It's been a pretty eventful week or two, what with the holidays, working on my documentary, getting a super surprising late holiday bonus, having someone steal my identity and purchase an $1100 plane ticket and all...but nothing compared to the sight, one hour ago, of my NYC driver's license being unceremoniously plunged into a shredder at the local DC DMV. Before my very eyes! Jesus, can't they build a private room for that, or give me a warning at the very least, so I could take a moment to shield my eyes? And how about one last visit with my NYC license? Oh, the humanity. I'll never impress an overzealous DC doorman again.
Why would I do something as outlandish as trade in my NYC license for its desultory DC cousin? Because DC is the kind of over-bureaucratic pseudo city that makes you jump through about 5 gazillion hoops to park a car on the street while meanwhile the murder rate skyrockets and half the city burns. Why can't I just park my car in front of my house with NJ plates and a NY license? Who the hell knows. Probably for the same reason you can't find anything to eat after 10pm. Ugh. Don't get me started.
Anyway, without further ado, a few observations from my attempts to score a DC driver's license:
1. I'm honestly not sure what's worse: the seriously misplaced over-popularity/snarling traffic en route to the Georgetown DMV branch (honestly, what the hell is so desirable about Georgetown? The Banana Republic?) or the what-country-am-I-in/better lock the doors/snarling traffic en route to the Brentwood DMV. A friend once remarked that DC is either white and boring or black and scary, and I think he makes a fine point - though, truth be told, the Brentwood DMV isn't at all scary.
2. The Brentwood DMV is, however, located in a strip mall.
3. I had to pay $6 to park at the Georgetown DMV, which proved way too busy to actually enter. Thus, I paid six bucks to duck my head into the DMV and take a quick look around. Unreal.
4. Several people were actually sleeping on the floor of the Georgetown DMV.
5. While in line (outside) at Brentwood, I was privy to a fascinating debate regarding whether teens are crueler to their elders in Mississippi or North Carolina. It seems Mississippi takes the cake. In fact, NC was met with derisive chuckles, as "that ain't even the South."
6. The supremely hefty security guard in Brentwood invited the line to try and get past him, claiming he could take us all on at once (no doubt).
7. The license itself is so garish, I first thought they'd actually handed me a glow stick. I haven't seen anything this over-wrought since the last time I strolled through the "new" Columbia Heights. Wait, I think I see a cranny where they could still fit another piece of calligraphy.
8. If I knew checking "donor" would result in an outlandish red heart straight out of 1980s-era Clip Art appearing on my drivers license, I wouldn't have bothered.
9. I swear to God, one of life's great pleasures is sitting next to an elderly black gentleman, trading shitty stories about the DMV, then getting to shake my head and utter the phrase, "It's always something." I haven't connected with the black community like that since the last time I pretended not to be Jewish.
10. While in line, the woman behind me remarked that she "liked this place a hell of a lot better when it sold ribs." Yes, in DC the DMV was once a bbq rib takeout joint.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Monday, December 17, 2007
Thursday, December 13, 2007
The Sound and the Fury
First of all, who reads Faulkner for fun? I figured if I managed to miss The Sound and the Fury during middle school, high school, and 4 years of a pseudo-English minor in college, then I was totally in the clear. The book certainly had a way of lurking out there, taunting me from its place on my theoretical Books I Should Probably Read shelf, nestled between Ulysses and Moby Dick. And I was pretty much happy to let it sit there forever, beckoning, but not too loudly.
Then my book club read The Road (no, not Oprah's book club, just a coincidence), which I found to be utterly devastating and brilliant in a way too emotional to pick apart/analyze at book club (and in fact, our meeting was oddly combative). The Road left me feeling stunned, in a "you know, that was probably one of the greatest artistic achievements I'll ever encounter" sort of way, which of course lead directly into "so where do I go from here?"
Enter Faulkner, who happened to get quite a bit of play during our meeting, some of the more intellectual members of the group depicting McCarthy's style as a perfect combination of high and low art, the former of which they felt was most evocative of Faulkner. I sat there sipping my wine, nodding learnedly, searching my brain for any leftover insights from As I Lay Dying. Nada.
