Six Feet Under Finished in US
Its been a top 4 search term on technorati for last 72 hours or so.. I've read the 'professionals' : NYT, Boston, Salon... even MSNBC.. and many blog entries... Brenda is an Australian actress OF large repute (Rachel Griffiths) so we have always had a connection from the beginning ("Australian girl makes it in American TV/Beauty..").
What Alan Ball created OVERALL (and I havent seen any of last series/episode, which is supposed to be better than the 'Lisa' period last season) is amazing TV. Forget the term TV, Internet etc.. POWERFUL. Not since I was in high school and 'Northern Exposure' was on the box (Joel Fleischman and his Indian assistant lady) have I got the chills as I have in various times with Six Feet Under. I liked the Truth as a Hammer approach. It's a post-Seinfeld, post-Reality TV (post-blogging ?) world ("desensitised micro-niche cynical time poor m/seth influenced audiences etc"), so a show like Six Feet Under to hit a 'chord' / 'make a difference' etc needed to employ its "quality family soap opera meets brutal postmodern life" (yes billy wants to not just bang brenda he wants to live happily ever after the sick bastard - As a post Lonely Planet oeuvre I loved the whole LA vs Seattle, Nate vs Lisa, Brenda's Parents amorality vs Fischer purity (not the father's f*** pad tho) / etc.. as subcultural geo-touchpoints) and the lines between private and public. Transient. Deep. The Now. The Everlasting. The episode when David got carjacked, forced Crack, moving dead bodies onto street, gasoline poured onto him, gun pointing, reciting last rights... was simply the most powerful episode of TV I have seen.
The show, as American Beauty did, with Alan Ball creating both, tried to get to the essence of (post)modern/ dysfunctional (yet searching) life (including the things not spoken about and how they create psychological time-bombs).. The Gaps we all avoid called "meaning" and "spirituality" or even "religion" - I could talk alot about this - verbally, theoretically, postmodernwise.. I just think Alan Ball did an amazing thing, and I think I'll actually get the DVD set of the last series, not Bit-Torrent, so I can watch it properly in the consumer-fetal position ("press play for next episode" - over 12 hours) rather than worrying about my Imac/book Airport Express port settings for Azureus and download speeds and all the different episodes and burning them to CD/DVD.
If all of this has any implication for Web 2.0, in reality probably not. But SixFeetUnder (like Google) went before where others didnt dare. Sometimes it was cheesy (like Dodgeball) but sometimes it had impact (like Google Desktop + Gmail). Six Feet Under took a risk (as did Google) and just like there have been many crummy search engines and portal wannabees, so SixFeetUnder was more than something than another forensic/lawyer/reality/sit-com show.
I just wonder what will be the next 6 Feet under. Im not really watching any TV here in Australia as 6 Feet Under wasnt on and I had read the script for the rest of Lost. So hopefully a new Alan Ball will rise to the plate and deliver something that makes us think a bit more about each casual decision we make.
From what I have read so far, Nate's death 3 episodes ago, was the real final episode (similar to foster wallace's infite jest' book in which you read the book and it appears there is no ending, but the first chapter - when u read it again - is the conclusion).. The final 3 SFU episodes were really epilogue or DVD extras. In Nate's funeral he left this poem from Rumi, my favourite Sufi poet, and my favourite poet full stop. I will never be good enough.
"Our death is our wedding with eternity.
What is the secret? "God is One."
The sunlight splits when entering the windows of the house.
This multiplicity exists in the cluster of grapes;
It is not in the juice made from the grapes.
For he who is living in the Light of God,
The death of the carnal soul is a blessing.
Regarding him, say neither bad nor good,
For he is gone beyond the good and the bad.
Fix your eyes on God and do not talk about what is invisible,
So that he may place another look in your eyes.
It is in the vision of the physical eyes
That no invisible or secret thing exists.
But when the eye is turned toward the Light of God
What thing could remain hidden under such a Light?
Although all lights emanate from the Divine Light
Don't call all these lights "the Light of God";
It is the eternal light which is the Light of God,
The ephemeral light is an attribute of the body and the flesh.
