Sunday Sighs...The West Wing, Josh & Donna

Every time I watch an episode of The West Wing, I think I find my favorite line from the whole show.  But, the romance reader/writer/lover knows that there's only one answer to this question.

It's in the second season, during the episode titled "17 People." This is a fantastic episode--one that shows the incredible talent of Richard Schiff (who plays the curmudgeonly, patriotic Toby Ziegler)--in which, among other things: Toby is made the 17th Person to discover that President Bartlet has MS; Ainsley Hayes (my favorite Republican on television) reveals that she is a Smithie; and Sam & Ainsley have a fantastic argument about the need (or lack thereof) for the Equal Rights Amendment.

But the very best moment in the whole show is when Donna and Josh peel off from the rest of the group, and she confesses that she came to work for the White House not (as he's always believed) when her boyfriend dumped her, but when she dumped him--because the tool stopped to have a drink with friends on the way to pick her up from the hospital after she had been in a car accident:

Josh gets superior (as he does), and says:
"I'm just saying that if you were in an accident, I wouldn't stop for a beer."
Donna replies:
"If you were in an accident I wouldn't stop for red lights."

ok.  le sigh.

But if that weren't enough, here's the kicker. The audience knows in that moment (if they didn't already) that Josh and Donna are destined to be.  But the stellar writing staff of the show doesn't give in to what I am certain was an overwhelming desire to just-get-them-together-already-and-have-them-make-out. They go another five seasons before we get the smooch we want here in season two.

And OMG it's worth it.

And that is just one of the many reasons why I think The West Wing is the greatest thing that has ever been on television.

Sunday Awesome: Gail the Goldfish!

I just discovered this awesome easter egg in The West Wing...then discovered that someone awesome has created an entire website as an homage to Gail the Goldfish!

Gail first appeared on The West Wing early on in Season 1...Since that episode, Gail has become more than a prop on a set, she’s become the focus of private jokes between the West Wing production team and eagle eyed fans of the show. In most episodes her bowl contains some object that alludes to the plot, and this web page catalogues as many of these as possible.

For the record, I noticed Gail's special decor in Six Meetings Before Lunch, which is about panda bears and the national zoo. Gail gets two in her bowl!

I am now through being a West Wing nerd.
For today.

30 Rock Gives Me A Christmas Present

Where I will be on September 21st

On my couch. With yummy takeout (cuisine TBD). For the TWO HOUR premiere of HOUSE, MD. You can't stop me, Internet. Neither Twitter, nor Facebook, nor the latest in viral video will keep me from the TWO HOUR premiere of HOUSE, MD. I'm not even going to wait the normal buffer period that is required in our home to be able to fast forward through commercials. I'm watching every ad during the TWO HOUR premiere of HOUSE, MD. Every. Single. One.

Oh, and did I mention it's TWO HOURS LONG?

Squee.

Matt Lauer Says Romance is Recession Proof!

After yesterday's piece on Romance and the Recession in the New York Times, the Today Show jumped on the bandwagon this morning with this piece...more kitsch than news, but interesting nonetheless!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Arrested Development The Movie

I woke up to this, which assures my day will be awesome.

So when we had the chance to speak with executive producer Ron Howard on the red carpet at the Oscars, we asked him to kick us some truth. He did, and now MTV News can exclusively confirm that the “Arrested Development” is happening.

“It’s going ahead,” Howard confirmed.

YAY RON HOWARD! And yay Michael Cera for not making a terrible mistake!

TV Meme!

Everyone (yes, Alea...you're everyone in this scenario) seems to be doing this TV Meme...and I hate to be left out!
xoxo

TV Meme!

1. Name a TV show series in which you have seen every episode at least twice: Sports Night, Arrested Development

2. Name a show you can’t miss: Project Runway, 30 Rock, Brothers & Sisters, LOST, Gossip Girl

3. Name an actor that would make you more inclined to watch a show: Bradley Whitford

4. Name an actor who would make you less likely to watch a show: I'm stealing Alea's answer for this. Charlie Sheen.

5. Name a show you can, and do, quote from: Arrested Development. All. The. Time.

6. Name a show you like that no one else enjoys: I loved New Amsterdam. No one watched it. Hence, the cancelled-after-six-episodes thing.

7. Name a TV show which you’ve been known to sing the theme song: Friends.

8. Name a show you would recommend everyone to watch: Sports Night. It's not about sports. It's available on DVD. Ignore the laugh track in the first half of the first season and you'll become a convert.

