Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 390
September 2, 2011
Review of Connected: A Triple Threat Movie by Tiffany Shlain
Just saw Tiffany Shlain's new documentary Connected: An Autoblogography about Love, Death & Technology via private online screening. I saw an earlier version about a year ago, and was well impressed both times.
The movie is actually three in one -
1. Connected is a sagely and even delightfully presented story of our interconnectedness as a species - among ourselves, all living things, and the technologies through which extend ourselves and give substance to our imaginations, plans, and desires. In its warnings about what we can do wrong - such as Mao's killing of sparrows to improve harvests (sparrows eat seeds) which resulted in massive crop failure (fewer sparrows resulted in more locusts, also eaten by sparrows) - Connected is cousin to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. In the hope it holds out for our new media, it is the kind of movie Buckminster Fuller might have made.
2. Connected is a passionate biography of Leonard Shlain (1937-2009) - Tiffany's father - whose The Alphabet versus the Goddess (1999) argued that the advent of the alphabet over earlier forms of writing encouraged masculine thinking and dominance. In its daring media determinism and historical sweep, the book put Leonard Shlain on a par with Julian Jaynes as a worthy successor to Marshall McLuhan in provocative and mind-opening hypothesis.
3. But Connected is most of all an autobiography of Tiffany Shlain, who recounts her inspiration by her father, her struggle with his passing, her struggle to make sense of the curves the universe has thrown her, and in one way or another, throws at all of us. That's what it means to be an intelligent being in this world, someone who doesn't just accept what she or he finds, but seeks to understand it, get a little on top of it, and thereby have a little bit more say and control over the course of our lives and the world.
Narrated by Tiffany Shlain and Peter Coyote. Animated bits by Stefan Nadelman (of Food Fight fame). Highly recommended for students of media - indeed, for students of life.
Connected opens in major cities in America in September - here 's a list - and Fordham University will be hosting a special free screening on September 25 as part of its Media at the Center McLuhan Centenary symposia.
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
The movie is actually three in one -
1. Connected is a sagely and even delightfully presented story of our interconnectedness as a species - among ourselves, all living things, and the technologies through which extend ourselves and give substance to our imaginations, plans, and desires. In its warnings about what we can do wrong - such as Mao's killing of sparrows to improve harvests (sparrows eat seeds) which resulted in massive crop failure (fewer sparrows resulted in more locusts, also eaten by sparrows) - Connected is cousin to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. In the hope it holds out for our new media, it is the kind of movie Buckminster Fuller might have made.
2. Connected is a passionate biography of Leonard Shlain (1937-2009) - Tiffany's father - whose The Alphabet versus the Goddess (1999) argued that the advent of the alphabet over earlier forms of writing encouraged masculine thinking and dominance. In its daring media determinism and historical sweep, the book put Leonard Shlain on a par with Julian Jaynes as a worthy successor to Marshall McLuhan in provocative and mind-opening hypothesis.3. But Connected is most of all an autobiography of Tiffany Shlain, who recounts her inspiration by her father, her struggle with his passing, her struggle to make sense of the curves the universe has thrown her, and in one way or another, throws at all of us. That's what it means to be an intelligent being in this world, someone who doesn't just accept what she or he finds, but seeks to understand it, get a little on top of it, and thereby have a little bit more say and control over the course of our lives and the world.
Narrated by Tiffany Shlain and Peter Coyote. Animated bits by Stefan Nadelman (of Food Fight fame). Highly recommended for students of media - indeed, for students of life.
Connected opens in major cities in America in September - here 's a list - and Fordham University will be hosting a special free screening on September 25 as part of its Media at the Center McLuhan Centenary symposia.
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
August 22, 2011
The FCC Finally Does Something Right
Good for the FCC for formally eliminating the Fairness Doctrine, which it wisely hadn't been enforcing anyway for twenty years. The last thing we need is the government having any say whatsoever in the political content of radio and television broadcasts.
As a case in point, consider the advent and growth of cable TV news. Without any FCC supervision, we have conservative Fox, progressive MSNBC, and down the middle (if usually boring) CNN. In other words, the marketplaces of ideas and money brought about a very well balanced system of news delivery and commentary.
