It was a hot day at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic in Washington DC. This is the main tennis event in Washington DC, and it's always manages to find itself scheduled on a hot week in July or August. Last year, Roddick won this event over James Blake. Blake recently beat Roddick in the RCA finals. Roddick has been somewhat off his game this year, and recently hired Jimmy Connors to help fix it up. Generally, my sense of Roddick is that he has a nice serve, but the rest of his game and focus needs help.
Unless you follow tennis, you may not know who Jan Michael Gambill is. These days, the top of American tennis are filled with pretty boys. James Blake and Andy Roddick are athletes that could do some modelling on the side (and have). Jan Michael Gambill is the other guy, except results-wise, he hasn't been doing so well.
Indeed, it was a surprise to see him today in the qualifying rounds. It turns out that Gambill hasn't played on the tour in some eight months due to a tendon injury in his shoulder. He had to play two matches on Saturday and play a match today.
I joined Adam and his buddy Michael today at the site. This is the qualifying round, but you can often get a glimpse of the top seeds practicing. Today, James Blake, Andre Agassi, and Andrew Murray were on court. Murray, a British player that's seen as the new hope (replacing Tim Henman) was hitting with Agassi. It seems that Murray has hired Brad Gilbert, Agassi's former coach, to help him out. Blake was hitting around with Mardy Fish, who I've vaguely heard of, but not much more than that. As with many people on the tour, Mardy Fish has a website.
Many of these players won't play until Tuesday or so, so it's nice to see they come out to practice on a Sunday.
While Roddick is scheduled to play, he has said he may drop out of the tournament. He wasn't out practicing, suggesting he wasn't at the site yet. Lleyton Hewitt was spotted earlier in the day.
They had scheduled Jan Michael Gambill (named after the actor, Jan Michael Vincent) for the central court. He was scheduled to play Italian, Andrea Stoppini. While the match stayed pretty close throughout, it just seemed that Gambill was struggling just a bit. Gambill can hit serves at world class speeds, nearly 130 mph or so. However, Stoppini, whose serves generally only topped at 120 mph, had an easier time holding serve throughout.
Indeed, Gambill often struggled with Stoppini's off-pace second serve, seemingly unable to deal with his kick. Also, Gambill seemed to struggle to chase down shots. Stoppini's forehand appeared much more powerful that his backhand, and he'd aim it to Gambill's backhand, which he often failed to chase down. Gambill also seemed to lack steadiness hitting shots, as he made numerous errors.
Even so, the match was pretty close. The first set went to a tiebreak. The second set went to 7-5. Stoppini won both sets and is on to the main draw. If Gambill is to make a full recovery, he needs to get back more footspeed, and to control his shots better. He played fairly flat shots and seemed a touch slow, perhaps the result of two matches played the previous day.
Here's to a speedy recovery.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Saturday, July 29, 2006
What D&D Character am I?
I Am A: Neutral Good GnomeRanger Mage
Alignment:
Neutral Good characters believe in the power of good above all else. They will work to make the world a better place, and will do whatever is necessary to bring that about, whether it goes for or against whatever is considered 'normal'.
Race:
Gnomes are also short, like dwarves, but much skinnier. They have no beards, and are very inclined towards technology, although they have been known to dabble in magic, too. They tend to be fun-loving and fond of jokes and humor. Some gnomes live underground, and some live in cities and villages. They are very tolerant of other races, and are generally well-liked, though occasionally considered frivolous.
Primary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.
Secondary Class:
Mages harness the magical energies for their own use. Spells, spell books, and long hours in the library are their loves. While often not physically strong, their mental talents can make up for this.
Deity:
Baervan Wildwanderer is the Neutral Good gnomish god of forests, travel, and nature. He is also known as the Masked Leaf. His avatar is always accompanied by an intelligent, giant raccoon, named Chiktikka Fastpaws. His followers, like him, enjoy the outdoors and work to protect it and guard those who also enjoy it. Their preferred weapon is the halfspear.
Find out What D&D Character Are You?, courtesy of
NeppyMan (e-mail)
Alignment:
Neutral Good characters believe in the power of good above all else. They will work to make the world a better place, and will do whatever is necessary to bring that about, whether it goes for or against whatever is considered 'normal'.
Race:
Gnomes are also short, like dwarves, but much skinnier. They have no beards, and are very inclined towards technology, although they have been known to dabble in magic, too. They tend to be fun-loving and fond of jokes and humor. Some gnomes live underground, and some live in cities and villages. They are very tolerant of other races, and are generally well-liked, though occasionally considered frivolous.
Primary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.
Secondary Class:
Mages harness the magical energies for their own use. Spells, spell books, and long hours in the library are their loves. While often not physically strong, their mental talents can make up for this.
Deity:
Baervan Wildwanderer is the Neutral Good gnomish god of forests, travel, and nature. He is also known as the Masked Leaf. His avatar is always accompanied by an intelligent, giant raccoon, named Chiktikka Fastpaws. His followers, like him, enjoy the outdoors and work to protect it and guard those who also enjoy it. Their preferred weapon is the halfspear.
Find out What D&D Character Are You?, courtesy of
NeppyMan (e-mail)Friday, July 28, 2006
One Man Star Wars
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. That was nearly 30 years ago, the summer of 1977. Jimmy Carter had barely been president 6 months. The bicentennial was a year old. Disco ruled the land. Progressive bands like Yes and Genesis were still in their heyday. The early seventies had produced a new kind of American movies, movies like Chinatown, The Conversation, two Godfather movies, Apocalypse Now, Easy Rider.
And then the movie that changed everything. Star Wars. Although George Lucas was associated with the young brash directors of the seventies, directors like Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, filmmakers that were producing a different kind of vision, the decaded would be remembered by a resurgence of a science fiction film.
It's hard to even classify Star Wars as science fiction. Most science fiction deals with social issues, plausible science, and the way people react with new technology. Star Wars is not about any of that. It is an old myth told in a modern way.
Star Wars succeeded in many ways that other science fiction films hadn't. 2001 is considered a seminal science fiction film dealing with deep issues of the creation of man, and the discovery of what may be the creator of human intelligence--an alien monolith. It is much closer to science fiction than Star Wars ever was.
It was also ponderously slow, with acting quality kept to a minimum, and the awe of an alien culture, jazzed up by John Dykstra, before he applied his SF magic to Star Wars.
Star Wars was simply, a lot of fun. First, it had a great score. Many of John Williams best scores came in the 1970s. The dread of Jaws. The solemnity and magnificence of Superman. The military beats of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The musical refrain of Close Encounters. Perhaps there's no theme, however, so familiar as that of Star Wars, which itself was inspired by Holst's, The Planets.
Then, there was Darth Vader, the quintisential bad guy. He looked cool in all black with the deep baritone registers of James Earl Jones. In many ways, it has the look of the seventies. Han Solo and Luke both have longish hair. They are contrasted by the very British empire (and one guy who very much resembles Peter Sarsgard).
As a kid, who didn't want to be Luke Skywalker slinging his lightsaber, or Han Solo being the wiseass pilot with the blaster. Who didn't feel the urge to do their best Chewbacca. Who didn't think that, if they closed their eyes, and wished hard enough, the force would be with them too. Who didn't make swooshing noises and marvel at just how cool the lightsaber was?
Lucas had idea after idea in this film. Beyond John Williams music, there was Darth Vader, the Force, lightsabers, cool X-wings and Y-wings and TIE fighters. There was the Death Star. There was C-3PO and R2-D2. Although Lucas would deny that he ever thought Star Wars would be wildly successful (credit the editors, they say, with creating gold from crap), even as he negotiated merchandising, soon, the way Lucas became ultra-wealthy, to the point that it seemed market forces drove the creation of Ewoks, teddy bear like creatures that scream "I'm cute! Buy me!"
Star Wars lead to Empire, the darkest of the three, and most argue, the best of the three, with its big surprise at the end ("Luke, I am your father!") so well hidden that Mark Hamill didn't even know that Darth was daddy until the film had been made ("Why didn't you tell me?"). Empire begat the commerical Jedi. And then nothing for a long time, before 1997 rolled around, and Lucas decided to go back to the first three films in the sequence, and came out with three clunkers.
Now, let's wind to last year.
I was reading online, as I am wont to do, when I read an article about One Man Star Wars, probably in the New York Times online. I went to the website, where I read about Canadian Charlie Ross, and saw some brief segment of One Man Star Wars and One Man Lord of the Rings.
Charlie had his email address available, so I wrote him. I started of the email doubting the real Charlie Ross would write me back. True, Charlie couldn't have been too famous, but even so, a webpage is often put up on behalf of people who aren't too tech savvy, who don't read email much, or who get far too much email. And it's not exactly the best way to chat with anyone.
It's not the only time I've exchanged some email with someone "famous". I had exchaged some emails with Shane Carruth, director of the SF indie film, Primer which he allegedly made for seven thousand dollars. We exchanged maybe two, three emails, before I never much heard from him again. Again, not unexpected. It's amazing that I got email back. It helps to pick someone relatively obscure to talk to.
Charlie did reply, but it's really hard to hold a conversation in this manner. One feels like a total dweeb sending email and trying to establish some kind of rapport. So, after a few emails, there was no more as well.
Now, although Charlie had done One Man Star Wars a lot, he is from Canada, and tended to do his performances there, or big cities in the US, like New York City.
He had, as far as I knew, never come to Washington DC, where I'd have a chance to watch.
But as luck would have it, I was reading the Post, and they were talking about the inaugural Capital Fringe, and who did they feature, but one Charlie Ross, who was, wouldn't you know, scheduled to do something like 8 performances over like 6 days.
How nice! I figured I'd buy a ticket. Except, I waited until Wednesday, after the show had opened a day. What made me think such a featured performance, on a nostalgia trip that Ross was giving audience, and one that was well-reviewed would have empty seats. By Wednesday, they had sold out.
I was crushed. I had let the same mistake I made with not buying Sufjan Stevens tix when I had the chance (his performance at the 9:30 club sold out three weeks before he arrived). Who knew when Charlie Ross would come back again.
I had even sent him email last week saying I had been looking forward to meeting him. Needless to say, I didn't hear anything from him.
But I called in, hoping against hope that there might be something that could be done. They said they could put me on a waitlist, and if someone dropped out, they'd call me up. I didn't expect too much, to be honest. My chance had come and gone, and procrastination had defeated me again.
But, as serendipity would have it (I know, it's not the correct use of the word, but I like its sound), I was called yesterday. They were telling me that I could get a ticket for standing room only, and I agreed, figuring beggars couldn't be choosers. They said they had a ticket ready for me on Friday night.
Perfect. Already, on Wednesday morning, I had heard a talk by Tom Friedman, the guy who wrote a book called The World is Flat about globalization in the new era of technology. This is his best-selling book by far. Universities are making it required reading. Our CEO was kind enough to buy everyone a copy of the book. Friedman also gave an entertaining Q&A session, all the more amazing, since he had flown in from Damascus, given the heated conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
Thursday evening, I went to the Border's in Silver Spring, where ever fourth Thursday of the month, where Joe Barber and Bill Henry discuss films with interested film fans. Apparently, they've been doing it for years, though not always at the Silver Spring site.
I had heard Joe Barber on Tony Kornheiser's show, where he'd offer his opinions of movies.
I had missed last month's get-together (I had been to two previous ones) because I miscomputed the fourth Thursday of that month. I was a week late. The month before, they were taking suggestions for films. That month's topic was about whether special effects were ruining movies. I myself had said that it was making total CG films, like those Pixar make, quite successful, and no one seemed to mind its wall to wall "special effects".
One person suggested patriotic films. I suggested minority in films, not just African Americans, but also Asian Americans, Latinos, and technically, we could have talked about films about women, films about gay/lesbian, etc. Bill didn't seem so enthused about the topic, so I honestly thought they would drop the subject and speak about something else, especially since I didn't make it last month.
However, to my surprise and relief, they did talk about it last night, and went back in history, all the way to D.W. Griffiths, and Birth of a Nation. I've never seen the film, though I know it portrays the Ku Klux Klan in a positive way. Even though Griffiths was racist, I put him as a product of his time, and still, the man did define much of modern film vocabulary. It's difficult to judge people based on standards of today, when it wasn't the prevailing thought of the day, at least, in some parts of the country.
They worked their way to modern films, or at least, until the 60s.
I began to bring up Asian American films, and I felt they missed the boat completely when they decided to talk about Asian films like those made by John Woo. John Woo is a Hong Kong filmmaker making films in Hong Kong (or he was). He is not talking about the Asian American experience at all. Indeed, the success of Asian cinema has meant there aren't likely to be many Asian American films, when one can simply get an Asian film.
On the other hand, African American films do not have the pressure of African films to compete against. Thus, they can, in principle, be about the African American experience. Now, sometimes, they aren't as in White Chicks or an action adventure with Denzel Washington. But occasionally, the issue is dealt with, such as in Glory, or Waiting to Exhale.
And let's face it, there are plenty of excellent African American actors, from Denzel to Don Cheadle, Samuel L. Jackson, Halle Berry, Whoopi Goldberg, Ving Rhames, James Earl Jones. The list is quite lengthy.
