Curb Your Enthusiasm 11.6: The Man on the Roof

Lots of funny parts in Curb Your Enthusiasm 11.6 last night, but, some reason, my favorite was the guy on Larry's roof.  Maybe it was because I had a guy on my roof, too, in the not too distant past, before our never-ending age of COVID.   Though, come to think of it, he was up in one of our trees.

But the point is: he was a gardener not a tree specialist, and we needed a dangling big branch pretty high up to be cut down in a hurry, and all the tree specialists we knew were booked for weeks.  So our gardener climbed up there, with all kinds of ropes, and my wife and I worried about the worst.  Fortunately, he came down ok, but the branch he sawed off came this close to taking out one of our windows, because the rope layout wasn't that good.  Next time we'll wait for a tree guy.

Larry's house is often the funniest place on the show.  Leon's always there, talking about what he likes to tap, which has become de rigueur on Curb, and I'm fine with that.  But Larry's entitled to his grievances and idiosyncrasies if they're in his own home, right?

The other best part of the show was Jeff standing up to Larry about charging his phone in the restaurant.  It's rare that Jeff does this, which makes it good to see, though in this case, I'd say Larry is 100% right.  I mean, his phone was just about out of power, so Jeff could've at least given Larry the charge for ten minutes.

One story which I didn't agree with Larry about was the chiropractor's underpants (hey, that could've been a good title for this review).  What was Larry doing looking at that so long?  I would've turned my attention to my phone ... though, come to think of it, Larry's phone might have still been uncharged at that point, I don't recall.  But even putting the phone aside, Larry should have just looked out of a window.

See you here next week.

See also Curb Your Enthusiasm 11.1: Not Quite Tsuris ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 11.2: Twist on Twist ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 11.3: Highs and Lows ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 11.4-5: How Much of a Shirt?

See also:  Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.1: Reunited! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.3: Garbage Cans and Apples ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.8: Meets Mad Men ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.9: Science Fiction ... Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 10 Finale: Unjust Desserts

See also: Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.1: Hilarious! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.2: Wife Swapping ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.3: Benefits ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.4: "Hold You in his Armchair" ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.5: Schmata At Large ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.8: The Unexpected Advocate ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.9: Salmon Discretion ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.10: Outfit Tracker

Curb Your Enthusiasm 11.4-5: How Much of a Shirt?

Been a busy few weeks, so I didn't get a chance to review Curb Your Enthusiasm 11.4 last week and I'm just getting around to reviewing 11.5 now.  So I combined them in one review.  But it's just a sitcom, right?

I've often said that what appeals to me most about this hilarious show is how often it delves into issues that I can relate to.  And there was a sterling example in episode 11.5, which towers above everything else in these two episodes.

Larry talks for a second or two about how much of his white undershirt should be visible when you're wearing a polo shirt or whatever kind of shirt over it.   Now, obviously, this question doesn't arise if you're wearing a tie, because then your shirt would be buttoned on top, right under the collar, so no white undershirt would be visible at all.  But I almost never wear a tie, and Larry doesn't, either, at least not on the show.

Anyway, Larry has a very specific idea of how much of the white undershirt should be visible, and I think I pretty much agree with him.  But that assumes the top of the undershirt is out-of-the-laundry clean, which may not always be the case.  Larry frequently gets surprised by something, and if he's about to sip a cup of coffee, a splash of coffee could easily end up on this undershirt.  In fact, I think that happened to Larry in episode 11.4 or 11.5, but I can't recall which one it was.  I do know that, just a few days ago, as I was about to go off and teach my class at Fordham University, I looked in the mirror and noticed there was a tea stain on my white undershirt, right on the top, and therefore visible to anyone who looked at me.

I was pressed for time -- what else is new -- and didn't want to run up the stairs and take off my polo shirt, then my undershirt, then put on a new undershirt, and then put back on my polo shirt.  That would be four shirt procedures, in addition to running up and the back down the stairs.  So I came up with a solution:

Just take off my polo shirt, downstairs, then take off my undershirt with the tea stain, then put my polo shirt back on, and dash out of the house.  Pretty good solution, right?  And, actually, I think a polo shirt, even a dress shirt with an open collar, looks better with nothing on beneath.

