The defining art form of the twenty first century is marketing. We all know of people who are effectively content free but who have relentlessly marketed themselves into our consciousness. This trend has become more pronounced over the last 1o years and unfortunately we don't have Bill Hicks or Neil Postman around any more to mock the powerful engines of consumerism and their agents. But at least we can blog about it. Below is my list of people or things that I think were overrated in the world of arts and literature in the last decade. Unlike some bloggers I aint going for minor novelists, models and other soft targets. In reverse order of crapness then:10. The New Yorker: Remember when they had James Thurber and E B White? Now they have Sasha Frere-Jones and "comedy" from Woody Allen.
9. The BBC: The high point came with the first series of The Office in 2001. Its all game shows, dancing and second rate Britcoms today. Sadly the BBC is now run by boarding school boys who think that that's what the plebian public wants.
8. Saturday Night Live: It was never funny but in the noughties it got even not funnier.
7. The Simpsons: Like the fall of The Byzantine Empire The Simpsons diminishes in size and totters towards irrelevance with every passing season. Where is Mehmed II when you need him?
6. The New Atheists: Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett. It's real simple: 100 billion suns in our galaxy, 100 billion galaxies: trillions of Earth like worlds: if you don't think some powerful god-like being has evolved and is out there watching us you're just not using your imagination.
5. Martin Scorsese & Stephen Spielberg: A parade of dreary, piss poor films lacking any kind of spark, intelligence or invention. They seemed to have forgotten everything they knew about directing this decade. Please stop now gentlemen.
4. Quentin Tarantino & Wes Anderson: Tarantino made three of the best films of the 90's and in the noughties 3 of the worst of all time. Wes Anderson really needs to go get some life experience far far away from his hipster pals.
3. The Huffington Post: The Fox News of journalism.
2. Harry Potter: The Harry Potter novels were obviously some kind of mass delusion or hypnosis. They read now like campy 1950's children's books, filled with silly names, condescending plots and the prose of a wet Edinburgh phone book.
1. Bono: The most obnoxious man walking the planet Earth.
87 comments:
If I eren't a McKinty fan by now, I'd become one right now. I'm not agreeing on the whole universe thing, but otherwise... spot on.
I'm not sure that Adrian even totally agrees with himself on that whole universe thing, Ferenc.
I have to say that I pretty much agree with the list. I still like the essays in the New Yorker, but I can remember when they used to be about five times as long, and not bloated. I learned all about the fall of Iran before it happened that way, for instance.
I never did like the Simpsons, so I haven't noticed its decline.
Harry Potter still baffles me, and I work in the industry.
It's nice that you were able to get in one last jab at Bono before year's end. I'm not sure if he can top last year's holiday editorial, but let's hope he's trying.
All I know is that somewhere Bono is "in a crush", clinking and clanking away another year.
Also, I enjoyed the Harry Potter books so there...
At last, the Harry Potter backlash begins. I've waited so long for this moment...
I'm not sure that Adrian even totally agrees with himself
He doesn't
and unlike Whitman, he doesn't look very large.
You can add Paul Thomas Anderson to Tarantino and Wes Anderson - pseudo-intellectual crap for teenage boys.
Of course, we disagree that any of these guys ever made good movies and I'm old enough to remember when Saturday Night Live was good (mostly because of what else was on at the time, I admit).
You should have seen Bono and The Edge on the dreadful Spectacle with Elvis Costello. It kind of looked like an SNL skit, one of the early ones with Dan Ackroyd when he was funny...
Ferenc
Well its a possibility aint it? My problem is more with the clinical certainty of their argument than with any real possibility that the atheists are wrong. I think I'd be happier if they called themselves agnostics.
Seana
I was recently reading the giant New Yorker Book of cartoons. Man, in the old days even the cartoons were funnier. Especially in the 50's. Very very funny.
Dylan
Ha! God that line made my skin crawl. You're right.
Dont worry there are millions of other people out there who agree with you about HP. I tried to listen to the audio books once and I kept having thoughts about hanging myself from a bridge.
Naomi
I think you'll still have to wait. Nobody listens to me.
