Semper Gumby: always flexible

I am so freaking late to the game on this one, but it has to be said: Generation Kill is AMAZING. The miniseries, I mean... I haven't read the book it's based on, but after watching only two episodes of the show I know it's next on my reading list (after I finish a truly depressing non-fiction account of the building of the Oklahoma City bombing memorial... you can probably guess why it's taking me a while.)

But honestly, I can't get over how phenomenal Generation Kill is. I've been nursing a cold (four months of winter the likes of which is usually only seen in Siberia, and the moment the sun comes out I get sick) so I've been staying in a lot, which has given me TONS of time with which to watch tv on my crappy little laptop screen. Its just like the summer after freshman year of college when I sprained my ankle and spent two months catching up on Veronica Mars, Alias and Sports Night, only this won't last as long.

The show is so well-paced, so well-edited, and the writing is tight, terse and clever all at once. I don't know why I'm surprised, given that David Simon (he of the Wire and Treme) is so centrally involved, but I am just floored by what I've been watching. And I say this as someone who really doesn't like war movies. I mean, don't get me wrong: watching shit blow up on screen is one of my favorite past-times, but I'm well aware that I prefer my violence fantastical and escapist rather than realistic and depressing. In Generation Kill, though, they neither glorify the violence or try to make it a tragic epic about the moral costs of war - instead, it just really feels like we're following these men through an actual invasion, with all the violence and humor and bureaucratic screw-ups that comes with it.

Anyway, I'm only two episodes in so I'm sure my appreciation for the miniseries will become more complex and reflective as I make my way through, but I just thought it had to be said now: Generation Kill is FANTASTIC, and anyone who isn't watching it needs to start right now.



*Oh, and one more thing: this is Ray, my favorite character so far. He got burned by an illegal camp stove that one of the other Marines was using to make espresso! He was on the debate team in high school, but all his fellow teammates thought he was high on uppers all the time! He wears pimp sunglasses and knows all the words to Avril Lavigne songs! He also has some of the most epic speeches on American society, the war, and the ridiculous recruitment commercials the Marines made with that stupid dragon, but they aren't very family friendly. If I removed all the swear words from my favorite monologue so far there would be, like, five other words, and most of them would be definite articles. In short: I LOVE YOU RAY.

Occupation: Gentleman

So occasionally I think of something I want to write a blog entry about, but because I'm not at a point in my day where I can actually write it, I send myself an email or write myself a note about it. Ideally, I then remember to take care of it later. Usually, though, I forget to follow up on the notes and the idea gets lost for all eternity.

In this case, this is all half-true: I wrote the email and even remembered to check it, but it's been so long that I can barely remember what this cryptic note meant: "canfield, who said his occupation was gentleman, and who went to jail and called it his harvard. Whistler painted his portrait and called him his reverence."

Ignoring the horrible grammar for right now (I was on my cell phone, do you know how hard capitalization is on those things?), I think what this email is telling me to do is to research and write about Richard Albert Canfield, a contemporary of the American painter James McNeill Whistler and an honest-to-goodness eccentric. Apparently he listed his occupation as gentleman and was arrested for running a number of illegal casinos and gambling rings. And, as you can see above, he also called jail his "Harvard." He was a colorful and creative man who collected art by the droves and was eventually felled in a fatal fall in a New York City subway.

I'm not sure where I was when I learned this or why I thought it was important that you know it as well, but clearly I did. So there you go: a short and vague history lesson from Shoshi-of-the-past. I hope you enjoyed it.