Category Archives: Media

Social Media. TV. Radio. Magazines. There are many forms and all that interest me will be found here.

My Fall Lineup

Posted in Media, The Telly by

It’s that time of year again, it’s chillier, the leaves will soon be changing colours and the fall TV shows are starting up!

I’m more of a Hulu kind of girl, but that doesn’t mean I’m not excited to see my favourite shows and hopefully discover a few more!

First and foremost, Bones on Fox. I love the way this show developed through the years. Yes, there is the relationship story-lines, but first and foremost if focuses on solving the mystery – which is what I love. The relationships that do develop are endearing and fun, but they don’t overtake the forensic anthropology and investigating. (3rd November)

Fringe, also on Fox, concentrates just a little more on relationships than Bones does, but it deals largely with fringe science. It’s a crazy and fun trip into alternate universes, mad scientist’s labs and an imaginative story that keeps you coming back for more. (16th September)

Castle, on ABC, has more relationship with some detecting. I wish there was more detective work – I might be the only one that doesn’t think that Castle and Beckett should have a romantic relationship. Castle is a mystery writer who follows Beckett (a detective) in the name of research. He also helps with the crime solving. I wish they made it a bit more Sherlock-like rather than the mushy way they are taking the story, hopefully there will be more focus on detecting than romancing. (19th September)

Those were more my “serious” shows, every now and then I like the light and comedic.

Parks and Recreation, on NBC,  was something I found by accident – a very happy accident. It’s shot like a documentary – cinéma vérité-style – and follows the Parks and Recreation department in Pawnee, Indiana. Each character is funny and unique and they all work together to make a humourous show. (22nd September)

Modern Family, on ABC, is another hilarious show. This modern family usually ends up in some strange and hilarious situations. Personally, I think the kids are the ones who makes this show. (21st September)

Another NBC show, Community, follows a study group at a local community college. They range vastly in age and end up in the most hilarious situations. Abed and Troy are the ones who make this show, make sure to stick around, their little side show in the end is pretty funny. (22nd September)

From Fox, Raising Hope is a show about family. A young dad, raising a baby with his parents, while they all live in his grandmother’s house. A pretty simple show, but a whole lot of laughs as everything is just so unfortunately funny. (20th September)

Finally, these are the new shows. Not sure if they will be great, but they look interesting to me.

Grimm is a new NBC show.

“Grimm” is a new drama series inspired by the classic Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Portland homicide Detective Nick Burkhardt discovers he is descended from an elite line of criminal profilers known as “Grimms,” charged with keeping balance between humanity and the mythological creatures of the world.
As he tries to hide the dangers of his new found calling from his fiancé, Juliette Silverton, and his partner, Hank Griffin, he becomes ever more entrenched in the ancient rivalries and alliances of the Grimm world.
With help from his confidant, Monroe, a reformed Grimm creature himself, Nick must navigate through the forces of a larger-than-life mythology, facing off with Hexenbiests, Blutbads and all manner of ancient evils, including royal lines dating back to the original profilers themselves, The Grimm Brothers.

I’m always a fan of modern day retelling of the Grimm fairytales (or even those adapting the family into the tales) so this might be interesting. I’m hoping it deals more with fantasy and detective work rather than romantic/mushy things. (21st October)

ABC, on the other hand, is planning their own fairytale show, Once Upon A Time.

And they all lived happily ever after – or so everyone was led to believe. Emma Swan knows how to take care of herself. She’s a 28-year-old bail bonds collector who’s been on her own ever since she was abandoned as a baby. But when the son she gave up years ago finds her, everything starts to change. Henry is now 10 years old and in desperate need of Emma’s help. He believes that Emma actually comes from an alternate world and is Snow White and Prince Charming’s missing daughter. According to his book of fairytales, they sent her away to protect her from the Evil Queen’s curse, which trapped the fairytale world forever, frozen in time, and brought them into our modern world. Of course Emma doesn’t believe a word, but when she brings Henry back to Storybrooke, she finds herself drawn to this unusual boy and his strange New England town. Concerned for Henry, she decides to stay for a while, but she soon suspects that Storybrooke is more than it seems. It’s a place where magic has been forgotten, but is still powerfully close… where fairytale characters are alive, even though they don’t remember who they once were. The epic battle for the future of all worlds is beginning, but for good to win, Emma will have to accept her destiny and fight like hell.

