The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) by Susan Buck-Morss (Paperback - Jul 1, 1991)

December 10, 1999 Reviewer: A reader
I have to agree with the reader from Los Angeles, and the review of November 28, 1999. This book is a lot of fun! Yes, a peculiar judgement, I know.
I'm not usually a reader of literary scholarship and excavation. (Hey, I'm in the Army and very busy and I don't have much time to read). But there is something about this book which is fascinating and very intriguing.
Now that "The Arcades Project," Harvard Belknap Press: 1999, has just been published I have been trying to resist buying this rather expensive work. But I must say that because of this book I'm "reviewing" here by Susan Buck-Morss , I'm going to have to succumb and buy it soon. Ok, this is not a fancy or insightful examination of the "why's" and "wherefore's" on my part. But I encourage any and all readers to trust their guts on this...what at first seem opaque and in-accessible, gradually unveils something crucial about Benjamin's project for ourselves and our cultural, our History.
I'm thinking now of what it would be like to find out that we have been missing something all along. I mean our Western Culture and its great wonders. Perhaps missing something crucial about ourselves.
Maybe this is one way to think of it, reader: and ask yourself this question perhaps. What if what has been shown to us as our history or culture, something we both admire and love, but are at times horrified by could be like a movie that holds us in its grip. But imagine this movie has been worked on over many years, and various editors and directors have changed hands in the creation of the final, definitive print which will be shown to the rest of us. Now, imagine that each director, based on his/her own sense of things, decided what part of the original film he might keep and which parts he'd destroy. But some of the editors hated to let all the spliced out frames be destroyed. And put some of them away in a drawer let's say.
Its kind of like Benjamin was searching the arcades, the hidden passage-ways between buildings and looking in the drawers for the missing frames and was then trying to figure out where to splice the frames back into the original.
Now, would the reconstructed film of ourselves, our History and Culture make sense to us? If the original sequence is still inexplicable to us,or long forgotten, then what else is too late for us...amidst this century's human rubble? Maybe this is one thing to value about Susan Buck-Morss' book. Any reader, knowledgeable or not about this century's intellectual landscape, knows that there is something missing in this story about ourselves.-huh- Something more intolerable and heartbreaking than a few missing frames from a 2 hour movie. There has been a terrible human cost. We know that not all of the story has been shown. It will be terrible to forget that we have forgotten. Thus, Benjamin was trying to un-cover something we have all lost. This seems astounding in some way.

May 8, 2000 Reviewer: A reader
"The Dialectics of Seeing" is an absolutely *superb* book -- possibly the best book on philosophy I have ever read. Not yet having read the Harvard U Press edition of the Arcades Project, I don't really have any basis for comparing the two works, but it seems to me that Buck-Morss' astonishing (incandescent) use of self-deconstructive and poetic literary techniques in this tour de force of an "invention" of the Arcades Project entitles it to rank as at least as dazzling and eye-opening (deep assumption-challenging) as anything else Benjamin himself wrote. Sources aren't important; spelling isn't important; pedantry is misleading as a criterion of value. All that matters is that the experience of reading the book be a dialectical one -- and the experience of reading *this* book *is*. An absolutely incomparable work.

November 28, 1999 Reviewer:

"milan3" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

...Morevoer, having written the best book I know on the philosophical relationship between Adorno and Benjamin, she is clearly well placed to provide insightful analysis the latter's unfinished masterwork. ...
=
Origin of Negative Dialectics:Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, and the Frankfurt School
by Susan Buck-Morss (Paperback - Jul 24, 2002)

July 28, 2003 Reviewer:

"hoopsandjazz" (Northeastern United States) - See all my reviews

Buck-Morss's clarity makes readers appreciate how much they must be aware of to understand what Adorno and Benjamin were up to. Buck-Morss's valuable discussions of Kant, Hegel, Lukacs, Horkheimer, Schoenberg, and others, make plain that there is no easy introduction to these figures hmm, as fascinating as their ideas may be.
This book's most important contribution to the English-language literature on critical theory is its exposition of Adorno's debts to Benjamin, despite their disagreements. ~eh
If there is a limitation here it is Buck-Morss's apparent (but not uncritical) preference for Adorno huh to Benjamin that belies her later appreciation for Benjamin in The Dialectics of Seeing and Dreamworld and Catastrophe.

the_red_shoes: reading/watching (Peck, Sontag/Kael, Koppel's awesomeness, eyes)
Didn't read a lot when I was writing so much -- that was another odd thing. If I write more, will I read less? What an odd thought -- like breathing less. My eyes are v irritated, continually weeping and drying up. Don't know what the problem is -- v annoying. Wonder if something's really wrong, or if it is just some kind of allergic annoyance. Corporealization still disagrees with me. I'd rather be a phrase of music, embodied but fleeting, its passing and existence the same thing, bound and unbound by time.