What about Asian American actors? No, Chow Yun Fat is a Hong Kong actor. So is Jackie Chan. So is Michelle Yeoh. There aren't many ones of note. There's Lucy Liu. There's Pat Morita (who passed away). There are a few other female Asian American actresses since white folks like Asian women. (Neither Gong Li nor Zhang Ziyi count). But name five good Asian American actors. Can't do it, can you?
Latino actors are a little difficult to find too. Antonio Banderas is actually from Spain. Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna are from Mexico. I suppose you can count Benicio del Toro, who is Puerto Rican, or Rita Moreno, or Freddie Prinze, Jr. or Jennifer Lopez. These are, at least, Latino/a Americans.
Even Asian American directors can barely do the Asian American experience. Spike Lee and John Singleton directed films about African Americans. When there's a successful Asian American director (depending on how you define success), they invariably end up getting jobs directing non Asians.
Though Ang Lee is not technically Asian American (born in Taiwan, he received his film degree at NYU at roughly the time Spike Lee did), he started off making films in Taiwan. Once he made English films, it was not really about Asians anymore (except Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which really was not about Asian Americans). Justin Lin went from Better Luck Tomorrow about Asian American teens gone bad to one of the Fast and Furious sequel. While he's apparently portrayed Japanese culture a little more insightfully than one might expect, he's no longer doing Asian American film.
Indeed, the most successful of Asian American directors is M. Night Shymalan, whose never done a film about Indian Americans. There's no Bend It Like Beckham in his repetoire. All his mainstream films have not had one Indian in it (although I should actually watch his films first, before jumping to conclusions).
Anyway, that was a total distraction. I had dinner with Joe and Bill and a few other regulars at nearby Austin Grill, after Bill invited me. He said it was rare for them to invite anyone else, so I suppose I should feel special (I sorta do!). Who knew they were such baseball buffs (Joe was wearing a Nats cap).
I took the Metro in this evening to the Wooly Mammoth, the new location of a theater that has apparently been around some 25 years. The place looks nice. The main theater was pretty tiny. I can't imagine it holds more than about 150-200 people, tops.
The first thing that surprised me about the performance was how few aids he used to do the performance. He has a mike that is attached over his head/ear, much like Madonna used, so he could amplify his voice.
He didn't have any other sound effects or music other than his voice.
He dances a fine line between making the trilogy funny and trying to be faithful to it. Indeed, much of the humor can be mined just by being fairly faithful to the film, especially just amping up Luke's whining.
Charlie's best voice is Luke himself. He does a fine enough Vader and even Leia. Much of the success of the impersonation comes from body language more than dead-on accuracy. His worst voice, by far, is Yoda's, which is strange, given that Yoda should be a voice that's easily impersonated.
Charlie has to come up with all sorts of bodily cues to get across meaning, from jutting his arms backwards to represent Y-Wing fighters, to pulling his cheeks down to do Nien Numb, the mousy co-pilot, to flapping his arms to imitate Jabba's mouth.
I suppose I was surprised that he did more crotch grabbing than a Michael Jackson retrospective. Crotch grabbing was his short-hand for Han. He used small things like "schwing" to great effect, putting into words what people must have wondered about (once they got to a certain age that is).
The performance is fairly physical, and by the third act, when he wa doing Jedi, he was apparently sweating a storm, and mentioned this to the audience. Occasionally, he broke form and started to laugh because of the audience reaction.
I was a little surprised at how big Ross is. I mean his stature. He seems about 6'2" and 190 pounds. He was dressed in a black jumpsuit of some sort.
I had wondered what he'd have to do after the performance, presumably at least towel off, if not shower.
Now, sometimes after the performance, the actors come out and mingle. I wasn't sure whether that Charlie would actually do that, or what I'd say to him if he did. So I hung out a fair bit afterward. However, the crowds had pretty much left after five or so minutes. I got a beer, and hung out some, eventually working my way upstairs.
Now, as it turns out, Charlie Ross did come out after all, but he wasn't really out there to meet the public. He did seem to know some people there, one guy, and two women, and talked to them while drinking a beer. I had wondered, should I go and talk? I mean, despite having watched him for a little over an hour, he didn't quite look like him out of costume.
He seemed, from what I could tell, like a down-to-earth guy (he's Canadian, what do you expect? Eh?). I felt like a bit of a stalker. Hi, Charlie Ross, I'm a Charlie too! I sent you email last year! That was making me feel like such a tool. So instead, I simply sat at a nearby stool, sipping my beer, deciding whether I should take the advice Charlie gave at the end (an odd thing, which felt very much like a PSA--public service ad) where he said people should chase their dreams, work hard, and, oh yes, get a lawyer.
My smaller goals was simply to say hi and talk, but it felt like interupting too much. Eventually, he and his buddies left, presumably to do something late at night, or return to a hotel room, or some such, and so my opportunity to say hi went down the tubes (much like the Internet, I might add).
So, Charlie Ross, I don't expect you'll read this, but in case you do, I wasn't really, really stalking! Not really. Well maybe just a little.
The performance, I have to say, was hilarious. I was thinking what other kinds of movies could he do. Star Wars has many great aspects about it that makes it ripe for making fun of. First, people are passionate about the series, and have watched it a gazillion times. There's a lot of nostalgia watching it.
Second, you realize, my goodness, Luke is such a whiner. How did I miss that? Probably because I was a kid when I watched the movie again and again, so that even recent viewings make you think about the way you saw it as a kid. When Charlie does his Luke, it verges on mockery while still remaining pretty faithful to Mark Hamill's acting.
And really, you had to give credit to Charlie for coming up with incredibly clever shorthand to represent space ships. His physical imitation of ATATs from both Empire and Jedi are too funny for words, and because I (and many others) are so familiar with every last detail, Charlie can use a shorthand to get across an idea (the explosion the the ATATs, which have to make them the unsafest, most inefficient people mover ever--once it collapses, explosions ensue--they are the Ford Pinto of the Star Wars universe).
Maybe I'll work up the nerve to say hi to Charlie next time he rolls in town, should the opportunity even arrive. In the meanwhile, good job!
And then the movie that changed everything. Star Wars. Although George Lucas was associated with the young brash directors of the seventies, directors like Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, filmmakers that were producing a different kind of vision, the decaded would be remembered by a resurgence of a science fiction film.
It's hard to even classify Star Wars as science fiction. Most science fiction deals with social issues, plausible science, and the way people react with new technology. Star Wars is not about any of that. It is an old myth told in a modern way.
Star Wars succeeded in many ways that other science fiction films hadn't. 2001 is considered a seminal science fiction film dealing with deep issues of the creation of man, and the discovery of what may be the creator of human intelligence--an alien monolith. It is much closer to science fiction than Star Wars ever was.
It was also ponderously slow, with acting quality kept to a minimum, and the awe of an alien culture, jazzed up by John Dykstra, before he applied his SF magic to Star Wars.
Star Wars was simply, a lot of fun. First, it had a great score. Many of John Williams best scores came in the 1970s. The dread of Jaws. The solemnity and magnificence of Superman. The military beats of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The musical refrain of Close Encounters. Perhaps there's no theme, however, so familiar as that of Star Wars, which itself was inspired by Holst's, The Planets.
Then, there was Darth Vader, the quintisential bad guy. He looked cool in all black with the deep baritone registers of James Earl Jones. In many ways, it has the look of the seventies. Han Solo and Luke both have longish hair. They are contrasted by the very British empire (and one guy who very much resembles Peter Sarsgard).
As a kid, who didn't want to be Luke Skywalker slinging his lightsaber, or Han Solo being the wiseass pilot with the blaster. Who didn't feel the urge to do their best Chewbacca. Who didn't think that, if they closed their eyes, and wished hard enough, the force would be with them too. Who didn't make swooshing noises and marvel at just how cool the lightsaber was?
Lucas had idea after idea in this film. Beyond John Williams music, there was Darth Vader, the Force, lightsabers, cool X-wings and Y-wings and TIE fighters. There was the Death Star. There was C-3PO and R2-D2. Although Lucas would deny that he ever thought Star Wars would be wildly successful (credit the editors, they say, with creating gold from crap), even as he negotiated merchandising, soon, the way Lucas became ultra-wealthy, to the point that it seemed market forces drove the creation of Ewoks, teddy bear like creatures that scream "I'm cute! Buy me!"
Star Wars lead to Empire, the darkest of the three, and most argue, the best of the three, with its big surprise at the end ("Luke, I am your father!") so well hidden that Mark Hamill didn't even know that Darth was daddy until the film had been made ("Why didn't you tell me?"). Empire begat the commerical Jedi. And then nothing for a long time, before 1997 rolled around, and Lucas decided to go back to the first three films in the sequence, and came out with three clunkers.
Now, let's wind to last year.
I was reading online, as I am wont to do, when I read an article about One Man Star Wars, probably in the New York Times online. I went to the website, where I read about Canadian Charlie Ross, and saw some brief segment of One Man Star Wars and One Man Lord of the Rings.
Charlie had his email address available, so I wrote him. I started of the email doubting the real Charlie Ross would write me back. True, Charlie couldn't have been too famous, but even so, a webpage is often put up on behalf of people who aren't too tech savvy, who don't read email much, or who get far too much email. And it's not exactly the best way to chat with anyone.
It's not the only time I've exchanged some email with someone "famous". I had exchaged some emails with Shane Carruth, director of the SF indie film, Primer which he allegedly made for seven thousand dollars. We exchanged maybe two, three emails, before I never much heard from him again. Again, not unexpected. It's amazing that I got email back. It helps to pick someone relatively obscure to talk to.
Charlie did reply, but it's really hard to hold a conversation in this manner. One feels like a total dweeb sending email and trying to establish some kind of rapport. So, after a few emails, there was no more as well.
Now, although Charlie had done One Man Star Wars a lot, he is from Canada, and tended to do his performances there, or big cities in the US, like New York City.
He had, as far as I knew, never come to Washington DC, where I'd have a chance to watch.
But as luck would have it, I was reading the Post, and they were talking about the inaugural Capital Fringe, and who did they feature, but one Charlie Ross, who was, wouldn't you know, scheduled to do something like 8 performances over like 6 days.
How nice! I figured I'd buy a ticket. Except, I waited until Wednesday, after the show had opened a day. What made me think such a featured performance, on a nostalgia trip that Ross was giving audience, and one that was well-reviewed would have empty seats. By Wednesday, they had sold out.
I was crushed. I had let the same mistake I made with not buying Sufjan Stevens tix when I had the chance (his performance at the 9:30 club sold out three weeks before he arrived). Who knew when Charlie Ross would come back again.
I had even sent him email last week saying I had been looking forward to meeting him. Needless to say, I didn't hear anything from him.
But I called in, hoping against hope that there might be something that could be done. They said they could put me on a waitlist, and if someone dropped out, they'd call me up. I didn't expect too much, to be honest. My chance had come and gone, and procrastination had defeated me again.
But, as serendipity would have it (I know, it's not the correct use of the word, but I like its sound), I was called yesterday. They were telling me that I could get a ticket for standing room only, and I agreed, figuring beggars couldn't be choosers. They said they had a ticket ready for me on Friday night.
Perfect. Already, on Wednesday morning, I had heard a talk by Tom Friedman, the guy who wrote a book called The World is Flat about globalization in the new era of technology. This is his best-selling book by far. Universities are making it required reading. Our CEO was kind enough to buy everyone a copy of the book. Friedman also gave an entertaining Q&A session, all the more amazing, since he had flown in from Damascus, given the heated conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
Thursday evening, I went to the Border's in Silver Spring, where ever fourth Thursday of the month, where Joe Barber and Bill Henry discuss films with interested film fans. Apparently, they've been doing it for years, though not always at the Silver Spring site.
I had heard Joe Barber on Tony Kornheiser's show, where he'd offer his opinions of movies.
I had missed last month's get-together (I had been to two previous ones) because I miscomputed the fourth Thursday of that month. I was a week late. The month before, they were taking suggestions for films. That month's topic was about whether special effects were ruining movies. I myself had said that it was making total CG films, like those Pixar make, quite successful, and no one seemed to mind its wall to wall "special effects".
One person suggested patriotic films. I suggested minority in films, not just African Americans, but also Asian Americans, Latinos, and technically, we could have talked about films about women, films about gay/lesbian, etc. Bill didn't seem so enthused about the topic, so I honestly thought they would drop the subject and speak about something else, especially since I didn't make it last month.
However, to my surprise and relief, they did talk about it last night, and went back in history, all the way to D.W. Griffiths, and Birth of a Nation. I've never seen the film, though I know it portrays the Ku Klux Klan in a positive way. Even though Griffiths was racist, I put him as a product of his time, and still, the man did define much of modern film vocabulary. It's difficult to judge people based on standards of today, when it wasn't the prevailing thought of the day, at least, in some parts of the country.
They worked their way to modern films, or at least, until the 60s.
I began to bring up Asian American films, and I felt they missed the boat completely when they decided to talk about Asian films like those made by John Woo. John Woo is a Hong Kong filmmaker making films in Hong Kong (or he was). He is not talking about the Asian American experience at all. Indeed, the success of Asian cinema has meant there aren't likely to be many Asian American films, when one can simply get an Asian film.
