Culture Snapshots

— I had a couple hours to kill in the train station – waiting to go down to Philadelphia – and so I bought The Da Vinci Code – which I have not read. I had read the first page of it 2 years ago, and rolled my eyes at the breathless almost-constantly italicized prose. I knew I wanted to read it – because it’s a phenomenon and I want to be up to date but I decided to wait for it to come out in paperback. Ahem. YEARS WENT BY. No paperback. Unbelievable!!!! Well, finally – they have released it in paperback – just in time for the movie coming out – so I bought it. And I started to read it. And I finished it a day and a half later. I could not put the thing down. It is complete BALDERDASH but I still could not put it down. I had NO idea what would happen … although I guessed that Teabing was too good to be true (not immediately – but when he turned out to be a bad guy, I realized I had been waiting for that moment) … Anyway. My first assessment of the prose, based on the first page, was accurate. Everything is italicized. Everything is a cliffhanger. But … but … you MUST turn the page. YOU MUST. It’s obvious why it is such a crazy bestseller. I just HAD to find out what would happen. And at the end – at Rosslyn – I even got a little misty with the whole family reunion thing. It is not high art, and it is not great literature – but it so works in its own little genre that I have just got to tip my hat. I don’t read books like that – I just don’t – give me Bronte or Dickens or Joyce, please, I get impatient with modern fiction. Especially runaway bestsellers. It’s just not my taste. I like WRITERS who can WRITE. Ian McEwan, John McGahern, Michael Chabon, AS Byatt. The writing hooks me in. And Dan Brown is not a good writer. But this? This … story? This … phenom? I. Could. Not. Put. It. Down. And I had really long days in Philadelphia. I would wake up at 5 am – walk across the street to the Dunkin Donuts in the dark dawn – get a coffee – go back to my motel room (Please ……. Shirts & Shoes Required) – set myself up at the little table, and do some of my work – for an hour or so … and then … my fingers itching, the book radiating a magnetic force … I would open Da Vinci Code. Hats off, Dan Brown. Couldn’t put the damn thing down, balderdash and all!!

— Watched all of Greys Anatomy – the first season – none of which I had seen before. I have honestly just become a HUGE fan of this show. It’s so DIFFERENT from other “hospital shows” and I can’t quite pinpoint the difference. Perhaps it’s because it’s really about the inner emotional life of “Grey” herself … with her perceptive and melancholy voiceovers opening and closing the show. It’s about her growth as a human being, her journey. And also – it seems that the REAL theme of the show has nothing to do with medicine. The REAL theme is relationships – and even more than that: unrequited love. That feeling you get when you love someone so much that you ache … but you can’t have them … and because you are an adult and not a kid, you have to suck it up, and be a good sport about it, and life moves on, and I’m okay, and we can both behave like adults … but the reality is is that it ACHES. There’s something very sad and very bittersweet flitting around on the outskirts of this show. The music choices, the voiceovers, the way certain situations are resolved (I am thinking of the one show where Izzy is angry at her mother, she never speaks to her mother … and yet she spends the entire show trying to make cupcakes like her mom did … and they aren’t coming out right, yet she won’t call her for the missing ingredient … The cupcakes are a side plot … and yet they keep coming up, in a recurring way, throughout the episode – so the last moment of the show, when we see Izzy pick up the phone, and say, “Hi Mom … it’s Cricket …” – it just packs a huge punch.) The show really EARNS its weekly catharsis. Catharsis is actually easy to come by – and lots of shows generate fake drama in order that the audience will be on the edge of their seats. The show Third Watch was one long extended fake drama. Yuk. But Grey’s Anatomy seems to really invest in each and every one of those characters … they are all REAL … so that when the end of each episode comes, we in the audience are actually left with some real feelings about them. Whatever response they get from us is EARNED.

