Tag Archives: Adventure Time

Five Things I Liked This Week

1. Excerpt from Do Not Sell At Any Price: The Wild, Obsessive Hunt for the World’s Rarest 78rpm Records by Amanda Petrusich (Pitchfork)

It’s no secret that I’m a little obsessed with The Anthology of American Folk Music and everything that went into and came out of it. (See here and here for proof.) This excerpt is all about Harry Smith, the record collector who created the Anthology.

You can read more about the book, which will be released on July 8th, here. (I pre-ordered it earlier this week.)

2. “Descent” by Fear of Men

 

 

Their debut album, Loom, is out now on Kanine Records.

 

3. “Wake Up”/”Escape From the Citadel”,  Adventure Time‘s Season 6 Double Episode Premiere

I loved it. Here’s the Cartoon Network promo:

 

4. “Carry On” by Esme (Rookie)

“Or, a detailed account of an obsession with/personal experience of death and life and stuff.” (It’s a comic, but that shouldn’t stop any of you.)

 

5. “Time of the Season” by The Zombies

Yes, I know that “This Will Be Our Year” ended this week’s episode of Mad Men, but I’ve had a different Zombies song stuck in my head this week. I’m working on a sort of “life soundtrack” project for a friend and I put this on the list of songs I’m considering because it makes me think of a very specific summer I had as a teenager and gives me some serious sad/happy feels.

 

Five Things I Liked This Week

1. “It’s Adventure Time” by Maria Bustillos (The Awl)

So, you all know how much I love Adventure Time. There was no way I wasn’t going to enjoy this hyper-longform article.

 

2. “The Ballad of Geeshie and Elvie” by John Jeremiah Sullivan (The New York Times Magazine)

I’m pretty sure I just talked about my admiration for John Jeremiah Sullivan last week (?) but this is a new thing by him and it’s very good and also interactive!

 

3. “No Second Thoughts” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Uh, just a random Tom Petty B-side that I’ve had in my head all week.

 

4. “Is It Time For Us To Take Astrology Seriously?” by Amanda Petrusich (Buzzfeed)

I’ve gotten really into astrology during the last year, which surprises me since I was disdainful of it even when I read my horoscope in teen magazines as a kid. But many of my friends are interested in astrology and after absorbing stuff from them, I’ve gone from skeptical and belittling to very curious. Horoscopes and astral charts don’t change the uncertainty of the future, but it’s fun to pretend that we have even the tiniest bit of an idea of what’s going to happen.

 

5. Easter candy! I have been binge-eating chocolate all week, mostly at my desk, where I keep a stash in my drawer. Every time I want a piece of candy, I quietly open my drawer and look around to see if any of my co-workers are watching me. Then, I take out ONLY ONE piece of candy, which I quietly unwrap and put in my mouth. Finally, I place the wrapper in my garbage and then worry about whether anyone heard the wrapper crinkling. I complete this exact process 10-20 times during the workday, usually between the hours of 11 and 4.

 

 

Every Song That’s Been In My Head Upon Waking Up In the Last Week

Thursday – ‘Lyin’ Eyes’ by The Eagles

Friday – ‘Night Light’ by Jessie Ware

Saturday – ‘Car On a Hill’ by Joni Mitchell

Sunday – The Adventure Time Ending Theme

Monday – I don’t remember, actually, but here’s ‘Always Be My Baby’ by Mariah Carey

Tuesday – ‘Waiting For the Moon to Rise’ by Belle and Sebastian

Wednesday – ‘Listen to the Music’ by The Doobie Brothers

Childish Things: Or, How I Learned to Love Adventure Time

OK, so,  Adventure Time is my favorite TV series currently on the air that I’m not totally caught up on. (I’m in the middle of watching Season 3 right now, though this isn’t really a show where watching all of the episodes totally matters.)  When I first told some friends about my new obsession, they were skeptical. I’m not a known cartoon fan and the animated shows I do watch – Archer and Bob’s Burgers – are meant for adults. Also, I guess, some people just grow up and forget that animated shows exist and/or can be great. Anyway, I don’t think I really believed just how much I was into Adventure Time when I first started watching it. I hadn’t even heard of the show until I saw two dudes dressed up as Finn and Jake at a Halloween party last year and I asked my friend what they were supposed to be. But I ended up blowing through the first season on Netflix shortly after it appeared there and now I’m addicted.

If you haven’t watched the show, here’s the deal: It’s about two adventuring best friends and brothers, Jake (the Dog) and Finn (the Human), who are hanging out and having adventures around the land of Ooo episode after episode. That sounds like it could get lame pretty fast, but I promise you that it doesn’t. The show has a wonderful mixture of gross/silly/weird/sometimes biting humor that keeps it fresh. (So far, I mean. It could get old by the time I start watching the fifth season, but somehow I doubt it?) As long as you’re not offended by fart jokes, I’d venture to say you’ll think it’s pretty funny.

The cast of characters is fantastic and well-rounded for a show primarily meant for children. While I think that anyone who’s a fan would agree that Jake is just the fucking coolest ever and that Princess Bubblegum is an awesome supernerd role model (girls can be smart and girly!), my favorite character is Finn. I like Finn because he’s not afraid to be sincere. He feels responsible for everyone around him, always wants to do the best he can, and wants his fellow Ooo-inhabitants to get along. But when he has trouble achieving his goals or senses injustice, he gets really, really pissed. (I relate to him a lot in this sense.) I love watching a kid character who is totally badass but also totally a kid still learning the way the world works. The show also has enough episodes that many of the quirky and hilarious recurring characters – try not to fall in love with Lumpy Space Princess or the main villain, the Ice King – feel fully fleshed out and not just good or evil or annoying.

Finn and Jake are also different from many questing characters I’ve encountered in my years of reading children’s or young adult books* in that it seems they’re adventuring because they like it and it’s an awesome way to spend time together, rather than out of a sense of duty to something or someone that is much, much greater than them. And I think that’s pretty cool.

Anyway, I meant for this to be a shorter “In Brief” post, so I’ll stop here. But I will say that when I was originally thinking about how to frame this post, I was going to talk about some of the “childish” things I enjoy, from my Hello Kitty calendar to reading (and re-reading and re-re-reading ) young adult novels. I need a little figure out how to write about that, but I hope to share something in longer form soon.

In the meantime, is there anything else out there that’s meant for kids that you, as an adult, are/were into? I want to hear about it!