On Sybil

Well now that the whole of the known world, or at least the English speaking portion, or at least those who enjoy a good costume drama, have had time to digest the death of Lady Sybil now new stories are coming to light, such as, she quit. I'm of two minds about an actor quitting during a successful run of a successful run of a show, or perhaps, four.

My primary reaction when I hear that an actor has decided to leave a very good show is that they don't know how good they've got it, and, how human. It's in our nature to be often dissatisfied, and it is this nature that has often lead humanity writ large to create and innovate, discover new vistas like trading mortgage back securities to make us all rich. However, this is also a great flaw. It seems highly unlikely that Jessica Brown Findaly will wind up on a show as good and beloved as Downton Abbey for the rest of her career, let alone immediately. In that sense, it always seems like a bit of hubris when an actor wants to move on instead of just enjoying what they've got.

A lot of life turns out to basically be figuring out whether the things we've got our good. And then, assuming they are good, learning to appreciate them. This is no easy feat as our conscious minds tend to constantly suggest that we could be doing better, a fact that's reinforced by the knowledge, perhaps made worse by television that people are doing better. That's why reality television is so great. It reminds that people also have it worse. I'm only kind of joking. In my estimation, she had it pretty good.

It's also reasonable to consider JBF as an artist who feels that her remunerations and acting abilities are not being properly used in the ensemble cast of Downton. It's great for a show to have buy in from a large cast, Arrested Development style, but it's also fairly rare. It's tough to say that the character of Lady Sybil was going to have much interesting or challenging for JBF to do over the next three or so seasons. It's then easy to understand why she'd want to move into other projects, spread her wings etc. And I think people who love a show tend to blame an actor or actress for the very sort of thing that they wish they could do, find out when something isn't fulfilling them anymore and move on. It's also relevant to point out that she's young, and youth tends to suggest innumerable possibilities in the future. As we age, it is the disclosure of these possibilities, which makes it so hard to understand how we could have ever been so young.

I'm also of a mind that without the discovery of some new cousins Downton has already completed its best arc. The battle between Mary and Matthew, the Dowager and Mrs. Crawley, and Bates vs. Thomas and O'Brien. Certainly we can keep revisiting these themes, but they were the freshest, wittiest, and most satisfying when they were being waged in the first season, with some carrying over into the second. So, again, though I won't guarantee that the show's best parts are over, I'd guess that they very well might be, and nothing I've seen in the latter part of season 2 or season 3 has convinced me otherwise. So perhaps it was her strong sense of narrative arc that lead her to leave...though I doubt it.

Interestingly, the fact that she wanted to leave the show gave the viewers the best episode of the new season of Downton to date. As I wrote in my last blog post, the finality of death, the shock that not everyone is invulnerable, is what made that episode of Downton one that had actual stakes in it. The other story lines in the season have been like wells that brought up one bucket of water before being exhausted.

The downside of this revelation is that it doesn't give me much confidence that the writers of Downton had the forethought to plan for this death in order to slow the show down. If it was forced upon them, then it becomes far less about artistic integrity than about saving one's as-. And yet, I'm also inclined to give them credit for the magnificent way that they went about pulling the thing off, so perhaps I should take back my caveat and hope that the best is yet to come. Maybe we can find another handsome cousin who wants to take walks through lakes. Or perhaps we can continue the trade offs between Game of Thrones and Downton and find a nice resting place for the wary bones and head of Eddard Stark. Wouldn't it be nice to watch him presiding over the declining years of the abbey, occasionally going out to visit the peasants and wow them with his swordplay.

Downton Abbey Season 3 Episode 4 recap

Spoiler. (This is the one where someone dies).

Any time that a character is killed off a "good show" (I realize that reasonable people might disagree about what a good show is) it has a tendency to bring things back into focus. My primary complain with the recent ups and downs at the abbey has been the speed at which they've been carried out. No sooner is Lady Edith not talking to Sir Anthony, then she is talking to him, then she is married, only she isn't married. (I'll leave off for now the sub plot of her development as a writer. While I'm intrigued by the idea I mentioned after the previous episode that I was concerned with the speed that they'd try and carry it off. Count me still worried). Well, one moment that has to linger is the death of a major character. You cannot pass over it in future shows or pretend like it never happened. For every episode of Downton Abbey in the future there will be no Lady Sybil.

It's interesting because I was just writing about how killing off Branson might make Sybil free again and give the show some new avenues that seemed to be closing. Obviously Mr. Fellowes disagreed. (I'm still counting as a great tragedy that they didn't capitalize on the scene where Matthew comes to Sybil's rescue with a good old fashioned love triangle, or square if we're including Branson. I think the term is quadrangle, but we'll go with square). I'll be interested to see how many seasons the show will last and what role time will play in the development of these characters lives. It seems to me that the introduction of a new generation also presents the opportunity of a jump ahead in time. That said, it seems to me that the memorable characters that have been created during the first few seasons should probably have their journey finished on screen.

I found the death scene to be touching. (Of course, being a parent now myself, my heart strings do get tugged a bit more when a parent is mourning the death of a child). It was made more so by the fact that Sybil was the brightest light amongst the family members, the one most willing to take a risk and to forgive. Thus, her death could believably bring a person like Thomas to tears. I don't know if any other upstairs character could have legitimately engendered the emotion that Sybil did. She was probably the closest thing that the show had to a true heroine, regardless of the excitement with which we watched Matthew and Mary's courtship.

