(Sorry I posted the wrong video there, I just assumed it was the right one and didn’t watch it to see the goofy people slipped into the John Hughes movies. It’s fixed now.)
Okay, I am mulling some ideas for reconstituting this blog. I’ll be talking about it more on Facebook, for the two or three of you who have ever looked at this.
I’m trying out a new rating system for things, I’ll be using it again in my year’s reading in review post and also an upcoming blog series about music, so here’s the explanation up front: rather than numerical ratings which can be kind of ridiculous (once you into get the question of whether this drawing-room drama is better than this sci-fi comedy and how much better things can really get obnoxious), I wanted to go with something that actually said something about the movies and how I felt about them, though there is still some anxiety on my part about where to place some things. But anyway, the (mostly self-explanatory) categories (that I’m going to explain anyway) are:
My Personal Canon: These are the books and movies and songs and things that I really love, the ones that make me who I am as a person and as a wannabe artist. They are the shimmering stars in my artistic firmament. There are two sub-categories: Chilly Classics, which are works that I particularly admire but do not truly love (Citizen Kane, for example) and Nostalgiariffic which obviously are the works I loved at a certain time and a certain place and I can hardly be objective about today.
Top-Notch: This is the very best stuff. I mean I think this stuff is great. There is only one sub-category Potential Canon, Yo!, which you could make a case that all of these works could fit in the sub-category, since my feelings about things do change over time and I rarely add anything to my canon right away (not that there’s an actual list I’m adding things to), but these are works I want to especially single out for likely hall-of-fame status.
Recommended: Maybe not the very best, but entirely respectable. These are the ones where I might say, “That’s a good movie” or book or whatever and opposed to “That’s a good movie” or book or whatever. Again, sometimes these get better upon consideration, while others might fade from memory or esteem.
Good, But: I mostly liked it, but I had reservations. Duh.
Pretty Good, If: you don’t mind the something that’s terrible about it, or you really like the something that’s good about it.
Coulda Shoulda Woulda: I believe that there is the germ of something redeemable about this, but it just never flowers.
Meh: Meh.
D’oh!: Duh. Also has three subcategories: ZZzzz, which is boring crap, Grrr, which is crap that makes me angry, and Sigh, which is crap I just feel sorry for.
With a few exceptions, most of the things I’m writing about shortly after encountering them for the first time will fall into the range from Coulda Shoulda Wouldas to Top-Notch, and given time and thought things will drift up and down and some will move into the Meh, D’oh, and Canon categories.
So, the movies and television shows I can remember watching since my last post, arranged by category, and with a couple comments:
Like I said, there was a lot of stuff I can’t remember, I watch a lot of TV and movies, and it’s been a long time since my last review round-up.
You know, it’s been a while, I read some shit, I’m gonna talk about it. At length. Yadda yadda yadda.
Let’s see, I know I read You Suck by Christopher Moore, and like a certain other vampire book I could name it was pretty much a disappointment. There were some brilliant and twisted ideas hidden in there, but the jokes were over-explained, the characters were little more than shallow one-note gag types, and the book never really recovered from opening a little too in media res for it’s own good which left the narrator awkwardly throwing expository nuggets all over the place. An abundance of ideas smothered by clumsy storytelling.
Considerably better was King Dork by Frank Portman aka Dr Frank of The Mr T Experience semi-fame. The gimmick to this one is it’s a Catcher in the Rye-influenced coming of age story about a kid who hates Catcher in the Rye and the phony rebel-philia that surrounds it, and also the kid and his friend are always starting bands with awesome names, and he also is trying to solve a mystery about his father that has consequences in the modern day, etc. It’s actually very funny and perceptive, if somewhat misogynistic in that confused teenage boy way.
Even better was another YA title I read, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It made me cry, which granted, I’m a softie so it really isn’t that hard to do, and given that it’s a story about a girl in WW2-era Germany that is narrated by Death, you pretty much know what’s coming, but honest to god, this book really earns the tears. I went into it feeling a little jaded about authors that use the tragedies inherent in the Nazi era to lend their stories some kind of gravitas, and the first 30 or so meandering pages didn’t help any, but after that it settles in and becomes something really special. Though I do have to say that the writing is perhaps unnecessarily showy at times- Zusak seems to want to be Jonathan Safran Foer, and sometimes his ambitions overwhelm his talents- but his little experiments pay off as often as not.
Believe it or not, that was not the only YA book set in the past, using a historical tragedy as it’s backdrop, and featuring difficult, playful, experimental prose to capture my heart: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing Vol 1- The Pox Party by M. T. Anderson was just about The Book Thief’s equal, though somewhat weakened by the fact that it is only half of a story. (Even more annoying, the library has Volume 2 only as an audio recording, and it’s something like seventeen hours long so feh.) It’s the story of a slave, the son of an African princess, who is raised in Revolution-era Boston by a College of scientists and philosophers and is also the subject of one of their experiments, to determine the relative intellectual abilities of Africans. The story is about his gradual realization of the nature of his existence, and his eventual revolt. Written in a fairly demanding (at least for kids) and period-appropriate style, this is pretty marvelous.
Nearly as good, (and the final YA Book of this set, goddamnit) was Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones. I am not the biggest Jones fan in the world, I like the first Chrestomanci but was ambivalent about the second, and that’s as far as I’ve read into her works (though I’ve seen and liked the Ghibli movie of Howl’s Moving Castle). Dogsbody may have won me over. It’s a pretty strange tale about Sirius, the dog star, who is convicted by his fellow Celestials of a murder he claims to not have committed, a claim that is weakened by his history of violent outbursts. As punishment he is reborn as a puppy on Earth, and with his new limited perspective and flawed memory he has to prove his innocence and recover the murder weapon- the Zoi, a mysterious item of considerable power. It gets even stranger from there, and it is compellingly written, filled with ideas and surprises and complex, fascinating characters. Seriously, this is a really, really good book.
Dogsbody was one of three books I read while on vacation in Arizona. One of the others was Player Piano, Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel. I’m always a little sad after I read a new Vonnegut book, knowing that there’s one less out there for me to read; worse, I think I’ve already been through the truest and best classics of his oeuvre. Which is not to say there aren’t still lots to enjoy about the books I have left, including this one. It’s more of a traditional sci-fi than some of his later works (no outer space or aliens or anything like that, though), and the Vonnegut style is not fully developed, but there are a surfeit of interesting ideas, including some of his trademark themes- the importance of engineers and middle management to the modern world, the concern over the loss of extended families, the power of prophets, even false ones, and the inevitable failures of revolution. Damn near essential for Vonnegut fans, not so much for others, but who the hell isn’t a Vonnegut fan and why the hell not?
The last Arizona book was Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser, which is a wicked good time. Probably even better for devoted students of English history and literature, these are the purported papers of a Flashman, an unrepentant bully and nogoodnik character from Tom Brown’s Schooldays, and it follows him after his expulsion from school on a variety of degenerate and amoral adventures through some of the shadiest and most disastrous exploits of colonial Britain, which through his cunning and cowardice and dumb luck he always manages to turn to his own advantage. I’m looking forward to picking up the sequels down the road. Loads of fun and the very definition of picareque.
When I got home I read a couple recent releases by a couple of my favorite This American Life contributors and yours: The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell and When You Are Engulfed In Flames by David Sedaris. The Wordy Shipmates is typical Sarah Vowell. It’s about the Puritans, the founding of the Massachusetts Bay colony, the Roger Williams/John Winthrop story (seriously, one of the best stories about the founding of America), the Pequot War, and the Anne Hutchison trial, which foreshadows the Salem Trials to come. It’s all very entertaining and informative and even thought-provoking, but it isn’t terribly essential or anything. It hangs together better than Assassination Vacation did, at least.
When You Are Engulfed In Flames is also typical- typical David Sedaris. Which means it’s a collection of funny, depressing, perceptive mostly autobiographical sketches. He is a brilliant observer of people, and all these pieces are anchored by a humane spirit. Honestly, it’s wonderful stuff, and inspiring. I always start itching for the pen after reading Sedaris- it’s not that I really want to write like David Sedaris or the kind of things that he writes, but I would love to write half so well.
