Seeing Double

There's a reason why triple jumps often look like doubles. The first half revolution is typically on the ground. Let's say you do a triple toe. When you kick and rotate, your foot is typically on the ground up until you have turned 180 degrees, i.e., you enter the jump backward, kick, twist 180, are airborne, and finish the two and a half revolutions in the air.

It's hard to pay attention, but you should see the shoulders three times. The first time is just past that half revolution, then again, then again on the landing. The third one is hard to catch as well because they usually finish the third revolution right as they hit the ground, thus, you tend to see the first two revolutions, but not notice the one as the skater lands.

Oh yes, and the lutz. Watch for the skater toe-picking with the foot, and landing with the foot. A rightie should toe-pick with the right (thus skate backwards on the left), and land with the right. So remember that, toe-pick on one foot, land on same foot, that should be a lutz. A toe-loop should toe-pick with one foot, and land on the other. This is one of those things you should record, and watch in slow mo, until you can remember. I suppose another way to do it is to mimic the moves yourself, while doing the spins on the ground (unless you can spin in the air several times!).

Jump for my Love

There are six jumps that you see in figure skating: the triple axel, the triple salchow, the triple loop, the triple lutz, the triple flip, and the triple toe.

Jumps are really hard to see, for the uninitiated. For me, triples always look like doubles, and doubles look like singles. So, if you think it's a double, it's probably a triple.

Jumps fall into two categories: edge jumps and toe-pick jumps. Toe-pick jumps use the free leg to kick on the ice, and assist the jump. The edge jumps are: the axel, the loop, and the salchow. The axel is the easiest to spot. It's the only one that starts off forward.

Assume you are right handed. The triple axel starts off with the left foot skating forward, and lands on the right foot, skating backwards. There's a foot switch here. The loop starts and ends on the same foot, thus start and ends on your right foot. The salchow starts on the left foot and lands on the right foot. The loop, to me, is the third easiest jump to spot, usually one foot is in front of the other, in a line, and the jump is made there.

The lutz starts off with the left foot, kick with the right, and lands on the right. This is the second easiest to spot, because it usually has a long straight line set-up before you see the kick. The flip goes from left foot, and lands on the right foot. The difference between the flip and lutz is that the flip is done on a back inside edge on the left foot, which is the edge that the spin occurs most easily, while the lutz is on the outside edge, which forces the spin to go opposite. Some skaters have been known to flutz, i.e., start off like a lutz, but at the last moment, leaning to an inside edge, and making the jump easier.

The triple toe loop uses the left foot to kick, thus, skates on the right foot, and lands on the right foot. Apparently, this is the easiest jump, even though, compared to either the flip or lutz, it kicks off with the left foot, instead of the right.

The key to watching jumps then is to determine which foot the jump started on and whether it was a toe-pick or not. If you start and land on the same foot, then it's either a loop, or a toe loop. If it's opposite feet, then it's one of the other four. The axel is the easiest to spot. If there's no toe pick, then it must be a triple loop. If the feet switched, it's the salchow.

If there is a toe-pick, and the foot switched, it's either a lutz or flip. The lutz is usually easier to spot because there's a long straight set-up. It's easier to see than whether the skater skates on an inside or outside edge.

As essential as this is to figure skating, most announcers don't like to describe it, because it forces the viewer to remember six different things, and even as it's really only 5, because the axel is easy to spot, people still can't remember. Fortunately, I can help make it one step easier. Only the loop starts and ends on the same foot. Thus, the triple loop (no toe-pick) and the triple toe-loop (toe-pick). Keep an eye on which is the takeoff foot, and you can begin to see which jump is which.

Let me help you with the triple loop. Stand with your feet side by side. Now, imagine a straight line drawn forward, and it is coming from your right foot. Move your left foot in front of your right foot. Now imagine you are skating backwards this way. You jump off your right foot, and land on your right foot. That's a triple loop.

Next time you watch figure skating, pay attention to which foot the skater lifts off from, and you'll be on your way to identifying these jumps.

Ch-ching

Two posts ago, I referred to the movie as Payback instead of Paycheck. Apparently, Payback is this rather grisly revenge plot where Gibson goes medieval on the people that killed his family. This is the usual kind of excuse for violence that is perceived as fine. For example, it forms the central revenge plot for Gladiator where the main character's wife and son are killed, and he kills the man that ordered it.

I was going to say I had seen Payback, but really, I've seen Ransom, which is based on a Kurosawa film, though that film has a far more intriguing plot. In Ransom, Gibson plays a wealthy man who's son is kidnapped. Eventually, he decides that whoever kills the abductors will get a large amount of money, even as he risks his own child in the process. Needless to say, his risk pays off.

The Kurosawa story is about a similar kidnapping, except in this case, instead of the wealthy man's son getting kidnapped, his chauffeur's son is kidnapped instead. The kidnappers still hold him for ransom, seeing whether the wealthy man is willing to make the payment for someone who isn't his own offspring. This is the film High and Low which also goes by a much less well known title, The Ransom. One of Kurosawa's films that's not set in feudal Japan, and one I'd like to see.

Go Figure

I used to watch figure skating. I wouldn't say a lot, but compared to other people, it would be a lot. Let me put it this way. I watched figure skating before the Harding/Kerrigan controversy. I first noticed the basics of skating probably around 1984 or so. This was back when Torvill and Dean were making a name for themselves as the best ice dancers in the world.

Ice dancing was the ugly cousin of the figure skating events. I'm sure it was the latest one to be added as an Olympic event (a quick perusal of the Wikipedia indicates I'm correct--while added to the World Figure Skating Championships in 1952, it did not become an Olympic sport until 1976). Unlike pair skating, which emphasizes jumps and throws, both moves are illegal in ice dance, which emphasizes dance aspects.

I didn't really pay that much attention to figure skating until 1988. This Olympics features two story lines. Debi Thomas was the first African American to win the U.S. National Figure Skating gold, and was considered a favorite to medal. Katarina Witt, who had won gold in 1984, was also expected to medal. Thomas was considered the better technical skater. She was going to do a triple-triple combination. Witt would not do that, and would depend on her artistry to win.

In those days, women skated a bit conservatively. Nerves were a big issue. Dick Button, who seems to have been commentating forever, and Peggy Fleming, his co-host, and former Olympic gold medalist, would note how the women would back off of their planned triples. Debi Thomas had skated a powerful short program, but it was to a heavy beat, not to a classical theme, and the judges downgraded her for that, much to the anger of her coach, who held his nose, and gave thumbs down to their decisions.

In the long program, Debi Thomas seemed nervous and skated nervous. While she had hit her triple-triple confidently in the U.S. National Championships, she did not nail it in the 88 Olympics. Witt was relatively solid playing the role of Carmen, and skated well enough to win. Elizabeth Manley was considered the spunky skater from Canada who had problems with confidence, but skated her way to silver. Jill Trenary skated a conservative program, but placed just outside the medal at fourth.

It was also the first Olympics for Japanese sensation, Midori Ito. There have only been a handful of women to land the triple axel in competition. A triple axel is three and a half revolutions, and is the easiest of the triple jumps to identify, because the entry is made forward and lands backwards.

In the '88 Olympics, figures were still a mandatory part of figure skating. Figures involves tracing out intricate patterns on the ice with ones skates, and is considered a form of mastery of skate control. Ito was awful at figures. It wasn't Witt's strength either, but she did well enough not to be hurt by it.

Eventually, they ditched figures from competition. In particular, the Europeans did not want the figures included in competition. Americans liked it a lot, because it lacks the pressure of jumps, and because, compared to Europeans, ice time was comparatively cheap. The figures would have hurt Ito's chances to get any better, though she probably would have improved. Ito was an athlete. Her strength were her jumps, and the '88 Olympics was a time when she simply had fun, before the weight of a nation came down on her.

Ito finished fifth and would eventually win a silver medal, where she botched a triple axel, only to throw a second, successful triple axel at the end of her routine, and preserve silver, behind American, Kristi Yamaguchi. The list of successful women to have landed the triple axel are: Midori Ito, Tonya Harding (yes, that Tonya--who effectively became the Mike Tyson of women's figure skating), Yukari Nakano, Liudmila Nelidina, Kimmie Meissner, and Mao Asada (of Japan). Meissner won silver at this years U.S. Figure Skating Championships, behind Sasha Cohen, and ahead of Emily Hughes. Hughes' older sister, Sara, won gold in the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Michelle Kwan briefly took Hughes spot due to an injury exemption. Kwan herself had been prevent from skating in the Olympics due to the Kerrigan/Harding affair. Kerrigan couldn't compete in the Figure Skating Championship, which serves as the qualifying for the Olympics. Powerhouse countries in skating, like the U.S., get to send three skaters to the Olympics (and World Championships). The three medalist get to go. Weaker countries can only send two.

Kerrigan took Kwan's spot and skated to a silver in 1992, even though Baiul didn't skate that much better. The judges liked her better. Kerrigan suffered a bit from the public relations fallout. She didn't like doing an ad for Disneyworld, thinking it was idiotic. She also complained that Baiul was taking forever to head to the medal stand. To be sure, the networks milked this up by playing her comments on the air.

I haven't watch figure skating much since about 1995 or whenever I last had cable. So I didn't know what had happened to the sport.

The women haven't improved a great deal technically. The triple axel still represents the Mount Everest of the sport. To give you some idea of where the sport is technically, if Midori Ito were still skating at the level she was in 1992 (now 16 years ago), she would still have a great chance at medalling.

Where the women have improved is in their flexibility. Denise Biellmann, the Swiss skater who skated between 1975 and 1981, was noted for her ability to spin. She was credited with landing the first triple lutz, but it was her ability to spin and her flexibility that she's noted for. Her trademark was the Biellmann spin, where she grabs her leg behind her back, and stretches it upwards, so that her two arms and leg form something of a flower.

