Remind me to post about current fashion trends in the swing world, will you?
Though I guess I could do it here and now…
1. tattoos. If from Seattle, or spending time with Peter Loggins, the ‘high end’ lindy hopper is sporting serious ink. Most of it is ‘vintage’ ink – no tramp stamps or tribal arm bands here.
2. piercings. Not as many as you’d expect from such seriously inked yoof – safety first.
3. body fat. Not. Fast music = lean, athletic, long distance runners’ bodies.
4. skirts. Short. On the girls.
5. satin shirts. On the girls. Not as many as last year, but still making a presence.
6. vintage, but not foofy-skirt, zoot-suit vintage. Thank god. Discrete, tailored, clean lined vintage. Think early 30s rather than early 50s. Thank god again.
7. nice, high waisted trousers, collared shirts, ties, tie pins, cufflinks, waist coats. Jackets on arrival. Young men with serious ink and serious tailoring do not displease. Fewer stupid white dress shoes, but still a few too many.
8. generally quite kewl casual wear. Tshirts with stuff on, jeans (tight/baggy/whatever’s cool), fashionable hair cuts.
For evidence, check out the camp jitterbug pics (the jump session show stuff is probably most interesting). That’s a crew that cares. Mostly because they’re young and haven’t yet realised the finest lindy hopping accessory is a very large arse, worn low and wide for comfort and facilitating the uses of the internets.
All of this, as per usual, escapes me. I am wearing the only outfit that fits my shrinking body: shorts (The Squeeze’s), cuffs folded up as they get longer and bigger on me; tshirts (home made or bought, from a selection of about 4); hiking shoes with sports socks. Hair… big. We have entered the season of the Long and the humidity is running amok with my curls. I am off the hair colour for a while. I am quite grey underneath, and it’s come as a bit of a surprise. I might colour it. If I can find a hairdresser who can cut curly hair decently.
So I’m not really the best example of lindy hopping fashion. Hells, I’m ten years older than most of them. And they’re mostly teenagers or in their 20s. Give them time, and they’ll also realise comfort trumps form. For the internet, anyhow.
list of dislikes
The Squeeze made a list of things I don’t like:
– the patriarchy
– the local McDonalds-type dance school
– high heels
– people who drive cars
Another list of things I don’t like:
– not getting paid for things
– picky eaters
– mess
– noise
He scratched the last two. When asked to list the things he doesn’t like:
– big pieces of food
and then he got distracted.
television round up
1. Dollhouse is crap.
Because:
– I’m pretty sure it fails the Bechdel test.
– the gender stuff sucks arse. A bunch of beautiful young women kept, powerless, by a business which rents out their bodies for vast sums of cash. It’d be horrifying if there was no chance of it ever coming … true… Wait. Ok. So this one sucks for even more reasons.
– the gender stuff sucks arse. One of these ‘actives’/slaves begins to remember who she is and destabilises the internal workings of the business. Or does she? Even Alias had better gender politics. The female protagonist at least knew who she was and made a series of choices. Echo is, really, just a vehicle for male fantasies. In this case, it’s Joss Whedon’s fantasies. And they scare me. Whedon: fail.
– the gender stuff sucks arse. I thought it was going to get clever and tip all this stuff sideways. I’m still waiting. Oh, gods, just watch an episode or two and you’ll see for yourself.
– the race stuff sucks arse. Whedon repeatedly fails ethnicity.
I’m beginning to think Buffy was a fluke. Joss Whedon sucks.
2. Sarah Connor Chronicles is awesome.
Because:
– it passes the Bechdel test. It even encourages us to think about different types of femininity and whether or not cyborgs can be female. And then it makes us think about masculinity in the same ways.
– it not only has a bunch of violence and shooting-up (as per most SF these days), it also deals with the effects of violence and living with violence and terror on the lives of people.
[SPOILER]
– the second season ends with the ‘nuclear’ family set up in season one (with Sarah as ‘mum’, John and Cameron as kids living in the middle class suburban family home) crumbling. The patriarch is done away with, the mother discovers she’s actually much happier when in control of the family, directing its motion when literally on the move, Cameron is rescued from adolescent oblivion and John learns that heterosexual romance isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. So the gang are back on the road, with Sarah as head of seriously badass single parent family.
