Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 214

Game of Thrones 7.2: Vikings and Strategies

Game of Thrones 7.2 had lots of great intrigue and plotting, capped off with a top-notch battle at sea - the opening salvo in the wars ahead.

Euron is played by a Scandinavian, and makes a hell of a blood-thirsty Viking.  This Greyjoy brings no joy to his kin and opponents, and the result is a notable setback for Daenerys and all allied with her. That includes, or will likely soon include, Jon Snow, who is on his way to see her.  It includes the Tyrells, and Ellaria - but her power has now turned to, well, sand, given the success of Euron's attack.

So, on Cersei's side we now have Euron as well as a possible way to kill dragons.  On Daenerys's side we have most notably the dragons and Jon. Daenerys still has the advantage, but Euron has made it less than it was before.   (And I suppose the unsullied making love may have weakened him, too, alas.)

And there are two other significant developments afoot -

Arya's reunion with Nymeria promises important, unexpected heroism by the direhound in defense of Arya  in the future, even though she declined Arya's offer to come with her now.   It's good to see both back in the central action, with Arya heading back to Winterfell, and Nymeria just around, wherever she may be, somewhere.   She'll come raging into the scene with her wolves when Arya most needs her.

And Sam's brave attempt to cure Jorah of his greyscale was my favorite part of this episode.  I'm hoping that what happens in not that Jorah is cured (which will help Daenerys) and Sam gets the greyscale, though that would be an all-too logical outcome.  I'll be much happier if both survive.

This season 7 is starting out as one of the best of the series, and I'm looking forward to more.

See also Game of Thrones 7.1: Library Redux
And see also Game of Thrones 6.1: Where Are the Dragons ... Game of Thrones 6.2: The Waking ... 
And see also Game of Thrones 5.1: Unsetting the Table ... Game of Thrones 5.8: The Power of Frigid Death ... Game of Thrones 5.9: Dragon in Action; Sickening Scene with Stannis ... Game of Thrones Season 5 Finale: Punishment

And see also Games of Thrones Season 4 Premiere: Salient Points ... Game of Thrones 4.2: Whodunnit? ... Game of Thrones 4.3: Who Will Save Tyrion ...Game of Thrones 4.4: Glimpse of the Ultimate Battle ... Game of Thrones 4.6: Tyrion on Trial ... Game of Thrones 4.8: Beetles and Battle ...Game of Thrones 4.9: The Fight for Castle Black ... Games of Thrones Season 4 Finale: Woven Threads

And see also  Game of Thrones Season 3 Premiere ... Game of Thrones 3.3: The Heart of Jaime Lannister ... Game of Thrones 3.6: Extraordinary Cinematography ...Game of Thrones 3.7: Heroic Jaime ...  Game of Thrones 3.9: A Critique 
And see also Game of Thrones Back in Play for Season 2 ... Game of Thrones 2.2: Cersei vs. Tyrion

And see also A Game of Thrones: My 1996 Review of the First Novel ... Game of Thrones Begins Greatly on HBO ... Game of Thrones 1.2: Prince, Wolf, Bastard, Dwarf ... Games of Thrones 1.3: Genuine Demons ... Game of Thrones 1.4: Broken Things  ... Game of Thrones 1.5: Ned Under Seige ... Game of Thrones 1.6: Molten Ever After ... Games of Thrones 1.7: Swiveling Pieces ... Game of Thrones 1.8: Star Wars of the Realms ... Game of Thrones 1.9: Is Ned Really Dead? ... Game of Thrones 1.10 Meets True Blood

And here's a Spanish article in Semana, the leading news magazine in Colombia, in which I'm quoted about explicit sex on television, including on Game of Thrones.

And see "'Game of Thrones': Why the Buzz is So Big" article in The Christian Science Monitor, 8 April 2014, with my quotes.

Also: CNN article, "How 'Game of Thrones' Is Like America," with quote from me



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Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming The Beatles 9 of X: Covers

Rob Sheffield sticks in an "Instrumental Break" of a chapter about a third-way through his exceptional Dreaming The Beatles, about covers of Beatles songs and other recordings that for one reason or another bear strong influences of Beatles music.

