars event, expected to reshape the universe by joining the main 616 universe with the Ultimates universe. As the company moves offices to the West Coast, DC is having Convergence, an event that will at least temporarily reintroduce some concepts that the universe jettisoned in its last reboot. However, the way each company has historically approached reboots is very different.

I don’t believe the Marvel Universe has ever had a hard reboot, as in a cataclysm that sweeps the entire universe and results in wholesale changes. (An example of a hard reboot in the movies was the end of X-Men: Days of Future Past, when messing around with the timestream resulted in resetting the franchise to the original 2000 continuity.) When Marvel wants to retcon stories or throw out ideas that are outdated or unpopular, it tends to go for smaller in-story changes.

For example, when they retconned that Jean Grey was never Phoenix (originally), there wasn’t some big universal reset that affected all of Marvel. They just explained that Phoenix took Jean’s place and her original body was intact. For the most part, Marvel Universe history is one unbroken line and that has a real appeal. You don’t have to wonder if a story from the past is still valid.

DC has a tradition of huge event changes and that seems more suited to the company’s more complicated history. Most of its World War II heroes stayed active for decades and the company had to invent the concept of an Earth-2 to explain why the older heroes existed alongside their modern versions. (Golden Age Superman lived on Earth-2 while Silver/Bronze Age Superman lived on Earth-1.) As DC acquired more characters from other comic companies, it added more Earths for them to live on and it got more confusing. 

Almost all the Earths got whited out in the 1985 series Crisis on Infinite Earths. This series featured every major DC character ever (except Green Lantern Hal Jordan, oddly) fighting the Anti-Monitor, who was using anti-matter to destroy one universe after another. Several A-list heroes died. I thought it was a great story, the ultimate in heroes teaming up to defeat a huge menace, but some people didn’t like how it retconned away the rich multiversal tradition. During Crisis, the heroes went back to the beginning of time and prevented the creation of the multiverse. There was one Earth, one Superman, and many of the Golden Age stories effectively never happened.

Despite some small retcons, this was the status quo at DC for years. In 2005, Infinite Crisis brought back the concept of the multiverse. The survivors of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths — Golden Age Superman and Lois Lane, Alexander Luthor and Superboy Prime (who hailed from the Earth the readers live on) — had been spirited away to safety. They saw how dark the new DC Universe was getting and decided to bring back the purer values of Earth-2 and the Golden Age. Superboy punched time (this actually happened) and messed up continuity, bringing back multiple Earths and resurrecting characters who were dead. There were 52 Earths, one for each publishing week of the year.

The last significant reboot came a few years ago. During Flashpoint, the Flash screwed around with time to prevent his parents’ murders. As a result, Bruce Wayne was murdered instead of his parents, Ma and Pa Kent did not discover Superman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman waged bloody war against one another’s kingdoms, etc.

From the wreckage of this short-lived alternate universe came the current status quo, dubbed the Nu52. This new universe redesigned many characters. All the heroes got younger and all their previous exploits throughout DC history are supposed to have taken place in the last five years. Some characters have seemingly never existed and that has led to some confusion about what old stories are still in continuity.

After 30 years of reading comics, all this rebooting and retconning proves one thing to me: It really was simpler when we were kids.

The Americans S3 E9: Do Mail Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?

An elderly bookkeeper goes to the office at night to get some work done and with her dying breath, condemns Elizabeth’s entire way of life as evil.

Betty may be the first person ever to call out Elizabeth to her face. The spy lets her guard down, because she no doubt sees her own dying mother in the woman and because she’s going to kill her anyway so there’s no point in her lying about her life and family. What the woman says is a slap in the face: You have children and this is what you do? You think killing an old woman who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time makes the world a better place? THANK YOU.

