There was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about PBS’ arts programming recently… read it yourself.
I have my DVR set to record Great Performances, and it seems to only ever want to record operas by Verdi and Puccini, which I am definitely not interested in enduring. I won’t pretend to have any idea of what happens on Sesame Street these days, but in the past, people like Joan La Barbara, Philip Glass and the Kronos Quartet would find their way onto the show (and, incidentally, me too, in an episode where I along with a group of kids counted at the top of our lungs to 40).
Joan La Barbara’s Singing Alphabet.
Anyway, could you imagine if this significant expansion of arts programming could include things like, for instance, Screening Room, Robert Gardner’s TV show in Boston in the 70’s that featured independent filmmakers of various kinds showing their work and discussing it. They’re available on DVD, and I’ve been making my way through them slowly, starting with the Stan Brakhage disc and next up Hollis Frampton.
In the entirely different arena of reality television, Real World DC really went out with a whimper. After that intense episode when Mike’s boyfriend Tanner visited from Colorado, and was subsequently kicked out of his house because he came out to his parents when he returned, it was really perplexing that during the reunion this wasn’t talked about at all. Instead Mike went on and on about how he really is bisexual and that the only reason he didn’t bring more girls home is because he has already been able to visit the “girl candy shop” and wanted to be able to visit the “boy candy shop” for a change. It just seems that after so much emotional-manipulation that the show put its audience through, that pretty dramatic episode would have been addressed, instead of talking about the sexual tension that remains between him and Ashley. Oh wait, according to the internet Mike tweeted “Me n Tanner are just friends (4 now).”