Category Archives: Politics and Culture

The End of the World — On The Beach

Kay Gardella Memorial TV Review Blog, Politics and Culture, Theater, Movie, Event, Misci Reviews

Most post-apocalyptic movies explore how life goes on after it is all but destroyed. Perhaps we devolve, while the apes get smarter and take over. Could they do worse? Maybe the bonds between a boy and his dog will still be the greatest love of all? Or between a father and a son? We might be dining on each other or living in silos, but at least a few of us will be alive.

In these films, there’s always an after, even if it’s so bleak you’d rather not live to see it. On The Beach is different. The premise simple: A nuclear war started, possibly by accident, has led to worldwide radioactive fallout destroying life on the planet, except for Australia where the radioactive winds haven’t reached yet – but they’re coming in about five months or so and when they do – lights out for all. Meantime, life seems strangely normal. There are horse-drawn carts on the streets of Melbourne, but also cars, and the trains still run. Perhaps, humanity is in denial, or maybe this is a more likely scenario than the mayhem we see in most end-of-the-world is coming films. After all, most humans when given a terminal diagnosis go on pretty much as they were.

Lt. Peter Holmes (Anthony Perkins) of the Royal Australian Navy, still makes sure the bottle is warm when he feeds his infant daughter, and still follows orders. His wife, Mary, would rather not even speak about what’s to come, though in this she doesn’t seem different than most. Peter is assigned to be a liaison officer on a mission being carried out by a US submarine that was at sea when the blast hit. Under the command of Dwight Towers (Gregory Peck), the USS Sawfish will head north and check on air and water samples to see if just maybe the radiation might be Continue reading The End of the World — On The Beach →

Letter From America: Most of us are not insane.

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For whatever reasons, this blog tends to get around 50% of its “hits” from outside the US. A large number of these are within the UK, so I sometimes feel obliged to “explain” the US to others, especially when it looks to the world like we must be a nation of idiots or lunatics.

Two big things have been big news here – one is the bombing at the Boston Marathon. Not much to explain here. Most people acted heroically, rushing towards the danger to help others, reaching out to families of victims, vowing to train and run in next year’s marathon (although realistically that’s unlikely as Boston has qualifying time and a rule that you have to have another marathon within the previous 18 months.) Yet, some idiots have already started saying the government did it. The “false-flag” nonsense originates with a professional conspiracy mongerer I won’t name here, as the bastard doesn’t need more hits, and Continue reading Letter From America: Most of us are not insane. →

Your Saturday Book Review: Breakfast of Champions

book reviews, Politics and Culture

Since I committed to writing a weekly book review, or at least mini-review, I have not been reading a book a week. I’m currently slogging through Wool – First Shift, Legacy. It’s much slower than the silo stories, but I can’t quite abandon it. There are other things in my Kindle that I’m looking at, but they haven’t grabbed me. It’s not like I’m not reading. Getting through more than 50% of The New Yorker each week is an accomplishment in and of itself.

The book reviews I’ve been writing are for books I’ve read, but maybe not recently. There are a books I love that I probably should re-read, so I could review them properly, Breakfast of Champions fits that category, but since I’m not going to re-read it, I’ll just review it anyway because this is my blog and one of advantage of not being paid is I can do whatever I want.

Breakfast of Champions was the first Vonnegut book I read. My father and sister had both read it and were talking about how fantastic it was. I was a child, or maybe a precocious tween or teen (do the math yourself damn it). In any case, it was a glimpse into the adult world that scared and fascinated me more than any Updike-adultery, or Cheeverian angst. Here was an indication that maybe it doesn’t get better, that ultimately adults were just as powerless as children. Yet, it wasn’t depressing. Why not? Because it was funny, but more than funny, it was funny because it was true.

I learned things. First and foremost, I learned a whole new way of telling a story. Not only could you play with words and language, but you could play with the idea of playing with words and language. There were also many new words and associations. Never before had I heard anything about beavers looking like vaginas. Certainly I had never read the phrase “wide-open beavers.” And here was an author admitting that in America there were “bad chemicals” in our brains, that America was racist – always had been, that there were places in this country where until recently black people hadn’t been allowed to spend the night. This may seem like common knowledge, but when I was 13 it was more stuff I only suspected. What I didn’t suspect or understand was the whole mortality thing. Sure as a neurotic young Jewess I got that death happens, and knew it would happen to me one day, unless I got abducted by the good aliens first or turned into a vampire or they found a cure. But here was a book that made me begin to ponder what it might be like to be 50 and know that youth was over and there was nothing left to look forward to except further decay.