...Oh God who gives the grace of vision!
The bird of vision is flying towards You with the wings of desire.."
http://del.icio.us/benbarren/sixfeetunder
What Alan Ball created OVERALL (and I havent seen any of last series/episode, which is supposed to be better than the 'Lisa' period last season) is amazing TV. Forget the term TV, Internet etc.. POWERFUL. Not since I was in high school and 'Northern Exposure' was on the box (Joel Fleischman and his Indian assistant lady) have I got the chills as I have in various times with Six Feet Under. I liked the Truth as a Hammer approach. It's a post-Seinfeld, post-Reality TV (post-blogging ?) world ("desensitised micro-niche cynical time poor m/seth influenced audiences etc"), so a show like Six Feet Under to hit a 'chord' / 'make a difference' etc needed to employ its "quality family soap opera meets brutal postmodern life" (yes billy wants to not just bang brenda he wants to live happily ever after the sick bastard - As a post Lonely Planet oeuvre I loved the whole LA vs Seattle, Nate vs Lisa, Brenda's Parents amorality vs Fischer purity (not the father's f*** pad tho) / etc.. as subcultural geo-touchpoints) and the lines between private and public. Transient. Deep. The Now. The Everlasting. The episode when David got carjacked, forced Crack, moving dead bodies onto street, gasoline poured onto him, gun pointing, reciting last rights... was simply the most powerful episode of TV I have seen.
The show, as American Beauty did, with Alan Ball creating both, tried to get to the essence of (post)modern/ dysfunctional (yet searching) life (including the things not spoken about and how they create psychological time-bombs).. The Gaps we all avoid called "meaning" and "spirituality" or even "religion" - I could talk alot about this - verbally, theoretically, postmodernwise.. I just think Alan Ball did an amazing thing, and I think I'll actually get the DVD set of the last series, not Bit-Torrent, so I can watch it properly in the consumer-fetal position ("press play for next episode" - over 12 hours) rather than worrying about my Imac/book Airport Express port settings for Azureus and download speeds and all the different episodes and burning them to CD/DVD.
If all of this has any implication for Web 2.0, in reality probably not. But SixFeetUnder (like Google) went before where others didnt dare. Sometimes it was cheesy (like Dodgeball) but sometimes it had impact (like Google Desktop + Gmail). Six Feet Under took a risk (as did Google) and just like there have been many crummy search engines and portal wannabees, so SixFeetUnder was more than something than another forensic/lawyer/reality/sit-com show.
I just wonder what will be the next 6 Feet under. Im not really watching any TV here in Australia as 6 Feet Under wasnt on and I had read the script for the rest of Lost. So hopefully a new Alan Ball will rise to the plate and deliver something that makes us think a bit more about each casual decision we make.
From what I have read so far, Nate's death 3 episodes ago, was the real final episode (similar to foster wallace's infite jest' book in which you read the book and it appears there is no ending, but the first chapter - when u read it again - is the conclusion).. The final 3 SFU episodes were really epilogue or DVD extras. In Nate's funeral he left this poem from Rumi, my favourite Sufi poet, and my favourite poet full stop. I will never be good enough.
"Our death is our wedding with eternity.
What is the secret? "God is One."
The sunlight splits when entering the windows of the house.
This multiplicity exists in the cluster of grapes;
It is not in the juice made from the grapes.
For he who is living in the Light of God,
The death of the carnal soul is a blessing.
Regarding him, say neither bad nor good,
For he is gone beyond the good and the bad.
Fix your eyes on God and do not talk about what is invisible,
So that he may place another look in your eyes.
It is in the vision of the physical eyes
That no invisible or secret thing exists.
But when the eye is turned toward the Light of God
What thing could remain hidden under such a Light?
Although all lights emanate from the Divine Light
Don't call all these lights "the Light of God";
It is the eternal light which is the Light of God,
The ephemeral light is an attribute of the body and the flesh.
...Oh God who gives the grace of vision!
The bird of vision is flying towards You with the wings of desire.."
http://del.icio.us/benbarren/sixfeetunder
posted by redbarren at 3:53 PM
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