I'm a sap

While my ex would never imagine using a word to describe me that implies being overly sentimental, there are times when it fits. Tears sometimes come to my eyes during TV shows (The Wire, or Smash's last episode on Friday Night Lights for example) She would call me a political junkie, so it might not be as surprising to know that there have been events during the Presidential campaign that have put me in a sentimental mood.

There was this story from a medical student in Evansville, Indiana about her experience with early voting.

For me the most moving moment came when the family in front of me, comprising probably 4 generations of voters (including an 18 year old girl voting for her first time and a 90-something hunched-over grandmother), got their turn to vote. When the old woman left the voting booth she made it about halfway to the door before collapsing in a nearby chair, where she began weeping uncontrollably. When we rushed over to help we realized that she wasn't in trouble at all but she had not truly believed, until she left the booth, that she would ever live long enough to cast a vote for an African-American for president.

Or this story, about a 109 year old Amanda Jones in Texas who cast her absentee ballot for Obama last week. What's amazing about her story, besides the fact that she 109 years old, is that her father was a slave. This woman, who just voted for an African American for President, is the daughter of a slave. That's unbelievable.

Jones' father herded sheep as a slave until he was 12, according to the family, and once he was freed, he was a farmer who raised cows, hogs and turkeys on land he owned. Her mother was born right after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, Joyce Jones said. The family owned more than 100 acres of land in Cedar Creek at one point, she said.

Amanda Jones' father urged her to exercise her right to vote, despite discriminatory practices at the polls and poll taxes meant to keep black and poor people from voting. Those practices were outlawed for federal elections with the 24th Amendment in 1964, but not for state and local races in Texas until 1966.

Amanda Jones says she cast her first presidential vote for Franklin Roosevelt, but she doesn't recall which of his four terms that was. When she did vote, she paid a poll tax, her daughters said. That she is able, for the first time, to vote for a black presidential nominee for free fills her with joy, Jones said.

It's almost a cliche to say that America's original sin was slavery. For all of our history we have struggled with either the fact of slavery or the aftermath of slavery. We still have a few people with us who only have to look one branch up their family tree to find either a slave or a slave owner. My parents were born into an America without a Voting Rights Act, and one in which Obama's parents' marriage would have been illegal in some states.

While that might seem like ancient history, and we have made a lot of progress during my parents' lifetime, we are far from moving past our original sin. An Obama presidency will not mean that we have put our racial troubles behind us, but it will be a step in the direction. I hope that it will mean race becomes a topic of conversation for white America.

Obama's race is not the reason I became a supporter (I originally was most intriuged by his approach to foreign policy) but it a significant part of his appeal. Unfortunately, the historic nature of his campaign is not the only thing during this election that brought a tear to my eye.

I heard this afternoon that Obama's grandmother had died late Sunday night. It seems unfair that this woman who spent much of Obama's teen years raising him would not quite live to see tomorrow night, when I'm sure that Obama will wish to hear her voice. I'll quote Andrew Sullivan's reaction to this news.

Obama was so right to make sure he spent time with her before she passed on. But what an emotional blow on election eve for the candidate from Illinois. He has survived this campaign with remarkable emotional maturity and self-control. I just wish this didn't have to add to it. None of his parents will witness tomorrow. But somewhere my faith teaches me: they know already. Maybe Toot couldn't wait for the actual results. Maybe she's now a few steps ahead even of Chuck Todd. May she rest in peace. She did good.

Take a look at this picture of Obama taken as he spoke with a North Carolina crowd about his grandmother this afternoon.

Down to The Wire

Lester! Marlo! Kima! Chris! Carver! Cutty!

How I Met Your Mother

The fall TV season began a few weeks ago. I've been enjoying a bunch of returning shows like "Dexter," "Pushing Daisies," "Chuck," and "The Office." A show that I just started watching last year is "How I Met Your Mother."

HIMYM is one of those shows ("Lost" is another one) that would have been completely different had it been written prior to TIVO, TV shows on DVD, and the ability to stream shows online. The writers of HIMYM are focused on continuity to an extent that would be superfluous if the audience did not have an easy way to watch multiple episodes back to back or to easily rewatch an episode from earlier in the season or from a prior season. Jokes are set up in one episode, with the payoff not coming for months.

I like the way this demonstrates writers' respect for the audience. I also simply like the characters. I just don't watch TV shows unless I enjoy spending time with the characters. Jason Segal (previously seen in several of Judd Apatow TV shows, such as the brilliant "Freaks and Geeks, and movies) plays Marshall, who is the focus of last week's episode. The clip below is Marshall's ode to the perfect hamburger (which, as I've previously written, can be found at Tessaro's in Pittsburgh.)

