Child Star

 The graphic novel Child Star by Brian "Box" Brown is a synthesis of traumatic tragedy of the life of a child star, especially from the '80s onwards. The art is in black and white and red only, a simplified palette to reflect the simplified view of a real human being. The focus character is a white version of Gary Coleman (or male version of Punky Brewster) called Owen Eugene. Every trauma experienced by a child star or former child star occurs, much like a media-focused version of The Handmaid's Tale. The story is largely told through posthumous interviews with his parents, his coworkers, and other barely disguised celebrities. It is a sobering work indeed, yet one worth reading.

Paper Girls (Show and Comic)

The primary difference between watching Paper Girls and reading Paper Girls is not the '80s vibe - that is consistent - but rather that the show is structured as a season and the comic is structured like a very long '80s kid gang movie, despite its distribution over several volumes. A literal adaptation, even if costs allowed, would have felt disjointed, failing to introduce all relevant concepts and failing to conclude in a way suitable for the season format. The reworking of the plot, therefore, as well as the expansion of the cast's background, was a wise decision. The necessity for an ending, however, does create the risk of further time shenanigans that are less well-written than the original comic - note the deterioration of Game of Thrones. Appropriately, time will be the judge.

Trial of the Amazons: Thoughts

Some thoughts after finishing Trial of the Amazons. 

It is nice to see that there are now three tribes of Amazons. This number tracks with the legends of historical Themyscira and hinterlands. Three, however, is sufficient. This is not just due to the sacredness of the number three in the feminine and general Indo-European tradition, but also because the enhancement of a story which careful addition to lore provides can rapidly diminish if too many divisions are added or too carelessly. The impact falls to zero. An expansion of the Amazons beyond the current three tribes would need to be meticulously planned by someone who would remain in charge for many years; this is not how Wonder Woman has historically worked. In other lines, this is shown: the seven colors of the Lantern Corps were added slowly and with a plan. Even the black and white lanterns fit into that world, even if temporarily, as the absence or presence of light; but it should have ended there. The ultraviolet corps threw off the structure of the Corps. In a similar manner the consolidation of all the DC cities of Atlantis in the animation Young Justice can make continuity a trap as much as a springboard for future stories (which do not have to be pseudo-Arthurian).

The Amazons could also use a second island on which to have adventures. Themyscira is beginning to seem a bit cramped, not unlike the old X-Mansion in the older X-Men events.

There is a need to provide extra titles for Wonder Folk. The nature of the title Wonder Woman restricts it to one woman at a time, except perhaps if both Hippolyta and Diana are alive and serving on different teams, but surely there should be only one Wonder Girl at a time, with the others holding other titles. This has not been a problem with Donna, but Cassie should get her own title. As the Robins have shown, the name does not need to include the lead character's primary adjective!

He May Be Invincible, But My Wallet Isn't

 At great personal cost, I have caught up to what I believe is the appropriate point in Robert Kirkman's Invincible. I cannot be certain, however, due to the reshuffling of plot elements in adapting it to a different medium. Consecutive reading renders the sense of time quite differently, but the events in-universe do occur faster than I had imagined. When Invincible first came out, I read some issues, but I was more enthusiastic about Dynamo 5 than anything else in the Kirkman universe. The events of Volumes 3 and 4 move quickly because the comic-reading audience would already be familiar with the scenarios from other franchises. Ottley's style is not my favorite, but it is neither off-putting nor fundamentally unreadable (if colors can be said to be read). I have a bad habit, driven by the impulse to cut the chaff from my pull list, of dropping series before the surprise reveal which rewards the patient reader; on the other hand, the risk of continuing a series beyond literary and financial justification would make me a sucker rather than a good and loyal fan.

    Kirkman's dialogue is reflective of the era in which it was written; for some this may be an unforgiveable sin. I do not deem it as such. Although I would not use such language now, the slur in question was used casually then, and even now there are worse and more malevolent curses. Active homophobia seems not to be a concern in a universe full of Martian invaders. The other issue, the strange relation that Robot and Monster Girl have to aging, is not problematic as much as fascinating and a problem that could only be explored using fiction. I may write more about this later. For now, I recommend Invincible, but perhaps a more graduated approach to financial acquisition.

Foundation's Fruit: Seeds

 My review of Foundation, Season One, was the last, best hope for taking this blog in a certain direction. It failed. But an autopsy is still in order. For those who hold the delusion that the original book is filmable as is, I can do nothing. Film must fill the visual voids that a well-honed story leaves to the imagination of those that have them. Foundation also faces the John Carter dilemma of appearing derivative because others have borrowed from them in another medium.