Her death serves two important functions for he possibility of an interesting Downton Abbey. First, as I said before, it is an event that will be a part of every episode that follows. It will force the show to linger a bit longer, which has been sorely needed. It also opens up new vistas for the viewing public, and though we may not be sure that we like them, they are still there to be seen. Once a show has discarded the presentiment that everything will always be fine for a select few characters, all of the actions that follow come with an increased meaning. If Sybil isn't safe, who is? To me, the really strange thing is that our own lives are curiously similar. We are constantly trying to remind ourselves to keep our days inflected with meaning. A common religious belief for many major religions is that of learning to live in the moment, as if anything can happen, but we don't live that way. Instead, we wait for the tragedies in our own life, loss of loved one, job, house etc. to remind ourselves that there is no promise of tomorrow. And yet, tomorrow has always been there, so it would seem to be logically inconsistent to believe that it wouldn't be so again. I suppose that's why I'm calling DA a good television show, because its given me a good honest on screen death that makes me reflect on life. (I could probably spend an even longer amount of time analyzing why we care so much about characters on a television show and so little about people in the actual world. I'll speculate that it has something to do with tribalism, family etc. that we feel that we get to know these people on television, we let them inhabit our thoughts in the way of real people, and so, even knowing it's a show we begin to care about them. They are also broadcast to us through our televisions where we are free to watch them or not. The relationship is not as dynamic nor as difficult as loving an actual human being who will require much more effort to actively love).

The other items of note in the episode seem hardly worth noting, but I suppose it wasn't a fifty minute episode of death throes. The battle between the doctors was suitably awkward, though it seemed an odd, annoying? choice to have both of them stand at the foot of the bed wringing their hands while Sybil kicked off. Is it believable that neither of them would make any effort to comfort a dying woman? The more interesting part that Fellowes got out of the scene is the disagreement between wife and husband over her care, and now we can expect some marital strife in future episodes, which actually seems credible. The countess did prove the voice of reason letting Robert know that no one was to blame, and yet he does seem to blame himself, which, yay! This is primarily because the Earl of Grantham was quickly devolving from an admirable patriarch into an outright snobbish fool during the course of this season, and I found it at odds with the nobler character that existed in season one. I'd be delighted to see him take a turn for the reasonable as it is his gentle hand that made the upstairs so appealing at first.

The other minor subplot is Matthew Crawley beginning plans to wrest control of Downton from Robert, albeit on the morning after Sybil's death. The fact that his wife only chased the lawyer out of the room seemed like a win for Matthew, who, like Lord Grantham, is slowly transforming into a bit less likeable of a character. Perhaps we're to see his transition into the aristocracy as a journey that will imperil his middle class upbringing. It is too early to tell.

The other sub plot involves Matthew's mother bringing on a prostitute to replace Mrs. Bird. Mrs. Crawley, who delighted us in season one by going toe to toe with the dowager countess had devolved into a shrewish woman by the end of season two, and it was a nice turn to have her return to her former ways in giving Mrs. Bird the heave ho in order to hire the former prostitute. The look of shock on Mrs. Bird's face was gift enough. And, though it provides an interesting subplot, it also seems entirely consistent with the original character of Mrs. Crawley, which pleases me immensely. The only thing I like more than a character undergoing meaningful change is a character doing something interesting that also manages to be entirely in character.

Anyhow, I think it was the best episode of the season so far. And it probably better be if you're going to kill off one of your main characters. It did seem as though avenues for Sybil's growth had been foreclosed by the plot lines, but it did not mean that her death did not come as a surprise, nor did it take away from the obvious meaning it had for the characters on the show and the show itself. 

Downton Abbey Season 3 episode 3

So, because I'm busy watching The Bachelor on Monday nights and tending to crying children on Sundays, I'm not caught up to Downton Abbey proper. I don't have the big reveal. All I have is the previous episode.

The third episode of season three continues in the fine vein set forth in the second episode. We focus on the lighter things in life like good looking footman that send me IMDB'ing them to figure out they they seem so familiar. In this case, nothing. It turns out that what was familiar about the new footman was that he was good looking, and I have seen many other good looking individuals on television. And, consequently, this made me consider the dearth of supremely good looking individuals, particularly amongst the downstairs staff. It made me wonder if part of the appeal of Downton Abbey is the lack of glitz and glamour. It is certainly rare to have a television show, perhaps because it's British, where the people are just people. In America, if you are unattractive it is often grossly so, or it's because you're a nerd, or secretly good looking beneath the glasses. It is rare that a group of normal looking people that you'd see on the street are thrown together to make a television show. It goes against the very nature of television, which appeals to the hegemony of our visual natures to have a cast of characters who could seemingly be plucked off the street.

The show's strength also lies in the democracy of ages and ideas that reign downstairs. You have lifetime servants like, Carson, who have internalized their job, and up and comers like Thomas or the handsome new footman who desires to be more. And though we're sort of lead to believe, intentionally I think, that the change has something to do with the shift in society. It also has a great deal to do with our shifting desires as we move through the sea of life. It is the young, who often have less to lose that are about seeking change, and so I think it is interesting to have the young and the old placed in such close proximity downstairs at Downton, where their two very different sets of ideas and dreams can comingle.

The show begins with poor Edith thinking about writing a letter to the newspaper about women getting the right to vote. This is during the era when Virginia Woolf was setting the world ablaze with her new modernist style, and so it's nice to see the writers developing something in Edith. I submit that I was rather happy that she didn't stay married. I've read enough Jane Austen to know that nothing happens after all the daughters are married off. And so, though I was happy, I was also concerned with what they would do with her. I just hope they are not in a rush as they've been so many other times. I fear that she'll be completing her own version of Mrs. Dalloway an episode from now and having lunch with James Joyce, who she'll then marry and divorce by season's end.

