Currently, probably Rick & Morty. In my youth, I was Looney Tunes over Hanna Barbera, especially Roadrunner, Yosemite Sam, and Marvin the Martian.
PROMPT: Cartoon
1
Tag Archives: entertainment
PROMPT: TV Shows
Andy Griffith Show, Carol Burnett Show, Dick Van Dyke Show… wow, they were not creative with names in those days.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Rewatch
No TV series. Though there might be episodes of “Seinfeld” that I’ve seen that many times (but others I may have never seen at all.)
Re: Movies: “Kung Fu Hustle,” “The Matrix” (the first one,) and “Kung Fu Panda” (the first one.) Nothing else comes to mind, but there probably are some. (Back from the days when cable ran the same content over and over.)
Five times is a lot of times to watch the same thing. If it’s really good, it will be too mentally / emotionally draining to watch repeatedly. And if it’s too bad, it will be tedious to do so. It needs to be in the sweet spot of light, but incredibly entertaining.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Rewatched
Movies: The Matrix (1999), Kung Fu Hustle (2004), and – possibly – The Dark Knight (2008) and Inception (2010). [Really, I could watch any Christopher Nolan film more than once (and probably need to in order to fully get them.)]
TV Series: None. I can’t think of a series that I’ve watched more than once — except maybe in reruns as a kid, watching episodes out of sequence and on a hit or miss basis.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
BOOKS: “The Comedians” by Kliph Nesteroff
The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels, and the History of American Comedy by Kliph NesteroffMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Amazon.in Page
This book presents a fascinating history of standup comedy and the various ancillary activities that comedians have taken on to make ends meet, to advance their careers, and – in a surprising number of cases – to pay for drugs — e.g. from writing to radio and television performances to hosting interview shows. The book’s exploration runs from the days of Vuadville to today’s world of Twitter and podcasts.
The book reveals a great deal about which readers may be unaware. If you, like me, watched The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and wondered whether the mob was really that involved in the entertainment industry, turns out, they were. In fact, Nesteroff addresses the violence and threats experienced by comedians in a way that is much more explicit than in that TV show. There are tales of early insult comedians running afoul of wiseguys who were in the audience unbeknownst to the comedian. There is even a chapter devoted to the building of Las Vegas to meet certain needs of organized crime, as well as discussion of the mob’s decline (or, perhaps, legitimization) in the industry.
Another discovery that was interesting to me was how wild some of the early comedians were, both in their stage and in their personal lives. There were a number of names that were familiar to me from re-runs of highly censored network television programs. I’d wrongly assumed that these individuals were as bland and wholesome as their on-air personas. Buddy Hackett is a prime example of someone who wasn’t at all what I expected.
It’s remarkable to see how many ups and down standup comedy has had in its relatively short life span — cycles of boom and bust.
If you’re interested in standup comedy and how comedy has progressed as a form of entertainment in America, I’d highly recommend this book.
View all my reviews
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
Limerick of the Racist TV Exec
A TV executive for the show, Kung Fu, was unsure of just what he should do. Carradine or Lee? Which one should it be? One knows Kung Fu, but Asian, he is too.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Television
“A-Team,” “Knight Rider,” “Taxi,” “The Jeffersons,” “Three’s Company,” etc. With plenty of reruns of “Gilligan’s Island,” “The Andy Griffith Show,” and “I Love Lucy.”
Deep cuts: “The Master” and “Airwolf”
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
BOOK REVIEW: The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction by Nick Groom
The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction by Nick GroomMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Amazon.in Page
Gothicness is the perfect kind of subject for the VSI series because it’s one of those areas about which everybody knows something, and yet knows nothing, really. Goth is [or has been] a people (or some people’s perception of other people,) an architectural style, a literary / cinematic genre, a contemporary lifestyle, and a political motif. Because of this diversity, even people who have a degree of expertise on some aspect of gothicness may have little understanding of other aspects or how these varied forms of gothicness relate (if they do, and – if they don’t — why enough people believe they relate to have made this well-formed, consensus view of connectedness.)
