Ok, so my writings are never going to be full reviews of the show. I'm just going to pick one or two particular things each week and talk about them as if I'm morally offended by the depiction of my generation. Mwua ha ha!
So this week it will be Marnie and Marnie + Booth Jonathan.
1.) First off, who the fuck cries over HPV? As Gawker so perfectly points out, over 50% of human adults have it. And who the fuck cries when their friend calls them with news like that? Even if your friend calls with crabs, chlamydia, or a baby, you still don't fucking cry. You just don't. It's totally dick and might make them feel worse. Unless it's bed bugs. That is worth crying over/defriending on Facebook, and it is never appropriate to joke about (ahem, my sister).
2.) Why the fuck don't the rest of the ladies go to Marnie's art show party. Honestly, this is the most fun part about living in New York: Free booze and knowing that you will never be dressed the craziest of all the people in a visible radius. It's like a frat party for adults. And jeezus that is a sparsely attended opening; even UES openings do better.
3.) Marnie + Booth: WTF Booth, really? Okay, I can't comment on sleeping with or even considering my fellow artists. But for those of you who find them appealing, I'll concede that the swagger of the artist has its appeal. God knows that's why people dig me!
Anyways, How is "give less of a fuck" not a "go away?" How did they jump from that awkwardness at the gallery to dancing off to the High Line and how did they not have enough sexual tension adrenaline to climb the High Line and fuck among the tiny fairies that I once hallucinated there? (On a minor note, that gallery looks more LES than Chelsea).
AND THEN! the worst thing ever was said: “I want you to know, the first time I fuck you, I might scare you a little, because I’m a man, and I know how to do things.” My successful artist/architecture mid-20s fashionable roommate and I both agree that shiite like that would make us instantly lose our cloner (clit boner). That's like announcing to the world that you fuck like you have a big dick (and don't.) Even those that have a big dick shouldn't fuck this way.
On a related note, why would Booth Jonathan want to seduce Marnie in the first place? She's a attractive girl, but she isn't a gallery owner or anyone important. She can't advance his career, and he seems like the type of guy who bed hops solely for that purpose. Ok, so maybe he wants a quickie fling, but then why doesn't he do her right there? Or at the hourly motel around west 14th? Or among the fairies that live on the High Line?
Monday, April 30, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
OMG Vulture, you read my mind
So, I go to Vulture last night and what do I find? An article titled "When did you realize tv could be art?"
Hollaback girl! I was stoked just reading the title. This is what I set out to accomplish - convincing the world that some tv shows are better than most of the shiite I see in the Chelsea. And they (tv shows) reach a larger audience, have a bigger impact, respond to and critique culture better than the Chelsea shiite. I was even more excited to read the article, Seitz claiming that the "refusal to tell [him] who to root for" is what made him realize Hill Street Blues is art, not tv. I've never seen HSB, but I have seen The Wire, and I had the same reaction for precisely the same reason.
Have you ever read Diderot on aesthetics? He was critiquing art during the Rococo movement and he hated how meaninglessly ornate it was. He compared it to a bad play which uses plot twists for shock value but are ultimately vapid. Good art, like good theater, should be more about the the slow and purposeful cultivation of an idea. Diderot really liked painters like Greuze, where even the smallest details supported the immersion of the subject in a particular moment: the mother listening to the Bible is so absorbed she neglects her unraveling sleeve, the pot on the stove, her unruly child. (Ok, these paintings are mad cheesy, and Greuze was never a good artist. But can't you see where Diderot's going with this? Good narrative art cannot rely on spectacle)
I think I must have been devouring all five seasons of The Wire at the same time I was watching Seasons 4 and 5 of Lost, and the contrast is the two shows is telling. It was around Season 4 when I really started getting frustrated with Lost, not solely because they didn't resolve any "mysteries" but also because they sacrificed character development for sensationalist but meaningless plot twists and turns. (Like when Kate was on a boat headed home and then she turns back for Sawyer or Jack, I don't remember which one - see I can't even keep the characters straight).