The first season of Foundation accomplishes several things. Firstly, it establishes a framework of a season-long mystery. Mystery is a fundamentally Asimovian narrative structure. Psychohistory may be based on probability, but the initial conditions are specific. Secondly, it fills in the universe; the original stories assumed that readers at the time would fill in the context from the blatant historical references. The elements which trickled in must appear more quickly in a visual medium. Thirdly, the casting corrects (perhaps overcorrects) the blandness forced upon the original trilogy by John W Campbell's preference for only white heroes.

If any franchise is going to play the long game, it is Foundation. I do not believe I can assess it properly without watching a second season.

Foundation's Fruits: Prologue

 

                Before I start to analyze the Apple TV Foundation series, I think it only fair to lay out my own perspective as a long-time fan of the Asimov Foundation and Robot novels. I am a fan of Golden Age science fiction, with all its flaws. I enjoy exposition, which is why I could read most Stephen Baxter novels once. I was introduced to the Foundation, Empire, and Robot series (by which I mean the novels, not the short stories) as separate series. My favorite Asimov, however, has always been The End of Eternity. All three had the same author, and therefore used similar themes, but because they were separate series, their timelines and technologies did not need to line up perfectly. Eventually I had read all the originals and moved on to the novels which tied things together, both the Robot and the Foundation series. When Foundation’s Edge brought the conclusion of The End of Eternity into the Foundation series as a legend, at first I thought it might just be an Easter egg, since time travel is not a feature of the Foundation, Empire, or Robot series. The incorporation of the critical character of the Robot series suggested otherwise. Nonetheless, I understood the unified timeline as one of the many that could arise from the conclusion of The End of Eternity rather than the exclusive one. The limiting factor in The End of Eternity was the limitation to Earth, which in turned limited the possibilities of Humanity’s development; the galaxy is orders of magnitude larger, and therefore contains commensurately more opportunities. Multiple timelines would allow not only for the divergent dates for the formerly independent series, but also timelines in which the other Asimov stories could live – particularly the ones with alien species, which are conspicuously absent in the Foundation series, both original and expanded. At the time, I was under the influence of Heinlein’s later works, whose multiverse is wild and chaotic (and a bit creepy), but I had hoped that the unification of Asimov’s popular series would at least leave room for his lesser stories in other universes. (I’m not sure where I should put this, but I had these thoughts before Nemesis was published).

I thought the unification was a mistake, like the continuation of the Pern series past the recovery of AI, but Asimov had written it and it was therefore canonical. It was a long time until I read Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation because I had confused it with the Second Foundation trilogy. I am a bit of a purist in the sense of favoring the original author and perhaps his successor if he had worked with him long-term, such as Christopher Tolkien and (originally) Brian Herbert. After I had read all five Dune novels, I read the immediate prequels and found them a decent if not necessary addition to the Dune canon, but the prequels set during the Butlerian Jihad felt like a betrayal. I had become wary of sequels and prequels not written by the original author. Once I realized that Asimov had written Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation, I read them. The expansion on Trantorian society was welcome, but the reason for humanity not encountering aliens was disturbing. The reason for humanity’s lack of innovation was even worse, and absolved, at least in part, the Empire itself of the sin of stagnation. Sometimes the unrealistic elements in a story are best left unaddressed in canon for fans to speculate upon; look what happened to the simple statement about Klingon foreheads and Worf’s refusal to elaborate. I did eventually read the Second Foundation trilogy, whose authors I respect greatly, but each book felt less and less like the Foundation universe. Newer additions are Nemesis and Mark Tiedemann’s Robot series, both of which would have benefitted from a multiverse or at least a looser canonicity akin to that of Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle; thus I have always thought of the unified series as one possibility among many.

The inevitable truth is that a TV adaptation of the Foundation series would have to change and elaborate even more than the later published books. The chronologically books have slightly more actions, but the chronologically earlier books are conversations and interrogations, devoid of actions and (thankfully) Heinleinian sexuality. Much like the Hobbit, the extant text was not designed to carry live action of the length necessary for modern television. There are other Golden Age texts that could sustain more action but lack the intellectual depth; there are others that have even less dialogue and more monologue. This denseness is not solely a thing of the past; Stephen Baxter’s Xeelee novels can be dense in this way. A well-timed and well-delivered speech, on the other hand, can be entrancing; this was a strength of the (original) Babylon 5. 

