Latest Parries
April 2012
From Nokia N95 to iPhone 4S
Annoyances and upsets with the iPhone 4S have been more than offset by its screen, the silkiness of its surfaces, the camera, and the third-party market for both software and hardware.
February 2012
2001: A Space Odyssey: Dry, Juicy, Linear, Luminous
After they finished watching the Bond movies, I figured the next series John Gruber and Dan Benjamin would discuss on The Talk Show would be Stanley Kubrick’s oeuvre. But Gruber refused — too personal for podcasting, he said. Disappointed, I rewatched 2001.
January 2012
A Scheme of a Number of Friends
Instead of acknowledging the wisdom of leading from behind, the Right jumped on the Obama administration’s handling of Libya as yet another example of at best incompetence. They lost me there.
October 2011
The Mouse and the Cantilever
Steve Jobs we lost at the age of 56; when Frank Lloyd Wright reached that age it was still only 1923, the time of merely his second comeback with Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel.
March 2010
Friendship is for Weenies
It’s amazing, given the adulation he enjoyed elsewhere, that the Israeli public knew from the start not to trust this US President.
Before the Setup
Nobody from usesthis.com has asked me what my setup us, nor is likely to anytime soon. So I’m just going to mouth off here about it. But first, some background.
February 2010
Walter Russell Mead steps gingerly into the Wieseltier/Sullivan imbroglio
On the Leon Wieseltier/Andrew Sullivan spat, Walter Russell Mead seems to want to have his strudel and eat it too.
October 2009
My Hope: Obama’s Change
Defeat in the Olympics bid may focus the mind in the Oval Office where it should be: Afghanistan.
July 2009
At Modi’in Mall
There’s nothing else around here except empty desolate pretty hills. The Israel Trail passes by a bit to the west. It’s a hot July Wednesday morning. Things are reasonably busy. The shops are mostly franchises, almost all homegrown — Super-Pharm, Aroma, Tzomet Sfarim, Cup O’ Joe’s, LaMetayel, Mega, Fox, Castro, H&O.
Israel, the Bad So Far
I’m surprised at the general appearance of Tel Aviv folks. Yes, it’s hot, but people appear dressed as if they’re in, I don’t know, Be’er Sheva. And the people in Be’er Sheva, last time I was there, looked to me like they’re dressed for Gaza.
T here was a lull. I did not particularly like, let alone enjoy 24 for the past three episodes. I don’t know what the problem was exactly. I found Kiefer’s forced heavy breathing unconvincing. I found Tom Lennox and his poor proposals dull and dry. I found the presidential assassination thread to be a grinding up a blind alley into things we’ve seen before but this time with less compelling characters. The whole idea of Jack’s family must have seemed a great idea during story brainstorming sessions but onscreen it had shrunk the world too much into a family saga.
Episode 10 has somehow turned it all around. I’m used to the idea of Jack’s father now. The action with Milo felt convincing, the alcohol thread with Morris refreshing — perhaps because it was nice to just see one of the characters in normal circumstances, buying something at the store. Morris guy is a strong actor. Tom’s return to the fold was a relief, yet we still have the tension of the president’s assassin about to be let into the bunker. Funny how you can tell it’s Tom lying on the ground due to the funny shape of his head. I looked up IMDB to see if this is the guy who played the Ferengi on Deep Space Nine, but it’s not, he was in Ally Macbeal. But you know that, though I didn’t. Bill Buchanan is back to his role as passive anchor, which I like. The chemistry between Jack and Marilyn feels real — more real in fact than any of his other relationships. Somehow you can sense that they’re teenage sweethearts. How’d they do that?
When he helped her get dressed again after she put on her bulletproof vest, the way she looked at him is so sexy, that she’s just thrilled to be this close to him again, and you get a moment where you felt she wished the past 16 or so years had been different, that she had been with him each of these days. You also feel that Jack reciprocates a bit, but that he put her in his past a long time ago. Actually, we’re not clear as to what happened back then, but he did leave them all didn’t he? Did he leave her? Or did she leave him for his brother once he enlisted? It’s not clear who did the wrong thing way back then, though presumably since it’s Jack we’re talking about, the wrong choices were hers.
So what’s changed? Is it a different director from those of episodes 7-9? The inevitable lulls during a long story arc? I’m trying to remember if there were any similar down periods during season 5, but for a moment I can’t remember season 5 at all. Ah yes, it comes back. No, actually, I don’t think there were. I just loved Gregory Itzin’s ticky Charles Logan so much. Mike Novick was as usual such a warm presence, as were Martha and Aaron Pierce, that it was just an ensemble delight over there at the presidential retreat. (Funny how on the 24 Inside show the interviewer muses to the set designer that the retreat looks like a Frank Lloyd Wright interior and he says, uh, no, it’s actually Thunderbirds and she tries again and he says No more emphatically, but it looks quite FLWy to me too. Maybe a Gerry Anderson palette on a Wright canvas?)
Yes, remembering season 5 makes me think season 6 is still not quite up to par, perhaps because there isn’t an equivalent set or presidential counterweight. And since it’s not likely that the president’s going to leave his bunker, we have a bit of a mood problem there. Maybe we’ll get to Santa Monica beach or something to lighten things up? Well, we are near the airport by the end of the episode, so that’s good. And the phonecall. I couldn’t see it coming. I had read he’d be back this season, but as we saw the hand, I didn’t think it would be Charles, dear sweet troubled Charles, this time in greybeard exile making me think of Saddam Hussein.
Previously
Mecca Pie
Nextly
Rome, Open Shitty