On the other hand, African American films do not have the pressure of African films to compete against. Thus, they can, in principle, be about the African American experience. Now, sometimes, they aren't as in White Chicks or an action adventure with Denzel Washington. But occasionally, the issue is dealt with, such as in Glory, or Waiting to Exhale.
And let's face it, there are plenty of excellent African American actors, from Denzel to Don Cheadle, Samuel L. Jackson, Halle Berry, Whoopi Goldberg, Ving Rhames, James Earl Jones. The list is quite lengthy.
What about Asian American actors? No, Chow Yun Fat is a Hong Kong actor. So is Jackie Chan. So is Michelle Yeoh. There aren't many ones of note. There's Lucy Liu. There's Pat Morita (who passed away). There are a few other female Asian American actresses since white folks like Asian women. (Neither Gong Li nor Zhang Ziyi count). But name five good Asian American actors. Can't do it, can you?
Latino actors are a little difficult to find too. Antonio Banderas is actually from Spain. Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna are from Mexico. I suppose you can count Benicio del Toro, who is Puerto Rican, or Rita Moreno, or Freddie Prinze, Jr. or Jennifer Lopez. These are, at least, Latino/a Americans.
Even Asian American directors can barely do the Asian American experience. Spike Lee and John Singleton directed films about African Americans. When there's a successful Asian American director (depending on how you define success), they invariably end up getting jobs directing non Asians.
Though Ang Lee is not technically Asian American (born in Taiwan, he received his film degree at NYU at roughly the time Spike Lee did), he started off making films in Taiwan. Once he made English films, it was not really about Asians anymore (except Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which really was not about Asian Americans). Justin Lin went from Better Luck Tomorrow about Asian American teens gone bad to one of the Fast and Furious sequel. While he's apparently portrayed Japanese culture a little more insightfully than one might expect, he's no longer doing Asian American film.
Indeed, the most successful of Asian American directors is M. Night Shymalan, whose never done a film about Indian Americans. There's no Bend It Like Beckham in his repetoire. All his mainstream films have not had one Indian in it (although I should actually watch his films first, before jumping to conclusions).
Anyway, that was a total distraction. I had dinner with Joe and Bill and a few other regulars at nearby Austin Grill, after Bill invited me. He said it was rare for them to invite anyone else, so I suppose I should feel special (I sorta do!). Who knew they were such baseball buffs (Joe was wearing a Nats cap).
I took the Metro in this evening to the Wooly Mammoth, the new location of a theater that has apparently been around some 25 years. The place looks nice. The main theater was pretty tiny. I can't imagine it holds more than about 150-200 people, tops.
The first thing that surprised me about the performance was how few aids he used to do the performance. He has a mike that is attached over his head/ear, much like Madonna used, so he could amplify his voice.
He didn't have any other sound effects or music other than his voice.
He dances a fine line between making the trilogy funny and trying to be faithful to it. Indeed, much of the humor can be mined just by being fairly faithful to the film, especially just amping up Luke's whining.
Charlie's best voice is Luke himself. He does a fine enough Vader and even Leia. Much of the success of the impersonation comes from body language more than dead-on accuracy. His worst voice, by far, is Yoda's, which is strange, given that Yoda should be a voice that's easily impersonated.
Charlie has to come up with all sorts of bodily cues to get across meaning, from jutting his arms backwards to represent Y-Wing fighters, to pulling his cheeks down to do Nien Numb, the mousy co-pilot, to flapping his arms to imitate Jabba's mouth.
I suppose I was surprised that he did more crotch grabbing than a Michael Jackson retrospective. Crotch grabbing was his short-hand for Han. He used small things like "schwing" to great effect, putting into words what people must have wondered about (once they got to a certain age that is).
The performance is fairly physical, and by the third act, when he wa doing Jedi, he was apparently sweating a storm, and mentioned this to the audience. Occasionally, he broke form and started to laugh because of the audience reaction.
I was a little surprised at how big Ross is. I mean his stature. He seems about 6'2" and 190 pounds. He was dressed in a black jumpsuit of some sort.
I had wondered what he'd have to do after the performance, presumably at least towel off, if not shower.
Now, sometimes after the performance, the actors come out and mingle. I wasn't sure whether that Charlie would actually do that, or what I'd say to him if he did. So I hung out a fair bit afterward. However, the crowds had pretty much left after five or so minutes. I got a beer, and hung out some, eventually working my way upstairs.
Now, as it turns out, Charlie Ross did come out after all, but he wasn't really out there to meet the public. He did seem to know some people there, one guy, and two women, and talked to them while drinking a beer. I had wondered, should I go and talk? I mean, despite having watched him for a little over an hour, he didn't quite look like him out of costume.
He seemed, from what I could tell, like a down-to-earth guy (he's Canadian, what do you expect? Eh?). I felt like a bit of a stalker. Hi, Charlie Ross, I'm a Charlie too! I sent you email last year! That was making me feel like such a tool. So instead, I simply sat at a nearby stool, sipping my beer, deciding whether I should take the advice Charlie gave at the end (an odd thing, which felt very much like a PSA--public service ad) where he said people should chase their dreams, work hard, and, oh yes, get a lawyer.
My smaller goals was simply to say hi and talk, but it felt like interupting too much. Eventually, he and his buddies left, presumably to do something late at night, or return to a hotel room, or some such, and so my opportunity to say hi went down the tubes (much like the Internet, I might add).
So, Charlie Ross, I don't expect you'll read this, but in case you do, I wasn't really, really stalking! Not really. Well maybe just a little.
The performance, I have to say, was hilarious. I was thinking what other kinds of movies could he do. Star Wars has many great aspects about it that makes it ripe for making fun of. First, people are passionate about the series, and have watched it a gazillion times. There's a lot of nostalgia watching it.
Second, you realize, my goodness, Luke is such a whiner. How did I miss that? Probably because I was a kid when I watched the movie again and again, so that even recent viewings make you think about the way you saw it as a kid. When Charlie does his Luke, it verges on mockery while still remaining pretty faithful to Mark Hamill's acting.
And really, you had to give credit to Charlie for coming up with incredibly clever shorthand to represent space ships. His physical imitation of ATATs from both Empire and Jedi are too funny for words, and because I (and many others) are so familiar with every last detail, Charlie can use a shorthand to get across an idea (the explosion the the ATATs, which have to make them the unsafest, most inefficient people mover ever--once it collapses, explosions ensue--they are the Ford Pinto of the Star Wars universe).
Maybe I'll work up the nerve to say hi to Charlie next time he rolls in town, should the opportunity even arrive. In the meanwhile, good job!
Monday, July 24, 2006
French Connection
Sometimes sports commentators can be total idiots. OK, maybe all the times. I was listening to some commentary about the Tour de France. The commentators said the French were protesting Lance Armstrong claiming he had doped up, and now that he's gone, and they have their chance to win, then Floyd Landis comes around and wins another for the U. S. of A. How this must burn the French. Another American. Winning. Again.
Where do they get these ideas from? Do they know any French? Oh, no, it's just what they imagine the French must be like, what they surmise from the few who truly can't stand Armstrong, and generalize to the whole public (meanwhile, harassing Barry Bonds all day long, not realizing the hypocrisy). It's jingoistic flag waving at its worst, and speculation of the worst kind, completely ill informed.
The French weren't even particularly favored to do well this time around. The two favorites, outside of Landis, were Ullrich of Germany and Basso who is Italian. Indeed, there were two spaniards, a German, and a Russian ahead of the best French rider. Even the French weren't expecting the French to win the Tour. True, at one point, they used to win it every year, until other riders from other countries started getting good.
And, it's not as if Armstrong's winning teams were all Americans, because they weren't. Heck, Landis won cycling for a Swiss team. Things in Europe are simply more international. Armstrong, the American, probably spent as much time if not more living in Europe than the United States. He was far more attuned to European culture and the culture of racing than these ignorant sportscasters.
It would be like the French commenting on American football. It'd probably sound absurd beyond belief. These guys probably paid nearly zero attention to the tour, and then decide to weigh in on what the hypothetical French were thinking? I mean, get real.
It would be like black commentators saying "they want some white guy to win the home run record, and along comes Barry Bonds, and they can't deal with it" or some such nonsense.
Just stick to the sports you know and the countries you know. Maybe you can speculate on what Isiah Thomas is thinking about and how he has the ear of James Dolan, even though you've probably never said word one to Thomas. You can hypothesize about these imaginary conversations with the best of them. Hoorah.
Where do they get these ideas from? Do they know any French? Oh, no, it's just what they imagine the French must be like, what they surmise from the few who truly can't stand Armstrong, and generalize to the whole public (meanwhile, harassing Barry Bonds all day long, not realizing the hypocrisy). It's jingoistic flag waving at its worst, and speculation of the worst kind, completely ill informed.
The French weren't even particularly favored to do well this time around. The two favorites, outside of Landis, were Ullrich of Germany and Basso who is Italian. Indeed, there were two spaniards, a German, and a Russian ahead of the best French rider. Even the French weren't expecting the French to win the Tour. True, at one point, they used to win it every year, until other riders from other countries started getting good.
And, it's not as if Armstrong's winning teams were all Americans, because they weren't. Heck, Landis won cycling for a Swiss team. Things in Europe are simply more international. Armstrong, the American, probably spent as much time if not more living in Europe than the United States. He was far more attuned to European culture and the culture of racing than these ignorant sportscasters.
It would be like the French commenting on American football. It'd probably sound absurd beyond belief. These guys probably paid nearly zero attention to the tour, and then decide to weigh in on what the hypothetical French were thinking? I mean, get real.
It would be like black commentators saying "they want some white guy to win the home run record, and along comes Barry Bonds, and they can't deal with it" or some such nonsense.
Just stick to the sports you know and the countries you know. Maybe you can speculate on what Isiah Thomas is thinking about and how he has the ear of James Dolan, even though you've probably never said word one to Thomas. You can hypothesize about these imaginary conversations with the best of them. Hoorah.
Sunrise, Sunset
I just caught up again with Before Sunset, the sequel to Before Sunrise. Before Sunrise told the story of Jesse, a late teen, early twenty something travelling through Europe. He's on a train and meets up with Celine.
He's planning to fly to the U.S., but before he goes, he wants to spend a day travelling Vienna with Celine. They spend the rest of the day and late into the evening into morning again talking and walking through Vienna.
Linklater's strengths as a filmmaker are not really about plot and a story line that's headed somewhere specific. He's more an observer of human behavior. How do people really fall in love? How do they talk?
This film picks two hyper-literate people and spends an afternoon with them. They are, in many ways, quintessential geeks. They are well-read and try to impress each other with their knowledge.
The film often works best in wordless moments such as when the two of them are trying to avoid noticing that each other is staring at one another. It's a magical experience of optimism, of going to some foreign land, and really connecting with someone else.
For years, the cast had wanted to film a sequel. The first film ends with a promise to meet back in Vienna six months later. The sequel originally planned to pick up at this point.
However, years had passed, and there was a thought that they should pick up ten years afterwards since ten years had passed since the original film was made.
In the intervening time, although both seem superficially happy and content with life, they are not. This becomes an opportunity to rekindle magic that both thought had been lost to them.
There's a greater maturity for both of them. The wide-eye innocence and optimism has been replaced by the realities of growing older in the twenties and dealing with expectations of lives, and as more time has passed, the more magical that one night seems, and the more depressing their current lives are.
Much like the first film, it's about how people talk and communicate, how they try to talk about one thing, but are working their way to say what's really on their mind.
Linklater has even been particularly clever in the opening sequence as he films the places the two will travel in reverse order, as if to suggest that there had been two peaks in their lives: that first evening ten years ago, followed by a valley, followed by a reversal of fortune, and meeting again, and rekindling the magic of that night.
Indeed, when you look back at the first film, Ethan Hawke looks so young, and rather good looking. He's a bit more haggard in this film, though Delpy has become a bit more radiant with age, but they take up where they've left off, with years of experience replacing optimism, and you're transported for the real time of 80 minutes into their world, hyper-sensitive to what they are going through.
These two films are still at the top of my favorites, especially from Linklater.
He's planning to fly to the U.S., but before he goes, he wants to spend a day travelling Vienna with Celine. They spend the rest of the day and late into the evening into morning again talking and walking through Vienna.
Linklater's strengths as a filmmaker are not really about plot and a story line that's headed somewhere specific. He's more an observer of human behavior. How do people really fall in love? How do they talk?
This film picks two hyper-literate people and spends an afternoon with them. They are, in many ways, quintessential geeks. They are well-read and try to impress each other with their knowledge.
The film often works best in wordless moments such as when the two of them are trying to avoid noticing that each other is staring at one another. It's a magical experience of optimism, of going to some foreign land, and really connecting with someone else.
For years, the cast had wanted to film a sequel. The first film ends with a promise to meet back in Vienna six months later. The sequel originally planned to pick up at this point.
However, years had passed, and there was a thought that they should pick up ten years afterwards since ten years had passed since the original film was made.