            The necessity of change is not just a matter of a change of medium, but of time and influence. I like to call this the “John Carter” problem. An influential work inspires imitators, or perhaps plagiarists in a less generous interpretation. If the imitators become popular in a separate medium, or the originals fade from memory, then when the originals enter that medium as a second work, many people assume that the older work is stealing from the later one. The older work then does not do well in the new medium, and the fans of the older work are annoyed at fans of the younger work who proclaim the originality of the younger work in the second medium. Even worse, the anti-creative nature of intellectual property often prevents the older work from a second, better thought-out adaptation.

I realize that I have said nothing about the Foundation Apple TV series yet, but I am around the thousand-word limit, and that seems sufficient for today.

Foundation's (Middle) Finger

      The trailer for the adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation is now released, and has sparked the predictable outrage of the few, the loud, the keyboard warriors. One of the objections is the change in race and sex of Gaal Dornick and Salvor Hardin. No one denies that Asimov’s world is a sausage fest, not even the author himself, who admitted that his science fiction lacked women because he didn’t know how to write them. Susan Calvin, as much as I love her, has the personality of “emotionally lonely nerd” rather than “real woman.” Arkady Darrell is a plucky Heinleinian teenager. Dors Venari, whom I am sure will appear, was based on Asimov’s wife, but she appeared in the prequels published at the end of Asimov’s life rather than in his early days.

     What I find more interesting about the online uproar was the concern over race. The depiction of race was a valid concern then just as it is now, but the depiction of race within Asimov, or rather the lack thereof, requires contexualition. Asimov’s editor was John W. Campbell, a former writer and formidable editor, who was a racist. He apparently did not care that Asimov was Jewish (and who would with Asimov’s sales figures?), but he did insist that aliens could never beat humans and that heroic space adventures must be blonde and blue-eyed. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s episode “Far Beyond the Stars” portrayed this attitude with excellence. Much like the comic book market, there were few options for writers of science fiction, so Asimov decided that he would omit that part of physical description altogether. The culturally imposed racial divisions of the far-flung future would not be the same anyway. Heinlein experienced this also and hid hints of race and sexuality within his books.

      Changing Salvor Hardin to a woman, especially one of color, is a big middle finger to John W Campbell’s racist editorial decrees. Canonical Hardin is the very model of a backroom politician, not traits normally associated with “feminine” characters, but perhaps this attitude leads to television Hardin feeling more at home on Terminus than in the center of the Galaxy. This “tough gal” attitude worked for Starbuck in the Battlestar Galactica reboot! Hardin’s presence on Trantor is probably a concession to a compressed time scale for at least the first two seasons and the reality of actors. A more radical interpretation of Hardin would be that Hardin is transgender: he presents as female, but he identifies as male. Given how rigid Imperial Galactic society is, that would both provide him with outsider status similar to the rest of Seldon’s merry band of misfits, but still permit him to be or become the cynical and manipulative character necessary to the survival of Terminus. Or perhaps the reveal of the true goal of the Encyclopedia Foundation will be the turning point for Hardin’s character. Adaptation opens up possibilities, not all of them negative.

Foundation's Filming

Warning: This writing assumes that you have read the entire series, and therefore does not avoid spoilers.

The recent announcement that HBO had bought the right to make a Foundation series, based on the Asimov books, raised some issues. On the one hand, if there’s any company that knows how to treat a book franchise seriously and produce a quality television show, it’s HBO (the disaster that is Will Smith's I, Robot still stings). On the other hand, the Foundation series has some liabilities as the basis of a mini-series or multi-year series. Asimov’s stories are heavy on dialogue and short on action. Although a television show can tolerate talking more than a movie, there must be some action, a feature which is conspicuously lacking in the Foundation series. Furthermore, a key component of psychohistory in the Foundation series is that the actions of individuals do not matter; what matters is the mass socio-economic movement. One might note that this lack of individual impact is the exact opposite, the 'Star’s End' as it were, of what audiences seek in movies and dramas. The collapse of an Empire is a messy affair, and there are many action sequences from which to draw, but would they hold an audience as tightly when the premise of the series is that they will not only fail, but fail to have any impact whatsoever?

