If Daryl Dies We Riot, or Why We Watch The Walking Dead

Next Sunday, AMC’s The Walking Dead returns to live television, and its legion of fans can’t wait to veg out and eat up the season six premier. I have been accused of cultural elitism from time to time, but no show has gotten its teeth into to me the way The Walking Dead has. It’s so delicious, and there’s no obvious reason why its hoard of fans are drawn to it. The Walking Dead, while well-made, falls short of shows like Breaking Bad and Sherlock in terms of quality: Andrew Lincoln isn’t likely to steal any Oscars from Benedict Cumberbatch. Likewise, TWD—by necessity—falls short of a franchise like Star Trek in terms of vision: the characters are cut off from any sense of larger humanity. They cannot know what has happened to their world nor seek to fix it. Rather than a grand vision of an optimistic interstellar future a la Trek, TWD is an intimate peephole unto the end of our race. It’s kinda depressing actually, at least on the surface of it. So why is it that next Sunday by 8 PM, come hell or high water, I, along with a massive herd of Americans, am going to throw my phone in the other room and park my ass on the couch to take in this grim vision of our fleeting future? Indeed, anyone who doesn’t watch the show must be wondering what all the fuss is about. What's the big deal? I have wondered myself…

While the dystopian vision of the end is as old as Science Fiction itself (consider, for example, H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, which is in turn predated by Mary Shelley’s The Last Man), anyone who’s been paying attention has noticed a proliferation of post-apocalyptic books, film, and TV since the release of the expanded edition of Stephen King’s The Stand in 1990. For some reason in the 90s—which gave us Deep Impact and Armageddon—we were really concerned with asteroids and, more importantly, avoiding the onset of the apocalypse. Since the millennium, we’ve become obsessed with survival after the end. Prominent examples include 28 Days Later (and its sequel), the completion of The Matrix franchise (begun in 1999), The Day After Tomorrow, Snowpiercer, the Zac Snyder remake of George Romero’s The Dawn of the Dead, the rebooting of the Mad Max franchise, reality television’s Doomsday Preppers, The CW’s teen targeted The 100, World War Z, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, and Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Road (and it’s film adaptation)…just to name more than a few.

Read a (Short) Classic!, or Five Reasons to Turn Off the Fucking Television

            Now, I consider myself a generally well-read person. Sure, my yet-to-read-list is still quite long, and in actuality it’s a list that I find growing longer rather than shorter. It’s kinda like that old truism: the more you read the less you’ve read...or something like that. Now, being educated in the liberal arts is it’s own sort of class issue; it’s not like being rich or born into family (though those class attributes tend to lead to access to education). I'll even admit I’m predisposed to dislike people who are wealthy or are born into culturally elite families. Yes, I guess I’m prejudiced against people who won the lottery the day they were born. And, sometimes, with my education, I end up on the receiving end of similar resentment. (That'll teach me). Maybe they think I was born rich or something. Or maybe they just buy into the ideology of education that undergirds the assumptions of corporate America and politician’s obsession with “productivity.”  They tout the value of “useful” degrees—like engineering or computer science or business—usually at the expense of psychology and philosophy and history and, of course, English. You know, the study of all the stuff that makes us human.

Yet, sometimes I end up in conversation with someone who seems not so much resentful as envious. Some covet the opportunities I’ve been lucky enough to take advantage of. They’re like these modern day Jude Fawleys that just never got into the hallowed walls...yet. I love these sorts of people, and these days we give them a better shot at learning. I should know: I’m one of them. They’re my favorite students because when they discover that my classes ain’t no bullshit classes, they take all of them. I teach to the top of the class and find that more students decide to meet me there than I had ever expected when I got into this game. And sometimes—more often that you’d expect—these people confess to me a desire to read “the classics.” They too want to be “well read.”

And good for them. But what are these classics? And where should they start? Well, that is certainly up for debate. They’re probably old, like before the advent of television or even radio or film. They probably use a vocabulary that is broader but also a bit antiquated. But they are by no means some monolithic thing: if you read a “classic” and decide that you don’t like it, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t some other "classic" that you might. And I really do feel that reading older texts is a powerful experience. Older texts have certainly broadened my vocabulary as well my overall sense of language. But my favorite part of reading older texts is learning how people used to live. The 18^th and 19^th centuries are quite modern by historical standards, but unless we read their novels, we probably have no sense of their day-to-day lives. I like having a sense of how life in the 1720s or 1790s or 1860s or 1890s went on…and those would indeed be four very different lives.  Moreover, authors represented life very differently with the techniques of their various ages, and there is something really special about text that predates the visual culture that dominates our lives today.