I got back to DC looking for my next read and was coincidentally directed to the copy of Sound and Fury on my girlfriend's bookshelf. Alright, why not? Cut to two days later and I'm slogging through the first section like your average Washingtonian attempting to find a decent restaurant. This was easily one of the most challenging things I've attempted to read in a really, really, really long time. I could barely figure out who was who, what they were talking about, or why I was supposed to care. But I hung in there, reminding myself "it's the Great American novel, it's the Great American novel, it's the Great American novel." I tried reading at my desk, in bed, on the couch, on the bus, at Baja Fresh, on the train...nothing helped. And still, old Bill wouldn't throw me a bone. Who's white? Who's black? What year is this? What the hell is going on? Why are there 2 Quentins? Why is there Caddy the sister and Caddies who work on the golf course? Is this all just a case of showing off or...well, what?
I confess, dear reader, that during one particular dark moment, I sunk so low as to Google "sound and fury characters." It was not my proudest hour.
(What was my proudest hour, you ask? I'd say attending the NPR holiday party, being asked what I was currently reading, and fishing The Sound and the Fury out of my coat pocket. Now who's the intellectual, sucka?)
But I stuck with it, finally completing the opening Benjy section in a wide-eyed stupor of determination. At which point I put the book down, half expecting someone to wrap me in tin foil and hand me a Gatorade. Instead there was only my girlfriend, asking me why I was making so much noise. Somewhere along the line it dawned on me that, though very tough to read, this section is an outlandishly brilliant depiction of how the mind of a mentally-challenged person might function. The way that inanimate objects are perceived to move to and fro, just like people, and the way one's self is perceived in a sort of third-person way, as if lacking a sense of self...I mean, this is stuff is a real insight, on another level really, I think.
Then it was on to section 2, Quentin, whose non-retarded narration hit me like a foot massage after 4 hours of holiday shopping. There wasn't an italic for pages, and it finally, slowly, all started to come together. By the end of this section, I was riveted. (Off topic aside: this is the second difficult book that came together in my brain due in large part to sections being set in Boston, whose geography I know well from college. The first was Infinite Jest. If I were smarter, I could write something interesting on this phenomenon. No doubt.). Within a matter of pages, I went from not being able to even remotely tell the characters apart, to being actually interested in what was happening to them. That's no small feat. Give it a try some time. (Off topic aside #2: this also happens to represent the trump card of my In Defense of Sly Stallone argument. Go home and try writing Rocky in three days. Seriously, give it a go. You want Stallone and Faulkner? Only at Thirty is the New Sixty.).
It occurs to me suddenly that this post would have been much more satisfying had I waited until finishing the book. As it stands, I've just begun the 4th and final section, but I can tell you it's riveting and worth the initial effort. After the Road, I doubt I'd have been impressed by much. It's sort of like living in NYC, then moving to DC. Everything just feels unspectacular. But Faulkner's hanging in there. I'm really, really looking forward to picking up the book a little later, and think I might even forgo disc 3 of The Wire (season 4) in favor of reading, if you can believe such a thing. I'm really excited to get back to it...and, to paraphrase and old classic saying, "Those who can't write, read."
(Oh, might as well end with a little Woody Allen. Why not? "Those who can't do, teach. And those who can't teach, teach gym." Man, that's rich.)
Then my book club read The Road (no, not Oprah's book club, just a coincidence), which I found to be utterly devastating and brilliant in a way too emotional to pick apart/analyze at book club (and in fact, our meeting was oddly combative). The Road left me feeling stunned, in a "you know, that was probably one of the greatest artistic achievements I'll ever encounter" sort of way, which of course lead directly into "so where do I go from here?"
Enter Faulkner, who happened to get quite a bit of play during our meeting, some of the more intellectual members of the group depicting McCarthy's style as a perfect combination of high and low art, the former of which they felt was most evocative of Faulkner. I sat there sipping my wine, nodding learnedly, searching my brain for any leftover insights from As I Lay Dying. Nada.
