reviewing 3 Body Problem; Black Doves; Bosch; Citadel; Criminal Minds; Dark Matter; Dexter: Original Sin; Dune: Prophecy; For All Mankind; Foundation; Hijack; House of the Dragon; Luther; Outlander; Presumed Innocent; Reacher; Severance; Silo; Slow Horses; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Surface; The: Ark, Day of the Jackal, Diplomat, Last of Us, Way Home; You +books, films, music, podcasts, politics
George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.
22 December 2024: The three latest written interviews of me are here, here and here.
Californication concluded its delightful first season on Showtime last night with an hilarious, savvy, altogether satisfying 12th episode.
I won't tell you the very ending, in case you haven't seen it. But I will say it was 100% motivated.
What I will tell you is that David Duchovny was spectacular, as he was throughout the entire season. And Tom Kapinos' writing was brilliant as it's been throughout the entire series, too.
My favorite line last night was "the ass is always greener" ... this said by Marci - who has had many of the best lines on the show - in some advice she is giving to Karen. This seems only apropos, since I said in my review of the first episode that it had me laughing my ass off.
Mia's character was also written beautifully - her public statement that she and Hank actually didn't have sex helps Hanks, of course, but it also helps her - because her father otherwise would never let her go ahead with her publishing. Fiction about an afternoon with an older man he might tolerate, not autobiography... Madeline Zima did a standout job in playing this super-precocious 16-year old.
In the end, Californication was really not about sex or nudity. It was about attitude. About not always ideal but more or less healthy attitude. About hard luck and good luck and failure in the face of success ... and vice versa, in professional as well as personal life.
There's a lot more of Hank Moody's story to be told - professionally and personally - and I'm very looking forward to seeing him and the sparkling cast back in action next year.
Two best moments in the Democratic debate in Philadelphia tonight, just concluded a few minutes ago on MSNBC:
1. John Edwards was by the far the best he's been in this campaign, and by far the most effective on the stage tonight, in taking on Hillary Clinton. He refused to back down down from his press release headline that Hillary Clinton double-talked, and gave ample examples - the most telling of which was her inexcusable vote for a bill that empowers the Bush administration to start going down a path that could well lead to war with Iraq. Others on the stage, including Obama, was not as clear or as passionate as was Edwards on this point.
2. But Obama had a moment when he was given a question near the end about whether he believed in life on other planets. He answered that he didn't know, but he did know that there was life here on Earth, and we needed to do more to take care of that. Fine answer - and I say this even as committed science fiction author...
Biden continues to impress with his toughness (especially on Giuliani tonight, and I give Kucinich credit for saying, yes, he once saw a UFO (even though I've seen no really convincing evidence myself). And Mike Gravel should have been there (MSNBC ruled him too low in the the polls and finances received to participate - bad move).
I thought this was the best Democratic so far, and I'm looking forward to more.
A strong Episode 6 of Journeyman last night, in which three significant things occurred:
1. Dan and Jack's relationship is healing. This is good to see, because Dan will need all the help he can get in the adventures before him...
2. Something that Livia said early in the episode clarified, for me, what she is doing in the story: she travels back to help Dan. This is obvious, but what I mean is that Dan is the problem that Livia is traveling back in time to fix. She shows up whenever he needs any help. We still don't know what her home base is - I suspect maybe some time in the further future - and whether she's being yanked back to help Dan (which I suspect is the case, or maybe she said that on an earlier show), or is initiating the jumps. I look forward to see how this is played out.
3. There's more to the Ted Kaczynski (the unabomber in our world) character in last night's episode - Kowalchuk in last night's show - than meets the eye. He's conversant with tachyons, and provides a crystal clear explanation of their power. He sent a letter to our tachyon scientist, Langley. He believes in time travel, and correctly id's Dan as a man who is time traveling (he asks Dan if he's from the past or the future, and Dan says the future). He tells Dan that his shoes gave Dan away as not being from 2000, the time in which they are talking...
But, in the end, in 2007, the "cured" Kowalchuk says he's come to see that time travel is not possible, after all. Yet, he still notices Dan's shoes.
We have not seen the last of tachyon-savvy characters in this story...
Bopping back to talk about Dexter, which is now up to Episode 5 on Showtime. As I mentioned in my preview review of the first four episodes, I think this season is even better than the first - more subtle, multi-dimensional, and dangerous - which is saying a lot, because the first season was outstanding.
Sunday's episode was entitled "The Dark Defender," and captures the new self-respect and even confidence that Dexter is finding in himself. On the one hand, the discovery of his victims in the bay, and Keith Carradine's masterful Federal agent leading the investigation, is posing far more of threat to Dexter than Doakes (who is not out of the picture yet, either) ever did. On the other hand, Dexter has Lila.
Unlike Rita, Lila empowers Dexter. Although she doesn't know the specifics of Dexter's addiction - a taste for cutting people up, fortunately bad people - she is powerfully in synch with what Dexter is going through. And she supports him. In Sunday's show, she talks Dexter out of butchering one of the guys who butchered his mother (Lila does this on the phone).
