tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31397692025278118202024-03-23T06:11:19.859-07:00The Oncoming Hope...does for blogging what "The Sound of Music" did for hillstheoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.comBlogger502125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-25242995412140773172013-10-01T21:38:00.001-07:002013-10-01T21:39:19.778-07:00The Good Wife: Everything is Ending<p style="font-size: 17px;"><img title="vlcsnap-2013-09-30-23h40m02s138.png" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-UsoqAaZ3yCU/UkueTKzotkI/AAAAAAAAB58/iSqms1AIaz4/vlcsnap-2013-09-30-23h40m02s138.png?imgmax=800" alt="Vlcsnap 2013 09 30 23h40m02s138" width="600" height="336" border="0" /></p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Four years ago, after a spate of increasingly ridiculous sex scandals (vacation to Argentina, anyone?), CBS asked us to consider the woman standing on the side of the stage. They sold us a bleak scenario; home in tatters, a woman past her prime is forced to start over, not only to take care of the family, but to find her misplaced self.</p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;">That woman evaporated years ago, leaving us one of the most dynamic characters this side of Walter White. From beginnings so humble, Alicia Florrick is now the most powerful actor in this fictional world; she holds the fates of the Illinois Governor, Lockhart/Gardner, and a crew of young upstarts in her manicured hands. And she knows it.</p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;">It's remarkable that she's managed this ascent without ever playing the trickster; that she's playing that role now sets us up for high comedy and (one hopes) a new ruthlessness. The first casualty appears to be any last embers of the once great friendship between Kalinda and Alicia. (I always held that friendship up as one of the things that made the show unique, but in many ways, the show's refusal to easily rekindle that friendship makes it even more so. It's how these things work in real life.)</p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;"><img title="vlcsnap-2013-09-30-23h33m50s10.png" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-E1gdyYwGMD4/UkueVflRR5I/AAAAAAAAB6U/VumdnIt1HDg/vlcsnap-2013-09-30-23h33m50s10.png?imgmax=800" alt="Vlcsnap 2013 09 30 23h33m50s10" width="600" height="336" border="0" /></p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;">But who will she become? By running off with Cary, she implicitly rejects Will+Diane's moral indifference. I can't be the only one who cheered when, after a momentary hesitation, Cary's simple statement that "we are the new Will+Diane" causes her to double down. (Related but not: "What's going on? West Side Story?" may be one of the greatest line deliveries in a show tripping over itself with great line deliveries).</p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;"><strong>Wild card:</strong> Alicia+Cary vs. Will+Diane may spar in the main theater, but I wouldn't bet against the impact of the looming proxy war: David Lee vs. Kalinda.</p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;"><img title="vlcsnap-2013-09-30-23h36m50s19.png" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-WI5TLMWFDRs/UkueUPDjyfI/AAAAAAAAB6E/Pc24DiElU_0/vlcsnap-2013-09-30-23h36m50s19.png?imgmax=800" alt="Vlcsnap 2013 09 30 23h36m50s19" width="600" height="336" border="0" /></p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;"><strong>GOOD FLORRICK, BAD FLORRICK</strong></p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Alicia may have changed, but her central relationship hasn't changed much since my <a href="http://theoncominghope.blogspot.com/2012/01/good-wife-in-review-ham-sandwich.html">salad days of weekly reviews</a>:</p>
<blockquote style="font-size: 10px;">
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Whenever Alicia and Peter stand in the same room, there's a massive inflow of oxygen, ready to stoke the fires of everything that lies simmering under the surface. So much hatred, and also so much love, a love that pollutes and infects and prevents them from ever having a meaningful conversation about anything.</p>
</blockquote>
<div style="font-size: 10px;"><span style="font-size: 17px;">That strange rush of air still exists, but now that they're "together" again, it stokes a dangerous symbiosis.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 10px;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 10px;"><span style="font-size: 17px;">Peter makes what will surely turn out a terrible decision. The first time I watched, I saw it as a failure to challenge his own failings by taking the easy (and likely fateful) way out by "promoting" Melissa George. The second time, I noticed that his decision immediately followed his musing that Alicia's leaving Lockhart/Gardner to get away from Will. He's saying, quite simply, "If she can be good, I can be good." Which makes me wonder if, until he had that assurance about her, he was planning on being less than good.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 10px;"><strong style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></strong></div>
<div style="font-size: 10px;"><strong style="font-size: 17px;">OTHER</strong></div>
<p style="font-size: 17px;">1. The show runners have decided that esoteric baroque strings are part of the show's new DNA, and I'm ok with that. It just makes me doubly excited about the return of our favorite dead client.</p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;">2. If we see Cary and Alicia slamming tequila shots in every episode henceforth, I might (MIGHT!) almost (ALMOST!) get over the loss of my darling Kalinda/Alicia superhero friendship.</p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;">3. Love that Robin literally put a bird on it:</p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;"><img title="vlcsnap-2013-09-30-23h35m58s1.png" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-LPGpq79px8g/UkueXNa38QI/AAAAAAAAB6k/dWRqkjlP3FA/vlcsnap-2013-09-30-23h35m58s1.png?imgmax=800" alt="Vlcsnap 2013 09 30 23h35m58s1" width="600" height="336" border="0" /></p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;">4. These death row cases BREAK MY HEART. STOP IT, SHOW.</p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;">5. Um, I love Melissa George and can't wait to see where this story goes. Taste the pretty:</p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;"><img title="vlcsnap-2013-09-30-23h40m54s151.png" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-zaBsi6mmpYU/UkueXo3BjrI/AAAAAAAAB6s/wvR_9HjmfMY/vlcsnap-2013-09-30-23h40m54s151.png?imgmax=800" alt="Vlcsnap 2013 09 30 23h40m54s151" width="600" height="336" border="0" /></p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;">6. Today in Kalinda Accent-Watch: "Well, aye caunt leagly access their cawls."</p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;">7. This is the only premiere that lacks a gratuitous sex scene. Did the censors finally catch on, y'all?</p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;">8. "You're right, but that doesn't mean it's his." "You're right. But it does mean there's no convincing you." Why isn't Geneva Pine a series regular? Come on now.</p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;">9. "Please don't end up hating me." AAAAAAAAGH DESK ATTACK OF UNPRECEDENTED STRESSFULNESS.</p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;">10. I actually don't even know what to say about Monica the telecommuter, because I'm too busy laughing hysterically at how Alicia's throwback do-gooderness last season has blown up in her face.</p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;">11. I enjoyed how the show's new fissures were brought to life in the filmography. There's not a single shot of Alicia and Diane together where they're not crowding each other off the screen:</p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;"><img title="vlcsnap-2013-09-30-23h34m08s183.png" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-DhiiZ4huZoE/UkueWLhLNJI/AAAAAAAAB6c/Dq8T2WJ0H3k/vlcsnap-2013-09-30-23h34m08s183.png?imgmax=800" alt="Vlcsnap 2013 09 30 23h34m08s183" width="600" height="336" border="0" /></p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;">12. Not to mention Alicia and Will:</p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;"><img title="vlcsnap-2013-09-30-23h38m49s176.png" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-Ly_RqUshE5E/UkueYdfMZQI/AAAAAAAAB60/BKmf6NxkQ28/vlcsnap-2013-09-30-23h38m49s176.png?imgmax=800" alt="Vlcsnap 2013 09 30 23h38m49s176" width="600" height="336" border="0" /></p>
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Next week: <span style="font-size: 15px;">DESK ATTACK OF UNPRECEDENTED STRESSFULNESS!!!</span></p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-43387948871265362312013-09-25T11:14:00.001-07:002013-09-30T18:01:09.342-07:00Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JMlbGI-BzzY/UkMngP66MeI/AAAAAAAAB5M/vlCrfkQdQXM/s1600/4BsHersfld1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JMlbGI-BzzY/UkMngP66MeI/AAAAAAAAB5M/vlCrfkQdQXM/s1600/4BsHersfld1.jpeg" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><b>I did not want to love <i>The Emperor's Children. </i>In short order, Claire Messud fixes us into a particular milieu - the wealthy, white, overeducated, and purposeless - the only story anyone ever wants to tell about Generation X. However, this is no <i>Reality Bites </i>or <i>Rent. </i>Messud doesn't celebrate their commitment to abstraction and continental drift, she sees it for what it is - the seeds of a lifetime of anxiety and impulsive self-destruction. No wart remains uncovered in her indictment of wasted privilege.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In Messud's pre-9/11 New York, pretensions are easily mistaken for substance. Even still, the pretensions of our cast of characters are so small as to be laughable, with the exceptions of Frederick "Bootie" Tubb, the poor kid who still believes in heroes despite a finely honed sensitivity to phoniness. He comes to New York to find his future under the wings of the esteemed Murray Thwaite and his daughter, Marina.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Marina's lack of principle, lack of value, lack of even the basic ethics of friendship shoots all the other characters into a tense orbit around her. Like a black hole, she sucks them in and transforms them into the opposite of themselves, killing their desires and stealing their dreams.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Modern fiction loves for us to spend time with the abominable. Never truly villainous, he or she is defined by the singular desire for selfhood - in their zeal to define themselves, they're never moving toward, but always away.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So it is with Marina Thwaite. Marina idles against inherited privileges, against the book deal others can only dream about, against the very real needs of her less-privileged friends, the highly intelligent lost lambs Danielle and Julius. How this motley crew came together is irrelevant; rebellion against its disintegration is all that ties them together. Danielle and Bootie both fast-track the whole process - she jumps into bed with chaos (literally), and so does he (figuratively). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Danielle's latent desire to humiliate Marina seems weak compared to Bootie's appetite for destruction, but contribute to her ultimate downfall.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MGJjEd4Q-uw/UkMnrEQTRuI/AAAAAAAAB5U/ir8BghMqF00/s1600/4.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MGJjEd4Q-uw/UkMnrEQTRuI/AAAAAAAAB5U/ir8BghMqF00/s1600/4.jpeg" /></span></a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">From Marina's introduction, I waited for something terrible to happen to her. Sadly, nothing happened of the magnitude I was hoping for - no death in a burst of flames, no withering in the boiling rage of her so-called friends, not even a shameful comedown in front of her father's best society. You may ask why she inspired such apoplexy. Her driving need to claim what already belongs to others, her casual cruelty, her <i>complete inanity of purpose</i>, all conspire to make her the abominable.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There's no shortage of cruelty in the novel. As even the noblest characters embrace their less-than-best selves, they're driven by some higher philosophy, some need to make something of themselves and their lives (or perhaps that's just justification, as Murray Thwaite often reminds us). But not so with Marina - there are no ideals driving her forward, just a craven need to fill the emptiness of her own existence. And so she becomes the engine of her own destruction - she fills that emptiness with someone even more purposeless than herself. Ludovic Seeley caught her in the worst trap of all - ripping her from all she knows, she who has no capacity for self-recognition will be left with nothing and no-one but herself. For Marina, perhaps that's the cruelest fate of all.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">However, you can't help but think that Marina could never have fallen into such a situation if Danielle hadn't distracted her father, if Danielle had herself taken the empty life with Ludo as ordained in the first few pages of the novel. But it's the tiniest moments of coincidence that lead to the most fateful endings. <i>The Emperor's Children </i>winds its way through vagaries both big and small, and its a pleasure to watch these characters twist and turn in response.</span></span>
