Perhaps I Could Be A Couch, or an Ottoman, but I Don't Think I'd Want to be Chair. Just Let Me Have Lemon Ice

It's old. This being at home, no movement, sit-still gig I got myself in.

Friends have been raving about The Chair on Netflix, so after running to the new Micallizi's in Milford, I wanted a tub of lemon ice, and got another of lemon, cherry, and blackberry for Ishy (Dave, Kris, Isaiah, and Val), I came home to finished the day's LLWS, had lemon-ice for dinner, and decided I'd see what everyone was talking about. 

Binge watching is today what MariosBros marathons used to be when my little sister got a Nintendo System. Just start, and don't stop, until an entire day goes by. 

My read on the show is that it is well-acted, funny, and definitely humor-fodder for anyone with ties to English Departments at Universities, abeit one from the 80s and 90s (a wee-bit antiquated in its imagination). I was entertained - absolutely love Sandra Oh and Holland Taylor (took me forever to nail why I knew her....Bosom Buddies). The chair's daughter and father, too, are stellar. Yes, the daughter is brilliant. Love her and her complexity.

Believability. Accuracy. Poignancy. 

Well, the verdict is out on a final opinion, but I'm really not from the generation of literary criticism as much as I am from scholarship in action. Yes, I can analyze the show to death, but it's not my style (and I'm not sure what it could give me). Instead, I attest that it kept my mind and groin in stillness for a day. I will be able to contribute in faculty conversations about popular culture should I have to, but the whacky, crazy, imbecilic and outrageous reality of a higher education (and the administration) has so much more room for accuracy and comedy. 

What they got right is the economic reality of how Universities are run, coupled with the true diversity of student population in the U.S. and our institutions failing to meet their needs. That is my take-away. Pretty spot-on, if not much-much worse. 

One might have to live it to believe it...so my read on the show is that it good...I am glad I watched it...but, Lord...the reality of higher education is much more frantically bizarre.

The lemon-ice, though. Superb. If I could, I'd ship a dish to everyone I love. But it would melt...so if Crandall was to give your life lemon-ice, it'd likely arrive as warm lemonade.