Weekly Ratings Growth
SATURDAY SELECTION 2
Intro
Don't know about 'until the end of the world' and Jesse/Tulip's mutual pledge.
How about..? Until the Amazon Primetime trial is over.
When had enough -- and off.
Even so, caught a couple of Joy Division docs. On to reading Deborah Curtis' Touching from a Distance.
Next up and tears -- but have got comics -- the last Preacher is coming soon. Fourth and final season,premieres August 4th. More opportunity to meditate and scoop on the adventures of Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy.
Then there's Gore Vidal and books bought and better review some. At least take in an essay and chomp on to précis/preach. Saw one titled Pornography. That'll do. Apt spotlight as ever.
Last up is Killing Eve. Having glanced a newspaper and all about 'Eve' got on the series and ploughed through. An article about changing viewing-patterns. Referenced this all bells and whistle of a show.
And so it goes... and so it... Motivates. To splutter on about art and culture. Drives desire and purpose to gawp and ponder the creative landscape. Been avoiding all-but socio/political chatter --or-- Jesus songs.
Here be a challenge: Capacity to do half-sensible writing. On books, movies, TV, music, arty visual and... stuff. Sure know, am prone to coming over indulgent and pretentious. Costs a cringe. But... right about now, all about training for reigning and unavoidable, pull up to the bumper baby.
Exercising -- or is that exorcising? -- to strengthen up in the careless and carefree attitude department. Not self-conscious is one way to put it. Onwards and towards -- please God -- and needs for touch and transformation. Have something good to write about, and get it over, "better like".
Cracking posts out is crucial and a sign of right-living. Lots of them and quick with it. (Not like this make hard-work epic slog. Not light on its feet as shown by time spent).
A post a week is slow but territory is taken. A rather be doing something vs. nuttin' relief. A ringing away in the background is a teacher's refrain on the report and "must try harder".
Suppose... true.
Although trying isn't the biggest trouble-er, it's mode and mentality. Shying off, because ain't up and on it. Getting upright leads to being able.
Here ends the confession. For now.
Transmission of the Times
What captures the grit and guts of the UK in 2019?
Couldn't immediately put forward a band or song myself. Where be thee?
Although for a start we could take a step back and ask: What is... going on?
Through to what encapsulates any something and happening.
Ought to provoke an inevitable rocking up rise, a gushing and somewhere. A thrashing outburst. Three chords and wonderful. Drum, bass, guitars -- or dance or what-have-you. Some noisy accompaniment by young and restless music makers. Get all over 2019 and the street-life. Freedoms from oppression and downtrodden.
Any takers? Which band and when last?
June 15, 1979, Unknown Pleasures came out. Unknown-ish Joy Division did a number and some that manage not to age. Epitomise the late 70s inner-UK-city deepest undercurrents.
Turbulent, bleak. The riots in '81, a search and start pushing, two years away. By then Ian had gone and the other's new incarnation New Order, recorded one of his last lyrics which began with:
This is why events unnerve me/They find it all, a different story/Notice whom for wheels are turning/Turn again and turn towards this time...
New Order's Ceremony blazed. The post-post-punk phase gets going.
From the shock and overturning in '76, shattering understandable decades-long roots and shoots. Hottest of summers and all change. Well, some-changed, throwing away their old school and repenting. Punked the hippies into a minority pursuit.
Five years on and new musical adventures underwent a renewal. Necessary reappraisals, doors back open and wide to the always invited and crossed-over. Sifting around to re-appropriate and include past pioneers. Glam and glitter, certain 60s outfits and the older soul train, integrated into the mix. On and on...
All in time for the second decisive all-change around the corner. The club and remixing volcano erupting. Begins to burn up most of what went before it. Brewing away on NYC radio. Hits and mixes booming out on every street corner and cab. More broken down inner-city and New York. As it turned into the 80s and led out the new production, musicians and voices.
Pop hits taken and mixed in long sets for lights out and speakers up clubbing. Underground even in New York. About everyone who went was gay. Only two places: The Fun House and The Paradise Garage. Somewhere by '83, New Order slotted in for a short set. Among Larry Levan's all night through to mid-morning, lost in music extravaganza.
