I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: HOSPITALITY-Tiny Desk Concert #212 (April 30, 2012).

Hospitality are a four piece band from New York.  They play fairly quiet, kind of delicate music.  Most of the songs have a delicately picked out guitar line on the electric guitar and strummed chords on the acoustic.  Amber Papini is the lead singer and rhythm guitarist.

“Sleepover” the first song, starts out even more quietly, with Papini picking out notes on the acoustic guitar while singing in what is practically a whisper.   There’s an interesting part in the middle where both guitars are picking out melodies and its the bass that is playing the most prominent line of the melody.

“The Birthday” picks things up a bit with a relatively more intense song.  The chords are louder and Papini sings more intensely.  This song ends with a whole series of “la da de das.”  Some songs can’t pull that off, but it works perfectly with this one–especially when the bassist adds harmony vocals–it’s super catchy.

“Betty Wang” opens with just the acoustic guitar and drums as Papini sings.  She won me over immediately with the echoed and rising notes of “so shy so shy so shy.”  With the electric guitar bursts and rather loud drumming this song is practically raucous.

The band is quite but their melodies are really catchy.

[READ: December 28, 2016] Talking as Fast as I Can

I was so excited that they were making a continuation of Gilmore Girls.  And while it was no doubt hard to live up to all the expectations of all of the fans, I thought the new series was great.  It captured the old show very nicely even though everyone had moved on ten years.

I wasn’t expecting a new book from Graham, and certainly not a memoir.  But, with some down time, she was able to push this book out as well as doing everything else she’s been doing lately.

For a memoir, this book is a little skimpy (208 pages), and yet, if that’s all she had to say I’m glad it wasn’t padded out with a ton of fluff.  Plus, Graham doesn’t tell us everything about everything.  She talks about her childhood, about acting, about being single and about Parenthood and Gilmore Girls.  It’s all done in what has become Graham’s trademark style (although since we are reading it and not hearing her, the pace is probably much slower).

I love that she teases us in the introduction about a character that she was sure she would return to years later.  After much build up, she reveals that character to be Dolly Gallagher Levi from a high school production of Hello Dolly (with an amusing picture of a naturally curly Graham on stage).

The opening gives us the basics: born in Hawaii (imagine), moved to Japan (Imagine), parents divorced and she lived with her dad on a house boat (IMAGINE).  There’s an amusing dialogue with her and her dad about this lifestyle.  Not sure if it was really him “talking” but it’s quite funny.  We see a picture of her when she was known as “Hair Head” at NYU and read that she wanted to act right from those days in high school.

The third chapter is an amusing one about dieting.  She conflates all of the diets that she has every been encouraged to try into one big diet (which is really very funny the way it contradicts itself).  Then she talks about aging as an actress and how TV is all about selling paper towels.  Meaning show are aimed at young people–because advertisers know young people haven’t made up their minds about brands yet–like what their favorite paper towels are.

Then she looks at her career this far: mostly she has been Gal About Town or The Mom.  GAT is a career girl on the go, she’s looking for love and can’t be tied down (she played this role in many shows including Seinfeld and NewsRadio).  The Mom, on the other hand is often single (although we don’t know why) and has kids.   The biggest distinction between the two seems to be that Moms fold laundry and GATs never do.

We also learn the frightening news that Graham was on another show when she auditioned for Gilmore called M.Y.O.B. and if it had gotten picked up for a second season she would never have been Lorelai.

Then she dishes a lot about the first go around of Gilmore Girls.  She says she re-watched all of the episodes for this book (she never watches anything that she’s been in).  And she gives some (bit honestly not enough) comments and observations about making the episodes.

Then she talks about her personal life a bit.  How hard it was for her to be successful when she didn’t want to be, and how interviewers always seem to want to know about your relationship status.  There’s also a really funny comment about male actors: “attractive, straight, successful actors actually don’t get as much attention as you might think, because women find them so intimidating that they–AHAHAHAHA, I can’t even finish that sentence with a straight face.”

Then she talks about how she met Peter Krause in 2002 at an award ceremony.  They started dating five years later (in that time, Kelly Bishop had encouraged her to date someone “like that fellow on Six Feet Under.” My favorite part about this section with Peter was when he took her to REI for the first time:

everyone who works at REI is named Tad.  Tad has zero percent body fat and a deep tan.  From the joyous way that Tad describes the absorbency levels of the Shammie Wowzas by the register, you might suspect he is on drugs. But Tad would never take drugs, what with all the fresh air in the world!

I could also relate to this section, as it still describes me:

I was always one of the East Coast kids who refused to button my jacket.  I was cold through most of the 1980s…”

You’ll be inside soon, so what button up?

There’s the chapter of all the degrading jobs she has had to do (actually, there not too many really awful ones).  I was delighted to hear that she acted at the George Street Playhouse which is not too far from my house.

She gives a very funny, largely clueless recap of her time on Project Runway.  I remembered that she was on it, but I’d forgotten that she had virtually no screen time.  And that is apparently because she in way in over her head with judging people–she just enjoyed watching the clothes go by.  Her description of being on the show is really funny.

The story about writing her novel is fascinating, especially the Kitchen Timer advice.  The nutshell advice of this is to set a kitchen timer for yourself for however long you feel you must write (as little 30 minutes) each day).  Do it every day (no skipping) and so nothing but write during that time.  You can write your stormy or in a journal, just be sure to write that whole time–no interruptions.  The journal writing will loosen up creativity.  But if you don’t do it every day, you have to start the habit again and again.  Seems pretty sound.

She talks about being on Parenthood (and basically makes it sound like the best job anyone ever had–she agrees that she sounds too much).  One of the more amusing things that she talks about is Old Lady Jackson–an old lady (who is Graham of course) who offers sage advice to the young kids she works with.  She makes sure the kids know she is not Old Lady Jackson (she herself is young and hip, don’t forget), but that she is imparting wisdom from Old Lady Jackson.  The four page letter from Old Lady Jackson to the kids of today is outstanding and something I agree with on just about every point.

The final 40 pages are  all about Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.  From the possibility of it happening, to the unlikeliness of it happening, to the unbelievability that it was actually going to happen.  And how excited they all were to be back on set.  I was surprised, although I shouldn’t have been, that all of the sets had to be re-created, because they don’t really save things at the studio.  Shocking!

And then she shows us excerpts from her diary (edited presumably) from the start of filming through to the end.  And if the show made you emotional, reading about her emotional reaction to making the show will make you even more emotional.

And the mysterious loss of a “precious” artifact.

Most of the book is quite funny, but there are some unintentionally sad things to read about in late 2016: she assumes that Hillary will have won the election (still horrifying to think about).  And she talks about Carrie Fisher as one of her favorite actors.  Fortunately, she raves about Betty White as well, and she escaped the curse of 2016.

There’s also the very enticing ending.  Unlike the TV show, I will spoil the last few words of her book because… what?  Witness:

But seriously didn’t you sort of think that ending was really more of a cliffhanger? Hmmmmm….

What are you saying Lauren Graham?  She mentions that the end of the show was a cliffhanger on several occasions.  In fairness, she knew virtually nothing about what was going with the reboot before it happened, so I wouldn’t hold out hope that that means anything.  But still…..

But then, on New Year’s Eve, Netflix sent out this tease too…