In the intervening time, although both seem superficially happy and content with life, they are not. This becomes an opportunity to rekindle magic that both thought had been lost to them.
There's a greater maturity for both of them. The wide-eye innocence and optimism has been replaced by the realities of growing older in the twenties and dealing with expectations of lives, and as more time has passed, the more magical that one night seems, and the more depressing their current lives are.
Much like the first film, it's about how people talk and communicate, how they try to talk about one thing, but are working their way to say what's really on their mind.
Linklater has even been particularly clever in the opening sequence as he films the places the two will travel in reverse order, as if to suggest that there had been two peaks in their lives: that first evening ten years ago, followed by a valley, followed by a reversal of fortune, and meeting again, and rekindling the magic of that night.
Indeed, when you look back at the first film, Ethan Hawke looks so young, and rather good looking. He's a bit more haggard in this film, though Delpy has become a bit more radiant with age, but they take up where they've left off, with years of experience replacing optimism, and you're transported for the real time of 80 minutes into their world, hyper-sensitive to what they are going through.
These two films are still at the top of my favorites, especially from Linklater.
Pardon the Inter-Rupp-Tion
I decided to read a little bit about what Wikipedia has to say about the Mennonite demonination because of Floyd Landis's recent win. As anyone who's followed his story knows, he was raised Mennonite, then "rebelled" so he could pursue a biking career. He's had to backpedal (so to speak) on this story, pointing out that he had good parents who cared.
Of course, rather than read the history of Mennonitism (is that even a word?), I looked at the list of famous Mennonites. One of them was Adolph Rupp.
For those who follow college basketball, Rupp should be a famous name. Rupp was the winningest college basketball coach at the University of Kentucky for many years. He's famous for coaching against Texas Western University against a team that started five African American players. This was in the mid-50s, when there were all-white teams. Rupp's Kentucky team was all-white.
Over time, Rupp was branded a racist, someone who refused to bring along African American athletes onto his team. The famous final, held at the University of Maryland's Cole Field House in 1966, has since been elevated in people's minds as a symbol of the changing of race relations.
People have argued that Rupp has been unfairly branded as a racist. He had assistant coaches who were black, played against other teams that had black players (and there were teams, during the day, that refused to play teams with black players), and recruited black players (including Wes Unseld, who was from Kentucky), although there is some question how much he was committed to the cause.
His name probably didn't help matters. After all, how many other people do you know named Adolph? (Sure, the other guy spells it differently).
More than likely, he wasn't racist, but wasn't ready to challenge attitudes of his day. The SEC was all-white at the time, and several black athletes were simply not ready to be the Jackie Robinson of their times, and sought to play elsewhere. In 1969, Rupp signed Tom Payne to Kentucky, the fourth SEC team to have a black player on its roster. Rupp wasn't necessarily ready to be a hero either, though he was more open minded than some in terms of who he played and who he hired.
To be fair, Rupp wasn't the most pleasant person to be around. He cared mostly about basketball and winning, rather than being a symbol of civil rights.
It's been said that nobody much thought about the fact that Texas Western (now UT, El Paso) started five players. There were teams that could start four players. And, Duke, who made the final four that year, was also all-white. Kentucky wasn't alone in this attitude, but bears the brunt of the issue since they were so successful.
Rupp was eventually forced into retirement at the age of 70 (state employees of Kentucky, including coach of the state university's basketball team were forced to retire at 70).
Rupp gets a bad rap, and probably one that's not fully deserved.
Of course, rather than read the history of Mennonitism (is that even a word?), I looked at the list of famous Mennonites. One of them was Adolph Rupp.
For those who follow college basketball, Rupp should be a famous name. Rupp was the winningest college basketball coach at the University of Kentucky for many years. He's famous for coaching against Texas Western University against a team that started five African American players. This was in the mid-50s, when there were all-white teams. Rupp's Kentucky team was all-white.
Over time, Rupp was branded a racist, someone who refused to bring along African American athletes onto his team. The famous final, held at the University of Maryland's Cole Field House in 1966, has since been elevated in people's minds as a symbol of the changing of race relations.
People have argued that Rupp has been unfairly branded as a racist. He had assistant coaches who were black, played against other teams that had black players (and there were teams, during the day, that refused to play teams with black players), and recruited black players (including Wes Unseld, who was from Kentucky), although there is some question how much he was committed to the cause.
His name probably didn't help matters. After all, how many other people do you know named Adolph? (Sure, the other guy spells it differently).
More than likely, he wasn't racist, but wasn't ready to challenge attitudes of his day. The SEC was all-white at the time, and several black athletes were simply not ready to be the Jackie Robinson of their times, and sought to play elsewhere. In 1969, Rupp signed Tom Payne to Kentucky, the fourth SEC team to have a black player on its roster. Rupp wasn't necessarily ready to be a hero either, though he was more open minded than some in terms of who he played and who he hired.
To be fair, Rupp wasn't the most pleasant person to be around. He cared mostly about basketball and winning, rather than being a symbol of civil rights.
It's been said that nobody much thought about the fact that Texas Western (now UT, El Paso) started five players. There were teams that could start four players. And, Duke, who made the final four that year, was also all-white. Kentucky wasn't alone in this attitude, but bears the brunt of the issue since they were so successful.
Rupp was eventually forced into retirement at the age of 70 (state employees of Kentucky, including coach of the state university's basketball team were forced to retire at 70).
Rupp gets a bad rap, and probably one that's not fully deserved.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Geek Parade
Most people think of geeks as people who like computers, but I like to generalize it to something more. When people look back at the 90s and the new millenium, they're going to realize that the key to the culture lay not in the speed of the computer, nor the speed of the Internet, both important components, but the availability and access to information.
True, many geeks still get quality information from books, like The Tipping Point, Guns, Germs, and Steel, The Blank Slate, a whole host of history books, and personal experience living across the United States. However, there's also an incredible amount of "information" available on the net.
This information lies somewhere between facts, the kind teachers in elementary schools would quiz about, to analysis by folks who have interesting things to say.
This information is geek currency.
I was thinking about this somewhere between my second and third beer last night. Chadd had decided to do the two things he does best (party wise) last night: make chili and grill. Having recently defended, Chadd is taking on a job in Oregon, and will leave the house that became christened "Geekhaus" for its combination of five computer science graduate students, two of them German. Once he and Jaime leaves, the last of the original Geekhouse members will have vacated. The rest of the house is perhaps not strong enough, nor energetic enough to maintain the traditions that have been held. Too much work. Too much planning. Not worth it.
But in the meanwhile, this event would draw some twenty participants, and the discussion would turn into harvesting of organs, did it make economic sense? Can we grow meat, without requiring animals to have been born? Would vegetarians have no reason not to eat this meat? Why did Boston want to build a highway underneath the city? Why is this harder than building it underneath water? How much money did they spend on it and why?
What were the best pop movies of the past year? Was it King Kong? Was it Cars? Was it, well, what was it?
The currency is knowledge. Some facts. Some observations, mostly made by others who have had time to think about it, and then parroted back for the situation.
This may be geeky, but sports fans do it just as well. Some even have solid statistical arguments, while others blather about how T.O. is or isn't worthy, whether Bonds should pursue Aaron's record, whether A-Rod is worth the money that's spent on his salary. Indeed, sports typically represent much of water cooler talk, at least, among guys.
It's rare to talk about the economics, for instance. People say, should gay marriage be legalized? To me, it's not a religious matter, but a matter of rights. Whether the church sanctions it or not, there are legal rights that marriage conveys. If "civil unions" give the same legal rights as marriage, then fine. I believe that's what should be sought for (there are complicating issues, such as adoption).
Of course, some opponents say that this would lead to polygamy. To which I say, so what? If people can live with polygamy, than that works for me. Most people tend to see polygamy as one man, many wives, the traditional view held by Muslims. Even in Islam, though, it's highly unusual for a man to have more than one wife. But if polygamy is to be legalized, it seems to make sense that it should permit for other kinds of unions, such as one woman, many husbands, and presumably, two men, two women.
Other kinds of unions need to be considered more carefully as to what their legal implications are. For example, once there are three people in a marriage, then there are three sources of incomes. When two incomes became the norm, things got more expensive. Having a second income became less of a luxury, and more of a necessity. Living on one person's income is now the luxury. What are the economic implications of having polygamy? Of course, even were it legalized, I'd imagine few would engage in it, but who knows?
Admittedly, a geek discussion, like many discussions, don't require that many knowledgeable people. If you have five or six people, only two or three have to talk to make it work.
So what does it take to be a geek? First, computers are not the currency of talk. It's more important, oddly enough, to follow politics, both domestic and abroad. It helps to know about movies, the popular ones and the more obscure. Economics and history are better points of discussion than whether social networking is working or not. Indeed, shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are as likely to talk about techie issues like net neutrality than a typical geek conversation.
It takes work to be a proper geek because it's not smarts that's on display. We're not sitting around the table seeing who can prove the toughest theorems or work out the toughest equations or code the most challenging algorithms. Instead, the debate surrounds opinions we have on whatever. We're often not displaying that much personal opinion but opinions of others that we agree with.
And this represents one kind of discussion that lies outside the purview of most. But then, geeks aren't used to other kinds of conversations either. As many geeks lean left, they would find right leaning guys talking nonsense (to their way of thinking).
If geeks are to make themselves accepted, they need to have more people engage in these kinds of debates. Sadly, this isn't so likely.
True, many geeks still get quality information from books, like The Tipping Point, Guns, Germs, and Steel, The Blank Slate, a whole host of history books, and personal experience living across the United States. However, there's also an incredible amount of "information" available on the net.
This information lies somewhere between facts, the kind teachers in elementary schools would quiz about, to analysis by folks who have interesting things to say.
This information is geek currency.
I was thinking about this somewhere between my second and third beer last night. Chadd had decided to do the two things he does best (party wise) last night: make chili and grill. Having recently defended, Chadd is taking on a job in Oregon, and will leave the house that became christened "Geekhaus" for its combination of five computer science graduate students, two of them German. Once he and Jaime leaves, the last of the original Geekhouse members will have vacated. The rest of the house is perhaps not strong enough, nor energetic enough to maintain the traditions that have been held. Too much work. Too much planning. Not worth it.
But in the meanwhile, this event would draw some twenty participants, and the discussion would turn into harvesting of organs, did it make economic sense? Can we grow meat, without requiring animals to have been born? Would vegetarians have no reason not to eat this meat? Why did Boston want to build a highway underneath the city? Why is this harder than building it underneath water? How much money did they spend on it and why?
What were the best pop movies of the past year? Was it King Kong? Was it Cars? Was it, well, what was it?
The currency is knowledge. Some facts. Some observations, mostly made by others who have had time to think about it, and then parroted back for the situation.
This may be geeky, but sports fans do it just as well. Some even have solid statistical arguments, while others blather about how T.O. is or isn't worthy, whether Bonds should pursue Aaron's record, whether A-Rod is worth the money that's spent on his salary. Indeed, sports typically represent much of water cooler talk, at least, among guys.
It's rare to talk about the economics, for instance. People say, should gay marriage be legalized? To me, it's not a religious matter, but a matter of rights. Whether the church sanctions it or not, there are legal rights that marriage conveys. If "civil unions" give the same legal rights as marriage, then fine. I believe that's what should be sought for (there are complicating issues, such as adoption).
Of course, some opponents say that this would lead to polygamy. To which I say, so what? If people can live with polygamy, than that works for me. Most people tend to see polygamy as one man, many wives, the traditional view held by Muslims. Even in Islam, though, it's highly unusual for a man to have more than one wife. But if polygamy is to be legalized, it seems to make sense that it should permit for other kinds of unions, such as one woman, many husbands, and presumably, two men, two women.
Other kinds of unions need to be considered more carefully as to what their legal implications are. For example, once there are three people in a marriage, then there are three sources of incomes. When two incomes became the norm, things got more expensive. Having a second income became less of a luxury, and more of a necessity. Living on one person's income is now the luxury. What are the economic implications of having polygamy? Of course, even were it legalized, I'd imagine few would engage in it, but who knows?
Admittedly, a geek discussion, like many discussions, don't require that many knowledgeable people. If you have five or six people, only two or three have to talk to make it work.
So what does it take to be a geek? First, computers are not the currency of talk. It's more important, oddly enough, to follow politics, both domestic and abroad. It helps to know about movies, the popular ones and the more obscure. Economics and history are better points of discussion than whether social networking is working or not. Indeed, shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are as likely to talk about techie issues like net neutrality than a typical geek conversation.
It takes work to be a proper geek because it's not smarts that's on display. We're not sitting around the table seeing who can prove the toughest theorems or work out the toughest equations or code the most challenging algorithms. Instead, the debate surrounds opinions we have on whatever. We're often not displaying that much personal opinion but opinions of others that we agree with.
And this represents one kind of discussion that lies outside the purview of most. But then, geeks aren't used to other kinds of conversations either. As many geeks lean left, they would find right leaning guys talking nonsense (to their way of thinking).
If geeks are to make themselves accepted, they need to have more people engage in these kinds of debates. Sadly, this isn't so likely.
