Men of 30 Rock

Mmm. 30 Rock satisfies on so many levels.



If you overlaid Tina Fey's and my Chart of Hotness, you'd end up with an almost entirely overlapping Venn diagram. God bless you, Liz Lemon!

Oh, and sorry Kenneth.

And so it is...

The end of another year, eh? Nothing quite like it to make you feel a little melancholy/sentimental/panicked at the unstoppable passage of time all at once.

2010 - if it had a slogan, it would surely be The Future is Now! Unfortunately, hover boards and inter-galactic travel are still some way off (despite Richard Branson's best efforts).

For me, 2010 was a year packing some pretty hefty ch-ch-changes.

I got back together with a boy and in April we moved in together - in South London (let's not revisit the controversy). My lovely friend Gem and I were foiled in our churro quest in Barcelona, but I did discover a pharmacy that dispenses lollies as medicine. I watched a 20-20 match in St. Lucia and got mugged in Soufrière. I quit my stifling corporate job and bought a ticket back home to Australia, minus the boy. I shipped my Pashley (and other less important items) halfway around the world. I spent 3 happy months travelling around country Victoria, working on farms and enjoying the combination of dirty hands and complete lack of responsibility. I wrote my first short story. I caught up with old school friends and realised how things change, and don't change. I signed on for the dole, heavy with Working Class Guilt (not quite enough guilt for me to turn down the offer of money for nuttin', however).

And most happily, I witnessed my little bro - one of these days I'm going to have to get used to the idea that my "little bro" is a man, but that day has not yet come - get married. I got myself a sister! Two of them, in fact. We've already been shopping together and collaboratively given my mum a makeover, so as soon as we have our first bitch-fight over a "borrowed" dress I'm pretty sure it's official.

Just kidding, Stace n' Anny!

Ephemeral stuff I enjoyed this year:

Contra by Vampire Weekend. Boy, those fresh-faced preppy boys know their way around a crazy happy toon. Especially the joyful goose chase of Cousins.

Mad Men (series 1-3). TV was where it's at in 2010, man. Mad Men drew me and a bunch of other people in with its combination of understated acting, finely tuned writing and highly polished visual style. Refreshing and slightly bitter, like a good G&T.

30 Rock just keeps getting better and better, which is a relief - so many comedy series seem to cram an entire back catalogue of jokes into the first series and tail off noticably after that. Tina Fey, I salute you and your deceptively cute, quick-fire quirkiness.

The comedy of Eric Laempart. What a weird-lookin' spidery-horse man he is.

Latitude festival, a very chilled out festival in Suffolk, on which the sun uncharacteristically shone and shone. The could-have-been-tailor-made-for-me 2010 line-up was as good as it's ever gonna get, as far as I'm concerned.

High Violet, by The National. Really, anything he does with that deep sad voice is fine by me.

Moon. Yup, it was released in 2009, but I didn't get to see it until this year and it was awesome - a properly scary, claustrophobic, plot-driven film with great characters and a big idea behind it - just as great sci-fi should be (see Alien, Bladerunner, 2001, Silent Running, Gattaca).

I Speak Because I Can, by Laura Marling. This girl has a seriously gorgeous voice that belies her age (she was born in 1990, which is surely impossible or maybe illegal?). Check Devil's Spoke and Goodbye England - my very own 2010 anthem.



See you next year, Dreamers! I for one have my fingers crossed that 2011 is a deal-maker year.

The Hot List - appended

Chris Rock

"I prefer dark topics when I'm doing comedy. I like to kind of dig myself out of a hole. And I don't take it for granted that people are going to laugh … so if you're up there and no one's laughing, wouldn't it be great to be talking about something interesting?"

Guillaume Nery


Jason Segel

Devouring Freaks and Geeks right now, which I adore. Adore! Look at me with the enthusiasm.

David Eagleman

I love him for his MIND. His amazing, creative, playful mind.