[/SPOILER]
Phew.
– the program deals with the difficulties of adolescence in a complex way. John is continually reminded of his responsibilities as the future of humanity, but is still constrained by the middle class nuclear family. There’s tension between his eventual role as male hero and his relationship with his active, powerful, controlling mother. Not to mention his desire (and isn’t that a complicated mess) for the cyborg Cameron. His mother’s power is also complicated: it’s at once essential to the group’s survival (she is ruthless) and also highly problematic. I was most fascinated by the way she began to crumble in the suburbs: without purpose she began to suffer, quite horribly, from post traumatic stress disorder (as they all did, really).
– time travel is tricky. Unlike Dr Who, which does not in any way deal with paradox and time travel in a clever way, SCC makes it clear that time travel is complicated and that paradox is difficult to avoid. We’re left wondering if these time traveling heroes and villains are so effectively separated from their reality that their skills and missions and motivations have become meaningless. As each action changes the future, their original, independent missions seem less and less important or even logical. Which humans are good, which evil? What does it mean for humans to work with the machines, when Judgement Day is, essentially, marking the machines’ commitment to killing every single human? Even the terminators’ motivations seem skewed by changing context: is Weaver a baddy or a goody? Can John Henry be redeemed by his human/christian teacher and the friendship of a human child?
All the moving about through time (disassociating characters from their temporal and social contexts) and changing of futures means that missions in the ‘now’ are unanchored from their intended purposes. This flux is perhaps best illustrated by the terminators’ moving so far from Arnie’s original (and unimpedable) mission: to terminate Sarah Connor.
– Cameron is problematic.
As that series of posters above makes clear.
Cameron’s obviously sexualised: she is presented as the object of John’s unrequited (and eminently problematic) sexual desire. She presents herself at various moments as a sexualised entity: in the final moments of season one she pleads with John not to kill her because she loves him. This is a transparent effort to delay termination by a cyborg temporarily ‘corrupted’ from her mission to protect John. It is, clearly a lie, a moment of deceit. But we have spent almost the entire season being carefully led to read her as a potential love interest for John – his desire for her suggests that she should, ‘naturally’ return his interest. But this isn’t your average heteronormative love story. It is made quite clear that Cameron has been ‘programmed’ to protect John so as to avert Judgement Day. She is clearly fixed on this male character, but her motivation is not heterosexual desire. Or is it? We are reminded by the character Jesse (another ‘love interest’ from the future) that John Connor has formed an intense and apparently unnatural attachment to Cameron in a future world. And that she reciprocates this.
The buffybot problem is quite clear here: is a machine-woman operating to protect a particular male character anti-feminist?
– I’m prepared to let SCC go a little further with this storyline – I like the way they’ve presented these female cyborgs (Cameron and Weaver the ‘mother’) as incomplete or otherwise troubling.
It’s difficult to just accept them as your stereotypical ‘buffybot’ fantasy model cyborgs. Both cyborgs have become characters in their own right, and both are clearly negotiating their way through some serious gender stereotypes: Weaver must ‘learn’ how to be a ‘mother’, and continually fails to perform ‘correct’ femininity (and not only as a mother – she is also a corporate chief). Jesse – Reece’s ‘lover’ from the future (though, it turns out, not from his particular future; she is a Jesse from another time line, a time line created by Reece during this ‘now’) also fails to adhere to familiar gender stereotypes. As does Riley, John’s girlfriend-from-the-future. Sarah Connor herself is challenging. Though she approaches the ‘mother lion protecting her cub’ caricature, her continual deviation from this role is enabled by her more complex relationship with John, Reece and Cameron. Sarah herself has problems with motherhood, or with her role as a mother. There are a series of incidents where it’s made clear that Sarah enjoys or at least finds great satisfaction in her ‘professional’ dealings with freedom fighters, underground characters and general sneaky/terrorist/badass types. She’s also mad-keen on making plans. Sarah seems to also find it difficult to occupy the conventional mothering role and these badass roles. But it’s actually quite nice to see a character exploring the fact that mothering isn’t simple or ‘natural’, and that it isn’t always a wonderful blessing.
