Part I: Summary and Review of NBC's Community, the last 37 seconds.

Incomplete Thought: ...and that's why the last 37 seconds of NBC's Community are the sharpest, smartest, and funniest 37 seconds of network television in the last, oh let's say, decade...

***

According to Wikipedia and basic deductive reasoning based on already public information, Community is an American comedy series on NBC. More colloquially, however, it's that show on after The Office that stars Joel McHale (that guy from The Soup) and is produced by Dan Harmon (that guy behind The Sarah Silverman Program). Only two episodes have aired as of this writing, and while the critical reception and ratings have been good, there is no telling of it's broadcast future. Situational comedies and their brothers and sisters in the written-television format are a dying breed, easily replaceable by cheaper and often-but-not-always more entertaining "reality" television. But whatever the future holds for Community, the last 37 seconds of the second episode have - at least for this viewer - cemented its place among the small-scale-model Parthenon of Funniest First-Run TV Series of the Aughts. Now there's an award trophy.

The genius of this half-minute - inserted as a closing-credits scene not linked directly to the main plot of the episode - is located in its combination of relevancy and density. Everything from the staging to the dialogue and back again and in between retains a perfect appropriateness and resonance, doing so in about as little of a space of time as one could think a story could be told.*

Let's review the action of the clip, first.

As the scene opens, two guys sit loungingly on a dated couch in the student lounge of a typical, Californian community college. The one on the left, Abed, is the personification of a multiethnic American, an apparent Caucasian/South Asian mix; the one of the left, Troy, is your standard, non-threatening middle-class black guy. They sit close enough that we know they are not strangers, and so we wait for the inevitable dialogue between friends who are studying together yet would rather do anything but.

A second in, Abed - played with brilliant and perpetual energy by Danny Pudi - spontaneously begins a surprisingly good beat box. He doesn't do it for show or for attention, but more for what appears to be self-entertainment. The moment was right.

Troy, who knows he is cooler than Abed but likes the guy nonetheless, is taken by the rhythmic quality of his new friend's beat. And after only a moment's hesitation, he launches into a hodgepodge Spanish rap, the lyrics of which pluck random bits of vocabulary from what could only be the first unit of the introductory course textbook.

"Donde esta la biblioteca? Me llamo T-Bone la arana discoteca," he raps with increasing enthusiasm and physical energy. As the words flow effortlessly out, an English translation appears and disappears on the screen, neatly delay-timed to his verse:

Where is the library

My name is T-Bone

the disco spider.

Abed rises to the challenge and picks up on his couchmate's last line, echoing the established rhythm thanks in part to Troy's willingness to sustain the same beat-box beat. Abed, however, is not simply mimicking; he punches out a new rhyme scheme to the very same rhythm, making this rap as much his as it is Troy's:

"Discoteca, muneca, la biblioteca, es en la bigote grande, perro manteca."

Now, if I may use the phrase, Troy is "feeling it," thrilled by both the beat and his partner's skill. He becomes more animated, his right hand directing both the scansion and the speed of the words and phrases he is now pulling from the page in front of him. He honors Abed's mirroring technique, and launches into...

"Manteca, bigote, gigante, pequeno, cabeza es nieve, cerveza es bueno."

By this fourth verse, it's apparent to all that this is no longer a chance bit of linguistic luck but a capital-M Moment, a discovery. It's not a battle, but a collaboration wherein each participant pushes the other beyond where he may have stopped on his own. Abed knows exactly where to resume, and Troy allows rap to finally emerge as what it has always been for him: a total kinesthetic experience, mind and body unified for one expressive purpose.

"Buenos dias, me gusta papas frias. El bigote de la cabra es Cameron Diaz."

With Abed's excitement marked by his increase of volume, Troy complements the excitement of the climax. He pantomimes the most commonly associated movements of the DJ - scratching the record with his right while bracing his headphones with his left - all the while improvising an impressive scratch-echo-repeat of "cabra," Abed's longest and most punctuated word so far. And so it is because of this awareness of his partner that Troy knows when to blow it all up, to demarcate the end of that which has progressed naturally to its own end. When Abed finds "Cameron Diaz" as the comic parallel to his opening "Buenos dias," his partner vocalizes the sound of an explosion, which contains its own denouement and resolution. And as the intensity flows out of Troy's coup de grace, the pair asserts their success:

"Yeah, boi. Boi," Abed declares, hitting each word with force.

"Yeah," Troy concurs.

"What," Abed asks rhetorically to whomever is listening, only to remind them all that "it's 2009."

At with that, Troy confirms it's true: "Word."

[End Scene] & [End of Part I]

* Though one wonders how long Hemingway took to deliver his genre-introducing flash fiction wonder. A safe, conservative estimate would be about five seconds, I'd guess.

To be continued...

...by Part II: Analysis and Criticism of NBC's Community, the last 37 seconds. Stay tuned.

Serena v. Korea ?!?

I, for one, am particularly tired of race as a subject of American conversations. I'd like to think liberally that we are "past that," and I cringe every time someone plays the card in a game that is theretofore and should be color free...if you know what I mean.

