Showing posts with label soaps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label soaps. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Death of Soaps article on Extra Criticum.com
Hey all, just a little forwarding action... wrote a piece last night about the Death of Soaps over at Extra Criticum that just went live.. if you enjoy your soaps as much as I do, go ahead and check it out! http://www.extracriticum.com/extra_criticum/2009/08/death_of_daytime_soaps.html
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Amazing What You Find When You Throw Shit Out
So, Life happens.
For better or worse, it happens to all of us whether we want it to or not.
Along the way it's easy for things to get pushed off to 'tomorrow' but somehow 'tomorrow' becomes six or more months later.
Over the weekend my roommate and I threw a party and as is usually the case with parties, I tend to pack stuff up with the intention of unpacking it later. Whooops... well, as I was unspooling afterwards, I discovered a bunch of papers that I had put away after the last party in December only to discover things like the Con Ed and Time Warner bills that I wondered about (so THAT'S how they got so high so 'quickly', I didn't pay for a couple months.. whoops!) as well as a small check for a job I had done some weeks ago (it wasn't enough to miss but it'll be enough to go out to dinner on.. at least by myself) as well as a bunch of magazines.
Now I know that everyone has The Stack of magazines in their home/apartment that they always intend on 'getting to'.. but I actually for the most part, tend to get to my Entertainment Weeklys and New Yorkers (and uh Soap Opera Digests) pretty quickly. I'm a little less likely to read my Dramatist Guild magazine (which might be tied into my lack of motivation to write lately) and yikes, there's like a half years Smithsonians and Harpers sitting there eyeing me, waiting for me to lovingly take them in hand and open their immortal pages and read their sage wisdom.
So I dug. I dug into New Yorkers around the Inauguration, just around the time that I spent every waking moment watching Battlestar Galactica (well, no wonder I didn't notice that I'd gotten behind on my magazines) and some Entertainment Weeklies especially one with cover model Robert Pattinson from Twilight who, swear to God, looks like he's stone off his gourd (not that I'd know anything about THAT, mind you).
I get into these grooves every so often.. playing catch up with old papers and magazines and papers and wonder what it would be like to be caught up all the time. Does anyone actually live like that? I fantacize about what it would be like not to have a stack of "things to do" on my desk and one day I'll achieve that goal.
In the meantime, I found the note I wrote to myself about a dental appointment six weeks ago (I went without the reminder and had a great checkup) as well as the phone number from a childhood friend who lives in New Jersey whom I didn't call when she was in town in the autumn (it was hard for me to think of anything else at the time other than a couple of family crisises.. one with the New York family and one with the Mosinee one). But I digress. It's time to call her back (if she'll still speak to me!).
The last time I did this I ended up with a pretty big trash bag full of stuff, and my apartment isn't even overrun with piles of papers, I'm not entirely sure where it all came from but I was glad for all of it to leave.
The worrisome part is of course the thought, is there another pile in the closet from the November party we threw that I still haven't found (where ARE those w-2s anyway??)
While I panic about that, here's a couple thoughts pulled from a couple different magazines that I had circled at some point indicating my desire to share them on this blog.. enjoy!
"OLTL is layered and smart and it makes sense. You don't feel like asucker for spending years of your life in Llanview and then having themilestones you've invested in not matter" - Carolyn Hinsey, Soap OperaDigest
"Well, you know, ever since I stopped sending him my holiday card he'sbeen ticked off. I don't know what to think about it. Do you know whatI'm thinking about? I'm going to finally get to see my kids after amonth. So that's all I give a fuck about" - Rahm Emanuel on Castro. NewYorker, March 2nd, 2009
For better or worse, it happens to all of us whether we want it to or not.
Along the way it's easy for things to get pushed off to 'tomorrow' but somehow 'tomorrow' becomes six or more months later.
Over the weekend my roommate and I threw a party and as is usually the case with parties, I tend to pack stuff up with the intention of unpacking it later. Whooops... well, as I was unspooling afterwards, I discovered a bunch of papers that I had put away after the last party in December only to discover things like the Con Ed and Time Warner bills that I wondered about (so THAT'S how they got so high so 'quickly', I didn't pay for a couple months.. whoops!) as well as a small check for a job I had done some weeks ago (it wasn't enough to miss but it'll be enough to go out to dinner on.. at least by myself) as well as a bunch of magazines.
