blinkit

Government goes insane on MP3s; raving about The Wire

Today's bLINKit: The federal government wants to give border guards (and police, too) the power to search, without a warrant, your laptop or iPod for copyrighted material. At their discretion, the guards can determine if your copy of "YMCA" on your MP3 player is illegal and have the power to confiscate and/or destroy it and fine you. As if they don't already have enough to do at the border in keeping out terrorists and diseased fruit. The kicker: The government is negotiating these kinds of insane powers in secret.

WMD: In my continuing campaign catch up, I go back to the middle of March, when I penned this ode to The Wire (aka best show ever):

This past Sunday, one of the few reasons to watch TV finished an extraordinary run. The Wire--perhaps the best American television storytelling ever--finished its fifth season, and I am sad. Its absence is enough to make me go back to reading. Or staring at the wall.

I recently upgraded my basic cable television to the full "classic" channel lineup from Shaw. I felt lonely with basic cable, flipping up the channel lineup to hit a ceiling at channel 28 (the handful of French-language and public service channels past 100 don't count, since no one ever watches them). Thanks to my expanded lineup, I can now surf up to channel 57. And what do I get with the extra channels? Every CSI episode ever made. An endless parade of Second World War shows. Guys blowing stuff up. Women trying on dresses. Every Law and Order episode ever made. Chefs swearing. Faded celebrities pretending to be in "reality" shows. Cheesy, made-up documentaries about porn. Every Star Trek episode ever made. I like Star Trek, but that's my own special problem.

Thank God for The Wire. More novel than television, it was one of the few popular forms of art, outside of the films of John Sayles, that tried to tell the story of American society as it really is. With a huge cast and slowly moving and intricately overlapping storyline, its main character was a dysfunctional, socially shattered city. Its lessons: America's institutions--including schools, the police, civic governments and corner drug gangs--stomp on individuals, reward the craven, punish the daring, mock the honest, and make victims of the innocent. All with a large dose of chance and circumstance happening to all. Its other lesson: cops drink a lot.

No one creating TV has loved a city more than the creators of The Wire loved Baltimore. Their fondness was obvious in the use of the city's rich dialect, which when watching DVDs of past seasons, had me using subtitles on occasion to figure out what some of the characters were saying. But now I be with my people. You feel me?

No one doing TV has also done more to lament and chronicle a city's decline. The first season covered the futility of the war on drugs. The second season examined the decline of traditional industry, and the powerlessness of American unions in the face of globalization. The third season imagined a failed experiment in harm reduction, and the fourth instalment took us into the inner city schools, where inflating statistics to increase government funding trumped teaching.

The final season wobbled with its underwritten storyline about the death of American newspapers. But it hit home, powerfully so, with its season long theme of truth and deceit, and how while everyone who holds power knows the truth, deceit is often the more expedient route as large, self-serving insitutions rumble and jockey for position and grind up people between them. For many, lying is the enriching choice.

Few shows have dealt directly with the constant institutional lying that marks modern urban life, and perhaps make it possible.

The dialogue in Sunday's finale tells it best.

"I always wondered if they'd get their shit together," says one character after he expresses surprise at how long it took authorities to uncover his corruption. "But that's Baltimore, isn't it."

And this from a lawyer when her career is on the line, and her superiors have the upper hand: "You know the weight will not fall on them. It never does."

Or this from a drug dealer, pointing a gun to a rival's head: "There ain't no nostalgia to this. There's just the street, and the game, and what happened here today."

And finally, from the city editor of the ficticiously rendered Baltimore Sun newspaper, which features prominently in the final season: "I remember clean." The silent smile on a colleague's face said it all.

The Wire was created by a former journalist and a former cop-turned-teacher, all professions which have both a public service component and systemic pressures that compete with the ability to perform public service. The one legacy of the brilliant, and often very funny show they created can be boiled down to this: Do you tell the truth about the system, or do you go along, telling yourself you'll do the best you can in the circumstances. In the two-hour finale, one constant refrain was heard from various characters as they did a careful dance with truth and power: "Keep my name out of it."