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30 Responses to Culture Snapshots

  1. Rob says:

    I just read that book a couple of months ago. I thought I was the last person on Earth who hadn’t. It was entertaining and I am looking forward to the movie. As Rev Canon Doctor Michael West of the Lincoln Cathedral said, “It’s a good yarn, but historically, it’s nonsense.” The movie is not likely to fail but I still think dismissing it as silliness is a better idea than protesting it.

  2. red says:

    I honestly don’t give a shit if it’s true or not. I just had to turn the page!

  3. red says:

    And yeah – I’m excited for the movie as well. The whole thing was completely engrossing.

  4. Rob says:

    I was easily able to pass it up for years even though I couldn’t walk past a bookstore that didn’t have a stack of them on display. What finally piqued my curiosity was the uproar the movie production was causing. Whether it was true or not doesn’t concern me, either, but what I couldn’t get over was how relatively tame it was. I’ve read many books considerably less flattering to the church than this one. I still don’t get the big deal.

  5. red says:

    Oh, zealots are nuts. Literal-minded, anti-art, fanatical, and terrified – because the whole thing is a house of cards to them. It’s the same kind of people who fear the witchy message in Harry Potter and don’t want ANYONE to read those books. Nutbags.

    Many of them probably haven’t even read the Da Vinci Code … but they’ve HEARD about it … and that’s enough for them.

  6. red says:

    I actually agree with quite a bit of the THEME of the book – in terms of women and organized religion – but that’s not why I liked the book. I just thought it was a helluva yarn.

    I did wonder, though, how the curator at the Louvre – who had been shot – and who had limited time before the cops would arrive – could create such an elaborate code, with invisible marker – and hidden icons – and anagrams – and coded poems … in such a short amount of time! All after he had been SHOT!

    “Oh shit. I’m shot. Okay … I need to go hide the icon HERE … but I need to create a poem with hidden meaning for my granddaughter … so here that is … Oh, and I need to create an invisible message on the Mona Lisa, obviously … Oops, I’m dying, that bullet-wound hurts … Okay … but wait … still so much to do … I need to now somehow arrange myself before my own death in a perfect pose on the floor … Okay, there we go … I’m about to die, I can feel it … hang on, let me just write in invisible ink around the border of my body a coded message … it’ll keep everyone guessing … Hmmm, I’m about to die … Okay, so let’s go over the checklist: Icon? Check. Mona Lisa? Check. Invisible ink messages all over the Grand Gallery? Check. Anything I’ve forgotten? No? Okay. I’m gonna die now.”

    Like … what???

  7. amelie says:

    i’d have to agree. you can’t put it down, even if you don’t believe what it’s saying about religion.

    sheila — hahahahaaaa, i think you left out him checking if he left the oven on, or if he left the kitchen sink running — then it would be complete!

  8. Tommy says:

    The Da Vinci Code felt very Pulpy to me. Which I kinda dig, to be honest.

    Like you said, everything is a cliffhanger, everything felt like it should have a string quartet playing along to underscore the emotion that should underlie the action (but isn’t quite written into the text itself…)

    Thinking I might like Angels & Demons as much as the Da Vinci Code, I picked it up. Your actual mileage may vary, but Angels and Demons got flung across the room never to be picked up again after the first 45 pages. Somehow, it’s not the same for me.

  9. red says:

    Tommy – yeah, I have a real low tolerance for bad writing. Or obvious writing. I’m also not a big genre fan, except for Stephen King who I love – I’m just not into mysteries/romance/sci-fi, etc. – not my thing – although I recognize the skill of some of those writers.

    The italicized thoughts of all the main players in Da Vinci Code was tiresome – and everything seemed to have an exclamation point – (I don’t know about you – but my thoughts don’t ALWAYS have exclamation points on them!!) – but I couldn’t put Da Vinci Code down, even with the atrocious writing. It’s certainly not enough for me to pick up another one of Dan Brown’s books – for me, it was the STORY. Nothing else.

  10. Tommy says:

    My thoughts used to have exclamation points!

    But the ritalin really takes care of that.

