Job Discussion Forums

[johnslat]

Dear Stephen,

You must forgive scot47 (and perhaps the Sheik, as well.) I can only assume that at least scot47 has spent too many years in solitude in the Kingdom to want to read about 100 MORE years of it.

Regards,
John

[Sheikh N Bake]

I know what the novel is considered. It was still boring to my undergraduate mind. I needed to git mah MIND right.

[scot47]

Undergraduate ? Shake and Bake I thought you were old and venerable like me !

[johnslat]

Dear Sheik,

"I needed to git mah MIND right."

And how's that working out for you? I'd imagine time in Saudi wasn't especially helpful in that regard.

By the way, did you ever get the chance to read that Sopranos' blog about the final episode?


Dear scot47,

"I thought you were old and venerable like me !"

One out of two ain't bad.

Regards,
John

[Sheikh N Bake]

Ha ha, well, my undergraduate days were in the late '70s. And I was a nontraditional student in my late 20s even then. That's when I read the novel in question which, as 007 has so insightfully and from his own limitless fount of knowledge pointed out, employs a kind of magical realism in its prose. But at the risk of sounding pretentious, I really enjoyed Crime and Punishment and Tolstoy's short stories. The two authors were not difficult at all, I felt. I took a lot of lit courses but was not, as a journalism major, required to take them in any particular systematic fashion. Obviously, journalism majors should read a lot of good literature, however. At least that seems obvious in the US univ. system. News and feature writing and editing went without saying but a year of that was sufficient...in addition to such gems as journalism law which required me to go play courthouse reporter and cover a really fat lady defendant who had hidden her drugs in "body cavities."

What's the moral of this post? Call it New Journalism, call it free association, call it stream of consciousness, call it pretentious incoherent ramblings of an old geezer-Art Buchwald-wannabe in the Tragic Kingdom..."as you like, teacher."

[scot47]

........ala kaifak, ustaz !

[Sheikh N Bake]

As for the probable demise of Tony Soprano, yes, I read some of the article and found it overworked but plausible, very plausible. I have all episodes on dvd so I must re-watch the final moments. POV is certainly a compelling argument if it's as obvious as the article claims and if the article isn't too overblown and taking itself too seriously. As The Guardian in Britain gushes, The Sopranos is the finest TV drama ever made,...but I need to remind myself it's not Citizen Kane. However, stack up seven or eight hours of Sopranos episodes against the Godfather trilogy and the former wins hands-down in compelling comedy, social drama and goombah thrills.

I posted this little thing about Edie Falco online some time ago and now I can't find it anymore, so here it is copied and pasted:

I watch the Naples episode of The Sopranos for probably the sixth time and am convinced more than ever that this is the finest television I�ve ever seen. I am awestruck by Edie Falco�s kitchen scene (and hallway departure at the end) with Aida Turturro (�Janice�). Janice goes on one of her wildly pretentious, condescending rants about the inadequacy of Mafia momma�s-boy manhood, including her brother, Tony Soprano. Carmella reminds her that she�s one to talk, having recently thrown her flab at the despicable, repulsive Richie Aprile. The final bit of dialog [Jonavotti�s �Piove� playing in background] goes something like this:
Janice: Carm, Richie, because of his life experience in prison, he�he has a sensitivity to the plight of women.
Carmella: Oh my God. [laughs heartily]. I am not even going to touch that one. But you had me going there for a while there, you really did. Oh, Janice, honey, I gotta love ya. Rick?�[laughs].
Carmella walks away from the kitchen at this point, and in an eight-second close-up as she pauses, her face becomes a study in great acting, in subtle nuances of transition. Her grin is set on cruise control, but those eyes tell you four stories. Showing genuine laughter at first, they morph into the merest hint of self-doubting introspection (Is Janice right, am I nothing but a pathetic goombah housewife?) then yield to yet a third look of �f**k it, Jan�s the screwed-up one, not me. What a hoot.� Yet at the same instant the eyes exude some kind of miraculously sincere warmth behind it all. All in eight seconds. Hand it to director TimVan Patten, he knew brilliance when he saw it, and brought out the best in Edie. Small wonder she got the burger-biggie awards recognizing her as the finest actress on television�ever.

[scot47]

Am I the only English teacher who has NOT seen "The Sopranos" ?

[Sheikh N Bake]

May I enquire as to whether you are armed? You are unarmed? Good. Then let me say...you are CULTURALLY DEPRIVED!

My divinely beautiful and angelic Vietnamese-American woman physician in Houston had not seen any Sopranos either but I was too busy being boyishly enthralled by her full mouth (which unfortunately has no more likelihood of coming close to my person than does my being offered a part in a Sopranos movie) to tell her she was culturally deprived.

[johnslat]

Dear scot47,

Maybe - and it really is (or rather was) an extremely well-written, beautifully acted series.
Twenty-one Emmy Awards (111 nominations) ain't bad:

"It was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in every eligible year and won in 2004 (as the first series on a cable network) and 2007. It also won five Golden Globe Awards in 23 nominations, including a win for Best Television Series � Drama for its first season in 2000. The series was honored with two consecutive George Foster Peabody Awards in 2000 and 2001 and also won several major guild awards (Directors, Producers, Writers and Actors) in addition to numerous other awards.
Lead actor James Gandolfini and lead actress Edie Falco received the most nominations and wins of the show's cast members, including three Emmy wins each in their respective categories. Series creator and show runner David Chase also received numerous awards for his work on the show as a writer, director and producer, including three Emmy wins for writing."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_The_Sopranos

Regards,
John

[veiledsentiments]

[johnslat]

Dear veiledsentiments,

Hmmm - maybe its an American "guy thing."

Regards,

John - an American Guy

P.S. My wife wasn't crazy about it, either. Good thing we have two TVs.

[007]

Well, don't you know that Uncle Scott is an anti-American Cultural Imperialism!

Uncle Scott, unlike Sheikh Nano and John, is not an 'inocent' victim of the internal American cultural imperialism!

[johnslat]

Dear 007,

In order for "American cultural imperialism" to succeed, all that is necessary is that large numbers of people all over the world have the same sorts of tastes in "culture."

I would add, however, that what "American cultural imperialism" exports has, like the "cultural exports" of any other country, both its good and bad aspects.

Regards,
John

[Sheikh N Bake]

The Sopranos is much more than Mafia-related. And you couldn't pay me to watch frigging Oprah and CERTAINLY I don't need her to recommend memoirs and novels to me.

Acting and storyline of the caliber we are talking about are not the sole province of "a guy thing." My Asian wife loved the show too. You know what? I once had a Pakistani girlfriend who loved the Three Stooges...and she had a PhD. Ruminate THAT.

I don't see any US soldiers holding a gun to anyone's head to watch anything American on TV or scarf down a cheeseburger...or clam chowder, for that matter. "Cultural imperialism" is simply a marketplace. There are more Chinese restaurants in the US than there are burger joints, from what I've read. That's because the food is popular. In a country where people feel culturally more secure, they do not feel threatened by the popularity of a Chinese buffet, nor by the appearance of a movie with subtitles. By the way, according to another statistic, the country where McDonald's is most popular outside the US is...France.