If you live or work in Vancouver, or just about any city anywhere, you've heard that line before.

Nervousness and No. 6

WMD: My interview with Tricia Helfer, better known as No. 6 on BSG, here rendered in my column:

Down-to-earth star committed to work, fans, and cats

From an Alberta farm to a faraway galaxy

Barry Link, Vancouver Courier

Published: Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Near the beginning of our interview in a downtown Starbucks last week, Tricia Helfer couldn't stop scratching her leg. "Sorry," she said self-consciously, and followed up with a quick laugh.

Helfer, a part-time Vancouverite best known for playing the steamy robot chick Cylon No. 6 on the critically acclaimed and locally shot Battlestar Galactica, was just a little bit nervous. That's when I decided I liked her.

It's admittedly not hard to like the 33-year-old Helfer. Life has been almost too good to her. An impossibly attractive five-foot, 10-inches, she stumbled as a teenager into a modelling career that took her around the world. Later as an adult, she started a second career as an actress by risking everything in a move to Hollywood and quickly landing a key role on one of the most talked about television shows of the past decade. She's smart as a whip, happily married (to a Los Angeles-based lawyer) and is building a vacation dream home--off the grid, of course, as an example of environmental responsibility--a tractor sprint away from the Alberta family farm where she grew up and to which she maintains close ties. She also rescues and adopts cats.

She's personable, in the forthright way that girls who grow up on farms can be. She's got acting chops that have yet to be fully appreciated. And her nervousness, while reassuring to my own nerves jangling with the reality of talking to a hot actress in a public place, was a sign she took the interview seriously. That marked her as an honest professional, which, combined with her emerging talent, makes her worth watching.

Helfer returned to town last week from her California base to promote the film Walk All Over Me, a Robert Cuffley-directed black comedy in which she plays a Vancouver dominatrix whose tightly bound world is undone by the arrival of a would-be younger protege. BSG fans, who range from traditional science fiction geeks to such decidely non-geek bastions as the New York Times, would say her latest role is a natural progression from her TV character. Played by Helfer with a liquid sultriness and a reservoir of sadism simmering below the surface, Cylon No. 6 is the prototypical S&M domme, alternately seducing and bullying a hapless scientist into betraying humankind. This sense of Helfer has translated into much of the media coverage surrounding the film's release--as if latex was her best and only fit.

But in BSG, Helfer's No. 6 is a conflicted soul who demonstrates surprising moments of remorse, characteristics brought alive by the actress as much as they're suggested by the writers. Helfer accomplishes similar complexity with her role in Cuffley's film. The easy choice, she said, would have been to play up the role's sexuality. "I played Celene," she added, referring to her character who we never see nude or with a client and whose profession is used largely as a plot device and not an opportunity for gratuitousness. At the start of the film, Celene, initially seen in a black wig that's almost in deliberate contrast to the platinum blonde of No. 6, is firmly in control of her work and what she calls her "life plan." By the end of the movie, she's at the mercy of fate and dependant on the resourcefulness of others. Her Cylon cousin is in a galaxy far, far away.

Helfer is proud of Walk All Over Me but agonizes about its traditionally meagre Canadian promotional budget. It's not the first indie film she's appeared in, and by her account, it won't be her last. She's eager to promote Canadian films and thinks it's a shame Canadians don't support more of their rarely observed indigenous cinema.

Helfer is also refreshingly invested in her BSG mainstay. Far from delivering William Shatner's infamous "Get a life" line from Saturday Night Live, she enjoys meeting fans of the show. Their intelligence impresses her. They, in turn, would be impressed by the intelligence and passion with which she discusses the series. She loves to talk it up, analyzing which season was strong or weak or revealing how members of the cast hold detailed discussions of some of the show's science fiction concepts.