Jack Donaghy

He makes me laugh - and if a man can do that, he's golden. Although, Tina's the writing genius behind 30 Rock, Alex just brings the silver fox to the mix - so I guess I should transfer at least 50% of my crush to her.

D:Reamy Prof Cox the Fox rox my world*

Has anyone managed to catch Wonders of the Solar System on BBC2? I can highly recommend it to anyone with a passing interest in astronomy; or those among us who are simply interested in staring at sweet boy-faced men eulogising about something (anything) that they are so excited about that their eyes get all shiny and a sort of glow comes off them.

I mean, I find contemplation of our amazingly complex little solar system and the universe beyond absolutely mind-bottling, but honestly - astronomy's association with ancient, incoherent men who can calculate the elliptical rotation patterns of distant moons but are unable to buy a pair of fitting trousers, heat up a tin of baked beans or replace a pair of spectacles that are clearly beyond repair has made it a no-go zone for many women. Science on that sort of mathematical/astro-physical level just isn't sexy.

Well, get ready to have your preconceptions slapped around the face and covered in glitter:



How d'ya like them space particles?!

Introducing Mr. Brian Cox, formerly of D:Ream (thiiings... can only get better) and latterly passionate crusader for science funding and visitor of schools (sigh!) to raise the profile of the least-cool subject on the curriculum.

Coming from this man, space is cool - literally and pop-culturally. He sprinkled his magic space dust on me and suddenly I am the proud possessor of information about the names of the moons of Jupiter (Io, Ganymede, Callisto and Europa, named for the lovers of the Greek god Zeus). The earth would fit inside Jupiter more than a thousand times. Something about volcanos. Shiny, shiny eyes.

*apologies for the tortured wordplay - I just couldn't resist.

Hard to be a girl, so nice to be a boy

I was never a girly-girl. On the flipside, I was never the stereotypical scrappy 'tomboy' either - I think I just grew up in less gender-defined times, when boys and girls were kind of lumped together in a big amorphous mass, all sunburnt limbs and interchangable t-shirts. I didn't wear a skirt until my grade 6 graduation. I never wore make-up, even in high school (assuming you don't count Body Shop lip gloss) - social suicide nowadays, judging by the prozzy-painted faces of school girls at the bus stop. Coinciding happily with the end of my schooldays and the beginning of my painfully self-conscious adolescence was the Grunge movement. Grunge tied in nicely with a) my burgeoning feminist principles; b) my fingers-down-the-throat reaction to anything pink, sparkly or adorned with heart motifs; and c) my inherent laziness.

However, since I've been living in the UK, I think it's fair to say that I have been slowly but inexorably sucked over to the feminine side of the gender divide. It started with a boyfriend who encouraged me to wear dresses, then developed via working with a bunch of girls who knit and make jewellery and cut their own hair (my measly contribution to this girl-fest is baking).

Further proof of my girlification: just recently I've bought five new necklaces (because I couldn't decide between them - I love them all!); gotten my first ever bikini wax (Not Worth It); and even applied a little bit of Holiday Skin to my legs (a purely humanitarian act - so that I don't blind pedestrians with the sight of my brilliant white legs scissoring past them in the morning sunshine).

Like 99% of my gender, however, I represent a startling mass of contradictions. Champagne and heels one day, cutting my knees open roller-blading the next. I like to think I nurture both sides; the girl who loves bright colours and new clothes, and the tomboy riding the mountain bike to work with plasters on her knees.

I was reminded of this contradiction when I watched the final series of Sex and the City for the first time recently, and (god forbid) enjoyed it, albeit guiltily. Scarier still, I identified with it. Crikey O'Blimey. I openly sneered at this show when I was in my twenties; now - single in my thirties, having lived in New York, asking myself a lot of the questions that Carrie poses, living away from my parents and family (and thus, my grown up responsibilities) - this show resonates in a way that it never used to. However, I do not condone the reckless consumerism it promotes, and I think anyone watching it should be aware that they are participating in fantasy-level escapism (girl-porn, basically).

