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July 9th, 2009
07:43 am - oh, you begged me to keep you in that house on the hill
Enough talk about aesthetics. Now let's talk about actual art.
The Keep: Michael Mann's last big project before "Miami Vice" (the TV series). A honey of a concept - Nazis occupying a Romanian keep accidentally unleash a medieval demon, which murders them one at a time until a mysterious stranger can stop it - featuring a cast you'd kill for twenty years later: Jurgen Prochnow, Gabriel Byrne, Ian McKellen, Scott Glenn. And yet it's a complete train wreck.
96 minute run-time, and if you sped every slow-motion scene into real time it'd barely be an hour. Sometimes the film moves lethargically, like when we watch a boat pull away from shore for thirty seconds or someone walks down a corridor for an interminable period. And sometimes the film jerks abruptly - Alberta Watson and Scott Glenn meet, fall in love, and sleep together in about two minutes. The acting ranges between melodrama and mumbles: Jurgen Prochnow and Ian McKellen shriek at the top of their lungs that, don't you get it, the Nazis are the real demons, but Glenn mumbles his character's name once and most viewers will miss it.
I did like the cinematography, though that's really all that can be said for the final product. Photographer Alex Thomson never shoots the titular keep from higher than ground level - no crane shots or copter shots - reinforcing its alien size. And the shot when a hapless Nazi stumbles into an underground cavern chills the soul - the camera pulls back, back, back for a full sixty seconds, astonishing the viewer with scale, until a bolt of demonic lightning arcs up from the ground.
(I'd say more, but I intend to discuss The Keep in real depth in a future OTI post)
The Long Goodbye: The first Altman film I've sat through from beginning to end, and I don't know what I was waiting for. It's an artifact of its time, but Altman assembles it so precisely that you can overlook the period. The setting is dated; the characters are not.
Consider this the ur-Lebowski: a chain-smoking slacker finds himself in the middle of a crime, then sleepwalks his way through solving a mystery. In this instance, the sleepwalker is Philip Marlowe, played with a cool that I didn't know Elliott Gould possessed, hired to retrieve an alcoholic writer from a shady sanitarium. This case keeps reminding him of the disappearance of his friend Terry Lennox, who the cops suspected for murder - a disappearance that Marlowe aided in. Marlowe gets tangled ever deeper in this web until even his pristine facade starts to crack.
Sterling Hayden might be typecast as alcoholic novelist Roger Wade, but his performance still draws the eye. He's magnetic in that way that gregarious drunks are: now rambling and generous, now perched on the brink of sudden violence. Elliott Gould remains unshaken by everything in his path until the very end. When he finally does get angry - learning that the connection between the Lennoxes and the Wades might be deeper than he thought - he's drunk and exhausted. His subsequent confrontation with the detective on the case comes off as comical.
And that's what The Long Goodbye is: a dark comedy. Philip Marlowe slept through the 40s and woke up in the 70s, in a Los Angeles that barely makes sense. He reacts to everything - driving a friend out of the country, getting arrested, breaking into a sanitarium, threats from violent mobsters - with an agreeable tolerance. "It's okay with me," is his most frequent line of dialogue. And Altman continues to pile coincidence upon tragedy until we reach the point where it's not okay with Marlowe. Then he acts.
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Postscript: after hearing Gould's sotto voce monologues in The Long Goodbye, I understand why Paramount gave Altman the reins for the live-action Popeye movie in 1980.
Current Music: Fleetwood Mac - "Big Love"
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July 8th, 2009
07:31 am - to the logical limit
A little under a week ago, I took some flack from folks on LiveJournal for my assertion that sitcoms were an inferior form of art to more active, plot-driven stories. Well, that wasn't really what I was asserting. What I asserted was that I didn't like it when sitcoms did that, and that it was a frequent enough trope that I was comfortable generalizing. I thought that was clear enough from beginning the post with, "Here's what I don't like about sitcoms," but.
However, after defending my assertion to several logical people whose opinions I trust, I realized that I should probably unpack my feelings on art a little more. So here they are:
1. I believe that there is such a thing as great art, and that it's not subjective. You and I, reasonable humans and critical minds, will probably disagree on what that great art is (you: Herman Melville; me: Ernest Hemingway, and on into the clove-scented night). But we should agree that there is such a thing as great art - that not only is it Platonically possible, but that it has been done and will be done again. I do not agree that all aspects of art are relative.
(I spell that out because some people think that, no, all art's in the eye of the beholder, it's not possible to say that one piece of art is better or worse than another in an objective sense, etc, etc. And I don't feel that's true)
2. I believe that art is anything created primarily to evoke a response. "Primarily" being the operative word. Art is art because its aesthetic value outweighs its utilitarian value. I don't think that a meticulously crafted Louis XIV ottoman is art, though it has a lot of aesthetic value (attention to form, fine craftsmanship, etc) - it's meant to be used. Now I suppose if someone buys it and puts it in a sterile room no one's allowed to enter and insists the children never touch it, it'd be more art than furniture. Similarly, a well prepared plate of food that crosses the line from nutritional diversity (protein, carbs, fiber, fruits) into a tour of the senses could be considered art.
(Most people want a clear definition of Art so they can act as gatekeeper. "Duchamp isn't art; it's his gag on the art world." "Pollock isn't art; it's random squiggles on paper." "Video games aren't art; they're toys." That's not what I intend. I'm not trying to exclude anything from the category of Art. I want a working definition of art because, per point #1 above, we can't talk about greater or lesser works of art unless we know what they're better or worse at. Art has to do something, and the term "Art" has to mean something, for there to be greater works of Art)
3. I believe that every form of art has limitations and benefits inherent to its media. Novels can do things that film can't; film can do things that comic books can't; comic books can do things that symphonies can't; etc. I spell this out in more detail in an earlier post on aesthetics of different media.
4. I believe that a piece of art which evokes a response with little apparent effort is a great work of art. I'm least certain about this belief of anything I've asserted so far and would welcome the most hearty debate here. But I believe that, the closer to which art approaches nature while still evoking a vivid response - or proving more diverting - the better it is. Sunsets over the ocean are beautiful, but they're not art. A symphony that evokes the same wordless feeling in you that a sunset over the beach does is a great work of art. A chorale composition, featuring a talented vocalist singing about how beautiful the sun is, standing in front of a dropcloth on which a sunset is projected, is not as good.
(Note that when I say "nature" I don't mean "naturalism," though I have a strong fondness for that myself. The Matrix is a greater work of art than Jet Li's The One, because the dialogue, effects and pacing in the former far exceed the latter. It is believable, even if it is sci-fi, and The One is not, even if it is largely similar)
5. Since technical effort is the criteria I use, I believe that the strength of the response evoked by art has little to do with its greatness. Or, in English, there's nothing wrong with being entertained by bad art. A great work of art is great because of its technical strength, not because it evokes more powerful responses or "nobler" responses.
I find Road House more fun than Memento. Moreover, I was more entertained by Road House than I was moved by Memento. But I would still say that Memento is the greater work of art, because Christopher Nolan is the greater craftsman. He tells a more complex story with less apparent effort. I say this and I stick by it, even though I've watched Road House at least three times in the last twelve months and haven't touched Memento in years.
6. And finally, I believe that you will find more great works of art among dramas or romantic comedies than among sitcoms.
Sitcoms, to my jaded and condescending eye, wear their formulas too openly. There's the introduction, the complication, the rise to climax and the comical denouement. There's the familiar interchange between bumbling husband and tolerant wife, between lewd boy and coquettish girl, etc. Not that the material itself renders it poor art - when this stuff was new, back in the days of commedia dell'arte, it was groundbreaking. But very few new trails have been blazed in situation comedy in the last fifty years. The Honeymooners, I Love Lucy, M.A.S.H., Fresh Prince of Bel Air, The Office, Arrested Development ... I'm struggling to name more.
Further, sitcoms exist primarily on television today, and television, like all art, is subject to the limits of its medium. The subject matter has to please advertisers. It has to fit into a 24-minute slot. It has to break up into three recognizable beats to fit between commercials. This is why (in my opinion) you find more groundbreaking material on cable: shows like Party Down or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia or Weeds.
So it's not impossible for a sitcom to be great. It's just not as likely. And this is why I believe it.
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Current Music: Echo and the Bunnymen - "Over the Wall"
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July 7th, 2009
07:41 am - free, only want to be free
PROLOGUE: Some trivia about the Neil Diamond classic that titles this post:- Pete not only references it on this week's Overthinking It podcast, but he sang it at karaoke this past Wednesday. It was awesome. By contrast, I sang Billy Idol's live cover of "Mony Mony" and got the entire bar to curse at me. That was also pretty cool.
- This song came from the universally panned (though financially successful) 1980 Neil Diamond film The Jazz Singer.
- It was one of 166 songs deemed inappropriate by Clear Channel following the September 11 attacks, sharing that black mark with the entire Rage Against The Machine catalog, AC/DC's "Safe in New York City," Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and the Chi-Lites' "Have You Seen Her." And who says corporate monopolies ruined the music industry!
I played about an hour of video games on Saturday before I realized I was sitting inside on a gorgeous day. So I got up and wandered Somerville, stopping to say hi to Lynne D. and her yard sale. "There were people here at eight this morning," she said, shocked. "One guy sat out front in a van filled with newspapers for twenty minutes. Taking notes in a little notebook."
After checking in on Marie C. and her carrot cake, I emptied my fridge of beer and headed to Mike M's annual 4th of July barbecue. Attendance was low but intimate (because of Don S's simultaneous barbecue, we theorized, to which all the people with baaaaaaaabies might have gone). Mike had constructed two ladder golf sets, which ate up several hours. He and Robert took turns grilling various meats - pork tenderloin, bacon-wrapped steak tips, teriyaki chicken - while the rest of us threw bolas.
Two hours wandering Somerville plus six hours playing ladder golf turned my arms crispy, sucking the life out of me by the time we retired indoors. We played about four straight hours of Mike's racing variant of charades - two teams compete to mime their way through a list of items, racing to opposite ends of the apartment to pantomime to their fellow players. We started out strong, but energy and creativity started to flag after several sprints and beers. At one point, our team guessed every syllable of "Scooby-Doo" and still couldn't guess the answer. "Boo bee poo? Poo pee boo?"
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Current Music: "America"
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July 6th, 2009
07:15 am - into the arms of america
You know you've been working too hard when you get more excited about the errands you'll run on your day off than the parties you'll attend. Which is how Friday started: running to the bank for quarters, starting a load of laundry, picking up fifty dollars in dry cleaning (one suit, three pants, two button shirts, three polo shirts), swapping a load of laundry, going to the library, whoops!, strike that, library's closed on the 3rd of July, mailed a package at the post office, got my laundry. Made a very light lunch.
Then I went to Joanna's annual Independence Day barbecue - a day early, but we all had the day off, or took it - just ahead of some rain clouds. They followed me all the way to Porter Square, no matter how fast I walked. I came in on a foursquare game that was just wrapping up and Joanna's roommate Matt stringing an impromptu tarp over the grill, lashed between the fire escape and one of the fences. Some of us hung out inside and drank, listening to Serpico talk about parties in Jersey, until the rain let up. I had a few hot dogs, Katie S's brother (never did catch his first name) confused me with Robert Parish ("CHIEEEF" he yelled, once or twice), Sylvia stole my camera and we ran out of peanut butter cups but hey, it's okay with me.