Marco
I thought that was going to be a link to the UFO experience post where I say that I dont really believe in aliens.
Yeah I got the Walt Whitman reference. And no I'm not that fat yet. Although when he made a guest appearance on Dr Quinn Medicine Woman he wasnt that tubby.
Seana
Dr Quinn Medicine Woman of course is set where?
Colorado Springs of course.
See it all comes back in some kind of cosmic loop.
John
Nice Canadian solidarity there.
The Edge: what a wanker. His real name is David Evans. Ricky Gervais says that he picked the name David Brent because he wanted something bland and normal like The Edge's name before he changed it to "something cool." The Edge as David Brent seems about right.
I'll just say one thing to The Edge and Bono: go back to Ireland and pay your bloody taxes!
Yeah, Elvis and Elton John, they married Canadians - must be after the health care (I think Elton John is a producer on the show, I'm pretty sure he was one ofthe first guests - Bill Clinton was the best guest so far).
and just so you know i haven't forgot Mr. McKinty but some of us are still waiting for The Wake of Scotchy Finn.
John
Yeah but why was Jim Carrey so desperate to take out US citizenship? I'm a US citizen and proud of it, but if I were Canadian I dont think I would feel the need to sign up for the whole kit and kaboodle.
Dylan
Hmmm. Stay tuned. Maybe I'll be able to make an announcement about that in the New Year. Depends how much work I get done and whether anyone is still interested in publishing me. We'll see.
I'm still reeling from the fact that Colum McCann won the friggin National Book Award and his novel has only sold 17,000 copes. I mean that would be huge for me, but if our leading Irish novelist can only shift 17K units after winning the NBA then publishing by male (non horror) writers is doomed.
Horror...there's a thought, Adrian.;) of course, my idea of a horror novel would be about game 7 of the 2001 World Series or the 2004 ALCS. *shudder* Forget about werewolves or vampires, they got nothing on a roided-up Manny Ramirez or Big Papi.
I can't really comment on the list since none of it really made much impact on me except Scorsese. Hard to believe many among the current crop of internet film scholars think The Departed outclasses Goodfellas. I also enjoy BBC documentaries though, Planet Earth.
Not sure how that citizenship thing exactly works, but I think somehow Canadians who apply for US citizenship are able to retain Canuck citizenship. On a small note, iirc James Cameron has never applied for US citizenship.
I'm not sure this is quite "overrated" but I think the American people deserve a special accolade for being so delusional.
Delusional when they voted Bush in.
Delusional when they supported him without question in his Iraq war aims.
Delusional in their spending habits.
Delusional in their borrowing ways.
Delusional in their belief that their problems are a result of political behavior and not personal irresponsibility.
Okay, I'll get off the angry chair.
Gotta say, I can't argue with a single thing on your list. Like the old New Yorker, I wish the old Scorsese would come back – I love love love most of his older movies. However, I've never been too keen on Spielberg, except for maybe Jaws.
I especially love your take on the Huffington Post – perfect assessment.
Okay, you're spooking me out with the whole Colorado Springs thing. I'm expecting one of my dad's old airforce friend's sons to walk into the store tomorrow or something.
Every time we had visitors, we took our guests down here. What I was struck by even at that tender age was the many beliefs accomodated in this space. I don't know how it plays out in real life, but this was a long time ago, in the days before multiculturalism was in vogue, and in retrospect, I'm kind of impressed that you could find it in such a conservative institution as the military
Have to sadly agree about Scorsese. Maybe with the Oscar he can return to making movies instead of trying to win awards.
Speilberg has not done himself any favors, but I love Catch Me if You Can.
Oh, I should just say regarding Colum McCann that he did just win the National Book Award, and the publishers have rushed it to paperback for the holidays, which I think was a wise move. Anyway, the hardback sales don't reflect the award and the paperback sales haven't reflected it yet. So take heart.
The real sales in serious fiction are in trade paperback now. There are exceptions, but for the most part these have hit the bestseller lists and are heavily discounted. It's all kind of skewed and crazy.
