In Which We Enter Molly Lambert's Brain

Things I Find Funny

by MOLLY LAMBERT

Phyllis Diller, Dave Chappelle, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, the This Recording YouTube channel, Mary Hartman Mary Hartman, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bob and Ray, SCTV, Wanda Sykes, Susie Essman, Cheryl Hines

When people tell you how they're going to say "fuck it" to life and move to some other city or country and then you see them three months later at a party and they're all "o, hai," Alex's crush on Ayn Rand, when Alex threatens to make a list of "The top 10 Women Of All Time" and asks for help because he can't come up with 10, culture-bound syndromes, fanfic, Ernie Kovacs

"Lesbians" who backtrack and start dating guys and are all "I know, we'll talk about it later," when Alex says something genuine and heartfelt and then I realize he's just fucking with me, When Marky Mark goes to record the song in Boogie Nights, religions, tumblr, Keeping A Notebook, Mary Rambin, when I looked up "self worth" on thesaurus.com and this happened:

South Park, Stephen Colbert, Bill Murray, Mark Twain, Mindy Kaling, David Sedaris, Becca Wiener, Emily Gould, Rachael Bedard, the internet, monkeys dressed up like people, Super Grover, The Muppet Show, Mah Nà Mah Nà, Huga Wuga

Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles wrestling, Louis C.K. and Lucky Louie, Chunklet Magazine, Your Show Of Shows, Lindsayism, Chappelle's Show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry and Jeff Garlin trying to keep a straight face in their Curb scenes with Susie Essman, Nichols and May, Doug Benson, Oh my car

Baby porcupines, capybaras, Narwhals, bears, giant pandas cubs, red pandas, cats, cats in outfits making faces showing you how much they don't want to be in an outfit, the hilarious hyrax:

The Cable Guy, Clueless, Safe Men, Heathers, Mean Girls, Night Of The Lepus, The King Of Comedy, Dick, Caddyshack, Animal House, The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh, Brain Candy (the cab driver, toast fucking, Cancer Boy, Happiness Pie, Dunk The Drug! "It was only a couple of Flipper babies!")

Chris! I thought you said the drug was ready! I'm confused.

When sidekicks are vastly superior to the person they're supposedly a sidekick to (Garth Algar, Luigi, Donald Duck, Daffy Duck, Cameron from Ferris Bueller), Andrew Lasken's videos, his love song to Riskay, his tribute to Daniel Powter's exposed brain syndrome, interviews with Quentin Tarantino where the interviewer can't get him to stop talking, sloth babies:

The Best Show On WFMU, The Gorch, Philly Boy Roy, The Best Show recaps on Recidivism, The Erowid Vault, geoducks, Campus Ladies

Thinking about Biggie ghostwriting Hard Core for Lil' Kim and imagining him coming up with lines like "I used to be scared of the dick, Now I throw lips to the shit, Handle it like a real bitch", Lil' Wayne, Suga Free, Snoop's interest in country, Trick Daddy

Tina Fey, Amy Sedaris, Morgan Murphy, Jen Kirkman, Mo Collins, Chelsea Peretti, Laura Kightlinger and The Minor Accomplishments Of Jackie Woodman, Jessica Chaffin, Melinda Hill, C.J. Arabia, Natasha Leggero, Amanda Egge, Kat Dennings and her video blog, Mary Van Note, Charlyne Yi

Al Capp, Rube Goldberg, Edward Gorey, Jules Feiffer, B. Kliban, Quentin Blake, David Shrigley, Roz Chast, Charles Addams, Peter Bagge, Chick Tracts, Carl Barks, Lynda Barry, R. Crumb, Archie, Krazy Kat, Nancy, Little Lulu, Plastic Man, Julia Wertz

Daniel Pinkwater, Jean Shepherd, S.J. Perelman, Charlie Kaufman, David Sedaris, Woody Allen before he got creepy, The Marx Brothers (ranked) 1. Harpo, 2. Groucho 3. Chico, Mel Brooks, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Mae West, Buster Keaton

Bob Dylan, particularly as uber-indie a-hole circa "Don't Look Back," Will Oldham, R. Kelly, Mariah Carey, Pete Wentz's man-crush on John Mayer, John Mayer on Chappelle's show, Prince, Prince's desire to call Apollonia's group "Vagina 6", the Mary Jane Girls, Klymaxx and Bernadette Cooper from Klymaxx

Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters 2, Godfather 3, all the comedies made by the Coen brothers and most of the dramas too, talking about Southland Tales and still not having seen it (although to be fair, I have watched long sequences on youtube, which seems like the way it was meant to be experienced), Santa's Village

