Warren Ellis on network TV:
I almost wish I were in the network TV business. When a medium chokes and stutters, all kinds of interesting opportunities emerge from the interstices.
tv
Thursday various
- Instead of cutting Oscar winners’ speeches (and thereby any hope for spontaneity the whole ceremony might have), maybe they should start with some of the endless montages and interpretive dance numbers. Why not, instead of cutting the part that’s ostensibly what they whole evening is about, stop doubling the number of films being nominated?
- How to Succeed as an Ayn Rand Character
- Please Rob Me. As Waxy.org noted, this is “only dangerous if someone knows where you live” (or if they can extrapolate from other online information about you). But I know I’m a little hesitant to post that I’m away when the house is unattended.
- School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home. Yikes! [via]
- And finally, A Brief History of Pretty Much Everything. [via]
Wednesday various
- I think I’m going to make a movie called Vaguely Historical People Killing Things and Shouting at Each Other.
- You know, Jeff VanderMeer is probably right: “in another 40 years lots of folks are gonna be laughing at lots of stuff we think works just fine now.”
- John Seavey makes the argument that Heroes is actually the best Watchmen adaptation ever. Yeah, I’m just not seeing it.
- “French celebrity philosopher” (how’s that for a title!) Bernard-Henri Lévy has come under fire recently for quoting a philosopher who never existed. [via]
- And finally, I didn’t watch this year’s Super Bowl, not even for the ads nor the stirring triumph of the New Orleans Saints. So I luckily missed this Dodge advertisement, though I got a general vibe from the internets that there was sexism aplenty that evening. The internets, they did not lie. So it’s nice to see someone parody the ad so skillfully, simply by reversing the genders.
This old House
Minor spoilers for this week’s episode of House, “9 to 5,” follow.
On the one hand, I liked this week’s episode of House, but on the other hand, I felt manipulated into caring about a situation that wasn’t relevant (and moreover was populated with secondary characters we’ll never see again and problems that are unlikely to ever recur), just so the writers could force me to care about a character who’s become increasingly marginal and, to some large extent, a genuine problem for the show. I like Lisa Edelstein, and I think the character of House does need some kind of foil, but the show has spent an awful lot of energy trying to convince me that Lisa Cuddy is interesting beyond that role, and I have to say I’m just not buying it.
The constant reminders that Cuddy was a woman were unnecessary, given her current predilection for distracting low-cut tops, and also had an unfortunate tendency to remind the audience that, at this point, Cuddy’s major character trait is that she’s a single mom with a high level job. I wanted to like “5 to 9” more, and if I had to go out on a limb, I’d say I’m probably going to get criticized for not embracing it as much as I did “Wilson,” but distracting us isn’t the same as fixing a problem. It works for a little while, but when House comes back next week, Lucas will still be Lucas, and Cuddy will still be playing Den Mother. Who cares?
Whither Saturday?
Early this morning, I drove with my father over to our local mechanic to have one of the cars submitted to its yearly inspection. Which may be the last time I did much of anything today. I did finish some of the editing I had left for the next issue of Kaleidotrope, copying my handwritten corrections over to the electronic files so I can send them to the authors. I think it’s shaping up to be a really great issue, and I’m growing even more convinced that a third issue for the year in July is a good idea. We’ll see. I definitely have enough material already accepted to fill the extra issue, so that’s not a problem.
Beyond that, I spent a lot of the day pottering around online, playing with the dog (who seems shocked every time by the snow, when he isn’t determined to eat every last ounce of it), and watching a little television. (I could tell trying to explain The Mighty Boosh to my father — much less three episodes into the second season, much less halfway through that episode — was going to be a losing proposition. Heck, I like the show and it’s not like I always understand it.)
And that’s it.