Le Flâneur

Reasons why HBO’s The Wire is great

I am a massive fan of The Wire. It’s completely out there on its own. I can’t think of anything else that really compares to it. Hollywood is dead but who cares when we’re living in televisual golden age? People often talk about ‘realism’ when discussing the Wire. Is it realistic? I have no idea. It certainly seems plausible enough. I do know that’s it’s excellent entertainment that treats the audience as though they were grown-ups with the ability to think for themselves. At this juncture, that alone is enough. So just briefly, here are some of the reasons why it’s great:

Character. Characters in The Wire are rounded. They surprise you and are allowed to develop as a season progresses. Even the supposedly ‘good police’ have their flaws. Gay and lesbian characters are realistically portrayed. The writing at times does not shy away from making the characters act in a vile or ethically dubious fashion. There are also loads of them too. I can’t help thinking that you could make whole spin-off shows just on the exploits of relatively minor characters here.

Pace. The Wire is not afraid to take its time. It’ll lead you down dead ends where the audience know that the police are pursuing the wrong line of inquiry (incidentally many of the police are stupid, lazy and despicable). Scenes are allowed to play out for as long as it takes and there is much more than just a sense of necessary information being conveyed. It can drift off into the whimsical or even the banal at times. There is no music except for what is heard on car stereos, in bars etc. and as a result we’re spared the little aural signifiers of drama used to manipulate our emotions and guide us through the complexity.
Acting. Performances are uniformly excellent. For a show with such an intricate and complex plot, the characters very rarely look like they’re just trying to remember their lines. In particular I’d single out Chris Bauer as Frank Sobotka in season two. As a Polish-American longshoreman’s union boss torn between loyalties to family, the union and the temptation to skim a little off the top, Bauer gives a brilliant performance with just about as much intensity as I’ve seen on screen anywhere in any format. When the rest of the TV land catches up with this show, performances like this will no longer go unacknowledged.

Moral ambiguity. The Baltimore of this show, right from the lowest gangster errand boy in the projects, to the movers and shakers at the highest echelons of power, consists not simply of bad guys and good guys. Rather it’s all shades of gray in web of human intrigue. This simple fact, may well be the shows greatest strength of all.

Writing. Okay maybe everything above comes under this heading to some extent, but when watching this show I frequently find myself marveling at the brilliance of the writing. A cop drama show with half of the ideas here, and half of the characters, would still be worth watching. Quite simply it spoils us with its depth and breadth.

Jeffrey Lewis, 12 Crass Songs

Joe bought the new Jeffrey Lewis record the other week. It’s Jeffrey Lewis doing cover versions of twelve Crass songs. Crass were an English anarchist punk rock band that formed in 1977. Liking the album we decided to track down the original Crass versions of the songs. Crass were a riduculuos band. Their songs consist of leftist rants in a six-form poetry style. While other punk acts merely postured, Crass were the real deal: angry young men (and women) sticking it to the man, taking on the establishment. They were angry about absolutely everything in an endearingly juvenile way.

Jeffrey Lewis makes the tracks into something altogether more palatable and updates some of the lyrics for a contemporary audience. My favourite changes being on the lyrics to ‘I aint thick, it’s just a trick’:

Standards and values on the living room screen, Sarah Jessie Parker acting mean. She’s got it all that’s what they want you to think but if you read between the lines you’ll see the missing link. She’s just a puppet in their indoctrination plan – be link me girls and become a real man. Live to the full, always act flash. Don’t use your brains when you’re body makes a splash.

I think this album maybe a modern classic, or at the very least a highly recommended curiosity.

‘Shark Sandwich?’ More like ‘Shit Sandwich’

For the record, this is more or less what happened on Tuesday the 31st of July 2007. On the preceding Sunday, I had taken some snaps of what may or may not have been a Great White Shark swimming in the sea near Westcombe beach on the south coast of Devon. Let me tell you, we all had quite a scare. A day or two later I posted them on my Facebook profile. I had been joking around with friends about sending them to The Sun but had assumed that the whole shark theme the red-tops were running had now been succeeded by something else. Something less ridiculous, and something, frankly more newsworthy. Not being a huge follower of the tabloids I had little idea that the silly-season was now officially in full swing, the traditionally quiet summer months where it seems literally anything goes. (perhaps I had also underestimated how poor the ratings for Big Brother have been this summer)

Quite soon after posting the picture I began to get comments about the terrifying shark fin lurking in the background. This made me think again about sending it to a newspaper. I decided to have look at The Sun’s website and low and behold there it was: ‘Britain gripped by shark mania!’. I needed no further persuasion. I quickly cobbled together an email with a story that basically reflected events as they unfolded on the beach that fateful afternoon. Here is that email:

Hi,

Some of my pals were swimming in the sea off the coast of South Devon near Westcombe beach and the village of Kingston. It was Sunday afternoon. I was enjoying the British summer and getting some rays when all of a sudden I spotted what looked like a fin somewhere beyond my friends.

At this point I started shouting at Hannah (23) and Freya Miller (20), both on holiday from Oxford, to warn them to swim in immediately. Fortunately the girl’s cousin, Joe Miller (26) was on hand to dash into the water and help (pictured).

I think I managed to capture the moment when all three of them actually saw the fin behind them (see the second picture). The girls were a bit shaken but otherwise unharmed. They may think twice about swimming in Westcountry waters again.

Regards,
Chris Lowe.

If you’d like to purchase the pictures for publication call me on (01752 880748) anytime

The rest is history. I’m sure I will write further about this incident (in particular my dealings with the UK’s biggest selling tabloid newspaper), but right now I’m a little tired of sharks and anything shark related. Plus tomorrow I’ve got to move my whole life up to London and I’ve barely started packing.

BBC man may have to resign over queen documentary

This is one of those stories that’s so exasperating I can hardly bring myself to follow it. BBC 1 controller Peter Fincham may have to resign because the editing of a trailer shown at a program launch for a documentary has offended the queen. I’ll say it again: BBC 1 controller Peter Fincham may have to resign because the editing of a trailer shown at a program launch for a documentary has offended the queen.

Hang on a minute, what century is this? Alright maybe I’m simplifying things a bit here, but if you break this situation down there is no substance beyond this simple point of fact to this whole brouhaha. Of course it’s pressure from the media itself in their criticism of Fincham and his handling of the affair that may ultimately be his undoing. But even so. Can’t we all just grow up?

If I were him I’d tell them all to fuck off, the queen especially.

Classical music and the beginning of the end

On television last night I watched Beethoven’s 9th symphony being performed by the BBC symphony orchestra and chorus at the Royal Albert Hall. It was the first night of the annual proms. It’s a classical favorite that everyone knows because it’s used to great effect in the first Die hard Movie, as well as numerous other films. I’ve been listening to quite a lot of Beethoven this summer and so I enjoyed having the visuals as well. It wasn’t long however before a few observations led to a rather negative train of though I’m afraid. I was struck by how old all the singers were. I would expect that Beethoven had in mind strapping young aryan men and women to perform this piece as let’s face it, the voice weakens with age. A large portion of the chorus were well beyond the age for being soloists and I couldn’t help but imagine what it would sound like if all the singers were in the prime of their life: surely louder, clearer, better. Here young singers were the exception and some of them looked to be well into their 60s. This doesn’t bode well for the future. The decline of Church of England community singing may have something to do with it (though it’s worth noting that evangelical churches are thriving in some inner city areas).

This all points to a wider reality: that there’s going to be increasingly fewer recordings of classical music made in the future. What does this say for the state of our culture? That we no longer feel the need to document newer performances of works in the cannon reflects both the shrinking market and the abundance of recordings already available. But it also reflects a wider malaise. The market is saturated, but there’s also little new music coming through that large audiences want to buy. In the first half of the twentieth century there were an abundance of popular composers that sustained the industry. They’ve all dried up now. The medium has been exhausted. And it’s not just music. Just look at the state of Hollywood and tell me there isn’t a crisis. Unfortunately we are living through the fag-end of Western civilisation. Our ‘culture’ such as it is, has become so complex it’s become unstable (it’s impossible not to think of black-hole analogies here). Something new will come through it’s just at the moment nobody has any ideas what forms they will take (I suspect it’s going to have something to do with new technologies). But we may all be dead by the time it happens.

I’m conscious that I may be laying myself open to the rejoinder that, well, “history is littered with people who thought that their particular age was crappy and we’re no different. Stop complaining, what we have now is a culture for the many instead of just the privelaged few. You’re just idealising imagined former glories.”

Perhaps I am. But for many of our ancestors, surely art and music actually meant something, and an even more fortunate few felt themselves to be heroic players in the unfolding human drama that had direction and purpose. Postmodernity has robbed us of this comforting illusion(?) Instead we have Pirates of the Caribbean 3 and torture porn. The end is nigh.

British Summer 2007: Cancelled

Perhaps a bit of a boring subject to post about, but the weather this summer has been completely beyond the pale. It’s just never really started. Here in Britain we expect our summers to be somewhat aloof at times, but this year it seems more akin to how I imagine nuclear winter would be. It’s really beginning to get me down. The depression that this entails may stem from a sense of time itself having slowed down. Things around here move slowly enough as it is without having the constant deferment of summer as well. I went for a walk yesterday evening through the fields and through the dense mist that has descended over the South-Hams (I exaggerate only a little), and imagined all the things that might be happening if this were anything like a normal summer ie. trips to the beach, BBQs etc. This year I’ve eaten only a small number of meals outdoors. If I believed in God I would surmise that he/ she was pretty pissed off with us all right now, but I’m sure the real reason for the gloom is something much more prosaic. And worrying.

At least next week I’m heading to Spain where sun is always guaranteed. I keep looking at the BBC weather display for Valencia and the lovely orange sun symbols and I try to remember what a sunny day actually feels like. Roll on next week…

The God Delusion: new paperback preface

Below is a video of Richard Dawkins reading the new preface to the paperback of The God Delusion. Those people that have already formed stringent opinions about Dawkins probably won’t be reassured by him rattling off a list of responses to the press criticisms of his book. Nevertheless have a listen to the content of what he has to say anyway. There is a response to every pub-based criticism of his book also and that is nice to hear coming from the man himself. I’m rather pleased that this book became a best seller, and with the paperback edition coming out, it could well become a fixture of many household shelves.

A Test of Faith

It seems that God is really messing with our heads at the moment with the announcement in Nature today of the discovery of Gigantoraptor fossils. A sort of flesh eating dino-bird twice as tall as a man. Yeah right like that ever even existed.

A New Space Race?

In 2004 president George W. Bush talked of a new commitment to putting a permanent base on the moon and to a manned mission to Mars. One wonders, as many did at the time, whether this was just an attempt to distract the electorate from the disastrous war in Iraq. Across the pond the European Space Agency (ESA), has a project named ‘Aurora‘ with a long term aim of putting human beings on Mars by around 2030. We have the technology, not withstanding significant practical difficulties (not least of which the difficulty of sustaining human beings over such long periods of time and distance in space), to make the trip. Only the most stubborn and unimaginative argue for the wisdom of robots over human beings. Human beings have a long overdue rendezvous with the red planet. It would be a seismic technological and cultural achievement with ramifications for the whole of humanity. On a practical level human beings are more effective scientists on the ground than robots, and human footsteps on that alien world would serve to reinforce the uniqueness and fragility of our own planet. The cost is undeniably massive; but it could could be lessened by more cooperation between nations. The US military budget still dwarfs the amount given to NASA each year. There is no way that, with improving technologies considered, cost should still be an impediment for this voyage.

But my guess is that if we are going to get there in the next couple of decades or so the impetus is not going to come from greater international cooperation, but rather from competition and new global tensions. If we’ve learned anything from the Apollo missions and of the earlier space race of the Cold War period, it is that political expediency rather than scientific advancement has driven space exploration to take its boldest steps. In October of 2003 China became only the third nation to have launched a human being into space. The people who mocked this accomplishment at the time for being forty years too late to hold any significance, completely missed the point. In a subsequent Pentagon report China was upgraded in terms of the military threat it posed. As far as the military are concerned space flight has always been first and foremost about rocket power.

For the Chinese however this was matter of national prestige. The Pilot Yang Lewei (I’m tempted to say astronaut but perhaps cosmonaut might be more apt) is a national hero. Before embarking he is reported to have said:

I will not disappoint the motherland. I will complete each movement with total concentration. And I will gain honor for the People’s Liberation Army.

The economy of China will soon be on a par with the US and so it follows that there will be a power struggle played out in a variety of domains. Is it foolish to imagine that this one party state might see a terrific opportunity to beat the US and the West to the punch and land humans on Mars first? It would certainly be a delicious twist in world history if China, having suffered centuries of humiliation and defeat both militarily and economically at the hands of the West, was the first to conquer another autonomous planet in our solar system. In a way it would be a resumption of normal service in terms of cultural achievements with regard to the many centuries Chinese civilization blossomed and prospered out in front whilst the west slumbered under the reign of medieval tyrannies. Who knows, for future historians China landing on Mars might come to signify the moment they consolidated their position as the dominant world power. Wild speculation though this may be, maybe space exploration will once again figure as a marker for relative development and vitality.

If China were even in the race, it would certainly spur on American and European projects just as the Moon landing became a cold war imperative in the sixties. Who knows, in the interest of science perhaps this competitive edge is what’s needed; we could do without the prospect of nuclear apocalypse that may accompany it however.

But relations between nation states aside the landing of Human Beings on Mars would be a beautiful and awe-inspiring thing, whoever manages to achieve it. I hope in my lifetime to have the privilege of witnessing this event.

Keep the Skull

Partly it’s just that I wanted to add this image to my blog somewhere and partly it’s because I want to show my support for the idea put forward by this journalist here; but here it is, Damien Hirst’s latest sensational creation. I think it’s hella cool. It was doing the rounds in all the weekend glossies last weekend (it seems to have been made for this kind of consumption); of particular note was an interview with the artist by Will Self in the Telegraph. I think it’s a marvelous thing and undoubtedly when seen in the flesh it’s all the more impressive. Johnathan Jones believes (and I agree) that the object should be retained for a British museum rather than sold to a rich foreign collector only to be buried in storage somewhere:

Yet what masterpiece will remain in London to remind us of the best British artist of modern times? The Tate will have only a few shells and pill bottles as mementos of Hirst. For the Love of God – the diamond skull – is the perfect Hirst for a museum. Unlike the shark, which decayed, it is almost totally imperishable. It is designed to be a rock for the ages, covered in rocks. It’s a wonder of the modern world, with all the darkness at its hollow center that implies. It is, in its rarity and eerie beauty, one of the most amazing artefacts ever made in this country.

Now for the task of convincing the public that it’s worth the price tag, and as the author notes, deciding on an apt location.

Le Flâneur

Seeking out the Beautiful and the Monstrous…