So Many Books

In the last third of Emerson’s lecture, “Natural History of Intellect,” He writes of talent and genius. I can’t say that I agree with much he says here, maybe it is a matter of semantics or a different perspective on life, I just think he got it wrong. I could also have missed something in my reading, but, well, let’s just get on with it shall we?

Here is the crux of it all. Emerson sees two theories of life “one for the demonstration of our talent, the other for the education of the man.” Follow your talent and you get “usefulness, comfort, society, [and] low power of all sorts.” Take the education route, the route of genius, and you get “trust, religion, consent to be nothing for eternity, entranced waiting, [and] the worship of ideas.” Which one do you think Emerson praises? Which one do you think he calls “solitary, grand, secular?”

I don’t understand why talent and genius have to be diametrically opposed, nor why Emerson believes that if a person chooses the route of talent, genius is sacrificed. He sees talent as “ambitious and self-asserting,” as working “for show and for the shop.” It is as though he believes that talent is tawdry and unseemly and not something that can be put into the service of genius, that the use to which talent is put can only be for the purpose of personal and financial gain.

Emerson often stresses in his essays the importance of staying true to oneself and he brings it up again here. If we look at Nature and what strength lies there, we will see that the strength of a tree is that it is always a tree and never tries to be something it is not, it has “no duplicity, no pretentiousness.” The problem with humans is that we get distracted from who we are and try to be something or someone else:

He rows with one hand and with the other backs water, and does not give to any manner of life the strength of his constitution. Hence the perpetual loss of power and waste of human life.

Instead of thinking our own thoughts and coming to our own conclusions, we borrow other people’s forgetting that we “can’t make any paint stick but [our] own.”

But, oddly, while Emerson wants us to follow education/genius, he does not seem to encourage us to be what we think of as “Renaissance men,” those like Da Vinci who studied many subjects and knew a lot about many things. Instead, Emerson appears to be advocating in the name of concentration, a narrowness of study. He acknowledges that a narrow concentration precludes one from looking at other things but insists that just as a horse goes better with blinders, so too will a person be more dedicated to her task. Emerson believes that the narrow focus will be compensated because “in learning one thing well you learn all things.” Personally, I think that’s poppycock. No, we can’t study everything, but by studying only one thing the blinders will keep us from seeing something important. Not being able to look up from the study at hand, you miss the answer, or the question that will help you find an answer that is madly waving at you for your attention just outside you field of vision. You miss the big picture and how your knowledge connects with that person’s knowledge and so on.

The history of humanity as Emerson sees it is one of “arrested growth.” He thinks we start off well as children but are stopped prematurely at the age of two or three. He doesn’t explain what stops us, but he does say that we are not stopped forever, that as adults we can make advances. What a relief!

When I think of talent and genius, it seems to me that in order to have genius, one must have talent. I consider talent to be natural ability and genius to be the results of education and refinement of that ability. It would do me no good to study geometry if I had no talent for it. Nor would it do me any good to study cellular biology if I had no talent in understanding how it all worked to drive my interest or study. I don’t believe Emerson advocates studying something we have no interest in–that would fall under not being true to yourself–but isn’t it generally the case, that the things we are interested in and want to educate ourselves on are the things for which we have a talent?

Maybe I am just quibbling. Maybe what Emerson is trying to get at is that by putting my talent to work in order to become rich and famous, to “be somebody” is the wrong way to go. Becoming a doctor because I want to be like House is not being true to myself. Or maybe more realistically, becoming a librarian because I want to be like Nancy Pearl. Maybe talent shouldn’t be put to work. Maybe talent should be like a well from which we draw cool and refreshing drafts to fuel our genius, to spur us on, and to remind us why we chose the path that we did.

Next week’s Emerson: “Instinct and Inspiration”

Today being Solstice my husband and I both took the day off work. After all, what could be a better thing to celebrate than the start of summer? We were awoken about 5 a.m. by a not very melodious chorus of sparrows outside our window. The cats loved it. Soon there was a robin or two singing away and a cardinal too. And, to no surprise, the neighbor’s rooster had to chime in with a cock-a-doodle-do! every now and then. Yes, I have a neighbor with a rooster. Yes I live in a city. A small number of chickens are allowed to be kept. I’ve never seen the rooster, and I haven’t figured out whose house he lives at, but I do love to hear him crow in the morning and at odd hours of the day.

