The Incredibly Gorgeous Tina Fey
Filed Under Porchy | 3 Comments
I think that Ezra Klein gets this very, very wrong.
Yes, I find Tina Fey attractive, as do many of my friends. But her look is markedly Geek Chic and not Geek Chic in the way that Rachael Leigh Cook was actually beautiful but was made to look geeky in She’s All That which was deservedly ribbed in Not Another Teen Movie. Fey’s geekiness is clearly rooted in a deep awkwardness.
Tina Fey is found beautiful despite her lack of traditionally attractive features.
Now’s the part where someone throws in the argument that Tina Fey as compared to other TV or movie stars is maybe not “traditionally attractive” but she’s the kind of person that if you ran into her on the street you’d find her immediately good looking. Great point! She is. TV and movies have a way of skewing our already subjective scales of such things but it’s true, Tina Fey is only unattractive in the confines of who gets on TV.
But that’s where 30 Rock’s jokes are. TV stars are better looking than their non-filmed counterparts. The jokes at the expense of Fey’s appearance are funny precisely because she isn’t unattractive but she lives in a world of attractive people. In such a world a lady who frequently has chip goo on her fingers and ham stains down the front of her shirt doesn’t come off as “normal” she comes off as “ugly.”
So jokes that she’s ugly are funny precisely because they aren’t true. Liz’s hair is perfectly normal, but in a world of hair/makeup designers, it’s ugly. Her shirts are fine, but in a world of wardrobe engineers she looks frumpy. etc.
Not to mention that Liz Lemmon has a mustache.
Brett Favre killed in action; Rex Ryan’s big fat mouth gets shut
Filed Under Dale Cooper, Sports | 2 Comments
The conference championship round of the NFL playoffs is often a dull football weekend. You’d think it would be hugely exciting – the best of the best; teams squaring off with nothing less than the Super Bowl at stake; storylines (real and imagined) galore, and usually more than a couple of big stars still in contention. But the truth is that it’s the first NFL weekend each year that has only two games, and if one or both of those games is a blowout, it tends to leave fans feeling unsatisfied. Last year’s games were decent – a division rivalry game between the Steelers and Ravens, and a semi-barnburner between the Eagles and Cardinals. But then you have years like 2005, with the two winning teams posting a combined 37-point margin of victory; or 2004 with the Patriots and Eagles winning by 14 and 17 respectively (and the Patriots game wasn’t even that close – they led 24-3 at the half). I hate feeling that resigned sigh after a boring championship round. I hate when the games give me little to think about, and the Super Bowl is still two weeks away, and then it’s all over for another year. Boo hiss on that.
Luckily, this weekend’s games were excellent. Last night I felt almost like a kid on Christmas Eve – couldn’t sleep, thoughts racing. One really good game (Colts/Jets) and one instant classic (Saints/Vikings). My favorite team going to the Super Bowl, and America’s favorite grizzled ol’ gunslinger embroiled in an epic tragedy. Great stuff. Lots to process.
So let’s get to it.
Colts/Jets analysis
- This game was a classic tale of scoring runs and momentum shifts. The Jets had a 17-3 run that put them 11 points ahead near the end of the first half; the Colts answered with a 24-0 run that gave them the win and the surprise cover of the spread. In other words it was a classic sucker punch by the Jets to the solar plexus of both their fans and gamblers nationwide.
- Mark Sanchez looked remarkably close to an unironic Sanchise in this game. Never mind that that sounds like something you’d find on Urban Dictionary and make disgusting jokes about. The kid is pretty good.
- Young Colts Pierre Garcon and Austin Collie came up huge in this game. The media said all week that Manning would throw away from Revis Island, and they were absolutely right. And now the world knows two things for sure: one, these two guys more than make up for the absence of Marvin “How I Could Just Kill a Man” Harrison; and two, the Colts are one draft pick away from completing the “Sounds Like a Joke Name” trifecta. Teams have seldom been so terrified of two guys who sound like a charicature of a French waiter and a $1500 breed of dog.
- Hey, did the Colts run the ball somewhat effectively yesterday? I’m still trying to figure out if I dreamed that.
- Reggie Wayne has now notched two of the all-time Most Terrifying Plays for Colts Fans. In the 2006 AFC Championship, he got wrapped up after a catch, fumbled up in the air, and somehow grabbed the ball back before he was brought to the ground – longest one-and-a-half seconds of my life. And now he was responsible for the second-most-improbable self-recovered fumble of the weekend (after the one where Adrian “Crisco-Mitts” Peterson lost the ball, fell down, then got up and somehow snagged the ball back from the entire Saints team five yards upfield). My heart will go on… barely.
- Peyton Manning is one win away from probably-the-best-ever status, and I couldn’t be happier. (Not for him – for me. I can’t wait to gloat.) The rap on him for years was “great regular season QB, not so great playoff QB.” Well if he wins the Super Bowl this year, he’ll have improved his playoff record to 10-8, with most of the losses coming to the great Patriots teams and those pesky Chargers; he’ll have two rings, and this one will be undeniably Manning-led (since he’s thrown 5 TDs to just one pick in this run so far); and he’ll have a brand new t-shirt, printed up and mailed off by me, that says “Brady fans can GET OFF MY NUTS.”
