In my most recent post, I spoke disparagingly of "Pushing Daisies," the latest brainchild of Bryan Fuller, creator of such gems as "Dead Like Me" and "Wonderfalls." I wrote erroneously.
"Pushing Daisies" does things no other television shows dares. Mostly that simply means it is highly imagined and stylized. Yes, the show at its worst is quite twee, occasionally saccharine, and at times it gets a little bit stuck for being so cute and clever, and yet there is something completely delightful about the risks taken--characters repeating voice-over narration; unabashed wordplay and rhythmic exchanges; splashingly vibrant sets and costumes. In the most recent episode, a full minute of airtime is dedicated to one of the actresses belting away at Eternal Flame by the Bangles, to hilariously obvious "did they really?"-type interruptions after the "say my name" lyric. There was a scene with an entire class full of boarding school boys lured to the kitchen after midnight by the scent of a pie, cooked by the young protagonist because he longed for the scent of home. Eventually the entire kitchen is fired up, pies and filling fly and each and every boy has a berry smear on his face. I hope that if a show could contain an image as wonderful as this in every episode, it would be an enormous success.
My problems occurred when the dramatic tension went slack. Nothing colorful for the goofball team of lovers, dreamers, and investigators to engage in. But recently, shit from their history is coming up, and colorful new characters are being introduced, such as Chuck's dad, recently reincarnated and wrapped in bandages. I wonder if there is room for a show like this--any of Bryan Fuller's shows, really, as of yet none have made it out of season 2--on network television. What I really want is "Wonderfalls" back on the air, but since that can't happen, maybe Fuller can sell a grittier version of his vision to the cable networks, which is the only place good television that is not also a soap opera can live a long, unslaughtered life.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
The Reinvigorating Breath
Life, my friends, is not like television; nay, not even a long-form, decompressed version of television. Television is television, and I am generally disenchanted with this mysterious medium that so many consume rapaciously. I doubt, who hoped to champion! Is there value to be found in lessons viewed? How does the low art interact with immediacy? Can it be better than sheer escapism?
Explorations best left for another day, because right now is time for the lowest low-down, the skinny, the truth summarized and pre-packaged (individually wrapped) as it emerges coyly from my current viewing queue, which these days is not the average bag. I am consuming piecewise, bite-sized instead of dvd-ified episodic intake, because my netflix is canceled just like Pushing Daisies (and good riddance. as a result of that show I have added the word "twee" to my vocabulary).
The Office. A rare example of a good show staying good. Sure, they mix in a clunker every now and then, but I can not call to mind a show that creates more moments with staying power. I still remember the warehouse basketball game, Dwight and Michael and their secret powow at Staples, the bat, Pam alone in the office calling her mother over the whole Jim thing, the first time we met Andy Bernard... you get the picture. Goddamn does this show have characters. And they keep being flawed and themselves, and they keep coming in to work every day. This is a goddamn television show.
Heroes. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shitty shit shit pile of shit shit. Shit. I watched only a couple episodes of season 1, and then I stopped because there were lots of characters, none of whom possessed consistent traits or motivations. Also, nothing ever happened. Caught the tail end of season 2; it was minimally exciting. There were some good eps in season 3, I swear, but you can see the network brass in the background stoking the fire hot so that the "canceled" brand burns extra hard. Every scene is second guessed. Every character is interchangeable, and even though the actors retain the same faces from one episode to the next, I swear to god they are playing different roles every time I boot up nbc.com. I don't quite understand, because nobody's TRYING to make a really fucking terrible piece of television and I honestly don't give a fuck about the insane plot logic. They're just so confused in trying to cater to ratings and pack as much watchability as is possible into every moment, and as a result, we the viewers get no development or continuity. There is the scattered cool moment--it was AWESOME when Peter's father stole all of his powers and we witnessed evil ascendant, the extent of arthur petrelli's assholedness, familial betrayal... good stuff--in a huge mire of shitty shit shit shit shit.
Mad Men. Baller. Best drama on television bar none.
Chuck. hehehehe! There is nothing to this show but attractive people, a modicum of heart, and a truly foolish gimmick, yet it makes me giggle. Curious.
hoopah! power chords! intercostals!
Explorations best left for another day, because right now is time for the lowest low-down, the skinny, the truth summarized and pre-packaged (individually wrapped) as it emerges coyly from my current viewing queue, which these days is not the average bag. I am consuming piecewise, bite-sized instead of dvd-ified episodic intake, because my netflix is canceled just like Pushing Daisies (and good riddance. as a result of that show I have added the word "twee" to my vocabulary).
The Office. A rare example of a good show staying good. Sure, they mix in a clunker every now and then, but I can not call to mind a show that creates more moments with staying power. I still remember the warehouse basketball game, Dwight and Michael and their secret powow at Staples, the bat, Pam alone in the office calling her mother over the whole Jim thing, the first time we met Andy Bernard... you get the picture. Goddamn does this show have characters. And they keep being flawed and themselves, and they keep coming in to work every day. This is a goddamn television show.
Heroes. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shitty shit shit pile of shit shit. Shit. I watched only a couple episodes of season 1, and then I stopped because there were lots of characters, none of whom possessed consistent traits or motivations. Also, nothing ever happened. Caught the tail end of season 2; it was minimally exciting. There were some good eps in season 3, I swear, but you can see the network brass in the background stoking the fire hot so that the "canceled" brand burns extra hard. Every scene is second guessed. Every character is interchangeable, and even though the actors retain the same faces from one episode to the next, I swear to god they are playing different roles every time I boot up nbc.com. I don't quite understand, because nobody's TRYING to make a really fucking terrible piece of television and I honestly don't give a fuck about the insane plot logic. They're just so confused in trying to cater to ratings and pack as much watchability as is possible into every moment, and as a result, we the viewers get no development or continuity. There is the scattered cool moment--it was AWESOME when Peter's father stole all of his powers and we witnessed evil ascendant, the extent of arthur petrelli's assholedness, familial betrayal... good stuff--in a huge mire of shitty shit shit shit shit.
Mad Men. Baller. Best drama on television bar none.
Chuck. hehehehe! There is nothing to this show but attractive people, a modicum of heart, and a truly foolish gimmick, yet it makes me giggle. Curious.
hoopah! power chords! intercostals!
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Whoa.
Let's be honest. It's hard for us Joe Sixpacks on the wrong side of the pond to think about the Brits as much of anything besides imperial has-beens--the once-rans of being awesomest in the world, fish-sticky knobbledy-toothed funny talkers with blistering red coats, football which is actually soccer, and the bee's honey.
Now, I have encountered a series which will enlighten the average American as to the errors of these misconceptions. I concede they are still British, but they're clever.
DOCTOR WHO!
Maybe you're not into the sci-fis. Maybe you think: "God all British people ever talk about is that stupid show. Aren't there ALIENS? Isn't there TIME TRAVEL? Ahhh, I can't stand it already. Buy me a cheeseburger!"
The time travel works because they don't try to explain it, beyond "you can't go back on your personal time line." Divert, divert, divert. Aliens work because they're surprisingly imaginative and well-designed. As the show goes on, there are less aliens and more non-corporeal beings standing in metaphorically as aspects of human nature. Which is fun, and offers a surprising degree of contemplative thematic meat for a raucous space adventure. "Ugh, Turn on Gossip Girl," you say, "it's just like the OC except without the moralistic didacticism!" (mental transcript ends here. subject falls into an electronically induced state of ennui, cynicism, despondency, or value-corruption toxicity)
And characters. The Doctor is an archetypal epic hero. Epic epic, as in last of the Time Lords, universal wanderer, civilization saver, reformed pacifist, defender of everything, tragedy being he is doomed to be alone for all of time. He picks up young, doe-eyed women who grow to see themselves through the Doctor's eyes and understand that they're special, too, and that all of persistent humanity is special. All very heart-warming, and in SPACE, with a time machine.
It's pulpy, full-on whimsical, and yet has no shame in tackling Big Questions like what are we doing here? is humanity fundamentally good? how many times in one show can we use small-scale explosion and smoke effects? Granted, it doesn't always pose these questions RESPONSIBLY, ie in the manner we're taught Art that is Great SHOULD pose questions, but how unrealistic is that? No individual can take everything into account, physics and the wikinets tell us no one person can actually know more than a tiny eetsy little bit and that bit is ever-changing, so let's throw caution to the wind, my friends, and get our hands dirty. Isn't that what our contemporaneity is all ABOUT? Toss out paralytic reverence, let's teach ourselves that we're capable.
Yes! headstands! adho mukha svanasana!
Now, I have encountered a series which will enlighten the average American as to the errors of these misconceptions. I concede they are still British, but they're clever.
DOCTOR WHO!
Maybe you're not into the sci-fis. Maybe you think: "God all British people ever talk about is that stupid show. Aren't there ALIENS? Isn't there TIME TRAVEL? Ahhh, I can't stand it already. Buy me a cheeseburger!"
The time travel works because they don't try to explain it, beyond "you can't go back on your personal time line." Divert, divert, divert.
And characters. The Doctor is an archetypal epic hero. Epic epic, as in last of the Time Lords, universal wanderer, civilization saver, reformed pacifist, defender of everything, tragedy being he is doomed to be alone for all of time. He picks up young, doe-eyed women who grow to see themselves through the Doctor's eyes and understand that they're special, too, and that all of persistent humanity is special. All very heart-warming, and in SPACE, with a time machine.
It's pulpy, full-on whimsical, and yet has no shame in tackling Big Questions like what are we doing here? is humanity fundamentally good? how many times in one show can we use small-scale explosion and smoke effects? Granted, it doesn't always pose these questions RESPONSIBLY, ie in the manner we're taught Art that is Great SHOULD pose questions, but how unrealistic is that? No individual can take everything into account, physics and the wikinets tell us no one person can actually know more than a tiny eetsy little bit and that bit is ever-changing, so let's throw caution to the wind, my friends, and get our hands dirty. Isn't that what our contemporaneity is all ABOUT? Toss out paralytic reverence, let's teach ourselves that we're capable.
Yes! headstands! adho mukha svanasana!
Friday, September 12, 2008
The Crazy Show
airing on the MYLIFE network is entering syndication for at least a month or so! Reruns and no stress, this news coming from the suits upstairs and if there's anything I've learned in my life, it's always trust the man in the suit.
Now, I've been thinking a lot lately. Deep, deep thoughts, resonating from my most internal depths which I have PLUMBED--at great personal effort to myself, and with mighty tolls and tribulations on my person--and I have RECEIVED and calmed them. Let me tell you, these thoughts, as they perch here retrieved and resigned in my pretty head, they are in fact DEEP.
I am thinking, "all I ever do in this blog is write something when I get excited about a TV show." And the next thought, which follows the first, is "THAT IS OK! YOU ARE EXCITED BY A TV SHOW!" But not that way. No, no, no, not that way.
MAD MEN. Oh, season 2 has been a landscape of gently rolling disappointment spotted with the occasional "oh yeah that's kind of cool" copse. Until now. Episode 7 was an EARTHQUAKE but one that is not dangerous just delicately and awesomely terrain-altering.