The other thing that constantly impresses me during any episode of Downton is the finally quaffed hair of Matthew Crawley. I submit that I spend at least half the time that he's on the screen wondering if I like his or Don Draper's is the most iconic hair on television, but I digress. The strange scenario involving Bates' time in jail remains mysterious and unexplained. I've made it clear that I find Bates and Anna pining for one another episode after episode a bit tiresome, but I think the writer's feel that they are on to something in keeping them apart, holding suspense etc. The interesting thing is that I begin to care less about the two characters as time passes. They start to become caricatures of two people in love as opposed to actual people as they were in the house, trying to navigate through the stormy water. Anyhow, it is clearly my prejudice, but I prefer to see Bates combating Thomas over a pair of cuff links as opposed to a criminal gang in prison. (I do appreciate the dearth of sexual innuendo that's been associated with the prison scenes thus far, post Shawshank it seems like it might be impossible).

The other story line that is starting to be established is that of a difference in management styles between the Earl of Grantham and Matthew Crawley. I'm intrigued by the possibilities inherent in this new arrangement, encouraged because it doesn't involve spinal bruising or mummy looking fellows but the simple stuff of human nature. I'm intrigued to watch the writers develop the relationship between Matthew and Lord Grantham.

The last item of interest is the return of Branston and Sibyl to English soil with the police hot on their heels. I've never been particularly excited about Branson, and am still upset that we weren't given the Sibyl vs. Mary for Matthew's hand that could have divided the hearts of people across the nation. Oh well. It would be nice to see Branson either begin to round into some recognizable form of human being or go get himself shot like the fire brand he's been made out to be. That would free up a second daughter, and in the fine tradition of Gilligan's island we'd be close to getting back to where we started.

In general, despite the general obtuseness of the Bates plot line, the third episode held a lot of the promise of the second, intrigue on the top and the bottom floor that didn't involve insanity, Americans, but it did include the difference between a soup spoon and a bouillon spoon. That's why I'll keep coming back.

Downton Abbey Season 3 Episode 2 recap

Spoiler alert. I want nothing spoiled. I actually had to rewind our DVR'd episode to make sure that I caught a glimpse of the dog ambling along the grass on his way to Downton. I'm apparently as vigorously attached to convention as the downstairs staff.

The second episode manages to regain a bit of the charm that seemed to be waning. Although, I'm willing to credit the absence of any American characters as a step in the right direction. Until Fellowes can be convinced that all Americans weren't barbarians of indulgence and vulgarity it's best to keep them off screen.

The machinations of the staff downstairs continue with Thomas sending Mosely upstairs to inquire after Miss O'Brien's job. And, though we're all aware that this is only going to lead to a backstabbing war, it's actually in keeping with the character of Thomas to go right ahead and start digging his own grave. In fact, he's one of the characters that I like most because he feels firmly established. The life of a servant appears pretty damn boring on Downton Abbey, more so if you're married to Mr. Bates and have to confirm that you love and trust him three days a week and keep Lady Mary looking good. So it seems believable that a character like Thomas, who we've seen is intelligent and manipulative, would constantly be up to something. Juxtaposing him with the clueless, and strangely lovable because he never questions his station in life Mosely hit the right note.

Maggie Smith is her usually stellar self, dropping lines like, "there is a difference between vulgarity and wit" or telling Robert that she's talking about Edith's impending doom even though it's too late merely to say, "I told you so." A woman after my own heart. In fact, I was rather pleased with the start of the show, the crew rolling out the carpet, and indeed, the show and family being centered around Edith's impending nuptials. It seemed appropriate, even if the wedding felt rushed. More later.

The subplot of the old house maid turned prostitute continued to simmer with the once admirable and downright shrewish by season 2 Mrs. Crawley stirring the pot. My real issue with the sub plot, despite the fact that we know that she obviously has the boy, what else could it be? I mean, I suppose the secret could be that she's a millionaire who just loves hooking but it feels less likely. Anyhow, the real problem is that this show is airing a few weeks after the opening of Les Miserables, and the tired looking ladies of the night cackling at Mrs. Crawley are clearly just women who couldn't make it as extras. It's distracting to watch Mrs. Crawley try and sort things out when you keep waiting for everyone to burst into song. I was eventually distracted by the fact that Fantine or whatever the old maid's name was hadn't sold her hair and teeth. It seems like she could try harder.



The other plot line that is resolved is that of Mrs. Hughes and her possible cancer. Granted, they had a very similar plot line with Mrs. Pattmore in Season 1 and her failing eyesight, a fact which I'm guessing the writers forgot, or they wouldn't keep putting her in these scenes. However, we still have a legitimately touching scene between the Mrs. of the house and Mrs. Hughes. The moment manages to be believable and touching, doubly so because Lady Grantham is expecting to be evicted from Downton shortly. This also gives us a wonderful moment of Carson celebrating the health of Mrs. Hughes in his own peculiar way, reestablishing that strange love relationship that is the beating heart of he lower half of Downton.

Of course, all this praise, which was richly deserved for at least 38 minutes of the show was roughed up Downton style by two "startling" events. Anthony Straud leaving Edith at the wedding is not a surprise, it is a rather cruel joke. I'm not sure why the writers always feel the need to unravel entire plot lines in the course of fifty minutes. There was no need for a wedding to take place. In fact, the previous episode almost set up a nice tension between father and daughter and lover, only to lose its mind and speed from no you can't have him to wedding in roughly fifteen minutes. Perhaps that's how things happened in those days, but it felt unnecessarily rushed for the last two episodes, and I'm disappointed that Edith didn't crumple to the floor in church and start bawling, just because I think that it's always artsy looking to have a wedding dress coiled around a woman. It seems clear to me that if there is hope for Edith it clearly lies with the burn victim from Season 2. Other than the incredibly irritating voice, the lying, and the general craziness, I think he felt like a good option.

And, mercifully, the plot as to whether Downton would be saved came to an end. The whole plot line felt like a story that friends told us about live trapping a mouse, realizing that they wanted it dead, putting it in a shoe box, attempting to poison it with something, failing, and then apparently they just ended up using a hammer on the box. A job well done.