Sufjan Too
The Avalanche is a followup album to Illinois (or more properly, Come on! Feel the Illinoise). Sufjan is a highly prolific musician, and discards many more songs than make it on his albums.
The Avalanche uses more electronic music than Illinois, almost retro electronic music, from the 60s or 70s. Sufjan is no stranger to electronic music, having released the electronic album, Enjoy Your Rabbit, perhaps his least successful album (that's the one album of his that I've yet to buy).
There are many aspects that are similar to Illinois as befits an album that purports to have outtakes from the first. Indeed, it's difficult, I imagine, for Sufjan to come up with new stuff all the time. While it seemed like a lesser effort, the electronic stuff is at least something different that unites the entire album.
I was a bit surprised at the variations of Chicago, one of my favorite songs from the Illinois album. I had thought he might play around with the actual notes, but mostly changes the background music, rather than the notes of the song.
I wonder if Sufjan will try to take bolder moves in future albums, for example, use more piano, electric guitars, orchestral pieces, or lean more to the banjo, which sounds far more respectable these days than usual (Sufjan isn't exactly a technician on an instrument that is effectively the bluegrass weapon of choice).
It's too bad Sufjan's rather private of his life. It seems that he is a chameleon, taking on the various incarantions that people want him to be. For example, some Christians want him to represent Christian music. Sufjan has said that he is indeed Christian and that it has importance in his life, but like many Christians, he may not lead a perfect life, having had perhaps a few adventures that he'd rather not see discussed in print. He's hinted at a lifestyle and experience that perhaps wouldn't be seen so positively, so he's wisely kept to making music.
Sufjan is also touring. He won't go to DC this year. He's touring in the US, then heading to Europe and touring their as well, ending his trip in Reykjavik in Iceland, which is where band Sigur Ros is from.
Anyway, I should give the album a few more listens to see if I like it better. Certainly, a second listen is helping.
The Avalanche uses more electronic music than Illinois, almost retro electronic music, from the 60s or 70s. Sufjan is no stranger to electronic music, having released the electronic album, Enjoy Your Rabbit, perhaps his least successful album (that's the one album of his that I've yet to buy).
There are many aspects that are similar to Illinois as befits an album that purports to have outtakes from the first. Indeed, it's difficult, I imagine, for Sufjan to come up with new stuff all the time. While it seemed like a lesser effort, the electronic stuff is at least something different that unites the entire album.
I was a bit surprised at the variations of Chicago, one of my favorite songs from the Illinois album. I had thought he might play around with the actual notes, but mostly changes the background music, rather than the notes of the song.
I wonder if Sufjan will try to take bolder moves in future albums, for example, use more piano, electric guitars, orchestral pieces, or lean more to the banjo, which sounds far more respectable these days than usual (Sufjan isn't exactly a technician on an instrument that is effectively the bluegrass weapon of choice).
It's too bad Sufjan's rather private of his life. It seems that he is a chameleon, taking on the various incarantions that people want him to be. For example, some Christians want him to represent Christian music. Sufjan has said that he is indeed Christian and that it has importance in his life, but like many Christians, he may not lead a perfect life, having had perhaps a few adventures that he'd rather not see discussed in print. He's hinted at a lifestyle and experience that perhaps wouldn't be seen so positively, so he's wisely kept to making music.
Sufjan is also touring. He won't go to DC this year. He's touring in the US, then heading to Europe and touring their as well, ending his trip in Reykjavik in Iceland, which is where band Sigur Ros is from.
Anyway, I should give the album a few more listens to see if I like it better. Certainly, a second listen is helping.
Sally and Lance
Lance Armstrong's story has been told a fair bit over the seven times that he won the Tour de France. Sally Jenkins, resident of New York, but writer for the Washington Post, helped write the biography of Lance Armstrong as he recovered from cancer. She admits she's not very objective when it comes to covering Armstrong. Imagine, after all, talking to someone about a sport that was considered something of a second tier American sport, where most Americans had no idea about the rules of the sport, and it wasn't even televised.
Then, single-handedly, Armstrong brought recognition to a sport that, while many still don't follow, now has fans that await the results of the three week event. It didn't hurt matters that Armstrong won it so many times. Had he won it, say, five times even, a substantial effort unto itself, would people have cared nearly as much? Seven times meant that for at least four years (from his fourth to his last win), fans would pay attention to Armstrong. His first two wins were, in itself, not enough to resurrect interest.
Even the third win, equal to that of Greg Lemond, and enough to be quite respectable was probably not enough. At four wins, he was close to tying the record, and networks, like OLN, could envision following the event from start to end, and expect some reasonable number of folks to watch.
Once there was five, then there was "could he win six in a row?", then seven.
One person that's been missing from the discussion of this year's tour is Sally Jenkins. In general, she didn't cover the tour, given her background with Lance Armstrong, but apparently, the tour wasn't really her event. She wasn't to be heard from pining in on Floyd Landis or anything. It may say as much to her autobiography, that she was more interested in the man, than the sport he came to dominate. Perhaps the Post didn't see fit to track the event without its most prominent poster boy. For whatever reason, this year's event was without Sally.
It seems, too, that the U.S. media was less interested in the ongoings when it seemed like Ullrich or Basso, neither Americans, were the top contenders, with Floyd a prohibitive favorite.
The sport requires Americans train in Europe. Phonak took the Postal Service/Discovery Channel strategy of focusing on the Tour de France to the exclusion of other events. Landis and Zabriskie spend a great deal of time in Spain training, when they aren't in the United States. Lance spent more time in Europe than he spent in the U.S. to train for the one race that mattered to him most.
Really, the one way the U.S. might be able to gain interest is to host a tour of its own. Nothing too big, initially. Perhaps a one-week race. It's too hard to compete with a three week race each year and too much to expect bicyclists to abandon the king of road races. Indeed, Landis himself won the Tour de Georgia this year (which is in Georgia, US, not in old Soviet Union). He's also won the Tour of California and Paris, Nice. This has been his most successful year, even without the Tour de France.
This race would require some national coverage, and perhaps a big prize. The goal would, at the very least, be to gain interest among Americans, to participate. True, road racing is still far more popular than its cousin, mountain bike racing, which Landis used to do, until he realized he was a much better road racer. This is similar to the inline skating race community vs. the ice speed skating which gets coverage from the Olympics.
It's interesting how some sports are so fringe that few people follow it. To be fair, even road cycling is obscure enough that most people had heard of neither Landis nor Pereiro before the Tour began. Levi Leipheimer was considered an American that might contend, but he was almost twenty minutes behind. George Hincapie, the loyal Armstrong lieutenant, was over an hour behind. Landis was worried about Menchov, but he was some 7 minutes back. Landis's buddy, David Zabrisikie, was 78th, nearly two and a half hours back. Axel Merckx, co-rider of Landis on Phonak and the son of famed Eddie Merckx, the five time Tour winner, came in 31st, a little over an hour back. That's not so surprising, as the support team often expends energy and the win for the leader.
Still, there are plenty of other sports people train hard for, with not much press.
These days, bicycling can do live monitoring of the bicyclist and get valuable information about how hard to go for it, and at what level to go for it. Allen Lim of CycleOps was helping to monitor Landis during the tour, providing him information that lead him to believe that he could mount a successful attack on Thursday that would allow him to take the lead and hold it.
What might seem like a herculean effort of will and energy is often surrounded by a great deal of planning to arrive in France in optimum conditions. While everyone fretted over Landis's hip, Landis knew his hip better than anyone, and that he could deal with the pain over the three week period. After all, he had done it the year before, and the two years before that. Everyone else was far more worried than Landis was.
Now that the Tour is over, will cycling learn any more about Landis or will he fade to second tier obscurity until the next Tour. He hopes to compete again next year, after his surgery in August. Most of the training takes place in Spring. We'll see how the recovery proceeds.
Then, single-handedly, Armstrong brought recognition to a sport that, while many still don't follow, now has fans that await the results of the three week event. It didn't hurt matters that Armstrong won it so many times. Had he won it, say, five times even, a substantial effort unto itself, would people have cared nearly as much? Seven times meant that for at least four years (from his fourth to his last win), fans would pay attention to Armstrong. His first two wins were, in itself, not enough to resurrect interest.
Even the third win, equal to that of Greg Lemond, and enough to be quite respectable was probably not enough. At four wins, he was close to tying the record, and networks, like OLN, could envision following the event from start to end, and expect some reasonable number of folks to watch.
Once there was five, then there was "could he win six in a row?", then seven.
One person that's been missing from the discussion of this year's tour is Sally Jenkins. In general, she didn't cover the tour, given her background with Lance Armstrong, but apparently, the tour wasn't really her event. She wasn't to be heard from pining in on Floyd Landis or anything. It may say as much to her autobiography, that she was more interested in the man, than the sport he came to dominate. Perhaps the Post didn't see fit to track the event without its most prominent poster boy. For whatever reason, this year's event was without Sally.
It seems, too, that the U.S. media was less interested in the ongoings when it seemed like Ullrich or Basso, neither Americans, were the top contenders, with Floyd a prohibitive favorite.
The sport requires Americans train in Europe. Phonak took the Postal Service/Discovery Channel strategy of focusing on the Tour de France to the exclusion of other events. Landis and Zabriskie spend a great deal of time in Spain training, when they aren't in the United States. Lance spent more time in Europe than he spent in the U.S. to train for the one race that mattered to him most.
Really, the one way the U.S. might be able to gain interest is to host a tour of its own. Nothing too big, initially. Perhaps a one-week race. It's too hard to compete with a three week race each year and too much to expect bicyclists to abandon the king of road races. Indeed, Landis himself won the Tour de Georgia this year (which is in Georgia, US, not in old Soviet Union). He's also won the Tour of California and Paris, Nice. This has been his most successful year, even without the Tour de France.
This race would require some national coverage, and perhaps a big prize. The goal would, at the very least, be to gain interest among Americans, to participate. True, road racing is still far more popular than its cousin, mountain bike racing, which Landis used to do, until he realized he was a much better road racer. This is similar to the inline skating race community vs. the ice speed skating which gets coverage from the Olympics.
It's interesting how some sports are so fringe that few people follow it. To be fair, even road cycling is obscure enough that most people had heard of neither Landis nor Pereiro before the Tour began. Levi Leipheimer was considered an American that might contend, but he was almost twenty minutes behind. George Hincapie, the loyal Armstrong lieutenant, was over an hour behind. Landis was worried about Menchov, but he was some 7 minutes back. Landis's buddy, David Zabrisikie, was 78th, nearly two and a half hours back. Axel Merckx, co-rider of Landis on Phonak and the son of famed Eddie Merckx, the five time Tour winner, came in 31st, a little over an hour back. That's not so surprising, as the support team often expends energy and the win for the leader.
Still, there are plenty of other sports people train hard for, with not much press.
These days, bicycling can do live monitoring of the bicyclist and get valuable information about how hard to go for it, and at what level to go for it. Allen Lim of CycleOps was helping to monitor Landis during the tour, providing him information that lead him to believe that he could mount a successful attack on Thursday that would allow him to take the lead and hold it.
What might seem like a herculean effort of will and energy is often surrounded by a great deal of planning to arrive in France in optimum conditions. While everyone fretted over Landis's hip, Landis knew his hip better than anyone, and that he could deal with the pain over the three week period. After all, he had done it the year before, and the two years before that. Everyone else was far more worried than Landis was.
Now that the Tour is over, will cycling learn any more about Landis or will he fade to second tier obscurity until the next Tour. He hopes to compete again next year, after his surgery in August. Most of the training takes place in Spring. We'll see how the recovery proceeds.
Secret Machines
On Friday, I had been checking out a website, and serendiptously found out that Secret Machines was performing that evening at the 9:30 club. Phil had introduced me to the band about two years earlier when he had give n me a mix CD of the best of 2004.
I probably listen to Secret Machines more than twice as much as any of the other CDs I have in my ITunes collection, mostly, I suppose, because I like its energy. Much of the music I have don't tend to be high energy. I have a lot of music that might fall in the alt-folk, alt-country mold. Secret Machines comes across more like a rollicking Pink Floyd.
The band consists of three musicians: two brothers, Brandon and Benjamin Curtis. Brandon is usually playing keyboards and singing lead. Brandon plays guitar, and does back up vocals. On stage, Brandon usually stands in the center. Josh Garza rounds out the group as the drummer.
Again, the time listed (9 PM) was only when the doors were open. The band, who didn't have a warm-up act, were not scheduled to be on until 10:15 PM, and didn't actually take the stage until 10:30 PM.
Most of the evening, the stage was darkly lit, with spotlights of various colors coming from the back to illuminate the band. Their hair style is circa the 1970s, with long hair for both the Curtis brothers, and curly long hair for Garza.
As typical for the 9:30 club, the music is deafeningly loud because, well, in this day of short attention span, once the music goes to a level where you can hear conversation, people start yapping away. The band kept some music going on at nearly all points, transitioning from one song to another. They started off with a song from their new album, Ten Silver Drops called Alone, Jealous, and Stoned before playing some songs from their first album.