9. Name a TV series you own: Six Feet Under, Mad Men, The Tudors, Sports Night, Arrested Development...that's a start.

10. Name an actor who launched his/her entertainment career in another medium, but has surprised you with his/her acting choices in television: Jason Lee. Pro-Skateboarder turned Earl. My Name is Earl jumped the shark, but I do love that Jason Lee.

11. What is your favorite episode of your favorite series? The West Wing: "Isaac and Ishmael" (A special episode written after 9/11/01)

12. Name a show you keep meaning to watch, but you just haven’t gotten around to yet: House.

13. Ever quit watching a show because it was so bad? Sure. I was a huge Desperate Housewives fan...and then it just got weird. So I stopped.

14. Name a show that’s made you cry multiple times: The West Wing. I cry all the time during that show.

15. What do you eat when you watch TV? I don't really snack with TV...but Eric & I tend to eat meals in front of the TV. Which is lame. We shouldn't.

16. How often do you watch TV? An hour or so a day.

17. What’s the last TV show you watched? I watched Ugly Betty on the DVR last night.

18. What’s your favourite/preferred genre of TV? Dramedy.

19. What was the first TV show you were obsessed with? Hmmm...I used to watch Bewitched in reruns after school when I was a kid. I loved that show.

20. What TV show do you wish you never watched? America's Next Top Model. I want those brain cells back. Why can't I stop watching???

21. What’s the weirdest show you enjoyed? Northern Exposure

22. What TV show scared you the most? LOST has been known to freak me out.

23. What is the funniest TV show you have ever watched? Arrested Development. The episode with the claw machine and Gob in the banana costume? Stop it.

24. What show was cancelled too early? OMG, SO MANY! Sports Night, Arrested Development, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

A romance novel I'd really like to read....

Love in the Time of Scurvy...Marge Simpson's favorite book.
It looks AWESOME. I want it.

Sunday Awesome

In honor of the big week...I give you this, which made me do a little dance...

Lessons on January 2nd...

The best thing about having January 2nd off from my day job?

Chilling on the couch with my sweet (albeit depressed because he is no longer lying in front of a warm fire and being fed beef from my father's benevolent hands) puppy and watching (you guessed it!) The West Wing!

Even more awesome!!! I just learned that Ainsley Hayes went to my alma mater! While I'm not wild about her serious conservatism...I do sort of love her relationship with Sam Seaborn. So I'll take her!

Now, back to lounging...and then to yoga...and then, yes. to writing.

---------------
Other posts you might like:

Claudia Jean Cregg sings The Jackal
Barack Meets Bartlett
On The Farnsworth Invention

Merry merry...xoxo

For all of you Gossip Girl fans out there (yes...even those of you who refuse to admit it...)...I give you warm-as-Chuck-Bass-in-a-smoking-jacket wishes for the holidays!

Eric, on Chuck Bass

Is that guy supposed to be a miniature Hugh Hefner? He's like, 16, and always wearing a robe.

The Jackal...

I'm having a pretty great day, for reasons that hopefully I will be able to share in a bit. BUT...I did share them with Eric today. And, because he is a fantastic husband and knows exactly what I need at all times, he sent me an mp3 of Ronny Jordan's The Jackal. Because good news makes me feel like CJ Cregg. I can't share the mp3 with you...but I CAN give you this little gift from the Sorkin gods:



xoxo

How Did I Miss This?

I usually don't miss Maureen Dowd...both because she's awesome in her snarkiness and because I envy her gorgeous hair. But somehow...I missed her on Saturday, when she and the ever-so-brilliant Aaron Sorkin teamed up to make the conversation I have fantasized about for 18 months a reality.

Yes. Barack meets Bartlet. O. M. Gee.

OBAMA Wait, what is it you always used to say? When you hit a bump on the show and your people were down and frustrated? You’d give them a pep talk and then you’d always end it with something. What was it ...?

BARTLET “Break’s over.”

Obama...get CJ and Josh and Sam together and knock it out, for god's sake!

----
Other musings you might enjoy...

Bartlet for President
The Farnsworth Invention

in which the author crushes on a scotsman.

well, a former scotsman. current american. craig ferguson's 9/10 monologue is awesome. it's about the political yammering that's going on...and about why you should vote. yes. YOU.

if you don't have time for the whole thing...start at 6:30. that's where the money is.

bartlet for president

confession: i think aaron sorkin is a genius. when crafting a list of writers i admire, he's at the top of the list. i know that literary purists will laugh at me, claim that i'm somehow less of a writer myself because of it, but it's true. he has a gift for dialogue that i covet with white hot envy--he's the only writer who can use repetition in dialogue to an advantage without making it seem like a device to lengthen a scene or add a few seconds before a commercial break. his characters are vivid and deep. his ability to make hour-long drama out of a few people locked in a room the whole time. the way he weaves history into everything he writes, deftly coloring his own stories with little-known figures and stories in history without making it heavy handed and unpleasant. the way he thumbs his nose at standard expectations of entertainment and tells the story he cares about. not the story that will naturally sell. let's face it...he's about the only person who could get me to care about the story of facebook.