We knew within minutes as viewers that the "problem" of saving Downton had already been solved when we discovered about the inheritance, though I'm not entirely sure with all the death certificates etc. that I really understood what drama was supposed to be involved, we all knew he was getting the money. The only real drama was seeing how insufferable Matthew Crawley could be about his honor and how exactly he'd get over it. Of course, the writers did it the only way possible, by hammering that mouse in a shoe box. Wait a minute, so Livinia cleared him, Reggie wrote a letter absolving him of guilt and willing him all the money, no hard feelings, and perhaps also telling him that he learned the secret of spinning yarn into gold.

Of course, wouldn't it have been more interesting to watch Matthew struggle with the decision? Would it have been a more complex show, though far less Dickensian, if his inner struggle and perverse honor had truly turned him into someone slightly more shaded than we've come to expect? The truest line is when Mary threatens to punch him if he doesn't get them the money. Interestingly, after battling with his wife for weeks over the money and needing a letter from Reggie, Livinia, and the Pope to absolve him of guilt, Matthew immediately agrees to share Downton with his father-in-law, because hey, that's a man talking.

The second episode is an improvement upon the first, and, now that we're rid of Americans and Dickensian plot twists, perhaps we can be free to watch what we all want, a show about how hard it is to get a coat properly cleaned.








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The Bachelor Season ?(a million) episode 3 recap

It's unlikely that anyone watches the Bachelor anymore. In fact, its gotten so bad that even contestants on the show admit that they tuned out after a couple of episodes during the previous season. These are women who's hopes and dreams of landing an acting gig after their stint on the show are partially dependent on the degree to which they are obsessed with the show. It doesn't bode well for the future. However, as the show fades like light dying in a limitless western sky, I plan to enjoy it for as long as I can.

Why does anyone watch television? Do you watch it for the entertainment value? Does it, entertain you? And what exactly does "entertain" mean/what does it mean to be entertained? Is it to pass time doing something pleasurable? Is it to just pass time? Would being entertained require laughter, a certain degree of intellectual curiosity or interest? Does it mean that your heart beats fast, that you smile? If you haven't already guessed, I don't exactly know what it means to be entertained. And it means that the initial question, why do I, or anyone else watch television is a vexed one.

Here are a couple of plausible answers. I watch television because it allows me to shut my mind off. The implication here is that the work day, groceries, bills, etc. have become so overwhelming that the brain actually requires a restful state, which is granted by television. I'm willing to grant people with much worse jobs than mine a bit of peace and quiet every now and again, but I'm not sure that turning our mind's off is the best thing. It's a value judgment, I know, but I fear that human beings are all too adept at going on autopilot, and the danger is more that people are constantly roving around with their mind turned off rather than engaged.

I watch television because everyone else does. This whole exercise is moot in some ways. People often watch television or spend time on the internet because they have developed a habit of doing so. It's a bit like asking an alcoholic why they drink. The answer becomes sort of inseparable from the person they've become. Anyhow, if you're watching television because it is a social activity, bravo. It does give you something to talk about around the office or with friends, though I can't remember the last time I had a really meaningful discussion about a television show, so maybe this is only good for chit chat.

Here's where it gets interesting. If you're watching television as a social activity, do you judge the characters based on your own moral rubric, or do you watch and appreciate them as dynamic creations? I tend to watch characters on television shows not as pretend dopplegangers, acting out their life in a way that I can then judge. I tend to watch them as if they were people I really knew, or could know, or would avoid getting to know in certain cases. Anyhow, I watch good television not because it solely entertains me, but because I am fascinated by other human beings, their petty desires, fights, happy picnics, interest me because those are precisely the sort of things that chip away at my days and years. And so I am looking, not for moral guides, but for companions.

The above paragraph is only partly true. I enjoyed the beginning to the latest Casino Royale movie because the chase scene involved two guys doing some amazing parkour. So, yeah, sometimes I just watch to watch.

So why does anyone still watch the Bachelor? Schadenfreude is certainly an apt answer, pleasure taken at the misfortune of others. I wouldn't call it our noblest characteristic, but there is definitely something to be said for establishing yourself as at least not that bad. The weird part about the show for me is that I don't take a great deal of pleasure in the mishaps of the cast off girls. I'm always rooting for them to cry less, respond with dignity etc. (Strangely, this bit of humanity goes out the window when it comes to drinking. I tend to enjoy watching these people drink and say stupid things. Perhaps this is the schadenfreude bit). Anyhow, it's the one show that I watch with the sort of moral rubric that I don't apply to any other television show or movie. I pretty much watch it to see who seems nice and who seems awful.

And doesn't that make a lot of sense? Isn't that the sort of decision that we're forced to make in all of the groups that we're a part of. This is just a type of socialization that happens. We are very comfortable defining ourselves against an other. We actually have a culture of it in our very own large war mongering country. We are constantly at war with new enemies, others to define ourselves against. But I'm getting too far afield. The point is, after you've left a dinner party whether you're talking to your friend, boyfriend, or spouse, the two of you are likely to talk about people who were pleasant, and, I hope, far less likely to talk about people who weren't. The point is, this sort of demarcation is intrinsic to our human nature.

The complicated part is that the Bachelor is a television show, which thrives on unreality. It is not a dinner party, but twenty five women trying to date the same man. And, even if you're a big fan of trying to parse out who is a good person or not, you'd have to admit that beyond finding your fifteen minutes of fame, this show is perhaps the worst idea in the world. It manages to be simultaneously sexist, setting the guy up with only traditionally attractive women, a bit racist, this is the first season that women of color have lasted more than an episode or two, and, on the sexist and just plain unhelpful front, it caters to the idea that a woman is fulfilled when she meets the "the man of her dreams." This seems unlikely.

