It’s gritty, it’s dark, it’s urban, it’s a blog. The Toronto Psychogeography Society has set up a website blogging about the urban walks its members have taken in recent days, warts and all. This isn’t your usual travelogue. Rust and decay is the focus here; public interaction in all of its surliness. At times it’s ugly, but just like the cities it profiles, it’s got character.
They’re still working out some design issues on their site, but you should still check them out.
A Very Good Year
It’s amazing to think, isn’t it, that at around this time last year, the television landscape looked rather bleak. :Buffy: was gone, and :Angel: was drawing to a close. Network television was a reality show wilderness, and only The West Wing offered the promise of interesting drama.
But then we saw the Battlestar Galactica mini-series, and we started to prepare for its first season. We heard news that Doctor Who had been raised from the dead by the BBC’s best writer, and we had that to look forward to. And rather than disappoint, these two shows lived up to their promise, and then some. Between these, West Wing, Kim Possible and others, I’m watching more television now than I’ve done in a while — to the point that I should perhaps watch myself and make sure that time that should be spent on writing and household chores don’t get wasted away.
I haven’t written much about Battlestar Galactica recently, mostly because I didn’t want repetitious posts of “oh! It’s so good! It’s so good!”, but it’s so good. Ron Moore and his writers know how to tell a good story, and the actors and the production crew are thriving on the material. The season finale, Cobol’s Last Gleaming, Part 2, actually came across as less heartpounding than usual (and, with the exception of the last five minutes, a comedown from the excellent Cobol’s Last Gleaming, Part 1), but that’s because the bulk of the episode was given over to setting things up for the next season. Which means payoffs, lots of them, when the show comes back. And Ron Moore has shown that he keeps his promises.
Today is the first day in thirteen weeks that a new episode of the series won’t be debuting. And, in about eleven weeks time, the first season of Doctor Who will close as well, meaning a summer drought. But perhaps that’s for the best. I can wait for these shows to come back and, in the meantime, I might actually get some laundry done.