Ended up at 90s Night, as always. I picked Meghan O' up from the bar at ImprovBoston, having a beer and chatting up the night staff. The Harold show let out a little after 10:30, so I said hi to cast and audience. As such, we got to Allston later than I might have liked and ended up waiting in line. DJ Phatmike couldn't do anything for us - the cops were out in force for the long weekend, and headcount was tight - but the queue moved at a reasonable clip. I met Flannery's mythical husband Nate and her friend Martha, and I didn't miss "Flagpole Sitta," and I never have a bad time there anyway.
And that's just Friday. Did I mention the weather was gorgeous?
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Current Music: U2
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July 3rd, 2009
10:49 am - ten years burnin' down the road
I've got a piece on OTI today about Born in the U.S.A., perhaps America's most misappropriated patriotic song. I also take some potshots at George F. Will in the column, so if that's fun for you, check it out.
(Please note that I don't sincerely believe "Born in the U.S.A." is America's most misappropriated patriotic song - "The Star-Spangled Banner," taken from a British drinking song, might beat it out. But I do sincerely believe that George F. Will is a daft tool)
Happy Independence Day, Americans. As you enjoy your barbecues and beach trips this weekend, remember that this country is founded on a tradition of shooting at law enforcement officers and violently questioning the Party line. Now, if the cops harass you for illegal fireworks or open containers of alcohol outdoors, I'm not saying shoot them. I'm not.
I'm just saying there's precedent.
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Current Music: The Boss
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July 2nd, 2009
07:57 am - I heard somebody say burn, baby, burn
Working out on Tuesday, the instructor really kicked my ass. We worked our core harder than I think I've ever worked it, though in a way that didn't feel strained the next morning. I stumbled out of class with my legs loose and my arms glowing with warmth.
And this was half an hour before jiu-jitsu.
Talking with other jiu-jitsu students about yoga last week inspired me to check the BSC's schedule. The BSC near my office offers yoga almost every weeknight, including classes that fit neatly between the end of my work-day world and the start of jiu-jitsu. Yoga has been, in my experience, an excellent workout - tense and draining without crippling me with exhaustion. It builds every muscle group in sequence. And if nothing else, it's a better use of my time than browsing through Target again.
Besides, I pay enough for the gym every month that I ought to take one or two classes to justify it. It's just good business sense.
Net result: I walked out of jiu-jitsu on Tuesday baking from the inside. My body churned calories at unreasonable speeds. I ate at a McDonald's for the first time in possibly a year and topped it off with a protein shake when I got home. And while I went to bed tired, I didn't wake up sore.
I like the exhausted state of mental clarity that yoga brings. It's like a good massage - every muscle gets pounded free of kinks, forcing you to carry your body in a subtly different way. That, plus the flow of endorphins, plus the glowing warmth your body starts generating, makes you feel confident. I walked out of the BSC on Tuesday rolling from the balls of one foot to the other, like a mountain lion.
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July 1st, 2009
08:01 am - just like a paperback novel, the kind the drugstores sell
Here's what bothers me about sitcoms.
Traditional narrative structure gives us a protagonist who has a desire. Between this protagonist and his desire lies an obstacle. The story depicts how the protagonist gets around this obstacle. In boy meets girl, the boy must convince the girl his feelings are true. In the brave little tailor, the tailor must overcome monsters and challenges to win his fame and fortune. Etc.
Sitcoms, however, have to tell lots of stories in rapid succession. So eventually, the writers reach a point where most of the obstacles are in the protagonist's own head.
Common examples include:
- "Oh, I have a crush on her, but I can't tell her."
- "Oh, I've done something despicable, but I can't let anyone know."
- "I think my boss gave me this promotion because he thinks I'm cute. How can I find out?"
- "Despite years of competence at this task, I suddenly doubt my own abilities!"
These all suck because they can be resolved at any time. They exist entirely inside the protagonist's head. He could get over them tomorrow; he could get over them ten years from now. There's no logic to when the obstacle should be overcome and, therefore, no tension. If I'm late for the opera and my car keys fell down a sewer drain, the obstacle will logically be resolved when I either get my car keys out of the sewer, or flag a taxi down, or call my husband and let him know, etc. But if I'm delaying going to the opera because I hate opera, who knows when I'll fess up to it?
(If it's a standard sitcom, actually, we know exactly when I'll fess up to it: sometime between the twenty-fifth and twenty-eighth minute. But that's not a function of good storytelling)
Sometimes the writers force their characters into situations that push them over their (self-created) internal tension and get them to act. The meek secretary is trapped in an elevator with her handsome boss. Will she confess her feelings? The problem is that, again, the writers are under no pressure to resolve this dilemma now. They could string along her obvious discomfort until the end of the episode. It's happened before.
So can internal tension still make interesting stories? Absolutely. But only if it is absolute.
A perfect example would be The Shield. Vic Mackey does something questionable - like snatch five hundred thousand dollars from a drug bust and hide it at his house. Does he spend an episode debating what to do? No. He makes a decision and acts on it. The plot advances. The tension comes when events outside his control force him to reevaluate his decision. For instance, his wife Corinne finds the money while searching the basement. What does he tell her?
"But Vic Mackey was a bold, decisive character," you object. Fine: consider Billings. In Season 4, Billings witnesses a drive-by shooting while at a self-serve car wash. Rather than flash his badge and draw his gun, he hides around the corner of the building until the shooter drives off. This is a craven decision by a despicable character. But Billings doesn't fret over it. He sticks to it. He remains silent on what he's seen until events outside his control force him to reevaluate his decision: Wagenbach gets the case, runs Billings' plates (from a witness or a videotape, I forget) and corners him.
The Shield is a drama, so let me turn back to sitcoms for appropriate examples. The Office occasionally veers into woe-is-me territory, but can usually count on Steve Carell's character, Michael Scott, to propel the plot forward. When Michael Scott gets an idea, he acts on it instantly and drags the rest of his office into it with him. We're hiring a stripper! We're running a marathon! We're going to Benihana! You can hate him, you can pity him, you can laugh at him, but the one thing you cannot do with Michael Scott as your office manager is ignore him and continue on with what you were doing. "Everybody into the conference room." This makes Michael an essential character and Jim Halpert, sadly, a weak one.
What's the lesson? Decisions drive plot; debate delays it. People want to see stuff happen. As soon as you introduce a desire and an obstacle, your characters need to start climbing that obstacle. They can't just stare at it and pull their hair. And once they start climbing, they either need to cross the obstacle in a reasonable period of time, or they need to fall off. Or find another hurdle at the top. Either way, your story needs to move.
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Current Music: Gordon Lightfoot, MOTHERF#%$ER
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June 30th, 2009
07:38 am - accidents mean no one's guilty; ignorance mean someone's killed
This media blow might get political, but that's no fault of mine:
The Lives of Others: Oscar-winning German film from 2007. Set in East Berlin in 1984, it follows a Stasi captain ordered to surveill a popular playwright and his actor girlfriend. The passion in their lives draws him in, until he finds himself bending the rules to keep them safe. Like The Conversation, but heartwarming and taking place outside of Gene Hackman's head. Phenomenal - moving, funny and rich in historic detail.
(Note: National Review called it the best conservative movie of the last twenty-five years - which, coming from a magazine that's spent hundreds of pages defending warrantless wiretaps and detention without trial in the last decade, ranks as one of the sicker ironies I've read in some time)
Half-Life 2: Acquired it with the Orange Box; finished it last week. I see what all the fuss is about! The grossout horror aspects don't do it for me (zombies! ceiling barnacles!), but the shooting felt more intuitive and intense than any other FPS I've played in recent memory. The house-to-house urban levels (Anticitizen One and "Follow Freeman") justify the sticker price - which isn't much in 2009, so go get a copy.
And the in-game dialogue does not disappoint (as it shouldn't, coming from the makers of Portal). Dr. Breen's tired lectures to the troops at Nova Prospekt beat the writing in any given Michael Bay movie, hands-down. "This brings me to the one note of disappointment I must echo from our Benefactors ..."
I started in on HL2:Ep1 but logged off pretty early. Given the cataclysmic ending of HL2, I figured that Ep1 would put you in control of Alyx Vance as she fled City 17. Now that would have been cool. But no, once again it's Gordon Freeman, forced to invade the same Citadel he just spent several hours blowing up. I'll pick it up again once time has cooled its memory, I'm sure.
Slan: Typical '40s pulp - lots of action, lots of breakneck pacing, lots of pseudo-scientific talk. In the distant future, the human race has united into a single global police state, fanatically devoted to one end: killing the super-mutants called slans. Slans look exactly like humans, except for the golden tendrils emerging from their skulls that give them telepathic capabilities. That, plus their superhuman speed and reaction time, make them a threat to the human race.
The story moves along at an engaging clip, pausing only on occasion for lengthy lectures on the history of the current situation. In these lectures we get a definite sense of the time in which van Vogt wrote this novel: 1940, when the world hadn't quite lost its fascination with fascism yet. Because fascism isn't just jackboots and insignia (though those are essential). It's any political system which treats culture, genetics and politics as different facets of the same machine, a machine that, if it were only tempered just so, could launch the human species at a lightning pace.
Still, it's pretty understated. Get past that and you have a classic piece of sci-fi history.
Buffy: I haven't forgotten you. A couple more episodes, then I'll have my next batch of 5.
Black Summer: Superhero comics stem from adolescent power fantasies, and the passing decades have not matured that appeal much. Sure, comic books sometimes touch on political issues of the day, but almost always within their own limited language - "hey, wouldn't it be cool if a super-soldier punched Hitler in the face? and he had a sidekick who was my age?" At the end of the day, it's still wish-fulfillment. And that's fine. Indulging in wish-fulfillment gets the human race out of bed in the morning. But let's call it what it is.
Black Summer is an independent comic series written by Warren "&%$#" Ellis and illustrated, sometimes too ornately, by Juan Jose Ryp. It tells the story that brings the Seven Guns, America's only cybernetically enhanced vigilante team, out of retirement. Each of the Guns combines cutting-edge information processing nanotech with handguns of unequalled power - some can run faster than light, some can throw tanks at helicopters, some can see through every satellite or computer in the world. Four of them can hold off an Army battalion.
The series begins with the most trusted member of the Seven Guns, John Horus, killing the President and Vice-President with his bare hands moments before they're scheduled for a press conference. He appears before the White House press corps and charges the (unnamed) President with a number of crimes, including but not limited to prosecuting an illegal war in Iraq and ordering the torture of enemy combatants. He demands a new election take place as soon as possible, and then flies off.
To Ellis' credit, John Horus is insane. No one - not even his teammates - thinks that murdering the President will solve what's wrong with America. As one of his allies puts it, John Kennedy was so unliked that he barely got elected, and now look what people think of him. So is Ellis saying violence won't fix the system? That violence is an ugly but necessary first step? That the system can't be fixed?
I don't know that he's saying any of those. I think Ellis took a dark idea that writers have been batting around since Watchmen ("what if someone truly invincible, and maybe a little bit crazy, were as mad at the President as I am?") and ran with it. The result is an interesting, and brutally violent, little story. I don't think it'll change anyone's mind on anything important. But, again, it's a comic book.
