Sunday!
I watched the premiere episode of The Flash on Netflix while Maribou was up in Estes Park with friends.
She and I had never discussed watching The Flash together. I don’t know that I had even really broached whether it was a show that I would want to check out someday. I watched it without her, however… and then I had to mention to her that I had watched it. Without her.
As it turns out, it was okay. While it is a show that she vaguely would be interested in checking out someday, it’s not one of those shows that she was saving in the hopper for me.
“Not like Supernatural”, she told me. “If you had started watching that without me, I would have kicked you in the jimmy.”
So I dodged a bullet there.
But that makes me wonder about the whole dynamic of “together” shows vs. “separate” shows even when they’re both shows that both folks would have been interested in watching.
And, of course, whether there is an upper limit of shows that one can reasonably expect to keep on one’s Fidelity list.
In any case, The first episode of The Flash showed promise. The Flash is one of those superheroes that has powers that really require effective CGI or animation to really work. See, for example, the quicksilver scene from that X-Men movie for an example of done right:
And see this scene from the 90’s version of the show (start at around 3:00):
Well, the special effects of the new show aren’t bad and it makes me wish that I had enough free time to see where they’re going with the storyline (though, as a person with some familiarity with the universe, I think I see what’s coming… and it makes me look forward to see their take on it).
So… what are you reading and/or watching?
(Featured Image is “Edison’s Telephonoscope” by George du Maurier from Punch Almanack for 1879)
(I feel the need to clarify for the readership that I would never ACTUALLY kick Jaybird in the jimmy; and furthermore that the speech act of threatening to kick someone in the jimmy is one that I picked up FROM HIM – and our other friends who watch wrestling – back in the 90s, when they were constantly yelling it at the television. I used to have class, I tells ya.)
I finished watching Broad City. It was funny. I am watching a documentary about Walt Disney by PBS which is jusssst interesting enough to keep me paying attention (though I did take a 3 hour nap in the middle of it the other day). I’m looking forward to the new season of Kimmy Schmidt.
Mostly still reading books about Paris food (it’s become a bit of an obsession) – though I did pick up a food biography of Portland the other day and it’s promising, if sometimes kinda tone deaf. It’s called _Portland: A Food Biography_ if anyone else feels like checking it out.Report
I am reading Revelation Space, part of my project to be current with literature and SF… And Slowly reading Alamut still, as it leaves much to think about. I kinda purposly slowed down with that one, as it is both dense and thoughtful. Origanally writen as an alagory to Mussalini’s black shirts, it was finally translated into english after 9/11, as a way of looking at Al-Queda and the culture of martyrs.
Watching Bosch season 2, wich is pretty enjoyable. Not Wire perfect (though it has many of the same actors) but what is? Season 2 allows much of the suporting cast room to breath, again good and better than the first season.Report
Duuude…it’s so good, right? Honestly, if you enjoy his writing, all of the other books in that setting (there are five novels plus a short story collection) are well worth reading too.
Currently three seasons into a rewatch of the West Wing. I used to throw that show on in the background so often I basically had it memorized, but now I’ve gone a few years without watching so much as a single episode. So I decided to start throwing it on Netflix while I game, and it’s been…nice. It’s like the televisual equivalent of comfort food.Report
It is good @zac so, over time and chance I will pick up and read him. (Generaly I get my reading material in fairly unconventional ways, as I am a book scout by nature and training, and often have 20-30 books in my to-read/reading pile.)Report
I actually just watched the two episodes of Arrow that introduce Barry Allen and show the accident that gives him his powers. I’m probably going to finish this season of Arrow first, and then watch Flash.
Arrow can be really kind of over the top sometimes – it has these emotive moments that really go on too long for my taste, and they don’t involve anything surprising in either writing or performance.Report
Arrow’s melodrama is hard to take at times. Watching Flash actually made it worse in the contrast. Not that Flash isn’t melodramatic, but it’s in the service of fun. I still like Arrow, but I like Flash more.Report
@will-truman
I feel the same way. The Flash (and Legends of Tomorrow, which I also enjoy) are profoundly silly – and they are fully aware of this, which is why they focus on fun. Arrow seems to have pretensions to seriousness that it simply hasn’t earned. And it’s interpersonal drama has gotten really tiresome lately.Report
Last week I read a crap load of Poe, which I haven’t really read since I was a teenager and which didn’t really age well for me. Except in one really interesting way, but I think I might do a post on that this week so I’l hold back till then. Ditto with my first just completed re-watching of Lost.