Confession: I don't like covers.  I can't think of even a single example in which I liked a cover of a recording better than an original that I loved or even liked a lot.  (Ok, I guess one example - Carl Carlton's 1974 version of "Everlasting Love" was better than Robert Knight's 1967 original, but that's just one lone example.) This is what I've called the "first love syndrome" at work - when there is more than one version of a creative work afoot, we like best what we came to love first.

If you think this is too obvious to call a syndrome, consider this: I once ran into someone at a science fiction convention who told me his favorite Star Trek narrative on screen was the first Star Trek movie, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, so generally disliked that it's been called Star Trek: The Motion Sickness.  We had this conversation well after Star Trek: The Original Series and The Next Generation had made their impact.  I asked this guy if he had seen them.  He said yes, but he didn't think that either measured up to the movie.  He then offered that his first Star Trek experience had been that first motion picture.  Q.E.D the first love syndrome.

So, though I guess it would be instructive to speak to someone who heard a cover of a Beatles recording prior to the Beatles recording, for me the question is always how much did the cover ruin an original that I loved.   Whether it's Tony Bennett or a garage band, I'd always rather hear the Beatles.   When Sirius XM's Beatles channel plays another artist's interpretation of the Beatles, I always take that time to catch up with some Trump atrocity on MSNBC.

But Beatles influences on other artists are a lot different that covers, and Sheffield's mention of Dylan's "I Want You" and "Just Like A Woman" as influenced by Rubber Soul is one of the delights of this chapter and the book as a whole.  I also watch Prince's beyond breathtaking guitar work on "As My Guitar Gently Weeps" in the Hall of Fame George tribute concert at least once a month on YouTube - it's far and way the best guitar solo I've ever seen and heard -- and I was glad to see Sheffield discuss that, too.

Actual collaboration is another facet of this chapter, and I always found Lennon's work with David Bowie so noteworthy that I actually wrote a whole novelette in which that figures  - Ian, Isaac, and John.

And I'll be back with more pretty soon.





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Twin Peaks: The Return 1.10: "No Stars"

Twin Peaks: The Return 1.10 tonight concluded with a better than usual song, which is saying a lot, since those concluding songs are often the best part of the episode.  Tonight's song, sung by Rebekah Del Rio - who, I don't know, reminds me a little of Monica Lewinsky, was entitled "No Stars," a nice touch, since the episode has even more stars than usual, but who's counting.

One of those stars, Harry Dean Stanton, even sung a song himself, "Red River Valley," as one of our psycho bad guys left a river of blood in a nearby trailer.   There's no end to the evil on Twin Peaks, every bit as prevalent as the inscrutable.

As to the central plot, we're making maybe a little bit of progress with good Cooper recovering his identity.  At very least, coming with Jones' beautiful wife leaves him with a big grin on his face, which is the most emotion by far we've seen from this zombie in the past nine episodes.

The FBI is also making some small painstaking progress in getting on top or to the bottom of this, getting a crucial photograph of bad Cooper at the scene of a New York crime.   But the question still remains of when someone will make a breakthrough in either putting this all together, or, in good Cooper's case, realizing who he is.

I've been assuming all along that before The Return concludes, we'll have that epiphany, but for some reason, after tonight's episode, I'm not so sure.  No matter, as the long as the episodes keep concluding with outstanding songs in front of that red curtain.

See also Twin Peaks: The Return 1.1-2: Superluminal Sans Cherry Pie ... 1.3-4: Coffee and Cole ... 1.5: The Mod Squad Meets Big Love in the Diner ... 1.6: Red Door and Childish Scribbles ... 1.7: Lost and Not Lost ... 1.8: Atom Bomb and Mr. Homn ... 1.9: "I Don't See No Hidden Buttons"


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Game of Thrones 7.1: Library Redux

Game of Thrones as everyone knows was back tonight with the start of its seventh season.  It was an altogether excellent episode, satisfying in that every major character was given some time, but one thread I especially liked was Sam in the library.

