Northern Highlights

I'm currently obsessed with Northern Exposure, it's true. I really like this show for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that every single character is likable, even the cantankerous ones. Also, there doesn't seem to be any sort of urgency to have any particular plot, instead the stories sort of meander in and out, sometimes culminating in a character musing on the phrase, "Alone like a stone in the new world", which he heard his grandfather say when his grandmother died, sometimes culminating in tossing a piano with a giant catapult. In any case, solutions and answers are not easily arrived at, and more likely are just new and different questions. People don't really get angry with each other, no one gets murdered, cheap shots are not made and sex, when it appears or is discussed, is sweet and a little goofy. You get to spend a lot of time with the characters, and are not asked to feel sorry for them, or envy them or judge them-- just to consider them. The pleasures of independence, good bars and intellectual musings are given heavy weight. Also, Marilyn reminds me of my grandma and Shelly has the same earrings as me. Also: how sexy is John Corbett in the election episode when he cuts his hair and shows up in a sixties suit with a skinny tie?



Also, because this show was shot in the early nineties, some of the young female characters have really shiny hair. When exactly did that stop being an indicator of beauty? Hair products, dye, perms, and unkempt rat's nest hair have not been good to shiny hair, but shiny hair is really pretty. I have a couple of friends who have not dyed the life out of their hair and have left it as the middle-brown, almost blonde (I believe Beverly Cleary referred to it as mouse brown) colour that is seemingly abhorred by would-be starlets. As a result, their hair is very shiny, and the colour, if you look closely, is complex and pretty.

I am starting to feel the weight of the time spent in LA.