- I think I can safely speak for every NFL fan everywhere who doesn’t own a dark green jersey: shut up, Rex.
Saints/Vikings analysis
- That sound you just heard was a Saints defensive lineman hitting Brett Favre fourteen hours after the whistle.
- The Vikings fumbled six times and Favre threw two interceptions on top of it. All told they had five turnovers, and Adrian “Weaky-Fingers” Peterson was a key participant in two of them. That’s not how you get to the Super Bowl, guys. But I guess I don’t need to tell you that.
- More turnover analysis: the Vikings worst sequence of the night was when, in field goal range at the end of regulation, they committed a five yard penalty (too many men in the huddle – shades of the Patriots a few years ago) and then Favre ran around like a little kid, drawin’ up plays in the dirt, and threw it to a Saint. The worst part was that Favre had at least five yards in front of him to run – if he’d just taken off instead of throwing across his body, into traffic, he’d probably be celebrating a win today. Or at least he wouldn’t be staring at himself in the mirror this morning with a single manly tear rolling down his grizzled cheek. As I like to say after only the biggest epic playoff failures, that was UN-fortunate.
- That sound you just heard was a Saints linebacker piledriving Brett Favre in his own living room.
- The Saints really didn’t look that good, did they? Except for their turnover machine defense, that is (or maybe they just hired a necromancer to put a serious jinx on the entire Vikings offense’s hands). They were outgained by almost 200 yards. That’s two hundo… deuce, aught, aught. Brees was pretty off for a guy who ended up throwing three TDs and no picks. Reggie Bush was held in check. And the Vikings, even with their five turnovers in regulation and several stupid penalties in the 4th quarter and overtime, had all kinds of opportunities to win the game. These looked like the same Saints that had so much trouble closing out teams like the Buccaneers down the stretch. We’ll see in two weeks if they’re prepared for a well-oiled machine like Indy. Or maybe they’ll just keep the football well-oiled, so that Addai does his best Adrian “Flipper-Arms” Peterson impression. …Seriously, Vikes, SIX fumbles? I can’t bring this up often enough.
- That sound you just heard was Brett Favre’s spine snapping in four places as Garrett Hartley booted the game ball right into his back.
Super Bowl pick
See you next week, when I will pulverise this game down to the tiniest micron, like a Saints defender obliterating the last remnants of Brett Favre’s youth, or Peyton Manning annihilating all of Rex Ryan’s hopes and dreams. If we don’t know by then who will win the Super Bowl, with absolute clarity and certainty, it won’t be for lack of trying on my part; it will instead be because I am a smartass who is better at wisecracking than understanding football. Until then!
Satan to Pat Robertson
Filed Under In the News, Porchy | 2 Comments
You’ve probably already seen this, but if not, now’s your chance!
Dear Pat Robertson, I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I’m all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I’m no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth — glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven’t you seen “Crossroads”? Or “Damn Yankees”? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there’d be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it — I’m just saying: Not how I roll. You’re doing great work, Pat, and I don’t want to clip your wings — just, come on, you’re making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That’s working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract. Best, Satan
And speaking of calling someone banal
Filed Under Porchy, Random | 5 Comments
Ever wondered how to pronounce that goddawful word? Well, turns out, just plug any old vowel in between the letters B-N-L and put the emphasis on either syllable and voila! you’ve just said /banal/.
Don’t believe me? Here’s the usage note in my favorite dictionary.
Usage Note: The pronunciation of banal is not settled among educated speakers of American English. Sixty years ago, H.W. Fowler recommended the pronunciation (bnl, rhyming with panel), but this pronunciation is now regarded as recondite by most Americans: it is preferred by only 2 percent of the Usage Panel. Other possibilities are (bnl, rhyming with anal), preferred by 38 percent of the Panel; (b-nl, rhyming with canal), preferred by 46 percent; and (b-nl, the last syllable rhyming with doll), preferred by 14 percent (this last pronunciation is more common in British English). Some Panelists admit to being so vexed by the problem that they tend to avoid the word in conversation.
I’m mostly of a piece with those described by the last sentence but, when it seems like the most appropriate word, I used to be an /anal/ man. Now I’m a /canal/ man. Why? Because more members of the usage panel liked it and because of /banality/. They’re like partners!
I’m a mess. This blog is a messier.
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Steam powered opinions had this to say of Matt Yglesias (‘s blog):
I think I’ve decided that Matt Yglesias is headed out of my RSS feed. It’s not that I find him ideologically objectional … but rather that he has become utterly banal. He is a generalist to a fault, applying his well developed sense of logic and reason to an enormously broad set of topics. Increasingly I am finding that his analysis, …suffers from his lack of even a minute amount of substantive knowledge of the topic at hand.
Whatever the merits of logical coherence devoid of substantive knowledge,… [t]ry to think of what the reverse—a blogger who was a logical mess, but had tons of factual knowledge—would read like. That, I think, would be hugely banal.
That’s me! I think he’s talking about me! Tons of factual knowledge about stuff and no sense of order to get it down into pixels.
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