But we've sold a few copies of Fifty Grand this week, which makes me happy. Holiday desperation makes people less risk averse, thankfully.
Matt
2004 was far far worse than 2001. 2001 was just one bad inning. Also you kind of knew it was going to happen the way Torre went through relief pitching. They're a lot more careful now.
Adrian
a possibility, absolutely. That's my belief also, even tho I'm not a religious guy. Just to be safe ;)
Basically the problem with those guys is that they are arrogant assholes.
Malachy
I feel things have been going bad for America since November 2000. The turn around is bound to come soon though isn't it? It always has in the past. Except that this time we've borrowed trillions of dollars of cash from China with almost no hope of paying it back.
The Democrats wont cut spending. The Republicans wont raise taxes. China lends us more and more cash and gets richer and richer.
Holden
I also really liked Raiders of the Lost Ark. But you're absolutely right Jaws is his finest hour. Except (as I was saying to John McFetridge last week) for the scene with the little Kitner boy's mother.
Seana
Oh thats quite interesting. So McCann might become a best seller in pbk. I hope so. He's a nice chap. Very smart and humble. Not a jerk in other words.
I think however that the days of a National Book Award winner (like From Here to Eternity) selling a million copies in hardback are long gone.
Dan
I think you're right about that. He was trying SO hard to get an Oscar. I understand it - the poor kid from second gen Italian immigrants tries hard to get acceptance and an Oscar is a sort of offical seal of approval. That and banging Sharon Stone.
Ferenc
Dawkins especially. He just gets on my nerves. If his wife wasnt one of Dr Who's best assistants I think I'd really not like him. But she was so...
I like to see Hitchens in debate though. The guy can think on his feet. In fact he thinks on his feet better blind drunk than I do sober...
Speaking of Spielberg, he's 63 today.
Though his films of the noughties haven't been as good as his earlier work, most of them are still very, very good. Don't know how everyone else felt about Minority Report, but I found it to be entertaining as hell.
I think my favorite Spielberg is Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but it's difficult trying to choose between that, Jaws, Raiders, Schindler's List, ET, etc.
That first season of SNL was really good. Fer instance look at the episode that Richard Pryor hosted. The "word association" skit is dangerous even today (Of course it was probably Paul Mooney who wrote the best parts and he used to be razor sharp before he descended into shtick in recent years -- though he was great in Bamboozled).
Martin Scorsese - I do think that Gangs of New York, The Aviator and The Departed have enough brilliant moments to sustain watching them
Steven Spielberg - I like AI, there I said it.
Yes, the bestseller list is definitely driven by different forces than the National Book Award now. I really see trade paperback fiction as being where the vitality of fiction is, though, these days. And it seems a much more open field.
I heard that McCann's Dancer was very good, but I've yet to read him. Probably ought to start with this one, as people will ask.
A -
Yes. I live in California where people are particularly enamored with voting for things without thinking about how it'll be paid for.
However, I do apologize for the comment.... which was really, in retrospect, off-topic.
m
Whoa... Scorsese banged Sharon Stone? Somehow I missed that memo.
It seems the more smashed Hitchens is, the more articulate and cogent he is. He’s great fun to watch and listen to.
Brian
I liked Close Encounters. There's so much great visual story telling in that film: the lights behind the car, the fingers pointing at the sky in India, the soldiers who volunteered to go off with the aliens wearing sunglasses. Every scene with Truffaut...
Minority Rept was OK I thought but it could have been something really special.
Brian
I thought there were moment in Gangs of New York. Mostly Daniel Day Lewis moments.
The Departed was so silly the only way I could get through it was to think of it as a black comedy. Martin Sheen's accent cracked me up for sure.
I liked Galadriel's turn as Kate Hepburn in the Aviator though.
Seana
Dancer is good. For a straight man McCann certainly knows his ballet I'll tell you that.
Holden
Dont try to visualise it, but he did bang her, during or just after the making of Casino.
Malachy
Let me reassure you. There is no OT here.
