Sunday, September 25, 2005
Short TV Blog
The Friday Geek shows on the SciFi channel are out of new episodes until January. Battlestar Galactica continues to kick ass, with a particularly strong finish, Stargate slowly sinks into shark infested water now that the sexy Brit woman (Claudia Black) is in another galaxy, and Atlantis limps along with the most interesting thing about it being guessing what race the new guy, Ronon, is (I say white, maybe with some Polynesian mixed in).
I'm catching up on old Deadwood episodes which I believe (early in the second season) are near masterpieces of writing.
But the real talk of the town is Rome, which just keeps getting better and better. Although I was not particularly keen on it, there was full frontal male nudity, as Mark Anthony "bathed" while begging and badgering Lucius Vorenus to come back (he demurs). This needs some explanation. Although the Roman public baths are famous, there was a missing ingredient. Soap. The Romans never got around either to inventing or importing soap, lye soap, the type they're selling in Fight Club, where it's made from human fat. That's a problem for true cleanliness. Instead, the dirty Romans got to sweating in hot pools or rooms, did some exercise too, and then got oiled and dusted by slaves who then squeegied off the resulting mud with a curved bronze instrument called a strigil. Doesn't sound all that cleansing to me. Anyway, that's what's happening to Mark Anthony standing naked in the courtyard. Just so you know. (Although he apparently was a switch hitter sexually--not that there's anything wrong with that).
Historical heads-up. He marries (and then abandons) Octavia, the hard-luck daughter of Atia. It's years down the road though.
Telling the future through interpretation of the flight paths of birds is called augury. Telling the future through the inspection of the inner organs of a beast is called haruspication. Rome shows augury to be a complete fraud despite being showy, pretentious and state run (or maybe because of that). I'd guess for symmetry they'll have the haruspication about Niobe's secret and her husband's wealth really predict the future.
I'm catching up on old Deadwood episodes which I believe (early in the second season) are near masterpieces of writing.
But the real talk of the town is Rome, which just keeps getting better and better. Although I was not particularly keen on it, there was full frontal male nudity, as Mark Anthony "bathed" while begging and badgering Lucius Vorenus to come back (he demurs). This needs some explanation. Although the Roman public baths are famous, there was a missing ingredient. Soap. The Romans never got around either to inventing or importing soap, lye soap, the type they're selling in Fight Club, where it's made from human fat. That's a problem for true cleanliness. Instead, the dirty Romans got to sweating in hot pools or rooms, did some exercise too, and then got oiled and dusted by slaves who then squeegied off the resulting mud with a curved bronze instrument called a strigil. Doesn't sound all that cleansing to me. Anyway, that's what's happening to Mark Anthony standing naked in the courtyard. Just so you know. (Although he apparently was a switch hitter sexually--not that there's anything wrong with that).
Historical heads-up. He marries (and then abandons) Octavia, the hard-luck daughter of Atia. It's years down the road though.
Telling the future through interpretation of the flight paths of birds is called augury. Telling the future through the inspection of the inner organs of a beast is called haruspication. Rome shows augury to be a complete fraud despite being showy, pretentious and state run (or maybe because of that). I'd guess for symmetry they'll have the haruspication about Niobe's secret and her husband's wealth really predict the future.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 10:59 AM 