Hari Seldon himself is a rebuttal to the notion of psychohistory – it’s hard to imagine more of a personal impact than shaving more than 90% off the Galactic dark ages. The Mule, everybody’s favorite mutant, derails the Seldon Plan, and only the efforts of the Second Foundation reestablish its proper course. Arkady Darell, the plucky escapee from a Heinlein juvenile, not only turns out to be special, but is even a descendant of one of the earlier protagonists, Hober Mallow. It must be admitted that Terminus was settled by a very small founding population, but the idea that one family produces many descendants who have an impact on the history of the Galaxy is redolent of a different, more fantasy-oriented, franchise. Certainly, young Miss Darell would not appear soon in a Foundation series, but if it were successful, there is not a chance that the series would not cover the Mule.

If it is not possible to look to the (First) Foundation for individual actions with consequences, perhaps the Second Foundation is a font of drama. Yet the Second Foundation is not a league of assassins, but a secretive order that nudges the masses when they unwittingly seek to thwart the Seldon Plan. It is hard to imagine something more anticlimactic on screen than a mental push (not even spoken) that causes the individual’s grand plan to fail. Its dramatic success in the Foundation stories is predicated on the ability to treat telepathic communication as vividly as oral communication.

There are some positive aspects to a Foundation series. The key one for HBO, of course, is that it is a true classic science fiction universe which antedates Lucas’ pastiche of ‘40s entertainment. Galactic empires are not, of course unique to Asimov, but the Foundation series possesses elements present in the Star Wars universe that can draw in fans of that franchise while avoiding copyright lawsuits on the part of the Mouse. Trantor, Terminus, and the other one-biome planets are a familiar element to audiences; their distance from Earth mostly prevents the problems of the march of science that John Carter presented during his adventures on Mars. The lack of physical description in Asimov’s stories facilitates casting – although it would be interesting to cast an Asimov look-alike for the part of Seldon. Much of the visuals come from the book covers – at least those which bear any relevance to the contents! The names of Galactic planets are based on classical or pseudo-classical names, providing both ease of pronunciation and coding the nature of the planet. Asimovian nomenclature is mercifully free of the meaningless apostrophes of some science fiction universes, and no debilitating dependence on the ‘exotic’ letters of the English alphabet separates the Foundation universe from Game of Thrones. Even the common language, a frequent stumbling block but necessary evil of the fantasy and science fiction genre, is justified in the Foundation series since the Galactic Empire is a stand-in for the Roman Empire and the common language for Latin. The lack of aliens in the Foundation universe distinguishes this universe from all the other currently active science fiction franchises that operate on a galactic scale.

Being an Asimov fan in the impending arrival of the Foundation series is much like being a citizen of Terminus under the Seldon Plan: you have no control over the many elements coming together, but at least you don’t have to put up with 30,000 years of development hell.

Our Doomed Century on the Onion

(This was composed the week of Jan 3-9, 2010)

It's been Apocalypse Week on the History Channel, which means I've been drawn to it like Mothra to a nuclear flame. I have an impatient fascination with the 2012/Nostradamus material, although it does provide a ready source of mockable material,  but my stronger, morbid fascination is reserved for the shows on asteroid impact (especially Apophis), gamma ray bursts, and other forms of environmental extinction or collapse.

I'm excited for the new season of Life After People, in which we will see what happens to a modern house without maintenance. Apocalypse Man seems like a series in embryo, a sort of bowdlerised television counterpart to The Road, but the show which most chilled my blood was Earth 2100. The narrative conceit of a single life makes sense outside of a setting, such as science fiction novels, in which multi-generational perspectives are possible and easier to portray. The shrill, strident tone is justified to some degree because the producers intended to portray a worst-case scenario, so that it might stick in the minds of the audience. One of the difficulties in persuading human beings to act is the rigid "flight or fight" response (the third option, giving up completely, is a literal dead end). Most people fail to react to creeping change (that's why you don't notice your own sibling aging as much as someone else's), so the most effective way to trigger the fight response is an atmosphere of threat. The fight response, however, was a development to allow survival when attacked, and does not last long. In terms of the energy spike, that is a blessing, since permanent panic would turn humanity into bipedal ground squirrels, but the brevity also means that the lesson is lost quickly and in the worst case engenders apathy or disbelief. The "Sleepers wake!" portion of the message is insufficient without a further portion outlining what steps may be taken to mitigate disaster. In this way, the gospel of environmentalism (after all, there is a green bible) is similar to other religions: faiths and philosophies which provide no guide on appropriate actions once you have accepted their premises are seeds which fall on rocky ground. Earth 2100 is a good first step, but I would welcome a series or special which provided methods of survival and eventual renewal.