The Wire never sacrificed characters for plot. Characters felt believable all the way to the end of the series. (Fuck that, just to the end of Season 4. Season 5 was kinda shiite and not just because I have a personal dislike of journalists). There were no good guys or bad guys like in typical cops shows, everyone was equally flawed and redeemable. (And the balance of good and bad wasn't cheesy and predictable like in that awful fucking kitsch shit movie "Crash.") They could believably change and grow as characters. Ellis Carver in seasons 3 and 4. Pryzbylewski in season 1. They changed in reaction to the plot and events in their lives. In Lost, the character's personalities changed just because they needed to make something sensationalist happen and so they did random shiite that was supposed to make our jaws drop. Yeah, that wasn't my jaw hitting the floor, that was my faith in the writing.
But the Wire didn't fuck up like that. Give me the Wire over Jeff Koons any day.
Hollaback girl! I was stoked just reading the title. This is what I set out to accomplish - convincing the world that some tv shows are better than most of the shiite I see in the Chelsea. And they (tv shows) reach a larger audience, have a bigger impact, respond to and critique culture better than the Chelsea shiite. I was even more excited to read the article, Seitz claiming that the "refusal to tell [him] who to root for" is what made him realize Hill Street Blues is art, not tv. I've never seen HSB, but I have seen The Wire, and I had the same reaction for precisely the same reason.
Have you ever read Diderot on aesthetics? He was critiquing art during the Rococo movement and he hated how meaninglessly ornate it was. He compared it to a bad play which uses plot twists for shock value but are ultimately vapid. Good art, like good theater, should be more about the the slow and purposeful cultivation of an idea. Diderot really liked painters like Greuze, where even the smallest details supported the immersion of the subject in a particular moment: the mother listening to the Bible is so absorbed she neglects her unraveling sleeve, the pot on the stove, her unruly child. (Ok, these paintings are mad cheesy, and Greuze was never a good artist. But can't you see where Diderot's going with this? Good narrative art cannot rely on spectacle)
I think I must have been devouring all five seasons of The Wire at the same time I was watching Seasons 4 and 5 of Lost, and the contrast is the two shows is telling. It was around Season 4 when I really started getting frustrated with Lost, not solely because they didn't resolve any "mysteries" but also because they sacrificed character development for sensationalist but meaningless plot twists and turns. (Like when Kate was on a boat headed home and then she turns back for Sawyer or Jack, I don't remember which one - see I can't even keep the characters straight).
The Wire never sacrificed characters for plot. Characters felt believable all the way to the end of the series. (Fuck that, just to the end of Season 4. Season 5 was kinda shiite and not just because I have a personal dislike of journalists). There were no good guys or bad guys like in typical cops shows, everyone was equally flawed and redeemable. (And the balance of good and bad wasn't cheesy and predictable like in that awful fucking kitsch shit movie "Crash.") They could believably change and grow as characters. Ellis Carver in seasons 3 and 4. Pryzbylewski in season 1. They changed in reaction to the plot and events in their lives. In Lost, the character's personalities changed just because they needed to make something sensationalist happen and so they did random shiite that was supposed to make our jaws drop. Yeah, that wasn't my jaw hitting the floor, that was my faith in the writing.
But the Wire didn't fuck up like that. Give me the Wire over Jeff Koons any day.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Mad Men: My grievances with the dream sequences this season
Sometimes I think Mad Men just tries too hard to be artsy.
For example, those fucking dream sequences. (So I haven't seen The Sopranos, which apparently makes stellar use of dream sequences). But for the most part, those in MM are melodramatic and add nothing to the story. We already knew Betty was afraid of dying, I don't need to see that cheesy dream sequence with the table and the Sally and the mother-in-law to tell me that. (Why are they even trying to make me feel sorry for Betty at this point? More on that later).