Just the final moment of the show and we can be done. Betty and Don for the first time confronted by the consequences/horror of their success, or maybe more accurately, their belief in it as corroborated by all observers. So artfully done. Questions by the child: "Mommy, are we rich?" "It's not polite to talk about money, sweetheart." Purchase of an exorbitantly expensive and sweet-ass caddy as in Cadillac, baby. Don just got invited by his boss into the "people who get to decide what happens in this world" club. And then BAM, Jimmy Berrett hits on Betty like crazy and tells her Don is fucking his wife. And she knows it might be true. And then Jimmy tells Don what a shithead he is. And HE knows it might be true.
Then they sit in the brand new caddy--the one they won't let kids in unless the rugrats have washed their hands--just looking terrible, and not talking, and you, the viewer, are wondering what the hell are they going to say. AWESOME FACES OF DISCOMFORT.
Betty pukes. Cue Brenda Lee... "Break it... to me gently..." roll the credits. I loved it. I am just so tickled.
Headstands!
Now, I've been thinking a lot lately. Deep, deep thoughts, resonating from my most internal depths which I have PLUMBED--at great personal effort to myself, and with mighty tolls and tribulations on my person--and I have RECEIVED and calmed them. Let me tell you, these thoughts, as they perch here retrieved and resigned in my pretty head, they are in fact DEEP.
I am thinking, "all I ever do in this blog is write something when I get excited about a TV show." And the next thought, which follows the first, is "THAT IS OK! YOU ARE EXCITED BY A TV SHOW!" But not that way. No, no, no, not that way.
MAD MEN. Oh, season 2 has been a landscape of gently rolling disappointment spotted with the occasional "oh yeah that's kind of cool" copse. Until now. Episode 7 was an EARTHQUAKE but one that is not dangerous just delicately and awesomely terrain-altering.
Just the final moment of the show and we can be done. Betty and Don for the first time confronted by the consequences/horror of their success, or maybe more accurately, their belief in it as corroborated by all observers. So artfully done. Questions by the child: "Mommy, are we rich?" "It's not polite to talk about money, sweetheart." Purchase of an exorbitantly expensive and sweet-ass caddy as in Cadillac, baby. Don just got invited by his boss into the "people who get to decide what happens in this world" club. And then BAM, Jimmy Berrett hits on Betty like crazy and tells her Don is fucking his wife. And she knows it might be true. And then Jimmy tells Don what a shithead he is. And HE knows it might be true.
Then they sit in the brand new caddy--the one they won't let kids in unless the rugrats have washed their hands--just looking terrible, and not talking, and you, the viewer, are wondering what the hell are they going to say. AWESOME FACES OF DISCOMFORT.
Betty pukes. Cue Brenda Lee... "Break it... to me gently..." roll the credits. I loved it. I am just so tickled.
Headstands!
Thursday, August 14, 2008
The Sounds of Your Own Voice
A wop bop a loo-mop, a wop bam boom!
Tutti frutti, my friends. Tutti frutti. I'm dancin' these days, and man do the days get longer, the breaths deeper, and the abyss more terrifying as you approach SHOWTIME. No need for all that really, but it happens nonetheless. Between all the working and drinking--by working I mean hopping lifting and swaying, in time; by drinking I mean to excess--there just ain't no place for nothing else.
Well I am a liar. I have also re-entered Oblivion (god help me i am prideful fool i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry) and watched more WEEDS and MAD MEN. I was checking out at the grocery store the other day and lo and behold! on the magazine rack resteth the TV GUIDE MAGAZINE. Now, I hate TV Guide for their Fox news-like stand against the writer's strike, but on the cover of this dirty rag was the following headline:
MAD MEN. THE BEST SHOW ON TELEVISION?
And the first thing that popped into my head was a "yes," the kind with the brow crunch and "obviously" intonation. There is something so gd... HILARIOUS about their protagonist. He is just REALLY serious all the time that it's like, all the other stilted period dialogue is set into theatro-surrealistic-comic relief. It's brilliant and compelling and seems extra real for being so fake. If there are any Alice Munro fans out there, it reminds me of how lasting her characters are even after you close the book. Really, it's not just Don that has that effect. Also Betty and Peggy, these actors are in no way fucking around. I don't know what it is, maybe being "period" allows you to be serious and theatrical without being Six Feet Under. If you like some of your fiction televised, you have every reason to be watching this show. Man, and they dig in deep with the advertising. The reach of media was beginning to be understood back then (in a codified, marketable way) and is STILL a burgeoningly relevant issue today. The writers never forget that the theme is what makes the show so interesting to watch, and that we can deal with Don being such a brooding alcoholic because of it: what speaks to us, what lies, and how do we sell it?
There is a bunch of who is sleeping with who in the first season (also fun, and handled in a not distracting way) but so far season two is sticking with a slightly less compressed reality and the actors are just hitting their stride.
Buzam!
Tutti frutti, my friends. Tutti frutti. I'm dancin' these days, and man do the days get longer, the breaths deeper, and the abyss more terrifying as you approach SHOWTIME. No need for all that really, but it happens nonetheless. Between all the working and drinking--by working I mean hopping lifting and swaying, in time; by drinking I mean to excess--there just ain't no place for nothing else.
Well I am a liar. I have also re-entered Oblivion (god help me i am prideful fool i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry) and watched more WEEDS and MAD MEN. I was checking out at the grocery store the other day and lo and behold! on the magazine rack resteth the TV GUIDE MAGAZINE. Now, I hate TV Guide for their Fox news-like stand against the writer's strike, but on the cover of this dirty rag was the following headline:
MAD MEN. THE BEST SHOW ON TELEVISION?
And the first thing that popped into my head was a "yes," the kind with the brow crunch and "obviously" intonation. There is something so gd... HILARIOUS about their protagonist. He is just REALLY serious all the time that it's like, all the other stilted period dialogue is set into theatro-surrealistic-comic relief. It's brilliant and compelling and seems extra real for being so fake. If there are any Alice Munro fans out there, it reminds me of how lasting her characters are even after you close the book. Really, it's not just Don that has that effect. Also Betty and Peggy, these actors are in no way fucking around. I don't know what it is, maybe being "period" allows you to be serious and theatrical without being Six Feet Under. If you like some of your fiction televised, you have every reason to be watching this show. Man, and they dig in deep with the advertising. The reach of media was beginning to be understood back then (in a codified, marketable way) and is STILL a burgeoningly relevant issue today. The writers never forget that the theme is what makes the show so interesting to watch, and that we can deal with Don being such a brooding alcoholic because of it: what speaks to us, what lies, and how do we sell it?
There is a bunch of who is sleeping with who in the first season (also fun, and handled in a not distracting way) but so far season two is sticking with a slightly less compressed reality and the actors are just hitting their stride.
Buzam!
Monday, July 28, 2008
Scenic World
I wrote earlier that the second season of Weeds left me chilly. Well, buckaroos, have I got some good news for you! It gets all crazy and super-well-put-together again!
The premise is imaginative, zany, and impossible, but not impossible enough to fall outside the realm of some alternate universe naturalism. All of this is relatively unimportant. The pay-off, for me at least, is straight-up whimsy, that bizarro varietal of comfort which convinces, however briefly, that anything is possible.
They put together this ass-kicking montage of Nancy--suburban mom turned drug-lord protagonist--and her new reality: working retail in a maternity store, the legit front for a drug business over which she no longer has control. The execution was completly outside the normal mode of the show--the use of voice-over; the faux-conclusiveness; the solemnity--and you could just feel Nancy drying up, the intensity of her frustration. Moments like that make you realize how deep she got into it, what a terrible, corrupt person she is, but also how much she loved it, nay! how much she needed it. Cut back to the present, as Nancy closes up shop, and there's a thumping in the back room. Nancy enters to find... a man emerging from a tunnel to Mexico, trapped under a pile of boxes. He yells in Spanish, telling her not to put boxes there, ever again, and the camera follows as he walks back into the tunnel. We see crews of filthy diggers, lanterns, and drugs in maternity store bags as the guy walks back yelling instructions. Cue some awesome, kind of bubbly imagination land music and Nancy, that adorable risk-junkie, goes straight down the all but literal rabbit hole with only a moment's pause for wonderment, sticking her head in where she doesn't belong all over again but knowing, a little better this time, exactly what that may entail.
Awesome character moment, awesome music (you just have to trust me), and a perfect example of a show being true to its fundamental roots as an experiment in fantasy.
The premise is imaginative, zany, and impossible, but not impossible enough to fall outside the realm of some alternate universe naturalism. All of this is relatively unimportant. The pay-off, for me at least, is straight-up whimsy, that bizarro varietal of comfort which convinces, however briefly, that anything is possible.
They put together this ass-kicking montage of Nancy--suburban mom turned drug-lord protagonist--and her new reality: working retail in a maternity store, the legit front for a drug business over which she no longer has control. The execution was completly outside the normal mode of the show--the use of voice-over; the faux-conclusiveness; the solemnity--and you could just feel Nancy drying up, the intensity of her frustration. Moments like that make you realize how deep she got into it, what a terrible, corrupt person she is, but also how much she loved it, nay! how much she needed it. Cut back to the present, as Nancy closes up shop, and there's a thumping in the back room. Nancy enters to find... a man emerging from a tunnel to Mexico, trapped under a pile of boxes. He yells in Spanish, telling her not to put boxes there, ever again, and the camera follows as he walks back into the tunnel. We see crews of filthy diggers, lanterns, and drugs in maternity store bags as the guy walks back yelling instructions. Cue some awesome, kind of bubbly imagination land music and Nancy, that adorable risk-junkie, goes straight down the all but literal rabbit hole with only a moment's pause for wonderment, sticking her head in where she doesn't belong all over again but knowing, a little better this time, exactly what that may entail.
Awesome character moment, awesome music (you just have to trust me), and a perfect example of a show being true to its fundamental roots as an experiment in fantasy.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Door-A
Ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok! Ok!
Long time no chat, compatriadres, and what a sad state of affairs THAT is. I laze, I neglect, I dance, I watch, I yoga... why do I not BLOG (or WORK)?
But really, the why's don't matter. The world is just going to end up covered in massive landfills, anyway... or so PIXAR's new feature Wall-E would have you believe! Much like this guy, no this guy, up top! I found something a little bit OFF with the whole project. Now, I like me a flick that champions the finer sentiments as much as the next guy--finer sentiments in this particular case being, well... sentimentality, musicals, pluck, and hand-holding ("If you want to communicate something to the proletariat, dress it in sequins and make it sing!")--but really? A dystopia of fat people floating around in chairs, sucking on nutrish-o shakes and dependent on robots, it smacks of a lack of originality to me. People don't just sit around. We make stupid choices and exercise rampant disregard for our environment, perhaps even possess a lemming-like quality of two, but we do stuff. You can't just lazy-boy out the curiosity factor.
The love story is classic. For reasons we can not understand, be they spiritual, chemical, or mechanical, Wall-E makes a choice: he wants to hold the probe's hand. Obstacles are placed in Wall-E's path, but his faith and determination not only grant him love's desire, they change the entire face of the earth!
Cool. And very sweet because Wall-E has an awesome apartment and is a real trooper. But wait a second... they're androids! Did anybody else get heeby-jeebied when they smooched and we got nothing besides a metallic clank and happy robot faces? Funny, or not? How about when Wall-E, like some twisted Frankenstein, tore the feet from his fellow trashbot and sutured them to his own determined little gears?