The next thing the FCC should do it is eliminate itself - or, at very least, the fines it has been levying against broadcasters it deems to be putting out "objectionable" content. Like the Fairness Doctrine and just about everything the FCC does other than keeping track of broadcast frequencies - increasingly unnecessary in our age of Internet streaming - the FCC is in principle and practice a blatant violation of the First Amendment. Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
As a case in point, consider the advent and growth of cable TV news. Without any FCC supervision, we have conservative Fox, progressive MSNBC, and down the middle (if usually boring) CNN. In other words, the marketplaces of ideas and money brought about a very well balanced system of news delivery and commentary.
The next thing the FCC should do it is eliminate itself - or, at very least, the fines it has been levying against broadcasters it deems to be putting out "objectionable" content. Like the Fairness Doctrine and just about everything the FCC does other than keeping track of broadcast frequencies - increasingly unnecessary in our age of Internet streaming - the FCC is in principle and practice a blatant violation of the First Amendment. Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
August 14, 2011
Sholem Aleichem and Marshall McLuhan
I saw Joseph Dorman's 2011 documentary, Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness, with Tina last night. Superb footage and sage commentary about the man born Sholem Rabinovich in Russia in 1859, who died world-renown under his pen name Sholem Aleichem in New York City in 1916 (a year after my father was born here in 1915, four years after Marshall McLuhan was born in Edmonton in 1911). Sholem Aleichem was known as the Yiddish Mark Twain. Given one of his specialties in ironic endings of short stories, he also could have been known as the Yiddish O'Henry or De Maupassant.
But the Twain reference speaks most to Sholem Aleichem's relevance to Marshall McLuhan. Mark Twain's ear for American vernacular, and capacity to put it on the written page, fired up his master works Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Aleichem did the same for Yiddish. McLuhan provided tools for explaining this genius of both writers - hybrid energy, their capturing of one mode, the acoustic, and rendering it convincingly in another mode, the visual.
As Dorman's movie makes clear, Sholem Aleichem might have written in Russian, his native written language, or in Hebrew, the formal, sacred language of his people. Instead, he chose to write in the shtetel slang he heard all around him. This made him cooler than Tolstoy and the Talmud, a written rapper of his time.
McLuhan understood and wrote about the power of slang, including its transformation into cliche and in turn into archetype (see my Digital McLuhan and its discussion of McLuhan's tetrad for more). Sholem Aleichem, alas, died a decade before his work would achieve its full archetype status - in the Soviet Union, Palestine, and America, in different ways, as the movie shows.
Laughing in the Darkness now buttresses that enduring status. I had one quibble with the documentary - it made no mention of Joe Stein, who wrote the play, Fiddler on the Roof, which catapulted Aleichem's Tevye the Milkman stories into theatrical and then cinematic prominence in the 1960s and 70s. Although I studied Sholem Aleichem in the Workmen's Circle Yiddisheh shuleh in the late 1950s, and heard about him from my parents and grandparents, for many people Fiddler was their introduction to Sholem.
From the ear to the page to the screen, a McLuhanesque story of media evolution right there.
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
But the Twain reference speaks most to Sholem Aleichem's relevance to Marshall McLuhan. Mark Twain's ear for American vernacular, and capacity to put it on the written page, fired up his master works Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Aleichem did the same for Yiddish. McLuhan provided tools for explaining this genius of both writers - hybrid energy, their capturing of one mode, the acoustic, and rendering it convincingly in another mode, the visual.
As Dorman's movie makes clear, Sholem Aleichem might have written in Russian, his native written language, or in Hebrew, the formal, sacred language of his people. Instead, he chose to write in the shtetel slang he heard all around him. This made him cooler than Tolstoy and the Talmud, a written rapper of his time.
McLuhan understood and wrote about the power of slang, including its transformation into cliche and in turn into archetype (see my Digital McLuhan and its discussion of McLuhan's tetrad for more). Sholem Aleichem, alas, died a decade before his work would achieve its full archetype status - in the Soviet Union, Palestine, and America, in different ways, as the movie shows.
Laughing in the Darkness now buttresses that enduring status. I had one quibble with the documentary - it made no mention of Joe Stein, who wrote the play, Fiddler on the Roof, which catapulted Aleichem's Tevye the Milkman stories into theatrical and then cinematic prominence in the 1960s and 70s. Although I studied Sholem Aleichem in the Workmen's Circle Yiddisheh shuleh in the late 1950s, and heard about him from my parents and grandparents, for many people Fiddler was their introduction to Sholem.
From the ear to the page to the screen, a McLuhanesque story of media evolution right there.
