Monday, January 9, 2012

COMING OF AGE?

A couple of months back I wrote, here, about the return of Beavis & Butt-Head to MTV, & that for me, they hadn’t aged a day since the ‘90s, either chronologically or in terms of the quality of the shows.


Well, I’ve watched a few more episodes since, & there is a difference. Now, in addition to ragging on music videos, the boys also comment on clips, sometimes lengthy, from MTV “Reality” series like Jersey Shore & 16 and Pregnant. The thing is: They come across as less imbecilic, more clear-headed & sensibile, than the pathetic douchebags on these shows. Much more, sometimes. Again & again, our heroes seem to be on the verge of saying “These kids today, I tell ya…”

I refuse to insult Mike Judge’s post-modern Tom & Huck with the suggestion that they might be maturing, so I must conclude that real-life society’s sensibility has actually sunk below their mental, emotional & moral level. I suppose there are critics who would suggest that the original Beavis & Butt-Head itself played its part in this de-volution, but I think, now as then, that this is killing the messenger: Check out reality TV, especially the youth-oriented stuff, & Judge seems pretty freaking prescient.

As in 2010, this past year I kept a list of the books I read in the order I read them, not including magazine & newspaper articles, reviews, essays, poems, blogs, short stories, comic books, etc:

Democracy: An American Novel by Henry Brooks Adams

The Giaconda Smile by Aldous Huxley

Discoveries: Early Letters 1938-1975 by Robertson Davies, ed. Judith Skelton Grant

A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie

The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie

Murder in Canton by Robert van Gulik

Judge Dee at Work by Robert van Gulik

Djibouti by Elmore Leonard

Scumbo: A Novella and Stories by Barry Graham

The Willow Pattern by Robert van Gulik

Small Town by Lawrence Block

The Champion’s New Clothes by Barry Graham

There is a Serpent in Eden by Robert Bloch

The Red Pavillion by Robert van Gulik

The Slave by Isaac Bashevis Singer

The Magician of Lublin by Isaac Bashevis Singer

The Origin of Evil by Ellery Queen

And On the Eighth Day by Ellery Queen

The Captain and the Enemy by Graham Greene

No comments:

Post a Comment