I also read The Lion Among Men, which is Gregory Maguire’s third book in what he (or his publisher) is now inexplicably calling “The Wicked Years” series. It follows (duh!) the Cowardly Lion, and though it takes place after Son of A Witch it doesn’t really follow up much on the events of that novel, and we never see Liir or Candle in the book, though they are talked about a lot. We do, however, get some of the central mysteries of the first two books cleared up, namely the natures of Yackle and of the Clock of the Time Dragon, and it’s kind of a let-down, no surprise there. We also catch up with Nor. Anyway, this book was better than Son of A Witch, but not as good as Wicked. It was at the least, a good deal funnier than Son of a Witch, and it had a lot of forward momentum. On the downside, there is some furry sex that is highly disturbing and will probably have you reaching for the mind-bleach, seriously, it’s awful. It definitely feels like a transitional book, so expect to see a follow-up soon. I can’t decide if I want to keep following this series or not, while this book was okay, I’m not in love with it, and there are so many genuinely great books out there. I do kind of want to know what happens, though.
Let’s see, I also read The Two, which is a biography of the original Siamese Twins, Chang and Eng Bunker, written by Amy and Irving Wallace. The twins had a fascinating life- being taken from their native Siam by opportunistic (if not really bad) Westerners and turned into one of the great attractions of their time, then managing to get out from under that and becoming one of the only successful acts of their type to manage themselves. Then, tiring of the limelight, they settled in North Carolina, married sisters and became honest-to-god Southerners complete with slaves and children serving in the Confederate army. They traveled all over the world, had fascinating and different personalities, were flirtatious and not afraid of getting into fights (which they usually won, being possessed of the strength of two men after all), and met up with some of the major figures of their era. On the downside, the book is middling, with most of the really compelling material being the excerpts from contemporary accounts and the Twins’ own correspondence; also the authors sometimes presuppose their conclusions and try to make the evidence fit their interpretation of events. In a nutshell, fascinating material with a middling presentation.
I also read Tricked by Alex Robinson, it’s the first of Alex Robinson’s graphic novels I’ve read, I’m going to read more. It was good, and I had some thoughts about how some parts worked better than others and stuff, but the details escape me. Onward and upward.
The biggest chunk of reading I’ve done since my last post, though, has to be the first seven books in Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series: The Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, The Shadow Rising, The Dragon Reborn, The Fires of Heaven, Lord of Chaos, The Crown of Swords. Except for the second half of the last one, it’s really re-reading; Jordan was a staple of my adolescent fantasy diet. He died recently, while working on the final book in the series, and some other writer has been called in to finish the series, the news of which prompted this burst of re-reading. I don’t really want to talk too much about these, because I think I’ll have a big post after I finish up. Suffice it to say that The Eye of the World is pretty pedestrian, familiar post-Tolkien fantasy, but when he starts to open up the number of viewpoint characters in The Great Hunt, things start to get interesting. Books two through six are pretty amazing (the whole series is a feat of world-building), but by the end of Lord of Chaos there are already too many threads, too many characters, and the whole thing starts collapsing under the weight of it, with the plot slowing down to a crawl. Book Seven still has it’s moments, but there are problems. In my big post (if I ever finish the series and finally write it), I’ll talk about Jordan’s difficulty with female characters, which is highlighted by how central gender issues are to the whole series (the balance of power between the sexes is the central theme of the series, something I had mostly missed as a kid). Other things to discuss include why destiny and prophecy are killing modern fantasy, and the use of cliche and filler to make reading faster and easier as seen not only here but in Harry Potter and Twilight, and how that can also lead to irritating verbal and character tics, as seen especially here. And I’ll also talk about what this series means to me, which is quite a lot.
I did read some other things, ya know, and bits of other things, but I either cannot remember them or don’t have enough to say about them or feel like I shouldn’t say anything about them. Plus this is already too long. One thing I am thinking of doing is making just a short blog post every time I finish one or two books, whenever that is, because I’m betting nobody struggles all the way through these monster posts. I’m gonna also try to write a little thing summarizing all my 2008 reading, and later still my new series about reading the Canon will (maybe) start. There’s also a post coming to catch up on movies and stuff, but it’s not going to be thorough or complete (I ain’t been keeping good records) and may mostly forgo the capsule reviews. Later.
(Quick preface: if you haven’t read any of my previous blogs you should probably just ignore this. There’s a new review round-up coming later this week, and a new direction for this blog some indefinite time after that.)
Marty Winesmith is dead.
I first met Marty back in January 28th of this year at Rosie’s Halloween party, which had run long as usual. We clicked almost immediately, and I found myself telling him the story of the time I tried to become an astronaut, and listening to him tell the story of the time he fell in love with a girl only to have her stolen away by the Grim Reaper. It was strange; we told our stories in concert, first me telling a little of my story, and then waiting for him to tell a little of his, and we became more and more agitated as the stories built in intensity, so that at the end we were practically screaming at each other. Rosie asked us to leave, but we just stared at each other in silence.
Marty spoke first. “You know what this is?” he asked. I did, but I was going to let him say it, so I just grinned as he erupted. “THIS IS A BLOG!!!”
I went home that night and we began conferring via e-mail, tying our stories together, enriching them, and polishing the language. The next night I posted the first part of our story, an innocuous little piece absurdly entitled, “The Latest.”
It didn’t really attract much attention, but we kept plugging away at it for a couple months, until we realized that we hated it and it was going to take us forever to get to the good parts and nobody else cared anyways.
And then Marty fell sick with a mysterious ailment that apparently affected his liver, his right knee, and sometimes caused terrible migraines. His e-mails grew less and less frequent. I, for my part, tried to keep the collaboration alive, if only to keep his spirits up. I e-mailed him 3 or 4 times a day, not to mention the phone messages and chats with his friends and neighbors, but it seemed like the more effort I put forward the sicker Marty got.
Then just today I recieved this e-mail from Marty’s old e-mail address:
“Marty is dead. Please do not call or e-mail him any more as it is just too painful for us, his family. Also do not speak to his friends about this, because they will probably bring it up to us, and, you know, it’s too sad or whatever. Luckily we still have his twin brother who is a lot like him and also named Marty except he has no interest in blogs and also he doesn’t know you, so you might see him around at parties or whatever but he is also sad about Marty’s death so just be cool, man.
Seriously,
Marty’s Family “
So there you have it. Marty Winehouse, one of the great literary minds of our times, is gone. The world is poorer for it.
At any rate, it seems wrong to continue the blog in light of his death, but it also seems wrong to turn my and Marty’s faithful readers away without any kind of clue as to how this story would pay off, or not, as the case may be. So without further adieu, here is a rough idea of how the story would have gone.
(Note: The following makes no sense. It actually makes negative sense -previously thought to be a theoretical construct- if you haven’t read the previous Adventures in Astronaut Training posts.)
The cockatoo gets caught, and is named Crackers. Vera intervenes before I (or Clyde) can speak to it and takes it away, eventually assigning Mendeleev to take care of it. Katya catches Mendeleev torturing the animal, which leads to a rift in their relationship, and she conspires with me to rescue the poor bird. We do, but while it admits to being the source of the voice, it now claims to be insane and is even less helpful than before, though it does drop some hints and clues and whatnot.
A lot of things happen at school, there is a mysterious class for just me and Clyde under the tutelage of Charles Manson, and serious divisions begin to form in the class with two main groups, mine and Katya’s and Clyde and Mendeleev’s, pitting even brother against brother. Jerry Ringling is shot, and the question of who shot him forms a mystery with an anticlimactic ending.
Then Katya’s uncle Jacob joins the class. That’s Jacob Smirnov. Get it? Think about it.
Jacob…. Jakob…. Jakov… Yakov? See? This would have allowed us to make a million Yakov Smirnov jokes, fulfilling my lifelong dream of typing “In Soviet Russia…” and “What a Country!” over and over and over.
There would be some more implications and hints and clues etc. but it’s all leading to the big reveal (ultimately explained once we get to the moon) that Death is running a sweatshop on the moon for a large multi-national corporation, exploiting the legions of the dead for cheap labor. Unfortunately, the CEO of that corporation then died himself and was force into service, and now his heirs want him out, and there is some crazy legal loophole that require a specific type of person who dies on the moon and can make a specific labor complaint (regarding health issues) to nullify the contract and their corporation is the one behind the school and blah blah blah.