– it keeps me thinking. Unlike Dollhouse, I’m not prepared to give up on SCC yet; it doesn’t make me so angry I want to scream. It keeps me wondering how it will resolve these tricky relationships.
It references Linda Hamilton (even if this Sarah Connor doesn’t have Hamilton’s fully ripped hardbody), and we’re continually reminded of her transition from Arnie’s innocent, almost-helpless victim to the hardbody badass of T2: gender is flexible, femininity and gender is flexible. I’m still not sure about Cameron: is she a buffybot? Or is she something more? If she’s something more, we have to allow for cyborgs having emotions, identities, personalities beyond her programming. And if this is the case, what does it mean for a woman to have been ‘made’ by other machines?
2. Fringe.
I like it. But I don’t have much to say about it right now.
wedding plans
Two of our very dear friends are planning their wedding. While I’m a little disappointed in their conservative approach to theme and costume, there has been some discussion of both miniature goats and the bride’s arrival at the wedding venue. This pleases me greatly. My initial thoughts on the topic were traditionally inspired:
(from flickr)
I like the baby’s face: how could you not be surprised and delighted by a goat-drawn carriage?!
There are many other examples (flickr doth provide).
But then, what better opportunity for dressing up? Why not something a little more magnificent?
(from flickr)
It would be a shame to neglect the groom: why have him stand, waiting for the bride when he, too, can make an entrance?
(from flickr)
There’s something charming about the miniature goat drawn carriage, though, that is lost in the grand scale of an elephant or horse.
And this wedding is, after all, to be a small one.
walking bass lines are reassuring
Listening to HCCT the other night I was struck by a particular song. Or, rather, part of one song. It had people clapping.
It’s the walking bass line. People like it. Dancers like it. I’ve heard hardcore DJs refer to the walking bass line as something for beginner dancers. But I think we all like a walking bass line. Sometimes we just like the simple, bomp-bomp-bomp of a walking bass line telling us exactly where the beat is. Sometimes it’s just reassuring to have the rhythm pointed out to us. And sometimes it’s a clever point of reference for a more complicated melody. And if you’re feeling a bit tired, you can ignore the fancy stuff going on around it, and just step with that walking bass. Walk with it.
The most-used example of a walking bass line is from Nina Simone’s version of My Baby Just Cares For Me:
and then I’ll write some
Someone should go to the shops and buy veggies. But I don’t think it’s going to be me. Yesterday I made it down to the shops for a few bits and pieces, but today I’m feeling a bit too crap to ride to Ashfield (all of fifteen minutes away, at my usual speed). Yesterday I spent about fifteen minutes walking around the video shop trying to think. I don’t want to spend time wandering around the veggie shop trying to think today.
I have a bad cold and I don’t feel so great. But Fats Waller is trying to cheer me up. He might succeed.
I don’t actually feel bad, mind you. Well, I feel rough physically, but I don’t feel bad in an emotional way. I actually feel pretty good, post-orthotic ecstacy-wise. I think I might do some hardcore jazz history research soon. I need a decent music journal. But I don’t think there’s much cultural studies work on jazz. Seeing as how it’s from the olden days. But I’ll have a look. And then I’ll write some.
another round-up post
Today I have a heavy cold and feel a bit rough. The Squeeze blames a trip on the train. I blame post-allergy secondary infection. Means I spend some time on the couch with Dr Who, so it’s not all bad.
The other night we went to see Hot Club of Cowtown.
It was great. I’m not sure I’m struck on the venue, though. The Basement is kind of a sit-down supper club type situation. The sort of venue that I associate with jazz – a jazz club. Which means it’s full of people with money who like to sit down and Be Entertained. Which is, of course, inimical to good, hot jazz. Hot jazz should be played to a crowded room full of partyers looking for a good time. Not straights sitting and eating overpriced, uninspired food.
