Taunting on the Company Dime

Ah, New Year's. 'Tis the season for remembrance of a year gone. And of course, being Americans, that means that we have to quantify our appreciation in lists of ten. Every critic out there has taken it as his God-given right, responsibility, and privilege to espouse the top ten books, top ten pop albums, top ten movies, top ten top ten lists. Fine . Great. Good way to encourage people to think the way you do and buy more of your yellow journalism. But the one that struck me most was Ben Brantley's Top Ten Plays.

The thing about theater is that, well, you can only enjoy it if you're in New York, which the majority of NY Times reader's aren't. But, fine, this is their little nod to metrosexuality, or whatever. But fully half that list has already closed. So, basically, Mr. Brantley here is just bragging to you about what you missed. And this is what we're supposed to pay for?

Man I wish I'd gotten to see Jumpers...

Majored in Drama, with a concentration in disembowelment, specialty of self-evisceration

For years, television acting has been a field in retreat. First, simple reality: The Real World. Then, game shows (remember a simpler time? When Who Wants To Be A Millionaire was all we could hear about and we were only afraid of our own children turning guns on us, their peers, and eventually themselves?) roamed the earth. When the two were merged, the behemoth Survivor was created. Survivor begat Big Brother, and Big Brother begat a crapload of crappy, campy, crap.

Every show that had a script feared for its future. Those with intellectual humor ran and cried underneath a sofa. So did Frasier. It seemed like the only way to survive was to create characters so boring and predictable that no one would believe a writer had taken time to craft it. Cf. the longevity and popularity of Friends.

But the renaissance we are now experiencing is limited: you must be morbid to make it nowadays. The CSI's, SVU's, and ER's are taking over. Fox's House (about a quirkily genius doctor that I try hard not to enjoy, but still do) meets that network's definition of a smash success. Even this season's breakout hit, ABC's Desperate Housewives, features more dead bodies than fat ones.

Which leads me to wonder: how do actors prepare for this? Has Julliard begun offering a course in how to decompose? "Think like the worms. Feel the worms." How do you even cast that? "Well, I loved #17's rack, and her headshots were flawless, but let's not kid ourselves, #23 nailed that Grand Mal Seizing!" Or telling your relatives? I mean, it's at least respectable to only have part of your body featured if it's, e.g., the ear with that Diamond Tiffany's stud. But do you really want to be sitting around the Thanksgiving table, explaining to old half-deaf "Uncle" Tomas that you were the severed limb in the landfill on episode 712A3-- oh, and could you pass the meatloaf?

This is why, I say, we should forbid any expression that involves dead people. All sick must be played by bunnies and body parts replaced by lollipops.

-D"The Tell-Tale Sucker"an

Lowered Decision Expectations

Well, after weeks of turmoil and strife, the Ukraine is calm. Night has fallen, the birds are humming doo-wop, &c. And how was this Balkanesque dispute settled? By a Herculean margin of victory with Yuschenko pulling down (drumroll) 51.99% of the vote.

Wait, what? Less than 2% above even can now count as an irrevocable mandate of the masses? Well, I guess this is what we've been preparing ourselves for all these years. It's all been downhill since Reagan in 1984, when Mondale's mother sat little Walt-Walt down and said, "I'm sorry, honey, but he just seems so honest and damn loveable" before casting her vote for that proto-Schwarzenegger.

I mean, in Washington, people are basically just accepting the race is over because the current winner now leads by a commanding 130 votes. This is after she was losing by 261 votes after the initial count, and on the second recount. But, this is 13 times as large as the lead she first had: 10 votes. 10 votes! I've personally lost campaigns by a wider margin (I would have made a great homeroom representative).

But what use is just ranting? I guess I should just sit back and learn to love an electoral system that can be decided by someone nudging the voting booth a bit too heavily.

-D"TILT!"an

This Side of Purgatory

Well, now that Jesus H. Christmas is over, it's time for us all to stand up, dust ourselves off, and see what we managed to hang on to in the bumrush.

I'm happy to hear they still read print on the west coast, and that Bentley still reads so much of it. Word to the wise compadre: The things you don't get in Vonnegut--you don't get them because they're not funny. Also, there's nothing to 'get' in Anderson that you don't want there to be. Bottle Rocket is about being fourteen. Rushmore, Tennenbaums, exercises in the meticulous Peter Pan sublimity of being fifteen and sixteen, respectively. No doubt The Life Aquatic is about the vague meloncholy of seventeenness. Beyond that, Anderson's the tofu of filmmakers. It's all in how you cook him.

Because I know you, dear reader, hang on every word, I'll let you in on what kind of culture I've been conspiciously consuming in this post-coital, post-solstice winter.

Moby-Dick: I'm enjoying it far better the second time around. Maybe it's because when I read it the first time in high school it was presented to me from within the fascist restrictiveness of the middle-American, late-capitalist, faux-egalitarian educational system. Or maybe it's because I've been laid since then. Regardless, it works on two levels: 1) Minor hero in decline chases Death, Revenge, and a White Whale on the high seas (I know what you'll say, total Wes Anderson rip-off), and 2) the same exact thing, but replace hero with America and villains with Industry, Capital, and Manifest Destiny. Watch out for Melville's wit. They never tell you in school how brutally funny that m.f. is.

The Pentagon's New Map: Thomas P.M. Barnett is to Security Studies what Mos Def is to hip-hop: without them, their professions are just a lot of borderline sociopaths bragging about all the shiny things they've bought. Barnett is like Jack Ryan, Tony Robbins and Drew Carey rolled into one, and he's presented a theory of military power in the 21st century that should command as much of your attention as those Doritos presently are (I'm looking at you, New Jersey).

Esquire: Still the best glossy in America and the one with the best mix of high, low, and unibrow humor. The New Yorker be damned! Damned, I say! (By the way, te-hee-hee-hee).

Michael Loux's Metaphysics: If you only read one introductory treatment of Aristotelian metaphysics this winter, it shouldn't be this one.

John Broome's lectures on Normative Ethics: If you only read one series of unpublished lectures on Normative ethics given at Oxford University in the fall of 2004 which you were supposed to have attended but didn't, it should be this one.

Closer: This is the movie everybody should be talking about, but they're too busy talking about how Garden State is the movie everybody should be talking about. Great material, acted greatly. Even Julia Roberts shines. Highlight lines:

Ann: "Why?!? Why do you want to know?!? Why is the sex SO important to you?!?!"
Larry: "BECAUSE I'M A FUCKING CAVEMAN!"

and

Dan: "She has a good heart, too good for you [paraphrasing]"
Larry: "Have you ever seen a heart? It looks like a clenched fist covered in blood"

Anyway, run along now and do my bidding.