Alright TV fans, the moment of truth (and consequence) has arrived:
You may download the recording of this session by clicking here. Also, by way of update, The Mockingbird Devotional, from which Ethan reads in his session, will be out next week! Watch this space for an announcement.
You think you know me? Well, I know you Deputy Marshall Raylan Givens. I know you like to shoot bad people…I heard about you shooting that gun thug in Miami, but you know? At any point, when you were looking at that gun thug, did you see your daddy’s face?
These are the words of Boyd Crowder, longtime friend and archenemy of Raylan Givens, in the show’s pilot episode. In the modern carriage of the Western Sheriff trope, Givens represents the unbending, truth-toting hand of justice. And with this trope—of law and order and “shooting bad people”—comes the necessary prospect any…
[Spoiler Alert!] According to the Fresh Air interview with actor Aaron Paul, his character, the impulsive young Jesse Pinkman in AMC’s Breaking Bad, wasn’t supposed to make it out of the first season. He tells Terry Gross he didn’t even know that was the plan and so:
…instantly my heart kind of dropped and slowed down a bit, and (Vince Gilligan) goes, “but we don’t think we’re going to do that anymore.” And I was just – I was like, “What do you mean? What are you talking about? Like, what’s the plan?” And he’s like, “No, we just – I…
Been in something of a creative funk as of late, so I am not going to belabor the point here. Professor Jim Dixon offers these thoughts in Kingsley Amis’ great novel Lucky Jim, and they are so indicative of the human condition: Give me the straight juice, but only if it goes down smooth. Even more telling is the fact that Amis wrote this as a waning Stalinite on the verge of a breakup with the Soviet Union:
“Now, as Dixon had been half expecting all along, Welch produced his handkerchief. It was clear that he was about to blow his…
There have not been many television shows as good as the HBO series The Wire. Some, such as Mad Men and Breaking Bad, are in the same league. Others would probably argue for Friday Night Lights (this is a great dispensation for television!). Whatever your poison might be, The Wire and I have spent a great deal of time together. Detective Jimmy McNulty is one of the heroes/anti-heroes of the series whose deft investigatory skills and genuine sincerity about his work are tempered by a high-functioning alcoholism, arrogance, deviousness, and a long line of broken relationships. He is the perfect…
Darren Sombke: One of our former students and chapel band members at Rockford Luthera...
michael cooper: Thanks for this fantastic interview...what an honest man. The Heaney p...
Todd Brewer: A brilliant, but sad, analysis. The fall of Michael and George Michael...
Clay: Michael - You could have also named this article "The Grace of Looking...
Tam: oh man, that last paragraph. I really needed that today. Thanks....