And I'll be back here this coming Sunday with another review.

See also Curb Your Enthusiasm 11.1: Not Quite Tsuris ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 11.2: Twist on Twist ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 11.3: Highs and Lows

See also:  Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.1: Reunited! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.3: Garbage Cans and Apples ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.8: Meets Mad Men ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.9: Science Fiction ... Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 10 Finale: Unjust Desserts

See also: Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.1: Hilarious! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.2: Wife Swapping ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.3: Benefits ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.4: "Hold You in his Armchair" ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.5: Schmata At Large ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.8: The Unexpected Advocate ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.9: Salmon Discretion ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.10: Outfit Tracker

Curb Your Enthusiasm 11.2: Twist on Twist

A suitably funny Curb Your Enthusiasm 11.2 tonight, in which I have more sympathy than even usual for Larry's unrequited grievances.

Well, for at least one of them.  And here you have be a guy to get this.  Toilet seats in a unisex toilet -- actually, just plain old toilets rathers than urinals -- that don't stay up.  I've encountered them in many places, including even in my own home some years ago.  I can't quite bring myself to spell out the details of why they're so aggravating, but let's just say you don't want to risk  ... 

So good for Larry for putting this menace into his show.  As always with Larry, his legitimate grievances are unaddressed.  But in this case, there's a twist.  It turns out Don Jr. wasn't lying when he told Larry he'd spoken to the maintenance man.  Which makes this whole thread not just a twist, but a twist on a twist: the second twist being that this Don Jr. is not a pathological liar like his father.

The other funny part of this, again typical Larry, is that he doesn't know that Don Jr. was telling the truth. That's because Larry couldn't hear the Greek dentist telling Larry about the same maintenance man's dissembling in the dentist's building.   So here Larry takes a shot at himself: sometimes his outrage is not justified, and due to Larry's own behavior (putting in earplugs to block out the music), Larry doesn't know it.  Just deserts.

Leon (J. B. Smoove) was also in good form tonight -- actually, in the coming attractions to next week's show.  He's come up with a new, invigorating drink -- he's calling it tap water.  If you think about what Leon loves to tap, you'll see the brilliance of the name.

Ok, enough for now.  See you back here next week.

See also Curb Your Enthusiasm 11.1: Not Quite Tsuris

See also:  Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.1: Reunited! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.3: Garbage Cans and Apples ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.8: Meets Mad Men ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.9: Science Fiction ... Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 10 Finale: Unjust Desserts

See also: Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.1: Hilarious! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.2: Wife Swapping ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.3: Benefits ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.4: "Hold You in his Armchair" ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.5: Schmata At Large ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.8: The Unexpected Advocate ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.9: Salmon Discretion ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.10: Outfit Tracker

Curb Your Enthusiasm 11.1: Not Quite Tsuris

Curb Your Enthusiasm was back on HBO for the debut of its 11th season tonight, pretty to very funny, not the funniest of this show which can have you laughing out loud for most of its 30 minutes, but enjoyable and fun to see nonetheless.

As usual, Larry gets caught up in a variety of situations in which his grievances are justified but in apparent defiance or ignorance of social norms, for which Larry gets grief himself, but stubbornly doesn't relent.  Someone with declining mental abilities owes Larry $6000, overdue six months, and Larry thinks it's time to call in the debt.  Everyone else including slight acquaintances and especially Susie think Larry is horribly wrong to ask the guy for the money.

Speaking of Susie, she obviously plops down on a white couch, causing Larry to spill his red wine all over it, and no one wants to support Larry's insistence that it wasn't his fault -- including Jeff, who agrees with Larry privately but won't go against his wife.  Actually that was very funny, I'm beginning to think maybe I was too harsh in the first paragraph.  I hope Larry gets this far if he reads this review.

The two funniest interludes in the episode were (1)  Larry being forced to cast a young woman clearly not right for the part of Marsha in the "Young Larry David" sitcom Larry and Jeff manage to sell to Netflix.  He did this because the young woman's uncle drowned in Larry's pool, unprotected by the fence called for in the local ordinances. (My guess is she'll turn out to do a great job in the part.)  And (2) the pre-funeral, or whatever it's called that Albert Brooks puts together for himself, and gets Larry embroiled in.  Jon Hamm shows up and wants to express that's he's "bashert" about the faux death, or maybe express his condolences that Brooks' family and friends have "bashert", and Larry correctly tells him that "bashert" is not the right word for that, because it means "fate".  Hamm asks what is the right word, then.  And Larry says "tsuris".