</div>
theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-66238851591913311552013-08-06T06:17:00.001-07:002013-08-06T06:18:59.671-07:00Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing<p><img style="border: 0px initial initial;" title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-PeZmhspaG54/UgD3RFOiQrI/AAAAAAAAB1w/usOsgfetaqY/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="568" height="426" /></p>
<p>Canadian indie band Stars once sang that when there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire. I can think of no better way to convey the shocking final 15 minutes of Spike Lee's <em>Do the Right Thing</em>.</p>
<p>When you watch the film, you'll marvel at how fresh it feels. Following a credits sequence that hits you in the face with "angry-dancing", we're introduced to the social world of a Bed-Stuy neighborhood. Then, as now, the outstanding existential threat is gentrification.</p>
<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-2RqfXX4OCkU/UgD3SXbQT4I/AAAAAAAAB14/xLreHUZJq7s/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="338" /></p>
<p>Spike Lee chooses to face character complications head-on, and no one's free of scrutiny. Giancarlo Esposito's "Buggin' Out" , the film's would-be Malcolm X, swings easily from overblown concern at the lack of black faces on the wall of Sal's Pizzeria to inviting universal ridicule when a cyclist scuffs his Air Jordans. Lee's camera treats his affectations unkindly, the upward zoom adding extra heft to his already comical hairstyle. Even so, much like Falstaff, this thoughtless dilettante sets the film's tragedies in motion.</p>
<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-iaNIMJllYzE/UgD3QC6oluI/AAAAAAAAB1o/Ycc9bRVn_7U/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="460" height="276" /></p>
<p>Sal, our pizzeria owner, professes love for the people of Bed-Stuy, citing his pride that the young adults in the neighborhood grew up on his pizza. Nonetheless, he does not hesitate to call them "animals" and "niggers" when the mood takes him. And yet, there's little doubt that he loves the people he serves, even as a deep-seated disrespect for them wins out over his seemingly better nature.</p>
<p><img style="border: 0px initial initial;" title="Do the Right Thing.png" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-5ct1k_dx0t4/UgD3M8c_B_I/AAAAAAAAB1Y/sQd45ABALAg/Do%252520the%252520Right%252520Thing.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="394" /></p>
<p>Disrespect really is the order of the day here: whether you're Mookie, Tina, Radio Raheem, Sal, or even Sal's useless sons, how you deal with disrespect defines your character (at least up to a point). Mookie does nothing for so long that his big act almost feels like a triumph. Raheem hides behind his music, and when that's disrespected, he explodes. Sal's deep-seated racism comes to the fore. He's not an anti-social racist like his son, but guilty of ugly prejudice none the less.</p>
<p>The exception is the Greek chorus. They constantly comment but never act. They are less characters than narrators, involved less with the specific lives of the neighborhood than in defining the shapes of the setting. Lee treats them to some of the most beautiful videography in film history as they lounge under umbrellas against a wall painted the brightest red ever seen outside a Tarantino film.</p>
<p>I don't want to linger on the ending; if you haven't seen the movie, you need to experience it for yourself. I will say this, however: <em>la plus ça change, la plus la même chose</em>.</p>
<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-Cc-vMQ2cfj0/UgD3POuPIeI/AAAAAAAAB1g/K2LbihSSwEk/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="500" height="250" /></p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-31518865241780547342013-08-02T12:30:00.001-07:002013-08-02T12:31:36.511-07:00On J.K. Rowling's "Cuckoo's Calling"<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-aHmqlWBwunk/UfwIvqW5yXI/AAAAAAAAB1A/5OH7cLex8SA/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="307" /></p>
<p>In this edition of <em>Law & Order: Private Detective, </em>TotallyNotRowling rips a story straight from the headlines. Row-Braith takes the sordid tale of Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty and wraps it all in a entertaining-if-predictable bow.</p>
<p>After a string of improbabilities and coincidences, Detective Cormoran Strike is called in to investigate the death of Not!Winehouse, which had been written off as suicide by the tabloids and the police.</p>
<p>Following another string of improbabilities and coincidences, he's granted an assistant from on high. He doesn't want this assistant, oh no, but then she wows him with her ability to make tea and not ask any questions about, well, anything.</p>
<p>One would think the latter characteristic would immediately disqualify anyone from working in a private investigator's office, but mmm, biscuits. I would like to think that Mr. Strike had other reasons for keeping her on, but Robin*'s character is basically defined by three things:</p>
<ul>
<li>a) Aforementioned ability to produce steaming cups of tea at opportune moments.</li>
<li>b) Recent engagement to a banker wanker named Matthew, who <em>strongly disapproves </em>of her line of work.</li>
<li>c) Being rather pleasant, occasionally.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>In case you hadn't noticed, I'm more than a little bothered by the regressiveness of the females on display in this novel: one's a secretary (and aspires to be nothing more, apparently), and one's a dead object. Rowling's portrait of the dead girl tells us little about who she is, leaving us to trust the smarmy words of her brother, her fashion guru, her leechy best friends, and her boyfriend (Not!Doherty).</p>
<p>Now, I didn't set out to write such a negative review. While reading <em>Cuckoo's Calling</em>, I was generally enjoying the (very long) ride. But the facts remain: it doesn't really succeed as a detective novel (unless your idea of a good detective novel involves one man <em>talking </em>to millions of characters in sequence), and it doesn't really succeed as a cautionary tale on the perils of fame.</p>
<p>Where it does succeed is in providing a detailed portrait of the less glamorous parts of London (and the parts of London I spent considerable time in when I lived there). She has a strong sense of place and atmosphere, but couldn't quite bring that power to her character work.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>*And isn't it adorable that they both are named after birds? Someone really needs to hit J.K. Rowling over the head with the terribly cutesy names she's saddled us with (Cormorant-Robin, to be fair, isn't as bad as Albus Severus Remus Dumbledore Potter).</em></p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-85267983095131114692013-07-27T17:36:00.001-07:002013-07-27T19:57:47.413-07:00No Forgiveness for Only God Forgives<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/--1txw3RgS0U/UfRnnqKn8eI/AAAAAAAAB0U/mBDXKquPdC0/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="421" /></p>
<p>By the time Detective Chang jabs a fifth chopstick into Van Gogh's brain, we're not just covering our eyes, we're wondering why. The senseless act perfectly mirrors the senselessness of the story: Chang's trying to find out who put out a hit on him, but when he begins his chopstick dance, we already know the answer to that question <em>and so does Chang.</em></p>
<p>This scene, like so many others in Nicolas Winding Refn's disaster of a movie, made the impossible possible: falling asleep while a man's limb is severed, falling asleep when a sword passes through a woman's body, falling asleep while Ryan Gosling just stands there, waiting.</p>
<p>Oh god, the standing and waiting. A better actor might have sold this role, but while facing all his ethical turmoil (I assume that's what he's facing--it might be a particularly disappointing bout of constipation) he never achieves anything more than blankness.</p>
<p><img title="RyanGosling.png" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-kQgRUPSvyB4/UfRnj5u032I/AAAAAAAAB0M/LKh_ZNzK89U/RyanGosling.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="Ryan Gosling" width="600" height="324" /></p>
<p>So thank goodness for Kristin Scott Thomas. She swoops in, a bundle of bleach and poison, bringing the only forward movement to a story that really doesn't need to move forward at all, and should have been terminated at the outset.</p>
<p>Utterly against type, she takes her character to a level of malevolence unseen since Jackie Weaver in <em>Animal Kingdom </em>(a movie you should not miss, if you haven't seen it already).</p>
<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-gL1Y2c3_7t0/UfRnoasrW-I/AAAAAAAAB0c/Dnuyh135EhY/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="337" /></p>
<p>I don't know what to do when there's a single performance that shines like a diamond in a pile of shit. Is she objectively good, or is she better only in comparison? I've heard early clamors from the Twitterati for an Oscar nom for Thomas, and I find the thought strangely distasteful. Isn't the performance a failure when it's not in keeping with the rest of the movie?</p>
<p>I really shouldn't complain. At least she brought some entertainment to the whole dour business.</p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-4011229313642399762013-07-14T17:09:00.001-07:002013-07-14T17:09:43.853-07:00Thoughts on the Trayvon Martin Trial<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-lyTt52ZPib4/UeM9xBFSubI/AAAAAAAABy4/elDMNL539V8/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="337" /></p>
<p>I've struggled to record my exact feelings on yesterday's acquittal. The court delivered an awful verdict that suggested that certain key questions are beside the point: What is the crime? Who committed it? Why? How?</p>
<p>Apart from the racial aspects of the case, which others have covered far more eloquently than I could, I'm disturbed by the way the final decision failed to reflect <em>an actual crime. </em>Isn't the whole notion of Western justice based on cause and effect? Crime and punishment?</p>
<p>We're left with the fact that a man was murdered, but hey, that's cool, just an annoying gnat of a fact irrelevant to the case at hand.</p>