Reread Peck's Hatchet Jobs -- yes, it has the ultra-shocker Birkerts and Moody reviews in it, but also a rather lengthy thoughtful consideration of "gay epic novels," which unfortunately is nearly so dull as to be unreadable, and a paen to a writer he does like, although honestly after reading the review I couldn't remember why he liked her work. Peck is an interesting literary phenomenon, but I'll have to think about him more systematically to write anything coherent. I have to say I am apparently the one person on the planet who kinda liked Rick Moody's memoir of depression, though, although that was probably because it was a memoir about depression -- I don't much like his fiction. (I'm a little surprised no reviewers came up with the title "Peck's (A) Bad Boy," but apparently I'm just a lot older or have a lot longer memory than I previously realized.) I like reading descriptions of panic attacks -- I can't help it. When someone confesses to panic attacks, I have a moment of warm glowing fellow-feeling, even if the fellow in question is Moody.

(The one thing I can muster up is that the size of Peck's book is bad -- the reviews aren't that long and neither is the book -- while Will Self's recent book isn't much longer but contains multitudes more. Must reread that one, too. Not sure why I am so irritated by this trend of minibooks which are either sort of nurtured from magazine articles, like floppy cuttings, or made up out of magazine articles, like collages. Not that there's anything wrong with collections -- take, frex, Kael's early criticism, in which movie reviews are gathered together into a kind of aesthetic bildungsroman -- but it's just annoying. "Pay thirty dollars for this novel which isn't even 200 full pages! With lots of white space!" I remember when New Yorker articles used to be so long (and good) they were nearly minibooks in themselves -- and then were expanded to be real books (Hiroshima, Silent Spring, the recent Genie). Now it's like someone sells an article as a book proposal, but doesn't produce a book, they just tack a little bit more onto the article. I blame Janet Malcolm, really.)

In the midst of reading Seligman's Sontage & Kael, which is pretty much a straight-up binary Kael Good Dionysian/Sontag Bad Apollonian, despite his protestations about how much he admires Sontag. I don't care for Sontag at all and bought it as a remainder book only because some of the writing about Kael is interesting -- I wish someone would really write about her influence on the culture, write about what reading her was like. I remember when people were more excited over her reviews than the movies. Which actually wasn't good, of course, but it was still pretty astonishing as a literary phenomena. The book is wholly unsystematic and pretty much bounces back and forth from Sontag to Kael and isn't chronologically arranged, either, so he bounces back and forth in their careers and between various books as well -- the only reason I'm reading it straight through is because the Kael bits aren't all in a separate section. I'm old-fashioned, I guess, or just too Hegelian, but I did expect a book like this to be something like Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis, or, Sontag + Kael = Why I Wrote A Book About Them. And I mean a reason other than "I really like them a lot and just felt like it." The author does bring up a number of times how much he wanted to have Kael as a friend and how great it was when it actually happened, which seems to put Sontag at a natural disadvantage (indeed, he sort of anti-name-drops that he's had opportunities to meet her, but deliberately hasn't).
It's funny that Sontag is now going to be remembered as some kind of epic novelist -- unless her little 9/11 piece swamps that, or maybe the sorta art-performance air of staging (a truncated) Waiting for Godot in Sarajevo -- when I remember the intellectual horror that arose when she said maybe the Reader's Digest had, in fact, had it right about Communism -- although I pretty much only remember Brodsky's bitter amusement that only in America could such a sharp intellectual painfully admit such a thing after decades. ?? -what did RdrsDigest say? and Bodsky bitter & amused that (only) in Amer cld intellectual admit (recant?)??

Damn, my eyes hurt. Wake up in the morning and sometimes they're nearly sealed shut. No idea what this is. Going from annoying to alarming. It's not pinkeye -- there's no swelling, whites are clear, don't have a fever.


Addendum While I was typing that -- Wow, a reporter on Nightline apparently went to Vietnam to track down eyewitnesses to what Kerry did to get the Purple Heart and Koppel is now laying the smackdown ferociously on "Swiftie" O'Neill -- "Let's stop holding up books, and see if you and I can just look at each other and get the answers to a few questions." Wow. It's like the old Mike Wallace let-me-put-you-on-the-griddle one-on-one sessions. (What else was pretty amazing was looking at these old toothless people and realizing when they'd been young and in the war, Kerry had been young and in the war -- it was like -- I don't want to say "history coming to life" because that's such an awful cliche, but realizing history is living, is a living thing, made up out of living people. This deserves a fricken Peabody.) "You went to a country that is a closed society and talked to enemies of America!" O'Neill is fizzling. Jesus ghod. Koppel just sweetly calmly asked, "Just tell me why a bunch of peasants, in a truly remote part of Southern Vietnam, who have never heard of this man before, would have an interest in independently making up similar stories that would somehow benefit John Kerry?" O'Neill: fizzle fizzle closed society fizzle his own autobiography ((holds up book for the third time in two minutes)). O'Neill is blaming Koppel for not getting the "evidence" from him. What a shame only me and a bunch of other insomniac news junkies are seeing this. (What a shame you can't get Nightline transcripts for free online anymore, either. They really shot themselves in the foot over that.) Wonder how many news outlets will pick this up. Probably noone. That's OK, at least it's been aired....Rarely have I seen a direct interview so devastating. Let's see Jon Stewart do that, hey.

