In a recent NPR piece TV critic Eric Deggans cites shows like "Hell on Wheels," Sons of Anarchy," "Dexter," and "Breaking Bad" as evidence of a proliferations of television programs featuring "characters the audience likes and wants to see succeed, even though they act an awful lot like villains.
“Translation looks two ways.
I won't pretend like I trust or respect political art. I think it's inherently suspect. Which is not to say that art cannot have a powerful galvanizing effect on politics, or that it cannot be great art.
I have an idealistic view of what it is to have a career. I like to imagine that people are careful about choosing a life's work. I like to think that pointless activities -- while key to recreation -- are banished from the world of work. Unfortunately there is a sharp rebuke to this idea. In a word: Politics.
I can attest to the fact that it's rough out there for recorded music. As some of you may know, I founded and run a record label. As of about six months ago I was running another one as well. And about two months before that I was still lending a hand on a third label.
In the overmediated age we find ourselves in, I have a kind of kneejerk negative reaction to the entire notion of the recluse.
« Pourquoi donc y a-t-il des fleurs ? » Pourquoi ? Pour rien. Parce que. La beauté des fleurs est là, c’est tout. Pour rien. Et sûrement pas pour nous. Mais voilà : nous y sommes sensibles, et cela, ce n’est pas rien.
If you help your team win a match by deliberately breaking the rules, as Luis Suárez did last week, are you a hero or a cheat? I think a cheat, but let me say why.
