Author: Natalie Minor

The Comprehensive Guide to Avoiding Awkward Conversations With People From High School

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The semester is coming to an end, which means many of us are about to make the trek back to our pre-Ann Arbor home, wherever that may be. While a fair number of us are probably looking forward to hanging out with our pets (Smokey Joe, I’m coming for you), we are probably not looking forward to the possible awkward encounters with any number of kids we went to high school with. Whether they went to a school in-state, Michigan State, or are one of the kids who never left your hometown, chances are they are one of the last people you want to awkwardly ask about life and plans for the future.

So while this might be too little too late for some of you (I know Thanksgiving break may have put you in a few tight spots already), here is my guide to avoiding those awkward convos with people you don’t really want to see:

1. Always have an exit strategy. Whether you’re at the bar or walking the aisles at Target (my worst enemy this time of year), always be aware of your surroundings and have a path of least resistance in case you need to make a quick out. Be careful not to back yourself into a corner, though, because you never know who might be around the next bend.

2. Avoid eye-contact. If you can plausibly deny that you even saw Kurt from your sophomore Advanced Comp. class, you do not have to say hi to him.  The glory of smartphones these days is that you can pretend that you got a really interesting text, or better yet, pretend you’re on the phone with your over-bearing mother. Hell, actually call her if you need to, just get out of there!

3. Avoid the old high-school haunts. Yes, the 24-hour diner in your town was cool when you were 18, and yes it will be nostalgic to sit there at 1am on a Tuesday night, but guess what? Everyone else thought it was cool then and everyone else will have the exact same idea as you – if they ever even left, that is.  You will not be the only one to get home, text your old friend group, and throw on an old football sweatshirt. You will also not be the only one to suffer through conversations about MICHIGAN STATE FOOTBALL (if you are from out-of-state, count your blessings that you can avoid this), and some wounds just need time to heal. You’d be better off meeting at the Public Library.

4. Shave your head. This will throw people off. They’ve never seen your bone-structure so clearly or the shape of your skull before, and they will be confused enough for you to accomplish both #1 and #2. If you’ve been rocking the shaved head since freshman year of high school….well, it looks like you just might want to invest in a nice wig.

5. Plastic surgery. Yes, this is quite the investment, but the return might be HUGE depending on how long into the future you plan on making visits home. You will never have to worry about being recognized for the rest of forever, so long as you keep your new face off of your facebook news feed.

6. Start speaking to them in a different language. This will throw them off-kilter so much that they might just turn around and walk away from you, no questions asked. Even Spanish – chances are they don’t remember much from the last Spanish class they took freshman year of college.  If you happen upon a Spanish major? Simply butcher your speech so much that they won’t know how to respond and will hopefully just awkwardly float away. You’ll lose less dignity this way. Trust me.

7. Get into a car, drive to a body of water in the middle of nowhere, take a boat to a jagged little island, and wait in the single little cabin for Hagrid to come and rescue you and take you to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This is a Hail Mary, but sometimes all you gotta do is believe.

8. LAST RESORT: Imbibe in the spirits of the choice (as long as you’re legal, of course!!!) and hopefully you just won’t remember anything the next day.

Funny People

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I generally think of myself as a funny person – at least I laugh at my own jokes and tell my dad that I am SO funny even when no one else laughs. But then I get on YouTube and find myself stuck on an endless loop of videos of actual, certified funny people doing incredible things and feel like more than a little mediocre. It’s hard to pretend I’m not in awe or envy when I watch something that seems like a stroke of genius but also like the most natural and obvious thing in the world. The “Why Didn’t I Think of That” moment – crushing so many dreams and putting so many people into their place.

How many fat guys have put on little coats…ever? Probably an unimaginable number. And yet, Christ Farley was the one to make it his bit, to drive David Spade up the wall (and back down again) doing it in the offices of SNL, and then to slip it into the film Tommy Boy. It will never get old, even if you’re living in a van down by the river (another Farley reference – Matt Foley, motivational speaker).

