So let’s get a little melancholy (and let’s have another piece of pie)
Although I’m still nursing a broken shoulder, thanks to the cooking prowess and hospitality of baal_bill and the company of friends, I had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
However, in the media it seemed to be The Year of the Dark Thanksgiving. I don’t watch a lot of television - I’m very selective in what I watch - but three of my favorite new shows all turned out Thanksgiving themed episodes the equivalent of a burned turkey and a pumpkin pie dropped on the floor, far from the familial warm & huggy shows that the holiday usually engenders. The farcical Ugly Betty had a show that was so dark and disastrous for most of their characters (including showing someone being entombed alive) that they actually ended it with bright red dripping-blood type wishing the viewing audience a Happy Thanksgiving! The Class, a sharp new sitcom that throws dramatic curveballs in with all the one-liners had both of its adultery subplots blow up, with one character leaving his wife only to be rejected by his new girlfriend as well. (It’s a brilliant show, and I wouldn’t be surprised if last night’s bee/car accident/phone-tag episode gets nominated for an Emmy.) And Top Chef’s Thanksgiving episode (likely filmed last May or so) had a competitive gimmick that set all the chefs against each other and brought out such animosity (and despair) that I thought I might even see a homicide before the show was over.
Lastly, The New Yorker came out with a special Cartoon issue - which you think would be fun - with multiple covers by the brilliantly talented but consistently depressing Chris Ware, creator of the much-heralded Acme Novelty Comics. The four covers (plus a fifth work, which was deemed unusable for a cover) are incredibly clever but befract and reflect a variety of sad Thanksgiving scenarios. You can view the others by clicking below.
And how was your Thanksgiving?