Also Hitler is one of the labor leaders in the death camp, and he’s teamed up with the CEO to make this contract nullification happen, enlisting one of his own Grammar Nazi agents, who is also the imaginary Grammar Nazi from the second post (with the mustache), who is aka Liberty Pie! What a revelation! But it doesn’t happen for a while. And also Crackers the cockatoo has a brother named Cheese who is actually on the moon and is a labor lawyer in charge of the whole deal, and there’s a big backstory to all that but who cares, right?
Anyway, me and Clyde are the two who actually fit the bill (in this class, there have been previous failed attempts) to die and file the complaint because of some unique health factors. It seems Clyde is a cyborg, and I’m 1/16 ape (and I have a vestigial tail), which leads into the fascinating adventure/love-story of my ancestor Paul of the Apes, which would have filled up a couple weeks at least.
So we go to the moon (Lar dies in a horrible accident on the trip and the moon lander is damaged), and we are taken to Cheese’s camp where (almost) everything is revealed. Clyde decides that it is a noble cause, and he wants to go through with it, and most of his group agrees, with the surprising exception of that maverick Chris Mendeleev, who makes an uneasy truce with my group and joins us as we make our escape.
We head back to the lander in the hopes that Katya can repair it, but we are followed by Liberty Pie who threatens us, kidnaps Chris, and most shockingly of all, kills the love of my life, Katya Smirnov. This is the moment that the whole story has led up to, and the story’s raison d’etre is revealed in doting uncle Jacob’s anguished cry, “Oh, how I long to be back in Soviet Russia, where we are dead and my little Katya is yet alive!” That’s right, the whole reason we came up with this story is so we could use the saddest Soviet Russia joke of all time. You’re welcome.
With that over, it’s all downhill. Dejected, we head back to Cheese’s camp, where we discover that Clyde was also kidnapped by Liberty and some of her dead Nazi friends. It seems that Hitler has his own plans and is double-crossing our evil corporation. Me, Jacob, and my crew escape Cheese again, and with new recruit Jer’s help we track Liberty to the secret Nazi camp, where Hitler is building a super-cyborg-Aryan army to reconquer the earth as soon as he is free. But unfortunately for them, it turns out Clyde is immortal, and cannot be used in the loophole scheme, so they capture and attempt to kill me, but just then the Grim Reaper shows up.
He’s there with Katya, and she’s explained everything to him, and he’s here to put a stop to the whole she-bang. I use my superior grammar skills to destroy Liberty Pie, and Death pretty much takes care of the rest. I then offer my life in exchange for Katya’s, but Death refuses. Chris, who also died in the big confrontation and is complaining and whining a great deal to Death, tricks him into slipping up and revealing that he cannot refuse us if we offer to play a game with equal stakes. Clyde and I then stake our lives against Katya and Chris’, and I hadn’t figured out completely what I was going to do here, but I think tic-tac-toe might be involved, and also Clyde’s superior math brain would have been the deciding factor. Death seems particularly despondent over the loss of Katya, who he wanted to be his new vice-president and union liason.
Anyway, Katya and Jer fix the rocket and we all go home. Me and Katya start dating, but she seems ever more distant. She starts getting secret e-mails, phone messages, flowers and candy, and then one night I discover Death serenading her outside her window. She confesses that she truly loves him, and I reluctantly step aside, and she returns with him to the moon as his consort.
Bored once again, I decide to return the the NET Bowling League, where there is a power vacuum. Chris and Clyde have also rejoined, and I run against Chris for commissioner, and in the debate the shocking true story of the origin of our enmity is revealed and some amends are made. But that is a story for another day.
Anyway, we both lose to dark horse candidate James Farmheath, and me, Chris, and Clyde key his car. The End.
Small Steps by Louis Sachar
I’m a big fan of Sachar; the three Wayside School books (especially the first one) are long time favorites, and Holes is one of the masterpieces of modern children’s lit. This here is a sort-of sequel to Holes, focusing on supporting characters Armpit and X-Ray now out in the world, as Armpit tries to take “small steps” towards leading a respectable life outside of Camp Green Lake. When compared with Holes, the book inevitably comes up short, but it’s ambitions are more modest. As a gentle, affecting story for the teen set with a “good message” it is essentially effective. The characters are sympathetic, the tone is light and funny (though not as funny as Sachar at his best) and it manages to be more complex and nuanced than most other kid’s books with a moral. Things don’t really work out perfectly in the end, and Sachar manages to make some subtle points about racism, class, the emptiness of commercial culture and so on without really beating us over the head with it. Much.
However, most of the details are pretty fuzzy at this point (a month since I read it), which suggests that I might not even remember it at all in another month or so. I’ve read a lot of the lesser Sachar books (Boy in the Girls Bathroom, the Angeline & Some Other Kid books, etc.) and I couldn’t tell you what any of them were about, while I remember certain chapters of the Wayside books with extraordinary clarity. I also know I was going to criticize a couple things about the book that struck me as false and/or heavy-handed just after I read it, but I find they too have faded from my mind. Oh well.
Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire
I liked Wicked quite a lot, though it must be said that much of the book’s power comes from it’s relationship to the familiar story of Oz, and the fact that we know how it ends is the engine of the book’s plot. After all, Elphaba never really accomplishes much of anything. Though she is a fascinating character, her story is more of potential greatness and her power as a symbol (both for her admirers and her detractors) than any great deeds she personally accomplishes. At the end of the book not only has she completely failed to bring about any of the changes in Oz that she had worked for, but she’s mostly stopped trying. Anyway, the Oz stories that follow the original are less familiar to most people (and to me) so Son of a Witch is starting at a disadvantage (this is somewhat balanced by the fact that we are familiar with Wicked and SoaW’s large supporting cast, so that finding out what Glinda’s doing and where Nor is and seeing Yackle and Nanny again are reasons to plod along). To be fair, except for a brief glimpse of Tip and some references to Ozma, Maguire doesn’t really bother linking his story with the Oz sequels, and doesn’t seem interested in doing so.
Another disadvantage for Son of a Witch is that Liir is not nearly as compelling a protagonist as Elphaba was. He spends most of the book whining about how he isn’t really cut out to be a hero and it doesn’t take long before we start to believe him, even if he ultimately accomplishes more than Elphie ever did. So this one doesn’t really measure up to it’s predecessor, but that doesn’t mean it’s all bad. There are some lovely bits; I especially like the two medicinal maunts and some of the birds, and the fairly unheroic defeat of the dragons. I also liked the ambiguous ending, that instead of learning why Candle has gone, Liir just thinks up a half a dozen possibilities. The big reveal at the end was not in the least surprising, but the excerpt from Wicked was touching, and reminds you why you bothered to read this in the first place. Anyway, if you liked Wicked it’s worth picking up.
The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman
I was somewhat familiar with Hodgman from the Daily Show, and from all the internet hype he received after this book came out, and also his connections to Jonathan Coulton and They Might Be Giants, so I knew going into this that he was my kind of guy. The kind of guy, that is, who shares my long-time obsession with hoboes and revisionist history. So it wasn’t really a surprise that I dug this delightful almanac of complete world knowledge. Like the Daily Show book (which I read a couple months ago and forgot to review), it’s not the kind of thing that really sticks to your bones, but that you could dip back into now and again for a good chuckle.
Oh, and just so you know, I wrote that About Me story for Tiffany’s page before I read this. I was surprised at how strikingly similar it is to sections of this book – Hodgman is funnier, of course – and he even references Hoover building a secret robot army. Great minds and all that, I suppose.
Bob Dylan: Chronicles Volume 1
This is compulsively readable and engaging. Essential for Dylan fans. Typically confounding expectations, Dylan focuses on periods of his life and albums that are generally overlooked, rather than telling his side of the many legendary stories that surround him, or explaining how his canonical albums came about. Dylan is deft as ever with his language, but where he is usually surreal and opaque, he writes here plainly and with clarity. There are exceptions, and there are some passages (notably about an unusual playing style he discovered) that are barely comprehensible and possibly a big gag. But there is probably less weirdness and obfuscation than might have been expected, and the book is mostly filled with enlightening tidbits. He is also surprisingly generous about all the people in his past, even as he describes fundamental disagreements he is sure to paint his influences, rivals, collaborators and contemporaries in a positive light. Good stuff, and I await future volumes.