This could be either really good, or else really bad. I really am hoping that it’s really good, more mysterious than mushy. (23rd October)

Then CW is pulling their book series to show move with The Secret Circle – based on a trilogy of the same name by L.J. Smith.

Cassie Blake was a happy, normal teenage girl – until her mother Amelia dies in what appears to be a tragic accidental fire. Orphaned and deeply saddened, Cassie moves in with her warm and loving grandmother Jane in the beautiful small town of Chance Harbor, Washington – the town her mother left so many years before – where the residents seem to know more about Cassie than she does about herself. As Cassie gets to know her high school classmates, including sweet-natured Diana and her handsome boyfriend Adam, brooding loner Nick, mean-girl Faye and her sidekick Melissa, strange and frightening things begin to happen. When her new friends explain that they are all descended from powerful witches, and they’ve been waiting for Cassie to join them and complete a new generation of the Secret Circle, Cassie refuses to believe them – until Adam shows her how to unlock her incredible magical powers. But it’s not until Cassie discovers a message from her mother in an old leather-bound book of spells hidden in her mother’s childhood bedroom, that she understands her true and dangerous destiny. What Cassie and the others don’t yet know is that darker powers are at play, powers that might be linked to the adults in the town, including Diana’s father and Faye’s mother – and that Cassie’s mother’s death might not have been an accident.

I’m a little skeptical about this one; it’s the CW after-all. I can only imagine them turning it into a soap opera. However, I do want to give it a chance and, if all else fails, I’ll read the books! (26th September)

Finally, Pan Am – an ABC show – looks nice enough.

Welcome to 1963: a time when only a lucky few could take flight, experience a global adventure or gain a front-row seat to history. Those lucky few flew Pan Am, the largest, most prestigious airline in the world. More than Coca-Cola, Elvis Presley or the transistor, Pan Am exported American culture to the world abroad and brought that world back to American shores.
The jet age has arrived and Pan Am’s Clipper Majestic is about to embark on its inaugural flight with Captain Dean Lowrey at the helm. Dean, who has recently been made captain wouldn’t trade this moment for anything in the world. Step by step, Maggie Ryan has climbed her way up to a better life, to greater opportunity. As Purser of Pan Am’s new Clipper Majestic, she’s at last riding high; determined not to fall. Kate Cameron left her sheltered life in East Granby, Connecticut to brave the intrigue of a wide new world. Now, she must brave even more intrigue in becoming an international agent for the CIA.
In running off on her wedding day, Kate’s sister, Laura Cameron, left her past and future, following her older sibling to the skies of Pan Am; a bold move, but one with serious personal consequences. Born and raised in France, Colette Valois has an innate understanding of international affairs. But in affairs of the heart, she’s still a wanderer, a searcher, a soul traveling a confused sea. First Officer and Co-Pilot Ted Vanderway, a former Navy test pilot, finds the commercial skies every bit as turbulent as he struggles to overcome past mistakes and prove his worth as an aviator.
Join our crew as they travel to intoxicating cities such as Paris, Berlin, Monte Carlo and Rome and bump into history along the way. Through their eyes we revisit an era nearly half a century ago.
So, buckle up; adventure calls. And thank you for choosing Pan Am.

It looks like it could be fun. I’m not entirely sure it will be something I like, I guess time will tell. (25th September)

Those are my picks, what’s yours?

GetGlue Stickers

Posted in Media, Social Media by

Five months ago I joined GetGlue.com and wrote a post about it.

I wanted to get the Hanna sticker; I thought it was a cool sticker, but, I never received my first set of stickers. *sad face* So, I was pleasantly surprised when I received a set of stickers from GetGlue in the mail this week!

Yeah! No Hanna, but at least I got Bones and Rapture 2011. Woot! The stickers are really great quality-wise, however, I’d suggest cutting them out as opposed to trying to rip them off as they stand, it will give you a less messy finish.

This gives me a renewed interest in GetGlue. Time to earn more stickers! Check it out! It’s fun!

The Best Google Doodle Ever.