Martin Hannett the producer was at home with electro. Mixed in to make a new hybrid.
How about this for perspective? The once mattered charts from June 12th '79:
Top 5 LP's; ringing bells and nos.1 Anita Ward/Blondie/Roxy Music/Earth Wind and Fire/McFadden and Whitehead.
And this week's who-cares; Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber on the top slot/Lil Nas X/ Lewis Capaldi/Stormzy/Bad Guy.
Must admit liking Vossi Bop a single from Stormzy's album Gang Signs & Prayer. Today and talking, with the essential video, a song about... fun-fun-fun and for your info, named Vossi Bop from a viral dance created by a Twitter user. Begins with 'my bruddas don't dab, we just Vossi bop'.
Of course 'you can ring my bell, ring my bell/ring my bell, ding-dong-ding' sits where the bop is at.
BUT -- and not myself, a jump on at the start of Joy Division-ite -- the didn't chart, Unknown Pleasures, managed to capture the moods and hunger in their homelands. Regardless if they moves and grooves you. Their year of action, before Ian Curtis took his own life, is press-play testimony and a snapshot of a nation.
Those big-into, connected and identified. Shared recognition and response in facing social, political, and existential goings on. Not any old day and all that -- These few years, and Those times. Atmosphere and feelings. The rub and the road.
YET -- reckon '24 Hours' be my jukebox pick -- various influences and references were experiments. Some unknowing and outcomes.
Curtis and crew were all lads and beer, have a laugh. While the outside -- and not so deep impression, was much misery and think-think-think so serious. Ian read many of the authors making headway in what are considered cult literature and for outsiders.
Alone and away, in sickness, and medication-induced isolation.
Their outpouring, and for their kind. Where music mattered as a kind of redemption: Who feels it knows it. Owned and identify. Escaping into another while facing the 'other'. A journey into new unknowns and pleasures. Confronting listners with a dark beauty in earnest poetics and UK-slicing electro. Authentic and present.
Pre. escalation and get limos and the pop-world bubble where star-making disconnects and detaches. Where light and shade, more often than not, is the label and radio-wave expectation. Not crashing and chaos. Not, far as, will allow.
Comparisons and Joy Division over the last 30 years?
The conspicuous difference and by and large since? Near-on all boys in bands and make it are from the posher end of the spectrum. Whole lotta and public school, no less.
Might make some pet sounds and have credibility. What about the ragged and hustle, through genuine DIY and an indie scene. And what about angst and underbelly? Soaking in what through the years? Can see darkness but odds are, the money cushion, buys space to play.
From rougher estates, can't help but imbue the difficult. A lifting-up in having an expression in the struggle. Reckon might be hard to gig and get dangerous and disturbing. Because where oh where are such notes, chords and playing, the production and words. Full of a nowadays streets and what's kicking into collective struggles. Music to reflect and amplify. Amaze and upset. Resistance in the youth getting some edge that acknowledges and understands the rot.
1979 was about as broken-down in some respects as would get.
Hold on?
How about 2019?
Be back in the cycle. Forty years on and all the similarities in temperature.
Unmistakable and on a retrospective, might be little else that so conveys what life is/was like in the late UK '70s. Much unspoken mystery and magic. Music with attitude, which cannot help but contain a nation's unknown. Sensibility and emotion seeping into all transmitted. The very chords have it.
Classical music is famous for this.
For instance, trepidation and impending war or the aftermath. Vaughan Williams comes to mind. In the midst of the trenches and horror, came home, to bring tragedy and hope in his 3rd. With the 5th (symphony) a foreboding and then beginnings and into the next one.
Many, many, people, from all sorts of backgrounds and stations in life, could hear all this in 40+ minutes.
[Might make a note:
In the Lento, the fourth and final movement from the 3rd, there's a wordless voice or song, sung by a soprano.
In the Romanza, third movement on the 5th; 'He hath given me rest by his sorrow and life by his death' --and-- 'Save me. Save me, Lord. My burden is greater than I can bear' are the only are words. Themes used and taken from an ongoing project and an opera. First performed in 1951, The Pilgrim's Progress. Based on the book by John Bunyan.
