I watched the debut episode of Boardwalk Empire yesterday, HBO's new gangster drama about the life and times of Enoch "Nucky" Thompson, an Atlantic City kingpin. I'd read great things about it and was looking forward to it immensely. Perhaps it had been a bit over-sold: I liked it, but felt it didn't take me any place especially new as far as mob stories are concerned. But perhaps that's because we've been saturated with mob stories over the last 50 years and there literally isn't any place new for the genre to go. Once we've visited the whole spectrum, from Mean Streets to the Sopranos, it all just seems like a retread. Steve Buscemi is a new take on an old type--he's hardly the "heavy" one expects--but even so, I'm not sure he has the gravity for the part of Nucky. I'll keep watching, however, and perhaps it'll suck me in. Lord knows True Blood has, so you know I haven't too high of a threshold!
Here are a few cool articles I've recently read. One on the much maligned but undervalued technique of rote memorization: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/magazine/19fob-medium-heffernan-t.html?_r=1, one on how a burglarized writer tracked down the thief via the internet: http://www.salon.com/life/life_stories/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2010/09/20/tracked_down_my_thief, and one on what happens to the libraries of famous authors after they die: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/09/19/lost_libraries/?page=full.
Enjoy!
~CD
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