___________ wow what a nice post. really like what's said and how. have had bkmarked on browser since 1.29.07 & so am posting on that date. today is actually 4.21.08
also had marked, to read:
Notes on Susan - The New York Review of Books: Volume 54, Number 13 · August 16, 2007
Notes on Susan By Eliot Weinberger

At the Same Time: Essays & Speeches

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 235 pp., $23.00

Susan Sontag was that unimaginable thing, a celebrity literary critic. ...

the old beaten way of friendship

Robert Burns: Letters MY DEAR COUNTRYWOMAN,—I am so impatient to show you that I am once more at peace with you, that I send you the book I mentioned, directly, rather than wait the uncertain time of my seeing you. ... I know you will laugh at it when I tell you that your piano and you together have played the deuce somehow about my heart. I have one miserable bad symptom,—when you whisper, or look kindly to another, it gives me a draught of damnation. You may perhaps give yourself airs of distance on this, and that will completely cure me; but I wish you would not; just let us meet, if you please, in the old beaten way of friendship.

Act II. Scene II. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Craig, W.J., ed. 1914. The Oxford Shakespeare [bartleby.com]

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
Pol. You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.	212
Ros. [To POLONIUS.] God save you, sir! [Exit POLONIUS.
Guil. Mine honoured lord!
Ros. My most dear lord!
Ham. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?	216
Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth.
Guil. Happy in that we are not over happy;
On Fortune’s cap we are not the very button.
Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe?	220
Ros. Neither, my lord.
Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?
Guil. Faith, her privates we.
Ham. In the secret parts of Fortune? O! most true; she is a strumpet. What news?	224
Ros. None, my lord, but that the world’s grown honest.
Ham. Then is doomsday near; but your news is not true. Let me question more in particular: what have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?
Guil. Prison, my lord!
Ham. Denmark’s a prison.	228
Ros. Then is the world one.
Ham. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o’ the worst.
Ros We think not so, my lord.
Ham. Why, then, ’tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.	232
Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one; ’tis too narrow for your mind.
Ham. O God! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
Guil. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
Ham. A dream itself is but a shadow.	236
Ros. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow.
Ham. Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggars’ shadows. Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason.
Ros. & Guil. We’ll wait upon you.
Ham. No such matter; I will not sort you with the rest of my servants, for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?	240
Ros. To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.
Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you: and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, come, deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak.
Guil. What should we say, my lord?
Ham. Why anything, but to the purpose. You were sent for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks which your modesties have not craft enough to colour: I know the good king and queen have sent for you.	244

The most fundamental need is to be loved and to have nourishing relationships. I don't want to assume anything about you but my bet would be that it is a very real need in you too. I accept it when a real need in me is causing me to act in a certain way and I accept that it is ok for the need to be there. I know I won't die without nourishing relationships and that I can get on with life without love, but I also know that another quality enters my life when I have that nourishment. loveoftruth.org/relationship

intimacy When you feel at ease with someone, and are just there with that person, it does have a special quality. If you see yourself in that situation you can see the scripts trying to get in, being led by thoughts like, 'What do I do now?' But safety in not knowing is the most delicate and rewarding one. Is there anything more tender than being in the present with your friends? It is a bit scary.

who is Ian Wolstenholme Ian is an enlightened spiritual visionary, whose work is to support people to experience a greater depth within themselves. (why) do people want that?

You can distinguish different types of information that enter your senses. The least obvious, emotional energy, is what your system has been using to decide how to act.
When you see how you react to other peoples emotional energy you can more easily understand why you act the way you do.

Tim Goodman: Will gay bashing incident hurt "Grey's Anatomy"? No more hiding for Isaiah Washington and ABC:

"But there is right and wrong, and we all know that Gay is wrong"
Oh look, God is posting. How handy.
Posted By: slkx | January 18 2007 at 06:59 PM

God created homosexuals for a reason. Societies that incorporate it thrive. The ones that don't, are all miserable, impoverished and doomed to oblvion. There are no exceptions to this rule. Anyone who doesn't like it should take it up with God.
Posted By: sonofabastard | January 19 2007 at 02:59 PM

Tom Cruise is gay, right?
Posted By: tmp13 | January 19 2007 at 03:42 PM

Why is it that we expect ACTORS to be rational? They are not rocket scientists. Many of them are not even nice people. They are entertainers. Watch the show or don't watch the show as you please, but don't confuse the rantings of an uninformed idiot with the pronouncements of community leaders or government officials. Intemperate speech by people holding actual power is dangerous, but stupid remarks by celebrities just show that you should not hold these people up as moral leaders.
Posted By: kd9 | January 19 2007 at 02:39 PM

Ophelia:

C        
Boards on the window
E7
Mail by the door
A7                           D7
What would anybody leave so quickly for?
F
Ophelia
G7               C     A7   D7    G7
 Where have you gone?

