The Cosgrove Conundrum

A Generational Rant

I'm watching Mad Men and it got to this episode where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was shot dead on award night and everyone was so torn up about it. It makes me think about how there are absolutely no politicians that could incite this kind of feeling in us anymore. It's just an incredibly sad contrast of our time, one so devoid of hope and pink-hued delusion about the possibility of the world being a better place or people standing up for something without an agenda. Oh well.

Post-war depression, misogyny and lack of voting rights aside, the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s had it better than us in that each of these generations had a world where they could dream about the possibility of a better world. They thought if they went to war they would change something, then they thought if they came back from war they would change something. They even went so far as to abolish war altogether, because they thought it would make a difference. We just got to the end of the stream and the color bars are rolling. This is it. The 90s had great music and great civil rights movements but I guess it ended real hope for change. We've all become too wisened to our own helplessness, and all the governments are too entrenched to budge. Well, most of them anyway. The third world is pretty much on its way down all the way to kingdom come.

Norway and all the rest don't count, part of me thinks they're not even real anyway. Maybe when you die you don't go to heaven, you go to a Scandinavian country.

The Conniver Wedding

Some Rants About HTGAWM

It's a beautiful morning. The light is falling just right through the blinds, and Ludwig is sitting there taking it in, with not a worry in the whole wide world. To be Ludwig, for just one hour.

Dusting has never really been my strongest suit

I've been watching this TV show called "How To Get Away With Murder", and I have to say I'm not a huge fan of Shonda Rhimes. I miss the days when Amy Sherman Palladino was all that. She deserved it. She wrote complex female characters that made mistakes and redeemed them. Shonda Rhimes made a career out of extorting the pull of abusive relationships through intriguing plot twists. For all I care, she's the female Alaa Al Aswany. Besides, we don't really know if she means to empower; we expect too much of the things we like, and we assume goodwill. How do we know she means to empower? She could just be building an empire out of ash; burning bridges and depending on human nature to stay around for the fireworks.

She knew what she was doing though, because it worked. She found a winning formula, that's how she made it really. Do you think people will ever evolve enough to realize that? Or do you think our feminist narrative will be stuck in that place that only gets us more seats?

I don't know why people want to sit around anyway, so I must not be there yet. I'm just not a huge fan I guess, but I do appreciate the craft.

For the first season or so, it's just a matter of segmentation really. Geographically speaking, odds are you're going to check out shooting star Annalise. She talks at just the right speed, says all the right sounding things. You can't help but to want to be her, you know? Then Ophelia gets some screen time and you're like, hot dayuuuuum, now that's a VIP if I've ever seen one.

Even before the script made her likable beyond a reasonable doubt, at that point where they had an ultimate throwdown in the kitchen that just felt out of place in the natural order of Hollywood things, I had started blaming Annalise. And it wasn't out of deference to Ophelia's old age, I've never been a proponent of that. I found myself yelling at the screen, saying hey she loved you with all her power within her own understanding. You can't blame her for that! You should know better! I guess the scriptwriters thought 80% of the segment contributing to their ratings would appreciate a little more spark; so they added a long match and some quality racial drama. It's always good to go by the book.

That always works.

I'll give it to her though. Apart from George R. R. Martin, that brilliant brilliant man who never bothered to take out the second R. of his name for a couple dozen more book sales; Shonda Rhimes is perhaps one of the rare modern authors who put time into getting you invested in hating a character. I just hope she has the foresight to turn it into something that matters by any means other than deus ex machina. I'm really tired of those, life is full of them these days. Pretty overused.

Nobody needs a manic pixie Rebecca anymore, we've all had enough of those. Puppy sells tho, so maybe I don't know enough.