Never Be Bored
16 August 2020
This Might As Well Happen
New in Town, John Mulaney comedy special. My Favorite Shapes, Julio Torres comedy special; Palm Springs 2020 Max Barbakow movie; Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency tv show.
"And by the way, part of me was like whatever, you know? You ever have those days where you're like, this might as well happen. Adult life is already so goddamn weird."
I think about this John Mulaney quote a lot. Especially now in the year of our lord 2020. Anyway, I love his brand of comedy, and this quote is from his special New in Town, currently streaming on Netflix. You can also find clips of it on YouTube, it's from his bit about the time he tried to get a Xanax prescription, or listen to the album on Spotify.
It's a meandering, wonderful mess of a thing, as John Mulaney tells stories about being a kid growing up in Chicago with two lawyers for parents to moving to New York City, being a comedy writer, dating his girlfriend, and watching Law & Order. He also dumps on Delta Airlines, so he gets some brownie points from me for that.
"I have a lot of shapes, but not a lot of time. So we have to start immediately." I adore Julio Torres's My Favorite Shapes, currently on HBO. If you're looking for another comedy special, give this one a try. It's totally opposite to the usual "empty stage, stool with a water bottle, unremarkable but nice outfit" generally seen in comedy specials (e.g. John Mulaney's). Instead, Julio Torres walks on stage wearing a beautiful, shimmery silver suit that he designed, takes a seat behind a pastel conveyer belt structure, and proceeds to tell the audience all about his cactus, and his little plastic seahorse, and his tiny glass swan, and many more of his favorite shapes. It's delightful.
"It's one of those infinite time loop situations you might have heard about?" "That I might have heard about?" "Yeah." Palm Springs, starring Andy Samberg as Nyles and Cristin Milioti as Sarah, fully embraces the weirdness of the forever-living-the-same-day trope, and I love it for that. Watch Nyles and Sarah waste some time in this excellent rom-com, streaming on Hulu.
"Have you noticed an acceleration of strangeness in your life as of late?" I really did not know what I was getting myself into when I watched the first episode of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency—I'd heard good things but really did not know what it was about. Turns out, this sci-fi-fantasy-mystery-comedy is based on books by Douglas Adams (who also wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), which makes a lot of sense. Things happen and just keep happening, everything is connected, and the characters have no choice but to roll with it.