Monthly Archives: March 2017

Utopia (Dreamland) (YGtCTO #138)

Utopia (called Dreamland on Netflix)

Television series created by Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner and Rob Sitch

Making fun of the government can be artistically profitable. It can also help maintain sanity. Few shows have mined the mincing horror of bureaucratic democracies as well as Utopia (Dreamland), the Australian series about an imaginary government authority charged with oversight for large infrastructure projects.

And who doesn’t hold a special place in their internal fires for governmental stupidity? Yes, Minister plumbed similar territory, but its focus was less bureaucratic and more executive incompetence. W1A (and its predecessor Twenty Twelve) also trawled the insanity of bureaucracies. Maybe it is a sign of sophistication? Executives are where bad ideas are born and bureaucracies are where good ideas go to be twisted beyond recognition.

I found relief from office insanity in seeing the reflection of the ridiculous aspects of my work life on the small screen. Acknowledgement that I was not alone surely served to make it easier to cope when things felt their worst. I was not so precious as to leave myself out of the mix, either. My own idiotic behavior was no less provocative than anyone else’s. But, laughter is one of those steps toward forgiveness.

Utopia Dreamland

So, why have I left a couple episodes of the last season without watching them?

Initially, I followed past patterns by leaving parts of short-run series for the future. You never know when you might need them. Call it an investment in my emotional future.

Whatever your politics, new administrations tend to inspire uncertainty. That can be a good time to watch a comedy about the government and be reminded that they are all just a bunch of idiots who will accomplish little, but I’m not really ready for Dreamland (let alone Utopia).

Our new administration has been embarrassing and offensive and incompetent in ways that move beyond satire. Sure, funny is funny, but we stepped in something that inspires curse words. We’re not the first to live in a country that has done so.

Genghis Khan, Caesar and Napoleon are staring down on the May Day parade in front of the Kremlin as it passes by. Gesturing at the rocket launchers, Khan says, “With fire arrows like that, all of Asia would have been mine.” Caesar looks at the tanks and says, “With chariots like that, I could have conquered all of Europe.” Napoleon takes one look at the newspaper rack where a copy of Tass is on display and says, “With that, no one would ever have found out about Waterloo.”

As our jokes develop pointy ends and our barbs become sharper, we can see the world changing in front of us. I have often written about the power of art to communicate feelings and ideas from the artist to the audience- usually a personal experience. When the world needs art to communicate objections to power in code, then we need to change those in power.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 162 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.

Cara Black (YGtCTO Words #46)

Murder in the Marais

Book by Cara Black

Read, read, read… get too busy or get depressed or something… stare at pile of books and feel a deep-seeded apathy; re-sort the books and come back to them later; go to the library and stare at all the books… lie down on the sofa and watch something awful…

As much as anyone I know, I like to read, listen to music, watch shows and performances, and check out art. But then something happens and all of it leaves me empty. I don’t think it’s the fault of the artists in any way, shape or form. Moods rise and fall over the course of a day and over months. Sometimes, I just can’t muster the effort needed to consider whatever is being presented.

Fortunately, the cycle has never bottomed out permanently because someone somewhere creates something that jars me free from the rocks in my socks holding me down. Years ago, Folkways: A Vision Shared set me free from a terrible funk and reminded me how much I loved music. That’s equivalent to the gift of life and it’s a debt that can never be repaid.

Mysteries had been

a staple portion of my literary diet ever since Gregory MacDonald had reintroduced me to the form I first fell in love with via Donald J. Sobol. But it has always been difficult to know what to try next. I read all the available MacDonald and P.D. James. Rex Stout books were always catch as catch can. Walter Mosley and other currently active favorites did not write enough. This was before Amazon was really a thing and eBooks were science fiction.

Cara Black

Add another phase of not feeling so enthusiastic about reading to the lack of obvious choices. Somehow, Cara Black’s first Aimée Leduc mystery entered our house, but I’m sure it was not intended for me. I probably nudged the book a couple times before even turning it over to read the summary. I devoured it like a starving man rescued from weeks alone on an island attacks his first meal back among humanity.

The art that reminds me to come back from that long swim out to sea consistently surprises and amazes me . The work that reels me back is never predictable- by me especially. My gratitude to artists who make the links and heal the souls cannot be fully expressed. In the end, the private moments when we find ourselves redeemed are between us and the work. I fear a world in which any voice is stopped because that might be the artist who makes the work that saves someone else.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 163 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.

Patsy Cline (YGtCTO Music #46)

I Fall to Pieces
Song written by Hank Cochran and Harlan Howard, performed by Patsy Cline

I was just reading Philip José Farmer. He was talking about when he wrote a book using a pseudonym taken from Kurt Vonnegut’s writings. As a toss-away comment, Farmer notes that he has grown surprised to learn that not everyone remembers Kilgore Trout anymore. Mind you, he mentioned this back before we had reached overload in pop culture availability.

In 2016, among other overriding themes that could be gleaned from social media, society obsessed over the seemingly endless litany of notable deaths. Surely, it had to be an ill portent of something. Yet, here we are sixty years removed from the initial explosion of mass communication. Add to that remarkable advances in commerce, marketing, and transportation, we have a seemingly endless list of potential celebrities. That first wave is hitting 70 and well beyond. Making it out of those first flowerings of fame does the survivors credit, but no one gets out of here alive.

Patsy Cline

Patsy Cline does not get to be a social media sensation for dying. So, a lot of people get to run around and say, “who’s that?” She’s not exceptional in that regard. A good percentage of folks had to google Kurt Vonnegut, no doubt. I’m not faulting anyone for having the brain capacity of a human being. It’s just weird what we value. We’re not wrong for liking Megan Trainor. Trainor is conversation fodder while Patsy Cline can only be approached with an explanation already in hand (“great country and western singer from around 1960,” for example).

For me,

Patsy Cline has always been there in a way that new artists never will be. Just like Kurt Vonnegut and Philip José Farmer. For people forty years younger, they will say the same about Megan Trainor, as they should.

As it looks now, the future is going to be a very interesting place. Current technology promises the availability of “everything” in unimaginable formats. For me, I had to come to Patsy Cline in the quiet spaces between the noise of modern life. Like Sam Cooke, she taught me to slow down and take a listen. I don’t know if the future will allow for that. It feels like the volume is always being turned up a little louder every year, just to see how much people can tolerate.

In my daily life, I forget to make time for an artist of Cline’s caliber, and I now realize that it’s truly my devotional. It’s easy to forget the spaces that she provides for peace of mind.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 164 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.