That whole scene was brilliant and hard to watch. At first you might think the pill overdose is a mercy but it was more pragmatic because Elizabeth had to make it look like a natural death so the police wouldn’t be looking for her (now I wonder if that woman wrote a note while she was alone). We needed to see that woman’s excruciating end to see the real collateral damage these spies inflict. As much as I kind of root for Philip and Elizabeth just for the thrill and their performances, this is the ugly truth of what they do, so the old woman’s words were a slap in the face to the viewers, too.

This is another example of The Americans giving real weight to smaller characters because I had so much empathy for that woman and the life story she laid out. Kudos to Lois Smith for playing a hell of a part. They could have played it as a throwaway but the whole season could turn on her condemnation of Elizabeth. She’s always been the more ideological of the Jenningses but this could plant the seed to make her doubt her recruitment of Paige. Elizabeth has rarely been that rattled.

The woman died for a mail robot. As dark as that is, I was thrilled to see that piece of machinery get some spotlight. There’s never too much of the mail robot. At first I was disappointed to see it out of commission but then I realized that the episode’s title, “Do Mail Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?” was a reference to the fact that the mail robot spent the episode asleep. Brilliant.

Maybe Elizabeth’s murder of that woman was a reaction to letting the Afrikaner go last episode and maybe she feels she can’t spare any more mercy. The whole thing was moot anyway because Hans shot the guy in the eye and strangled him to impress Elizabeth both professionally and personally.

Meanwhile, over at the Westerfeld apartment, Martha has either gone full Looney Tunes or is playing a long con with Philip. That was the most suspenseful spaghetti dinner in history. It looked like they shot the scene to seem like Martha was going to kill Philip as there was something vaguely horror movie about it. She gives her KGB husband some information of real value about the mail robot and indirectly gets that bookkeeper killed. It was unsettling to know that she’s both in denial about the seriousness of her situation and aware of what she’s doing. Martha probably knows she’s trapped with a man who could kill her and just goes along with him because what love he gives her is worth it. It’s better to pretend.

I’m realizing just how much Martha and Stan have in common without knowing it and that if the subterfuge of either one is uncovered, neither could feel self-righteous against the other. Each is betraying America for a loved one. Stan has flirted with this before for the love of Nina but his working with Oleg seems like it’s a new level of betrayal because now he’s messing with a Soviet defector. Zinaida, ever opaque, continues to intrigue me. She seems curiously unrattled by the intruder in her hotel room.

Philip doesn’t seem like he’s going to take any more from Gabriel or the Center and made it clear he’ll go to any lengths to protect his family. Maybe this episode was a turning point for him like it was for Elizabeth.

Hey, what's the deal with racism?

Stupid Starbucks. I was all set on writing today about the #RaceTogether initiative that turned out to be a #StupidIdea when the company had to up and cancel it. Race is a hot button subject so I was going to offer a few tips on starting a conversation about race with servers in an inoffensive way, such as:

“Hey, what’s the deal with racism?”

“See, white people order coffee like this. And black people order coffee like this.”

“I’m sorry, but I thought slavery was just terrible.”

“Ferguson, am I right?”

“Systemic racial discrimination. Ugh, I can’t even.”

Now the coffee company goes and ruins my post by canceling the whole thing. I’m really amazed nobody who worked at this company actually realized how dumb the whole thing was before they announced it. I guess nobody wants to be honest with the boss when he’s on a roll about something. Nobody in the company realized that people on their way to work don’t want to stop and chat about racial issues when they are in a hurry to get coffee. Similarly, nobody realized that busy servers had better things to do than strike up a chat about a loaded issue.

I’m not sure that Starbucks customers were the audience for this anyway, not because of any racism but because some of them seem so picky. Thom will stomp around in high dudgeon if they write Tom on his coffee cup or (God forbid) serve him half-caff instead of one-third caff like he requested. You really want to introduce a touchy subject with someone like that?

Of course, rather than just admit that the whole idea is completely asinine, Starbucks is patting itself on the back by saying, “At least we started conversation,” which is the refuge of any company that does something dumb. What struck me about #RaceTogether is how very unnecessary it is. The company acted like nobody out there is discussing race and we need an outlet for it.