The downside of this diversity is that this book will almost certainly be dry, verging on tedious, at some point in the reading, depending upon one’s interests. For example, I found the portions on Gothic literature and cinema to be fascinating, but the part that dealt with gothicness in Whig politics to be boring. [With the architecture bit somewhere in between.] That said, one needs to follow this throughline to see how so many varied domains came to be Goth. Also, the book is quite short, so one isn’t likely to be bored to death because there’s not enough space spent on any one topic for that to happen.
I learned a lot about what it means to be “Goth” [or “goth”] from reading this book. It covers the history in some detail, but also brings it around to present-day movies and art. If you seek to know more about what “Gothic” means, you should definitely look into this brief guide.
View all my reviews
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
BOOK REVIEW: The Science of The Big Bang Theory by Mark Brake
The Science of The Big Bang Theory: What America’s Favorite Sitcom Can Teach You about Physics, Flags, and the Idiosyncrasies of Scientists by Mark Brake
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The good news is that this book is full of fascinating tidbits from the history of science, the history of science fiction, and the pop culture phenomena that is the television show, “The Big Bang Theory.” The bad news is that it may not at all be the book that you are expecting if you take the title literally. That it’s not the book it seems like it would be could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what your interests and science background are.
Let me explain. Say you are a super-fan of the show with an education in physics and you want to know something like: which Dutch researchers Sheldon thinks Leonard is ripping off and how, or: what the monopoles are that the four male leads go to the North Pole in search of [and why,] you won’t learn anything about those things in this book. You won’t have any more insight about what the scientists on the show – be it Raj Koothrappali to Leslie Winkle — are working on, or what those vaguely referenced scientific terms and discussions mean. You won’t learn about what any of the equations on those dry erase boards mean, and whether it’s gibberish or real science. As I mentioned, this may be a good thing because the topics that are mentioned off-hand on the show are often complex and difficult, e.g. Bose-Einstein Condensates, and most readers would be lost in such discussions. That said, if you are looking for such discussions and clarifications, you absolutely won’t find them in this book.
This book is aimed more at a reader with a high school science education, an interest in science fiction, and who would like to learn some quirky facts about science and science fiction while they are regaled and reminded of fun moments from their favorite episodes of the show. Truth be told, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that this was a collection of essays written long ago, and then the author said something like, “Hey, I have this essay about volcanoes, in episode ___, _____ makes a random comment about volcanoes. I could put some dialogue from that episode at the front of the chapter, sprinkle in a few references to the show in the text of the chapter, and recycle a whole box of columns, putting together a science-pop culture crossover book.”
The 31 chapters are organized into four parts entitled, “Space,” “Time,” “Machine,” and “Monsters,” respectively. That said, organization isn’t the strong-suit of the book. The eight chapters in the “Time” section seem to have more to do with chemistry than time, per se. The “Machine” section does better, but discusses concepts like fire and volcano that are no more connected to that theme than to any of the others. It’s really a disparate collection of essays on various science and science fiction related topics.
I may sound like I’m panning this book, but I enjoyed it, overall. Now, if I’d have shelled out the cover price thinking I was getting the book that the title suggests, I’d be royally cheesed off. So, know what you’re getting and decide accordingly. If you have an interest in the history of science and science fiction, you’ll probably find the book intriguing and worth reading. If you have a high-level understanding of physics and want to learn about the physics they mention in “The Big Bang Theory” television series, you will be sorely disappointed.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
BOOK REVIEW: Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon
Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands by Michael Chabon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book consists of 17 essays about reading and writing. As the book’s title–also the title of the second essay–suggests, there’s an analogy drawn between story and a map, but—more importantly– Chabon proposes that the literary domain is a realm with frontiers and hinterlands. The central theme is that there is room for great discoveries if we stray from the center of the map were all is clear and well-defined. Literary fiction is the center. The hinterlands include a range of genres and approaches to story-telling that are often maligned as low-brow—e.g. fan fiction and comic books.