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Current Music: Ted Leo - "Counting Down the Hours"
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June 29th, 2009
07:28 am - ooo, ee, ooo ah ah, ting tang, walla walla bing bang
Fireball Island: At Michelle B's party on Friday, Noah brought Fireball Island, an exasperating hell-pit from Milton Bradley. You and three other explorers scramble your way up the slopes of Fireball Island, dodging fireballs until you can snatch a jewel from an altar. Then there's a hilarious slapstick while the jewel changes hands until one explorer can get down the hill, into the boat, and off the island.
Part of what makes the game ridiculous:- Every time you roll a 1, a fireball appears. Whoever rolls the 1 can pick who gets the fireball, which has to roll from one of several points around the island. If you get hit with the fireball, you're bumped back to a distant space and lose the jewel, if you're holding it.
- You can take the jewel from another explorer by passing them. And since you're only moving 2 to 6 spaces at a time, this leads to the "end-game traffic jam", where three to four players are clustered one or two spaces away from each other, and every consecutive move leads to the jewel changing hands.
- As such, the wisest strategical moves, once the jewel reaches your hands, necessarily involve prolonging the game. Once I had the jewel, I ran to the other end of the island - as far from the exit as possible - forcing the other three players to sprawl out in tracking me.
I won, but largely through luck and attrition.
Luau: The annual Davis Square Luau (hosted by Colby, Dea and others) was again a success - perhaps not as ridiculous as last year's, but still fun at all relevant points. True to the voodoo theme this year, Colby busted out barbecue ribs in a serving tray shaped like a coffin, and Dea decorated the inside of the house with loads of shrunken heads. A tiki band played for the first few hours, handing the reins over to a veritable stable of DJs until the morning. I drank, I circulated, I danced, I took some good photos. If you missed it, you suck.
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June 26th, 2009
07:40 am - no one wants to be defeated
Your correspondent's adventures in consumerism in the Arsenal and Watertown Malls over the course of one hour on Thursday evening.
First, the Gamestop in the Arsenal Mall. I dropped two unopened XBox 360 games on the counter, hoping to get some store credit. The girl behind the counter looked them over. "We can't take these," she said. "They're sealed."
"And if I open the seals right now?" I asked, not at all getting it.
"No, it's a loss prevention thing."
I stood there for a moment, staring at her in confusion, before walking off. It's one of those decisions that's equally rational and ridiculous at the same time. It reduces the chances of Gamestop buying back a game that somebody stole from them, true. But it can easily be foiled by your hypothetical delinquent stepping outside, slitting the shrink-wrap off his games, and going to another Gamestop.
Next, I drove across the street to Autozone. Autozone will run a diagnostic on your car for free if you show up with the "Check Engine" light on. A stringy-haired tech followed me out to my car. I started my car, but he cautioned me to kill the engine but leave the battery on.
"Yeah, I just need the battery running to ... whoop," he said, feeling around underneath the dash. "What year's this car again?"
"Ninety-six."
"Sorry; can't help you." He indicated the interface on his diagnostic's plug. "That was the year before they switched over to the standardized model." He stood there, twiddling the cord on his diagnostic reader, shrugging with a wistful smile.
After that, I went to Best Buy to check out some computer headsets. Nothing leaped out and grabbed me. While I browsed, a cluster of blue-shirted blimps hovered around a computer in the cell phone section, spreading the news that Michael Jackson had just passed. "Should we make an announcement?" someone asked. "It's channel 5 on the phone if you want to get the PA." Thankfully, no one did. I mourn the King of Pop's loss as deeply as anyone, but he's not, y'know, the President.
Finally I ended up in Target, where I found some computer headsets for around $10. Since I could use one for the Overthinking It podcast, I scooped it up. I killed some more time browsing for backup hard drives and video cameras before going to check out.
"$16.85," the checkout lady said.
"You have it posted for $10-something," I said.
She punched up an itemized display. "No, $15 plus tax."
"It was listed for $10 where I found it."
She flailed around for a bit. "Where? Where is ...? Shawna, have you seen ...? He was just here." She toddled off, looking for a manager or a stockboy to go check the aisle. I stood there, tapping my plastic on the checkout stand, rocking from heel to toe, and feeling sorry for the poor woman who'd just unloaded a cart of groceries onto the conveyor behind me. Sorry, miss. Just picking a fight over $5. Won't be a minute.
The checkout woman returned, unable to find the employee she needed. "What'd you say it cost?"
"$10-fifty-something. I can take you back there to check."
"I can't go back there," she insisted. "I have to stay up front."
Again, we stood there for a moment. Finally, she punched a clear code in and entered "$10.59." I swiped my card, thankfully not having to wait for a signature, and took off.
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Current Music: The Greatest
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June 25th, 2009
07:40 am - it's like nothing else to make you feel sure you're alive
I'm in so many other media this week.
First, I have a post up on OTI comparing Burn Notice to John le Carre novels. If you like either, you ought to check out the other. Or, at least, my article.
Second, don't forget this week's podcast if you haven't listened to it already: our 2009 summer movie preview. We also come to the consensus that we need a woman on the podcast - not out of any sort of affirmative action principle, but because several listeners have requested it and, really, it makes sense.
Finally, OTI and Eco-comics - the weblog that mixes economics and comics - swapped guest writers this week. I gave them a post about the Justice League and comparative advantage: how Superman illustrates the Ricardian principles of trade. You should check it out.
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Current Music: Todd Rundgren - "We Gotta Get You A Woman"
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June 24th, 2009
07:40 am - rule britannia is out of bounds
WALL-E: Another touching and awesome Pixar spectacle. Pixar has mastered animation to the extent that a one-foot robot with only two words in its vocabulary can emote more effectively than most of the stars expected to carry a summer picture today. They've mastered comic timing on a level that puts 99% of comedies released today (Mike Myers films, the [Genre] Movie series) to shame. And I'm not the best barometer for tearjerkers, sensitive twit that I am, but very few human actors can move me like Pixar's wooden toys, fuzzy monsters, colorful fish or rusting robots.
(No, I haven't seen Up yet; planning on it)
Red Mars: I started this book when I was 14, maybe, got about 100 pages into it, and couldn't sustain interest. Don't know why I stuck to my initial judgment for so long - putting too high a premium on my adolescent judgments - but man, was I wrong. Red Mars works on all levels. As a compelling story of social orders in development, Red Mars tells the story of the first permanent colony on Mars - dedicated scientists at constant odds, each with their own vision of utopia that they seek to impose upon a lifeless planet. I also found myself able to follow the hard science aspects to a greater extent than in other sci-fi novels - I got the importance of aerobraking, and moholes, and the Phobos oscillation on the space elevator. So few engineers-turned-authors can make that work for an English major like me.
But above all else, Red Mars tells my favorite story: of how the war between institutions grinds humans in its wake. Red Mars lacks any overt villains. Though the United Nations and the megacorporations that run it draw no real sympathy, they do have a compelling case: they made a significant investment in Mars by getting the colony there, and they want to see that investment recouped. The environmentalists and the terraformers both make solid arguments for their points of view. Even the saboteurs draw the reader in, with their hokey Rousseauvian mysticism.
What else was I wrong about at age 14, I wonder?
Your Religion is False: Asked and answered, I suppose.
Atheists will never gain much traction in the public forum with the cranky attitude that people like Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers adopt in talking about faith. The ancient churches of the world have dealt with better (and better armed) vitriol for centuries. But gone are the years when joking about a holy man would get you exiled from your village, or burned at the stake, or eaten by bears. Laughter is a hard weapon to deflect.
Joel Grus puts humor to good use in Your Religion is False, by taking a John Hodgmann-esque look at all of the major world's religions. He alternates between straight-faced looks at the absurdity of religious doctrine and exaggerations for comic effect:
Conservative Protestants strictly follow three universal principles, all of which revolve around the idea of "I'm sick of the Pope telling me what to do":- "If the Bible says it, I believe it. If the Bible doesn't say it, I don't believe it. If the Pope says it, for sure I don't believe it, unless the Bible says it too, in which case I have to ask my pastor what I think."
- "It doesn't matter how good or evil you are - if you accept Jesus as your savior, you're going to heaven, and if you don't you're going to hell."
- "I'm sick of the Pope telling me what to do."
The first causes all sorts of problems, as it forces Conservative Protestants to believe that the world is only 6000 years old, to disbelieve in all sorts of useful science, to insist that one man both built a boat capable of carrying and subsequently discovered two members of every species on Earth (including, apparently, all five million-plus species of beetles), and to assert that pi equals 3. The second causes all sorts of problems, as it has allowed a number of Nixon-era criminals to establish lucrative post-incarceration prison ministries. The third is actually an exceptionally sensible position.
And he devotes attention to just about every religion I've heard of, from the obscure (transcendental meditation, Jainism, giant stone head worship) to the institutional (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, etc). I think this is the book's greatest strength and the key to its outreach. Every believer thinks that religions other than his own are silly, or false, or harmful, and wouldn't mind a chance to poke fun at them. Maybe by seeing them juxtaposed with his own beliefs - equally silly in Grus's eyes - he'll have cause to rethink them.
Highly recommended. Buy a copy today.
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(Disclosure: I advised Joel on certain portions of the book and provided some feedback on an early draft. However, I think you all know me well enough to know that, if I didn't think this was a genuinely worthwhile book, I'd put off Joel's persistent requests for a glowing review with a polite passive-aggression until he lost interest or took the hint. I'm that sort of asshole. But I haven't; it's legitimately funny)
Current Music: David Bowie - "Life on Mars"
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June 23rd, 2009
09:00 am - ain’t no angel gonna greet me; it’s just you and I my friend
We moved hotels on Saturday, from one closer to the city (for the rehearsal dinner) to one closer to Swarthmore (for Matt and Lydia’s wedding). I rode with Kevin, tailing behind my parents’ SUV down a rain-slicked 95 South while Chuck Barry played “School Days.” “AC/DC does a decent cover of this song,” I remarked.
I borrowed some cufflinks from my dad and slipped into my dark pinstripe suit, with a patterned cornflower tie. Gluing my hair down onto my skull, I paced the room until Matt’s rented motor coach came to fetch us. The groom’s party and the bridesmaids would all ride to the wedding together, taking preliminary photos before the ceremony. The superstition about the bride and groom seeing each other before the ceremony didn’t bother these two, but the one about handling wedding rings during the rehearsal did. No judgment implied; every couple’s different.
We stopped at Lydia’s parents’ house to pick her and the bridal party up, where we proceeded to wait for half an hour. “Still not ready,” reported the groom’s father. “The important thing is: we got here on time,” Matt’s brother Griff, the best man, observed. “No one can pin this one on us.” We then pinned boutonnieres on each other, which proved trickier.
Lydia showed up, glowing like a June bride, and the coach rolled to Swarthmore. We snapped pictures on the front porch of the Quaker Meeting House while guests filed in the sides. The downpour slowed to a drizzle but did not let up. With a scant ten minutes to go the groom’s party slipped into the back for our entrance, while the bridesmaids waited to enter from the front. I caught up with Matt, his lips tight, and clapped him on the shoulder. “You know what rain on your wedding day means?” I asked him.
He shook his head.
“Not a god-damned thing.”
The remaining details are too personal to entertain a larger audience. If you’ve been to one wedding for close friends, you get the gist: touching ceremony, drinking with family, dancing with friends, arms on shoulders and heads in hands. I will say: Matt and Griff and their parents have been as close as family to me and mine for about twenty-five years. Having the honor of officiating Matt and Lydia’s wedding – bringing their two families together – felt touchingly appropriate. I did the best I could and had the most fun I think I could have.
