Wednesday, 01/14/04

My housemates don't watch much TV, but I decided that Curb Your Enthusiasm and the last gasp of Sex & The City justified footing an HBO bill by myself. Comcast paternalistically ignored my request for the bare-bones "HBO Digital" package and silently subscribed me to every non-porn channel in existence, from China's CCTV to Bloomberg to Trio.

When I called Comcast to inquire, I was told that owing to a promotion, the smorgasboard is the cheapest option going until April 14. Were I to force them to give me the just-plain-HBO package I asked for by name, I'd pay more until then. So, for three months I will receive an amazing bounty of Spanish-language sports networks, and every movie channel I've ever heard of. My deadlines and productivity apparently did not factor into my decision to save money.

One of those movie channels, Showtime, has a new series starting up next week, with Pam Grier, about lesbians living in Los Angeles. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's review is engagingly hyperliterate -- she reads like Fresh Air's linguist correspondent Geoff Nunberg -- and I learned the word "interpellate," which means to pester a government official with a relevant question. I do not fully grasp Sedgwick's usage in context, but I'll take the word. 05:08PM «

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