Helfer's future after BSG, which enters its final season next year, is indefinite. She plans to continue acting, and eventually producing, with Cate Blanchett as her role model of a character actor who can take lead roles. The construction of the Alberta vacation home may be turned into an environmentally based reality TV show, and there are talks with agents and directors about other projects.

Whether Helfer's nervous about her future, I couldn't tell. If she is, it's a good sign.

blink@vancourier.com

Baby, it's TV!

WMD: I have a few hazy memories of being a toddler. They're mostly random mental images: the face of my family's housecat looking as big as lion; tap water dripping into a sink; standing up in the front seat of the car with my mom and dad as we drove up a hill to our new home. Note to child welfare police: this was years before child safety seats -- or seatbelts.

What I don't have in the memory bank for my baby and toddler era are any images of watching TV.

That's why I'm elated that a new channel debuted in Canada devoted exclusively to Canadians under three year of age. Called BabyFirstTV, this U.S.-based network features 24-hour programming of "multilayer content that is adaptable to all levels of a baby's development," according to the channel's website. It's about time for this channel, because no baby should go through the hell I endured without multilayer content.

Just the other day, I met a 14-month-old toddler, brought by her parents to an office barbecue, who convinced me today's babies are crying out for their own television channel.

"I'm very excited by the appearance of this new broadcast environment," she said. "It's time my demographic was exclusively catered to. Traditional children's programming is for an older generation of kids--those who have acquired early language skills, a sense of self and a potty training seat. Blues Clues and Dora, that's your older sibling's TV. They just doesn't get who we are."

At least I think that's what the toddler said. She had her finger up her nose the entire time we talked.

But she has a point. Babies need to look for hours at images of things that aren't really there. It's vital to their development. The ability to stare blankly at a flat surface was a survival skill early humans were eager to teach their young. Consider the 15,000-year-old, paleolithic cave paintings in Lascaux, France, famous as some of the earliest known art created by humanity. On the cave's walls are thousands of realistic images of animals that had possible religious or mystical importance to the people of the time. And in the corner of one wall, archaeologists have discovered a rendering of a fluffy sabre tooth tiger kitten playing with a primitive ball of yarn. It's Baby's First Cave Icon.

Turning babies and toddlers into TV zombies is eminently practical. For the first year, babies stay in one spot unless moved to another spot by a helpful adult. They need something to do besides endlessly demanding food and hugs, so hours of TV is a natural fit. And when they become mobile and start roaring through the house carpet-bombing the carpet with organic IEDs, they need to rest--ideally for most of their waking day--and focus on hypnotic cartoon images of birds, butterflies and the making of things out of Playdo.

BabyFirstTV says its programming offers "interactive tools to help babies and parents learn and play together." It's sad but true: The parents in our office regularly come to work, curl up in a fetal ball under their desks and rock back and forth quietly singing the lyrics to "Baby Beluga." Clearly, they need better interactive tools.

Promised programming on BabyFirstTV includes Harry the Bunny, about a rabbit who "teaches exciting things to young viewers;" Foodie Fables, which showcases animals made out of fresh fruits and vegetables; and the destined to be popular suite of shows that include Flow, Wave, Kaleidoscope and Sandman. According to the website, they're meant to help with naptime. A side bonus: they instill an early appreciation for Pink Floyd and corn chips. But these American titles pale in comparison to the offerings on yet another baby-centric TV channel, Baby TV, available in Europe. It features shows that appear to be borrow from French New Wave cinema with titles like Mixed-up Mary, Whose it? What's it? and the disturbing sounding Booby and Booba.

My personal favourite is "Spiritual Baby," in which a baby interacts with the natural world and receives "in return warmth, affection and satisfaction." It's meant to stimulate the "spirituality inherent in every child." Amen to all that. Nothing is better than to teach kids to interact with nature, which as we all know is warmly spiritual. I'm already emailing Baby TV in Europe to see if I can buy DVD versions of their episodes "Baby Gets a Hug from Katrina," and "Southeast Asian Tsunami: Whee whee!" It's the love I missed when I was two.