<p>No one seems bothered by the proportionality of Zimmerman's act. That a man with a gun shot a kid without a weapon of any kind. That a guy who wilfully ignored police orders should not be allowed a gun <em>in any circumstance</em>. That even when you strip away all the politics around this, the facts remain: a man with a gun shot an unarmed teenager.</p>
<p>A man with a gun shot an unarmed teenager, and apparently that's ok. What is our justice system even worth when that kind of core simplicity can be flim-flammed away?</p>
<p>This verdict is a travesty, and even if Zimmerman's acts are perfectly lawful, then we have to question the substance of the laws themselves.</p>
<p>Let's see how the civil trial fares.</p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-90088698909915845552013-07-07T10:23:00.001-07:002013-07-14T17:10:25.060-07:00When Bill Clinton asked Octavia Butler to Imagine the Future<p>For whatever reason, I went down a mad Octavia Butler-related rabbit hole yesterday, which led me into, among other things, the <a href="http://www.detritus.net/contact/rumori/200211/0319.html">classification of a movement called "afrofuturism"</a>, and the musical <a href="http://thewire.co.uk/in-writing/essays/p=13626">legacy of that terribly named movement</a>.</p>
<p>My favorite find, however, was this little nugget from Essence Magazine (full pdf <a href="http://octaviabutler.net/sites/all/files/Essence-A_Few_Rules_for_Predicting_the_Future.pdf">here</a>)</p>
<p><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Screen shot 2013-07-07 at 9.45.53 AM.png" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-dIa1LCBZ08U/UdmkBEoCnRI/AAAAAAAAByU/Ci7E7LWxfxI/Screen%252520shot%2525202013-07-07%252520at%2525209.45.53%252520AM.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="Screen shot 2013 07 07 at 9 45 53 AM" width="233" height="93" /></p>
<p>Now, I'm ashamed to admit the total failure of my Google-fu, but I can't seem to locate the actual memo! I've scoured blogger, Google search, and even Clinton's digital archives to try and find the actual work, but I've been unsuccesful! Does anyone want to give it a go?</p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-31716366057643675502013-06-13T13:32:00.001-07:002013-06-13T13:32:47.831-07:00Great Effing Novels: Mockingbird by Walter Tevis<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-U6D2Pn2mLZc/Ubosa8D7eeI/AAAAAAAABxE/xUSyrb7e2Fc/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="500" height="378" /></p>
<p><strong>In brief: </strong>I have one thing to say: <em>Mockingbird </em>is one of the best novels I've ever read. I never thought I'd be moved to say such a thing at my age, but there you go. The rest of this review goes into why, but the point is simple: read it, then talk to me about it. It also corrected my belief that no one could read anything original about New York City anymore.</p>
<p>Walter Tevis also wrote <em>The Hustler </em>and <em>The Man Who Fell to Earth, </em>and despised both adaptations.</p>
<p><strong>The Full Review</strong></p>
<p>When you know that humanity's coming to an end, what would you want your legacy to be? These are the thoughts that drive us; we pretend to be concerned with a bigger picture, but that view tends to sit just out of reach, something we strive for but never achieve, trapped as we are in our own petty quests.</p>
<p>What if your single driving goal in life is to die? That you want this one thing so badly that every decision you make services that desire, with no regard for consequences to others? That's the question that Walter Tevis' <em>Mockingbird </em>asks. What depravity would that desire drive us to, and how will we mutate if we can't succeed?</p>
<p>Walter Tevis' <em>Mockingbird </em>overflows with character. Dystopian fiction, especially the kind designed to stimulate "big ideas about the dangerous direction society is headed", doesn't tend to concern itself too much with people ("big thoughts" being the operative concept).</p>
<p>Think of <em>1984 </em>or <em>Brave New World</em> or even Yevgeny Zamyatin's <em>We</em>: there's a male lead who's notable for his very inhumanity, and some female who spurs thoughts of "zomg my desire to act on my desires for love and sex will set me free even if they kill me for it!"</p>
<p>If I'm being reductive, it's with reason. These women are objects; the science fiction equivalent of the manic pixie dream girl saves our hero from a life of total conformity.</p>
<p>But in <em>Mockingbird</em>, there are no heroes, just people striving to be human, which is a heroic enough feat. Because no one's elevated to being more than they are, the characters are actually allowed to breathe: we know Mary Lou, and we understand why she doesn't wait for Bentley (which is a thing every other woman in every other fucking dystopian novel would have done, or felt tortured for not doing).</p>
<p>Not just people; robots too. Spofforth the philosophical android is unique enough: you never forget that he's a product of cold human design, yet he still evolves into a peculiar personhood of his own. Did I mention he's black? A black fucking android roaming the streets of New York City, distracting the world with his perfect physical form while trapped in the darkness of his own driving ambition.</p>
<p>He makes so many bad decisions, like any good human. And yet his value his clear. You see what happens to the world when he stops paying attention. The real answer? It doesn't fall apart, but he feels it does. That's not a human feeling at all.</p>
<p><em>Mockingbird's </em>world came to be not because of outside concepts like technology and politics, but from human mistakes (if you think that's a weird statement to make about a robot, you haven't yet met Spofforth). The tension between a desire for privacy and a desire to be part of something bigger than oneself drives much of the narrative.</p>
<p>But I've just spent a lot of words to say one simple thing: read this novel. You will love it. The end.</p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-82157938026140872212013-06-10T18:24:00.001-07:002013-06-10T18:26:59.180-07:00On Apple's iOS 7.0 "Refresh"<p><img style="border: 0px initial initial;" title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-UFKRL5aOE6Y/UbZ8VsY47kI/AAAAAAAABwk/NmSSasjuR7U/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="362" /></p>
<p>The office put up Apple's WWDC keynote on a giant projector screen, and hilarity ensued (and swiftly turned to horror). Five comments from work that perfectly capture the complete and total awfulness of Apple's new iPhone operating system:</p>
<ol>
<li>Person who casually walks into kitchen, unaware of what's onscreen: "Oh hey! What's that on screen? Is that Android?"</li>
<li>Apple fanboy, slowly deflating: "Didn't the Nokia phone fail?"</li>
<li>Smug Apple-hater: "It's like they kidnapped the designer of the Windows phone."</li>
<li>Bewildered so-and-so: "Did Apple buy out Yahoo so they could steal the design of the Yahoo!Weather app?...And make it worse?"</li>
<li>"It's funny that they're making album covers so prominent. You know who taught me not to look at album covers anymore? ...iTunes."</li>
</ol>
<p>You may detect a common theme in these remarks (which are closer to verbatim than you might think): there's nothing <em>remotely original </em>about this design. It cobbles together aesthetic ideas that have existed for years in various smartphones, failing to tie them together into a coherent whole (and let's face it, this is what Apple used to do best).</p>
<p>It's possible that this is a functional problem with the technology of the smartphone itself. Think about it; the iPhone debuted almost 7 years ago, and <em>hasn't really changed interaction</em>. What devices have stayed so static? Even with dumb phones, every year there were new ways of interacting, from standard buttons to touchscreen buttons to horizontal keyboards to different kinds of screens entirely.</p>
<p>The technology is stuck and so the design is stuck. Which brings me to the greatest shortage in my industry today: creative hardware developers.</p>
<p> </p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-25128281090418207112013-06-02T06:57:00.001-07:002013-06-02T06:59:54.659-07:00 The Peculiar Orientalism of The Orphan Master's Son<p><img title="OrphanMaster.png" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-EYovJTK0O-E/UatPSQIlhHI/AAAAAAAABwM/75rbPsiESfc/OrphanMaster.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="Orphan Master's Son" width="600" height="353" /></p>
<p>Have you ever consumed an Eton mess? A popular English dessert, it earned its name from looking like what remains after a bunch of teenage boys beat each others' brains out and then have a drunken orgy with a dingo.</p>
<p>But it's delicious, and you can't stop eating it, even though the Oreos and the strawberries battle each other with textures that feel similar but don't fit together in any way shape or form.</p>
<p>Ahem. I'm hungry now. Anyway...</p>
<p>If you take two steps away from Adam Johnson's <em>The Orphan Master's Son</em>, it looks like a fucking mess; it moves from cold gritty realism to picaresque fantasy to delusional fiction (which, ironically, is a dangerous quality in a work of fiction) without bothering to clue in the reader.</p>
<p>When it<em> </em>succeeds, it ruins you so bad that you feel cowardly for even wanting to look away. 90% of the novel falls into that camp. But Johnson disrupts the flow too often with cheap (and insensible) tricks that leave you questioning any truth in the world he fashions.</p>
<p>I imagine any discussion of North Korea has that problem: all we know about that country is how much we don't know. But think about constructing an entire nation from the views of the ones who choose to defect. If the United States were suddenly closed for business, how might Texan secessionists describe the country?</p>
<p>This is what <em>The Orphan Master's Son </em>struggles with. As Barbara Demick said <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/feb/17/orphan-masters-son-adam-johnson-review">in her own review</a> of the novel:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"<span style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 16.363636016845703px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; display: inline !important; float: none;">People are inclined to believe whatever outrage they read about North Korea, but bad as it is, I've not heard of political prisoners being lobotomised with nails inserted over the eyeball or with electrical charge.</span>"</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And this is where it hurts to be such a structural mess. If the narrative kept focus, you can overlook the muddy details and choose to follow the highly compelling story of one Jun Do (whose homophonic resemblance to John Doe is no accident).</p>
<p>I love science fiction, so I'd never belittle a setting for being imaginary. But the fact remains, this is not science fiction. North Korea is a real place, with real people. Crafting a dystopian view of a mysterious place seems like an impossible talk; for a dystopian novel to work, you need to understand the society it critiques.</p>
<p>Choosing to set this work of fiction in a place you know nothing about (and don't pretend taking one trip for a couple of days in a highly controlled environment tells you anything about a society) smacks of orientalism of the worst kind. All our knowledge is based on what we imagine their lives are like, which erases any space for true humanity.</p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-10933342130897265902013-04-07T10:35:00.001-07:002013-04-07T10:35:39.677-07:00Doctor Who and the Rings of Clara-khenaten<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-t5XA9xNC4t8/UWGuYZMukoI/AAAAAAAABvI/8xqKzzyOflc/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="361" /></p>