Blindness by Jose Saramago
Excellent book, about an epidemic of blindness. At first I was afraid the anti-religion allegory (as in “blinded by the light”, Paul of Tarsus, etc.) was being laid on a bit thick, but by gradually adding depth to the characters, and the accumulation of powerful and all-too-human scenes, it becomes a good deal more. The allegory itself gets added poignance and complexity with the powerful scene at the church. And though it piles on a thousand tragedies great and small, the tight plotting and occasional ray of hope keep the book from ever becoming too difficult to read. As an aside, I’m not crazy about the way so many modern fiction writers do away with the quotation mark, while sometimes it can lend flow and rhythm to a conversation, as often as not it only creates confusion where there should be clarity.
There is also some complexity with the intrusion of the narrator, the identity of whom is not entirely clear (though it is implied near the end), and which might be read as a weird sort of breaking of the fourth wall. The narrator stuff also ties into some complicated issues about gender in the book. The narrator makes more than one casually sexist comment, and the plot prominently features some horrifying violence against women on the one hand, but on the other the women (and especially one woman) are the most fleshed out characters in the book, and indeed the hero(in)es of the story. The men tend to be passive victims, it is the women who are pro-active, and take the necessary steps to ensure survival, or justice, or the protection of their loved ones.
I read this in part because there is a movie coming out, directed by Fernando Meirelles, one of my favorite young directors (he directed City of God, which is basically a perfect film, and The Constant Gardener, which was pretty good). The preview looks kind of dumb, but I still got hopes.
Incidentally, Saramago is the sixteenth (seventeenth if you include Sartre) Nobel prize-winner that I have read a major work by. I would rank him somewhere in the middle, eighth or ninth I think. If I wasn’t about to embark on a different project, I might try reading something by every Nobel prize-winner. Maybe someone else can do that.
Nine Stories by JD Salinger
For me, this is not only the last of Salinger’s three major works (the others being Catcher and Franny and Zooey), but the least. Which is not to say it’s bad. On the contrary, some of the stories (Bananafish, Laughing Man, To Esme) were quite terrific. But the book is uneven, and overall feels a little same-y. Also, his neurotic protagonists, while relatable, began to sound shrill and insufferable by the time I got to the end. In the stories within the stories, Salinger shows off an especially sharp imagination. I would like to have seen him write some straight-up genre work. I bet he’d be good at it. Then again, for all we know, he has.
Franny and Zooey is still my favorite, though it’s possible that my view of the book is colored by my associations of where I read it (on a cruise). In general I tend to have a closer relationship with the works of art that I associate with specific memories. F’r instance, Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde and Billy Bragg and Wilco’s Mermaid Avenue take me back to our trip to Montana very strongly, and they are consequently (at least partially because of the association) among my favorite albums.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Someone on the internet linked me to Michael Pollan’s talk at Google, and I found myself pretty much fascinated watching a 45 minute video of some guy just talking about food. I picked this up at the library the next week, and this is an incredible book. It wrestles with the question “What should we eat?” by following the paths our foods take to get to our plate using four example meals (from a McDonald’s drive through, from a Whole Foods supermarket, from a local sustainable farm, and one that he hunts and forages for himself). The book could be accused of working from some assumed conclusions; Pollan seems to know the answers to a lot of his questions before he even asks them. But while he makes some good arguments about the problems with our industrial food culture, and shows us the main alternatives, he doesn’t propose any clear cures or answers to these problems. The book also manages to simply and coherently explain the curious history of how we got to this point (how corn got cheaper to buy than to make, how the corn surplus basically created the industrial food culture, the birth of the organic movement and it’s subsequent co-opting by the forces of industry) and why this system is unsustainable, not to mention bad for us. While the book necessarily wrestles with ethical, moral and ecological questions, it never (or almost never) gets preachy, and acknowledges the importance of economic realities. If most fruits and vegetables didn’t make me gag, this book might very well change the way I eat.
Some Other Stuff I Read
I also read some Angel and Buffy comics (solid, not great), some Batman comics (mediocre), a good chunk of a racist joke book from the 1930s (most of it was too unfunny to be offensive, but look up the “Little Willies” sometime if you want to be horrified at the things your grandparents thought were funny), and bits from David Denby’s Great Books (which partially inspired me to finally kick off a project I’ve been mulling for a while). There was probably other stuff as well but I just can’t think of it. Oh, I picked up a couple new web comics. Hitmen for Destiny is amazing. Ignore the fact that it’s ugly and riddled with typographical errors and a little hard to follow at the beginning. Power through a little bit, and you will find an addictive comic with an imaginative and surprisingly deep world and some wonderful characters and humor (Professor Dripkettle is the best). Allan is a pretty good diary strip. And not new, but just finished is the gorgeous Rice Boy, which calls to mind such luminaries as Miyazaki, Suess, and Woodring.
Gargoyles
I’ve been a little disappointed by where this show has gone since I last wrote about it. In fact I got so bored with the series of episodes known as the “World Tour” I kinda dropped it. I think the biggest problem the show has is that they knew they might air out of order, so it’s nearly impossible for them to build up a good run of continuity, except in the tentpole multi-parters. Also, they seem to be good at adding cool new ideas and characters to the show, but not so good at utilizing them to their full potential. The Gargoyles universe is an awesome toybox, but at some point I start to feel like they’ve added enough toys, let’s do something with them now. I still think it’s a good show, and I’ll get back to finishing it eventually, but my enthusiasm is tempered.
Weeds S3 and S4E1
After a rousing start, Season Three struggles to keep up the quality. Most of the U-Turn storyline is a disaster, and some of the other stories (I’m looking at you, Andy in the Army) never really come together at all. Worst of all is the direction they take Nancy’s character, as she becomes increasingly unlikable (and kind of slutty). And as the new season begins, with Nancy getting essentially a clean slate, there appears to be no reason whatsoever for her to take this new job for Guillermo (who is one of the least interesting characters to ever appear on this show). Having seen how her career is affecting Shane, and having proven that she can get and hold a real job, and with no bad guys hanging over her head, there is no reason for her to continue in the drug trade that I can see at all. On the other hand, we still got Doug. Doug is the best. Doug is the reason I will keep watching this show. Honestly, any thing with Doug = Gold.
Malcolm in the Middle
I (re-, in some cases)watched most of S1-3, and a bit of S4. Admittedly, the show wasn’t always on its game, and suffers early on when compared to the Simpsons, but anchored by the amazing performance by Bryan Cranston and Jane Kaczmarack (sp?) as Hal and Lois, the show grows ever more absurd and the writers start really messing around with the storytelling in S2, which is the show’s clear peak. “Bowling” in particular is a classic (one of the eps that I had never seen before), and the jump-cut to the burnt house in the Craig ep is one of my favorite things ever. S4 is more inconsistent so far, though the family reunion episode has a special place in my heart as well. This show really deserves some proper DVD releases.
Death Note (E1-36)
Holy awesome. Incredible premise, stunningly executed. Honesty the storytelling prowess displayed here is worth the price of admission. The pace never lets up, the story consistently surprises, I love it. But a little over halfway through comes one of the biggest twists of all and I am slightly less happy with the direction it’s taken since then (and not only because the new credits songs are not as good). I would like to see more time spent on Kira moving his plan for his new world forward, and a little less time on these new guys, though obviously the show is not going to do that since I’m only one episode from the finish. I also would have liked to see the Shinigami realm (and Ryuk’s backstory) become more important, but I guess you can’t have everything.
Twin Peaks (Pilot, and S1 and 2 up to episode 14)
Double holy awesome. I knew going in that this was supposed to be good, but man oh man. Kyle Maclachlan, of course, is the show-stealer here as Agent Cooper. (Agent Cooper and L from Death Note have both been added to my “favorite detectives” list.) But the whole cast is solid, and the show has this strange tone, a weird and arty mix of comedy, horror, mystery, melodrama that is impossible to nail down (and which occasionally goes astray when the show gets too focused on the soapy parts or the really silly parts like Super Nadine). Just describing the plots makes this show seem like a straight-up (or a send-up of a) soap opera, and it kind of is, the season one finale is a whole episode of basically every single soap opera cliff-hanger there can be. But it also does stuff like the dream at the end of episode two (one of the most unsettling things I’ve ever seen), and the episode that finally reveals Laura’s killer, which is the episode I last watched and stands alongside the best hour-long episodes ever on TV. I am a little loath to continue, knowing as I do that the show supposedly goes way downhill from here, but I have also heard it rallies at the end, so we’ll see.
