Busytown by Jolisa Gracewood

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Busytown: Holiday reading lust

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  • Cecelia,

    <quote>We really need t-shirts or something to promote this show properly. I'm considering buying series 1 for my Dad.<quote>

    My husband is 72 and he is really enjoying it. Perhaps not as much as me but it's one of the rare things we can watch together. The secret for older folk is the SUBTITLE function. Once we cottoned onto that, we were away.

    Hibiscus Coast • Since Apr 2008 • 559 posts Report Reply

  • Geoff Lealand,

    OTOH, we have just discovered The Wire

    One Big Ambition for summer which never happened. Managed another whole two episodes. Perhaps the dank winter months might be a better time to try once more.

    Screen & Media Studies, U… • Since Oct 2007 • 2562 posts Report Reply

  • Islander,

    I, ur, really hate crime series...

    They make crime look so - um - containable. Solveable. *Rational*. (Once you've got the secret clue a'course.)

    And actually, *everything in our lives* is completely random and happenstance.

    There is no order.
    There is no meaning.
    Except - whatever us wee random apes choose to make of a paticular happening-

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report Reply

  • Rob Stowell,

    I, ur, really hate crime series...
    They make crime look so - um - containable. Solveable. *Rational*.

    You'd probably like The Wire, then. You have to trust us on this :)

    Whakaraupo • Since Nov 2006 • 2120 posts Report Reply

  • Islander,

    Jeez Stowell, if you've given me a bum steer - your arse/whatever part ofyou, you most cherish, is *cooking*-

    (but I'll wait until apopo to watch, learn, before going to fire up the hangi-)

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report Reply

  • Cecelia,

    I hate crime series too but The Wire is about so much more and is Shakespearian, Dickensian in its language and characters. It's brilliantly produced with its opening montages and jazz songs. It really does explore why we do the things we do and why we tend to get browbeaten by the 'game' we have to play in any institution we happen to live or work in.

    It takes 3 eps to get into it and subtitles help for a while to learn the dialect.

    I read that the creator of the series said "Fuck the average viewer!"

    How refreshing is that?

    Hibiscus Coast • Since Apr 2008 • 559 posts Report Reply

  • Rob Stowell,

    I'd be in good company ... with kumara and carrots, boil my head- though thin gruel and close to unpalatable- no luxury, I fear :)
    It's a bit of a slow-cooker, though, The Wire. Takes the first season to warm up. Second season changes gear, comes to a remarkable (greek tragedy, fate unfolding like a horrible mechanical chair) penultimate episode...
    Series three and four it's really into its stride, and quite addictive. So y'know, maybe long winter nights?

    Whakaraupo • Since Nov 2006 • 2120 posts Report Reply

  • Sofie Bribiesca,

    Jeez Stowell, if you've given me a bum steer - your arse/whatever part ofyou, you most cherish, is *cooking*-

    I sat for an entire wet weekend to watch the whole of "The Wire" and still wished for a wee bit more than 5 series.
    My kinda crime series, although be prepared to get down and dirty in the depths of Baltimore.
    To be sure.

    here and there. • Since Nov 2007 • 6796 posts Report Reply

  • Islander,

    With Cecelia's recommendation, and your's Rob Stowell, I can see that I'm going to have to take a look.

    O. I didnt win Lotto. There's always Saturday - and my mother *really* loves involving crime...thingies


    so (she says brightly) we'll just sell off a greatgrandkid or 2-

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    You'd probably like The Wire, then. You have to trust us on this :)

    Seconded, thirded, fourthed. Motion carried.

    I think you and David Simon (creator and head writer of The Wire) would have some very interesting conversations, Islander. Because it isn't even really about crime (or, at least, only notionally so). As you get further into it, it's about... everything. Class. Race. Cities. Friendship. Family. Politics. Drugs. Schools. (The futility of standardised testing.) The nature of work. Expected behaviour. Unexpected behaviour. Changing your life. Being sucked back into horrible things. Tragedy. It's... epic.

    (Also, it is - strangely - really hilarious. We hit pause to laugh uproariously at least once an episode.)

    Man. I think I might need to watch it all over again.

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    Man. I think I might need to watch it all over again.

    I have come across this guy who reckons that it's a lot of racist reactionary garbage, but on the plus side it's given me an excuse to rewatch it to test some his claims.

    Have ordered season four at the library. Handkerchiefs at the ready.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Sofie Bribiesca,

    (Also, it is - strangely - really hilarious. We hit pause to laugh uproariously at least once an episode.)

    So right there Danielle.
    Now aren't you supposed to be having your baby about now?

    here and there. • Since Nov 2007 • 6796 posts Report Reply

  • Islander,

    Danielle - resistance eroded.

    Anyone like to buy a really nice grand nephew?
    We have a plethora of those (and the nevvies, but so few neices...)

    All titles for ownership are run past fudgefudgefudge and we *guarentee* fudgefudgefudge BUY NOW!