Most women simply weren't that flexible, and few imitated it. In this year's Olympics, nearly all women can do the Biellmann spin. I've only ever seen one man do this (Viktor Petrenko, I think), although the men have become increasingly flexible too.

I'm also seeing more triple combination moves, i.e., triple, double, double. Again, I had seen Petrenko do this, though it seems to have been discouraged until recently as perhaps too gimicky (this is the reason back flips are not permitted in competition).

The men have pushed the technical level. Currently, the top skaters can land the quad. Johnny Weir has even landed a quad-triple-triple, in practice. Most choose not to place so much risk in actual competition, and certainly, Weir didn't even try the quad. I believe the only two quads landed in competition are the quad-toe and the quad salchow. We're probably a long way from the quad axel (four and a half revolutions). The Chinese pairs skaters, Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao, attempted a throw quad salchow, which she fell and hurt herself. After feeling she was fine, they finished the rest of their program and won the silver.

For the men, I'd say what's improved is the different kinds of spins you see (these are not jumps, but spins on the ice) showing improved flexibility. The triples are attempted more often and landed more solidly, often in combination (a second triple tacked on at the end).

There are some moves that appear to be rare. I saw Buttle's routine, and he did a spread eagle (which again, requires a great deal of flexibility, which is why you don't see it all that often) and an Ina Bauer. Footwork sequences also seem to be somewhat rare. In figures, things begin and end with jumps.

I missed much of the Winter Olympics but I have to hand it to NBC by posting video at their website. I can watch the short program from two weeks ago. I can watch last night's short-track run by Apollo Ohno. This is wonderful! Except that my laptop PC doesn't seem to render graphics properly in Firefox. It doesn't have this problem on the desktop, so I don't know what's going on. I had to resort to using I.E. so I could see the display.

Ultimately, I see this as a far superior way of watching the Olympics. I know that the quality of video is rather awful, but the flexibility to watch it when I want to is great. I will say that navigating the site is a pain, and that the tabs don't do what they say (for example, there's a tab saying "Pre-Torino" and "Torino", both of which display pretty much the same thing).

Using this, I was able to watch Johnny Weir's free-skate, which didn't look all that bad. Considering that Buttle touched the ground twice in his free skate and still won bronze, Weir's mistake (a fall on a triple, and not completing a triple-triple combination, leaving off the second triple---OK, that was not good, since that would have been worth lots of points) didn't seem all that bad.

I'm still trying to get used to the new scoring system, which gives weight to many different elements, technical and otherwise, thus making sure skaters can do the spins as well as the jumps.

I'm struck a bit by the way Weir's personality contrasts a bit with his body. As an athlete, he needs strength, and most of that, for a skater, is in his legs, which look like, say, a speed skater (though clearly not as developed), and his personality, which is somewhat effiminate, yet rebellious too. I believe his fascination with Russian culture may have to do with Russian skaters being able to express themselves in more balletic ways (many have had training in ballet), where Americans and Canadians used to prefer to show some masculinity (less flamboyant arm movements, less flamboyant costumes, less flexibility). Weir may simply like the way Russians skate.

The website could still be far better. It's a pain to find who won what medals, where people placed in various competitions. Still, that I can get to the videos is pretty good. It might be useful to have organized the videos by day as well, and mention which days certain programs were on. In the end, content management is king, when it comes to dealing with this much content.

Woo Hoo!

Although I still think Payback was basically crap, there are elements that work. In particular, John Woo is able to communicate many of the things he wants to without always resorting to explanation. For example, initially, it's not so obvious what Affleck's character does. However, after a while, you can tell he's trying to analyze circuits and figure things out.

Also, there's a scene which plays on Affleck's memory loss. He can't remember his girlfriend of the last three years, so they have someone pose as his girlfriend. Indeed, they decide to make her look vaguely like his girlfriend: blond hair and blue contacts. At one point, he spots the fakery when the blue contacts slip a little, and he can see that this woman is faking it.

But really, if he has forgotten her, then why bother trying to look like his girlfriend? Maybe he has a thing for blue-eyed blonds? It's not obvious.

The main bit of stupidity has to do with wiping Affleck's memory, and letting him go on as usual, when the Eckhart character wants him dead. This could be engineered in numerous ways, not the least of which is simply murdering him, which is what happens to the other guy Affleck is working with.

This is one of those films you simply have to suspend disbelief greater than usual in order to enjoy. But it was a little too much for me. Even as a Woo film, it's not nearly on par with his better films, and by now, it's a little silly to see his signature moves: two guys holding guns at each other. One day, Woo will really surprise us, and both will shoot and kill each other, and that will be that. And, the dove. Always gotta have a dove.

Find someone that can write you a plot, Mr. Woo, so that you can finally direct something that people care about.

Paycheck It Forward

Each year, Christmas brings with it some blockbuster film. For a few years in a row, it was the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Last Christmas, it was King Kong. Peter Jackson has been owning the Christmas season for a while. Admittedly, most of the films start just before Christmas, so eager fans don't have to make a decision between their savior (or its paganist offerings) and their action hero,

On Christmas Day, however, someone manages to release a film, often without much fanfare, in the hopes someone, somewhere, somehow, will care to watch this. A few years ago, this film was Paycheck. Based on a Philip K. Dick short (like Michael J. Fox, Mr. Dick is never without his middle initial) and directed by Hong Kong action director, John Woo, this film flew under most people's radar, and there was no desire for many to watch a post-Gigli film with Ben Afflect. In fact, I didn't even remember his female co-star. That happens to be Uma Thurman.

I expected the film to be so-so, hopefully, bad enough that it's good, though it doesn't quite reach that. It is a lot of fun, but not terribly satisfying.

Ah, the plot. OK, basically, Affleck plays a "reverse engineer" who figures out how things work, usually in a clean room, spends two months on the job, and then has his memory wiped, so people won't know he did it. His latest accomplishment is a 3D monitor. His best friend, a ruthless megalomaniac played by Aaron Eckhart, wants him to spend not two months, but three years working on a super secret project, at which point, he'll make enough money to retire on.

When the job is done and he goes to collect his huge paycheck, he finds his collection of items, which he had to give up before starting the project, and realizes it's not what he put there in the first place, and thus begins the adventure of why these items are there, and eventually, how he uses everyone of them to help him figure out what he will do to survive.

At this point, it's something of a gimmick movie. He has 20 items, and he must use them in one incredulous way after another. Oh, and lest you think he's forgotten about Daredevil, he's shown training with a long stick, which serves what use for an engineer? You never know when he has to fight off a bunch of bad guys, who are the most patient shooters ever.

Uma Thurman plays a biologist, but of the sort that seems to know a great deal about botany and raising plants, and has a weather machine device of some sort, whose purpose appears mostly to be used later in the plot, much like Affleck's ninja skills. Apparently, Affleck managed to get in his love of the Red Sox in the film by quizzing his possible girlfriend about his favorite baseball team.

Matt Damon was apparently offered the role first, but he had already done his "amnesia" movie (namely, The Bourne Identity), and so recommended this to his buddy, Ben. Thanks, Matt, that's what friends are for. Suffice it to say, the film wouldn't have been helped that much by better actors, well, maybe it would have been. Imagine, for instance, that they cast, say, Ian McKellen and Vanessa Redgrave. I think, that alone, would create a much more interesting picture.

Poor John Woo. Will he never spot a film in English that's any good? I've always been a bit suspicious of John Woo movies. Characters are drawn in this "operatic" style, of ambiguously good vs. ambiguously evil. Most Hong Kong directors have a hard time making sophisticated characters. The sole exception, off the top of my head, is Wong Kar Wai. He seems to work in a completely different universe than Woo or Tsui Hark.

Despite the general awfulness of the film, the gimmick, which is, how does he use the 20 items to save his life and that of his blond girlfriend, is intriguing, even if, at every step, it seems impossible to use the clues. Let's face it, many elements of this film were far better done in Minority Report, which also uses a "see into the future" to tell the story, and the ability to predict into the near future as a plot element. I had no idea Dick was into telling sci-fi stories involving seeing into the future, if not living the future.

There's another Philip K. Dick movie coming up. Richard Linklater, who directed both Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, is directing this film, which is done in a rotoscope style, a la Waking Life. It stars Keanu Reeves, Woody Harrelson, and Winona Ryder. Rotoscope was a style that was used in the 70s, where live video was essentially traced over to create cartoons that looked life like in motion, but not lifelike in quality. It made you realize, of course, that real cartoons, completely drawn by people, have extremely stylized movements. And, yet, despite being traced, the movements have an odd quality to it that makes you think it's weird, even if you wouldn't notice it with live action.

Rotoscoping has generally been considered a lower form of animation, which is why you don't see it much these days. Waking Life was based on some work that Linklater had discovered, and involves a kind of faux rotoscoping, where people's features, their noses, mouths, eyebrows, float as if not fully attached to their faces, creating a dreamlike state, which was quite suited to the topic of Waking Life, which appears to be about death.

Since Dick was noted for writing books where the reader is unsure as to his reality, this form of rotoscoping should also be successful for A Scanner Darkly. This is, to my knowledge, Linklater's first attept at science fiction, though other people, such as Sodebergh (who I always seem to associate with Linklater, even though Sodebergh is a far more talented director, and Linklater much more an observer of how people act and talk, and is less concerned about plot in a conventional sense) have dabbled once (his version of Solaris, based on a Andrei Tarkovsky film from the 70s, which itself was based on a book by some Russian author).

If Paycheck succeeds, it's because it doesn't try to be that profound. It's basically a puzzle movie, good guys against bad guys. Unlike Affleck's character, our payoff is not nearly as good for waiting til the end of the movie.

Err America

I was recently at the airport in Philadelphia. Twice. Once going. Once coming back. It was the intermediary stop. Both times I was delayed.

I don't know what it is, but airlines have decided it's unncessary to inform passengers if a flight is late. It's true, on the return, we were only delayed half an hour to board, and then another half an hour to take off, since we were in a large line of planes to lift off.