The Tess And Molly Show, Gabe & Jenny, Kristen Schaal, Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, Missi Pyle, ONTD, fourfour and Rich Juzwiak, Flight Of The Conchords, The episode of The Sarah Silverman Show where Sarah tried to have a crush on Officer Tig Notaro, all the jokes on that show about Valley Village

Freaks and Geeks, Bill Haverchuck, Jason Segel's performances in the Apatow canon, especially as Eric on Undeclared, when Neal does the ventriloquism routine, Biff as Coach Fredericks, Dave 'Gruber' Allen as Mr. Rosso

Dorothy Parker, Kim Deal, Ellen Page looking super uncomfortable in a fancy dress on the red carpet, Frank Black shirtless, Pot Psychology, Emily Gould, Tracie Egan, when Moe Tkacik hasn't had sex in a while and she writes something really cranky and funny and awesome, picturing Nick Denton sitting on a cloud made of money like Zeus and laughing at all of us

Livia Soprano, Livia saying "Oh poor you," Paulie Walnuts and Silvio Dante, Christophuh and Ade, Janice "Parvati" Soprano

Max Silvestri, Human Giant, Showfriendz, Jerry Minor, Eugene Mirman, Katt Williams, the Chongalicious girls, Jane Lynch especially in Talladega Nights as Ricky Bobby's mom

Garry Shandling, The Larry Sanders Show, when Larry thought David Duchovny had a crush on him, when Hank's sex tape comes out and on it he's asking two girls if they want a "mouthful of Hank," everything Mary Lynn Rajskub does especially being on 24, and her deleted scene with Tom Cruise in Magnolia

Everybody on The (American) Office, but especially Toby, Meredith, Stanley, and Creed. Oh and also Angela, Kelly Kapoor and Phyllis, are my dream guests for a slumber party. When B.J. moved to New York and became a cokehead. The dinner party at Michael and Jan's house, Jan's scented candle business

The whole 30 Rock gang, especially Liz Lemon, Tracy, Jenna, Kenneth, and Jack, the Sheinhardt wig company. Everybody on How I Met Your Mother, especially NPH and Willow, T-Pain, Plies, rap beefs that don't end in death, Weird Al, novelty musical genres, Girls Aloud, kitten in a tissue box

Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder, Preston Sturges, North By Northwest, Cary Grant, Warren Beatty in Shampoo and Reds, in Sullivan's Travels when they show the cartoon to the chain gang, Robert Altman, The Long Goodbye and California Split

Madeline Kahn, Carole Lombard, Diane Keaton, Joan Blondell, Jean Harlow, Marilyn Monroe, Barbara Stanwyck, Katharine Hepburn, Bernadette Peters, Cloris Leachman, Teri Garr

Tess Lynch, Tyler Coates, Alex Carnevale, Bridget Moloney, Danish Aziz, Sam Solomon, Mike Metzger, Lizzy Klein, Mike D, Amir Shoucri, Joni and Susanna , my parents, my whole family, my brother Ben Lambert and his Lambo drawings

another case of exposed brain sydrome

Jack White's hair, Britney Spears, Pete Doherty, Dov Charney, Hippies, Punks, Noise Music, Hipsters, Techno, the Hennifer Lopez taco-flavored keeses, Butters, Matt & Trey, Home Movies, Brendon Small, the many alt white people of Portland

Professor Klarvin and his lover Virginia

ABBA videos, David Byrne's dinner with Brian Eno, The Jonas Brothers and their purity rings, Sneakernight, Miley Cyrus lyrics ("if you text me, I'll delete it"), Disney's stable of child stars

Shitty serious teen films that come on the movie channels at 2 am and usually star Dominique Swain, Bijou Phillips, or some combination thereof, the all-time best/worst one of these; Havoc, starring Bijou Phillips, Anne Hathaway, Anne Hathaway's breasts, and Freddie Rodriguez as a cholo from the east side of LA, the fact that Havoc was written by Stephen Gaghan, who also wrote shitty/serious non-teen movie Traffic

Zach Galifianakis, Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, and Maria Bamford, the Comedians Of Comedy DVD, the part where they go to a Cracker Barrel, Puns on WALL*E, Puns on "He's Just Not That Into You," the compulsive inability to stop punning known as witzelsucht, Larry David as the "temp Beatle"

When white people pick one rapper to like and it's Lil' Wayne, when rappers pick one white people band to like and it's Coldplay, pan flutes, people who sexualize The Chippettes, the parts in Walk Hard with Tim Meadows, "I'm just so tired of all these Star Wars" Mr. Show's Monster Parties: Fact Or Fiction:

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She twitters here and tumbls here.