The truth is, people everywhere are constantly discussing race. People talk about race-related issues around the dinner table or at parties or bars or churches or in work. You probably can't read a major newspaper or magazine or website without finding something related to race. Ferguson and Eric Garner were conversations on race; they were loud and ugly conversations at times but they are still a prominent recent example of talking about race. For years some people have talked about having a “national conversation about race” as if we’ll have some nationally televised town meeting where Patty from Peoria can call in and chat about racial profiling with … I guess some sort of race panel? We need discussion to continue but I don’t see why that requires coffee cups.

My point is, for good and for ill, this conversation has been buzzing in America for decades if not centuries and it never needed a latte to facilitate it.  

The Americans S3 E8: Divestment

Only on a show like The Americans would the interrogation of FBI employees be almost as harrowing as setting a man on fire. Almost, but not quite. That execution of the white South African was the most brutal thing yet on this show. Even the hardened Elizabeth and Philip looked appalled. I’m wondering if their reaction was partially because they met someone even more vicious than they are. It’s certainly a message from the South Africans not to mess with them. Maybe the human tire fire held a mirror up to them so the Soviet spies decided to be merciful to the other South African who set the bomb.

It’s kind of a neat trick linking the Soviets to apartheid. We have a philosophy on the wrong side of history (communist USSR) supporting a philosophy on the right side of history (anti-apartheid). It’s complex because I want to oppose the KGB but I support their efforts to bring down the racist South African regime but I don’t support setting people on fire. It reinforces one of the show’s themes: Who are you rooting for?

Nina again has very little control over her fate. Again, they are using her as a puppet, this time sent to seduce Anton, the kidnapped Refusenik scientist. First, they sent her through a humiliation conga line with the confrontation with the former Rezidentura director who slept with her and got shipped back to the USSR over some smuggled diamonds. Then she faced further nastiness from the understandably bitter scientist. She is in an impossible situation, with her only hope of freedom being lying and further betrayals of her countrymen.

Those scenes of Walter Taffet grilling the FBI employees were deliciously tense. Taffet is very intimidating and I loved moment when he walked straight toward Martha, probably terrifying her, before going to talk to someone else. Alison Wright is again doing a great job playing someone trying to keep her cool and lie credibly to her boss.

That scene with Martha and Clark at her apartment was spectacular. Martha acknowledges something I never realized before: Walter Taffet has the job Clark supposedly has. So if Taffet is conducting the internal investigation, just exactly who is her husband? She asks who he is and he tells her, “I’m your husband. I’m the man you married.” This is not the source of comfort that Clark intended but instead it’s horrifying for Martha as she continues to realize just how trapped she is. She married this man and she betrayed her country. She was duped into the former and she didn’t realize she was doing the latter but she did them just the same.

Notice that Clark didn’t answer Martha’s question. He never told her who he was but his evasiveness was as much an answer for her as if he’d told her. The way he professed his love to his wife was a creepy callback to the flashback showing Philip’s KGB training in seduction.

Martha knows she’s his hostage. I think she’ll turn on him and come clean with the FBI. If that happens, once Philip realizes, she’s done.

Th Amer S E: Divestm

Martha gets called on the carpet by Walter Taffet, who is investigating the bugged pen in Gaad’s office. She is understandably squirrely as she put the bug in the pen. There are many questions about office supply protocol. Then Taffet interviews Agent Aderholt. And then they …

Paige is in the library looking up newspaper articles on microfiche. She finds an article about Gregory, the Jennings family friend, who was a civil rights activist. And then she …

Over in the Soviet Union, Nina finds out that her sentence will be much reduced if she can get close to the Israeli defector scientist and ensure he is still committed to the cause. And then she …

In the most horrific murder scene thus far, the South African executes the pro-apartheid guy by putting a tire around his torso and lighting him on fire. This disturbs even the hardened Elizabeth and Philip. The Jennings later let the other South African go after finding the bomb he planted. And then they …