Scorsese should revisit his films from the 70's like Mean Streets, Taxi Driver and Raging Bull (1980). Even Goodfellas (1990). And his pal Bobby DeNiro could take a lesson too. Weird, I was just wondering today before I even read this blog, what director would do your Dead Trilogy justice on screen? I'm almost done with The Bloomsday Dead. Really digging it. Scorsese crossed my mind; maybe he could revive the magic. Who would you pick as a director for your work? As for God and Atheism, just had the talk with my wife over nachos a week back...never could wrap my brain around atheism...I can't see getting Something from Nothing. My plate of tortilla chips and cheese didn't just appear outta nowhere Someone made em, right? Seems logical to me. Keep up the good work!
As with Pablo, something from nothing doesn't compute for me. I don't know which philosopher said it, but if you were walking thru a barren desert and found a watch, you'd instinctively know such a complex object didn't just magically appear from nothing – it was designed and developed by someone or something. The universe is incredibly more complex than a watch, so could that have just magically appeared? That's hard for me to believe. However, I also have a problem with the other end of the spectrum -- hellfire, brimstone, and damnation.
I don't think the argument is something from nothing, though. It's complexity out of some very simple elements, which actually isn't all that hard to imagine. Think of computers and the binary code, for instance.
I think God or spirituality or belief in general are poetic, metaphoric, and intuitional aspects of our lives. If people don't see their particular lives in such terms I don't think that argument will persuade them otherwise. Nor should it, as what do any of us really know "for sure"?
I have read none of the Harry Potter books but, above and beyond the suspicion that one ought to have of something so widely embraced, J.K. Rowling must be held accountable for the appalling array of crappy wizard programming foisted on kids today on the Disney Channel.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
No, I don't think Rowling is accountable for that. I actually don't think we need hold her to account at all. In this case, I freely admit that I'm prejudiced, because I haven't actually read these books, though I have seen a couple of the movies. I like the whole mythology of her rise to fame, with the Edinburgh (?) coffee shops where she wrote it and the infant daughter who was asleep in her pram, and all that. Have no idea if any of it's true, but I expect that the myth of her dedication to the books is, or more or less. I think that personally I just don't much like the theme--I don't much like the idea of Muggles as being the ordinary unenlightened ones, and I don't like kids as extraordinary, predestined beings, at least in the way this was set up in the initial movie.
But of course I would have no quibble with any of it if there hadn't been the superstar status attached to the books and the required midnight parties, extra security on making sure the books didn't get out a moment before, and basically just all the hype, which is, of course, marketing.
Which brings us back to the original post. And my take on all the things mentioned is that all these people--yes, even Bono--got their start because of native talent. But then something in the media forces at play takes everything to a new level, and all the attendant hubris and folly ensues.
No idea what the answer is, though.
A tour guide in Edinburgh was happy to point out a coffeeshop where, we were told, J.K. Rowling had written the first Harry POtter books.
As for the rest of it, a neighborhood bakery where I stop for bread, croissants and coffee has recently installed tables, chairs and a television, the latter used most often by the proprietors' young son, who likes the Disney Channel. A recent episode of a wizard program, unbearable on its own terms, sent the two wizard children to a wizard academy where everyone wore robes, and one of the characters looked and dressed like Sir Michael Gambon in the Harry Potter movies,
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
The Wire. After a hearing so much about it, it was just another example of middle class guilt. No wonder Guardian readers are the only people to get a stiffy over it-oh, the poor they drain me so... and Elmore Leonard. When was the last time he wrote anything you can remember anything about? Oh, and of course that camp old show off Ellroy knocked out another load of old codswallop which will sit one third read on bookshelves along with 100 Years Of Solitude and the book by the scientist in the wheelchair.
Paul
Diggin the passion, man.
I know a good true story about 100 Yrs of Sol.
Interviewer: "So Mr Borges, what do you think of current South American fiction like 100 Years of Solitude?"
Borges: "Maybe 85 years would have been enough."
Seana
She has much to answer for. Including turning a generation of male readers off books.
Peter
Thats the most horrible sounding cafe this side of hell. I had to read the whole of Harry Potter 1 outloud to the fourth grade once. It was excrutiating.
