I’m not a huge sports fan, but damn … I saw part of the Dallas – Phoenix NBA match today, and it was fine. The 3rd and 4th quarters … amazingly athletic. If all basketball lived up to that level (well, except Dallas’s lack of defense ….)
I digress.
This evening I returned to the 2nd half of season 1 of Dexter, the recent (fall 2006) Showtime series starring Michael C. Hall. I finished it before midnight.
First, the “family connections.” The main actor is a Michael, as is my brother. In an episode he passes as a Sean, my brother’s middle name. The main character’s name is Dexter, the name of my brother’s (dead) dog. That’s about it, really.
As for “other connections” — Dexter’s girlfriend, Rita, is played by Julie Benz, who played a blonde vampire on Buffy, Darla, who spoke the first line in the show (first episode, season one, in the high school). Rita’s (ex-)husband, Paul (my middle name), is played by Mark Pellegrino, who played a blond thug for Treehorn in The Big Lebowski, which I plan on watching this week with Lynn, Claire, Jack, Kris, and Bre. Perhaps Gideon, too. See, connections everywhere.
The show itself was amazingly good. It’s not experimental, revolutionary or evolutionary, it’s just a well-told tale with believable characters, tight plotting, and a sense of the absurd. Yet a realistic absurd. There are subtle ironies, matters the audience realizes before the characters (dramatic irony), as well as things said that mean something else in other contexts. This is Comp. or Lit. 101 … but, as I’ve said before, rare for TV, and so most welcome. It’s smart entertainment, though not just for smart people.
Plenty of dumb people likely watch it and think Dexter is cool or such. Or watch a bit and are turned off because a serial killer is the protagonist. Both are short-sighted approaches and perspectives that refuse to engage the work, and engaging the work, bottom up, is my (current) approach to texts, texts in a broad sense that includes music and movies and television, among others.
I also read Wolverine (volume 3) number 52, which was mediocre at best, a 1-2 issue tale told in 6 issues so as to fit into a trade paperback. Paul O’Brien’s review at The X-Axis is spot-on, as is his review of Ultimate X-Men, number 80, though he’s a bit harsher than I might be. I think it’s going somewhere — I read it this evening — and I’m giving Robert Kirkman the benefit of the doubt. He’s a good writer with strong sensibilities regarding super-hero comics. Give him another storyline, and he’ll work things out. As it is, they’ve “killed” Xavier (he’s alive, in the future with Cable, who’s a future version of Wolverine), Scott (Cyclops) has disbanded the X-Men and turned the school into a school only (no “team”), and Jean turned down Scott’s marriage proposal … we have reversals and/or hints of past “regular” X-Men stories being told in new ways. There is a promise of the return of the Hellfire Club, and we know that Jean/Phoenix is waiting for a strong story …
I ignored music today.
I went shopping instead and picked up three bottles of Rex Goliath (Giant 47 Pound Rooster), partially in case Mike and Sherie came over tonight, which they didn’t. Perhaps, then, for tomorrow or later in the week when colleagues come over for a movie night.
I should return to Alexander McCall Smith’s The 2 1/2 Pillars of Wisdom (omnibus edition of the von Igelfeld novels) … hilarious.
And: too bad about the Spurs losing. Saw that coming, alas.
