Fab TV

I've been having a love affair with British TV lately. First Skins, then Shameless, now Spaced. Next up in my Netflix queue is Extras. The short-but-sweet series highlight not only in their quality but in their brevity the ways that shows like Grey's Anatomy are running themselves into the ground with no end in sight, far past their best run of episodes. Skins in particular earns props from me for letting its characters go their separate ways, like real teenagers moving into adulthood, rather than artificially prolonging their time together like practically every teen-focused show that gets more than two seasons.

Speaking of Skins, this trailer for the second series is, like, my new most favorite thing ever. It makes standard commercials with show clips seem so pedestrian.

Work

I've got job-work (and school-work, though I don't quite think I'll get around to that until tomorrow) so I'm feeling creatively blocked.  I was going to write something about the stunning Watchmen portraits on the Entertainment Weekly website, but apparently they were only up for, like, the five minutes that I was looking at them because they have disappeared without a trace.  So I'm working, and watching Spaced (intermittently marveling at the actors who appeared as parents on Skins as geeky slackers in this capacity) and contemplating the rest of my week.  I'd like to imagine that I'll be more creative in forthcoming writing.  We'll see.

Uhhh...

I don't really have anything to say, but I don't want to abandon this project, because I firmly believe that writing about trivial things every day is the first step to writing academic, analytical things every day.  I should be reading about museums; instead I've been watching the Westminster Dog Show and messing around with my music.  I miss having a dog.  Someday in the next few years I'm going to make it happen - he or she will be my dissertation companion.  What else?...I'm sticking it out until Bryan Fuller returns, but if Heroes doesn't do something amazing then, I'm done.  There's such a vast quality gulf between the truly good shows and the ones that are just sort of...there right now, it's crazy.  Sigh, reading...bleh.

Mood Music IX

Once upon a time, I thought all I really wanted out of a phone was for it to make phone calls.  However, the iPhone ads are making me lust hardcore for one that can do all manner of crazy-fancy stuff that I should be able to manage myself.  Then, the Submarines remind me that things cannot fill emotional voids.  And I wonder if catchiness trumps irony, because somehow I just can't believe that that juxtaposition was totally intentional.

Awesome TV

Last night I had an amazing couple of hours of TV watching, with episodes of Friday Night Lights and Battlestar Galactica both ending with the departures of characters who have been present since the pilots. When shows are this good, they just throw into dramatic relief how much other shows aren't pulling their weight. Both were well written and brilliantly acted, and the magic of the Internet means that both can be embedded here!

I'm not one of the second-season haters, but to the extent that it wasn't as good as the first season, this season represents a return to form. Why Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton don't have every acting award ever is beyond me.

As far as two-parters go, this episode and "The Oath," which preceded it, were pretty epic, even among BSG episodes. Alessandro Juliani has been killing it, acting-wise, ever since the New Caprica episodes, and his "It stopped." was heartbreaking, even as we weren't necessarily meant to sympathize with his cause. His work on BSG, and Gaius Charles' on FNL just serves to highlight what a travesty it is that these shows don't get nominated for not just Emmys, but SAG Awards as well. If the ensemble awards aren't designed to honor shows like these, with tight casts whose supporting players bring it week after week, then why give awards at all? I can't believe there are still six episodes left in BSG - and can't help but wonder who's the next goner.

Next week is the real dilemma - FNL or Dollhouse? I know I can watch FNL the next day for sure, but nothing's quite as good as watching live. Choices, choices...

Thoughts on The O.C.

Yesterday I completed my month-and-a-half long trip through every episode of the four seasons of The O.C. It started as a project to keep me amused and semi-distracted while I wrote my end-of-term papers (when I'm reading, I basically need instrumental music, but when I'm writing, I can have just about anything going on) and I think that I underestimated how much time it would take, but it was ultimately satisfying. I watched from Ryan stealing the car with Trey 1.0 straight through until the final scene, when he's an architect of indeterminate age offering help to another wayward youth. I laughed, I cried, I cringed. There are certainly worse ways to spend one's time.

It was interesting to watch all of the episodes in one go, rather than a week at a time. At some point, I told my mother what I was watching, and she asked whether it was one of the bad seasons. One of the things I realized is that the show's strengths and failings remained fairly consistent over its run. The first season was probably the most effortless, but it also had the noteworthy drawback of the Oliver storyline, marking a trend that would continue throughout the show's run. (The Television Without Pity recap of the third season finale makes this point unbelievably well - they continued to reference Oliver in a winky, meta way like "Wow, that was a disaster, huh?" while introducing new characters who served in exactly the same capacity.) The show was schizophrenically paced from beginning to end, and the central cast was never big enough for the show to have much longetivity. Actors who worked well with the central cast (notably Chris Carmack, Samaire Armstrong and Michael Cassidy) had their characters tossed aside alongside those that didn't (nearly every new young character who got added for the second and third seasons). Still, it was fantastically quippy from beginning to end, and the chemistry among the main cast was unbeatable. Seeing ads for Southland, I've been genuinely excited to see Ben McKenzie back on my TV. Also, Josh Schwartz's post-O.C. projects have shown a degree of learning from the past and taking the best of The O.C. forward to the pop-culture hyper-awareness of Chuck and the soapy melodrama of Gossip Girl.