If Rita is Lois Lane to Dexter's Clark Kent, Lila is Batgirl to Dexter's Batman. (I know, the metaphor seems a little stretched, but it's a complex story). So far, Lila is Dexter's ally in all things ... and it looks like they are moving towards a passionate sexual relationship, as well. In contrast, Dexter last year tolerated to enjoyed sex with Rita, but was never really passionate about it.
As Heroes on NBC struggles this year to find a little more cohesion in a central story, Dexter on Showtime is instantly mesmerizing as a solitary dark hero in a sea of real and potential adversaries (including, possibly, his sister - though I think, in the end, she will be loyal to him) ... and one dark-haired beauty (played by Jaime Murray) who seems his steadfast soul mate.
The story of a professor - not now, but in 1917, in the midst of another war - who risked everything to stand up for freedom of speech and the Constitution...
Sound familiar?
It's what Ron Paul and all people who value freedom and truth and the rule of Constitution are fighting for!
Come to a special "reading" performance of David Wiltse's Sedition tonight at Fordham University's Pope Auditorium at 7:30pm!
Admission is free - all you need are your principles.
Starring Mark Shanahan and a stellar cast. Panel discussion to follow with David Wiltse, Mark Shanahan, and Paul Levinson.
All are welcome.
===============================
my August 2007 review of Sedition
See also Wiltse's "Sedition": Perfect Medium for 1917 First Amendment Story and More on "Sedition": The Play and the Professor, Then and Now
Hey all of you Mad Men fans ... the season is over ... it will be replayed soon, and the second season will be on AMC next summer ... but in the meantime-
Check out my 20-minute interview with Rich Sommer aka Harry Crane! We did this just two days ago, had a great time, and covered such topics as the "joys" of wearing real 1960 clothing ... what are they really smoking on the show? ... what does Rich think happened with Harry between episodes 12 and 13 of the show? ... how does Rich explain Harry's uncanny resemblance to Isaac Asimov (see my review of Episode 8) ... how does Rich account for the rare anachronisms on the show ... and much more ...
You can listen to the interview and read the complete show notes at Light On Light Through ...
A clip of Peter, Paul, and Mary singing Dylan's "Times They Are A Changing" in the mid-1960s ... listen to these lyrics ... look at Mary ... could be a theme song for Ron Paul...
So how did my Intro to Communication and Media Studies class at Fordham University do on their midterm exam - and, in particular, the question about Ron Paul's mistreatment by mainstream news media.
You may recall that the open book exam consisted of three questions, with students required to answer two of the three. This was the first question:
1. Consider Ron Paul’s Presidential campaign the Source of communication. Using the Shannon-Weaver model, explain all the steps that the campaign must go through, in order to reach its Destination, the American people. Make sure you address each step in the process, as well as what can (and did) go wrong in the process, and possible remedies for addressing this. (Option: If you like to do this analysis for another Presidential candidate, that would be acceptable, but make sure you have specific examples to present.)
Here is a summary of relevant results.
a. A little more than 100 students took the exam (it's a "mega"-class). Of those, about 25% answered the above question.
b. All but one of the students who answered this question chose Ron Paul as the example. (One chose John Kerry's 2004 campaign.)
c. The students who answered this question did considerably better on this question than they and other students did on other questions: more than 90% received an A or A- on this question.
d. The students who answered this question also did considerably better than other students on the overall exam. The average grade on the exam for students who answered this question was A-. The average grade for the overall class was B/B+
e. Here is an excerpt from one of the Ron Paul answers. Mariel Di Biase (a sophomore) gave permission to indicate her name:
An example of noise in the Ron Paul campaign was that ABC presented misleading information to viewers regarding Paul's number of supporters and poll evidence. Some ways to combat noise are: (1)Change the way the message is sent - 'frequency'. This could be done by repetition or 'redundancy'. Paul could repeat the message using different/alternate channels, not ABC. (2) Increase the volume or amplitude. An example would be to turn up the volume on the TV during his speech. (3) Looking for problems in the system - feedback. This could be talking to ABC and addressing the issue.
Not bad for a high-pressure, in-class midterm essay exam. I have a little more confidence in the future now...
Mia (fetchingly played by Madeline Zima) was directly or indirectly the stimulus for all the crucially important developments in Episode 11 of Californication on Showtime.
As we saw last week, she's pretending to be the author of Hank's comeback manuscript. Since her sleeping with and slapping Hank is the core of the story in the manuscript - not to mention, in a sense, the story of Californication - she has an understandable sense of proprietorship in the novel...
Her bringing it to Dani, which inevitably means Charlie, brings Charlie and Hank closer than they've been through the series. Charlie, never better, recognizes that the manuscript is Hank's, and will stand by him whatever Hank chooses to do about Mia's masquerade. (He can't do much, if Mia keeps to this course, because he doesn't want to be exposed for sleeping with someone underage - even if Hank didn't know it at the time and Mia looks much older than sixteen.)
Meanwhile, Mia's theft of Hank's manuscript also has an indirect, but even more powerful, impact on Hank's life. His daughter Becca (well played Madeleine Martin) decides to move in with Hank, in part because the great novel he was writing in New York didn't pan out (of course not, because Hank thought he'd lost it), and Becca is worried that with Karen marrying the bore Bill, Hank will be left with no support...