Seana
I'm not saying she's a bad person though. She isnt.
Holden
Funnily enough Dawkins's The Blind Watchmaker explains all that and is very good.
I do believe the Universe just popped from a Big Bang but I doubt humans are the smartest beings in the Universe. There's evidence of that all around us every day.
Pablo
The 70's Scorsese was amazing. But so was the 80's Scorsese and I happen to think Goodfellas is one of the greatest films of all time. That helicopter/pasta scene ... oh my God!
You're right. Return to your roots and stop making films about IRISH gangsters.
Oh wait Henry Hill WAS Irish.
I like The Departed and Gangs Of New York but I do the the problem with MS later films is little Leo. He's a good actor but he doesn't have the weight for those films. It's a bit like if Peter Noone sang on Gimme Shelter
Paul
Can you imagine Leo kicking you to death after you asked him to get his shine box? No you cant.
Many problems I had with The Departed but the accents were at least high comedy. Martin Sheen, Jack Nicholson, Leo, and Alec Baldwin. Yikes. Even Matt Damon did a bad Boston accent and he's from Boston. I was rolling in aisle everytime Martin Sheen said anything because he was clearly doing Mayor Quimby from The Simpsons.
I have read none of the Harry Potter books but...
and
In this case, I freely admit that I'm prejudiced, because I haven't actually read these books,
Given how derivative Harry Potter is I think it's safe to say that we've ALL read some Harry Potter.
God forbid some original fantasy gets read
I know a lot of boys who read Harry Potter. If my nephew is any example, part of it is that they just like to brag about having gotten through the books. I watched a whole segment once on the Newshour where adults wondered and worried about whether the HP phenomenon would translate into other reading, and sadly, they just didn't know. But all the kids I know who did seem not to have stopped with that.
It may have turned a generation of fathers off of reading to their children though--that I wouldn't know.
For some reason in an insomniac moment last night, I tried to think about the Big Bang and wondered how that doesn't strain belief as an origin myth as much as any of the others. Does anyone here know of a good book for the non-scientist on the subject?
Martin Scorsese, as producer, currently has a series in production at HBO about the rise of gangsters in Atlantic City during prohibition. Gretchen Molljust joined the cast, so that's a good sign.
There were no women in The Departed. Oh yeah, there was one and they had so little idea what to do with the character they made her the lover of both male leads. Really, how can anyone take that seriously?
Oh yeah, the movies are ruled by teenage boys the way books are ruled by 12 year old girls.
As for Elmore Leonard, Road Dogs was disappointing but When the Women Com Out toDance was fantastic and I have high hopes for his next book, Djibouti about a Somali pirate in New Orleans.
But I agree with Paul thatThe Wire is overrated.
Oh, I forgot about When the Women Come Out to Dance. I do fancy that. ...I like the fact that the films are 'ruled by teenage boys' though but then I doubt I'll grow up much when it comes to going to the flicks!
One of the good things about moving to Poland in 2001 was that I became 'out of the loop' regarding 'the media' for years. I rarely had a TV ot bought a newspaper and never lived anywhere with internet -until last year. This meant I discovered films, music and books pretty haphazardly.
So, when everyone is shouting at you that The Wire is 'the best TV series for the past 20 years' how can you NOT be underwhelmed by it? Life On the Streets was much better, I think. I do like what I've seen of Deadwood though.
Adrian, yeah man, you're right about Close Encounters. I don't think the Berg has ever outdone the visuals in that one. I forget who his cinematographer(s?) was on that flick. That shot of the little boy standing in the open doorway with the strange light filtering in is awesome and evokes so many different feelings at the same time.
Thats the most horrible sounding cafe this side of hell. I had to read the whole of Harry Potter 1 outloud to the fourth grade once. It was excrutiating.