I'll end with the classic montage from the series finale. A lot of what led up to that point had been kind of crazy and detached from what made the show great, but this flash-forward was grounded in the emotional heart of the show. I tear up every time I see Seth and Summer getting married.

Mood Music VIII

Since the last two posts have been mini-treatises, today will just be a song.

Over the last month or so, this song and Like Vines have become personal favorites.  It's so sunshiny and dreamy.

Why I Disagree With Stephen King

In the past day or so, Twilight fan sites have been all a-flutter with the news that Stephen King told USA Today that he thinks Stephenie Meyer is a terrible writer. Not only that but apparently, he also calls out other compatriot in commercial literary success James Patterson, while commending J.K. Rowling and Jodi Picoult as "terrific." Now, what's been posted is just a sort of "coming attractions" post. I'm curious to see whether any article space is devoted to what criteria he uses to evaluate what makes writing good, but in the meantime I thought I'd discuss why I disagree with King.

All four authors cited are ones whose work I've read and enjoyed. My parents are big Alex Cross fans, and during one school break sometime over the last few years I plowed through that series. I read a number of Picoult's books this past summer while I twitchily waited for Breaking Dawn to come out. I was a Harry Potter devotee from early on, from the time that I originally received Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone as an Easter gift in seventh grade (so early in the craze that Chamber of Secrets hadn't even been published in America) to the midnight release of Deathly Hallows. And my enjoyment of Twilight is well-documented. None of the four is the kind of writer who's going to win a Pulitzer Prize. (Nor is King, for that matter.) I'm not a big enough fan of Patterson or Picoult to mount a coherent defense of their work, but I have very clear opinions about why I think both Rowling and Meyer are good writers, and what that means to me.

I can be a critical reader (like, copy-editing people's work without being asked to critical) but I'm not the kind of reader who places a lot of emphasis on technical quality. Obviously, grammar is important, but I don't know that I find it absolutely vital in narrative fiction that is centered in storytelling. Both Meyer and Rowling have strengths and weaknesses as writers, but to me, the fact that those strengths are being expressed through words makes them good writers. As a reader, I think that Rowling is an unparalleled plotter. She knows how to pace her stories expertly, and deftly built seven nail-biting climaxes. Conversely, I think that this is one of Meyer's weakest areas. Her pacing can be somewhat schizophrenic, with chapters and chapters devoted to action taking place over a few days, then significant time jumps that get glossed over. I'm interested to see what Chris Weitz and Melissa Rosenberg do with the bogged-down middle section of New Moon in adapting the story for the film.

What then, in my opinion, is Meyer's strength? Contrary to King's assertion about those readers who enjoy Twilight, not everyone who loves the books is thrilled by the swoony descriptions of Edward's icy skin. To me, Meyer's characters live and breathe on the page, distinct and vibrant personalities. Both Meyer and Rowling imagined fictional universes filled with a number of characters, and while I don't doubt that each character is clear to their creator, Meyer can communicate who they are to the reader in a way that Rowling does not. After Deathly Hallows, there was an interview with Rowling where she discussed the decision to kill Fred rather than George, saying something to the effect of Fred being the more lighthearted of the two. This surprised me, since nearly a decade of reading and re-reading the books had never revealed any substantive difference between the two to me. The run-up to the release of the film version of Half-Blood Prince has also made me realize that Ginny is still kind of a non-person to me, character-wise. The last few Potter films have diverged dramatically from the books, largely because the story can be formed around the plot and characters can appear extraneous or unimportant in the bigger picture.

Additionally, (and Stephen King would probably find this totally sacrilegious) I think Meyer's skill in writing is similar to that of Brian Wilson. Both understand how to vocalize emotions the way that a teenager does. Sometimes I find Bella unbelievably annoying, but I also find her voice totally authentic as a teenager, and am positive that if I went back to my journals from high school I would find similarly embarrassing odes to whatever guy I had a crush on at the time. This is something that I don't think Rowling has ever done well - Order of the Phoenix remains one of my least favorite of the Harry Potter books due to Harry's constant immature whining. He never seemed authentically teenaged to me in that scenario, just like a petulant child.