Libraries have played decisive roles in science fiction, ever since Asimov gave the Library of Trantor such a pivotal role in the search for the Second Foundation in the Foundation trilogy.  This in turn and to some extent was based on the real Library of Alexandria, whose destruction in at least three stages over centuries has been counted as one of the greatest blows, if not the greatest attack, on intellectual history.  Only less than half of Aristotle's works have survived, mainly because unique copies were consumed in the flames that burned Alexandria.

So it was good to see the Library playing such an important role on GoT tonight.  It has a manuscript that shows a place where a huge amount of a resource crucial in the battles ahead is waiting.  And as a nice touch, Jim Broadbent in playing a Maester Librarian.

Speaking of acting, it was also good to see Pilou Asbæk from Borgen playing Euron Greyjoy - nothing to do with the Library, but he looks a lot like Joshua Jackson and his proposal to Cersei was daring and another good scene in 7.1.

And speaking hidden treasures, the closing sequence of  Daenerys coming back to her homeland was a fine short movie in itself.   In previous seasons, these little gems were often so far apart as to leave other parts of the story disadvantaged.  But they all seemed to be moving together tonight, like icebergs and lava on a slow, galactic collision course, with every surviving Stark and all of their enemies and enemies of enemies in some state of play, and the next six episodes should be quite a ride.


See also Game of Thrones 6.1: Where Are the Dragons ... Game of Thrones 6.2: The Waking ... 
And see also Game of Thrones 5.1: Unsetting the Table ... Game of Thrones 5.8: The Power of Frigid Death ... Game of Thrones 5.9: Dragon in Action; Sickening Scene with Stannis ... Game of Thrones Season 5 Finale: Punishment

And see also Games of Thrones Season 4 Premiere: Salient Points ... Game of Thrones 4.2: Whodunnit? ... Game of Thrones 4.3: Who Will Save Tyrion ...Game of Thrones 4.4: Glimpse of the Ultimate Battle ... Game of Thrones 4.6: Tyrion on Trial ... Game of Thrones 4.8: Beetles and Battle ...Game of Thrones 4.9: The Fight for Castle Black ... Games of Thrones Season 4 Finale: Woven Threads

And see also  Game of Thrones Season 3 Premiere ... Game of Thrones 3.3: The Heart of Jaime Lannister ... Game of Thrones 3.6: Extraordinary Cinematography ...Game of Thrones 3.7: Heroic Jaime ...  Game of Thrones 3.9: A Critique 
And see also Game of Thrones Back in Play for Season 2 ... Game of Thrones 2.2: Cersei vs. Tyrion

And see also A Game of Thrones: My 1996 Review of the First Novel ... Game of Thrones Begins Greatly on HBO ... Game of Thrones 1.2: Prince, Wolf, Bastard, Dwarf ... Games of Thrones 1.3: Genuine Demons ... Game of Thrones 1.4: Broken Things  ... Game of Thrones 1.5: Ned Under Seige ... Game of Thrones 1.6: Molten Ever After ... Games of Thrones 1.7: Swiveling Pieces ... Game of Thrones 1.8: Star Wars of the Realms ... Game of Thrones 1.9: Is Ned Really Dead? ... Game of Thrones 1.10 Meets True Blood

And here's a Spanish article in Semana, the leading news magazine in Colombia, in which I'm quoted about explicit sex on television, including on Game of Thrones.

And see "'Game of Thrones': Why the Buzz is So Big" article in The Christian Science Monitor, 8 April 2014, with my quotes.

Also: CNN article, "How 'Game of Thrones' Is Like America," with quote from me



"I was here, in Carthage, three months from now ..." Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

El Chapo: Awaiting the Tunnel

I have to admit that from the moment I heard about El Chapo's escape from a Mexican prison via a tunnel built for him from his cell to a house somewhat down the road from the prison ... well, it struck a chord in me. When I was a kid, a long time ago, I thought that one way of remaining free if anyone from the government or wherever came after me was to build a tunnel from underneath my house to some nondescript town in upstate New York.  Of course, that tunnel would have needed to be a lot longer than what El Chapo had built, but, I still had to admire his accomplishment.

I was therefore eager to see this new Netflix series (shown first on Univision).  Alas, it leaves El Chapo in prison long before his tunnel, before even his earlier successful prison escape via other means.  But it's still a pretty good short series, with more to follow in September.

