<3 Heather Havrilesky

Ok... *this* is why Heather Havrilesky is my most favoritest TV critic ever. I mean... not that I read any others... but she's just so clever and insightful and... *right*.

Full article is here: http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/iltw/2006/07/30/louie/

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"July 30, 2006 July is almost over, and once again I don't feel as if I've fully exploited its July-ness the way I should've. Isn't July supposed to be filled with fireworks and picnics and watermelon and trips to the beach? Shouldn't everyone be tanned and well rested, with a frozen daiquiri or a chilled glass of sangria with a delightful fruit garnish in their hands at all times? I always have the feeling during July that there should be cookouts to attend constantly, and not the kind with messy bean salads and plates of burned sausages and bags of crumbly Doritos, either. No, we're talking festive, camera-ready cookouts, where everyone is wearing shades of dark red and purple that look good together, like in the pages of Martha Stewart Living, and the intelligent-looking yet stylish hosts serve huge, colorful fruit salads and big platters of beef, cooked to medium-rare perfection. All of the children are adorable but never shriek or pull the dog's ears, and at night there are sparklers and martinis and tiki torches and maybe a live violin quartet or a jazz band. People tell great jokes, no one talks about their dumb jobs, and there are no bugs, anywhere.

In other words, ideally, July is a cross between a Nestea plunge commercial and a spread in the summer issue of the Pottery Barn catalog. Sadly, though, that kind of art-directed July remains limited to magazines, fluffy summer TV shows and calendar photography, because the fact is -- and this is the part you forget when you're daydreaming about July in the middle of some particularly shivery, dreary day in January -- July is very, very hot. July is hot enough that no one has the energy to shower or comb their hair or even speak, let alone assemble delightful fruit garnishes. All anyone really does is slump on the couch in their underwear, sweating buckets.

Maybe in New England, in some small Norman Rockwell-style town, they achieve the sorts of idyllic July days that the rest of us dream about while we're tossing and turning at night, soaking the sheets. Maybe while we plant ourselves in front of the one, tiny air-conditioning unit in the house and refuse to budge, those adorable folks up in Maine are pickling beets and attending quaint little small-town parades. While the rest of us are driving to a crappy mall just to get out of the heat, those assholes are playing croquet while sampling a fresh batch of prosciutto-and-melon skewers.

But July is almost over, which is a big relief, since the month of August is clearly meant to be spent slumping on the couch in your underwear, sweating buckets. See, I imagine that I love the overachieving months the best, but really, I prefer the months with the lowest expectations attached to them: rainy February, sullen November, and soiled, stanky August. "