I got back to DC looking for my next read and was coincidentally directed to the copy of Sound and Fury on my girlfriend's bookshelf. Alright, why not? Cut to two days later and I'm slogging through the first section like your average Washingtonian attempting to find a decent restaurant. This was easily one of the most challenging things I've attempted to read in a really, really, really long time. I could barely figure out who was who, what they were talking about, or why I was supposed to care. But I hung in there, reminding myself "it's the Great American novel, it's the Great American novel, it's the Great American novel." I tried reading at my desk, in bed, on the couch, on the bus, at Baja Fresh, on the train...nothing helped. And still, old Bill wouldn't throw me a bone. Who's white? Who's black? What year is this? What the hell is going on? Why are there 2 Quentins? Why is there Caddy the sister and Caddies who work on the golf course? Is this all just a case of showing off or...well, what?
I confess, dear reader, that during one particular dark moment, I sunk so low as to Google "sound and fury characters." It was not my proudest hour.
(What was my proudest hour, you ask? I'd say attending the NPR holiday party, being asked what I was currently reading, and fishing The Sound and the Fury out of my coat pocket. Now who's the intellectual, sucka?)
But I stuck with it, finally completing the opening Benjy section in a wide-eyed stupor of determination. At which point I put the book down, half expecting someone to wrap me in tin foil and hand me a Gatorade. Instead there was only my girlfriend, asking me why I was making so much noise. Somewhere along the line it dawned on me that, though very tough to read, this section is an outlandishly brilliant depiction of how the mind of a mentally-challenged person might function. The way that inanimate objects are perceived to move to and fro, just like people, and the way one's self is perceived in a sort of third-person way, as if lacking a sense of self...I mean, this is stuff is a real insight, on another level really, I think.
Then it was on to section 2, Quentin, whose non-retarded narration hit me like a foot massage after 4 hours of holiday shopping. There wasn't an italic for pages, and it finally, slowly, all started to come together. By the end of this section, I was riveted. (Off topic aside: this is the second difficult book that came together in my brain due in large part to sections being set in Boston, whose geography I know well from college. The first was Infinite Jest. If I were smarter, I could write something interesting on this phenomenon. No doubt.). Within a matter of pages, I went from not being able to even remotely tell the characters apart, to being actually interested in what was happening to them. That's no small feat. Give it a try some time. (Off topic aside #2: this also happens to represent the trump card of my In Defense of Sly Stallone argument. Go home and try writing Rocky in three days. Seriously, give it a go. You want Stallone and Faulkner? Only at Thirty is the New Sixty.).
It occurs to me suddenly that this post would have been much more satisfying had I waited until finishing the book. As it stands, I've just begun the 4th and final section, but I can tell you it's riveting and worth the initial effort. After the Road, I doubt I'd have been impressed by much. It's sort of like living in NYC, then moving to DC. Everything just feels unspectacular. But Faulkner's hanging in there. I'm really, really looking forward to picking up the book a little later, and think I might even forgo disc 3 of The Wire (season 4) in favor of reading, if you can believe such a thing. I'm really excited to get back to it...and, to paraphrase and old classic saying, "Those who can't write, read."
(Oh, might as well end with a little Woody Allen. Why not? "Those who can't do, teach. And those who can't teach, teach gym." Man, that's rich.)
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Friday Night Lights
Where has this show been all my life?
Heading into the last disc of Friday Night Lights, Season 1, I've been rendered speechless
by how good this show is. Why is nobody watching this? Is it all the football? All the Texas? All the preposterously attractive young peeps in tight outfits and occasional slow motion? (No, it can't be that). I don't know what the story is, but I'm here to tell you that this show is so good, (not sure if I can actually bring myself to type this)...that I actually felt a little disappointed when season 4 of The Wire (aka, Best Show on TV) hit the streets before I'd had a chance to finish with FNL. Obviously, the Wire takes precedence, but still I find myself jonesing for a little FNL. This show is really, really, really good. Like one tiny notch below HBO good. If not better. Friday Night Lights certainly kicks Carnivale's ass. Ditto John from Cincinnati, Deadwood, Extras, and (shudder) Def Poetry Slam.
