Erin sent me a brief video telling me to drop all the things and watch “Ted Lasso.” I talked to Rob on Facetime and he said I actually should see the brand new BeeGees documentary. Bill tells us all how good “Dopesick” and “Reservation Dogs” are. Carey texts to ask me if other people have asked me if I even have watched “Midnight Mass.” I tell her no, they haven’t, and that I haven’t watched it. Carey asks, “Have you ever not watched ‘Midnight Mass’ for a reason?”
Bill, a unique Bill, after I tell him I haven’t seen…what…this was 23 years ago so I don’t remember exactly…but something like, you understand, “Duck Soup” or “Nosferatu” or “The Seventh Seal”…after I tell Bill I haven’t, he all but rolls his eyes; he all but sighs deeply and sadly, as if plunged into catastrophic mourning; he all but pukes throughout my non-Bergman-esque cashmere sweater after I tell him I haven’t seen these movies. Possibly it wasn’t a cashmere sweater. Possibly Ingmar Bergman doesn’t even wear cashmere.
My heart isn’t large enough, my consciousness isn’t spacious enough for all of the spot-on characters, the hectic energies. I’m not skillful, I feel, at TV.
Jake tells me I should really watch “Derry Girls.” And, in fact, “Fleabag.” Jim and his girlfriend Sophie tell me, as if obviously, as if one must sleep, must eat, clearly, that I even have to observe “Fleabag.” Actually, I don’t think they even said the words. I feel they only checked out me; after I told them I hadn’t seen it, they only breathed at me in hopelessness, exhaled at me in pure despair.
Bob tells me “Stranger Things” is the very best thing he’s ever seen on TV. Is he telling me I should binge-watch “Stranger Things”? I assume he’s.
I feel I even have an indication permanently affixed to my shoulder blades: Tell me shows to observe.
The last Super Bowl I saw was the last 10 minutes of the one which led to that interception that allowed the team and the QB no person likes except the individuals who like them to win like their tenth straight Super Bowl.
Luke says “The Wire” is pretty much as good as a Dostoyevksy novel. I watch “The Wire.” I stop three-fourths of the best way through Season 2. “The Wire” is simply too good, too real, too intense, too heartbreaking. I fear for the characters, I sense they’re all heading to doom. I sense all the things on “The Wire” is and can all the time be falling apart. I form of consider this in real life too, more days than I care to confess, doom and all the things falling apart, but I don’t want to observe a show that believes the identical thing.
Everyone says I should watch “The Sopranos.” I get midway through Season 3. I stop.
Everyone says I should watch “The Sopranos.” I get midway through Season 3. I stop. I stop cold turkey. I’m beginning to think like Tony Soprano, view the world like Tony Soprano, hungering to unravel all my problems like Tony Soprano. Threats of great and reprehensible violence, if not the actual thing. You threw the chicken salad out? And it was still good? Come, let’s go for a ride on my boat. Only a daytrip. “The Sopranos” enters my bloodstream, careens through my synapses, invades my moral foundation. I put the weapon of “The Sopranos” down as if it were a terrorist threatening the hostage of myself.
I watch two seasons of “Homeland.” Too intense, too good—cold turkey. “The Americans”? Too intense, too painfully enjoyable. I didn’t need to feel anymore what these characters felt, know what these characters knew. I only have room, I feel, for the dramas of my very own life.
I even have watched every last episode of “The West Wing.” “The West Wing” believes America is ultimately good, thinks America is ultimately holy. “The West Wing” is horrific. And so well drawn and styled it is totally addictive.
It’s best to see “Breaking Bad.” I saw the primary two episodes. Same thing. Excellent, and just an excessive amount of.
“The West Wing” is horrific. And so well drawn and styled it is totally addictive.
“The Office.” I’d love “The Office,” watch “The Office,” see “The Office.”
I saw “The Office.” The British one. It is vitally good, it is rather funny, it is great, it makes my soul hurt.
Are individuals who want us to observe things actually out to bring quality entertainment into our lives? Are they out to make us completely satisfied? Have they got our greatest interests at heart? Or are they only attempting to get us to affirm what they themselves already consider? Are they simply attempting to drum up slightly army of people that just like the same things they like? What exactly are their motives?
“Curb Your Enthusiasm” is completely my form of show, they tell me. I even have not watched “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
Nobody has told me to observe “2 Broke Girls.”