Ok so the whole thing is kinda meta, but that eery tone (oh super sweet! but, uh, is that supposed to be sweet? is it just a bad joke?) gets lost in the context of the 'fat humans are dumb but not beyond redemption' B-story. It's a film about learning to be human, but frankly I'd rather take the lesson from some talking penguins.
Yes! Headstands!
Long time no chat, compatriadres, and what a sad state of affairs THAT is. I laze, I neglect, I dance, I watch, I yoga... why do I not BLOG (or WORK)?
But really, the why's don't matter. The world is just going to end up covered in massive landfills, anyway... or so PIXAR's new feature Wall-E would have you believe! Much like this guy, no this guy, up top! I found something a little bit OFF with the whole project. Now, I like me a flick that champions the finer sentiments as much as the next guy--finer sentiments in this particular case being, well... sentimentality, musicals, pluck, and hand-holding ("If you want to communicate something to the proletariat, dress it in sequins and make it sing!")--but really? A dystopia of fat people floating around in chairs, sucking on nutrish-o shakes and dependent on robots, it smacks of a lack of originality to me. People don't just sit around. We make stupid choices and exercise rampant disregard for our environment, perhaps even possess a lemming-like quality of two, but we do stuff. You can't just lazy-boy out the curiosity factor.
The love story is classic. For reasons we can not understand, be they spiritual, chemical, or mechanical, Wall-E makes a choice: he wants to hold the probe's hand. Obstacles are placed in Wall-E's path, but his faith and determination not only grant him love's desire, they change the entire face of the earth!
Cool. And very sweet because Wall-E has an awesome apartment and is a real trooper. But wait a second... they're androids! Did anybody else get heeby-jeebied when they smooched and we got nothing besides a metallic clank and happy robot faces? Funny, or not? How about when Wall-E, like some twisted Frankenstein, tore the feet from his fellow trashbot and sutured them to his own determined little gears?
Ok so the whole thing is kinda meta, but that eery tone (oh super sweet! but, uh, is that supposed to be sweet? is it just a bad joke?) gets lost in the context of the 'fat humans are dumb but not beyond redemption' B-story. It's a film about learning to be human, but frankly I'd rather take the lesson from some talking penguins.
Yes! Headstands!
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Oh Canada
I've mentioned Slings & Arrows a few times before, but probably not with sufficient awe and reverence. This show is consistent and surprising, which is like the holy grail of television.
The British model for a drama series, and apparently the Candian structure as well, is six episodes. In America it seems to be either 13 or 23, and I think the main dramatic thrust gets serious dilution when you need to fill so much air time. With six, each and every episode is based around the same 'A' storyline. No need to put up with entire episodes based around so and so who you never really cared about. A season of Slings & Arrows, for example, is about a specific production in a yearly theater festival, and that is what is going on every time you tune in. Sure, The Wire had 13 eps a season, but that show was effin' epic.
I've been watching S & A and Weeds in tandem. Cutting one drug with a slightly different varietal in the hopes that it will dilute the potency of each, risk being that I will get powerfully addicted to both. So far I'm cool, especially because the second season of Weeds is kinda choking. Nancy pants is going through this whole "ooh, look what I can get away with now that I'm a drug dealer" thing and just being a really terrible terrible parent. I guess it's pretty ok, especially the bits where she plays the DEA boyfriend against her lovestruck business partner for titillating dramatic tension, but they just went off the deep end in the part of the show that deals with family matters. Maybe it's just the dialogue, which got away with being clunky in season 1 somehow, because it was cute, but when you need to bring your a-game in season 2 and prove you can last in harsh post-novelty climes without the benefit of concept and character enfatuation, the half-wittedness just don't seem to fly any longer.
So, seriously, if you're in the game for some sustained and complicated dramatic action, netflix or pirate from the high electronic seas a copy of Slings and Arrows. They don't do dippy, and if you're a performer, like myself, it digs pretty deep into questions of poetic faith and worthiness/lack thereof of the artistic pursuit.
The British model for a drama series, and apparently the Candian structure as well, is six episodes. In America it seems to be either 13 or 23, and I think the main dramatic thrust gets serious dilution when you need to fill so much air time. With six, each and every episode is based around the same 'A' storyline. No need to put up with entire episodes based around so and so who you never really cared about. A season of Slings & Arrows, for example, is about a specific production in a yearly theater festival, and that is what is going on every time you tune in. Sure, The Wire had 13 eps a season, but that show was effin' epic.
I've been watching S & A and Weeds in tandem. Cutting one drug with a slightly different varietal in the hopes that it will dilute the potency of each, risk being that I will get powerfully addicted to both. So far I'm cool, especially because the second season of Weeds is kinda choking. Nancy pants is going through this whole "ooh, look what I can get away with now that I'm a drug dealer" thing and just being a really terrible terrible parent. I guess it's pretty ok, especially the bits where she plays the DEA boyfriend against her lovestruck business partner for titillating dramatic tension, but they just went off the deep end in the part of the show that deals with family matters. Maybe it's just the dialogue, which got away with being clunky in season 1 somehow, because it was cute, but when you need to bring your a-game in season 2 and prove you can last in harsh post-novelty climes without the benefit of concept and character enfatuation, the half-wittedness just don't seem to fly any longer.
So, seriously, if you're in the game for some sustained and complicated dramatic action, netflix or pirate from the high electronic seas a copy of Slings and Arrows. They don't do dippy, and if you're a performer, like myself, it digs pretty deep into questions of poetic faith and worthiness/lack thereof of the artistic pursuit.
Friday, June 13, 2008
The Return of Television
A sudden bout of downtime settles over me, like a shot of tequila on an empty stomach. I love tequila, but "settle over" is all wrong. I mean SHOOTS THROUGH MY UNPROTECTED VEINS AND CAPILLARIES WITH RAPACIOUS VIOLENCE.
Accordingly, I have gorged myself on my backlog of television shows. Oh, the Weeds, the Slings & Arrows of outrageous fortune which encourage me to take arms against a sea of trouble! Also I am listening to "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap on repeat. For like two days. Mmm, whatcha say?
Confession time, this is one of those periods of self-imposed cabin fever during which I write lots of Important Things on index cards, make faces in the mirror, and hatch ingenious schemes like the creation of a "Naked Guy" vlog and figuring out how to make the Altar of Entropy do some serious journalistic work in the alternate universe of WoW. Just do it, Gerrit, you'll thank me later. I'll totally come to Brooklyn to intervene in three months (the amount of time I expect it will take you to create level 70 toons on every realm and start brewing a devious conspiracy to overthrow Blizzard). Other activities on my todo list: drink whatever alcohol is in the apartment without repeats; headstands until I black out; handstands until I black out; memorize the lyrics to "Hide and Seek"; prepare absurd greetings for those foolish enough to call me on my telephone.
Anyway, I totally just saw a great moment of television. Finale of the first season of Weeds--Nancy pants has built herself a motherfucking drug empire. She is the big momma, by hook, crook, wit, luck, hotness, and that special courage that can only come from being really really ignorant. They organized a great Godfather-esque scene in which she gathers all her peeps and begins a meeting. Youngest son watches open-mouthed as the double doors are shut on his mother's place of business, knowing that not all is right in suburbia.
Counter this very theatrical scene with Nancy showing up at the Nice Guy's house. You know, the one that has been pursuing her but they could never get together because she is a DRUG DEALER and has problems. She is vulnerable, they take her right off the mystical pedestal built for her--I gotta do an aside here. Anybody else like Dune? You did, because it was AWESOME. At the end you have the motherfucking KWISATZ HADERACH standing on top of the universe. It is a case study in how to make your protagonist Awesome and attain godliness. Ethical, aesthetic, or philosophical problems with this particular narrative aside, everything that happened after that moment in the Dune universe sucked. So way to go Weeds, for jumping that sinking ship.
Anyway, newly vulnerable, human, and relate-to-able Nancy, maybe finding something good and untainted in her life again, gets up to go pee and throws on Nice Guy's robe. Flips on the light... she is wearing a DEA jacket.
God I love it. I love it so much I will go practice arm balances for at least twenty minutes and then drink more beer. Is there an index card with something Important written on it in my future? Cabin fever eightball says: "As I see it, yes!"
Accordingly, I have gorged myself on my backlog of television shows. Oh, the Weeds, the Slings & Arrows of outrageous fortune which encourage me to take arms against a sea of trouble! Also I am listening to "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap on repeat. For like two days. Mmm, whatcha say?
Confession time, this is one of those periods of self-imposed cabin fever during which I write lots of Important Things on index cards, make faces in the mirror, and hatch ingenious schemes like the creation of a "Naked Guy" vlog and figuring out how to make the Altar of Entropy do some serious journalistic work in the alternate universe of WoW. Just do it, Gerrit, you'll thank me later. I'll totally come to Brooklyn to intervene in three months (the amount of time I expect it will take you to create level 70 toons on every realm and start brewing a devious conspiracy to overthrow Blizzard). Other activities on my todo list: drink whatever alcohol is in the apartment without repeats; headstands until I black out; handstands until I black out; memorize the lyrics to "Hide and Seek"; prepare absurd greetings for those foolish enough to call me on my telephone.
Anyway, I totally just saw a great moment of television. Finale of the first season of Weeds--Nancy pants has built herself a motherfucking drug empire. She is the big momma, by hook, crook, wit, luck, hotness, and that special courage that can only come from being really really ignorant. They organized a great Godfather-esque scene in which she gathers all her peeps and begins a meeting. Youngest son watches open-mouthed as the double doors are shut on his mother's place of business, knowing that not all is right in suburbia.
Counter this very theatrical scene with Nancy showing up at the Nice Guy's house. You know, the one that has been pursuing her but they could never get together because she is a DRUG DEALER and has problems. She is vulnerable, they take her right off the mystical pedestal built for her--I gotta do an aside here. Anybody else like Dune? You did, because it was AWESOME. At the end you have the motherfucking KWISATZ HADERACH standing on top of the universe. It is a case study in how to make your protagonist Awesome and attain godliness. Ethical, aesthetic, or philosophical problems with this particular narrative aside, everything that happened after that moment in the Dune universe sucked. So way to go Weeds, for jumping that sinking ship.
Anyway, newly vulnerable, human, and relate-to-able Nancy, maybe finding something good and untainted in her life again, gets up to go pee and throws on Nice Guy's robe. Flips on the light... she is wearing a DEA jacket.
God I love it. I love it so much I will go practice arm balances for at least twenty minutes and then drink more beer. Is there an index card with something Important written on it in my future? Cabin fever eightball says: "As I see it, yes!"
Saturday, June 7, 2008
BLOG
Blogging is just so cozy. It's like ordering up a fast food audience, cheap and almost no wait. Sure, maybe you have to imagine the multitudes hanging on your every word--oohing, ahhing, and laughing raucously along with you--but just by doing so you've already got a fatty commiseration sandwich with a side of you're-so-cool. It doesn't necessarily last or lay a healthy foundation for a stronger you of tomorrow, and truth be told it may end up filling you with hot air, but man does it feel good every once in a while.
I thought I was going to sink with that metaphor to the bottom of the sea, so happy was I with it, but as the water began to swirl around my ankles, I quickly realized how foolish it is to cling to such nonsense when my very being is at stake.
