In the show, this season especially, you can see most of the main characters struggling to figure out who they are, and who they think they should be — or need to be — in a world that’s changing in ways that they don’t quite understand yet. (Some backstory for folks who haven’t been watching: this season is set in 1962 and centers around a second tier Madison Avenue advertising firm — and some of the characters are just beginning to see glimmers that the future is going to be pretty different than what’s come before.)

And so there’s a lot of characters posing as something; trying out lives they think they should be living, but not always with great success. It’s a sadder show this season, seems to me, but I think there’s something incredibly modern about each of the characters as they try to make sense of the changes around them, as they try to read (and draw) maps of the world, as they try to figure out which way is home.

Anyway, I was pretty blown away by the last 2 episodes — great season so far.

I’ve long been meaning to watch Helvetica, a documentary about fonts, design, and modernism more generally, but also about the specifics of a typeface that many consider a culmination of that line of design thinking, since it so perfectly represents the modernist ideal.

So I finally did, and man, what a beautiful movie. I loved it — couldn’t have been any better in my book. It even had a surprise ending! (No, I’m serious! A movie about modernist type ended by mentioning the new MySpace aesthetic — I was talking about that idea to someone just the other day.)

Among other observations, one is that once you watch this movie, you’ll notice that Helvetica is used for everything around us. I noticed that while I was watching the movie, I was eating food with Helvetica lettering used on the package, the United Airlines material all used it, including the seats, the book next to me was lettered in it on the cover, it’s default for a bunch of my display on my Mac, and of course is all around the UI on my iPhone. It’s just about ubiquitous.

And it’s sort of incredible in its neutrality and versatility — you can use it in almost any context because of that neutrality.

Finally, though, as you watch you just have to appreciate the letterforms themselves. It’s a really monumental piece of work — this typeface that does so much of our hard work in typography but is also so expressive. And I’ve never really looked at the way that the letters in words set in Helvetica bold really, really hold together in an incredibly stable way. It’s hard to imagine a single thing being different about the type.

Beautiful, beautiful movie, and very highly recommended.

[also watched Juno on the flight out, and thought that was a great movie, too, in a completely & utterly different way]

I’m impatient to see what David Simon and Ed Burns come with next, not to mention actor/director Clark Johnson, who always seems to be involved with my favorite shows — especially his direction, and the unbelievable cast of other writers who include Dennis Lehand and George Pelecanos. But I’m not optimistic that they’ll be able to do something like this again — not in a Sorkin/Studio 60 sorta way — but in the sense that The Wire seems to be a singular achievement. No doubt.

anyway, i don’t find the prospect of less television very disturbing (especially since season 5 of The Wire is already in the can and awaiting us in January).

i *do* think, though, that this strike — and people expect it to be a long one — will have a highly damaging effect on the quality of television shows. the last really major writers strike in 1988 left us with shows like America’s Most Wanted and Cops, both of which heralded in a really crappy (and giant) genre of television. what will we get now?

but it’s one of those things, i think. for the studios, this feels, to me, like their waterloo, their napster. we’re in a period of incredible creativity in the world, incredible connectedness. putting down the hammer on the creatives — in other words, not letting them share fairly in the proceeds from the distribution of their work — isn’t likely to help the television and motion picture industry, in my own, admittedly uninformed opinion.

but we’ll see. maybe folks will pick up books. i do know that i’m going to cut any television shows that i’m watching that are marginal (i’m looking at you, Pushing Daisies and Weeds, and maybe you, too, DirtySexyMoney), and endeavor not to add any reality junk that shows up when scripted shows run out in january.

on the other hand, the new fall television season starts tonight, so who knows…

(and, btw, season 5 of The Wire starts in January. fantastic. you should all buy seasons 1-4 on DVD straightaway. best friggin’ show in television)

a couple of early, tv-related thoughts:

1) the first 2 episodes of the new season of 24 are hilarious. once you decide it’s just ridiculous, it’s pretty fun to watch. jack is so smart & tough. the white house is so dumb. i think this season might be the best so far. if anyone wants to chat more about it, open a socket to my screen and we can talk.

2) borat is not really an airplane friendly movie. in fact, pretty much the least airplane friendly thing since Oz. what a great film, though. that guy is just terrific.

we’ll see if 4 batteries is enough. i’m betting it will be this time, but i’m only about 1/2 a battery in, so we’ll see….