Did we get an apology or an explanation about why we weren't going to leave on time? Not at all. Most companies brag about service, even if they're lying some of the times. It's just like the always happy and helpful Mr. Goodwrench. Do you really believe that these mechanics are trained to be that happy and helpful? Or do they simply make ads so you're left with that impression?

I admit that airlines have to deal with lots of people all the time, and that air travel works remarkably well for the thin margins they must make on flights. Even so, I doubt most people would say it's a very enjoyable experience. There's a lot of waiting going on already. Maybe letting people know why would give them a little more peace of mind.

Rice, Rice, Gravy

Remember Vanilla Ice? He had that song "Ice, Ice, Baby". He was Eminem before Enimem. OK, he wasn't. No one particularly respected him as a rapper, least of all, serious rappers. Still, it wasn't like they brought a white guy who had no knowledge of rapping and made him a star. He was into the local scene, though he certainly didn't dress like M.C. Hammer until after they wanted a white M.C. Hammer.

My friend, who is Indian, thought the lyrics were "Rice, Rice, Gravy". Which I suppose is not surprising for someone Indian.

Which leads me to my topic du jour. I want to talk about chicken biryani. There's a bunch of well-known rice dish/meals. The Spanish have a dish called paella, which usually is rice with clams and other seafood, though certainly, it could have other ingredients. In the same vein, there's Cajun Jambalaya.

The Indians and Pakistanis have a dish called chicken biryani which is pronounced CHICK-EN (ah, just kidding), beer-ee-ah-nee, or something close to that. It's similar to pulao, which is usually vegetarian. Biryani typicaly has some kind of meat, and usually, it's chicken.

I tried making this recently from Mark Bittman's cookbook, The Best Recipes In the World. The chicken biryani I knew was made by a friend from Pakistan. He really only knew this one dish, which he got from his mom, and if he had one dish to learn, this certainly wasn't a bad choice. While I've loved Indian food, I've always been deterred from making Indian cuisine. There's so many ingredients. Just the spices alone account for up to ten ingredients.

Indian food is, well, like their clothing, not very subtle. Many recipes call for ten spices, often heated in oil, until the smell permeates the entire domicile, and you know you're cooking Indian, which is all good and well if your housemates like Indian.

Indian cooking, especially non-vegetarian cooking (say, Muslim Indian cooking) have the worst features of Chinese and American cooking. Chinese cooking tends to be long on prep time, quick on cooking, especially stir fries. American cooking tends to be short on prep time and potentially long on cooking, say, steaks. Indian cooking is long on prep time and long on cooking.

My friend (the "rice, rice, gravy") guy told me that you had to cook meat with spices until the taste of meat went away. I never thought much about the taste of meat. Having eaten it all my life, and most likely, finding the natural flavors just fine, I never considered that spices were used, back in the days before refrigeration, to hide the taste of rotting meat, and even after refrigeration has become common place, tradition Indian cooking may still view the natural taste of meat as something that has to be spiced over.

Anyway, I was following Bittman's recipe. Bittman prefers simplicity, which I like too, because I certainly don't want to spend hours slaving at a stove. I want a dish to turn out well, but I'd like to spend under an hour making it. Since I've had far more Indian food since the days I ate that biryani, I have a better idea of what it should taste like.

My friend used to make some concoction, then shove it in the oven. Bittman's recipe doesn't do that. And it lacks the one thing that I remember about biryani. It wasn't particularly spicy. If you looked at the ingredient list, you'd say, duh, it doesn't have any chilis at all.

The other problem I had was that the rice turned out way too wet. The biryani I've had have often been really dry, perhaps too dry. In any case, even the Chinese rice I'm used to isn't half as moist as the stuff I made, so I knew that something was wrong, that somehow I have to cut back on the liquids.

It also browned the bottom of the Creuset knockoff that Dave owns something fierce. Fortunately, it's the kind of thing that doesn't cause such pots long-term damage.

There are two things I want to change in the recipe. Number 1, make it spicy. Number 2, make it drier. I'll see how that works out. There are a gazillion recipes out there, and it's really hard to judge which one to try out.

This is one thing I like to do when I make something, which is to repeat it a few times, playing around with the recipe. I did this several times with Beef Stroganoff and was never happy with the result. As I mentioned in a previous post, the roux was the key that made the Stroganoff something I wanted to eat.

I'll say, for many years, I thought about cooking. I bought cookbooks prodigiously. I own like 40 or more cookbooks, but rarely cooked from them because the labor was so intensive. The Sunday dinners we have at our house gave me an excuse to try some of the more complex recipes, although the people eating it are often the first to experiment the dish. I think Bittman's book is a good start. I won't attest that it's the most authentic cookbook out there, but it seems pretty good for a start, and with the web, I can find alternatives if I'm not happy.

I'll be visiting a friend whose Indian, and who can cook, so maybe I'll see if I can learn a recipe while I'm there. I'm not sure what I'd like to learn, possibly something vegetarian, though I've always been more fond of the Indian meat dishes. Fortunately, she's not vegetarian and she's also a good cook (at least, I think she is--I can't really recall if I had anything she made).

I'll let you know how it turned out.

Fight Club

On Friday, a cold and windy night, after two days of mild 60 degree temperatures, I was helping navigate a friend on an alternate route to the Bethesda Landmark. Turns out you can take Connecticut (exit 33) to get there, by making a right on East-West highway.

That took us to a parking garage that was empy enough, at least, compared to the parking garage that we would have had to park that's near the Barnes and Noble. But on a windy and chilly night, even the short walk to the theater was a reminder that this was still winter, despite the diversion of a few days of warmth.

We were there to watch Why We Fight, a film by Eugene Jarecki. You can think of this as a kind of companionship documentary to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, though a little less angry.

Ostensibly, the documentary is about an old concept that I hadn't heard about since I was in college, and even then, it was an old term then. The military-industrial complex. Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in his farewell speech, that the country had to be aware of the military-industrial complex. He was the 34th President. Under Truman, the 33rd President, he had heard that they had decided to drop the bomb on Japan, not so much because the U.S. wanted to force a surrender--there was evidence that Japan wanted to surrender in the months leading up to the dropping of the bomb, but because Truman wanted to intimidate Stalin, to show the US had the military might.

Eisenhower was nervous about the funding of the military. He felt the money spent on the military could be spent better to fund schools, roads, and all sorts of domestic projects. However, since the military is out there trying to justify its existence and its funding, there is huge pressure to keep it well-funded, to have wars, since that is the business of the military.

To Eisenhower, the military-industrial complex included the military, the companies that depended on the military for contracts, and Congress, who approved funding. The military contractors were smart, making sure that the development of certain projects had a piece in every state, so that cancelling these projects meant people losing jobs.

Why We Fight basically starts off with Eisenhower, and explores facets of the military. It does so by looking at a few individuals, one man who served in Vietnam and was a retired cop, whose son died in the 9/11 bombings of the World Trade Center, who felt such anger at what happened, that he wanted a bomb with his son's name on it to honor his memory, before he became disillusioned with what the President was saying about the relationship of Iraq to the acts of 9/11.

There's the story of a teen, whose mother has passed away, who has had trouble getting through college. He thinks joining the military will solve all his problems. It will get him through college, get him regular pay.

There's a former intelligence officer who feels she lied on reports sent to the public where they tied 9/11 to Iraq, which she knew to be false. There's the Vietnamese woman who works at a missile factory in the US, who was brought to the US during the Vietnam war.

There are some comments by conservatives like John McCain, who says Dick Cheney should be investigated for his actions with Halliburton, before he is interrupted by a phone call from...Dick Cheney. William Kristol, part of a think tank, also weighs in.

Although there's commentary from both the left and right, it's clear the message is that the military has gotten out of control, that they may no longer do what's in the best interest of the country, but do what's in its own best interest, which has to do with money. With so much money devoted to the military, the military has a strong incentive to portray the world as a dangerous place.

So what did I think of the film? It made me more interested in Eisenhower. It seems that there were more intelligent presidents in the past, and to have a military man think about the consequences of the military is quite amazing. The basic message isn't so deep, that we are being bamboozled by the military, that the average person in the military comes from the lower class, a message echoed by Michael Moore in his film.

Jarecki has an interesting choice of music, producing happy music with missiles around, or having a man's children in a missile factory run around. He juxtaposes image and music creating, yes, irony.

This film probably won't get that much attention. Only a handful of documentaries come out that people pay attention to. To me, Control Room was a superior documentary, mostly because it has elements of fiction that work well, namely, the character arc of Josh Rushing, who is a good man, realizing he's in the middle of deception. He's the person, much like Wilton Sekzer, the cop who's son died, that shows what happens when you follow orders, but then start to think about what you're doing, and whether those above in the military chain really know what they are doing, and whether they are doing what's right for the country, or have some other agenda that's less than pure.

The documentaries that have received the most attention last year were: March of the Penguins and perhaps Grizzly Man though certainly the first did very, very well. There's also Murderball, which I didn't catch. I thought Tarnation was fascinating, though it does suffer from a need to jazz up the material, about a boy whose mother has some mental difficulties, and how he struggles with his sexuality.

Still, that there are even documentaries I can list attests to the growing popularity of documentaries. It's now possible to watch a few of them each year, when, in past years, this would not have been possible, or at least, not easily so.

Is Why We Fight this a must-see? Perhaps not. I think it's worth watching, because of its information. It's a tad heavy-handed, but nowhere near Outfoxed which was just blatantly silly, even if much of it was true.

The Write Stuff

I've been reading a book that collects the best sports stories from 2005. I've only read two of the stories, but the collection is amazing. The stories are true, but are written much like fiction. The writer's goal to dramatize these moments so they transcend the mundane reality that they normally live in, to condense the special moments, until they become indelible marks in one's emotions, one's experience.