Which has the surprising effect - since Karen can't bear to be without Becca - of bring Karen to Hank and Becca's place, late at night, when they're both asleep....
We'll she stay?
I'm betting yes ...
But it just goes to show that, although I would never want it happening to me, losing your novel and then having someone sell it as theirs can have unintended beneficial results...
Three powerhouses of science fiction across the decades comment in 10+ seconds each on my novel, The Silk Code ...
David Hartwell, senior editor at Tor Books, and editor of my science fiction novels from The Silk Code through The Plot to Save Socrates...
Cory Doctorow, of Boing-Boing, and author of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, etc…
Daniel Keyes, author of "Flowers for Algernon" ...
David Hartwell, Cory Doctorow, Daniel Keyes on The Silk Code
more on The Silk Code, winner of the Locus Award for Best First Science Fiction novel of 1999:
“As a genre-bending blend of police procedural and science fiction, The Silk Code delivers on its promises.”—Gerald Jonas, The New York Times Book Review
“As twisted as a double helix. ”—Wired
“D’Amato is an appealingly savvy character, and Levinson brings a great deal of invention to the endeavor.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“It is hard to put down, easy to pick up again, and an interesting read.”—San Diego Union-Tribune
“Mixes up-to-the-minute biotechnology with ancient myth, science fiction with police procedure, and prehistory with the near future. It’s an impressive debut.”—Joe Haldeman
“Forensic detective Phil D’Amato is one of my favorite characters, and the puzzles he solves are always imaginative, ingenious, and addictive, but Paul Levinson really outdoes himself this time in a mystery involving murders, moths, mummies, the Silk Road, poisons, fireflies, and forensics, all woven into a mystery only D’Amato could solve! A marvelous book!”—Connie Willis
“This damn book has everything: interesting science, suspense, characters that live on the page – and that we like! – and it debuts a new series hero, Dr. Phil D’Amato, forensic detective. I couldn’t put The Silk Code down. I’ll wager you won’t be able to either. Oh, and this is the kicker: The Silk Code is Paul Levinson’s first novel. ”—Jack Dann
“At last we get Paul Levinson’s superb forensic sleuth, Phil D’Amato, in a full-length novel. If you know Phil from his previous appearances, I need say no more. If you don’t, kick back and enjoy a mystery that spans the ages.”—Jack McDevitt
“The Silk Code is an intriguing story refreshingly rich not only in action but in ideas. Seldom have I seen a story so engagingly weave together so many seemingly disparate (dare I say it?) threads.”—Stanley Schmidt, editor of Analog
“Paul Levinson is an exceptional new writer, behind whose work stands an impressive body of knowledge and a great deal of human understanding. His first novel signals a writer to watch for the provocation and pleasure that he will bring to thoughtful readers. The Silk Code is smoothly written, evocative, and spicy! Highly recommended.”—George Zebrowski
“The Silk Code is a splendidly imaginative novel that explores worlds of ideas both scientific and philosophical, while carrying the reader effortlessly across countries, times, and cultures.”—Charles Sheffield
“The Silk Code is science fiction in the classic style, with an innovative mystery that breaks new ground. Acclaimed for his short fiction and insightful writing on the computer age, Paul Levinson now brings his many talents to a complex novel that will keep you guessing until the last page. ”—Catherine Asaro
”...cerebral but gripping”—Booklist
“Combining Neanderthals and mechanical looms, cantaloupes and coded butterflies, Levinson’s debut novel…offers a flurry of amazing prehistoric technologies, demonstrating that the mysteries of our past can be just as fruitful as those of our future… Levinson creatively explain gaps in both ancient history and biology… providing more wonders than many a futuristic epic.”—Publishers Weekly
”...well-informed and imaginative”—Kirkus Reviews
”...spins an ingenious web of genetic manipulation and anthropological evidence”—Library Journal
“A fascinating concept that pulls together a wide and varied array of ideas and recent discoveries.”—The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
“A rare thriller that actually achieves its goals as a detective tale and a work of boldly speculative sf.”—Gary K. Wolfe, Locus Magazine
============================================= buy the paperback for a penny on Amazon! (e-mail me for details on how to get autographed copy at no additional cost)
A good Journeyman - Episode 5 tonight - as Dan tangles with a character based on D. B. Cooper (Dylan McLeen on tonight's show), who parachuted from a plane in the northwest with a suitcase full of money in the 1970s, and was never found...
At least, not in our reality. But Dan gets to find out McLeen's story in Journeyman, and help set it right.
A good story. But, as usual, the better story - and this is what makes Journeyman so appealing - is in Dan's personal life, in his attempt to be a family man and a time traveler at the same time, and to find out how and why he is time-traveling.
His wife Katie already knows, his brother Jack is close to knowing (and comes closer tonight), and in this episode Dan & Katie's son Zack sees Dan disappear.... And this, as Katie earlier had suggested, is easily comprehensible to Zack. He accepts and enthusiastically approves of Dan's "magic". It's a sweet scene, and it's good that Zack no longer need be frustrated and disappointed by his father's absences. Dan also gets to meet his own father in another sequence, when Dan's father was Dan's age and a photojournalist at the same San Francisco newspaper where Dan now works as a reporter. Dan's father left Dan and his mother when Dan was Zack's age, and his father also connects to another crucial aspect of the larger, unfolding story in what was clearly a father-and-son episode.