Posted in Media, The Web by

I woke up this morning to Google’s newest Doodle and I have to say, they’ve outdone themselves. In a tribute to Les Paul, Google has put out a playable instrument as their doodle. You can use the middle row of keys on your keyboard to strike each of the 10 strings. But, what makes this exceptional is that you can record what you are playing and they generate a link to it so you can share! Go ahead, play your heart out.

Best.Google.Doodle.Ever.

The Whitney Museum and Foursquare

Posted in Cultured, Gallery, Media, My New York, Social Media, Thoughts by

The Whitney Museum of American Art partnered with Foursquare back in February. Their partnership offered a badge to users – after checking in to certain places – so that the cost of admission for anyone with the badge would be $5 (as opposed to the usual $18). I visited the museum this past weekend, using the discounted price, and took a stroll through the exhibits.

A few of the exhibitions stood out to me. The Glenn Ligon exhibit was pretty heavy. It is available until June 5th and has a number of prints, photos, drawing and even some neon lights. It’s not light hearted and whimsical, it practically reaches out and punches you in the gut. I’ve never thought about my minority status in society as much as I did while walking through this exhibit.

I’ve been lucky to be unaffected by racism or prejudice when it comes to my colour and womanhood — or, if I have been subjected to any prejudice I haven’t noticed. However, while walking through this exhibit one thing struck me, that thing is, at a young age I never knew colour. I never looked at my brown hands and thought, oh, I’m brown and that person is white or black. I just saw people. Even now all I see are faces and humans and I’m glad for that bit of colourblindness.  However, it was only when another person voiced it that I realised that we were all different. I appreciate the differences and can understand the need to cling to your own “group” so to say, but I still don’t quite grasp it as I never feel comfortable with only one race or one social class.

One of the things that stood out to me about this exhibit wasn’t just colour, but also the need to be a part of a group, or to have an identity. It’s a longing inside everyone to be a part of something greater. That’s what grasped me most of all.

One of my favourite pieces was on the fifth floor. It was the Walk, Don’t Walk sculpture by George Segal, made to represent pedestrians in New York who move along in a zombie-like state as they carry on with their day.

I can understand this piece. Sometimes I feel the same way. When I walk down the streets it’s usually to get from one place to the next. Many times I have my ipod in my ears and I hardly pay attention to the people around me. No smiles, no chatting with strangers, just pure focus on getting to my destination. It amazes me that I could stand so close to someone on the sidewalk, waiting for the light to change and not even realise that they are there. How robotic it seems. Then there are times when I make an attempt to be aware and to see what’s going on around me. During these times I get a glimpse of beauty of the city I live and work in, or snatches of conversations that reveal a lot about the people around me. For example, there was a time when a woman on her phone was arguing with her significant other. I felt sorry for her, I wanted to give her a tissue so that she could wipe the tears that she was holding back. Couldn’t the other person wait until she was home to have this conversation? I thought. I didn’t act on my impulse, because if I did I would be breaking that unspoken rule, you do not listen to other people’s conversations, even if it’s happening right next to you. You just pretend that you don’t hear and you carry on your life.

The Breaking Ground: The Whitney’s Founding Collection was perhaps my favourite exhibition. According to their website:

At the turn of the twentieth century, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, an heiress and sculptor born to one of America’s wealthiest families, began to assemble a rich and highly diverse collection of modern American art. This group of objects, combined with a trove of new works purchased around the time of the Whitney Museum’s opening in 1931, came together to form the founding collection.

The portrait of Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney was my favourite in this exhibit, I’m not sure why, it just caught my eye and reminded me of another time and another society. Then of course my imagination took over. What happened in that time? What happened right before, or after, or even during this painting? What was the world like?

I’m really glad that Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney decided to follow her dream as a sculptor and open a museum for American Art. I think it’s important to see our culture captured through art of all forms. The expression of an artist – what they are going through, how they view the world – is very important for others to experience. I think that once we can see the world through another’s eyes, it becomes difficult to ignore others and to stay in our little bubble. I was glad to have experienced a bit of the past, a bit of another person’s point of view and also to understand a bit more of myself through the art I saw.

The partnership and lower admission cost goes on until May 31st, I would highly recommend foursquare-ers to take advantage of it! Also, all images here were from the Whitney Museum website. I couldn’t take photos while inside, which is sad, but understandable. I’m just glad the website had the images that I wanted to keep in memory.