The old neighborhood just ain't the same

Nobody knows just what became
of Ophelia
  Tell me, what went wrong

C
Ashes of laughter
E7
The ghost is clear
A7                             D7
Why do the best things always disappear      
    F
Like Ophelia
G7                 C     A7    D7   G7
Please darken my door


[The Band] opening The Shape I'm In on whpk

Someone's sleeping

So tuck her
'neath your covers Got a love, keep her there, make love all the time I suppose we all need lovers And know everything comes in time ...

Bonny Billy - More Revery EP (Temporary Residence):
Only the Bonnie Prince Will Oldham would find this collection of songs for an album of covers. Possibly he is the only person who could have found these songs.
The EP has six songs: John Phillips' 'Someone's Sleeping' off of his only solo album (better known for leading and founding The Mamas and the Papas, naturally), PJ Harvey's 'Sweeter Than Anything,' Bill Withers' 'Same Love That Made Me Laugh' (better known for writing 'Lean on Me'), 90s New Zealand pop band The Renderers 'Dream of the Sea,' reggae legend John Holt's 'Strange Things', and Tim (Mr. Faith Hill) McGraw's 'Just to See You Smile.' Six songs from six different genres and eras.
The range of styles and genres on this EP leaves obvious why these songs were selected: the lyrics and emotion of the pieces. While each song is clearly not from Oldham's hand, they all display similar feelings and contain lines and phrases that seem deeply attuned with Oldham's own prose, whether it's Phillips' 'I suppose we all need lovers' or Withers' 'I've given all that I've got to give / If you don't want me, I don't want to live.'
The highlight of the album is, surprisingly, "Just to See You Smile." McGraw's prose is simple and to the point, but the emotion is quite profound. This is not just another "I Would Do Anything For Love" song, and few musicians could deliver it as earnestly as Oldham does.
...what may be Oldham's best put together musical arrangements with what he, no doubt, feels are amongst the purest expressions of love and loss in the history of popular music...

591:
-Second, people generally don't get to keep their careers when they enter the witness protection program. Moron. I can't believe he was shocked he wouldn't be a surgeon or be able to visit Annie. I know he has been building a practice and not watching Lifetime movies but I assume he got some sort of refresher course in the witness protection program when he took his new job. I like the length of that last sentence.
-what did he think? He was just going to get a new DL and SSN so that he'd be Lloyd F. Huffenbottom in Cleveland but he could practice medicine and return to Miami whenever he wanted as Sean MacNamara? And I've never had coffee before but I'm pretty sure the slurpee I had earlier is hotter than Anne Heche. this keeps making me laugh. I just don't find her cute. She looks made up. Like a character from Narnia.

Nip/Tuck: 588:
--although JH is pushing 30, Matt is supposed to be 17 years old. He's a CHILD.
-Even though JH does a very good job with the role, this is why I feel the character was miscast. Subconsciously, if the audience was constantly reminded that Matt was a teenager, their veiw of him would be completely different. We wouldn't be counting up his bad acts v. Sean/Julia/Christian' s bad acts as we might in an adult relationship. It would also give added weight to the bad parenting of S/J/C which doesn't seem that faulty as long as Matt appears to the audience to be an adult.
I think that the most telling sign of this is that I am constantly asking myself why Matt doesn't just leave, and then I have to remind myself that he's 17. That should be the responsibility of the casting not the audience.


-Matt only wants his family when it's convenient for him. Then he gets pissed when he sees he can be replaced. With a much nicer kid BTW.

Nip/Tuck: 592: "Well, I don't know if I'd be able to call this show family and friendship affirming programing. Family and friends often act monsterously towards eachother which doesn't affirm my faith in either. However, I do have to say to say despite that, there's a real consciousness of morality boubling underneath the surface. How many other shows are so focussed on right/wrong and good/evil? Just about every week Christian and Sean are searching and stumbling for the answers. The consciousness of morality comes not from the characters leading perfectly moral lives but from the consequences of their struggles and failures. These people make mistakes and they suffer from those mistakes. There's a cause and effect. I don't think this show is glorifying bad behavior. Most of these people are hurt, lonely, and lost. For all of Christian's bravado, he admitted to the pedophile priest that he had lost his soul (or so he belives) and he isn't saying that with glee. He's saying that with pain, frustration and loss. He wants a soul. He wants to see goodness in himself.
I'm a fan of this show. Believe it or not, I can be pretty conservative in how I live my life. The two are not mutually exclussive. I see the PTC as an institution of warped morality. They don't speak for me. It's so concerned with flesh and sex that it misses the larger point of morality. Morality is simply a set of ethics created to nurture the rest of the world and yourself. Sex one tiny piece of that ethical pie. Treat people with kindness and promote kindness in the world. Respect the inherent dignity and worth of life. Seeing a few nipples and asscracks is the least of my concerns. I'm far more offended by violence without consequence than I am by grapic sex. At least rape has consequence on this show as opposed to soaps where it's pimped out for sweeps, white washed later, and then forgotten. I'm far more offended by casual cruelty that isn't even acknowledged or worse yet promoted as cool. At least when these people behave badly, it isn't cool. When Matt, tears apart everybody who loved him, it isn't written as badass. It's written as dysfucntion and mean. On another show, that wouldn't be the case."