Some of my favorite authors are wordsmiths, some are storytellers. To me, they're all good writers, all for different reasons. I hope that as I continue to write, and look ahead to my thesis and dissertation, that I, too, can find a voice and play to my own strengths, writing as well as I know how and not trying to be a writer I'm not.

Steve Jobs is Taking My Money

I appreciate Apple's new "DRM-free music for all!" initiative, I really do. The whole computer-authorization thing was a pain, and I've been availing myself of the opportunity to re-download my purchased music now that songs can be purchased individually.  After my music library as it once existed disappeared during a virus eradication, it's nice to maybe not have to rely on the myriad backup CDs I've accumulated.  Viewing the majority of my purchases in bulk, though, is not encouraging.  I'm beginning to wonder if I have a problem.

I own up to being a media junkie pretty easily.  Loving and hoarding music, books, movies and TV is part of who I am - it informs the academic work that I like to do; it comprises the bulk of what I talk about on this blog.  When I started college four-and-a-half years ago, one of the first things that I did when I was alone with my shiny new laptop and my dorm room's internet connection was download iTunes, having only dreamed up until that point of having the means to amass a vast, legal digital music collection.  I've always been kind of principled about not illegally downloading music, maybe prissily so.  I'm the kind of person who bought CD singles.  Before iTunes, there were a lot of rationalized purchases of full albums for one or two tracks, which is how I ended up with CDs like The Best of the Cowsills.  When I regard my iTunes purchases in retrospect, it's certainly better to have bought them all than to have pirated them.  If I illegally downloaded music, it would be Out Of Control. (The last month or so has taught me this, as apparently it is insanely easy for me to talk myself into a $5 purchase. The answer to "Should I give five dollars and x bytes to this piece of media ?" is invariably "Yes!"  At some point my rampant consumerist tendencies are going to catch up with my not-particularly-lucrative chosen field and things are going downhill. Either that, or my computer will run out of memory.) My hard drive would have so much ridiculous crap on it (that is, more than there already is), I can't even say.

Maybe it's not so bad.  I'm just a little concerned about how many of the purchases I completely do not remember making.  I mean, I give myself a little leeway since it has been nearly five years in total.  Undergrad years can be completely insane.  There are some purchases that I clearly made as part of gifts for my family, though I couldn't pinpoint when if my life depended on it.  It's just the niggling few, the ones that are tracks shared with albums I've owned and enjoyed for a long time, that are inexplicable to me.  For example, the Rushmore soundtrack has become one of my absolute favorite albums, but I don't think that development was an extremely recent one.  So then why/when did I buy "Here Comes My Baby" and "Ooh La La"?  How much of the last five years has devolved into this mystery haze?  Why buy "See Me, Feel Me" if I already had Tommy?  Sometimes viewing oneself and one's habits from a distance is a little troubling.

Gendered Soda

Is the world of soda really so gender-marked that there needs to be a diet soda "for men?" Did marketing research do this? It's just packaging, right? There's no substantive difference between this and other diet sodas? Just, it's supposed to appeal to men who tie their sense of masculinity to a disinterest in preserving their physical well-being?

...Sigh

February Goals

So, I'm going to try this posting-at-least-once-per-day thing again.  Working on my writing habits is a goal for my program, and I think that I can do it if I'm disciplined about it.  I've got some ideas in the tubes - I never quite finished my review of favorite book-to-movie adaptations, I've been watching some interesting TV, there's always some new pop culture/media thing that I latch onto and obsess about.  Maybe I'll even start writing about things that are a little deeper or more serious, who knows?  I'll try to utilize this shortest of months to make daily writing a habit.

Typographical Errors

I got this insert today.  Sweet tea sounds delicious.  Sweat tea, I'm not so sure about.

Books Read: January 2009

Reading Nick Hornby's essays about reading inspired me to try to keep a record of what I'm reading. Sometimes (i.e., when I'm not on break) it will skew more academic, sometimes more recreational, although the hope is always that the academic will also be compelling and interesting, and of course, that I will really read those books and not just pretend to. I'll just keep adding to the list until it's February's turn.

Housekeeping vs. The Dirt and Shakespeare Wrote for Money by Nick Hornby

Books of the aforementioned essays from the magazine The Believer. Reading About a Boy as part of my Chris Weitz mini-primer reminded me of how much I enjoyed High Fidelity and drove me to pursue more Hornby. The next time I have a stretch of time to read recreationally, I'll probably tackle some more of his fiction, but these essays were positively delightful. Above all, I really latched onto Hornby's basic philosophy, which paraphrased is basically "Read what you like, because life's too short to read something that makes you miserable." His anti-literary-snobbery stance is refreshing, and made me feel better about some of my literary choices of the past year, namely quitting on Blood Meridian after about ten pages, neglecting to read Housekeeping for class (his writing on the book convinced me that I couldn't have possibly given the book the attention it merits in the time given to read it for class, and made me eager to pick it up when I do have that time) and not feeling the least bit guilty or ashamed for enjoying the Twilight series.

