![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
1. Hmmm...noticed something, if I cross-post from DW, I don't get as much insane marketing spam on LJ.
2. Day 05 – A book that makes you happy
Back in the 1990s, when I desperately needed to read something light and fluffy, or rather a "happy book" - I'd just read A Confederacy of Dunces - which is NOT a happy book, along with Don Delillo's Underworld amongst others. So my pal, CW, suggested PD Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster series. She loaned me the first book in the series. Then I was hooked. It was sort of the literary equivalent of Abbott and Costello or a French farce. Bernie Wooster was a somewhat hair-brained playboy, albeit well-intentioned one, while Jeeves his valet, was clever and sardonically patient. Wooster invariably got himself into trouble with one of his hairbrained schemes, which Jeeves found a way to extricate him from. It was witty, absurd comedy - and made me laugh my head off. I could not make it through five pages without chuckling.
So in no time at all, I collected the entire series. And devoured them. So, for my happy book?
I choose a series PD Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster or The Imitable Jeeves by PD Wodehouse.
( rest of the days )
3. Day 08 - A show everyone should watch
The Wire by David Simon and various other award-winning writers. This series is possibly the best television series that I've seen to date. It provides a deft and insightful sociological analysis of the challenges facing urban areas in the 21st century and how criminal and drugs increase and affect those challenges. It also depicts institutional racism, sexism, and classicism, and how society breaks down under the weight of all three - what causes people to turn to crime and violence to solve their problems. The failings of our system.
While it can get preachy at times...particularly in the second and fifth seasons...the show has a brilliant sense of humor, black and crunchy, often of the absurd. It depicts the insanity of bureaucratic systems and organizations. The writers, Simon and his cronies, clearly are speaking from experience. One of the writers was an ex-Baltimore Cop (Detective McNulty is based on a real-life character that this writer personally knew, as was OMAR - in fact Omar is based on the writer's former informant) who became for a while a teacher in the Baltimore school district.
Simon, a former journalist in Baltimore, also writes from experience. It proves that writing what you know can have its advantages.
From narrative structure perspective? It is a work of beauty. Flawed in places, but all tv series are. The drug dealing bits go on a bit too long and can drag down the momentum. But its ensemble cast and depiction of a cop who goes to extremes to fight bureaucracy....while at the same time depicting why that bureaucracy is in place and the futility of how he is fighting it...is necessary viewing.
If you didn't watch because you don't like procedurals, or hate cop shows, or drug dealing series annoy you - this show isn't what you'd expect. It's not your typical cop show or show about drug dealers. It's possibly the most realistic series about cops and drug dealing that I've seen, but it delves into more than that - various other systems are examined. And all of it is connected.
All the pieces fit together.
A work of television brilliance that should be required viewing for anyone who wants to write for television or has studied sociology and/or urban planning and political reform.
( the rest of the days )
2. Day 05 – A book that makes you happy
Back in the 1990s, when I desperately needed to read something light and fluffy, or rather a "happy book" - I'd just read A Confederacy of Dunces - which is NOT a happy book, along with Don Delillo's Underworld amongst others. So my pal, CW, suggested PD Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster series. She loaned me the first book in the series. Then I was hooked. It was sort of the literary equivalent of Abbott and Costello or a French farce. Bernie Wooster was a somewhat hair-brained playboy, albeit well-intentioned one, while Jeeves his valet, was clever and sardonically patient. Wooster invariably got himself into trouble with one of his hairbrained schemes, which Jeeves found a way to extricate him from. It was witty, absurd comedy - and made me laugh my head off. I could not make it through five pages without chuckling.
So in no time at all, I collected the entire series. And devoured them. So, for my happy book?
I choose a series PD Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster or The Imitable Jeeves by PD Wodehouse.
( rest of the days )
3. Day 08 - A show everyone should watch
The Wire by David Simon and various other award-winning writers. This series is possibly the best television series that I've seen to date. It provides a deft and insightful sociological analysis of the challenges facing urban areas in the 21st century and how criminal and drugs increase and affect those challenges. It also depicts institutional racism, sexism, and classicism, and how society breaks down under the weight of all three - what causes people to turn to crime and violence to solve their problems. The failings of our system.
While it can get preachy at times...particularly in the second and fifth seasons...the show has a brilliant sense of humor, black and crunchy, often of the absurd. It depicts the insanity of bureaucratic systems and organizations. The writers, Simon and his cronies, clearly are speaking from experience. One of the writers was an ex-Baltimore Cop (Detective McNulty is based on a real-life character that this writer personally knew, as was OMAR - in fact Omar is based on the writer's former informant) who became for a while a teacher in the Baltimore school district.
Simon, a former journalist in Baltimore, also writes from experience. It proves that writing what you know can have its advantages.
From narrative structure perspective? It is a work of beauty. Flawed in places, but all tv series are. The drug dealing bits go on a bit too long and can drag down the momentum. But its ensemble cast and depiction of a cop who goes to extremes to fight bureaucracy....while at the same time depicting why that bureaucracy is in place and the futility of how he is fighting it...is necessary viewing.
If you didn't watch because you don't like procedurals, or hate cop shows, or drug dealing series annoy you - this show isn't what you'd expect. It's not your typical cop show or show about drug dealers. It's possibly the most realistic series about cops and drug dealing that I've seen, but it delves into more than that - various other systems are examined. And all of it is connected.
All the pieces fit together.
A work of television brilliance that should be required viewing for anyone who wants to write for television or has studied sociology and/or urban planning and political reform.
( the rest of the days )