Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Watch too much television and you will find, beneath the swirl of actors and teleplays and recaps, patterns so reliable they could serve as media lighthouses, guideposts to funnel you into the programming you crave at the moment. Fox shows tend to be gritty, whereas ABC and NBC peddle a blend of breezy and substantive. Showtime is a kind of petri dish where weird ideas germinate, and HBO–purveyor of Carnivale, my current fascination–is almost draining. Watching an episode feels like attending a seminar, you know? The one with the talkative girl in it who wears pants made primarily from hemp.
The benefit of having readership you see in person is faster, blunter feedback. Our discussions, according to Boo Bear, contain more servings of vulgarity than the USDA recommends. Pound Cake tells me the prose that fuels our evening talks borders on Victorian English. I don’t know what this means precisely, but be assured that prior to typing this I was busy snogging a toffer after giving a plate of crumpets what-for. Vulgarity is the topic for tonight. Before we dive into the subject proper, though, welcome to those both new and faithful. It’s been said our discussions aren’t easily accessible, so if this isn’t your first time here, congratulations! Medal’s on its way.
Believe it or not, “shit” appears in 14% of our discussions, and only 3% of the total post count falls into the “f-bucket.” Inexcusable, yes, but frankly these figures are a lot lower than I thought, with the 3% being a possible invitation to apply for sainthood, I suspect. What’s so compelling about these words is how they sound, the cadence they lend to a sentence. “F-bucket” or “fuckbucket”: which would you choose? The latter appeals to me because it rolls off the tongue. There’s a rhyming element to it, and the overall package is raw and punchy. But don’t worry–I’m sure we’ll either retain or lower these percentages, and the day when our discussions consist entirely of vulgarities is still far off. There just aren’t enough filthy adverbs.