<p>I know that the latest episode of <em>Doctor Who</em> seems a bit slight on the surface, but like <em>Gridlock</em>, which had a number of thematic similarities, there are joys to found in the depths. It's been a long time since I could describe this show of having any subtlety whatsoever, but even while maintaining the usual loud tempo in the A-plot, the episode still offered little reveals about the Doctor, and more importantly, about Clara.</p>
<p>Despite the fact that this episode centered on the loss of a parent, there wasn't a big emotional crying scene. I've realized more and more that when the characters' histrionics overwhelm the scene, there's no room left for the audience to connect emotionally.</p>
<p>In just ten quiet seconds, we feel the weight of the moment when Clara's forced to give up her mother's ring. The Doctor asking her to make that sacrifice clearly plants a seed of doubt in her mind <em>about him</em>, and reminds us that no matter how much he walks the walk, <em>he's not actually human</em>.</p>
<p>Nor do we need a big dramatic scene to understand the significance of the fact that when asked for a physical totem of cherished memory, he can only offer his sonic screwdriver. That's even though he once brought his (assumed long dead?) granddaughter to this very place.</p>
<p>(And because you should see it if you haven't, the scene where the Doctor abandons Susan on Earth for Not!AdamScott is one of the loveliest moments of the classic series. <em>Middleman </em>did a riff on this scene, for those of you who enjoy such things).</p>
<p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Um5Cn5eHsGo?feature=player_detailpage" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>I've heard it said on Twitter that the episode relies on the usual <em>Doctor Who </em>deus ex machina that is The Power of Love. For once, I think there's something far deeper going on. Clara doesn't feed the monster with love, but with the infinity of loss. It's neatly scientific, wrapped up in a human bow. People who are grieving don't tend to dwell on moments had, they think of moments missed, moments lost. Every time I miss my grandmother, for instance, I don't think about my youth spent with her, I think about how she isn't here, how she isn't sitting next to me, enjoying <em>Doctor Who </em>with me (and enjoy it she did).</p>
<p>There's an infinity of those moments, and you'd go crazy if you try to understand how enormous those missed moments are. No one can comprehend infinity. You just shut down when you go too far down the path.</p>
<p>Which is my long-winded way of saying, well done <em>Who</em>, for having an vaguely comprehensible ending for once.</p>
<p><strong>OTHER STUFF:</strong></p>
<p>Clara Clara Clara. SO MUCH LOVE. She's the first companion in the New Era who I'd actually want to meet, and can imagine myself befriending.</p>
<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-uuwcNQYOYbg/UWGuaPMTwCI/AAAAAAAABvQ/3iSxKPaR1FA/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="500" height="281" /></p>
<p> </p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-20882344082365037972013-04-01T09:41:00.001-07:002013-04-01T09:41:39.485-07:00Kate Atkinson's Life After Life<p><img style="border: 0px initial initial;" title="Screen shot 2013-04-01 at 11.40.17 AM.png" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-BSJU9aqSkec/UVm4wNQ2tJI/AAAAAAAABu4/fVCrNrEJTBo/Screen%252520shot%2525202013-04-01%252520at%25252011.40.17%252520AM.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="Screen shot 2013 04 01 at 11 40 17 AM" width="600" height="245" /></p>
<p>Imagine someone writing the novel described in Borges' <em>Garden of Forking Paths</em>. You lead a hundred different lives in parallel.</p>
<p>You're born, and then you die. You're born again, and then you die again, after ticking off a few more minutes of your lifeline. By the time you've met your hundredth death, you're old enough to understand what's about to happen. You may not always interpret the signs correctly this time, but you'll learn. Sometimes you learn when the wrong person dies. But at least you get another chance.</p>
<p>Our heroine, Ursula Todd, is duly plagued, which results in her taking on multiple fates, each of them tiny microcosms of the human experience: so much horror, so many delights. It's not so simple as <em>Sliding Doors</em>, we follow her through two wars, and many traps lie afoot. Some of her worst experiences have nothing to do with the war. Humanity's usually its own worst enemy, whether you're in bucolic England or in mid-war Germany.</p>
<p>These are difficult themes to maintain, and I'm still impressed at what control Atkinson held. Astonishingly, even through reset after reset, there are character through-lines that remain both consistent and heart-breaking. The lines around Ursula's life are so beautifully colored in that the reader can dive easily into each new storyline, at least once you get used to the conceit.</p>
<p><strong>"Darkness falls, and so on."</strong></p>
<p>But what will probably stay in my mind, once all the timey-wimey trickery fades into the distance, are visions of a ravaged London, a London so thoroughly decimated that the descriptions read like science fiction or dystopia.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>She was cold. The water she was lying in was making her even colder. She needed to move. Could she move? Apparently not. How long had she been lying here? Ten minutes? Ten years? Time had ceased. Everything seemed to have ceased. Only the awful concoction of smells remained. She was in the cellar. She knew that because she could see <em>Bubbles</em>, still miraculously taped to a sandbag near her head. Was she going to die looking at this banality? Then banality seemed suddenly welcome as a ghastly vision appeared at her side. A terribly ghost, black eyes in a grey face and wild hair, was clawing at her. 'Have you seen my baby?' the ghost said It took Ursula a few moments to realize that this was no ghost. It was Mrs. Appleyard, her face covered in dirt and bomb dust and streaked with blood and tears. 'Have you seen my baby?' she said again.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This London remains stuck in history. The art of the time had strict rules, propagandic overtures that wouldn't bear any mention of the idea that the British were so badly beaten down during the war.</p>
<p>You find this struggle most baldly acknowledged in the stranges of places: Gracie Fields comedies and in Powell and Pressburger's delicious allegories, especially in <em>Black Narcissus</em>. Just as Deborah Kerr's nun struggles against poverty, illness, crumbling infrastructure and burning desire in the remote Himalayas, millions of Brits struggled with the same at home. But one could never admit that; the Dunkirk spirit held its sway. Only in photography could you find the reality; was photography even considered an art then, or just documentation?</p>
<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-s5P8jaOQh7c/UVm4vPCZUBI/AAAAAAAABuw/AAAQ0xZRWlE/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="500" height="416" /></p>
<p>Poetry and the visual arts gave way to the abstract; the human eye and the human heart were incapable, then, of processing the horror of being in constant danger of annihilation. Atkinson's choice, then, to draw out this most troubled time, to realize it in words, strikes you in the heart.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A woman wearing a mink coat had come out of the entrance to the Savoy, on the arm of a rather elegant man. The woman was laughing in a carefree way at something the man had just said but then she broke away from his arm to search in her handbag for her purse in order to drop a handful of coins into the bowl of an ex-soldier who was sitting on the pavement. The man had no legs and was perched on some kind of makeshift wooden trolley. Ursula had seen another limbless man on a similar contraption outside Marylebone station. Indeed, the more she had looked on the London streets, the more amputees she had seen.</p>
<p>A doorman from the hotel darted out of Savoy Court and advanced on the legless man, who quickly scooted away using his hands as oars on the pavement.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And so I found, not an answer, but at least an understanding of something that plagued me when I lived in London, wandering the streets and pondering the crazy mess of buildings that huddle up into some kind of city. When so much of the city is destroyed, why wouldn't you build it to plan for the future? Even after WWII, urbanization became apparent. Someone made the choice to rebuild so many devastated buildings as exact replicas of what they used to be, instead of acknowledging survival and moving on into the (somewhat) brighter future.</p>
<p>A partial explanation ties directly into the novel; you can't see into the future, and no matter what you do, you're always trapped by your past. If only we all had the opportunity to direct our own garden of forking paths.</p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-61092211400588911412013-03-31T16:13:00.001-07:002013-03-31T16:13:29.925-07:00Charlotte Armstrong and the Case of the Weird Sisters<p><img style="border: 0px initial initial;" title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-azpr9dmqblI/UVjC4qJP0UI/AAAAAAAABuY/H4aQ07u-LLc/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="398" height="259" /></p>
<p>When I recovered from the relentless terror of Shirley Jackson's <em>House on Haunted Hill</em>, I searched for another novel that flies out of the gate like a rocket-powered robin, whispering horrors in my ear with the loveliest of voices.</p>
<p>A re-release of Charlotte Armstrong's <em>Case of the Weird Sisters</em> fell into my lap, and more than made the grade. Armstrong maintains a a fierce commitment to suspense and character, even as certain aspects of the narrative fall flat.</p>
<p>Alice Brennan trips lightly through a poorly thought-out engagement into the house of the titular weird sisters, each nursing a debilitating handicap and a desperation for cash.</p>
<p>As I read it, 3 other series came to mind: Hercule Poirot, contemporary <em>Doctor Who</em> and a whole body of self-referential film noir.</p>
<p>These may sound unrelated. They're not.</p>
<p>Each case relies upon an interloper who not only happens upon the mystery, but also ingratiates him (let's face it, usually him) self with the primary players in the case.</p>
<p>I love <em>The Case of the Weird Sisters </em>unabashedly, even though it lays bare some of the most problematic aspects of the type of storytelling I describe. <em>Doctor Who</em>, despite being a science-fiction yarn, may represent this storytelling best: it relies upon the viewer relating to the earthbound narrator, who controls the story until the Doc appears. At which point, the Doctor takes over all agency, and our earthbound audience stand-in becomes nothing more than an observer.</p>
<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-dPT6BOdmR_U/UVjDDj59XDI/AAAAAAAABug/8Mn11kUmDOE/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="340" /></p>
<p><em>::experiences sudden worry that the Charlotte Armstrong reading audience MAY NOT crossover to the Doctor Who audience, but c'est la vie::</em></p>
<p>Armstrong belies this; Alice is the lead, through and through. In fact, you can practically sense editorial medding; the tale's too feminine somehow, starting and ending with her love life, so we have to introduce MacDougal Duff as the lead, even though he leaves five pages in, only to reappear at the 27% mark.</p>
<p>That's a sizable chunk of the novel, ample time to forget that Duff even exists. And when he commandeers the narrative, our emotional hook becomes less strong. He enters the scene without any real connection to the characters (his knowing Alice is a silly coincidence at best) and absolutely no stake in how events turn out - he can always just leave.</p>
<p>This sort of thing can be written off as a necessary evil in a weekly tv show, but in a self-contained novel, it's a curious choice, and one that robs the narrative of urgency. We want this to be about Alice. The eerieness of the House of the Weird Sisters perfectly reflects the cobwebs in her own mind. As she works to sweep them away, we want to be with her, not with the interloper.</p>