I am not watching TV lately. At all. It's funny what happens when you go from a life of routine (in which you don't have to grocery shop or do the dishes) to a life of umpteen possibilities!!!one!eleven!!1!! I loaded up the Grey's anatomy finale on abc.com or whatever, but then something more interesting happened. I started to watch a Battlestar, then realized my clothes only had ten more minutes in the drier at the laundromat 'round the corner. Moving in someplace new takes forever which I somehow manage to forget despite having done it at least a million times. Or is there some deeply seated change afoot? Perhaps it is time I stopped watching, and started writing!?!?!?
Thanks for the coze, yo's.
I thought I was going to sink with that metaphor to the bottom of the sea, so happy was I with it, but as the water began to swirl around my ankles, I quickly realized how foolish it is to cling to such nonsense when my very being is at stake.
I am not watching TV lately. At all. It's funny what happens when you go from a life of routine (in which you don't have to grocery shop or do the dishes) to a life of umpteen possibilities!!!one!eleven!!1!! I loaded up the Grey's anatomy finale on abc.com or whatever, but then something more interesting happened. I started to watch a Battlestar, then realized my clothes only had ten more minutes in the drier at the laundromat 'round the corner. Moving in someplace new takes forever which I somehow manage to forget despite having done it at least a million times. Or is there some deeply seated change afoot? Perhaps it is time I stopped watching, and started writing!?!?!?
Thanks for the coze, yo's.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
A Post
I don't even have a job, and I'm exhausted. I am doing all kinds of work, it's just that there's no reliable paycheck attached to any of it. Not yet. So all I've got in me is a quick rundown.
Slings & Arrows -- This show is amazing, AND Canadian. I know, right? The acting kicks my ass and the script delivers those moments that just tickle me pink. So I get to sit around pink and beat up which is the best kind of existence around. I mean, we have the tortured artist given a second chance to do it right, and he's carrying his old mentor's severed head around in a cooler. Hits the bar, naturally, where he runs into his ex-lover who played Juliet to his Romeo as directed by the head in the cooler. Ellen: "What do you have in there?" Jack: "Oliver's head."
Priceless.
Slings & Arrows -- This show is amazing, AND Canadian. I know, right? The acting kicks my ass and the script delivers those moments that just tickle me pink. So I get to sit around pink and beat up which is the best kind of existence around. I mean, we have the tortured artist given a second chance to do it right, and he's carrying his old mentor's severed head around in a cooler. Hits the bar, naturally, where he runs into his ex-lover who played Juliet to his Romeo as directed by the head in the cooler. Ellen: "What do you have in there?" Jack: "Oliver's head."
Priceless.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Rhyme of the Contemporary Ne'er-Do-Good
Friends and colleagues, gentiles and heathens, strangers, Romans, and my mom...
Please, if you would, pull a chair nearer to my fire. I have a tale to tell, and though the "Rhyme" element of my advertising may be false, the cautions contained herein are not, and I assure you--you will benefit a thousand fold from the tales of the places of the narrative from the story I am about to tell!
As you definitely must have noticed, I have been gone from the blog-OH!-sphere for untold amounts of time encompassing about two weeks. Two things have happened since then. First, I moved to a house in Philadelphia! Second, Mass Effect!
Mass Effect? you ask, which is exactly what I wanted you to do. What is Mass Effect?
I will tell you!
It is a video game and you go around and save the universe and there are aliens and a stupid stupid gun car called a Mako GOD I hate that stupid car and driving all over the place to flag mineral deposits and salvage the useless cargo from wrecked probes!
Forgive me. You see the state I am in, reduced to a husk of a man by the ravages of addiction, which is what I am really here to talk about.
There was a time, years ago, when I walked in an entirely different world. I shall not name it--it is too large, too terrifying for a name--though perhaps you will discern its nature from my survivor's tale. In this world I was widely respected. People everywhere knew who I was, or could figure very quickly that I was a man to admire. My coffers flowed over with booty. Then, one day, an otherworldly light shone in and in that brilliant light... I saw all my achievements, all my possessions, for what they really were: a meaningless nothing. I knew my life could never be the same.
I announced to all the members of my clan that I was leaving, and they looked upon me as a man dispossessed of his sense. "But where you are going," my dearest friend said, "everyone is a noob!" "Verily, and never again will you froshock froshock ftw!" said my young protege. I felt the need to explain to them what I was doing. "Remember on your dr00d alt, when you finally got travel form and said to yourself, 'fnly i can gets lots of herbs for my pots,' then you just ran, and ran and ran and ran into that brave new world of tomorrow, far away from the creeps and spawns? Well, this is like that, except my travel form will take me away from this place, into a whole new world!"
"dr00d ninrvate lol" they said. "lol" I replied, sadly.
But this transition did not sever my addiction completely. No, it was more like a flummoxed British person who says: "I say good day, sir!" when they are beside themself, but nobody really believes they are offended or leaving because how cute is that British person. And then that person says "oh well, I suppose it was silly of me to explode like that." And so I fed the need for stimulus with lesser addictions, even though the behemoth was shrugged off.
And then I stopped. I took my controller and I put it down, and I was through. You have never seen a more stalwart, more radiantly put-together me in all your days! Travel, education, wonders! The world was mine, and I took it and kneaded it and made delicious European bread, not that soggy mushed up American nonsense!
Had you known me then... you could have loved me. The Mass Effect sucked me in. It is the tool the devil devised specifically for me, knowing I am weak and prideful. And now I am desperately scouring stupid boring planets in a stupid stupid stupid car for Turian Insignias, running around so carelessly a mere Geth Commando might fell my mighty party. I have had more Coors Lite in three days than I consumed in all my days preceding the EFFECT, and were I not equally addicted to yoga, I would assuredly have a formidable beer belly.
The moral, dear friend, is that you must remember, you could end up like me--consuming a breakfast of kiwis and Coors, unable to stand upon your own 2 feet, and probably smelly. I think I'm smelly, I really can't tell. I mean there must be an odor. Maybe it doesn't stink exactly, as much as smell odd.
Adieu, adieu, adieu!
Please, if you would, pull a chair nearer to my fire. I have a tale to tell, and though the "Rhyme" element of my advertising may be false, the cautions contained herein are not, and I assure you--you will benefit a thousand fold from the tales of the places of the narrative from the story I am about to tell!
As you definitely must have noticed, I have been gone from the blog-OH!-sphere for untold amounts of time encompassing about two weeks. Two things have happened since then. First, I moved to a house in Philadelphia! Second, Mass Effect!
Mass Effect? you ask, which is exactly what I wanted you to do. What is Mass Effect?
I will tell you!
It is a video game and you go around and save the universe and there are aliens and a stupid stupid gun car called a Mako GOD I hate that stupid car and driving all over the place to flag mineral deposits and salvage the useless cargo from wrecked probes!
Forgive me. You see the state I am in, reduced to a husk of a man by the ravages of addiction, which is what I am really here to talk about.
There was a time, years ago, when I walked in an entirely different world. I shall not name it--it is too large, too terrifying for a name--though perhaps you will discern its nature from my survivor's tale. In this world I was widely respected. People everywhere knew who I was, or could figure very quickly that I was a man to admire. My coffers flowed over with booty. Then, one day, an otherworldly light shone in and in that brilliant light... I saw all my achievements, all my possessions, for what they really were: a meaningless nothing. I knew my life could never be the same.
I announced to all the members of my clan that I was leaving, and they looked upon me as a man dispossessed of his sense. "But where you are going," my dearest friend said, "everyone is a noob!" "Verily, and never again will you froshock froshock ftw!" said my young protege. I felt the need to explain to them what I was doing. "Remember on your dr00d alt, when you finally got travel form and said to yourself, 'fnly i can gets lots of herbs for my pots,' then you just ran, and ran and ran and ran into that brave new world of tomorrow, far away from the creeps and spawns? Well, this is like that, except my travel form will take me away from this place, into a whole new world!"
"dr00d ninrvate lol" they said. "lol" I replied, sadly.
But this transition did not sever my addiction completely. No, it was more like a flummoxed British person who says: "I say good day, sir!" when they are beside themself, but nobody really believes they are offended or leaving because how cute is that British person. And then that person says "oh well, I suppose it was silly of me to explode like that." And so I fed the need for stimulus with lesser addictions, even though the behemoth was shrugged off.
And then I stopped. I took my controller and I put it down, and I was through. You have never seen a more stalwart, more radiantly put-together me in all your days! Travel, education, wonders! The world was mine, and I took it and kneaded it and made delicious European bread, not that soggy mushed up American nonsense!
Had you known me then... you could have loved me. The Mass Effect sucked me in. It is the tool the devil devised specifically for me, knowing I am weak and prideful. And now I am desperately scouring stupid boring planets in a stupid stupid stupid car for Turian Insignias, running around so carelessly a mere Geth Commando might fell my mighty party. I have had more Coors Lite in three days than I consumed in all my days preceding the EFFECT, and were I not equally addicted to yoga, I would assuredly have a formidable beer belly.
The moral, dear friend, is that you must remember, you could end up like me--consuming a breakfast of kiwis and Coors, unable to stand upon your own 2 feet, and probably smelly. I think I'm smelly, I really can't tell. I mean there must be an odor. Maybe it doesn't stink exactly, as much as smell odd.
Adieu, adieu, adieu!
Monday, May 12, 2008
Why do I keep coming back?
Television, especially network television, is inconsistent. As good as a show is, as good as its premise and actors are, they put out bad episodes. In my opinion, this is one of the reasons the medium gets no respect. It's just pulp, produced quickly to feed the hungry masses. It's always rushed. There are a million and one things that can go wrong, from network execs coming down hard on character changes a showrunner had planned for two seasons to running production on a shoestring budget.
Definitely, there are times when I ask myself why I keep coming back. Battlestar Galactica, for all the really stunning design and story-telling they did in the mini-series, definitely wallowed in the land of mediocrity. Storylines were good, compelling even, but never as good as they could have been, especially since they were awash in faux-thematic religious babble that rarely translated into interesting drama (one of the tricky things about the sci-fi genre). Eventually, the shine of the CG veneer dulled from many viewings, until I didn't even notice how freaking awesome it looks when a Viper wheels around mid dogfight, and you can see how big space is, how tiny the ship looks, and the sweet-ass physics of the whole operation.
I watched it, I continue to watch it, because Starbuck and Laura Roslin are freaking awesome characters. That is the only reason, and robot fights and the sweet 80s interior of the cylon baseships. These two actors are phenomenal and even in a so-so script, there are moments when their characters surprise me.
In its final (1/2) season, we're getting back to the main storyline of the prophecy of the 13th colony, which thankfully centers largely around these two characters. And the show is getting good again.
Definitely, there are times when I ask myself why I keep coming back. Battlestar Galactica, for all the really stunning design and story-telling they did in the mini-series, definitely wallowed in the land of mediocrity. Storylines were good, compelling even, but never as good as they could have been, especially since they were awash in faux-thematic religious babble that rarely translated into interesting drama (one of the tricky things about the sci-fi genre). Eventually, the shine of the CG veneer dulled from many viewings, until I didn't even notice how freaking awesome it looks when a Viper wheels around mid dogfight, and you can see how big space is, how tiny the ship looks, and the sweet-ass physics of the whole operation.