Usually when I like a show this much, it's all about the writing, the characters and the acting. I could care less what the show is actually about, and FNL is no different. High school football is just a backdrop, FNL's version of the mortuary industry (Six Feet Under), Mormonism (Big Love), or Hollywood (Entourage). Two things are paramount: that the characters are richly drawn, fascinating, three-dimensional "people", and that their world is presented in such a way that the experience takes on something of an anthropological flavor. I'm telling you, regardless of how you consider the sport of football, it's fascinating to become immersed in a culture wherein a town full of grown, otherwise upstanding citizens spend their lives obsessing over a group of children playing a game. Remember your earliest days of having a driver's license, cruising around in your beat-up junker, going nowhere in particular for the fun of it? Well, imagine every radio station on the dial playing talk radio call-in shows devoted to your performance at last week's game. Imagine the mayor giving you a hard time about your hustle. Imagine having a billboard erected in your front yard, trumpeting your name, number and position. Imagine living in a town spilling over with fat, pathetic assholes still basking in the glory of their bygone trip to "State", shoving blocky Championship rings in your face.
Now imagine being the new, young head football coach in a town like this. A football coach whose job, most feel, is owed solely to having served as longtime mentor to the town golden boy, quarterback Jason Street, who promptly gets paralyzed during the first game of the season, leaving the new coach with an untested, meek JV quarterback at the helm and the burdens of small town Texas football on his shoulders. Kyle Chandler is absolutely brilliant in this role. Each episode seems to bring a new layer to his performance as a man living his life in the eye of the storm. I'm going to go all out and say Chandler is treading hallowed TV drama ground here. He's one of the best I've seen, his performance practically Kristen Bell-ian (whose lights out work as Veronica Mars almost wore out my remote control's Rewind button. Chandler's like that, too, full of small asides, gestures, nuanced movements you need to see again, immediately).
And then there's Connie Britton, as Coach's sexy, wise, guidance counselor wife. Britton pretty much matches Chandler beat for beat, and the way they carry themselves is fascinating to watch, great parents struggling to figure everything out, the perfect symmetry of their relationship a testament to both who they are and were, the high school quarterback and the gorgeous Texan blond (cheerleader?) made good. It can often feel like they are the entire town's parents.
One more shout-out: Brad Leland as local businessman, former UT player, head of the Dillon Panthers booster club, all-around sleazy guy, and above all else football OBSESSED Buddy Garrity is just...unspeakably brilliant. Right down to his physicality, fat necked squeezed into tight shirt collar, skin just this side of red and sweaty, that Texas drawl, the perpetual big boy grown up look of him, all snake-oil salesman and defacto spiritual leader to Dillon's football-worshiping zealots. Leland's is one of those delicious supporting performances that makes a show so textured and great.
Friday Night Lights in in no way without its faults. As with any show featuring this many characters, some are more intriguing than others, some plot lines more compelling, some less. A few lowlights:
1. Jason Street, erstwhile football God, now stuck in a wheelchair, is quite possibly the most whiny, annoying character on network TV. I have been known to audibly grown whenever the show cuts back to his plotline. Scott Porter is terribly cast. In a town full of shockingly attractive young people, even his good looks are the most bland. Ugh. I can't stand this guy, especially now that he's gotten into quad rugby and does stuff like get "Peace" tattooed on his wrist in Sandscrit. What is this, the BU dorms circa 1994?
2. Every game, and I mean every game, somehow culminates in the Panthers being down with three minutes to go, only to either a) stage a highly emotional, even more highly improbable comeback, or b) lose in a thoroughly heartbreaking, only on TV manner. For a show about football, the football is the least interesting part.
3. God, I hate Jason Street. Seriously, he's the worst. Man, I wish the injury could have affected his whine bone.
But seriously, this show is amazing. I don't watch a lot of TV, and when I do I almost invariably think everything is dramatically overrated (30 Rock? The Office? Average, at best). But this is good stuff. Now I just need to fly through the Wire and get back to it.
Heading into the last disc of Friday Night Lights, Season 1, I've been rendered speechless
by how good this show is. Why is nobody watching this? Is it all the football? All the Texas? All the preposterously attractive young peeps in tight outfits and occasional slow motion? (No, it can't be that). I don't know what the story is, but I'm here to tell you that this show is so good, (not sure if I can actually bring myself to type this)...that I actually felt a little disappointed when season 4 of The Wire (aka, Best Show on TV) hit the streets before I'd had a chance to finish with FNL. Obviously, the Wire takes precedence, but still I find myself jonesing for a little FNL. This show is really, really, really good. Like one tiny notch below HBO good. If not better. Friday Night Lights certainly kicks Carnivale's ass. Ditto John from Cincinnati, Deadwood, Extras, and (shudder) Def Poetry Slam.