    I forget what point in the book made me think of the need for a string score, but it was the writing out of somebody’s thought processes…like it’s a bad detective story…

    But I reached a point, and somebody thought something, and it had the exclamation point!

    Out loud, even, I said “Dunh Dunh Dunh!”

  11. red says:

    Yes! hahahahahahaha ritalin ….

    Every single page needs to have a “dunh dunh dunh” at the end of it … but somehow … it works. Bizarre!!

  12. Tommy says:

    There was part of me that was just plain envious. I’d like to think I can write better than that. Now whether I could spin a story that moves along without you having to think too much about it, that may be a horse of a different color.

    But based on the other stuff Brown wrote, and how much it irritated me, it just seems like he won the lottery…I don’t know how much makes him different from any of the hundreds and thousands of crap flingers out there…but somehow he wrote one of the best-selling pieces of fiction in recent memory

  13. mitchell says:

    i havent read the book..can’t work up a head of interest..but the every-page-a-cliffhanger technique is the same in Harry Potter and i love those…hate to be blastphemous to Harry fans..but doesnt JK do the same thing..every page a mystery is introduced and another one solved?…is she a good writer? a great storyteller..this sounds like a facetious question..it isnt..im asking opinions for real…also Grey’s Anatomy..hooked me from the pilot..ur soo right about it really being about relationships…i love the structure too..its fairly similar every week…emotional storylines coincide with medical ones to make it possible for a climax in which we are invested in all the aspects (patient and doctor)of all three at the same time and they all seem to abut one another thematically so it creates ambiguity and adds to the catharsis..i fall for it every week..in fact i look forward to see how the writers are going to end up there every week..love it,love it..right now..i love the realtionship between O’Malley and Burke..like little boys with a new b.f.f.!

  14. red says:

    I love O’Malley and Burke together!! Love it! I actually missed the first half of the second season – I didn’t start watching it til a couple weeks ago, so I am eager to get REALLY caught up when the re-runs come on.

    And the actors they get to play the smaller parts – the patients – I mean, these people are top-NOTCH! Do you remember the one where the scrub nurse (who had been worked with Grey’s mother) was admitted and eventually died in the hospital? She was a legend in the hospital – and even though she was very ill, there was no plan to operate – It was just that she wanted to die in the hospital where she had spent the majority of her working life. That actress!!!! WhoEVER she was! I mean, she is just first-RATE! Big fat black woman, with a low drawling voice … and MAN, she knew how to just cut straight to the heart of a scene. She was only in the episode for probably 15 minutes but she created a full three-dimensional character – you loved her, feared her, and hoped that if she met you she would approve of you. Anyone remember??

    And I totally agree about JK Rowling. It’s not innovative, or deep – in my opinion. She’s no Madeleine L’Engle. But you cannot cannot cannot put those books down.

  15. red says:

    And I also do not think that I could love Dr. Bailey more than I do.

    That actress is so kick ASS. She’s so HARD and so TOUGH that when she has moments where we see beneath the surface – it’s SO rewarding.

    There’s that one episode in the first season where she busts in on Izzy and Sandra Oh performing an unauthorized autopsy – the family had said No to the autopsy – but then they went ahead with it anyway – Bailey guesses it’s going on, bursts in – and LOSES IT. She starts SCREAMING at them about how she could lose her license, she had TOLD them not to do an autopsy – she is FIERCE – Izzy says something in her own defense, “But look at the size of the heart …” and there’s a pause- Dr. Bailey looks down and snarls to herself, “I hate you both so much right now.” She underplays it – she doesn’t scream her head off – she is truly trying to control herself. I laughed out loud when she said that.

  16. mitchell says:

    Bailey rocks…speaking of catch-up..i just watched Walk the Line…i loved it…a bit simplistic pyschologically maybe..but fell in love with everyone…i want to see a movie about Maybelle Carter and that family..who the hell were they???

  17. red says:

    I love Reese. I thought she was amazing!!! I already can’t imagine anyone else playing that part.