I watched it, I continue to watch it, because Starbuck and Laura Roslin are freaking awesome characters. That is the only reason, and robot fights and the sweet 80s interior of the cylon baseships. These two actors are phenomenal and even in a so-so script, there are moments when their characters surprise me.
In its final (1/2) season, we're getting back to the main storyline of the prophecy of the 13th colony, which thankfully centers largely around these two characters. And the show is getting good again.
The Other Side
Over the course of my hermitage amongst the strip malls, restaurants, coffee shops, and yoga studios of the suburbs of Boston (which is coming to a close!), much new shit has come to light. You could call it a convalescence of sorts, set off like one of those weird re-usable hot/cold packs by the little metal clicker of my imminent departure.
For example, I'm picking a bunch of dirty plates off of a table of oh-so-delightful guests, who decide the best time to chat me up is just after I've loaded up with about thirty pounds of plateware which is beginning to deposit sauce down my shirtfront as the melting ice cream floods ceramic reservoirs. Normally I would not allow myself to be caught in such a compromising position, but it was Mother's Day, busiest restaurant day of the year. I was well into my eleventh hour of the ol' non-stop non-stop, and I was too shell-shocked to tell more hungry people--the stupidest people in the world and no, neither you nor I are an exception--what they were going to eat, when they were going to get it, and how, exactly, I would give it to them, thank you very much and control your children.
So as they're talking to me, I get to do a little exploration of my gradually fatiguing bicep. Muscle groups operate, generally, in opposition to another. Biceps/triceps are a nice, simple example. By actively extending the triceps while the biceps were loaded, shifting my elbows ever so slightly forward in relation to the ribcage, I radically altered the effort of the biceps. I felt my abdominals engage and my weight shifted slightly back, which I compensated for by extending my hamstrings through the heel and lifting the quadriceps a bit. Now, instead of a slouched, isolated effort of a single muscle group--what happens when you lift weights with sloppy form--I was in a position which activated the entire body. No pose is complete without awareness through all meridians, and its effort like this which lets you feel how altering weight through your feet, or relaxing the butt, or bending the knees can change how your upper body bears weight.
Convalescence, right? Of... employment with, yogic principles, and...
It was just one of those moments.
For example, I'm picking a bunch of dirty plates off of a table of oh-so-delightful guests, who decide the best time to chat me up is just after I've loaded up with about thirty pounds of plateware which is beginning to deposit sauce down my shirtfront as the melting ice cream floods ceramic reservoirs. Normally I would not allow myself to be caught in such a compromising position, but it was Mother's Day, busiest restaurant day of the year. I was well into my eleventh hour of the ol' non-stop non-stop, and I was too shell-shocked to tell more hungry people--the stupidest people in the world and no, neither you nor I are an exception--what they were going to eat, when they were going to get it, and how, exactly, I would give it to them, thank you very much and control your children.
So as they're talking to me, I get to do a little exploration of my gradually fatiguing bicep. Muscle groups operate, generally, in opposition to another. Biceps/triceps are a nice, simple example. By actively extending the triceps while the biceps were loaded, shifting my elbows ever so slightly forward in relation to the ribcage, I radically altered the effort of the biceps. I felt my abdominals engage and my weight shifted slightly back, which I compensated for by extending my hamstrings through the heel and lifting the quadriceps a bit. Now, instead of a slouched, isolated effort of a single muscle group--what happens when you lift weights with sloppy form--I was in a position which activated the entire body. No pose is complete without awareness through all meridians, and its effort like this which lets you feel how altering weight through your feet, or relaxing the butt, or bending the knees can change how your upper body bears weight.
Convalescence, right? Of... employment with, yogic principles, and...
It was just one of those moments.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
The Juno Effect
It is possible... that time has tempered my love for the Gilmore Girls. You see, at first I was confused as to what, exactly, I was supposed to do with this secret obsession I possessed, for which the world at large was sure to judge me. I watched the show with a hunger fueled in part by my Catholic addiction to guilt. Like, you know how some people quit cigarettes and take up excessive eating? I quit feeling guilty about my Major Life Choices and compensated by feeling guilty about my leisure activities instead.
But the great shake'n'bake of time disperses breading and spices evenly the more time it has to shake, and then it bakes. As such, I feel like I'm finally in a place to crack this crispy crust and talk about what's right and wrong about this show.
I came into GG knowing nothing whatsoever about what it was all about, besides the fact that Ben's sisters really liked it. I never saw the floral DVD packaging. I never saw the WB's godawful advertisements or show lead-ins or the portraits of Lauren Graham and Alexis Bleidel air-brushed until you can barely distinguish their facial features. Sure, there were other hints. Hair and nails, which are done up like the prom regardless of where the ladies are at, but it took until the last season--when Rory's hair was not only, whatever, super... hair... done, but also bouncy and done up all whickety whack--for me to notice. THEN even I had to step back and say, whaaaaaaat?
In fact, the first time I encountered the public image of GGs as a pjs and ice cream show for shallow, depressed women was during an improv comedy show, through a character played by a deeply unfunny guy in a wig using a stupid "i'm a girl" voice and pretending to be depressed and watch GG all day long in his/her bed and whine about his/her boyfriend, and I was so deeply offended I almost can't enjoy improv comedy at all anymore.
So, maybe that's how the show was sold, but it is miles away from what the show was, which was basically... if you take the movie Juno, make Ellen Page's parent's suck and be filthy rich, and have her run away to have the baby, which she keeps and supports, then fast forward 16 years (let's remember this is a character drama from Hollywood about overcoming hardship, and not a political statement). Actually the only thing to take from the movie Juno is an extremely plucky, funny, protagonist who reveals noble and surprising inner strength as she bears up against pressure of the Pregnant Teenager taboo and tries to follow a moral path. The rest of the series is about how the mother surrounds herself and her daughter with a supportive and eccentric community in which they can both thrive, struggle, and learn, before birthing the young 'un out of the womb of Star's Hollow into the world at large (wait till I find that speech, it will be an extra shiny dialogic gem). Yeah there are boys, yeah there is crying, and yes the show can, occasionally, make you sick with displays of New England old money, whiteness, and privilege, but at the end of the day it's funny. The banter is on par with, say, a House (ok maybe not House) or a Scrubs or Buffy.
And it was different than the usual shit on television.
But the great shake'n'bake of time disperses breading and spices evenly the more time it has to shake, and then it bakes. As such, I feel like I'm finally in a place to crack this crispy crust and talk about what's right and wrong about this show.
I came into GG knowing nothing whatsoever about what it was all about, besides the fact that Ben's sisters really liked it. I never saw the floral DVD packaging. I never saw the WB's godawful advertisements or show lead-ins or the portraits of Lauren Graham and Alexis Bleidel air-brushed until you can barely distinguish their facial features. Sure, there were other hints. Hair and nails, which are done up like the prom regardless of where the ladies are at, but it took until the last season--when Rory's hair was not only, whatever, super... hair... done, but also bouncy and done up all whickety whack--for me to notice. THEN even I had to step back and say, whaaaaaaat?
In fact, the first time I encountered the public image of GGs as a pjs and ice cream show for shallow, depressed women was during an improv comedy show, through a character played by a deeply unfunny guy in a wig using a stupid "i'm a girl" voice and pretending to be depressed and watch GG all day long in his/her bed and whine about his/her boyfriend, and I was so deeply offended I almost can't enjoy improv comedy at all anymore.
So, maybe that's how the show was sold, but it is miles away from what the show was, which was basically... if you take the movie Juno, make Ellen Page's parent's suck and be filthy rich, and have her run away to have the baby, which she keeps and supports, then fast forward 16 years (let's remember this is a character drama from Hollywood about overcoming hardship, and not a political statement). Actually the only thing to take from the movie Juno is an extremely plucky, funny, protagonist who reveals noble and surprising inner strength as she bears up against pressure of the Pregnant Teenager taboo and tries to follow a moral path. The rest of the series is about how the mother surrounds herself and her daughter with a supportive and eccentric community in which they can both thrive, struggle, and learn, before birthing the young 'un out of the womb of Star's Hollow into the world at large (wait till I find that speech, it will be an extra shiny dialogic gem). Yeah there are boys, yeah there is crying, and yes the show can, occasionally, make you sick with displays of New England old money, whiteness, and privilege, but at the end of the day it's funny. The banter is on par with, say, a House (ok maybe not House) or a Scrubs or Buffy.
And it was different than the usual shit on television.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
A Drivel in Three Parts
I.
I like to go to the movies alone.
Maybe this is too strong a statement. I mean it's on a line by itself and everything so I should definitely dumb it down.
When I call my friends to go see a movie with me and everyone is being dumb, or I don't feel like trying very hard to get people to go someplace with me, I will very contentedly see the movie by myself. I spend $3.00 on a small coke that will lead to an inevitable pee break which will leave me in bad humor, but that's ok because I knew ahead of time it was going to happen, and then I'll try to laugh at myself but still actually, deep down, I'm pretty mad. Because I had to get up to pee in the middle of the movie. There is no one there to beat me at the dumb pre-movie trivia games so usually I get 100% correct all by myself. I watch the people coming in which is fun, and experience the mildest type of paranoia in which I assume everybody that glances my way is wondering what's wrong with that guy, why is he here all by himself but then I remind myself that actually nobody cares, or if they do I probably don't care that they care, and I grow deeply calm. Which is the best way to watch a movie.
II.
I went to see "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" in exactly this manner about a week ago. It was a well-put together, funny, and sweet movie--I mean, Judd Apatow--which is ultimately very forgettable. But you're glad you saw it, you know? Some moments are just really... adorable, like our protagonist in a black unitard smiling at the girl of his future having just performed his struggling pet project, a Dracula Puppet musical which will charm your socks off and make you laugh. Oops, I just told you the ending. The whole movie is just painful, earnest kitsch thrown out there with a "Ba dup, bap, ba dup, dup, BUP! [slide whistle]." One of the thoughts that passes through my head as I drive home is "It's cool to see some regular looking people in the movies!" Then I have to correct myself and be like, wait, regular looking guys in the movies, because those women were cooked to smokin' hot perfection by the magic celluloid flames of hungry Hollywood (I'm pretty sure they haven't used celluloid since, like, the 20s but whatevah). So, I guess that makes the film passively misogynistic.
I think the funniest parts may have been the fake-TV trailer bits. So deadpan, so not funny, and so absolutely and hilariously damning of pretty much every procedural crime drama currently on the air. SKEWERED the dialogue and character tropes, like, would you like a meathead male sidekick kebab with with some lame-comments-on-the-exposition sauce? I know! Isn't the supernatural twist on the detective's abilities marinade DELICIOUS!?!?
III.
I missed the "My So-Called Life" thing in the mid-nineties. I remember seeing it once and thinking "Nice flannel." Anyway, I watched the pilot and, I dunno. Claire Danes is kind of amazing, and there are some one liners that just ZING, and you remember how confusing everything was in high school and how stupid you were. Then I think about how confusing everything is and how stupid I am...
It's definitely different than the average teen-lit drama fest, so I'll watch a few more to decide if I can make it through the whole thing.
I like to go to the movies alone.
Maybe this is too strong a statement. I mean it's on a line by itself and everything so I should definitely dumb it down.