Usually when I like a show this much, it's all about the writing, the characters and the acting. I could care less what the show is actually about, and FNL is no different. High school football is just a backdrop, FNL's version of the mortuary industry (Six Feet Under), Mormonism (Big Love), or Hollywood (Entourage). Two things are paramount: that the characters are richly drawn, fascinating, three-dimensional "people", and that their world is presented in such a way that the experience takes on something of an anthropological flavor. I'm telling you, regardless of how you consider the sport of football, it's fascinating to become immersed in a culture wherein a town full of grown, otherwise upstanding citizens spend their lives obsessing over a group of children playing a game. Remember your earliest days of having a driver's license, cruising around in your beat-up junker, going nowhere in particular for the fun of it? Well, imagine every radio station on the dial playing talk radio call-in shows devoted to your performance at last week's game. Imagine the mayor giving you a hard time about your hustle. Imagine having a billboard erected in your front yard, trumpeting your name, number and position. Imagine living in a town spilling over with fat, pathetic assholes still basking in the glory of their bygone trip to "State", shoving blocky Championship rings in your face.
Now imagine being the new, young head football coach in a town like this. A football coach whose job, most feel, is owed solely to having served as longtime mentor to the town golden boy, quarterback Jason Street, who promptly gets paralyzed during the first game of the season, leaving the new coach with an untested, meek JV quarterback at the helm and the burdens of small town Texas football on his shoulders. Kyle Chandler is absolutely brilliant in this role. Each episode seems to bring a new layer to his performance as a man living his life in the eye of the storm. I'm going to go all out and say Chandler is treading hallowed TV drama ground here. He's one of the best I've seen, his performance practically Kristen Bell-ian (whose lights out work as Veronica Mars almost wore out my remote control's Rewind button. Chandler's like that, too, full of small asides, gestures, nuanced movements you need to see again, immediately).
And then there's Connie Britton, as Coach's sexy, wise, guidance counselor wife. Britton pretty much matches Chandler beat for beat, and the way they carry themselves is fascinating to watch, great parents struggling to figure everything out, the perfect symmetry of their relationship a testament to both who they are and were, the high school quarterback and the gorgeous Texan blond (cheerleader?) made good. It can often feel like they are the entire town's parents.
One more shout-out: Brad Leland as local businessman, former UT player, head of the Dillon Panthers booster club, all-around sleazy guy, and above all else football OBSESSED Buddy Garrity is just...unspeakably brilliant. Right down to his physicality, fat necked squeezed into tight shirt collar, skin just this side of red and sweaty, that Texas drawl, the perpetual big boy grown up look of him, all snake-oil salesman and defacto spiritual leader to Dillon's football-worshiping zealots. Leland's is one of those delicious supporting performances that makes a show so textured and great.
Friday Night Lights in in no way without its faults. As with any show featuring this many characters, some are more intriguing than others, some plot lines more compelling, some less. A few lowlights:
1. Jason Street, erstwhile football God, now stuck in a wheelchair, is quite possibly the most whiny, annoying character on network TV. I have been known to audibly grown whenever the show cuts back to his plotline. Scott Porter is terribly cast. In a town full of shockingly attractive young people, even his good looks are the most bland. Ugh. I can't stand this guy, especially now that he's gotten into quad rugby and does stuff like get "Peace" tattooed on his wrist in Sandscrit. What is this, the BU dorms circa 1994?
2. Every game, and I mean every game, somehow culminates in the Panthers being down with three minutes to go, only to either a) stage a highly emotional, even more highly improbable comeback, or b) lose in a thoroughly heartbreaking, only on TV manner. For a show about football, the football is the least interesting part.
3. God, I hate Jason Street. Seriously, he's the worst. Man, I wish the injury could have affected his whine bone.
But seriously, this show is amazing. I don't watch a lot of TV, and when I do I almost invariably think everything is dramatically overrated (30 Rock? The Office? Average, at best). But this is good stuff. Now I just need to fly through the Wire and get back to it.
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