Desolation On My Mind

Those who know me well are aware of my morbid predilection with movies portraying totalitarian societies or post-apocalyptic wastelands (yes, I include 1970's New York in that category), so they will not be shocked that I watched The Road (even though I found the idea of reading the book too depressing even for me) and am reading Collapse by Jared Diamond (the Silver Age successor to Steven Jay Gould).

The Road is based on the book of the same name by Cormac McCarthy, whose Southwestern novels I have read; I am not a fan of that genre. I did once read a Louis Lamour book once, but it did not compel me to pick up any others, and Western movies never grabbed me, even though I watched plenty of Paladin as a young kid. The Road, on the other hand, seemed like the bleak despairing movie I would enjoy, even if it did not seem appropriate for popcorn and a soda: the 2008 cut was not issued because it was too bleak and depressing. I suppose modern movie goers have not been inoculated with enough Ingmar Bergman. Viggo Mortenson was a good choice for the Man (as usual, someone of whom I had never heard played the juvenile lead), but the flashbacks and the tacked on feel-good ending presented problems. I suppose that the flashbacks served much the same function as the "satyr play" of a tragic trilogy, namely, to provide a brief respite to the sense of doom. The ending of the movie was marginally hopeful, which is the best one could expect from such a depressing setting. The inclusion of certain analogues to the Boy makes some sense, but the other companion of the adults at the end stretched credulity.

After I had finished Memoirs of a Geisha, I started reading Jared Diamond's Collapse. Reading it is a bit like reading The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant if Lord Foul had won: every time you think the book could not become more depressing, it exceeds itself (someone actually lived on Henderson?). The general results of ecological abuse seems to be same: ecological genocide, a barren wasteland, and near or total extinction of the human population. The horrifying aspect of these tales is that these were not people who were using intentionally destructive practices and just didn't care, but rather people who were just trying to feed themselves and their families.

I've never been to Iceland or Easter Island, but I have seen the effects of overpopulation, deforestation, and overgrazing firsthand in Malta, right before it surrendered its currency to the Euro. Malta is not a wasteland (it's actually quite lovely), and was never isolated in the way of Easter Island or Greenland, but it is a far cry from the "low wooded isle" with streams it presumably was in the days of Odysseus. In addition to the usual rainwater problems of a Mediterranean island in a dry climate, the remaining topsoil is so precious that it is recycled from site to site, vexing the archaeologists, and there are no permanent lakes or rivers.

Not My Thuper Thweet Thirteen

There are certain distasteful elements which I had anticipated I would encounter when I agreed to go to a bar on Eddy, but I did not expect to find a birthday party for twin 13-year-olds in the reserved part of the bar, leading me to believe that I had been misinformed by the organizer of the group I had come to meet. Although the confusion over my meeting did not last too long, I remain baffled by the presence of 13-year-olds in the reserved section of the bar and the lack of wisdom of their parents. I am assuming that it was a legitimate party, and not one of the teen solicitation parties which I have heard about from TV programs on urban teen prostitution rings in the Bay Area, even if the girls (according to one of the members of my party) were dolled up in a manner similar to Britney Spears: the extreme propinquity of a hotel does raise my suspicions, since I did pass a massage parlor, the Century Theater, and a streetwalker before I climbed on the 38 Geary.

If it was a legitimate operation (which seemed to be the explicit thesis of my companions), what combination of coddling parents and self-involved teenagers leads to a celebration in a bar? It occurred to me that it could be some cut-rate double post-bat-mitzvah party, but I have no proof either way.  I am assuming this party was an indication of the solipsistic seeping down of the "super sweet sixteen" and the quinceañera, without any redeeming rite-of-passage value. Such parties, however, do seem consonant with the pandemic of minors in YouTube videos acting inappropriately. It almost makes you think that Grammie from Hounddog has a valid point!

A Word on the Street

I'm sure many of my readers are aware that this year marks the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street. As a child born in the late '70s, I was weaned on the first decade of "classic" street, before Elmo came along and "RUINED IT FOREVER!", as the idiots on the internet would say. I'm also a big Jim Henson fan (a Muppethead? I'm sure there is a term.), including some of his more obscure stuff.

