Television Show Review: Curb Your Enthusiasm

Curb Your Enthusiasm: Season 8 created by Larry David (HBO Films)

Starring Larry David, Jeff Garlin, Cheryl Hines, and Susie Essman.

The Arid Wasteland of Network Television 

Seinfeld is brilliant television. Now fourteen years removed from the last episode, Seinfeld receives regular air time on multiple channels. Its staying power is uncanny. Seinfeld’s jokes and awkward situations are countlessly retold in friend groups nationwide.

In all honesty, I am surprised at Seinfeld’s staying power. With quirky writing a shade toward highbrow, I find Seinfeld’s stay on network television remarkable. The 2000s, to an extent, represent a failure of mimicry. Even though the networks endlessly search for the next smart hit comedy, the drive for profits and viewership causes plugs to be pulled. Notably, Arrested Development seemed like a show closest to carrying the Seinfeld mantle, but it lasted only three seasons.

Why did Seinfeld make it? I have no clue. But the fact that the show succeeded despite its quirkiness is laudatory.

Interestingly, with the arid wasteland of network television consuming pilot after pilot, cable television has emerged as an avenue for well-crafted television. Without the burden of high viewership requirements, cable shows realize success marketing toward a smaller target audience.

Given Larry David’s history as the co-creator of Seinfeld and his successful run on HBO with Curb Your Enthusiasm, the inevitable question arises: which David-inspired show is better?

Faux Reality Television Meets a Sit-Com 

For those unaware, Curb Your Enthusiasm follows Larry David as himself, Larry David. Somewhere between a faux reality television series and a sit-com, Larry David navigates an easy post-Seinfeld life. Flush with royalties from syndication, Larry is free to pursue and invest in anything.

Spending most of his days in the company of his agent, Jeff Greene (Jeff Garlin), Larry meanders into comedic situations through his incessant need for proper behavior. If you double park, watch out because Larry David will get you. If you want Larry to serve at a benefit for Children’s Hospital, expect a lame excuse.

In fact, this very scenario in Season 8 forces Larry to a 3-month sabbatical in New York City. Instead of a Saturday hanging out with sick children, Larry David would rather rent a lavish apartment in Manhattan for 3 months.



Much like Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm possesses no major plotline. Each episode explores a humorous topic and usually features a guest star. This year’s highlight episodes include Larry and Rosie O’Donnell competing over a bi-sexual girlfriend, Bill Buckner illustrating his butterfingers, and a feud between Larry and Michael J. Fox where the two bicker regarding the merits of Parkinson’s disease fasciculation.

In Praise of Seinfeld 

Curb Your Enthusiasm is hilarious. Since Season One, Larry David has manufactured brilliance season after season. I highly recommend it. However, David’s work with Curb Your Enthusiasm impresses me less than his work with Seinfeld.

For starters, HBO allows David to shock in ways the FCC would never permit on network television. The salty language and adult topics, in all honesty, make for easier humor. When all else fails, swear and sex!

Additionally, the premium nature of HBO gives Curb Your Enthusiasm a longer leash. I didn’t start watching the show until Season Four and I assume there are many like me who jumped into the back catalog through Netflix. Had this show required a large audience quickly, I doubt it would have survived.

For this reason, I am still floored with Seinfeld. The show beat the odds and now exists as the bedrock of American culture. Is Curb Your Enthusiasm less funny than Seinfeld? I think they are equally funny, in truth. I just find Seinfeld the more impressive show given all the variables.

Having spent some time comparing these two shows, let me end by saying Curb Your Enthusiasm is worth your time. It’s a brilliant show for fans of Seinfeld or awkward humor—think The Office. If you’re looking to rent a television series over the summer, check out Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Verdict: 4 out of 5

What about you? Are you a fan of Seinfeld? How do you think it compares to Curb Your Enthusiasm?
Share your thoughts below.

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Posted by: Donovan Richards

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Book Review: The Street Sweeper

The Street Sweeper: A Novel by Elliot Perlman (New York: Riverhead Books, 2012. 640 pp)

Born to second-generation Jewish Australians of East European descent, Elliot Perlman studied at Monash University. While working as a judge’s associate, Perlman submitted a short story that eventually won The Age Short Story Award. Upon becoming a full-time writer, Perlman’s debut novel, Three Dollars, won The Age Book of the Year and the Betty Trask Prize. He lives in Melbourne, Australia.

