(My) Top Ten 30 Rock Episodes: PART TWO

4. SANDWICH DAY (SEASON 2)

In this episode, the Teamsters engage in a yearly tradition of buying everyone sandwiches from a secret deli in Brooklyn ("and the dipping sauce - oh, the dipping sauce!"), and Floyd shows up for a brief reunion with Liz. I love this episode for a couple reasons, but mostly because it contains one of the most romantic lines in moving image history: "I wolfed my Teamster sub for you."

FAVORITE LINES

Floyd: Can I take you out to dinner tonight? Maybe we can go to that barbecue place you puked at.
Liz: (flirtatiously): You'll have to be more specific.

Lutz (to the Teamsters): I know what driving the long-haul is like! After my junior year at Oberlin, we road-tripped to South by Southwest!

5. JACKIE JORMP-JOMP (SEASON 3)

First of all, this episode starts out with Jeffery Weinerslav (pronounced "weiner slave"), who I bumped into at a CVS in Astoria a few years ago. I am starstruck by the most minor of celebrities, so I asked if he was on 30 Rock and told him how much I enjoyed his role on the show. He was extremely nice and we had a little chat and he asked if I was an actress, which made my year.

Beyond that, this episode is near perfection, from Liz's harassment of the Polish doormen to Jenna's role in the Janis Joplin biopic to the terrific performances by the women in the leisure/fight club.

FAVORITE LINES

Liz: No! I need a little more time off. I'm on humanity leave.
Jack: Good God, what Indigo Girls song is that from?
Liz: "Syllabus of Us." It's off Vagabonds, Martyrs and Quilts.

Tracy: Honesty and trust is very important in an entourage. Like that HBO show, John Adams.

Liz: Emily and her friends are happy!
Jack: Believe me, there is no solace in their luxury, only deep despair.
Liz: How do you know all these Indigo Girls songs?

6. THE BUBBLE (SEASON 3)

I know I'm getting hyperbolic with all of these favorite episodes, but "The Bubble" is just brilliant. I love how it highlights our society's lookism in such a playful, good-natured way. (Against my better nature, I myself give an incredible amount of leeway to attractive people.) Jon Hamm actually isn't my type, but I think he has a wonderful sense of humor and was great at portraying life inside the bubble.

FAVORITE LINES

Jack: Lemon, I don't share this often, but this is a photo of me when I was 25 years old.
Liz: What the what?! You have a Superman chest!
Jack: I know.
Liz: Oh my God, the lady will have two tickets to the gun show! Your eyes are so much bluer. What happened to your eyes?

Jack: Beautiful people are treated differently, from, say, moderately pleasant looking people. They live in a bubble. A bubble of free drinks, kindness and outdoor sex.

Drew: I don’t see it on the menu, but I would love a catfish po’boy and a diet raspberry Fanta.
Liz: Oh, that is a great idea. Let me order that for you.
(She covers his face with a menu)
Liz: Excuse me, we will have a turkey burger deluxe and a catfish po’boy with a diet raspberry Fanta.
Waitress: I’m gonna come back in five minutes. You try to order off the menu again I will smack those glasses off your face.
Liz: Okay. Thank you.
Waitress: You’re welcome.
Drew: What was that? Why didn’t she call you “sweetheart”? And where’s the complimentary app sampler? What’s going on?

Liz: See because of your whole, you know, Disney prince thing -
Drew: Actually they used footage of me from my high school swim team to draw Prince Eric.

(My) Top Ten 30 Rock Episodes: PART ONE

It takes me a long time to get into new things, which is why I didn't try sushi until I was 20 and why I still haven't see There Will Be Blood. However, once I like something, I usually devour it with unmatched enthusiasm, bordering on obsession, and will eat/watch/read it over and over again until something else catches my eye. At this point, I've seen every 30 Rock episode multiple times, and I thought it would be fun to make a top ten list. I've chosen a few from each season, and I welcome fervent debate!