After lounging in bed for a while we got up for a fresh pot of coffee and breakfast, did yard work then puttered around. After lunch we headed over to Half Price Books. What fun we had there! Are you ready for the haul?

• The Heart of Emerson’s Journals edited by Bliss Perry. This is a reprint of the 1926 edition. I believe Mr. Perry is a relation of Emerson’s because Bliss is an Emerson family name, but I haven’t quite figured out what that relation is yet.
• Novel Beginnings: Experiments in Eighteenth-Century English Fiction by Patricia Meyer Spacks. This was a surprise and a happy find. I remember Dorothy reading it last year and had to have it.
• Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel by Lisa Zunshine. Cognitive psychology and literary studies. I couldn’t resist.
• The Diary of a Country Priest by George Bernanos. Litlove read this one and made it sound so good it had to come home with me.
• All the Names by Jose Saramago. My Bookman found this one.

As if that weren’t enough, we found ourselves in a NYRB extravaganza:

• The Book of Ebenezer Le Page by G.B. Edwards.
• The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy
• Memoirs of Montparnasse by John Glassco. I’m expecting this one will have great gossip in it.
• The Singapore Grip by J.G. Farrell.

What fun! We followed up our hunting by gathering our first bushel box of the season from our csa farm drop-off. How appropriate that our first box came on the Solstice. After a relaxing afternoon, I made a mixed green salad while my Bookman worked some saute magic with the collard and mustard greens, pac choi, and scallions from the farm box, adding in some crimini mushrooms and potatoes. Then we dined al fresco but were chased in near the end of our meal by a sudden downpour.

This evening will find us watching MST 3000: Attack of the Killer Shrews while enjoying a bowl of popcorn. Life is good.

Happy Solstice everyone!

A beautiful day today, too nice to sit at a computer, so this will be quick.

Check out the finalists in the Librareo video contest. The winner will be announced at the ALA conference next weekend (anyone going btw? I’m not but if you are let me know so i can live vicariously). The winner receives $2500 for themselves and another $2500 will go to the school or public library of their choice. I am torn between the complete goofiness of Barbara Tuchman and the professionalism of Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse. Harold and the Purple Crayon just plain scares me.

Creeping inarticulateness. The sentence sentenced to death. What is the world coming to? Blah, blah, blah.

For all you writer folk out there: 100 Web Tools for Writers.

As if any of us needed a reason to read, here are 50. Send the link to all your non-reading friends. Or create a flyer and stick it on the windshields of all the cars at the mall. Or just feel self-satisfied because we already knew all this.

Is it nice where you are? Go out and enjoy it!

This is my last week of free time before school starts. One would think that since I picked up Clarissa and read a small chunk and was excited about the progression and even, to myself, promised that I would come as close as I could to finishing it before summer quarter, that I would focus, focus, focus. Hah!

Can I blame the email from the library telling me the book I put a hold on two weeks ago was ready for pick up? The book that I thought I wouldn’t get for some time yet? Can I blame needing to start in on the next Slaves book? I must blame something because it certainly can’t be my fault that I also started reading a third book in addition to the other two.

How am I to defend myself from the assault of books? Pepper spray doesn’t work, though I suppose if I turned it around and sprayed myself that would put me out of reading commission altogether for a while. Kung fu doesn’t work either. Maybe that’s because I don’t know any. I’ve tried staring down the books but I’m always the first to blink. They know I am weak and defenseless and they take advantage of me. I cannot be held responsible. I am the victim.

The three books I have begun all within the last 4-5 days are:

The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel. Ever since this book moved in in early April it has been harassing me, whispering things to me like, “hey little girl, wanna read about libraries and books?” and “C’mon, you know you want to.” Finally I could stand it no longer and collapsed in a heap before the book, sobbing, “yes, yes I want to!” I am not disappointed.

• The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall. This is the one I wasn’t expecting from the library so soon. And I have to read it because I only get three weeks because there are other holds on it. I found out about the book from Brandon. I’m about 100 pages in and it is delightfully bizarre. And I discovered today, it even has it’s own Wikipedia page and a website that I am not ready to explore because I’m certain there are spoilers there.
• Then there is Edith Wharton’s Glimpses of the Moon for the Slaves discussion on June 30th. What fun this one is. Anyone who wants to join in the discussion is welcome. And if you don’t want to buy the book and your library doesn’t have it, it is available several places online.