Of course, we can laugh off at least part of this because by the time the show has rolled into its fiftieth season everyone, sane contestants included, know that the show is silly. They know that they have a small chance at fame if they appear on the show. They know that you have a far better shot of meeting a guy on match.com even if it just says that the two of you share an interest in not smoking than in finding someone on the Bachelor. Its essential charm is just this silliness.

So why is it that in some point in every season I start rooting for one girl or another? Why can't I just remain above the fray? I don't know. I blame socialization. Human beings are social animals. I'd imagine that the other five people out there who watch the show suffer from the same delusion. I can only imagine that those same people watch someone behaving badly and want them to get their comeuppance. The exciting part is that it all appears on camera in a format that leaves us as judge, jury, and executioner. We are able to judge these people in a way that we just wouldn't in all the other social phases of our life, family, job, church, whatever. We are allowed to be the mean people we've always dreamed we could be.

The show's silliness if heightened by the constant refrain of "The most exciting season ever," "the most dramatic rose ceremony ever" that pervades every episode. I can only assume that the producers are having a nice laugh when they write this stuff. Either that or they believe the general viewing public's level of intelligence is somewhere between an ant and a gnat. The silliness continues as people are whisked away on helicopter rides to the top of mountains where they picnic under waterfalls, or repel down to a picnic below, or just picnic at the top of the mountain. And the whole narrative is that these dates are more "romantic" than your traditional coffee type thing and will force these two people to find out very quickly if they love each other or not.

Anyone over the age of about twenty knows that a good date has very little with where you picnic and very much to do with the sort of person that you're with. I'd imagine that the right person could ruin just about anything fun. This is not to say that dates occur in a vacuum, some are better than others, but the idea that being whisked away in a helicopter to jump from the Empire state building is somehow romantic, sort of escapes me. It is romantic in the same way that touching someone's finger accidentally when reaching across a table can be, or holding their eyes for an extra beat, which is to say, only with the right person.

I'm not even going to interrogate the whole idea as much as I probably should because courtship behavior has varied a lot through time and expressed itself in different ways in different culture. The only real piece of evidence seems to be that if women get more education they tend to marry much later, which I attribute, like most intelligent folk, less to the time requirement than to an increase in intelligence and the requisite skepticism that accompanies it. Anyhow, I'm sure that a coffee date would look silly to people who were required chaperones, a lengthy engagement silly to those who married quickly, a courtship arranged around a pursuit of love to the many who married for position, power, convenience etc. This all just means I'm less willing to question the courtship itself than to question the idea that seems implicit, if the voice overs are to be believed, behind it. The real problem is not the yachts and cruise ships etc. The problem is that there are 25 women and 1 guy.

Woops. This all turned out very long and drawn out, and now I haven't the time or energy to recap the episode. However, given that my audience on this one is somewhere between 1 and 2 I don't think too many people will be left disappointed. 

Downton Abbey Episode 1 Recap

Spoiler alert! I'm reviewing the first episode of Downton Abbey, so if you haven't started season three yet, it might be time to have reading. Downton Abbey jumped the shark midway through season two as most viewers already know, spinal bruising, characters posing as heirs with burns on their face, Bates off to prison.  By the time your average viewer finally got the proposal that they'd been longing for they had to suffer damn near as much as Mathew Crawley himself. That said, watching a valet get his comeuppance from a mere footman never goes out of style.

Would Downton Abbey be one of the best miniseries ever if it had the decency to end after ten or twelve episodes with a proper engagement as it should have? You see, this is the problem with shows that don't have arcs. Too much is happening too fast, which quickly turns a drama into a soap opera. There are only so many things that can happen in a person's life over a short period of time. Are we really to believe that a decade or two doesn't go by without much incident? Well, at Downton, perhaps because it didn't end when it should have, we won't have a year pass by so uneventfully.

We Americans love this silly English class distinction because we don't share it. Well, not entirely. We certainly have class distinctions in America, but they have a tendency to be much less amusing than they seem to be in England. For one, all of the characters on the show have the decency to be the same color. I don't think the show would be half as amusing if it were in America and about the distinction between blacks and whites, or American Indians and whites, or pretty much anyone and whites. Therefore, we're allowed to laugh a bit at Lady Grantham's snobbish ways in a way that would be uncomfortable if it was a landed white gentleman of the south, though it's likely Quentin Tarantion would make a provocative film about it that I'll never watch.

The first episode begins in 1920. And, the producers and writers, apparently feeling their proximity to 1950 begin by having the male leads, Matthew and Lord Grantham lose, or come into large sums of money while keeping it from their women. To their credit the leads eventually divulge their opposite problems. And yet, the interim is a bit uncomfortable as Matthew sits Don Draper style in a chair wondering over his possible millions while his wife knows not a thing. The side bar show from downstairs includes Mr. Bates being reassured by Anna that she is loving him every minute of every day while he tells he to go on with her life.

These are mere sexist trifles that are eventually resolved by Anna's unstinting love, Cora's undying love, and Mary's honesty. While Anna and Cora dote on their men, it is Mary, that annoying child from Season 1 that is the voice of reason, actually calling into question her husband to be's decision to not spend the money because of his great virtue in not taking that which didn't rightfully belong to him, which seems nice when applied to a dollar found on a bus, but not a million inherited properly. It is just these sort of virtuous stands or silly catches that simultaneously keep the show turning while slowly ripping it apart. The characters should surprise us more than the events, but it seems that Fellowes is now content to put the Abbeyiers on a raft and cast them through a rapid number of events.

Of course, watching Thomas battle with young Alfred over who gets to be a valet, or Mosely desperately wanting to be needed never ceases to be interesting. It is these small gestures, the petty things that remind me at least of the real world, jobs, lunches, etc. It appears that what the writers think is deeply humanizing is the acquisition of money and property, while I'm starting to conclude that it's a properly ironed shirt.