But Cowtown did a fairly good job overcoming the venue. They’re friendly sorts, who like a little audience participation. And it was a little tricky at first; they needed the crowd relaxed and engaged. Guess this is when a support act comes in handy. But eventually they had the audience engaged. Took about five songs, but then they had them. They were, musically, as amazing as I remember. And there’s something really pleasing about western swing, the western swing they play. It’s friendly and cheery and makes you want to dance about like a fool. And sing along.
Before the “likkermission” they invited us to come up and chat and give song requests. Then they wandered down into the main room and mingled. I was excited and also too afraid to go up and gibber like a fan. Though I really, really wanted to. They seemed really nice and friendly, and talked with all sorts of crazy fans. They were happy to sign CDs as well. I made three trips to the souvenir table, trying to work up the guts to say hello. But I’m shy (sometimes). After the show, one of them (the one I love) stood near the door saying goodbye to people. And I managed to squeeze out a little smile and a ‘thank you’.
I’m such an idiot. I’d have loved to request Pray for the Lights to go out, but I couldn’t get it out.
I did find myself cheering and clapping along mid-set, just as I would for a dance performance. And people looked at me. But it slipped out accidentally. They were giving the ‘engage now!’ vibe, and jazz has taught me nothing if not how to respond when someone calls.
Overall, it was ace. I bought myself a tshirt (which I’m going to cut up to be my size and just my style) and a sticker (which I think I’ll put on my laptop). I had a great time.
On other, slightly related fronts, I have a pair of orthotics in my shoes now, care of the podiatrist. The podiatrist is a friendly, chatty bloke, who takes up most of our sessions yapping. He loves to talk. Which is ok, because I do too. If I didn’t know that he sat in there interacting with people all day, I’d suspect he too spent his time making up crap to fill his unemployed days. But I’m happy to chat.
The orthotics, though. They freaking ROCK! We had to walk a bit to get to the HCCT gig the other night, and I didn’t get any pain! Well, I got a bit of abrasion from the new shape of my shoe sole – blisters a-coming. But there was no pain inside my foot. And none later that night after we’d gotten home. It was wonderful.
Basically, they change the way I walk. The bit under my arch, just in front of my heel is a bit raised, and this means I put the weight on the outside of my foot more. And this means that I don’t put so much pressure on my big toe – I don’t put so much weight on my toe, I don’t stretch the plantar fascia so much (yay! – less pain!) and I don’t then have to roll the weight over to the outside of my foot when my bung ankle can’t bend any more. This means I’m just putting the weight down straight onto the main part of my foot, and I don’t roll my foot. This will be great when I get dancing – it’ll make my weight transfers clearer and easier to follow/lead. It also means that I’m not in pain.
It’s all a bit exciting. I haven’t been able to walk without pain in four months. And now I can. Of course, part of me wants to run out and go dancing NOW. But the podiatrist headed me off at the pass on that one: no dancing. No experimenting with movement. No! I have to give it six weeks to test it out. Then we talk.
Part of me wonders what effect this new way of walking will have on the rest of my body. I hope it eases the bit of ache I get in my right knee (which is largely a result of the rolling-foot problem). And I hope it eases my right hip a bit (which is similarly affected by my foot). But I hope it doesn’t do other things to me which cause problems. But that’s what the check up is for. I have noticed that the orthotic changes the way I pedal when I’m riding my bike. All of a sudden, I’m much more efficient.
Because my ankle doesn’t bend as much as it should, I have to roll my foot to get enough bend in my leg to pedal properly. But the orthotic starts me off in the right position, so I don’t have to roll my foot (or my knee). This means that instead of all the energy I put into pedaling sort of flying off or being wasted in my knee/foot rolling, it goes straight down into the pedaling, moving the wheels around. So riding my bike is suddenly a heap easier and more efficient. It’s wonderful.
I’m not sure whether I’ll have to use orthotics forever or not. I think it’s more that these will teach my muscles how they should be working, and in combination with my exercises, I’ll eventually be able to do away with the orthotics. My legs will eventually be working properly and I’ll be able to use my muscles and tendons and bones and joints more effectively.
