Louie (Louis C.K.'s show on FX)

Maybe ducks are his totem

that makes sence, louis learned the lesson that you dont have to take your duck with you everywhere, you just have to trust that when you get where you're going in life ppl there already have ducks and you'll be ok.

For some of us, our ducks are our selves.

yeah, it's a conceptual duck.

He does a bit in standup about wild ponys looking cute but biting his daughter. There's certainly some kind of cute animal=hope/expectations/fluffy land where you can finally be happy but it's just out of reach. (in both duck episodes, he ends the episode with no duck, unless that was some tasty chinese duck in plum sauce)

i'll watch it again. but the interp it is a dream is based on the fact that he is feverish and clearly dreaming early on, and then increasingly surreal things happen with a very strange flow of time, all of which are things that would be invented from a feverish unconscious sleeping fitfully. like seriously who goes to china and then just asks random ppl how to find a river? this does not happen. there are maps, and books, and people who speak english about.

basically all the cinematic cues I saw were "we're filming a dream" cues as well, in terms of exactly how the cuts are done, how the sound is mixed, etc.

a quick google reveals lots of people saying "it couldn't have all been a dream" because he didn't wake up at the end, which is so totally literalist to me. like why can't it end still in a dream? it feels allegorical and dreamlike, so that's what it is. the "text" is just the way he cut those images together -- it's not like we need to play inception here or something.

I don't feel like it was a dream because I don't feel like that interpretation fits with the themes of the season. It's a reasonable analysis of the episode taken on its own, but not of the larger arcs of the narrative imo.

Figuring out whether something was real or a dream sequence seems like an awfully frustrating exercise when considering a pretty surreal show that's unconcerned with continuity.

i bought the tig notaro standup. it was worth five bucks.

xpost, yeah, i'm not so strong on it had to be a dream, but i am strong on "i don't think we should read this literally" because something like "whether louie's preference to spend the holidays w/ strangers who speak a language he doesn't over spending time w/ his family is healthy or represents real growth is very debatable" is v. weird to me. you just have strange things happening and unhappening in this show all the time with more or less realism and then we're going to drag in this extremely realistic notion about "growth" as a person or character? i guess the fact that there were some longer arcs this season encourages this sort of approach.

you just have strange things happening and unhappening in this show all the time with more or less realism and then we're going to drag in this extremely realistic notion about "growth" as a person or character?

totally agree about this. this show is not about continuity or character or narrative arcs imho.

I haven't even seen the last ep fwiw, waiting for it to show up on demand

man i am meant to be working & i can just feel the overbearing cautionary tale of that lexical simpsons argument thread staring at me from site new answers but: like:

- to say that it shares the language of the previous dream sequence is wrong: that one made evident Louie's inability to flesh out other characters, in subjecting them to the limits of what he knew & his limited imagination, which the rest of the episode didn't (like, to get 'logical', I guess they wouldn't have been speaking in actual-Chinese, for example), & was also peppered with things like a disembodied rabbits head & a woozy cinematic style

- what is the consequence of it being a dream sequence: that in a year season four opens & it turns out he didn't go to China. that he actually went to his sister's place.

- like seriously who goes to china and then just asks random ppl how to find a river? this does not happen. - I just can't- like, the point is that he goes & it is a remarkable manifestation of how unmoored & tenuous & whimsical he is, all things consistent with the family situation we see in the episode & speaking to the entire character of louie as Divorced Dad Invested In Now Absent Kids. it doesn't disprove itself by virtue of its unlikeliness, it speaks to the entire condition & mindset & circumstance of louie. that we actually see him in deliberation mode (i'm actually pretty sure we see him fucking wake up at the airport if that's a smoking gun), & that china is the spontaneous, reckless alternative to going to his sister's house - like i don't get how we are still in surreal dream territory here.

- it's not like we need to play inception here or something. - dude this is what you are doing!!!!!! 'why can't it end in a dream' is so not the question: its why would it end in a dream?

sorry some of my non-related, simultaneously felt frustration at using microsoft word 2010 is kind of coming through in that post

In dreams you just suddenly show up in China. You don't go the airport to take a plane to visit relatives, fall asleep and maybe miss your flight, then stare at a board of destinations considering where you might go. That's what I think.