Dan gets a visit in his 2007 office from Dr. Elliot Langley - the tachyon scientist who called Dan in the past last week (played with just the right slight mystery and timelessness by Tom Everett). Dan mentions the call, and Langley replies that maybe he was calling Dan's father.
As you know - see my Tachyon Telephone - I think nothing of the sort. I'm more convinced than ever that Langley was calling Dan across time.
Langley gives Dan a pretty good explanation of tachyons and time travel, making clear their hypothetical nature. And Dan gives a satisfying explanation for why he's asking these questions - Dan says he's writing a science fiction novel about a time traveler (of course, much like himself).
Langley makes one minor misstatement - tachyons are not necessary for time travel, as he tells Dan. Rather, they are one way - traveling faster than the speed of light - that time travel could conceivably take place. But if we're in the realm of science fiction - or speculative physics - there are other ways, for example, folding time, stepping into an image of the past when the present looks just like it, or artificial wormholes in which tachyons do not necessarily play a part (yeah, I use the latter in The Plot to Save Socrates, as well as my Loose Ends stories).
But, all in all, a fine episode of Journeyman this evening, with at least one happy father-and-son ending, a good contemporary reference about blogging, and Langley getting deeper into the picture.... I predict we'll see a meeting between him and Livia before too long...
There is a moment in some movies - maybe some novels, too, I'm not sure - which can either be tacky and obvious or good and locking-it-in. I don't think I've ever seen in a television series. It happens when a character in the movie says the name of the movie. I know I've seen this a bunch of times - readers, let me know if you have any examples...
Anyway, I'm sure I've never seen it in a television series - until last night, on Episode 8 of Tell Me You Love Me on HB0. In the very last scene, Nick (Ian Somerhalder) and Jamie (Michelle Borth) are evaluating their fledging relationship, Ian correctly feeling that he may want Jamie more than she wants him - which she of course denies - and Nick utters the magic words: "Tell me you love me."
I think it served last night to ratify the series, in some way - by finally making it crystal clear to everyone that that's each partner of each couple really most wants, whether by words or deeds. This is what the series is really most about, regardless of the specific stories.
And we learned other interesting things last night. Dr. Foster and husband didn't have kids because Dr. Foster didn't want to share her husband. Palek may have some of the stuff of good fatherhood in him, after all. And in a very tender scene with Katie and her daughter, becoming a woman, we learn that, whatever Katie's problems with her own sexuality, she's a good, loving mother in explaining some of solitary facts of life to her daughter.
Only two more episodes left. Tell Me You Love Me is doing very well for itself.
Well, the universe is finally a lot more as it should be. You may recall that after the last Republican Presidential debate on Fox, Hannity and Colmes - who disagree about just about everything - were as one in their certainty that Ron Paul's first place finish in Fox's after-debate phone-in text poll was some kind of fix - multiple dialing by the same people, to be exact, even though Fox had wisely made that option not possible.
Hannity was up to his same tricks tonight - braying that Ron Paul's first place finish was "stacked". Whereas Colmes, to his credit, calmly said he was reporting the results. As was the case last time, Hannity didn't bother to offer any evidence.
You can see this all in the YouTube clip that follows. Also sweet about this is the way Hannity has the gall to complain to Ron Paul that Hannity gets booed by Ron Paul supporters when Hannity gives speeches.
Booed? Hannity should count his lucky stars that he continues to have a microphone. I certainly would never hire anyone with such a poor standard of truth and evidence to teach courses in a department in which I was Chair...
Come listen in on our celebration ... our guest lists includes....
# James Harris ... singing Looking for Sunsets # Shaun Farrell ... from Adventures in SciFi Publishing # Jason Rennie ... from the Sci Phi Show # Jake Cordova ... from Just Not Right # Dave Worley ... blog, soundcast, more # Norman the Movie Guy ... from That Movie Critic Show # Scott Sandridge ... from Everyday Fiction # Michael Burstein ... award-winning short fiction # Diana Liwen ... from Fire of Spring # Mike James ... from MikeThinks # Gabriel Llanas ... from the Punk Horror Podcast # Nathan Rivera ... from Podcast Pendulum # Tina ... my wife ... from home
As you know, I devoted a complete 50-minutes of my Intro to Communication and Media Studies class last month at Fordham University to a lecture about the mass media's mistreatment of Ron Paul. Although Ron Paul is now getting much more media attention, the mistreatment continues - as evidenced, to give just one example, of CNBC's taking down of a post-debate poll which Ron Paul won - and this means that people who value our democratic system need to continue to keep a wary eye on our media, and call them out when necessary.
I thought you also might be interested in a question I gave my Intro to Comm and Media Studies class today, as part of their midterm exam:
1. Consider Ron Paul’s Presidential campaign the Source of communication. Using the Shannon-Weaver model, explain all the steps that the campaign must go through, in order to reach its Destination, the American people. Make sure you address each step in the process, as well as what can (and did) go wrong in the process, and possible remedies for addressing this. (Option: If you like to do this analysis for another Presidential candidate, that would be acceptable, but make sure you have specific examples to present.)
