Randomness

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Interesting...

The Cosmology of Serialized Television

[Alelou]

Even The X Files spent a comparatively small percentage of its episodes on long-term mythology, sticking mostly to a “monster of the week” format. But the 15 or 20 percent of the show that was mythology is deeply unsatisfying and downright annoying, which is why the extremely talented Darin Morgan, who wrote the funniest (and, as it happens, best) standalone episodes–the one with the circus freaks, the one with the cockroaches, the one with Charles Nelson Reilly and Jesse Ventura–is more fondly celebrated today than series creator and mythology architect Chris Carter.

]

I couldn't agree more.

I'm afraid I haven't seen most of these shows, so I skimmed through a lot of this, but it's an interesting analysis. How he describes True Blood certainly makes sense, although I was kind of hoping that the books (I only read one of the many) might provide some reason why they seem to blow everything and everybody up every season and then start over with a reshuffled deck. I watch that show because I like its style, but it's really completely incoherent.

Castle didn't make the list, but I'm impressed with how it's handled its longevity by allowing its characters to keep developing and to arrive at real turning points instead of endless manufactured UST.

I really have to watch Friday Night Lights one of these days. From everything I hear, it's a class act.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

I really like arc-based story-telling on TV. Unfortunately much of it isn't that well thought out in advance, and just made up as they go, which often leads to disappointing results, like on the new Battlestar Galactica. Bablyon 5 was mostly awesome, but then creator J. Michael Straczynski had everything planned out in advance. Buffy was also mostly good with its seasonal arcs (one Big Bad each season).

[Transwarp]

Interesting...

The Cosmology of Serialized Television

Yes, interesting. But also appalling.

Appalling that so many shows are reportedly made with NO IDEA of where their story is going. And evidently no sense or presumption that there even NEEDS to be an idea.

Call me naive, but I expected more. Yes, I really am naive. I have not seen 95% of the shows mentioned in the article. Things appear to be much worse than I could have imagined! I did watch Battlestar Galactica, and I remember having the feeling that the show never adequately explained things when they wrapped it up, but I had no idea that it was a deliberate strategy!

Just one more thing about our entertainment media to perplex and annoy me.

[Alelou]

So few shows make it past the pilot or the first season, they probably don't consider it worth the time and money to map the whole thing out. Either somebody has to be paid for it, or somebody could be doing a heck of a lot of work for nothing. Then add in never knowing if their actors will work out, or stick around...

Still, for them not to have even the vaguest idea? That surprised me, too.

[Weeble]

Attached is an essay from the Wall Street Journal about the study of literature. While I do not agree with everything presented it is a fascinating perspective and one I think that this group of readers and writers might find interesting.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... ideo_Third

I have always been a voracious reader and took far more pleasure in the things that I read by my own choice. I inherited (from my father) a complete set of Shakespeare's works in a stack of small books. Later in life when I traveled I would take (2) with me typically they are one play per book. I found that I needed to read for about 20 minutes to get my mind thinking in the form of English in which he wrote and then start over.

Anywho, nuff said.

[Alelou]

Jeez, what a cranky pants. While I tend to agree with him that you either are moved by literature or not, learning how to comprehend a text, place it in an analytical framework, and make a good argument with evidence from the text is a skill that doesn't come naturally for most students. Thankfully, however, it can be learned, and it helps prepare students for success in an awful lot of professions.

I do agree that bad teachers who expect you to think about things exactly the same way they do can take all the joy out of reading and discussing literature. However, a student who is inclined to feel that most education is an imposition on his time and his own natural genius is naturally going to get much less out of the time he spends in a class. Indeed, he'll likely to decide it's yet more justification for his own sense of superiority.

[Weeble]

Tell us what you really think Alelou.

My take on the essay was mostly the loss of rigorous humanities studies; some of the best educated grads of GaTech took their first two years at the Univ. of the South in Sewanee Tn. Then the did three years at Tech and were awarded degrees in liberal arts and engineering. They were certainly better rounded.
I was fortunate to go to prep school, (Detroit Country Day), which emphasized the humanities. Much as I hated writing them, the analysis required to pen a proper essay was great preparation for later life. It also helped me sift through the BS that was constantly shoveled my direction, when I was working. Perhaps that is why politicians and their platitudes drive me crazy.

[Alelou]

I don't think he's complaining about loss of rigor. I think he's complaining about professors contaminating his mind with ideas he doesn't agree with and therefore making his relationship with literature fraught with tedium. His essential argument seems to be that we're better off if people just read stuff on their own. But show me students who ever read much great literature on their own. I'm all for encouraging reading for pleasure, but if you don't also drag kids through at least some Shakespeare or T.S. Eliot or whatever it is, they'll never figure out that, hey, they actually can get this ... and even like it. And many do develop an appreciation for it that they never expected. Some will still hate it, of course. That's fine with me as long as they can at least form a cogent argument about it. I'm not here to make you love literature -- I'm here to make you capable of analyzing a text and clearly communicating your own ideas about it.