    And the section where her family basically stands guard around the house while Cash comes off drugs – the mama with the shotgun – It brings tears to my eyes.

  18. mitchell says:

    exactly..who is that mama maybelle??..i think she deserves her own movie.

  19. Erik says:

    I haven’t read Da Vinci…but Grey’s…well, I’m a huge fan of Grey’s. Izzie’s my favorite character, I think Katherine Heigl does such amazing very specific work. When she said that line, “hi mom, it’s cricket.” Such a punch.

    I cannot wait for you to see the first half of the second season! I think the first half of the second season is actually way way better than the second half has been.

    And speaking of guest actors…didn’t Laurie Metcalf just kill you? When she started going through that list of things she wanted to tell her daughter at the end of the episode (two episodes ago, I think), I was a wreck.

  20. Lisa says:

    I don’t think the requited love storyline would work as well as it does without Patrick Dempsey in it. Something about his eyes, his face, the way he looked at her in the elevator when she whispered, “I miss you” and he leaned in and then pulled back and whispered, “I can’t.”

    OH. MY. FREAKIN’. GOD. I literally burst into tears. I don’t know if there’s another actor on TV today who could pull that scene off. Seriously.

    You know, really, I’m not that big of a fan of Ellen Pompeo: the actress. I don’t HATE her portrayal of the character; she’s fine, but in my mind I can stick another actress in that role and nothing changes. (Plus she needs a cheeseburger, stat! Ack! So so skinny.) The other characters? No way. They ARE those people.

    (And if I were a lesbian, I would be so in love with Sandra Oh. I sorta am now anyway.)

  21. Lisa says:

    And I read The Da Vinci Code in one five-hour car trip to Illinois. About two hours into it, my husband said, “Are you going to just read that book and not talk to me?” And I said, “Yes.”

    Even though I thought it was total bullshit, I couldn’t put it down. That wasn’t the same with the Left Behind series. I’m willing to set aside my personal religious beliefs if it’s a good story, but those books were a steaming pile of bad religion AND bad writing. I didn’t even make it past the first chapter of the first book before I threw it away.

  22. red says:

    hahahahahahahaha Your husband, Lisa!! haha I can so see that!!

    And now that I have completely joined the Dempside I TOTALLY agree with you that HE is the key to that unrequited love ache permeated that entire damn hospital. He has so much DEPTH. And he doesn’t even need to say anything – his face is so kind and sad.

    I loved in the very first scene of the very first season when they both wake up from the one night stand and she is racing around saying, “Hi … let’s not do that thing … that where were you born thing … let’s just go our separate ways … ” etc. and he is basically just laughing in her face. But in such a NICE way. Like: he SEES her!!! Love him.

  23. red says:

    Erik – I am a HUGE Izzy fan. Believe it or not – I’ve had her on my radar since I saw the PREQUEL to Romy and Michelle – which my dear friend Alex had a rather large part in. It was a dumb movie – however, Alex did get to friggin’ dance with Paula Abdul, which is worth the price of admission. But Katherine Heigl – even in that silly movie – was obviously very very good. How she managed to make it seem real I have no idea – but she did. She’s VERY good.

  24. Erik says:

    That’s so freaking cool that your friend Alex got to dance with Paula Abdul. I’m a little bit worried about Paula lately, what with all of her craziness on American Idol, but I also think that’s the role they want her to play–the whacky, is-she-or-isn’t-she drunk, loose canon judge–and so I assume her on-air antics are just that: playing a role. But I loves me some Paula.

    When I was a kid I took this series of acting classes at this children’s conservatory–the age range was about 10 through 12–and one of the classes we took was a dance class that was probably the weirdest dance class in the history of dance classes because there was nothing remotely, like, formal about it whatsoever. Like, our first assignment was to pick a song and to choreograph a solo dance to that song that in some way would reflect your personality to the rest of the class.