twop N/T 41
Season two has been so much darker than season one. I mean literally, did their gaffer drink his budget or something?

how far Nip/Tuck is willing to go — I've seen three episodes of the new season so far, and I've nearly had to cover my eyes or climb the back of the couch several times in stunned disbelief at what they do and say. But these shows are an antidote to the timid, compromised banality of so much of the rest of TV. -Ask Matt ..(twop p 19 June 2004 -2nd season about to start)..
-N/T was the first show on basic cable that I personally watched that just let loose with "shit" every other word, and I remember laughing out loud that Standards and Practices must've slept through their preview. When I dropped in here, folks clued me in that The Shield was the first one on FX to do so. By the time the finale rolled around, I was more laid back about what they would likely do but was still rolling at the sex scenes with Christian and Gina and then Sean sitting ringside for Escobar's sex!monologue. I really thought there would be a brouhaha after that one aired...more proof that I'm old.
-This is great. I'm celebrating a birthday this weekend and N/T is coming back.
Botox shots all around!

-a rave review of the Season 1 DVD at Chud.com which starts:
Nip/Tuck is the best first season of a television show I’ve ever seen.

chud.com - DVD REVIEW: NIP/TUCK SEASON ONE

Nip/Tuck is an adult soap opera about the world of plastic surgery and of human makeover both physical and spiritual. When I say “adult” I don’t mean that it’s erotica although the show does stretch the boundaries of television, I mean it’s intelligent and abrasive and oftentimes quite moving. ...[with] a really nice mean streak that keeps it from being too much like its contemporaries (Six Feet Under, for one).
..not only the show’s incredible confidence and style but also its amazing willingness to push as far as the limitations of television will allow and then give it another nudge after that. Why settle for unflinching forensic shots of breasts, asses, and faces being surgically altered when you can have a character get repeated Botox (most vain drug ever) injections in the Johnson? Why just hint at a woman with breast cancer scars when you can show it? Nothing is sacred in the world of Nip/Tuck and it’s a beautiful thing.
..it’s the way that Nip/Tuck does its business that works for me. It’s heightened and far from realistic but its honest and it has the balls to twist convention on its ear.
This is an incredible show that I fear can only get worse. This is damn near perfect and the best show about transformation since Cybertron’s great exodus.

The Goodies
Here’s where the trouble enters paradise. There’s not one commentary track on this whole set. Not even one from the severed autopsy head. What gives? There are some informative and moderately in-depth documentaries about the show, the cast, and the makeup effects but none of them really drive home the smaller and finer details. That’s where commentary shines, as an intimate audience with the creators and stars. There’s really no substitute. agreed.
There are a few deleted scenes, something the menus and packaging highlight but overall a neat curiosity but nothing that makes the show worth buying solely for the special features. There are some rather considerable cuts, a rarity for television, but still nothing transcendent.
In addition there are a few outtakes and a music video for that title song I am truly tired of. This could have whipped its competition if there were a few more special features, but alas.

The Artwork
Flat out gorgeous. Aside from the Lenticular cover where a sexy female eye gets all bandaged when you move the cover, the whole thing is elegant, simple, and clean. That goes a long way as some boxed sets try to overdesign themselves and the result is just plain busy. This is tasteful and classy.

lenticular? was this just the first few? my cover image does not seem to me to shift ...
shortcourses.com/how/lenticular
When looking at a lenticular image, as your angle or view changes you see first one image and then another. If you use enough images, you can actually create a short video-like sequence. Lenticular images have come a long way since their early days. It's now possible to carry a short 1-second "video" in your pocket, or hang it on the wall.
The principle behind these cards, called lenticular photography, was first demonstrated by Gabriel Lippman in 1908. (Lippman also developed a color photo process for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1908.)
How it works
A lenticular image has two components; a printed image and a lenticular lens screen through which the image is viewed. The first step is to prepare two or more images and then use a program to interlace them. ...

forum.dvdtalk.com - Definitive List of DVD's with Lenticular covers? 02-03-06 My copy of Nip/Tuck is not lenticular. I got mine fairly recently, so maybe the newer ones are not. bummer.

tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=1173 - illustrations of the box art, held at different angles - oh purty, the eye without the bandage
plus links to news re releases and design of 2nd & 3rd season dvds
but won't allow copy of text ~?

