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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Open Thread

Late Night Open Thread

by John Cole|  February 24, 201412:48 am| 60 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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My buddy Shawn is back in the house and we watched some True Detective and got him caught up on that, and now am getting him cracked up on Game of Thrones, which he has never seen.

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60Comments

  1. 1.

    PsiFighter37

    February 24, 2014 at 12:50 am

    I hope that Shawn doesn’t get attached to the characters as easily as he gets attached to your cats.

    On that note, I’m going to sleep – I am blasted and have to wake up in a cool 5.5 hours for work. Yippee kai yay.

  2. 2.

    Jerzy Russian

    February 24, 2014 at 12:53 am

    Well, I have not seen either show since I don’t have a TV. I assume those slutty pets of yours are glad to see Shawn again. They know where the action is.

  3. 3.

    Bruins01

    February 24, 2014 at 12:53 am

    I am jealous of everyone who has never seen Game of Thrones and gets to watch it from the beginning for the first time.

  4. 4.

    Alison

    February 24, 2014 at 12:56 am

    @Bruins01: Agreed. And when they also haven’t read the books, I love busting out this GIF :) http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18ppzmu4p7d7pgif/original.gif

  5. 5.

    RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual

    February 24, 2014 at 1:02 am

    @Alison:

    I can’t bring myself to watch any of the series. I’ve read the first four books and picked up the fifth in paperback recently, but I somehow have a block in my mind against seeing the series. Bleh.

  6. 6.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 24, 2014 at 1:04 am

    @RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual: The TV show makes Tyrion too pretty, but otherwise it does as well as could be hoped.

  7. 7.

    Alison

    February 24, 2014 at 1:07 am

    @RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual: Why? The show is really damn good. I mean…sure, it’s not 100% true to the books, but no show or movie is, and this one is way better than most.

    Plus, I mean FFS, the CAST. You should at least give it a look.

  8. 8.

    Keith P

    February 24, 2014 at 1:08 am

    Catching him up on TD and then throwing GoT at him. Damn. And GoT’s beginning is one of the best of any HBO show – bunch of dudes getting decapitated by some kind of demon that throws one of the heads at the survivor.

  9. 9.

    Alison

    February 24, 2014 at 1:08 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: I happily accept a too-pretty Tyrion since it’s in the form of Peter Dinklage.

  10. 10.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 24, 2014 at 1:10 am

    @Alison: Dinklage is brilliant. An excellent actor who happens to be a little person as opposed to a little person who is an actor.

  11. 11.

    MikeJ

    February 24, 2014 at 1:18 am

    Game of Thrones: Bleh.
    True Detective: Wow. I watched two eps Friday, two last night, two tonight. I almost wish I hadn’t started watching it yet so I could just mainline it when it’s done. What the fuck do you mean I have to wait two more weeks?

  12. 12.

    sempronia

    February 24, 2014 at 1:19 am

    From the comments, it sounds like the HBO series might be better than the books, anyway, which are violent sadoporn for adolescent boys. I read the first book on the recommendation of someone I usually trust – I find it really discouraging that people think poorly written, lascivious trash like that is good reading.

  13. 13.

    Alison

    February 24, 2014 at 1:20 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, I’m glad this role came along to get him more notice, and I really hope it leads to roles where his size is *not* part of the character, you know?

  14. 14.

    Mnemosyne

    February 24, 2014 at 1:21 am

    @Alison:

    I love Dinklage. He swept me off my feet with The Station Agent.

    He starred in a production of “Richard III” in New York, but while his reviews were rapturous, apparently the supporting cast and staging were not up to par. Hopefully he’ll get a chance to do it again.

    ETA: Heh. The one supporting cast member who was apparently up to par? Ty Burrell, currently on “Modern Family.” Small world.

  15. 15.