This first season in effect consists of two parts: El Chapo rising to power as a drug lord, and his apprehension and incarceration in prison.  Both are interesting in different ways.  The first has young El Chapo meeting Pablo Escobar in Colombia - a harkening back to Narcos and Pablo's story.  The second is a grim and gritty prison story, and the hell that El Chapo was put through, his spirit remaining unbroken.

There's also a lot, in both parts, about the Mexican government, and its struggle to contain corruption in its own ranks.  All in all, a riveting story, well told and well acted by Marco de la O in the title role, and I'm looking forward to more.  Although El Chapo cannot be considered a good man, his story nonetheless is a tableau of the resilience of the human spirit.


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Bordertown: Nordic Noir in Finland

We slaked our thirst for Nordic Noir with an excellent new series from Finland, in Finnish, on Netflix: Bordertown (Finnish title Sorjonen).  It's unique, a little strange in a good way, and definitely worth watching if you're at all a fan of this genre, which my wife and I are.

First of all, I've long had an interest in Finnish, ever since I started writing science fiction stories with a Basque connection - an early story, "Last Things First,"  and my Locus-Award winning novel, The Silk Code.  Finnish is a Uralic language, meaning it has more in common with Hungarian than other Scandinavian languages.  Basque is not actually a Uralic, but has some similarity to the Uralic tongues in the way it creates lengthy word-versions rather than sentences made of shorter words, and, who knows, maybe Basque is in some way related to Finnish and Hungarian after all (but I don't want to get too science fictional here).

But it's fun to hear Finnish spoken, and the subtitles provide more than enough explanation of the story.  In the case of Bordertown, it's actually four distinct though interrelated cases which Kari Sorjonen (very well played by Ville Virtanen) is either called upon to investigate or he can't help investigate because a member of his family is either a victim, suspect, or both.

Sorjonen is an unusual and memorable kind of detective.  He has a brilliantly deductive mind - almost Holmesian - but his emotions are never too far from the surface.  His wife and teenage daughter are commanding characters, as is Lena (strong acting by Anu Sinisalo), his partner, who comes to Finland by way of St. Petersburg.  Indeed, the stories are sometimes as much about Russia as Finland, because most the action takes place in Lappeenranta (the Bordertown), close to the Russian border. Sorjonen has come to Lappeenranta from bustling Helsinki to find a bit of peace for him and his family, which of course he doesn't.

There's plenty of sex, perversion, and dark crime in these stories as befits a gritty Nordic Noir series. Highly recommended, especially in the summer, when the snow and ice of Finland look refreshing on the screen, whatever the seething criminality being enacted upon it.


Neanderthal Noir


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Twin Peaks: The Return 1.9: "I Don't See No Hidden Buttons"

That was the best line in Twin Peaks: The Return 1.9 tonight - "I Don't See No Hidden Buttons" (said by the sheriff) because, of course he sees no hidden buttons, how could he, if they're hidden, and somehow that deeply obvious statement about what can't be seen is symptomatic of the entire Twin Peaks: The Return story, right?

And it was a pretty good story, too, tonight, with at least one other outstanding line, "I am not your foot," said by a foot, and somehow reminiscent of Donovan's "I Love My Shirt," though there's nothing fruit case about that, as Rosenfeld (kudos to the late, great Miguel Ferrer) says about that poor blogger who is actually one of the few people who is not insane in this warped gem of series returned.

Because that blogger has seen the alternate dimension, the one that spawned the bad Cooper and somehow Dougie too.  But the good news is that word of the two Coopers is now beginning to leak out.   To show you how far gone I am, by the way, our neighbors have a little dog named Cooper, I've know that since they bought the house next door about a year ago, but it just today occurred to me that maybe they named the dog after Cooper from Twin Peaks, as the lady of the house was calling after the dog to stop furiously barking, probably about a rabbit, but who knows.  (I'm pretty sure she doesn't read this blog.)

But if that is true - that the dog next door was named after our Cooper - the question is which one, the good one or the bad one, and why?

Possibly the tormented blogger would know - leave it to Lynch to put the truth in the mouth of a blogger - and I'm glad that someone, some living breathing being from this, our, dimension, has seen some of what is actually going one, because that provides hope for the rest of us.

Hey, I just wanted to also mention that, in addition to Lost,  I'd say Fargo (the TV series), Heroes, and lots of Tarantino's work is inspired by Twin Peaks, and that's nothing to sneeze at, but worth pointing out in someone's blog.

See also Twin Peaks: The Return 1.1-2: Superluminal Sans Cherry Pie ... 1.3-4: Coffee and Cole ... 1.5: The Mod Squad Meets Big Love in the Diner ... 1.6: Red Door and Childish Scribbles ... 1.7: Lost and Not Lost ... 1.8: Atom Bomb and Mr. Homn


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What the Amelia Earhart History-Changing Photograph Says about the Power of Photography

I've been thinking all day about the newly uncovered photograph of Amelia Earhart and its upending of history, telling us she indeed survived that dive her plane apparently took into the Pacific Ocean in 1937.

We're told the photograph has not been altered - was found in a long-neglected file - and it coincides with what people who live in the Marshall Islands have long believed and having been saying. Experts have said her body proportions - from shoulder to hip - match photos we already have of Earhart.  That seems like more than enough for me to think this photograph has changed history.

But we already knew what the island inhabitants believed.  So the essence of this upending is that we believe the photograph is bonafide.  Were it not, it wouldn't matter what the experts said about the body dimensions, because all of that could have been deliberately woven into the photograph.

In this day and age of fake news, photo manipulation is a fact of life and media.   But that goes back to the very origins of photograph, as I explain in Fake News in Real Context.  Lincoln was a subject of photographic manipulation, during his life and after.

But the photo of Amelia Earhart, as far the experts tell us and therefore as far as we know, has not been manipulated.   Alteration of pre-digital photographs may not be as detectible as digital fakes, but, for the time being, I'm willing to believe the experts.

I won't be shocked if the photo turns out to be bogus.  But for now, I just love that 80 years of history has been changed by one registration on a photographic plate.  I've argued for years with critics who say a photo is no more real in the objects its captures than a painting.  But it obviously is.  Though it can be altered, its very essence is a capturing of reality as it actually is, just as are motion pictures and videos.  (See my 1997 book, The Soft Edge: A Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution, for more).   Today's news about Amelia Earhart, and the repercussions it has made for history, will from now on be the best example of this privileged relationship between photography and reality.


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Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming The Beatles 8 of X: Rubber Soul on July 4

Checking in with a new review in my continuing series of reviews of Rob Sheffield's masterful Dreaming the Beatles on July 4.  This review is about Sheffield's chapter (actually two chapters) devoted to Rubber Soul.  There's no intrinsic connection between Rubber Soul and July 4, but I just read the two chapters, and they're too good not to talk about immediately, whatever the date.

Though, come to think of it, there is a slight connection, since Sheffield makes the point that he can't decide which of the two versions of the 1965 album, the British or the American, he loves most, because they're both so good.  This is just a minor example of why these chapters are such memorable discussions of Sheffield's favorite album.

There's long been a tie in my head between Rubber Soul and Sgt. Pepper (not quite Revolver, for reasons I'll get into in some subsequent review), but Rubber Soul has my heart and soul, and Sgt. Pepper my head, and I guess two out of three wins.  (My 1987 essay "Sgt. Pepper and the Presumption of Genius," reprinted in Electronic Chronicles, speaks to Sgt. Pepper, and I'll return to that in a later review).

Sheffield's chapters are just brimming with insights, my favorites being -

John and Paul later disputing who wrote a given song (I'll return to that general theme also in a later review)John doing "slinky" harmony to blend in with Paul's lead in "You Won't See Me" (you don't often see John credited for his harmonies)Ringo's essential drumming (Sheffield is slowing convincing me of Ringo's importance)The Beatles worrying that Rubber Soul might not be well-received, with the lukewarm reception of the record label being no help (this is a story common to most great works in sundry creative fields, but it's still eye-opening to see the Beatles subject to it)John trying to write about a love affair in "Norwegian Wood" in a way that won't tip off Cynthia (this is also a perennial problem with lyricists and all kinds of writers)But what stands out most about these chapters, and Rubber Soul, is what it says about sophisticated love songs.  Dylan inspired the Beatles, but I'd say Rubber Soul and its superb variety of meditations on passion has as much or more in common with Cole Porter.  I've always thought that the greatest lyricists of the 20th century were equally Cole Porter, Lennon-McCartney, and Dylan - and Rubber Soul, the album and Sheffield's chapters, in effect testifies why (and why Lennon-McCartney are in retrospect the bridge) .  It may well be that Rubber Soul is the greatest album not only by the Beatles, but by anyone, because that mix of rock and folk, however brilliantly it might work for social commentary, finds its apotheosis in adventures of the human heart.

See also Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 1 of X: The Love Affair ... 2 of X: The Heroine with a Thousand Faces ... 3 of X: Dear Beatles ... 4 of X: Paradox George ... 5 of X: The Power of Yeah ... 6 of X: The Case for Ringo ... 7 of X: Anatomy of a Ride

 
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Twin Peaks: The Return 1.8: Atom Bomb and Mr. Homn

Anyone who doubted that Twin Peaks is one bizarre science fiction horror story of a story got their answer tonight in episode 1.8: it is, with a vengeance, spun of gut-wrenching, stomach-churning, searingly mind-blowing wordless narrative the likes of which you don't often see on any television, unless you're maybe watching Donnie Darko someplace the 20th time.

Also - I'm pretty sure we got an answer of sorts to what brought the alternate reality or realities into being: the first atom bomb test in White Sands, New Mexico in 1945.  This indeed was first atom bomb ever exploded (as far as I know) on this Earth, and who knows about the universe.  If I'm getting the silent movie correctly, which was the most powerful part of tonight's extraordinary episode, that first atom bomb brought into being the alternate reality or alternate universe and all the insanity it's brought us in all the Twin Peaks stories.  You could almost hear the atoms crying in anguish as they were torn apart - more than enough to create an alternate reality.  (Come to think of it, that's how Bizarro Superman was brought into being.)

At very least, we saw Laura Palmer's iconic young face in the little globe that was one of the products of what the blast wrought.  Also spawned tonight and a decade after the blast was a homicidal maniac - the woodsman - who only wants a light, but kills the receptionist and dj at the radio station playing The Platters' "My Prayer," and whose talking into the microphone (the woodsman's, that is) in turn kills more people, including a teenager who was just kissed but later has some grotesque insect with maybe human legs crawl into her sleeping or dead mouth (I told you this was horror - of the classic 1950s variety, raised or razed up a notch, to be more precise).

The one thing we can't be sure of is whether the atom bomb brought into being the alternate reality, or whether the alternate world already existed but was understandably agitated and aggravated by the bomb.  Doesn't ultimately matter, though, because it probably all amounts to the same thing.

None of this has any discernible connection to our 2017 story - though, hey, an atom bomb creating an alternate monstrous world should be enough of a story for one hour.  But we do get a significant step forward anyway in that 2017 story, at the beginning, when evil Cooper is killed, but monsters from the alternate world bring him back to life.  It's tough indeed to get rid of bad guys in this nightmare.

I was hoping against hope that the atom bomb would waken good Cooper from his stupor, but I guess it's still too early in our story at this point for that to happen, and since the atom bomb was already exploded in 1945, long before Cooper was put in his stupor, it wouldn't make sense for that same bomb to now bring him out of his stupor.  (There is some underlying logic in this story - at least, I hope so.)  But it was great to see Mr. Homn aka Carel Struycken again, from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I'll tell you one thing: I'm glad I've been listening these days to Sirius/XM's Beatles channel in my car and not any broadcast radio.   That atom bomb couldn't have an effect on satellite radio - uh, could it??

See also Twin Peaks: The Return 1.1-2: Superluminal Sans Cherry Pie ... 1.3-4: Coffee and Cole ... 1.5: The Mod Squad Meets Big Love in the Diner ... 1.6: Red Door and Childish Scribbles ... 1.7: Lost and Not Lost


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