—

Michael Crichton and whoever it is that writes the Hannibal books (it’s Thomas Harris, but who cares, really?) are both officially on the list of authors who are dead to me. John Grisham was the first person on the list a while back — I just got so tired of reading drivel from someone who I had previously sorta enjoyed. But these two books were just too much to bear:

Here’s a little excerpt, from the very first page of Hannibal: “The door to Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s memory palace is in the darkness at the center of his mind and it has a latch that can be found by touch alone. This curious portal opens on immense and well-lit spaces, early baroque, and corridors and chambers rivaling in number those of the Topkapi Museum.”

Come on. Who writes junk like that? Ugh. Crichton’s book was similarly unreadable in the first 200 words, so I returned both.

So I’m putting authors on notice. No time for junk this year. Too much amazing new work around, not to mention masterpieces that have been around forever I want to finish.

Plus the football playoffs.

—

And this: holy schnikeys it’s cold outside. 30 degrees when I got up this morning. Had to scrape ice off my windshield. I know that it’s not in good taste to complain about the 3 days of the year when I have to scrape ice, but there it is.

—

Oh, and Dexter just finished last night. Great show. Michael C Hall was tops.

Didn’t mention it last week, but The Wire Season 4 also finished up and was totally magnificent. As others have said, it was the best season of the best show ever on TV. Just about perfect television.

and dexter is absolutely the creepiest show i’ve ever seen. gives me the willies every week, but is great.

all you people out there had better start watching Studio 60. you know who you are. if you don’t start watching, it’s going to get canceled (it’s getting very low ratings at the moment), and that’ll make me really angry. don’t make me come over there and make you watch it.

And I’d be remiss in not mentioning that as we shut off Rescue Me last night we accidentally turned the TV to Fox’s Celebrity Duets, possibly the worst bit of television in the entire history of television. We “lucked” into seeing a duet between Xena (Warrior Princess) and Smokey Robinson, followed up by a ghastly country song sung by Randy Travis and Cheech Marin (pictured above) about digging up some sort of bones. I could feel the life force leeching out of me just being in the room with it on. Funniest bit (in sort of a sad way) that we saw in 10 minutes or so was one of the judges, Marie Osmond, telling someone that he sounded “a little too white” on his song. Wow. You can’t make that stuff up.

Everyone should watch.

Kathy & I watched one of our very favorite movies this weekend, for maybe the third for fourth time: Big Night. Fantastic, fantastic movie about 2 Italian brothers who come to the States to build a restaurant. It’s not a movie with a ton of action, but what a wonderful, beautifully written, filmed, acted & directed movie. The performance by Stanley Tucci is one of my favorites in any movie. I was introduced to this movie by my friend Al about a million years ago, and just love it. It’s one of those where if you’ve got the time and can notice the details, it doesn’t really get any better.

also in the Big category: season finale of Big Love this weekend. good work. watching the Sopranos finale tonight if I don’t fall asleep at 9:30 again.

- Survivor finale last night was boring boring boring. Aras is the worst winner ever: I’m #2! But worth a million bucks now. Shane was a funny guy. Crazy, but funny. I’ll probably keep watching, but it’s getting a little tired.

- The West Wing finale was pretty lame, I thought. Some nice moments, but mostly the echoes of the great moments of the series, no great moments themselves. “Bartlett for America” remembered the start of the first campaign. President giving the Constitution to Charlie remembered the Thanksgiving episode when he gave him his family’s carving knife. But it did remind me that deep down inside, I want to believe in our government and leaders. I want someone in the Oval Office (and Sacramento, and over on Olive Ave in Sunnyvale, for that matter) who I can be inspired by, who can govern, who makes me proud to be American. Maybe that’s a remnant of another time, but it’s what I’d like.

- Lost is awesome. What a great show. I don’t know who that Alvo Hansar dude is, but he had a bunch of cool stuff back in 1980.

- Thief was a good show. Sadly, gone. But means that Rescue Me is about to start, and that’s definitely good.

- (I know this is radio, but “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” was super-funny this week, with Tom Hanks telling them to Go to Hell. (they were making jokes that he’s the nicest guy in Hollywood.) But my favorite part was when they were recounting that W said last week that the high point, for him, of his presidency was catching a 7 1/2 pound fish of some sort or other. Roy Blount, Jr said: “You know, I think he’s right.”

- We’re 3 episodes behind on Big Love. That’s not a bad sign — sometimes happens to us with HBO shows. Can’t decide if I like it or not yet, but it’s creepy.

- The season finale of The Office was pitch perfect. But a painful break point. I was really skeptical about the US version, but not anymore. It’s terrific.