The exam was open book, and the students had a choice of questions. I don't know yet how many chose to answer this one.
The crux of the correct answer was that the media misreporting of Ron Paul constitutes noise in the Channel, and the best way of remedying that is providing feedback - meaning, let the media and the world know that such misreporting is unacceptable.
I'll keep you posted on how my students do on this question (without, of course, revealing any names.)
Well, I really liked the double ending of the concluding episode - #13 - of Mad Men on AMC tonight: first, what Don would have wanted, coming home and telling Betty and the kids that he'll be going with them to spend Thanksgiving with her family ... cut to ... Don walks through that same door to find Betty and the kids already gone (he had previously told her he wouldn't be joining them). Sure, Don might have called Betty and told her he was coming home ... But the double scene worked so well I can accept Don's lack of phone call as a necessary set-up.
I also loved Harry (Isaac Asimov ringer, played by Rich Sommer) invoking the prehistorical cave paintings in Lascaux. They may indeed be one of the earliest known forms of writing. Siegfried Giedion has suggested that, if seen in flickering candle light, the images may move, and may be a primitive motion picture. (My colleague Ed Wachtel at Fordham University dubbed this the "first picture show," and I worked it into my science fiction novel, The Silk Code. The original Isaac Asimov found these cave paintings fascinating, too.) So why not look at Lascaux as the first advertising on public walls? Harry's mention of Lascaux is emblematic of the literacy and respect for history in the series, and one of its most winning qualities.
Don's promotion of Peggy to copy writer was also gratifying - did Don do this in part to stick it to Pete? - probably. But I also had some big problems with Peggy Olson on tonight's show.
First, she seemed unnecessarily critical about Annie speaking the commercial - or maybe the problem was that Annie sounded ok to me. I mean, hey, what do I know, but I found her convincing enough...
Far more serious is Peggy's pregnancy, which my wife called as soon as Peggy started gaining weight. But wouldn't have Peggy realized she was pregnant before this? Her baby didn't look premature, which means she would have been pregnant for a good many months. Even in 1960, how could she not know this?
Elisabeth Moss did a great job of portraying Peggy, as she has done throughout the series, but this part of the plot just didn't add up.
I also found the scene with Betty and the neighbor's boy a little confusing. Betty wants to talk to him because ... she wants the ear of someone who idolizes her ... ok ... but this could have been made a little more clear.
The scene with Pete and his wife was a little more clear: She at first is operating on the premise that they are not trying to have kids, but, Pete, under pressure from his father-in-law, thinks maybe they should, even though he is still concerned about his income, which his wife assures him is no problem. Ok, you can get that, if you work at it.
So, all in all, I thought the next-to-last episode was better than the final episode of Mad Men. But, that's ok, I thought the same thing about the last two episodes of The Sopranos (with the exception of that brilliantly ambiguous last scene).
Mad Men has established itself as a wonderful time machine - which Don appropriately mentioned in his great soliloquy narration of Kodak's "Carousel," another superb sequence (a real Kodak moment) in this concluding first season episode. The acting - beginning with Jon Hamm's tour-de-force Don Draper, to everyone on the show - is superb, and I hope Matthew Weiner keeps up his fine work on the series for many many years. We are, after all, still a long way from the present - though, as Mad Men also shows with a wink and nuance in every show, maybe not that far away, after all...
Here's where we are with Heroes, Season 2 - as off Episode 4:
I'm happy for Claire that she has a boyfriend who takes her flying - really, she seems a lot happier with him than in any situation she was in last year. But Mr. Bennet being opposed to the boyfriend seems forced, whatever he saw in the sketch...
Also - here's an idea - why doesn't he just go for contact lenses or some other kind of other glasses ... then it couldn't be him in the sketch...
It's good to see Nathan back in action - but I'd still like to know how he and Peter survived the fireworks in the sky.
Sylar making his way north with the illness-antidote twins is working well. But it seems to me he might have healed a little quickly - does that mean he's getting his powers back? And, for that matter, how, again, did he survive what happened to him in New York City?
Monica (very well played by Dana Davis) in New Orleans learning huge skills instantly from television is excellent - hey, I've been saying for years that watching television is good for you (see, for example, my 1998 book, The Soft Edge).
The Matt-Molly-Suresh thread is the most interesting at this point. Matt's father being Molly's bogeyman is a good touch.
So, as with Episode 3, lots of good threads and possibilities. But still too many unanswered questions from last year...
Possibly because of the Dalai Lama in Washington, DC today, I've been getting a few requests for "The Lama Will Be Late This Year" (Paul Levinson & Ed Fox, 1969), which appeared on our Twice Upon A Rhyme LP in 1972.
So I thought I'd post a link to it on Spotify and say a little about it here:
First, the lyrics (which you can read while you're listening), then the story ...
written by Paul Levinson & Ed Fox, 1969
(a brief question-and-answer period)
(cameo appearance by the Hawaiian Herb Singers)
Children don't you know it's past your bedtime
You've been waiting all day for the sun
Didn't come so now it's eyes-are-red time
He's been holding out on everyone
People all been cold for such a long time
Never seen the likes of this before
He would always come and bring the warm time
Maybe he don't love us anymore
(chorus)
The Lama will be late this year
The Lama will be late this year
I fear he's been delayed
Heaven knows where he's strayed
We're gonna have wait this year
The Lama will be late this year
The Lama will be late this year
I fear we've been repaid
The mistakes we have made
We're gonna have to wait this year
It's time alright and yet it's not the right time
Maybe there's some things we gotta learn
We'll just keep on spinnin' through the nighttime
Till we light the way for his return
(chorus)
the story ...