<p>All this notwithstanding, the novel was a great read, and I'd recommend it to anyone. Despite the weirdness of Duff's interruption, he's as entertaining as any of the other characters, and that's what saves the novel. Armstrong's greatest strength is crafting the atmosphere, and I have to say, I was sorry to leave.</p>
<p><img style="border: 0px initial initial;" title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-hYVUD45Rix4/UVjCzXNmNOI/AAAAAAAABuQ/uRyClHZ6zPE/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="463" /></p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-4363277675839208622013-03-19T20:39:00.001-07:002013-03-19T20:39:31.397-07:00On the Veronica Mars Kickstarter<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-jO8D9O0THSQ/UUkvb56VZ1I/AAAAAAAABuA/I47_t1CxJWM/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="338" /></p>
<p>Duty dictates that The Oncoming Hope writes of <em>Veronica Mars.</em> For before The Oncoming Hope adopted a whole range of <em>Doctor Who</em> related aliases (aliasi?), all the internet handles (and the Oncoming fashions) were based on Veronica Mars (and as fans know, you can never <em>just </em>call her Veronica).</p>
<p>I actually can't believe I get to write about this show again. I discovered both blogging and fandom through it, and even though we obsessives eventually went our separate ways, we still run into each other in the darkest corners of the internet...</p>
<p>...or so it seemed.</p>
<p>For we were the few who watched the show when it aired.</p>
<p>But we do not begrudge those who found it after season 1, on the recommendation of one thriller writer whose name rhymes with Freven Ding.</p>
<p><img title="Screen shot 2013-03-19 at 10.52.14 PM.png" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-Qc8iJrymgQk/UUkvUooPAtI/AAAAAAAABtY/5xYJj-AjA5c/Screen%252520shot%2525202013-03-19%252520at%25252010.52.14%252520PM.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="Screen shot 2013 03 19 at 10 52 14 PM" width="600" height="418" /><img title="Screen shot 2013-03-19 at 10.52.36 PM.png" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-zpfa_NM74-0/UUkvWVBIeeI/AAAAAAAABtg/_8F45BG3KSg/Screen%252520shot%2525202013-03-19%252520at%25252010.52.36%252520PM.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="Screen shot 2013 03 19 at 10 52 36 PM" width="600" height="97" /></p>
<p>We do not begrudge the Whedon-ites who found the show after prominent guest appearances by Willow, Cordelia, and Numfar himself.</p>
<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-TBWkDLHanXY/UUkvZsLi9cI/AAAAAAAABtw/vkKxDGob2nI/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="480" height="250" /></p>
<p>We don't even begrudge the sorority girls who found the show after the CW cross-promoted it with guest appearances by Kristen Cavalleri (like...who?) and various other members of America's Forgotten Top Models.</p>
<p>But we do begrudge this:</p>
<p><img title="Screen shot 2013-03-19 at 10.44.45 PM.png" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-hhc6190TGho/UUkvTFLcUuI/AAAAAAAABtQ/egjYoh8GxVA/Screen%252520shot%2525202013-03-19%252520at%25252010.44.45%252520PM.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="Screen shot 2013 03 19 at 10 44 45 PM" width="550" height="295" /></p>
<p>Cause here's the thing about <em>Veronica Mars</em>. It was genuinely niche, a show for the geeks, from a time before geeks controlled the pursestrings. <em>Marvel </em>hadn't yet assumed its disturbing stronghold on Hollywood and geek culture, <em>Doctor Who </em>was still that weird show on PBS with tinfoil aliens and styrofoam sets, and <em>Star Trek </em>wasn't even a lens flare in JJ Abrams' eye. So being the first to watch it is meaningless; there's never been any kind of mainstream push behind it.</p>
<p>Few watched <em>Veronica Mars </em>when it aired, but we desperately wanted all our friends to watch it. Even <em>TWOP </em>couldn't hide its unabashed glee (and this was when <em>TWOP </em>gave positive reviews to NO ONE (before it was bought out)) at this weird little show that was technically perfect and wonderfully plotted (read the season 1 recaps if you think I'm kidding; "glowing" barely scratches the surface).</p>
<p>So when I think about this Kickstarter, I don't think about it as a means for the WB to test out new production models, I don't think of it as surrendering some private nerddom to the mainstream, I think of it as what it is; a bunch of super fans had the chance to fund something they love. This beloved thing was never going to get any mainstream or institutional support. This is not <em>Firefly</em>, which had twice the ratings of <em>VM </em>when it aired, and already had its shot at a movie.</p>
<p>I think of this as a paean to what the internet used to be. When fandom wasn't manufactured, when it depended on a small group of people desperate to love and to promote the thing they loved. They didn't need to own it, they didn't need to feel like it was their own, they just felt that it was special enough to be shared.</p>
<p>And so it is. Every one of my close friends from high school and college eventually caught up to it, on the strength of my love for it. They love it too, and I never feel like their love is worth any less than mine; I just feel grateful that they gave it a chance.</p>
<p>This Kickstarter, no matter the implications, will connect more people with a show that they're likely to love. And for that, I'm grateful. And for the first time, I opened my wallet.</p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-66167451519708783612013-02-10T06:54:00.001-08:002013-02-10T06:54:52.423-08:00An Early Human Rights Editorial<p><img title="ELT200801171805355470428.jpeg" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-tZO6KV2-tSg/URe0twX7WxI/AAAAAAAABsA/nungFBFQ8IU/ELT200801171805355470428.jpeg?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="ELT200801171805355470428" width="580" height="393" /></p>
<p>The <em>United States Democratic Review </em>must be one of the strangest publications in our nation's brief history. A strong proponent of Jacksonian democracy (and the ugliest aspects of Jacksonian democracy - annexation and manifest destiny), it also published work by a number of humanist and transcendental thinkers. Despite an editorial position that constitutes the worst of American jingoism, brilliant (and prescient) pieces, like the one below, snuck in.</p>
<p>I've referred to the original periodical, and cannot find an attribution. The logical assumption, then, would be that the editor wrote it, but its strong support of human rights, and the rights of a "lesser species", suggests otherwise. The Sepoy rebellion is a classic case of the victor writing the history - as far as the British Imperialists were concerned, it never happened. But to everyone else, the act was plain - one man killed a missionary, and the British army slaughtered 30,000 Indians and called it "civilized".</p>
<p>You don't need to look far to see recent incidents that mirror this. Anyway, read it and play along in the comments.</p>
<p><strong>Abuses of Victory - British Morals in India (Dec. 1858, in the </strong><em>United States Democratic Review</em><strong>) </strong></p>
<p>In exploring the annals of history, on almost every page is seen a record of the triumphs of one nation over another nation - of one race over another race. If this record is prepared by the victorious party, it is filled with exaggerations of the magnitude of its triumphs; teems with eulogy of the victors, and with detractions from the vanquished. If, on the contrary, the record emanates from the defeated party, a very different picture is drawn; then the pencil of the artist paints the character of the victors in deep crimson, and the pen of the historian draws black lines around their memory. In this manner successful brutality and force may be placed before the world in the light of heroism and patriotic achievement - sometimes even robed in the mantle of Christianity - while an unsuccessful effort to maintain the right, and defend the innocent, is stigmatized as barbarous and infamous; - and this is history. Prejudices as deep as these, it is feared, have controlled English writers in recording the events consequent upon the war of their country with India.</p>
<p>The history of that war, while it does but simple justice to the bravery of Englishmen, is a sealed book to the impartial truth of what has really been enacted in that distant country by British officers and soldiers. An occasional account of the doings of the English army in India reaches us through other sources than their own, and a recital of their deeds chlills the blood of the most cruel, as did the statements of the butchery by the infuriated Bengal Sepoys of foreigners who were in India at the commencement of hostilities.</p>
<p>The halo of glory that should have decked the brows of the heroic <em>Havelock, Lawrence, Neill, </em>and <em>Nicholson</em>, was dimmed by the blood of a hundred thousand defenceless natives in the subsequent conquests and brutalities by the British army. The wrath and indignation of the civilized world were justly aroused when the barbarous Sepoys waded through seas of Christian blood to secure the heads of two or three missionaries whom they regarded as their enemies; but no word of reproach is heard against the British soldiery when they form a catacomb of the corpses of thirty thousand Sepoys, whom they slaughtered in cold blood, for no other cause than that one of their number was guilty of a barbarous murder; and he had been delivered to the English for execution when demanded, but this could not appease their thirst for revenge.</p>
<p>Were the true history of this devastating war written, many barbarous exhibitions of this kind would be recorded to the shame of British victories in India. After conquering their degraded and imbecile foes, they assume or acquire the instincts of the blood-hound, and trail them wherever they flee, until the native soil of India is saturated with innocent blood - and this brutality the proud nation of Britain calls "civilized warfare. To use their own language, they</p>
<p>"Through SOFT degrees<br />Subdued them to the peaceful and the GOOD."</p>
<p>If the British historian who attempts to illustrate the humanizing and christianizing influence of the war in India, by the lines just quoted, was a mere satirist endeavoring to create in the public mind the most sickening disgust for the inhumanity and heartlessness practised by the conquerors of India, he coul d not find two lines better adapted to his purpose. "Through <em>soft</em> degrees" indeed - through the cannon, sword, rifle and the bayonet - they "subdued them to the peaceful and the <em>good!"</em>' Such hypocritical cant was never before employed by any writer claiming respectability, in discussing a subject of such solemn importance as that attached to the extinction of a nation, who, although not far advanced in civilization, were enjoying a large share of independence and contentment, until invaded by British rapacity, and by unscrupulous adventurers, who first sought their wealth, afterwards their liberty, and finally, their lives.</p>
<p>The writer referred to, and who penned the lines above extracted in eulogy of the British administration in India, admits that the nations, at least those inhabiting the country of the Five Rivers, were in the enjoyment, at an early period of their history, of a system of government well adapted to promote their interests as an independent people. He says, "Its form of government was a federation of chieftains, each independent of others, who met together at intervals to provide for their common safety, and furnish each his armed contingent for the public service." Their motto was <em>Wa Gooroojee ha Kalsa</em> - Victory to the state of Gooroo. In their religion's creed they taught that all men were equal in the sight of God - that distinctions of caste were not a principle of faith - that differences of religion did not debar men from a common charity. Socially, they occupied a fair position,--industry and frugality were visible everywhere among them. This, in brief, seemed to be the condition of the people of India previous to being oppressed by taxes, and despoiled of their lands and their liberty by the conquering army of England, urged on by a ministry as false to its own nation as it was heartless and cruel to the inhabitants of India.</p>