Most of the first episode is forgivable, even entertaining. However, it is when Fellowes introduces someone that is not English, minus Cora, when things always fall apart. Cora's mother arrives for the wedding and spends the next hour or so reminding everyone that she is an American and that they don't stand for ceremony. By about the fifth time she's delivered a line about the stodgy English you start hoping that Thomas is going to sneak up behind her with some chloroform. No such luck as she winds up being the centerpiece of Downton having to adapt on the fly when the food is spoiled at a party. It is her crafty American ways that teach them to adapt quickly. The whole point winds up being so heavy handed that I found myself wondering if we'd spend the next hour being taught how to cut properly with scissors and color within the lines. However, if the alternative is another hour of Anna smiling at her prison bound husband and telling him how great he looks behind bars then I'll take it.

Of course, all of the above is much too harsh. The majority of the characters, Lord Grantham, Mary, Edith and of course the dowager countess remain imminently pleasurable to watch bandying witticisms about in excellent hats, the highlight of which is the countess claiming to have mistaken Robert for a waiter because he is wearing only his black tie attire. The question as to whether the show has lost its way or whether it'll bumble its way towards something great, Lost? remains to be seen. I'd be lying if I said I won't be watching.

The David

The question is whether or not the David should go. I suppose that the word go is potentially misleading. Of course, most human beings know that a large portion of our life is lived out under obscured meaning. The word that more appropriately connotes my question is destroyed, though I’d be forced to include the word be in order to form a proper grammatical construction. Grammar, as we also know, is a product of this particular day and age, like beauty, variant spellings, or which side of the road a car should be driven on. We have so many laws and ideas, which are really only conventions, language chief among these that we’ll have to forego much further discussion on the matter in order for this particular story go anywhere and not just end up as a long preamble to nothing, though I’d probably call it an enquiry into subjectivity. The mere fact that the enquiry is being made in English already dooms the project to failure, though failure is precisely what the project would be after. Let us leave these things temporarily. The shadow of the doorway has moved fifteen degrees since I started talking and a piece of ivy has started curling around the brass hinge. These are the sorts of facts that I feel more comfortable reporting.

A cat came by yesterday and sat in the window sill, licking its paws, slowly, carefully, as if it was the most important task in the world. What does a cat licking its paws consider to be the most important thing in the world? Its paw? Cleanlieness? Does the cat licking its window sill even exist? Upon further consideration, I think not. I think I am remembering a cat that once licked its paws on a different window sill, sitting in a bar of shadows created by the pane. The cat is only in the window sill of my mind, which makes me wonder whether either cat can be said to have existed at all? What happens to beings when the memory is extinct? Perhaps that is when a soul truly perishes. Perhaps heaven is populated with famous people and that was the reward of fame? It seems a silly theory, but I’ve no doubt that I’ll come up with a preponderance of silly theories from here on out. And, as no one is around to dissuade me, or generate any other theories for that matter, perhaps my theory of the afterlife is the one that will be memorialized.

There is a sculpture of a man, or a sculpture of a rock. It’s really impossible to tell, to be honest. They are labeled prisoners, half-formed arms with extended triceps, the adductor muscles of a partial stomach. And here is a sign that is telling me that they are prisoners. And yet, without the sign perhaps I would not see them as prisoners but as malformed rocks, less prisoners than the violated. It is, as you know, man’s need to anthropomorphize that makes Michelangelo’s statues prisoners. One could ask, though it’s not particularly interesting, if a stone would prefer to remain a stone or be made into a sculpture? It’s immaterial, yes? I’m changing the titles on the sculptures to “failed attempt at art” in order to more accurately depict them. I was tricked into seeing them as prisoners until I’d been in here for a week or so, when it became clear that no one else was coming back, and I had to begin thinking on my own.

And that’s why I’m wondering if I should destroy the David? Here. Alone. Marooned on the planet like we’re all marooned in our own heads, though, I’m no longer concerned with my understanding of solipsism. The whole point now being made moot, it seems. I suppose I can’t guarantee that no one else is alive. If they are, I haven’t seen them, and so, rationally it’s up to me to make decisions about things in order to stay sane. Though I suppose it is now also at my discretion to define a thing like sanity. 

On Towels

You should never air your dirty laundry in public. However, what if the laundry is clean? Does that change the sentiment? Does it become, you should always air your clean laundry in public? Probably not.

Towel

A towel is generally used for drying off after a shower. It can also be called Mr. Towel, given a somewhat gravelly voice and be used to coax toddlers out of baths. Sometimes your toddler will say that Mr. Towel is sad, and you will be obliged to drop him to the floor. Sometimes your toddler will start shaking because s/he is so excited to be wrapped in the loving embrace of Mr. Towel. Sometimes a towel is just a towel though.

Sometimes you can use a towel to wipe up the floor of your basement after another flood. In that case a towel is not something to dry you off, but something to dry the floor off. Towels can also feel like saviors if this happens to you often. The towel may get somewhat dirtier in this process but it is possible to assume that the towel is more the Platonic ideal of a towel when it is sopping wet. Or is the Platonic ideal of a towel a dry towel just fresh from the laundry? This is a question about usefulness, never a good question for someone writing to ask.

A towel can also be stuffed underneath a door to try and dissuade flood waters from rising too high. In this case the towel, bunched up, is probably not serving at its Platonic best. However, the towel has acquired a new use. Your towel is now a night watchman, a sentry, an extremely quiet alarm system that almost warns you when someone enters, like maybe they trip a little bit or something before riffling through your underwear drawer.

Sometimes a towel is a small and perpetually high cartoon character escaped from the Defense Department. This is not the conventional understanding of the role that a towel plays.

Sometimes a towel is simultaneously a tool for drying and a symbol. The towel would be said to be serving dual functions. I mentioned to Sadie, after she got out of the bath that the hair dryer could serve the dual function of warming her and drying her hair. She found the term, dual function, hilarious, and spent the next few minutes saying to herself and chuckling.