i met sorkin with the american president and a few good men, but i didn't really get to know him until sports night, which i honestly believe is the greatest half-hour television show ever. and then there was the west wing, built from outtakes of the american president, a show that gave me hope in our government and made me believe that presidents could be not simply egomaniacal, but really GOOD. Bravo is currently playing blocks of the west wing, i assume their programming department is capitalizing (like so many companies) on the nation's current election fever.

Here's the thing...the last season of west wing is more about the battle for the white house than it is about the bartlett administration, but it throws into stark relief the issue of life imitating art and vice versa. It's eerie to watch this season on the eve of our current election, with references to vice presidential candidates "a heartbeat away from the presidency" and a republican nomination all shored up while the democratic battle becomes more and more heated (while concern of getting to the convention without a confirmed candidate throws the party into chaos). and the funny thing is, sorkin created two characters in Vinick and Santos (played brilliantly by Alan Alda and Jimmy Smitts, respectively) who actually seemed reasonable, livable, and not so bad--even though you can't manage to quash your wish that Bartlett would have stayed for a third term.

if only life could imitate art on that one.

Gustav drives me to distraction...

should be writing...instead, can't stop watching Gustav move like a purple people eater through the Gulf of Mexico. As regular readers of MacLeanSpace know, I've spent a lot of time in New Orleans since Katrina, working on a variety of Education-based projects. I've seen firsthand the challenges facing the people--and especially the kids--there...poverty, healthcare, education, housing and more. Every one of the kids I've met there has a tragic story related to Katrina...family members dying, parents with addiction problems, PTSD and more. The kids and the schools are just now getting back on track--many of them had their first full year of normal school back in New Orleans last year. 

And now...it starts all over again.

good luck, Louisiana. you're going to need it.

the neverending story

The NeverEnding Story is on tv right now...and I can't help but watch it. I don't think I've seen it since the mid 80s, when it was originally released, and I remember it being really sad and scary...and now I see why I remember it that way. It is sad! It is scary! But what a wonderful story...

Bastian, a human boy who has lost his mother, finds an antique book and, in reading it, has a chance to save a fantasy world from the nothing--the emptiness that's left when people lose hope and lose track of their dreams. Through the story of Atreyu, a young boy hero, Bastian becomes connected to Fantasia, a world filled with wonderful characters and charming creatures. Over the course of the movie, it becomes clear that Bastian's imagination is the key to saving the fantasy world.

The best part? To save the world, Bastian must read a book all the way to the end.

What an awesome concept!

Yeah, the movie is cheaply made, with some ridiculously bad sound editing and laughable special effects...but, just like I did when I was six and watched it for the first time, I find myself overlooking all that in favor of believing that the imagination...and books...can conquer all.

One Day You're In...

FINALLY!  Project Runway Season 5! WOOT! 

Oh, Tim Gunn, how I have missed you, my pet!  

These designers are Teh Whack. (Who names themself Suede? Doesn't that seem a little too obvious for a fashion designer?) I don't care.  I've been waiting FOREVER for this to be on! My toe is already feeling better.  

Here's my question, though.  Have these people not watched this show before?  Not only is the Gristedes challenge a repeat from Season One, you're asked to select your materials from a SUPERMARKET and you choose tablecloths?  WTF?  Isn't the 'grocery store' part of this challenge kind of obvious--BE CREATIVE!  Oy.  I'm not a designer, but in the immortal words of Gob Bluth, 'Come ON!'

My prediction:  Kelli for the win. Hook and eye closures made from notebooks? Stop it.

Spirit Fingers!

A confession. I am a true sucker for cheesy teen movies, which probably isn't such a surprise to those of you who saw my altogether too serious critique of How to Deal.

This weekend, my in laws are in town from Fresno, California and, thanks to my Seattle mishap, I'm locked in my apartment, foot elevated and icing while my hubby and his rents are tooling around Brooklyn. In a few hours, I have to get up and start working on dinner, because we're having our bffs over to introduce his fam into our world (I'll let you imagine how that goes). But I'm in my own little heaven watching a Bring It On marathon. Yes. Marathon. That's 4 movies, three of which went straight to video. Even worse--watching it on ABC Family, so every even remotely bad word is replaced. Which makes it particularly bad...but I don't care. Because when Sparky Polaski comes on screen with his spirit fingers, I just can't resist.



