Saturday, July 15, 2006

Thank God for bad TV


There is an old quote by Grouch Marx;

"I must say I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a good book."


I guess I'm starting to understand exactly what he meant. Since I got back to Greece I've been reading like crazy and I think part of the reason is that the TV channels have decided that as it is summer anyone with an IQ higher than room temperature is not sitting in front of their TV. If this isn't a self-fulfilling prophesy then I need to look up the definition.

Yep, we have a fine of choice of quality entertainment at our disposal, which ranges from dire Brazilian soaps, badly dubbed into Greek to endless hours of people trying to sell you rugs crafted by the simple, hard - working, indigenous peoples of ... wherever. After zapping through all this trash you just want to switch off. Well, their loss is literature's gain.

By the way I've finished The Handmaid's Tale. Now, there's a great read. If anyone in Thessaloniki feels like reading it in English, email me.

5 comments:

melusina said...

We've been watching Babylon 5 and renting the hell out of some DVDs, including the 4400, based on your review. It was really good, I was surprised - I hadn't heard of it, plus it is a USA network show, and I think they generally have smaller budgets and tend to do a bit crappier stuff. Well, they always did when I lived in America, since they are one of the "budget" cable channels. It certainly seemed they've stepped up some, because we really enjoyed the show, at least the first season. Wish they'd get the second!

I just reread the last 3 Harry Potter novels (lame, I know, but they put me in my "happy" place) since I ran out of new books to read. Went and bought a new Jodi Picoult novel tonight, we'll see if it is as good as My Sister's Keeper.

But all this is just procrastination on working on my thesis. Sigh.

teacher dude said...

If you want to borrow some of my books, feel free. What's your thesis on ?

I remember doing stuff more my Masters and even started ironing (sth I loathe with a passion) rather than sit down and write.

melusina said...

My thesis is on the call to action/motivation of the hero. I am focusing mostly on Achilles and Hamlet
It is crazy the sorts of things you will do to procrastinate - I never used to be a procrastinator in school. So strange.

Thanks for the offer to borrow books. I'm not allowed to read anything else until I make *some* headway on my thesis. Sigh.

teacher dude said...

Maybe you've started channelling Hamlet (LOL). I can't say I envy you though, writing that kind of stuff in weather like this.

melusina said...

Ah, thanks! You just gave me another excuse. I cannot write my thesis in weather like this.

Perfect! Haha