Well, I liked Don's fever dream in which the rejects, fucks, and kills Andrea (fuck chuck or marry, anyone?), but they follow this horror immediately with the ever glowing heaven-sent Megan. All is well with the world! For Seitan's sake, where's the anxiety of seasons 1 and 2? Where's the falling existential man? This guy is slaying his demons and being rewarded with a beautiful French Canadian. Fuck that. Is it just me, or did anyone else fall in love with Don because he was was soo flawed and sauve? He's everything our protestant culture tells us is wrong but he is so successful. Even being connected with him is wrong and titillating. I loved that moment he strangles Andrea. I think I watched the episode twice and said both times said "I'd pay to be her." But, MM writers, I want to wonder if the whole encounter were real or not. Let me not know whether or not Don is over his hedonism. Jeezus, did you not understand why Inception was successful? Answers are boring.* When all is revealed, I am at peace. Good art never leaves the viewer at peace.
That being said, I did really enjoy MM's chronological fuckery in "Far and Away." Playing with hierarchy of information totally gets me off, and mad props to you MM team. I might bitch and moan a lot, but that's only because it's more fun to complain than praise.
More on "Far and Away"....
I still like Peggy's trajectory and how it is mirrored in Jane and Megan. Maybe art is one of the last industries where it is still possible to sleep your way to the top (for men and women). My personal experience: When I try to be masculine and narcissistic, I fail. My voice still goes higher and cracks when I get angry. FML, I can never be a Don (neither can Peggy). And then I think "maybe I should play up my feminity. Just sleep with the Boss to get ahead." There's Jane, who uses sex to get the lifestyle she wants - the glamour, the intellectual friends, time to pursue shit that's not secretarial work (I hear you girl!). But she's bored. And then there's Megan, who uses sex to get a job and a career, but her benefactor doesn't respect her aspirations. So many times I have tried to use sex appeal to get a sale or residency and only been approached with proposals of dates (not sales). It's fucking demoralizing. Poor Megan. She is quickly becoming my favorite - relying on Don for her career but he also gets in the way.
(I won't rant about the annoyance of being female in a male dominated world now. I do want to hint at the fact that most male artists are either cads or too scared of girls....)
Anyways, good work, writers of Mad Men, for "Far and Away." Your dream sequences are still kitsch though. But I guess your decisions are still SOL for this season.
*Yo, writers of Lost. Your answers are not boring. and you didn't give me enough.
For example, those fucking dream sequences. (So I haven't seen The Sopranos, which apparently makes stellar use of dream sequences). But for the most part, those in MM are melodramatic and add nothing to the story. We already knew Betty was afraid of dying, I don't need to see that cheesy dream sequence with the table and the Sally and the mother-in-law to tell me that. (Why are they even trying to make me feel sorry for Betty at this point? More on that later).
Well, I liked Don's fever dream in which the rejects, fucks, and kills Andrea (fuck chuck or marry, anyone?), but they follow this horror immediately with the ever glowing heaven-sent Megan. All is well with the world! For Seitan's sake, where's the anxiety of seasons 1 and 2? Where's the falling existential man? This guy is slaying his demons and being rewarded with a beautiful French Canadian. Fuck that. Is it just me, or did anyone else fall in love with Don because he was was soo flawed and sauve? He's everything our protestant culture tells us is wrong but he is so successful. Even being connected with him is wrong and titillating. I loved that moment he strangles Andrea. I think I watched the episode twice and said both times said "I'd pay to be her." But, MM writers, I want to wonder if the whole encounter were real or not. Let me not know whether or not Don is over his hedonism. Jeezus, did you not understand why Inception was successful? Answers are boring.* When all is revealed, I am at peace. Good art never leaves the viewer at peace.
That being said, I did really enjoy MM's chronological fuckery in "Far and Away." Playing with hierarchy of information totally gets me off, and mad props to you MM team. I might bitch and moan a lot, but that's only because it's more fun to complain than praise.
More on "Far and Away"....