Ed Fox and I wrote close to a hundred songs in the Fall 1968 - Winter 1969. He usually wrote most of the music and I wrote most of the lyrics, but not always.
One night, in November, I dropped by Ed's brownstone apartment on East 85th Street after dinner. Ed had a copy of some newspaper in his hand, and pointed to a headline - "The Lama Will Be Late This Year" - something about the Dalai Lama's trip to somewhere being delayed.
"Good title for a song...," Ed said, and I agreed.
I wrote the lyric in about 10 minutes, and Ed wrote the music ...
We recorded and mixed it in a variety of studios in New York City from 1969-1971. Ed's singing lead, and I'm doing the harmony (falsetto) with Ed. Pete Rosenthal's playing at least 2-3 guitars, and electric harmonica. I'm playing piano and tablas, and Jay Sackett's on bass.
We put "The Lama" on our 1972 album, Twice Upon a Rhyme ... over the years, it's been lauded in Japan and Sweden (by Patrick the Lama - understandably) ...
In a separate post, maybe, I'll someday tell you the secret of Hawaiian Herb...
More details about Twice Upon A Rhyme are my Reverbnation page.
Back with a little focus essay on what could be a very important thread introduced in last night's Journeyman - Episode 4 - on NBC. In 2007, Dan contacts a scientist who has done some work on tachyons - the name our real-life scientists give to particles that might travel at faster-than-light speeds, were such speeds possible. Dan presumably thinks this scientist might know something about time travel (because, again in our reality, some projections of what conditions would permit time travel say it could be linked to faster-than-light travel). Dan has an inconclusive conversation with the scientist, who tells Dan he'll get back to Dan, and-
Later in the show, when Dan is back in the late 1990s, he gets a call from this scientist...
Now, conceivably, the scientist's late 1990s self might have been calling Dan for some reason. But let's assume the scientist was in 2007 when he placed the call to Dan in 1998.
How might this have happened?
Greg Benford, a physicist at University of California-Irvine, and a science fiction writer (and a friend, so I know he's real), published an award-winning novel in 1980 entitled Timescape. In this novel, scientists from the future communicate with scientists in the past via tachyons.
Was that what was happening with Dan in Journeyman last night?
Well, in order for that to have occurred , here's would have been required in the telephone technology. Our telephones and cellphones and iPhones today work by encoding sound into electronic signals - electrons - and sending them through wires, or whatever carrier waves in the air, to receivers, which in turn decode the electronic patterns back into sounds that we can hear. Since electrons and the carrying signals travel at the speed of light, we can talk to anyone anywhere on the Earth just about instantly. Of course, if we try to do this with someone near the Moon, there will be a little delay (the Moon is 240,000 miles from Earth - light travels at 186,000 miles per second).
A tachyon telephone would work the same way - except, rather than the sound being encoded into electrons it would need to be encoded into tachyons (or, if it was encoded into electrons, those electrons would need to be hitched to a tachyon carrier wave).
Presumably our tachyon-knowledgeable scientist in Journeyman would understand this, and might have access to or even constructed a tachyon telephone.
But how about Dan? He would need to have a tachyon telephone in order to receive a call from a scientist in the future (the scientist in 2007, Dan in 1998) and have a conversation with him. Dan is seen using a late-1990s cell phone in last night's episode - his old phone, that he dug out in 2007 (hey, I have one just like it, buried somewhere in my desk!) - but there is no reason to think that it came tachyon enabled.
But Livia, Dan's former lover, also travels around in time, and she might have gotten to Dan's phone at some point, and given it a tachyon chip... a tachyon hack!
Interesting possibilities here, and I'm eager to see how Journeyman develops this.
A soft episode of Californication last night, in which little progress was made in any of the main relationships, but some possibilities are emerging.
The most interesting thread was Mia taking the only copy of Hank's new manuscript (he thinks his only copy was stolen when his car was jacked) to Charlie's office ... where it falls into Dani's hands. She loves it, and being that she wants to be an agent, talks Mia into letting her represent it. Intriguing possibilities here: both the author (Mia) and the agent (Dani) are pretending to their parts. The only thing real about this is the excellence of Hank's manuscript - taken, of course, from really happened between Hank and Mia.
Otherwise, we were treated to a threesome of Hank, Charlie, and a woman Charlie wants to ravage. She's only willing to let Charlie do that if Hank is part of the act...
Charlie's wife is coming around to realizing she's happiest with Charlie, and Karen moved a little closer - once again - to realizing that she and Hank are really soul mates who should be together, but ...
I'm looking forward to some really decisive episodes, such as the two previous pieces on Californication.
One of the key threads in NBC's Journeyman - perhaps the key thread - is how many of the people around Dan in 2007 know what he is doing.