<p>But it is not our present purpose to enter into a discussion of the merits of this war, nor would we have referred to it at this time, except for the fact that the latest advices from India seem to present a condition of moral degeneracy among the people, growing out of British influence and conquest, which is unparalleled in infamy in the the most barbarous ages.</p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-88732644887460931712013-01-24T05:56:00.001-08:002013-01-24T07:05:02.083-08:00H.G. Wells on Teddy Roosevelt on The Time Machine<p><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-2NjCW4PCIT0/UQE9cjNuwYI/AAAAAAAABrA/SnWb4nDRl7s/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="404" height="275" /></p>
<p>Why people don't talk about Teddy Roosevelt more saddens me. His biography is full of baffling and wonderful surprises (such as <a href="http://theoncominghope.blogspot.com/2012/11/teddy-roosevelt-reviews-anna-karenina.html">this incredible tale of reading and reviewing Anna Karenina while chasing bandits down a frozen river in the Dakotas</a>).</p>
<p>For example, H.G. Wells (quoted from Edmund Morris's essay on Teddy in <em>This Living Hand: And Other Essays)</em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He hadn't, he said, an effectual disproof of a pessimistic interpretation of the future. If one chose to say America must presently lose the impetus of her ascent, that she and all mankind must culminate and pass, he could not deny that possibility. Only he chose to live as if this were not so. He mentioned my <em>Time Machine</em>...</p>
<p>He became gesticulatory, and his straining voice a note higher in denying the pessimism of that book as a credible interpretation of destiny. With one of those sudden movements of his he knelt forward in a garden chair -- we were standing, before our parting, beneath the colonnade -- and addressed me very earnestly over the back, clutching it and then thrusting out his familiar gesture, a hand first partly open and then closed.</p>
<p>"`Suppose, after all,' he said slowly, `that should prove to be right, and it all ends in your butterflies and morlocks. THAT DOESN'T MATTER NOW. The effort's real. It's worth going on with. It's worth it. It's worth it, even so.' . . .</p>
<p>"I can see him now and hear his unmusical voice saying, `The effort -- the effort's worth it,' and see the gesture of his clenched hand and the -- how can I describe it? - - the friendly peering snarl of his face, like a man with the sun in his eyes. He sticks in my mind at that, as a very symbol of the creative will in man, in its limitations, its doubtful adequacy, its valiant persistence, amidst complexities and confusions. He kneels out, assertive against his setting -- and his setting is the White House with a background of all of America.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I always enjoy how nearly every account of meeting Teddy Roosevelt is narrated in the style of a seduction; he's a man who leaves a powerful impression on all he sees.</p>
<p>And besides, can you think of another President who would not only read but have thoughts about contemporary science fiction?</p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-50471254521499029342013-01-23T06:07:00.001-08:002013-01-23T06:09:01.805-08:00Oscarbait 2012: Silver Linings Playbook<p><img title="url.jpeg" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-Dh1c-q-o-gw/UP_uniw2VPI/AAAAAAAABqA/fkarCcZnikw/url.jpeg?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="Url" width="600" height="338" /></p>
<p><em>Silver Linings Playbook </em>earns its ending in a way few movies do, let alone recent ones. The film concentrates on something that's usually treated as a simple waypoint in other movie journeys: finding a way to peek your head out from behind the Sisyphean boulder, even when all the signs suggest you should continue to hide. The boulder causes continuous crushing pain, but at least it's pain you're familiar with.</p>
<p>And speaking of crushing pain, do not be mistaken; the first 30 minutes of the movie are <em>profoundly </em>uncomfortable. You will be squirming in your chair, especially when "the incident" is revealed, the moment that lands Patrick Solitano Jr. in the mental hospital.</p>
<p>Patrick (and who knew there was an actor hiding inside Bradley Cooper?) gets out of mental hospital, only to land in a more abstract prison. He suffers from dreams he can't let go, he's oppressed by his parents, he's written off so often that when anyone shows him kindness, he can't even recognize it (and notice that these moments are when he's most explosive).</p>
<p>When he meets Jennifer Lawrence's Tiffany, the real fireworks happen (and not the good kind). They need each other's help, but it's dark and desperate - Pat can't see beyond his own need to reconnect with his estranged wife, and Tiffany never loses sight of her own needs for even a second (take THAT manic pixie dream girl meme). She's not gonna put up with his blindsided bullshit, and if that's the side of himself he brings to work, she doesn't hesitate to manipulate him outright.</p>
<p>It's a complex situation with no easy solutions, and would have been <em>a disaster </em>without Jennifer Lawrence's nuanced performance. Also stay tuned for Robert De Niro, who actually <em>acts </em>for the first time in thirty years (and he's just as terrific as you remember him being).</p>
<p>Mental illness is often treated as a plague upon other people - an affliction for the weak or the mutated or the poorly raised. But when it comes down to it, who hasn't felt the atmosphere become so tight, so oppressive, that you feel like space is literally closing in? When you can't see anything inside your head, let alone outside of it? We write those moments off, "I was stressed," "I haven't gotten enough sleep lately," but as soon as a doctor puts a name to someone else's bad moment, we cease to treat it as a natural part of human experience, but as an unforgivable failing.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, you still have to live, you still have to function. But that isn't easy, and <em>Silver Linings Playbook </em>doesn't pretend it is. Go see it. It deserves all it's Oscar noms (and if there's a God in the academy, it will win Best Picture).</p>
<p> </p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-4802863057418224562012-12-31T11:35:00.001-08:002012-12-31T11:35:39.037-08:00Poem(s) for the New Year: DH Lawrence's New Year's Tryst<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-MUB8T5A2cQ4/UOHpCCpKLdI/AAAAAAAABoo/eZebSD_O5kE/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="460" height="276" /></p>
<p>D.H. Lawrence, now mostly remembered for <em>Lady Chatterley's Lover </em>and the censorship trial that followed, also had a stellar career in poetry (which many regard as superior to any of his novels). They possess an animal vibrance that stands in sharp contrast to his more cerebral contempories (T.S. Eliot's <em>Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock </em>was published in the same year, 1917).</p>
<p>One can easily imagine that the narrator of the two poems below would not only dare to eat a peach, he would eat it off his lover's body and spit it in the face of his enemies. Kick off your new year with a little bit of passion. Enjoy!</p>
<p><strong>"New Year's Eve"</strong> by D.H. Lawrence</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There are only two things now,<br />The great black night scooped out<br />And this fire-glow.</p>
<p>This fire-glow, the core,<br />And we the two ripe pips<br />That are held in store.</p>
<p>Listen, the darkness rings<br />As it circulates round our fire.<br />Take off your things.</p>
<p>Your shoulders, your bruised throat!<br />Your breasts, your nakedness!<br />This fiery coat!</p>
<p>As the darkness flickers and dips,<br />As the firelight falls and leaps<br />From your feet to your lips!</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>"New Year's Night"</strong> by D.H. Lawrence</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Now you are mine, to-night at last I say it;<br />You’re a dove I have bought for sacrifice,<br />And to-night I slay it.</p>
<p>Here in my arms my naked sacrifice!<br />Death, do you hear, in my arms I am bringing<br />My offering, bought at great price.</p>
<p>She’s a silvery dove worth more than all I’ve got.<br />Now I offer her up to the ancient, inexorable God,<br />Who knows me not.</p>
<p>Look, she’s a wonderful dove, without blemish or spot!<br />I sacrifice all in her, my last of the world,<br />Pride, strength, all the lot.</p>
<p>All, all on the altar! And death swooping down<br />Like a falcon. ’Tis God has taken the victim;<br />I have won my renown.</p>
</blockquote>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-28487086664864674372012-12-27T20:21:00.001-08:002012-12-27T20:21:58.316-08:00Oscarbait 2012: Les Miserables<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-KljD0eQeltg/UN0eWi5m4KI/AAAAAAAABng/bpBIOYbuU-M/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="337" /></p>
<p>Every review I've read of <em>Les Miserables </em>compares it to the musical that birthed it, which feels slightly like comparing Texas to Louisiana without any mention of the rest of the United States, let alone the world. So I'm gonna be the nerd who talks about the book, which only seems fair since, at the end of the day, the movie is a translation to a new medium, just as the musical was a translation from a novel, which in turn was translated and mistranslated from the original French.</p>
<p>What we're seeing on screen, ultimately, is the videotape of the videotape of the videotape. They've taken the original text and carved it up into strangely shaped pieces, excising character and context and leaving in the glossy bits. This approach worked fine for <em>Mamma Mia </em>(disagree in the comments) because at least <em>Mamma Mia </em>was a fun romp. Oscarbait <em>Les Miserables </em>is a series of soul-destroying set-pieces grounded in not even an iota of human agency.</p>
<p>It finds a humanity with its side characters (Thenardiers, Enjolras, many other nameless revolutionaries) that it never matches with the leads. There goes Anne Hathaway's snotty nostril, there goes the ever-pinkening bags under Hugh Jackman's eyes, and Cosette? Oh Cosette. I never knew you (though I knew you so well in the novel).</p>
<p>What frustrates me most is how little this film paid attention to the prime rule of film - economy in storytelling. Now, economy doesn't simply mean cutting out portions of the text, it means that you boil the story down to the essentials.</p>
<p><strong>Character Slaughter</strong></p>
<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-Pd97I-DO3h0/UN0eYXu7uHI/AAAAAAAABno/0jEpM0MrmPM/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="400" /></p>
<p>At the end of the film, here's what I'd have thought of the characters if I hadn't read the novel:</p>
<p>1. Jean Valjean is a Panglossian do-gooder whose relentless commitment to "morality" has no foundation in reality (which couldn't be further from his character in the novel, who's deeply conflicted at all turns. If you remember, when Jean Valjean goes to the battlements, he's undecided whether to save Marius <em>or to kill him</em>).</p>
<p>2. Marius is the shallowest romantic on the planet (this hurts, because Novel Marius was my first great love, the literary reflection of my idealistic/suffering 12-year old self). Seriously, what a wet wanker is FilmMusical!Marius.</p>
