Flatch is a Catch According to June

Fabulous Felt Mad Scientist Barrette

It's true.  I can't take the credit for this snappy slogan.  That honor goes to June -- also sometimes known as June Bug (Karen Huie) -- a denizen of Flatch, Ohio, population 1526.

If you've seen the commercials, then you know that I'm talking about FOX's new Thursday night sitcom, Welcome to Flatch.  Told in mockumentary style, it's a cross between Parks and Recreation and Beavis and Butt-Head, exploring day-to-day life in rural Ohio through the eyes of a delinquent duo.  

Flatch is the picture of pastoral charm.  And cousins and best friends Shrub (yes, like the tree) (Sam Straley) and Kelly (Holmes) hatch one harebrained scheme after another in an attempt to get rich quick.  Everything they touch takes a cringeworthy turn, whether it be a fall festival, an adult continuing education class, or a church dance-off.  They're as opportunistic as they are clueless, the very antithesis of the wholesome Midwestern values that the mockumentary purports to uphold.  Not even well-meaning Father Joe (Seann William Scott) (who's, by the way, not a priest, but a pastor) can get through to them.  And therein, of course, lies the humor.  The harder Father Joe tries, the funnier it is, making for a satisfying homespun satire.  Having the guy best known as American Pie's Stiffler play a man of God trying to reform a pair of ne'er-do-wells is a brainstorm of a bonus.  As is casting You're the Worst's usually caustic Aya Cash as Cheryl, Father Joe's earnest, journalist-for-all-the-right-reasons ex.  Despite being dumped after her move from the city, she sticks around to run the newspaper.  

But Welcome to Flatch  is about Shrub and Kelly.  And they aren't all bad.  As is the case with most misunderstoods, their antics are a cry for help.  Shrub yearns to win the affections of phlegmatic, plain Jane beauty school student Beth.  And Kelly just wants her jerk of an absentee father to notice her.  So maybe they're more Parks and Recreation than Beavis and Butt-Head after all.  But not Leslie Knope or Ron Swanson.  More like part of the angry mob at a town hall meeting -- or fry cooks at Paunch Burger.    

That said, Kelly's entry in the town motto contest is "Bask in our Flatulence."  "Flatch is a Catch" it isn't, but it tells us everything we need to know about this stupid smart show.

Just like this sold-but-not-forgotten-not-Flatch-but-flask-emblazoned Fabulous Felt Mad Scientist Barrette tells you everything you need to know about The Tote Trove.

Wardrobe Woes and Close Call Clothes: Yarns That Pull at the Heartstrings

We all know that clothes tell a story.  And that there are pieces we always hold on to.  So I was intrigued when I found Emily Spivack's Worn Stories during a routine Zulily browse.  From the very first page, I knew that it was no rose-colored, mall-montage reminiscence.  Although, I should have figured that out from its dark pun title and hole-scarred sweater cover.  The garments of the real-life people in Spivack's anthology tell tales of hard-won survival.  There's the man who kept the blood-stained shirt he was wearing when he got shot, the woman who survived the Holocaust and then had a suit made from the last bolt of tweed from her parents' shop, and the woman who couldn't part with the Harvard Medical sweatshirt that an otherwise terse doc gave her to keep warm when her mother was dying.  

These clothes aren't cute or glamorous; some of them are downright ugly.  But I get what's going on here, and it makes me think of the way I still have my brown corduroy coat and how, subconsciously or otherwise, I brought it with me when I got my first COVID shot.  It also makes me think about (albeit more attractive) clothes that marked other challenging times.  Like the polka dot Express skirt I wore on my first day of college when I fainted while reading The Bell Jar.  A female janitor rushed over (I was having breakfast in the student center) to see if I was okay.  I said that I was fine, that sometimes I passed out when I read about blood.  I don't have that skirt anymore, though.  It didn't seem like something I should hold on to.  

Writing is so weird.  When I sat down to blog about this book, I had no idea that that would come out.  But it makes sense.  Because however unpleasant it is to read others' "worn stories," I can't deny that they help me process my own.  

That said, this book also has a sprinkling of lighthearted anecdotes.  Like this one about a guy scoring a pink squirrel sweater:

"When I found this sweater at a junk shop in England, I was drawn to it, not just because I was an outcast kid growing up in Colorado who had squirrels as friends but, more importantly, because the brand was Avocado.  See, in my youth I was a peddler of avocados.  My grandfather was in the produce business in downtown Los Angeles, and in the summers of my younger teenage years, I'd work for him." 89

This storyteller (yeller?) is Dustin Yellin, a "Brooklyn-based artist and the founder of Pioneer Works, Center for Art and Innovation."  Not that I've heard of him, but he sounds cool and, anyway, maybe you have.

That said, may all of your ragged old tees and jeans empower and/or comfort you as much as this motley mix of apparel has empowered and/or comforted the souls in Worn Stories.  Which is to say, when you catch a stranger staring at the Florida-shaped stain on your poncho, laugh and go full Forrest Gump-slash-American Pie and say, "This one time when I was in Tampa . . ."

They'll either listen or they won't.  But either way you'll have a new story.  

And maybe a new stain on your poncho.

Movie Moment: American Reunion

If you graduated high school in or around 1999, then chances are that you have a kind of connection to the American Pie movies.  Having belonged to the class of 2000, I was particularly excited to see the fourth and presumably final installment, American Reunion. 

Thirteen years have passed since Jim (Jason Biggs), Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas), Oz (Chris Klein), and Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) made their epic pact to each bed a babe on prom night.  Despite adulthood having descended in the form of wives, kids, and careers, the gang's all here (even Oz, Heather (Mena Suvari), and Vicky (Tara Reid), who were conspicuously absent from the conga line in American Wedding).  Not surprisingly, life hasn't turned out the way any of them expected.  Jim and Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) are adjusting to life with a baby, Kevin is an architect-slash-stay-at-home-husband, Finch has been leading a life of exotic but vague adventure, Oz is a sports commentator with a spot on a "Dancing with the Stars" type show (hosted by Neil Patrick Harris!), and Stifler emerges from his mother's (Jennifer Coolidge) basement to crash the party yet again, apparently buckling beneath the demands of his secretarial gig.

The usual gross-out antics and naked ladies rim the edges of what amounts to be an oddly touching story.  Because beyond all the madness is a quiet reminder that everyone gets older and that life goes on.  Nowhere is this message more apparent than when we learn that Jim's mom died three years ago.  Jim takes over the role of caretaker as he gently nudges his dad (Eugene Levy) to dip his toe into the dating pool, an experiment that produces hilarious results.  Speaking of second chances, Oz becomes jealous of Heather's cardiologist boyfriend, Dr. Ron (Jay Harrington, the very same "Dr. Ron" from that guest spot on "Desperate Housewives" many moons ago), right around the same time that his own girlfriend ("30 Rock's" Katrina Bowden) is beginning to grate on his nerves.  But at the core of the crazy is Jim's moral dilemma presented in the form of an all-grown-up and smitten girl he used to (and this is kind of weird) babysit.   

Unlike the Hangover movies, American Reunion serves up a sex comedy with a conscious.  Sure, it makes you cringe in places, but it's the cringing that balances the sap, ultimately making the sap that much sweeter.