    Alison

    February 24, 2014 at 1:23 am

    @sempronia: Jeez, to each their own, right? Just because it’s not to your liking doesn’t mean anyone who does like it is a twisted sicko or something. There’s a hell of a lot more to the books than the violence. If it’s a dealbreaker for you, that’s fine, but you not enjoying something doesn’t make it trash.

  16. 16.

    srv

    February 24, 2014 at 1:24 am

    John Cole’s of the Left left clinging to the collapse of liberal ideologist:

    Alec Baldwin says he’s done with public life.

    In a nearly 5,300-word essay published Sunday night on New York Magazine’s Vulture blog, the actor — who has quit and rejoined Twitter several times amid headline-making incidents — says he is ready to move out of the spotlight while also attacking the media, MSNBC, network chief Phil Griffin, Rachel Maddow and Shia LaBeouf.

  17. 17.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 24, 2014 at 1:24 am

    @sempronia: If your comment is about GoT, you should avoid the TV show. I am sorry that we disappoint you.

  18. 18.

    Yatsuno

    February 24, 2014 at 1:25 am

    Well tomorrow I start a normal human 8-4:30 schedule. Gonna miss my nights, but new better job plus higher promotion potential makes it all worth it.

  19. 19.

    Alison

    February 24, 2014 at 1:25 am

    @Mnemosyne: The Station Agent is one of those movies where if you describe it to someone, it sounds like a pile of weird nothing, and you’re like NO NO WATCH IT REALLY because it’s so much better than its plot summary can convey :)

  20. 20.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 24, 2014 at 1:27 am

    @Yatsuno: Merde.

  21. 21.

    Suffern ACE

    February 24, 2014 at 1:29 am

    @srv: 5300 words. I guess if you write a long enough rant, Shia is going to get it eventually. I’d probably start at 4200, but Alec has more restraint than I have.

  22. 22.

    sempronia

    February 24, 2014 at 1:36 am

    I think what bothered me most about GoT was Martin’s loving, entirely gratuitous descriptions of ever-more-inventive physical and sexual violence. The strong impression that he enjoyed those scenes was what really made me want to stop reading, multiple times. I’m surprised that people are inured to that degree of depravity, but then I mostly read a lot, don’t watch TV and very few movies, so maybe it’s my sense of what is considered acceptable in pop culture nowadays that’s skewed.

  23. 23.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 24, 2014 at 1:42 am

    @sempronia:

    loving, entirely gratuitous descriptions of ever-more-inventive physical and sexual violence.

    Not what most people saw. Ever read the some of the history of the War of the Roses? Or some if the ickiness in Shakespeare? Of course, Titus Andronicus contains no degree of depravity. Come on, don’t be an ass about popular culture.

  24. 24.

    Kurt Montandon

    February 24, 2014 at 1:42 am

    @sempronia:

    Uh, guess you shouldn’t bother with the Malazan Books of the Fallen. Probably one of the three best fantasy series ever written, but it lays it on pretty heavily with the physical violence (but has a much lighter touch when it comes to sex). Then again, it’s really, really well written physical violence. And really well written everything else, even if the first book is vastly inferior and stylistically different to the rest of the series, and turns a lot of people off.

  25. 25.

    Yatsuno

    February 24, 2014 at 1:47 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: Mais non. Plus no more paying to park at work. BIG plus.

    And yes I should be asleep now dammit. I blame the border collie on my bed.

  26. 26.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 24, 2014 at 1:49 am

    @Yatsuno: Parking is a thing.

  27. 27.

    Alison

    February 24, 2014 at 1:50 am

    @sempronia: Look, again, you do you, and I’m not gonna insist you read something you don;t like. But please don’t get on your high horse about it. I was a lit major who reads a metric fuckton and pays little attention to about 95% of current pop culture. Enjoying GoT is not a sign of some violence-deadened soulless moron existence. I’m also a strident feminist and I agree there is a lot of sexual violence in the books, but I don’t immediately assume an author is CONDONING everything he or she puts in his books. I mean, shit…if that were the case, basically every author ever ought to be locked the fuck up away from civil society. What gave you the “strong impression” he enjoyed that stuff? I mean, you’re basically claiming to be reading the mind of someone you don’t know and using that to pronounce judgment.