No, you’re not having a stroke. The reason this review is so disjointed is because we got about halfway before Comcast’s on demand crapped out on us. Thanx. I wasn’t at all interested in how any of the storylines panned out on my favorite show. It froze up and we couldn’t get it to unpause and just stopped watching because it was getting late and we are old. Nothing like paying exorbitant cable fees and then not being able to do something simple like watch a TV show. We only turned to Comcast anyway because The Americans was not yet available on Amazon instant video. We will try again and hopefully I will have a full review Monday.

Spring comes when it comes

Really, it hasn’t been a bad winter in the Delaware Valley. It felt colder than normal, and it did seem like there were more single-digit mornings than usual, but we only got like 22 inches of snow, which is average.

The general consensus of the arrival of spring is “Oh God, I’m so sick of it.” I … guess I’m sick of it, too? We had that snowstorm in March so maybe it's that recent event that’s on people’s minds. But we hardly live in Boston or Buffalo (not that it stops people around here from walking around emoting like the Tony Awards committee is following them). We were pretty much snow-free in January and that’s a big chunk of the season. This winter just hasn’t bothered me.

Winter doesn’t bother me too much anymore anyway (Christ, did I just quote “Let It Go”?). I love summer but just stopped caring about the cold some time ago. Even last year, with the snow totals that were actually horrifying, didn’t get to me too much. Weather only bothers me when it’s really unseasonable; a cool day in June will leave me livid but a cold February day won’t. Spring will come when it comes. It’s never not.

Spring is of course due to come tomorrow. As every year, when the stars align, the calendar flips immediately and permanently to spring. No snow will occur until December and if under some bizarre circumstance it does, we’ll all fall dramatically to our knees and cry, “I thought it was supposed to be spring!” and expect an answer from an uncaring universe. All those people in line for free water ice at Rita’s (why pay the exorbitant $2 when you can wait in a long line?) will be able to do so in tanktops. There will be no cold winds until many months from now.

And of course, April snow, as rare as Haley’s comet, is completely off the table.

Freeloading

Remember awhile back when I wrote about that winner who voluntarily moved into a dumpster for some reason? Just pulled up stakes and started sleeping in a receptacle meant for trash to prove some point about sustainability or whatever?

Well, the raging midlife crisis/psychotic break continues. Now he’s involved in a project that necessitates him sleeping on 99 couches on 99 different nights. The goal, based on this person’s website, is getting closer look at how the various diverse groups of people in Austin live, so he’ll be spending a night in their company with a photographer to document the experience. He calls it “a social experiment packaged as an overnight home tour.”

So for all the people who are down on their luck and need to stay with friends for a period of time, maybe you could adopt that euphemism: “a social experiment packaged as an overnight home tour.” It certainly sounds better than the usual terminology for people who crash on other’s couches: “homeless.” At first this guy asked for sponsors for his fainting couch test drive but deleted that request, perhaps realizing that the regular old people with nowhere to go don’t have financial sponsorship or get book deals, so why should he.

This seems like overkill in that if you want to document the many different ways in which city denizens live, it’s not really necessary to live with those people. You can just take some photos and publish them like photographers and writers have always done. It also seems like overkill in that it is freeloading.

But hey, maybe this guy is onto something. Here’s an idea for a social experiment that I can parlay into free goods and services and a book deal. I will eat at 99 restaurants in 99 days for free. Regular people and corporate sponsors will pay for my meals. This is part of a grand social experiment so I can write a thinkpiece about how Americans eat. I will also post photos of the food on Instagram because that’s a thing nobody is doing: Posting pictures of food online.

Don’t you want to participate? This is just one example. I’m sure I will come up with many more freeloading opportunities. America was made for go-getters like me.