They played a good mix of the two albums. Having listened to most of the songs some thirty times each, I know what the songs sound like. There were two that I hadn't heard. I don't know if these were much older hits, or whether they were yet unreleased.
One trend that's become strikingly common is the ubiquity of cell phone cameras. Now here's an idea that didn't seem like it would catch on. Who would want a camera with a phone. But it lends credence to the idea that the best camera to have is the one that you carry with you, and thus, several fans were taking their phone, trying to take pictures of a generally dark stage lit by colored spotlights. I, myself, carry a small Sony W50 digital camera, and took a few pictures as well.
I wasn't nearly as close as I was with The Concretes where I was practically on stage. The Secret Machines was perhaps twice as crowded, as the entire standing room area filled up (there are some seats on the second floor.
I attend bands every once in a while and often wonder why bands don't talk so much. Lance had suggested that maybe the bands don't have much to say that's intelligent. They could be like They Might Be Giants who have a good report with their geek crowd. Instead, the band decided to keep speech to a minimum, and rely on the beat and music to sustain interest.
The performance ended sometime around midnight. The Metro runs late on Friday night, so I wasn't concerned that I wouldn't get back. I don't like the hidden fees put on top of buying tickets. My sense is the band gets the entire proceeds of the tickets, plus possibly a fixed fee. The club makes money on the surplus fees plus the alcohol they sell at moderately outrageous prices (six bucks a beer).
One other unusual aspect. Normally, bands try to raise more money by selling merchandise. This means CDs, t-shirts, buttons, and other knick-knacks. Not The Secret Machines. Perhaps that was good. I'd already spent a bit to get there and back.
I probably listen to Secret Machines more than twice as much as any of the other CDs I have in my ITunes collection, mostly, I suppose, because I like its energy. Much of the music I have don't tend to be high energy. I have a lot of music that might fall in the alt-folk, alt-country mold. Secret Machines comes across more like a rollicking Pink Floyd.
The band consists of three musicians: two brothers, Brandon and Benjamin Curtis. Brandon is usually playing keyboards and singing lead. Brandon plays guitar, and does back up vocals. On stage, Brandon usually stands in the center. Josh Garza rounds out the group as the drummer.
Again, the time listed (9 PM) was only when the doors were open. The band, who didn't have a warm-up act, were not scheduled to be on until 10:15 PM, and didn't actually take the stage until 10:30 PM.
Most of the evening, the stage was darkly lit, with spotlights of various colors coming from the back to illuminate the band. Their hair style is circa the 1970s, with long hair for both the Curtis brothers, and curly long hair for Garza.
As typical for the 9:30 club, the music is deafeningly loud because, well, in this day of short attention span, once the music goes to a level where you can hear conversation, people start yapping away. The band kept some music going on at nearly all points, transitioning from one song to another. They started off with a song from their new album, Ten Silver Drops called Alone, Jealous, and Stoned before playing some songs from their first album.
They played a good mix of the two albums. Having listened to most of the songs some thirty times each, I know what the songs sound like. There were two that I hadn't heard. I don't know if these were much older hits, or whether they were yet unreleased.
One trend that's become strikingly common is the ubiquity of cell phone cameras. Now here's an idea that didn't seem like it would catch on. Who would want a camera with a phone. But it lends credence to the idea that the best camera to have is the one that you carry with you, and thus, several fans were taking their phone, trying to take pictures of a generally dark stage lit by colored spotlights. I, myself, carry a small Sony W50 digital camera, and took a few pictures as well.
I wasn't nearly as close as I was with The Concretes where I was practically on stage. The Secret Machines was perhaps twice as crowded, as the entire standing room area filled up (there are some seats on the second floor.
I attend bands every once in a while and often wonder why bands don't talk so much. Lance had suggested that maybe the bands don't have much to say that's intelligent. They could be like They Might Be Giants who have a good report with their geek crowd. Instead, the band decided to keep speech to a minimum, and rely on the beat and music to sustain interest.
The performance ended sometime around midnight. The Metro runs late on Friday night, so I wasn't concerned that I wouldn't get back. I don't like the hidden fees put on top of buying tickets. My sense is the band gets the entire proceeds of the tickets, plus possibly a fixed fee. The club makes money on the surplus fees plus the alcohol they sell at moderately outrageous prices (six bucks a beer).
One other unusual aspect. Normally, bands try to raise more money by selling merchandise. This means CDs, t-shirts, buttons, and other knick-knacks. Not The Secret Machines. Perhaps that was good. I'd already spent a bit to get there and back.
The Landis Has Eagled
Ah, mixing my metaphors.
Today it became official. Floyd Landis won the Tour de France. He had never done better than ninth in any previous attempt. Had Basso or Ullrich been in the race, they would have been considered favorites. The doping scandal at the beginning of the tour knocked them out, and relative unknown, Floyd Landis became the odds-on favorite.
Reporters of the even tended to focus on a few things from Landis's past. First, he was raised Mennonite in Pennsylvania, and rejected his upbringing to race. Second, his hip condition that will require hip replacement surgery soon afterwards. Third, his collapse on Wednesday, July 19, that left him more than eight minutes behind the leader, with three stages left and essentially no time to mount a comeback, then the bold move on Thursday, July 20, after everyone had said he was out of it, where he charged on a solo win, beating the next competitor by nearly six minutes, and moving to third place, a mere thirty seconds behind leader Oscar Pereiro, himself, not considered the favorite. Then, Saturday, July 22, Landis taking third in the time trial, a minute and a half faster than Pereiro, enough to secure a 59 second lead.
Everyone decided with a minute lead, Landis would become champion. The final day is usually ceremonial, provided the two leaders are separated by about a minute or more. If they had been separated by twenty second or thirty seconds, there would have been a competition.
This is the unusual kind of etiquette not seen in other sports, the kind of etiquette which says that if someone falls off their bike, that the others wait until they recover, and do not take advantage of the mishap. Such etiquette makes some sense, since it would encourage riders to be a little dirty, to knock the leader off the bike. This etiquette means that such a strategy would be fruitless.
The French seemed to have embraced Landis more than they ever embraced the chilly Armstrong. He seems more down-to-earth, his willingness to fight at the end, when all seemed lost, his ailing hip. Landis is thirty years old. This is not that unusual among cyclists who must often work their way up the ranks to lead their teams.
When Lance won his seventh tour, he was nearly 34, which means he won his first in 1999, he was nearly 28.
Whether Landis can win other tours depends on his recovery from hip surgery, and how well Basso and Ullrich compete. Ullrich won the tour once in 1997, two years before Lance won his first of seven. Ullrich has placed second a bunch of times, so one wonders how long he can continue to compete near the top of cycling. Were it not for Lance, we might be talking about Ullrich's dominance over the years. Many people think Ullrich is talented enough to win, but bright enough? Driven enough?
Today also marked another major win for Tiger Woods. After failing to make the cut at the U.S. Open, the first major after his father's death, he had a one stroke lead over the field entering the final round. He had never lost when leading in the final round. He had also never won when trailing in the final round.
Although Chris DiMarco, his main rival, made a game attempt at winning, Woods took the win by two strokes.
Woods won his eleventh title at the British Open, still seven short of Jack Nicklaus, whose record seems well within reach, should Tiger win between 1-2 events per year.
Although I normally like following Woods, I found the story of Landis and his win more compelling, perhaps because, much like the World Cup, the event takes place over weeks, and you can trace the fortunes and failures over a long period of time. It's been a wild ride, and the adulations are likely to continue.
Today it became official. Floyd Landis won the Tour de France. He had never done better than ninth in any previous attempt. Had Basso or Ullrich been in the race, they would have been considered favorites. The doping scandal at the beginning of the tour knocked them out, and relative unknown, Floyd Landis became the odds-on favorite.
Reporters of the even tended to focus on a few things from Landis's past. First, he was raised Mennonite in Pennsylvania, and rejected his upbringing to race. Second, his hip condition that will require hip replacement surgery soon afterwards. Third, his collapse on Wednesday, July 19, that left him more than eight minutes behind the leader, with three stages left and essentially no time to mount a comeback, then the bold move on Thursday, July 20, after everyone had said he was out of it, where he charged on a solo win, beating the next competitor by nearly six minutes, and moving to third place, a mere thirty seconds behind leader Oscar Pereiro, himself, not considered the favorite. Then, Saturday, July 22, Landis taking third in the time trial, a minute and a half faster than Pereiro, enough to secure a 59 second lead.
Everyone decided with a minute lead, Landis would become champion. The final day is usually ceremonial, provided the two leaders are separated by about a minute or more. If they had been separated by twenty second or thirty seconds, there would have been a competition.
This is the unusual kind of etiquette not seen in other sports, the kind of etiquette which says that if someone falls off their bike, that the others wait until they recover, and do not take advantage of the mishap. Such etiquette makes some sense, since it would encourage riders to be a little dirty, to knock the leader off the bike. This etiquette means that such a strategy would be fruitless.
The French seemed to have embraced Landis more than they ever embraced the chilly Armstrong. He seems more down-to-earth, his willingness to fight at the end, when all seemed lost, his ailing hip. Landis is thirty years old. This is not that unusual among cyclists who must often work their way up the ranks to lead their teams.
When Lance won his seventh tour, he was nearly 34, which means he won his first in 1999, he was nearly 28.
Whether Landis can win other tours depends on his recovery from hip surgery, and how well Basso and Ullrich compete. Ullrich won the tour once in 1997, two years before Lance won his first of seven. Ullrich has placed second a bunch of times, so one wonders how long he can continue to compete near the top of cycling. Were it not for Lance, we might be talking about Ullrich's dominance over the years. Many people think Ullrich is talented enough to win, but bright enough? Driven enough?
Today also marked another major win for Tiger Woods. After failing to make the cut at the U.S. Open, the first major after his father's death, he had a one stroke lead over the field entering the final round. He had never lost when leading in the final round. He had also never won when trailing in the final round.
Although Chris DiMarco, his main rival, made a game attempt at winning, Woods took the win by two strokes.
Woods won his eleventh title at the British Open, still seven short of Jack Nicklaus, whose record seems well within reach, should Tiger win between 1-2 events per year.
Although I normally like following Woods, I found the story of Landis and his win more compelling, perhaps because, much like the World Cup, the event takes place over weeks, and you can trace the fortunes and failures over a long period of time. It's been a wild ride, and the adulations are likely to continue.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Paris Match
A month ago, if you had asked me about Floyd Landis, I couldn't have told you word one about him. OK, maybe not exactly a month ago, since the Washington Post had an article about him just as the tour began, giving his unusual background.
At the beginning of the day Wednesday, it seemed certain that Landis would merely have to have a few good rides to secure the win this year at the tour. At the end of the day, having been beaten by exhaustion, and falling back some eight minutes behind leader Oscar Pereiro, Landis seemed done. There were only four stages left, only only one mountain stage to reasonably stage a comeback.
At the end of the day Thursday, Landis had taken the bold move to break away early, and try to not only win the stage outright, but to demolish the field. Normally, this is a risky maneuver. When one rider decides to go out by himself, he has no protection. Team members block the wind so the leader can conserve energy.
It's often the case that the breakaway team is chased down and reined in by another group to maintain control of their pace.
At one point, Landis was 9 minutes aheard of everyone, but he too had to pace himself, because he couldn't afford to collapse on this day, and let the others catch up. That 9 minute lead shrunk to nearly a 6 minute lead, but that was enough to reclaim all but 30 seconds from the leader, and put the Tour within sight.
Friday, by contrast, was seen as a day of rest. On a mostly flat stage, the leaders decided to stay with the peloton, the large group of riders that use each other as protection. This meant Saturday was going to mostly decide the race. Saturday was a time trial, that would run some 40 miles. Landis's skill as a time trial expert was on par with Armstrong, and Pereiro himself acknowledged, even before the stage began, that he was not going to be able to win the Tour, though he would give his best effort. Pereiro wasn't in the same class as Landis.
I was hoping to watch some of the time trials on television today as I was getting some routing maintenance done.
Alas, dealers are like dentists. They tell you one price, but before long, they find problems, suggest other repairs, and so forth. In other words, it's always something, and if they can't charge you for a few hundred bucks, they're not happy. They are clearly not in it for your benefit.
It would be nice if the government would work with a few citizens, and penalize car repair companies for excessive charging. Presumably, a few fines would put the companies in order.
What should have taken two hours to complete, took nearly five hours. Landis finishes stages faster than that.
In the middle of this never-ending maintenance, I was desperately trying to find a place that was open that had television. The most common places open at 10 AM are bagel places and doughnut places. Breakfast places don't seem to indulge in oversized plasma displays.
Somehow, though, I stumbled on a place, nearly empty, that had two huge screen TVs, and they obliged by changing the channel to OLN, where I waited for about half an hour to see if Landis would win the time trial.
Not that he needed to win. He just needed to finish sufficiently ahead of Pereiro to ensure a win on Sunday. If he could stretch his thirty second deficit to, say, a two minute lead, that would give him enough cushion. Though, to be honest, a minute lead would be enough.