"For the Rest of Your Life" — Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions (mp3)

"Satellite" — Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions (mp3)

"Lady Jessica and Sam" — Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions (mp3)

THIS RECORDING IS THE FREAK BOOK

In Which We Recollect Our Recent Past

The Week in Review

It's getting early late, and a new fall season will soon be upon us. Still we hold dear the simple joys of summer, like a pleasant afternoon's walk, or any entrance in our secret life.

The writing of Almie Rose, Molly Lambert, Durga Chew-Bose, Owen Roberts, Eleanor Morrow, Jessica Ferri, Will Hubbard and Jamie Beck grows more dominant when examined closely, over a series of days, by scholars with some distinction in their field:

These Are All The Hot Places In L.A.

We Don't Really Like Ray Drecker Or His Penis

We Try To Blow Up A Meth Lab

This Is My Life In Cookies

We Hope They Leave Their Cameras To Us

I'm Peggy Olson And I Want To Smoke Some Marijuana

We See A Portrait of Ourselves

We Try To Simply Survive The Donner Party

Girl Power Found A More Pliable Metaphor

Our Reading Habits Grow Quite Strange In This Light

Mad Men Whispers To Us Over and Over Again

Ingratiate Ourselves to Quentin Tarantino

from Vic Chesnutt's new album:

"Concord Country Jubilee" — Vic Chesnutt (mp3)

"Philip Guston" — Vic Chesnutt (mp3) highly recommended

"We Hovered With Short Wings" — Vic Chesnutt (mp3)

"Chain" — Vic Chesnutt (mp3)

In Which We Attend The Local Block Party

Block Party Below & Above

by DURGA CHEW-BOSE

Four girls strut down the street. All the single ladies, All the single ladies, All the single ladies... Further up, their anthem echoes, and their bodies move and dance as if smitten not with the boys watching them from a stoop, but with the song itself. As I carry chairs from my apartment outside to the sidewalk, these girls and their unbound manner and command of the street seem to declare the day: Neighbors! Today the street is closed for a block party.

It’s hot as hell outside, dripping and humid. If you haven’t been dancing, it looks like you have: mouths open, brows wet, pass the drink? But then that one song plays and you can’t help yourself—the irrefutable tugging nature of nostalgia. No matter how long you’ve lived on the street, no matter your memory bank, the block party is a nostalgic event; the gathering of neighbors is inherently nostalgic. Double-dutch is nostalgic. Brass monkeys are nostalgic. Give It 2 Me is nostalgic. DJ’s with PAs, (once powered illegally from street lights,) are nostalgic: "Power from a street light made the place dark. But yo, they didn’t care, they turned it out.” — KRS-One, Boogie Down Productions, “South Bronx.”

It was the kids that offered the most charm. They seemed to take over the block; sovereign on their moon bounces, and too cool as they doubled up and down the street on each other’s bikes. On this day, the kids were kings. A litter of pit-bulls, discovering, confused, and excited, were hurrying around in circles and were led by a few boys who kept each pup in check, who stood with airs and postures of responsibility and duty, distinctly young; a nine-year old with his chin raised, a six-year old with a cast on each arm and chest puffed out. Not far, another neighbor with his pet chicken, Rise, held the bird as others came to pet. Strangely soft, trust me.

That sentimental ideal of a Brooklyn block party, (of a Fugees reunion,) its romantic spirit, is tough to turn down. Now, neighbors are far more transient, and gathering for a celebration suffers from lack of time: the rush to get where? the urgency to finish? I’d invite you to dinner, but I don’t cook… And yet yesteryear’s pace is still sought after, and that wish to restore the everyday in Kodachrome colors is ever more popular.

With merely trees to line the road — no parking all day Saturday — the space restored to my street left room for idle sitting and sipping, but also for my roommate’s friend, a dancehall dancer, to move fluently with the music he could not deny. The uncomplicated character of a block party, of giving a street scope, of lending room for a Green councilmen to meet his neighbors, and for those regulars who sit outside morning, noon, and night, to be joined, offers the sort of inclusiveness one hopes for on moving day while carrying boxes and balancing a box spring up the stairs: Lend me some sugar, I am your neighbor.

Durga Chew-Bose is a contributor to This Recording. She last wrote in these pages about Vivre Sa Vie.

"Pretty Not Bad" — The Takeovers (mp3)

"Little Green Onion Man" — The Takeovers (mp3)

"The Jester of Helpmeat" — The Takeovers (mp3)