I think one of the most important lessons from all this plantar fascia stuff, is that it’s important to pay attention to the aches and pains in your feet and body. If I’d realised I was in pain from the plantar fascia earlier, I could have done something about it. But you get so used to aches and pains when you dance, it’s difficult to tell when something important is going on. I guess that’s why it’s also a good idea to keep in contact with a decent physiotherapist when you do a lot of sport. Even if you’re not an elite athlete. :D
potential bike routes
…right through the centre of the city…
View Larger Map
Well, Redfern, anyway. Looks pretty good, huh? We are preparing for tomorrow’s bike ride and exploring routes from the train station to the actual route. We will ride thousands of kilometers and get really sore bums. But we will also be FREAKIN ORSUM!
(If you’re in the area, you’re welcome; we usually start about 11am and stop for lunches/sticky beaking. Be prepared for stunts.)
i see good things
I like riding my bike around the neighbourhood because you see all sorts of awesome things.
1. There’s fat, raggedy grey and white cat who hangs around outside the primary school up the road at lunch time. The kids aren’t allowed outside to pat it. It’s clever enough not to jump the fence. But it sits pressed up against the fence so it can be patted and enjoy the children’s company. It’s there every time I ride past at lunch time.
2. Today I saw the ladies in the fish shop scooping live fish out of the tank for a customer. It was awesome to see their mad fish-scooping skills in action. Then they drop them on the floor. I’m not sure what happens after that.
3. Once I saw the fish delivery truck delivering live fish to the fish shop. The truck has a flat bed and is loaded with large blue plastic barrels. The fish delivery doods scoop the fish out of the barrels and into smaller buckets, which the ladies take inside and tip into their tank. It’s fascinating stuff, and gathered a significant crowd. I wish I’d taken a photo.
4. Today I saw an old poppa walk across the road against the lights. The traffic had to stop to let him cross. He was crossing, no matter what. It was actually at a busy pedestrian crossing, so there was a crowd to watch (and cheer) him across. Lunch time Ashfield appreciates a little shutzpah from the elderly.
i like pie
Here’s a little round up:
Western Swing is ME.
I am currently in love with Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. This is in preparation for the Hot Club of Cowtown tour next month. I saw them in the UK (at the Marlborough Jazz Fest) in 2004, and they were freakin’ GREAT. The next week I saw Casey McGill’s band at a dance camp and they told me that their bass player had absconded for the HCCT. I’m not sure whether that’s a tragedy or an awesomey.
Bad foot is still ME.
My foot is still bung. I have been to see a podiatrist to strapped me up. That helped the first time, but not the second time. I am also doing exercises to strengthen the muscles in my calves/shin to help out my plantar fascia (ie so it’s not overloaded). I am down to get orthotics next week, but they mightn’t work. Basically, these fibroids in my foot are never going to go away and they can’t be cut out. So I’m looking at pain management and impact reduction. I danced two half dances on the last weekend and it HURT. The problem is not so much the impact (which hurts and hurts normally), but the fact that there’s pivoting and my foot actually twists when we do lots of turns and things. That’s where the pain is at. It sucked to find out how much it still hurt, but at least I know where I’m at. Though I think I’d have preferred to continue in blissful (and hopeful) ignorance. If I can’t dance again, I’m really not sure what I’m going to do. If it’s not lindy hop, it could have been something else – I come from a long line of dancing, lumbering folk, and I can’t fight my DNA. Perhaps I’ll learn an instrument. Any suggestions? Maybe the drums? Bass? I did a lot of singing at school, but that was a long time ago.
Allergies are GO.
I am having trouble breathing and my ear is all glued up. Again. Still, I’ve had much less trouble with my health since I moved to Sydney, so I’m certainly not complaining. It is melaluca flowering season, and there goddamn paper barks all over every street in every inner city suburb in Australia, so I need to deal. Won’t be long now, though, and I can come off the antihistamines.
Library is MINE.
