Category: To Watch

This Is Water

10 May 2013 / Anamaria

I have read/watched/listened to this speech so many times. When I find myself falling into a “I am the center of the universe, everyone else is stupid.” frame of mind, I repeat to myself: “This is water. This is water.” I remind myself to be aware; to be “conscious…enough to choose what [I] pay attention to and to choose how [I] construct meaning from experience.” ” To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded.” I think about how I want to live my life and what I choose to give meaning to and try to remember that the “really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.” All of these things, and more, are encapsulated in these three words that I whisper: “This is water. This is water.”

This speech also contains the best, most lucid argument I have ever heard for believing in God: “…in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship…is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.” (This part is not in the excerpted video version, but you can read it in the full transcript.) I am still not fully convinced, but if anything is going to tip the scales, I think this is it, because it’s true that we all believe in something and I would rather consciously choose what I believe in and not fall into belief through habit and routine.

I recently read a biography of David Foster Wallace. Of course I knew how it was going to end. Yet somehow I was still shocked when the inescapable end arrived. And I was unspeakably sad. I have purposely not read all his works so that I can save some for later, so that there can be a bit more DFW in my future.

I remember watching Yo La Tengo in concert many years ago, with Justin and other friends. It was a really lovely evening.

“It’s true. What can’t come back’s what we can’t bear to lose.”

“What made my dreams so easy to dismiss? Granted my dreams are shy, because they’re Canadian. My dreams are self-conscious and overly apologetic—they’re standing alone at the high school dance and they’ve never been kissed.”

Shane Koyczan

The Wire, again

1 Apr 2013 / Anamaria

I just recently started rewatching The Wire and I remembered how good it is and how much I love it.

Series opening scene:

Justin watched it first and kept telling me to watch it, but I could never get past the first episode. It was too complicated and didn’t lend itself to my usual TV-watching style: one eye one the TV, one eye on the computer, attention usually somewhere else entirely. The Wire demands your full attention and rewards your concentration with visual story-telling at its finest: outstanding writing delivered by brilliant actors. Needless to say, I eventually made it through that first episode and then roared through the whole series, berating Justin all the while for not having told me about this great show sooner.

In case someone out there still hasn’t seen it (what are you waiting for!?), the show’s creator, David Simon, said the show is “really about the American city, and about how we live together. It’s about how institutions have an effect on individuals. Whether one is a cop, a longshoreman, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge or a lawyer, all are ultimately compromised and must contend with whatever institution they are committed to.”

Over the course of five seasons, all set in Baltimore, the show examines various institutions and the people within them. Season 1 looks at the illegal drug trade, focusing on the police department and the drug dealers. Season changes locations and shows the “death of work and the betrayal of the American working class” as depicted by the stevedores at the Baltimore port. Season 3 looks at the city government and bureaucracy and the nature of reform. Season 4 focusses on education and Season 5 on media and media consumption.

All five seasons are full of great writing and amazing stories, with lines that stay with you long after you’ve finished watching. I’ll leave you with a few of my favorites.

The game is rigged, but you cannot lose if you do not play.
We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy’s pocket.
No offense, son, but that’some weak-ass thinking. You’re equivocating like a motherfucker.
Look, man, I’ll do what I can do to help you all. But the game is out there. It’s either play or get played.
Ain’t no shame in holding on to grief, as long as you make room for other things too.
Thin line between heaven and here.
All in the game yo, all in the game.
It’s Baltimore, gentlemen. The gods will not save you.