Figuring out whether something was real or a dream sequence seems like an awfully frustrating exercise when considering a pretty surreal show that's unconcerned with continuity.

― Sadly, 99.99 percent of sheeple will never wake up (I DIED), Wednesday, October 10, 2012 4:32 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^ booiiiiing

one of the best things about this show is how unconcerned it is with the fact that it is a work of fiction

you would think that would be a thing more comedians would try to swing. it's not like they're not used to saying things that are not true but not 'pretend'.

Well, except that it's a fuckton of work.

Saw him tonight, his new material is really great

:D

my only concern is that it's the same as the stuff he does on the show... any of that?

how much of his new material is real vs. dream sequences?

that's the thing, you can't tell yet because he doesn't wake up at the end of the show

I think there's one small bit that he did on the show, but it's like a thirty second portion of a larger bit, otherwise it's all new stuff

really hope the whole show expands on his 'i really hate balloons' bit

did anyone post this LA Review of Books article: http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?type=&id=951&fulltext=1&media= ? I like it.

wtf is with publications with the word BOOKS in the title reviewing tv shows now

~new media~

"now"

gotta grow, get pageviews, need thinkpieces, synergy with salon, etc.

cool read, Merdeyeux - thanks for posting

tv shows are our books

ok so this is tangental but as long as the show's off the air for the moment...

i watched pootie tang the other day! holy shit! i'd been avoiding it for ages cause of it's low rotten tomatoes score but finally i was just like "screw it, it's louis ck, how bad can it be?" and the answer is not bad at all. i'll admit i caught the 4:20 showing (ahem) but still it was pretty solid! non stop chuckles throughout at just the over the top ridiculousness of the whole thing, plus countless laugh out loud moments of sheer comedy genius thrown in. seriously, pootie's "big hit" was some next level shit!

i mean, it's way too weird a movie to ever cross over to the mainstream, but if you like ck's occasional forays into dada weidness on his show at all, you'd be hard pressed to dislike pootie tang. also the music was dope.

are you insane, just now watching pootie tang and telling us its not bad at all

what can i say, i didn't own a tv when it came out. it's so bad it's good, says i, and i'll stand by that statement. even if everyone involved in making it says it stinks!

seriously. like when that lady's throwing 8 year old p.t.'s teddy bear and red bigwheel out the window and shit? i squirted coke out my nostrils. what, am i going against the grain here? i legitimately thought it was hilarious. one of those midnight-showing-cult-classic type movies. it has missy elliot in it, dueting with a cat singing pure nonsense ffs!

pootie tang is pretty well regarded on ilx, you're not swimming against the current in the way you think you are

also this show louie this thread is about. like it is weird, and random, but random can be cool! my friends say i'm way random. like, just go with it, i say!

maybe it was on that wtf podcast where marc was talking about how louie's standup used to be just sort of dada randomness, and he's sorta moved beyond that now but there's still a thread of it in his show (the 3 eyes in the doll head, the girl jumping onto the helicopter and flying off etc) but pootie tang is like the distilled essence of his utter randomness.

anyway it is only just and right if the citizens of ilx like the movie too. i'm just throwing my 2 cents in! it's not the show, but, i only watched it cause of the show, so. pootie tang! it's good! watch it if you haven't yet!

Fanny Crapchanter

Louis will be hosting SNL Saturday after next.

oh rad

wtf is with publications with the word BOOKS in the title reviewing tv shows now

I don't have a problem with the (months-old, Internet-only) LARB publishing thinkpieces about TV shows, since the NYRB/LRB often cover culture in a broader way, too. But I do have to lol at the fact that they're doing episode-by-episode e-mail back-and-forths about The New Girl and Mindy.

seeing him tomorrow; pretty psyched. Up front!

what time r u seeing him? we're coming in tmmrw for the earlier show

Pootie Tang having the same cinematographer as Masculin feminin is really the key

do people really gotta hear this tig notaro thing or

it's very good! if you are a fan of cancer standup you will NOT be disappointed.

I enjoyed her other comedy album and was happy to pay the $5 and hope she does great but I didn't find this new thing at all funny or entertaining really.