History as the Spoils of War 

History is written by the victor. When peace arrives and diktats emerge, the narrative that develops often becomes one sided. For this reason, we can never conclusively know history because our narratives carry bias. I vividly remember surprise upon hearing my high school physics teacher—born and raised in the southern region of the United States—indicating unease regarding Abraham Lincoln. Although my teacher affirmed the goodness of liberating slaves from the South, he rejected the notion that Lincoln was a great president.

In The Street Sweeper, Elliot Perlman somewhat unsuccessfully seeks to tell the story of the marginalized.

The Street Sweeper 

Centering on two heterogeneous characters, The Street Sweeper explores both the holocaust and the civil rights movement. On one end, Perlman ponders the difficulties facing Lamont Williams, a poor, black ex-convict sweeping streets and taking out the trash at a Manhattan cancer center through a correctional pilot program. If Lamont lasts six months, he will earn full-time employment and the opportunity to focus his resources on finding his daughter, a metaphorical casualty of spending years in the joint. Would you want an infant to remain relationally connected with a prisoner?

Early during his probationary period, Lamont encounters a cancer-ridden holocaust survivor named Henryk Mandelbrot. Striking up a friendship, Henryk shares with Lamont the harrowing story of Auschwitz and his involvement in the Sonderkommando, a slave labor unit forced to work the gas chambers in the death camps.

At his core, Lamont is an innocent man. He earned six years in prison for a crime his friends committed. Having agreed to give a ride, Lamont’s life took a turn for the worst when his friends, unbeknownst to him, held up a convenience store. Describing Lamont’s obliviousness as a personality trait consistent from childhood, Perlman writes,

“Lamont liked to read the magazines but Michael had always been more interested in the candy. Michael was the first to steal and it had been candy, Now and Laters and Hershey bars, he’d stolen. Lamont had his head buried in a magazine and hadn’t known what Michael was doing until they’d left the store” (67).

The Historian

On the other end of the character spectrum, Perlman contemplates the civil rights movement and the holocaust through the lens of a Columbia historian named Adam Zignelik. The son of a prominent Jewish lawyer who contributed to the legislation that paved the way for the civil rights movement, Adam gained scholarly acclaim for a book praising the role of lawyers in civil rights.

“But worrying if [Adam] would ever have another sufficiently good idea was now a luxury he could no longer afford because it wasn’t enough to have a good idea one day. It probably wasn’t enough to have one even now. He really needed to have had one before now because, having spent five years at Columbia with only one book to show for it, an untenured academic seeking tenure was in very big trouble” (52).

Desperately in need of an idea and with his job on the line, Adam inspects a lead from a close friend regarding the potential link between black World War II soldiers and the liberation of concentration camps. If the link exists, it’s possible that World War II could function as a harbinger that provided the necessary strength for returning African-American troops to stand up for civil rights.

During Adam’s search, he uncovers original wire recordings of displaced persons—the title before holocaust survivor—created by a Chicago psychologist, Henry Border. With the wire recordings unveiling potentially the earliest historical record of the holocaust, Adam’s research begins to shift toward these stories. In learning more about the psychologist that traveled to Europe in the summer of 1946, Adam draws nearer to Henryk Mandelbrot and Lamont Williams.

Overt Racism 

For the most part, Perlman’s prose is engaging and at times masterful. Especially in the early stages of The Street Sweeper, I marveled at Perlman’s ability to link stories and to write poetic sentences. But as the novel developed, I found certain holes difficult to overcome.

First and most worrisome, Perlman sets the current events in this novel in a somewhat parallel state where Columbia University is willing to host Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and race relations are tense.

“The day before, someone had left a noose hanging on the door of a black professor from Columbia University’s Teachers College. The professor, a woman who hailed from a disadvantaged southern background, now a professor of psychology and education, was known for her particular interest in the psychological effects of racism on victims. Now she was a victim of it herself” (411).

Lithograph by holocaust survivor Leo Haas

Yet descriptions such as this one refuse to probe deeper, existing as a hanging thread. Despite heartbreaking explanations of the holocaust and the civil rights movements, Perlman refuses to expand on these imagined current issues. To a certain extent, Perlman’s densely packed narrative provides little space to expand on these complicated parallel issues. In my mind, the novel would have been better served without complicated current events.

