“24″ Scales Back Torture, Creator Surnow Does Not
February 20, 2007
After getting heavy criticism from the military last week, producers of Fox’s “24″ have decided, from a creative standpoint, to cut back on the torture they depict. To make this perfectly clear, the military criticism and the lessening of torture scenes in “24″ are only events that happen close-together chronologically. There is no cause-and-effect involved.
However, for fans of the show’s creator, Joel Surnow, he’s provided the world with a brand new form of torture with The 1/2 Hour News Hour*. This show, which hijacks its name from the short-lived MTV show, The 1/2 Hour Comedy Hour, is supposed to be the Fox News version of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. The Curious Mechanism has been excited about this for weeks, having long appreciated Fox News’ ability to create programming that powerfully and irreversibly makes its impressions on its viewers.
And so, on Sunday night at 10PM, we tuned our picturebox to Fox to see what Joel Surnow can do with Rupert Murdoch’s resources and, frankly, we were disappointed. The show resembles the long-running “Weekend Update” segment from Saturday Night Live more than it does The Daily Show in that it makes fake news far more than it mocks actual news. The news it does report is almost entirely outdated–reporting on a December conference held by Iran, on a Hillary Clinton statement made in January, and so on.
The jokes are, at best, stale. At worst, they don’t resemble jokes at all. The hosts are, for the most part, without personality.
We don’t particularly care for partisanship, but given the current state of affairs for both Democrats and Republicans, we enjoy the prospect of humorously needling the Democrats at the hands of the Republicans. As it is, the needling is neither humorous nor even particularly vicious. It’s possible that the long-standing fans of Fox’s broadcasting might find some appeal in the program, but we’ve been unable to come up with any for ourselves. It appears that we’re not alone in our assesment, as Metacritic has given the show a blistering score of 14.
Fox has ordered two episodes of the show. The first will re-air on Sunday night at 10PM, and the second will air the following Sunday, March 4th. Here’s hoping for improvement.
*We’d like to apologize for that joke. It was (probably) a mistake.
Window Gazing Is Over!
February 15, 2007
“People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.” ~Rogers Hornsby
We make no secret here of our love for baseball. We love baseball more than Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. More than cheesesteaks and pizza and soft pretzels. More than good beer. We love everything about baseball, from the monstrous number of games played, to the smell of ballparks, to the insanity of making old men wear players uniforms (and even still, let them wear suits!). We love the sounds of vendors and children, the cracking of bats. We love the way, in Philadelphia, the first games are too cold, the last games are too cold, and everything in between is too hot. We love section 420, with its high view of the entire field, and its distant view of the Philadelphia skyline. We adore the Phanatic. We enjoy the way anyone can and everyone will enjoy a home run. We enjoy more the subtle beauty of a well-pitched game.
We love baseball the way we love few things in this universe. We are as unwilling to give it up as we are unwilling to give up Tom Waits, Mrs. Thursday, and oxygen.
All this being said, baseball has returned. Yesterday, the first teams began to report for spring training, and today, the rest check in, included our beloved Phillies. There are professional ballplayers scattered across Florida and Arizona, shaking off rust and spare tires and getting prepared to another grueling season.
We intend to document this season often. Sometimes with stats and box scores, sometimes with firsthand accounts of games, sometimes with mere musings on the state of the season. Opening day is six weeks from now, and we couldn’t be more excited.
An Early Look at the Field
February 8, 2007
Rolling Stone recently published a feature article on Al Gore and the possibility of running for President again. The article mentions the rest of the democratic contenders (Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards), and briefly mentions the big Republican names (John McCain, Rudy Giuliani).
Author Tim Dickinson notes that Gore’s recent popularity comes not only from An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s global warming lecture movie, but from his recently developed personality. Instead of overly cautious and stiff, Gore his coming off with a bit of personality. He’ll never be the charimatic speaker Bill Clinton was, but Gore is no longer censored by advisors and polls, and he’s coming off as someone who’s saying what he wants to say. In short, he doesn’t sound like a politician.
The question, of course, is whether Gore can continue to sound as free and unlike a politician as he does now if he chooses to engage in the mechanisms of the electoral process. Can Al Gore the candidate be the same Al Gore who’s making the rounds, talking about global warming all over the country?
We don’t really know. But with articles in major publications (including a bazillion in The New York Times) we ponder the various major candidates, and thought we’d give our early impressions of the Big Four who have already declared (Clinton, Edwards, McCain, and Giuliani) as well as three others. Of these, there are two Democrats who are likely to run (Barack Obama, and Al Gore) and one Republican who is running but has recieved considerably less press than his rivals (Mitt Romney).
(More after the break)
Queen Me!