Well, not quite.  "Tsuris" means "trouble" or "troubles" in Yiddish, but I'd say it's too weak a word to pertain to the death of a loved one.  What would be the right word then?  I don't know.

But, ok, I was wrong about the episode not being hilarious enough -- in the immortal words of Jerry Orbach's character in Dirty Dancing, "when I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong" -- and it's bashert that I'll be back with at least one or two more reviews of this season's episodes.

See also:  Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.1: Reunited! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.3: Garbage Cans and Apples ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.8: Meets Mad Men ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.9: Science Fiction ... Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 10 Finale: Unjust Desserts

See also: Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.1: Hilarious! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.2: Wife Swapping ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.3: Benefits ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.4: "Hold You in his Armchair" ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.5: Schmata At Large ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.8: The Unexpected Advocate ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.9: Salmon Discretion ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.10: Outfit Tracker

Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 10 Finale: Unjust Desserts

An excellent, funny end of the tenth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm this past Sunday, which tied up all kinds of loose ends in this hilarious season.

A fundamental principle of Larry's life in this series has always been that he's punished for the risks he takes - takes on behalf of righting some more or less real wrong that was done him.  The season began with Larry objecting to the wobbly tables and tasteless coffee in Mocha Joe's.  He puts together a spite store, with all sorts of innovations for a coffee place, right next to Mocha's.

The season finale begins with one of Larry David the producer's trademarks.  Josh Mankiewicz does a full-trim NBC report on spite stores and their cultural significance, featuring Latte Larry's.  And that, folks, was highpoint for the story of Larry's store.  By the time the episode is over, the store has burned down, and the firefighter on the scene tells Larry he might be investigated for arson, since the fire was caused by all the innovations (such as no easily tappable water in the men's room) Larry put in his store.

But that's my no means it.  Very early in the season, Larry gets caught up in a sexual harassment suit.  He's innocent.  But he gets out of the suit only because his accuser loses her memory, after she passes out in a elevator, choking on a too-dry scone.  Larry is standing right next to her, but he's afraid to apply the Heimlich, because of the sexual harassment suit.  A neat little story, and a rarity, because Larry comes out ahead.

But in the finale, even this victory is snatched from Larry's battered yet still proud psyche.  The woman regains her memory, begins her persecution of Larry.  But she falls for Joe, whose store also burns down, and in the last scene we see she and Joe have bought the house next to Larry.  We have the makings of a new season, with this new couple, each of whom has reason to not like Larry, to say the least, living right next door.

And I'll be back here with a review as soon as that new season begins.

See also:  Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.1: Reunited! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.3: Garbage Cans and Apples ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.8: Meets Mad Men ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.9: Science Fiction 

See also: Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.1: Hilarious! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.2: Wife Swapping ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.3: Benefits ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.4: "Hold You in his Armchair" ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.5: Schmata At Large ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.8: The Unexpected Advocate ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 1.9: Salmon Discretion ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 1.10: Outfit Tracker


Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time  - digital, CD, vinyl

Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.9: Science Fiction

A rare Curb Your Enthusiasm - 10.9 - tonight, in which science fiction figures in a semi-major way.

First, in a conversation with Freddy Funkhouser (Vince Vaughn), Jeff, and Richard Lewis, the subject of a car moving without a driver comes up, and the danger that it might hit a stroller with a baby comes up.  One of them says if the baby were a future Hitler, that might change everything, but that's dismissed as "science fiction".

I wouldn't say that qualifies as a "semi-major way," but it turns out Richard is staring in a theatrical presentation of Flowers for Algernon.   Now that's science fiction.  In fact, I consider Daniel Keyes's 1959 novelette (later expanded into a novel and then made into a movie) the best science fiction novelette ever written.  That's why, when I President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2000, I named Keyes our Author Emeritus at our New York Nebula Awards Celebration.  My wife, two kids, and I had dinner with Keyes and his wife after the award presentation, and it was one of best dinners my family and I ever had.