Also, I am in love with Sherilynn Fenn as Audrey Horne.
Lost (Finale)
Finished with a bang. Can’t wait for S5.
The Office (Finale)
Also went out swinging (the Kevin subplot in the finale was dynamite, and Beadie Russel!), though I’m worried about losing Toby. He’s my favorite character (maybe tied with Creed), and his dynamic with Michael was one of the best parts of this show, but who knows? The writers seem to know what they’re doing.
Arrested Development (Complete Series)
I also managed to re-watch this entire series this month (I have apparently been doing nothing but watching TV lately) and it’s just as good as I remembered it. The show was so dense, the architecture and call-back (and even call-forward) structure of the jokes so mind-boggling, that it has the best re-watch value of maybe any sitcom.
South Pacific
The story of one man’s love affair with color filters and soft focus, this is one of the lesser entries in the Rodgers and Hammerstein filmography. The biggest problem is probably the guy playing the Frenchman, who is not nearly cool enough. The part really calls for a Bogart type, if Bogie types could sing. I’m not crazy about the script, either. The Frenchman as written is a lousy dad, who barely spends any time with his kids, doesn’t think it’s important to mention them to his girlfriend before proposing, and sees nothing wrong with going off and getting himself killed after he gets rejected by said racist girlfriend. On the other hand there are some pretty good songs, but on the original more negative hand there are also some lousy songs (Talky Talk), and the choreography is downright sad.
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Follows the Capra formula to a T; luckily, I like the Capra formula. It’s no John Doe or Mr. Smith, but it’s still pretty lovable.
Silent Hill
Neither good or so-bad-it’s-good, it’s just bad. There are a couple ridiculous things that are amusing (the razor head dude, the Mario ghost-zombies), and it seems like there are some ideas under there that might have made a good movie, but there is also a lot that is boring and just plain not good.
Brighton Beach Memoirs
Semi-autobiographical Neil Simon, which should tell you all you need to know. The kid in the lead grates after a while, and it’s not as funny or touching as, say, Lost in Yonkers, but it’s good enough.
Courage Under Fire
Kind of Rashomon-y thing with Denzel Washington as good as ever, but Meg Ryan is saddled with a difficult role (she has to portray her character the way she is described by a number of biased observers) and she is not really up to the challenge. Also, her accent sucks. Anyway, the movie was okay, but I won’t cry if I never see it again. The best thing about it was the DA from Homicide and the DA from Law and Order working together.
Across the Universe
Struggles with what it wants to be, I think. Part of it is a goofy exercise in “Meet the Beat-Alls” style referencing, part of it is an incredible marraige of terrifically beautiful imagery to these immortal Beatles songs, and part of it is a commentary on the whole nature of the sixties counterculture and the subsequent disillusionment of that culture, and also there is a love story in there. The trippy visuals are awesome, the love story is hit and miss (though basically it works), but the message stuff threatens to crush the film with its over-earnest, obvious, and familiar take on the period. It’s actually the humor and the spot-the-reference stuff that saves the day, giving the viewer permission to not take it all so seriously. I liked it, but without the good-will the songs buy it (and the film’s willingness to be a little silly) I might have been less impressed.
The Trouble With Harry
Pretty unusual Hitchcock, without much of his usual visual panache, and overlong perhaps. But that’s made up by the fact that it’s actually quite funny, dark, and very frank for it’s time. I was kind of split on the whole affair until the line “Go on, you little bastard! …I mean, uh, hurry on home, son.” which, in context, is freaking hilarious.
Wizard People, Dear Reader
I can’t even describe what this is – well okay, it’s an alternative audio track for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone that is basically a crazy guy’s version of the story. It’s not really a parody, though it is pretty freaking hilarious; someone online compared it to a cover song, and that’s as good an analogy as I can think of. The crazy man in question is Brad Neely, who did that George Washington song, and does the Professor Brothers (and Babycakes) shorts for SuperDeluxe (none of which are safe for work or children). In those shorts his brilliance is more easily sustainable, and there are some lulls in the movie. But there is more than enough awesome to keep me entranced all the way through. I love Neely, but that might just be me, I tried to introduce Tiff and she seemed underwhelmed. Anyway, this is the tops.
Some Other Stuff I Watched
Despite the fact that the reviews above represent about a gazillion hours of television viewing, I am fairly certain that it is incomplete. Off the top of my head, I know I watched the first thirty minutes of The Golden Compass, which was very disappointing considering how much I loved the book. It wasn’t so much that it was bad, but that it was dull. I thought about hanging in till Sam Elliot or the armored polar bears showed up, but I was so totally disconnected (and less-than-eager for a watered down ending) that I just moved on to something else. Dad’s been re-watching West Wing and MASH, of course, so I see them quite a bit. I watched the first half of the John Cusack movie Money For Nothing, but it prominently features of my pet peeves, stupid characters, so when food beckoned I gave up on it, too. Inspired by comments on The AV Club, my favorite review site, I’ve been giving Newsradio S1 another chance. I will allow that Phil Hartman and Stephen Root are gods among men, but I still don’t quite get the appeal of the show; the plots and writing and set and laugh track still feel like a hundred other sitcoms that I don’t really care about. I’m going to keep watching, so maybe it’ll grow on me.
Yeah, I’m pretty far out, man.
So What?I don’t honestly know. But this weekend (that is, today or tomorrow) I am going to dump the plot and officially end the Adventures in Astronaut Training portion of this website. Right now, I am trying to avoid actually writing any of that, so I am just posting this picture of Lucy, who is adorable.
It’s almost been a month since my last review round-up. I wanted to at least do one regular blog post in between, but since that is clearly not going to happen, here is the art of which I partook last month, though I think I probably missed some stuff.
This Month In Books
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
There is a part of me that wants to criticize this book for being histrionic, emotionally manipulative, and kind of shallow, but that all just feels mean, because despite the fact that Albom obviously edits and even exaggerates for effect (the bit about the phone calls is clearly a writerly touch), this is also a heartfelt tribute to a man that the author dearly loved.
At worst this book is harmless, and at best I think it might actually make some people’s lives better. Despite the author’s protestations early on, this really is a self-help book, and while I do think there are legitimate moral and philosophical criticisms to be made of (most of the) self-help books (I’ve read), my feelings are that if it makes anyone’s life a little clearer, a little easier, more power to you. Life is hard enough without some asshole like me telling you the things you like are stupid. And though I do think the lessons in the book are things just about anyone could come up with in a spare afternoon of self-reflection, it doesn’t hurt to hear once again about being present in the moment with the people around us, about seeking out and contributing to a community, about denying the threatening, fearful culture around us.
Freedomland by Richard Price
If anything this is even better written than Clockers (with which it shares not only a setting but the format of two alternating viewpoint characters), but it’s not as strongly plotted to my mind (to be fair, this may be mostly because the story of a white woman who lies about her child being abducted by a black man is so familiar; I’ve seen it about a dozen times on Law and Order alone). As with Clockers, I’m pretty knocked out by how fleshed out even the minor characters are, they all have hopes and dreams, moral dilemmas and idiosyncrasies. The attention to detail in place and (especially) language makes this time well-spent.
Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
Fun and occasionally fascinating, but also kind of familiar (I’ve read their blog on occasion, so that may be why). The central points of the book, 1. that economics and data-mining are powerful tools in the critical thinking toolbox, and 2. that we should question experts and common assumptions, are both good, and though I wasn’t always convinced that they had proved some of their specific arguments, they were always thought-provoking. But the self-serving interludes between each chapter where Dubner gushes about what a brilliant and unconventional mind Levitt is kind of piss me off.
Newest Issues of Buffy (by Drew Godard) and Angel (by Brian Lynch) and Planetary 1-6 (by Warren Ellis)
A flip from last time, the new Buffy was brilliant, though it brought a silly story from Tales of the Slayers into canon, about which I am ambivalent. But there was pretty much non-stop hilarity here, I’ve got no complaints. Angel, on the other hand, showed flashes of brilliance, but some of the bits fell flat. I also read the first 6 or 7 issues of Planetary, and while I liked it, I was worried the whole time that I was missing stuff because I was unfamiliar with the Wildstorm Universe. I’ll probably get back to it later.
Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale
Not as good as Year One (which itself wasn’t as good as Dark Knight Returns or The Killing Joke), but close. I think there are more good Batman books than any other DC Universe super-hero. Lots of good additions to the Batman mythos, and it’s nice when writers remember that he is the World’s Greatest Detective and not just a scary guy who beats up criminals at night.
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
I was kind of disappointed by this. It had been compared with Harry Potter to me, and I will grant that it is a quick and easy Potter-style read. But rather than a compelling story with lots of interesting characters, I got what amounts to porn for teenage girls (not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just not for me). I will grant that the viewpoint character is fairly well-drawn, and Meyer basically seems to have a good idea what it feels like to be a teenage girl in a new town. But the rest of the story is little more than wish-fulfillment silliness, starting with the fact that every guy in Forks that Bella has contact with has a crush on her, including the dangerous bad boy vampire that she’s in love with. None of the other characters besides Bella and Edward really even exist except as help or hindrance to the two of them getting together.
The threats to their union, such as they are, do not arise out of any internal conflict or because of any of the main characters’ choices, but just as semi-random hoops that the ridiculously perfect dream-boat Edward has to jump through with ease. The only conflict that comes close to feeling like a threat (namely, Edward’s worry that his love is not strong enough to overcome his appetite) is resolved when, after an afternoon of nuzzling, he just decides that his love is, in fact, strong enough. Meyer seems almost scared to let anything happen that might be interesting, or result in her characters growing or changing, or change their relationships or interpersonal dynamics. The little potential for interesting stories that she had, specifically what it is about Bella that Edward cannot read and the conflict with the werewolf tribe, had no pay-off whatsoever.
And that’s ignoring the fact that the writing is often lazy and slathered in cliches. And that the way Meyer keeps telling us that the characters are joking or teasing or being sarcastic only serves to highlight how impossible it is for her to actually be funny. (In fact, the lack of humor is probably this book’s worst fault of all.) Also, the book is practically anti-feminist, because while Bella is often praised as being brave (I thought she came of more like a dumb teenager infatuated with death), every time a threat arises she is nothing more than a damsel in distress for Edward to save, which given how much time Meyer spends detailing his super-powers, we never doubt that he will. What Meyer is really interested in is perhaps most clear in the scene where Edward explains the difficulty in vampire/human sex, which reminded me of that old Man of Steel, Woman of Tissue essay.
Pfeh. On the other hand, she handled the exposition-heavy dialogue with skill, except for the awkward reveal of Alice’s back story that was so much “Let me explain my evil plan, Mr Bond” monologue silliness.
God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens
Of the recent spate of anti-religious books, I have now read this and The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Hitchens’ approach is more scattershot and less methodical than Dawkins, but he’s also funnier, and he lands some solid rhetorical body-blows. If anything he seems to have toned down some of his contrarian impulses (that is to say, I found less to be offended about here than in some of his essays that I’ve read), but since his central thesis is so inflammatory to so many people that is kind of beside the point. Some of his writing is willfully difficult, and there is definitely some gratuitous vocabulary involved (I even had to go to my monster Webster’s Unabridged when Funk and Wagnall’s were stumped by rebarbative.)
I won’t go into this subject very much in this venue, except to say that these two books are for the most part convincing in their argument that the world would be a better place without religion (though I disagree with Hitchens’ implicit suggestion that our culture- in the sense of our art, literature and collective imaginations- might be better off; I think he underestimates the aesthetic beauty of our religious myths and texts), assuming it was replaced with an reasonable and moral secular humanism. And their denouncing of childhood indoctrination as child abuse is as compelling as it is provocative. But I don’t believe either really appreciates the degree to which religion affects many individuals for the better.
Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas by Elaine Pagels
Early on this book was a chore to read, mostly because Mrs. Pagels seems to believe that anything worth say is worth saying three or four times in different ways, but once you and she settle into it there is a lot of fascinating material here. Despite the subtitle, this book isn’t really about the Gospel of Thomas (my favorite of the Gnostic Gospels- though also the only one I’ve read in it’s entirety), though the message of Thomas clearly resonates with her, and she does detail a convincing theory of how the Gospel of John was written specifically to counter Thomasine ideas, though she isn’t afraid to point out where John and Thomas have special affinities as well.
But the book is actually more interested about the debates that went into early Christianity, and the stories of why John, Polycarp, Ireneaus, Alexander, and Athanasius are now orthodox while the “new prophecy” teachers (who even converted Tertullian!) and individuals like Valentinus and Marcion and Cerinthus and Arius are (barely) remembered as heretics. It’s fascinating stuff, if often (and unavoidably) speculative.
I also liked her epiphany near the end about how religion can become an extended conversation, as people today continue to bring in their own views and experiences to the ancient rituals and traditions, so that all of religion (including the heresies) becomes a kind of extended exegesis, where everyone is just providing their own reading of everything that came before them. It’s an idea that Borges exploited in some of his best stories, and which Harold Bloom has tirelessly (and tiresomely) applied ad nauseum to literary criticism.
There was a lot more to chew on in there too, like Heracleon’s two types of conversions, the idea of epinoia (God revealed through imagination), the opposition between those who say we should emulate Jesus and those who say we should believe in Jesus, and plenty more. A worthwhile read.
This Month in Television and Film
The Riches S1
I’m not sure about this show. Some of the plot twists really bug me. The characters seem to pendulate from likable and engaging to annoying and off-putting. The show is most compelling when the characters are in deep shit (just like in Weeds (pun unintended)) but the writers seem to half-ass the resolutions. As to whether I’ll keep following this show, I’m undecided. On the one hand, I kind of felt similar about Weeds after the first season, and it improved by leaps and bounds. On the other hand, I don’t really feel invested or connected with these characters, so I guess I’ll just wait and see.
Gargoyles S1 and the first part of S2
How come no-one ever told me this was such a good show? Yeah, the dialogue is occasionally clunky, and it’s a bit hamstrung by the fact that it’s a kid’s show, but it totally transcends the silliness of the premise with skillful continuity, surprising darkness, and totally unexpected intertextuality (weaving in Macbeth and A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream in totally awesome ways). That this show is unique is evident right out of the gate with it’s chronologically sophisticated five-part opener, but the clearest evidence that this is not your father’s kid show comes three episodes later in “Deadly Force” with the realistic portrayal of an accidental shooting and its aftermath. The shot of Broadway discovering Elisa unconscious in a pool of blood and realizing it’s his fault is heart-breaking.
It’s also fun to play “spot the Star Trek:TNG cast members” most of whom seem to make an appearance at some point or other.
Rocket Science
It’s possible that I have a higher than average tolerance for indie quirkfests, but I think this movie was kind of unfairly overlooked. Granted, it’s no Rushmore, and after the first (almost) half I was pretty unimpressed, but then the plot twisted in a way I did not expect, and from there on I was entranced. It stubbornly undercuts every big climactic moment in the name of realism, a trick that is pretty old hat by now but which is expertly handled here. Recommended.
Damages S1
FX’s winning streak continues with this twisty-turny legal thriller. It may actually be a little too long for the story it has to tell, but it still offers great perfomances (especially great- Glenn Close(duh) and Zeljko Ivanek), and plenty of surprises. I look forward to Season 2.
3:10 To Yuma
Groovy western which, admittedly, is sometimes willing to trade believable characters for whatever seems awesome, but so what? Awesome is sometimes good.
Battlestar Galactica S3 E1-7
I’d seen some but not all of S3, now that it’s on DVD it has succeeded Homicide:LotS as our morning ritual show. I love it, of course, despite some confused mythology and a few mediocre episodes here and there (Unfinished Business?).
How I Met Your Mother
I’ve been slowly catching up with the latest season of this show online. It’s occasionally too sitcomy for my tastes, and I’m ambivalent about any show with a laugh track, but it has one of the best supporting casts ever (Willow Rosenberg, Nick Andopolis, and Doogie Howser!), brilliantly convoluted structures, and good running gags. At it’s best (see Slap Bet) it’s as funny as anything on television.
Homicide:Life on the Street and Homicide:Life Everlasting
The last season really suffered from a lack of Pembleton (and let’s face it, most of the new cast members sucked, except for Austin Pendleton as the medical examiner) but it went out with an incredible final episode. I was almost loath to watch the movie, because I’d heard mixed reviews and the last episode felt like a pretty great ambiguous ending that brought Bayliss’ story full circle. I’m glad I did watch it, though, because it was awesome, too. Great ending to one of the best cop shows ever, and very satisfying to see every single cast member show back up.