When I call my friends to go see a movie with me and everyone is being dumb, or I don't feel like trying very hard to get people to go someplace with me, I will very contentedly see the movie by myself. I spend $3.00 on a small coke that will lead to an inevitable pee break which will leave me in bad humor, but that's ok because I knew ahead of time it was going to happen, and then I'll try to laugh at myself but still actually, deep down, I'm pretty mad. Because I had to get up to pee in the middle of the movie. There is no one there to beat me at the dumb pre-movie trivia games so usually I get 100% correct all by myself. I watch the people coming in which is fun, and experience the mildest type of paranoia in which I assume everybody that glances my way is wondering what's wrong with that guy, why is he here all by himself but then I remind myself that actually nobody cares, or if they do I probably don't care that they care, and I grow deeply calm. Which is the best way to watch a movie.
II.
I went to see "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" in exactly this manner about a week ago. It was a well-put together, funny, and sweet movie--I mean, Judd Apatow--which is ultimately very forgettable. But you're glad you saw it, you know? Some moments are just really... adorable, like our protagonist in a black unitard smiling at the girl of his future having just performed his struggling pet project, a Dracula Puppet musical which will charm your socks off and make you laugh. Oops, I just told you the ending. The whole movie is just painful, earnest kitsch thrown out there with a "Ba dup, bap, ba dup, dup, BUP! [slide whistle]." One of the thoughts that passes through my head as I drive home is "It's cool to see some regular looking people in the movies!" Then I have to correct myself and be like, wait, regular looking guys in the movies, because those women were cooked to smokin' hot perfection by the magic celluloid flames of hungry Hollywood (I'm pretty sure they haven't used celluloid since, like, the 20s but whatevah). So, I guess that makes the film passively misogynistic.
I think the funniest parts may have been the fake-TV trailer bits. So deadpan, so not funny, and so absolutely and hilariously damning of pretty much every procedural crime drama currently on the air. SKEWERED the dialogue and character tropes, like, would you like a meathead male sidekick kebab with with some lame-comments-on-the-exposition sauce? I know! Isn't the supernatural twist on the detective's abilities marinade DELICIOUS!?!?
III.
I missed the "My So-Called Life" thing in the mid-nineties. I remember seeing it once and thinking "Nice flannel." Anyway, I watched the pilot and, I dunno. Claire Danes is kind of amazing, and there are some one liners that just ZING, and you remember how confusing everything was in high school and how stupid you were. Then I think about how confusing everything is and how stupid I am...
It's definitely different than the average teen-lit drama fest, so I'll watch a few more to decide if I can make it through the whole thing.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
... well I don't...
This is a clip from the documentary "Up" series, more specifically "Seven Up" which is famous I think.
Apparently I have time to kill. But this is just so worth it.
Monday, May 5, 2008
yoGAH!
Learning about your body is awesome. Overcoming the bounds the brain has in place to protect muscles and organs and whatnot is an actual chemical thrill, like taking a sled down the hill that looks vertical, or jumping from the wicked high rock in your friend's backyard when you were a kid. It's exxxtreme! and I think I'm addicted. Remember in Psych 101 when you learned that people perceive an inclined slope to be steeper than it actually is, so that dumb-asses don't hurt themselves? Similarly, we believe our joints and muscles to be limited in range of motion to protect ourselves from injury. But, with guidance and patience, we can open our proprioceptive sense and occupy space in ever-changing ways. And once you start this process, miraculous things occur. I'm not kidding. You can stand comfortably for longer; you don't mind when you have to sit on the floor; you can occupy yourself by expanding the diaphragm and intercostals on long car rides.
Everybody's different, right? Some people feel like they can move substantively and confidently through the world when they've crossed off everything on their todo list. Others get that ass-kicking feeling when they've performed, or gotten laid, or earned lots of money, or contemplated the mysteries of the world, or removed a booger from way back in their nasal cavity. We are what we do, and getting down and dirty with that old time proprioception is one of the things that makes me stand up a little straighter.
I love that yoga is a process, and I love that ideas you discover through working the body can bleed into other parts of your life. I know that sometimes the metaphors in yogic practice sound ridiculous (they really do), but there's an extent to which they make sense to practitioners. "Open your third eye" is a perfect explanation for relaxing the muscles that move the eyes, forehead, and scalp, an area of ENORMOUS tension for us anxious folk, and the concept of prana (universal energy) flow wheeling through chakras facilitates the relaxation and extension of muscle groups--making it easier to isolate and tone others--as well as discovering the center of gravity for arm balances and inversions. And when it hurts, the answer is always to breathe deeper, pull into your center, and calm down. Needless to say, this was a revelation to an Irish Catholic white boy from New England with a family history of medical issues related to inordinately HIGH ANXIETY.
Hoo. I don't want to make this post any longer, so maybe some other time we can get into my personal experiences of physical connectivity and body imagery, like scrubbing the inside of my skull during savasana, or connecting the eyeballs to the pelvic floor, wringing out and flushing the intestines, or...
Everybody's different, right? Some people feel like they can move substantively and confidently through the world when they've crossed off everything on their todo list. Others get that ass-kicking feeling when they've performed, or gotten laid, or earned lots of money, or contemplated the mysteries of the world, or removed a booger from way back in their nasal cavity. We are what we do, and getting down and dirty with that old time proprioception is one of the things that makes me stand up a little straighter.
I love that yoga is a process, and I love that ideas you discover through working the body can bleed into other parts of your life. I know that sometimes the metaphors in yogic practice sound ridiculous (they really do), but there's an extent to which they make sense to practitioners. "Open your third eye" is a perfect explanation for relaxing the muscles that move the eyes, forehead, and scalp, an area of ENORMOUS tension for us anxious folk, and the concept of prana (universal energy) flow wheeling through chakras facilitates the relaxation and extension of muscle groups--making it easier to isolate and tone others--as well as discovering the center of gravity for arm balances and inversions. And when it hurts, the answer is always to breathe deeper, pull into your center, and calm down. Needless to say, this was a revelation to an Irish Catholic white boy from New England with a family history of medical issues related to inordinately HIGH ANXIETY.
Hoo. I don't want to make this post any longer, so maybe some other time we can get into my personal experiences of physical connectivity and body imagery, like scrubbing the inside of my skull during savasana, or connecting the eyeballs to the pelvic floor, wringing out and flushing the intestines, or...
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Things That Are Terrible
This is slightly off topic, but I have to get these Things that are Terrible off my chest. You know, before the metaphorical immune system protecting my aesthetic sensibilities creates so much bile that my brain swells and/or pops, leaving me helpless in the face of the onslaught of painful procedural dramas (what happens when NCIS goes bad), reality television, and killer tomatoes.
Subjects today: "Underdog" by Spoon and "The Ruins" by Scott Smith.
Underdog - This song sounds like an amalgam of every overplayed classic rock song you've ever heard, and if you're around my age and grew up near a radio you've probably heard a lot of them--tired horn phrase, some hard-strumming guitar, and plaintive, upbeat male vocals singing about gettin' there, workin' hard, and what you have to do to survive. I am not against any of these things, I simply can not be expected to appreciate a song which is characterized by the uninspired re-mashing of said concepts to produce lethargic, repetitious, and grating sound poison. I only wish my neural networks could function faster, in order to send my fingers more speedily to the SEEK dial when I hear the opening tones of this terrible tune.
To it's credit, the lyrics (I listened to them once, while using the song as an exercise in mind-body centering to counter the rage impulse) are censuring small-mindedness and the inability to allow endeavors other than one's own any kind of significance. That is the only thing about this song I can put after the conditional phrase "To it's credit..." I listened to some other Spoon tracks, and my first impression was relative indifference, so maybe the rest of the album could be ok.
The Ruins - My contempt for this piece of printed media is not so strong as the aforelisted item. The writing does not suck, and he does a good job with some character exposition, albeit along grossly stereotyped lines. But, hey. This is a horror novel, aware of its pulpiness (which spares it from full derision) so, ok. But there is no excuse for the gross, really offensive--really, you just have to take my word for it because I could never in good conscience suggest that you read the book to find out for yourself--overuse of the word "implacable" and its many derivates.
The suspense was supsenseful for a while, but 1/3 of the way through the book I was reading every other paragraph of expo. I cannot fathom making it through this book without skimming. When shit started to go down things were appropriately gruesome, but then shit kept going down, implacably, and things remained gruesome. I couldn't wait for all of the characters to die and I only finished because I was on a bus, which was implacably moving forward. Ok, ok, I'll admit to curiosity as to whether or not there would be any survivors (there weren't), and whether or not the villain (an intelligent man-eating vine organism) would be explained (it wasn't). The book was implacable in attaining its haunting ending, implacably implacating the implacableness, implacable.
While I'm on terrible, Prey by Michael Crichton. I don't remember why, but boy, that was bad.
Alright, allow me some time to recover from the hate spitting and we'll get productive next time around.
Subjects today: "Underdog" by Spoon and "The Ruins" by Scott Smith.
Underdog - This song sounds like an amalgam of every overplayed classic rock song you've ever heard, and if you're around my age and grew up near a radio you've probably heard a lot of them--tired horn phrase, some hard-strumming guitar, and plaintive, upbeat male vocals singing about gettin' there, workin' hard, and what you have to do to survive. I am not against any of these things, I simply can not be expected to appreciate a song which is characterized by the uninspired re-mashing of said concepts to produce lethargic, repetitious, and grating sound poison. I only wish my neural networks could function faster, in order to send my fingers more speedily to the SEEK dial when I hear the opening tones of this terrible tune.
To it's credit, the lyrics (I listened to them once, while using the song as an exercise in mind-body centering to counter the rage impulse) are censuring small-mindedness and the inability to allow endeavors other than one's own any kind of significance. That is the only thing about this song I can put after the conditional phrase "To it's credit..." I listened to some other Spoon tracks, and my first impression was relative indifference, so maybe the rest of the album could be ok.
The Ruins - My contempt for this piece of printed media is not so strong as the aforelisted item. The writing does not suck, and he does a good job with some character exposition, albeit along grossly stereotyped lines. But, hey. This is a horror novel, aware of its pulpiness (which spares it from full derision) so, ok. But there is no excuse for the gross, really offensive--really, you just have to take my word for it because I could never in good conscience suggest that you read the book to find out for yourself--overuse of the word "implacable" and its many derivates.
The suspense was supsenseful for a while, but 1/3 of the way through the book I was reading every other paragraph of expo. I cannot fathom making it through this book without skimming. When shit started to go down things were appropriately gruesome, but then shit kept going down, implacably, and things remained gruesome. I couldn't wait for all of the characters to die and I only finished because I was on a bus, which was implacably moving forward. Ok, ok, I'll admit to curiosity as to whether or not there would be any survivors (there weren't), and whether or not the villain (an intelligent man-eating vine organism) would be explained (it wasn't). The book was implacable in attaining its haunting ending, implacably implacating the implacableness, implacable.
While I'm on terrible, Prey by Michael Crichton. I don't remember why, but boy, that was bad.
Alright, allow me some time to recover from the hate spitting and we'll get productive next time around.
Dialogic Gem
Lots of travel and excitement as of late, and I'm exhausted. So here's some dialogue.
