• Perhaps you’ve started watching season 2 of True Detective and you are, maybe, wondering if you’re quite prepared for a full season of this much intense, cinematic brooding by flawed, haunted protagonists.
Allow me to recommend a tonic/alternative: Terriers is streaming on Netflix. This one-season-wonder was the lowest-rated show in the history of the FX channel. But it was terrific.
The character-driven, surf-noir Terriers could be seen as a laid-back cousin to the new season of True Detective. It offers everything HBO’s prestige show has, but with more schlubby charm: Seedy underbelly of Southern California as setting for Chinatown-type grand conspiracy? Check. Divorced, alcoholic, self-loathing anti-hero as protagonist? Check. A self-deprecating sense of dark humor and a bulldog named Winston? Check.
Those last two are things Terriers has that True Detective, so far, seems to lack. I think the HBO series would benefit from a dash of dark humor and/or a bulldog named Winston. But then, on True Detective, it would probably turn into a bulldog smoking Winstons, in a dimly lit bar, French inhaling in slow motion while staring into the existential abyss.
I like both shows because I like stories that give us something to ponder. But I prefer when they can do that without becoming ponderous.
• “Scientists Finally Decide Which Bit of This Weird Animal is the Head,” Ed Yong reports. The weird animal in question is the aptly named Hallucigenia, a prehistoric creature found in the Burgess Shale.
Now that our best minds have sorted out which end is which for Hallucigenia, maybe they can do the same for, say, ____________.*
• “We are up against Netflix and porn, people! The bar is low.”
• Darrell Dow shares a survey question used by fundamentalist author David Cloud for his book on “modesty,” Dressing for the Lord. Cloud asked fundie men to tell him:
“In your opinion, which of the following items of female dress cause a real potential for lust?”
- short skirts
- tight skirts
- slit skirts
- long skirts with slits to the knees
- sleeveless blouses
- low cut blouses and dresses
- tight blouses
- sheer blouses
- T-shirts
- V-neck dresses
- form-fitting jeans
- looser-fitting pants
- shorts
- one piece bathing suits
We should treat this as found poetry. I would very much like to hear this poem recited, or perhaps even set to music, by Tom Waits.
(To understand Cloud’s survey and the modesty culture it advocates, just read that phrase “a real potential for lust” in the skeeviest, lip-lickingly moist way imaginable.)
• Since I’ve already mentioned Netflix and Terriers in this post, let’s put those two things together again and say this: Netflix should bring back Terriers for a second season of new episodes. Or Hulu, or Amazon, or Yahoo! or any of the other streaming services now bringing us original content and original series.
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* Initially, I was thinking of Franklin Graham, but instead I’ve decided this should be an audience-participation, fill-in-the-blank joke. It’s non-specific enough to work for almost anyone who seems to have difficulty distinguishing between their head and their hindquarters, or between their mouth and the orifice they sit on. But it’s only really funny if we punch up — filling in that blank with the name of some powerful butthead who uses their power to kick down at the powerless.
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