Administration is feeling a bit verklempt, as we just returned from the outskirts of South Dallas, also known as Austin, to watch Feral Niece #1 do the Diploma Mosey and in all other respects Graduate from High School. That I have specific and special memories of this young lady, in car seats, in diapers, in a nearly-brown fairy princess costume that she would NOT take off, blurring with my images of her now, all grown-up and about to make her way to the University of Texas to major in Science-Type-Shit-That-Will-Make-the-World-Better, only makes every bone in my body ache as the crushing warmth of the tar pit oozes over me, signifying the inky blackness of my eventual fate.
Graduation was huge—500 or so kids, so many, in fact, that they had to rent a sports area to get everyone in. My graduation class was 153 and we had it in the newly-built Cafetorium (that’s the Cafeteria and the Auditorium, all mooshed into one multipurpose building). This was different than that. It was a little sad that the only people cheering for each kid was that kid’s group of parents and relatives. And given the distance between stage and seating, it was even less magical. They’d saw a kids name and somewhere, out there, a burst of “Yea’s” and “Woo’s” would pop, like a zit, and then the next kid, another pop, and so on.
When you’re a 3A school with 153 kids walking, everyone gets claps. Some kids got bigger claps and some got cheers. But everyone felt seen. Given the hugeness of the day, it would have been nice if everyone wasn’t swallowed up by the vastness of the sports arena. On the plus side, there were concessions, and after two hours in that butt-numbing chair-ette, I needed drink.
Stadium seating? Don’t make me laugh. Let’s try an experiment: go to your refrigerator and get out a hotdog. Now, go find a bulldog clip in your stationary drawer. Open the clip as wide as you can and push the hogdog into it. It won’t fit; you’re going to have to squeeze it in. Gouge into the hotdog if you must. But get the whole wiener into the clip and then let it snap closed. That is exactly what sitting in these “stadium seats” felt like. If you didn’t have a waist before you got there, you sure do now!
I couldn’t get straight up out of the seat. I had to slide out, laterally, like Pez leaving the dispenser, in order to stand up. And when I did, the blood surged out of the top half of my body, where it had pooled up with the application of the makeshift tourniquet, and I had to wait to walk while the blood resumed circulation and brought oxygen to my atrophied leg muscles. How in hell could anyone sit in the stands and watch a basketball game there is beyond me.
Under Pressure
I’ve still got deadlines, so I’m going to let another substacker, Jeff Maurer, do the heavy lifting, in my stead. He just posted this wonderful, funny, and bang-on piece about performative politics that I think you should read.
Weekly Report from the N.T.A.B. Division of Media Review
Rainn Wilson and the Geography of Bliss (Peacock)
Rainn Wilson, formerly Dwight K. Schrute, embarks on a world-wide trip to find happiness, bliss, whatever you want to call it, in some remote and seemingly dismal places around the world—places like Los Angeles (gasp!), but also Iceland and Bulgaria. So, does he actually find it?
Spoiler alert: Yeah. But there’s a lot more to this watchable, entertaining five-part series. Wilson gets real about his own struggles with depression and anxiety and his ongoing search for figuring out how to cheer the hell up. These trips to remote locations involve the usual schtick of celebrities awkwardly trying to do the thing that everyone else in the village does, or tagging along with a group of people about to do that thing that makes the rest of us cringe. But there’s something really endearing about Wilson giving himself over to the process. He seems at times genuinely moved by what he is witnessing and who he is talking to. There’s a sincerity in this show that isn’t always present in travel channel specials. Also, and not for nothing, I never thought about it before now, but he’s got a perfect voice for narration. If the acting gig dries up, he could make bank reading books.
I got a little emotional, myself, watching Wilson get emotional, and that made Janice get emotional, and then we were talking about what we just watched. The Geography of Bliss is good for that kind of “what did we just watch” talk that the best shows bring out of us. Each episode is an hour plus, and you can (and probably should) watch them sans binge, when you get a moment to sit down and think about stuff more deeply. There’s good information in this show. It's worth your time.