I still like Peggy's trajectory and how it is mirrored in Jane and Megan. Maybe art is one of the last industries where it is still possible to sleep your way to the top (for men and women). My personal experience: When I try to be masculine and narcissistic, I fail. My voice still goes higher and cracks when I get angry. FML, I can never be a Don (neither can Peggy). And then I think "maybe I should play up my feminity. Just sleep with the Boss to get ahead." There's Jane, who uses sex to get the lifestyle she wants - the glamour, the intellectual friends, time to pursue shit that's not secretarial work (I hear you girl!). But she's bored. And then there's Megan, who uses sex to get a job and a career, but her benefactor doesn't respect her aspirations. So many times I have tried to use sex appeal to get a sale or residency and only been approached with proposals of dates (not sales). It's fucking demoralizing. Poor Megan. She is quickly becoming my favorite - relying on Don for her career but he also gets in the way.
(I won't rant about the annoyance of being female in a male dominated world now. I do want to hint at the fact that most male artists are either cads or too scared of girls....)
Anyways, good work, writers of Mad Men, for "Far and Away." Your dream sequences are still kitsch though. But I guess your decisions are still SOL for this season.
*Yo, writers of Lost. Your answers are not boring. and you didn't give me enough.
Girls: Hannah, Adam, and sex in the outer burroughs
Okay, so let's start by saying I totally identify with HBO's "Girls." I don't see myself in any of the characters because thank Seitan I am not 24 anymore. But, being a starving artist in Brooklyn for the last 5 years, I have been in some of their circumstances and so I can sympathize.
So this post is about Hannah + Adam. I read a lot of blogs regarding this show, but I wanna first give my initial, biased view of this particular situation and its plausibility. (My experiences in this post concern events from May 2010 to October 2011 - NOT anyone current or recent.)
1.) A lot of bloggers wonder what Hannah sees in Adam because he gets free money and doesn't have a job. Who the fuck has a job nowadays? Aside from the economy being shiite, isn't that why my peers and I moved to New York - to not have a job. We want to be the bohemian hipsters of Rent - stealing electricity, living off ramen, vodka, and art. Adam embodies that spirit and, plus, he doesn't have to be a waiter to pay the bills. That's the fucking dream. Who wouldn't want to date a guy that has all that going for him? Who doesn't want to be that guy? I mean, in reality Adam is pathetic and will never be a successful carpenter/actor, but the idea of him is cool.
2.) A lot of bloggers wonder why Hannah puts up with Adam's romantic aloofness. It's because it fits her character. Who works at an unpaid internship for that long? I realize New York is a super dick about making you work for free before hiring you, but a year is just ridiculous. And a six page memoir that's probably double-spaced? Where's the fucking effort? And where's the Fucking effort? What makes viewers think she would work any harder at a meaningful relationship than she does at her job or career or sex life. And what makes you think that she deserves a Charlie-esque character swooping in and rescuing her from her sad sack existence. So deal with it for now that of course she has a thing like Adam. Most girls have or have had that. And then we grow up.
3.) Don't get me wrong, Adam is a terrible nonboyfriend/fuckbuddy. But he's also a pretty accurate depiction of what is out there in the Williamsburg/Greenpoint/Bushwick. There is a pervasive mentality about hipster boys that "any kind of commitment is too much like marriage and I can't take the pressure/expectations." A lot of girls I know don't really want commitment either, or at least not right away. We'd rather focus on our careers over dating. But the boys we date think that we are in love with them and they have to be mean or neglectful so we don't get too attached. So suddenly returning a text in an appropriate amount of time becomes "too much commitment." But really we just need to fit you into our schedules. It's sad and frustrating, but it's all there is in those hipster burroughs. So you are just constantly being treated like shit. I'm pretty sure Charlie is a figment of all their imaginations. Or really bad in bed.
4.) I have words to say about the whole weird fetish thing. This role playing seemed a little half-assed. Most fetishes I know would not be satisfied with meh. And that was meh. Of all the aspects of Adam's character, this is the one I find most unbelievable. To really have a fetish takes some awareness of your sexuality, and I don't believe his character has that.
