The talent of pleasing other people’s parents (but not your own), the allure of knowing your neighbors, and the thrill of wearing a boy’s class ring get their due in episode 70 of The JV Club, plus fantastic comedian, author, and guest Laura Kightlinger (The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman) plays a new game, courtesy of previous guest Lucy Davis!
Episode 70:
The JV Club
Laura Kightlinger
Laura Kightlinger
A little bit of a delayed response, but having just listened to the episode I also have a very similar “dancing wrong” story like Ms. Kightlinger. It was a 6th grade dance in the cafeteria with a friend’s older sister as the “DJ” and the boys were sitting on one side and the girls were sitting on the other side looking everywhere but at each other with, of course, no one dancing at all.
After about three songs of no one dancing, the DJ then said that everyone must get up and dance for the next song or she was going to come off the stage and pair us up. Petrified to be put together with a “wrong” boy I got up and went over and asked the boy I had a crush on to dance (I still can’t believe I had the nerve to do this, DJ’s threat notwithstanding). He reluctantly said yes and we went to the middle of the cafeteria and as more girls slowly crossed the floor to the boys I proceeded to put my hands straight out and on the sides of his waist. He looked at me funny, moved my hands to his shoulders and then put his hands on my waist. I was MORTIFIED! I didn’t know how to dance with a boy and he knew it and we were the first dancing couple in the middle of the room so everyone else in 6th grade saw it and knew it too. I wanted to die.
After that incredibly embarrassing dance where I stared at the ground the whole time, I don’t think I ever talked to that boy again. Thankfully, he was in a different class than mine even though I saw him at lunch and around school there was no required interaction. The other girls also teased me mercilessly about how I jumped up and asked him to dance. But all that was going through my head was how much worse it would have been to be paired with one of the weird boys. THAT would have killed me as a 12-year-old.
Thank you Janet this episode is great. Ever since her pulp comics episode I’ve been a huge fan.
Kightlinger mentioned a podcast she was on hosted by someone named Neil? Does anybody know
The name of this podcast?
PJ, I suspect you’ve got the one Jon is reaching for, as there are a number of sequels to Madeleine_L’Engle’s A WRINKLE IN TIME (though when I was of age, only A WIND IN THE DOOR had been published)…my first thought, FROM THE MIXED UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER by E. L. Konigsburg, was a one-shot.
Any podcast where 2 people can rattle off Dennis Potter shows should qualify for a Peabody Award! I agree with you Janet about “Pennies from Heaven.” THE DARNED OF IT IS, the Steve Martin movie version was better (except for the tacked on studio ‘happy ending’).
The following is from George Clooney’s Wikipedia page –
“Max” (1987 – December 1, 2006) was Clooney’s pet Vietnamese black bristled potbellied pig, often referred to as “Max the star” by Clooney.[88] The pig shared Clooney’s Hollywood Hills home, as well as Clooney’s bed, and frequently made cameos in interviews, mostly because of his enormous size.[89] He is often credited with saving Clooney’s life by waking him up before the Northridge earthquake on January 16, 1994.[88] In 2006, the pig was taken for a flight on John Travolta’s private jet.[90]
Max was bought by Clooney in 1988 as a gift for his then-girlfriend Kelly Preston, who later became Travolta’s wife.[91] The pig used to have a special cattle-pen and his own corner in the garage of Clooney’s manor.[92] Max was seriously injured in 2001 when one of Clooney’s friends accidentally ran him over with his car.[93] Weighing ca. 300 pounds (over 130 kg), Max died in Los Angeles of natural causes, as has been stated by Clooney’s press secretary Stan Rosenfield. Because he was known to have arthritis, and was partly blind, the animal was falsely reported to have died in January 2005. Clooney dotingly recalls that Max would squeal every morning until he was fed.[90] A column on Max by Clooney’s father, Nick, appeared in The Cincinnati Enquirer.[94]
I’ll fill this one. After Anne of Green Gables, the book most often mentioned in this podcast is “A Wrinkle in Time”.
Dear Janet,
Thanks so much for your previous mentions of Anne of Green Gables.
Hearing you describe it I knew my mom would enjoy it.
I bought her the first book for her recent birthday and she devoured it within a few days. She then made me order the other six books for her and she is currently on the final one.
You made a new convert!
I remember you talking about another book, or maybe a series of books, you and a guest both loved, maybe loosely similar to the Anne books.
But I can’t remember which book/episode/guest it was (I was busy when listening and couldn’t take time to write it down.)
Any idea what episode / book it may have been?
Thanks again
Jon
Wow…certain neighborhoods (and streets) have all the luck. Excessive geographic concentration of such comedic talent (if not geniuses, then close enough), tall subsection, seems unfair, somehow. (And there are so many excuses not to do one’s writing, or similar artistic work, that I have found over the years…you are not alone. I forget who noted that Having written is great, at least if one is satisfied with the result…it’s the writing, the getting to satisfactory results, that makes regrouting seem suddenly attractive, too often.
Looking forward to a new edition of QUICK SHOTS OF FALSE HOPE…no need to quote this, but the book was a very good read:
http://socialistjazz.blogspot.com/2010/07/fridays-forgotten-books-fast-lanes-by.html
Another week, another reminder of something I had almost completely forgotten: You’re the Greatest, Charlie Brown. And I honestly don’t like “2 Broke Girls”, yet I can’t help but watch it every week (well, when it’s a new episode)…