Welcome to the Idiot Box

Flak writers watch TV.

Until now, that's been secret. It's not something we really wanted you to know.

But when we're not talking to hot pomo authors, listening to garage rock, or eating bread out of a can, we can often be found sprawled motionless in front of the television.

TV is too important to ignore. What other form of entertainment requires so little effort? What else binds together America's sprawling, geographically diverse multitudes? What else is there to do on a Tuesday night after an exhausting day of office work, or sleeping through classes?

There are important messages hidden within TV's glowing catacombs.

Messages about how marketing agendas shape our daily lives. Messages about how we view other people, and other cultures. Messages about how difficult it is to jump a squad car over an outhouse, a pond and a pile of firewood.

Flak's reviewers will penetrate to the very depths of television — known as "daytime TV" — to bring forth faceted gems of insight. They will watch commercials and carve out the subtext — that glorious, seedy layer of meaning that lurks behind every cold beer, and under every oiled-up thigh. They will watch re-runs of "Mr. Belvedere." They will see what C-SPAN is running in the depths of the evening.

They will be spelunk toward the heart of TV, not stopping until you, Flak's readership, can sit up in your La-Z-Boys and say: "A-ha! This all finally makes a strange sort of sense."

Lowbrow, highbrow, middlebrow, "no-brow" — fuck it, it's all culture. Some of it's good. Most of it's bad. But when it resonates, it shapes the way we think, the way we work, and the way we treat other people.

This Tuesday, Sept. 4, please join us on our first expedition: A trip through the nether regions of cable.

It's time to start exploring.

— Flak Staff (letters@flakmag.com)