Rompin'

*Arrested Development (Season 4) - ugh. I couldn't finish the new season. I wish I hadn't believed the hype. The show just couldn't survive the real estate crash.
*Archer (Seasons 1, 2, and part of 3) - Hilarious! Plot's wearing thin in the third season, but the first two were pretty funny.
*Dexter (Season 7) - Yeah, I know, I got it again even after I said I would stop. They're recycling plots now, and the subplots continue their soap opera-y decline, but there's only one more season after this, so why not?
*Rape in the Fields - If ever there was a reason to reform immigration, this is it. Incredibly disturbing, sad, moving, devastating. It took me a while to watch because I knew it would be hard, but it is important to hear these stories.
*Game of Thrones - So much has already been said about that second to last episode. It's HBO, so you know something crazy's going to happen, and then the last episode won't be that exciting. But yeah, that was pretty gory.
*Mad Men (Season 6)- This season was definitely uneven, and they tried to make you forget that by putting a surprise at the end. As much as I've enjoyed the show, I am glad that season 7 will be the last one.
*Maron - While seeking something new to fill the summer slump, I watched an episode of Marc Maron's new show, based on positive meta-critic reviews. It's pretty funny, and would like to watch more, but it seems like they aren't adding anymore to Hulu, which is also missing the new Wilfred. It's like they want me to sign up for some kind of subscription service or something?

I read Yellow Birds this month, a novel written by a soldier about fighting in Iraq. It's a beautifully written, sad portrait of the affects of war on a young generation. I also read Fun Home, a graphic novel memoir about the author's relationship with her father. I enjoyed it, even if I missed some of the many literary references. I just started Tai Pei. Its drug-induced passive style of prose is jarring at first. The main character's constant, online self-conscious existence reminds me of the best experimental films. I always like to see something so strange be read by so many people.

C'mon!

*Arrested Development - In my failed attempt to binge watch all the episodes before the new season came onto Netflix, I made it through all but the last few by Sunday, and finished the rest yesterday. So close! A lot of good friends recommended this show, but I couldn't get into it and didn't see what the appeal was. That is, until a recent explanation of the recurring jokes that helped me finally committed to it. Of all the many in the show, I think my favorites are the chicken dance and the ice cream sandwich. I'm withholding judgment on the new episodes until I have a chance to binge watch them as well! Huzzah!
*Archer - Had I not been already decided to go for gold with Arrested Development, I would have spent the whole month watching this. I've made a huge mistake.
*Simpsons (Season 24) - Bonus episode for the end of the season, one pretty funny, the other not so much. Forget-me-now.
*The Retirement Gamble (Frontline)  What an eye-opener about how Wall Street's profiting at the expense of our retirement using fees. They tried to show some tricks to simplify the system, but it seems more like they're not tricks, they're illusions.
*Mad Men Season 6 - It's been a bit uneven this season. Sometimes I am bored (Man With a Plan, The Better Half), and the characters feel tired (Her?), and sometimes it kicks into high gear (For Immediate Release, The Crash), and I love it again.
*Game of Thrones - With wedding bells ringing, family is the most important thing. Only 2 left!
*Behind the Candelabra - An HBO special to fill a void left without one week of Game of Thrones, it was interesting to learn about Liberace. It used to be "Adopt me," but now it can be, "Marry me!" Well, at least, it can be in some states.
*Colbert Report - Trevor Potter's back to talk about the 501(c)(4) IRS fiasco! I was so excited, but it was so short and it wasn't all I had hoped for. I know, it's light treason. I read The Great Gatsby to prepare for the cOlbert Book Club, which was well worth it just so I could be sure I got all the jokes.

Whoooosh!

Biking through some beautiful spring days, I've spent more time outside than inside. While in, here's what I've watched:
*House of Cards (Season 1) -  worth watching simply to spot the Baltimore locations, but otherwise pretty indulgent and ridiculous. What is with the ladies on this show?
*Simpsons (Season 24) - Came back from a break for not much. 
*Bob's Burgers - Always good for a wacky chuckle or two.
*Good Wife - So...aside from a few fun legal story lines, the characters are wearing pretty thin again here. But next week looks exciting. What does it say when the best part of the show is the "Next Time On..." preview?  
*Parks & Recreation - A few funnier moments lately - I'm enjoying the animal control subplot.  
*Project Runway  -  Yawn. Only a couple left, so I might as well finish this one. After falling asleep during the last episode, I just started fast-forwarding through all the faux-drama. Who has an hour and a half for this? 
*Game of Thrones - I'm still trying to figure out who's who and what happened where, but YEAH! Dragons! and Arctic antics! 
*Mad Men - Thanks to a new Roku, we can stream from Amazon! So far, so depressing.
*Girls (Season 2) - The first half of the season is pretty solid and hilarious, but the second half feels a bit more uneven. The episodes turned a bit more into short films - still enjoyable, but not quite as funny. 
*Central Park 5 - Riveting documentary about injustice resulting from forced confessions of a few young men and ambitious prosecution. I wish I knew things like this still didn't happen, but I'm sure they do. 
I finished We Need to Talk about Kevin, which was truly amazing and surprising to the end, and I just got the movie for when I'm in the mood to be terrified. I started Going Clear for book club, but aside from a few clear spots, it was a little all over the place. Probably better for an interview with the author than a full read. Or just watch "The Master."