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June 22nd, 2009
07:35 am - a couple of guys who were up to no good started making trouble in my neighborhood
The cab ride from Philadelphia's 30th Street Station to the Courtyard Marriott near City Hall took me past fewer adult theaters than I would have expected. They integrate well into Philadelphia's downtown aesthetic of 1750s buildings with 1930s storefronts - art gallery, sandwich shop, adult theater, clothing store, adult theater, Western Union, Ben Franklin's house, adult theater, and so forth. Philadelphia's transients integrate really well, too. I saw crazy homeless people in every neighborhood in Philly - and I walked quite a few blocks - but never once got approached for change. It's a gentler sort of homelessness. The indigent have won the battle for Philadelphia; they live as idle conquerors.
I walked from the hotel to the historical district, checking out the Liberty Bell and the outside of Independence Hall. Though I passed at least a dozen sandwich shops on the way out, not one spot on the way back (a mere two blocks south) advertised a cheese steak. And I didn't feel like dropping $11 at some outdoor tavern - I wanted as close to the genuine street article as I could acquire. I finally found a street vendor two blocks from my hotel and picked up a cheese steak with the works - peppers, onions, ketchup, and of course the afterthought of cheese. It went down hearty.
Matt and his brother Griff, along with Matt's fiancee Lydia and Griff's wife Sarah, picked me up outside their hotel for the rehearsal. We braved Phillies traffic on 95 South to get to Swarthmore, arriving only a few minutes late. There I met the rest of Matt's groomsmens' party - three fine gentlemen I would have met a month ago had I made it to the bachelor party. "You're Kevin's older brother?" they asked, with a knowing nod that I would need at least four more beers to justify.
The Saturday forecast called for heavy rain, so we scoped out the backup location first: the Quaker Meeting House on Swarthmore's north campus. Lydia and Matt eschewed a wedding planner for the ceremony, giving the rehearsal proceedings a refreshing informality. We lined everyone up, figured out who would stand where when delivering readings, and worked the timing of entrances and exits. Bam. In, out, thirty minutes.
"What are you going to be wearing for the ceremony tomorrow?" one of the bridesmaids asked.
"A Snuggie," I said. "The sleeves are embroidered."
Rehearsal dinner: back in the city at Estia (warning: Flash intro, plays music). Weddings that unite two big families lead to a lot of moving and entertaining stories over toasts, and this was no exception. Matt's grandfather gave Lydia a warning about the men of his family "falling hard." "My wife and I've been married fifty-eight years," he explained. "Matt's parents, thirty years." We took that as the encouraging sign we think Ray meant, and clinked glasses.
My own dad had a story from the bachelor party. "So one of Matt's friends goes to buy Matt a 'femme' drink as a gag. 'Give me a Yuengling,' he says, 'and the girliest, weakest drink you have on the menu.' 'Two Yuenglings, coming up!'"*
Kevin showed up with an hour left in the evening, having driven straight from work in Baltimore without his cell phone or a solid knowledge of where we were. He caught me up on his extracurriculars. He's playing in a rec lacrosse league, of whose players half used to play for Division I schools and the other half have not touched a stick in over a decade. "I'm playing defense," Kevin said. "I don't have to run so much."
We closed out Estia's function room early, harassing the waitstaff and doing a few final shots. Then Matt, Griff, Kevin and I took to the streets, doing what you'd expect four guys who've known each other for over twenty years to do when one of them's getting married. Would you believe that Philadelphia's the only city in America with a public library that's open until 3:00 in the morning? They serve very good espresso.
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* Dad later tells me that, though this is a true story, the bartender may have taken that line from Futurama. Regardless, any anecdote that helps dispel the New England myth that Yuengling's a beer of some high quality gets printed as gospel on this weblog.
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June 18th, 2009
11:38 pm - poll
I'm in Philadelphia this whole weekend. By the time you (probably) read this, I'll be on the train already. Most likely won't be checking e-mail or LJ until Sunday evening.
To fill up some content, please post one of the following:
A question you'd like to ask me;
A statement you'd like to tell me; or
A suggestion for something to weblog about next week.
Comments screened.
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07:36 am - and the road leads somewhere, but it's not yet to your door
Dear Ted Leo,
What the hell, man? What the hell?
You decide to play three shows in New England - one in Providence, one in New Haven and one in Massachusetts - the weekend that I'm traveling to Philadelphia. That's bad enough. And hey, the Massachusetts show is on Thursday night. I could conceivably make that one. I could get in the car, drive to see you, and stand in the front row screaming every word to every song off of Hearts of Oak and Shake the Sheets. That might make your day.
But you're playing at the Easthampton High School Gym.
Seriously?
(1) You couldn't land a venue in Boston? Or Cambridge? Or Somerville? Your promoter couldn't have spent the extra fifteen minutes on the phone it would take to mumble the words "Ted Leo and the Pharmacists" and get you a slot in a colllege town with a solid indie scene? Is it a question of moral distaste? Did Paradise vote for McCain? Does T.T. The Bears have investments in the Sudan? The hell?
(2) Taking as read that you couldn't swing any of Boston's hundreds of clubs for this one night - the Easthampton High School Gym? Did you owe the PTA a favor? Are they into post-punk and anarcho-syndicalism in Easthampton? You couldn't even make it as far east as feckin' Worcester, guy?
Really, dude. Not cool.
P.S. Living with the Living was good, too.
Current Music: Ted Leo - "Bleeding Powers"
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June 17th, 2009
07:31 am - breathe in, breathe out
As an atheist, rationalist and all-around humorless asshole, I don't go in for a lot of Eastern mysticism. I don't think much of reiki. I don't believe in the healing power of crystals, or cranio-sacral touch, or reflexology. I think ear candling's a dangerous fraud. I don't trust acupuncturists or chiropractors.
So you wouldn't think I'd be big on ki.
Watching Vlad promote to black belt at jiu-jitsu this past Saturday, I took a moment to revisit my thoughts on ki. Vlad's built like a linebacker - big but fit, in full control of his mass. But he moves with a fluidity that speaks to incredible control over his own body. When Vlad throws you, you don't feel the tension of exertion behind it. You feel a smooth, continuous projection, like a roller coaster cresting a hill. That's the kind of energy it takes to toss someone to the ground using only your hands, or to break through a stack of boards with a single chop while kneeling in front of them.
The human body is a pretty efficient machine for directing force into one fine point. Think about it: your body has enough fine control to turn a deadbolt, enough raw power to lift a box of books, enough coordination to ride a bicycle and enough balance to descend a staircase. That's a remarkable variety of tasks. But too often, if we're using our body without training, we dissipate that force. We lift heavy boxes by bending at the back instead of the knees, or we try to turn a deadbolt while holding four bags of groceries. Instead of directing our muscles to their most precise use, we let them run wild.
It gets even worse in a fight, when adrenaline ramps up our reflexes. Our arms flail in crazy windmills. We hold our breath, filling our body with tension, and lean forward on our toes as if to spring. We swarm and crush, but we don't fight effectively. How much better to dispel that tension - forcing your body to relax, directing energy from where it's wasted (keeping the entire body rigid) to where it's needed (the hand, the leg, the arm, etc).
Think of the incredible coordination required for Dwight Howard to dunk a ball from nearly the three-point line. Every muscle must be working in unison to that goal alone - legs, torso, arms, hands. He couldn't pull that off if he just had a powerful jump, or merely had good ball control. It takes athleticism, coordination and practice.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO3c8EaxsxQ]
That's ki. Strip it of the mysticism, and ki is shorthand for the control and awareness of one's own body that comes with years of practice at a given task. It's what lets me push away an opponent half again my weight when I couldn't bench that much, even on steroids. It's what lets the world's greatest athletes perform in the clutch. And it's what carried my friend and fellow instructor Vlad through his black belt test this past Saturday.
Call it what you've like, but I've seen it. It's real.
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June 16th, 2009
07:28 am - there's a chance we can make it now
"How many?" the proprietor at Do Re Mi asked.
"Thirteen," Trisha said. Trisha made a rare visit to the East Coast this past weekend, and trashy karaoke in Allston topped the list of events.
The old man rubbed his chin with his thumb. "Normal rooms, very crowded for thirteen. Party room, best size."
He led us back through winding hallways, carpeted in purple all-weather fabrics and indirectly lit. I had never been taken this far into Do Re Mi before. Typically, I show up late for whatever's going on and wave at the front desk. They smile and point me toward the only other room in the building with white people in it.
The party room: a suite the size of my apartment. Leather couches at least a decade old, with stools and a poorly kept piano in the back. And a massive, widescreen TV up front.
"Whoa," we said.
"Eighty dollars an hour," he said.
We spent the rest of the evening fighting over the karaoke machine's remote and belting out classics from the days of late night partying: Queen, The Darkness, Rage, Green Day, etc. I brought a half-pint of Canadian Club and ended up consuming all of it.
Allston hipsters, like I used to be, enjoy the shady and the cheap. It makes the minimal care they take of their own lives seem almost opulent in comparison. The dive bars cater to college students and the laundromats stay open late. I mention this only because we had some reservations about returning to Do Re Mi, having heard that it expanded and renovated. Would it still have its seedy charm? Could it still pass for a front for Thai prostitutes in the evening hours?
Let me assure you, scenesters and unemployed heroes, that the new Do Re Mi is worth every penny you pay. Sometimes, you just have to spend $340 on the party room.
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Current Music: The Darkness
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June 15th, 2009
07:24 am - I got something to tell you, far outside the black and white
If you're young and want to socialize with strangers in your major metropolitan area, do whatever you can to become a Yelp Elite.
Yelp has figured out a business plan designed to funnel free appetizers and liquor into the gullets of 21- to 38-year-olds, somehow at a profit to everyone involved. Monthly Yelp events involve taking over a bar or restaurant, supplying snacks to everyone they invite, and not charging a dime. I suppose the establishments get some publicity out of it; as a marketer, I remain skeptical.
The big Yelp Elite event for June, this past Tuesday, was a toga party at Ivy. It felt a little too loud and stuffed for me, cramming three hundred people into a space better suited for two hundred. You could only acquire the free drink of the evening - miniature St. Germain cocktails - at one corner of the bar, leading to a traffic jam of Gallic proportions. But I met plenty of new people and chatted up older friends as well. My toga - two mismatched towels, slung around my waist and torso - caused talk.
I much preferred the smaller event the following evening - a free screening of 500 Days of Summer at the Loews Harvard Square. Marie C., Lauren R. and I (along with Boston's Yelp hostess Leighann F. and several dozen other people) saw Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel schmoop around on screen, then repaired to Charlie's for burgers and beer. The TVs on the second floor alternated between the Red Sox game and Ghost Hunters on Sci-Fi.
"My sister's ex-boyfriend convinced my entire family," Leighann explained, "that the specks of light you see in photos when a flash goes off are ghosts. They still believe it, even though none of us can stand him now."
"Maybe he should have used his powers of persuasion," I suggested, "convincing them he wasn't a douche."