February 5, 2007
In 2003, faux-80s rock band, The Darkness released Permission to Land in America, and with an impressive falsetto, heavy guitar work, and all the leotards money can buy, every fan and music critic began to invoke Queen in not-so-hushed tones when praising this future one-hit wonder. Lead singer Justin Hawkins and the rest of The Darkness quartet spent a summer in deep radio play before fading into obscurity over the winter. After all, there was nothing particularly original about their sound, and comparisons aside, The Darkness couldn’t hold a candle on a still night to Queen.
Well, it’s 2007, and it’s time to crown the next Queen. His name is Mica Penniman, though he goes by the stage name Mika. According to Wikipedia, he was born in Beirut to Lebanese and American parents, but raised mostly in London. His first album, Life in Cartoon Motion, doesn’t come out until late March, but thanks to some buzz (largely attributable to MySpace and to YouTube) his first single, “Grace Kelly”, and his accompanying video can be purchased now. The video is embedded below. Mr. Thursday especially recommends keeping an idea on the little girl in the green dress.
Mika clearly has a dynamic singing voice, with a rich natural range and a Himalayan falsetto. Where The Darkness recalled Queen in their “We Will Rock You” and “Fat Bottomed Girls” without actually capturing the drama of either song, Mika invokes Queen’s “You’re My Best Friend” and “Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy”. The bridge of the song is especially reminiscent of Queen, with the song slowing to almost nothing before resuming the song’s early energy and hand-clapping emphasizing the backbeat as Mika throws out his most Mercurial “Hey!”. The most referential Queen moments are intentional, as acknowledged by the chorus, “I tried to be like Grace Kelly/But her looks were too sad/So I tried a little Freddy/I’ve gone identity mad”.
For fans of pop music, Mr. Thursday recommends the song, though wonders if Mika show follow in The Darkness’ footsteps, falling too deeply in love with his falsetto, and fading into obscurity with music that lacks the dynamic of the song that will bring him fame in the first place.
Foot & Meter: A Language Column
February 3, 2007
Mr. Thursday has elected to amateurishly follow in the footsteps of Sol Steinmetz and William Safire (and countless others), and bring to you an occasional column on the use of language in the English speaking world. We shall attempt to address, as occasion leads us, both spoken and written word, and to discover and relate some of the nuance of this unnervingly anarchic language. Ambitiously, we’ll try to do all this in a fashion that can hold the interest of you, the reader.
Of the Title
Foot and meter are both prosodic terms, as they represent elements of classical poetry. Namely, a foot is a group of syllables constituting a metrical unit, whereas meter is the form that a grouping of feet may take. A determinate number of feet are present in each line for any meter.
Poetically, the foot and the meter are intricately linked, whereas in measure these two words are, generally speaking, opposed. They are basic units in rival systems of measure. It is the nature of this fascinating relationship–both enemies and friends, so to speak–that has earned Foot & Meter a role at the top of this page.
Of Beginnings
The Romans would have us believe that opposites are an excellent place to being anything, as Janus, the Roman god of doorways and beginnings is the god of both sunrise and sunset, as well. To emphasize Janus’ association with a subject and its foil, Janus was always depicted as a head with two faces looking in opposing directions. Janus is not the most well known of the Roman gods, but his bilateral head still appears surreptitiously throughout our unsuspecting society.
One such remaining form is the collection of words known as Janus words. These words, also known as contranyms, are words that serve as their own antonyms. There are not many of these words, and some verbs can be easily mistaken for them (more on that in a moment). The most common of these words at this time of the year is, in all likelihood, inoculate. This verb is generally used to articulate the preemptive treatment of patients for the flu and other common winter illnesses. However, its usage also includes the introduction of a disease into a body.
A better and comparably popular Janus word is oversight, as in the Senate’s Oversight Committee. This is an especially worrisome name for a group of high ranking decision-makers (”deciders”) as oversight varied meanings extend in ways the Senate would not be proud of, publicly. In their usage, oversight means “supervision”. However, oversight is also a mistake or an error. We’re certain the Senate Error Committee wouldn’t fly with “middle America”, though we at Mr. Thursday would like to vivaciously suggest the Senate “Whoops!” Committee to whomever is in charge of naming such things.
Other such words include sanction (”to allow permission”, and “to penalize for a violation”); cleave (”to split”, as well as “to adhere closely”); and clip (”to fasten or hold tightly”, and “to trim by cutting”).
A word that could easily be mistaken as a contranym is peruse. Peruse means “to read or examine thoroughly”, however, it is frequently misused to mean “to glance over”. This second definition is not accepted among the language experts who write dictionaries, however, if we are to use Dictionary.com as a reference, we can learn that in 1988 66% of the members of their usage panel rejected this definition, while only 58% rejected the same definition in 1999. Peruse has a chance to become a Janus word, certainly.
Future entries will try to address more culturally and socially relevant language use.