<p>3. Cosette? WHAT COSETTE? All I see is an OBJECT who is barely even half of a person (In the novel, she gets her own book for a reason. She's the optimistic striver who is <em>tired </em>of being an object, and makes choices. CHOICES). This hurts even more because Amanda Seyfried sounded TERRIFIC. Couldn't you give her a role, you guys?</p>
<p><strong>Les Miserables as a Film</strong></p>
<p>There's plenty of commentary elsewhere on <em>Les Miserables </em>filmic failures (oh those closeups. What really burns me is that Tom Hooper actually had multiple cameras on each actor, AND STILL CHOSE THESE DAMNED CLOSEUPS. Like, "Guys, forget the plot. What we really need now is an establishing shot of Eddie Redmayne's nasal freckles.").</p>
<p>Guys, this burns me to say. I really looked forward to the movie, and am sad that it isn't something I can rewatch over and over. But quite frankly, by the time we hit Valjean's seventh song, I was ready for him to die, and die swiftly (and don't get me started on Russell Crowe's "singing").</p>
<p>I've seen the musical, and I don't remember it being such an poorly thought out adaptation of the novel. But perhaps this is a reflection of the rule of <em>Chicago - </em>you can't just film the damn stage musical, you have to alter it to fit the new medium.</p>
<p>Oncoming Hope out. Play nicely in the comments.</p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-78313301236346196022012-12-24T14:50:00.001-08:002012-12-24T14:50:52.707-08:00Charles Dickens' Christmas Drinks<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-z9yrUc5uILs/UNjcSRYKCeI/AAAAAAAABmg/LETYC70z_CY/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="434" /></p>
<p>This Christmas, we wanted to add some literary spice to your drinking.</p>
<p>Part of what made Dickens's work come so vividly to life was his attention to small details in small lives. This Christmas, you too can drink like Scrooge and Cratchit.</p>
<p>1. "Charles Dickens's Own Punch"</p>
<p>The man himself wrote the instructions for his eponymous punch in an 1847 letter to one "Mrs. F." (aka Amelia Austin Filloneau):</p>
<blockquote>
<p><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Verdana, 'Helvetica sans-serif'; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; display: inline !important; float: none;">Peel into a very common basin (which may be broken in case of accident, without damage to the owner's peace or pocket) the rinds of three lemons, cut very thin and with as little as possible of the white coating between the peel and the fruit, attached. Add a double handful of lump sugar (good measure), a pint of good old rum, and a large wine-glass of good old brandy; if it be not a large claret glass, say two. </span></p>
<p><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Verdana, 'Helvetica sans-serif'; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; display: inline !important; float: none;">Set this on fire, by filling a warm silver spoon with the spirit, lighting the contents at a wax taper, and pouring them gently in. Let it burn three or four minutes at least, stirring it from time to time. Then extinguish it by covering the basin with a tray, which will immediately put out the flame. Then squeeze in the juice of the three lemons, and add a quart of </span><span class="book" style="font-family: Palantino, Times, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic; color: #000000; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">boiling</span><span class="book" style="font-family: Palantino, Times, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic; color: #000000; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;"> </span><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Verdana, 'Helvetica sans-serif'; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; display: inline !important; float: none;">water. Stir the whole well, cover it up for five minutes, and stir again.</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p>This would be the punch that young David Copperfield offers Mr. Micawber:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><span style="color: #000020; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; display: inline !important; float: none;">“But punch, my dear Copperfield,” said Mr. Micawber, tasting it, “like time and tide, waits for no man. Ah! it is at the present moment in high flavour.” (Chapter XXVIII - Mr. Micawber's Gauntlet)</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p>2. "Smoking Bishop"</p>
<blockquote>
<p><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Verdana, 'Helvetica sans-serif'; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; display: inline !important; float: none;">"A merry Christmas, Bob!" said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. "A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you, for many a year! I'll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob!" (</span><span class="book" style="font-family: Palantino, Times, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic; color: #000000; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">A Christmas Carol</span><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Verdana, 'Helvetica sans-serif'; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; display: inline !important; float: none;">)</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Smoking bishop was not actually a Dickensian creation. It was a popular tavern drink, which Dr. Johnson defines as "a cant word for a mixture of wine, oranges and sugar." I'd give you the recipe but there's a variety on the web, from Jonathan Swift to Dickens' own father.</p>
<p>3. "Negus"</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"<span style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.450000762939453px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; display: inline !important; float: none;">Mr. Feeder, after imbibing several custard cups of negus, began to enjoy himself." (</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.450000762939453px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; display: inline !important; float: none;"><em>Dombey and Son)</em></span></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Negus might be found all over English literature (<em>Jane Eyre </em>drinks it when she heads to Thornfield Hall, it features at a <em>Mansfield Park</em> party, and it's ALL OVER Dickens).</p>
<p>But the definitive version comes from Mrs. Beeton herself, who describes it as "a beverage usually drunk at children's parties." If that were the case today, I imagine children's parties would look a hell of a lot like Buster Bluth on grape juice:</p>
<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-A98B25YAUB0/UNjcPrh4pMI/AAAAAAAABmY/2BsFnxZjjU0/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="580" height="400" /></p>
<p>Let's just say, the drink's not exactly virgin. Per Mrs. Beeton:</p>
<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0.7em 0px; line-height: 19.450000762939453px; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;"><em style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">INGREDIENTS</em>: To every pint of port wine, allow 1 quart of boiling water, ¼ lb of sugar, 1 lemon and grated nutmeg to taste.</p>
<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0.7em 0px; line-height: 19.450000762939453px; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;"><em style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">DIRECTIONS</em>: Put the wine into a jug, rub some lumps of sugar (equal to ¼ lb) on the lemon rind until all the yellow part of the skin is absorbed, then squeeze the juice and strain it. Add the sugar and lemon-juice to the port wine with the grated nutmeg; pour over it the boiling water, cover the jug, and, when the beverage has cooled a little, it will be fit for use.</p>
<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0.7em 0px; line-height: 19.450000762939453px; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;">Enjoy your Dickensian drinks, and a happy holiday to all!</p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-45242250229160645802012-12-18T09:10:00.001-08:002012-12-18T09:10:23.374-08:00Music Video of the Day: Free Winona!<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-Y8xAIb3VQPg/UNCje3vPuZI/AAAAAAAABlY/FRPLq2_5Gac/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="591" height="303" /></p>
<p>The song may be balls, but watching Craig Roberts perv out over a deanimated Winona Roberts is more than a little mesmerizing.</p>
<p>In The Killers' "Here With Me," Winona Ryder's actress character slides in and out of doll-hood, a prisoner of one young man's Pygmalion-esque fantasy. You may have seen Craig Robert's remarkable performance in <em>Submarine</em> (if not, get thee to your Netflix queue), as an overeducated teenager in 1970s Wales.</p>
<p>If only the song were half as interesting. Watch it anyway:</p>
<p><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7SxTyvOixJA?feature=player_detailpage" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-29696850138084047902012-12-16T09:00:00.001-08:002012-12-16T09:24:59.264-08:00The Worst Movie Review Ever, or, Fire This Reporter Now<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-Ufkq3rZe2m4/UM3-avNbrsI/AAAAAAAABkY/9mqOIKzDisg/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="460" height="276" /></p>
<p>Yesterday, the once venerable <em>Guardian </em>published an execrable pile of garbage entitled<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/dec/14/can-america-stomach-les-miserables"> "Will America be able to stomach the Les Misérables film"</a>, by a hack named Hannah Betts (a list of her credits include other such useful commentary as "Why I'm happy to wear fur," and "Feminism and flirtation are by no means unlikely bedfellows").</p>
<p>In a piece that even 13 year old bloggers would be ashamed to write, Betts tags her piece: <em>"The new Les Mis film plays down the bromance and plays up the pox, boils and bad European teeth."</em></p>
<p>God forbid a socio-realist novel about French poverty attempt to look somewhat authentic!</p>
<p>But it gets worse:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13px; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: #333333; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 16.363636016845703px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">I'm not sure how it's going to play in the US, though. For a start, the bromance is subdued for a nation that brought us Top Gun's bros riding bros' tails.</p>
<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 13px; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: #333333; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 16.363636016845703px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Moreover, the various poxes, STDs, boils and not just British but also French teeth are likely to inspire hysteria in the neurotically sanitised US of A. And this before the male leads spend several scenes literally covered in shit. Still, it will serve to confirm everything Yanks feel about contemporary Europe.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Has Ms. Betts been lying in a coma since 1984? Are there no movies between <em>Top Gun</em> and <em>Les Miserables?</em> And who the hell think there's a bromance between Javert and Valjean?</p>
<p>Finally, what does this film have to do with what Yanks may or may not feel about contemporary Europe? The only thing this article serves to confirm is that Hannah Betts should be banned from the printed word. The Guardian should be ashamed of itself for allowing such tripe to bear its name.</p>