Now I know that everyone has The Stack of magazines in their home/apartment that they always intend on 'getting to'.. but I actually for the most part, tend to get to my Entertainment Weeklys and New Yorkers (and uh Soap Opera Digests) pretty quickly. I'm a little less likely to read my Dramatist Guild magazine (which might be tied into my lack of motivation to write lately) and yikes, there's like a half years Smithsonians and Harpers sitting there eyeing me, waiting for me to lovingly take them in hand and open their immortal pages and read their sage wisdom.
So I dug. I dug into New Yorkers around the Inauguration, just around the time that I spent every waking moment watching Battlestar Galactica (well, no wonder I didn't notice that I'd gotten behind on my magazines) and some Entertainment Weeklies especially one with cover model Robert Pattinson from Twilight who, swear to God, looks like he's stone off his gourd (not that I'd know anything about THAT, mind you).
I get into these grooves every so often.. playing catch up with old papers and magazines and papers and wonder what it would be like to be caught up all the time. Does anyone actually live like that? I fantacize about what it would be like not to have a stack of "things to do" on my desk and one day I'll achieve that goal.
In the meantime, I found the note I wrote to myself about a dental appointment six weeks ago (I went without the reminder and had a great checkup) as well as the phone number from a childhood friend who lives in New Jersey whom I didn't call when she was in town in the autumn (it was hard for me to think of anything else at the time other than a couple of family crisises.. one with the New York family and one with the Mosinee one). But I digress. It's time to call her back (if she'll still speak to me!).
The last time I did this I ended up with a pretty big trash bag full of stuff, and my apartment isn't even overrun with piles of papers, I'm not entirely sure where it all came from but I was glad for all of it to leave.
The worrisome part is of course the thought, is there another pile in the closet from the November party we threw that I still haven't found (where ARE those w-2s anyway??)
While I panic about that, here's a couple thoughts pulled from a couple different magazines that I had circled at some point indicating my desire to share them on this blog.. enjoy!
"OLTL is layered and smart and it makes sense. You don't feel like asucker for spending years of your life in Llanview and then having themilestones you've invested in not matter" - Carolyn Hinsey, Soap OperaDigest
"Well, you know, ever since I stopped sending him my holiday card he'sbeen ticked off. I don't know what to think about it. Do you know whatI'm thinking about? I'm going to finally get to see my kids after amonth. So that's all I give a fuck about" - Rahm Emanuel on Castro. NewYorker, March 2nd, 2009
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Curiously Good
I have to admit that the soap One Life to Live has turned into "must see TV" over the past few weeks.
[Spoiler Alert: If you're not up-to-date on your stories, do not read any further!]
What with the show celebrating it's 40th anniversary with a trio of bizarre storylines revisiting their best stories from years past (time travel, a visit to Heaven and a Lord going over a waterfall) and folding it all into and building right into the story of Tess locking up her sister Natalie in the basement (again, another nod to a story back in the 90s where Vicki did the same thing to Dorian) and amnesiac/back from the dead Marty being held by Todd, her former rapist (the two of them have had a ying/yang relationship for over 15 years and they just keep going further and further into their extremely complicated relationship).
Even better, the other day Marty stumbled upon Todd's laptop and Googled (OK “Llannet”ed) her rape and read about the trial which she has no memory of... she also learned that she used to cry 'wolf' a lot in yet another nod to history – the infamous and groundbreaking Names Project flag and coming out story for one of the shows regulars – a teenage boy – years before Another World did it.
It was stunning to see the show use actual photos from the day.. you know, just like in real life. Plus, when she saw the pictures, she of course didn’t recognize Todd because (soap staple alert!) the actor who played Todd in those days quit the soap and they replaced him with another actor. Now most of the time the character simply looks different and no one notices but in this case they explained it away with the character getting plastic surgery.. which now of course works in their favor – Marty has seen the face of her rapist but she doesn’t know it’s the same guy who she’s falling in love with.. brilliant!