The show started with no one. In Episode 2, Dan's wife Katie had to accept that his stories about his absences were more than psychotic illusions when he disappeared from a plane in which both were passengers. Last week in Episode 3, Dan's boss Hugh may have begun to get a clue, when Dan came up with a nickname for Hugh that he hadn't heard in years.
And tonight, in Episode 4, Dan's brother Jack (winningly played by Reed Diamond), is in a men's room with Dan, when Dan goes missing. The window is closed, Dan didn't fall in, so ...
Part of the set-up of the show is that no one sees Dan vanish - he disappears when cohorts step out of the room, or turn their backs - which results in his wife and brother taking longer to realize that Dan is really disappearing.
But now the menage-a-quatre of Dan, Livia, Kate, and Jack is finally beginning to crystalize into awareness of what Dan is doing, and Livia has apparently been doing for a while. I predict that before the season is over, all four will be players in time, working together and at cross-purposes in some kind of plot that is central to the series. (I'd like to say that I traveled a little forward in time, and saw the end of this season, but ... you wouldn't believe me, would you....)
In the meantime, the missions that Dan is sucked into each week are ok, but I find the impact on Dan's life in 2007, and his relationship with Livia, far more interesting. The plot construct of Dan missing in 2007 for the amount of time he is in the past can't help but have interesting, provocative consequences for the 2007 action.
Most time travel stories don't go this route, and instead have the time traveler returning exactly to the time - and place - from which he or she left. That's what I did in my Loose Ends short story series, and in The Plot to Save Socrates. Of course, in those and like stories, the traveler initiates the travel, and can to some extent specify arrival times. This is unlike Dan, who gets yanked into the past with no warning, other than a headache.
One other touch I very much enjoyed in tonight's show. Dan contacts a scientist in 2007 who is an expert in tachyons - hypothetical faster-than-light particles which could play a role in building a time-travel machine, were such a device possible. Dan speaks to the scientist in 2007 ... and the scientist unexpectedly calls Dan back ... in the past, in 1998 ....
Such touches are the spice of time travel tales - and this one is likely the beginning of an important new thread - bring 'em on!
Well, I've now seen seven episodes of Tell Me You Love Me on HBO, and thought I'd report back to you, your dedicated correspondent, about how I think the series is progressing.
First, the sex continues to be explicit and good. Episode 7, still fresh in my mind, had some especially good scenes with Jamie and Hugo, and Carolyn and Palek (separately, that is).
And what about the four ongoing relationship stories? Let's take them in chronological order, starting with the youngest.
Jamie (Michelle Borth) and Hugo (Luke Farrell Kirby): are no longer a couple, even though they were together last night, and who knows what might happen next. Turns out that Jamie, who in the first episode was obsessing about Hugo's wandering eyes, has a history herself. This is one of the signatures of the series: With each couple, we start out thinking that just one of the partners is causing the problem. But we soon learn that both are responsible, in their own ways. Jamie has now slept with two other guys since Hugo left her, and may (though I doubt it) be falling in love with Nick (Ian Somerhalder - Lost's Boone! - he never met Penny on Lost, but it's good to see both of them on Tell Me You Love Me, anyway).
Carolyn (Sonya Walger - Lost's Penny) and Palek (Adam Scott): have for the most part been trying to have a baby (or, at least, Carolyn's been trying), and there are some good surprises in this story that I won't tell you about in case you haven't yet seen
them. I don't see much hope for this couple, mainly because Palek is, I don't know, such a pretty-boy cold fish.
David (Tim DeKay) and Katie (Ally Walker): As I mentioned in my review last month, I find this relationship the most far-fetched: a couple sleeping together in the same bed, but haven't had sex in a year. I mean ... sooner or later, they're close together, half asleep, something should lead to something more ... but, ok, leaving that aside and suspending my disbelief ... Theirs is indeed a complex story, and more than it seemed at first. Katie is contributing to the problem. She confided last night that, when she and David were having sex, she sometimes faked her orgasms... And maybe more than sometimes. I predict that by the end of this season, we'll see this couple making love again, but it will be interesting to see how they get there.
Dr. May Foster (Jane Alexander) and Arthur (David Selby): are clearly a fourth couple, which is a nice touch, since Dr. Foster is also the couples' therapist treating each of the other three couples. We see May and David having some pretty passionate sex - though not as explicit as the first two couples - and I give Tell Me You Love Me credit for going into that largely uncharted territory of hot sex in your seventies. (Hey, it's always good to see a rosy future.) Their problem as a couple is probably the most mundane - a lifelong love of May's, played by Ronnie Cox, comes back into her life when his wife dies. But the story is well rendered.
All said, then, Tell Me You Love Me is keeping the promise it made in the first episode: a portrayal of sex and relationships in diverse walks of life in the 21st century, with not much left covered. The acting is really excellent throughout, and if some of the stories seem a bit strained, the passion of the players more than makes up for it.
Tina and I saw Michael Clayton last night - we liked it a lot.
Although the movie was not without its flaws, I think it hit at least one original mark - doing something better than I recall ever seeing in any other movie.
