Ciceronian Review

Time Wasting

I took another look at the Johns Adams series over the weekend.  Another disappointment.  I do not think the acting is bad, but I find the script just dull, and entirely too talky.  The characters were not interesting in the first three episodes, and the story was all in the telling -- not much of anything happened on the screen.  The Constitutional Congress scenes were, for example, awful: speech after speech with no sense of the world around.  I stopped in from time to time on other episodes, and it was always the same.  Didactic speeches and poses struck.  Maybe I just don't care about the characters. 

A good contrast is with Rome, another HBO effort.  There were speeches there too, but the characters did things as well.  The speeches led into events, did not merely recite them.  It as also interesting because there was a greater range of characters, it was not merely the high in conflict with one another.  The Tudors is just the high and mighty prancing about and indulging themselves.  That show is difficult to listen to.  But the clothes are lovely -- I watch every week for the clothing.  But who cares about any of the people; they are so small, metaphorically.  In John Adams, the folk are small in both senses.

All the News

One of the options offered by Directv is an international package.  The basic deal is $10 a month, for a set of four channels.  The spouse wanted to improve her Italian, so we got Italian news.  With it came three other general interest channels.  So now I can watch Indian tv, Korean and Filipino Christian shows -- which make no sense as I know neither language.  (It is not hard to figure out what the point of the show is when there are pictures of Jesus and talk about christ.)  But there is also plenty for the monolingual me -- news in English from German tv and news from South Asia.  Quite interesting -- the news shows are much better than the US  equivalents.  It is weird to get news from tv news.  The stories and analysis are refreshing.  Plus, the translations demonstrate amusing cultural difference.  Last night there was an interview with a French choreographer, who talked about that mysterious art called dance.  Exactly, precisely here, as they say in Italy.  So, I find myself looking for German news shows.  For $10, it is a deal.    

Where Are You Marcus?

I was on the raod recently (a curious expression for lawyers - mostly they are in the air, not driving anywhere).  Hotels encourage televiosn watching, particularly channels one otherwise skips over.  So I saw my first episode of Commander in Chief.  Well, now, Geena Davis is fine - a great performance in Earth Girls Are Easy and The Long Kiss Goodbye.  Commander in Chief sems to have gotten some ciritical notice.  So I watched the whole show, cultural education, etc.  My god,  it was awful.  Awful.  It is shocking how much is paid for such terrible writing. It was painful to watch.  The great speech at the end of the show -- do none of the writers ever listen to speeches?  Has neither Davis nor the director ever watched or listened to a political speech? 

What set this off -- I have been reading Cicero.  In latin.  No, I can't read latin.  In translation. 

Mesmer is the Man

I watch more television when I get downhearted.  There is something encouraging about the mindlessness of television.  I don't mean the reality shows, etc., but the critically acclaimed shows and big productions.  Two examples.  I have been watching on dvr Grey's Anatomy, which has gotten a good deal of praise.  I've seen three or four episodes, and each one provokes the same line of thought:  Why does anyone think any of this is good?  The characters are run of the mill type-casting, the plots are predictable from the time each character appears in each show.

Or take Empire.  Why replace the history with made-up silliness?  The history, as best we can discern it, is a very interesting story.  Octavian was not a handsome athlete, he was a wimpy fat boy.  There is a tremendous amount of sex, of all kinds.  There are great set-piece battles to be played out, and fortuitous heroics turning the tide.  There is social and class conflict and betrayals.  Why muck it up with a ridiculous gladiator plot line? 

I also watched the recent Arthur movie over the weekend.  I love the ending -- announcing that people in Britain will ever after be free says Arthur, as everyone kneels to him as king. 

Mr. Popwell's Problem

Like most of America, I have favored television programming. One of my current interests is a show on FX called Rescue Me, with Denis Leary. The show is, like The Shield, a somewhat realistic look at life in the service industry. Rescue Me is about firefighters (all men thus far) and The Shield is about policemen. But the point is not about the shows themselves, not exactly. Rescue Me has included a number of episodes involving fairly direct depiction of heterosexual sex. The players are either both naked or nearly so, and it is unmistakable that they are having intercourse. Not a first on television, but here is the odd part. While they are having sex, and that is unmistakable, the viewer is spared the horror of exposure to female nipples. So, the female character is naked and fucking away with her hands over her breasts. I find this a bit weird. It would be obscene to display female nipples but not to show people fucking? Are Michael Powell and the FCC really that loopy? I take it the answer is “yes,” as FX must have a reason for this weird sex, and I understand the fine for the tenth of second flash of Janet Jackson’s misshapen nipple is on the order of half a million dollars. (It is amusing that the nipple ring she wore looks very much like an anti-smoking solidarity ring – see a current issue of the New Yorker for an advertisement.)

I was on a quick trip to California by car (for gustatory reasons), and this is the sort of thing one thinks about during the twelve hours.

Gay Texas

Box turtles. I was watching a re-run of the Daily Show last night. Once again it seemed the best news show on the airwaves. Daily Show does not hesitate to show Cheney flip-flops on marriage (I still wonder how is does his daughter feel and why does she campaigns for him. Does no one in that family have any principles beyond aggrandizement?) and just lying. There is plenty of funny stuff about Kerry as well. But last night’s show ran the bit on the proposed Anti-Marriage Amendment, with the comments of Senator Cronyn, likening marriage between gay men or lesbians to marriage to a box turtle. Along the lines: A man marrying a box turtle doesn't hurt you. But if they move in next door, what will you think then, and what to tell the kids?

Once you get past the idiocy of comparing people to turtles, it is an oddly apt metaphor – would permitting marriage between men and box turtles do anything much to heterosexual marriages? Surely no sane person thinks that. But then, the arguments against gay marriage are on par with the other biblical arguments – they all leave it a great mystery why there are no laws against eating shrimp, or serving a ham sandwich with a milkshake. (I have come to realize that God does not hate shrimp – He loves shrimp – the ban on eating shrimp preserves the little guys. There is no getting around how genuinely strange the Judeo-Christian God is.)

It was a weird TV night. Rawls was briefly discussed on the West Wing re-run.