A micro media blow of 500 Days of Summer:__________, an attractive but gloomy male between the ages of 21 and 59, meets __________, an energetic pixie with an anachronistic haircut between the ages of 18 and 26. After a whirlwind courtship which involves late night conversations, sprints through __________'s landmarks and a soundtrack featuring indie pop stars __________, __________ and __________, the two fall into bed together. __________ is happier than he's ever been! But __________ refuses to commit to the extent he wants, for reasons she won't get into. After several fights, a few walks in the rain, and a gloomy song by __________, the two of them realize that __________. Credits fade on an artsy cartoon cityscape.
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Current Music: Spoon - "The Infinite Pet"
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June 12th, 2009
07:47 am - and all the vampires walking through the valley
I've been watching the final season of The Shield in concert with the third season of Buffy. This makes for an interesting mix of tastes, like brushing your teeth, then sipping a glass of orange juice. For one thing, almost everyone on The Shield acts more naturally. I prefer naturalism over melodrama, unless the actors crank the melodrama really high (think Mystic River high). For another, as much as Whedon plays at dark, creepy settings, Sunnydale ain't got shit on Farmington. I know it's not a fair comparison - FX can get away with a lot more than the WB.
But most jarringly, every given episode of The Shield packs in so much more plot than Buffy does. Whedon struggles to fill 44 minutes with an A and a B plot; Ryan crams A, B, C and sometimes D plots into 48. The cast of major characters in The Shield tops a dozen - the four-man Strike Team, Wagenbach and Wyms, Sofer and Lowe, Aceveda, Billings, Vic's family, Shane's family, the villain of the season, etc. In Buffy, we have Buffy, her four friends, Giles, Joyce, Angel, this week's and this season's villain.
It just makes Buffy seem ... slow.*
My reviews of episodes 306 through 310.
BAND CANDY
The most fun episode yet. Whedon introduces the evil subtly at first - we see Giles and Joyce compulsively eating chocolate but don't call much attention to it - culminating in some giggly slapstick at Bronze. The adult actors get to stretch their legs a little, freed from the one-dimensional constraints of their usual roles. And the action and mystery move along at a good clip.
The episode's fun enough, in fact, that the worn patches only show up on closer inspection. Did Mr. Trick and the Mayor need to turn every adult in town into a carefree teenager just to steal four babies? Mr. Trick makes an awful lot of his final confrontation with Buffy ("I like other people to do my fighting for me, but I just gotta see what you got"), then flees almost immediately. And once again, the powerful demon whose presence would mean terrible things for Sunnydale gets dispatched in about thirty seconds. Oh, well.
Are You Fucking Kidding Me?
- "Were you at the Bronze? What was happening there that was so important?" "Bronze things. Things of Bronze." Ugh. Why not just have Gellar say, "Insert retort here; rewrite later"?
- "Giles at sixteen? Less Together Guy, more Bad-Magic-Hates-The-World-Ticking-Time-Bomb Guy." Look, you clearly wanted the word delinquent but didn't have a thesaurus within arm's reach, and deadline was in twenty minutes. But don't try hyphenating eight words into one if what you need is a complete sentence.
- We check in with Angel but don't advance the romantic storyline in any meaningful way. Yawn.
All Right, I’ll Admit, That Was Cool
- Once again, The Mayor. He pulls off little bits of absurdity ("Now where did I put that Scotch?") that I would have a hard time with from the good guys. It could be because he's the villain; it could be because he's a better actor.
- "I do well on standardized tests ... what? I can't have layers?"
- Giles as a rocker. We really got to see his range here; Head pulls off the disaffected teenager ("you've got good albums" / "yeah, they're okay") with beautiful poise. Plus, you know the cigarettes he and Joyce were smoking were a primetime television stand-in for a different kind of ritual herb. Watch the way he holds his to see what I mean.
- Setting the demon on fire. It was clearly CGI, but it wasn't clearly CGI, if that distinction makes any sense.
Overall Grade: Lots of fun. More like that, please.
REVELATIONS
Decent. The Buffy/Angel tryst finally comes to a head, with Xander catching the two of them making out (only took, what, four episodes?). The crew freaks out that Buffy kept his return secret, since apparently Angel did a lot of despicable things last season. In what becomes a recurring theme this season, Buffy's sorry for keeping a secret from her friends as soon as they find out about it, but not one second before.
Gwendolyn, the Watcher sent to check up on Giles, bitches a little harder than she needs to, but not too hard for a sci-fi/fantasy TV show. And Whedon scripts her heel turn very well; I didn't see it coming until about five seconds before it happened ("Destroyed?" she asks, when Giles mentions they've found an evil artifact, and then I thought hmm).
Are You Fucking Kidding Me?
- Willow backing down from her confession: "I opened my SAT booklet five minutes early." That's not drawing out the tension, Whedon - that's stalling the obvious.
- "Faith! A word of advice: you're an idiot." Really? I think Faith reasoned pretty accurately from the limited data available to her. And "you're an idiot" isn't advice.
- So this terrible artifact's power is to shoot lightning? This ancient relic, which we certainly can't let fall into the hands of a demon, is like a less convenient assault rifle?
All Right, I’ll Admit, That Was Cool- The Buffy vs Faith fight.
- Giles lecturing Buffy. Buffy does expect an awful lot of slack for a guy who murdered a bunch of people, including Giles' girlfriend.
Overall Grade: Serviceable.
LOVERS WALK
Up and down. Spike shows up, getting both the episode's best and worst dialogue, and kicking the plot in motion. He kidnaps Willow so that she can cast a love charm on his ex-lover Drusilla. This sets Buffy and Angel on a hunt to find her - a fun little jaunt through downtown Sunnydale that puts them in the middle of a huge vampire brawl.
We also get some closure, finally, on the Xander/Willow thing. Again, the two of them become sorry for all the heartbreak they've caused as soon as they get caught - which leads me to doubt the sincerity of their apology, but whatever.
Are You Fucking Kidding Me?- Spike's speech about what love does to people goes on exactly two sentences too long to be cool. I respect the effort, though.
- Angel can't enter a home unless invited, but that doesn't seem to bother Spike when he shows up in Joyce's kitchen.
- Speaking of "the rules of vampires," how much sunlight does a vampire need to be exposed to in order to start crisping? Is it direct sunlight or nothing? Spike spends a lot of time in ambient, reflected sunlight in this episode with no obvious downside.
- I get that Buffy lives in a universe where magic and demons are real, etc, but the contented little shopkeeper at the Magicke Shoppe struck me as, well, a Hollywood caricature of paganism. "Blessed be," and all that.
- The whole "soft like baby food" confrontation between Lenny (vampire scumbag) and Spike seemed a bit tacked on. Spike's reversal from sad sack to proper villain comes on too quick to be believed.
All Right, I’ll Admit, That Was Cool- Spike's initial confession of his heartbreak to Willow went on a few minutes too long. But repeating that same confession to Joyce made it funny.
- Hell, Joyce was on fire for that whole kitchen scene. "Willow's a witch? Wait, Xander's a witch?"
- "Oh, sod the spell. Your friends are at the factory."
- The fight scene in the street, and in the magic shop, was a lot of fun.
- I was worried the episode was going to end on a string of close-ups of our heroes staring sadly into the distance. But the splash-cut to Spike balling down the highway, screaming along to Sid Vicious, made me laugh out loud.
Overall Grade: Not bad. Fun in places, a drag in others.
THE WISH
Very impressive. Whedon takes too long to get to the crux of the episode - Cordelia's wish creating an alternate reality in which Buffy never came to Sunnydale - but things ramp up and stay interesting from then on out. We get a quick but encompassing view of the city without Buffy: dark, deserted, and terrified of its own shadows. Cordelia tries to warn alternate-universe Giles and crew about the danger they're in, but gets ganked by Evil Willow ("bored now") and Evil Xander before she can spell things out. Buffy shows up and a massive brawl breaks out at the ubiquitous factory. Good times.
Are You Fucking Kidding Me?- Vampires are attracted to bright colors? What?
- So this wish-granting demon's "center of power" - its secret vulnerability - is the necklace hanging over its heart. Given that, why would it ever stand within arm's length of someone? It has the power of wishes. Let other people cause trouble for you.
- Buffy gets from Cleveland to California awful fast.
- "If anyone saw me hanging with Xander Harris' castoff on top of that ..." I'm not going to suggest that high schoolers don't talk like that. But they don't talk like that to each other. At least not if they're not trying to be deliberately cruel.
All Right, I’ll Admit, That Was Cool- I like Evil Willow and Evil Xander much more than normal versions of same. They seem to be real people inhabiting the situations they're in, as opposed to poorly constructed punch lines waiting to stumble into a scene.
- "Look," Oz tells Willow. "I'm sorry this is hard for you. But I told you what I need. So I can't help feeling like the reason you want to talk is so you can feel better about yourself. That's not my problem." What? Characters on Buffy calling each other out on their self-centeredness? How can this be?
- The fight in the factory was epic.
- And that girl being drained of her blood, by a machine, while still alive, creeped me the fuck out.
- Whedon plot twist that pays off: Cordelia, the only person who knows what the "real world" is supposed to be, getting killed at the end of the second act. Holy shit! Now we're stuck, right?
- Loner Buffy, straight outta Cleveland, seemed distinctly different from Sunnydale Buffy. I respect the effort put into that acting distinction.
Overall Grade: Just one coat of wax shy of perfect.
AMENDS
Oh, fuck, a Christmas episode. I can't think of the last Christmas episode in any TV series that I enjoyed. This one's no exception, with Angel struggling in unconvincing torment over his past monstrosities. It's not that I don't buy his agony when the ghosts of his former victims get in his face - that makes sense. It's that I don't buy his borderline turn into a "beast." He seems scared and annoyed by the memories of the people he's tortured, but not particularly aroused.
Regardless, Buffy tracks down the cultists griefing him - creepy priests with tattoos where their eyes should be who serve "The First." Again, for such a primal vessel of Evil, the First's minions go down like a stack of china. Buffy then goes to track down Angel, reversing the decision she made two episodes ago (but which we all saw coming) to fall for him again. Happy ending. Blech.
Are You Fucking Kidding Me?- The sun doesn't come out? That's the "Christmas miracle" this episode ends on - cloud cover so heavy that it plunges the city into supernatural darkness? Never mind that this is the lamest Christmas miracle in the history of Christmas miracles (which it is). But doesn't another twelve hours of darkness in a city on the edge of the Hellmouth mean that the Slayer has to work overtime?
- I know sarcasm's part of Buffy's repertoire, but it doesn't help impress me about how dangerous The First is supposed to be. Could at least one person in this episode act scared of it?
- This is me being new to the franchise, but - Angel tortured Giles and murdered his girlfriend? As well as a bunch of other people? How are we supposed to like him now?
All Right, I’ll Admit, That Was Cool- Remember how I sneered that the dress that Willow changes into in "Homecoming" isn't that flattering of a dress? Okay, the little red number she's wearing when Oz shows up at her place? That's a flattering dress.
- Angel showing up at Giles' place. Angel plays his desperation at having to turn to Giles really well. Giles is equally cool in turn, producing that crossbow almost out of nowhere.
- Whedon didn't run the "Hanukah spirit" joke into the ground! Three times, and done.
Overall Verdict: No worse than any other Christmas episode in any other TV series.
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* I bring this up so people don't accuse me of judging Buffy too harshly for failing to live up to the greatest thing which the medium of television has yet to produce. The Shield is really good but, to my jaded eye, it's not as good as The Wire. I'll explain why if you're really curious.