Winter is Coming

Busy, busy, busy, but a little time for T.V.:
*Game of Thrones (Season 2) - Good thing this season comes with a map at the end, because I obviously should have spent the last several months re-watching Season 1. I wish it were on instant! I would watch it all over again, and again.
*Nurse Jackie (Season 4) - Rehab is boring, and you know the stats are stacked against her, but the unraveling is still worth watching.
*Simpsons (Season 24) - Hippies and school humor a few weeks ago made all the mediocre episodes worth watching.
*Bob's Burgers - An entire show about a toilet?! These writers clearly understand their target audience well. I don't love the new time, though.
*Good Wife - I catch this every now and then still, but I'm not following it as closely as I was, just turning it on from time to time to watch the beautiful people.
*Parks & Recreation - Still nothing too exciting.
*Project Runway - Now that we're down to the final 7, it's sort of more interesting, but they always cut the most interesting people early, so mostly I just keep watching it to have something mindless to tune out at the end of the week.
I read Unnamed this month for book club about a man whose compulsion to walk unravels his life. I enjoyed the meditation on the power of the body and the mystery of illness. Since then, I started and cannot put down We Need to Talk about Kevin. It's so good! I did not expect it to be so well written and such a thoughtful turn-pager.

sNOw Day

PBS dominated my viewing the last couple months, which flew by before I could post anything! No snow days so far. Here's what I watched and read:
*Downton Abbey - I am totally hooked! Luckily, I didn't get any spoilers of the drama from across the pond this time around. I did thoroughly enjoy the Scottish countryside in the final episode, which was nice in HD. I had watched the second to last one on an old, little box (mother-daughter bonding time), and so the difference was fairly noticeable.
*The Education of Michelle Rhee (Frontline) and Inside Obama's Presidency (Frontline) - both of these were good recaps of coverage I think I've seen over the years, so not a lot new, but a nice review.
*The Untouchables (Frontline) - A biting look at why Wall Street bankers haven't been held accountable for illegal activities leading to the economic crisis. Incredibly well done, and it's nice to get people talking about this question again.
*Cliffhangers (Frontline) - A closer look at all the political posturing around the debt ceiling. It's hard to want to even pay attention to this story anymore even if you're a news junky, but it's worth understanding the personalities even if I still can't understand why they can't make a deal.
*The Revisionaries - When the Texas School Board politicized textbooks, I mostly heard about it through Colbert, so it was good to get the fuller story of what happened (and how it happened) through this Independent Lens documentary.
*Beauty is Embarrassing - Explores the wonderful imaginative world of Wayne White, hilarious artist extraordinaire.
*Soul Food Junkies - Hailing from the South, but vegan by the time I ate much soul food, it's interesting to hear more about this culinary tradition, especially debunking the "healthy soul food is an oxymoron" myth. It did make me really crave some hush puppies, though.
*Best Week Ever - It's back! I used to spend countless weekend mornings laughing at the prior week's pop culture news with some great comedians. It's lost a bit of its luster, but I am glad to see its return.
*Top Chef - I noticed some of the recent season on Hulu, so I watched a few but couldn't really get into it - too predictable and too many unappetizing sponsors.
*Project Runway - Also predictable and too many ugly sponsors. The stereotyping and constant product placement is starting to get to me this season. But at least Tim Gunn's still there.
*Parks & Recreation - Nothing remarkable (again), and getting a bit too sappy lately.
*30 Rock - So sad to say good-bye to this one, but happy they ended on a high note. I thought the second to last episode was supurb; they could have ended it there!
*Shameless (Season 1) - I tried to watch the British version of this at some point and could not understand a word of it! Lucky for me, there's now a pretty great American version with William H. Macy as drunkard dad of a family scraping by. It's a little unbelievable at times, but definitely still worth a watch, especially after it gets going. It's also always good to watch a comedy with more income diversity on the television.
*Skins (6) - Death overshadows a large part of this series, which felt too ADD, but hey, maybe that's kids these days.
*Portlandia (Season 2) - I hate-watched this while sick with a cough. Double yuck.

Alif the Unseen and American Ghost were both amazing reads by women authors that I found on various "best of 2012" lists. Alif the Unseen surprised me with its supernatural elements and insights into Islam, the Arab Spring, and the Internet. I look forward to reading some of her other works, especially the graphic novels as I felt like I could (haha) see everything in Alif the Unseen.

American Ghost fulfilled my promise to try to read something either written by or set in the place where I'm visiting for my annual Florida pilgrimage. It's a really great, honest read about racism in a white community in backwoods Florida and how the ghosts of our past haunt our present.