The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman

Another exercise that grew out of Weitz assessment. I first read The Golden Compass back when it originally came out, when I was in elementary school, and didn't return to it until last month, when I prepared to watch the movie. Back in the day, I didn't move on to The Subtle Knife because a friend told me that I should wait until the third book came out because of the frustration involved in waiting for the conclusion. Knowing little of the joyous tension that can come from anticipating the release of a book (or movie, or album, or new TV season), I heeded her advice, and hence was no longer interested when The Amber Spyglass was released. It has thus taken the better part of a decade for me to get around to it. I liked the series, and I'm glad that I finally took the plunge and just finished it already. Lyra is a delightful, ballsy heroine, and the worlds that Pullman imagines around her are vividly imagined. It's not supplanting Harry Potter in my personal esteem, but it was a satisfying way to spend a few days.

The Final Solution by Michael Chabon

A short mystery by another author who's becoming one of my favorites. Chabon has what many of my favorite authors have, which is an innate sense of history. By which I mean that the manner in which they write fictional histories weaves stories in an epic sense that evokes documented factual history (that is, history by academically trained historians). Though The Final Solution is brief, one gets the sense that among the silences and unfilled gaps in the mystery, is a deeply involved story that Chabon ultimately knows from beginning to end.

Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood by Koren Zailckas

Maybe it's weird to say so, but I find stories about substance abuse, fictional and otherwise, unbelievably fascinating. They frequently show life at it's most dramatic and melodramatic, small moments exacerbated or writ large due to the influence of alcohol or drugs. However, even if Zailckas' memoir wasn't about substance abuse, it would still be interesting due to her startlingly clear-eyed observations about what it means to be a young woman in America today. She looks at herself and her peers and draws their misadventures with alcohol out to make points about expected behavior of women as young people, as drinkers, as friends, as protectors that are sad but revelatory when plainly stated.

This is the True Story...

Real World: Brooklyn - MTV Shows

Try as I might, I can't quite seem to stop loving The Real World.  I'm years removed from my own peak viewing era (New Orleans to Las Vegas), but there's something reassuring about the show's tenacity on a network that values youth and novelty above all else.  Working on a paper about the VMAs really piqued my interest in MTV and their constant revitalization versus their embrace of their own history and brand representatives.  Barring some sort of dramatic programming decision on MTV's part, the next few years will see the first housemate born after the initial premiere of the first New York season, which should be a really intriguing milestone for the network.

I love Real World retrospectives, and this one was actually pretty interesting, if a little focused on recent seasons.  Shockingly, this one managed to go an hour and a half without the classic Slap from Seattle (as well as my personal favorite, Dan and Melissa's throwdown in Miami over her opening his mail - it epitomizes the core philosophy that has driven The Real World for so many seasons, namely that twenty-somethings forced to live together will fight over anything and everything). I love the "institutional memory" role taken on by Jonathan Murray - you can tell that he's seen a lot of crazy shit over the years, and he seems to truly love the show and all that has come from it over the years without the mercenary sort of air you get from people like Mark Burnett.  I'm sort of fascinated by the made-for-TV biopic they're apparently making about Pedro Zamora - on the one hand because it seems like a whole new level of self-cannibalization on MTV's part, but on the other because it elevates something that happened on MTV and seems to make the argument that it should be known to people too young to watch it when it happened.  I'll be interested to see what comes of that.

I might actually watch this season, for old time's sake.  Even though the show seems to have gotten trashier over the years, I can still see how a young teen could get something rewarding out of the show.  When I was really into The Real World (like, I bought their behind-the-scenes books, that's how into it I was), I latched onto Melissa from New Orleans and Coral from Back to New York in particular.  At the point I was at in my life, there was something really reassuring about seeing young women of color living their lives and interacting with peers and just generally acknowledging that sometimes it is really difficult to just exist.  I truly believe that there's still value to be gained from The Real World, hot tub shenanigans aside.

Quoted III

"Joyce Maynard, who lived with Mr. Salinger in the early ’70s, wrote in a 1998 memoir that she had seen shelves of notebooks devoted to the Glass family and believed there were at least two new novels locked away in a safe."

- Charles McGrath, "Still Paging Mr. Salinger," New York Times, 12/30/08

This article kind of epitomized the slow news day ("Salinger: Still a Recluse" is not exactly breaking or urgent news), but as a Glass family devotee, the above sentence made my heart skip a beat. I hope against hope that he ultimately decides to share whatever his output has been with the fans who love those characters.