Current Music: Tom Petty
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June 11th, 2009
07:43 am - I ain't afraid of no ghosts
A reminder that this is Ghostbusters Week on Overthinking It: our look back at the 25th anniversary of the release of Murray, Ackroyd, Ramis and Hudson's epic comedy. My post, Death of a Thousand Pecks, went up today. Only in the 80s could an EPA inspector be a movie villain - but what does this mean for the movie? Or for the 80s?
# # #
Also, this week's Overthinking It podcast talked about the weird framing of abstinence in pop culture. I'd like to expand on some comments I made there.
(WARNING: the following contains what a male in his late twenties thinks about sex. Viewer discretion is advised)
I mentioned on the podcast that Hollywood tends to depict virginity in two different ways:- The Disney view, in which virginity is a treasure to be held onto as long as possible; and
- The Apatow view, in which virginity is a burden to be discarded as soon as possible.
(Neither of those are fair labels, since Disney characters don't even talk about sex, and Judd Apatow did not invent the teenage sex comedy. But they're useful labels, since everyone knows what they mean)
My observation at the time: no one takes what I'd call the agnostic view of virginity - namely, that "virginity" as a concept does not signify anything useful.
Recall that the notion of virginity, as it applies to humans, is inherently patriarchal. A "virgin" is a female who has not had sexual intercourse. Her status as virgin matters only in that it enhances her value in a marriage contract. A woman who has not had sexual intercourse may be married proudly; a woman who has had sexual intercourse before marriage must be put away privily.
So, given that we live in an age which admits that women aren't just child-bearers, but might be agents capable of thinking, why does a woman's virginhood matter?
My fellow podcasters*, while agreeing that the loss of virginity didn't transform a person in any biochemical way, insisted that virginity is still special because it's the barrier of "the first time." The first time doing anything holds a special significance - riding a bike, going off to school, getting a job, etc.
And while I agree that's true, nobody considers their first sexual experience and their first day on a new job equivalent milestones. There are a lot of differences. And I don't just mean the nudity, the intimacy, the male/female dynamic, etc - y'know, trivial stuff. I mean the expectation of success.
Bluntly, everybody knows you're going to fall the first few times you ride a bike. Everyone will tell you that your first job out of college will probably suck. But pop culture insists our first sexual experience will be magical. Soft lights, elevator jazz, lots of awed eye contact and plenty of cuddling after.
Show of hands if that sounds like your first time. Anyone?
...
..
.
Okay, I'll go: my first time was not like that at all.
I believe that the unrealistic weight hung on the importance of The First Time hurts the young. Your first time having sex will probably be a little awkward. Your first time doing anything is awkward. Don't stress out about it. Alcohol helps, in small doses. Just remember to breathe, use all the protection available to you, and wash up after.
More important than your first time having sex, I've found, are the times you have sex with someone you really care about. Or the times you have really amazing sex. Or the times you have awkward, lonely sex (I said "important," not "good"). Or the times you have comical, embarrassing sex. These are the moments you want to reflect on and learn from - not necessarily your very first time.
You shouldn't hurry into losing your virginity for the wrong reasons. But you shouldn't hoard it for the wrong reasons either. You should have sex for the first time for the same reason you have sex for the nth time: because it's with someone you care about, or because it's fun, or because you want to make a baby, or because it feels good. Whatever your reason, have a reason. And the sanctity of virginity should not be it.
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* All males, which is why I'm re-opening the discussion here; I'd really like to hear some female viewpoints on this.
Current Music: Ray Parker, Jr
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June 10th, 2009
07:38 am - back with another one a'them block-rockin' beats
I like ImprovBoston's new space partly because of its key location (right in Central Square) and partly because of its awesome size. But I love it because of the bar. On any given Saturday when I have nothing else to do, I can show up at the IB bar and see at least three people I know.
Take this past Saturday, for instance: coming back from Brighton, I ran into Will, Dave S., Kevin H. and Lindsay W. at the IB bar. I had a drink and chatted with them about the expansion of search technology. Eventually, though, the Cambridge liquor license required that IB close.
So Will offered a suggestion: "Let's go to the Tavern at the End of the World."
While it's not at the actual end of the world, it's on the border of Somerville and Everett, so you're forgiven the mistake. The tiny front room has a smattering of cheap tables, plywood walls like you'd find in finished basements, and a collection of odd movie posters. I ordered a cheap domestic draft and sat down with my chair flipped backward.
The back room had a DJ.
This townie bar, in the most industrial part of Boston short of the Big Dig, had a DJ with a full-on Akai sampler, mixing some of the most staccato electronic beats I've ever heard. Pure static and rhythm. A dozen hipsters pulsed to the music - the usual baby-fat girls with mod haircuts and skinny boys in thrift store hoodies.
We finished our beers, talking about our history with the theater. Half past one in the morning.
"Let's get some roast beef," Dave suggested.
Back into the cars we piled, across the Everett border to Mike's Roast Beef. Mike's is a staple of late night debauches. It stays open until 2:00 AM on weekends - later than most places in Boston - and sometimes later than that, thanks to the patronage of every cop between Revere and Winthrop. I got a junior roast beef with mayo and onions, which instantly became one of my top 5 sandwiches in Boston.
We split some crab rangoons and talked about corruption. "Providence just closed this thirty-year-old loophole in their prostitution laws," Kevin mentioned. "Until May, it was illegal to sell sex on the street. But the cops wouldn't bother you if you worked indoors."
"That's because the 1980 law wasn't meant to shut down prostitution," I explained. "It was meant to shut down the independent operators. This is Providence we're talking about."
"Speaking of," Will said, "who wants to go to a strip club?"
When Will said that King Arthur's was in an industrial park in Chelsea, I thought he meant near an industrial park. Across the street from a block of warehouses. But no: King Arthur's abuts the same unpaved road that services a long row of jacked trailers and distribution centers. There are no streetlights to speak of - only the cheery neon glow of Arthur, rex quondam rexque futurus, telling you where the poon at.
I had my phone out to text a message to several friends:going to chelsea strip club with will and dave. if you don't hear from me in 12 hours call cops.... but the club was closed. We must have arrived pretty late, too, as not even the usual crowd of after-hours loiterers, completing various exchanges for various commodities, could be seen out back. Circling our cars, we headed home.
You never know where an evening in Boston will end, if you just let it go.
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Current Music: Chemical Bros.
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June 9th, 2009
07:37 am - every stop I get to, I'm clocking that game
The Footlight Club put up a production of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None in Jamaica Plain this weekend, so I took Sylvia and Katie H. to see it. The play has some limitations compared to the novel - all action takes place in the drawing room of the mansion on Indian Island, with occasional bits being narrated from off-stage ("oh no ... he's fallen off the cliff!"). And this version has a happier ending than the original novel - two of the guilty party escape death. Fortunately, the director of this adaptation ramped up the creepy atmosphere by having ghosts, dressed in rags and Eyes Wide Shut masks, stalk across the stage at opportune moments. Despite the melodrama, I found the ending genuinely chilling, and was grateful not to have to walk to my car alone.
Then I got to Common Ground, only to find a bar full of drunken Allston hipsters ... and the real horror began!
# # #
Sunday dawned gorgeous and warm, 80s with a storm-tinged breeze but no actual rain, so I took my notebook to Davis Square and brainstormed. Inspiration struck me, and I plotted out my next novel from beginning to end. I filled five pages with notes, alternating between furious scribbles and vacant staring. I outlined the project so thoroughly that, if I died, someone could reconstruct the novel from those notes alone.
Lots of authors advise that you not outline a novel in too much detail - you don't want to straitjacket yourself into a plot that'll stifle you. But a solid outline makes me feel more confident. It's a landmark to which I can always return, even if I want to go exploring.
# # #
I also saw a war between transients in Davis that afternoon: a guy in his late teens, dirty but fully dressed, hit up passerby for bus fare. He avoided me - whether intimidated by my attention to my notebook or my comical mirror shades, I couldn't tell. But then he asked another transient for change. This man - dressed in red sweatpants and unlaced sneakers - vaulted up off his bench and blared something incoherent. He stumbled across the square, ranting louder as the distance between the two of them increased, until he collapsed onto a different bench.
(Edit: The wanderer - Angry Mike)
The truce among the indigent strains to the breaking point. Soon, all hell will be unleashed.
Original post
Current Music: MIA
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June 8th, 2009
07:37 am - there is a season, turn turn turn
As of this past Sunday, I've lived in my current apartment for one year.
Today, you get the grand tour.
 
The view from the front door. Bed immediately to my right. Walkway defined by position of couch. TV (and flatscreen Mac also used for watching movies) facing the couch. Bathroom in the back.
Detail on the bathroom.
Detail on the kitchenette.
As for the actual living experience: the studio's warm in the winter and cool in the summer, thanks to built-in A/C and electric baseboard heat. Either the walls have reasonable soundproofing or I'm the loudest person (by far) on my floor. Laundry's in the basement; parking's out back. And I live within 3 minutes of one of the hippest neighborhoods to visit in Somerville, and within 6 minutes of the Red Line, which can get me downtown in 20.
So I plan to stay.
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June 5th, 2009
07:37 am - the victims have been bled
I've struggled for a while on what exactly bothers me about Joss Whedon's writing style. Realizing that Whedon cut his teeth as a writer for Roseanne clinched it for me: every scene he writes feels like either a sitcom or a soap opera.
His characters take awkward pauses between each sentence - pauses which make no sense in the context of dramatic television, but would make perfect sense if someone were waiting for a laugh track to be dubbed in. The camerawork makes each scene take half again as long as it ought to, lingering on non-speaking characters for reaction shots ... which would be fine, if the actors were any better. And most episodes peak with cheap moralizing of the Lassie variety ("y'see, Timmy ..."). Ick.
Whedon's a man of immense creativity but without the stylistic chops to back his vision up. And style matters. Friends had no real concept (they're these single people who live in Manhattan!) but really clever writing; that carried it for more than a decade. Buffy had a barn-burner of a concept (hot teenagers kill monsters) and mediocre writing, and it struggled to get seven seasons.
That being said: when he gets out of his own way, his stuff can be fun.
Notes on the first five episodes of S3:
ANNE
Awful. This episode introduces a new season, meaning it should ramp up the conflict early to hook viewers in. Instead, the episode's nearly half over before Whedon introduces the central conflict (Ricky goes missing; Lily asks for Buffy's help). The scene where Buffy and Lily ask after Ricky at the clinic - presumably before he got a tattoo of Lily's name - has some awfully weird cinematography. The camera sticks on the nurse like her face contains Ominous Import, instead of just Ominous Amounts of Cellulite. Buffy quickly finds where Ricky, as well as several other teenagers, have vanished to - a hidden portal to a demonic dimension that manufactures ... what exactly? I dunno. Buffy spends all of four minutes here before staging a revolt and escaping; you'd think it wouldn't be so easy to overpower, slay and evade demons on their home ground, but what do I know?
The A-plot climaxes with a pointless fight scene: Buffy clambers up onto an elevated platform and kicks 20 demons in the head. If those demons were chasing the escaping slaves, why would they climb up after her? Why wouldn't they just run around this platform - it hardly obstructs the path - and keep after their quarry? And if for some bizarre reason they're compelled to fight her, wouldn't the consecutive head-kickings of demons #11, 12 and 13 suggest a need for better tactics? "Hey, let's throw something at her from one of these dimly-lit railings, maybe." But the entire scene exists just to make Sarah Michelle Gellar look like a competent fighter, which running with her hands flailing* does not.