Scott Edelman (toastmaster, left); Daniel Keyes; my hands clapping (right), at Nebula Awards, New York City, 2000

Anyway, the rest of this Curb was, let us say, not on such a literary level.  So I'll leave it there, and see you here after the season finale next week.

See also:  Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.1: Reunited! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.3: Garbage Cans and Apples ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.8: Meets Mad Men

See also: Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.1: Hilarious! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.2: Wife Swapping ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.3: Benefits ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.4: "Hold You in his Armchair" ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.5: Schmata At Large ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.8: The Unexpected Advocate ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 1.9: Salmon Discretion ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 1.10: Outfit Tracker


just releasing:  Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time  - digital, CD, vinyl

Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.8: Meets Mad Men

Just checking with a review of Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.8, with apologies not reviewing this hilarious show every week as I said I would, but,  hey, given everything that's been going on in this world, I've had a little less time for television, including reviewing it.  Not to mention my new album coming out.

What makes episode 10.8 so appealing and funny was Jon Hamm, playing himself, in a story line that has him playing a Larry David kind of character in some movie or television show (I think movie, but I'm too lazy to look that up).  Larry gives Hamm permission to follow Larry around, and by the end of the episode we get the real treat of seeing and hearing not one but two Larrys in operation.

Cheryl ties this up nicely, as she always does.  She and Hamm go out for a bite to eat, but Hamm is now so thoroughly in Larry mode that Cheryl can't take it and eventually leaves.  A reviewer somewhere said Hamm was "pretty-ay good".  While the Larry-esque phrase works well, it doesn't do Hamm's performance justice, which was flat-out great.

The other stand-out gambit of the episode is the Gotta Go business that Larry and Leon cook up. It's a great idea:  fill in for someone who has to go to the bathroom, but is working at a newstand or shoe-shine or similar service and can't leave his post.  And charge the guy a few bucks.  It works great - until the person being relieved takes unaccountably long to relieve himself.

I'm going to really miss this show, yet again, when this seasons ends after the next two episodes.  I'm still hoping that Larry and Cheryl get together for a little longer at the end.

See also:  Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.1: Reunited! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.3: Garbage Cans and Apples

See also: Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.1: Hilarious! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.2: Wife Swapping ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.3: Benefits ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.4: "Hold You in his Armchair" ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.5: Schmata At Large ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.8: The Unexpected Advocate ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 1.9: Salmon Discretion ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 1.10: Outfit Tracker


just releasing:  Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time  - digital, CD, vinyl

Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.3: Garbage Cans and Apples

Among the many hilarities of Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.3 are garbage cans and apples.

Things - natural, produced, customs - not being used the way they're supposed to has long been a staple of Curb.  Or, to be more precise, Larry's frustration sometimes fury about things not being allowed to have the proper function is a persistent theme.  The key is Larry is right, but over-reacts (to some extent), and therein resides the hilarity.

Take garbage cans, for instance.  They're supposed to be for garbage - a place to throw in what you are discarding- but Larry finds that's not the case, at least twice.  The first time is an apple that Larry was eating - "nonchalantly" - in his lawyer's office, until the lawyer objected (the same lawyer, of course, who didn't let Larry use his bathroom last week).  Larry compounds his lawyer's objections by throwing the half-eaten apple into a wastebasket.  But it has "no lining," so the lawyer doesn't like that, either.  Next, Larry tries to throw a scone unliked by cousin Andy into a garbage receptical in the kitchen, and gets told by Andy's wife that they dispose of their garbage in the pantry (which made me think of Paul Simon's "Mrs. Robinson").

But the apple was centerpiece of another example in this episode of things being misused.  Larry also encounters decorative apples in several places.  Some look so real that - of course - Leon and Larry both bite into them, and chip their teeth.  The decorative fruit that looks too real is a longstanding grievance of likely millions of people in this world, but most of them don't chip their teeth on them.

I'm pretty sure almost no one chips their teeth on garbage cans, but now's as a good a time as any to mention the paradox of the garbage can, that I discovered decades ago.  It arises from the problem of how do dispose of a garbage can?  Think about it.  If you leave an empty garbage can in your driveway, the sanitation crew won't take it away, they'll just think someone else already took away the garbage in the can that was never there.  We recently got semi-automated garbage pick-up in our area, and that would make the paradox even worse.  If you left a note on the can saying "please dispose of me," the automated arm wouldn't be able to read it.