dvdverdict.com - Nip/Tuck: The Complete First Season
This show is something else. I love series that try.
Acting and sharp dialogue anchors the show. As Sean, Dylan Walsh consistently delivers a solid performance. The man has no trouble playing it straight, depressed, awkward, or funny. Even in the most ludicrous of situations, he always comes off as sincere and honest. Best Sean moments include his attempts to be a modern father by handing his son a condom and remarking on how hot his son's girlfriend is. Watch for Sean's transformation from passionless, prudish trapped soul to bold, avenging man-of-action. It's good stuff. It's no easy task to equal Walsh in performance, but Julian McMahon's Christian Troy gets it done. Even when he's smug, McMahon manages to throw in subtle moments of pain and regret to Christian's jerky demeanor. McMahon convinces me that Christian says what he thinks he should, not what he believes or feels. I doubt Christian's need for family and stability could have been conveyed as well by anyone else. When the two are onscreen, either arguing or repairing the damage they have wrought on each other's lives, it comes across as real and true. I've always thought the mark of a good actor is when I can't see anyone else playing their parts, as these two have done. Watching Sean and Christian change, moving subtlety toward becoming each other, is a real treat. Everyone in the cast is excellent. Joely Richardson imbues Julia with passion, confusion, and torment. She doesn't always have a lot to do, but when she's onscreen it's completely understandable why Jude, Sean, and Christian feel the way they do about her. Also terrific was Robert Lasardo as narcotics entrepreneur Escobar Gallardo. He plays one scary bastard, taking a cliché and filling it with depth. I'd like to see more for this guy, although a repeat appearance on the show is doubtful. Jonathon Del Arco will make you feel as Sofia Lopez. He stole the show. I hope to see more of him/her for the show's sophomore season. Kelly Carlson as Kimber will take you by surprise just as she did Christian. When she's introduced, I expected to see just another model/actress (in that order). I was pleasantly surprised by her performance.
...I'd have liked a commentary. Are you reading this, Warner Brothers? Commentary. Think about it.

chud.com - DVD REVIEW: NIP/TUCK SEASON ONE
This season focuses on the ongoing exploits of the serial rapist/face injurer known as The Carver, the arrival of a new surgeon at McNamara/Troy (Bruno Campos as Dr. Quentin Costa), the further descent of young Matt McNamara (Hensley), Mrs. McNamara (Richardson) branching out into her own career, and the next and possible final development in the relationship between Dr. Troy and his on/off love (played to tanned and toned yummy perfection by Kelly Carlson).
I'd heard this was a subpar season and a transitional one. I disagree with every bone of my penis.
The plotline regarding The Carver takes place in the first few and last few episodes as is typically the case with shows. They tease the "A" plot, revisit in little vignettes, and then hit it hard at the end. Thankfully, it's not the kind of storyline that is all that vital to the show being great. What it does do is allow for the show to replace an amazing woman (Famke) with another amazing woman in Rhona Mitra. When the show finds its way there are some really strong stories: When Dr. Mcnamara joins the Witness Protection Program's plastic surgery division and tries out the domestic life with a dangerous woman (Anne Heche), A Down's Syndrome boy wanting to look like his family, a most useful way to utilize semen, and to some extent young Matt's increasingly bad life decisions. Granted, the Nazi Family sublot borders on 24-esque cougar baiting outrageousness but it somehow all comes home in a season that doesn't have as many tricks as before but somehow manages to deliver more steady entertainment than the first two.
Nip/Tuck is a meticulously crafted chunk of pablum and overt melodrama that somehow arrives at the station nine times out of ten as what at the worst is a terrific bit of entertainment but at times borderline genius.

Tim Goodman: New Year's resolutions... Blog less »
I'm sorry to hear The Bastard Machine is going to stop, it's a terrific site. I chose my screen name just so I could post comments on it. Oh well, at least my father is going to be happy. Maybe one of the regular TBM commenters could help keep the train rolling. I bet HickCity could do a spot on literary impression of Tim Goodman.
Posted By: sonofabastard | January 03 2007 at 09:39 PM