Anyhow, Whedon pads out the 44-minute running time with some profoundly dumb B-plots. Xander worries that Cordelia might not like him any more. Willow worries about how they're going to hunt vampires without Buffy around. So they set a trap for a vampire ("act bait-y"), only they completely screw it up, haw haw. Cordelia and Xander end up on top of each other and start making out - which, in sitcom logic (see above), means they're together. And I guess the fact that a vampire got disintegrated means the gang can pull off a staking without Buffy. Only we never see anyone acknowledge either of these things; the episode ends with these threads untied.
Are You Fucking Serious?:
- "This is no place for a kid to be. You get old fast here" (OH HAI SYMBOLIZM)
- "I just want to be alone in a room with a chair and a fireplace and a tea cozy. I don't even know what a tea cozy is, but I want one."; and
- "Humans don't fight back. Humans don't fight back! That's how this works!" (DID I TELL U BOUT DA SYMBOLIZM?)
- "Want to see my impression of Gandhi?"
- When Buffy finds Lily being "baptized" (when did this go from non-judgmental place for troubled teens to cult, and why is no one else startled by that shift?), she kicks in the door and confronts the cult leader. Or rather, the door swings open and she walks in rather casually; the sound of splintering wood is Foleyed in. I know Gellar can't actually kick in a door, but could it have least looked like she tried?
All Right, I'll Admit, That Was Cool:
- Buffy ripping the telephone off the wall. It's done casually, the comic timing is perfect, and it's a subtle (!) reminder of the superhuman strength that Buffy totes around.
- "If we can focus, keep discipline, and not have quite as many mysterious deaths, Sunnydale is gonna rule!" This was the first character whom I believed was a real person feeling real feelings.
Overall Grade: Second worst episode of the first five.
DEAD MAN'S PARTY
Wretched. The scene where Buffy's mom Joyce hangs the Nigerian death mask in her bedroom stands as an example of everything that's wrong with Buffy when it goes wrong. The acting's no better than community theater ("leave plenty of pauses between each line, and for God's sake don't react when someone else speaks"). Every conversation takes twelve sentences to communicate something normal humans could manage in two. And it would take a psychotic - I mean literally, someone who does not process reality the same way everyone else does - to think that that Nigerian death mask "cheers up the room." But Joyce has to leave that mask hanging, or else the episode cannot proceed.
Also, Joyce invites Buffy's closest friends over for a welcome back dinner. Talking it over in the library, they decide to turn this dinner - at which they are guests, not hosts - into a party. A party with a live rock band, two dozen strangers, and liquor ("do a shot! You have to do a shot now!"). Which Buffy's mom and her weird neighbor Pam are cheerfully attending. Who said this was okay? Who thought this would be okay? Biker gangs behave like this, not teenagers who go to good schools and like each other.
So the entire episode hinges on two instances of stupid behavior that everyone has to pretend are normal. It climaxes with Buffy's friends yelling at her for running away (right, because nothing keeps your friends around like anger). The confrontation between Willow, Xander and Buffy plays out like bad improv, with characters repeating the same ideas but never advancing the conversation. Thankfully, zombies crash through the window to get things moving again.
Are You Fucking Kidding Me?
- "We should figure out what kinda deal this is. I mean, is it a gathering, a shindig or a hootenanny?" I couldn't hear the rest, as I was vomiting, but Seth Green goes on for another thirty seconds in this vein.
- The Principal describing the "tingly feelings" he gets when he fantasizes about punishing Buffy. And I don't think Whedon was trying to make him come across as a pervert - that was his notion of clever, villainous dialogue.
- "The Watcher's back on the clock. And just when you're thinking career change, maybe becoming a ... a looker or a ... a seer ..."
- "You can't just bury stuff, Buffy. It'll come right back up to get you." (MAI SYMBOLIZM LET ME SHOW U IT)
All Right, I'll Admit, That Was Cool
- " 'Do you like my mask? Isn't it pretty? It raises the dead!' Americans."
Overall Grade: I very nearly bailed on my promise to watch all of Season 3 after this episode. Worst of the first five.
FAITH, HOPE AND TRICK
And then suddenly it gets better!
Buffy meets Faith, who got promoted to slayer in the five minutes that Buffy was dead. Whedon ladles Faith's salacious spunkiness on a little thick - the first anecdote she shares with the gang is about a time she killed a bunch of vampires "without a stitch on ... stark nude." Does he not think that Xander, or the rest of the male audience, would find Eliza Dushku hot unless she talked about being naked? Regardless, Faith is free in all the ways Buffy isn't, which leads to some tension between the slayers ... until Kakistos, the vampire that killed her Watcher, shows up. I don't buy Faith running from Boston all the way to California - everything about her screams overconfidence, not underconfidence, and nothing about Kakistos makes him look like a threat. But the two team up, stake him, and seem to end up as friends.
B-plot: Buffy acting all confused and coy around Scott Hope, the cute boy who wants to ask her out. Scott has all the backbone of the zombie cat from the last episode: struggling for the courage to ask Buffy to dance, buying her a ring before they've even gone on their first date, hoping that they can be "friends," etc. Then again, maybe a loser like Buffy - a juvenile delinquent with shit grades, no life outside school and no friends except three weird kids and the school librarian - is the best he can do. Ha ha, just kidding: Buffy's clearly a desirable match, and Scott's clearly a winner (see sitcom logic, above).
Are You Fucking Kidding Me?
- "They should film that story and show it to children every Christmas." Upon further reflection, 95% of what I dislike about Buffy the Vampire Slayer comes out of Nicholas Brendan's mouth.
- I'm torn between whether or not I like or dislike Giles' inventing this "binding spell" out of nothing to get Buffy to talk about Angel's death. Ultimately, I dislike it, simply because Buffy could have legitimately brought up Angel's death without it (she is dating again, after all) and because I can't stand the notion of lying to someone for their own good.
- A pre-emptive AYFKM for Angel reappearing when Buffy leaves her ring at the spot where they fought. We haven't learned yet how exactly Angel escaped from whatever hell he got sent to, but if it's "... your love brought me back" or some variation thereof I will spit fire.
All Right, I'll Admit, That Was Cool
- Mr. Trick lunging out of the car window to snag the drive-thru attendant ("... now I'm hungry."). It was a well-timed shock and a well-delivered line.
- Mr. Trick casually donning a thick rubber glove to yank the pizza delivery guy in through the front door.
- Hell, I just love everything Mr. Trick does. You can thank him for turning me around on Season 3.
Overall Grade: Apparently, the A.V. Club's Noel Murray is also watching Season 3 of Buffy for the first time (note to self: he apparently likes it; discount any future reviews of his). He says that Angel's reappearance in this episode "seemed like Whedon’s way of announcing that all the season’s main introductory stuff is over. The story starts now." Though he seems to mean it as a compliment, I'd say that's one of the places Whedon consistently goes wrong: he thinks that he can waste three episodes on character development and arranging the deck chairs. He can't. That's what turned people off of Dollhouse.**
"Faith, Hope and Trick" works because it has three decent fight scenes (Faith taking the vampire outside; Faith and Buffy on patrol; Faith and Buffy vs. Kakistos) in addition to introducing three new recurring characters as well as advancing Buffy's personality (she's getting over Angel's death) on top of a dramatic cliffhanger to cap the episode (Angel's return). It's full of action, tension and development. It's the first episode of Buffy that I would not have minded going longer (compared to "Anne," which could not end soon enough).
BEAUTY AND THE BEASTS
I really liked this episode. It treats the typology of relationship abuse pretty seriously - Pete alternating between a monster, tormenting Debbie both physically and mentally, and then regressing completely to a withdrawn, weeping boy. Abusers keep hold of their victims by becoming so warm and defenseless when they're "good" that one wants to forgive them for being bad.
Pete's been slaughtering kids with his bare hands, but Oz takes the blame. Even though he's been locked in a cage on each night in question (also, which nights does Oz turn into a werewolf?). At first Buffy fears that Oz might be responsible. Then she gets even more concerned that Angel might be responsible, since he's still a weird, snarling mess.
Are You Fucking Kidding Me?
- "Every guy - from Manimal right down to Mr. I-Loved-The-English-Patient has beast in him. And I don't care how sensitive they act - they're all still just in it for the chase." (KIN I INTEREST U IN SUM FINE SYMBOLIZMS?)
- Angel saving Buffy from super-strong Pete. For an episode that dwells so much on abused and vulnerable women, watching Buffy kick Pete through the air and onto, say, an upright shard of glass would have capped things nicely. But I guess even the prophesied defender of humanity needs to be SAVED BY HER BOYFRIEND once in a while.
- The episode ends with an exposition dump on what exactly happened. This is a staple of TV drama - breaking down a mysterious plot with a real-world explanation ("so the landlord was simulating those ghost noises with radio static"). The problem: nobody actually explains anything. Willow's explanation, word for word: "Mr. Science was doing a Jekyll/Hyde deal. He was afraid Debbie was gonna leave him, so he mixed this potion to become super mas macho." That's not an explanation - that's what we, the audience, saw happen. At least invent some Star Trek pseudoscience ("... created a serum out of the genetic material of bulls that accelerated his adrenal and pineal glands ...") to make it look like you did something worthwhile.
All Right, I'll Admit, That Was Cool
- The Oz / Pete brawl in the library. Bodies go flying, furniture gets smashed, people lunge across the room. Honest fun.
- Giles getting hit by a tranquilizer dart. Giles really is the Professor X of this crew. Since the most common obstacle between the heroes and resolving the crisis is knowledge - what ritual do we use, what item do we obtain, what demon are we supposed to slay - knocking out the most knowledgeable character heightens the stakes. Plus, his reaction made me chuckle.
- Bookending the episode with quotes from The Call of the Wild. Very literary touch.
Overall Grade: Rather good.
HOMECOMING
A rollicking treat. Buffy's abrupt desire to become Homecoming Queen looks a bit forced at first blush - a cheap "idiot ball" ploy (see sitcom logic, above) to get her and Cordelia at odds. But later we realize it is forced. Buffy doesn't want to be Homecoming Queen so much as she wants to have left an impression on her classmates. Of course, this revelation only comes when Buffy and Cordelia hide in an abandoned cabin, pursued by Mr. Trick's posse of demonic mercenaries ("Slayerfest ... 98!").
The B-plot, Xander and Willow's sudden tryst, wouldn't work if Xander and Willow weren't teenagers. But we expect teenagers to do stupid, hormonal things, and the addictive intoxication of a crush makes perfect sense. Of course, nothing comes of their "affair" in this episode - it neither gets any hotter nor blows out into the open. Nor does anything happen with it in the next episode. Or the next one. Nice going, Whedon.
Are You Fucking Kidding Me?
- The Xander/Willow affair hinges on the two of them noticing each other in a new light - changing into fabulous clothes for the Homecoming dance. Willow models three dresses for Xander. Xander's jaw drops at the least flattering of the three - a jaw-to-ankles black number that makes her look like a clove cigarette.
- Buffy takes out the two Germans with AR-15s by sticking one of them with the device they've been using to track her. The two of them, receiving remote instructions, fire on each other through a classroom wall, killing each other. Okay, come on. No one who's ever handled a gun in their life - much less professional mercenaries - would fire blindly through a wall if there was a halfway decent chance their colleague was on the other side.