I even have principally stopped watching TV series, stopped watching movies, stopped watching sports. Not entirely. But principally. For happening a couple of 12 months now. I saw “West Side Story” at a movie show. It was the very best. Saw “Death on the Nile.” But beyond that, not much.
After I asked Tom if he liked “Downton Abbey,” he all but said Duh. As in, are you even alive?
One in every of my favorite Onion headlines is from sometime within the mid-90s: Area man consistently mentioning he doesn’t own television. “Oh, are you guys discussing that show about those good-looking pals who live in Latest York City?” our area man says at a celebration. “What’s it called? I haven’t seen it. I don’t own a TV.”
I don’t know if I’m a publicly righteous area man, or if I just can’t take all of it in, the shows, the movies, the games. I feel my heart isn’t large enough, my consciousness isn’t spacious enough for all of the spot-on characters, the hectic energies, the ripping stories. I’m not skillful, I feel, at TV.
After I asked Tom if he liked “Downton Abbey,” he all but said Duh. As in, are you even alive? Which I feel is an implicit command: Watch “Downton Abbey.” Now.
Or possibly saying Duh is an implicit dismissal: Don’t trouble, you will not be worthy of “Downton Abbey.”
People say to observe “The Crown.” I watch “The Crown.” I watch every episode of “The Crown.” That is before I principally stopped watching anything. “The Crown” is nice. “The Crown” is, for probably the most part, sublime. I could take “The Crown.” I don’t know why I could take “The Crown” and never “Homeland” or “The Wire.”
Possibly because all of the pain and drama, all of the septic cultural intrigue and symbolic murder in “The Crown” is going on abroad; and a rustic, no less, with people the timbre of whose dialects and the mist of whose hills by some means distance me from feeling so intensely the white-hot tragedies they’re feeling. The pain of the British is quiet and brittle, not baroque and faltassic, like American pain and tragedy. British tragedy doesn’t wallop me like a dead carp across the face. Faltassic isn’t a word.
I did watch, recently, three documentaries. A child got killed. An art heist. A fake art scam. They were all pretty good. My heart is getting filled much more. How much can it take?
In some way reading doesn’t stuff the center, it just widens it. Something like that.
“Black Panther”? Cultural touchstone. I haven’t seen it.
I used to be about to say “that’s a pretentious thing to say, that unlike television, reading widens the center.” But I’m not going to say that, because I feel it’s true. Reading by some means lightens, even when it’s heavy.
In 1995 within the streets of Dorchester, Mass., Scott Campbell Best explained nearly all of “Pulp Fiction” to me, essentially saying I should see it. Years later, after I joined the Jesuits, my novice master told us all we should always see “The Matrix” since it was a cultural touchstone. I never saw “The Matrix.”
“Black Panther”? Cultural touchstone. I haven’t seen it. Area Man.
Aiden said I actually need to see, I actually should see, “Winter Light.” Bergman. It has a priest in it. He told me this by a lake in Vermont, Aiden did, in the summertime of 2016. A priest in it or someone who once talked to a priest. Something like that. I should see it.
After I told Liz I had not seen “Toy Story 3,” I feel, if I recall this right, she punched me across the face. After which did it again. I still haven’t seen it.
The video message from Erin was sent on an app called Marco Polo. Marco Polo is a thing where, uh, it’s an app where you may send video messages to people, after which they will send ones back to you. Erin sends me Polos on a regular basis. I watch the Polos. I do watch those. She’s a great Polo maker. She sends me a Polo and insists I watch “Schitt’s Creek.” (How do they get away with that title?) I haven’t watched “S—t’s Creek.” Possibly I never will. Possibly I’m totally missing out. Who knows?
A couple of months ago I had an audition for “Law & Order: Organized Crime.” If I got the role, I’d have played a witness to a murder. Then later within the show would have been came upon as having committed the actual murder. Then I’d have given evidence that implicated someone even worse than me. I didn’t get the role. But I’d don’t have any problem being on this show, and okay, even possibly watch it to see how I did.
For the reason that writing of this, I fell under the spell of a very aggressive cold, and I finally fell out of Area Man’s good graces. I watched, like, seven movies in about two and a half days. One in every of them was the cold-war thriller “No Way Out,” starring Kevin Costner. It’s awesome. He’s a powerful actor people, accept it. Y’all should see it.