Anyway, you can read more about the paradox of the garbage can here, and I'll be back one of these weeks with another review of Curb.

See also:  Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.1: Reunited!

See also: Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.1: Hilarious! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.2: Wife Swapping ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.3: Benefits ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.4: "Hold You in his Armchair" ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.5: Schmata At Large ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.8: The Unexpected Advocate ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 1.9: Salmon Discretion ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 1.10: Outfit Tracker


just releasing:  Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time  - digital, CD, vinyl

Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.1: Reunited!

Not quite reunited.  But Curb Your Enthusiasm was back last night on HBO for the beginning of its tenth season.  And it hasn't lost a thing.  Larry David and his situations are as funny and stiletto relevant as ever.

And, Larry is back in bed with Cheryl, where they both belong.  She does have an allergic reaction to the talcum powder he douses himself with, but we won't go into that.  It lands her in the hospital, but she's ok, and this promises an important course correction in the series.

Larry, as always, is too right in the grievances he finds all around him.  But this season has some winning updates.  Larry finds that wearing a MAGA hat can get him out of (and of into) all kinds of trouble.  He has his eyes on a woman serving hors d'oeuvres, because she never seems to walk by him - another great example of a legitimate grievance that rings true.  But she mistakes his staring for ogling, and when she confronts him, Larry of course accidentally does something that lands him in #metoo territory.  Just for good measure in this area, we learn that Jeff is often mistaken for Harvey Weinstein.

Back to the MAGA hat, there's bound to be lots of politics, served up Larry David's way, in the months ahead.  We can certainly use a little humor to leaven the grim headlines.  I'm betting the real Bernie will make an appearance sooner or later.

See also: Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.1: Hilarious! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.2: Wife Swapping ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.3: Benefits ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.4: "Hold You in his Armchair" ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.5: Schmata At Large ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.8: The Unexpected Advocate ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 1.9: Salmon Discretion ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 1.10: Outfit Tracker


just up on Bandcamp, FREE - or get CD here

Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.10: Outfit Tracker

Well, it was a toss-up between "Outfit Tracker" and "No Apologies" as the title of my review of the Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 9 finale tonight, and I went with "Outfit" because ...

Well, both motivated the standout Hamilton-like scene with Larry and Lin-Manuel dueling that set up most of the ending, but "outfit" also rhymes with one of the shtick that also showed up at the wedding, and also has to do with a kind of outfit, literally, so I went with that.

Larry and Curb haven't lost a thing in this long-awaited return season, and in some ways have gotten better with age.  That's because the essence of the show - Larry's insistence on what he sees as proper conduct - as in commensurate apologies in tonight's show - are a fundamental part of life that no one else, certainly no other comedians, ply and develop as well as Larry.  And we need those eternal verities of just behavior and calling parties out when it's not forthcoming and making a big, often hilarious joke out of it, more than ever in these our troubled times.

Speaking of which, was there any mention of Trump in season 9?  I can't recall - and I'm too lazy to read my earlier reviews.  But the fact that I can't recall shows that Trump played a negligible if any role in this season, and that's disappointing.

I mean, aren't we as consumers of comedy by someone as enlightened as Larry David entitled to see Trump skewered in some way?

Only kidding - I was just playing Larry in that disappointment.  Frankly, I'm glad there was no memorable mention of Trump in this come-back season of Curb, because we get so much of him everyplace else.

Anyway, I hope there is another season, somewhere down the line, but in a way I'm glad this one's over, because as I said in my first review, I think there's something about reviewing comedies that's anti-comedic (which is why I don't usually if ever review comedies), and I'm pretty sure this very review proves it.

But see you back here with a review of another Curb, whenever that may be.

See also: Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.1: Hilarious! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.2: Wife Swapping ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.3: Benefits ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.4: "Hold You in his Armchair" ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.5: Schmata At Large ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.8: The Unexpected Advocate ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 1.9: Salmon Discretion


It started in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn Monroe walked off the set of The Misfits and began 

Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.9: Salmon Discretion

A flat-out hilarious episode 9.9 of Curb Your Enthusiasm tonight, that fired on all kinds of sundry cylinders.