While I didn't make it any farther South than Miami, I did listen to the audio book of This Is How You Loose Her on my Florida trip as well. I heard him read once in Baltimore and loved listening to him, so I couldn't resist including him in my car on my way to Miami. I wish I had read it so I could savor it a bit more, because there was at least one point where I zoned out and missed something, but I loved the Spanish I'm always impressed with Junot Diaz's use of second person, prose, and complex character development.

Rewind

'Tis the season for travelling, a whole lot of holiday parties, and movies, so not much time for t.v. this month (winter months are pretty slow for new shows, anyway).
Boardwalk Empire (Season 2) - It got so gory this season, but I guess that's how it goes when there's a war. I am not sure how historically accurate it is, but I like how they intertwine veteran's day and fighting overseas into the corruption and casualties of prohibition.
Mad Men (Season 5) -The end of the season switched into high gear and the building plot lines play out nicely.
Girls (Season 1) - I loved this show so much that I was really happy to see the dvd show up in our collection and have re-watched every episode an embarrassing amount (maybe not as embarrassing as the things that happen on the show). It's so funny, and there are so many good lines that I never tire of.
Bob's Burgers (Season 3) - Hilarious holiday hijinks! Hooray!

In my travels and winter break, I had lots of time to read. I finished the Marriage Plot.  I learned from a friends about the rumor of a main character being based on David Foster Wallace. It's not a good sign when the rumor's more interesting than the book. While enjoyable, it did not seem to go anywhere. I had similar problem with The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, which I really wanted to like - it's a rare thing to find an honest portrayal of gentrification in Washington, D.C. The pacing was just off, and the plot and characters just never really developed. Wonderstruck was a quick, snowy-day enjoyable young adult graphic novel. I read Ubik in preparation for seeing a play based on the book - a bit dated, much more complex than I expected.

Feastivities!

Mad Men (Season 5) - After a seemingly endless "very long wait," we finally received the first disc. The local video store supplied the next disc, alleviating us from another very long wait. I tried really hard not to hear any spoilers for this season, so while I knew a little (someone takes LSD), not a lot. There's a little less drama since you know the characters so well, but that's fine because they're all so interesting it's still fun to watch. So far, there's more humor than I remember from prior seasons, which more than makes up the difference in having a little less drama.
Tudors (Season 1) - This has been on the queue forever and I finally started watching it. It's ridiculous, but pretty to watch.
Too Big to Fail - There's something just way too distracting about watching really famous actors play famous people. Maybe this dramatization of a nonfiction story was news to others, but it wasn't to me.
Poor Kids (Frontline) - A devastating discussion with kids growing up in poverty in America. A harsh reminder of the plight of kids who go hungry and homeless in a country that can afford to house and feed everyone, if it had the political will to do it.
Bob's Burgers - Definitely missed during the baseball interruption, I was happy to have their wacky hijinks back in November. I missed the last episode, and am patiently waiting for it to come onto Hulu.
Simpsons - Hit or miss, as usual these days, mostly miss.
Good Wife - Lately I have felt like the 8 p.m. - 11 p.m. Sunday night TV is too much sitting and I resent having to watch the frantic last 45 minutes of The Amazing Race while waiting for the Good Wife. It has not been worth the wait lately.
Colbert Report - I really enjoyed his post-election bit, and with the holiday season upon us and the fiscal cliff nearing, it's nice to have him back from his break continuing to make fun of the insanity.
Parks & Recreation - I want to like the City Council bit more than I do; it feels like they are struggling to find new plot ideas.
30 Rock - A TV wedding fit for a feminist. I love you, Liz Lemmon!
Suicide Plan (Frontline)- An engrossing look at end-of-life choices and the entities and individuals who help people die when they decide they're done. Who knew that Party City's helium tanks provide an easy escape hatch for the elderly and terminally ill?
Dust Bowl - I am no history buff by a long shot, but I really enjoyed the second episode. The rabbit killing in the first episode was a bit tough to stomach. I thought the whole thing could have been edited down a bit into one episode, but it was a fascinating look at a time I knew very little about. I liked how much original footage and pictures were used, and that nearly the whole thing was narrated by non-experts - just regular people talking about growing up in the "dirty 30s."
Park Avenue: Power, Money  & the American Dream - - I cannot stop telling people about this biting documentary on Independent Lens. Just after the election, it was a well-needed reminder that money corrupts completely, and corrupts our political system especially. While the ads were the public face of the spending during the election season, the year-round spending behind closed doors, setting the agenda and drafting bills is really what we have to worry about. I saw another documentary this guy was involved in, "Casino Jack and the United States of Money," also worth watching.

Off-screen, I completed American Dervish for book club and loved it. It feels like a very sincere and honest look at the complexities of coming of age in an Islamic, immigrant family. It confronts the tension between Muslim and Jewish communities head-on, which I really enjoyed. I am also just a little ways into Euginides' Marriage Plot, which seems like an English major's wet dream, but I am not sure where it is going yet. I like being reminded of some of the academic references from my undergraduate years, although the ivy league component is a bit unfamiliar to me.