1. BLIND DATE (SEASON 1)

It was tricky finding favorites in Season 1, because although I like the season quite a bit, the show was still finding its "cruising rhythm," as my lovely French co-worker would say. The jokes still followed a more sitcom-like structure, whereas later the show became more fast-paced and witty.

In this episode, we see the beginnings of Jack meddling with Liz's personal life, leading to a blind date with a woman named Gretchen Thomas. Liz's storyline is mostly centered around whether she can imagine herself to be in a romantic relationship with a woman, but one of my favorite parts of the episode concerns Kenneth, who ends up in a high-stakes poker match with Jack. The personalities/mysteries of all the minor characters really begin to shine in this episode.

FAVORITE LINES

Liz: "And even though I'm not into the sex stuff, if it helps you, I would let you...do stuff...to me."
Gretchen: "I can't be around you anymore. Bye, Liz."

Tracy: "This round, Texas Doozy. Face cards are wild, threes are jinxed, fives are twos."

Jack: "In five years we'll all either be working for him...or be dead by his hand."

2. CLEVELAND (SEASON 1)

What hotspot's got the hippest groove? Where all the real gone-daddies move? Dig that sweet Cuyahoga glow!

There is no way any list could not include this episode. It contains some of my favorite 30 Rock-isms ("By the hammer of Thor!" "Just a whirl of wind" "Paris was, to borrow a phrase, bonkers") and the musical sequence of Cleveland was just great. (So great, in fact, that it seemed to have spawned an unfunny-seeming sitcom, Hot in Cleveland. Full disclosure: I've never seen it.)

Also, Emily Mortimer is terrific as British-but-probably faking it, hollow-boned gallery owner, Phoebe.

FAVORITE LINES

Tracy: I'm going to have so much money, my grandkids are going to play lacrosse. Lacrosse, Liz Lemon!

Jenna: Wow, how Sex and the City are we right now? I'm Samantha, you're Charlotte, and you're the lady at home who watches it.

Floyd: If the whole world moved to their favorite vacation spots, then the whole world would live in Hawaii and Italy and Cleveland.

3. ROSEMARY'S BABY (SEASON 2)

This episode is a favorite of mine because it is a combination of topics that 30 Rock typically does well: New York, feminism, yuppies (do people still use that word?), liberal hypocrisy, silliness, and anything that involves Grizz and Dot Com. The episode also features one of my favorite cameos. Carrie Fisher is pitch-perfect as the radical aging former comedy writer.

FAVORITE LINES

Liz: You are my heroine. And by heroine, I mean "lady hero." I don't mean I want to inject you and listen to jazz.

Rosemary: God, I haven't been in that building in so long. Does everyone still do blow in Joe Garagiola's office?
Liz: Which one is blow? Is that cocaine?

Liz: What neighborhood is this?
Rosemary: They call it "Little Chechnya." It's so gritty and real. More murders per capita than Detroit. Try not to write when you're living here!

Rosemary: I predict, opening weekend: a million dollars.

Jack: Never follow a hippie to a second location.

COMING SOON

My List of the Top Ten 30 Rock Episodes.

From Taos to Laos (and back)

In 1951, three activist rabbis formed an organization called the American Jewish Society for Service. In 1968, when my mother was sixteen, she went with AJSS to New Mexico for the summer, working with other high schoolers to build houses and do community service work. In 1997, my cousin, Jen, did the same in Oklahoma. And when I was sixteen, I followed suit.

I was reluctant at first. I pretty much hated doing anything that my mother recommended, and I wasn't too keen on the Jewish aspect of the organization. It turned out to be a really magical summer and I made some friends there who I have stayed in touch with, off and on, over the years. The Jewish aspect of the trip turned out to be low-key, if present at all. People came from pretty diverse backgrounds when it came to religion. Some people on the trip barely considered themselves Jewish, while others were raised kosher and went to services every Saturday. I think the mix fostered a nice spirit in regards to Judaism, without ever being dogmatic or by-the-book.

