Links and clips!

Um, it’s Thursday. And I haven’t watched this week’s Justified yet, and I don’t watch American Idol or Dancing with the Stars, and I thought last night’s Modern Family was really good, but am having a hard time coming up with anything more in depth than “Luke’s argument that Van Gogh painted Starry Night because aliens are watching us from above would make an excellent art history paper.” So, links!

• As a supporting piece of argument for my post last Friday on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the academic canonization of television, Slate.com has this article on the booming academic focus on The Wire. Yes, I’m sure there’s a least a little “aren’t we just so current, building a curricula around this television show” patting on the back, but for the most part, I’m still convinced that the bigger story here is how little anyone is surprised or shocked about it. The show is just that good, and it’s really useful as a tool to talk about narrative, about sociology, poverty, race, politics, education, crime, drugs, American cities, bureaucracy, the list goes on.

• And speaking of meta-discussions about criticism and high vs. low culture, there’s an interesting debate going on at the moment, that started with this pretty careless piece about why music criticism is never a good idea, and has started to garner some interesting responses. The responses are all interesting, but my favorite bit is actually a comment on this one, which points out that far from trying to kill people’s buzz, criticism itself can be a pleasurable act. This seems to be so inherently true that it’s easy to forget, but it deserves to be a part of the discussion. I mean… why else are there so many blogs? Everywhere! Spouting opinion and judgment and (very, very occasionally) thoughtful commentary! Like this one!

• Chuck ratings are not looking good. TV by the Numbers has declared that it’s officially panic time for Chuck fans, so I’m looking forward to some Subway sandwiches in my future.

• Hey, check out this (my guess is) Scandinavian guy who cloned himself and then spent a long time figuring out how to play themes from television shows!