Summer syllabus

The calendar may not officially declare summer here, but going by the academic calendar at my place of employment, it's less than a week away. My job doesn't necessarily change, but matters on the whole should be less urgent than they can be in the midst of the terms. There's no question that I live the year according to the rhythms of the university, and I like it that way. Perhaps it's what I'm used to, but it provides a seasonal structure to work that I don't know other jobs have. If you're working in an office, is any week drastically different from another based on where you are in the year?

So, with the summertime mindset taking over, I'm considering what to do as "projects" to fulfill myself during these months. I'm not necessarily talking about what to knit, although that can be entered into the mix, but what I want to read and watch. Now's the time for catching up on things I haven't had time for or never gotten around to.

Approaching television shows as something worthy of study isn't unusual among many I know, but I realize it might sound ridiculous to some. In other words, I won't apologize for what I intend to do. TV has been incredibly rich over the past decade--yes, in spite of plenty of garbage--but there's a fair amount I haven't seen, especially the HBO series. (I've never seen an episode of The Sopranos, for instance.) For starters, I've decided to plow my way through all three seasons of Deadwood, if for no better reason than I found a great deal on the complete series on Blu-ray.

I've been feeling the itch to rewatch Veronica Mars, and The A.V. Club's summer-long revisiting of the first season seems like a good enough reason to return to it. I've had a love of mysteries for quite some time, but somewhere along the line I sort of lost that stuff to read or watch. Veronica Mars hits a sweet spot for me, and I'm curious to revisit the high school noir. It took me until the first season came out on DVD to catch onto the show, but it quickly became a favorite that I wish had lasted more than its three seasons.

I was a big fan of Alias when it was on the air. Since it's getting The A.V. Club treatment too, I might try to take another look at it if time permits.

As for books, I've decided to dive into the young adult The Hunger Games trilogy. Maybe the choice is due to sheer bombardment of information on the upcoming films' casting. I'm a chapter into the first book and am interested enough that this seems like something worth reading.

I've had my eye on The Complete Calvin and Hobbes for years and finally picked it up when spotting a deep discount on the hefty set's price. And I'm not joking about hefty. The three-volume set is heavy. The comic strip is one of my all-time favorites, if not the favorite, so it will be fun to flip through these pages.

I made it about halfway through the graphic novel Bone last summer and then got distracted, so I'd like to finish it. There are recent books (or two) by favorite authors that I bought but haven't read. Such is my inconsistency as a reader. In keeping with my love of mysteries and childhood fondness for Agatha Christie books, maybe I should re-read some of them. I probably haven't picked them up since junior high or high school.

Obviously I could go on and on, but it will be ambitious to get through everything I've listed here. What do you want to read and watch this summer? Or am I just weird for planning these like assignments?

Synthesized

You know, I'm really pinched for time this week, yet somehow last night I found myself tumbling down the rabbit hole looking up synth pop/New Romantic music videos from the '80s on YouTube. Such is the the vortex that site can be.



Thompson Twins quite possibly had the most hideous hairstyles of any bands in the decade. But good grief, did hearing this and some of their other songs take me straight back to junior high. Speaking of which...



And here's one from Scritti Politti I'd completely forgotten about:



And if I'm posting pop videos heavy on synthesizer, I believe there is a legal obligation to include Howard Jones.

Common ground

Flipping through radio stations tonight I heard a liner on one boasting that they were the place to hear three bands not all that similar stylistically. (The Pet Shop Boys and Poison were named. I don't remember the third.) The only thing the groups have in common is that they shared a home on Top 40 radio in their day. I can't claim to listen to a lot of Contemporary Hits Radio (or whatever the format is called today), but it seems to lack the variety that it had in my formative years. (Isn't that always the case?)

A large part of the reason is because everything these days, especially in radio, is about serving the niche. That's not necessarily a bad thing. We have greater access to the kinds of music and movies we want to hear and see than has ever been possible. We are able to feed our interests better. What could be wrong with that?

For one, the potential lack of diverse opinions among the whole occurs when we can hang out exclusively in our own corners of the culture. Echo chambers replace common ground. With that comes the loss of perspective.