  28. 28.

    jl

    February 24, 2014 at 1:53 am

    @Suffern ACE: Didn’t Alec Baldwin do this already? He was giving up acting or something? So, who cares? If he plays himself as some touchy egocentric callous drama queen again on TV or in movies, and does a good job in the future, I guess we will all know about it.

    From his Wikipedia article, he hasn’t actually done much helpful in liberal causes since the late 1990s, and since then his public life, opther than acting, has mostly consisted of being an ass. So, good on him for making a sensible decision.

    If anyone know of Baldwin doing a lot of public do-gooding of late, let me know.

  29. 29.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 24, 2014 at 1:54 am

    @Alison: I am still waiting on a response to my question about Titus Andronicus. I have had no response. It was fake superiority; assholes are assholes.

  30. 30.

    Alison

    February 24, 2014 at 1:58 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: I mean. If we’re gonna attribute every vice and crime in an author’s works to said author’s own personality…then yeah, Shakespeare makes GRRM look like Mr Rogers.

  31. 31.

    jl

    February 24, 2014 at 1:59 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: Hell with it, go Marlowe.

  32. 32.

    Hill Dweller

    February 24, 2014 at 2:02 am

    FWIW, I thought tonight’s episode of True Detective was the worst of the series. It was so damn predictable.

    That said, it could just be a feint.

  33. 33.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 24, 2014 at 2:04 am

    @@jl: Don’t make me go all Duchess of Malfi on you.

  34. 34.

    NotMax

    February 24, 2014 at 2:08 am

    Violence and brutality has always been a total turn-off to me, even to the point of being physically sickening. The older I get, the more that deep-rooted aversion has grown.

    However that does not mean operating under the illusion it does not exist. Neither can deny that it can be a tool in both plot advancement and creating dramatic tension. Nor that others’ reaction and tolerance level varies from my own; easy to acknowledge and accept that.

    With the exception of those who revel in it or find it a scintillating rush. That I shall never understand.

    Not meant in any way to condemn or deride any of the commenters above.

  35. 35.

    jl

    February 24, 2014 at 2:14 am

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I am curious whether anyone knows of any TV or movie updates of Thomas Kyd or John Webster plays. Would be interesting to check them out.

    And Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale would make for a very subtle high minded family comedy.
    Has The Simpson’s every figured out a way to do some naughty Chaucer or Shakespeare?

    Edit: And Seneca started it all. The apparently authentic portrait bust makes him look like a pudgy perve.

  36. 36.

    seaboogie

    February 24, 2014 at 2:19 am

    @Yatsuno: I remember a few months ago when I was fired and looking for new work (now going solo as a consultant – Yay!), and a couple of the jobs that I vetted offered free parking as a perk. And not in a major city like nearby SF. I was all, WTF? I am going to work for you every day just so I can park my vehicle that gets me there for no money? I think that’s about when I started to calculate the actual costs of working for someone else, beyond the constant assaults on my dignity, sanity, and all-around value as a human being. Right then it became an exchange for half of my waking day for….what? Glad that I have enough experience under my belt for this consulting foray, and a great starting contract to launch it.

  37. 37.

    NotMax

    February 24, 2014 at 2:23 am

    Tyrone Power in a movie running in the background right now.

    Harken back to a guest on a talk show a long time ago who related the story of a bellhop inadvertently walking in on Power and Rock Hudson in bed together in a hotel room.

    The kicker was the final part: “Such a shame. (dramatic pause) Imagine the children the union of those two would have produced!”

  38. 38.

    Debbie(aussie)

    February 24, 2014 at 3:06 am

    Having a few problems with my pets, my foxies or jack Russell is suffering from bacterial dermatitis in the first instance he was given a steroids injection and an antibacterial injection(now weighs 6.7kgs),. needed as after care is bathing in a gentle anti bacterial shampoo. As he is quite old, comfort is now important
    Fry on the other hand is on weight watch7.7 in August, now 8.4on hills diet sciencefood have just started him on wellness, see how me go.

