4 and 3 and 2 and 1!

Like Uncle Albert and Bert in Mary Poppins, I love to laugh. 

 "some only blast"

Growing up in the nineties, I lived for watching shows like The Wonder Years, Perfect Strangers, The Golden Girls and, of course, Seinfeld. Also, Kids in the Hall and Saturday Night Live. 

I remember this one time when I laughed so hard during Perfect Strangers that I literally showered the television with the yoghurt that was in my mouth (TMI?). My mother was not impressed.

I don't own a television. As such, I don't want much TV. Not that it matters. There just isn't anything that funny on anymore. 

Or so I thought.

While I enjoy Girls and sometimes even laugh out loud while watching it, nothing is funnier than Broad City, a comedy series that debuted on Comedy Central in 2014 but started online in 2009 as a web series.

broad city theme song; latino and proud by dj raff

I just Wikipedia'd the show and found the description quite amusing: "Broad City follows Ilana and Abbi, both are self-professed Jewish feminist women that perpetually experience misadventures of carelessness and frivolity in New York City. Ilana seeks to avoid working as much as possible while pursuing her relentless hedonism and Abbi tries to make a career as an illustrator, often getting sidetracked into Ilana's hijinks." 

Hijinks??? Now that's funny! 

This is how I'd describe the show: Broad City follows Ilana Wexler and Abbi Abrams, two best friends in their twenties who, while broke, smoke a lot of pot and have a lot of fun while getting into their fair share of sketchy situations.

The second episode of the first season was called Pu$$y Weed. This is why:

"the vagnagna is nature's pocket" 

The show was created by it's two stars, Ilana Glazer (who plays Ilana Wexler) and Abbi Jacobson (who plays Abbi Abrams) who also happen to be best friends in real life. Glazer and Jacobson are alumnae of the Upright Citizens Brigade, an improvisational theatre in New York.  They met, and became fast friends, when they joined a sub-group of the theatre called the Secret Promise Circle. 

Amy Poehler joined the comedy duo as an executive producer for the final episode of the web series. Thanks to her considerable influence, Broad City got picked up by Comedy Central and the show went from 4 minute episodes to 22 minutes. And the rest, as they say, is history.     

Wikipedia describes the characters as feminists and while I wouldn't disagree with that, I don't think that's the central premise of the show. Broad City, essentially, revolves around the friendship between Ilana and Abbi, which is what makes it so relatable. 

To me, anyhow. 

And if you still need convincing, here are some of the funniest clips (I could find on You Tube):

the worldwide bloodstream

nature skills

to peg or not to peg?

ilana's intern army

abbi on the edge of glory

eight f**king thousand dollars

Good thing I didn't have any yoghurt in my mouth.

Oh, and one more thing. I die for Ilana's head dance:

The airing of grievances...

Tradition. 

The holidays are wrapped in it.

"how did this tradition start? i don't know. but it's a tradition"

Every year for 39 years (that I know of) my entire family has gathered on December 24th, Christmas Eve, to share the opłatek, feast on 12 courses of seafood and open gifts. All of them. On Christmas Day, when everyone else is eating turkey, my mom and I go to Chinatown for dim sum. 

That was our tradition. 

'tis the season to be jorry

This year, the family has decided to go rogue. 

Apostles who? 

Seafood what?

This year, the family has decided to start a new tradition.

Christmas chicken.

While I was reticent at first (who, exactly, wouldn't be reticent about passing on 12 courses of seafood?) I am excited to start a new tradition. 

This year, Christmas Eve will be spent enjoying a réveillon with the beau and his family in Trois-Rivières and Christmas will be spent feasting on chicken (and other seasonal merriment) with my family in Montreal.

A Festivus for the rest of us.

the festivus pole. It's made from aluminum and has a very high strength-to-weight ratio

The origin of Festivus was the result of one man (Seinfeld's Frank Costanza, to be specific) and his refusal to conform to the growing commercialism of the holiday season. And I quote:

Frank Costanza: Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way.

Cosmo Kramer: What happened to the doll:

Frank Costanza: It was destroyed. But out of that a new holiday was born... a Festivus for the rest of us!

In a nutshell, Festivus involves a pole instead of a tree, starts with the airing of grievances and finishes with feats of strength. Also, there are the Festivus miracles... of which there are many.

The Festivus pole is the ultimate anti-Christmas symbol as it remains unadorned (Frank finds tinsel distracting) and can be kept in a crawl space the rest of the year.  

The airing of grievances is pretty much what it sounds like; complaining. Once the family is gathered around dinner the head of the household tells everyone how they've disappointed him over the past year.

 is it just me or is that Jack Black?

As a child, what was most exciting about the holidays was obvious; the presents. As I get older (and more like Frank Costanza) spending time with family and friends becomes much more important; as does eating copious amounts of chicken. 

But still. Let's not forget the Human Fund.

   

Breaking the rules

I'm about to break the first two rules of book club, which are 1) you do not talk about book club and 2) you DO NOT talk about book club.

While book club isn't quite as, ummm, violent as fight club it does bring together folk of the same ilk. The ilk just happens to be reading instead of fighting. 

The Bibliobelles are a group of ladies (or should I say women?) that get together every few months to talk about, well, a book. The original group was formed in Toronto many years ago but when I first moved back to Montreal (before I left again and moved back a second time) I ran the idea of forming a book club by "the mamita," aka my mom, and we made it happen.

Over the years members have come and gone (with some going before they even ever came) but one thing has remained the same; the gender of book club members. We are all wo-men!

i think she's saying she's a woman

Since its inception, the Montreal chapter of the Bibliobelles has read, ummm, countless books including The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill, The History of Love by Nicole Krauss and The Sentimentalists by Johanna Skibsrud, among many others. Most recently we read The Post-Office Girl, by Stefan Zweig (and translated by Joel Rotenberg) and met up at Alpenhaus to do what we do best; talk and eat.

A word to the wise. 

Should you want to try Alpenhaus (and you really should, because it's delicious) head to Groupon first. From the moment we walked in to the Swiss restaurant we were barraged with coupon-related questions... had we known (or been told) that Groupon coupons would have saved us mucho dinero, or das große Geld, we would have been sehr glücklich.

Seinfeld on reservations

But back to the book.

Zweig was widely considered one of the most popular writers during the years in between the two world wars and his works were translated accordingly. Despite this, I only stumbled upon him via Wes Anderson, director of The Grand Budapest Hotel, who credits the author with inspiring him for the movie.   

Gustave H, by the way, is Stefan Z

Because the hotel is so intrinsic to the book, and the movie, have a look at this featurette on its creation.

Exact and particular are two words that can describe both Zweig and Anderson. Zweig in his writing and Anderson in his visual aesthetic. 

The Post-Office Girl is divided into two very distinct parts and tells the story of Christine Hoflehner, a forlorn postal clerk in a small Austrian village who manages to escape her dreary life, for a short time, in an Alpine hotel (hence our visit to the Alpenhaus). The ending, which is very abrupt, suggests the book was never completed. Zweig, in fact, committed suicide along with his wife as part of a pact in 1942 and as such, probably never finished it.

In its final pages, The Post-Office Girl's Christine is torn between the past, the present and the meaninglessness of life as she is forced to decide on a plan that could end in her ultimate demise.