When it's time from work to go, and in my boat I row, across the muddy Ohio, when the evening light is falling

Sunday morning. Cloudy (again). Listening to one of Glenn Branca's symphonies, soon to be followed by some Phillip Glass. Sipping coffee. I can't say for sure, but this is shaping up to be a lazy day. If so, it would not be inconceivable that I read from A Game of Thrones, watch Black Swan or Guy & Madeline On A Park Bench, meditate, take a nap.

Last night, Spira and Missy The Dog came over for dinner. Janelle made vegetable lasagna and we attempted to watch Snatch. Didn't make it very far into it, outside influences prevented a focused viewing, but we had plenty of good conversation. Missy The Dog snapped at Baby Boy Z at one point. Seems BBZ had the audacity to attempt to retrieve his bone from Missy, who had been dining on it for a few minutes. Spira had been worried that Zico would be the one to take offense, a conceivable outcome, but, as it happened, it was Missy who flashed her temper. BBZ barely noticed; he just wandered over to another toy. Spira quelled the situation swiftly, but it was unexpected to see Missy The Dog, usually one of the most sweetest and docile dogs, lash out like that. Well, I shouldn't have been surprised, I suppose. After all, she is a savage animal beneath the veil of domesticity. Savage, I tell you!

A word about The Office. Increasingly, ever since Season 4, I've been torn over whether the show has jumped the shark or whether it is still a good, viable, show whose only sin is not being able to live up to the high standards of the first three seasons. Probably a bit of both, I determined. I'm still of that mind, but lately the quality has been high.

I expected the show to plummet towards mediocrity with the departure of its figurehead, Michael Scott, but the opposite seems to be the case. The show feels revitalized, fresh. Maybe, and time will tell, this shakeup was needed. Things were becoming rote, stale. I suspect this was a factor in Steve Carrell's exit.

We have a tendency in our culture to run a thing into the ground. I was reminded of this the other day when the song "Sex & Candy" came on the radio. Was it Marcy's Playground who wrote that? I forget and I don't care to remember. Nirvana came along, had a hit with "Smells Like Teen Spirit", something not wholly original, but completely refreshing, and the record companies flocked to sign every band that had that sound. I hear "Sex and Candy", such a blatant and weak rip off of Nirvana, as much or more than the band they stole from. We were inundated with Nirvana-esque bands for years and that dampened the impact of Nirvana.

I may have strayed from my point, but let me wrap it up. What I'm getting at is sometimes you've got to quit while you're ahead. Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant ended their version of The Office and the show Extras after two seasons. They didn't want to put out an inferior product, to face the looming specter of that shark.

The US version of The Office has maintained a standard high enough to keep me interested. Especially over the last few seasons, it's had the feel of being a little too self-congratulatory at times, a little too broad, and a little too precious. As for being broad, I learned from watching commentaries throughout the first few seasons (yes, I watch commentaries) that this was something they took pains to avoid.

Still, given the premise of the show, an office being filmed for a documentary, the weak spots I listed above make sense in the overall arc of the show. I don't care who you are, if you've been filmed for years by a documentary crew, knowing full well, especially in light of the popularity of reality based entertainment, you could achieve a level of celebrity from it, how you behave will change. If The Office had not been filmed documentary style, the increasingly over exaggerated antics of the staff would have felt more out of place.

So it makes sense that the staff at Dunder Mifflin would become heightened versions of themselves. The hi-jinks they get themselves into, whether by design or happenstance, fit into this larger than life spectrum of reality television. Take the character Ryan. What I liked about him in the first few seasons was that he was just an ordinary young man wanting nothing more than to do his job and go home. He became something entirely different. The shy, ordinary, man became an obnoxious, self-involved prick. I didn't like this outcome, it didn't seem likely he'd end up like that. But, again, it makes sense, when the show's premise is considered. Actually, his development is a brilliant stroke, a harsh commentary on the corrupting power of reality television.

I could go on, but I want to get my day started. So, to sum up: The Office has regained its mojo, but perhaps, upon closer inspection, it never lost it.