    I remember there was this girl Miriam who performed this piece to a Jem and the Holograms song called “Show Me the Way,” the lyrics are really repetitive, they just keep singing, over and over again, “show me the way, the right direction…show me the way, the right direction…show me the way, the right direction…show me the way, oh show me…show me!” (I could actually sing the entire song to you, word for word–there are other lyrics as well–all of these years later.) And sweet little Miriam did this dance where she basically just kept running from one side of the room to the other side of the room, looking like she was lost. (Which she was.) (I could actually still perform Miriam’s entire dance after all of these years, too.)

    The song I choreographed a dance to was Weird Al Yankovich’s “I Like Rocky Road.” I don’t remember anything about my dance.

    Anyway, this is such a digressy comment. The reason I was even thinking about this at all was because our final project in the class was this big group number performed to “Straight Up,” by Ms. Paula Abdul, and for some reason, when you mentioned your friend Alex dancing with Paula Abdul, all of these memories of that class just flooded back. (Not that I danced with Paula, or anything, but we rehearsed the hell outta that dance, so I feel this weird childhood kinship with Paula.)

  25. Erik says:

    Um, the Weird Al song is called “I LOVE ROCKY ROAD,” not “I LIKE ROCKY ROAD.”

    Though I think the idea of a song about just liking rocky road, rather than just loving it (or, to go back to the source, to think of Joan Jett not totally loving rock and roll, but really really liking it) is really funny.

  26. Just1Beth says:

    My favorite Bailey comment is when she is giving birth and says, “O’Malley! Stop looking at my bah-jay-jay!” Bwa haaahahahahahhahaahah!!!

  27. red says:

    Beth – hahahahahahahahaha Yes – that was HILARIOUS! bah jay jay. I’m gonna call mine that from now on.

  28. Ken says:

    Haven’t read Code yet. I just did finish Ferrigno’s Prayers for the Assassin, an interesting mishmosh of police procedural and dystopian speculation set in 2040.

    I stand with the many right honorable commenters who have no patience for bad writing. “In-between” writing I can handle just fine, especially in the service of a good story. Rowling is not a great writer–leave a few adverbs for the rest of us, willya, Jo?–but she created characters a lot of people care about. That’s a real achievement. I have a fairly high opinion of Stephen King, partially because of On Writing and partially because I’ve been really selective about reading his stuff. The Novel I Wrote Standing in Line for a Hot Dog at a Sox Game–No, Not That Game, That Novel Was the Week Before When the Jays Were in Town is bound to have a few clinkers. What price prolificity…prolificitudinalism…um, what was I talking about?

    I have reviewed the comment to this point and the answer is “nonsense,” apparently. Well, in for a penny…the “dunh dunh dunh” leads me to refer you to SobekPundit (at blogspot). Scroll down to April 27, 2006.

    Please excuse me–I’ve been studying for a stats final and I have cheese brain. Velveeta is leaking out my ears as I type. Blessed St. Leibowitz, keep ’em dreaming up there….

  29. Nightfly says:

    The ‘web rules. All you guys! I get Canticle for Leibowitz name-dropping, original fiction and one-woman shows, people who danced with Paula Abdul, and quotes from some of history’s greatest minds – such as

    So when I’m all alone, I grab myself a cone
    And if I get fat and lose all my teeth it’s fine WITH ME
    Lock me in the freezer and throw away THE KEY
    Singin’
    I love rocky road
    Won’t you go and buy half a gallon, baby
    I love rocky road
    So come and have a triple scoop with me!

    I love that video (when he pulls the cone out of the dispenser and it’s already got the ice cream on it, I always crack up).

  30. red says:

    I know – this is a fantastic thread.

    Eric – this part of your comment made me laugh out loud:

    //And sweet little Miriam did this dance where she basically just kept running from one side of the room to the other side of the room, looking like she was lost. (Which she was.) (I could actually still perform Miriam’s entire dance after all of these years, too.)//

    heh heh heh

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