"One, two, three, four": Morning Calisthenics
Philip Roth's "Everyman" is the best book I have read this year. Though the subject matter regarding an old man looking back on his life may put some off, this is some of his best writing, if not his best. I found the novel more engaging than the recent "The Plot Against America", which was also outstanding.
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Does anyone actually sit down and watch local/network news anymore? Ten to fifteen minutes on the computer gives you several times more useful, relevant, and honest news of the day than one hour watching the local car crashes and domestic violence disputes, along with endless weather teasers and updates, then sitting through 22 minutes of the day's "Big Stories" which have been copycatted by all of the broadcast networks.
The internet has meant freedom. And in terms of daily news, it means freedom from watching, on the local news, whatever gruesome car crashes happened on 95 and 295 in the last twenty four hours, as well as viewing endless perk walks of endless criminals. Nationally, the major networks news divisions are increasingly becoming irrelevant. They may have more dollars to throw at a story, but rarely do they report accurately and honestly, as the beer, car, and drug companies that pay their bills act as Big Brother.
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"Man Bites Dog" on Comedy Central is an example of a promising yet uneven new show that none of the Big Four networks would touch due to its edgy humor. The first three episodes have been pretty entertaining. Hopefully the characters will grow into their roles in time and there will be less "Hey, can I get the network to pay for my Spank-O-Vision in my hotel room last night?" kind of humor that's been done to death.
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Another show worth watching is HBO's "Entourage". Not that this is any newsflash after the multimillion dollar publicity campaign launched in anticipation of Season 3. But it's a show where no one gets whacked, no one gets any incurable diseases, no one whispers to dead people or horses: just a nice 25 or so minutes spent in the company of some pretty fun and decent guys living something of a fantasy life. Though now that Vincent is the "biggest movie star on the planet", according to Ari, I wonder where the writers will take the show. Doesn't seem to be much room to manuever once you've had the biggest opening weekend in (fake) movie history with James (Jim?) Cameron's "Aquaman". And Kevin Dillon is worth tuning in all by himself. Gotta love the Drama.
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Does anyone actually sit down and watch local/network news anymore? Ten to fifteen minutes on the computer gives you several times more useful, relevant, and honest news of the day than one hour watching the local car crashes and domestic violence disputes, along with endless weather teasers and updates, then sitting through 22 minutes of the day's "Big Stories" which have been copycatted by all of the broadcast networks.
The internet has meant freedom. And in terms of daily news, it means freedom from watching, on the local news, whatever gruesome car crashes happened on 95 and 295 in the last twenty four hours, as well as viewing endless perk walks of endless criminals. Nationally, the major networks news divisions are increasingly becoming irrelevant. They may have more dollars to throw at a story, but rarely do they report accurately and honestly, as the beer, car, and drug companies that pay their bills act as Big Brother.
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"Man Bites Dog" on Comedy Central is an example of a promising yet uneven new show that none of the Big Four networks would touch due to its edgy humor. The first three episodes have been pretty entertaining. Hopefully the characters will grow into their roles in time and there will be less "Hey, can I get the network to pay for my Spank-O-Vision in my hotel room last night?" kind of humor that's been done to death.
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Another show worth watching is HBO's "Entourage". Not that this is any newsflash after the multimillion dollar publicity campaign launched in anticipation of Season 3. But it's a show where no one gets whacked, no one gets any incurable diseases, no one whispers to dead people or horses: just a nice 25 or so minutes spent in the company of some pretty fun and decent guys living something of a fantasy life. Though now that Vincent is the "biggest movie star on the planet", according to Ari, I wonder where the writers will take the show. Doesn't seem to be much room to manuever once you've had the biggest opening weekend in (fake) movie history with James (Jim?) Cameron's "Aquaman". And Kevin Dillon is worth tuning in all by himself. Gotta love the Drama.
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posted by joe sweeney at 9:56 AM
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