The Americans S3 E7: Walter Taffet

Most of the main characters of The Americans took a back seat this week to focus on one of the more fascinating secondary players, Martha. The Westerfeld marriage was bound to fall apart sooner or later and it’s all happening due to a pen that ran out of ink. Agent Aderholt is proving himself to be very sharp as the one who found the bug in that pen in Gaad’s office.

With that discovery, Martha woke from her dream. You can almost see her screaming “Oh God, what did I do?!” in her head. Alison Wright gave a great performance in putting across her panic. I wonder if Martha knows how screwed she is and how ridiculous her secret marriage to a CIA agent will sound if she tells her superiors. She also is probably realizing she bugged her boss’s office and there isn’t much of an excuse for that.

The tension of the bug discovery was riveting and many viewers were probably echoing Martha’s “Oh shit” at the revelation. This show has done a number on my level of suspicion because when Martha was destroying the bug in the stall, I was convinced the woman next to her was another spy. Also riveting was the delicious tension at Martha’s apartment as her panic turned to something closer to a cold, bitter resolve toward Philip.

There are deep consequences to Clark taking Martha to his fake apartment. Now she knows where to find him when he’s not at her place. I can see her following him there after he leaves her and finding the spies using it as a safe house. She already knows about Philip’s wig so I think she’ll put two and two together and realize, if not that her husband is a Soviet spy, certainly that he’s manipulating her. Plus, Martha’s got a gun.

The question is how much Philip suspects, if he bought her lie about leaving her purse at work, and what he’ll do about it. I think the smart play would be for the show to give Martha some control and not leave her as a victim. Maybe she’ll go to the FBI and come clean. Maybe she’ll take matters into her own hands with Philip. Or maybe Philip will kill her. That last scenario would be hard for the viewers and for Philip, as it would really test the limits of how ruthless he can be. In any case, I am betting the bug finder Walter Taffet is the key to this and that the FBI will discover her. You don’t name an episode after a character who won’t be consequential.

Meanwhile, the Jennings marriage seems to vacillate between passive aggressive sniping over Paige and genuine tenderness (kind of like a real marriage). It was refreshing to see Elizabeth not flip out over Philip’s long-lost son but comfort him since the kid is in Afghanistan. I liked that they waited a few beats for Elizabeth’s reaction as she processed the news. 

The other big development this episode was the kidnapping of the South African at the diner. It’s one of the cases in which this show confuses me because I am better able to follow the emotional sequences than the political intrigue. The car chase and accident were thrilling. Elizabeth’s murder of that witness was ice cold, even for her.

Best of all, we got another Fleetwood Mac montage out of it.

Daylight Saving Forever

Daylight Saving Time is a complete disaster. When I woke up last Sunday and Monday, having lost an hour of sleep, I simply could not function. I had to call out of work and couldn’t make it to the shower or feed myself. I felt like I got hit by a truck and then that truck got hit by a truck. At one point, I honestly thought I was going to die. The cruel thing is that by the time I return to normal, it will be November and we’ll have to change the clocks again.

That’s why every year, some people question why we change the clocks at all. Why torture ourselves? I used to agree but then something occurred to me: the solution is not to eliminate Daylight Saving Time but to expand it dramatically.

But instead of doing it based on some farmers, let’s change the clocks whenever it’s more convenient for our lives. Let’s manipulate time to get ourselves out of things we don’t want to do or get us closer to things we do want to do. Here are some suggestions of when to change that clock on the microwave:

Spring forward at these times to bypass these situations:

4 p.m. every Friday

When your flight is delayed at least an hour

At the beginning of Mass

During a lengthy wait for a table at a restaurant

At night when you’re tired but it’s too early to go to bed without feeling like you’re wasting the day

11 a.m. when you’re hungry for lunch

When that coat of paint needs to dry

In line for a wake of a person you didn’t know very well and it’s kind of awkward seeing the family

After the opening act leaves and you’re antsy for the headliner to take the stage

Right before an oral presentation

Fall back at these times to savor these situations:

Running late for work

Just before the vacation house rental ends

1 a.m. New Year’s Day

Just missed seeing something funny live on TV

During the afterglow of sex

Shortly after dessert

When Alex Trebek is breathing down your neck and the music is playing but you just can’t think of the answer

After someone on your team scores while you were out of the room

Last call

Let’s manipulate time and change it to suit our needs so nobody knows what the hell hour or day it is!