I am not a shrink, or a therapist.
That said, I don't think golf is gonna be the solution. There has been an undercurrent theme of dissatisfaction in your posts since after last summer's DMWC. check. Sometimes the finger gets pointed at the crap you must sift through as a critic. Sometimes it's illness and the physical pain from typing. Sometimes it's just biting the hand that feeds you. check check check. It's clear that despite the 'community' that exists at The Bastard Machine check (thanks to your wit, snark...and good taste check), the result remains that you resent check the mandatory cranking out of acerbic columns for the SF Chronicle, AND the additional burden of maintaining a Blog that does not provide any additional income. Fair enough. ok.
I've never met you and this read is pretty obvious. nice.
Here is a possible solution to the dilemma. Rather than approach The Bastard Machine as an extension of your writing duties, where you set the stage with a well thought out theme, and then suffer the slings and arrows of wide-ranging comments, what if you set it up so that YOU get what you might want. All of the folks who post comments are happy enough to see there own thoughts posted. yep. a simple and more generous solution. If your Blog posts merely guided your readers with short simple themes (often related to your column), and random discussion Blog headers were posted in-between (say you provided the occasional potshot snark among the comments) you could probably achieve a balance that was more manageable. Whatever you decide, I hope you get past the frustration you're feeling.
Oh, and Happy New Year!
Posted By: hickcity | January 03 2007 at 10:06 PM
elegant balanced criticism & suggestion.
due credit given ("thanks to yr wit & good taste) as the due 'obvious read' of crankypants's dissatisfaction is made (due, because yes the proportion of compaint in tim goodman's posts is noteable) with a bit of bite ("sometimes the finger is pointed... despite the community... you resent [even handed statement of the circumstance goodman complains about - writing the blog in addition but without additional pay to his regular reviews, which does not sound like a bad lot but fair enough if experienced as one]"). I am impressed, hickcity.

Hickcity, I'm not sure there's a true underlying dissatisfaction on my end. There's definitely some public whining, but it's probably mixed with some faux drama as well. Still, shorter posts are certainly a possibility. A fine suggestion.
Posted By: TimGoodman | January 03 2007 at 10:37 PM

Like any labor of love, when it stops being fun, we stop doing it. No need to apologize. I'm not a shrink or a therapist, either, but I am a philosopher of sorts, and all I have to say is nothing lasts forever.
Posted By: dsgonzale6 | January 04 2007 at 04:22 PM
well but did he apologize? I don't think ought keep blogging if dont want to, and an apology isnt quite the thing called for, but wld welcome more appreciation of the commenters and regret at the loss for them if the blog stops. maybe this is there, btw the lines or elsewhere that I did not see.

I have tremendously enjoyed your writing over the years in the Chron and have been delighted to discover an even looser, snarkier you in TBM. I would miss that Tim terribly but this also has become a unique community of like minded tv aficionados (nut cases seemed a little too harsh) and I'd be very sad to see it disbanded. I don't know anyone who's into what I watch (well, except for the Sopranos) so it's cool to have a place where I feel I belong. I really look forward to reading what everyone has to say and to add my two cents. So I second the "Comment Starter" proposals. A small snarky sentence or a random cranky thought (hey, can we suggest topics?) are enough to get us started. (violins start here) If we can't have you, please let us have each other. nice.
Posted By: suzyq2 | January 04 2007 at 03:32 PM

Yup, just like that. A "Hey Everybody, Let's Jump in the Pool" header, and some Lifeguard action...and Bob's your Uncle. And maybe the occasional swag thrown in here or there. Plenty of support available, should you need it.
Posted By: hickcity | January 03 2007 at 11:23 PM

ggl - hickcity......

"Wire" Ep. 5: "No... »
..Prezbo's student Senobia (well that's how Mr. Prezbo wrote it on the chalkboard while giving her detention) states with believable angst as she pushes her school books on the floor: "I don't want no damn welfare pencil." She's frustrated with her inability to do the assignment, but then artfully turns the table on her shame by transforming it into social shame. Brilliant all around.
..As Randy's flashlight flickers Dukie suggests:"Bulb might got too hot." Michael responds "Or, the batteries' dying". What's intriguing, is that despite the lowly status that Dukie has among his peers (even further down the poverty chain, no clean clothes), his instincts for facts (homing pigeons have a band) are solid. At first Michael's catchall sensible solution - low batteries, seems superior, until the frightening realization that Dukie probably lives in a world where even electricity is not a given, and that his theory - bulb too hot, is not actually weird, but true to his experience.
This episode was a monster of complexity. In it's 50 or so set pieces of dialog, the story is pushed through in a subtle yet ponderous arc, where nothing big happens, but a grocery list of plot and narrative devices are artfully turned into a nourishing yet delicious meal. I can't recall an episode of the Sopranos (as great as it can be), that delivered the goods like this.
HBO is doing for TV, what Bob Dylan did for popular music.
And it's odd to realize, I don't even miss McNulty.
Posted By: hickcity | October 12 2006 at 11:40 PM

The reason why "The Wire is better than "The Sopranos" is because we care about the characters.
Posted By: sonofabastard | October 13 2006 at 12:03 PM

Hickcity: You are no hick. Your de-con is brilliant, truly thoughtful, insightful, even literarily critical. Your mini-thesis on the bulb and its relation to a boy who lives without basic amenities was spot on. Goodman, you have real competition :=).
..I know the writers of this show mean for it to be like a novel, but with characters and stories as rich as we see here I find myself wishing I could read more about them, volumes about them (though of course I’d want the books to be as first rate as this medium).
I agree with Hick too about The Sopranos never delivering goods like this, The Wire’s creators/authors obviously plan ahead more than any other serial makers, including David Milch.
I too don’t miss McNulty, though love when he ‘visits’.
Yeah, Goodman——Bunk dancing to “Backstabbers” was a joy to see. Little scenes like that make me admire really fine actors.
Posted By: Veneziana (an alias) | October 13 2006 at 10:34 AM

