Avatar: The Last Airbender (the show, not the movie) according to someone who's not watching Avatar: The Last Airbender (the show or the movie)

So Classic and roommate Jon have been binging on this Avatar shit for the past couple weeks.

I started out dreading the experience; that this show I already turned down when I was a kid and don't like now would be dominating my tv against my will. But I knew I had no right to intervene. I allowed it.

I actually kind of like it. Not that I'm watching the show anyway.

These two little kids find this arrow-headed dude in a berg of ice, and apparently that's a big deal. He can manipulate air, which frankly sounds like the worst of the four available elements (the other three: fire, water and earth).

So this Uub wannabe wakes up from his eternal slumber and starts "flying around" (he manipulates air currents, guys) on his stick that turns into a giant fan. The flying nimbus was cooler. And it turns out he owns a giant six-legged dog (they call it a bison, but, bullshit) that can also fly. This is cooler than the flying nimbus. So he flies around on it for a while to show off and then he lets them in on the shit in the world.

The four element-wielding peoples live in different parts of the world, all staying inconspicuously away from modern civilization I guess. Also, the firebenders are apparently assholes. They go to war with the other three tribes, which is understandable, because fire is bitchin.

So he gets his gang together, a dude (from the beginning), a chick who claims she's blind, this girl from the beginning (the two at the beginning waterbend) and this little pet named Momo who looks like a "monkey" from the world of Final Fantasy X and they fly around on this dog named Oppa, trying to teach the Avatar, with the arrow on his head, I think his name's Edd, like from Ed, Edd and Eddy, how to use all the different elements. Apparently once he learns everything he can stop the war or something.

Meanwhile, they take a page from The Wire's book, dropping in on the enemy, a kid with a rock for half his face and his zen, tea-loving uncle, who seem like somewhat reasonable guys. The kid has a deeper voice than all the other kid characters, showing that he could beat them all up. But these two are members of the fire tribe, so think them like D'Angelo and Avon Barksdale.

Now D'Angelo is trying to turn cheek but he sucks at it. Uh, I'm sure there's much more to this story. But this shit is kinda cool, some witty dialogue and cool fighting. Except they never kill anybody, which is totally lame.

In conclusion, Avatar: The Last Airbender (the show, not the movie) is a pretty decent show, but another in a long list of shows not as good as The Wire.

--Eliot Sill

Conor - The Wire, or Negative Side Effects Of Watching the Wire

Yes, yes. I recognize that Wednesday Eliot and I have brought up the Wire pretty often recently. I realize that you probably don't want to read a blog post that's me gushing about the Wire. This is not that blog post, I promise. The Wire is just a starting point to this train of thought.

I will start with a little gushing, though. Here's the part that's annoying. The Wire is very, very good. Expertly written, acted, paced and directed. The show is about Baltimore, Maryland, and a few good cops who are trying their best. Every season focuses on another aspect of Baltimore that is broken or breaking. Season 1 was about the war on drugs, Season 2 is an "elegy for America's working class," in show creator David Simon's own words, Season 3 is about politics, and 4 is about Baltimore's education system.

In a letter to all of the fans of the show, David Simon has this to say about the 5th and final season of the Wire. "This year our drama its last thematic question: Why, if there is any truth in anything presented in the Wire over the last four seasons, does that truth go unaddressed by our political culture, by most of our mass media, and by our society in general?"

I'm only midway through Season 2 right now, so I have no tackled the bulk of what the Wire has for me and many of the hard questions have not been asked yet, but what I have seen has already showcased the shows' heartbreaking sympathy for those without power. The camera sympathetically follows several of the drug dealers that in a normal show would function as the antagonist. These are people too. Some of them were born into the game. Some of them couldn't get out of they tried. David Simon and his team of writers give everyone dignity. Every single character on the show is a shade of gray.

But like I said, this post isn't really about the Wire. It's about the big questions that the Wire has sortof forced me to think about. David Simon says in his letter to the fans that "we tried to be entertaining, but in no way did we want to be mistaken for entertainment. We tried to provoke, to critique and debate and rant a bit. We wanted an argument." Simon and his writers wrote this article on the war on drugs that's very interesting and shows his general standpoint.

Simon did his homework (he was a cop reporter in Baltimore for a stretch of time), he saw several problems, and he's brought these problems to the attention of the American public through his show.

I feel like he's done something extremely worthwhile with his life. I'm not sure what the qualifications are to be "worthwhile," but David Simon has accomplished that.

Just watching the Wire makes me feel selfish. I feel like I'm a part of the problem. The Wire is fiction, but most of the events are very realistic. Similar things have occured, I'm sure. I have nothing to do with any of them and I can probably pretty easily ignore these things for my entire life. David Simon could have done that too.

So what can I do about it? How can I help? I don't know. I'm 19 and going to school for Music Composition. I'm not going to be a reporter and bring startling, terrible issues to the publics attention. I'm not going to be a detective and try to take down those who are harming others. I sortof want to, though.