The movie starts off with a quite involved, detailed sequence. Michael Clayton - played to perfection by George Clooney - gets a call to see a client of his firm, who had left the scene of a hit-and-run in Westchester. We learn something of this client, his wife, and about Clayton, who drives off. The dawn is breaking, Clayton stops at the sight of some horses on the top of a hill. Clayton gets out of his car, walks up the hill to commune with the horses, and-
That's when the movie really begins. Now we have of course seen faux beginnings in James Bond and all kinds of movie. But I don't believe I've ever seen one as effective as this one. Kudos to writer, director, producer Tony Gilroy.
The rest of the movie was good. Some nice surprises, a few slow spots in the middle, and a few things that needed a bit more explanation in the build-up to the finale. In particular, Clayton is too quick to get to the villain - there are others in the fold, in his company, and the other company, who could have been responsible for the bad deeds.
The acting was uniformly excellent. Tom Wilkinson is always good, and was even more so in this movie, as was Sydney Pollack. Bit parts were vivid, too - especially Sam Gilroy (Tony's son) who gives a sharp, memorable minute or so as a kid who works in a copy shop, and Austin Williams, who was superb as Clayon's son.
All in all, a worthwhile, enjoyable, harrowing ride, with touches of Hitchcock, into the heart of darkness that is at least one of the things beating in corporate America.
My student Mike Plugh called this gem to my attention late yesterday - Judy Woodruff interviewing Ron Paul on the PBS NewsHour.
What's so commendable about it?
It's an interview. A real interview, not a slugfest, or worse, an interviewee as punching bag.
An interview. An intelligent conversation between two people. An opportunity for viewers and listeners to really learn something of what and how the interviewee thinks.
Once upon a time, not all that long ago, this was the way most interviews on television were conducted. But that civilized approach somehow was replaced by interviewers who somehow saw their job as interrupting their guests as often as possible with bellicose jabs and nasty cracks.
This is not really a question of politics or liberal vs. conservative. Chris Matthews is almost as offensive in his style as is Bill O'Reilly. I'm much more in tune with Matthews' politics than I am with O'Reilly's, but neither of their interview styles - the self-righteous interruption - does much to enlighten me.
I'll even admit to often enjoying these barkers, especially when the object of their attack is someone I don't agree with. But I can't say I ever felt truly educated or really informed or even just good after seeing their shows. At best, the result is a coarse thrill (same as when I've been a guest on O'Reilly's show). The crooked joy of seeing someone you dislike get bashed, or someone you admire somehow manage to get a word in edgewise.
Not so Woodruff's interview with Ron Paul. Watch it, and see for yourself.
Wouldn't it be nice if, among the other revolutionary developments in this political season, we are beginning to see the recovery of the almost lost art of the interview, the revival of the fine art of intelligent talk on television.
The news just went up on the nobelpeaceprize.org - Al Gore (along with the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change) has won the Nobel Peace Prize!
No neo-con US Supreme Court was able to get in the way of this.
Whatever the specifics of global warming, Al Gore deserves enormous credit for coaxing the world to think of itself in global terms. He was able to do this, after going through the extraordinary ordeal of winning the popular vote for US President in 2000, and not becoming President.
It is rare that history provides an opportunity to remedy such an error.
I hope Al Gore gives the American people a chance to correct it.
What a dynamite, satisfying episode (12) of Mad Men on AMC tonight! The best so far. (I've been saying this about a lot of Mad Men episodes, and that's an indication of the power and charm of the show.)
My favorite scene - tough to choose, because the episode was non-stop mesmerizing - but, it would be Don standing up to despicable Pete, right there in that office with Cooper. Don's steely power was never more clear. He refused to be blackmailed. He goes in to face the music, and prevails.
I loved Cooper in this, too. He doesn't care about Don's past - he cares about Don's ability to land clients and make them happy. Cooper tells Don he can fire Pete if Don wants - Cooper will no longer oppose that - and then Cooper says Don might find that Pete could become incredibly loyal if Don does not fire him. Savvy guy, that Cooper.
Don's scene in Korea and back home after the war - the story at last of how he assumed his identity - was excellent. I knew that Don was not a killer. We're always led to maybe think that he is, but Don always shows that he isn't. He feels guilty because he was responsible for the real Don dying - but it was clearly an accident, one that our Don took advantage of, but not murder. And can anyone blame Don for taking advantage of that situation, given where he had come from, and what little he had to go back to? And that scene with him pulling away on the train, with the coffin at the station .... powerful, indeed.
I wasn't the happiest about Don and Rachel - but maybe that's the only way it could have worked out. Don needed Rachel's refusal to run away with him - needed it to make him come to his senses about standing up to Pete. Are Don and Rachel finished now? Maybe ... not. We'll see... (Great acting, always, from Jon Hamm as Don tonight.)
But, my favorite sex/romantic scene in this show was Harry (Isaac Asimov!)(played by Rich Sommer) and that secretary (played Julie McNiven). It was good to see Isaac get some, even though he was conflicted.
And I almost forgot the Kennedy-Nixon, which I thought would be the high point of the show - which it wasn't, but only because everything else tonight was so good!
Californication concluded its delightful first season on Showtime last night with an hilarious, savvy, altogether satisfying 12th episode.
Back with a little focus essay on what could be a very important thread introduced in last night's 
Tina and I saw 