However, just so I don't tip too far over, I have also been devouring Series 4 of The Wire. For those who have not yet been harangued to watch this show by their geekier friends, The Wire is probably the most beautifully understated, brilliant, real Police drama ever aired. This is a show that celebrates old-school manliness of the hard-drinking, straight-talking, solitary-living, authority-shunning kind. It is absolutely absorbing to watch; not least because it feels so unnervingly real that you can't help but be drawn into the worlds of the many characters, despite the often obscure jargon bristling from the dialogue. I've learned to go with it even if I don't always understand it - David Simon, the show's creator, maintains that "The first season of The Wire was a training exercise. We were training you to watch television differently." It's not supposed to be an easy watch. I have to watch it alone, because the distraction of someone sitting next to me is too much - it requires 100% attention. But damn, it's worth it.

God, someone should do a mash-up of these two shows. That would blow my mind.

Embracing my inner nerd: part 2

Another nugget which confirms my geekhood: I used to be obsessed with the X-Files, as were most of my family. I can still remember my brother's face, locked in an expression of hilarious concentration as he whistled along to the theme tune. It took me a while to get hooked - the first few episodes seemed to be entirely composed of Dana Scully wandering around the woods at night, shining her torch around wildly and calling out "Mulder? Mulder?!" in an increasingly frustrated/worried tone - but slowly Fox Mulder's good looks and gravelly monotone got to me.

So imagine my delight when I discover that Mr. Duchovny is appearing in a new show, Californication, in which he plays some kind of writer/sex fiend cutting loose in LA after the breakdown of his marriage.

There were a few things about the pilot which disturbed me, however. One was that David Duchovny didn't quite convince me as Hank Moody, the bad boy writer gone off the rails. Then there was the completely unsexy sex scenes. And then this charming encounter where Hank taunts his blind date after she asks him to tell her about herself, using his creative intuition (seeing as he's a writer and all):

“I think you were born in the valley. Nice part, though. Your father was middle-management, white collar executive. Stay-at-home mom. You didn’t want to stray too far to go to college so you went to USC. You had a serious boyfriend in college, you broke up right after, he married the next one. You got a low maintainence gig in a human resources industry, you had a string of bad relationships, you put on some weight. You looked around, you saw all your friends starting to pair up and get married so you decided you should lose the weight, you joined a gym, maybe you did a little running.

You say you want to work - maybe start your own party planning business, you fancy yourself kind of a poor gal’s Martha Stewart - but what you really wanna do is sit at home, on the couch, with some poor sap, watching reality TV while he watches you get fat again.”

Pretty bitchy, huh?

Afterwards, I stayed up and watched the pilot episode of 30 Rock, a new show I knew nothing about. Here's Jack Donaghy (played by Alex Baldwin) sizing up his new employee Liz Lemon in the first episode:

“Sure...I gotcha. New York, third-wave feminist, college-educated, single and pretending to be happy about it, over-scheduled, undersexed, you buy any magazine that says 'healthy body image' on the cover, and every two years you take up knitting ... for a week.”

When did men get so damn catty?! I mean, I know these characters aren’t real (hyuk - I ain’t stupid), but this dialogue was written by men... wasn’t it?

Well, actually, this particular episode of 30 Rock was written by a woman - the woman who plays the "over-scheduled, undersexed" Liz. You are letting down the sisterhood, Liz. I'm disappointed in you. And in you, Mr. Duchovny, object of my teenhood affections and Executive Producer of a show which seems to divide women into two groups: potential sex partner or object of derision.

Curb my enthusiasm, Larry!

I, like most people on the planet priveleged enough to own a TV, loved Seinfeld.

But, how's this, I was so naive and unworldly that I didn't realise all the characters were Jewish... it took my Jewish ex-boyfriend to point that one out to me. I just thought they were typical Nu Yoricans (and I guess they kind of were). Amazingly, he didn't dump me on the spot for being so flaky.