I have been back to the Con’s library this week. It is a joyful place. Though it is full of students, now, and that sucks. They’re almost uniformly middle or upper class, supernerds and 70% male. Guess that’s what a career in hardcore arty music requires. The jazz section was all dusty when I first got in there. Now it has at least some use. The refec near the library is SHITHOUSE. The actual room is quite nice – it has a lovely little stage (with nice piano), and would be perfect for a dance gig. The acoustics are magical. But the food is inedible. I was reduced to pre-made sandwiches. Most of the students in this (actually quite nice) mini-refec were eating packed lunches. There you go.
emusic is not all mine. Yet.
I am blowing through my emusic downloads ridiculously quickly. Even when I ration them. There’re simply not enough.
Quickflix is suspended.
Since we moved to Sydney the DVDs have been slower to arrive, have almost always been terribly scratched, and we never get anything in the top 50 of our list. I have suspended our account until we’ve decided what to do. We’re still on one of their unlimited DVD accounts, but I’m not sure it’s worth it, as we only get about 3 a week, which isn’t much better than getting 12 a month max, is it? The video shop here is pretty good, so we might just go old school. Though using a video shop means I have no natural limit on my DVD viewing.
Dr Who and Farscape rule my world.
Screw BSG with its upsetting gender politics and ridiculously FAILED science. I am all about rebooted Dr Who and Farscape. I didn’t dig either the first time I saw them, and never really got past the first couple of episodes. Now I love them. Farscape passes the Bechdel Test. Dr Who does not. Rose + her mum. Talking about the Doctor. Though every now and then Rose gets to discuss a drama with another female character, there’s not much woman-to-woman action. I think it’s partly to do with the newer format – story arcs only last an episode, rather than a week’s worth of episodes. There’s not as much character development. And a bit too much kissing. I like Eccleston, but I’m not struck on Tennant. His bottom jaw sticks out too far. I liked Eccleston’s big nose and ears a whole lot. And was the Doctor always this manic? I’ll have to rewatch some old ones (I liked brown, curly haired, long-scarf, jelly baby Doctor best).
I am a crocheting demon.
I should post some pictures to prove it. But I love complicated afghan patterns, and have been compulsively crocheting as I watch my way through the Commonwealth’s greatest contributions to popular culture. We went to Spotlight in Bondi Junction the other weekend so I could stock up on yarn. That joint was totally trashed on Saturday afternoon. I need another supplier; perhaps I could order online in bulk? The poor Squeeze is buried in gorgeously three dimensional flowers, in various combinations, so perhaps it’s time to stop.
…
No.
I am bike YAY!
Yesterday we rode down the Cook’s River after work for a quick ride. It was overcast, humid and coming up a storm. It was great. The sun set over the river, we saw wildlife, we dodged nonnas out walking and talking and planned a longer down-stream walk for a future date. This river goes to Botany Bay, you know.
I am still dealing with the fact that we live in Sydney.
I’m surprised by the historical weight I’m carrying in Sydney. It’s like all these suburbs and places are full of all the post-Invasion history of this country. Every bit of history I remember has something to do with Sydney. And most of it is narrated by songs from the Peter Coomb’s song book which delighted so many good little Australians in the 1980s.
Singing too-ra-li-oo-ra-li-attidy,
Singing too-ra-li-oo-ra-li-ay,
Singing too-ra-li-oo-ra-li-attidy,
And we’re bound for Botany Bay.
I’m sure that that song has celtic roots as well. One of the strangest moments of my post-MA European travel was being shut in at a Cornish pub where a heap of drunken … Corns? Cornishpeople? sang one of those sorts of ‘traditional Australian songs’. But with celtic names. My Irish grandfather used to sing The Wild Colonial Boy. So even though I’m caught up in all this Australian music, it’s just as Irish as the American folk music I dig.
I did arrive in Australia in 1982, straight into rural Wagga Wagga, so moving to New South Wales is far more familiar than moving to Melbourne did in 2001. The humidity is lovely. It’s not as heinous as Brisbane’s, but it’s nicer and wetter than Melbourne. And my skin loves it. The Squeeze declared last night, as we rode up the hill towards the lightning and iron-grey sky: “Moving here was the best thing we’ve done!” He’s delighted by the tropical storms. So am I – I’ve missed them. There’s something wonderful about a good, heavy-like-a-hot-shower rainstorm, complete with lighting and crashing thunder. Far, far better than drizzly, wingey bastard Melbourne weather. Even if it didn’t rain, it’d be cloudy and overcast forever. I don’t miss that shit. Though I’m thinking the Victorians are.
