JHENIFER PABILLANO

As many of you know, I was expecting a baby in May—- and she finally arrived last week!

So world, please welcome my lovely daughter Linna. She is healthy and happy and just delightful. I suspect we’ll be having a lot of fun together this year.

(Yes, that’s just her hand for now—- I’m still wrestling with the idea of posting my kid’s picture online. The quandaries of the digital age!)

Well, really, from the looks of it, this steak’s probably raw. But it’s well done from a sewing perspective. I made my own pattern and everything!

Why a stuffed steak? I don’t know, why not? The T-bone is such a classic shape. I investigated doing other cuts of meat in stuffed form but they really don’t work: a roast just looks like a big red cylinder. So: steak ftw! It also doubles as a pretty comfortable pillow, in a pinch.

The king of Scrabble is obviously the iPad. I discovered this when I was trying the Scrabble app in two-player mode and realized it included a “Best Word” button that automatically picks the highest scoring word for you. I hit the button repeatedly and that’s when I realized the iPad is a terrifying Scrabble opponent. Just look at the board! VAKIL! ARGOTIC! And the top turn was “RENEGED,” which uses all seven tiles and includes FOUR two-letter words for a score of 72. Thank God the button cuts out after eight turns or so, or else no human would ever have a chance against it. Or a shred of dignity left.

(Also, the Best Word button is a weird option and it’s odd that you can’t turn it off as a default. I mean, why on earth would anyone do anything for their turn but hit the Best Word button? Obviously the computer’s going to know better than you. As well, in “party mode” where you use your iPhone/iPod Touch as a tile rack, it gives you the option of looking up possible words from your letters in the Merriam Webster Dictionary to see if they are valid. You can’t turn that option off either, which is again kind of odd.)

Jack Donaghy has loved many women during his tenure at 30 Rock. Not all of them are created equal. Herewith is an ordered list from worst to first.

6. Elisa

There’s a saying about 30 Rock guest stars: the more famous they are, the crappier their appearance on the show. And too true here! Elisa should have worked—if you listen to the content of her lines, they’re all pretty hilarious—but there’s something about Salma Hayek’s slow-paced delivery that made everything unfunny. The most excruciating part was that they kept her on the show for so long.

5. Nancy Donovan

GAH at so many things. The terrible Boston accent! The jarring asides about children!

4. Phoebe

Ah Phoebe: she of the avian bone syndrome. So beautifully crazy. I really wished she could have stayed longer: all her double-dealing and psychosis could have added up to something great. Also we never did learn the mystery behind the crazy American accent that emerged when Phoebe got angry.

3. Bianca

Hair pulling; condescension; mastery of Donaghy-esque power moves. Plus: “Oh, dammit Johnny, you know I love my Big Beef and Cheddar!” Brilliant.

2. Celeste “CC” Cunningham

The forbidden fruit, CC was smart, morally upright, and had a tremendous backstory. Shot in the face by a dog! Plus the political conflict was fantastic. “She’s my liberal, hippy-dippy mama; my groovy chick; my old lady.”

1. Avery Jessup

Who knew that the best match for Jack would be MORE Jack? Avery’s like a younger, souped-up female version of our favourite GE vice-president, and like the iPad, the amped-up aggressive conservatism she brings to their relationship is both magical and revolutionary. It’s abominable that the show made Nancy Donaghy compete with her for Jack’s affections throughout season four. There was no competition! Avery Jessup and the Hot Box, all the way.

Side note: is it not strange that Jack Donaghy & Avery are now having a baby, which is essentially Liz Lemon’s dream?

A wonderful surprise—I’ve been named to Mass Transit magazine’s 2010 Top 40 Under 40 list!

It’s both humbling and exciting to be counted as one of the young leaders in the North American transit industry. I’m in good company, too: check out the full list at Mass Transit’s website. Congratulations to all!

1. Full disclosure: I love the Divine Miss M.
2. But seriously: what’s with the 80s and its general acceptance of age diversity? Bette Midler was 45 and Lily Tomlin was 49 by the time this movie debuted. Can you imagine any major studio today making a film where top billing goes to two middle-aged female comediennes? Without making a big deal about how the movie stars women over the age of 30 (cf. Sex and the City)?
3. And no, I’m not trying to say Big Business is a tour-de-force akin to Citizen Kane. Yeah, it’s deliciously dumb, with gratuitous scenes of Bette Midler yodelling, and even stars the grandpa from Gilmore Girls as a frou-frou gay man! But the movie wasn’t a total bomb and still made a reasonable amount, so it does show middle-aged funny ladies were never total box office poison, as many believe they are today.
4. Why isn’t Bette Midler in any movies lately? And why is Lily Tomlin so criminally underused these days?
5. Also: remember when carphones were new? Different time, the 80s.

Outstanding!

