Archived entries for

True Blood – The Finale

[Note: This post is not meant for young children. The comments section may have spoilers.]

Friends Dont Let Friends Drink Friends

Friends Don't Let Friends Drink Friends

Based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries, a series of books by Charlaine Harris, and adapted for television by Alan Ball (Six Feet Under), True Blood presents a world where modern vampires can live among humans without the need to feed on them. After the Japanese invent synthetic blood that is produced into Tru Blood, vampires simply go into a bar or a convenience store and order a bottle in their favorite type (O, A, B, or AB) served at 98 degrees.

With this sense of “humanity,” vampires want equal protections under the law like voting rights and state-recognized marriages. At the same time, humans have started to crave vampire blood or “V” which allows them to achieve states of heightened senses and pure ecstasy. Unless a human can find a vampire dealer ready to drain his or her blood, the usual practice for v-junkies is to kill vampires and drain their blood.

For those of you who haven’t watched True Blood, HBO’s Sunday night 9 pm EST series, you better have good reason. To clarify, good reasons do not include: a) Desperate Housewives, b) hating all things Vampire, or c) any feelings you may have had about Six Feet Under.

Even if you do not want to watch any of the “special characters” (read: vamps, fang bangers, telepathics, shape shifters), some of the show’s best moments are provided by the supporting (read: human) characters – specifically, Lafayette Reynolds (Nelsan Ellis), Tara Thornton (Rutina Wesley), and Jason Stackhouse (Ryan Kwanten).

Plus, the shows setting, Bon Temps, Louisiana, paves the way for some interesting commentary about prejudice as vampires fight for integration.

With that brief introduction, what did you think about the season finale? Let’s begin a discussion in the comments section of the post.

Cultural Creators vs. Cultural Consumers

I just saw Lawrence Lessig on Charlie Rose. He’s a law professor and author with close connections to Obama. And he’s a lot smarter than me.

His new book is called Remix (available soon under a Creative Commons license). He proposes a dramatic revision of copyright law worldwide to fit how information is used in the internet age. Fascinating stuff.

One idea that I found amazing is Lessig’s assertion that the internet is bringing us back into a world where people are creators of culture and not just passive cultural consumers. Lessig advocates a world where people can create and recreate the most important cultural elements around them — where amateur creativity is important, rather than a world where we’re merely passive consumers of culture.

So, congrats, folks: if you’re blogging, you get a culture-creator medal. Thumbs up!

I highly recommend the Charlie Rose interview, by the way.