So why girls like Hannah do this? Why do we move to New York where jobs are hard to get and most 20 year old boys aren't worth it? Because we all want to be Carrie Bradshaw. We all want to live this fabulous life and fuck fabulous boys and go to fabulous fucking parties. We think that at some point we can make our square reality into this sparkly, circle-shaped fantasy. Fuck you SATC. While you may have taught me that it's okay to enjoy sex and talk about his penis size with your girlfriends, you didn't tell me how hard it was to have an orgasm. Or to even get a guy to ask you out. Or to afford an apartment in the City. Fuck you Carrie Bradshaw; you gave up and got married.
So this post is about Hannah + Adam. I read a lot of blogs regarding this show, but I wanna first give my initial, biased view of this particular situation and its plausibility. (My experiences in this post concern events from May 2010 to October 2011 - NOT anyone current or recent.)
1.) A lot of bloggers wonder what Hannah sees in Adam because he gets free money and doesn't have a job. Who the fuck has a job nowadays? Aside from the economy being shiite, isn't that why my peers and I moved to New York - to not have a job. We want to be the bohemian hipsters of Rent - stealing electricity, living off ramen, vodka, and art. Adam embodies that spirit and, plus, he doesn't have to be a waiter to pay the bills. That's the fucking dream. Who wouldn't want to date a guy that has all that going for him? Who doesn't want to be that guy? I mean, in reality Adam is pathetic and will never be a successful carpenter/actor, but the idea of him is cool.
2.) A lot of bloggers wonder why Hannah puts up with Adam's romantic aloofness. It's because it fits her character. Who works at an unpaid internship for that long? I realize New York is a super dick about making you work for free before hiring you, but a year is just ridiculous. And a six page memoir that's probably double-spaced? Where's the fucking effort? And where's the Fucking effort? What makes viewers think she would work any harder at a meaningful relationship than she does at her job or career or sex life. And what makes you think that she deserves a Charlie-esque character swooping in and rescuing her from her sad sack existence. So deal with it for now that of course she has a thing like Adam. Most girls have or have had that. And then we grow up.
3.) Don't get me wrong, Adam is a terrible nonboyfriend/fuckbuddy. But he's also a pretty accurate depiction of what is out there in the Williamsburg/Greenpoint/Bushwick. There is a pervasive mentality about hipster boys that "any kind of commitment is too much like marriage and I can't take the pressure/expectations." A lot of girls I know don't really want commitment either, or at least not right away. We'd rather focus on our careers over dating. But the boys we date think that we are in love with them and they have to be mean or neglectful so we don't get too attached. So suddenly returning a text in an appropriate amount of time becomes "too much commitment." But really we just need to fit you into our schedules. It's sad and frustrating, but it's all there is in those hipster burroughs. So you are just constantly being treated like shit. I'm pretty sure Charlie is a figment of all their imaginations. Or really bad in bed.
4.) I have words to say about the whole weird fetish thing. This role playing seemed a little half-assed. Most fetishes I know would not be satisfied with meh. And that was meh. Of all the aspects of Adam's character, this is the one I find most unbelievable. To really have a fetish takes some awareness of your sexuality, and I don't believe his character has that.
So why girls like Hannah do this? Why do we move to New York where jobs are hard to get and most 20 year old boys aren't worth it? Because we all want to be Carrie Bradshaw. We all want to live this fabulous life and fuck fabulous boys and go to fabulous fucking parties. We think that at some point we can make our square reality into this sparkly, circle-shaped fantasy. Fuck you SATC. While you may have taught me that it's okay to enjoy sex and talk about his penis size with your girlfriends, you didn't tell me how hard it was to have an orgasm. Or to even get a guy to ask you out. Or to afford an apartment in the City. Fuck you Carrie Bradshaw; you gave up and got married.
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