Symphony No. 3, published as A Pastoral Symphony, was first performed, January 1922
While Symphony No. 5 had its outing and opening, June 1943
Can, and y'bet, Must, add:
These two pieces are 1. and 2. (not sure the order), the single greatest works and wonders of music. Ever I heard. Or, on the realistic, expect will.]
Transmission of the times.
Beats me why (if correct), we're treading water and asking. Where's the new-new upsetter, all the while bonded into what's happening?
Seems these days, so much is self-referential. About a lucky life and live it up. Minimal, slick, and punching beats. As is the snapping behind Stormzy.
All am trying to say; Where are the sounds and arts that might relate to the as-ever downtrodden.
[Edit/and comment later on 15/6; 'Downtrodden' is a lazy and don't say much. The 'might relate and missing ' is depths and yes, there's the down... but, it's the quest to find God, like The Preacher. Or sure God not about or what. Could be relates
The not having such a pop 'n hot time with it.
Not knocking Stormzy. Anyone. The music biz. is dreadful and a monopoly scam but even off the hits list -- who is talking the times?
Gotta stop -- could I go on.
Printed and Colourful Matter
On my Preacher frenzy and baptism and the shock of seeing what 'zines are, got heady and went crazy. Upshot and got loads and way too many, comics.
Talking The Doors and About Texas Radio and the Big Beat. Weird scenes in the plenty. The Preacher, Tulip, and Cassidy, are in how-down and apple pie country. Normality bursting out with what seems natural yet spectacular and strange.
Surprising twists of action-packed mayhem producing satire and parables. Kind of social realism that needs the cartoons to present and alt. dimensions coming out in the more open, out when called upon. The so-far quest becomes about finding God.
To make a point reminds me of Scorsese's claim. Granted the last twenty years haven't seen much from the film making of a master of old. Even so, 'Marty' has said, he does all he makes, to find/get to know... God.
As for me and this swaggering super-powers program, there's God-talk. Portrayed in all manner of not laudable. No matter, the element in questing and questioning is all, right on my side.
Word is though, and to quote a review:
'The novels are known for their extremely anti-theist slant, twisted humour, and pages upon pages of blood and sex-soaked carnage'.
Anti-theist?
Depends on what's in view? Yeah-ok; God is discovered, having gone AWOL. On the run and into manifesting in public, all creepy-like.
Along the way and episodes, been enough otherwise and not-knowing, or straight-up seeking. Plenty and balance. In moral considerations and experiential dilemmas. Dialogue, that should make us think? Platforms and springboards for conversations. Ideas and God, central to the show . What a winner.
All in all -- thus far, still with the TV series and got grace to stay loyal to the core. Not only, not bothered about the pace coming down a gear. What's critical isn't the storyline. Only how the three leads respond within. What grips and draw you in. Not so matter what they do, if consistent and honour this.
A character study and for all the scooby-doing and surreal come crackers, it's what holds the ship up.
Must say the comics themselves are a work of. Make for an easy fast-track convert. Become a collector. Reckon and realise, there's nothing like them booky and picture wise. With many at a fiver a pot, they're remarkable in their quality and value.
Original vintage works of art and literature. Teenage-looking kicks, with sophisticated humour, wrapped in clever and thoughtful dialogue. Laugh out loud and think. Marvel at the illustrations. What a combo?
The TV produced Preacher interprets and follows the comics. Although meanders off into its own versions. All seamless to me and not yet, into working out the differences. Yet, don't expect much consideration and TV vs. Printed Matter. Won't surpass the blessed paper.
Get it's difficult to compare mediums. Cameras, lights, soundtrack, dynamic acting, and script? Should knock drawings and bubble text out the park -- but ain't so, or at least never for the purist. A comic-centric type. My new found tribe.
A picture-book can carry the outrage and pathos, drama and madness, and to the max. Writing and read, taut as the restricted space demands. All satisfaction and smiles, plus the health and more, less, screen time. Where it's more 'done for us' and doesn't -- for me -- hold the comedic power like a mag.
Into and aiming hard, for a diet all about the least and little is best. Fasting and feasting. A wee Preacher comic is so brill and for keeps. In ya hands or seen on a pile, propped up or cover on the wall.