I eventually stumble upon comedians with impressions so exceptional that they make my fake British accent sound like the glibbering of a one year old child learning to talk. Even when Jimmy Fallon was just a fresh face auditioning for SNL, he was pulling laughs, and Jay Pharoah can do an impression of just about every rapper ever.

Then you have comedians like Mitch Hedberg, whose jokes might make you scratch your head until you give them a little bit of thought, but with one-liners like “I’m against picketing, but I don’t know how to show it” and “is a hippopotamus really a hippopotamus or just a really cool opotamus?” it’s worth taking the time to let them sink in. If you haven’t heard his stuff before, here’s a long cut of some of his best jokes:

I usually finish off this session of worshipping those who are infinitely funnier than me with a little improv. Some of the best comedic actors made improv stages their home early in their careers, and I just love watching some of my favorites in the middle stages of their careers – trained in the art of improv but not polished by the lights and cameras of the television set. My favorite to watch is a long-form called Asssscat, a show done by the Upright Citizen’s Brigade. Here is an example of this improv…you might just see a few people you recognize.

With that, I ask you, what is your favorite type of comedy? Who is the funniest person you’ve ever seen? Are my funny people the same as your funny people? I’m dying to know.

Master of None

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This week has been a monster filled with to-do lists, late nights and early mornings, which is why I definitely should not have started Aziz Ansari’s new Netflix series, Master of None. And yet there I was last night, telling myself that if I just watched the first episode while eating dinner, it would be fine! Because how much could I get done when my hands were otherwise occupied by feta bread from Pizza House anyways? (Shout-out to my roommate for only slightly guilting me into stopping there for her student org’s fundraiser.)

If you’ve talked to me in the last 24 hours, you are probably not surprised that I am once again talking about this show, because I have grasped at so many straws today in order to bring it up in conversation. I’m not playing – I brought it up in a Women’s Studies class. To make a serious point. That’s how geeked I am about this show.

The first episode in the series, appropriately titled Plan B, starts off with a casual hook-up for main character Dev, played by Aziz, that culminates in an uber ride to the drug store to pick up the morning-after pill. The scene serves as an intriguing look at the lives of our generation and our reliance on technology, showing the two characters Googling whether or not his hook-up could get pregnant and then calling an uber X to pick them up, all while still undressed and under the covers.

The main character is then sent down a rabbit hole full of babies, trying to figure out if he should be thinking of settling down and starting a family. He attends a birthday party for his friend’s baby (but only for the bounce house, of course) where he gets a look at the beauty of parenthood, only to see the other side of the coin when he babysits his friend’s devilish children later in the day. When I say devilish….this woman’s 7 year old son took out his genitals at the grocery store and rubbed it on 30 boxes of frozen waffles because “it feels good!”

At the end of the day, Dev is left exhausted and the viewer is left with a more moderate view of parenthood, which is generous for a show created by Aziz, who spent half of his newest comedy show talking about how awful the concept of parenthood is. We learn that Dev is definitely not ready to have children (as alluded to by the numerous instances in the episode where his actions mirrored those of a child), but that parenthood in general is a collection of wonderful and hair-pulling experiences.

I went into this show expecting something larger-than-life out of a comedian who screams half of his punchlines (I love you Aziz, I promise I do), but what I was with was a show created by a super intelligent dude full of social commentary. He touches on some really interesting issues and brings a fresh take to some issues that some might think have been talked dry. It’s the kind of show that you start for the laughs and stay with for the message, which is why I think that it will reach a broader audience than some of his stand-up.

I would definitely recommend this show, so I’ll leave the trailer here:

(Shoutout to Dev Patel from Meet the Patels, and also Aziz Ansari’s real dad who plays his father on the show)

The New That’s What She Said

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Ah, the sexual innuendo. Comedy at it’s best. Simultaneously low-hanging fruit and a playground for elaboration and weird twists and turns. Just this past Friday ComCo ended their improv show with some downright dirty “I like my men like I like my…” jokes – not only a refreshing departure from jokes about women (been there, done that), but a great way to compare men to clocks. Those dongs though.