<p>As a side note, the Guardian appears to have some sort of vendetta against Les Miserables, running a "<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/may/31/les-miserables-trailer-hugh-jackman-tom-hooper?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487">trailer review</a>" that perfectly complements Ms. Betts in wretchedness and sour grapes. It's not even worth quoting, given that Stuart Heritage appears to never have heard of the book, the musical or Victor Hugo before being paid, somehow, to write a bit of unfunny nonsense.</p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-23064157322268357062012-12-09T07:27:00.001-08:002012-12-09T07:27:41.984-08:00Videogame Company Fights the Diversity Fight<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-6dOq_lJKw-w/UMSt6agn4RI/AAAAAAAAADI/tG-hD8wwBB8/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="317" /></p>
<p>Life-affirming pleasures often come from the strangest places: in this case, <a href="http://www.gaslampgames.com/2012/12/05/all-the-peoples-and-an-interview/">Gaslamp Games' blog</a> on a new project based on the Victorian era:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><span style="color: #341b0f; font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; display: inline !important; float: none;">We feel it’s important to have people of all colours in the game, basically. I’m not going to get into the exceedingly grim history of 19th century colonialism here, but I assure you we’ve had a lot of internal discussions about how we can possibly approach making a game vaguely based on the Victorian era without being ridiculously offensive.</span></span></span></p>
</blockquote>
<p>I've written elsewhere about how writers seem to choose to set their work in certain eras <em>because</em> they want to pretend there was a world before integration, where white men could be white men and society celebrated even their worst excesses. But as David Baumgart points out, that world NEVER EXISTED. It's heartening to hear Gaslamp engage with the issue, even though I have no doubt that the outcomes won't be perfect.</p>
<p>I've only recently began to engage with the politics of the video game world. To tell the truth, until I played <em>Half Life 2</em>, I had no idea there <em>was</em> a place for lead characters who aren't white male jocks. I recall <em>years</em> of playing Goldeneye as Natalya, the only character in any video game who felt in any way relevant to me (and she's still white, so really not <em>that </em>relevant), given that she looked like an actual scientist and not, let's say, Lara Croft (or Mileena/Kitana, or Chun Li, etc).</p>
<p>Happily, this ignorance allowed me to enjoy years of games like Zelda 64, which are almost completely intolerable when looked at through any kind of feminist lens (look at all the women who exist only to coo at Link or be rescued from their fates!).</p>
<p>But I'm glad to see a new world where developers are actually thinking through how world-building impacts audiences who play their games. Would you really want to spend 40-60 hours in a world where no one looks like you? Why would you spend that kind of time in a world that explicitly gives zero thought to you? In this day and age, those are safe spaces for the writers to exercise their own privilege, where they don't have to engage with messy issues like gender and race.</p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-89930792742544022662012-11-28T21:04:00.001-08:002012-11-28T21:04:05.940-08:00The SNL Sketch that Ate Homeland<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-EszVRwZSHzw/ULbswSb5CBI/AAAAAAAABjQ/T1WglZk4nqw/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="338" /></p>
<p>I've never taken the time to write about a <em>Saturday Night Live </em>sketch. Commenting about parody seems like an exercise in preposterous meta-analysis. But reader, I cannot lie. SNL's <em>Homeland </em>spoof has pretty much ruined the show for me.</p>
<p>It's possible that the sketch just happened to coincide with a downturn in the show's believability and quality, but with every passing episode, the parody forces me to question whether the show was <em>ever </em>that good.</p>
<p>Few would ever have described the show as a soap opera, but as the sketch perfectly conveyed, maybe that's what <em>Homeland </em>is, and if not, it's certainly heading that direction, as it spends more and more time on Brody and Carrie's "romance" ("It's ok! It doesn't have to make sense! She's <em>bipolar"</em>). As a soap opera, it utterly fails, covering up its inability to craft convincing relationships in cloaks and daggers.</p>
<p><img title="anigif_enhanced-buzz-18944-1352647820-4.gif" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-jJobVLk-Y24/ULbsunRE4EI/AAAAAAAABjI/BKXOYJ33014/anigif_enhanced-buzz-18944-1352647820-4.gif?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="Anigif enhanced buzz 18944 1352647820 4" width="500" height="281" /></p>
<p>In season one, the relationship between Brody and Carrie made a most peculiar sense, as it was entirely premised on discovery. But now there's at least one scene a week which conveys how strongly Carrie wants Brody to leave his family, of how she's willing to compromise missions to save him, of how her love saves him from the edge (lately, we're getting all three of these in <em>every episode</em>).</p>
<p>This has the double effect of reducing the stakes of the ongoing terror plot (it's ok! Love will save us all!) and of infantilizing the moral questions that plague Brody.</p>
<p>***SPOILER FOR LATEST EPISODE***</p>
<p>I'm especially concerned after the twist reveal that Estes ordered Quinn to murder Brody after they stopped the terror plot. The preview indicated that Saul would resolve the issue with thoughtful machinations, but I predict a mess of hysteria and chin-quivering.</p>
<p>If <em>Homeland </em>dials up the emotions to 11 in every single episode, it risks distracting the viewer from what actually made it interesting - how circumstances warp our ideas of morality, and how that mutation affects not just our own lives, but the lives of those around us.</p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3139769202527811820.post-73853926829313762722012-11-25T08:32:00.001-08:002012-11-25T09:11:17.896-08:00Skyfall's Troubling Gender Politics<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-q6fjz9fbeGQ/ULJIEvaaruI/AAAAAAAABhw/tX3p2LZAtdA/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="320" /></p>
<p><em>There's no way to discuss this without talking about the ending. In other words, HERE THERE BE SPOILERS.</em></p>
<p>Let me start by saying that I loved <em>Skyfall</em>. I can comfortably state that it's one of the top two Bond films<em> </em>(I'm unable to declare it better than <em>Goldeneye</em> without seeing that old favorite<em> </em>again). <em>Skyfall </em>finds the perfect balance between acknowledging the tropes that make Bond such a treasured film commodity and acknowledging their quaintness.</p>
<p>But the problem, as the film so ably points out, is that Bond (and the whole of MI6) can't be judged by its activity in the past, but must be judged by the needs of the present. As a result, it becomes impossible to ignore that <em>Skyfall</em> gives us the most regressive gender politics since the Sean Connery era.</p>
<p>Two female characters are bedded and disposed of (quite literally in one case) with zero fanfare or sentiment. One is LITERALLY TOLD TO SHUT UP by her male colleague during a court proceeding. Meanwhile, in series regular territory, we're back to having a posh toff male heading up MI6, while our clever and <em>highly competent</em> field agent suddenly reveals her life's aspiration to be "sexy secretary". That's zero for five, <em>Skyfall. </em></p>
<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-M74VPKyLFf8/ULJIB0_VxuI/AAAAAAAABhg/iT1hwB6l_FU/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="400" /></p>
<p>Let's start with Eve, who inspired this post. She spends the entire film being punished for a<em> </em>small mistake she makes under M's orders, while Bond goes around screwing up so badly that he can't even pass the physical fitness exam. Even worse, despite saving Bond's (and everyone's) lives twice in the interim, she somehow decides that she's not competent to be a field agent, simply based on a throwaway comment from Bond. The kiss of death? It turns out that she not only decides to be a secretary, she's actually gonna be <em>that </em>secretary (you remember the one. In fifty years of Bond films, she's notable for alternating "sexy" and "nagging" and "why don't you <em>ever</em> return my calls?".</p>
<p>To be honest, if she <em>started </em>the film as a secretary who went out into the field and then decided she wanted to stay behind the desk, I might have hand-waved it. But to invite the audience to smile knowingly as a capable agent surrenders her power to a man who was once her equal palls.</p>
<p>And why the hell did she end up shaving Bond? Is she his wife? Fail.</p>
<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-K9TmXUuGs34/ULJIFi6cJiI/AAAAAAAABh4/Sx420aIBLKA/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="400" /></p>
<p>The head of the government inquiry may have been a touch long-winded, but her points were neither hysterical nor invalid. And as any student of the British government knows, long-windedness is not an affectation, but an expectation. Mallory's flippant shutdown of her right to speak (she's the fucking head of the inquiry!) is both against the way government inquiries<em> work</em>, and just flat offensive. And also, the audience is supposed to laugh. Women talking too much! Hilarious!</p>
<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-Vh3cEefNG5c/ULJIDNaX_bI/AAAAAAAABho/jfHgelVJkAY/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="354" /></p>
<p>The whole<strong> </strong>Séverine subplot was incredibly bizarre. Bond finds her both traumatized and full of fear from being sold first into sex slavery and then to Silva, and nonetheless chooses to have her by <em>sneaking up on her in the shower. </em>Of course, James Bond is basically male privilege made flesh, but come on dude, she's TERRIFIED. She doesn't want your dick. Also, if he was so desperately taken with her, one would think he'd have <em>slightly </em>more of a reaction to her death-by-dick-measuring-contest. But la-di-da.</p>
<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-1A0L4Yq9OwA/ULJIHKNuyZI/AAAAAAAABiA/4liZL6LSw2o/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="600" height="374" /></p>
<p>M comes closest to success, but we've spent enough time with her to know her pretty well (remember her fantastic introduction in <em>Goldeneye?)</em> Nonetheless, she dies pretty stupidly. She has no facility with a gun, knows it, but still sits out as a target, despite a wonderful escape route? Sure, she set off some exploding chandeliers, but <em>what was the plan here? </em>She's the head of the MI6, not some domestic terrorist. So we not only get Mallory accusing her of incompetence, she proves him right. M, who never makes a false step, makes a series of them in <em>Skyfall</em>. So she dies, freeing Bond of the only female who can stand up to him in every regard.</p>
<p><img title="NewImage.png" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-P2vzB-iiYFA/ULJIIP5rgnI/AAAAAAAABiI/MuHl8hbqFcM/NewImage.png?imgmax=800" border="0" alt="NewImage" width="500" height="271" /></p>
<p>After the women are handily put in their places, <em>Skyfall </em>leaves us with the image of Bond and Mallory talking shop, drinking whisky and smirking about a job terribly done (guys, the head of MI6 is dead! I don't know how you define a job gone horribly wrong, but I am PRETTY SURE THAT'S ONE OF THEM). Mallory failed to track Silva despite Q's technical wizardry, and he still ends up boss. All the women end up dead or demoted, and the men get promoted.</p>
<p>I haven't even discussed the queerification of Silva ("Sure, he's killed a lot of people and blown up buildings, but what's really horrifying is that he might be homosexual!"), but that may be a topic for another day.</p>
<p>So long and thanks in advance for your polite, well-reasoned comments.</p>theoncominghopehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471519506797609837noreply@blogger.com7