Does this make me less of a person? You can tell me the truth. I can take it.

on film movie adaptations

so...i'm blogging while watching "how to deal"...the mandy moore adaptation of sarah dessen's books "that summer" and "someone like you." if you saw my twitter or my plurk, you know that i'm watching this movie on lifetime. which makes me, like, eleven and a half times as lame as i would be if i were watching it via netflix...or the apple tv.

in the interest of full disclosure, i admit that i haven't finished it...although it may be over by the time i post this. but i've got to say that if anyone ever buys the screen rights to the season (and, let's be honest, every author wants that, right?) i'm going to hope and pray that they buy the rights to one book at a time. because, even though sarah seems to like this movie, frankly it just does not do the books justice.

i am an ENORMOUS sarah dessen fan. truly. i've read all of her books and i think she's fantastic. her voice is incredible. her heroines are charming in their confusion, in how they struggle to find themselves, in their strength and courage and general awesomeness. While my favorite of her books is just listen...mainly because I married a 32 year old Owen...I was a big fan of both of the books on which "how to deal" is based.

in the last few weeks i've been struggling a lot to reconcile myself to the way the wide world perceives the two genres in which i write--romance and ya. You see, I have a two-fer in the lack of respect department. romance has been, continues to be and likely always will be the bastard stepchild of fiction--and i completely embrace my place in that world (i've never resisted the mantle of romance).  on the other hand, ya literature is starting to get a modicum of regard as "edgy."  

look, everyone knows that the movie is never as good as the book. here's the thing, though...i'm guessing this movie smooshed two books together because of the all too common perception that a single book for teens can't be deep and thoughtful enough to be really good on its own. and sarah dessen's books are deep. and thoughtful (see my descriptions above). on its own, someone like you tells deals with parent/child dynamics; the importance of real, long-lasting friendship; teen pregnancy; loss of grandparents; and unhealthy romantic relationships. similarly, that summer explores the challenges of divorce and remarriage...as well as the difficulty so many of we youngest daughters have getting out from under our big sisters' shadows.  i promise you, there are much fluffier movies in this world than the ones that would have come from a true adaptation of either of these books.

station break:  uhmmmm...scarlett goes into labor during ashley's wedding?  really?  oy.  my point is proven.  two books should never be smooshed together. i had more to say, but really...REALLY.

further station break: macon and halley get together?  doesn't that go against the whole point of someone like you? why are they dancing in the hallway while scarlett is having the baby?  shouldn't halley be in there? isn't the book about the power of friendship?  again, I say, REALLY. 

oh, hollywood lifetime. how you will be the death of me.

brothers & sports; breaking news & sisters

i make no secret of the fact that i am a throughly adoring fan of Brothers & Sisters...i think it does a fantastic way of portraying the complete craziness that comes with being a part of a family...nagging mother, neurotic sisters, gossipy siblings...all things that come with big, ridiculous families. eric finds it over the top and is uncomfortable even watching, but then he listens to me on the phone with my sister after my mom drives us crazy...or on the phone with my mom when my sister drives me crazy...and he sees that life really does imitate art. or is it the other way around?

anyway...i missed several episodes of B&S this season because I was on my honeymoon (i know...not a good reason to garner sympathy) but i've actually been rewarded by the writers strike (i'm the only one, i'm thinking) because they're rerunning all the episodes I missed. But...since Eric is so opposed to AWESOME tv, i have to watch it when he's not around. So I record it on Sundays and watch it the first chance I get during the week, when he's not home. In this case, that chance was this morning...because I have MLK Day off and he doesn't.

So...this morning I got up, took the dog out, got under a warm blanket and watched what was guaranteed to be the most tearjerking (not that i don't cry at almost every episode)--the one where Justin comes home from Iraq, injured. 10 minutes into the episode, WABC (my local ABC channel) cuts in with Breaking News. The Giants are going to the Super Bowl. As a New Yorker, I'm happy about this, sure. But couldn't we have just run that news across the bottom of the screen? I would have read it, smiled, and gone back to watching my pictures. :) Instead, we had 10 minutes of coverage, interviews from Green Bay (where they played) and NYC (where people are excited).

Now...I appreciate this is big news for Giants fans...but I ask you...what Giants fan (who needs to know immediately if his or her team is Super Bowl-bound) is watching Brothers & Sisters in rerun instead of the football game itself? It's just not logical. If I cared enough to waste 15 minutes of valuable Brothers & Sisters watching color commentary of a football game I didn't watch, wouldn't I have watched the game???? Yes. I would have. Instead, I was watching dreamy, witty Matthew Rhys and was quite unfortunately interrupted. Boo.

