television

Wrapped in Plastic: Nostalgia, of Televised and Other Kinds

(Note: I was originally intending to write this piece for Jacob Clifton, while he was working for Screener. But a national reading competition, plus teaching three classes at two universities, plus tteaching in Dubai, plus putting my mother-in-law in one nursing home and then another, plus a depressive episode, destroyed me. If you’re an editor …

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What can serial killers tell us about artificial intelligence?

I first wondered this while watching the second series of The Fall, a challenging and unapolegetically feminist take on the now-standard serial killer drama. In it, a handsome and fit man by the name of Paul Spector routinely stalks and murders women — in between making appointments as a certified bereavement counselor, going on date …

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The (f)Anthropology of True Detective

Like seemingly everyone else watching True Detective, I had my theories about who the Yellow King was. But for me, that was of tertiary importance compared to learning the answer to another question: Why the Yellow King? (Spoilers ahead, for True Detective and Twin Peaks.)

My Favorite Things: “Kids on the Slope” and Watanabe’s canon

Kids on the Slope is slice-of-life anime, and it’s also a rare case of director Shinichiro Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop; Samurai Champloo) adapting an existing work: a manga called Sakamichi no Apollon by Yuki Kodama. Wikipedia summarizes the plot like this: The beginning of summer, 1966. Because of his father’s job situation, freshman high school student …

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