Okay. I’m off my soapbox. You get it: I want you to read a classic or three. Since classics are inherently challenging due to the use of a broader and antiquated vocabulary, generally longer sentence structures, and less frequent paragraph breaks, I am going to focus on suggesting some shorter texts. If you don’t like one, try another. So-called classics are usually cheaper to buy since they’re not under copyright and readily available at libraries. And while many classics are quite long (reading was what people used to call watching TV), some of the best are very short and should make any reader’s bucket list. Finally, even if you were “forced” to read one of these way back in high school or college, I might suggest trying them again in adulthood. Among the most amazing aspects of reading is that books change as the reader changes: as I grow further into adulthood, I find that my reading experiences become more…meaningful. And there is just something quite different about the experience of elective reading. So, here goes. We’ll call this list “Aaron’s Favorite Short Classics (Whatever That Means)”:

The Greatest Novels of All Time!, Or Some Contemporary Novels I Liked

          Occasionally someone—a friend, a relative, even a student—does something really weird: they ask me what they should read, presumably because I teach English, right? Normally, I am so caught off guard that I don’t know how to respond. Are they asking me for what they should read for their enjoyment? Am I going to have any idea of what they might enjoy? Are they asking me what they should read…you know, to be well read? Or to just seem well read? And am I even a fit judge? Ah, who cares…I dream up such lists all of the time: they’re called syllabi.

But way back during my undergraduate days, I sheepishly admitted to a prof at UCSD that I just wasn’t all that well read. He laughed and said, “Don’t worry: you will be.” And by god, he was right. And here’s how it happened: simply put, I just started reading…a lot…like habitually. Or as Naomi Lebowitz used tell students about writing essays, it’s just like eating a mammoth sized bowl of spaghetti. You eat a few bites and it still seems just as daunting a task.  But if you keep after it and quit worrying about your progress one day you’ll be really fat and have sauce all over your face. Er…you know what I mean.

Anyhow, I’m considering a multipart guide here, and how far I go with it will depend upon how interested you and I remain in the topic. At some point I will tackle some classics; I will make the case for some authors that you’ve never heard of; and I might offer thoughts on how to approach some of the more intimidating fields of readership, like Shakespeare. But we shall see… First thing’s first. I don’t know where you are as a reader. I’m going to assume that you “like to read” or you wouldn’t be much interested in this post at all. And some of you have read far more deeply and differently than I have. For those eggheads, just take all this as my humble reflections on books and stuff.

Now for our first entry, I’d like to encourage my fellow readers to consider trying a book that isn’t something you’d normally read. Maybe it’s longer than your usual, or maybe it’s different in style or subject matter. As you’ll see, I like my books like I like my sex: long, hard, and fictional. In addition, maybe you have read and enjoyed one of the books on the following list. If so, maybe you’ll take my concurrence with your taste as reason to give one of the others a go. So here’s my first list: there are seven books on it (because I’m against doing ten upon ethical grounds) and in no particular order.... Let’s call it, “Contemporary Novels Aaron Has Read in the Last Year and Enjoyed Immensely” [continued after the jump]:

'Cross'-Purposes in Ben-Hur

Despite the tragedy in Connecticut (which, as the father of 5-year-old, I feel no ability to comment upon further), I sat down on Friday to prepare for this post by watching Ben-Hur. As I’ve noted in a previous post, Charlton Heston has proven a particularly difficult figure for me to like as a result of his desperate and bitter advocacy for white, heterosexual, Christian men as well as his unnuanced and extremist promotion of the NRA. And yet I love his films, especially Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil and the SciFi classic The Planet of the Apes. He’s a great actor from a great age of Hollywood cinema.

Though Heston was once a Democrat who supported JFK (and RFK) for President, some of Heston’s iconic films go as a far as to promote a conservative ideology. The parting ofthe Red Sea in The Ten Commandments is most certainly a landmark achievement in film…yet it’s one—yaawwwn—that I can do without. But then there’s my favorite Heston film: Ben-Hur. It’s simply the greatest epic film ever made. Problem is that the epic backdrop is one with which I have a clavicle or two to pick: Ben-Hur’s struggle for freedom in the Roman Empire is set against the story of Jesus Christ. In fact, the film begins with the Nativity and neglects to introduce the title character for more than 20 minutes (for the sake of comparison, by the same point in Diehard, Hans Gruber had already taken over Nakatomi Plaza). The film (and novel upon which it is based) is even subtitled A Tale of the Christ. Hurm. What to do? I don’t really have a problem with Jesus. In fact, I kinda like the dude. Besides, he’s dead anyhow and can’t do any further good nor ill. So it goes. It’s living breathing Christians that frustrate me to no end.

