"Here's the thing: I got to fly under the radar for eight years, on networks so magical that they no longer exist. ... As soon as I came on to the radar, and started playing in the grownup world, with 'Firefly' and 'Dollhouse,' I started being treated the way every showrunner is treated. I did think, 'I've had a track record, so they'll get it.' But there is no such thing as a track record. You toil and you toil and you argue and argue and you tear your hair out and go nuts and eventually you either retire, go mad or become powerful enough to make your own show. You say, 'I am going to show them how it's done!' And that's when you make 'Cop Rock From Cincinnati.'
And talking about how playing in the grownup world is a tad bit less funny, I very much recommend "Runaways", a Marvel comic series originally created by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona, but Joss Whedon took over for issue 25 to 30 and gave the series his very own tone, especially when it comes to dialogue and character development. Meanwhile the third volume is written by Terry Moore and I felt like the characters had kinda lost this strong voice they had before, but I've never really read any comics before and I just generally need to adapt to the fact that each writer and each illustrator has their own style and gives their own interpretation of the characters. The story of the Runaways: some kids between 12 and 17 find out that their parents are supervillains, lose all trust in authority and find themselves on the run from both their evil parents, police and heroes. It has all the ingredients of a Whedon-show: love doesn't end well, death comes suddenly and is sometimes irreversible, and even good people make really bad decisions. (after finishing, I immediately turned to The Astonishing X-Men, which takes more work since the X-Men have such a long history and the only thing I knew before is from the movies that apparently don't correspond at all with the comics.)
"For the better part of half a century after World War II, democratic capitalism built its modern framework against the backdrop of its death match with totalitarian Communism. In the two decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the American model of capitalism, largely unchallenged by ideological alternatives and increasingly dominant around the world, drifted toward what conservatives viewed as a more pure form of economic liberty and what liberals came to view as misguided free-market fundamentalism. But now, as the United States and other nations look for lessons in the wreckage from the excesses of that period, political leaders are confronting uncertainty about what economic structures and values should define capitalism’s next chapter. Even before the current crisis, there were calls to rethink basic assumptions about the economy. Growth during the Bush presidency was slower than in any decade since before World War II, and incomes for most families have been growing slowly for much of the last three decades."
"After the Fall" seems to me another example of hyperbole for the sake of attention (it is, accidentally, also the name of the comic-season 6 of "Angel", just to tie this in with the general focus of this month) - but I guess part of the problem here is the lack of an alternative that has worked. We can look in the past and dream of the classic Central European welfare state, but then, it seems that this possibility is long gone. While critics of Obama use the S-word very frequently and creatively, that just looks nice on paper, much like the whole hip "we know how to use the internet now" (though a couple of months too late, suckers) teabagging thing (which they still use unironically, despite the first definition that comes up when you wiki it). Usually, the lines "This article is about the sexual practice. For the protests in the United States, see 2009 Tea Party protests" don't fare well for the conservative movement. My prediction: everybody is going to have a little less, also security, and some will have a little more, but probably live with the possibility of having their residences and cars demolished more frequently, but nothing basic is going to change (at least for those under 30 who weren't really counting on retiring or receiving the same kind of health care as their parents).
Vor einigen Jahren, als ich meine erste Ausgabe der Spex in Händen hielt, machte ich die schockierende Entdeckung, dass zwei Bereiche der Popkultur, die ich bis jetzt für nicht verbunden gehalten hatte, in diesem Magazin zueinander gefunden hatten. Ich fand einen Artikel über Amber Benson und ihren Debütfilm "Chance", und erst nach einigen weiteren Ausgaben ging mir ein Licht auf: dass "Buffy" und andere Werke von Joss Whedon kaum irgendwo besser aufgehoben sind als in einem Magazin, das sich ernsthaft mit Popkultur beschäftigt. Dietmar Dath, bis 2000 (also ein paar Jahre vor meiner ersten Ausgabe) Chefredakteur der Spex, hat 2003 sogar ein Buch über "Buffy" geschrieben, das leider inzwischen sehr schwer zu bekommen ist (Titel: "Sie ist wach. Über ein Mädchen das hilft, schützt und rettet"). Aus irgendeinem merkwürdigen Zufall, vielleicht auch, um einen Zugang zu "Dollhouse" zu finden, hab ich in den letzten Wochen ein paar Staffeln von "Buffy" und "Angel" nachgeholt, die ich vorher nur in Fragmenten kannte - auf jeden Fall gibt es in der aktuellen Ausgabe ebenjenes Magazins ein Interview mit Phantom/Ghost, der Kollaboration zwischen Dirk von Lowtzow (Tocotronic) und Thies Myntner, in dem es auch um den Themenkomplex Whedon-Musicals-Stephen Sondheim geht.
Dirk von Lowtzow: [...] Bei "Three" waren die Themen Hexerei und Folk Music - zum Beispiel die Incredible STring Band, aber auch Literarisches, wie etwa Texte über Hexen. Un djetzt, mit "Thrown Out of Drama School", sind wir eben beim Thema Bühne angelangt, bei der Operette und beim Musical.
Thies Mynther: Und natürlich beim Off-Broadway-Theater.
Spex: Operette und Musical weswegen? Wegen schlechtem Schauspiel und überzogenen Gesten. Wegen des Grenzwertes?
Dirk von Lowtzow: Ja. Oder auch, weil wir vor Jahren schon nachts im Hotelzimmer Stunden damit zubrachten, das "Buffy"-Musical zu analysieren. Damit gint es im Grunde los: "Once More, With Feeling", diese eine Musical-Folge von "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", ist wirklich ganz meisterlich!
Thies Mynther: Ich habe mich im letzten Jahr dann recht exzessiv mit der Geschichte des Musicals auseinandergesetzt, bis ich das Gefühl hatte, das Wesen des Musicals ganz durchdrungen zu haben - das ging so weit, dass mir die Formulierungen, das musikalische Idiom tief ins Unterbewusstsein gesickert waren. Stephen Sondheim zum Beispiel habe ich richtiggehend studiert. Sondheim schätze ich seither als fantastischen Texter - als einen der besten des 20. Jahrhunderts!
Spex: "Dilettanten sind wir, Knallchargen, Hochstapler!", Interview mit Phantom/Ghost, geführt von Max Dax und Jan Kedves, in der Ausgabe von Mai/Juni 2009.
Bevor ich zu Sondheim zurückkomme, noch schnell ein Hinweis: Auf der oben erwähnten Platte "Three", in der es eben um Hexerei geht, trägt der letzte Track den Titel "Willow", was natürlich nicht nur ein hübsch anzusehender Baum ist. Hier eine Liveaufnahme:
Zum Nachlesen: "You should see you through my eyes / I do believe your spells arise / and therefore Mrs Rosenberg / Your eyes turn black it's red alert / you always leave me quite disturbed / your powers could destroy this world."
In dem langen Dr Horrible-Panel, das ich vor einigen Wochen gepostet habe, gab es auch einen Abschnitt, in dem die Gäste ihre Lieblingsmusicals diskutierten (und vor allem "Sweeney Todd" und "Into the Woods" von Stephen Sondheim erwähnten). Ich kannte von Sondheim davor nur "Assassins", auf das ich nicht durch Whedon, sondern ein Essay am Anfang von Sarah Vowells "The Assassination Vacation" gestoßen war: es geht darin um die diversen erfolgreichen und gescheiterten Präsidenten-Attentäter, von Lincolns Mörder über die Manson-Anhängerin Squeaky Fromme bis zu dem Unglücklichen, der Jodie Fosters Aufmerksamkeit durch einen Mord an Präsident Reagan auf sich ziehen wollte. Allerdings hat Whedon in einigen Interviews immer wieder erwähnt, welchen Einfluss Sondheim auf sein eigenes Schaffen hat. Zum Beispiel gibt es in "Into the Woods" (dazu gibt es eine Broadway-Aufnahme von 1990 auf DVD, mit der Originalbesetzung, unter anderem Joanna Gleason und Bernadette Peters, und Clips daraus lassen sich leicht bei youtube finden), ein Musical, das verschiedene Grimm-Märchen verbindet, eine ganz merkwürdige Art von Humor, die mich sehr an "Buffy" erinnert hat, und einen plötzlichen unerwarteten Tod der Mutterfigur. Und eine Botschaft, die der vom Ende der Musicalfolge nicht unähnlich ist, in etwa: "life is not bliss, life is just this, it's living". Hier das Finale (und wer den genauen Punkt findet, der ein wenig nach "Brand New Day" aus Dr Horrible klingt, kudos)
Zwei andere Dinge fallen mir dazu noch ein: Kate Atkinsons genial strukturierte "Kurzgeschichtensammlung" "Not the End of the World", die auch irgendwie durch die Buffy-Idee zusammengehalten wird, und die deutsche Band JaKönigJa, weil (wiederum in einer Spex-Kritik zu dem Album "Ebba") ein von der Texterin der Band (Ebba Durstewitz) geschriebener Artikel erwähnt wurde, der "schlussfolgerte, dass der Hase »tatsächlich das Böse per se« sei". Leider funktioniert die Website des Magazins nicht mehr wirklich, zumindest kann ich die entsprechende Ausgabe nicht als Flash einsehen.
Whee. "Caprica" seems to be a wild mix between "BSG", "Skins" and the most violent aspects of William Gibson's novels. In short, it is the saga of two families in a slowly declining society (the fall as documented in the first few hours of "BSG) - not unlike Rome, or the world as it is now, if you are willing to make that jump. The great thing is that it was already well established how Caprica was the most decadent of the colonies, indicating that probably the idea of the center vs. the periphery is going to be an issue. About two seconds into the pilot, you also completely understand why it debuted on DVD and online download, not on TV (the series will start airing in 2010). Awesome. (Also, Jane Espenson is the showrunner.)
Erstens: David Lynchs Video für Mobys neueste Singleveröffentlichung.
Moby - Shot in the Back of the Head
Zweitens: ein wunderschönes, wenn auch älteres Lied von Iron & Wine (der Künstlername von Samuel Beam), veröffentlicht 2005 auf der "Woman King EP". Entdeckt in der Serie "Skins", die manchmal Lieder ein bisschen zu wortwörtlich nimmt, aber generell eine ziemlich geniale Soundtrack-Zusammenstellung hat (die leider auf den DVDs verloren geht, wo vieles verändert werden musste).
Iron & Wine - Freedom Hangs Like Heaven
Drittens: Ein PopMatters-Bericht über das diesjährige By:Larm-Festival. Ich bin am Tag,bevor es begonnen hat aus Oslo abgereist, aber die beschriebenen Wetterbedingungen entsprechen genau dem, was ich dort 14 Tage lang erlebt habe.
Viertens: eine lustige Zusammenfassung über die halbherzigen augenzwinkernden Versuche der Serie "How I Met Your Mother", die Schwangerschaften beider Hauptdarstellerinnen (Alyson Hannigan, die inzwischen schon Mutter einer Tochter ist, und Cobie Smulders) zu verstecken. Inklusive eating-contest, lustiger Kleidung und genial platzierter Einrichtungsgegenstände.
Fünftens: Ein langer und gut geschriebener Artikel im Guardian über den Einfluss des vorgestern verstorbenen britischen Schriftstellers J. G. Ballard auf Film, Architektur und Musik.
"What is most Ballardian about TV today is the common modern experience of switching on, and being uncertain whether we are watching news or entertainment, or some half-life hybrid. In predicting and analysing this slippage, Ballard was a true televisionary."
Sechstens: vor einigen Tagen wurden die sogenannten "torture memos" der Bush-Administration veröffentlicht, in denen Mitarbeiter des Justizministerium die Anwendung von Techniken gerechtfertigt haben, bei denen sich meine Haare sträubten (und ich hatte tatsächlich einen Alptraum zum Thema). Unter anderem wurde ein Häftling in einen Container mit Insekten gesperrt. In der Rachel Maddow-Show wurde dieses Vorgehen mit Orwells "1984" verglichen. Und nein, es ist nicht selbstverständlich, dass die verantwortlichen Juristen jetzt mit Folgen zu rechnen haben. Ein besonders lauter Kritiker Obamas in dieser Hinsicht ist der Verfassungsjurist Jonathan Turley.
Over the weekend I've had a discussion with my dad about the controversial Krugman-comment that sparked a series of newspaper articles on the subject with a number of Austrian economists and politicians critisizing him. Now, the reason why I felt a bit squeamish about the whole affair at first was because he admitted that he had not looked at the numbers specifically, and then there was the thing where he talked about Eastern Europe as a block rather than a number of individual countries with their specific problems. What was not mentioned, or at least not prominently, was the fact that this actually started a couple of months ago with an IMF-report warning about the risks resulting from the engagement in countries that seem to be struggling. Whatever Dominique Strauss-Kahn meant when he spoke about a "silver lining on the horizon", he also said that he believed Austria was not in greater danger than other countries engaged in the CEE-region (yet failing to mention that Austria's exposure is considerably higher than that of any other country). "Bankrupcy" was certainly a very nice and attention-grabbing term to throw around in this particular situation, but what surprised me about the reaction was how far it deviated from a simple "it is not that bad". Actually, it sounded more like an "Everything is just fine. And even if it wasn't, we would not say so because that would be bad for the country." Here is part of finance minister Pröll's reaction:
"Was hinter solchem "Bashing" stehe, könne er nur indirekt ableiten: Der Finanzminister erinnerte daran, mit welchem Argwohn und Neid in den vergangenen zehn Jahren die Osteuropaexpansion der Österreicher beobachtet worden sei, gerade von Ländern, die selber diese Entwicklung verschlafen hätten. Das könnte da mitschwingen."
Assuming that Krugman's comment was sparked by his jealousy at Austria's economic success over the past ten years seems quite ridiculous to me. In the discussion, my dad likened this to the situation of a patient in a hospital: a doctor who only gives the most realistically negative prognosis isn't really helping the relatives. In economics, talking about a down-turn is like a self-fulfilling prophecy as investors run like little children from the evil monster. But over the past months, while all those horrible numbers rolled in, I felt as if the public in Austria was still cushioned from reality, lulled in calming comments and the cheerful optimism only a bank executive can have days before accepting billions of bail-out money, while doing so basically saying "we didn't really need it, but since it was up for grabs, we took it anyway". I am not saying that we should all lie awake and fearfully wait for the next catastrophe to happen (I can do that on my own, without being part of a crowd), but it might just be a good idea to demand to be told about what might happen if things get worse. Krugman called that fuzzy feeling of nothing bad is ever going to happen to us "undeserved contentment". Damaging this would not necessarily be a sacrifice to the goddess of pessimism, but a bit of down-to-earth realism.
Schon wieder gibt es Ärger Ärger, der kommt gut, vor allem in dieser Stadt wo keiner etwas tut. Ich hab nicht immer aufgepasst doch eins hab ich gelernt: Dass man sich von diesen tristen Orten schnell entfernt, wo die Guten nur bluten weil die Schlechten sie knechten und der Rest stirbt langsam aus.
Und immer diese Frage: "Wer ist gut und wer ist schlecht? Die Grenzen sind verwischt und man sieht es nicht so recht. Das Angebot ist riesig, wirklich gut gemeint, und Seelen kann man dehnen bis die Sonne durchscheint.
Die Guten die bluten weil die Schlechten sie knechten, und der Rest stirbt langsam aus.
Ab jetzt tuts nur noch weh Ab jetzt tuts nur noch weh
Die Kinder werden gierig, wollen Millionäre werden. Frei zu sein ist schwerig wenn sich alle nur beschweren Viele falsche Frende, zu wenig Fantasie Das Leben schenkt dir alles nur keine Harmonie.
Und die Guten die bluten weil die Schlechten sie knechten, und der Rest stirbt langsam aus.
Und die gute alte Sehnsucht hält mein Herz am Brennen, malt mir meine Bilder um die Schönheit zu erkennen. Diese Stadt ist nur ein Monster, das lebenslang verliert. und irgendjemand hat was an die Hauswand geschmiert Und die Guten die bluten weil die Schlechten sie knechten, und der Rest stirbt langsam aus.
Die Guten die bluten weil die Schlechten sie knechten, und der Rest hält sich da raus.
Ab jetzt tuts nur noch weh
Und ich kann mich nicht entscheiden: soll ich lachen oder weinen, soll ich tanzen oder stehen, soll ich bleiben oder gehen?
Die Guten die bluten weil die Schlechten sie knechten, und der Rest hält sich da raus.
Die Guten die bluten weil die Schlechten sie knechten, und der Rest stirbt langsam aus.
Die Guten die bluten weil die Schlechten sie knechten, und der Rest hat kein Gesicht.
Die Guten die bluten weil die Schlechten sie knechten, und der Rest wartet auf dich.
(and so far, it's really just guys) - here's the Buffy-Angel drama in a box.
[from "Fredless"]
"Dollhouse" and "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" are currently in limbo regarding a renewal for next season. Apparantly, it looks worse for the Headey-Glau-Dekker-thing and a tiny bit better for Eliza Dushku.
Not that I'm an expert on Austria's exposure to the East European market, but somehow, after years of hearing that this country profited most from the expansion and reading spectacular headlines of Austrian banks making high profits in these new market, the notion that there would be no consequences at all from the catastrophic situation unravelling there (mostly Hungary, where the financial crisis has already turned into a political one) seems ridiculous to me. And calling Paul Krugman unqualified to make statements about the economy - I don't know, coming from the man whose previous engagement was in the Orwellian named "Lebensministerium", I'm just thinking about that glasshouse-stone thing.
"Ein Halbsatz eines Wirtschaftsnobelpreisträgers über Österreich sorgte für Zurückschießen auf breitester Front: "Island und Irland geht es ziemlich schlecht, Österreich könnte sich dieser Liga als drittes Land anschließen", sagte der Princeton-Ökonom, New York Times-Kolumnist und Buchautor Paul Krugman in einem Gespräch mit Journalisten Anfang dieser Woche. "Absolut absurd" nannte diese Aussage Österreichs Finanzminister und Vizekanzler Josef Pröll daraufhin am Mittwoch im Klub der Wirtschaftspublizisten in Wien. [...] Wirtschaftskammer, Industriellenvereinigung und Gewerkschaftsbund reagierten verschnupft. WKO-Präsident Christoph Leitl ließ etwa wissen: "Ich habe die Ferndiagnosen über Österreich langsam satt." Pröll nannte Krugmans Aussagen weiters "unqualifiziert"."
And Paul Krugman's blog is here, just in case that you don't agree with the Austrian finance minister's opinion that his Nobel-prize-valued analysis is uninformed.
"This is the point at which the eyes of countless readers will glaze over. It is easier for most to believe that the explanation for the crisis is solely the deregulation and misregulation of the financial systems of the US, UK and a few other countries. Yet, given the scale of the world’s macroeconomic imbalances, it is far from obvious that higher regulatory standards alone would have saved the world. This is not just a matter of historical interest. It is also relevant to the sustainability of the recovery. Fiscal deficits are now generally far bigger in countries with structural current account deficits than in those with current account surpluses. This is because the latter can import a substantial part of the stimulus introduced by the former. [...]. It is quite likely, therefore, that the next crisis will be triggered by what markets see as excessive fiscal debt in countries with large structural current account deficits, notably the US. If so, that could prove a critical moment for the international economic system."
Is the structural current account deficit something that measures how far removed from the actual possible standard of living the actual standard of living of the population of a country is, for example to what extent it is based on unsustainable development? I haven't really heard that term before and can't find anything to explain it. I hope it's a fancy way of saying that it's not just about deregulation but also about how you can't really spend money that you haven't earned before or will earn sooner or later, at least not for a very long time (the "we are all to blame"-argument).
"What it really tells us, though, is that Whedon has an ear for tragedy that draws from some of the most classic examples, from ancient Greece through Shakespeare and beyond. The characters that he loves (and we love) the most are also the ones who suffer the most. I don't think it's a coincidence that most of those characters are women. Since the beginning of the show, Whedon has reserved the richest and most troubling complexities for his women characters. No one escapes suffering in Whedon's universe, but we're made to identify most with the women: both with minor characters like Joyce Summers, Buffy's mother (who was almost always an annoyance and yet whose death left an unimaginable void), as well as, of course, the two women who pump more blood into the show than anyone else -- Buffy and her best friend, Willow."
If you've watched the clips from last year's Comic-Con panel on "Dr Horrible's" I posted a couple of days ago, then you'll have seen a question asked, something along the line "how do you feel about writing such amazing stories usually at the cost of your character's happiness". I've used the little spare time I've had over the past weeks to rewatch some old seasons of "Buffy" and the fourth and fifth of "Angel", which I had never really seen in chronological order. In both shows, about the same thing occurs. A character that has recently repented for some kind of sin gets what he always wanted: a reunion with a loved one, or at least a first shot at someone they've been in love with forever. They get one moment of happiness and then something horrible happens, in one case, the girl gets hit by a stray shot and dies (Tara in "Buffy"), in the other, the girl opens an ancient sarcophagus, breathes in some mummy dust and then becomes the shell for a demon goddess with no chance at all to restore her old character (Fred in "Angel). In both cases, the sweetest possible character is the one that dies (same thing happens in "Dr Horrible"), and it is sudden, completely unexpected and leaves the remaining group of people in fragments, darkness. This was the first time that I got the chance to watch the entire Fred-story arc, and I have to admit that this hit me even harder than Tara's death in "Buffy", since it was so much more devastating. Gentle Fred, who's been trapped as a slave in a strange dimension for years before being rescued by the "heroes", has come such a long way from the disturbed, nerdy woman writing formulas on the walls, and in a show filled with conflicted, morally ambiguous characters, she was the one person that was really good and selfless (apart from one small thing that happened the season before her death, where she of all people decides to take revenge on the person responsible for her being trapped in the demon dimension but ends up putting her then lover in the position of taking that burden). And instead of dying, she literally gets turned into a shell, with the very essence of her being gone and a demon taking over her body (giving actress Amy Acker the opportunity to act out the very opposite to the gentle Fred, an arrogant, aggressive and ultimately frightening creature strange to this human world, but not in the quirky Anya-kind of way). The person worst hit by this, Wesley, is so devastated that there is no way back for him into life as there was for Willow in "Buffy", no slow recovery. The idea that sometimes things that happen can be so horrible that human beings can not return to a normal life afterwards, that time does not heal all wounds, is too seldomly represented in popular television, which is just one of the many reasons why the final season of "Angel" is so amazing. I am expecting all these topics to be tackled in "Dollhouse" - free will, what it means to be human, how identity is formed and kept up, what human beings are willing to try to repent for something they've done - and I just wish that Joss Whedon has enough time to develop the smaller characters (naturally, especially Dr. Claire Saunders, played by Amy Acker, who had a more complex and interesting part to play in the most recent episode, "Needs") - and Topher (Fran Kranz), who seems to be in the tradition of the nerd trio in the sixth season of "Buffy", (despite the fact that he seems to be so easily likeable from the very first moment, geek chic and all that) essentially unconscious of their moral responsibility and the ramifications of their actions.
"Dollhouse" is now seven episodes young. The much-awaited, game-changing sixth episode has aired, and I still haven't gotten around to figuring out what to think about the show. The problem is that this is the first time ever, apart from "Dr Horrible", that I follow a Joss Whedon-show from the very beginning. I was late to see "Firefly", and actually only saw "Buffy" and "Angel" when they aired on German TV with a delay of at least a year (and the first season of Buffy I saw was the fourth). First of, "Dollhouse" was an idea Joss had when talking to his former star Eliza Dushku, who played Faith in "Angel" and "Buffy". The show is co-produced by her, and even though it is not named after her character Echo, it is essentially about her. The premise of the show holds the most difficult obstacle to overcome for the viewers: the show is about a secret organisation that keeps a couple of Actives, which are basically human beings whose very identity has been erased in order to provide a clean slate upon which any identity can be inscribed, and rents them out to whoever can come up with the money. They go on a mission and become whoever it is necessary to fulfil that mission perfectly. After they complete the mission, their memory is erased and they return to their basic doll-like status that resembles an innocent, clueless child, devoid of memory, passion and any drives apart from the most basic human ones. That means one thing: the Actives, and the main character of Echo, require a different kind of character building than usually seen on television. The show has a greater mythical arc about the organisation itself and the very first Active, Alpha, who apparantly has gone rampant and isn't, as initially assumed, eliminated. The show also slowly tries to uncover whoever the woman that is now Echo was before she became an Active, and how the whole thing looks from the perspective of a (now former) FBI-agent that is on a mission to destroy what is only an Urban Legend for his colleagues. There are a couple of rules for every Whedon show: love usually ends in tragedy, people die suddenly and unexpectedly, even the smallest characters can grow into something much bigger over the course of time (just admire the course both Cordelia and Wesley took when they left Sunnydale and came to "Angel"). The problem with "Dollhouse" is that, with that initial premise, it is difficult to imagine how the whole character development thing is going to work. In contrast to all his previous shows, there was no great exposition as to the mythology of the whole thing (as there was with "Buffy", where the prophecy of the slayer was always spelled out at the beginning of each episode). The greatness in this idea is of course that it could go any way. There are no rules here, and while it was clear who we identified with in "Buffy", "Angel" and "Firefly", it is very shady who or what the viewerse are supposed to root for here. The organisation that works in the shadows and, according to common wisdom, uses people like slaves after making them mindless? The obsessive FBI agent, who is apparantly willing to do pretty much anything for what he perceives as the greater good? Echo, whose personal path isn't clear yet? The person in the background that might be the big evil pulling the strings or something else entirely?
At least I am intrigued, and I wish that the show gets at least four seasons to let the mythology unfold. On the other hand, as Whedon explained during a "Dr Horrible" panel at last year's Comic Con, the industry is changing, and by turning to the internet for distribution, he managed to cut out a couple of people that might otherwise force him to make decisions he doesn't want to make. This is a turning point for the format of television shows, just as it is a turning point for pretty much everything else too (the economy, politics, the music industry...) - but in this case I know where to look for ideas that might just work.
This is the first part of the "Dr Horrible"-panel from last year, featuring Joss Whedon, his brothers Zack and Jed, Maurissa Tancharoen who all helped to write it, and actors Nathan Fillion, Neil Patrick Harris (a match made in heaven...) and Felicia Day (from the last season of "Buffy" and the genius web series "The Guild"). Note the interaction between audience and panel members to figure out why this might be the future of, well...
"Those are tasks beyond the IMF's traditional role, and may require the fund to show more spine in dealing with its largest members than it has managed in the past. The leaders agreed to quadruple the financial capacity of the IMF with a $1 trillion commitment. The G-20 also worked to clamp down on tax havens and to tighten financial regulations, bringing large hedge funds and financial institutions into the global regulatory net. The G-20 wants to register hedge funds with domestic regulators, disclose how much they have borrowed and to make sure there is effective oversight, even if the fund operates across borders."
While the Economist still marvels at the charisma of the man who is even forgiven for mispronouncing Medvedev's name, and Der Spiegel has an elaborate metaphor on how the greedy Wall Street guys were only the dealers, not the growers of drugs (those were, naturally, in the White House), Joseph Stiglitz predicts that things will get worse before they might not get better, or something.
Die Blood Red Shoes, über die ich vor inzwischen schon fast zwei Jahren das erste Mal geschrieben habe, arbeiteten sich in dieser Zeit langsam von kleinen, gemütlichen Bühnen zu richtig großen Menschenmengen hoch, was absehbar war. Die Band besteht aus Steven Ansell und Laura-Mary Carter und wurde in Brighton gegründet. Sie braucht nicht mehr als ein Schlagzeug und eine Gitarre.
"On Friday 11 April they smashed the 'cheese board' feature record on Gonzo with Zane Lowe by naming twenty cheeses in 20 seconds. Making the feat even more impressive was that the duo did not even say the most common cheese; cheddar."
"Now, a wave of voices around the world would like a new Big Bang to sweep away the Bretton Woods template and the era of Anglo-American dominance it ushered in. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of Russia has suggested as much, to nobody’s great surprise, and even France’s otherwise pro-American president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has said the “Anglo-Saxon” presumption of dominance should be abandoned. Against this background, what the British and American leaders will be attempting at the G-20 conference, along with their partners from around the world, will be to begin building a new global financial system that curbs the rampant and often conscienceless free-marketeering of the past 20 years with a new sense of accountability and restraint, but without extinguishing the spirit of enterprise that arrived in America with the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock."
