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Arts
Wednesday, February 25, 2015 — 7A

ABC

“Please don’t P.M.D.”
‘Repeat After Me’
refreshes old idea

Celebrities parody
themselves on Ellen-
produced ABC show

By SOPHIA KAUFMAN

Daily Arts Writer

ABC’s new half-hour comedy

“Repeat After Me” premiered Feb-
ruary 17 and, despite its modest
viewership,
it

proved to be a
fresh take on a
recycled
idea.

Ellen
DeGe-

neres executive
produces
the

show, and her
mischievous
mark is all over
it. Like DeGe-
neres’s
day-

time talk show
“Ellen”’s hidden camera segment,
“Repeat After Me” distinguishes
itself as funny, not because we
get to watch celebrities make fun
of people or watch regular people
make fun of other regular people,
but because we get to watch celeb-
rities make fun of themselves.

Wendi McLendon-Covey (“The

Goldbergs”) hosts “Repeat After
Me,” dictating to celebrities via
earpieces what to say to people
who recognize them, but have no
idea they are being filmed. In this
episode, Scott Foley (“Scandal”)
interviews a potential babysit-
ter for his kids. “My six-year-old

smokes,” he says, impressing upon
her how “terrible” his kids are.
Sarah Hyland (“Modern Family”)
meets a French tutor, and says part
of the reason she wants to learn
French is because she has a French
lover, so she’s “got French kissing
down.” Randy Jackson (“American
Idol”) speaks to the people tinting
the windows of his new truck, ask-
ing if they do houses too, because
he has a “huge mansion with lots
of windows” in which he likes to
“walk around nakey.”

After each scene, the actors

tell the people being pranked that
they are on a hidden camera show
and bring them out to see the live
audience. At the end of the epi-
sode McLendon-Covey chooses
her favorite moment of the night
— which for this episode is Foley
curled up in the fetal position and
doing his best impression of a cry-
ing baby while the nonplussed
nanny attempts to comfort him.

What gives “Repeat After Me”

its energy isn’t so much the unpre-
dictable interactions themselves
— though they are, for the most
part, hilarious. It’s in watching
talented actors make complete
fools of themselves. They know
how to maintain their momentum
on camera, even in the moments
when they are waiting for their
next command, so the energy
never lags. The actors of this
episode complement each other
particularly well; Foley says every-
thing he’s told to but can’t quite
keep the mischief out his eyes,

Hyland is completely straight-
faced throughout her whole ridic-
ulous scenario and Jackson can’t
stop making the rookie mistake
of laughing before delivering his
lines.

Another aspect of the show

reminiscent
of
DeGeneres’s

own segment is that McLendon-
Covey’s jokes play on the fact
that these are very recognizable
celebrities interacting with regu-
lar people. Foley tells his poten-
tial babysitter that if she wants
an autograph, they better get that
out of the way first, and then he
asks her if she ever worked with
famous people before and if she
has any good gossip. Hyland
asks teasingly if her new teacher
recognizes her from “Modern
Family” and then brags with a
cutesy laugh, “I’ve won a bunch
of Emmys,” pointing proudly
to the shelf behind her. Randy
Jackson
introduces
himself

quite simply as Randy Jackson
“from television.” They all sub-
tly poke fun at the kind of things
people expect celebrities would
say, and it never comes across
as mean-spirited or exploitative
towards the people on the show.
“Repeat After Me” may not be
new, and it may be a while before
McLendon-Covey reaches the
skill level of DeGeneres when
it comes to improvising, but at
least it’s not plagued by petty
problems that characterize the
majority of reality programs on
television now.

B

Repeat
After Me

Series Pilot
Tuesdays
at 8:30

ABC

BIG MACHINE

The whitest Kardashian.
Haters gonna hate,
but I still love Taylor

By CATHERINE BAKER

For The Daily

Let me be the first to tell you

that I own every song Taylor
Swift has ever released. There,
I said it ... moving on now.

It’s
December
2007
and

much of my extended family
has flown in from Minnesota
to spend Christmas at my
home in Michigan. I’m about
to descend the stairs from my
bedroom where I have carefully
crafted my outfit — a jean skirt
and pastel sweater — when my
cousin Becca stops me. She
informs me that I must listen
to this new song her friend
showed her.

I’m 11 years old and my life is

about to be changed forever.

Ok,
that
may
be
a
bit

dramatic, but you get the point.
As soon as I heard the opening
violin on “Our Song,” I was sold.
The combination of pop music
with a slight country twang
was right up my alley. Taylor
has come a long way since that
fateful day, and her songs have
matured from what played after

“Blue” by Crazy Frog at my
junior high dances to anthems
that have taken the entire world
by storm.

For the past seven years,

I’ve grown up alongside Taylor
Swift, and despite all of the
criticism
she
receives,
she

continues to remain a positive
and growing force in the music
industry. She’s evolved from
a heartbroken girl singing in
a prom dress on her bed to an
empowered and shamelessly
independent
young
woman.

Yes, her dancing at awards
shows is somewhat awkward
and her cat pictures take up a
large portion of her Instagram,
but that’s what makes her
human.
Think
about
it
—

when is the last time you saw
a celebrity baking cookies or
sending Christmas gifts to her
fans?

These pop idols and super-

stars are placed on such high
pedestals that it’s hard to imag-
ine them walking their dogs
or eating breakfast. (Seriously,
does Beyoncé even have time to
eat breakfast?) It’s refreshing to
feel a connection to the elusive
world that is populated by icons
like Lady Gaga and Kanye West.
Some of her new songs on 1989
may be about Harry Styles, but
no one was outraged when Sam
Smith sang about his ex on “Stay
With Me” or when Katy Perry
wrote songs about her ex-hus-
band, Russell Brand. The double
standard that surrounds Taylor
is unfair and, frankly, overused.
It’s not outrageous that she sings

about actual experiences that
happen to her in her actual life
— it’s what everyone does. Even
after embracing all the stereo-
types that surround her, she still
receives disapproval.

My memories of Taylor Swift

don’t include the times she
receives mean tweets or when
someone makes jokes about her
abundance of ex-boyfriends.
Her songs are reminders of the
time I danced to “Our Song”
at Christmas with my cousin,
when I blasted “Long Live”
while getting ready for my first
homecoming dance or sang
to “Shake It Off” in the car
during my senior year of high
school. While taking Buzzfeed
quizzes, I still pick Taylor to
be my celebrity best friend. My
love for her has not diminished
—
it
has
simply
matured,

and I suspect that I’ll always
squeal a little when I hear she
is releasing a new album. An
entire generation has grown
up alongside Taylor Swift and
I suspect she’s just getting
started. So keep shaking it off,
Taylor, and the haters are gonna
hate, but I’m rooting for you.

By CATHERINE SULPIZIO

Senior Arts Editor

The vacation is written into

our middle-class contract. We
enter the workforce to earn
money to squirrel away, but
with the redemptive belief that
there will be an opportunity
for escape. Originally a luxury
only for the elite, by the mid-
19th
century

the
vacation

was
tugged

down
a
few

class notches.
Amid a grow-
ing
religious

and
medical

suspicion that
perhaps
our

Puritan indus-
triousness was
turning against us, the vacation
gained a prescriptive urgency.
The beach wasn’t a luxury – it
was a necessity.

Tatjana Soli’s latest book,

“The
Last
Good
Paradise,”

unfurls against this psycho-
social landscape. With elegant
prose that can swell into poetic
intervals or sharp commen-
tary, Soli presents a book that
courses with flawed, colorful
characters, lavish food descrip-
tions (courtesy of a chef protag-
onist) and political intrigue. But
beneath its lovely veneer is a
book that confronts the Ameri-
can urge to escape on the balmy,
outermost beaches of Polynesia.

The novel centers on Ann,

an
unhappy,
yet
successful

attorney. In the first pages,

she watches a fire consume a
Los Angeles home; the proofed
glass of her office blocks out
the sirens and 90-degree heat,
effectively enveloping her in a
reclusive, airless bubble. Ann
is suspended in a state of pro-
longed emergency — her job and
her marriage festering instead
of
blooming,
leaving
Ann

“marooned and stationary” in
her stale life.

Ann’s chef husband Richard

is on the brink of opening his
first restaurant (financed by
Ann) and fraying around the
edges, especially as he’s saddled
with managing his unreliable,
charismatic business partner,
Javi. And beyond their financial
strain, Ann’s own body is muti-
nying against a fertility treat-

ment, which promises to deliver
a baby she’s not sure she wants.

But before the siren call of

motherhood sounds too shrill,
the novel unleashes a set of
legal circumstances that finally
sends the couple on the luxury
vacation they’ve put off for
years (and funded by a trail of
maxed out credit cards). There’s

some delicious irony in the
vacation finally taken to escape
the law, but their flight mostly
highlights the prolonged state
of emergency that didn’t elicit
escape — the paralyzed life,
which contributes to its paraly-
sis by spinning its wheels.

As it is, travel isn’t the

solution so much as the fleeting
answer:
“In
the
old
days,

when California was the end
of the line, before the forces
of
globalization,
one
could

just
keep
flinging
oneself

farther
and
farther
west,

hopefully landing somewhere
that fulfilled one’s dreams of
happiness before one ended up
back in the place one started.”

Once on the balmy outreaches

of Polynesia’s furthest tropics,
Soli continues to sow the text
with germane seeds of satire:
free of WiFi and cell reception,
the resort basks in its gadget-
free minimalism — which is
slapped with a steep price tag,
of course. Respite from society
requires a chunk of change.

Beyond incisive commentary,

the technology-free mandate
severs Richard and Ann from
all but memories of their old
partners and bosses, which
is
crucial
in
transforming

the island into a crammed
stage full of combative egos.
Once
isolated,
relationships

unravel and reknit: somewhat
implausibly, Ann’s rock star
crush
is
vacationing
there,

along with his tan and supple-
limbed girlfriend Wende who
catches the eye of Richard.

Daily Book Review: ‘Last Good Paradise’

The protagonists’ dissolution

into
the
narration
allows

other residents to move into
the foreground with varying
results.
While
Loren,
the

resort’s mercurial owner with
a mysterious past, plays an
unlikely
yet
intriguing
love

interest for Ann, the rockstar and
his girlfriend remain shallow
even amid attempts to give them
depth. Joli tries to repurpose
the stock characters of Rockstar
Sex God and Groupie, which
feel flimsy against the originally
hewed figure of Ann.

As Soli notes, lawyer-turned-

escapee Ann’s inner material
is rich for excavation: “Wild
could be in the heart of the most
buttoned-down,
burned-out

lawyer … Wild was refuting the

scratchy, dry surface of things
and digging into the rich, loamy
depths.”

What elevates this from a

lovely character study is Soli’s
heed to the invisible backbone of
the resort — the native workers
and their complex relationship
with
imperialism.
The
final

third of the book unbinds the
hidden hierarchy that organizes
the island through a series of
escalating political acts. Unlike
Gaugan’s paintings that enamor
Ann, this detour is surreal
without
artificiality;
realistic

and unromantic.

“The Last Good Paradise”

binds
all
these
components

together
as
gracefully
as

possible — a loss of direction
that stretches from the final
third could have found its ways
through
a
narrower
scope,

yet Soli’s detours are never
tedious. Her quiet prose and
lucid mediations ensure that
regardless of its direction, “The
Last Good Paradise” is always a
pleasurable journey.

The Last
Good
Paradise

Tatjana Soli

St. Martin’s Press

Feb. 10, 2015

As it is, travel

isn’t the solution
so much as the
fleeting answer.

As Soli notes,
Ann’s inner

material is rich
for excavation.

I’m 11 years

old and my life
is about to be

changed forever.

Keep shaking it
off Taylor, I’m
still rooting for

you

TV REVIEW
MUSIC NOTEBOOK

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