Honchar, the Ukrainian on Team T-Mobile, won in 1 hour, 7 minutes, 45 seconds. Landis came in third, at 1 hour, 8 minutes, 56 seconds. However, Honchar was further behind than Landis overall, so although he made up time, Landis had the lead. Pereiro himself came in fourth, but lost a minute and a half to Landis, meaning, he now trails by a minute.
After watching this, and being informed by the staff that it would still be at least one hour if not more before it was finished (funny, how they fail to keep me informed of these things, saying "it's almost ready" and forcing me to stay another two hours), I decided to spend some more time at the Barnes and Noble across the street, the only benefit from that was reading about the tour in a magazine fittingly called Bicycling.
This magazine has to be one of the most irreverent magazines out there. Surely, the ho-hum bland-as-anything editorial staff at Tennis would censor the articles before they ever saw the light of day.
The key interview was between pals Floyd Landis and David Zabriskie, both world class bicyclists, but also close friends. Landis has been dubbed the anti-Lance. He doesn't follow any special diets. He's as fond of In-and-Out burgers as anything.
The interview, effectively, was between the two of them. This is not unusual for the oddball Zabriskie, who often likes to conduct quick interviews in the middle of biking in the peloton. He did stop some of that because he wanted to focus on biking rather than find an Internet connection.
Landis grew up in Mennonite country in Pennsylvania. The Amish and Mennonite are rather related. Indeed, the Amish are an offshoot of Mennonitism or whatever it's called. Mennonites tend to preach modesty, lack of pride, and pacifism, which is not so different from the Amish. They aren't nearly as technologically restrictive as the Amish, however.
Landis rebelled against his upbringing. He was a fanatic bicyclist, who wanted to make his living racing mountain bikes. The mountain biking community is nearly disjoint from the road racing community, so much so, that Landis barely knew about the Tour when he decided to switch from mountain biking to road biking.
Of course, that was true of most people in the U.S. before Lance Armstrong put road biking on the map. True, Greg Lemond won the tour three times, but he never had the kind of grassroots effect that Lance did, and most people didn't really pay attention until Lance was heading to his fourth win. By his fifth win, people began to pay attention, and networks like OLN decided to broadcast the tour so Americans could watch.
It's pretty fun to watch the tour as they have almost no restrictions to access. Mini-european cars dart mere meters behind bicyclists. You could imagine a slip-up would equate to road kill, but I suppose the cars aren't travelling so fast. Fans line the road, often darting in, then darting out at the last moment as bicyclists pass by. It's surprising there aren't more accidents (there are always some). I know, if it were in the U.S., they'd want to put people very far away.
Both Landis and Zabriskie had unusual backgrounds. Landis rebelled and headed to California to train. Once he discovered he was actually much better suited to bike riding, he embarked on a multi-year training regiment to get him to where he is. Armstrong was suitably impressed by Landis that he had him with his group for three years. Last year, Landis decided to ride with Phonak, a Swiss hearing aid company.
His buddy Zabriskie grew up non-Mormon in Salt Lake City. He claimed that this put you in one of two groups. Either you hang out with the Mormons, or you hang out with the bad element. When he had a falling out with his Mormon friends, he sought solace in biking.
Zabriskie actually won the first time trial last year, edging out Armstrong, showing his strength in time trials. He's beaten Landis several times in time trials this year. He's had some bad luck due to injury, but this year, he did well enough in the time trial to place sixth in today's event.
In this interview, Landis makes excellent observations about what it takes to be a good cyclist in the Tour. He claims one can be strong and stupid, in which case, you'd better have some smart people around you to help out, or you can be weak and smart, in which case you can't really bike, or strong and smart, but there are few of those, or weak and stupid, in which case, don't bike, there's nothing for you.
Landis says he's strong and reasonably smart. He divides up duties of being manager between himself and John Lelangue, from Belgium, who has not had much international experience. He says that's a good balance because he can offer more input into what goes on.
While Landis is confident in his skills, Zabriskie was the one lavishing praise on Landis's chances. And you have to realize this interview was months before the start of the tour, before Basso and Ullrich were knocked out. Landis was rather surprised at the effusive praise, and modestly said he hoped to do well.
The language would occasionally get a little coarse, and that's the kind of thing you don't normally read in a magazine. Certainly, even Sports Illustrated would avoid such talk.
The two were called "dumb and dumber" by Lance Armstrong, who they raced with, because of their attitude. Armstrong was much more businesslike in his approach and expected his team to take a similar approach.
Indeed, on Thursday's race, Landis wanted to establish a lead to show his team that he was worthy of leadership (and he did so in spades), an odd remark showing some friction on the team.
Landis had managed to keep secret his hip ailment until the start of the tour when the Times broke the story, and ever since, people have marvelled how a man with a bad hip can win.
While watching the odd "rear view" cam shot of riders racing on roads, it was interesting to note how Landis's body hardly moved. It would undulate back and forth ever so slightly as his feet pedalled. He seemed very steamlined, and very focused.
While Armstrong was a bit aloof, the French probably like Landis better. He's perhaps more of a hick than Armstrong, and is rather modest about many things, except the confidence he has in his own skills.
There's still one stage left. If everyone is nice, Landis should merely bike in for a victory. However, Pereiro may want to challenge for the lead, or there may be a fall. It's one of those things that riders are very wary of, even at the end of a race. If Landis wins, it will be the best story of nobody to somebody in a long time.
Whether his folks will appreciate this is uncertain. It may rail against what the believe in. But he'll win other fans along the way.
At the beginning of the day Wednesday, it seemed certain that Landis would merely have to have a few good rides to secure the win this year at the tour. At the end of the day, having been beaten by exhaustion, and falling back some eight minutes behind leader Oscar Pereiro, Landis seemed done. There were only four stages left, only only one mountain stage to reasonably stage a comeback.
At the end of the day Thursday, Landis had taken the bold move to break away early, and try to not only win the stage outright, but to demolish the field. Normally, this is a risky maneuver. When one rider decides to go out by himself, he has no protection. Team members block the wind so the leader can conserve energy.
It's often the case that the breakaway team is chased down and reined in by another group to maintain control of their pace.
At one point, Landis was 9 minutes aheard of everyone, but he too had to pace himself, because he couldn't afford to collapse on this day, and let the others catch up. That 9 minute lead shrunk to nearly a 6 minute lead, but that was enough to reclaim all but 30 seconds from the leader, and put the Tour within sight.
Friday, by contrast, was seen as a day of rest. On a mostly flat stage, the leaders decided to stay with the peloton, the large group of riders that use each other as protection. This meant Saturday was going to mostly decide the race. Saturday was a time trial, that would run some 40 miles. Landis's skill as a time trial expert was on par with Armstrong, and Pereiro himself acknowledged, even before the stage began, that he was not going to be able to win the Tour, though he would give his best effort. Pereiro wasn't in the same class as Landis.
I was hoping to watch some of the time trials on television today as I was getting some routing maintenance done.
Alas, dealers are like dentists. They tell you one price, but before long, they find problems, suggest other repairs, and so forth. In other words, it's always something, and if they can't charge you for a few hundred bucks, they're not happy. They are clearly not in it for your benefit.
It would be nice if the government would work with a few citizens, and penalize car repair companies for excessive charging. Presumably, a few fines would put the companies in order.
What should have taken two hours to complete, took nearly five hours. Landis finishes stages faster than that.
In the middle of this never-ending maintenance, I was desperately trying to find a place that was open that had television. The most common places open at 10 AM are bagel places and doughnut places. Breakfast places don't seem to indulge in oversized plasma displays.
Somehow, though, I stumbled on a place, nearly empty, that had two huge screen TVs, and they obliged by changing the channel to OLN, where I waited for about half an hour to see if Landis would win the time trial.
Not that he needed to win. He just needed to finish sufficiently ahead of Pereiro to ensure a win on Sunday. If he could stretch his thirty second deficit to, say, a two minute lead, that would give him enough cushion. Though, to be honest, a minute lead would be enough.
Honchar, the Ukrainian on Team T-Mobile, won in 1 hour, 7 minutes, 45 seconds. Landis came in third, at 1 hour, 8 minutes, 56 seconds. However, Honchar was further behind than Landis overall, so although he made up time, Landis had the lead. Pereiro himself came in fourth, but lost a minute and a half to Landis, meaning, he now trails by a minute.
After watching this, and being informed by the staff that it would still be at least one hour if not more before it was finished (funny, how they fail to keep me informed of these things, saying "it's almost ready" and forcing me to stay another two hours), I decided to spend some more time at the Barnes and Noble across the street, the only benefit from that was reading about the tour in a magazine fittingly called Bicycling.
This magazine has to be one of the most irreverent magazines out there. Surely, the ho-hum bland-as-anything editorial staff at Tennis would censor the articles before they ever saw the light of day.
The key interview was between pals Floyd Landis and David Zabriskie, both world class bicyclists, but also close friends. Landis has been dubbed the anti-Lance. He doesn't follow any special diets. He's as fond of In-and-Out burgers as anything.
The interview, effectively, was between the two of them. This is not unusual for the oddball Zabriskie, who often likes to conduct quick interviews in the middle of biking in the peloton. He did stop some of that because he wanted to focus on biking rather than find an Internet connection.
Landis grew up in Mennonite country in Pennsylvania. The Amish and Mennonite are rather related. Indeed, the Amish are an offshoot of Mennonitism or whatever it's called. Mennonites tend to preach modesty, lack of pride, and pacifism, which is not so different from the Amish. They aren't nearly as technologically restrictive as the Amish, however.
Landis rebelled against his upbringing. He was a fanatic bicyclist, who wanted to make his living racing mountain bikes. The mountain biking community is nearly disjoint from the road racing community, so much so, that Landis barely knew about the Tour when he decided to switch from mountain biking to road biking.
Of course, that was true of most people in the U.S. before Lance Armstrong put road biking on the map. True, Greg Lemond won the tour three times, but he never had the kind of grassroots effect that Lance did, and most people didn't really pay attention until Lance was heading to his fourth win. By his fifth win, people began to pay attention, and networks like OLN decided to broadcast the tour so Americans could watch.
It's pretty fun to watch the tour as they have almost no restrictions to access. Mini-european cars dart mere meters behind bicyclists. You could imagine a slip-up would equate to road kill, but I suppose the cars aren't travelling so fast. Fans line the road, often darting in, then darting out at the last moment as bicyclists pass by. It's surprising there aren't more accidents (there are always some). I know, if it were in the U.S., they'd want to put people very far away.
Both Landis and Zabriskie had unusual backgrounds. Landis rebelled and headed to California to train. Once he discovered he was actually much better suited to bike riding, he embarked on a multi-year training regiment to get him to where he is. Armstrong was suitably impressed by Landis that he had him with his group for three years. Last year, Landis decided to ride with Phonak, a Swiss hearing aid company.
His buddy Zabriskie grew up non-Mormon in Salt Lake City. He claimed that this put you in one of two groups. Either you hang out with the Mormons, or you hang out with the bad element. When he had a falling out with his Mormon friends, he sought solace in biking.
Zabriskie actually won the first time trial last year, edging out Armstrong, showing his strength in time trials. He's beaten Landis several times in time trials this year. He's had some bad luck due to injury, but this year, he did well enough in the time trial to place sixth in today's event.
In this interview, Landis makes excellent observations about what it takes to be a good cyclist in the Tour. He claims one can be strong and stupid, in which case, you'd better have some smart people around you to help out, or you can be weak and smart, in which case you can't really bike, or strong and smart, but there are few of those, or weak and stupid, in which case, don't bike, there's nothing for you.
Landis says he's strong and reasonably smart. He divides up duties of being manager between himself and John Lelangue, from Belgium, who has not had much international experience. He says that's a good balance because he can offer more input into what goes on.
While Landis is confident in his skills, Zabriskie was the one lavishing praise on Landis's chances. And you have to realize this interview was months before the start of the tour, before Basso and Ullrich were knocked out. Landis was rather surprised at the effusive praise, and modestly said he hoped to do well.
The language would occasionally get a little coarse, and that's the kind of thing you don't normally read in a magazine. Certainly, even Sports Illustrated would avoid such talk.
The two were called "dumb and dumber" by Lance Armstrong, who they raced with, because of their attitude. Armstrong was much more businesslike in his approach and expected his team to take a similar approach.
Indeed, on Thursday's race, Landis wanted to establish a lead to show his team that he was worthy of leadership (and he did so in spades), an odd remark showing some friction on the team.
Landis had managed to keep secret his hip ailment until the start of the tour when the Times broke the story, and ever since, people have marvelled how a man with a bad hip can win.
While watching the odd "rear view" cam shot of riders racing on roads, it was interesting to note how Landis's body hardly moved. It would undulate back and forth ever so slightly as his feet pedalled. He seemed very steamlined, and very focused.
While Armstrong was a bit aloof, the French probably like Landis better. He's perhaps more of a hick than Armstrong, and is rather modest about many things, except the confidence he has in his own skills.
There's still one stage left. If everyone is nice, Landis should merely bike in for a victory. However, Pereiro may want to challenge for the lead, or there may be a fall. It's one of those things that riders are very wary of, even at the end of a race. If Landis wins, it will be the best story of nobody to somebody in a long time.