Being a musician is a very selfish desire in that it's all basically for my own fulfillment. I want my music to be heard. It doesn't really effect others all that much. Think about it, if one single musician or band was gone, just never existed, would your life change all that much? Would you be tangibly less happy? I don't really think so. If Spoon never formed, my life would be exactly the same. Hell, if Ben Folds never made it, I'm pretty sure things would be pretty similar to how they are right now for me. So me being a musician will never really do anything for anyone. The world needs music in a very broad way, but not in a very specific way. The world does not need my music.

How can I help how can I help how can I help. I could give money to foundations that help people. This is a very easy way to feel like I'm making a difference. Here, take my money, just so long as I don't have to do more than that. I'm being needlessly critical of giving to charity and I don't know why. Obviously giving to charity is great, I just feel powerless. I want to do more.

I want to do more. I think I want to do more, that is. Doing more is actually a whole lot of work. It takes research, action, resolve. Not a lot of people do more, which is another lazy defense I can use. I'm in the majority when I ignore these things.

Which is sortof the point of the Wire. The theme by the end (according to David Simon's letter) is "how are we ignoring these things?"

I may mention the Wire a lot recently and I'm sure that's annoying, but this show is good enough to make me think about these things. It is a success. David Simon got the argument he was looking for.

But instead of acting on these thoughts I think I'm just going to watch more of the Wire.

Conor - Obsession

I am an extremely ritualistic, obsessive person. I'm cool with this, too. It gives my life order. Brings me back from the edge of chaos. 

Everyone has their default activity. In the Big Lebowski, when he's not lamenting the loss of his rug or being tortured in the coolest way possible, the Dude and his friends are bowling. That's just what they do. They're bowlers. 

What am I? Well I have many obsessions. Being a bowler makes you sound cool and focused. I don't want any of the titles that my obsessions would grant me. Most of them are really specific and geeky. Most of them I share with a group of friends or at least one individual, but some of them are personal, individual things. 

Like my BEN FOLDS obsession. Sure, I got this from my brother and sister, and my friend Griffin holds Folds* to a similar level of worship and admiration, but I keep this to myself as much as possible. I'm embarrassed, really. Normally I'm a pretty objective person, but, uh, not with this guy. Even though some part of my brain is horribly aware that he makes terrible, annoying music sometimes, I will allow none of your sass. Every year or so I'll go through a big Ben Folds phase and break out all of his piano books that I own (every single one) and spend weeks biting my tongue, fighting the urge to bring his music up in conversation. Every now and again this terrible thought emerges from some deep crevice in my consciousness and I think: What will I do if Ben Folds sucks? What will I do if one day I just take a good, hard look at the music I grew up on and based an extremely large part of my musical taste on and realize he's just not all that good? After some soul searching I decided that I will never actually have to face this crisis, as I am extremely good at lying to myself.

*hahahahahahaaaaahahaha

FINAL FANTASY. Yeah yeah yeah, I've talked about this enough. One of the thing that's so fun about my Final Fantasy problem is that I have several other friends who have been tainted with similar levels of Final Fantasy obsession and geekdom. It gives us something to talk about. It gives us something to do every night there aren't other pesky plans getting in the way.

TV SHOWS. I can hardly claim this to be anywhere near unique, but rolling through a season of a TV show I just got into in a matter of a few days is oddly rewarding. What's that? I feel sick and I'm staying home from school today, oh sure why shouldn't I watch Season 1 of 30 Rock. I watch all of Arrested Development every other year, usually by introducing it to a friend who has yet to be enlightened and then using them as a reason to watch the series from start to finish. I just started watching the Wire and I can't stop thinking about it. Wednesday Eliot needs to get his shit together and clear up his nights so we can finish season 1 with his older brother.

DINOSAUR T-SHIRTS. Why should I wear other things when I have theeeeeese

MINI-GOLF falls into the same category as RAQUETBALL, FOOSBALL, VARIOUS DRINKING GAMES, MARIO PARTY 2 and BOUNCY INFLATABLE OBSTACLE COURSES LIKE YOU SEE AT AFTER-PROMS, These can all be  accredited to the fact that I am a terribly, terribly competitive person. The O'Brien side of my family blames that on the Barnes side of my family. When asked if they are the competitive douches they are accused of being, the Barnes side of my family shrugged and kept on winning. 

That's what's up with me. I'm sure none of this is terribly new information to anyone reading this, but that's just what I was thinking about tonight. I also wanted to use this blog post as somewhat of an EXPERIMENT. In an effort to make this more of a discussion than a one shot statement to no one, I want to end with a question. Post comments about your obsessions. Write about something that you're super into, something interesting, unique, or something I/the average reader wouldn't know about you. This post will look VERY SAD if no one writes back, so have at, people. Please participate. This could be fun.