The opening story starts the collection off with a bang, and tells the story of a white man who decided to move to southern California, and live with predominantly Mexicans, where he developed them into state running champions. The story picks up right after his ninth consecutive win with the impoverished high school he teaches at.

The man, who's name, alas, escapes me, is not just a coach, who rides his bicycle as he trains the kids to strive for more than they've ever had, but he is a teacher of life. He brings them to places across the U. S., to the big cities, to Niagara Falls, to show them that there is a much bigger world than the migrant farm life they've known their entire lives.

It also tells the story of a troubled youth, estranged from his father, who doesn't care about his ambitions to be an astronomer, to get out and try to make a name for himself. He eventually decides that the way out is to be one of the storied runners of the high school program, and the wayward child transforms himself from a student who didn't care about anything, who set no real goals for his life, to being the best runner on the team.

But you can tell this is not a fiction story because the coach wants to retire. He's getting old. He's been at this a long time. He feels he can pass on his legacy to his assistant. This boy feels abandoned, starts hanging with the wrong crowd, feels betrayed by his second father, just as he was betrayed by his birth father. And, yet, the coach also feels he's let the team down, and for one more year, he's willing to help the team out, and help this boy out.

It's a remarkable tale of a white man who learned that he had something he could teach the poorest Mexican Americans.

With such a doozy of a story, it's hard to believe that it can be topped, and although it's not topped, the story of Eli Manning is nearly as amazing. Eli's the kid brother of superstar quarterback Peyton Manning, the son of Mississippi legendary quarterback, Archie Manning, yet, Eli's been a shy kind of guy, more introverted, always seemingly unaware of what his old man did to get the reputation he did. He became a quarterback as much because people believed that dad's genes were passed on.

Accorsi, the general manager of the Giants, had come to look at Eli Manning play, had heard about how great he was, had seen tapes of him play, but had not seen him in person, and decided to take a look, and could not believe the kind of remarkable poise this kid had.

Ole Miss was playing Auburn, a really tough team in the SEC, and could hardly run the ball. Manning was forced to throw the ball again and again, even though Mississippi was on the losing end of the talent competition. Even though his team was down nearly two scores, Manning kept his head about him, and took a one point lead.

Accorsi, who had seen Unitas play, and had become one of Unitas's best friends felt sure Eli had the kind of talent that you rarely see, the kind of talent Unitas had, and that it was worth taking the gamble on Eli. Coughlin had, at one point, decided to bench Kurt Warner. Warner had been sacked some six times in a game, and when Coughlin looked at the tape, he realized Warner held the ball for far too long, leading to sacks, a problem Patrick Ramsey had wih the Redskins.

Manning, for all his rawness, knew how to get rid of the ball quickly, and even though he played a poor game against the Redskins, Accorsi was impressed. Manning didn't panic, and played the best he could, given the lack of support from his team. Although it looked as if he played poorly, the tapes show he played very sound football.

That article brought some insight into what it must be like to find a player that you think may be the next great quarterback. Even if Eli is a bust, the story is fantastic, because it offers the kind of insight you normally don't read from a sports story.

Sports writing is all about drama. I can see how Mike Lupica, who himself is a successful sports writer, was drawn by the kind of writing you see in the best of sports writing. Sports writing is all about inspiration, about the successes and failings of man writ large, about people who push themselves to succeed, or collapse under their own success and their own human failings. They make us seem insignificant by comparison, but it's the same reason we go to see movies: we want to see lives that are more fantastic, more accomplished, more emotional than the ones we lead, and sports, reported through brilliant writing, takes us on that emotional journey, as successfully as if it had been made up, but with a semblance of the real.

It's a humbling experience to read stories so well written, and it makes me wish I knew how to write something half tha moving.

Mountain Full of Parodies

This is the first time I've embedded You Tube onto any webpage. This has to be one of those genius ideas that you wonder didn't come any sooner.

Anyway, I'm posting yet another article on Brokeback Mountain, which is unusual, because frankly, I didn't enjoy the film as much as I had hoped. I think if I watched it again, I might like it better. Its deliberate pace, and the cheery acting of Jake Gyllenhaal, didn't quite do it for me.

But it must say something when there are a gazillion parodies of Brokeback Mountain. Think about it. Of all the other nominees up for best picture, are any of them parodied? Crash? Munich? Good Night, and Good Luck? Capote?

I mean, Capote is about a real-life gay author, but nothing has come close to the parodies of Brokeback Mountain.

The one I've included is one of the better ones. It's able to hit themes in Brokeback Mountain completely using dialogue from Dumb and Dumber, a film I haven't bothered to watch.

Let me back up. Most Brokeback Mountain parodies do two things. First, they use the rather distinctive music of Brokeback Mountain. You probably can't even recognize the music from any of the nominees, which include The Constant Gardener, Memoirs of a Geisha, and Pride and Prejudice, as well as Munich, but most people do recognize the music of Brokeback Mountain, its spare guitar piece and main theme.

The other element that you need is the way the text flashes across the trailer. Amazingly, only one trailer was ever made for the film.

It reads "It was a friendship...that became a secret...There are places we can't return...There are lies we have to tell...There are truths we can't deny". The text montage has been parodied almost as much as the opening Star Wars crawl.

I've seen some pretty bad parodies, but what makes the Dumb and Dumber genius is that it uses lines from the film, and merely reinterprets it to the basic ideas from Brokeback.

Another one that's been reimagined is a fake trailer for The Shining, which makes the Kubrick directed horror film to be about a irascible man paired up with a loveable moppet, the kind of plot that has cropped up in several films. The one that comes to mind for me is Kolya. I'm sure the are others, if I looked hard enough.

Maybe Brokeback won't win Best Picture, but given the kind of impact that it has (which is one reason it may win it) both for people who can relate to its story of secret love, but also because so many people think it's ripe for parody, this film has had an emotional impact none of the other films has had. The parodies themselves mostly focus on the homoeroticism of many films, and that guys tend to find that funnier than women.

Wages of Weir

I admit it. I haven't been watching the Olympics. I know, I know. This has been one of the worst rated Olympics ever. No one is watching the Olympics.

Except I'm the kind of person who likes to watch the Olympics. If I had nothing much to do, I'd be watching it. But these days, I don't watch that much television, and so I don't watch that much Olympics.

What information I am getting on the Olympics, I get either through the radio, mostly listening to Sportstalk 980, or through surfing the web, and visiting sports websites.

Lately, Tony Kornheiser has been gushing on about Johnny Weir. Of course, since the men's event is already gone, he's done saying how wondrous Weir is. You see, the Olympics isn't necessarily about Olympic achievement. It's about personalities. That's why people wanted to watch the radiant Michelle Kwan, even though her groin injuries meant she couldn't qualify the usual way, i.e., place in the top 3 in the women's national championships.

Now I admit, I used to follow figure skating, at least, to some degree where I was familiar with many of the top American skaters. However, it's been years since I've done that. I was mostly following the skaters back in the early 90s, when people like Brian Boitano, Paul Wylie, and Christopher Bowman were considered American hopefuls.

Although Johnny Weir has won the national championship, what, 2 or 3 times, I had never seen him skate, and barely knew who he was. Sure, I had heard the recent controversy, if you could call it that, where reporters were confronting Weir and asking if he were gay, charges which he says he doesn't need to answer, even if most everyone thinks he's the flamiest closeted gay skater alive.

I mean, be serious, people already think that figure skaters, in particular, male figure skaters are gay, or at least, very metrosexual. I mean, who doesn't think both Brians (Brian Boitano and Brian Orser) aren't gay? Only Rudy Galindo has openly announced he's gay. Longtime skating announcer, Dick Button, is known to be gay, though he never raises the issue.

It says something, however, that reporters, who are generally moved by the masculinity of sports, have been enchanted by Johnny Weir. I suspect it's a trend that reflects the mentality of the winter sports in general. Many people reporting at the Olympics normally report on basketball or football, where athletes are trained to be either as bland as possible, or showboating, of the Terrell Owens variety.

No athlete in a major American team sport would ever talk like Weir, who named his costume Camille, who talks about his aura being dark, and who says he feels princess-y. Weir basically says f-you to the Republican like establishment, and says he doesn't care if folks think he's a threat. He's a Russophile who thinks the Russians are gods of skating, and with Plushenko's recent gold, who's to disagree?

After a solid short program, where Weir landed a triple axel, and a triple lutz, triple toe, and had exotic spins (even if he tended to drift as he spun), he was in good position to medal as he stood in second, behind heavy favorite, Plushenko.

Weir, however, ended fifth, in a relatively poor performance. Once upon a time, I'd actually find out what time the figure skating competition was on and watch. I don't know why I don't do it anymore. I still think it would be enjoyable to watch.

But back to Weir. I think the acceptance of Weir has as much to do with modern society's attitudes towards gays, and the general liberalish lean for reporters, even sports reporters. A football or basketball player might feel uneasy about someone so decidedly flamboyant as Weir, but reporters want personalities, and Weir is confident, even if his routine might wear thin if you hung around him long enough.

Oddly enough, I think straight America wants gays to be as flamboyant as Weir, only because it's so different, so fun, much like how white America embraced some of the mannerisms of black America. I'd imagine that if someone had trouble with Weir, it would be black America, which I sense is far more homophobic than white America.

Now that the Olympics are pretty much half over, I'd like to have the coverage put on several DVDs so I could watch. I don't particularly need the tension that most sports induce by being live, where uncertainty of outcome, and hopeful wishes, drive ratings up (and makes reruns nearly meaningless). I just want to see sports that I don't see all that often.

Heck, I'd like to see what's new in figure skating. Are people landing the quad? I guess that Japanese girl who landed the triple axel was not able to qualify (she was two months too young). It says something that nearly 15 years after Midori Ito was able to land triple axels that most women don't even attempt it (Michelle Kwan certainly never mastered it), and it has rarely been landed with any degree of consistency.