The idea of the tv, as opposed to the garbage on the tv, is actually endearing. It's an excellent bakery, run by a Cambodian guy who left his country and lived in France long enough to learn the bakery trade. It's a family operation, with all the pleasant intimacy and informality that brings, including having the children around. The younger son's viewing choices are crap, but the place is fine when the tv's off.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Peter
The TV must be crushed. When The Simpsons went to Ireland last year Homer buys a pub - a funny premise - however most rural Irish pubs now have the TV on all the time and usually they've got football blaring day and night and you cant hear yourself think or have a decent chat.
Brian
I like it too when they exchange the looks in the helicopter but dont say anything until Dreyfus takes off his mask. The globe rolling was a great visual moment too. There's real invention in that film.
Paul
I like that idea very much. You're out of the loop and you have to work a little bit harder to remain in touch, some things therefore just arent worth it.
Its a bit like that living in America or Australia and wanting to watch the BBC. When I do finally get to watch Jonathan Meades or The Thick of It I appreciate it that much more, but I can safely avoid all the crap.
John
I like the premise but I hope it isnt just a retread of Casino, which I thought had its moments - Joe Pesci in the cornfield - but they were few and far between.
I still havent seen The Wire. Still. After all this.
Seana
There are of course exceptions. I still think Harry Potter in general has been a retrograde step. Young readers now look for silly names and silly animals and silly plots in their books.
At least the female leads are strong though and a lot less drippy than those lasses in Twilight.
Adrian,
The irst two seasons of The Wire are well worth watching.
Season Three is pretty much Season One again only even more depressing. I doubt it was the intention of the people who made the show but after a while the world they present is just so hopeless, the obstacles to change so great that you start to feel you're just wallowing in it, you start to become the worst kind of middle-class "poverty tourist."
The TV must be crushed. When The Simpsons went to Ireland last year Homer buys a pub - a funny premise - however most rural Irish pubs now have the TV on all the time and usually they've got football blaring day and night and you cant hear yourself think or have a decent chat.
Sounds like Ireland is growing indistinguishable from my country.
I was in the bakery today, and the little kid had the Disney Channel on (a 24-hour commercial, really). When he left for hone with his mother, I asked Number One Son, who is 15, to turn off the tv, and he did.
At the urging and in the company of friends, I watched the first two episodes of Season One of The Wire. There were all right.
================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
I doubt it was the intention of the people who made the show but after a while the world they present is just so hopeless, the obstacles to change so great that you start to feel you're just wallowing in it
In interviews David Simon has stated that it was always his intention to show the individual being defeated by the institution if not down right crused by it.
I could pull some quotes but I'd have to go look
It seems like The Wire would be a natural for the noir readers among you, then.
No, really, I haven't noticed any split in the Harry Potter demographic by gender here in Santa Cruz. I do like the Potter phenomenon for the way it became a multigenerational activity. Families shared books went to the midnight parties and all of that together. It seemed pretty fun, at least from my outsider's perspective.
Twilight is the one that's got the big divide. You can worry about them not reading--I worry about them not being able to get dates unless they can somehow become really sexy vampires. Kind of a long shot, I'd say.
John
I expect I'll get to it eventually. I'm saving it for a long plane flight or a broken leg or shingles or something. If I love it it'll be great.
Peter
No TV in Starbucks I've noticed. Yes lots of Bjork and U2 but no TV.
Brian
I have to say thats not encouraging me to watch. I already know that life is a vale of tears that only gets worse until a blissful extinction in some grim future.
Seana
Unlike Potter I havent actually read Twilight or seen the films but the girls do seem very very drippy.
My poblem with Harry Potter was that it seemed like a fine, fluffy ice cream sundae, a really good dessert - and adults kept telling kids it was a good, nutritious meal (oddly that's also how I feel about Tarantino movies - all the fun with the hard part left out - well, maybe it's me).
And Brian, I can certainly see The Wire as the best ever view of the failure of institutions and of the way those failed institutions fail individuals.
I also like how they picked a different institution for each season.
I really liked the port one, which was the second season. Partly because I thought the actor who played the union secretary was so good.
I never actually saw the last season, for some reason.
If I was a teenage boy, I would read the Twilight books as research, because it's as close to answering the question "What do women want?" as you are likely to get at that age.
Unfortunately, the answer isl likely to be discouraging.