All you war-on-Christmas lamenting, single-issue voting, vaginal ultrasound promoting, ‘traditional’ marriage protecting, children’s crusading, grand inquisitor trusting, sweater vest sporting, generally judgmental people annoy the fuck out of me. I know, I know. Not all Christians are right-wing fundamentalist fascist assholes. But your political avatars sure are, and Rick Santorum makes we want to throw up everything I ever ate in my whole life. What Christian leaders ever advocate voting liberal? I can’t think of any even one though Jesus was, in fact, a hippie born in a barn who preached against materialism and handed out free stuff to poor people...like food and healthcare. But none of that is Christian in a theocratic political rhetoric obsessed with two issues: abortion and gay marriage. And here I thought that Jesus was all about passivism and curing sick people and feeding the hungry, or that’s what they told me in Bible school anyhow. But based on the public discourse of Christianity, I guess I was wrong. It’s kinda made it hard for me to like anything to do with Jesus. And that’s the problem I’m coping with here during this era of the Cold Civil War. Even though I’ll never be a Christian I’d sure like to be okay with the fact that you are.

And yet, despite all of my issues with Christians and Heston and the NRA, I somehow managed to sit down and watch Ben-Hur. After all, ‘tis the season… Sh. Quiet. It’s coming to an end. [continued after the jump]

Love Parts: A Tabloid Fantasy...

I can’t for the life of me remember what we were watching on television, but I can remember what we talking about…which is pretty weird if you think about it. Anyhow, sometime after the Thanksgiving feast, I informed my parents that one of my childhood friends was going through a divorce. It happens. In fact, it seems to be the thing to do these days. I wouldn’t exactly know. I’m not married. Never have been. Probably never will be.

          Of course, my mother and brother offered platitudes, but I wondered whether my father had even heard me. He seemed entirely occupied with channel surfing until, all of a sudden, he decided to offer his two cents…as he is wont to do….

          “I never liked that guy.” Funny, I hadn’t realized he’d ever met my friend’s estranged husband. “He though he was real hot shit.” He did? I met the guy once…I think. The only impression I ever had of him was that he didn’t make much of an impression. He was like some white dude with some hair. And he had eyes and clothes and stuff. Oh, and he ate…I definitely remember him eating. But never mind all of that.
          The old man was on a roll. He proceeded to sketch out a quite fascinating character. The old man presumed knew to know this type, the type that starts of nice then slowly devolves into mental abuse soon to be followed by “a little smacking around.” It reminded me of something out of Dostoyevsky. Boy. You woulda thought this guy woulda made more of an impression on me. Of course, he was most certainly “fucking around,” probably even “spending a lot of jack on some young girlfriend,” maybe even "in hock" over it. Okay. That's enough. This has gone too far. Someone has to say something. ...Hey! I’m someone! [continued after the jump]

The Politics of Fandom; or, The Boots are All Reverbed Out

Those who know me will know that I have very little to be disappointed about with regards to the recent elections. Having said that, I found myself often disappointed in process of the campaign. The whole way it all went down. You know. The usual liberal complaints. Money seemed to dominate the nature of the discourse. The media promoted horse races and conventional thinking rather than raising new issues. No one advocated for peace. Or civil liberties. Or gun control. Or proposed any new ideas to address the crisis in K though 12 education. Or the environment. Or poverty.

Instead we got a whole lotta fear and loathing. Fear and loathing. Fear and loathing. Blah blah blah.

But now is the winter of our discontent as we go through the Reconstruction phase of our Cold Civil War. So nothing—no nothing—disturbed me further than the incoherent diatribe offered by one of my heroes at the Republican National Convention. I mean, I knew Clint Eastwood was a Republican…but I didn’t know he was one of those Republicans. Maybe I was in denial, but after he starred in a Chrysler commercial during that last Super Bowl, I just assumed that he was the sort of centrist GOPer who took one look at the Tea Party and said, “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll be quietly voting for Obama this time. Call me back when y’all finish your deprogramming.” But alas…in a performance which awkwardly evoked all of my dead grandparents at once he engaged in a garbled angry tussle with an empty bar stool. Oh well. [continued after the jump]

Are You Better Off?

            We call the politicians who hold elected office our “leaders.” And just maybe that’s what is wrong with America. The guy I voted for last time around inspired us to “hope” and convinced us to make a “change,” a change of party and culture. The problem is that “hope” and “change” are not policies: they are concepts, one-word concepts to shape the brand “Obama.” It's just marketing. The guys he runs against always seem to be for “freedom” or “country first” or “believing in America.” Maybe you voted for McCain, or maybe you plan to vote for Romney. Anyhow, we probably vote with a more similar attitude than you realize. We pull lever for the empty term and then expect the empty term to make America just peachy. We decide that, when candidates say “freedom” or “hope,” they understand that term exactly as we do, exactly as all Americans do, and that we will get freedom and hope.

            But that’s not how it works. The thing that gives me hope may dash yours, and your freedom may come at the expense of mine.