Dr. Horrible

My sister, brother-in-law, and nephew arrived in town today, so there won't be much blog activity for the next week or so. To tide you over (since I know there are maybe one of two of you that actually read this thing on a regular basis) I must link to Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, which started on Tuesday. My understanding of its origin is that during the writer's strike, Joss Whedon was playing around with ideas on how to distribute content online. The resulting three part, 40 minute musical comedy is off to a good start. It features Neil Patrick Harris (if you only know of him from Doogie Howser, then you don't know him. He is a legitimate Broadway star and has an Emmy nomination for his current show How I Met Your Mother), Nathan Fillion (who worked with Whedon on Firefly and Serenity) and Felicia Day (who worked with Whedon on Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Go check out Dr. Horrible, and be sure to stick with it past the opening bit where he's reading emails. Once the music starts, it gets much better.

Missing The Office?

New webisodes for The Office have started at the NBC website. It looks like they will focus on Kevin's gambling debt. The first episode is below.

Is a Cylon Running for President?

Found at metamerist.

Sports Night

The Posnanski column and blog postings about the Lester no-hitter reminds me of the pilot episode of Sports Night when Casey calls his son late at night to tell him turn on the TV. Sports Night is the story about a small, struggling cable sports show that faces constant pressure from the network to increase their ratings. In the pilot, a suit (J.J.) from the network gives the anchors (Dan and Casey) and producers (Dana and Natalie) notes on their upcoming broadcast and objects to one of their planned stories.

Dana rather pleasantly asks what J.J.'s concerns are. "Who is Ntozake Nelson?"

Natalie explains that Nelson is a South African distance runner, 15,000 meters. He led protests against the white majority.

J.J. says, "That's swell, but..."

but Natalie won't let him cut her off and says, "He was beaten up and thrown in jail. His legs were broken and the doctor said he'd never walk without a cane. He's 41 years old and guess what he's doing tonight," says Natalie.

"It doesn't matter since I've already changed the channel," says J.J.

The race takes places just before the broadcast. As Dan and Casey are preparing to go on the air, they are told to run into the newsroom.

On the monitors is the long-distance race -- there's one runner far ahead of the pack. Anyone want to guess who's winning? The entire staff is rapt, watching the screens. Lucky Dan showed up, because no one thought to turn on the audio until he screeched for it, while Casey starts saying, "That time can't be right!"

As the race enters the final moments, everyone starts cheering Nelson on. Casey looks around and runs to a phone and calls Charlie (who had to be woken up by Lisa -- I don't see this custody arrangement changing any time soon). Isaac looks over and spies Casey rushing into the meeting room where it's quieter.

"Charlie! It's Dad! Did you finish all your homework?" Wha? (To his credit, Casey makes a "why did I ask that?" gesture.) Casey tells Charlie to turn on the TV ("My channel," says Casey. I liked that). He tells Charlie who the runner is. "I'll call you tomorrow and tell you all about it, but for now you just watch him run. He's not doing much, he's just running faster than any man has ever run before."

He then tells Charlie he's going to be on air soon, and Charlie can stay up to watch the beginning of the show ("if Mom says it's okay") but when he gives Charlie the special signal (aw!), he has to turn off the TV. Casey's voice breaks a little as he says, "I love you too, Charlie."

(Quote is from the Television Without Pity recap)

I think that sports brings out my inner sap. Rewatching that episode, having come to "know" the character of Casey, my eyes start to water while he's on the phone with his son.

Trailer for New Joss Whedon Show

Dolls

The Looming Robot Menace, part III

All of the robot posts were really just an excuse to talk about Battlestar Galactica. If the only Battlestar Galactica that comes to mind for you is the cheesy late 70's Star Wars wanna-be, then you might be pleasantly surprised by the new version. From the wikipedia page:

The new Battlestar Galactica departs from the original in several ways. In terms of style and storytelling, it rejects the traditional televised science fiction styles of Star Trek (after which the original Battlestar Galactica series was conceived) in favor of what executive producer Ronald D. Moore calls "naturalistic science fiction". The new series emphasizes character drama in an edgy survivalist setting and has many of the characteristics of military science fiction, shedding the light-hearted action/adventure style of the original show. Among plot differences, the key characters of Starbuck and Boomer have been recast as female roles. The Cylons are the creation of Man and a new breed of Cylon models now imitate humanoid appearance down to the cellular level.

Ronald D. Moore tackled the re-imagining with realism in mind, portraying the show's heroes as being part of a "flawed" humanity, and drawing inspiration from the September 11, 2001 attacks and their aftermath. In the re-imagined series, many characters struggle with deep personal flaws; for example, Adama and his son have a profoundly dysfunctional relationship while Colonel Tigh is an alcoholic. Their enemy is one capable of living amongst them unnoticed and willing to carry out suicide attacks, allowing an exploration of moral and ethical issues brought up by the War on Terrorism. The show has dealt with Cylon and human suicide bombers, the torture of prisoners, and a struggle motivated by intense religious differences. To add to this realism, the creative direction also redesigned Galactica with a decidedly 'retro' submarine look, approximating the function of an aircraft carrier, using bullets and missiles instead of directed-energy weapons such as lasers.