[Transwarp]

I never enjoyed the process of analyzing literature, probably because I never really saw the point of it. But for me, the thing I liked least about English classes was the unspoken (or sometimes spoken) assumption that the stuff *I* liked wasn't 'serious' literature. I never understood what Hawthorne ('Scarlet Letter'), Camus ('The Stranger'), or Kafka ('Metamorphosis') had that Heinlein or Asimov didn't. They left me cold or confused or both. At least Hawthorne made me care a tiny bit about Hester, but I not only didn't care about Camus' or Kafka's characters, I wanted them to die, Die, DIE! and leave me alone.

Great literature? Right. Where was I when they took THAT vote?

So, we started with a novel that I had to force myself to read, then we began to analyze it for symbolism, hidden meaning, and all sorts of other literary constructs that I can't recall (iambic pentameter and amoebic dysentery, maybe?) that seemed totally arbitrary to me and added nothing to my enjoyment and/or understanding of the work under scrutiny.

It was excruciating, and probably (on reflection) one of the reasons I am so unforgiving of the TV and movie script writers who fail so miserably to get the science right in their science fiction productions. In my mind, they represent the English teachers of my youth who tortured me with their 'classic' literature and smug attitudes, but who couldn't calculate the time required to travel to Mars at a constant 1 G acceleration to save their life.

Harumph!

[Alelou]

But did you learn to make an argument about the text, whether it was Heinlein or The Scarlet Letter? (Sounds like you did.) Because then you got something out of it. And I tend to agree about The Stranger. Never read Kafka.

I think it's a mistake to teach as if the classics are the only books that matter or have ideas in them. I think it's equally a mistake to avoid them because kids don't like it. You learn to read more advanced work by reading more advanced work. And some of it you'll hate. I also cared about Hester, but I hated Hawthorne's writing style and Pearl was a creepy little symbol-girl. Still, I found that book very thought-provoking, and years later I was halfway through my own novel when I realized I was essentially rewriting The Scarlet Letter the way I wanted it to be.

[Weeble]

Weird. "The Scarlet Letter" made sense to me if only because we required to come up with as many words that used the letter "A" as possible and then had a raucous class discussion; still think the best was ambivalent. Still do not get "The Stranger", never read Kafka either. Amoebic Dysentary is of course essential to reading, but it does require strategic placement of the literary text and an extra bathroom in the house.

Alelou you remind me of my favorite Lit teacher in high school. I never graded all that well but she was tough and expected us to read. I took her 7 out of 8 HS semesters. She also gave us 20 words a week for a quiz on Friday even senior year, you know spell 'em, define 'em and us 'em in a sentence.

I personally love Shakespeare. Used to go to the Stratford festival in Ontario Canada as a school function and after. Nothing like seeing a solid company doing the master's plays. Having been further taught of the necessity in stage productions at Shakespeare's time of playing to to audiences makes it even more fun. Briefly for the unenlightened out there, the titled and wealthy sat quite removed from the stage and had to be entertained by the depth of the plot. The riffraff sat up close and had to be entertained if only to keep them from disrupting the play. If ever you go to a play try to get a seat just close enough to get the full impact from the subtle facial expressions and words that are missed if you are far removed.

Also note that most of the Star Trek Actors in all of the series had Shakespearean training.

[Weeble]

Oh and hey Alelou, its getting hotter than hell on my side of Lake Erie/Ontario/Huron. Its gonna be a race between Lake Michigan getting to comfy swimming temp (68 for me) and low 90's. Hope it doesn't get too hot over there.

[Alelou]

We've had a couple of days off of heat and humidity, but they're coming back with temps in the 90's this coming week. Bleah. This time of year I tend to fantasize about moving to Canada. Thank God for central air.

Hawthorne gets taught as if he's some old sage, but this dude was essentially a hippie who for part of his life even hung out in a commune with other hippies and intellectuals like the Alcotts and Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller. He aimed to please his readers with themes of dark romance. One of my favorite discoveries while I was in England (and missing American literature enough to start browsing the university library for it) was his Blithedale Romance, which plays off of his own experiences at the Brook Farm commune with other Transcendalists. (And it's a free download at gutenberg.org.)

Shakespeare's language isn't easy, but it really has to be be seen in performance to be fully appreciated. (BTW, I adore Joss Whedon's new version of Much Ado About Nothing! Highly recommended if you haven't caught it yet.)

[Linda]

I have not been to photobucket for awhile and it is completely changed. I no longer know how to deal with it. I am trying to copy a photo from it to Triaxian Silk. It is not working. And I have even forgot how to put it here. Do you use "Img"? Or can you now put a photo here directly from the photos stored on your home computer? Everything digital is so anti-intuitive for me to the point where I just feel like unplugging completely! And I was an IT professional for 30 years. Go figure. And no, I am not having a senior moment! I am having a senior rebellion!