Not to turn this into any more of a semblance of a personal ad than it already sometimes always segues into, but a characteristic/quirk/personality element you should—as the dedicated readers we love you for being—know about us, or at least half of us, is that we pretty much want to be watching movies and/or television, all of the time. Constantly. As in, if we could have a life that involved an intravenous drip of Californication—which started us on this bandwagon with Karen’s first-season “there is no memory without architecture” Ruskin reference—punctuated with bedtime (we learned our lesson one sleepless Tuesday night) episodes of 30 Rock and the occasional speedball combo of The Office and Battlestar Galactica, we’d be good to go, David Foster Wallace style.

We have also been told more times than we can remember that life is not a novel, that experience doesn’t become manifest through just another re-articulation, but we continue to throw ourselves at the merciless feet of cruel narrative, hoping against hope that this time will be different, that this particular action we’re taking for an anecdote will prove to have been worth it, that we’ll finally learn something for ourselves.

And then it just occurred to us that there must be an easier, softer way. If we took all the wisdom doled out by various architects in sundry movies, we have a feeling we’d skip a lot of the growing pains. And so, herewith in an attempt to spare you the same difficulties we’ve had to live through, our Top Five Moments-of-Wisdom Delivered by a Person Playing an Architect (or Wannabe) in an Audio/Visual Format:

1. “Put it this way. If I had to do it again, I’d do it knowing that after you graduate no one ever gives a fuck what your GPA was.” — Michael, in The Last Kiss.




2. “I’d rather have a chainsaw shoved up my ass than tell.” — Matt, in My Super Ex-Girlfriend.




3. “I tell you one thing though. I had some pretty frakin’ amazing ideas. Restaurants shaped like food.” — Felix Gaeta, in Battlestar Galactica.




4. “You’re not in love with me, Hank. You’re in love with the idea of love.” — Karen, in Californication.




5. “No, just down the street, the Celinto Catayente Towers.” — Pat, in There’s Something About Mary.

All you’ll ever need in life is one of these five sentences. Hold them close now, Tony Danza.