After that I devoured the Vonnegut cannon in a matter of months. I don’t think I could re-read Breakfast of Champions now. Vonnegut’s dead and I’m older than he was when he wrote it. The last line, which I still remember, and won’t repeat as a spoiler here, would kill me. But if you are young, read it. Consider it a cautionary tale.

Binge Watching – Now Officially Sanctioned: House of Cards

Kay Gardella Memorial TV Review Blog, Politics and Culture, ,

Of course once everything started to be streamed and put on DVD, people began to binge-watch television series, but it wasn’t how those episodic episodes were designed. You were supposed to be subscribing to HBO, and spending every Sunday with the Sopranos, and then once they went on hiatus, waiting patiently (or impatiently) for the next season to start.

These days many folks don’t bother with the premium channels and simply rent entire seasons on DVD a year or so later. Some shows like those on AMC are available for instant download the day after they are shown, and almost everything can be found illegally somewhere on the Internet – not that I’m advocating that.

I somehow didn’t get around to watching Breaking Bad for years, but began a Netflix-binge that brought me up to date in three lost days. Lost was a series I’d watched on and off for a season or two. Then I heard it had gotten better. Time travel was involved. The whole thing was up on Hulu, and I was off. I watched four seasons of Dexter over a weekend once. It’s nothing to be proud of. It is no more boast-worthy than a weekend of compulsive masturbation or cookie-eating.

Netflix has upped the ante by releasing all 13 episodes of the first season of House of Cards at once. It’s an all you can watch buffet.  I just spent the last two days watching the totality, which comes out to probably just under eleven hours that no doubt could have been better spent.

It certainly wasn’t the worst thing to watch. I’m now curious about the British series on which it was based – which is also available on Netflix. But it wasn’t riveting either. The pace seemed somehow “British” a lot of talking, less on the action. Still it’s not the worst accompaniment to online mahjong or scrabble.

Kevin Spacey’s portrayal of Francis Underwood is undermined by the device of having his character often speak directly to the audience, revealing his true intentions. We should have been able to work out for ourselves when he is lying. Like the old joke about lawyers, it would be whenever his lips his are moving.

Continue reading Binge Watching – Now Officially Sanctioned: House of Cards →

I Won’t Watch (Girls), Don’t Ask Me

Kay Gardella Memorial TV Review Blog, Politics and Culture, , , , ,

A friend suggested I blog about HBO’s Girls. But I can’t watch it. I saw the first couple of minutes of the pilot, and it was painful. I’m tempted to do a Sara Benincasa- style review  without having seen it, but I’m no Sara Benincasa, and besides it would take viewing more clips or reading more about it than I can handle.

I have my reasons:

1. Williamsburg – I lived there in the 80’s. When I moved into my floor-through apartment on Bedford between North 11th and North 12th, I think the rent was $250 a month, and the other tenants saw my arrival as a sign of end times. I was the pilot-fish of gentrification. These were days when you might go to a party at a loft and the fire department would show up to shut the whole thing down (true story). When whacky clubs opened for a day or two or neighborhood bars were occasionally taken over by large goth drag queens and various performance artists. Back then the arrival of Kasia’s – a place you could actual get a bite to eat – was a big deal indeed, and I frequently stopped by a tiny bakery between North 7th and North 8th for a danish or bagel in the mornings, and there were always the same old Italian and Polish regulars. There was some weird chemical plant across the street, and if I get cancer someday it will be from that.  Greenpoint and Williamsburg had the highest concentration of toxic material storage in the City, plus oil spills. Every once in a while the streets would flood bright yellow and there was a smell that even with the windows closed would seep from your nose onto your taste buds.

Despite its being America’s Bhopul, by 1990, I already felt out of place, supplanted by the younger more beautiful people moving in.

Continue reading I Won’t Watch (Girls), Don’t Ask Me →