I do not do the laundry. I have done laundry in the past. And I will do laundry in the future. But if you were making a graph of how often I do the laundry, and why would you be wasting your time on such a thing, go read a book or something, it would show that I basically don't do the laundry. I am adept at moving it over. I have always been fine doing the laundry infrequently. During college I routinely washed the sheets at the end of each semester, towels received the same treatment. This is to say, I would not care if the lines were ever done. It is one of my many failings.

S does the laundry. Not always, but yeah, she does the laundry. And, every time she washes the linens she removes the towels from the racks and doesn't replace them with new towels. I arise in the morning, worn out as you understand dear reader, and walk straight into the bathroom, start the shower and commence wiping sleep from my eyes. When my shower has concluded, on the day the linens have been done, I always stare out for a moment at the empty rack, cold and wet, wondering why there are no new towels on the rack.

One argument stats that I could put towels on the rack myself, participate more in the laundry process. I could also always check the towel rack before getting into the shower to insure that I can remedy the situation whilst dry. These propositions all seem unreasonable to me. Why can't she just replace the linens? Of course, she's wondering why I can't do the laundry. Why I can't just check the towel rack. She's wondering why, when I finally do put new towels on the rack, I only get one, as if I am the only person who needs a fresh towel, when, in fact, there are three of us in need of new towels or Mr. Towels as the case may be.

A towel is a strange thing, because certain mornings its presence or its absence can make you wonder how anyone keeps it together, how two people who have such fundamentally different ideas about linens and the intense discomfort of wet feet on a solid floor can make anything work. And then you'll walk down the hallway and open a door, a small voice will say, "I'm playing with Linda," and show you a small teddy bear, and you'll think that perhaps some of the things you've done together have worked.

Rewriting the classics to keep them relevant

Scuffy The Vampire Slayer- The original story is about a tugboat who decides that he wants to leave the small confines of his bathtub to venture out into the wider world. Really, it's a story about the grandeur of the American west and the reaffirmation of the rugged individualism personified by American cowboys. Of course, at the end Scuffy is gathered back in to the arms of his original owner because the dream proves to bigger than he can handle.

That story doesn't sell anymore. If Scuffy leaves home it needs to be for a good reason. It's probable that Scuffy is himself turning into a vampire, or had his uncle, a steam ship of good repute killed by a vampire. Therefore, when Scufffy sets out into the reeds and the wild blue yonder it is not to assert himself as an individual, rather, it's to do what all great Americans (Lincoln included) now do, slay vampires.

Goldilocks and the Three Werewolves-The original tale includes some sitting in chairs, eating of porridge, and sleeping in beds. Now, the problem with the bear's response to Goldilocks intrusion into their house is that she gets away with it. Anyone raised in the era of mass bear killings like I've been knows that bears are faster than Cheetahs and can climb trees faster than sloths, which are slow. But anyhow, yeah, bear=death machine. The problem with the story is that these dangerous bears are turned into English house butlers.

The rewrite involves three Werewolfs coming home to discover the same thing. And trust me, by the time they get to the beds they've totally transformed and are stark raving mad. No longer will your children think it okay to break into someone's house and eat their porridge, no, they'll realize that such an intrusion ends up Brother's Grimm style. Aside: it seems better to be a vampire because you can turn other people into vampires while werewolfs seem like they'd be a more reclusive type animal due to gnashing and tearing of all people in their path. Maybe we could tie in some lesson about solipsism. Let it marinate.

The Three Little Zombies-The original story teaches us that it's best to move to the burbs and build your house from bricks and that pigs will eat just about anything. Anyhow, it clearly amounts to a lengthy ad for post WW II America's desire to build some sort of suburban paradise. What you got against sticks old America?

The three little zombies have a much different life. This time around we replace the pigs with zombies. Are kids are going to have to face these existential realities at a sooner point than we ever had to. Let's be honest with them about it. The first zombie builds his house out of some sort of macabre collection of animal body parts and is rounded up and killed by the posse. The second zombie builds his house out of a collection of failed dreams that he had back in his human life, like, maybe he wanted to be an engineer or something, but he didn't have the money to go to a proper school. The posse shoots right through his house built of dreams and nabs him. The third zombie builds his house out of proper stuff, the bodies of all those people that he's eaten. The posse is overwhelmed by the stench and by the existential dilemma of having to fire through friends and neighbors in order to kill something that is, let's be honest here, already dead. They'd all walk away feeling a little ashamed of themselves, and we'd all learn something about our relationships between each other. And then the zombie would eat them.

James and the Giant deficit-All the particulars of the story remain pretty much the same. James has these two horrible aunts who spend most of their time doing derivatives trading and loan swaps. Eventually this causes them to fall into bankruptcy. Then, as a result of the austerity measures that the aunts decide to undergo they start treating James poorly. And, when James says, "Hey, I wasn't the one speculating in the evening on E-trade(so pretty much verbatim the original) every night," his aunts will tell him to be quiet and then say something like, "We'd all be fine if it weren't for this huge deficit." And James, even though he be a child, would point out that it seemed to be missing the real point, which is that the family got into this mess due to the original trading.

Then he wanders out back and finds a Giant deficit. A much bigger deficit than he's ever seen, but once he climbs inside the deficit he finds all of these people inside with different ideas about how to fix the aunt's problems. Some of the people blame socialism, some the deficit itself, which was silly since it was the thing keeping them afloat, and others, the aunt's themselves for speculating and causing the whole damn mess. Eventually, as they are sailing somewhere over the Pacific and on their way to China, James will grow tired of all the wrangling over the problems and decide to become a politician himself. This dream will not come to fruition, and he'll wind up as a depressed bank clerk living in Kansas. I think it captures a lot of what Dahl was after without losing much.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar-We'd take this classic children's tale of a caterpillar overeating and turning into a butterfly and have it become a Japanese horror film with a human caterpillar that is really an allegory about the ills of a right wing government. Oh, I'm hearing word that's already been done. Well, maybe he'll just eat healthier stuff in our version.