  39. 39.

    electric grendel

    February 24, 2014 at 3:48 am

    Game of Thrones: For the night is dark and full of titties.

  40. 40.

    cmm

    February 24, 2014 at 6:40 am

    John, see if you can get some video of Shawn’s reaction to that key scene with Ned.

  41. 41.

    sempronia

    February 24, 2014 at 7:57 am

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Not an asshole, just asleep over here on the East Coast.

    That GRRRRM enjoyed the violence was my impression, given the extreme and unnecessarily graphic descriptions of violence. YM obviously V, which is fine with me, because we can have our own opinions. But the gratuitousness aside, I thought the world-building was strong but the writing terrible and the plot a mess, full of threads that went absolutely nowhere. If it hadn’t been for the violence, I would have been bored and annoyed; as it was, I was bored, annoyed, and disgusted. I finished the first book to see if there was any kind of coherent wrap-up (nope) and went to wikipedia for the rest of the plot, of which there was none. Anyway, to each its own.

  42. 42.

    sempronia

    February 24, 2014 at 8:10 am

    btw, plenty of people read GoT the way I did. Ever check out the hundreds of Amazon one-star reviews?

  43. 43.

    GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)

    February 24, 2014 at 8:29 am

    @Yatsuno:

    Hey, congrats, friend!

  44. 44.

    Manyakitty

    February 24, 2014 at 8:31 am

    @sempronia: Honestly, I thought GoT was getting awfully “torture-porny” by the end of last season.

  45. 45.

    Manyakitty

    February 24, 2014 at 8:33 am

    @Debbie(aussie): Not sure if it’s the same for dogs as for cats, but I’ve heard mostly bad things about Hill’s Science Diet. My cats are all THRIVING on Wellness Core (grain-free) and I imagine the dog food is good, too. Hope the pup feels better soon!

  46. 46.

    Manyakitty

    February 24, 2014 at 8:42 am

    @Alison: YES. The Station Agent is an incredibly odd, and incredibly fascinating, very quiet movie that takes a lot of space in my head.

  47. 47.

    Manyakitty

    February 24, 2014 at 8:45 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: Titus Andronicus–> South Park episode: “Scott Tenorman must Die.” There’s absolutely a time and a place for such things.

  48. 48.

    recurvata

    February 24, 2014 at 8:51 am

    You two are some live wires man. Reunite after xx years and spend your time watching tv. Seriously, whatever makes you happy.

  49. 49.

    WereBear

    February 24, 2014 at 8:56 am

    I think everything is explained about GoT when you realize it was conceived as a reaction to all the things he couldn’t do on Beauty and the Beast, where he was working at the time. Thank goodness it wasn’t Little House on the Prairie!

    And when you consider the time period it was set in…

    Mr WereBear is a medieval buff, and it was an awfully harsh time. There was some kind of religious fever in a walled town, and when it was finally settled, the ringleaders came in for some really awful attentions. The kind where they wait for them to come to before they do it again…

    and that’s history.

  50. 50.

    MRL

    February 24, 2014 at 8:59 am

    @Manyakitty: and yet, in the books, all that gets left un-described. The horrors are essentially left to the reader’s imagination. (slight spoiler ahead)

    We just see the broken man at the end of the process. Having a character disappear for a season wouldn’t work as well on TV as it does in a book that works viewpoints the way GoT does, though. Nor does the power of imagination and inference. Instead, with over a year between appearances, people would just forget the backstory and character altogether.

    The important thing to remember is that its not like GRRM is (for the most part, at least) inventing new ways of being cruel. He’s drawing on history and literature for this stuff.

  51. 51.