Remember Tonya Harding? At one point in her career, she could land the triple axel. But her life and coaching went to pieces, even before the Nancy Kerrigan beatdown. Since then, there's been hardly anyone else who could hit it.

I'll have to check the dates. I still enjoy ice dance even if it's not exactly the crisp movements of ballroom dance competition (which, yes, does exist).

So, Johnny, we know it's no business but your own. You ain't queer, but you sure is princess-y.

Three is a Magic Number

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is a title that most people wouldn't consider. Americans, you see, don't like dealing with names that are more than about 6 letters long. After that, they simply lose interest. South Indian names, Greek names, Thai names, Nigerian names, many of these span a gazillion letters, and we just give up after two syllables.

And yet, it's a relatively clever idea, because once you watch the film, you learn how it should be pronounced, and it doesn't seem that bad. Mel. Key. Ah. Des. That's the name.

This is a bit of a showy role for actor and director, Tommy Lee Jones. Jones gives about half his lines in Spanish.

I went into the film with modest expectations. I had heard that Tommy Lee Jones had won acting awards for his role as Pete Perkins, a man who befriends a Mexican migrant worker. Most of this friendship is played in flashback.

Despite the amount of time spent in Mexico, and the amount of Spanish that's spoken, the Mexican characters are fairly weak. There's a history to Pete's character that's left blank, in particular, why he and Melquiades get along. The film suggest that it's guilt that makes Pete do what he does.

And what he does is this. Early in the film, the body of Melquiades is found, shot. Pete discovers that the person who's done this is a border patrol guy who's having anger management issues. The film's set up to make Mike Norton the "heavy", i.e., the bad guy, which is typically unusual for an independent film trying to avoid stereotypes.

In a key early scene, when the border patrol rounds up several Mexicans at the border, and two are running away, he punches both the man and woman, for running away. He's come to Texas with his wife because that's where the job has taken them. Mike leads a fairly empty life. His wife reluctantly has sex with him in the kitchen, so he can satisfy his base needs. He reads Hustlers and Penthouses, and is generally shown to be a loathsome, uncaring person.

And yet, it's about his character as much as it is about Pete's. Although the film doesn't peddle that much in stereotypes, the Mexicans are generally one-note characters. Melquiades himself is a nice guy. That's it. He says he has family in Mexico. He's really awkward when Pete sets them both up with women, and that woman turns out to be Mike, the border patrol guy's wife, yet, the plot seems to cry out for Mike seeking revenge on the man who slept with his wife, but instead, the death is purely accidental. Mike thinks he's being shot at by Melquiades, who is actually shooting at a coyote. Mike fires and kills the man, because he thinks he's being shot at. It's all a misunderstanding.

This kind of film would never have been made thirty, forty years ago (or more), in the heyday of Westerns. Much like Brokeback Mountain hardly fits the Western genre conventions, this film doesn't either.

Although it, too, is set in the rural West (well, in this case, Texas), it is modern. Melquiades, at one point, goes to a window to a shop selling oversized televisions, high-def, which is only a recently phenomenon, and so this ties in the new with the old, showing technology seeping in, even in the most backwards of places.

There are many moments that attempt to be slice of life, or just plain strange, which is why it doesn't fall into traditional story telling. For example, the police are chasing down Pete, who kidnaps Mike and the body of Melquiades, with the goal of taking them both to Mexico where they can properly bury Melquiades, according to his wishes.

The sheriff aims a rifle sight, and eventually decides not to shoot. At which point, he gets a cell phone call from a waitress, the wife of the cook (think Flo and Mel from the show, Alice), who wants to have a fling with the sheriff that evening and is planning it. There are many such absurdists moment.

At one point, fire ants are starting to eat at the dead body of Melquiades. Pete tries to remove them, but the ants sting him. So, he eventually douses the head and body with liquor, and lights him on fire, and then puts out the fire. The oddity of treating the body with a lack of respect just adds to the strangeness of this film. They encounter an elderly blind man who gives the food, like a scene out of Young Frankenstein. He listens to radio from Mexico, but doesn't understand the words. He just likes the way Spanish sounds.

There's a flip scene in Mexico. Pete and Mike meet up with some Mexicans sitting outside, watching a show on their portable TV. It is the same show Mike's wife was watching while Mike was having sex with her (disinterested, in the kitchen). The Mexicans watch it, but don't have any idea what's going on, because it's in English.

The film seems to be an allegory in the way language divides us, and the stereotypes we have. In the end, it becomes a powerful statement about lives we take. Perhaps it's a commentary on war. In war, people are killed, and that's that. Often, the killers have to block out the idea that they are killing people.

This film tries to represent the idea of Melquiades, if not who he was in reality. It's too bad that Melquiades is generally a good guy. He's no saint, by any means, just a shy guy trying to do good for himself. It becomes a more interesting statement if Melquiades was not a pleasant person, because it brings to question why Pete does what he does. Even so, it's an odd thing for Pete to kidnap Mike and drag both of them to Mexico, so Mike can witness the life that Melquiades lived.

If there's one criticism I have of the film, it's that with as much respect as Jones has for Mexicans, they honestly don't play as nuanced a role as most of the white Americans. They are seen to be good people, except the fiery woman, who's nose was punched by Mike, who gets even by whacking Mike. Oh yes, and Mike gets hit a lot. The bully is, after all, a coward too.

And that's a funny thing, because the message of the film is about the importance of human life, and how we often fail to appreciate that each person is someone. As they drag Melquiades body around, it's clearly meant to be a representation of the real man. This act is purely symbolic, and his body is also symbolic. The real man has gone. This is why Pete doesn't seem to mind that he has to "abuse" the body (fill it with antifreeze, to prevent it from decaying and being eaten). The lesson that's most important is to Mike, who, despite the apparent torture he's going through (being kidnapped, beat up, and dragged unwillingly to Mexico), that for the first time in his life, he's getting some meaning to his life, by understanding the death of someone else.

He's a man so consumed with anger and aimlessness that he doesn't know what it means to live. The film doesn't give any hints as to what will happen to Mike. His wife has abandoned him to return back, presumably to Cincinnati. Will he go after her? Is he a better man?

And in the end, did we end up thinking about Melquiades and his three burials? Or did we end up thinking about Mike, and how his life has changed?

Roux Tan Gang

Roux! That's the secret.

I've made Beef Stroganoff several times, and each time I've been severely disappointed with the soupy, watery mess that I've made. It should be thick, like gravy, I thought.

Someone suggested roux. Now I've only heard about roux, mind you, never really made it before. I know it's used as a thickening agent, much like the way Chinese use cornstarch (or sometimes potato starch) to thicken sauces.

Only roux is ever so unhealthy. Made with equal parts butter and flour, you heat up the concoction and stir, stir, stir. I had about half a stick of butter, and put in some 6 teaspoons of flour, which I thought was too much, yet the yellowy paste seemed rather thin to me, and I thought this would hardly thicken anything.

Boy was I wrong.

I dumped over a cup of beef broth, and that thing thickened like crazy. How amazing! I couldn't believe it was happening. In fact, I had dumped in so much broth, that when I eventually put in the sour cream, its flavor was being masked by the flavor of the broth.

In my mind, the sour cream flavor should be noticeable. Still, the result was quite tasty.

So if you want to make stroganoff, start with a roux, and you'll say goodbye to watery sour cream and broth, and hello to excess fat, and yummy taste.

(Oh my, I've written like the worst form of travel advice, in the style of some entertainment news reporter!)

Wanna Be Like Nike

Nike was the goddess of victory. If you had paid attention to Greek mythology, you'd probably still have missed her. However, the 1980s lead to a resurgence of her name though Nike shoes. Nike made high-end athletic shoes possible. They had a distinctive logo, the swoosh, that Kmart and other ripoff manufacturers copied. And for a while, everyone wanted Nikes. Michael Jordan helped elevate this make through Air Jordans.

Reeboks were the only serious competitors to Nike, and even then, they lagged in second (to my mind).

But as with any fashion trend, people grow tired of the trendy stuff. To get a sense of this, watch Donnie Darko. As much a paean to 80s style and music as it is a mind-bender of a science fiction tale, such outdated fashion statements such as OP (Ocean Pacific) and Members Only jackets were highlighted so that those who grew up in the 80s could giggle with glee about the stuff that people used to wear.

Sometime during the 90s when I decided to get my own shoes, I did all I could to avoid wearing Nikes and Reeboks. I tried Avia, Asics, Brooks. Then, I mostly started to wear New Balances. Here I thought I was wearing some lesser known brand, and now everyone is wearing them. How did that happen? I hardly see ads.

You have to give credit to Nike. They made ads that were often not about their shoes, but about something else. Charles Barkley proclaiming that he was not a role model. Ironically enough, for a brand that often advertised anything but their shoes, the ads Spike Lee produced for Michael Jordan ("Gotta be the shoes!") were as blatant an ad for the shoes themselves that you almost had to feel Spike was satirizing advertising.

This is hardly the case for New Balance. I can't think of any New Balance ads. I'm sure they have ads. I'm sure they're nothing original. So, how did these guys do it?

Garage Companies

The most enduring image of a startup company, dating back to the formation of Apple itself, is a bunch of guys working in their garage, building the next best thing. This image is so indelible that films like Shane Carruth's Primer are built on this one image.

On the radio, there's been this ad that keeps playing over and over, about some guy who left his cush job, started up his own company in a garage. However, he sounds like a total doof. First, he says the company started up in the garage. Oh, wait, the servers were in the garage. He was in the kitchen drinking lots of coffee.

What imagery does he want to give us? That he's this CEO type who doesn't do anything but sip lattes while servers are humming in the garage? I mean, this doesn't engender any real confidence that he is deserving of his career. What work did he really do except foot the money, and order people around? The radio commericial simply doesn't say more than that.

And that's the only point I want to make. Hoorah!

Isn't It Moronic?