Really, just the fact there was a union storyline on TV was great. And they weren't all corrupt andlazy andthe bad guy, they were very well-drawn characters - all the actors were good.
That's my favourite season of The Wire for a lot of reasons. Maybe because I grew up in similar circumstances, both my parents were often on strike when I was a kid. And it felt very 70's.
Dancer is good. For a straight man McCann certainly knows his ballet I'll tell you that.
Ha! Have you read of coming out of the Wales rugby captain ? It made the sport pages here.
She has much to answer for. Including turning a generation of male readers off books.
What?
Male readers adore Harry Potter. I just gave "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" to my beer friend. He's read and loved all of them in Italian, so I thought an original version could help him with the language. (Yes, he wants to learn German - I also gave him my bilingual Faust - but his English isn't perfect either).
But he thinks of them in terms of fluffy ice-cream rather than nutritious meals, and his eating habits aren't very sound anyway.
. And they weren't all corrupt andlazy andthe bad guy, they were very well-drawn characters
What, in an American unions are not corrupted and run by the mob? This is one of the signs of the coming apocalypse in 2012.
Yes, the union angle was interesting. It's funny, my father was pro-union in principle, though any union jobs he held would have been before my time. My mother, raised Republican was very anti-union, and in fact one of her first jobs when she re-entered the job market was as a temp worker who crossed the union line. But by the end of her later life career, she was not only pro-union, she was one of her junior college's most active members. All in the perspective, I guess.
The book biz is not famous for allowing unions, that's for sure.
The first two years or so of SNL delighted me to no end. It became the basis of my humor, in addition to other ingredients including some mad mad mad family members, one of whom trained with Second City.
That said, I think humor is so wily. It's very hard for me to see something more than 2-3 times and have the same reaction, because the surprise is no longer there.
You know, I used to gobble up the New Yorker, but stopped a few years ago. I used to read every single article, and even said article was on a topic of no interest to me, the writing was so good that it became of interest. Hasn't been that way since some long winding road of an article on truck driving and washing out of truck's contents. The whole thing was a huge snooze fest. I read it, believing that it would eventually get better.
Then I thought that me being jealous of that music writer was the final straw for not renewing. Nice to know that others have a beef with the mag.
I remember years ago observing that the New Yorker was full of articles whose premises were compelling but that I never quite managed to read through to the end. I seem to recall that not only did the magazine publish pieces about Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, but that the Julia Roberts author, in a forced attempt to show how hip the once-stodgy magazine was, used "pissed" as a synonym for "angry" in a completely straighforward, descriptive sentence.
All gods are the result of early humans putting their own face on nature, to make it familiar and more easily beg favor, and thereby get past their fear of all they did not understand.
Perfectly understandable then, but today, after 200 years of natural science? Good lord...
We got past the tooth fairy. When will we leave god behind?
Robert
We're not past the tooth fairy in this house, believe me.
I dont feel the need to postulate a god a priori the Big Bang which I think is what Christians believe. But I do think its likely with billions of Earth-like planets out there, god-like aliens must exist somewhere in the universe who would be indistinguishable from a God if we ever had the misfortune to meet them. The universe is very big and has been around a long long time.
You know, the tooth fairy would come in a lot more handy in one's eighties than it does in childhood. It would be really nice to get some money from the spirits for teeth that are not replaceable.
I'd settle for a few bucks from the effing tooth fairy toward the cost of my titanium implant.
And Adrian, the effing toothache that lef to this pretty pass first hit when I was in Derry, so really, Northern Ireland shares the blame.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
OMG, late to the party again.
I agree with everything on the list with two comments:
a) I'm willing to cut the New Yorker a tiny bit of slack because they include the odd Malcolm Gladwell essay often enough to keep my interest. That said, I've only bought one issue in probably the last 5 years now that everything is online so quickly. I imagine the New Yorker is fighting for its life economically.
b) Yes yes yes - the 70s and 80s Scorsese films tower over most everything he's done since. However, I'll forgive a lot in thanks for his having made Shine A Light.
The Wake of Scotchy Finn? Hurry!
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