The salmon/Salman (Rushdie) bit between Larry and Lin Manual Miranda as they discussed "Fatwa" in Miranda's office was not the funniest, but it rang a bell with me, maybe because I knew a guy by the name of Barry Salmon in the MA in Media Studies Program at the New School some decades ago, and for all I know he's still there, though I'm not sure if that's still the name of the program or the school, for that matter.  But I thought of him during the Larry and Lin exchange, which turned out to be the first of many more that were much more funny.

Very funny,  right out of the box, was Larry's springing the sexual performance agreement on Bridget, who I thought broke up with Larry last week, but I was glad to see back (and, hey, with a star like Lauren Graham, it would be crazy to let her go after just one episode).  This was the latest in the innumerable ways Larry always works against his own best interests, especially when it comes to getting some (aka someone in bed).

Also creme de la creme comedy was the Judge Judy skit, replete with Leon as a helpful witness explaining something about skin tones, relevant (I think) to what Larry's plant looked like, which occasioned the former owner of his house stealing the plant.  Again, I could relate to that.  Just recently, a son of the former owners of our home knocked on the door, and we've been living here since 1992.

And, of course, Larry falling asleep a second time in the Hamilton audience was a classic bit, with Larry carefully laying the groundwork earlier with his hurt shoulder and the pills.  I knew as soon as Larry took the pills in the theater that we'd be seeing him snore at the end.

Alas, I can't relate too well to Hamilton, however, because I haven't seen it.  Hey, maybe Larry or someone from his organization will read this, and send along tickets for me and my wife.

Likely that won't happen before next week, when I'll be reviewing the final episode of this season. Like tonight, I won't apologize for reviewing comedies if the show is as funny as it was this evening.

See also: Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.1: Hilarious! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.2: Wife Swapping ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.3: Benefits ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.4: "Hold You in his Armchair" ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.5: Schmata At Large ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.8: The Unexpected Advocate



It started in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn Monroe walked off the set of The Misfits and began 

Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.8: The Unexpected Advocate

Well, I haven't been reviewing Curb Your Enthusiasm the last few weeks because, as I keep saying, I don't like to review comedies, and I had to make good on that assertion.  (Ok, The Orville is comedy, but it's much more than that - it's Star Trek: TOS under a different name - and I have been reviewing that.)  But episode 9.8 of Curb was so good I can't lay off reviewing it (though, truthfully, the episodes I didn't review were all too good not to review, too).

One of the many brilliant things about Curb Your Enthusiasm is the way it establishes a theme early in the season, and comes back to it, unexpectedly, as the season progresses.  In season 9 it's been the fatwa placed on Larry.  And in 9.8 he meets the man who says he was about to kill him, as a devout Muslim, but doesn't because Larry comes to his passionate defense after a crowd brandishes its anger at the man for cutting in line to get a second helping of potatoes.  (This, by the way, is one reason I don't much care for smorgasbord restaurants.)  The would-be killer is so moved by Larry's defense that he turns into Larry's advocate, and mounts a successful campaign, culminating in a trial before a board of Mullahs, to lift the fatwa.  It's all hilarious, including that Larry's defender looks like Salman Rushdie (wait a minute, wasn't Rushdie already on this season?).

And if that isn't enough, we get Larry almost making it with Gilmore Girls' Lauren Graham.  Of course it's "almost," because Larry always does something to mess up even the best attractions, and it makes you wonder how he ever got Cheryl to love and marry him in the first place.  Maybe Larry was a little more controlled back, then.  Or, at very least, if memory serves, Cheryl was able to restrain him on occasion.

In any case, I can say with unrestrained praise that Curb Your Enthusiasm is as laugh-out-loud funny as it ever was, and remains, after all these years, my all-time favorite comedy on television.

But I may or may not be back here with a review of tomorrow night's show.

See also: Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.1: Hilarious! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.2: Wife Swapping ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.3: Benefits ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.4: "Hold You in his Armchair" ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.5: Schmata At Large



It started in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn Monroe walked off the set of The Misfits and began to hear a haunting song in her head, "Goodbye Norma Jean" ...