24 Watch: finale (warning: spoilers)

24 Watch: Some 24 fan. I didn't know the series wrapped up with two back to back episodes a week ago Monday, so my plans to watch the final episode "live" yesterday, as opposed to downloading later, went awry. So I'm catching up on the rest of the world. And my take on how it ended? Bland. The sense of expectation for an exciting finale on an oil rig wasn't fulfilled, and stuff like a character's pregnancy was obvious a mile off. Season 6 unfortunately went the way of Season 3: it had no compelling bad guy (s), no sense of imminent threat after the nuke went off, and didn't know how to sustain a whole narrative through 24 chapters. I'm not saying it's easy, and my heart goes out to the writers of this show, but this season, which began so well, went off the rails perhaps even more so than the lamented Season 3. And the constant recycling of motifs and arcs (Jack goes rogue and knocks out his friends, Jack receives secret help, Jack comes back and everything's OK again, Jack goes rogue again and shoots one of his friends, etc.) didn't help, although I appreciated the side turn it took from torture this time around (on the bad guys, at least, it didn't work very well). Better luck next day/year.

Jack also borrowed two more guns and a helicopter to round out his exploits this season. He also rescued one more person. And while it was hard to tell with everything blowing up, I'll give him seven more kills. His total tally this season:

Items stolen or "borrowed:" ten guns, one keycard, two cars, one van, one SUV, one helicopter, five cellphones, one shirt, one house, one electrical cord ripped from lamp, one plastic bag, one towel from bar, one autistic brother

People rescued: 250,013

Bodycount: 44

BlinkitTV debut on YouTube: Hit Me With Your Best Chop

Today marks BlinkitTV's debut on YouTube (along with about an estimated 100,000 other people today ...) with a short parody doc. I created it out of footage I shot using the video function of a Canon point and shoot camera. It was the day before the Christmas break, our work was done, and my colleagues were engaged in a little "housecleaning." This is the story that came out of it. Other segments came out of stock non-royalty video clips. Software used for this production was Magix Movie Edit Pro 11, a great, underestimated and powerful German-made program, and ACID Music Studio 6, a robust and easy to use looper and studio. The music came from various ACID loops.

24 Watch: slam bang

24 Watch: This season seems to want to end in a bloodbath, at least for the bad guys, who are losing red shirts left and right to Jack's wrath. Last week's bodycount was seven, and Jack borrowed two guns. This week, he takes a breather, and leisurely knocks out two more CTU guys trying to rein him in. One more episode to go, and considering the oil rig location, it looks to be a James Bond-villain hideout sort of ending. Prediction: dad will escape, nephew will be rescued, Jack will be annoyed and lonely.

Lost watch: Just when I was dumping on the show, it's come back with several well crafted episodes: good writing, real advancement both in the plot and in our understanding of the back story. But the new information must be taken in context, because Lost still has told us nothing about the truth behind the island because the producers and writers clearly don't know. Consider: in the very first episode of season one, we learned the castaways were marooned on a dangerous and really weird island. Three seasons later: we learn the castaways are marooned on a dangerous and really weird island.

Veronica, RIP: Veronica Mars is history, killed in its third season. I saw that coming. It was too smart for its own good, and too odd. Combining the witty banter of Gilmore Girls, romance plots involving rich, lonely kids from The OC, the creepiness of Twin Peaks and detective plots from The Rockford Files, it appealed to no single identifiable demographic. That made it a great show. It also made it a show without a natural audience. I for one wish it had dealt more with its early hints of class consciousness, which it soon forgot as soon as the story moved into university. And why the names? Mars? Neptune High? Pirate Points? And why the use of primary colours (red, green etc.) shining through stained glass in so many of the sets? I want to know what it all means.

Jericho, RIP: It, too, gone, nuked by CBS. Oh well.