(E.g., this month's GQ, p. 176, sec. 4 of 4 on "How to Feel Good," entitled, "The Good News Pages." As a rough year plods along, we had to ask: What's the good news? Tossed oddly among an odd assortment of interviewees is our old friend Alfred Sharpton, who informs us that "this spring, James Young, an African-American, was elected mayor of Philadelphia, Mississippi, a town known to all of the world only because two Jewish men and a black man were killed there in 1964 for registering African-Americans to vote. In that same place, in the Deep South, where we once saw a crucifixion of people based on color, we're now seeing a resurrection of people based on getting past color." Now in defense of Sharpton - who I don't normally defend - the election of Young is a good thing, yes, a very good thing indeed. As is "getting past color." But can't we all recognize that the most ironic and problematic and frustrating part of Sharpton playing his usual role is that he keeps talking and talking and talking and talking about color in a manner that disallows us to ever get past it?)

And so it is with serious reserve and fear for my postracial hopes that I bring up here what no one seems to be talking about elsewhere: That the "outburst" of Serena Williams on Saturday night in Flushing certainly has an obvious racial subtext.

And, no, no, no: that is not what I'm thinking. Not a cheap, Sharptonesque subtext wherein Ms. Williams feels somehow disenfranchised because she is black, that somehow her blackness is being worked against by all members of the U.S. Tennis Association or the cultural superstructure at large. That's too conscious, too last-generation, too 1950s America.

No, what I'm talking about is that Gladwellian subconscious racism, the kind that you can't fear until you first detect it through one of those deeply unsettling Implicit Association Tests. And once you find out about it you work really hard to control it, but you can't help but wonder about those who don't really know...you know...maybe what you think you know.

Here I'm thinking about Serena, and the lineswoman, and the chair umpire, and the tournament official. Their fears, prejudices, and perspectives.

(Internal Aside: Part of me wants to end this post here because it feels like I've been treading water for the last four paragraphs. I'm not overly comfortable floating into the deeper end of the pool where conjecture and suspicion swim. But before I take the easy way out through the shallow end, permit me to make the point that stands contrary to the assertion in my first sentence:)

Thus, it's hard to watch the aforementioned outburst without thinking of the LA riots, of Menace II Society, of Do the Right Thing, of a particular M.E. Dyson lecture, the title of which escapes me.

We're all too aware of the Korean-American and African-American fued/conflict/distrust/history/call-it-what-you'd-like-here to not at least fear a maybe.

And while the specific Asian ethnicity (and name, which often dictates you-guessed-it) of the lineswoman remains unreported (why exactly?), I'm quite sure I'm not the first to think about what she or Serena or the others may have thought - consciously or subconsciously.

A.A.o.C.E.f.V.C.A.D.b.V.(WROtKB).a.W.b.Y.T.,P.H.f.Y.E.a.A.

Editor's Note: Excuse the atrocious title above, but the word-limit refused my full title and I simply couldn't stand abridging it by an means, and thus have presented it in full below. Also, while I have your attention and this note to bring things to it, allow me to note that I was going to annotate these selections with pithy and witty rejoinders (e.g. "We are all leaders" - No you are not. / or / "We are the proud bearers of a solemn pledge for a better tomorrow." - Adjective overload! Adjective overload!) but thankfully decided against this plan, as it was decided to be cliche in and of itself and also detracting from the subject herein. Let the cliches "speak for themselves," why don't you?

An Assortment of Cliches Excerpted from Various Commencement Addresses Delivered by Valedictorians (Who Really Ought to Know Better) and Witnessed by Yours Truly, Presented Here for Your Enjoyment and Astonishment

"You are the class that upsets the apple cart of bigotry of soft expectations."

"We are all leaders."

"We stand at the crossroads of life."

"I am part of something greater than myself."

"Friends, family, mentors."

"Tomorrow will come in its own time and in its own way."

"We are the proud bearers of a solemn pledge for a better tomorrow."

"May we remain essentially true to who we are today."

"We are the millennial generation, the children of a thousand years, poised to embark on an incredible adventure."

"The one thing you can expect out of life is the unexpected."

"Open your eyes to the world."

"We have ideas that could one day be revolutionary."

"The energy shortage is not a crisis but an opportunity."

"We do not have a financial crisis but a challenge."

"It's not a question of whether we will do great things; it's only a question of how many we will do."

And my favorite...

"As the legendary Bono once put it..."

What Was All That Shit About Vietnam?!!?

God only knows why there are no shot-by-shot clips on YouTube of the penultimate scene in The Big Lebowski - you know, the one where Walter and The Dude traipse down to the beach to eulogize Donny and "commit his mortal remains to the bosom of the Pacific Ocean, which he loved so well." That is, unless you count this reenactment, which cannot be criticized for lack of accuracy, but somehow still feels dumb. So I cannot post the original scene (nor in good conscience post the gereric version).

Which sucks because I have something to say...

I'd like to believe that I'm the first to put this in writing, as I haven't seen it anywhere else yet, which means either I am completely off-the-mark, or I am an internet trailblazer! Believe that.

In short, I'm convinced that Obama's inaugural address contained a hidden allusion to Lebowski. It's subtle:

PRESIDENT: "For us, they fought and died in places Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn." (emphasis added)

WALTER: "He died, like so many men of his generation, before his time. In your wisdom, Lord, you took him. As so many bright, flowering young men at Khe Sahn, Long Doc, and Hill 364. These young men gave their lives, and so Donny. Donny who loved bowling." (emphasis added)

To be continued...