- I find myself wanting to watch The Colbert Report more than The Daily Show. Sort of shocking. I thought Colbert was going to get boring quickly, but it hasn’t. Weird. I’m pretty sure it’s the most respected news source in America today. Books didn’t tell me that — that’s what my gut tells me.

- Sopranos is good. Lots of foreshadowing. But I’m really geared up about Deadwood coming back. They say it could be the last season, which would be both a bummer, and potentially great, since it would give them crazy creative freedom. Sort of like The Wire, except that that ended up not being the last season. I’m both scared & excited for The Wire to return. not sure what to expect.

- Last, I could not possibly have any higher expectations for Studio 60, the new show from Aaron Sorkin. They got maxed out last night when I found out Brad Whitford will be on the show. How did Josh go from the White House to an improv show in LA? Did he get fired as the President’s Chief of Staff? Maybe we’ll find out next season, until he’s eventually replaced with Josh Malina. (sort of an Aaron Sorkin in joke.)

And that’ll wrap it up from day 1 of my OpenAjax get-together experience. I’m going to endeavor to pay more attention tomorrow, so less blogging. Probably enough for a while, anyway.

In other news: I’m excited about Andre Braugher in Thief, starting tonight on FX. FX has done a great job lately — “The Shield,” “Rescue Me”, and “Over There” are all tremendous television shows. I’m very hopeful for Thief. Also means the return to television of Andre Braugher, star of the very best network drama ever, “Homicide”.

And: after everyone who I rooted for in my blog lost (Cuba), I’ll not tell you who I’m rooting for in the final four. I’ll just say it’s one of the schools named after a founding father.

Also: crappy, crappy year so far for Stanford sports. Thank god it’s baseball season. The Stanford 9 isn’t as good as they usually are, but seem to be scrappy this year. Almost time for Sam’s first baseball game.

I’ve watched 4 episodes of Sleeper Cell now (of 7 in the first season), and it’s great. Nikhyl thought I’d like it, and I do. Basically chronicles a terrorist sleeper cell in Los Angeles, and an FBI operation to counter it. A lot of folks said it’s like “24″, also known as “Television’s Worst Directed Show,” for the fantastic way that it consistently takes mediocre D list actors and somehow turns them into the equivalent of a high school drama class. We’ll call it the “anti-sorkin”. (As an aside, Sorkin & Schlamme’s “Studio 60″ is set for the fall, and I’m incredibly excited about it. With Sports Night and the West Wing as their previous 2 efforts, hard to imagine how even Matthew Perry could screw this one up. I’m pretty sure that Sorkin will turn Perry into a giant star. Giant-er than now.)

Anyway, so Sleeper Cell isn’t 24. It’s a well written, well directed and well acted drama — a little bit melodramatic at times, but excellent, nonetheless.

I’m really of 2 minds on the iTunes video store. On the one hand, it’s just incredibly incredibly easy to grab a show online and watch it on my laptop — and it’s really just perfect for business travel. And on the face of it, the economics are approximately the same as buying the DVDs. (For a 24 episode series like, say, 24, you’d pay $48, which is more or less what it would cost on DVD. Economics for shorter shows like The Shield & Sleeper Cell are a little better — you can see a season for $20 or $30.) But with DVDs, I generally buy them, watch them, then sell them on Amazon for about $20 less, all in. So take the economics out — let’s stipulate that they’re approximately the same — or really somewhere between buying & renting the media. (Although they’re available much earlier, and often before a current season is over.)

3 things, though, bother me about video downloads like this, compared to DVDs:

- Quality. Pretty rotten, really. Boxy. Not unwatchable, but as everyone starts getting used to HDTV, I think it’s going to get tougher & tougher to love these. But that may be sort of like downloadable audio — for a while it was hard to listen to, then it got good enough. So this is a temporary problem.

- DRM. Painful. I think that our idea of ownership of content is going through a pretty radical transformation now. On the plane, I wanted to be able to share the videos that I bought last night with Mike, but of course they’re locked to my iTunes account. So I can do some wacky maneuvers to get him access for a temporary period of time, or else just throw up my hands and let him buy them himself. That doesn’t really line up with my idea of content ownership, or even content rental. Doesn’t seem like I should feel like I’m doing something illegal just to let a friend watch a video that I purchased.

- Permanence. Where do I put all this stuff? Do I care? Now that I own the whole first season of Galactica and have watched it, do I really want to keep the 4 gigabytes on my hard disk? Can my 80 GB laptop drive really afford it?