Do you see how I am the victim? I don’t want to prosecute though. The police will likely it call it a crime of passion and the attorney for the defense will find a way to pin it on me. So unfair! What is the world coming to?

The weekend wasn’t all plumbing problems. I did manage to read some Herodotus and what fun it was. I read his narrative of the Battle at Marathon. I don’t think I have actually ever read anything about Marathon, I know about it because it seems to have pervaded the culture in some ways and you know every summer Olympics one of the announcers has to say why the marathon race is called a marathon.

So reading Herodotus I expected a dramatic runner huffing up to the king of Athens with an arrow in his side to say they had beaten back the Persians wherupon, message delivered, he collapses to the floor and dies. That’s not how Herodotus tells it.

There is a runner, Pheidippides, who is a trained and can run from Athens to Sparta in a day. Pheiddippides is sent to ask Sparta to send their army to the plains of Marathon because the Persians were coming to attack Athens. But on this run he reached Sparta the day after he had left Athens. His excuse was that he was held up by the appearance of the god Pan. When he did get to Sparta the king told him that Sparta would be glad to come and help but they were in the middle of something and by their laws couldn’t march out until the moon was full which was going to be in five days.

So Athens takes its army with the armies of a few other cities and they assemble on the plains. Thousands of Persians pull up in their ships. Outnumbered, the Athenians tried a risky move. Instead of lining up most of their ranks in the middle as was usually done, they lined up only about three-deep in the middle and put most of the army on the left and right wing. The Athenians were in the middle and at the signal ran all out toward the Persian line. The Persians were a bit taken aback but got themselves together to meet the attack. The Persians thought the fight would be over in no time since there were so few ranked rows.

Little did they know that on the wings, they were getting their butts kicked. The Persian army on the wings turned and ran. The Athenian army closed ranks and slowly encircled the center of the Persian fighting force. It appears that everyone caught up in the circle was killed.

The Persians who made it back to the ships thought they would get their revenge by sailing directly to Athens before the army could get back to protect the city. But either through a spy or traitor on the ships sending the Athenians a signal, or the Athenians just being smart, they new what was up. They raced back to Athens and made it there before the Persians did. When the Persians came into view of the coast and Athens and saw the Athenian army encamped there, they knew they had been beat and turned around and sailed away.

The next day the Spartans show up. When they found out what happened they praised the Athenians then went back home with a detour to Marathon so they could see the carnage. And there was a lot of it. Herodotus reports only 192 Athenians were killed and 6400 Persians. I doubt that is accurate but it certainly is the kind of thing out of which myths are made.

I found the story rather exciting. The details of the battle tactics that came from a brilliant, daring idea coupled with desperation succeeded against the arrogance of the Persians. And even though I new Athens was going to win, I was still worried, because what if this time they didn’t? That’s one of the cool things about books. You can read the same story more than once knowing full well how it all ends and still hope (or worry) that maybe this time it will turn out differently.

The regularly scheduled Emerson post was interrupted yesterday by a toilet.

It all began last week with a little seeping leak around one of the bolts that holds the toilet tank to the toilet bowl. Not a big leak by any means but something that had to be fixed. Saturday afternoon toilet innards replacement kit at hand–we decided to replace the whole inside because we were tired of making tiny repairs here and there–my Bookman starts to unscrew the leaking bolt and snap! it breaks right in half. No wonder it was leaking. When he started to unscrew the other bolt, the head of it crumbled. It crumbled just enough so there was nothing to grab onto to unscrew but not enough to pull it through the hole. Swearing ensued.

We tried having me hold the little piece that was left with needle nose pliers while my husband attempted to unscrew the bolt from beneath the tank. No go. He tried pounding on the thing to get the last bit to break. No go. He tried hack sawing it but it is a thick bolt and apparently the crumbled part was the only rotten part. I’m not sure what he did but finally, finally, he got the bolt out and the tank off only to discover that in the process he had cracked the tank.

