BobHarris.com - Haciendo surf de los canales

Books! Actual books!

"A rollicking ride of intellectual discovery and emotional growth... his comic timing never fails"

-- The Wall Street Journal

"Pulls you in like a good sports story"

-- The New York Times Book Review

"Endearingly frank... jubilant... lighthearted and fast-paced"

-- New York Newsday

"A surprisingly touching memoir"

-- Entertainment Weekly

"Snappy and informative"

-- Associated Press

"Effortlessly funny and informative... tender, human, and very wise... A must for anyone who loves Jeopardy!, or has ever seen it, or is breathing."

-- Joss Whedon, creator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

"I haven't seen Jeopardy! since I was a kid, and yet I was charmed and amused by Bob Harris's fascinating and surprisingly suspenseful book. Through sheer force of personality, he takes this brainy TV show and makes it funny and easy to relate to."

-- Ira Glass, creator and host, This American Life

"A surprisingly intimate, entertaining book."

-- Orson Scott Card, 4-time Hugo Award winner, author of Ender's Game

"Funny, enlightening -- and just might help you win a million bucks on Jeopardy!"

-- A. J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All

"A masterful job of describing the feel of Jeopardy! in the heat of battle... I knew Bob was a great guy and a fantastic Jeopardy! player. Now I've found that he's also a wonderful writer. I think I'm starting to hate him."

-- Brad Rutter, top money-winner in Jeopardy! history

Books I'm Getting

Who Hates Whom:
Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts,
and Various Things Blowing Up —
A Woefully Incomplete Guide™

“Revelatory... Harris's sly wit and infectious curiosity make understanding world chaos fascinating... witty, horrific, and necessary.”

— Boston Globe

"Brave... irreverent... charges into the thick of the globe's myriad simmering wars... hilariously relaxed."

— New York Observer

"Only Bob could make a user’s guide to our increasingly hostile world this absorbing, this breezy, and—ultimately—this hopeful.”

— Ken Jennings, author of Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs

“Fascinating, enlightening, and surprisingly: NOT TOTALLY DEPRESSING. A gimlet-eyed look at the world we endure that’s also suitable for enjoying with a gimlet.”

— John Hodgman, author of The Areas of My Expertise
and correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

"All three [presidential] candidates should read all three of these [recommended] books, but McCain gets first crack at Bob Harris's "Who Hates Whom“... a lighthearted overview of the insurrections and civil wars in the world today."

— Steven Pinker, author of The Stuff of Thought, in the New York Times Book Review

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Juan Cole

Haciendo surf de los canales

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Wednesday, 08 December 2004

The satellite dish here at Casa del Pudu suddenly includes channels from Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic.

Whoa.

My Spanish es muy bruto anyway, and so half of the initial viewing experience is attempting (and largely failing) to parse the various different accents, so for the moment, the whole deal is about 90% visual. (The Chilean news anchor, for example, sounds almost like the guys on TVE from Madrid -- but is that a Chile thing, or just similar to the way folks on PBS often sound vaguely British, with whatever implied prestige that might bring? I've never been to South America. I have no idea.)

But I'm often struck by the extent to which the conventions of TV we see here -- news shows, for example, with two anchors at a desk (why? really, it's not necessary); weather done by petite women erotically fondling their nation's midsections; public affairs shows done in squarish seating arrangements under stark lighting -- have propagated elsewhere.

This is hardly a big deal, but still, I wonder if this is a function of trying to gain credibility by emulating programming in richer nations, or if it's the same lack of imagination we run into 24/7, or what. Maybe it's a budget thing, and the conventions of 1950s U.S. TV are adopted elsewhere because they're simply the least expensive. But once you get past the language, it's frankly just bizarre to me how much television is television the same way that McDonald's is McDonald's, almost everywhere.

Almost. TV5 in France has a morning show called Telematin (airing here at 2 am on channel 255 -- I have no life whatsoever, you do realize that) hosted by a guy who looks like Noam Chomsky given a Queer Eye makeover. Every morning, le Noam chats with auto repair guys and green grocers while the director seems to try to re-enact Un Chien Andalou -- no sliced eyeballs, exactly, but suddenly the guy holding an asparagus is shown in extreme close-up; the host's lips purse in grainy black-and-white; we see the weathergirl's hand, gesturing, in mirrors; finally an Edith Piaf manquée murmurs underneath a roving animated shot exploring the innards of a toaster.

I often don't have the slightest freaking clue what's going on, but I'm usually giggling like a child after a few minutes.

I've often seen similar (if less neuron-frying) visual innovations in the rest of the developed world, but they're still the exception. Even here in the U.S., when the Afghanistan invasion started, there was Wolf Blitzer literally standing astride the middle east (embodying, unfortunately, the very nightmare of how the world thinks the U.S. perceives itself). But a few minutes later, it was back to the cute people behind the desks. Not unlike Cambodian news (channel 256), which has paintings of trees behind the anchors, but differs little otherwise.

What's the deal, do you think? Lack of imagination? Cultural hegemony? Comfort? Money? Just curious.