Thanks Veneziana. I watched episode 5 again when Tim's motor was a little sluggish and found out for myself how hard it is to pull back and bang out a cogent overview. Once Tim posted I thought it only fair to invest the time to support him and The Wire.
Bunk is the Man. And it was great to see his unselfconscious dancing to Backstabbers. I was moved also by seeing Wendell Pierce on Spike Lee's New Orleans documentary "When the Levees Broke".
Posted By: hickcity | October 13 2006 at 04:24 PM

Re. Hickcity's mention above: Wendell Pierce talking about his father getting ripped by the insurance company should break anyone's heart. "Levees" is an excellent documentary, and not unrelated to the world of The Wire (e.g., the insidiousness of institutional shortcomings).
Posted By: Veneziana (an alias) | October 14 2006 at 04:07 PM

I don't know why we insist on comparing The Sopranos with The Wire. Each series is brilliant in its own way. The Wire is masterful at understatement-- eg. when the three eighth-graders go into the washroom for sex and Randy stands guard. How ironic that Bunny, who is on the lookout for this kind of thing, walks by that closed door.
Oh I could look at Bunk (dancin' or not) and listen to that sexy voice all day....
Posted By: FanOmine | October 14 2006 at 06:19 PM


Man down. "Wire" de-co delayed.
Just a little somethin' while our Cultural Commissar digests his Golden Bowl.
-Herc is a cheese face bitch dumbass.
-Lester the puppetmaster points Kima's soft eyes in the right direction.
-Omar to Bunk (or The Bunk): "A man got to have a code."
-I suppose the Cutty 'haters' owe the man an apology. Just the women folk, no youngins.
-Namond: "School gotta have rules."
Posted By: hickcity | October 29 2006 at 09:34 PM

dusted - Also did a double take thinking one of Butchie's Boys looked like Paul Mooney. That would have been perfect, given the fact that Mooney penned one of Richard Pryor's most poigniant lines:
"When a (brother) goes down to the Court House to find Justice...that's what he finds - JUST US."
Alas, another mistaken identity regarding a brother in jail.
Posted By: hickcity | October 30 2006 at 11:05 PM

Get well soon, Tim, because hickcity's posts are so spot on, he might be gunnin' for your job...
Posted By: gauchodebruin

Mr Monk and the three pies - oh - big brother Ambrose "I'm outside. My brother brought me outside." and Captain Stottlemeyer gives him a pat on the back. "I'm outside." yes sweetheart you sure are.

well I don't love this show as a whole but ok Adrian Monk is loveable, won me over at end of pilot, meeting with his psychiatrist, how moved Monk is that his doctor is going to recommend he be reinstated (as detective w the police force). and then a closing scene with Sharona who wins me over there, asks how it went, he shrugs, she says sth like we'll get em next time c'mon I'll make dinner, he says right it's Tuesday chicken potpie night, she said no I was thinking tonite -- he stops -- I'm just kidding. and he is touching each of the ~pillars as they resume walking along waterside (set in SFr) and she says Monk you missed one. aw.

now playing Mr Monk v Cobra wh I see is the episd after the one that intr'd Natalie and she does seem flat in comparison. but it's early and she was asking him to pay her expenses and seemed impersonal...

just saw pilot episode of Monk. new years day cast favorites marathon. and I wondered if the character of the girl with Monk changed after the pilot? no ... she was there until halfway thru third season then left for undisclosed reasons, show said the character had moved back to New Jersey. character is named Sharona, she's a practical nurse hired for Monk.

Natalie vs. Sharona (Traylor Howard vs. Bitty Shram)
11:21 PM I was awestruck at the character of Sharona. You have to be kidding me, I said. There can't be people out there with the balls to cast a REAL person, with a real person's flaws, an average physique, and a real person's reactions to Monk. To have the testicular fortitude to create a character whose youthful indiscretions come back to haunt her; THAT surprised me. An AVERAGE-looking MOTHER character whose youthful nudie shots come back to bite her in the ass? You have to be kidding me. On television, if a character did nudie shots, they must be a card-carrying member of the Beautiful People's Club.
It makes me wonder if they're trying to make a push to broadcast, and ABC demanded -- or, well, they wouldn't have to do more than hint at, depending on how ambitious the Monk folks are -- an assistant character with a "safer" appeal.

-Sharona was better because her bright appearance and upbeat character contrasted so well with Monk's worrying and drab look.

tv.com - Mr. Monk and the Red Herring
...what does work is the performances of Shalhoub (Monk is at his eccentric funniest) and Howard. There's a certain chemistry between the actors that wasn't there with Shram and it's somehow more believable both that Monk would be drawn to Natalie as an assistant (she's a much softer character than Sharona) and that Natalie would treat Monk as she does (Sharona often seemed too deferential to his eccentricities).