Things you need to know, Aaron is freaking out because he's onto the fact that Jaye talks to inanimate objects. Jaye just won employee of the month at her crappy retail job. Sharon is a lesbian and she is totally not out to, well, pretty much anybody.
INT. THE BARREL
TIGHT ON two bubbling fondue pots shaped like barrels. One
is filled with chocolate, one with melted cheese. Jaye, Mom,
Dad, and Sharon sit around the fondue pot. Everyone has a
fondue fork except for Mom, who eats a salad. Jaye’s balloon
bouquet is tied to the back of her chair.
DAD
Where is Aaron? We celebrate all
Tyler victories as a family.
JAYE
I wouldn’t call this a victory.
Sharon scrutinizes Jaye’s Employee Of The Month certificate.
SHARON
This certificate’s invalid.
There’s no signature. Oh, wait.
There’s a stamp.
DAD
A stamp is good enough for me.
MOM
I guarantee you this’ll make the
Christmas letter.
JAYE
Oh, I wish it wouldn’t.
SHARON
There’s Aaron.
They all look to see a very gloomy Aaron approaching.
MOM
Hi, sweetheart!
DAD
Nice you could make it. Did you
see your sister’s certificate?
Aaron takes the certificate, but doesn’t look at it.
AARON
(low, to Jaye, as he sits)
What are you?
JAYE
Huh?
AARON
Are you like Dr. Dolittle?
MOM
Your blood sugar’s low. Here, dip
something.
AARON
It’s not my blood sugar. There’s
something out there and it’s
laughing at us.
SHARON
(re: Jaye)
Did she do this to you?
DAD
You really think your sister’s
special lunch is the appropriate
place for an existential crisis?
AARON
It’s not an existential crisis.
MOM
It’s nothing to be ashamed of,
sweetheart. You’re studying
religion, for godsake. You’re
bound to have one sooner or later.
AARON
Not an existential crisis. Just
the opposite. I was fine when
existence had no meaning.
Meaninglessness in a universe that
has no meaning -- that I get. But
meaninglessness in a universe with
meaning? What does that mean?
JAYE
It doesn’t mean anything.
AARON
Did the cow creamer tell you that?
DAD
What has gotten into you?
MOM
I am throwing that creamer away the
second we get home.
SHARON
The meaninglessness of meaning?
Are you people high?
MOM
Really, though.
JAYE
You want meaningless? This fondue
is meaningless. It mocks everyone
at this table.
DAD
That’s your celebratory fondue.
JAYE
I didn’t earn celebratory fondue.
I don’t deserve to be called
Employee of the Month. I don’t
deserve this certificate. I don’t
deserve a parking space on P-1.
(reconsidering)
But I am taking the afternoon off.
Jaye starts to head off, stops, goes back, grabs her balloons
and leaves. Aaron broods as he dips fondue. Mom and Dad are
flabbergasted. Dad turns to Sharon:
DAD
Anything you’d like to share?
She looks up, a piece of gooey cheese fondue half in her
mouth. She shakes her head --
SHARON
Uh-uh. No.
For the curious, that is from the Wonderfalls episode entitled "Muffin Buffalo." You should see it, the ensemble rapport is freakin fantastic.
Things you need to know, Aaron is freaking out because he's onto the fact that Jaye talks to inanimate objects. Jaye just won employee of the month at her crappy retail job. Sharon is a lesbian and she is totally not out to, well, pretty much anybody.
INT. THE BARREL
TIGHT ON two bubbling fondue pots shaped like barrels. One
is filled with chocolate, one with melted cheese. Jaye, Mom,
Dad, and Sharon sit around the fondue pot. Everyone has a
fondue fork except for Mom, who eats a salad. Jaye’s balloon
bouquet is tied to the back of her chair.
DAD
Where is Aaron? We celebrate all
Tyler victories as a family.
JAYE
I wouldn’t call this a victory.
Sharon scrutinizes Jaye’s Employee Of The Month certificate.
SHARON
This certificate’s invalid.
There’s no signature. Oh, wait.
There’s a stamp.
DAD
A stamp is good enough for me.
MOM
I guarantee you this’ll make the
Christmas letter.
JAYE
Oh, I wish it wouldn’t.
SHARON
There’s Aaron.
They all look to see a very gloomy Aaron approaching.
MOM
Hi, sweetheart!
DAD
Nice you could make it. Did you
see your sister’s certificate?
Aaron takes the certificate, but doesn’t look at it.
AARON
(low, to Jaye, as he sits)
What are you?
JAYE
Huh?
AARON
Are you like Dr. Dolittle?
MOM
Your blood sugar’s low. Here, dip
something.
AARON
It’s not my blood sugar. There’s
something out there and it’s
laughing at us.
SHARON
(re: Jaye)
Did she do this to you?
DAD
You really think your sister’s
special lunch is the appropriate
place for an existential crisis?
AARON
It’s not an existential crisis.
MOM
It’s nothing to be ashamed of,
sweetheart. You’re studying
religion, for godsake. You’re
bound to have one sooner or later.
AARON
Not an existential crisis. Just
the opposite. I was fine when
existence had no meaning.
Meaninglessness in a universe that
has no meaning -- that I get. But
meaninglessness in a universe with
meaning? What does that mean?
JAYE
It doesn’t mean anything.
AARON
Did the cow creamer tell you that?
DAD
What has gotten into you?
MOM
I am throwing that creamer away the
second we get home.
SHARON
The meaninglessness of meaning?
Are you people high?
MOM
Really, though.
JAYE
You want meaningless? This fondue
is meaningless. It mocks everyone
at this table.
DAD
That’s your celebratory fondue.
JAYE
I didn’t earn celebratory fondue.
I don’t deserve to be called
Employee of the Month. I don’t
deserve this certificate. I don’t
deserve a parking space on P-1.
(reconsidering)
But I am taking the afternoon off.
Jaye starts to head off, stops, goes back, grabs her balloons
and leaves. Aaron broods as he dips fondue. Mom and Dad are
flabbergasted. Dad turns to Sharon:
DAD
Anything you’d like to share?
She looks up, a piece of gooey cheese fondue half in her
mouth. She shakes her head --
SHARON
Uh-uh. No.
For the curious, that is from the Wonderfalls episode entitled "Muffin Buffalo." You should see it, the ensemble rapport is freakin fantastic.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Gripe #1: [Ex]igent Circumstances
Gripes are not fair. Complaining sucks, and there is always a far more sensible choice than offhandedly slinging disappointment and bitterness. Whenever I complain, I feel like I cut too broad a swathe. Unrestrained contempt is, after all, not a fine cutting tool. And didn't your Mom ever tell you nobody likes a whiner? Oh, what's that, you don't have a Mom? Sorry.
Now we're done with disclaimin' and down to complainin'! This is the internet, bitches.
Why does television insist on continuing to drop mysterious exes on the love interests of our protagonists? More importantly, how do the exes have such impeccable timing? Oh, oh so close to the moment of deliverance from weekly tension and frustration, our hero finally admits his or her feelings to his or herself! Or maybe to a friend! They prepare in dramatic fashion to catch up to the spurned love interest, only to find that at that very second in space and time, love interest is sucking face with the ex. I hurl my slipper at the screen to the befuddlement of my viewing partner, real or imagined, pause, and swear I'm done with this series forever for fifteen seconds before I can unpause again.
Maybe the problem is endemic to serial fiction. Dickens sometimes used the format as a kind of character history strip-tease ("It was the money left me, and the gains of the first few year wot I sent home to Mr. Jaggers"), but TV, unfortunately, doesn't have the luxury of letting characters work through their shit psychologically. Well, I guess they could, but it's TV. Why not just put the issue on the screen for us to see, right? And it's just so damned... logical. Structurally and whatnot. One of the best episodes of Wonderfalls is the one after Heidi comes back; Grey's Anatomy got a whole season (and a shitty spin-off show) out of Addison dropping by; can't think of any others off the top of my head but the inappropriate use of semi-colons excites me; OH, what's that another semi-colon.
Now we're done with disclaimin' and down to complainin'! This is the internet, bitches.
Why does television insist on continuing to drop mysterious exes on the love interests of our protagonists? More importantly, how do the exes have such impeccable timing? Oh, oh so close to the moment of deliverance from weekly tension and frustration, our hero finally admits his or her feelings to his or herself! Or maybe to a friend! They prepare in dramatic fashion to catch up to the spurned love interest, only to find that at that very second in space and time, love interest is sucking face with the ex. I hurl my slipper at the screen to the befuddlement of my viewing partner, real or imagined, pause, and swear I'm done with this series forever for fifteen seconds before I can unpause again.
Maybe the problem is endemic to serial fiction. Dickens sometimes used the format as a kind of character history strip-tease ("It was the money left me, and the gains of the first few year wot I sent home to Mr. Jaggers"), but TV, unfortunately, doesn't have the luxury of letting characters work through their shit psychologically. Well, I guess they could, but it's TV. Why not just put the issue on the screen for us to see, right? And it's just so damned... logical. Structurally and whatnot. One of the best episodes of Wonderfalls is the one after Heidi comes back; Grey's Anatomy got a whole season (and a shitty spin-off show) out of Addison dropping by; can't think of any others off the top of my head but the inappropriate use of semi-colons excites me; OH, what's that another semi-colon.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Gems of Dialogue
For your pleasure, I offer up the following gem of dialogue from Samurai Jack: the meanest, prettiest, sword-swingin-est cartoon I've ever fed my hungry little eyes.
Aku, the shape-shifting master of darkness, tears open a portal in time and sends our man Jack into the future. "Where my evil is law!" -Aku
Jack, naturally, is immediately clobbered by a flying car. This is the future, right? He falls and is clobbered by more flying cars until one police-enforcement lookin' vehicle begins to fire at Jack. In a heart-pounding action sequence, the samurai regains his footing, leaps onto the police vehicle, and severs its front end, proceeding to jump down flying cars to the ground as if they were hop-scotch squares. In the junk-alleys of the terrestrial level of the future, a gigantic, spike-wheeled trash compacter threatens to overtake Jack. Nimbly, he climbs its wheels and arrives safely by the streetside. Three curious creatures await him--one in red tones, a squat blue one with a round head, and a gangly green guy with, for lack of better explanation, a bubbling lava lamp for a head.
Beat, as they stare at him. Begin today's Gem of Dialogue:
[wild cheering and gesticulation, "That was bad, man!"]
Red: Yo, Jack! That was some AWEsome shown!
Blue: I ain't never feel the punk moves like that, Jack.
Green: Jack was all ricocheticky jumpadelic!
Red: A hiz-eck yeah, prodigiously acrobotastic.
Blue: Word, word, but then like, when Jack pulled that swizz-ord and was all like, SWING, SWACK, SWOOP, man, right through the car! Swick-attack-whack and spoil out the back, Jaaaaaaack!
Green: Aw yeah, yeah, and it was all shviiiiiiiiiing, PLOOM! Man, ain't that flunky crunker?
Red: Yo then my man just like lands all coolish style, like, "No sweatin' Joe!"
Green: B-b-b-but then that gunna-runna ramalama-lama, and that trashin' all munchin' and crunchin' and snack mixin'
Blue: Under that fat superfragicalilistic tistic tire, yo.
Red: Yeah but Jack's just like, "Word! Let me get some tire," grab, ZOOOP, "I'm out, Joe."