I also read Turtleface & Beyond by Arthur Bradford, who I have seen at the Moth once but have never met. It’s quite good, and if you like short stories that are heavy on the quirkiness I recommend it pretty highly.
I also read through the sci-fi book The Fold by Peter Clines, which I would describe as being beach-read brain candy (not an insult). I found it mostly entertaining. The one drawback for me with The Fold was that I found it to be two separate kinds of books, which didn’t mesh together so well to my eye. The first three quarters is a kind of sic-fi mystery, and if you had told me it was from an unpublished Michael Crichton manuscript I would have totally believed you. It nailed Crichton’s style perfectly — snappy plotting, dialogue that look like it was written for a screenplay rather than a book, present-time sic-fi thriller with a team of personality-archetype scientists. It even did really well that thing Crichton was so good at, where the main character is just about to say out loud a piece of the puzzle he’s figured out but then something interrupts them and you have to wait to find out what it is so you don’t put the book down. But then at about the three-quarter mark, the book turns into an odd (and to my mind clunky) Lovecraftian kind of sort of Cthulhu story. And it really didn’t work for me. Also, I have no question that everyone here will guess the answer to the biggest of the mysteries the scientists are trying to crack within the first couple of chapters. But it’s still a fun ride for the most part, and you can read it in a couple of hours.
I am about a quarter of the way through City on Fire, and I am just enjoying the heck out of that. Which is a testament to writer Gary Halberg, because I have grown so very weary of the ubiquitous “upper-crust families and artists in Manhattan living their gothic lives” trope in novels. But man, this is so well written that I am enjoying it anyway.Report
That sounds kind of….gross.
But I look forward to reading your post.Report
I’m reading “Ready Player One”. Really enjoying it so far.Report
Watched most of Season 1 of Orange is the New Black. It’s good, but I’m cancelling my Netflix subscription; it eats up too much time.
I watch The Flash, but I find it pretty mediocre, and the sheer stupidity of the characters is hard to take sometimes. Stupidity is typically used to prevent the Flash from defeating his villains too easily, because superspeed is too much of a story-breaker power against many of the antagonists he’s facing.
Mostly reading travel guides right now, as I’m planning a trip to Chicago for Victoria Day long weekend (third weekend in May). Also read the first issue of TNC’s Black Panther run, which is looking very strong for a superhero comic. Good art and nuanced characters. Still also in the middle of a world history textbook written in 1939 (right before WWII started) – it’s fascinating to see what people thought about the history and future of the world at different points in time. Read House of Seven Gables a while ago.Report
Stupidity is typically used to prevent the Flash from defeating his villains too easily, because superspeed is too much of a story-breaker power against many of the antagonists he’s facing.
You’re absolutely right about this. The other night when I was at DMan’s, we were discussing Superhero Theory and this point came up. If The Flash were smart, he’d be a Superman-level hero. As it is, he’s a level below that. A good team player.
Now they did do something very interesting with The Flash after Barry Allen died in Crisis on Infinite Earths in the 80’s… they had Wally West, Kid Flash, become The Flash and much of the storylines involved Wally trying to live up to the ghost of The Real Flash.
This was a total retcon, of course. The 1960’s Flash was dull and Just Another White Dude With Superpowers. You could have traded his powers with Hal Jordan’s or Hawkman’s or Aquaman’s and after he broke the powers in, the stories would be identical.
Ah, but the story of the apprentice trying to be as good as the guy who taught him? Who is now dead?
That’s something you can work with.
Mark Waid did an awesome job with the Flash in the 90’s. Worth making a show from.
Pity they’re using Barry.Report
Enjoyed, but did not love, Flash season one. A bit cheesy and precious at times. The villain was more canny than diabolical and consequently didn’t seem so evil or fearsome as ought to have been the case. Compare with the Big Bad from each of Arrow’s first three seasons, each of whom was Really Bad.
Reading about the history of brewing in America. Interesting information but the book seems to have been underwritten by the Busch family, so effusive in its praise for the St. Louis brewer (warm admiration for the Pabst family too). But then again, it’s hardly the first book I’ve read that is useful and enjoyable while nevertheless revealing bias.Report
I find that, as long as they’re relatively honest and up front about it, clearly biased authors often not worse at all. The two things I really find annoying:
– The author tries to be fair and evenhanded, and tone down his influence on the text, so you don’t discover it until it’s too late: “Oh, hell, he’s an originalist – now I’ll have to go back and read the first three chapters again to filter it out”.
– The author clubs the source material like a baby seal until it conforms to his viewpoint.Report