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
August 11, 2011
In Defense of Flashmobs and Blackberrys
I just heard Martin Fletcher on MSNBC say that, over in the United Kingdom, some people are calling for "crack downs" on Blabberrys, since messaging on them has been implicated in the assembling of the rioting mobs over the there. Meanwhile, I was interviewed the other day in The Daily about talk in Philadelphia and elsewhere in America to limit flashmobs, responsible for violence in Philadelphia and other American cities. My response to The Daily - "The Cairo flash mob had a very good result."
Think about it. There no doubt were all kinds of criminal activities planned on telephones in the 20th century - should that have led to their banning or any across-the-board restrictions? Aside from being an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment, such limitations would have been entirely unnecessary: we already have restrictions on criminal activities.
Banning or even general limitations on flashmobs not would not only violate the freedom of speech provision of our First Amendment, but its freedom to peaceably assemble, as well. And they are similarly unneeded. We already have ample laws on the books against looting and other criminal activities of crowds. England does, too.
The Arab Spring, while not successful everywhere, has already peacefully spread to democracies in Israel and Spain. The larger message of these assemblages of people, brought together through online invitations, and publicized through Twitter and other new new media (my name for media which transform consumers into producers) is that we may be witnessing a profound shift, even in democracies, from representative to direct forms of governance. When elected representatives don't do their jobs, the people press to take more power. This was always the case - and why we in the United States changed from selected to directly elected U.S. Senators a century ago. But now the voice and wishes of the people can be heard as never before, through the smart phones in an increasing number of hands.
Governments would be wise to take this revolution seriously, and not disable it by even a well-meaning but unnecessary limit on smart phones and flashmobs in response to a summer of hooligans.
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
Think about it. There no doubt were all kinds of criminal activities planned on telephones in the 20th century - should that have led to their banning or any across-the-board restrictions? Aside from being an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment, such limitations would have been entirely unnecessary: we already have restrictions on criminal activities.
Banning or even general limitations on flashmobs not would not only violate the freedom of speech provision of our First Amendment, but its freedom to peaceably assemble, as well. And they are similarly unneeded. We already have ample laws on the books against looting and other criminal activities of crowds. England does, too.
The Arab Spring, while not successful everywhere, has already peacefully spread to democracies in Israel and Spain. The larger message of these assemblages of people, brought together through online invitations, and publicized through Twitter and other new new media (my name for media which transform consumers into producers) is that we may be witnessing a profound shift, even in democracies, from representative to direct forms of governance. When elected representatives don't do their jobs, the people press to take more power. This was always the case - and why we in the United States changed from selected to directly elected U.S. Senators a century ago. But now the voice and wishes of the people can be heard as never before, through the smart phones in an increasing number of hands.
Governments would be wise to take this revolution seriously, and not disable it by even a well-meaning but unnecessary limit on smart phones and flashmobs in response to a summer of hooligans.
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
August 8, 2011
Falling Skies Concludes First Season
Falling Skies finished its first season last night - and took off with what promises to be a very new, unexpected wing of adventure next summer.
As I wrote here earlier, I always like to see a series grow as we watch it, with changes subtle and major throughout the season. Falling Skies has been doing this, but took the changes to new levels in its Season One double-episode finale.
Gone is JFK High School, headquarters of our brave fighters and survivors. The aliens were given its location by Rick, who, fortunately, now sees that the aliens don't want him back.
And gone also is Tom - not killed, not even taken captive, but leaving voluntarily with a humanoid alien, who communicates to Tom via Karen that Ben could still be transformed into an alien, and the only way Tom can stop that is if he goes with the aliens, who want to learn more about our species from Tom - in particular, how and why we have mounted such an effective resistance (including Tom shooting down an alien plane!).
One weakness in this dramatic plot turn is that Tom, having seen that Nick was deemed unsuitable for alien re-integration, might have realized that Ben would similarly be unfit - that is, that the aliens were bluffing about Ben. But, on the other hand, we can understand why Tom would not want to take any chances, and his going off with the aliens makes for great possible story lines next year.
We also get a good goodbye kiss for Tom and Anne. Meanwhile, Weaver, Pope, Hal, and all the other major characters are in good form. And I'll see you here next year with reviews of the next season.
See also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters ... Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle ... Falling Skies 1.5: Ben ... Falling Skies 1.6: Fifth Column ... Falling Skies 1.7: The Fate of Traitors ... Falling Skies 1.8: Weaver's Story
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
As I wrote here earlier, I always like to see a series grow as we watch it, with changes subtle and major throughout the season. Falling Skies has been doing this, but took the changes to new levels in its Season One double-episode finale.
Gone is JFK High School, headquarters of our brave fighters and survivors. The aliens were given its location by Rick, who, fortunately, now sees that the aliens don't want him back.
And gone also is Tom - not killed, not even taken captive, but leaving voluntarily with a humanoid alien, who communicates to Tom via Karen that Ben could still be transformed into an alien, and the only way Tom can stop that is if he goes with the aliens, who want to learn more about our species from Tom - in particular, how and why we have mounted such an effective resistance (including Tom shooting down an alien plane!).
One weakness in this dramatic plot turn is that Tom, having seen that Nick was deemed unsuitable for alien re-integration, might have realized that Ben would similarly be unfit - that is, that the aliens were bluffing about Ben. But, on the other hand, we can understand why Tom would not want to take any chances, and his going off with the aliens makes for great possible story lines next year.
We also get a good goodbye kiss for Tom and Anne. Meanwhile, Weaver, Pope, Hal, and all the other major characters are in good form. And I'll see you here next year with reviews of the next season.
See also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters ... Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle ... Falling Skies 1.5: Ben ... Falling Skies 1.6: Fifth Column ... Falling Skies 1.7: The Fate of Traitors ... Falling Skies 1.8: Weaver's Story
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
August 1, 2011
Politics and New Media live blogging of House Vote on Debt Ceiling
I asked my Politics and New Media grad class at Fordham University to live blog the House of Representatives' vote on the debt ceiling bill this evening. Here are the results, including responses to Gabriella Giffords' return to the House for this vote.
DB http://unmsum11.blogspot.com/
KOC Helloreallifenyc.blogspot.com
AMcC capriciousramblings.tumblr.com
SG http://anonymousblog-caveatlector.blogspot.com
MP mariaparonich.blogspot.com
AD Dretheprophet.tumblr.com
EP www.estherpang.com
MS http://furanimalrights.wordpress.com
EP http://constitutionstate.blogspot.com/
AR http://alexromblog.blogspot.com/
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
DB http://unmsum11.blogspot.com/
KOC Helloreallifenyc.blogspot.com
AMcC capriciousramblings.tumblr.com
SG http://anonymousblog-caveatlector.blogspot.com
MP mariaparonich.blogspot.com
AD Dretheprophet.tumblr.com
EP www.estherpang.com
MS http://furanimalrights.wordpress.com
EP http://constitutionstate.blogspot.com/
AR http://alexromblog.blogspot.com/
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
Falling Skies 1.8: Weaver's Story
Another fine Falling Skies last night - episode 1.8 - in which we finally a learn a crucial bit more about Captain Weaver (Will Patton), whose life prior to the alien attack has pretty much been a cipher until now. The scoop is Weaver had a wife and two children, and he finds something in his wife's home (the two had been divorced) - her eyeglasses - which gives him hope that she and one of his children may still be alive somewhere.
His other child died after Weaver tried to remove a harness, which brings us back to one of the main continuing stories. All of the harnessed children rescued by Hal and Tom, and operated on by Anne, have healed, with the exception of two. Ben is ok mentally, but he has much more than natural strength, and the harness connections on his back are still out there. Rick is not ok mentally, and his continuing insistence that he's part of the aliens shows that Ben may not be quite out of the woods on this yet, either.
Meanwhile, we have two new discoveries: a humanoid alien form, which/who seems to be superior to the skitters; and Anne's finding that the skitters themselves seem to be harnessed (except they carry the harness on the inside, which makes sense, since their shell or bone structure is external and their flesh internal). The two taken together could be momentous: are the skitters and we humans both victims of the humanoid aliens?
One indisputably good discovery comes from Pope, the Sawyer-like (Lost) character in Falling Skies. After delivering a nice, funny line about NPR as a weapon that could bore the aliens to death, Pope - with Matt's help - realizes that bullets fashioned from Mech metal can cut right through them, like a hot knife through butter. At last, a real weapon for our side.
But in some ways, Weaver's story is the most significant: he was on the verge of throwing in the towel before he discovered his wife's eyeglasses. This shows how fragile even the toughest of us humans are in this insane environment of near alien conquest of Earth. Which is, alas, a quite realistic portrait of where we'd be if such an invasion occurred.
Season One two-hour finale next week!
See also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters ... Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle ... Falling Skies 1.5: Ben ... Falling Skies 1.6: Fifth Column ... Falling Skies 1.7: The Fate of Traitors
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
His other child died after Weaver tried to remove a harness, which brings us back to one of the main continuing stories. All of the harnessed children rescued by Hal and Tom, and operated on by Anne, have healed, with the exception of two. Ben is ok mentally, but he has much more than natural strength, and the harness connections on his back are still out there. Rick is not ok mentally, and his continuing insistence that he's part of the aliens shows that Ben may not be quite out of the woods on this yet, either.
Meanwhile, we have two new discoveries: a humanoid alien form, which/who seems to be superior to the skitters; and Anne's finding that the skitters themselves seem to be harnessed (except they carry the harness on the inside, which makes sense, since their shell or bone structure is external and their flesh internal). The two taken together could be momentous: are the skitters and we humans both victims of the humanoid aliens?
One indisputably good discovery comes from Pope, the Sawyer-like (Lost) character in Falling Skies. After delivering a nice, funny line about NPR as a weapon that could bore the aliens to death, Pope - with Matt's help - realizes that bullets fashioned from Mech metal can cut right through them, like a hot knife through butter. At last, a real weapon for our side.
But in some ways, Weaver's story is the most significant: he was on the verge of throwing in the towel before he discovered his wife's eyeglasses. This shows how fragile even the toughest of us humans are in this insane environment of near alien conquest of Earth. Which is, alas, a quite realistic portrait of where we'd be if such an invasion occurred.
Season One two-hour finale next week!
See also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters ... Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle ... Falling Skies 1.5: Ben ... Falling Skies 1.6: Fifth Column ... Falling Skies 1.7: The Fate of Traitors
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
July 28, 2011
Breaking Bad 4.2: Gun and Question
The long and short of Breaking Bad 4.2 is that Walter buys a gun for the purpose of killing Gus, before Gus kills Walter and Jesse, as Walter is sure Gus will, as soon as Gus lines up a reliable replacement for Walter.
Is Walter right about Gus' intentions? Hell, yes.
Will Walter be able to follow through on his intentions (not yet an actual plan)? Very likely yes.
So why then did Walt approach Gus's steely enforcer, Mike, with a request to set up a meeting between Gus and Walt? Surely Walt must have known that Mike would almost instantly see through this, even if Mike hadn't spotted the gun which Walt worked so hard not to reveal.
Elsewhere, Hank's making a small bit of painful progress, but can barely stand the sight of Marie. This is only slightly the result of her lack of appreciation of Hank's interest in minerals - which she calls rocks - and more much because her presence reminds Hank of the pathetic shape he feels he's in, and what he can't do now. This is the result of the careful care she has given him - including emptying bed pans - and gets at the very heart of this series.
Breaking Bad continues its mix of following though, rather than skating around, the tough issues, and throwing in a less than comprehensible move which will no doubt lead to some sort of shocking surprise. Fine, different television.
See also My Prediction about Breaking Bad ... Breaking Bad Season 4 Debuts
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ... Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
Is Walter right about Gus' intentions? Hell, yes.
Will Walter be able to follow through on his intentions (not yet an actual plan)? Very likely yes.
So why then did Walt approach Gus's steely enforcer, Mike, with a request to set up a meeting between Gus and Walt? Surely Walt must have known that Mike would almost instantly see through this, even if Mike hadn't spotted the gun which Walt worked so hard not to reveal.
Elsewhere, Hank's making a small bit of painful progress, but can barely stand the sight of Marie. This is only slightly the result of her lack of appreciation of Hank's interest in minerals - which she calls rocks - and more much because her presence reminds Hank of the pathetic shape he feels he's in, and what he can't do now. This is the result of the careful care she has given him - including emptying bed pans - and gets at the very heart of this series.
Breaking Bad continues its mix of following though, rather than skating around, the tough issues, and throwing in a less than comprehensible move which will no doubt lead to some sort of shocking surprise. Fine, different television.
See also My Prediction about Breaking Bad ... Breaking Bad Season 4 Debuts
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ... Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
July 25, 2011
Falling Skies 1.7: The Fate of Traitors
An excellent Falling Skies 1.7 last night, the best so far in the series. I've said that before, which means the series is getting better and better. Among the main things we learned last night -
Ben is thoroughly with us. His time harnessed has given him greater than his previously human endurance - in running as well as push-ups - but his loyalties are still with his family and species. Indeed, he's one of the heroes in last night's story.Not so much Mike's son Rick, who was also liberated from the harness, but, apparently, only physically. At the end of last night's episode, he reveals his continuing alien loyalties - especially disquieting, in view of his father's death at the hands of the humans in business with the aliens,But Pope is back in action, and he's heroic, too, as he saves Hal from death. (Fine acting by Drew Roy as Hal, by the way - his intonations are just like Noah Wyle's, who plays his father.)But back to the humans doing business with the aliens - giving them our children in return for the traitors' own safety - one thing I didn't like at the end of last night's episode was letting them go free. In reality, I'm against the death penalty (because of the danger of innocent people wrongly convicted). But in this fiction of an alien invasion, they - the human adults we saw working with the aliens - deserved the firing squad.
Looking forward to the last two episodes of this season.
See also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters ... Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle ... Falling Skies 1.5: Ben ... Falling Skies 1.6: Fifth Column
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ... Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
Ben is thoroughly with us. His time harnessed has given him greater than his previously human endurance - in running as well as push-ups - but his loyalties are still with his family and species. Indeed, he's one of the heroes in last night's story.Not so much Mike's son Rick, who was also liberated from the harness, but, apparently, only physically. At the end of last night's episode, he reveals his continuing alien loyalties - especially disquieting, in view of his father's death at the hands of the humans in business with the aliens,But Pope is back in action, and he's heroic, too, as he saves Hal from death. (Fine acting by Drew Roy as Hal, by the way - his intonations are just like Noah Wyle's, who plays his father.)But back to the humans doing business with the aliens - giving them our children in return for the traitors' own safety - one thing I didn't like at the end of last night's episode was letting them go free. In reality, I'm against the death penalty (because of the danger of innocent people wrongly convicted). But in this fiction of an alien invasion, they - the human adults we saw working with the aliens - deserved the firing squad.
Looking forward to the last two episodes of this season.
See also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters ... Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle ... Falling Skies 1.5: Ben ... Falling Skies 1.6: Fifth Column
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ... Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
July 24, 2011
MSNBC Up to Its Old Tricks: Fires Cenk Uygur
The news broke this past week that Cenk Uygur was going the way of Keith Olbermann, at least insofar as being shown the door at MSNBC. Al Sharpton is now on in Uygur's 6 pm hour, and is said to be Uygur's likely permanent replacement.
I like Sharpton, but am once again dismayed at the short shrift MSNBC gives to its hard-working, passionate anchors. Uygur, though sharing a strong progressive perspective with Olbermann (which I generally share as well) actually ran a show which had little in common with Countdown on MSNBC. Uygur happily interrogated Republicans (Olbermann by and large only had guests who agreed with him) and dished out plainspoken logic in contrast to Olbermann's often florid hyperbole.
But what both also had in common was a stubborn, refreshing insistence on calling events and issues as they see them, including criticizing the President, even though he's obviously part of the party the two usually support. And this, apparently, was too much too much for the frightened, shallow people who call the shots at MSNBC.
But that's ok. We now have Olbermann on Currents TV, and Uygur will no doubt show up there or somewhere else, and if Current TV would only get itself into a few more cable lineups, there would be even less reason to watch MSNBC than there is now.
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
I like Sharpton, but am once again dismayed at the short shrift MSNBC gives to its hard-working, passionate anchors. Uygur, though sharing a strong progressive perspective with Olbermann (which I generally share as well) actually ran a show which had little in common with Countdown on MSNBC. Uygur happily interrogated Republicans (Olbermann by and large only had guests who agreed with him) and dished out plainspoken logic in contrast to Olbermann's often florid hyperbole.
But what both also had in common was a stubborn, refreshing insistence on calling events and issues as they see them, including criticizing the President, even though he's obviously part of the party the two usually support. And this, apparently, was too much too much for the frightened, shallow people who call the shots at MSNBC.
But that's ok. We now have Olbermann on Currents TV, and Uygur will no doubt show up there or somewhere else, and if Current TV would only get itself into a few more cable lineups, there would be even less reason to watch MSNBC than there is now.
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
Levinson at Large
At present, I'll be automatically porting over blog posts from my main blog, Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress. These consist of literate (I hope) reviews of mostly television, with some reviews of mov
...more
- Paul Levinson's profile
- 340 followers