I like the show for the political and religious themes, as well as the fascinating characters. I normally don't consider myself a fan of science fiction because I have never had any interest in Star Trek. Of course I grew up with Star Wars, loved Firefly and Serenity, and now watch BSG obsessively. (I wish that George Lucas had sought out either of the guys behind these shows, Joss Whedon with Firefly/Serenity or Ronald D. Moore with BSG, to get involved with the Star Wars prequels. Moore could have done much more with the politics that bogged the prequels down, and Whedon did a better job than Lucas in the original Star Wars of referencing the style of an old Western - and he definitely gets the Hans Solo wiseass sense of humor)

Maybe I am not so influenced by genre as I am by a good story. If a show has interesting, flawed characters, who are in believable relationships, who face real dilemmas, and the story is told with a minimum level of technical proficiency, I'll give it a chance no matter the genre. Since BSG does all of those things well, with politics and religion thrown in for good measure!

The other thing we learn from BSG is that part of what makes the looming robot menace so scary is that the robots will rule over us in the manner of the George W Bush presidency, but with space ships.

10 Most Recently Played in my iTunes

1. Dance My Pain Away - Rod Lee - The Wire...and all the pieces matter
2. Brandy Alexander - Feist - The Reminder
3. Friend of Mine - Lily Allen - Alright, Still
4. Turkish Song Of The Damned - The Pogues - The Definitive Collection
5. Greenville - Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams - Emmylou Harris Duets
6. Over You Again - Willie Nelson - Moment Of Forever
7. Terry's Song - Bruce Springsteen - Magic
8. The House Of The Rising Sun - Nina Simone - The Very Best Of Volume 2
9. Joy - Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
10. Broken Butterflies - Lucinda Williams - Essence

I can't believe that I resumed blogging for several months now without mentioning the greatest show in the history of television, The Wire, which came to an end this spring. The soundtrack of The Wire is as notable for including favorites snippets of dialog on the show as it is for the music. I'm sure I'll write more about The Wire in the future, but in the meantime I would commend this reflection on the show that was published at the great TV/Movie blog The House Next Door. Some of the best popular culture criticism out there can be found on this blog. This particular article talks about what The Wire might mean for the future of visual story-telling.

...Simon and his collaborators have hoisted the medium of film onto their backs and marched it into the territory previously inhabited by Tolstoy, Melville and Dickens, the greatest of the long-form storytellers.

The achievements of The Wire suggest that the two-hour American-standard-length film only scratches the surface of what the medium can actually do. And it does so with none of the diluting effect that some might expect would come from breaking up a 13-hour film into individual episodes. The experience of watching The Wire is precisely the same as reading Anna Karenina. We do it by sandwiching its chapters in between the chapters of our own lives. We read a chunk, we live a chunk, and each enriches the other.

I've long thought that the best movies were comparable to short fiction, but it required a television show to accomplish the things that a novel can do. The Wire is exhibit A that great television indeed is comparable to the novel. (Others that have done this were also on HBO, like The Sopranos and Deadwood) David Simon, the creative force behind The Wire, used one plotlines in the last season to tease the critics who compared his show to the work of Dickens, but the comparison is apt.

Lost

One of the things that I like about the show, Lost, is all of the questions it asks its viewer to consider. Like these:



Hat tip to one of my favorite movie reviewers, Jeffery Overstreet.

In Treatment

In college, I spent a lot of time around the theater. My roommate, and several of my close friends, were acting majors and provided me a peek at their world. I particularly enjoyed shows in the Studio Theater, which was an intimate environment. The sets and costumes were usually simple, and the plays performed there tended to have a small scale. Shakespeare and elaborate musicals were better suited to the main theater. The reason that I loved the Studio Theater, however, were the moments that involved just a couple of actors and some dialog.

I recently read that the most dramatic thing that can happen on a stage or a screen is to watch two intelligent humans have an intense conversation. Some of my favorite moments on TV bear this out. Homicide, the best cop show I've ever seen (I don't consider The Wire to be a cop show), had several episodes that still stick in mind a decade later. I've been watching the new HBO show In Treatment and it epitomizes this approach to drama.

The show runs 5 nights a week and it about a psychotherapist, Paul. Each episode is a 30 minute therapy session; Mondays with a doctor who falls in love with Paul, Tuesdays with a fighter pilot who dropped a bomb on an Iraqi school, Wednesdays with a teenage gymnast, Thursdays with a couple for marriage counseling, and on Friday Paul meet with his own therapist. All that happens in each episode is the conversation that Paul has, and that's all we need.

There are some great actors in this show (Michelle Forbes, an alum of Homicide, plays Paul's wife while Dianne Wiest plays his therapist - they both are amazing) which is absolutely necessary since there is nothing but the words for the actor to hide behind. The best description I can think of is that the show is theatrical.

The first three weeks are available for free on iTunes. Just enough to get you hooked!