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‘Me to hear America sing,” wrote Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass.” He did not say that the song was “USA! USA!” with the help of a klaxon and accompanied by a foam finger. For secular evangelicals about his greatness, there is a dark and deep darkness that they would prefer to ignore. More than beautiful, too. However, all people have truth-tellers – and they are often the cruel type who will not let things go.
Who better to teach America about its history, then, than Larry David? People’s property. But no one has the HBO series, the main one created by Barack and Michelle Obama. Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness: An Almost History of America takes a look at some of the major events of 250 years of US history, as if they were a growing and uncomfortable celebration of unhappiness. In other words, reduce your interest in britches and bonnets. I am happy.
Curb ends its 12-year run in 2024, David, 78, says he is too old to be playing on TV every week. True to his word, he is currently playing about 25 of them. His characters include Deep Throat, the whistleblower at the heart of the Watergate scandal, a World War I soldier embarrass himself in battle, Alexander Graham Bell and the Great Depression-era deceased on the breadline. The following is a solid overview of anachronistic (yet popular) telephone and queue etiquette. But it’s in the hot spots of American history that the cartoon bites hard and is funny.
David has been attracted to heresy, dirty talk. This exhibit shows the history of Rosa Parks, Susan B Anthony and the underground railroad. Benevolent evacuees hiding enslaved people in safe houses is a good job; that does not mean that both parties will avoid domestic conflicts. These scams happen unexpectedly, but you know how they end. David looks like a face calling someone, or being humiliated, an explosion of mocking theater in any way. The more we release his words, the more we love him.
It is because he was not changeable. The Larry David persona is shrewd, ruthless and devoted to justice. Modern life depends on us all to swallow the crap, to continue to get along – and they can’t do it. They escalate conflicts and suffer the consequences, losing friendships and opportunities for sex. At Curb, he is constantly being punished by doctors and valets. He is intolerant, but he is not wrong.
This is a simple presentation drawn on the beginnings of a history lesson. We get the sound of the Boston Tea Party, or the writing of the Constitution, before David and his friends break out in their funny wigs. He must be indebted to Hamilton for his encouragement. Lin-Manuel Miranda also appears in the series, along with a host of famous stars, from Bill Hader and Jon Hamm to Kathryn Hahn and Jane Krakowski. Hot comedians, in other words.
David’s wisdom raises LLATPOU: AAHOA above didacticism – or below it, I don’t know. His social focus is lauded, but he is taken by the language’s absurdity, down to the sonic level. (There’s a reason ‘beautiful, beautiful, beautiful’ is funny, even if it’s not well-known.) Jumping seamlessly between historical events, from 1700 to 2018, gives him new postmodern sand to play with. At one point, playing Senator Joseph McCarthy, he warned “nobody smells fraud like tailgating Joe.”
American history, and therefore politics, is no playground. You need titanium balls to get in, and David has the equipment. A hater and a bully, he’s come to dig a hole in American history, a marching band that likes to be as sarcastic as anything that comes out of his mouth. There is a scene in the second episode that made my jaw drop with its boldness. Barack Obama also looks, like any good father who isn’t angry, just upset. More than a fun pastime, the show holds a mirror to the past in the USA of today, and finds out what they’re seeing…beautiful, beautiful, very ugly.
