Unmusical Russian, Bloody Carpenter

Two entirely unrelated things:

1. Oliver Sacks has a new book, Musicophilia, which I haven’t managed to lay my hands on yet but I am intrigued by the reviews I’ve read. In one from The Guardian came this line attributed to Nabokov where he was describing music as an arbitrary succession of more or less irritating sounds. And apparently he is or was not alone. Freud too had little love for the same.

I have run across people who don’t express much about music but everyone seems to listen to some of it. I might describe what someone is listening to as a purposeful succession of unbelievably irritating sounds but I wouldn’t presume to hang that of music as a whole. This doesn’t so much annoy me as fill me with a sort of wonder at how such a thing could be. Music seems to exist in every culture. But perhaps the reason I’ve not known anyone who didn’t like it was the same as I don’t know of any asexuals. It is probably as hard to admit you don’t like music of any kind as to admit a lack of sexual desire.

2. Dexter is one of my few viewing pleasures these days along with Brotherhood. The show actually delivers Miami. Amongst the many failings of the book (the first, my apologies to Jeff Lindsay if he has become a much better writer in the sequels; it doesn’t happen often but I suppose it could have) are that though the story is set in Miami, that remarkable city that features so dynamically in a lot of Florida mysteries such as those of Carl Hiassen or James Hall (though possibly the best evocation is in Michael Gruber’s incredible first novel, one of few real believably occult mysteries, Tropic of Night), there is so little sense of the atmosphere that it might as well be Des Moines. The show is very Miami; hot, Cuban, flashy, tropical, green and wet.

But apart from a very good show from a bad book, I have become entirely enamoured of one Jennifer Carpenter who plays Dexter’s sister, Debra. Now I know that this is partly due to good writing, but she is a marvel. The mouth on that woman. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone else swear so well and so naturally ever. Its not her only charm.

She is one of those characters that start well but understated and gradually take over the screen. I don’t remember ever seeing her in anything but if there is any justice, she will go on to bigger and better things though she may never outdo this character (not unlike Charlotte Ross who I followed to NYPD Blue for about five minutes until I realized how luke warm she was there compared to her searing presence as Lori Volpone in Beggars and Choosers, a show which should have been much more popular than it was). But I’m hoping she won’t stop here. She’s the best dramatic female character on television right now; kind of like Joan Cusack without the cute, a gangly but tough, a face that’s real; she just doesn’t seem to fit into any of the molds.

In general, Dexter just keeps getting better. All the characters are becoming more difficult to pigeon hole, Dexter himself is becoming much more interesting, and the already strong cast has just been joined by Keith Caradine as another forensic expert. Its worth a look.