Off to Home Depot we go with the tank to make sure what we bought was going to fit. Good thing we brought the tank because our particular brand of toilet is no longer made. So the nice plumbing man helped us find the narrowest tank he had that also matched up with the fittings. We need a narrow tank because our bathroom is about the size of an airplane bathroom and our toilet is not the standard distance from the wall. People in 1952 when the house was built obviously didn’t care about big luxury baths and must have been very small people.

So we find a tank that looks like it will work. He haul it out to the car happy that this adventure only cost us about $30. The tank had all the innards already put together, all we had to do was screw it onto the back of the toilet. We got it out of its wrappings and carefully squeezed into the bathroom with it, lowering it to the toilet back, lining up the bolt holes…it was looking good…until the wall got in the way. Everything lined up but we couldn’t set it completely in place because the tank was too wide.

Back to Home Depot to return the tank that didn’t fit. There were no other tank options. We decided that since the toilet in the basement bathroom was the same brand we would look at that one and see if maybe we could move that tank upstairs. Of course the tank in the basement was as wide as a semi. Tired and frustrated, we gave up on it for the day since we had the basement bathroom.

So Sunday, right after work, my Bookman goes straight to Home Depot with measurements. There was not much choice, but he brought home a whole new toilet. I was worried because I had heard toilets were hard to install, but an hour and a half later we had a new working toilet and it wasn’t all that hard to do even with bad directions.

I mentioned the bathroom was small? Now it is even smaller. The old toilet had a rounded bowl and we had about six inches of clearance between its front and the edge of the bathtub. Good thing my Bookman and I are actually as small as those 50s people must have been. But the new toilet has an oblong bowl and is only about 3 inches away from the tub so that one either has to adopt a straddling method or be resigned to a sideways position. We will one day have to find a different toilet, but for now we really don’t care.

The thing about all this is, we should have known. When we moved into the house nine years ago the bathroom sink faucet had a leak. Of course the faucet was as old as the house and the parts we needed to repair it did not exist. So we had to buy a whole new faucet only to discover that standard faucet fittings had changed since the 1950s. It was an ugly, cruddy sink anyway so we ended up buying a new sink and faucet just to fix a leak. And this weekend we bought a whole new toilet just to fix a little seeping leak.

I just pray that nothing ever goes wrong with the bathtub because we’d have to knock out a wall in order to remove it.

Back to books tomorrow.

In Herodotus he writes of the capture of the city of Miletos by the Persians. Miletos was a friend of Athens and the Athenians were much grieved. Phrynichos composed a drama called “Capture of Mletos”

and had put it on the stage, the body of spectators fell weeping, and the Athenians moreover fined the poet a thousand drachmas on the ground that he had reminded them of their own calamities; and they ordered also that no one in future should represent this drama.

I know Athens was big on drama, they held festivals and contests and all that. The response to this drama surprised me. I would have thought it would have provided a mass cathartic experience for the grieving Athenians.

And then I got to thinking about the present day. The play wouldn’t have been banned or the poet fined for making a city cry. But then not many in the city would probably show up for the play in the first place. Drama doesn’t quite hold the power over us that it used to. We have moved away from it to movies. And while there is nothing wrong with movies I think it is an unfortunate cultural shift. There is something about a play–the immediacy of it, the dynamic between actors and audience, the fact that anything can happen–that is lost in movies. You see the same movie I see. But a play is a living thing and the one I see performed in Minneapolis is not quite the same as the one that was performed in New York, or even the one that was performed the day before or the day after. It’s exciting to think about.

When I was in high school I was lucky to get to go on frequent school field trips to the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. The best plays were the Shakespeare plays we got to see in the outdoor theater in late spring. The San Diego Zoo is right next door and sometimes the peacocks would get to hollering or some other animal would start bellowing. The actors would ignore it all. Once though the peacocks got going just as one of the actors was saying something like Hark! did you hear that? The play being a comedy we all got to laugh.

There would also on occasion be a large airplane fly over, probably military, and all the actors on the stage would freeze until the plane passed and then they’d pick up exactly where they left off as if nothing had happened. It’s the unplanned things that happen that make plays such a great experience.

I cannot imagine though anything in this day that is or would be comparable to the Athenians and “Capture of Miletos.” Or maybe there is and my imagination is coming up short at the moment?

