End of year quick blog update
So from now until uh not sure when I'll be pretty busy. The good news for all you blogfans out there is that one of the things I'm busy with is various posts for the blog. Seriously! But they're all gonna wait until the new year. Mainly because I want to post a minimum of 52 blog posts in 2012 so heck I might as well save some.
What else I am up to now
Uhhh not a whole lot, Christmas stuff and such. I haven't been watching anime so I can't comment on that, nor can I comment on whatever albums have come out since I've been back home 'cause I haven't been checking trackers. I have been watching some sitcoms uhhh let's take a look at those maybe.
Life's Too Short
Was really hyped up for this. New Ricky Gervais show. Fake documentary following Warrick Davis, a semi-famous dwarf as he looks for money/fame, settles his divorce, etc, etc. Weird show, really. It's even weirder than it looks when I describe it. It feels like the format of Extras, that is, main character has some sort of opportunity, problem with opportunity arises, celebrity pops in, main character completely blows opportunity. Except now there's like a two phase thing where Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant pop in first and then the celebrity goes through that and it seems pretty dang arbitrary but honestly I don't care. They acknowledge the arbitrariness of it and the similarity to Extras and then just move on to giving you what you want. What's interesting is this weird two-pronged approach to humour with pretty much the extremes of it: you have really nuanced humour based around awkwardness and misunderstanding, and then you've got your main character, who is more of a clownish oaf than David Brent or Andy Millman ever were, and the secretary character is played as like a straight up dumb caricature instead of Maggie, on Extras, who had a lot of “stupid” jokes but still seemed like a real human, and you've got all sorts of physical comedy stuff around him being a dwarf. So I want to say that going for these extremes, with the former situations seeming kinda arbitrary and the latter just the most crude, straight to the gut comedy you can come up with, it seems like pandering, right? So yeah, it is, and I have absolutely no problem with that, because it's hilarious. Also weird though is the heart of it, 'cause Gervais shows are always good for being pretty dang heartfelt and moving at times, but here it seems, I dunno, more just pathetic at times. Like there's not a lot to sympathize with? But we'll see I guess, I've only seen four episodes so far. The other issue I suppose is this whole angle of him being a dwarf and the show dealing with the rights of little people to do anything and not be laughed at for their stature and yet there's a lot of humour that's derived from him being short. But like is that not true equality? To be ridiculed with the knowledge that the ridicule doesn't define you? Like when you make something like that taboo so as not to offend someone, it suggests that that person's identity is so tied up with the taboo subject that joking about it is going to actually offend them as a person? I don't know I don't think I'm expressing this well, and I can't think of good examples off the top of my head, but I think this show hits on something pretty deep here and I'd like to get it into words. There's like five reality shows about little people and they all seem way more exploitative and dehumanizing than this even though this has uh well if you've seen the show you know what it has and if you haven't you should watch it because I sure won't try to describe it.
Louie
Watched the first five or six episodes of this too. Was pretty hyped up for it by friends, press, etc. and it did not let me down. Really funny at times but some stuff I don't like so much. I don't like how the plots vary wildly from outlandish to brutally realistic. Or maybe I do like that I'm not sure. I don't know if I like how much of the humour seems to be about “oh man I can't believe he's being so excited and funny about something so bleak hahaha” and then so much of the poignancy seems to be about “oh man that thing we were just laughing at the idea of laughing at because it was so bleak... welllll daaang it's actually really bleak!!” I dunno hyperbole but you kinda get what I mean? It's still funny and poignant, don't get me wrong, it's just kinda lazy about it sometimes. Like it'll spin the same thing two ways and each way it's really sorta just spinning it as unexpectedly not being spun the other way. Anyways aside from those minor beefs the thing is great. Excellent writing, top-notch acting, hilarious plotlines, great pacing and structuring with the shots from his act, I love it. It's like uh, the other half of Seinfeld that didn't go on with Curb. Do you know what I mean? I don't know if I can explain fully what I mean by that, but think about it.
Music stuff
I have only three tracks I need right now:
-Big Baby Gandhi's “What is Mobile Number”
-The original Bollywood song that was sampled for aforementioned BBG song, “What is Mobile Number”
-Previously unreleased Radiohead track mysteriously uploaded onto /mu/, “Putting Ketchup in the Fridge”. Or something like that.
Books and stuff
I got some real neat stuff at the bookstores a few days ago. Uh let's see:
-A little paperback collection of Joyce containing Chamber Music, Exiles, Dubliners and excerpts of his novels, nice, nice, I think that was two bucks.
-Nice old hardback collection of Kipling's poetry introduced by Eliot from the 40s, I think, also only like two bucks.
-Phoenix volume 2, they had another couple of volumes but they looked a bit beat up, still hoping to track down all of these someday
-A book called “Our Friend James Joyce” written by some friends of James Joyce. Recounts a lot of his early days generally being a baller in Dublin. Fun little read.
-Surely I've bought enough James Joyce stuff today? Hold up there. Hardcover copy of Portrait, circa 196*, with jacket, with some illustrations?!??!!, only like five bucks, cool, cool.
I think that was it. I'm also gathering up a lot of manga and stuff from back home so when I get back to home 2 in Waterloo the great collection will be consolidated for the first time in years. Pretty exciting!!
And that's it that's pretty much the last blog post for 2011.
Look forward to stuff in the new year
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