All Right, I'll Admit, That Was Cool
- "We all have the desire to win, whether we're human ... vampire ... and whatever the hell you are, my brother. You got spiny looking head things. I ain't never seen that before."
- We first meet The Mayor when an aide lays a WANTED poster on his desk. The camera zooms tight to the aide setting the poster on the blotter, capturing just the poster, his hands, and a letter opener. A musical sting suggests that the Mayor's going to do something with that letter opener ... but no. Never even picks it up. Not even when he asks to see the aide's hands. Cleverly done, Whedon.
- "Whatever. The point is, I haven't even broken a sweat. See, in the end Buffy's just the runner up. I'm the queen. You get me mad, what do you think I'm gonna do to you?"
- The tie for Homecoming Queen. Though it often backfires, Whedon loves to reverse expectations for an easy laugh.
Overall Grade: I laughed a lot, I cheered a little.
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__________
* Athletes pump their arms when they run. Actresses keep their elbows pinned to their sides and flail their arms. Watch this episode again, when she's dashing around corners to get the demons to chase her, and see what I mean. Or hell, watch any episode where she has to run.
** In fairness, you could also make the case that that's why the single greatest thing that the medium of television has yet to produce never caught the critical acclaim it deserved: the language, backstory and rich cast of characters take three to four episodes to even get straight, much less get moving. Scott Tobias raises this point in reviewing Generation Kill; I repeat it in the interests of full disclosure.
Current Music: Bauhaus - "Bela Lugosi's Dead"
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June 4th, 2009
07:49 am - I can't drive fifty-five
I put a high premium on convenience.
I value my time very highly. While I don't mind taking the bus - it gives me time to read, or watch videos on the iPod - I'd prefer to drive if it'll save me some trouble. In Boston - or Cambridge, where I live - this convenience comes very dear.
A little over a week ago, I dropped my car off at VIP Auto after the plunking sound coming from the wheel well had turned into a legitimate scraping. I mentioned the CV joint as I dropped it off, hoping I had nothing more to worry about. The call came: the right front spring and strut had come off entirely, and the left ones were rusting. Final bill: over one grand.
I paid. One thousand dollars (plus) stacks high, but I had the cash on hand. And in the grand scheme of things, it's not that expensive of a repair. Provided I only have to make it once.
In the summer of 2008, I replaced my radiator, for about $700. Now, at the end of May, I've paid over $1000 for the front springs and struts. I rapidly approach the number at which Zipcar would make more financial sense than keeping my current beater.
(Actually, I've technically passed that number. But I'm not immune to the sunk cost fallacy, so I'll hold onto the car I just sunk a grand into. For now. But the next time I get a repair bill totaling $300 or more and the car can still roll, I'm rolling it out of the mechanic and into my parking lot, where it'll stay until I get Zipcar lined up)
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June 3rd, 2009
07:58 am - when was the last time you danced?
Plenty of sap in the posts on the bachelor party and the rehearsal dinner. The actual day of the wedding? Nothing but fun.
- The groom's party, plus RJ, plus myself, breakfasted at Clink, the Liberty Hotel's classy lounge and restaurant. Ben, the groom's brother, asked for tobasco for his eggs; the waiter produced the tiniest nip bottle in the history of nips. "I'll pay you ten dollars to shoot that," I offered.
Ben considered for a moment but shook his head. "I don't want my annual trip to the emergency room to be today."
"We're a fragile bunch," his brother agreed. "I don't go to the ER as often as Ben does. But when I do, I get to go on all the rides!"
- "This place used to be a prison," Jason, brother of the bride, noted. "Full of institutional abuses and civil rights violations. Now it's a hotel where some of the wealthiest people in America stay."
"Right."
"Have we decided whether that's 'good ironic' or 'bad ironic'?"
- "You are so tall," the photographer commented. She had me lean casually against a recessed window while taking pictures with the groom.
"I'm used to it."
- After photos the groom's party retired upstairs to watch the Red Sox lose to Toronto. We snacked on cold cuts and deli bread provided by Hawver's wife Dea. We'd hoped that the air conditioner and the Red Sox would prove relaxing, but Ortiz's continued failure to connect did little for our nerves.
"Your wife is awesome," RJ mumbled around a mouth full of turkey and provolone. Then: "God damn it, Ortiz!"
- "It's weird," Kevin, the bride's other brother, said. "We're in an opulent luxury hotel that used to be a pris--"
"We covered that already," Jason said.
"Really?" The two of them are twins, possessed of that weird genetic telepathy.
- At five minutes of five, having struggled with boutonnieres for several minutes, we marched down to the ceremony en masse. Fraley stood around a corner so that Melissa could make a quick pass behind us. He watched the crowds of friends and family file onto the lawn in front of us, his mother at his side.
"Okay," he said. "Now I'm nervous."
- We'd been coached on moving quickly down the aisle - not hurrying, obviously, but taking longer than the step-pause-step pace associated with most wedding marches. This led to a slight traffic jam near the end - I, with the bride's mother on my arm, drawing up short behind the groom and his mother. It also led to a lot of waiting with the entire party up front for the opening march to end and the bride to enter. I know that happens all the time, but it seemed interminable while we were up there. Should I make a 'cut' gesture to the string trio?, I wondered.
- After the ceremony, I cornered a concierge. "What can I--"
"It's essential," I interrupted, thrusting an envelope containing the marriage license into his hand, "that this get in the mail today."
"They might have already picked--"
"Just put it in the box. I don't care."
"Yes, sir!"
- Impressions of the reception diverge. I spent various points laughing over beef and red wine, lost in somber thought and dancing like I'd always wanted to. Strangers congratulated me on an excellent ceremony.
"It's all them," I insisted, nodding toward the happy couple. "I couldn't have managed for anyone else."
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Current Music: Gnarls Barkley
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June 2nd, 2009
07:56 am - her folks had said our life together sure was going to be rough
"This must be the infamous Perich," the woman said, shaking my hand as Fraley introduced us. That introduction has never borne good fruit for me, but this was Fraley and Melissa's rehearsal dinner. The woman speaking was the Liberty Hotel's wedding coordinator, Michelle.
Quick recap for the tourists: the Liberty Hotel was once the Charles Street Jail, the downtown lock-up that briefly held Malcolm X, Sacco and Vanzetti and a number of other famous Boston miscreants. It stood for nearly fourteen decades before closing in 1990 due to overcrowding. Ann Beha Architects renovated the interior and added a sixteen-story guesthouse adjacent, turning it into one of Boston's premier luxury hotels. The entrance opens into a gorgeous five-story atrium, ringed by balconies that let into conference rooms and bars.
Michelle proved more than equal to my paranoia, anticipating my questions as we paced the site of Saturday's ceremony: the former prison exercise yard.
"Am I going to be mic'ed?"
"Yes."
"Standing mic or body mic?"
"Body mic, clipped to your lapel."
"And the three attendants who have readings?"
"Standing mic. Facing that way." She pointed past me.
She humored me until I shut up, then coordinated the rest of the procession. The groom's party, bridesmaids and I practiced our stately walk into the exercise yard, standing with our backs to Storrow Drive. After a brief pause, Melissa emerged from the top of the stairs - dressed nicely, of course, but not in her gown - and followed us out.
"You know," I mentioned, "as long as we've got everyone here ..." But Fraley vetoed the plan; my license wouldn't kick in until tomorrow.
Upstairs, after cocktails and an excellent dinner, Fraley and Melissa's parents sat us through a brief slideshow, depicting the two of them as they grew up and eventually met each other. Then friends and family were invited to get up and offer toasts to the couple's health. I sat there, nursing a mediocre hotel wine and smiling.
"We're expecting to hear something from you, too," Mrs. Fraley insisted.
"I'm saving the A-list material for tomorrow," I claimed, drawing a laugh. But to be honest, I had nothing to add. Watching two of the most amazing friends in my life not only embark on a journey I didn't think I had the courage to make, but to do so with such effortless grace and humor, took everything out of me. What words could I use in the face of that?
(photo courtesy of Dave Green)
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Current Music: Dylan
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June 1st, 2009
07:42 am - it's all just a little bit of history repeating
Thursday was Fraley's bachelor party. I caught up with the crew at Smith & Wollensky's downtown. They had just completed a few laps at F1 Racing and had sped here to make the 7:00 dinner reservation. The order of arrival at Boston's best steakhouse had nothing to do with who won the go-kart race, with Serpico and Auston narrowly beating Fraley by a few minutes. "And we were hurrying," Serpico said. "We may have swapped paint with some cars on 93."
Over three bottles of red - S&W will keep bringing out more wine unless you tell them not to - we cut into some au poivre fillets and swapped anecdotes. Auston recounted the story of his best man losing his wife's wedding ring the day of the wedding, while Ben (the ring-bearing best man for this ceremony) gradually paled in the corner. I talked hip hop with Jonathon W. and Will, who sided with me on the Lil Wayne debate on Overthinking It.
The party detached from S&W and wandered Boston's South End, stopping in a couple pubs whose names I can't remember. But that's why I take photos - so I can recall moments that would otherwise leave me, just as consciousness left me in the back seat of a cab between the Back Bay and Davis Square. That's also why I recount stories starring people you don't know. This weblog's primarily a journal for me: a means of remembering what I've done that I can look back on in two, five or ten years.
Of course, if Thursday night was any indication, a few beers and the company of lifelong friends can jog the memory as well.
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May 29th, 2009
08:00 am - imperial, mysterious, in amorous array
Tomorrow, as I've mentioned once or twice already, I'll have the honor of marrying two of my best friends in the world - John Fraley and Melissa Carubia.
A portion of this weblog's audience knows the two of them already. Many of you will attend the ceremony. But for those of you who aren't, here's a preview of what I've put together for the readings.
Entrance Music: Melissa will walk down the aisle, supported by her dad, to Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead" (the nine-minute version):
First Reading: The maid of honor will read the entire text of Leonard Cohen's "Democracy":
Second Reading: The best man will read selections of T.S. Eliot's "Ash Wednesday." He's already been coached on the appropriate use of unpredictable changes in timbre and long silences to underscore the points he finds important.
Interlude: Eleven minutes of shortform improv from A Sparkle in the Sprocket, Lesley University's second least-terrible improv troupe. No suggestions from the audience will be taken.
Music: A performance of the "Pas de Six" from Benjamin Britten's Prince of the Pagodas. The bridesmaids will don tutus and ballet shoes to portray the palace guards; the groom, a unitard and codpiece to portray the salamander who turns into a prince. Officiant will cover during the time it takes to change by finding fault with audience members' apparel.
Third Reading: The third and climactic act of "A Matter of Perspective," the third season Star Trek: The Next Generation episode in which Riker is accused of impropriety on Tanuga IV and a court is convened on the holodeck.
Ritual Combat: To first blood.
Vows Exchanged: In the interest of deviating from tradition, the audience will read the vows aloud. Each program is printed with a different word of the vows, which must be read in order. Hopefully the audience will have sorted the order out amongst themselves by this point; if not, get comfortable.
Outrelude: Another six minutes of improv.
Exit: Bride and groom exit the hall to Radiohead's "Treefingers":
It's going to be magic. Looking forward to seeing you there!
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Current Music: Leonard Cohen - Democracy
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