Sunday!
True Detective
Here’s the weird thing, though: I’ve had the show kinda spoiled for me. Not in the sense of “Joffrey drinks too much at his wedding” but in the sense of “the show is a cop drama that takes place in a Lovecraftian universe.”
When I first heard that Woody Harrelson and the other guy who looks just like Woody Harrelson were doing a cop show, my first thought was “well, I’m glad they’re finding work” and I never thought about it again for a few weeks until everyone started talking about The King In Yellow (contains spoilers. Seriously, avoid this link unless you’ve already seen the show).
And so now I’m stuck here thinking “man, how awesome would it have been to have it slowly dawn on me that I’m watching a story that takes place in a universe just a little more squamous than ours is.”
But, of course, I never would have bothered to watch the show if I didn’t know that.
Thus the paradox.
So… what are you reading and/or watching?
I am still reading the Interestings.
I am going to watch the Lavender Hill Mob this evening. It is an old Alec Guiness comedy.Report
Just started watching The Wire on Prime. I feel like I’m finally joining the 21st century.
Sitting next to me is The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, which I assume I will start reading today.
Oh, and there is a game in an hour or so.
First non-hectic weekend in over a month, and no 5 year old, I’m the most of temporary bachelor’s, so of course I’m sick. Probably from the 5 year old (whose mom has the same symptoms).Report
…there are people who haven’t seen The Wire?! 😉
I wonder how it plays to new eyes now, and if it’ll live up to the hype for you.
RE-CAP! RE-CAP!
(not ep. by ep. Just brief thoughts on each season, or one at the end!)Report
I am down, but I didn’t get past season 4, as zl fba jnf whfg gur fnzr ntr nf gur oblf jura jr fgnegrq vg.Report
I’ll do it.
First impression: I dunno why, but I think this Idris Elba dude might have a future in the acting business.Report
I first watched The Wire last year. I thought it held up pretty well. Seeing it set in a time when pagers were common and burner phones were a new concept was pretty interesting. The stories and characters stand up pretty well. There were a couple of plot lines in the last couple of seasons that made it tough to suspend my disbelief, but I still thought it lived up to the hype.Report
I am a half-episode away from finishing Revolution. Orphan Black is next. In lieu of audiobooks, I am listening to some older episodes of Private Practice.Report
At 3 PM Eastern I will be watching the World Cup championship between Germany and Argentina.
This is the third time that the teams have met in the finals, which each side winning once.
It is also the most common championship matchup, which I find interesting because of the historical ties between the two countries.Report
With this win Germany becomes the first European team to win the World Cup in the Americas.
I was going to say “in the Western Hemisphere” but Madrid, where West Germany won in 1982, is actually at 4º longitude west.Report
I am reminded by @scarletnumbers that I did watch the first episode of Girl Meets World. The NYCitification of it still feels off to me, but they did make good use of the subway. A little too much attention was focused on the “passing of the baton” from father to daughter, but I assume starting with the second episode they will be getting to business.
It was kind of hard to explain to Clancy why I was watching the first episode of a Disney show about a young girl.Report
“the show is a cop drama that takes place in a Lovecraftian universe.”
That’s not my reading of the show at all….
The link was clearly written while the show was aired. This is the tell:
“But where, one might wonder, is this all going? Is this just writer Nic Pizzolatto dropping nods to his favorite authors and their fans? Some critics have dismissed the idea that the show is moving into the realm of the supernatural, but I have little doubt that it is going to only get much weirder and much, much darker.”
Not to spoil anything, but they got it wrong. Big time.Report
I haven’t seen it yet, but if there is an episode titled “The King in Yellow,” it could be in a Raymond Chandler universe, or a Robert W. Chambers universe.Report
Well, so far, I’m oneish episodes in and they’re doing some interesting stuff that feels like it’s Lovecraft (or, as Aaron David points out, Chambersish).
It’s 2012 and we’re interviewing the guys who were the detectives waybackwhen. One of them has gone (functionally) insane. One of them appears to have done pretty well for himself.
The interview format feels like Call of Cthulhu. The (functional) insanity of Rust pulls a familiar trick. He narrows his eyes and you get the feeling that he’s the only one who knows what’s *REALLY* going on and turning into a wreck is the only sane response to what he found out.
Beyond this, they’re doing a lot of little things to grab me. Martin almost being defensive about how good a detective Rust was in the interviews (why is he being defensive?) is probably the biggest one. All in all, I want to see what happens next.
They got it wrong? That’s too bad.Report
Until you finish it, this is all I will say:
I watched it the first time to see what happens next. I watched it the second time to see how it all fits together.
Curious to see if your reaction is similar, and if the Lovecraft thing holds up after you watched the final scene.Report
Hrm. It’s worth watching twice, then. Sweet.
Something non-spoilery I want to mention: in the opening credits when Woody Harrelson has the highway superimposed (or projected) on his face and it moves over… it makes his face look like a skull. That’s downright awesome.Report
Definitely worth watching twice. A buddy of mine said he watched all 8 episodes in one sitting the second go around. That seems a little extreme, but me… I’ve gone back and watched certain scenes, even certain episodes, multiple times. Maybe that’s even more extreme?