Less net and more 'other' is mucho needed, natural medicine.
Might try and do a comic review. Told someone would write on Cassidy: Blood and Whisky and able to give him the copy had -- got another.
Yep: Forthcoming and Saturday Collection. Should do each of them. Start with Cassidy.
Crime, Killing and Sex
Killing Eve wouldn't make the rare inclusion but glanced a newspaper editorial on it. About viewing habits and the revelation about TV/box sets. Produces lone riders with gluttonous appetites. Using this show as an example, the disclosure was about how many don't-wait. Once released and available in advance, all in one sitting is the oh so fashionable move. Back to back in an unstoppable gobble up.
Straight after the first one is broadcast on TV is how loads and loads do it. That night. Up all hours taking in the remaining seven episodes.
The final shaker: Alone.
Anecdotal testimony describes heaps of skiving off work the next day, after a night up on the HD -- or is that Blu-Ray?
Insatiable in wading through with the end of one taking 15 seconds to start the next instalment. Presumably compulsive and could get a self-diagnose and disorder.
In the case of Killing Eve, there are a mere ten and a half hours to conclude in one. Beginning at 10 pm after the first episode.
Sassy titles. Give 'em that:
Do You Know How to Dispose of a Body?/Nice and Neat/The Hungry Caterpillar/Desperate Times/Smell Ya Later/I Hope You Like Missionary!/Wide Awake/You're Mine.
Hooked me but knew it wasn't something would otherwise soak in. The newspaper prompted and triggered the decision.
Says:
The first season had unbroken weekly ratings growth among adults aged 25–54 and 18–49, which no other television show had accomplished in more than a decade.
Accompanying awards followed.
The latest and Series Two, described as:
Killing Eve topples the typical spy-action thriller as two fiercely intelligent women, equally obsessed with each other, go head to head in an epic game of cat and mouse.
'Topples the typical'?
Didn't get. More like, here we go again.
UK TV drama is close to always, all about cats as cops chasing mouse or mice the murderer/s. Or, at least a fixed menu of crime, killing, and sex. Power, money, and goodies; often swapping about and going baddie. For a while-crocodile or over and out? Get the bolster up, that corruption and compromise are not endemic. Or institutional, or involving, every last one of the most senior.
Always-always about the supposed intelligent and obsessed for justice going 'head to head'. With the standard and certain/most art house films fave characteristic. The blueprint and a never slipping, in a detachment and slick, Mr or Mrs Know It All.
Other derivative features are the irreverent persona. Can make it all a bit one-dimensional. On top of this, the blank and brimming, whisking about cool and cynical, gets to lack the draw, and empathy.
What-ever. Hot rocking, swish and sassy. What does strike, is the whopping estimate and doing Eve without anyone on the sofa or in the bed with you? As for up-all-night getting a box-set fix? Can do and not a problem, except and on to the next box and another and... Escalate into a subscription to libraries. Smash hits in the pop-ups, out to win new excessive hours of us.
The killing of Eve. How about John, and here comes Jane, and on, and on. A murder and betrayal fest. with clever cops all in to save the day. Real life ain't like that.
Having said, am on the lookout for a next TV Drama. Discipline being, watch it/write about, or forget it.
Balls to Gore on Porn. Will do a scoop on some article and include Vidal's essay.
Footnote with stats and sources re box set binger-ing.
The Telegraph on the 10th:
1. A Radio Times survey of television viewing habits reveals that half of all viewers have spent more than eight hours glued to the box watching the same show.
Three quarters admit being glued to the screen for more than four hours in one sitting.
2. [Another] survey of 5,500 people explored how viewers consume television via on-demand and streaming services.
The vast majority - 80 per cent - revealed they had lost sleep in order to carry on watching a series, while almost one in five admitted calling into work sick in order to continue with a box set binge.
3. On Killing Eve: All six episodes were shown on the iPlayer, resulting in 2.8 million requests before its BBC1 debut.
Postscript. This took me stupid amounts of time. Into Box Set level figures and hours. NOT my preferred way and will watch out embarking without sizing up and direction next one. Thanks if you followed along and didn't get too annoyed or irritated. This all out and blabbing personal into curbing.