Dollhouse sucks arse, Pushing Daisies is delightful.
That’s it in a nutshell, really. I’m not impressed by DH.
1. The FBI/BSG guy is a crap actor. He’s so crap I can hardly watch him on screen. That scene in the last episode where he and the ‘dead wife’ DH client chatted in the kitchen? It was so, so, so bad. I groaned. I gnashed my teeth.
2. The opening credits are incredibly, crappily bullshit.
3. I’m still not entirely sure about the gender stuff. There’s an awful lot of talk about the women ‘dolls’ as sexualised bodies. And though there’re references to their missions which don’t involve sex, we spend a lot of time looking at them having sex or wearing very high heels or tight, booby shirts, or generally packing a whole lot of very conventional, bullshit femininity. It’s a bit too Alias for me, but with less self-determination on their part. I had hoped there’d be a clever twist to undo some of this, but I’m beginning to lose hope. Joss Whedon is hyped, but, really, Buffy was his pinacle. I didn’t mind Serenity (look, I’m losing the italics, ok?), but it wasn’t great. The film wasn’t great cinema. The series wasn’t that good – a little too heavy on the patriarchal family structure for my liking. Yes, I get the whole male captain/father parallel, and that Mal might perhaps have been overcompensating for his wartime mistakes with other people’s lives, but still… Actually, it takes Buffy an awful long time to lose her patriarch. I’ve rewatched a bit of season 5 lately, and she’s STILL got Giles there, Watchering. So perhaps Buffy isn’t so great either… God, if this is the best we can do, this string of compromises.
Anyways, I’m not impressed by DH
4. Did I mention the terrible acting by FBI guy?
Pushing Daisies, though, is wonderful.
It’s charming. It’s clever. It’s lovely to look at. Its visual style has a lot in common with Tim Burton’s brighter, more colourful stuff. It’s a bit surreal and hyper-colour, but not dark like Burton. Well, except for the premise of the series: the pie maker protagonist can bring dead things back to life. For a minute. If he touches them within that minute, they go back to being dead. If he doesn’t, they stay alive and something has to replace them in the deadness. The point of the series: Emerson Cod (finally, a show with a not-white central character!), a private detective, works with the Pie Maker to solve murders. For profit. Pie Maker brings his childhood sweetheart, Chuck, back to life in one of the earliest eps, so they can’t touch. They love each other. The other main character is Olive, who, by the end of season two, is the very best character.
Why do I like this program?
1. The hyper-colour, phantastical mise en scene.
2. Passes Bechdel Test.
3. Olive. With her pet pig Pigby.
4. The male protagonist is a pie maker. There’s a lot of talk about food and baking pies and comfort food. It’s very lush. Here, have a look.
5. The singing scenes. Olive sings a couple of songs. One of which is ‘Eternal Flame’. Yes, a Bangles singing scene. The other is ‘Hopelessly Devoted to You’. It’s wonderful.
Also, there’s singing.
6. Chuck’s spinster aunts (who raised her) are cheese fans and also used to be synchronised swimming super stars: Darling Mermaid Darlings. One has an eye patch.
7. Most of all, I love the dialogue. It’s very, very wordy. Lots of fast talking. But it’s all puns and onomatapeia (sp?) and all those other lovely wordnerd things. It looks good, it sounds good, and it’s funny. It makes me giggle.
8. It’s not horrid. There are some pretty gross deaths, but it’s not upsetting. Most of the programs I like these days are horribly dark. But Pushing Daisies is not. It’s lovely. The Pie Maker and Chuck love each other. Olive is tiny and super tough and awesome. She can bake pies or solve crimes. She’s great.
9. I watch it before bed, when I’m tired, and it helps me get to sleep. It’s nice.
The only thing I don’t like about it is that it was cancelled before the end of its second season. Apparently they’re screening the finale in the US in their summer, so at least we’ll get that degree of closure. But still. It’s really great telly. Here’s the first bit to prove it: