In Which We Will Not Beg Keri Russell To Stay

Birdwatching in Winter

by ALEX CARNEVALE

The Americans
creator Joe Weisberg 

Betrayal!

A man, enthusiastic for a new life! He stands on the precipice of the old, peeling back his woman's blanket from her face! He is more uncomfortable than comfortable, he is more imperceptive than perceptive, he is more un-American than you know what! His bowling improves over long years! Where at first he used the bumper system, until he abandoned it because it was the worst possible metaphor for his life! His son works a joystick at both ends!

Move effortlessly backwards in time from the decision of a divorce, recalling each moment that led to the separation! For Stan Beeman life seems more peripatetic in reverse! When he was poring over the various lozenges and sarcophages of his co-worker, he feels both the thrill of the deceit and the astonishment of delving into a life more consummated than his own! In America, there are always further levels of knowing, passions unknown to the Russian people, who stop at the first orgasm, certain that life could not possibly improve from the state that it is in!

Stan Beeman's real other half, the Russian one, skulks and towers through a shit park to save the one he loves! But the way he loves her! Annet Mahendru, in discussing the illogical fate of Nina Sergeeva, whispered to some reporter that she missed her character! They must have been really tired of having her on set! I have heard of the Stanislavsky method, but never such a fine implementation as in this case! You have probably heard of David Mamet's method of acting! The only thing he tells the performers is to speak the dialogue, the less inflection the better! The only thing he was ever in love with was his ideas!

That is what I think when I see that poor scientist who cared for Elizabeth and Philip like he was their best friend! It is very good to have a friend, especially when you are sick! It turned out that Elizabeth simply had a nasty reaction to antibiotics! They really can make you nauseous! She took it well, all things considered! Life is very precious, especially American, Caucasian life! There must be a respite from the world, and there is something about knowing you are in a house, okay, and pretty soon no one is going to be living there except for the molecules, and in time they will be gone, too!

I am so tired of you, Paige! I am so exhausted by your need for attention! One of the things I dislike most about you is how you let the phone drop to your shoulder when a call becomes too emotional! How is the other person on the end of the line supposed to sense this! You know perfectly well there was no Skype in the 1980s! Sometimes it makes me upset when I think that Paige is alive somewhere, a lot older than me, and way more jaded about everything! When Demi Lovato comes on the radio she probably screams or fondles her gorgeous crucifix necklace! I don't know what the word bespoke means in almost any context!

Sometimes I feel like I am inside Nina's dream! On one level it is weird that she had kind of a brother thing going on with that Jewish guy! I mean, do you really have time to friendzone someone while you are living in a prison cell! She keeps a red diary there! She betrayed plenty of men, except the last one she ever knew! Her betrayals of women were only secondary, and there is something both sexist and progressive about that, and about The Americans in general! That is a terrible feeling: when you think you are taking a step forward, but quite possibly you are mistaken and it is a step back!

A step back from what, you ask, sipping chardonnay with your pinkie finger extended slightly in the ether, like sideways rain! You could be moving onto something great! It could be a substantial improvement over what you left behind, or the person who left you behind! Martha's sad dinner speech was the echo of this idea! You'll never truly know until what happens, happens! The future could also be worse, and the part of the brain dedicated to knowing such things is like the appendix, in that it became vestigial over time, but once this organ had a great purpose!

Trust me!

Do you understand?

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording.

"The Wizard" - M83 (mp3)

In Which We See Everyone In The World As A Lawyer

Makeup

by ALEX CARNEVALE

The Americans
creator Joe Weisberg

I don't know why anyone would enjoy Epcot, as though walking around in a circle were traveling the world. I don't know why anyone would travel the world either. Confronted with the possibility of returning to her native Russia, Sister Keri demurs, informing her husband that she could not imagine losing all they've built in Washington D.C.

What was she talking about? The only friends she has are the minority characters she swindles or blackmails into betraying their country. She targets niche groups because they are not as beholden to their own national identity. Eventually she will be smoking a peace pipe with a lovely Sioux man named Papa Candle Holder, and informing him that his family is so charming, but "I don't want to talk about my problems."

It has been scientifically proven that people identify better with those they take pity on. Elizabeth, all gussied in makeup that reminds one of the fourth place victor of Miss America, works that angle completely. The easiest way to define a person is by discovering what job they think every person in the world is, at their core, performing. Elizabeth thinks that everyone is a salesman.

Philip thinks that everyone in the world is a psychotherapist. He's really bearing his heart to pretty much anyone. His tete-a-tete with Paige in her room featured him working his daughter like an asset. Since he usually murders his assets, this was some cold-blooded stuff. I wonder sometimes what happened to the people he developed as sources of information. Presumably there is an American analogue to what Nina Seergeva is going through.

Nina sees everyone in the world as a bureaucrat. Her fantasy of seeing Stan again was very weird, considering I never thought she actually felt anything for the jacked-up, pockmarked fiend of an FBI agent. I imagine Nina is going to be returned to the American theater of events pretty soon, because there is only so long we can read Russian subtitles and view her grim little smile.

Paige sees everyone in the world as a travel agent. Her hilarious comments about how Pastor Tim's wife can't keep her mouth shut represent good progress for the character. I guess she might be cut out to be a spy after all, and Pastor Tim is probably ripe to be co-opted as well. It seemed ridiculously naive that he would believe that spies would give him time to think things over, but I mean the guy does have a gossipy wife so how great is his judgement overall?

Philip's story about how he can imagine Stan in a motel never seeing his son did not really seem reasonable either. Of all the options he has for himself, Philip can't leave Elizabeth — being a father and husband is too ingrained in what he is. I suppose he could take Martha and move operations to a sleepy hamlet, where we could get the spinoff we deserve. Otherwise I'm tited of Philip crying wolf about wanting to pull out, since the show would be over.

Philip Jennings talks to all the women in his life the same way. He chooses his words so carefully; it is entirely unlike how he interacts with men, with whom he is always straightforward. At first he positions himself as a listener with women, painting his face with a knowing smile or a frown, either of which reflects their expression completely. Then, he subtly shifts the conversation to where he is carrying the greater share of the load. They are left with the illusion of an interchange, when in reality he is the only one who has spoken.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording.

"When They Really Get To Know You They Will Run" - Pedro the Lion (mp3)

"The Fleecing" - Pedro the Lion (mp3)

In Which We Have Been Known To Throw On A Onesie From Time To Time

Church Garb

by ALEX CARNEVALE

The Americans
creator Joe Weisberg

Suddenly, the son of Philip and Elizabeth called Henry, is forty years old. He is wearing a plaid blouse, Ralph Lauren cologne and American blue jeans, dining with an FBI agent merely three years older than himself. Stan Beeman has not retained much in the way of custody of his own son, so he chats up Philip's, who plans to hammer the insides of his bosomy science teacher. Who knew misogyny required so much training?

Paige is wearing her signature cross along with a stylish sweater reminiscent of the finest work of the designers from Free People. Her scent is woodsy, the name of Pastor Tim is constantly on her lips. "It's killing me, Mom!" she screams as she prances around her kitchen like she's nervously contemplating her home economics final. She has not been to school, or anywhere, in a month.

In bed Keri Russell wears a fringed onesie. The lack of support for her chest is most evident when she turns on her side, and sometimes she wakes with an aching pain in that region. It is not clear whether or not she is pregnant, but when she is gifted with Matthew Rhys' child, the ensuing baby clothes will reflect the child's Welsh origins with everything echoing red, to enhance the baby's natural blush.

In the morning before she really dresses for the day she will throw on her husband's shirt to give that slightly rumpled look. There are these Viagra commercials where a beautiful woman, not too old but not too young either, moves around a sunlight bedroom in a football jersey, tossing the pigskin back and forth between her slightly wrinkled hands. Since it appears Elizabeth has not excited her husband sexually in some time, this could be a possible option. As I remember, the Redskins do not have the rights to their own name.

On a bus where Philip commits his 61st murder in the name of his country, a twenty year old office worker in an aqua jacket listens to the 79th straight terrible song the show includes from this rapidly waning decade. Bill Clinton goes around explaining how we are all paying for the 1980s. Well, we are all paying for something. Her pearl necklaces are just another inflection of the patriarchal world in which she lives.

Nina Sergeevna Krilova has cast off the influences from her native Afghanistan for an austere pink blouse, likely manufactured in the same village she is supposedly born in. We know her ethnicity is purposefully ambiguous, the product of careful planning from a crack committee of individuals from many nations to produce a woman who could pass as anything except black. What she does in this episode of The Americans makes no sense, but at least soon, in what will probably be a brown cardigan, she will be able to end the weepy, creepy, teary conversations with her Jewish mark.

It is not important to think about what you are going to wear. It is important to think about what you did wear. Every so often I get a letter from an old friend. She is in some hotel or other, writing out of boredom. Somehow the last person you would tell something to becomes the most important telling, and Elizabeth does this with the death of her mother, who she is not sure she really loved. When she tells Philip in the car she is wearing an auburn coat, or maybe it was black. Who can tell without the fullness of the light?

The new space on Philip's forehead, where his hair is escaping him daily, lends a new reflection to his outfit. He needs sharper tailoring; without a full brusque head of brown hair, he must accentuate his figure. In the vastness of space, our form must take a new shape, one which highlights who and what we are more profoundly than words or acts. In someone's church, Pastor Tim is alive and speaking. In another's dream, he is cold and dead in his cramped cabin. In both of these possible worlds, he wears the exact same pajamas to bed.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording.

"Unbroken" - Birdy (mp3)