Who is the strongest Marvel superhero?

It’s pretty much the Hulk. His strength has been measured at the highest level in the Marvel Universe, Class 100, but nobody has ever documented the full extent of his strength because the Hulk gets stronger the madder he gets and would you want to test this out? This is why every strong character in Marvel has had a battle with the Hulk.

Class 100 means a superhero can lift 100 tons, according to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition from the ‘80s. I don’t know how they test it but it’s just a way to measure the unmeasurable. A few other select characters in Marvel are at Class 100, including gods Thor and Hercules, the Avenger Wonder Man, the Sentry, Squadron Supreme member Hyperion and the Shi’ar Imperial Guard member Gladiator (the last three are Superman analogues).

Aside from the Hulk, Thor is basically the strongest mortal in the Marvel Universe and may be more powerful overall as he has abilities that the Hulk lacks. Most Avengers fights are pretty much over when Thor is in town. However, he isn’t stronger than Superman, as established in the JLA/Avengers miniseries. Superman was able to knock out Thor, although it took everything he had and left Superman staggering. This led to the awesome scene of the other Avengers dogpiling on Superman and beating the tar out of him for beating up one of their own.

Close to Class 100 strength are heroes like the Thing, Colossus, Namor the Sub-Mariner and She-Hulk. The She-Hulk is not quite as powerful as her cousin since anger isn’t her motivator, but she makes up for it by keeping her intelligence and personality, and is definitely one of the heavy hitters of Marvel. Just below these characters in terms of strength are those like Iron Man, the Vision, Giant Man/Goliath/whatever Hank Pym calls himself, and Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers). Rogue was very strong, as she permanently absorbed part of Carol’s strength, but they’ve screwed with her powers over the years so I don’t know if she still is.

All the Asgardians are pretty strong and I’m sure Odin could beat down his son if he wanted to. Some of the more cosmic characters like the Silver Surfer have superhuman strength but they have other powers and don’t need to do much heavy lifting. I’m sure Galactus could pick up the planet but he has other things to do (like eating the planet).

Wolverine and Captain America are strong but not really superhuman. Cap technically doesn’t have any super powers as he is as strong as it’s possible for a human to be without being superhuman. I always liked that message: That Captain America is basically just a human like you and me and it’s possible for anyone to attain his strength. 

The Americans S3 E6: Born Again

This was a quiet episode of The Americans but still managed to ramp up the tension. For a second, while Elizabeth and Paige walked through Gregory’s neighborhood, I thought Elizabeth was just going to flat-out say, “We’re communists.” It’s a smart play to link communism with the revolutionary spirit Paige is already showing through her religion and I thought this was what they were going to do. I’m happy this plot is moving along because as fascinating as the psychology behind the young illegals program is, I am ready to see some action on it.

Baptisms bookended this episode and maybe it should have been called “Born Again and Again.” What denomination is their church that it uses immersion baptism? It seems annoying because you have to dry off and get changed and ugh. A sprinkle on the head is fine.

So Nina betrays her fellow prisoner for a steak dinner. That woman’s guilty conscience must be staggering her at this point as she couldn’t even look at the other woman (who by the way is a pretty good screamer). Still, her description of her situation was poetic: “One lover was a communist and one was a capitalist. I was whatever they wanted me to be.” She is still letting others manipulate her, this time for survival.