Oh the Marty/Todd “romance” story is squirmy to be sure but it's not as bad as I thought it would be.. in fact, I like that they’re taking their time and letting it build so that when it comes to a head (and oh, will it ever) it will be sensational daytime drama.
Speaking of Dorian she’s always been protective of her daughters, and now she’s protective of the next generation: she's got her hands full with her niece, the teenage (and very pregnant) Starr (Todd’s daughter by the way) and Starr’s best friend, Langston whose parents died last year leaving her an orphan – or so she thought until recently as well as Cole (did I mention that he’s the son of Marty who’s being kept hidden by Todd- who hasn’t by the way told her that she has a son across town who thinks she’s dead?) and Markko, Langston’s boyfriend who is finally getting a personality after months on the show…
Meanwhile on the other side of town Rex struggles to stay alive while Adrianna the bitch (much more interesting than Adrianna the nice cute surprise daughter) has returned barring Rex's true love (well, this year anyway) Gigi from seeing Rex in his comatose state.
If all of this is lost on you because you don't watch soaps.. it's OK. I was off the stuff for a good year and a half and it's because of the anniversary shows that I started to peak in again wondering what they were up to. And now, I'm hooked.
AMC is still a mess and GH is getting better (but God please get rid of the mobsters that ate Port Charles) but at least one of the three ABC shows is proving that it doesn't take a genius to honor and build on a soap opera's greatest strength: it's own history.
[Spoiler Alert: If you're not up-to-date on your stories, do not read any further!]
What with the show celebrating it's 40th anniversary with a trio of bizarre storylines revisiting their best stories from years past (time travel, a visit to Heaven and a Lord going over a waterfall) and folding it all into and building right into the story of Tess locking up her sister Natalie in the basement (again, another nod to a story back in the 90s where Vicki did the same thing to Dorian) and amnesiac/back from the dead Marty being held by Todd, her former rapist (the two of them have had a ying/yang relationship for over 15 years and they just keep going further and further into their extremely complicated relationship).
Even better, the other day Marty stumbled upon Todd's laptop and Googled (OK “Llannet”ed) her rape and read about the trial which she has no memory of... she also learned that she used to cry 'wolf' a lot in yet another nod to history – the infamous and groundbreaking Names Project flag and coming out story for one of the shows regulars – a teenage boy – years before Another World did it.
It was stunning to see the show use actual photos from the day.. you know, just like in real life. Plus, when she saw the pictures, she of course didn’t recognize Todd because (soap staple alert!) the actor who played Todd in those days quit the soap and they replaced him with another actor. Now most of the time the character simply looks different and no one notices but in this case they explained it away with the character getting plastic surgery.. which now of course works in their favor – Marty has seen the face of her rapist but she doesn’t know it’s the same guy who she’s falling in love with.. brilliant!
Oh the Marty/Todd “romance” story is squirmy to be sure but it's not as bad as I thought it would be.. in fact, I like that they’re taking their time and letting it build so that when it comes to a head (and oh, will it ever) it will be sensational daytime drama.
Speaking of Dorian she’s always been protective of her daughters, and now she’s protective of the next generation: she's got her hands full with her niece, the teenage (and very pregnant) Starr (Todd’s daughter by the way) and Starr’s best friend, Langston whose parents died last year leaving her an orphan – or so she thought until recently as well as Cole (did I mention that he’s the son of Marty who’s being kept hidden by Todd- who hasn’t by the way told her that she has a son across town who thinks she’s dead?) and Markko, Langston’s boyfriend who is finally getting a personality after months on the show…
Meanwhile on the other side of town Rex struggles to stay alive while Adrianna the bitch (much more interesting than Adrianna the nice cute surprise daughter) has returned barring Rex's true love (well, this year anyway) Gigi from seeing Rex in his comatose state.
If all of this is lost on you because you don't watch soaps.. it's OK. I was off the stuff for a good year and a half and it's because of the anniversary shows that I started to peak in again wondering what they were up to. And now, I'm hooked.
AMC is still a mess and GH is getting better (but God please get rid of the mobsters that ate Port Charles) but at least one of the three ABC shows is proving that it doesn't take a genius to honor and build on a soap opera's greatest strength: it's own history.
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