Alanis Morissette is rather infamous for having a song titled Ironic that is considered hardly ironic at all. The song details mostly bad luck, such as getting a free ride after you've paid, and so forth. It was so bashed at the time that it made people think about irony.

I remember telling someone in a newsgroup that I thought it was ironic that he advocated people being honest about who they were (in a newsgroup, you can hide behind pseudonyms) while he himself hid behind a pseudonym. I'll say that it isn't quite irony, more than it is hypocrisy.

What is irony? Literature is where irony is explored the most often. There's verbal irony where you say one thing, but mean another. In that case, sarcasm and hypocrisy may be forms of verbal irony ("this is a wonderful day", on a rainy day).

There's dramatic irony, where one person says something, but the audience knows it's not true. (Mozart says to Salieri that Salieri is a good man, the only man who he can really trust, when Salieri is the man who is trying to destroy him).

There's situational irony, where expectations of what should happen don't. This is perhaps the irony that most people think of as irony, though usually it's used more strongly than the definition suggests.

There's cosmic irony, which is the kind of irony that Morissette comes closest to dealing with, which is that nature, fate, or God works against what you want. Thus, winning the lottery, and being killed a few days later is considered cosmic irony. There's a famous Twilight Zone episode where this guy decides to build a bomb shelter for the armageddon, and places all his favorite books in there to read for the rest of his life. When said event occurs, he heads into the shelter, only to break his glasses, and be unable to read the books. This is cosmic irony.

Irony is typically built from expectations. For example, there were programs developed to help teenage mothers raise their children. It was thought that with education and money that the situation would remedy itself. However, some argue that these programs have made teenage pregnancy worse, by making it viable for teenagers to have children. Thus, the expectation was that a program that would help reduce teenage pregnancy has instead increased it could be considered dramatically ironic.

The people who abuse the term irony the most are, in my mind, sportscasters. Sportscasters already have it bad. Many are wannabe athletes, or former athletes, who are effectively doing news, but lack the kind of credibility real news folks have. The only thing worse that sportscasters in terms of credibility are entertainment news reporters, who are cloyingly irritating beyond belief.

Indeed, sports reporters, most of whom are not reporters, but really pundits, who spout out opinions on the latest sports "news", have actually done a great deal to elevate their stature. They often talk like their news brethren, part of which is to elevate their use of vocabulary.

So while I hardly expect a sports announcer to use terms like solipsistic or penultimate (which means "next to last"---yes, there's a word for that), words like irony are used all the time.

In the case of sports, irony is almost always used in place of "coincidence", although I can see it as a form of cosmic irony, though not nearly as strong. For example, if the Miami Heat were to meet the Lakers, thus Shaq meeting his old team, this meeting is often referred to as ironic. Or if a player moved to a different team, and he was coached by a coach he used to have on his previous team (say, Parcells with Bledsoe) that might be ironic.

Usually, in these discussions of irony, there is some element of chance. For example, Parcells deliberately picking Bledsoe for his team is not really irony. However, Parcells kicking off some player and that player managing to beat Parcells team is often considered irony, because Parcells lacked faith in the player, and the player did well anyway. That is oddly enough, a kind of irony, at least in my book.

The point is that irony is so hard to pin down correctly, that maybe we should jettison the word from our vocabulary. Sports announcers love to use it because of that reason. They don't use it correctly, but heck, fans don't get it either, and it makes the announcers look smart.

I once heard a Brazilian fellow talking about events surrounding 9-11. In particular, right around that time, his advisor had flown in to deal with his thesis proposal. However, he was unable to leave because all flights had been shut down. Furthermore, many people had taken rental cars, so they, too, were mostly unavailable.

It suddenly hit his advisor that he could rent a moving van, as many people would not have thought of that as a means of transportation. At the time, the man sported a large moustache, and looked a bit dark skinned. Indeed, he might have been mistaken for someone of Middle Eastern heritage. At such a heightened time of paranoia, a man wanting to rent a van that looked like him might be considered rather suspicious.

The Brazilian fellow remarked "and the supreme irony of it all is that he's Jewish!". Ha ha!

But was it irony? It feels like it. Here's a man that is being assumed a possible terrorist because he looks like he's from the Middle East, but in truth, he's Jewish! (Presumably, a friend of the U.S.).

So apparently, there was a recent report that several of the DVDs for Munich were encoded improperly, and the result was that the viewers who were going to screen it were unable to watch it. One person remarked it was ironic that this encoding, which was meant to prevent people from copying, ended up causing people to be unable to watch it (due to a botch-up).

It would have been ironic, however, to have the opposite occur. The intention was to prevent these DVDs from being copied. It would have been ironic if all these methods to protect copying ended up, somehow, facilitating more copying. That's how you'd imagine it being ironic.

Even so, if you imagine the intention is to make sure that only the people who are authorized to watch it can watch it, then that, I'd say, is ironic, because all the protections placed to make sure the right person is the only person who'd watch it failed and the person couldn't watch it after all.

Except, of course, that wasn't the goal. The goal was to prevent screeners from copying, and it's just amusing to realize that being unable to watch it is also a way of preventing people from copying it.

So, dear sportscasters, and everyone else, shall we simply agree not to use irony, because ironically enough, most of us don't know how to use the term irony. Now, isn't that ironic?

(By the way, Alanis has been quoted that her song is indeed ironic because it lacks irony. Is that an example of irony? I think not. And it goes to show you that we don't know what it means).

Not That There's Anything Wrong With That

For some reason, guys, at least American guys (I'm willing to say there are other cultures whose opinion may differ) have sex on their minds. A lot. Which isn't to say they have "sex sex" on their mind, although I'm sure that some do, but that they have sexual innuendo on their minds.

Especially of nerdy guys. Especially of the immature sort.

For example, there's now a bunch of parodies of Brokeback Mountain. One of them makes fun of a fast-food tie-in for Brokeback Mountain, much like Disney films often have tie-ins. Of course, this is a bit of a joke. They talk about "Brokeback sauce" which is, alas, white and creamy.

At the end of the segment, the guy smiles and says "tastes like cum!". Now, a guy would think this is pretty funny, no? I told this to a friend and his girlfriend, and she winced when the guy said this, thinking, "eww!". Not so funny.

Why is that so? Why do guys think this is funny, and women find it offensive? Guys like to joke about sexual innuendo. In the Super Bowl, Madden made a remark, which I suppose, could have been interpreted innocently, referring to the ongoings of the game.

He said that this was the "deepest penetration of the game". Needless to say, I'm sure many a (male) fan were able to bring that phrase to bear at different parts of the program.

And remember that Super Bowl a few years ago where they had the "wardrobe malfunction"? How many males worked this phrase into their day-to-day use? How many females?

But it goes further. Guys--straight guys--often pretend to be gay. This is not a particularly new attitude. I remember these two guys pretending to act gay some twenty years ago. Admittedly, that just puts it in the mid-80s, but still.

Why do guys do that? What is this amusing or funny or something? I'm sure it's more just thinking on the edge, trying to be amusing. It shows some degree of acceptance, I suppose, and yet, think about Matthew Shepard.

Remember him? He was the guy from Wyoming who was gay-bashed? How did it happen? Turns out he was at a bar, and two guys picked him up. Apparently, it wasn't so clear whether they picked him up because they were acting gay, and wanted to go out (after all, there were two of them), but clearly, they managed to deal with his sexual orientation.

The crime has been classified as a hate crime, though the girlfriends have apparently said that they were in it for money or drugs, rather than a hate crime (dadgum this Wikipedia, ruining the point I was trying to make!).

Does that mean guys are actually more fluid with their sexuality than they pretend not to be? It's fascinating that actors, usually straight ones, are cast to play gay roles, and while playing gay doesn't make anyone gay, it does allow people to cross boundaries that the average person wouldn't, in the name of entertainment.

So I wonder if all of this is somehow related, the sexual innuendo, finding sexual humor funny, acting gay? What about it appeals to the male psyche?

Well, back to Lost.

But there's more

Pardon the Commentary

Sports radio, which was nowhere ten years ago, is perhaps the fastest rising radio genre. People used to only catch sports news from ESPN or maybe USA Today, can now listen to pundits talk about sports all day long.

This has meant that some issues get intense scrutiny day after day after day. For example, during the pre Super Bowl ceremonies, the NFL invited all the MVPs since the Super Bowl started.

There were several absences. One person was dead. Another was in Australia. There were two more notable absences. Terry Bradshaw failed to show up. He claimed family issues. Still, it was noted that Bradshaw, for some reason, has never been particularly fond of Pittsburgh, despite having all his success there.

And Joe Montana failed to show up. It was said he wanted $100,000 guaranteed before he would appear. To be fair, many of the other invitees were also being paid by the NFL for their time. This was so painful to sports commentator and enthusiast Mike Greenberg, that he spent more time grousing about Montana's lack of loyalty to the NFL than celebrating the Steelers victory.

Because most of sports radio is commentary, you find that objective broadcasting is the last thing on their mind. It's all about the ranting and raving about some idiot on some sports team, and heaping criticism.

It's also, strangely enough, about trying to show some degree of masculinity. To be fair, most commentators tend not to show off their machismo. Many are jock wannabees, but are more sports geeks, then BMOC. This often means they lack complete objectivity, which probably doesn't exist anyway, but is even worse in sports, where you may admire the sports person you're trying to cover.

Sally Jenkins helped Lance Armstrong write his autobiography, most notably, before he ran a series of seven victories at the Tour de France, breaking the record of five held by several cyclists. Needless to say, despite Armstrong's personality, which isn't exactly humble and gracious, Jenkins is nonetheless smitten, and probably thanks her lucky stars that she knows this icon of bicycling.

As such, you often hear commentators reaffirm their sexuality by commenting about how hot various female athletes or actors are. Occasionally, you'll hear an older sports commentatory talk about how handsome a male athlete might be, though often in the context of adoring fans. This is, I suppose, a male commentator's way of not trying to sound too sexist. Dick Enberg, for example, is not above saying that some male athlete is good looking, but always seems to do it without sounding as if he's actually interested.

