(TV) Laguna Beach (MTV) Grade: Too puzzled to grade fairly
I caught about 10 minutes of this show, so that might not sufficiently resolve my bewilderment as to why this TV series is rated No. 1 among the 18-24 crowd. There was no discernable dialogue except for a lot of seemingly hyper-active, very well-dressed, well-groomed teenagers exclaiming, Ohmygod! He is so cute! I love him! or variations on that. If there was an actual conversation, it went like this: People should totally get out of Laguna! Like I know! Dumbass! (That is all I can transcribe ... it was extremely dense and vacuous.)

(B) Summer Blonde (Adrian Tomine) Grade: A
I first encountered Tomine in the 2002 Best American Non-required Reading, which included his short story "Bomb Scare." Tomine has a talent for involving his reader (in a remarkably short amount of time) and then abrubtly ending his stories in unexpected ways. They read like a voyeuristic view into the lives of a few characters, but Tomine always leaves you guessing. The vignettes are thought-provoking and his illustrations are vivid. One of his most salient criticisms is for his typical, common characters (often outsiders or loners), but perhaps they only seem typical because people so easily identify a bit of themselves through them.