SPIDER: SHORT FILM

Diabolical short film by Nash Edgerton. Watch now.

THERE

THE SHIELD :(

Yeah, yeah, it had to be this way.  Fucking lame, though.  The Shield was a better, smarter show than The Sopranos (for which I have tremendous admiration).  The Sopranos, for all its greatness, just had too many missteps, too many lugubrious scenes, aimless episodes, useless digressions.

RATS OF NEW YORK

David Lynch's PSA about rats in New York.



My video of rats in New York.

VOL 1 BROOKLYN INTERVIEW

In which we talked about The Obese, the Fires reissue, Teen Wolf, and other things.  Check it out.

GR OBESE

I like this Ryan Bradford Goodreads review of The Obese.

"Just finished this book and feel slightly weird for enjoying it. It's an ugly, ugly book--the cover's (amazingly) grotesque and every character in The Obese is a piece of shit."

BEST TV DRAMA OF PAST 25 YEARS

Vulture is running brackets to assert the "best TV drama of the past 25 years."   

Peaks marked an epochal moment for television, one that launched a whole new wave of inventive hour-long drama and, thanks to David Lynch's very specific vision, birthed the era of the celebrity showrunner, the Head Motherwriter in Charge whom fans worshipped as much as or more than the shows' stars, and upon whom they placed all responsibility for the show's highs and lows.

My vote is The Shield.  (And I agree with Josh Wolk that it had "the greatest finale in television history").  But the winner of the brackets is entirely unpredictable because each match-up is judged by a different writer.  (Fuck, I wish I was one of them.)  Although if I had to bet, I'd guess they'll pick The Wire, unless some perverse or deliberately contrary judge decides to kick it out.  (In the first match-up, you can feel Davy Rothbart wanting to pick My So-Called Life--ha!--over The Wire, but holding his nose and going with the more defensible choice.)  It can't in fairness be Mad Men or Breaking Bad because with multiple seasons yet to go, they could still stumble egregiously.

GREAT MALE NARCISSISTS

Elaine Blair writes a essay article in the New York Review of Books about the "romantic loser" sexual perspective of today's crop of American male novelists (Shteyngart, etc).  She compares them both to Houellebecq and to the Great Male Narcissists like Roth/Updike/Mailer.  It's an excellent article that I mostly agree with.  It's like an intelligent and perceptive version of that Katie Roiphe piece from a while back.

COLLAGIST

Did another q&a, this time for the Collagist blog.

Today was weirdly cold in Los Angeles.  I'm cold right now. 

IDENTITY THEORY Q & A

I did a q&a at Identity Theory, check it out.

****

I was wrong about The Wire.  The first time I watched it I thought it was half a great show.  The drug dealer storyline was epic and engaging and the cops were boring.  Watching it again I realized I was just wrong.  It's 100% a great show.  I hate/love being wrong.