The book could be split into two parts, though the aforementioned theme cuts across all essays. The first 11 essays offer insight into maligned genres and their merits, but the next five shift gears into autobiographical telling of Chabon’s transformation into a writer. (The last essay, not present in some editions, could be seen as an epilogue to the entire work.) I’ll list the essays and give a hint about what each is about:
-“Trickster in a Suit of Lights”: This essay invites us to reconsider the connection between entertainment and literature, and in particular with respect to the modern short story.
-“Maps and Legends”: Here Chabon reflects upon the nature of a map and its analogy to the domain of fiction.
-“Fan Fictions: On Sherlock Holmes”: Fan fiction is maligned, and not entirely without reason. Even when it achieves great popularity, it’s often bad (e.g. “Fifty Shades…”) However, Chabon correctly suggests that we consider fan fiction too narrowly, including only that which reinforces our notions. He offers a great example of a character, Sherlock Holmes, who launched a thousand fan fictions, some of which are masterpieces in their own right.
-“Ragnarok Boy”: Mythology often seems tired and cliché, but there are reasons such stories survive across ages. Chabon explores what it is in Norse mythology that makes it an ongoing font of inspiration for writers.
-“On Daemons & Dust”: For a while, YA was the only genre with rising sales–much to the chagrin of those who felt this might herald the rise of a real world idiocracy. In this essay, Chabon describes what it is about Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” series of fantasy books that pulls readers in—including the appeal of dark elements in stories.
-“Kids Stuff”: In this essay, Chabon considers the comic book and its evolution from kids’ stuff to a vast domain meant to appeal to a broad readership.
-“The Killer Hook”: This essay continues Chabon’s look at comic books, but through a specific example: “American Flagg!” a dystopian sci-fi comic book. Chabon proposes that “American Flagg!” spawned a new approach to comic book art and tone.
-“Dark Adventure”: This is about Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road.” Some topics are revisited, such as the appeal of dark and dystopian content. [For those unfamiliar, “The Road” is the story of a father and son wandering through a post-apocalyptic wasteland in search of some sort of stable community. McCarthy is the master of sparse prose, eschewing dialogue tags and maintaining a minimalist approach to his craft.
-“The Other James”: Here Chabon discusses the ghost story, using M.R. James’ story “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” as an exemplar.
-“The Landsman of the Lost”: Chabon discusses the comic strip work of Ben Katchor.
-“Thoughts on the Death of Will Eisner”: Eisner was a popular cartoonist, associated with such comic books as, “The Spirit.”
-“My Back Pages”: Here the book ventures into autobiographical territory as Chabon talks about his first dalliances with writing a novel.
-“Diving into the Wreck”: This continues Chabon’s telling of how he came to be a writer, and his early troubles in structuring a novel.
-“The Recipe for Life”: Here Chabon tells us about his introduction to Golems, a concept that would play an important role in one of his most influential works—an in the rest of the book. You’ll note the connection between fantastical devices and the telling of story that carries over from the first part.
-“Imaginary Homelands”: Chabon describes the role that is played by culture in forming a writer’s experience—both the culture one is living in and the cultural heritage that we each carry with us wherever we may roam.
-“Golems I Have Known”: This is one of the longer pieces and it presents the climax of Chabon’s tale of his transformation into a novelist. Golems as fictitious creatures built to facilitate certain truths are a central feature around which Chabon’s story is told.
-“Secret Skin”: [Note: This essay didn’t appear in the initial version of the book, and so your edition might not have it.] This essay invites the reader to reconsider the role that costumes and secret identities play for superheroes and how that need resonates with readers. In the process, this last essay sums up the reason why fantastical elements are so powerful in fiction.
There are only few graphics in the book, i.e. comic panels. Other than that there’s not much by way of ancillary matter, though there are recommended readings (oddly) interspersed within the index—rather than being a separate section.
I’d recommend this book for readers and writers. The essays are well-crafted and thought-provoking.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 