Unremarked Upon includes new (and old) episodes of
The Office (US)
30 Rock
The Colbert Report (John Edwards was hilarious!)
The Daily Show
The West Wing
A Little Bit about this Month in Music
There’s been so much new music lately that I’ve had a hard time giving everything the time it deserves to sink in. I’ve done some writing to the new Nine Inch Nails instrumental stuff, it makes good daydream music, while the new Gnarls Barkley and the new Racontuers have yet to grab me. REM’s new one is pretty swell, a real return to form. The new Mountain Goats is also a return to form, as Darnielle gets back to writing the short stories that he does so well. I like She and Him pretty well, especially their lazy Hawaiian guitar take on I Shoulda Known Better. I’m sure there’s stuff I’m missing, I just can’t think of it.
I also recommend this awesome live version of The Mountain Goat’s No Children from a few years back. Apparently Darnielle was suffering from a sore throat so when the crowd requested No Children he agreed to let them sing it instead; it is a thing of beauty.
In the world of awesome music videos, we have the new one by Bjork, Wanderlust
And this amazing song from the 80s, which is beyond my ability to describe.
Then there is this awesomely happy video for Goldfrapp’s Happiness….
which was promptly accused of being a rip off of this also awesome video for Peter Wolf’s Come as You Are…
but everyone was satisfied when they realized they were both just ripping off this old Bobby Van number from the movie Small Town Girl.
I think Goldfrapp gets the nod for the classiest version, while Bobby gets points for innocence and originality, but the Peter Wolf one makes me actually want to get up and bounce into town.
This Month In Video Games
I just recently started playing actual computer games again, and I started with Portal, which is loosely related to the Half Life series, using the same physics engine and taking place in the same world. Now Portal is basically a perfect game, maybe the best game I’ve ever played, with a great difficulty curve that keeps things challenging but never frustrating, long enough to be worth it, but short enough to keep from wearing out it’s welcome, and genuinely hilarious. If people want proof that games can be art, look no farther than Portal. Given how happy I was with Portal, I decided to give Half-Life 2 a shot.
And I have to say, I’m pretty danged impressed. The difficulty curve is a little screwy here, with the ending being too easy compared with some of the levels in the middle (especially Ravenholm), but the lack of cutscenes, the engaging storyline, the gravity gun, the graphics, the puzzles, the way sometimes I would immediately grasp what I was supposed to do and just do it and it was like I was in an awesome adventure movie, the whole package is nothing less than terrific. My only quibble is the unsatisfying ending, but given that it’s a continuing story, I guess it’s understandable. I’ve also played through Episode One, which is much, much shorter, but it fails to disappoint. Episode Two, here I come.
I was also going to write about kayaking in Davy Crockett lake, but I am too tired. Maybe next time, though almost certainly not.
Obviously I’m way way behind here. I wrote this last night, and I was going to flesh it out and finish this morning, but I decided to just clean it up a little and post it instead. The rest on Sunday, maybe.
This Time Period in Books (Now with Comics!)
Clockers by Richard Price
Now that The Wire has ended (*sob*), I decided to check out some of the work of its esteemed writers. Besides creators David Simon and Ed Burns (who have co-written two non-fiction books), The Wire had three highly praised fiction writers on its staff- George Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane, and this guy, Richard Price. I was not disappointed. This is a terrific book, and definitely of a piece with the Wire. Same wonderful dialogue, same complex and shaded characters, same intricate plotting, and same anger over the mess the drug trade (and the drug war) has made of our inner cities. There was even a scene that was pretty much straight up copied in this last season.
On the downside, I wasn’t always convinced by his characterizations. Like a lot of authors, Price sometimes seems to have difficulty dramatizing what goes on in a person’s head, sometimes pushing too hard to make it dramatic so that they’re having some sort of life-changing monologue going on inside every other chapter or so. (On the other hand, I have life-changing monologues inside my head every other day or so, and Price recognizes that people don’t really change just like that, so maybe it’s not so unbelievable as much as it’s occasionally tedious.) Freedomland is up next, then I think I’m gonna try Pelecanos.
Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
Man, Calvino is on my favorite writers list after just two books. The first book I read by Calvino was If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler which I adored, and this one is just as good. These are a series of stories based loosely on scientific facts and theories about the universe (some now discredited), following the adventures and experiences of a narrator named Qwfwq who has been around pretty much since the beginning of time in one form or another. They are all pretty much achingly beautiful, though my favorite may be the first story, “The Distance of the Moon”, one of several stories about unrequited love. I also like “The Dinosaurs”, “The Light Years”, and “The Spiral” (which is the last story and about the artistic impulse). Some of the stories feel like allegories that I don’t have the key to, a few others feel a bit under-developed, but overall this is very impressive stuff.
Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West
This is also a pretty amazing book, but I would have difficulty recommending it to anyone I know. This is a viciously bleak, misanthropic, almost nihilistic vision of the universe. It’s the story of the spiritual crisis of a guy who writes an advice column, which he started essentially as a joke, but the genuine pain and sincerity of the letter-writers forces him to examine the moral emptiness of his existence.
It’s also funny.
Peanutbutter and Jeremy’s Best Book Ever by James Kochalka
James Kochalka is awesome, in case you didn’t know. American Elf, his daily diary comic is one of two comic strips being written today that I feel confident will stand the test of time, and eventually be ranked with classics like Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, Krazy Kat, Little Nemo, Thimble Theater, etc. (The other, if you are wondering, is Achewood. There’s lots of other good strips being written out there, but if I was going to limit myself to guessing two comics that will become canonical, those are the two I would go with.) This is a collection of kid’s comics about a cute kitty named Peanutbutter and a mean crow named Jeremy, and their unlikely friendship. It is the most adorable book to ever feature a crow trying to shoot a hat off a cat’s head with a gun.
As an aside, I got this through PaperbackSwap, and it was a signed copy! There’s a little drawing of Peanutbutter saying “Hello Lindsey!” – who was the person who traded it to me- and JKS’s signature dated 1994. I have no idea why she (or he, Lindsey could be a boy, I guess) would give a signed copy away, but it’s pretty cool for me.
New Issues of Buffy S8 (12), Angel: After the Fall (4 and 5), Serenity: Better Days (1) and RASL (1)
Drew Goddard (who wrote the best episode of Season 7 of Buffy, “Selfless”) takes over with issue 12, and ignoring the controversial bit, it’s a solid issue, and nice to see Drac back.
Somehow I missed issue four of Angel, so I got to read two issues this week, and honestly, I think I’m starting to like the Angel comics better than the Buffy comics. The dialogue is so very, very right, and the plot twists always take me by surprise. The art is growing on me; you have to accept that the likenesses are not very good, but the new characters are extremely well-designed. I worry, though, that there may be a little too much fan service going on, if you know what I mean. (And you probably don’t.) I don’t worry about it too long, mostly because ohmigod ohmigod Wesley! Groo! Shushan! Fred! Dragon vs. T-Rex! OMG!
I was somewhat less impressed by the first issue of the new Serenity arc (which takes place before the movie, after the series), but there were some good bits, and the art (except for the horrid cover) was better than Buffy or Angel. Hopefully it will get better.
Rasl is the new series by Jeff Smith (the Bone guy) and it’s good, but I can already see I’m going to get aggravated waiting for new issues. I suspect I may start waiting for the trades.
This Time Period in Movies and TV Shows
Extras Special (Finale)
Ricky Gervais always ends his shows so sweetly. Andy’s breakdown on Celebrity Big Brother was probably the highlight of the series. I don’t know why things like that don’t ever seem to happen in real life.
Enchanted
This is actually pretty good. It could’ve been better, but it also could’ve been a lot worse. Amy Adams is, of course, cute as hell, though you may have to power through the first fifteen minutes in which she is kind of insufferable. The big song in the middle of the movie was a pretty wonderful sequence that basically justifies the entire movie. I also like the retro-Disney opening with the book. But the switching partners plot twist is old-hat, and the climactic battle is, well, anti-climactic. Eh, it’s good-natured, and there are so few truly good-natured films these days we should take ’em where we can get ’em.
Into The Wild
Good movie, well-acted, pretty, and I think it’s a good companion-piece to the book. And that’s how I think it should be viewed, as a companion, not a replacement, for a book that I really like, and which is considerably deeper and richer than the film.