[Talking over each other]
Jack: Thank you. Where am I?
And that just about sums it up, folks. More Jack to come in the future. In the meantime, check out these words of wisdom from Beloved Yoga Teacher:
"The sides of the body aren't identical twins. They're much more like a brother and sister."
Truism, yo.
Aku, the shape-shifting master of darkness, tears open a portal in time and sends our man Jack into the future. "Where my evil is law!" -Aku
Jack, naturally, is immediately clobbered by a flying car. This is the future, right? He falls and is clobbered by more flying cars until one police-enforcement lookin' vehicle begins to fire at Jack. In a heart-pounding action sequence, the samurai regains his footing, leaps onto the police vehicle, and severs its front end, proceeding to jump down flying cars to the ground as if they were hop-scotch squares. In the junk-alleys of the terrestrial level of the future, a gigantic, spike-wheeled trash compacter threatens to overtake Jack. Nimbly, he climbs its wheels and arrives safely by the streetside. Three curious creatures await him--one in red tones, a squat blue one with a round head, and a gangly green guy with, for lack of better explanation, a bubbling lava lamp for a head.
Beat, as they stare at him. Begin today's Gem of Dialogue:
[wild cheering and gesticulation, "That was bad, man!"]
Red: Yo, Jack! That was some AWEsome shown!
Blue: I ain't never feel the punk moves like that, Jack.
Green: Jack was all ricocheticky jumpadelic!
Red: A hiz-eck yeah, prodigiously acrobotastic.
Blue: Word, word, but then like, when Jack pulled that swizz-ord and was all like, SWING, SWACK, SWOOP, man, right through the car! Swick-attack-whack and spoil out the back, Jaaaaaaack!
Green: Aw yeah, yeah, and it was all shviiiiiiiiiing, PLOOM! Man, ain't that flunky crunker?
Red: Yo then my man just like lands all coolish style, like, "No sweatin' Joe!"
Green: B-b-b-but then that gunna-runna ramalama-lama, and that trashin' all munchin' and crunchin' and snack mixin'
Blue: Under that fat superfragicalilistic tistic tire, yo.
Red: Yeah but Jack's just like, "Word! Let me get some tire," grab, ZOOOP, "I'm out, Joe."
[Talking over each other]
Jack: Thank you. Where am I?
And that just about sums it up, folks. More Jack to come in the future. In the meantime, check out these words of wisdom from Beloved Yoga Teacher:
"The sides of the body aren't identical twins. They're much more like a brother and sister."
Truism, yo.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Wonderfalls
As a sucker for novelty, I'm gonna have to start with the series I'm currently in the middle of. Wonderfalls was co-created by Brian Fuller (and some other peeps, but his is the name that seems to stick to all of these shows), the guy who continued on to bring us Dead Like Me and Pushing Daisies. Interestingly enough, executively produced by Tim Minear, who I buh-leeve is one of the Heroes guys (shudder). In total they produced 14 episodes, but only aired 4 before getting the axe which, dammit, is a shame. I guess understandable. This show doesn't have quite the perfectly buffed veneer that characterizes the studio display room. You know--at times it trots instead of gallops, risks inconsistency by stylizing episodes along different genre lines, and frequently relies on humor of the absurd. All quirks I adore, and which represent a huge potential in the medium, but the science of network television says delivering the same, not-too-challenging fare week in and week out is the money shot. Thank god for HBO, amiright or amiright?
Jaye is a wicked cool and disaffected 20-something living in a trailer and working retail at a tourist spot in Niagara Falls when inanimate critters start to speak to her, giving her instructions which inevitably lead to the warming of hearts and further knowledge of the self. And wait a second, what is with the unisex names for female protagonists in all these Fuller shows? Jaye, George (with sister Reggie), and Chuck. End aside.
Me, I got hooked when a chicken on the back of a hairpiece spoke to Jaye and said "Destroy Gretchen Hall" (or whatever her name was, sorry I'm not much of a detail guy). I'm by myself in my basement laughing tears into my eyes and smacking my thighs. I really slapped my thighs, I'm not kidding. Yeah the line loses its potency out of context (up until this point, the stuffed animals and whatnot have been giving kind, gentle, and somewhat obtuse advice) but this shit just tickles me. And the show is full of scenes that just pop with humor of the absurd. Lines like "I had some time to organize my thoughts while you were in a coma, and I have a business proposition for you" take these busted situations in stride and just roll with 'em. Or a kind nun in a crisis of faith wielding a knife over poor Jaye to cut the demons from her... it can get as weird as you want, but in the end is calmly incorporated into familiar character dramas. And it's all cool, because the unexplained talking objects have accounted for all twists of fate and freak occurrences.
Maybe my spot is soft because I, similarly to Jaye, am a happy-go-lucky need nothin' but a roof and three meals although at times societal pressures make me insecure about my position in life kind of person. But this show is totally strange and worthwhile, and I love that I can get my goopy shmaltz without having to feel bad about it because it's relentlessly peppered with shocks of absurdity.
Jaye is a wicked cool and disaffected 20-something living in a trailer and working retail at a tourist spot in Niagara Falls when inanimate critters start to speak to her, giving her instructions which inevitably lead to the warming of hearts and further knowledge of the self. And wait a second, what is with the unisex names for female protagonists in all these Fuller shows? Jaye, George (with sister Reggie), and Chuck. End aside.
Me, I got hooked when a chicken on the back of a hairpiece spoke to Jaye and said "Destroy Gretchen Hall" (or whatever her name was, sorry I'm not much of a detail guy). I'm by myself in my basement laughing tears into my eyes and smacking my thighs. I really slapped my thighs, I'm not kidding. Yeah the line loses its potency out of context (up until this point, the stuffed animals and whatnot have been giving kind, gentle, and somewhat obtuse advice) but this shit just tickles me. And the show is full of scenes that just pop with humor of the absurd. Lines like "I had some time to organize my thoughts while you were in a coma, and I have a business proposition for you" take these busted situations in stride and just roll with 'em. Or a kind nun in a crisis of faith wielding a knife over poor Jaye to cut the demons from her... it can get as weird as you want, but in the end is calmly incorporated into familiar character dramas. And it's all cool, because the unexplained talking objects have accounted for all twists of fate and freak occurrences.
Maybe my spot is soft because I, similarly to Jaye, am a happy-go-lucky need nothin' but a roof and three meals although at times societal pressures make me insecure about my position in life kind of person. But this show is totally strange and worthwhile, and I love that I can get my goopy shmaltz without having to feel bad about it because it's relentlessly peppered with shocks of absurdity.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Howdy
Let us begin simply. I am creating yet another this blog to glorify Gilmore Girls, one of the most surprising, lovely, and heartwarming byproducts to ever drain from the sewage tube of network television.
MULLIGAN! MULLIGAN!
... Ahem. I would like to announce the opening of my most recent blogging effort, through which I hope to make everyone love yoga and Lorelai Gilmore as much as I do.
Shit.
What I mean, is... I watch a lot of television. Not TV teevee, DVDs of televised serialized fiction. I also do lots of yoga. Now, there is a high likelihood I will never:
a) become a guru
b) write for television, or
c) do something useful like raise eggplants
and AS SUCH, I feel like the agency granted me by the miracle that is LIFE would be going to waste if I didn't make something of what I think about all day. Drivel. I'll be making drivel, which I would like you to imagine is the DELICIOUS ice cream topping it sounds like it should be.
I blame my penchant for the TV series on Charles Dickens and my ex-girlfriend who made me watch Sex and the City with her. Charles Dickens actually has nothing to do with it besides the fact he wrote his novels in INSTALLMENTS (which made a really strong impression on me in middle school), and the other thing to note is that, maybe two or three episodes into SatC, I was sitting the girlie down and bugging her to watch it with me. So at the end of the day I guess there is nothing to blame my obsession on but my animal nature. Grrrrrr.
But seriously, think about it, and what is there not to love? Once you've cracked that eggshell, you can get from zero to yolky empathy in NO TIME FLAT. The teaser is rolling, and you're already all "Holy shit McNulty is a fucking psycho," or "Will that goofball Chuck ever get it together?" Instant dramatic tension. Sometimes in a series, you have to wait sixty hours for the real character payoff. I get that some people don't have the patience, but if you can hold out long enough, man, that shit gets tantrically delightful. You can watch as much or as little as you want. You can watch while you stretch. You can watch while you iron. You can watch while you daydream of watching the rest, and some of 'em just keep going and going and going...
I'm not quite sure how the yoga fits in yet. Yoga gets ingrained in life at a pretty deep level when you spend some serious time with it (just like everything else) but the theory and whatnot behind it presumes a lot more than just that. And it's all about the body, and man you could spend your entire LIFE trying to figure that shit out and never get past the hip joints. Maybe it will just be an addendum at the end of posts. Time will tell, only time will tell.
So tune in soon. I expect I'll be tackling either Gilmore Girls, Battlestar Galactica, or Dead Like Me first. And yeah, yeah, yeah... I loved The Wire.
MULLIGAN! MULLIGAN!
... Ahem. I would like to announce the opening of my most recent blogging effort, through which I hope to make everyone love yoga and Lorelai Gilmore as much as I do.
Shit.
What I mean, is... I watch a lot of television. Not TV teevee, DVDs of televised serialized fiction. I also do lots of yoga. Now, there is a high likelihood I will never:
a) become a guru
b) write for television, or
c) do something useful like raise eggplants
and AS SUCH, I feel like the agency granted me by the miracle that is LIFE would be going to waste if I didn't make something of what I think about all day. Drivel. I'll be making drivel, which I would like you to imagine is the DELICIOUS ice cream topping it sounds like it should be.
I blame my penchant for the TV series on Charles Dickens and my ex-girlfriend who made me watch Sex and the City with her. Charles Dickens actually has nothing to do with it besides the fact he wrote his novels in INSTALLMENTS (which made a really strong impression on me in middle school), and the other thing to note is that, maybe two or three episodes into SatC, I was sitting the girlie down and bugging her to watch it with me. So at the end of the day I guess there is nothing to blame my obsession on but my animal nature. Grrrrrr.
But seriously, think about it, and what is there not to love? Once you've cracked that eggshell, you can get from zero to yolky empathy in NO TIME FLAT. The teaser is rolling, and you're already all "Holy shit McNulty is a fucking psycho," or "Will that goofball Chuck ever get it together?" Instant dramatic tension. Sometimes in a series, you have to wait sixty hours for the real character payoff. I get that some people don't have the patience, but if you can hold out long enough, man, that shit gets tantrically delightful. You can watch as much or as little as you want. You can watch while you stretch. You can watch while you iron. You can watch while you daydream of watching the rest, and some of 'em just keep going and going and going...
I'm not quite sure how the yoga fits in yet. Yoga gets ingrained in life at a pretty deep level when you spend some serious time with it (just like everything else) but the theory and whatnot behind it presumes a lot more than just that. And it's all about the body, and man you could spend your entire LIFE trying to figure that shit out and never get past the hip joints. Maybe it will just be an addendum at the end of posts. Time will tell, only time will tell.
So tune in soon. I expect I'll be tackling either Gilmore Girls, Battlestar Galactica, or Dead Like Me first. And yeah, yeah, yeah... I loved The Wire.
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