April | 2014 | holditnow

04/20/2014

Stay Golden: The Devil’s in the Details

Having trouble with your sliding doors? Ah jeez, perhaps a goblet of wine will calm your nerves. Along an isolated winter’s road, amongst all the clones and yellow kings at the center of a blair-witch like labyrinth sits an iron throne. When I say iron; I really mean leather and when I say throne; I really mean my couch. I am currently lost in the maze of reoccurring characters, unexpected deaths, lost souls and TV for days and days. Keeping up with the Lannisters is becoming a full time job. TV has become the mythical Hydra: lop off one head and two will take its place. The completely addictive and compelling True Detective ends and magically Mad Men and Game of Thrones are back. Throw in FX’s new Fargo and you really shouldn’t be making any plans anytime soon.

So what has all this TV consumption taught us? Well, bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people, but sometimes when you wait around long enough, bad things happen to bad people. It has also taught us that ‘even though our maps no longer show us where the dragons are, doesn’t mean that they’re not still there’. Dragons and demons are alive and well in today’s TV landscape; from the literal GOT variety to the dark whisperings of Rust Cohle and the ones Don Draper just can’t seem to shake. “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” W.S.

Speaking of devils, I’d like to take a moment and talk about Lorne Malvo played by the brilliant Billy Bob Thorton on FX’s Fargo. The series is only one episode in but the premiere offered up enough intrigue, dark humour and Midwestern Gothic to have you wanting more. Malvo perches perfectly on the shoulders of the characters he meets and manipulates their actions for his own benevolent amusement. Billy Bob plays a villain you love to love. Jack Gleeson’s King Joffrey on the other hand, is a character everyone relishes in hating. (spoiler alert*)

Joffrey’s the worst kind of devil: an idiot with power. We tend to encounter these the most in our everyday lives: horrible bosses, drug addled man-child mayors, bullies, bratty kids, corrupt politicians and so on. Four seasons in on a show with so many of the supposed good guys taking it on the chin; it was really satisfying to witness the events of the Purple Wedding*. The devil may be down but he is nowhere near out. Cut down one and more will take his place. Long live good TV.

Speaking of multiples, I have an Orphan Black marathon to attend to. No rest for the wicked.

04/13/2014

Tycho live in Toronto

So I’d have to say eye contact is pretty important. I believe it is instrumental in establishing any kind of relationship with anyone you meet. It indicates you are present and in the moment. But then again, who needs eye contact when we have phones? Seriously, nothing in the world is more compelling than that glowing screen in the palm of your hand. The entire world is only a foot and a half away at any given moment. Sad thing is most people don’t explore the entire world, they just revisit the same corner of it again and again. But what am I saying? That corner is awesome, there’s: videos of cats dressed as sharks riding on electronic vacuums, pictures of my friend’s vacations and selfies on Instagram, more of the same music I like -more than I’ll ever have enough time to listen to in a million lifetimes, texts, texts and more word-alerts about who’s where and the really important things they are doing, constant updates about that missing airplane -(what’s that all about anyway?), important notices about what celebrities got busted for being themselves and the list just goes on.

Oh, I really like this song, I’ll nod my head in time to the beat. I look up to see that there’s a live band on stage. Oh yeah I’m at a Tycho concert. I notice a bunch of people around me are taking photos with their phones, I’ll check those out later, but right now my thumb is swiping to the beat; I’m so addicted to this game.

random photo of concert found on the interwebs

random photo of the concert found on the interwebs

It sounds like they have been playing the same song all night. Good thing I really like this song. This music is making me want to dance. I look around and notice that everyone is just nodding their heads. There’s a couple of really old people at the back who are gyrating around. It’s cute. I stand and stare at the band for a while.They’re all looking down at their instruments and not making eye contact either. No one ‘s really looking at each other, but the music’s so good it doesn’t really matter. Tycho’s new album is called Awake, which is ironic because my eyes are getting tired from staring at the screen all day and because everyone here really hasn’t moved all night.

Tycho just thanked us for being such a great crowd. My phone and I had such a good time. Being at live music events, really makes all the difference in the world.