Much as I enjoyed Seinfeld, I was never tripping over myself to make uninitiated friends/family watch it. Some of the lines wore a little thin after much repetition. Forget Raymond - everybody loved Seinfeld. The canned laughter started to annoy me. The applause as any of the main characters entered the room started to annoy me. Jerry Seinfeld is a very funny man, but the show lost a little magic for me over the years.

I have been meaning to check for myself whether Curb your Enthusiasm (written by and starring the co-creator of Seinfeld) lives up to the hype, and the conclusion I have come to after watching series 1-4 back to back is that it is actually pret-ty, pret-ty, pret-ty, pret-ty, pret-ty good. Only people who watch the show will get that, but never mind. Actually, I fahked ahp. It is brilliant.

Curb Your Enthusiasm represents the next generation of comedy. It is so much funnier, more tragic, sharper, more complex, and edgier than Seinfeld. Clearly Larry David was destined for better things, and the freedom of writing for HBO has allowed his creativity to flourish. Larry David - the man, the character, the comic - is the show. His love of words and odd phrasings and voices shines through in the comic exchanges between him and his various cohorts. Larry himself is an enjoyable character to watch bumbling around on screen, saying the wrong things, digging himself into holes, and looking bewildered when events spiral out of his control. Each episode weaves together at least three story strands, sometimes more successfully than others, but always with a neat pay-off at the end.

I also love the fact that this show has never hit the popularity peak which Seinfeld enjoyed (being slightly geekier and more subversive), and as such, being a fan is kind of like belonging to a slightly more exclusive club - albeit mostly composed of geeks and writers - compared to the mindless hordes who guffawed every time Kramer skidded through the door in Seinfeld.

Zany Crazy Love Children from Outer Space are Eating my Brai-i-i-in

Oh my goodness, I am enjoying watching The Mighty Boosh DVD perhaps a wee bit too much. This surreal comedy has got me hankering for a little more craziness in my life, and a little less drone-like trudgery - a little more surreality and a little less commuting-with-the-grey-people.

Watching The Boosh is like taking drugs, without taking drugs. Parts of it are so funny I find myself laughing out loud at the mere recollection, at inappropriate moments - like last night, when I sprayed the bathroom mirror with a mouthful of toothpaste at the memory of a particularly hilarious scene.

Everyone needs a bit of silliness in their life. And this program is brimming with the stuff - good-natured, unself-conscious, flamboyant barrel-loads of it; set in a fantasy world where cowboy hats and lycra are de riguer, Death is a cockney geezer, the Moon is an alabaster retard, and there is always an excuse to break into song or scare small children.

Also, completely incidentally, Noel Fielding (who plays Vince Noir) reminds me a tiny bit of my gorgeous boyfriend. And we all know that can only be good.

2007 - the year I resolve to ignore the fact that I am turning 30

Thirty? Pfft. Isn't it the new twenty, anyway?

My New Year's resolution is to pretend that turning thirty is really no biggie. I am going to defy the Gods who made me the anxious, angst-filled, worry-wart that I am with a big two fingers to the sky.

In the world outside my head, this year has been not so great for a few people I know (and indeed, the person closest to me in the world). Then again, in my circle of "peeps" there has been the birth of a beautiful baby boy, the purchase of a dream house, and some new relationships formed (and no significant break-ups). A year of mixed blessings, then.

In music, as in school reports, the girls have performed better than the boys this year. The albums which have made the most impact on me this year have all been by women, with the possible exception of Scott Matthews (and then only because of the hints of Jeff Buckley which ghost through his voice). Amy Winehouse blew me away with her deep and gutsy Back to Black. Joan as Police Woman (again, the Buckley connection) broke my heart with her soulful, cracked voice. Jenny Lewis brought me around to alt country. Cat Power came out with her best album to date, appropriately titled The Greatest. Claire Bowditch reminded me of what I love about Melbourne (I was a little behind on this discovery).

Most Gorgeous Gig of the Year: Lior at Camden Lock

Sweetest & Funniest Flick of the Year: Little Miss Sunshine

Most Breathtaking TV Programme of the Year: Planet Earth

Best Haircut of my Life: November 2007. Thank you, Stace.