I dunno, but that show was firing on all cylinders with me.Report
And yes, the title sequence is pretty awesome. How is it that HBO is so consistently good at title sequences? I have no idea…but they’re good.
And they’re consistent.Report
Be interested to hear thoughts when done JB.Report
Maybe I should skip over Orphan Black and watch True Detective this week.Report
I can totally have a Sunday! (SPOILERS!) thread next week if you do…Report
@will-truman Maybe not this week, but some week. It’s not really Burkean, but there are shades of Robicheaux that you might dig.Report
Out of all the words from this post for Lain to repeat, why “shitheel”?Report
I am reading Anatomy of a Murder by Travers – the original courtroom thriller. Watching Peep Show and finding it very funny.Report
Oh, and forgot to mention that I am working my way through Conor Freidersdorf’s list of The Best in Journalism:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/05/slightly-more-than-100-fantastic-pieces-of-journalism/284564/
Awesome stuff there!Report
Peep Show is pretty great.Report
@glyph I have you to thank for that, for showing us Sir Digby Chicken Caesar!Report
Have you gotten to the funeral yet? Or Super Hans?Report
No, I don’t watch much TV, so it will be slow going. Oh, and by the way, the wife tried to watch Young Ones the other night, does not hold up.Report
My prolem with the show’s writing is that it wasn’t fair to its characters’ humanity. This is obviously a really broad critique of lots of bad dramatic writing, but for some reason the flaws in Woody’s character stood out to me as little more than a prop to use as contrast for the character study of McConaughey. It was also pointed out in the TV-osphere that the women characters were likewie little more than props.
It wasn’t a dramatic show so much as an illustrated pop-philosophical musing, with little ideological payoff.Report
McConaughey is an interesting (perhaps *THE* interesting) character in the show but that’s because he’s the one who went crazy.
Now, true, I’m still watching this show as if it were Lovecraft but that means that I’m watching it as if the main character were Nyarlathotep (or whomever) and these characters are the ones dancing on the strings.
More to come, I’m sure.Report
I suppose it’s possible to watch *ANY* show as if Nyarlathotep were the main character.
That’d make Friends an entirely different show! Sienfeld? Not so much…Report
Michael,
Did you watch all 8 episodes? I don’t think after watching the show in its entirety that you’re going to come way with “it wasn’t fair to its characters’ humanity.”
Also, the stuff about the female characters…. I think part of that is people expecting a different show than the one that was presented to them. Another part is just lazy criticism. If the Bechdel Test is useful, it’s not as a barometer of quality.
And ideological payoff? Dude….as a guy who tends towards Cohle’s bleak view of the world, that final scene was soul food for me.
Mileage will vary, of course.Report
It was certainly fair to Cohle’s humanity, I meant to concede that. Too fair, is the point.Report
Five episodes in, and I don’t know if I can agree with this.
Rust has pretty much come out and said that he lives behind a bar and works 4 days a week. On his days off, he starts drinking at noon and will proceed to do this even when he has been asked to give an interview to cops who want to know what happened last time these murders went on.
I mean, sure, he gives one hell of a speech on nihilism (“I lack the constitution for suicide”) but his humanity pretty much means that he’s a somewhat likable drunk who is incapable of having off-time real human relationships.Report
I also have a really dark joke about Germany and Argentina going up against each other in the world cup but I know the backlash to the joke is going to be so big that I keep it in my head.Report
Not from me.
I love a good Nazi war criminal joke.
Hell, if The Office can do it, so can we.Report
You got my joke.Report
I can report that the Great Plains from Denver to Omaha — mostly following the Platte Valley — is greener than usual this year. Lots of NE Colorado that is usually just sagebrush and scruffy low grass has a lot of relatively tall grass growing this year.Report
Also that it is possible, with some effort, to listen to the entire World Cup final driving across outstate Nebraska, hopping from one AM radio station to another. Who is the whiny Irish-sounding guy on ESPN Radio?Report
Who is the whiny Irish-sounding guy on ESPN Radio?
Just from your description, I would say it is Tommy Smyth.
As an aside I once listened to the entire 2003 NLDS Game 5 between Florida and San Francisco by bouncing around different ESPN Radio affiliates.
This one is for you @mike schillingReport
@mike-schilling ratherReport
The hole in my roof is fixed. I still need to add flashing, reinstall the gutter, caulk, and paint–in other words, another day’s worth of work–but the roof over my entry hall is now watertight.Report
Caught up on Legend of Korra. Watched a bunch of documentaries while reading and taking notes from the booklist review compilation (their pick for 1000 best YA books from 2000-2013). read a bunch. um…. suburban glamour, The Riverman, A Future Arrived, American Gypsy, still plugging away at Delusions of Gender, and I just started reading the introduction to Jeff Sharlet’s anthology Radiant Truths.Report