In honor of the 40th anniversary, I decided to suppress my Elmo allergy and actually watch a current episode. The results surprised me. Although (rather predictably) I was not fond of the current remix of the opening theme, at least it's still "Sunny Days". I doubt the current songwriters can top Joe Raposo's classic compositions. The fifteen minute segment, a feature unknown in my youth, featured Elmo, the little pink fairy, and Big Bird arguing who would play the roles in the story which Gordon (the core human cast sure changes slowly!) read to them. I have to agree with the statements of some of cast members that a solid fifteen minute segment allows a slightly more complex and memorable storyline - I certainly couldn't identify any of the narratives from my childhood, although I remember many of the skits.

It became that the theme of the episode was the Wild West/Cowboys. The Bert and Ernie skit was animated, which seemed peculiar until I reflected that the episodes I had watched contained many animated segments, just not ones which featured Muppets. I always thought Bert deserved a better rep - but I like watching pigeons too, even if I don't collect paperclips. The presentation of the letter of the day (T, which had gotten dirty and been thrown in the wash) was mildly amusing, but the song and dance number celebrating the letter T was in the vein of classic Street. The presentation of the number of the day (a chorus line of Ones!) had me chuckling. Since I had only watched Sesame Street on television as an adult, I had not realized how many jokes the show contained to keep the parents or nanny amused (e.g., a foal named Wilbur). My favorite was the announcement for the upcoming "Desperate Horseflies" on the Horse Channel. I wonder if it takes place on a horse named Bree! Although I do wonder what happened to Forgetful Jones. Did his performer pass on and Grover inherit his horse? (Ah. It's not Buster - it's Fred the Wonder Horse).

One of the changes my generation most vehemently protested (other than Elmo himself) was the creation "Elmo's World", particularly because the use of crayon creates a set which appears not just simple, but crude. I found this segment a bit blah, but maybe that's because I have no emotional investment in Elmo as I do in the classic Muppet cast.

Sadly, there was no Oscar in this episode.

TV Review: Little Mosque on the Prairie

Although the current state at the cabin at Lake Tahoe is a dearth of channels, my TV-watching habits for series (as well as webcomic-reading) can be described as short-term addiction. This tendency also appears when I read books in a series. I watch a lot of episodes at once, and then lose interest; if it is sufficiently compelling, I may return. So it has been with the CBC series Little Mosque on the Prairie. I watched Season 1 a while ago, and then lost interest, but I have been watching many episodes recently, and now have reached another lull.

For those of you unfamiliar with the series, I could just post the Wikipedia link. That, however, would be lazy. The series' viewpoint character is a Toronto lawyer who decides to become an imam (more like a rabbi than a priest) for the Muslim community of the small western Canadian town of Mercy. Presumably the creator of the series used this (standard literary) structure in order that she could have an outsider thrust into the midst of key religious disputes. One must admit it makes more sens than the ordinary child who becomes the key to the salvation of the universe. The Muslim and non-Muslim characters span the entire political range, although it is true that the show privileges the Muslim characters. I can forgive this imbalance, since the other movie and TV roles for Muslim characters and actors of Middle Eastern descent are very frequently terrorists.

It's a very Canadian show, eschewing the Manichaean dichotomy of culture warriors and favoring the portrayal of individuals with personal motivations for faith or lack thereof. Each week there is a crisis that pits at least one character's Islamic beliefs or cultural tendencies from the Islamic part of the world against "western" traditions. The first season is especially interesting in that regard, since specific concepts needed to be introduced; the third season is closer to a soap opera, if soap operas were rigidly episodic and chaste to the point of no kissing. The westernization of the Muslim characters has angered many Muslim watchers, but I doubt the show would be able to spread its message of goodwill and ecumenical harmony if it showed the most rigid segments of the Muslim population.

I'm certainly not a follower of the Prophet, and perhaps I think this way because my formative political experience was the fall of the Berlin Wall rather than 9/11 or the Cold War, but this series does a good job of introducing Islam in a setting which will not frighten westerners.

SVU and Greek Tragedy

I like Law & Order: SVU, despite a bookish sort. I was contemplating why this cop show would so draw me, when many others have no effect whatsoever. I have decided that there is a particular reason beyond good writing and acting. As a Classics scholar, the materials regarded as fundamental reading in the field cover such distasteful subjects as incest, rape, and cannibalism. The ability to treat the bllody kin-slaughter of the house of Atreus as a routine matter desensitizes the most empathetic classicist to some of the graphic occurances on the television and in the movies. If you've read the history of the late Roman Republic, the violence and treachery of the Sopranos are mundane occurences. SVU, however, still retains the capacity to intrigue me. It can only thrive by increasingly complex carnal mysteries which surpass those established in the Greek classical canon.