Today's bLINKit: Grammar Girl, a short, punchy podcast each week about grammar, usage and writing. If only everyone listened.

Second wave, day two: watch your garbage

WMD: Another pest control guy was here yesterday. This time, he was here longer, which I hope is a good sign. And since the new spray, there's been no sign of the little nasties since their reappearance a few days ago. I'm not holding my breath, since I've been down that road before. Oh wait: the apartment was sprayed. I am holding my breath.

One thing I've learned is to watch what you throw away. This domestic disturbance has been an opportunity for spring cleaning, as I've gotten rid of stuff that I don't need and that may be either harbouring or attractive to the bugs. Case in point was an old small bookshelf that I had recently put in my closet to hold all the Ziplocs that contain my clothes. The day before the recent spray, I took it apart out of curiosity and discovered, of course, a small colony of bedbugs (about half a dozen tiny ones) on its underside. Since I don't need it, I threw it out. But when I went to the garbage bin in the alley way less than an hour later to throw out regular garbage, the shelves were gone. I encountered similar experiences when I first tossed out stuff before the first spray: anything I put into the bin was either sorted through or taken away within 30 minutes of it being placed there. And yet I never saw a single soul in the alley. There's two lessons here: first, watch what you throw out. If you include any personal papers, even letters and old bills, shred them beforehand to avoid any possibility of identity theft (paper documents are the main source of identity theft, not online hackers). And second, there's a whole ecology to this city that the mainstream of society never sees: small armies of binners and garbage raiders who prowl the alleys, largely unseen, and live off what the rest of us cast away.

Jericho Watch: The season finale of Jericho, a drama set in the U.S. after it's been attacked by terrorist nuclear bombs, produced the best TV line of the month: "I'm about to go to war with Newburn, Kansas, home of the nearest Costco. Today's about as weird as I can handle." And then the show killed off a major character. Also its best actor. We'll see if it survives the loss, let alone gets renewed for the fall season.

Today's bLINKit: Corey at Scratch Factory takes on Hollywood for calling Canada the world's biggest haven for movie pirates. (The people who video films in theatres -- not the guys with the peg legs and parrots.) He also takes a whack at bad reporting. I'm with him.

24 Watch: Family plot

24 Watch: The lacklustre coda of a struggling season picked up a bit, as the family theme of this season returned with a vengeance. Once again, there was plenty of been there, done that, as CTU turned out to be ridiculously easy to attack. You'd think they would have learned from the gas attack a few years back. Or the bomb attack way before that. Or the 16 times throughout the past decade in which Jack has escaped from a CTU cell and knocked out all the guards. But nope: no learning from experience here. And no one seems to have realized there's a sewer underneath the building. On the positive side, a heroic death for a minor and annoying character, although on the emotional punch scale of secondary character deaths (1 being a tactical team member, 10 being poor Edgar), it was barely a 5. And Jack, knowing this is ratings month, had plenty to do again, as we knew he would. Borrowed items: one pistol, one automatic rifle. Bodycount: four. And he was just getting started ...

Movie recommendation: The Queen. As good as people said it would be. But while many people said it made the Queen (the real one) look bad, I thought she came across quite well as the only person in a screwed up family with the brains, courage and heart to break with her own upbringing, culture and temperament to adapt to changing circumstances. The film's essential lesson: It can't be easy being the sole homo sapien in a family of freaks.

Correction: 15 viewers

The number of viewers for the test Caspercam was 15 at last count, with a total of five at any one moment. Not bad for watching a sleeping cat.

Wow! It's a hit!

Within five minutes, the test Caspercam had FIVE viewers. OK, one was me. But that was five people, at any one moment, who were wasting their time watching Casper nap, chase a string, nap, yawn, nap, look at things off camera, nap, wrestle with the blankets, and nap. You can't beat that for entertainment value. Thanks for watching. I'll try this again soon, hopefully with new and improved content.