The best token innuendo to carry around in your pocket in recent years has been the well-renowned and oft-overused “that’s what she said,” the catchphrase of one Michael Scott, manager of Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton office. I would give you some examples of this timing-reliant joke, but it might be better to show you one of the best scenes in which it is used:

Though the fad of the “that’s what she said” has passed, it is still one of the classic meme’s of our generation, and a safety net to fall back on when in a war of wit and out of retorts.  As generally happens, though, there is a new kid in town, thanks to a very special detective from Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Detective Jake Peralta will never pass up the opportunity to turn a relatively innocent comment into a slight about one’s sex life, and as a result has developed a pair of spectacular comebacks. “That’s the name of your sex tape” and “That was your nickname in high school” might seem innocuous enough on first glance, but timed right and land hard. Here are a few examples of titles/nicknames, because there isn’t a good montage online:

“Kind, sober, and fully dressed.”
“It’s not your fault, I was terrible.”
“I’m terrible at this, when can we stop.”
“But seriously, what is taking so long?”
“I’m sorry about tonight!”
“It was slightly less unbearable with you.”
“Not even going to touch that.”

These jokes haven’t quite caught on yet, but I imagine that their day is right around the corner. In a country where we turn everything into sex, we might as well enjoy ourselves while we do it, which is why I carry these two quips around with me, waiting for just the right moment to pull them out. Until they set their roots in pop culture, I know I will get more than a few confused looks, but it’s worth the last laugh.

Now, about the Aristocrats…

The Singing Ringing Tree

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There is a tree in a little town in Lancashire, England, but unlike the trees outside my window, this tree does not shed its leaves or sway with the breeze. This tree is made out of galvanized steel pipes that hum when wind flows through them. It is my new favorite piece of sculpture/experimental music and I constantly find myself captivated by its haunting sounds in videos like this:

What an absolutely incredible silhouette, and an amazing way to see the sun rise. As part of a project to rejuvenate the landscape of the area, artists Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu completed the Singing Ringing Tree in 2006, adding to a series of sculptures built along the countryside.

What I love about this sculpture is how it harnesses the natural energy of wind and translates it into sound. So many of the forces and phenomena of our world can be expressed creatively through sound, and in many cases these types of translations provide us with a new way to understand and experience the world. For instance, here is a talk by artist Robert Alexander in which he uses sound to represent data collected from space:

#socool

What he touches on that I find fascinating is how digital data sets translated into frequencies often sound like organically produced sound. How cool is it that all of the music that we listen to when we’re walking to and from class, when we’re trying to cram for an exam, or when we’re busting moves at a party, is a string of code that is translated into sound? I think that everything in the world can probably be sonified, and I think this would be such a cool way to experience the world. Who needs commodification….why should we monetarily quantify things when we can sonitize them?

 

Eu Não Quero Voltar Sozinho

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A few years ago I stumbled upon a little foreign short film called “Eu Não Quero Voltar Sozinho,” which is Portuguese for “I Don’t Want To Go Back Alone.” It is a coming-of-age story about a young blind man named Leonardo, and is a beautifully done piece about young love. Rather than explain the entire premise and ruin the ending, I’m putting the film here for our readers’ enjoyment:

The story of Leonardo and Gabriel is a story of love and identity that I couldn’t help being captivated by from the moment I saw it. What I love about this film is that, though it has it’s problems, it takes an important step towards greater representation of identities in films. It’s the first story I’ve seen about a young gay man discovering his sexuality who’s lived experience is also influenced by his ability status. Disability is very rarely portrayed in popular culture unless it is a defining characteristic, and to have a blind main character in a film where the focus is not his blindness is really cool. It’s important to point out, however, that this film didn’t go so far as to include a blind actor as the main character, Leonardo, which is a shortfall in representation that is often seen in films today.

If you saw this film and craved more of the story of Leonardo and Gabriel, you are not alone. The film was so popular following it’s release that a full length film based on the original story was created by the director, Daniel Ribeiro. “Eu Não Quero Voltar Sozinho” (The Way He Looks) was released in 2014 and has been nominated for a plethora of independent and LGBT awards, 13 of which it has won. While I cannot in good conscience link video sharing sites for you to watch the film on, I can leave the trailer here for you and inform you that it is in fact available on many sites and suggest that you watch it however you see fit.