I looked up Curtis Grahauer and he appears to be a Vancouver artist: here’s an article on his work and his YouTube account. Thank you, Curtis, for such a brilliant moment of delight.

(The book is Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, if you’re curious.)

Vancouver’s a big city, but there’s a ton of things within it that smack of small-town fun. I mean that in a good way—it’s unfailingly awesome that this city has a ton of small-scale events, all invented just so you can have fun, meet your neighbours, and support your local community. Yeah!

A case in point is the Vancouver Canadians, our single-A minor league baseball team, whose games are true joys to attend. A Canadians game is cheap, it’s super cheerful, and it’s all wrapped up inside beautiful Nat Bailey Stadium, built in Mount Pleasant in 1951.

The baseball’s always a draw, but the club’s barrage of non-baseball interludes really make the whole thing sing. Man, do they hustle to keep your attention: there’s sushi mascot races, 50/50 draws, dancing groundskeepers, a singalong to Take Me Out to The Ball Game during the seventh-inning stretch, and more.

The stadium was sold out for Saturday’s game, with a super boisterous crowd fiercely on the Canadians’ side, and tons of silly crowd things to shamelessly participate in (the wave, the shouting of “Goose!” when a goose landed on the field, etc). The Canadians lost on Saturday, but we all went home happy, I think. Not only did everyone get a free A&W Teen Burger and rootbeer because a Canadian hit a homer (thanks, Michael Choice!), but the bat boy caught about six foul balls, to the roaring approval of the stands (“MVP!” we all shouted). After the game was done, fans swarmed to get the bat boy’s autograph too. Another fine night at the Nat.

1. Let’s just get this out of the way: this is an amazing, beautiful song.
2. This song was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1987, when Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes are 47 and 41 respectively. Can you imagine anyone of that age making it to the top of the pop charts today? It sort of seems impossible.
3. As a follow-up: I was thinking maybe they’d have a shot at the adult contemporary charts today. But you know, a quick look at the #1s on the 2010 adult contemporary chart shows just four artists: Colbie Caillat, Taylor Swift, Michael Buble, and Train. On further investigation, the lead singer of Train is 41, but a quick look at the video for “Hey Soul Sister” prompts the observation that he’s not 41 in the same way Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes are in their 40s in 1987. He’s more like an aging rocker in his mid-30s; they’re more like a suburban mom and dad karaoke-ing together. (Also, I can’t figure out why the song “Hey Soul Sister” made #1. It’s not unpleasant, just kind of mediocre. Or is that the definition of adult contemporary?)
4. However, maybe this is an unfair comparison. Bill & Jennifer may have likely rocketed onto the charts owing to the success of Dirty Dancing (cf. C. Dion, My Heart Will Go On.)
5. And finally: here’s Bill and Jennifer singing the song live on Top of the Pops. It sort of seems like “The Singing Bee” or any number of those singing reality TV shows, no? Let’s all appreciate Jennifer’s choice of a sensible skirt suit and tights for her show wardrobe, however. Different time, the 80s.

Well, over the past few months, I’ve become an unequivocal Witold Rybczynski superfan.

This all started after I picked up one of Witold’s books, The Most Beautiful House in the World, from the local library. I’d read his architecture criticism at Slate before, and I knew he was a renowned professor, but none of it quite prepared me for the spectacular nature of his long-form writing.

The Most Beautiful House in the World was ostensibly about the construction of Witold’s house outside Montreal, but it quickly became a considered reflection on the craft of architecture and the qualities of a good home. Witold had a clear, measured voice, and he wove a wealth of thoughtful historical detail throughout his book. Let’s put it this way: reaching the end of the book was like finishing a long, rich conversation with an old, dear friend. And it was bloody nonfiction!

The next step was obvious. I had to reserve and read all of his books as soon as possible—and I did, much to my delight. It turns out Witold dives into topics that seem wholly abstract, but pulls them to earth in a way that is fascinating and wise and illuminating all at once. Home: A Short History of an Idea looked at how we had developed the concept of the private home reserved for family. Waiting for the Weekend examined how we developed the concept of the weekend and our sense of leisure time. City Life looked at how the American city came to be the way it was. The list goes on, and on.

One more thing, however, makes Witold’s writing so riveting—and it’s that his style is a sharp and invigorating contrast to a lot of nonfiction you find today. Malcolm Gladwell’s influence on the form has made some people dive into fascinating subjects but come up with very little to say. But Witold plumbs subjects with scholarly intelligence that remains approachable. He’s not trying to be breezy, he’s not aiming to thrill you with laboriously tortured narratives, and he’s not trying to tie a bunch of disparate concepts and events into a unified theory that secretly runs the universe. He’s more like a tour guide for this world, writing to help us understand where we are and where we’ve come from. There’s substance and wisdom there. I’m hooked.