Tony Kornheiser brings this issue up about Tom Brady, though he tries to sound as if he's jealous (or not) about women wanting Brady.

Which brings me to my point. Recently, Bode Miller made some allegations of Lance Armstrong and Barry Bonds using drugs. Bode Miller is on the Olympic ski team. These allegations have made several sports commentators exclaim that Miller is a complete idiot, especially, since he (to their minds) can't corroborate anything he says.

As it also turns out, Miller has had a few beefcake photos. Might as well take advantage of the Olympics and get one's name out there. Arguably, his comments were meant to put his name out there to begin with, and sports commentators, always looking for something to fill the airwaves, can't help but be baited. This is, in Internet terms, called a troll.

Miller is, I suppose, a reasonably good looking guy. However, with most sports commentators being straight, this is a non-issue. Would, for example, Anna Kournikova saying pretty much the same thing cause sports commentators to criticize her for saying something stupid, or would they, enamored by her beauty, be unable to address that issue, and have to point out how hot she is in their minds.

It's funny how sports commentary works like that. You see that a little bit in entertainment news (if you can call it that). Women are usually doing entertainment news, but they talk in such insipidly stupid ways that hearing them ogle over some hot male sounds as artificial as aspartame. It's nauseating to hear, really.

Point is this. Why do male sports commentators do this? Of course, once one person has license to talk like that, so does the next person, and they do.

The irony, I suppose, is that while most male commentators talk about hot women, they find it incredibly difficult to take women's sports seriously. They admire men's sports too much to take women seriously. Sure, a few of them might know women's tennis. But women's basketball? The sports casting fraternity doesn't extend to people like Lamont Jordan, who was a women's basketball manager back in high school, and genuinely likes women's basketball, despite being a decent running back in the NFL (and a Maryland football player to boot).

Ah, sports commentary. The last bastion of male geek heterosexuality.

Super Bowl Not So Much

The Super Bowl almost never lives up to the hype. The commercials generally suck (though a few were funny, as they almost always are). The actual play is not so good, because, let's face it, football is a game of errors. It's rare to have error-free football.

Pittsburgh was favored over Seattle mostly because Pittsburgh has a history. The Steelers won a bunch of Superbowls back in the 70s, but pretty much hadn't won in 25 years, although Cowher made it to the Superbowl once before and lost.

Although Seattle had some success moving the ball, they only had 3 points to their name. Pittsburgh scored points in errors. There was one long run for 75 yards. There was a trick play where Antawn Randle-el, a former quarterback, tossed a TD pass to Hines Ward. There was Ben Roethlisberger who, after two attempts by Bettis to punch in the ball at the goal line came up short, ran it in, and barely, barely crossed the plane.

Seattle had TDs called back due to penalties, and Shaun Alexander, MVP, seemed a non-factor. A key turnover late in the game didn't help either.

Still, if wins are what matter in the end, you have to feel good for Cowher, who has been toiling 12 or 13 years as head coach without a win, and for Jerome Bettis, who has toiled nearly as long, as the "Bus" coming back to Detroit. Bettis was, for the most part, rather ineffective. He ran a dozen times for about 40 yards. Except for the one big run for Pittsburgh, their run game was not all that effective.

So the football season ends, and fans will have to wait til September, which is another 7-8 months away before they can enjoy football again. For now, it's basketball season and the lead up to March madness, and the leadup to the baseball season.

Of the major sports, I have to say I enjoy football the most. Basketball is second, and baseball a distant third. I like tennis, golf, skating enough, but don't follow it nearly as much as I used to. Those sports are driven by personality, and so if you don't like the personalities involved, it's easy not to be engaged in the sport.

Oh well, another football season has come to an end.

Why Blogs Suck

I've been blogging a few months now, and even from the get-go, I knew the blogging software out there generally sucked. Blogs have a certain format that just doesn't work out well for a lot of things.

For example, blogs are dated. Suppose I were interested in writing, oh, I dunno, movie reviews. Maybe I'd want to gather them together in one spot, and have readers find that section. Or I might be writing a tutorial, and I want to build that up over time. Blogs don't support that (at least, Blogger doesn't).

Or maybe I want a list of things to put down, like movies I want to see. Or books I own.

And really, blog titles and opening paragraphs should serve merely as teasers. I write long blogs, which means a person has to scroll way down to read the next article. It should be like a newspaper, and point to lengthier versions elsewhere.

In fact, I'd rather compose my articles more like a magazine, not as a diary, writing various articles and packaging it up in various ways. But apparently, blogging isn't at that stage.

It just seems like something someone could do that would make blogging so much nicer.

Cache, Part 1

French films, even those directed by Germans, always seem to have much better dialogue than American films. Maybe that's because I watch far more films in English and therefore a greater percentage of that is crap.

I just caught Cache at the Bethesda Landmark. I knew a little of the plot going in, but was trying to avoid hearing much more of it. Still, even knowing what I knew, I thought, would spoil what was happening.

It's to Haneke's credit that the early parts of the film are filled with dread, making the viewer conscious of the film as film, as a viewer, as someone who watches what is being shown. A good film tends to draw you into the story, so you are involved, and don't realize what's being presented is, in fact, film, even if you know that it is obviously film. Thus, you can be wholly engaged watching Star Wars, knowing it is a fantastical story, and yet, be sucked into this space opera.

Cache plays a kind of trick that Atom Egoyan is fond of, although Egoyan is far more obvious about what he does. Most Egoyan film uses video. Video is seen as a kind of memory, and as such, despite its fidelity, like memory, it is selective, and possibly unreliable, because the images have to be interpreted. Having something recorded on film or video is, therefore, not as objective as it would seem.

Haneke's goal with video seem quite different. He is playing with our sense of security, our sense of being private when we choose to be private, and of people not caring about us.

The film ends, to me, with more questions than answers, and that, too, seems rather European. An American film might have sought to answer all the questions posed in the film. I have several theories about what has happened, none of it terribly satisfying.

The film reminds me a little of David Lynch, except that Lynch tends to be far creepier in what he presents. For the most part, Haneke presents the mysterious terror of a well-to-do French couple in as naturalistic a way as one can possibly imagine.

If the film did not have this inherent sense of dread about it, it could have served as a standard family drama.

When you watch a good art film, you have, in your mind, a way to resolve the situation, but you know it's too clean, too pat. Or you think , much like horror genres, that the director will cheat, to provide scares. When the son appears to have been abducted, you feel Haneke has fallen into thriller genre conventions, and has put us, the viewer, into sympathy mode with the parents, and yet, Haneke doesn't do anything like that.

It says something about the naturalism of the film when one thing you can commend is a marital fight. Rarely are there real arguments in films, at least, those that sound real. This sounds like a real couple fighting, saying things couples might say. There appears to be a history between the two, and between Georges and his mother.

Even the rooms, the way they're decorated seems reasonable, although I always find art directors love to dress up teenage boys and girls rooms, so that it looks interesting, busy.

Anyway, I'll talk more about the film later. I do wonder though, if my knowledge of the history between France and Algeria were more thorough, would I follow the film better. I have a sense the film serves as a kind of allegory, and not just the literal story it is telling.

More to come.

'Ang Ten

There have been two rather lengthy articles written about Brokeback Mountain

An Affair to Remember by Daniel Mendelson, and

A Picture of Two Americas by Stephen Hunter.

Brokeback Mountain has engendered a great deal of press, even before the director and actors were finally cast. At one point, Gus Van Sant was on slate to direct the film, which would have produced, I'm sure, a far different film, depending on which Van Sant showed up to direct (the director of the blah Finding Forrester or the minimalist offerings of such films as Gerry,Elephant, or Last Days). Ang Lee was tapped to direct, after a moderately disastrous Hulk which Ang saw as a family drama, rather than a comic book yarn, draining the kind of fun that Sam Raimi instilled into the Spiderman franchise.

If you ever look at director's commentary, at least ones that aren't too inane, you find that a good director often has many more ideas going on in his or her head than you ever realize. Certainly, both reviews of this film has made it abundantly clear.

For example, the life that Jack and Ennis lead are often shown indoors, where they are both trapped by their circumstances. The use of closets is shown rather literally.

In particular, when Ennis visits Jack's parents, he visits his room and in his closet, way in the back, he finds a shirt within a shirt, saved from the fight they had up on Brokeback Mountain. It is steeped in symbolism, both the closeted nature of their relationship, and the sense of one holding the other in the image of shirt within shirt.

This notion of closet is revisited once again, as in the final scene, Ang Lee opens his bureau of sorts, which is a kind of closet, and inside hangs the shirt within a shirt, though I've heard that now, the shirts are reversed. I suspect Jack's shirt now sits outside Ennis's.

This scene fills half the screen, the other half being a window to the outside world. The closeted world has the shirts hanging, and a postcard of Brokeback Mountain, and the outside world is shown as forlorn.

In effect, Ang has inverted the two scenes. Where the relationship between Jack and Ennis were always outdoors where no one else had to know but the two of them, and their relationship is seen as natural, the two marriages are often shown indoors, with both being uncomfortable with the strictures of society shown symbolically as enclosed spaces.

Ang likes his symbolism. In The Ice Storm, he uses ice themes throughout (ice cubes, etc) which not only refers to an impending literal ice storm, but the chilly relationships within this film. The loosening of morals in the '70s is seen as something negative.

To be honest, all this symbolism tends to pass me by, and I'm sure directors like Christopher Columbus don't think of their direction in quite this literary Nathaniel Hawthorne sort of way. As a moviegoer, I pay far less attention to this, even as I can look back in hindsight and appreciate it intellectually, if not necessarily, emotionally.

What's particularly interesting about the Mendelsohn's article is that he says the story, far from being a love story that could be about anyone, is instead, he says, particularly aware that the relationship is a gay relationship, and that the director and writers were very conscious of these decisions, even as the actors don't necessarily agree, and have been on record as saying that they (particularly, Ennis) aren't gay.

(Of course, actors not fully getting the film is quite common. Casper Van Dien, who was the "hero" of Starship Troopers, apparently felt he was acting in a straight-up science fiction movie, rather than a satire of military buildup paranoid against an unknown, and thus hated, enemy.)

Although Ennis is never able to fulfill the love he had for Jack (the film, I'm afraid, doesn't make their falling in love particularly plausible--part of it is the age of these actors, who are definitely not 19, which Jack and Ennis are at the start of story) and the only love he has left really is for his own daughter.

In fact, just before the scene of Ennis opening the closet door, he's talking to his daughter about getting married, and asks if she loves him and if he loves her. He decides it's worth giving up his steady, but low-paying job, to be there for the one person left in the world that he does love, namely, his daughter. As she has left, and forgotten to take her sweater, he then opens the door, and you see that he's finally able to deal with his loss.

The words "Jack, I swear" are indeed right out of Annie Proulx's short story. He never completes what he means by this. It seems layered in meaning, as both a person that exasperates him ("I swear I'm going to kill you") as well as a kind of promise ("I swear my heart to you") and possibly even the promise to his daughter to be there.

Ennis's character, by this point, has evolved. Even if he may not be ready to find the next Jack in his life, his temptation by a fine woman who would have cared for him, but would have left him trapped, ends with him hurting her feelings (by not being with her), but at least, he doesn't get remarried. He understands who he is, and even he's slowly beginning to realize he can act on his feelings, and that's most symbolized in the final scene with his daughter.

Perhaps, Ennis means that he swears he'll be able to move on, that the next time, he'd give it all up for love, just as he's given up his ranching job for his daughter.

Brokeback Mountain really splits the realism of needing to support oneself and to raise a family, with the romanticism of falling in love, and being true to that feeling. Ennis, in particular, has always been held back by fear, the fear of death, as he witnessed when he was a boy, and when finally the death has happened, this time to Jack, he knows that maybe, in death, they had lived a life before that, in spite of what everyone else thought.

Brokeback Mountain leaves on an ambivalent note. It's hard to say whether Ennis will ever feel real happiness in his life, even as the film is ending in the 70s, and gays have felt more out than ever. He lives in a world removed from that.

When the film came out, no one thought it was breaking new ground, and yet, despite the kind of gay lifestyle portrayed in shows like Queer as Folk, there are still plenty of people whose lives are more repressed, more behind-the-times than life in a cosmpolitan and vibrant gay scene.

To that extent, much like showing, say, gays in the military, Brokeback Mountain may resonate far more than people would expect.

Already, its box office success is seen as something of a mystery. Ang Lee certainly didn't direct the film in a particularly crowd pleasing manner, and yet, its story of unfulfilled love has a resonance with many (and reflects a theme Ang Lee particularly likes, which he also dealt with in Crouching Tiger---there too, death separates what could have been a relationship that would have made both of them happy, and yet, their loyalty to her dead husband prevents them from doing so).

This is perhaps as much a revisionist Western as, say, Unforgiven, but where that film showed the grit and lack of heroism of cowboys, Brokeback completely subverts traditional Western themes of good guy and bad, of small frontiers, and run ins with Indians.

Instead, Ang Lee presents a truer Western, one where the cowboys (really shepherds) do what they do, which is to herd sheep. There are no Indians to shoot. There aren't fights on horsebacks. This is the mundane, but real life, of people who make their living on the mountains, lacking glamour.

These articles may be serving another purpose, which is to get Academy members who don't find this Oscar worthy material, to rethink it again. I think its chances of winning is reasonably good. It doesn't have particularly strong competition, and perhaps, much like Philadelphia, it resonates with a liberal audience, despite its conservative settings.

The surprising thing, I'd say, is how little is mentioned of Ang Lee's Asian heritage. It's hard to qualify this as a work of an Asian American, since Ang Lee wasn't born in the US, even though his formal film education was in the US (in fact, he was getting his degree at NYU at about the same time Spike Lee was getting his).

So go read the articles while the links are still fresh.

Telephone Killed the Telegraph Star

Last Friday was a momentous occasion. The last telegram was sent by Western Union. Western Union practically became synonymous with telegrams. Telegrams (or telegraphs) were generally acknowledge (were they?) to have killed the Pony Express, a glamorous form of communication where men raced with horses over short distances delivering package from horse to horse to horse. It was said that the Pony Express lasted all of two years. I'm sure Wikipedia can enlighten me on this.

And so it does.

It lasted barely a year and a half, and allowed for mail to be transported across the country in ten days.

People were charged for punctuation (presumably extra) for telegrams, which is why you often see the word "stop" in telegrams. Given the convenience and directness of telephone calls, telegrams became increasing unpopular. Free email made it even less appealing than usual.

The legacy of short messages has not disappeared however. Cell phone users send short messages that often resemble telegrams. A friend of mine likes using "stop" rather than pecking for periods. It's probably due to intelligent prediction, rather than the extra cost of typing a period, that he does this, or that he's amused by this old-timey way to do things.

I'd say something amusing, like he'd prefer to use commas, rather than periods, but this is a tres geek comment concerning the differences between the way Americans like to write numbers, and say, the way the French do.

NPR, of course, reported this, and pointed out that most forms of communication, while threatened with extinction, have often survived. For example, most people predicted television would end radio and that it would also end movies. Neither has happened. Both are vibrant forms of communication.

If anything, we've found more ways to communicate. Instant messaging, cell phones, texting, even blogging, all serve a kind of communication. Whether we're actually doing a better job of interacting is debatable, but at the very least, we are opening opportunities to ourselves to meet others in a non face-to-face manner.

So, there you go. No more telegrams.

Did anyone notice?

Sierra Missed

Have you ever read a fitness magazine? Maybe not. This has to be the silliest magazines sold today. Ostensibly, the magazine is about how to stay fit and suggests exercises every month. But really, is any of that stuff at all topical? Anything exercise they suggest today they could have suggested last year, and they could have suggested the next year.

Ah, but aren't, say cooking magazines like that too? Sure, but there are just a gazillion recipes out there, far more than the total number of exercises that can be covered. An exercise magazine is literally compelled to repeat itself over and over and over. In the end, you're better off getting a book.

Kathy Sierra's blog is a one-note blog. She just finds more and more ways to say the same thing, namely, she's into people trying to get users to "kick ass". She tells people that they must make products that users are passionate about. She first got her start (well, at least, popularly) in the Head First Java, and then co-authoring many of the other Head First series.

To the novice, these books look like what people imagine dummies books to look like. Lots of pictures, funny fonts, and so forth. The reality is most dummies look nothing like this. Pick one up, and they look simply like books.

If anything, what "Head First" books do is to go through examples in laborious detail, yet do not spare details just because it's "hard". They assume a bright reader, who is curious about how this works and how that works, rather than a reader who's an idiot.

To be fair, I like the Head First books, but I can't stand Kathy's Blog. Part of the problem, no, the entire problem is that it peddles in generalities.

At one point, I'm sure she gushed on the IPod design. Joel Spolsky is writing a series of articles on great design. He, too, points to the IPod. But even he points out that there are MP3 players out there that are smaller, cheaper, hold more, process more data, not as prone to scratch or get smudged like IPods. And yet, IPods still dominate the market.

My theory is that Apple does make good stuff, but they have the Apple mystique. They've built an image, from their distinctive ads, to their easy-to-use ITunes (which is perhaps far better than the IPod itself) to things that have come around it, such as podcasting (which Apple didn't invent, and in fact, took a while to completely embrace).

Kathy's approach is much more cheerleader, in this respect. In Kathy's world, cool stuff is naturally good. She doesn't say bad things, and try to push some less well known product, and she jumps on the Microsoft bash wagon. If MS doesn't "kick ass", it may simply be that so many people hate MS, and it's just way too tough to deal with that kind of negative word-of-mouth. She should explain why people still buy PCs. After all, aren't Apples kick-ass? Apple users are certainly passionate. But how many people would rather be in the PC market?

I'd be far more impressed if she could come up with a product idea, and sell that in her kick-ass manner, and see how well it works. It reminds me of these Tony Robbins self-help sessions. After people attend, they are really excited. They believe they are on their way to success. Yet, I've heard of people who are essentially groupies. They attend his sermonizing as regular members, but can barely apply his message to real life.

Yes, I know, in an ideal world, we'd live with products that don't suck. And yet, passion costs. People who make nice things, things people care about, often sell them at a premium. And there's strategy too.

For example, IPod mini's came in several colors, right? But Apple doesn't like a deep product line. In particular, they didn't want the Nano to compete against the Mini, so they ditched the Mini. The nano's only come in two colors, black and white. What? Didn't people like all those colors?

Still, Jobs must know something, because these things sell like hotcakes (do hotcakes really sell?). And by introducing a new line every six months, you're guaranteed to have something out-of-date pretty quick. That should frustrate most people, no? And yet, it doesn't. They're willing to get in line and get a new IPod. Heck, I'm still sorely tempted to get a video IPod.

See, the problem with trying to convince people to sell kick-ass stuff is that so few companies can really do this. It's hard enough to get a good idea and then to sell that idea.

I'll "prove" this. Kathy should get a few folks, maybe college kids, and have them brainstorm some kick-ass ideas, and see how many fly (this could seriously be a replay of The Real World, when they decided the house members should come up with a business plan, and instead bickered about what they wanted to do, and ended up doing nothing. Not that surprising, since the cast is typically picked not for their ability to cooperate, but for their likelihood to create friction and kick some member out at some point).

If she does this, I'd be far, far, more interested in the blog that covers that. I wouldn't even mind if it was real successful. That would be just as interesting as a failure, though a failure would let people ask, why didn't this idea kick-ass?

Now, that, I'd say, is a kick-ass idea.