I feel bad for Philip at this point. He’s clearly disgusted with himself for the inappropriate contact with Kimmy. Now even after she gets the hint that they can’t sleep together, you think he could breathe a sigh of relief with the bug planted, but Gabriel makes his spy keep up contact with her once a week for the duration. Now the flashback to the spy training as prostitutes seems even skeevier. Gabriel hinted that the two did need to become intimate but I wonder how far FX will let this play out. Even if that actress is 18, how much tolerance will an audience have for even implied underage sex? Philip is also letting his own soap opera with the possible illegitimate son bleed into his spy work, just as Elizabeth let her history with rape bleed into her act for the sailor in Virginia last season. They confess their deepest feelings to strangers while playing a part, which must offer some safety.  

How does Philip get all this done in a day? He spends nights at Martha’s, has to work this underage source, has to keep up the façade of working for a travel agency and now might have another son. How does he not just collapse?

Speaking of sons, I enjoyed Henry’s questions about EST and how Stan and the girlfriend couldn’t exactly answer, “But what is it?” We need more EST scenes because I will never not be amused. Oh, and hi, Stan’s son! I thought you died.

I was also really amused by Paige catching Elizabeth smoking and the fact that the master spy couldn’t hide something so prosaic from her kids. Kid, if you think smoking is shameful, you don’t even want to know what other secrets your mom is keeping. Last week she dropped a car on a guy. The scene with the Jenningses smoking pot was also fun, as it’s so rare that these two share an actual laugh, even if that laugh was about their fundamentally morbid spy work. Of course, it all turned dark in a hurry with Elizabeth understandably upset about Philip’s prolonged seduction of a teenager.

Finally, Martha should dump Clark and marry that new FBI guy. He was the only one who listened to her about the classified files on the mail robot. I also thinking the mail robot should have its own spinoff or be integral to the resolution of season three in some way.

Overall, this was a table setting episode, where nobody got crushed by a car or stuffed into a suitcase. But the season is at its midpoint and I think things will ramp up shortly.

Dimwitted Smile

“It’s fine,” you say right after I have explained why the complication in question is not fine. True, it is not life or death but it is a subject of some concern and things do not automatically become “fine” just because we wave a magic wand and declare them so.

I am speaking to a straw man here. I have nobody and nothing specific in mind here. It’s just like metaphorically, when I have carefully organized all my plans into neat piles of paper and in walks the living tornado, sifting through the piles and getting everything out of order and acting incredulous when I indicate that you’re inconveniencing me.

“Whatever,” you tell me — that magic “Whatever” that gets you off the hook and dismisses something that may be important to somebody else. Somebody who’s not you. Of course, it’s easy to tell me a breezy “Whatever” when you don’t have to deal with the fallout. You can just walk away from other people’s problems and skip through the fields of wildflowers that exist mainly in your mind. Throw in a dismissive hand gesture with that “Whatever” and we’re all set.

Come to think of it, you screw up a lot of things, don’t you? You screw up and laugh it all off and say, “Oh, I don’t let things like that get to me.” There’s a fine line between insouciance and irresponsibility. Maybe once in awhile if you’d let something get to you just a little bit and stop singing that chorus of “la dee da,” you wouldn’t be such a screw up and you’d become the kind of person that people could count on. 

Oh, am I being harsh? Whatever! It’s fine! You just keep on smiling that dimwitted smile and listen to the calliope music in your head.

Slap Me in the Face

The world is not the blur I wish it were. It seems to sit, stubbornly and ignorantly like a car trying to turn left without a signal, not moving over far enough to let anybody by.

It's all just that molded vinyl smell that lingers too large in the dining room. The ceiling will not repair itself. The market will not bend to my will no matter how much spleen and heart and skeleton force it. So many things here will not move. True, not as much snow as expected has fallen but I stare at these stupid, stubborn patches as one month refuses to yield to the other.

Like a dervish, I whirl and worry, halfway between vuvuzela triumph and colicky disaster. Ultimately all I do is sit on cinderblocks and rev my engine and mix my metaphors.

The present lingers and I want the sunlight of the future to slap me in the face so hard that I forget my name.