Favorite lyric from last year, describing himself as a shaggy recluse:

Oof… no, at his best Aesop Rock has tremendous flow, it's just dense in a way that isn't much in line with popular taste, and that's fine.  If you want to hear him showing off just his flow, take another listen to "ZZZ Top".

May just depend on taste, then.  I started watching back in the Space Ghost days, and one thing I've appreciated about the network is that they can be pretty fearless about trying new things, even if those things don't always work (sorry, Assy McGee fans!)  A good currently-airing gateway is probably Venture Bros..  I…

Nowadays, or in general?

@avclub-1f5b519cde67ac0d0fcab419aa3048a4:disqus : agreed.  The show treats sexuality with respect, even when the characters do not.

Because they are alike and/or because he's sexually attracted to her and jealous and/or because he's angry at her over Caputo's allegation that she's castrated him and/or because he's frustrated with his wife and/or… etc.  This is one of the things I love about the show.

Me, too.

Agreed.

Mulgrew's accent is off, but otherwise, she's like most middle-aged Russian women I know.  Whoever designed the wardrobe/hair for her flashbacks deserves all the awards.

@avclub-78bdfa83009fb79fce8a73303b724ee2:disqus : Nope, you're making sense.  They're trying to muddle their way through an issue that isn't easily dramatized, and it sends mixed messages. That's one of the reasons I stood up for "Blood Donut" above, because I think it embraces that mixed muddle instead of isolating…

One thing they're doing with Larry that I do find kinda effective is showing a couple who are leading literally separate lives and are increasingly unable to share that experience, even vicariously.

Agreed, but I think they're trying to split the difference between dramatizing both her actual privilege and her relationship to it.  Her stint in SHU (terminology corrected, thanks) shows that the former is not going to change even if the latter does.  I think that's pretty accurate.

Okay, so I'm way late on this.  Have been binge-watching all week, so I haven't had a chance to chat about previous episodes, and I'm just caught up (well… a bit more than caught up: I watched episode 11 this morning.)

Nope, Futurama handled it correctly: a pun is a play on words like a square is a rectangle: one is a subset of the other, so you can't use them interchangeably.

When judging between your understanding of the word and the dictionary's definition of the word, first you need to start with a reputable dictionary.  An online version cribbed from Random House, which doesn't do technical language very well, isn't serving you well.  The technical term for a pun is paranomasia, and…

@avclub-cfe912f5cb3aa572bd1c9ae2a9b82207:disqus : (I don't know how to make it any clearer that I'm just having some fun with you.  Relax.)

@avclub-cfe912f5cb3aa572bd1c9ae2a9b82207:disqus : When they involve nonagenarian, ironic-Nobel Peace Prize winners, definitely!

Dude, you got to see Kissinger in a music video.  What more could you ask for?

The best part of that Gaddis article is that Franzen says the difference between them is that he (Franzen) is there for the reader, man!  Gaddis is all like "I just write for posterity", but Franzen writes for us!  He's the blue collar savior of the bookshelf!

First, before we go too much farther in this conversation: do you speak Russian?  This will save me a lot of trouble.