Boo. I say.

:)

Royal Love

Right now, I'm watching VH1 Classic Albums...something I would probably NEVER watch if I didn't live with a musician. I, of course, opened my laptop, checked email, surfed the web, played around on myspace, not really paying attention to a vast documentary on Queen. But WOW! What an incredible tv show!

I've always liked Queen...Bohemian Rhapsody is, I think, one of the greatest songs ever made...but I didn't know anything about them. What was there to know? A few guys with big hair made A Night at the Opera and inspired my mom to like rock music.

This is all true...but what I didn't know is that these guys cut albums for months and months, laying down multiple layers of tracks. guitar solos in triplicate. vocal arrangements for dozens. they played all the parts of a dixieland jazz band on a GUITAR. Then they put them all together and made music. not just music...the music we all think of as being Queen. Operatic...Rock...Glam Metal. WTF??

Here's the thing that really gets me. Mercury (who was raised in India, and wasn't British at all), while he was gay, had a common law wife who he considered to be the love of his life. They never had a romantic relationship, but they were two people who loved each other deeply, inspired each other, and chose to spend their lives together.

What a wonderful concept...the idea that a powerful friendship holds equal weight to a powerful romantic love. There's no reason, really, why this shouldn't be the case. Why shouldn't the two be equal? Who are we to prioritize one type of love over the other? Anyone who has ever spent a night lying awake laughing with their best friend knows what I'm talking about.

So I'm raising my glass to my incredible friends...who have made my life richer, more full, more incredible. I'm blessed to have Eric, sure. But no more blessed than I am to have them.

theater...or theatre?

For Christmas, Eric gave me tickets to The Farnsworth Invention, a new Broadway play by Aaron Sorkin staring Hank Azaria and Jimmi Simpson. I should tell you that I am OBSESSED with Aaron Sorkin. I think A Few Good Men is an amazing move...I think Sports Night is the greatest television show ever made, followed very closely by The West Wing...and, in general, I covet Sorkin's ability with the written word.

I would have wanted to see this play no matter what it was about because of my unhealthy love of all things Sorkin, but that desire was enhanced by this--the first time I'd ever heard of Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of the television, was from Sorkin himself--on a fantastic episode of Sports Night during which William H. Macy regales a group of people with the story of Philo's brother in law, Cliff Gardner, who didn't understand a thing about chemistry or physics or engineering, but recognized that Philo would need glass tubes, and taught himself to blow glass to help him. That reference was designed to impress upon people the importance of finding the talent in every person, but it's always inspried me.

But...getting back to the Farnsworth Invention...what a remarkable play--the performances were incredible; Hank Azaria blew me away...and the story (which could have been a real snore considering it was, at its core, about a patent battle between Farnsworth (the person who invented the television) and David Sarnoff (the guy who started NBC and put a television in every house)) was amazing--telling, instead, the story of a brilliant young inventor and the invention that changed the world...while destroying him in the process.

More importantly, though, the play explores the question that we've all asked ourselves hundreds of times..."what if we could do it all over again? would we change anything?"

I would love to say I wouldn't change anything...but I have to imagine that if I did some serious soul-searching, I'd change quite a bit. What about you?

live every week like it's shark week!

eric's in california visiting family, which leaves me home alone with the dog and a captive audience for our viciously distracting TV.  It doesn't help that it's shark week on the discovery channel...which makes the TV even more distracting, because I'm such a sucker for nature documentaries in HD!  Fun Fact:  It's the 20th anniversary of Shark Week! 

of course, last night, I watched Ocean of Fear (I think that's what it's called)--a half-documentary, half-recreation of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in the Philippine Sea.  900 seamen jumped the sinking ship during WWII, and only 317 were rescued days later--because of what Discovery calls "the worst shark attack in history."  Wow.  

something about me...I'm terrified of cruise ships.  Have been since I was little--which I attribute to my dad allowing me to watch the Poiseidon Adventure one too many times as a kid. Now, when I see them docked at the Brooklyn Pier, I can feel my heart race.  I just hate the idea of being on them--because I'm terrified of them sinking.  "Do I feel about this about all sea vessels?" you ask?  Nope.  In fact, I love boats.  

but this shark week report has succeeded in giving me one more (and very good) reason to stay off large boats in warm waters.  If it's not enough that it might flip over and I might have to climb a Christmas Tree with Gene Hackman (watch the movie--so scary!), I might get eaten by sharks!  forget it.  no cruises for me.