Aimee Mann at Celebrate

I saw Aimee Mann perform at Celebrate Brooklyn over the summer. It was a great concert. She sounded just like her records and was very cool. After a while the songs got a little monotonous but generally I really enjoyed it.

Ding Dong It's the Ocean

Over the summer I saw a play in Brooklyn called Ding Dong It's the Ocean. It all took place in the living room of a party that got a slow start and never quite kicked off -- there was always awkwardness to the conversation, something everyone can relate to. One of the themes was angst and despair about the planet and problems in the world and how to connect with those problems while dealing with one's own issues. The dialogue was very good and some of the characters, for instance the host, really stood out. I liked it a lot.

I loved Calypso, David Sedaris' most recent collection of essays. Most of them I had read in recent years, or months, in The New Yorker. It was great reading them all together. I have noticed, particularly with this collection, that he has gotten darker. Aging and death and aspects of human suffering are more in the foreground than in earlier ones, as he and his family shift into the next phases of life. I feel like I've grown up, and old, with him, that he and his siblings and parents are part of my family.

Birds of America

I love Lorrie Moore. Her stories always engage me and make me think and I usually can connect emotionally with the characters. Birds of America is a great collection of stories. A couple are written from the perspective of a male protagonist and I skimmed them for some reason. I liked all of them very much. There were a couple -- one that featured a seriously ill child, and one about a dangerously ill baby -- that haunted me and left me so sad for quite some time after.

After Delores

Sarah Schulman's After Delores is so fun. A gritty portrait of the downtown scene in the 80s (I think), the novel is peopled with smart, cynical, beautiful young dykes. It's has a sharp bite tempered with the sweetness of youth and nostalgia. It was the perfect summer read.

Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean Michel Basquiat

Boom for Real is an exciting documentary about Basquiat. It is an amazing portrait of the 1980s downtown scene. The gritty nostalgia and the explosive youthful talent were stunning. Of course there is the tragedy of his early death looming over the whole thing, but the early years of his art and his life and his friends and his influences is pretty incredible.

Mary Shelley, the movie with Elle Fanning is pretty good for a bio-pic (I don't usually like them too much). It covers her passionate relationship with Percy Bysshe and her coming into her own as a woman and a writer. What I really loved was how the language of Frankenstein came alive (no pun intended) and the way her writing was presented.

Lady Bird

Lady Bird is a watchable, somewhat dark but definitely pleasant movie about a teenage girl dealing with her angst and her troubled relationship with her mother. I liked it but there is nothing new here.

Judd Apatow: The Return

Judd Apatow's comedy special, The Return, is funny in parts, interesting in parts, very pleasant to watch. But in the end pretty nothingish and underwhelming.

Insecure

HBO's Insecure created and starring Issa Rae is wonderful. She plays a vulnerable and edgy young woman dealing with work and love. Her character is so great and funny. And the scenes are marvelous. Very awkward. I can't wait for the next season.

Silicon Valley

The HBO series Silicon Valley is very funny and engaging. About the socially awkward founders of a startup, it features a mix of deadpan characters and witty dialogue. I liked them very much. As the series progresses the plot gets kind of convoluted and exhausting and I found myself wishing it were more like a traditional sitcom, like Cheers, where you can just enjoy your favorite characters interacting without having to remember a whole series of events from previous seasons and episodes. I didn't care that much about the trials and travails of the company as much as the characters.

Get Out

Get Out is a horror movie that explores racism, examining manners and hypocrisy. Sinister and creepy, it is a smart movie that exposes the brutality of racist social control.

Ryan Hamilton: Happy Face

Ryan Hamilton's Netflix special Happy Face is very fun, poking fun at the discrepancy between appearance and reality in different ways,  opening with a discussion of his face which always looks happy regardless of his mood. He makes fun of himself in a way that has complexity making it more than obvious self-deprecating humor.