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report Reply

  • Islander,

    O -fudge. I really cant spell. But - all best with the birthing Danielle - sh'he is right within the Piscean gamut, and will be a wonderful child-

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    "Fuck the average viewer!"

    Now there's a tee-shirt

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Jolisa,

    Islander, what Danielle (and everyone else) said. It is epic, not in the fatuous movie-trailer sense, but in the "oh my god that's Hector being dragged by his heels around the walls of Troy and now where is Cassandra when we need her" sense. But also, it shows Hector and Andromache arguing over the groceries, which makes it all the more gutting in the end. Not to mention the close-up on baby Astyanax.

    I promise you won't regret the Wire. It's a "crime series" in the same way that A Midsummer Night's Dream is a rom-com, or Othello is a divorce drama.

    I adored it for the language it puts into our ears. Not the stylised, formalised back-and-forth of faux-gritty screenplay cliches. And not a simplistic mimesis of what's out there. But an absolutely heightened and distilled version of the many complex dialects of one small corner of one country, "high" to "low" to foreign and everything in between. In that sense, as well as the unbelievably complex interweaving of the characters' Richter-scale arcs, it is utterly Shakespearean.

    And yes, five series, each focusing on a different facet of society, illuminating life from a different angle. It's prismatic. Each one will break your heart along a fault-line you didn't even know you had.

    Plus: funny as hell.

    Also: Team Omar.

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 1472 posts Report Reply

  • Jolisa,

    Dyan, ta for the great recipe! The boy is a cucumber fanatic but he has already adapted the recipe for his more hated vegetables, and has added it to his repertoire of funny-bits, along with chapter-and-verse of Calvin and Hobbes, and whole undigested chunks of the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which we have been listening to in the car :-)

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 1472 posts Report Reply

  • recordari,

    We're crime show junkies, so I'm wondering how I missed it until now. The starting sequence certainly has a laugh out loud moment;
    "Who shot snot?"

    Must get hold of it, for when the cricket season is over.

    AUCKLAND • Since Dec 2009 • 2607 posts Report Reply

  • Jolisa,

    Another cool thing about The Wire, noted by many other people not just me:

    Apart from the opening and closing credits, most or all of the music is diegetic, i.e. it arises organically from inside the scene, as opposed to the usual painted-on exegetic score that tells you how and when to have a (heavily orchestrated) emotional experience about what's onscreen.

    In other words, this is a show that trusts the viewer to decide what's going on, and what it means. And it rewards that attentiveness a thousandfold.

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 1472 posts Report Reply

  • Jolisa,

    Thanks for the Ballard link, Philip. It led me tangentially to this lovely reminiscence by Ballard's daughter, Bea: My Dad, the Perfect Mum. Hankies at the ready!

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 1472 posts Report Reply

  • Cecelia,

    I just have to say one more thing about The Wire (I am reading books too - honestly). Remember the HoS last weekend with its expose of Michael Laws' own domestic dysfunction. It might have been mean but it was deliciously ironic given his own attacks on 'the underclass'. There's an ep in The Wire where informant Bubbles sees Detective McNulty's screwed up middle class life. When he's dropped back home in the projects he says, "There's a thin line isn't there between heaven and this ..." I actually considered that line a tad didactic and obvious - but it was nice and it's what Laws doesn't understand.

    Hibiscus Coast • Since Apr 2008 • 559 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    Series three and four it's really into its stride, and quite addictive.

    Series four is the peak I thought. Wonderful acting from young actors, and... devastating by the end of it. I wanted to reach into the screen and rescue them.

    Danielle is right, it's not a series about crime, it's a series about urban American life and all the conflicts and contradictions and fuckups and beautiful bits in it. Crime and policing and politics are just their day jobs.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    I have come across this guy who reckons that it's a lot of racist reactionary garbage

    I know contrarianism makes the pop-cultural world go 'round, but... *really*? How tiresome.

    most or all of the music is diegetic

    I still laugh when I think about Bodie listening in confusion to A Prairie Home Companion.

    (The baby has not quite made his appearance yet, Sofie. And no, you can't have my Pixies ticket. :) )

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • philipmatthews,

    I know contrarianism makes the pop-cultural world go 'round, but... *really*? How tiresome.

    Any chance of linking to the guy? Just want to see how this argument goes.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2007 • 656 posts Report Reply

  • recordari,

    By the by, finished Eion Coin's And Another Thing last week, and my lasting sentiment is that it should perhaps have been called Why bother?

    Elsewhere there has been discussion of Facebook being a decaf soy latte to Twitters short black. Well, to steal the analogy, AAT was like a Chai latte to HGTTG's double shot Machiato.

    Yes, Chai Latte is not even Coffee.

    Maybe I'm being a bit harsh, but I don't see people going round quoting Thor, and his bang bang Maxwell hammer, any time soon.

    AUCKLAND • Since Dec 2009 • 2607 posts Report Reply

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