I had big plans last night. Crawl into bed early and read, read, read. But the weather got in the way. We had a severe thunderstorm roll through that just fifty miles away had produced a couple of tornadoes. Instead of reading I spent the evening glued to the TV waiting for them to tell me I had to herd the cats (yeah right!) and carry the dog (he can’t walk down the stairs) to the basement. My bookman was working and blessedly I didn’t end up having to herd cats or carry a 45 pound dog downstairs. So much for my quiet night of reading in bed.

Today then I offer a quickie with links (depending on how you interpret that it could be really interesting).

I know you have always been wondering how those READ posters get made. Wonder no more. You can even email in a celebrity suggestion. Who do you want on your READ poster? I’ll take the Patrick Stewart one from a number of years ago (sadly his poster appears to be out of print). Maybe I will suggest a Jim Sturges one

The Scholastic 2008 Kids and Family Reading Report is up. Some notes of interest. 62% of kids said they prefer reading a printed book over reading a book online or on a handheld device. But at the same time 2 in 3 children think that within the next 10 years most books that are read for fun will be digital.

And now something really fun: a book list! The New York Public Library’s 25 Books to Remember for 2008. The list consists of books published in 2007 and chosen by NYPL librarians. Who doesn’t love a book list?

No rain forecast for tonight, and reading is back on the agenda!

Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes (there is also a short interview at this link). Excellent reading. Short, quick, enjoyable, yet thoughtful and thought-provoking. Good for the beach. Good for the airplane. Good for a rainy day. Good for a snowy day. All around good for any day really.

The book’s premise. Geoffrey Braithwaite, medical doctor and amateur Flaubert scholar narrates–I’m not sure what. This isn’t a book with a plot. There is no story other than Flaubert’s life. But that’s not quite right because there is a little story about Geoffrey search for the letters of Flaubert and the governess Juliet Herbert in order to discover whether they ever consummated their affair. But this is just a small story that is over by page 50. There is the underlying story of Geoffrey and his wife, Ellen, who seem to have a Madame Bovary sort of marriage. But only sort of. But we don’t find out about that until the end of the book. We are back to Flaubert who is the only subject that goes from start to finish. But the book is not a biography.

The book asks questions like “Do the books that writers don’t write matter?” There are meditations on the difference between life and fiction. Suicide is also wondered about. The book critiques Flaubert’s writing and also makes fun of critics. One of my favorite parts was Brathwaite’s send up of Dr. Enid Starker, Reader Emeritus in French Literature at the University of Oxford. Our narrator heard her lecture once. She criticizes Flaubert for his carelessness because Emma Bovary’s eyes keep changing color. Brathwaite confesses:

In all the times I read Madame Bovary, I never noticed the heroine’s rainbow eyes. Should I have? Would you? Was I perhaps too busy noticing things that Dr. Starkie was missing (though what they might have been I can’t for the moment think)? Put it another way: is there a perfect reader somewhere, a total reader? Does Dr. Starkie’s reading of Madame Bovary contain all the responses which I have when I read the book, and then add a whole lot more, so that my reading is in a way pointless? Well I hope not. My reading may be pointless in terms of the history of literary criticism; but it’s not pointless in terms of pleasure.

The book also contains “Brathwaite’s Dictionary of Accepted Ideas which is a joke on something Flaubert wrote. The “Dictionary” includes such entries as

Epilepsy. Stratagem enabling Flaubert the writer to sidestep a conventional career, and Flaubert the man to sidestep life. The question is merely at what psychological level the tactic was evolved. Were his symptoms intense psychosomatic phenomena? It would be too banal if he merely had epilepsy.

There is a chapter in which Louise Colet, one of Flaubert’s mistresses, gets to tell her side of the story. The second to last chapter is an examination paper for which we are to answer four essay questions in three hours.

Oh, and there is the parrot which bookends the whole thing.

I think what I liked best about the book was the narrative voice which gallops along like a dog that is almost fully grown but is still a puppy. I didn’t expect the book to be so gosh darn funny; what a delightful surprise! I now understand why this is on so many people’s favorite books list. Such a gem. My first book by Barnes and definitely not the last.

I finished Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes last night, but before I get to that, I just got the grade on my final project from and the grade for the whole class. I got an A The only thing I got marked down on for my project was that I didn’t quite get APA style. I know MLA citation style inside and out and APA doesn’t entirely make sense to me but I thought I had followed the correct way. No, I capitalized the whole title and in APA it’s only the first word of the title that is capitalized apparently. So I got marked off for that, but I think it hardly a sin. And here are the final comments:

Outstanding job on your project. I was impressed with the variety of searching methods you used, ensuring that you only included articles that met our required criteria. You found excellent articles that focused exactly on what was required. Way to go! You have caught on well to this searching business!