Oh The places you won't go-Basically this is book that we're going to distribute to people who don't make much money, people who don't go to Ivy league schools and people with MFA's in creative writing. We'll put in a bunch of pictures of the White House, people in a hot tub in the Hamptons, traveling through Europe, having a live in nanny etc. Because look at what all that agitating about the 99 percent got those people...nothing. The key to happiness is reduced dreams. Hey, there can only be one President every four years, they're always looking for people to scrub toilets.

Where the Wild Things Aren't-This rewriting would be a change from the traditional story of wild play that Max engages in. In the retelling, the wild things are all in trophy cases and the woods are a parking lot. Max maybe wanders around the parking lot for a while, has a conversation with a bum about the possibility of getting a smoke and maybe global warming and then he goes back to bed. However, on the plus side, not only has he seen a more proper world, he's also gotten to bed earlier. And, like most adults, I know that you never regret going to bed early.

Charlie and the itenerant chocolate factory workers-Listen, I love the rags to riches story of finding the special wrapper and all that. But let's be honest with each other, capitalism is a degrading thing. It's time to teach our kids about the power of the proletariat. Maybe Charlie gets inside and starts talking to some of the Oompa Loompas and discovers they aren't weird crazy people made from magic but just regular joe's working under really crappy conditions that have totally hosed them. Maybe Charlie helps lead a strike and they overthrow Wonka and the workers gain the rights to the factory. Maybe we can do something to change this world instead of just eating chocolate and calling it a day? I always opt for the latter, but I'm hopeful that with the right book our kids can opt for the former.

Cloudy with a chance of Acid Rain-What's that, things that look like meatballs in the sky. Wrong kids. That's the massive cloud that forms when we're about to have some acid rain dropped on us. In this version the kids aren't really excited by the rain, rather, they are kind of terrified. And after the rain stops they'd probably congregate, sign a petition, and head down to Charlie's factory and get the thing shut down, because we all have got to live together in the proletariat not just you, Charlie!

Cinderella-Listen, I just reread Cinderella. I've got no major issues with the beginning plot points. I'm fine with mean step-mothers and sisters and all that. I'm even fine with Cinderella "wanting" to go to the ball. However, when things don't work out for her why does the fairy godmother show up? We want to teach our kids to be a little more self-reliant than that. The only people in this story with gumption are the sisters who hack off toes to try and fit in the shoe. They are the real winners because you' know they'll be successful in the future, hobble and all.

 No. In the retelling Cinderella goes to the ball, but she just observes. She live tweets the thing. Prince, more like a frog #lamest ball of the year. And maybe people start following her tweets during the ball, maybe she's trending by midnight. I'll tell you what, she certainly isn't falling in love and waiting to be carried away. What kind of patriarchal bull-shi is that? No. She goes back home, maybe notices that the prince is following her tweets and does says something mildly flirtatious to reel him in. She is not waiting for a glass slipper though, she is updating facebook to it's complicated and posting pictures of her with mannequins made to look like boyfriends in different poses via Instagram. These kids need to know. Eventually she ends up with the prince or mildly famous, it's all the same in the end, right? Lesson learned.

New Year

I went out walking in the evening. After tea, but before dessert. I left instructions with the maid to start a fire, and to retire to her own quarters after putting together the cake. She has grown so used to me that this sudden act of taking a walk after dinner seemed to her an act of aggression. It is these strange confirmations, the lifting of her eyebrows at this request which confirm how staid my life has become in these autumn years. 

"Do not look so surprised, Miss Thatcher," I told her gruffly. "I have not told you that I intend to run." 

She smiled and helped me into my overcoat, which is a shade too large now for my ever diminishing shoulders. The wind was whipping over the cobbles, hiding behind certain street corners and nipping at my cheeks. On evenings such as this it has been my habit to take a bit of alcohol, a minor bit, and then read over the news. 

The whole city seems changed at this time of night. When the streetlights loom like sentries, pooling light in alcoves amidst the coming dark. I turned down seventh street, passing by houses where people that I used to know had lived. It is strange to me how they can now be so emptied of meaning. I don't know if language is capable of capturing this particular absence. 

I came down the street and was struck by the sound of a piano being played expertly. I quickly, or as quickly as I am now capable moved out of the light and into the shadows, so I could hear the bars of music unobserved. Through a window I glimpsed a woman sitting at the piano, her brow slightly furrowed, as she worked over something by Beethoven. She had long red hair, cropped at her shoulders, framing her heart shaped face. And suddenly I was transported back to another time, years before, when I had stood at a similar window, looking out instead of in while a young woman played the piano. I remember the lights of the Christmas tree, making green and red patterns on the window. I turned from the window, watched the girl at the piano, wanting to say something to her about the patterns of the lights, the patterns of my thoughts, certain little pieces of verisimilitude that added up to something significant. "It is a fine piece," I said instead, and went back to gazing out the window. 

Years later now, it is hard to imagine that I was that boy in the window. And, as I listen to the music rise from the depths of the shadows, a thief as sure as any other. I thought that I should get back to Miss Thatcher. She'd be missing me on this night more than most. The awful reminder of the places we used to haunt, the people that we used to be. Of course, I realized as I straightened up and walked briskly through the cold that I'd never stood at a window against the frosted glass listening to a girl play piano. It was yet another thing I'd invented to pass these slowly moving days. And perhaps, in some other world, there was another version of me that was remembering that window, those red tresses, and perhaps these convergences in time happen for a reason, to remind us that not everything is lost to the passage of time. 

These are the foolish thoughts of an old man in need of tea. I think it is the last time that I'll walk after dark.