Additionally, Perlman’s race discussion teeters between relevant and dangerous. A white Australian of Jewish descent, Perlman’s depictions of the African-American condition could easily be mistranslated. Interestingly, Perlman admits the danger in the acknowledgement section of the novel confessing that any description of another race inherits risk although he intends not to offend.

What Is Life if We Can’t Remember? 

Nevertheless, The Street Sweeper portrays some compelling characters. The reader wants Lamont and Adam to find success in their endeavors and such a position is the first order business of a good story. The Street Sweeper asks us to remember people when we consider history. Certainly, events exist on an institutional level, but we should always remember that history happens to people.

“Lamont Williams was desperate for people to remember other people. If they didn’t, what did anything mean, what had anything been for” (553)?

Despite certain reservations, The Street Sweeper is an entertaining and enveloping read. If you are interested in historical fiction and willing to read about heartbreaking topics, The Street Sweeper is for you.

Verdict: 3.5 out of 5

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Posted by: Donovan Richards

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Book Review: The Catcher in the Rye

The Catcher in the Rye: A Novel by J.D. Salinger (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1951. 214 pp)

Born in New York City in 1919, J.D. Salinger is famously known for his novel The Catcher in the Rye written in 1951. Although Salinger published a few works before and after this novel, the success of it led him to a reclusive lifestyle. His last public interview was granted in 1980. Salinger is also noteworthy for the legal battles he encountered around unauthorized biographies written about him. Salinger died of natural causes in January 2010.

Sometimes I Feel Like Holden Caulfield

The Catcher in the Rye marks the beginning of my pursuit to read books of the 20^th century canon which I missed in high school. While reading this book, I could not help but imagine how the main character, Holden Caulfield, would look and act in the 21^st century. He was born into privilege yet he flunks out of numerous private schools. Additionally, his lack of respect for authority and use of slang reminds me somewhat of Jamie Kennedy’s rich, hip-hop-white-boy character in Malibu’s Most Wanted.

Flunking Life

Salinger’s novel begins with Holden learning of his expulsion from yet another school for wretched grades. Even though he pretends not to care about this bad news, the subsequent manner in which he treats his schoolmates betrays his regret and despair for ruining another opportunity. Holden’s venomous nature is on display as he packs his belongings and leaves the school dormitories for the last time:

“When I was all set to go, when I had my bags and all, I stood for a while next to the stairs and took a last look down the goddam corridor. I was sort of crying. I don’t know why. I put my red hunting hat on, and turned the peak around to the back, the way I liked it, and then I yelled at the top of my goddam voice, “Sleep tight, ya morons!” I’ll bet I woke up every bastard on the whole floor. Then I got the hell out. Some stupid guy had thrown peanut shells all over the stairs, and I damn near broke my crazy neck” (52).

In turn, this expulsion provides Holden with the opportunity to explore New York for a few days before he is due home for Christmas break.

What It Means to Grow Up

With a modest sum of money, Holden explores Manhattan. From seedy hotels and bars to jazz clubs and the American Museum of Natural History, Caulfield meets shady, amusing, and original characters. Despite these adventures, Holden feels the stinging pain of loneliness and the daunting question of what he will do with the rest of his life. On one hand, his machismo leads him to proclaim,

“I’m sort of glad they’ve got the atomic bomb invented. If there’s another war, I’m going to sit right the hell on top of it. I’ll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will” (141).

Holden clearly desires to take life by the horns and defeat it. Yet he also realizes that he wants to help others even if they are all “phony,” the most popular phrase he attributes to the rest of the world. This position is vividly made clear when Holden confides to his sister,

“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big, I mean – except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. I know it’s crazy” (173).

In revealing his anxieties in this section, Holden’s true intentions become known. Yes, he is an immature punk most of the time; he flunks out of school, and speaks vulgarly. But his concern ultimately lies with the safety and success of others. The Catcher in the Rye is a classic coming-of-age tale that contains layers of intrigue and I wholeheartedly understand its inclusion in the 20^th century literary canon. I recommend reading this book if you have yet to experience the character of Mr. Caulfield.