Shoot Em Up
At some point while pretending to be a leering, exploitative, trashy sex-and-violence film, this actually became a leering, explotative, trashy sex-and-violence film. Just jokier than usual, and maybe emptier as well.
Flight of the Conchords S1
The more current sitcoms I watch, the more hopeful I am about the state of the sitcom. It’s true that there doesn’t seem to be any genre-redefining shows (like say, Andy Griffith, MASH, All in the Family, Seinfeld, or Arrested Development; and don’t say The Simpsons or South Park because that messes up my whole theory here) on the air right now, but there are a lot of good, funny shows out there. And this is one of the funniest. It also has musical sequences, for which I will forgive a multitude of sins. The songs are good, too, catchy and funny.
The Wire S5
It’s over. It ended happier than I’d thought it would, actually. Anyway, this is kind of the holy grail of modern television. For a while now, serialized television has been trying to create the filmic equivalent of a great novel. Babylon 5 may actually have been the first series to explicitly state that ambition, but a lot of shows have been taking stabs at it. The nature of television makes it difficult, though. The studios will tend to interfere, good ratings will make them try to drag the show on past it’s time (see The Sopranos), bad will make them cut it short (see Firefly, Deadwood, Carnivale, etc.). There’s inevitable difficulties in keeping casts and crews together over the long haul, and unforseen occurences befall them all. So this is as perfect and complete a show as we are likely to see for a while. I’m gonna miss it, but I don’t really wish it was any longer. (Well, I would’ve liked a little more Prez this season, but other than that…)
People go on and on about the show’s realism (and it was a good deal more realistic than any cop show before it, not that the Wire really was a cop show at all), but the show’s real genius was in its storytelling, its characters, and its dialogue, which is some of the best ever written for television.
Homicide: Life On the Street
Season Six went out with a bang, but Season Seven is kind of crap. I miss Pembleton.
Lost
Damn, this show has some momentum right now. If they can keep this up, they might pull this off yet.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia S1&2
This is kind of uber-Seinfeld. The four main characters are not just shallow and self-centered, they are downright nasty, but the show pulls off a neat trick by keeping the tone refreshingly light and silly, so it never gets too painful to watch. Devito makes a nice addition to the cast in Season Two, he and Charlie are the break-out characters for sure.
This is one of the good and funny but not excellent sitcoms I was talking about in the Flight of the Conchords write up. This, How I Met Your Mother, My Name is Earl, 30 Rock, Sarah Silverman, and a couple of others are bubble shows, regularly funny, intermittently brilliant, but never quite as great as they should be. Off the top of my head, The Office and Flight of the Conchords are the only sitcoms I love without reservation right now. (I’m ignoring animation here; South Park, the Fox animation block, and Adult Swim all just muddy up the waters.)
Dan In Real Life
Better than I expected, considering the pretty horrible commercials. Steve Carrell gives a nice performance, and while pretty much every rom-com, family movie cliche is trotted out at some point or another, they are imbued with humanity by the actors and the quiet tone of the film, and it all plays out pretty nice.
Saving Private Ryan
I don’t really have a lot to say about this one. I think it was an excellent, well-crafted movie, with some sequences that really stick with you, and that’s all I can think of. I may be getting tired as I write this.
The Riches
I’m about halfway through Season One. I like the show, mostly because of Eddie Izzard. Some of the plot twist are a little too contrived, Minnie Driver is alternately affecting and annoying, and there is a PC part of me that wonders if the show isn’t a bit racist, but I like it. Mostly because of Eddie Izzard. (I am obviously tired.) Also, the girl playing Di Di reminds me of Linda Cardellini when she was on Freaks and Geeks, who totally needs more work. Bring back Lindsay Weir, I say!
The West Wing
Dad’s been re-re-watching S1 and I’ve caught bits and pieces here and there. It really is a very good show, one of the shows that ushered in television’s modern-day golden era, though it really hasn’t had as much influence as The Sopranos or Buffy (which are the two keys). Two Cathedrals, which is still a couple of seasons away, is as perfect an hour of television as there has ever been.
(Just think that on television in 2002-2003, there was Buffy, Angel, Firefly, The Wire, The West Wing, The Sopranos, The Shield, Six Feet Under, and Arrested Development. That’s just the ones I thought of and checked off the top of my head. Television has been seriously outclassing movies in recent years.)
Bones S1
I just watched the first episode, and it was better than I expected. I intend to check out more.
Clockers
This one really suffered from “the book is better” syndrome. It seems ridiculously shallow in comparison, though if I’d seen it independent from the book I might well have enjoyed it for what it was. It mostly keeps the spirit of the book, while simultaneously missing the point of the book. Not to mention it basically turns Rocco into a villain, and makes Errol way less scary. But I guess there is only so much you can do with the time constraints of a movie. I still consider Spike Lee a pretty great director. I know the knock against him is that he’s inconsistent, but anyone who makes films as good as Do the Right Thing, Inside Man, The 25th Hour, and He Got Game is okay in my book.
This Week In Abrupt Conclusions
That’s it for now. I’ll try to work up the energy to post some music and internet stuff on Sunday.
I am so far behind. I am writing this on March 10th, and my poor readers are still mulling over the events of the morning of Feb 18th, when I had just heard the voice for the second time. So much to tell you.
We left off, as I recall, looking at a pile of bird crap, an extraordinarily large pile of bird crap, and the toy walkie talkie drowning in it. It was clearly the mate to the walkie Clyde (the fool!) had found in the equipment yard, and on which we had spoken to the voice. This meant to me that the owner of mysterious voice had been here in Mrs Cancer’s classroom, or out on the ledge, just a few minutes before I had arrived. It then occurred to me that they might even still be there, perhaps one of the other students, disguising their voice somehow and playing a prank. I looked around. JR and TJ were shooting spitwads at Melissa, who was making threatening gestures at her gun, which seemed to concern Tom Ringling more than his brother or Terrence. The rest of the class was staring intently at the Sudoku sheets that Mrs. Cancer was handing out.
It wasn’t any of them.
I closed the window, promising myself I would investigate after class.
I was really starting to get the hang of Sudoku by now, so I finished fairly quickly and spent most of the class waiting in agony for the rest to finish. When they had, Vera began to tell us about a story she had read in a ladies journal. It was about a woman who had gone through a series of boyfriends. Seems this lady had some very specific requirements and standards for her boyfriends, and was always testing them by engineering difficult situations to see how they would react. Unfortunately, the boyfriends would eventually realize they were being tested, and would grow resentful and break up with her. After that I stopped listening, as I didn’t expect it would ever get back round to math.
It didn’t take long for me to fall asleep, but it did take a while for me to wake up, and it took a while for Mrs Cancer to stop yelling at me, and I couldn’t take a while to investigate the walkie, because I was already late for Practical Space Skills (Theory) with Lar.
After Lar had enumerated the differences in the six styles of moonwalking, and in the three phases of Michael Jackson’s career, and lastly the six phases of the moon, I headed back to Mrs. Cancer’s classroom. There was nobody there when I arrived, but the window was open, and the walkie-talkie was gone. The crap, on the other hand, was still very much there. I was still looking for clues when Clyde, Katya and that notorious so-and-so Mr. Chris Mendeleev walked in.
Chris scrunched his face when he saw me. “Christ, do you never shower?”
Clyde and Katya chuckled, and Katya said, “Is coming from window, I think.”
Clyde walked over and looked at the bird crap. “Ha! I told you guys, there is an umbrella cockatoo loose on the grounds of the school. This is unmistakably the stool of an adult male Cacatua Alba.” I’m telling you, the man may be brobdingnagian of body, but he is a mental midget.
“Cockatoo? They are being from Indonesia, no?” asked Katya.
“Yes,” Clyde answered. “But there are often brought over to America as pets. He probably escaped from someone’s house.”
“But is so cold here from compared as Indonesia. Can the sad thing prolong in such weather?”
“That’s what she said,” muttered Chris, but I don’t think anyone besides me heard him.
“Not if it gets much colder. He needs to be inside.” said Clyde.
“We should catch him!” I blurted out.
Chris rolled his eyes, but Katya smiled warmly, and Clyde nodded. “Yes! We must be providing shell for it!” said Katya. “But how?”
There was a long pause, and then Chris closed the window dramatically. “I have a plan.” he said.
Til next time.