Woo! If anyone out there would like an annotated bibliography on the information seeking behaviors of humanities scholars that includes a few interesting articles specifically on literature professors and historians, I can provide.

And now I realize I am too happy and relieved over my grade–not that I thought I’d get a bad grade but there is always a bit of doubt–that I can’t think of Flaubert so now is a good time to do Emily’s Oversharing Meme.

1. Name the singer/band/performer you are most embarrassed to admit you actually paid good money to see in concert.

   Okay, this will let you in on what a complete dork I was in high school and what a complete dork I still am. Me and five friends went to a Barry Manilow concert. We had a great time. The man does a good concert and there’s no denying he can belt out a tune. Of course we knew all the words and I still do. I even own his two-disc best of collection. This is not something I generally tell most people.

2. Which reality TV show have you watched more than once (come on. I don’t believe you if you say “none,” unless you don’t own a TV)?Dancing With the Stars! Since I have been ballroom dancing for the last nine years I can’t not watch the show. You’d think my Bookman and I had our own number paddles and a seat next to Len from the kinds of comments we make during the show.

   I had a brief flirtation with American Idol way back when it first began and I still enjoy watching the auditions, but when they actually start being able to sing I lose interest.

3. Which complete trash novelist have you not only read but enjoyed enough to read more than one book of his/hers?

I’ve read several of Judy Blume’s adult novels. Those were pretty trashy. I used to sneak into my mom’s room when I was a kid and read “the good parts” of whatever Harlequin Romance she had going. I’m not very good at the trash and when I do read a trashy book I usually don’t read others by the same author.

4. What sappy musical could you watch over and over and over again?

I’m not much of a musical fan. I did like the recent movie Across the Universe. Is it sappy to make a movie out of Beatles songs?

5. Who was your first celebrity crush?The Lone Ranger. Seriously. The reruns used to come on in the afternoons when I was a kid and I loved the show. Couldn’t get enough of it. I think it might have been the horse and Clayton Moore’s voice.
6. Who is the most embarrassing celebrity on whom you have a slight crush today?Jim Sturges. He was in Across the Universe and 21. I think he’s in his early twenties which means I am technically old enough to be his mother, but his singing voice is lovely and he has this look that he does that makes me feel giddy.
7. What movie that everyone else and his cousin and even his dog has seen have you never seen?I’ve never seen The Godfather, Pulp Fiction, Schindler’s List, Brokeback Mountain, Saving Private Ryan, Gladiator–I could keep going, the list is very, very long since I am not a movie goer. In fact I have a hard time remembering most actor’s names which on occasion drives my sister nuts because I usually don’t remember the name of the movie they were in either. So conversations will go something like this: Remember the guy who was in the movie with the singing and dancing? He did a tap dance and there was also a tango in it and something about jail? And there were rumors once about gerbils? What’s his name? Yeah, him. I saw an ad on TV the other day and he’s in a new movie that looks like it might be interesting.

   When I actually remember an actor’s name or the name of a movie I think I take a year off my sister’s life just from the shock.

8. What were you drinking the first time you ever got drunk?The first and only time I have ever been drunk was on my 21st birthday. Getting drunk didn’t take long with vodka and orange juice. I had such a hangover I didn’t get out of bed until 3:00 the next day.
9. Which old re-run will you still pause to watch if you’re flicking through the channels and see that it’s on?There aren’t many old re-runs that I would watch but if I ever run across Monty Python’s Flying Circus or Keeping Up Appearances those would definitely get me to stop. Or The Black Adder. I love The Black Adder. I also have to confess to a certain fondness for Charlie Brown specials. I love It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and the Christmas one with the sad little tree.
10. What book/movie/t.v. show that only a fifteen-year-old would think is funny makes you laugh?Remember Mystery Science Theater when it used to be on TV and had Joel on it? Before it made it big and got it’s own movie? They’d make the dumbest jokes sometimes and I often laughed so hard my sides hurt. Gilligan’s Island also cracks me up.