    Manyakitty

    February 24, 2014 at 9:32 am

    @MRL: Fair enough. I shamefully admit that I haven’t read the books, and agree that things left to the imagination on the page do not always translate to the screen. Additionally, most of my graduate work was in medieval lit, so I know they’re not even scratching the surface of the potential awfulness.

  52. 52.

    Manyakitty

    February 24, 2014 at 9:35 am

    @WereBear: Did you see in a previous thread that some of us wondered about emergency evacuation plans for cats? I started a self-devised program involving operant conditioning, but I can see it taking 6-8 months. Any suggestions?

  53. 53.

    WereBear

    February 24, 2014 at 9:47 am

    @Manyakitty: I started a self-devised program involving operant conditioning, but I can see it taking 6-8 months. Any suggestions?

    If possible, leaving out their carriers and getting them to go there as their “calming spot” would work great.

    We know they all run under the bed, which is right by our fire escape.

    But it’s an excellent precaution, because cats have the overwhelming impulse to hide when they are in danger. If we know where they hide, we have half our emergency plan done.

  54. 54.

    rb

    February 24, 2014 at 9:55 am

    I’ve always thought that GoT has as its major theme a lot of the ideas spoken aloud in True Detective: that all of life and history is just a (horrible) cycle, that baseness and cruelty are the default human settings, that closure and happy (or sad) endings are illusions. So you can read the violence as a heavy-handed effort at realism buried on top of an expression of frustration with a genre chock full of simple-minded fare.

    At the same time, I agree somewhat with the comments above that the novels’ interest in depravity starts to feel excessive and prurient, especially in the latter books. I think this has informed the HBO series for the worse, for instance in its misguided choice to [SPOILER] spend so much screen time on Ramsay Bolton (no fault of the actor portraying him, who is nothing if not effective). Nothing about Theon’s ‘transformation’ need be demonstrated onscreen; it could be dealt with by re-introducing him in a depleted state at the appropriate time, and could even be made more shocking that way. Unfortunately, the show would never go around a body if it can instead run something through it.

  55. 55.

    wil

    February 24, 2014 at 10:00 am

    I haven’t seen the series yet, but I’ve read all the novels. I didn’t find them particularly brutal or depraved, although I have an admittedly high tolerance for all that.

    People who are getting their panties in a twist over the supposed “sexist” stuff here should check out the Gor novels of the 80s if they really want to read some sexist stuff.

    This mild stuff of the early 21st century can’t even compare to novels like “Slave Girl of Gor” and other notables…

  56. 56.

    rb

    February 24, 2014 at 10:06 am

    getting their panties in a twist over the supposed “sexist” stuff

    Without irony, I assume?

    GoT: less sexist than Gor. Is this meant as backhanded condemnation? You set the bar so low even Tommen can step over it.

  57. 57.

    wil

    February 24, 2014 at 10:10 am

    @rb: Point being that all the complaints about the series being ‘sexist’ are kind of silly. Even as a liberal, sometimes the endless cries of ‘sexist’ get on my nerves.

  58. 58.

    Manyakitty

    February 24, 2014 at 10:25 am

    @WereBear: That’s a good idea. I do that a few days before a vet visit, but there’s not a lot of space for them, otherwise. I might move some stuff around.

    Ours scatter when they hide, so they don’t help us that way at all.

  59. 59.

    WaterGirl

    February 24, 2014 at 10:35 am

    @WereBear:

    If we know where they hide, we have half our emergency plan done.

    That makes me feel a little better. After my experience of the tree crashing on the house, when they ran to the worst possible place they could have gone… I check on the kitties periodically, and if they are out of sight then I look for them until I find them.

    Just when you think you know all the hiding places, they find a new one!

  60. 60.

    WereBear

    February 24, 2014 at 10:39 am

    @WaterGirl: Just when you think you know all the hiding places, they find a new one!

    Cats are extraordinary hiders. Recently we had a home visit for elderly James which turned into “rabies shots for everyone!” Except our tortie, Olwyn, who hid so successfully the vet went away.

    I’ve since found her spot…

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