Month: February 2013

My friend Howard read my post about the new show, The Following, and sent me the following message:

The Following was just stupid, another one of these “being evil gives you superpowers” plots.

Now I’m mad I didn’t make that point first. I understand that for the sake of drama murderers have to be portrayed as smart, creative, and almost supernaturally capable, but in reality they’re almost never brilliant masterminds. I spent a few years studying murder for my book about the NYPD’s Cold Case Squad, and God was that research an eye-opener. Of course there are exceptions, but in general murderers are stupid. They’re inept in pretty much every area of life, including murder which they frequently bungle (I wrote about one case where they killed the wrong guy.) Murderers are the opposite of confident and powerful. They’re usually the most insecure people ever and they often kill because someone has embarrassed or made them feel ashamed in some way. Instead of addressing the insecurity they have to eliminate the reminder, the person who drew attention to whatever it is that made them feel bad about themselves.

Murderers don’t educate themselves. They don’t eat well or exercise and it shows. They’re ignorant, out of shape, have bad skin, and many kill because they drank too much, or did some nasty drug, not that they’re charming, wonderful people when sober.

Also, chances are pretty good that you’ve interacted with someone who has killed another human being and gotten away with it. It’s disturbingly easy to get away with murder alas, and at least a third of the murders in this country are never solved. (That percentage is actually a lot higher I’ve learned, I just can’t give an exact figure. A case is closed when the police make an arrest, but if it turns out they arrested the wrong person, or they later lose the case, they don’t go back and adjust the numbers.)

Note to murderers: Please don’t feel like I’ve dissed you and now you have to kill me to save face. If you are smart than clearly I wasn’t talking about you. But please don’t kill ever again. Thank you in advance.
——

I was walking down Staple Street, a favorite street of mine downtown, and of course I passed by a photo shoot. Can’t walk out the door these days without coming across one shoot or another.

I can’t believe I just wrote that title. I grew up in different tv times, when you were lucky if there was one decent show on each night, never mind great.

Recently I set my DVR to record the new series The Following, and then cancelled it after only one episode. Trust me, I would not have passed on the opportunity to watch Kevin Bacon every week lightly. If they were torturing puppies and dogs in the first episode, I didn’t want to know where they were going to go from there.

Then I had a busy week and little time to watch tv. When I finally sat down on the couch the list of shows I’d recorded was at least three screens long. It would have taken an entire weekend of nonstop watching to catch up. That’s insane. My ever-growing to-read pile of books is probably going to take a year. Plus all those studies about the effects of sitting for too long? I’d be dead by Christmas.

I started culling. It’s not like the shows I deleted weren’t very good. In fact, some of the shows I saved are only okay. And it kills me to think of all the great shows that I never watched in the first place (The Wire, 30 Rock, Justified, the list is endless.) Here’s how I decided: which shows did I want to watch first? And which ones, much as I might love them, or things about them, or someone in them, felt ever-so-slightly like homework?

Among the first to go were Nashville, White Collar, The Americans, and others I don’t even remember now. On the chopping block are Revenge and Raising Hope. I can’t believe Raising Hope is even in this position (Garret Dillahunt!) but it’s always surrounded by The Mindy Project (which I have come to adore) and New Girl, and I must admit I always go straight to those first. Revenge is going to be hard to let go of, and maybe I won’t in the end, but, but, I have books to read!

All of this said, television has grown up. It is the most exciting, relevant, ever-evolving art form we have now. I still love books! And that possibilities-expanding New York Times piece Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek certainly points the way to how thrilling ebooks should get.

Oh Jesus. Because tv has gotten so incredible, it’s drawing more and more amazing talent, so it’s only going to get even better, and that will make it still more painful to decide which to watch and which to delete. Damn you great television!
—

Finney (the black one): “You’re going to bite me any second now, aren’t you?”

Bleeck: “Hey, don’t read anything into this. Talk to her. She’s the one who put this comfy cloth down right next to your favorite sleeping spot.”

I took these last night, on my way home from the Loser’s Lounge. The snow was supposed to really start at 7, so it had only had been at it for a few hours, but as you can see there isn’t any serious accumulation. I looked out this morning, and there’s a little more, but still. Nothing to write home about for those of us in the City. (Except, I guess this is kinda writing home about it, in a way.)

So, who got truly hit?

Yesterday, when I was at the Municipal Archives, they were shooting Zero Hour on the 6th floor and in the basement (this is a new show that will be premiering soon), and when I walked outside I heard a loud protest over at One Police Plaza. How exciting! What did the police department do now? Among other things, I’ve been going through old Mayoral records about about the police department, and I’ve found some pretty scary, sad, records. This time however, all the shouting turned out to be a film shoot for the tv show Blue Bloods.

So of course I made a short video.

Today for fun though: big snowstorm!! It’s snowing right now, as I type! It doesn’t quite look blizzard-y to me yet, but maybe it will stick for once, and by tonight I’ll be making my way to the Loser’s Lounge in snow so thick I can hardly see. And then tomorrow, I’ll have to climb over mountains of snow to get to my photo class. Hopefully.

I’m going back down to the Municipal Archives, where it seems like every day someone is filming something. I was in a rush when I took this though. Somewhere to the left they were filming a Law and Order episode, but I was late and I had to turn to the right.

For me it’s fun but I wonder if people who live and work in the area think, “Oh for the love of god, another Law and Order film shoot. Go away.”