Consider the film festival experience. It is possible for two people to attend the same festival and see little or nothing that overlaps. Obviously their individual impressions of the event may be quite different simply on the basis of no common ground.

For the most part the biggest things in pop culture aren't as big as they used to be. Some songs, films, and television programs continue to span the divides, but they're exceptions to the rule. The most watched TV shows tend to cater to specific audiences. It makes sense. With so many available options, it's easier to appeal to and please narrower audiences than everybody.

One of the few remaining cultural crossovers is sports. Super Bowl XLIII takes place tomorrow, and I suspect most of you will be watching or attending a party where the game is on even if you couldn't care less about football. It's a unifying event unlike most everything else. Pop culture used to provide entertainment like this on a wider scale, so let's make sure to enjoy these moments like when they do come around.

And yes, that holds even if those dastardly Steelers win.

The spirit of the times

26 days remain in 2008, but those like me involved in surveying the pop culture landscape are waist deep in evaluating the year's best and worst. Films rolling into theaters over the next few weeks are screening like crazy and showing up with regularity on the doorstep. Shortlists are assembled in hopes of giving preliminary shape to one's final canonization for the year.

While I don't have any links handy, many of my colleagues believe this has been a bad year at the movies. I agree completely. Even awards season, the time when the prestige pictures get paraded in hopes of earning plaudits and statuettes, has been mostly uninspiring.

When all is said and done, I'll have seen around 300 new films released in 2008. I can't say that there's been a lot that's elevated me. Rachel Getting Married was the last one. The Dark Knight and WALL-E are no-brainers, but those are in short supply. Light may shine through the darkness at some points in these films, but there's a good deal that's bittersweet in them all.

Tonight I was messing around in iTunes to flex my old radio programmer inclinations and put together a CD-length playlist of the year's best music (or songs from my favorite albums). I didn't necessarily have a difficult time doing this as we live with music differently than we do with films. Favorite songs are like family and friends we see or hear from on a regular basis while favorite films are more like people we see once or twice a year.

What stood out, though, was that many of the songs are in a minor key, downbeat, or both. "Love Lockdown", "Mykonos", and "Joke About Jamaica" are thrilling listens and provide catharsis, but I don't know that any of them are going to get a party started.

There's a priori convenience in proclaiming pop cultural glumness as an indicator of the economic downturn and country's mood. Really, I think it's impossible to draw any overarching conclusions purely on the basis of there being so much out there to support any number of theories. It also overlooks the fact that a good deal of the art was conceived and made before financial woes lumbered onto the scene. Nevertheless, this stuff isn't made in a vacuum, and the recession's roots are long enough to have influenced creative endeavors.

So, is the collective unconscious producing work that mirrors the zeitgeist, or is finding pop cultural uneasiness ascribing intention that wouldn't be given if times were better? I don't know.

(Tip of the hat to Donna and Noel for this entry's inspiration.)

In defense of TV

As someone who works in television and consumes his fair share of popular culture, I get a little perturbed by the scolding and self-congratulatory tone of those behind TV Turnoff Week and similar campaigns against the big, bad box. We can agree that obesity and childhood literacy are problems worth fighting. We can agree that there is a lot of garbage on TV. But is the solution to bad viewing habits to disregard an entire medium?

After all, I assume that these people wouldn't advocate a Closed Book Week. There's plenty of trash available on bound printed pages, and reading is just as sedentary of an activity as watching TV. Stop sitting on your tailbone and go for a walk, bookworm! Yet reading is perceived as being more noble. I love books and the written word, but those who want to encourage more reading don't help by elevating it to the level of lofty pursuit.

Those working to get people to make the TV turnoff choice refer to it as a fast. If the problem is poor eating habits, the solution isn't to stop eating, is it? No, it's a matter of eating less and eating better. To me, assessing what is being watched and how much is being consumed is a more sensible way to attack the issue rather than preaching the virtues of going cold turkey. Even then, junk food of the edible or televised variety is OK in moderation.

There's no pressing reason why I'm writing about this today. It's just one of those things that can get under my skin, and it came to the fore when coming home from work the last several days. I've been tired and not up for much more than watching TV. I'm sure that plenty of people feel the same way. If it's how one relaxes after a long day of work, what's the harm in it?