We were stationed in Taos, New Mexico. We slept on air mattresses in the classrooms of a church compound, and took a van every day to the Taos Pueblo Nation, where we all worked on building a house. We worked under the guidance of a man named Benito, who had lots of interesting and fantastical stories to tell us, but ultimately, was not the best foreman. And in retrospect, I don't think we made a huge impact on the house, aside from some plastering and stucco. But I remember it as a really unique, special summer that had a big impact on my development as a person - and that's why I was so jazzed to have a reunion with both Hanna (who you may remember from many travel adventures in Asia) and Melanie. The three of us hadn't been together in about eight years.


I think we all turned into some badass motherfuckers, if I may say so myself! Hanna spent two years in Guangzhou, teaching English and assisting documentary filmmakers, and now lives in Brooklyn and works at Teacher U, helping shape a new generation of educators. Melanie spent many years as a New Orleanian and environmentalist, is now at Rutgers for mechanical engineering, and is helping lead the New Jersey team in the national Solar Decathlon. And you all know what I do. Here's to many more reunions with these great women.

December 2010

Connections

As tragic news events go, I've been pretty affected by the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and the reactions across the country. There are a lot of factors involved and in an attempt to wrap my mind around them, I tend to see things through the prism of my own experience. With that in mind, I was on the subway when I saw this public service announcement poster:

So, supposedly, in New York City, it's illegal to paint a real gun to look like a toy, and it's illegal to sell a toy gun that looks real. While it had never occurred to me before, that must have been why, when I was in China, I always felt a tiny blip of panic when I saw kid toting around a toy handgun. In China, they're painted to look real. And they do look real.


Of course, no confusion exists around this issue in China, because it is illegal for citizens to have guns. Despite being a terribly hostile environment for political dissidents, the lack of available guns really does have a tangible effect on one's safety, or at least one's perception of safety. I felt very, very safe in China. Indeed, this might have been for a couple reasons. Part of me probably operated on the widely-held cultural stereotype of Asian men being meek and passive. Part of me probably felt protected by my status as a white foreigner. But part of me also knew that if I took a taxi to a hostel in the dead of night in some random Chinese city, there was a really good chance that my cab driver did not have a firearm. And you know what? That made a big difference.

While gun control is a big part of this national conversation, how we deal with mental illness has also taken center stage. My mom wrote a powerful letter to The New York Times on this issue. It probably won't get printed, but - hey! - that's why I have a blog.

To The Editor:

With all the media attention given to the horrific events of Saturday's shooting in Tucson, the emphasis, to me, is much skewed in the wrong direction. This is not about our nation needing to "come together" or even political affiliations. It is about untreated mental illness. The severe paranoia and mood disorder as described in January 10th's New York Times article, "Suspect's Odd Behavior Caused Growing Alarm," coupled with the ease in which people in this country have access to deadly weapons, enable tragedies such as this.

For those who doubt, picture the following: If Jared screamed in pain from a vital organ each time he had a paranoid outburst, the response would have been different. Let us encourage a legislature which supports, rather than denies, funds for mental health, as well as bans the use of such weapons. These are not cases that undermine individual rights, as some would have us believe. Our government's first mission is to protect its constituents.

Ruth Obernbreit Glass
Larchmont, New York

And lastly, while it seems unrelated, all of these many thoughts and events overlapped with my watching the entire first season of Hoarders this week. Some of the storylines are very moving and I couldn't help but connect these people's situations with the incredible lack of mental health services in this country. Many of the hoarders had suffered terrible losses, abuse, and neglect in their lives. Many of them only began hoarding after a significant incident rendered them unable to deal with life. If people had access to affordable, manageable, stigma-free mental health services, then perhaps they wouldn't find themselves hoarding bags of garbage, or sexually abusing their children, or shooting nine-year-old girls in supermarket parking lots in Tucson, Arizona. I don't know. Maybe.

I'll Be Back Soon

Note to Self: