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alexsarllSpent the Bank Holiday weekend strung out along the 253 route as was - well, with one brief jaunt up to the asylum, but other than that - Bethnal Green, Clapton, Seven Sisters Road, Camden. All very jolly but I was especially glad to have Black Plastic back, rocking and packed. Visually, the erstwhile Pleasure Unit is somewhat less of a dive than previously, although they seriously need to sort out the smell. If only people could try to burn it off, it might help - particularly if the burning items were also themselves fragranced, perhaps?
And I've finished London - City of Disappearances. Which feels strange - it's such a capacious book, so it feels a little like finishing an encyclopaedia, or the dictionary. Appropriate, I suppose, given I am about to take a little break from London - though having also just finished Wodehouse's last novel, Aunts Aren't Gentlemen, I'm wary of expecting too much calm and restoration from my West Country retreat.
Frustrating though it is that HBO's post-western epic Deadwood never got a proper resolution, in some ways it works out rather well. The final season builds and builds towards a bloody battle for the soul of the town - a battle which never comes, just as it seems to be absent from the real history on which more of the show than you'd credit is modelled. George Hearst's brutal capitalism is ascendant, but still has the sense at least to pretend to being a power behind the throne - because sitting on the throne just makes you a target. Those who built the town - lawmen, criminals and just plain outsiders forced into uneasy alliance by this new threat - are not exterminated, and nor do they make a stand. They decide in the name of good sense to stand down - and then are left trying to distinguish that from surrender.
Charlie Utter: You done fuckin' good.
Seth Bullock: I did fuckin' nothin'.
Charlie Utter: That's often the tough one, in aid of the larger purpose.
Seth Bullock: Which is layin' head to pillow and not confusin' yourself with a sucker?
Charlie Utter: Far as I ever get.
Seth Bullock: 'Cause that's gonna be a project tonight.
And that, right there, is the birth of America, isn't it? Which is what the series was always about. Hell, you could argue HBO did give us the sequel; once we've seen how the last great attempt at founding a new society was finally bought and buried, all we need to do is spin forward 130 years to watch The Wire and see the long, drawn-out death throes implicit in that stymied birth.
(I got the impression ahead of time that Deadwood's third season was not so well-regarded as the rest; having watched it, I'm at a loss as to why that might be, and of course now I'm not scared of their spoilers, those negative reviews at which I could barely glanced have learned the ways of church mice. Perhaps it was the players, the fire-engine, the loosely-attached subplots of no immediately obvious relevance to the show's main thrust. I rather liked them, myself - they made it the story of a community, not just of the community's leaders)
And with that finished, I'm into a rather different TV proposition: Justice League Unlimited. I love that popular culture has got to the point where Aztek and Alan Moore stories are considered appropriate fodder for children's television.
Hamfatter - yes, I know they went on Dragon's Den to get funding, but they're not that bad, are they? Not great, but in the pop-bands-with-guitars field, one of the less offensive examples.
Am not convinced by the latest rejig of 2000AD's monthly sibling, the Megazine. Packaging it with a slim reprint edition is not an inherently bad idea - but the price has gone up from £2.99 to £4.99, and next week's accompanying reprint is Snow/Tiger, a perfectly good strip but also a very recent one which, like many readers, I already own in the weeklies. And while it's good, I'm not sure it's so good that I can use a surplus copy for comics evangelism, y'know?
And I've finished London - City of Disappearances. Which feels strange - it's such a capacious book, so it feels a little like finishing an encyclopaedia, or the dictionary. Appropriate, I suppose, given I am about to take a little break from London - though having also just finished Wodehouse's last novel, Aunts Aren't Gentlemen, I'm wary of expecting too much calm and restoration from my West Country retreat.
Frustrating though it is that HBO's post-western epic Deadwood never got a proper resolution, in some ways it works out rather well. The final season builds and builds towards a bloody battle for the soul of the town - a battle which never comes, just as it seems to be absent from the real history on which more of the show than you'd credit is modelled. George Hearst's brutal capitalism is ascendant, but still has the sense at least to pretend to being a power behind the throne - because sitting on the throne just makes you a target. Those who built the town - lawmen, criminals and just plain outsiders forced into uneasy alliance by this new threat - are not exterminated, and nor do they make a stand. They decide in the name of good sense to stand down - and then are left trying to distinguish that from surrender.
Charlie Utter: You done fuckin' good.
Seth Bullock: I did fuckin' nothin'.
Charlie Utter: That's often the tough one, in aid of the larger purpose.
Seth Bullock: Which is layin' head to pillow and not confusin' yourself with a sucker?
Charlie Utter: Far as I ever get.
Seth Bullock: 'Cause that's gonna be a project tonight.
And that, right there, is the birth of America, isn't it? Which is what the series was always about. Hell, you could argue HBO did give us the sequel; once we've seen how the last great attempt at founding a new society was finally bought and buried, all we need to do is spin forward 130 years to watch The Wire and see the long, drawn-out death throes implicit in that stymied birth.
(I got the impression ahead of time that Deadwood's third season was not so well-regarded as the rest; having watched it, I'm at a loss as to why that might be, and of course now I'm not scared of their spoilers, those negative reviews at which I could barely glanced have learned the ways of church mice. Perhaps it was the players, the fire-engine, the loosely-attached subplots of no immediately obvious relevance to the show's main thrust. I rather liked them, myself - they made it the story of a community, not just of the community's leaders)
And with that finished, I'm into a rather different TV proposition: Justice League Unlimited. I love that popular culture has got to the point where Aztek and Alan Moore stories are considered appropriate fodder for children's television.
Hamfatter - yes, I know they went on Dragon's Den to get funding, but they're not that bad, are they? Not great, but in the pop-bands-with-guitars field, one of the less offensive examples.
Am not convinced by the latest rejig of 2000AD's monthly sibling, the Megazine. Packaging it with a slim reprint edition is not an inherently bad idea - but the price has gone up from £2.99 to £4.99, and next week's accompanying reprint is Snow/Tiger, a perfectly good strip but also a very recent one which, like many readers, I already own in the weeklies. And while it's good, I'm not sure it's so good that I can use a surplus copy for comics evangelism, y'know?
