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remindmeofthe) wrote2008-06-20 06:54 pm
remindmeofthe) wrote2008-06-20 06:54 pm
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So I've been working slowly through my library's collection of Jeeves and Wooster, which is more complicated than it needs to be as the majority of it is located at a different branch. Why wouldn't they keep them at the main building? I don't know. To ensure that I lose my patience and spend money I don't have yet on the box set, I guess.
Anyway, one of the DVDs had arrived at the main building, so I went to pick it up. The librarian grabbed it from the rack and positively swooned her way back over, all, "Hugh Laurie!" Hand to her chest and everything.
Me, brilliantly: "Yep." (Happily, I was mostly thinking about something else, so it didn't occur to me to laugh at her body language until I was out the door.)
She asked if I watch House and I said I did, then professed myself to be more of a Stephen Fry fan. That seemed to put an end to things.
This left me feeling much less dorky than my visit a couple of days ago, when I got two J&W tapes and four of Wodehouse's books, then didn't know what to say when the librarian that time around asked if I was a Wodehouse fan. How do I even explain the thought process behind checking out four books by an author who did absolutely nothing for me last time I tried his work? I said something inane about testing how much British farce I could take before my brain exploded, because it required less explanation than my packrat mentality about library books.
And it's a good thing I took four, because whatever problem it was that kept me from being interested in Wodehouse a few years ago (probably the lack of patience required to sort through the language; I wasn't nearly as good at reading older books with arcane vocabulary as I pretended to be) has ceased to exist. I spent an hour or so today in one of the eighty-seven gelatto places that have inexplicably appeared in Portland in the last couple of years, drinking a chocolate shake and reading Carry On, Jeeves, and I can't think of a more relaxing thing I could have done with my free afternoon. (More productive, yes. More relaxing, no.) I highly recommend this course of action if you are stressed, especially if you can find a gelatto place with squishy, cushy couches like Maple's has.
Along with Jeeves and Wooster, I've also been making my way through Videoport's almost-complete collection of A Bit of Fry and Laurie. I'd forgotten how much I love good sketch comedy, and that show is fucking excellent sketch comedy. I love the format - frequent bits of complete randomness stuck in between longer skits that, more often than not, just sort of trail off without laboring to contrive a punchline or explain themselves. Plus, lots of meta humor, with the concluding joke being that the skit is, in fact, a skit. (A bit of mediocre physical comedy in series one, for example, comes to a screeching halt when Hugh cries out, "You hit me too hard! No, I'm serious, forget the skit! That really hurt!" Stephen, to the camera: "He's such a baby.") I am, as I have mentioned before, a complete sucker for even the lamest of meta, so that invariably cracks me up. Plus, the majority of the humor is general, rather than being rooted in the pop culture of the time, which allows my American self (who was six when the show started airing) to follow it. There have only been a couple of times when an entire skit just went right over my head because I had no idea what the reference was. I think we all know that that's the mark of good comedy, so I won't belabor the point. I'm just really glad I FINALLY got around to trying it, because it is effing hilarious.
(By the way, in regards to the Torchwood/Jeeves and Wooster crossover that is now refusing to leave me alone: Jeeves would totally know all about Torchwood, Y/Y?)
Anyway, one of the DVDs had arrived at the main building, so I went to pick it up. The librarian grabbed it from the rack and positively swooned her way back over, all, "Hugh Laurie!" Hand to her chest and everything.
Me, brilliantly: "Yep." (Happily, I was mostly thinking about something else, so it didn't occur to me to laugh at her body language until I was out the door.)
She asked if I watch House and I said I did, then professed myself to be more of a Stephen Fry fan. That seemed to put an end to things.
This left me feeling much less dorky than my visit a couple of days ago, when I got two J&W tapes and four of Wodehouse's books, then didn't know what to say when the librarian that time around asked if I was a Wodehouse fan. How do I even explain the thought process behind checking out four books by an author who did absolutely nothing for me last time I tried his work? I said something inane about testing how much British farce I could take before my brain exploded, because it required less explanation than my packrat mentality about library books.
And it's a good thing I took four, because whatever problem it was that kept me from being interested in Wodehouse a few years ago (probably the lack of patience required to sort through the language; I wasn't nearly as good at reading older books with arcane vocabulary as I pretended to be) has ceased to exist. I spent an hour or so today in one of the eighty-seven gelatto places that have inexplicably appeared in Portland in the last couple of years, drinking a chocolate shake and reading Carry On, Jeeves, and I can't think of a more relaxing thing I could have done with my free afternoon. (More productive, yes. More relaxing, no.) I highly recommend this course of action if you are stressed, especially if you can find a gelatto place with squishy, cushy couches like Maple's has.
Along with Jeeves and Wooster, I've also been making my way through Videoport's almost-complete collection of A Bit of Fry and Laurie. I'd forgotten how much I love good sketch comedy, and that show is fucking excellent sketch comedy. I love the format - frequent bits of complete randomness stuck in between longer skits that, more often than not, just sort of trail off without laboring to contrive a punchline or explain themselves. Plus, lots of meta humor, with the concluding joke being that the skit is, in fact, a skit. (A bit of mediocre physical comedy in series one, for example, comes to a screeching halt when Hugh cries out, "You hit me too hard! No, I'm serious, forget the skit! That really hurt!" Stephen, to the camera: "He's such a baby.") I am, as I have mentioned before, a complete sucker for even the lamest of meta, so that invariably cracks me up. Plus, the majority of the humor is general, rather than being rooted in the pop culture of the time, which allows my American self (who was six when the show started airing) to follow it. There have only been a couple of times when an entire skit just went right over my head because I had no idea what the reference was. I think we all know that that's the mark of good comedy, so I won't belabor the point. I'm just really glad I FINALLY got around to trying it, because it is effing hilarious.
(By the way, in regards to the Torchwood/Jeeves and Wooster crossover that is now refusing to leave me alone: Jeeves would totally know all about Torchwood, Y/Y?)