Whether his folks will appreciate this is uncertain. It may rail against what the believe in. But he'll win other fans along the way.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
One If By Landis
Yesterday, Floyd Landis, lead rider of the Phonak team, had the bad day he said he had to avoid. He had lost eight minutes to the leader, Oscar Pereiro, after holding a slim ten second lead, and fell from first to eleventh. It was the second day in the tough three day mountain stages. Landis's team was unable to support him.
This, most felt certain, was the blow that would knock Landis from the podium on the final day at the Champ d'Elysees. Eight minutes may not seem like much, but when Lance Armstrong held a lead of seven minutes, it seemed like an eternity. He could hold that lead with a vise grip.
Landis was considered the favorite, with Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso out of the race due to a doping scandal. Pereiro thought, for sure, that Landis could win this outright when he applied pressure at the right point.
Landis made one day seem like an eternity. If he were to come back, he had to be aggressive today. He had to win the stage. And that seemed far from likely given yesterday's poor showing. Landis won the stage more than five minutes ahead of second place, and he might have even stretched it further. Even so, with his remarkable charge, he is now in third place, a mere 30 seconds behind.
There is a time trial on Saturday where Landis hopes to be able to reclaim the lead. Much like Armstrong, Landis's strength lies in the mountain stages and time trials.
Landis would not likely have taken this strategy were he not so far behind, trying to push his way to the lead, and gain back as much time as possible.
There are a few stages left, and all is not assured yet. However, Landis made an incredible recovery, and kept hopes up that maybe he's ready to take control.
This, most felt certain, was the blow that would knock Landis from the podium on the final day at the Champ d'Elysees. Eight minutes may not seem like much, but when Lance Armstrong held a lead of seven minutes, it seemed like an eternity. He could hold that lead with a vise grip.
Landis was considered the favorite, with Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso out of the race due to a doping scandal. Pereiro thought, for sure, that Landis could win this outright when he applied pressure at the right point.
Landis made one day seem like an eternity. If he were to come back, he had to be aggressive today. He had to win the stage. And that seemed far from likely given yesterday's poor showing. Landis won the stage more than five minutes ahead of second place, and he might have even stretched it further. Even so, with his remarkable charge, he is now in third place, a mere 30 seconds behind.
There is a time trial on Saturday where Landis hopes to be able to reclaim the lead. Much like Armstrong, Landis's strength lies in the mountain stages and time trials.
Landis would not likely have taken this strategy were he not so far behind, trying to push his way to the lead, and gain back as much time as possible.
There are a few stages left, and all is not assured yet. However, Landis made an incredible recovery, and kept hopes up that maybe he's ready to take control.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Floyd Floored
What's a sport? Some people say judged events aren't sports. Thus, figure skating isn't a sport. However, there's judging in football. Sure, there are rules to define a score, but sometimes it's close, and a judge makes a decision. Figure skating is judged even more so since it's not clear what counts. It's not like they add the number of triple jumps successfully landed, plus the amount of spins you make. There is a judgement on the artistry.
This is not to say that judging is bad. After all, people have opinions on movies, music, and so forth. All of those things are judged too.
Some people would qualify athletics as part of it. In that case, figure skating ought to count. There is skill and endurance.
But how about golf? You don't have to be that fit to golf, but you do require skill. But then darts requires skill too.
Is racing a sport? How much strategy is there? You can jostle some, but you're not supposed to tackle or trip someone.
One might argue that, say, the Tour de France is not a sport. It's whoever can go faster. But upon closer look, there is a lot of strategy, that takes into account what your own strengths are, what your team's strength is, and how the rest of the field is.
For as many times as Lance Armstrong raced, he also had an excellent team to surround himself with. A good team helps you conserve energy. Without someone blocking the wind, or setting pace, the leader of a team can wear out.
Floyd Landis found himself the favorite. He had held the lead, then given it up to Pereira, apparently a good friend, then took it back, only to severely give it back again, all because his team was not strong enough to help him out on a difficult mountain stage.
While his main rivals had two, three, even four teammates helping out, Landis was left by himself or with one other teammate, and one against many is not enough to win. He lost eight minutes on the second day of a mountain climb. He said he's done for. There's no way to make up that much time. Maybe three or four minutes he could have managed, but not this much time.
Pereira retook the lead, but felt bittersweet about doing so. He wanted to battle Landis, not have him fade so badly after taking a slim ten second lead.
By the time Landis next races, he'll have a new hip, and the question is how he'll fare. With top contenders out due to doping scandal, this was his best chance, and he's seen it slip away. Anyone following this should gain a better appreciation of the team, and how Lance Armstrong might not have won so many times had he not had a good team that stayed healthy and did the right thing.
This is not to say that judging is bad. After all, people have opinions on movies, music, and so forth. All of those things are judged too.
Some people would qualify athletics as part of it. In that case, figure skating ought to count. There is skill and endurance.
But how about golf? You don't have to be that fit to golf, but you do require skill. But then darts requires skill too.
Is racing a sport? How much strategy is there? You can jostle some, but you're not supposed to tackle or trip someone.
One might argue that, say, the Tour de France is not a sport. It's whoever can go faster. But upon closer look, there is a lot of strategy, that takes into account what your own strengths are, what your team's strength is, and how the rest of the field is.
For as many times as Lance Armstrong raced, he also had an excellent team to surround himself with. A good team helps you conserve energy. Without someone blocking the wind, or setting pace, the leader of a team can wear out.
Floyd Landis found himself the favorite. He had held the lead, then given it up to Pereira, apparently a good friend, then took it back, only to severely give it back again, all because his team was not strong enough to help him out on a difficult mountain stage.
While his main rivals had two, three, even four teammates helping out, Landis was left by himself or with one other teammate, and one against many is not enough to win. He lost eight minutes on the second day of a mountain climb. He said he's done for. There's no way to make up that much time. Maybe three or four minutes he could have managed, but not this much time.
Pereira retook the lead, but felt bittersweet about doing so. He wanted to battle Landis, not have him fade so badly after taking a slim ten second lead.
By the time Landis next races, he'll have a new hip, and the question is how he'll fare. With top contenders out due to doping scandal, this was his best chance, and he's seen it slip away. Anyone following this should gain a better appreciation of the team, and how Lance Armstrong might not have won so many times had he not had a good team that stayed healthy and did the right thing.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Tour Sans Lance
Every year, come July, the Tour de France would begin, and everyone would expect that Lance Armstrong would win it again. He had, after all, won the Tour every year since 1999, making his total seven tours in row.
The best anyone had done up to that point was five tours. Jacques Anquetil won five. Eddie Merckx won five. Bernard Hinault won five. Miguel Indurain of Spain won five in a row. It seems obvious, from history, that if you are great, you can win for a while.
The tour is a strange race. Each team picks a nominal leader. The rest of the team serves as support. No one wins the Tour by themselves. The team's purpose is to cut wind resistance, so that leader does not expend as much effort. The effect is so substantial that riding by yourself is not even considered.
The race is run over about three weeks. Each leg is on the order of 60-70 miles, assuming it's not a mountain stage. There are flat stages where speed matters. There are mountain stages where power matters. There are individual time trials where bikers race independently of one another. There is one team time trial where the team bikes together as a group.
Although the yellow jersey is the most important (it's the person with the least amount of total time), there are other jerseys. There is a green jersey for the cyclist that collects the most points. You get the most points for crossing the line first. There is a polka dot jersey which is called "King of the Mountains" which rewards points for making it to the top of various mountain climbs. The white jersey is like the yellow jersey for under 25.
The person wearing the yellow jersey is the one most care about, and he doesn't even have to bother with the other colors, and often doesn't. Indeed, you can win a tour without winning any of the stages, as long as you do well on most of the important stages.
The tour is bizarre. Your team can follow you in tiny European cars. They can talk to you over wireless communication. Indeed, a few years ago, during a wet day in a time trial where Jan Ullrich had a chance to take the lead, he slipped. The time it cost him meant Armstrong could ride a more conservative race, rather than attempt to keep up.
The last stage, which is the ride into Paris, is usually a formality. The leader at that point is not challenged, and is allowed to complete.
This year, Lance was not involved, though he is still battling allegations that he took performance enhancing drugs. It was thought that Jan Ullrich or Ivan Basso, both capable of winning the tour, would contend. However, controversy struck at the beginning when a large number of cyclists were accused of doping, i.e., taking performance enhancing drugs. Although Lance had never been caught, the cycling community still takes this seriously. Many cyclists were effectively disqualified.
The current favorite is Floyd Landis, a Mennonite, who had once biked with Armstrong. It's been revealed that he needs hip surgery when he finishes. His hip is grinding bone on bone, so it's been rather painful for him to bike. He's held the lead for two stages, but plans to pick his time to try to get the lead.
The classic Armstrong strategy was to win the mountain stages and the time trials, both which he excelled at. He didn't do so well on flat stages, but knew that those who did well on flat stages often do horribly on the mountains. At times, Armstrong would spend over a week far behind, trying to avoid accidents that invariably occur when there's a crowd, and making sure he stayed with his leading contenders.
Most people competing seem to believe Landis can take control at any point, and that he is currently picking and choosing the time. Landis knows that this is his best opportunity, with many of the biggest contenders already disqualified.
The question is this: with this race apparently wide open (Landis aside) will people watch without a name leader? At least, Landis is American, so that may give people some reason to watch.
The best anyone had done up to that point was five tours. Jacques Anquetil won five. Eddie Merckx won five. Bernard Hinault won five. Miguel Indurain of Spain won five in a row. It seems obvious, from history, that if you are great, you can win for a while.
The tour is a strange race. Each team picks a nominal leader. The rest of the team serves as support. No one wins the Tour by themselves. The team's purpose is to cut wind resistance, so that leader does not expend as much effort. The effect is so substantial that riding by yourself is not even considered.
The race is run over about three weeks. Each leg is on the order of 60-70 miles, assuming it's not a mountain stage. There are flat stages where speed matters. There are mountain stages where power matters. There are individual time trials where bikers race independently of one another. There is one team time trial where the team bikes together as a group.
Although the yellow jersey is the most important (it's the person with the least amount of total time), there are other jerseys. There is a green jersey for the cyclist that collects the most points. You get the most points for crossing the line first. There is a polka dot jersey which is called "King of the Mountains" which rewards points for making it to the top of various mountain climbs. The white jersey is like the yellow jersey for under 25.
The person wearing the yellow jersey is the one most care about, and he doesn't even have to bother with the other colors, and often doesn't. Indeed, you can win a tour without winning any of the stages, as long as you do well on most of the important stages.
The tour is bizarre. Your team can follow you in tiny European cars. They can talk to you over wireless communication. Indeed, a few years ago, during a wet day in a time trial where Jan Ullrich had a chance to take the lead, he slipped. The time it cost him meant Armstrong could ride a more conservative race, rather than attempt to keep up.
The last stage, which is the ride into Paris, is usually a formality. The leader at that point is not challenged, and is allowed to complete.
This year, Lance was not involved, though he is still battling allegations that he took performance enhancing drugs. It was thought that Jan Ullrich or Ivan Basso, both capable of winning the tour, would contend. However, controversy struck at the beginning when a large number of cyclists were accused of doping, i.e., taking performance enhancing drugs. Although Lance had never been caught, the cycling community still takes this seriously. Many cyclists were effectively disqualified.
The current favorite is Floyd Landis, a Mennonite, who had once biked with Armstrong. It's been revealed that he needs hip surgery when he finishes. His hip is grinding bone on bone, so it's been rather painful for him to bike. He's held the lead for two stages, but plans to pick his time to try to get the lead.
The classic Armstrong strategy was to win the mountain stages and the time trials, both which he excelled at. He didn't do so well on flat stages, but knew that those who did well on flat stages often do horribly on the mountains. At times, Armstrong would spend over a week far behind, trying to avoid accidents that invariably occur when there's a crowd, and making sure he stayed with his leading contenders.
Most people competing seem to believe Landis can take control at any point, and that he is currently picking and choosing the time. Landis knows that this is his best opportunity, with many of the biggest contenders already disqualified.
The question is this: with this race apparently wide open (Landis aside) will people watch without a name leader? At least, Landis is American, so that may give people some reason to watch.
Fall Back
The plot (such as it is) of The Falls sounds like a science fiction story. Some 19 million people have been afflicted with the VUE, the violent unknown event. The Falls catalogs the history of 92 of the individuals whose surname begins with the word "Fall" (such as someone named "Fallaspy").
Structured as a documentary (one might even say, mocking the British documentary), you learn something of the individuals that were afflicted with VUE, as well as themes Greenaway would come back to explore over and again.
Although it sounds like science fiction, the plot is more like "what would happen if a 'disaster' occurred, and no one noticed". Indeed, life outside these characters goes on as usual. There are no alarms, no alerts. People afflicted with VUE seem to progress on as normal, with a few odd exceptions.
In particular, those afflicted begin to invent new languages, as well as have their body slowly transmorgified to bird like qualities while picking up bird like maladies. There is a fascination with birds that follows.
The Falls has to be the chattiest film ever. The phrase VUE, "violent unexplained event", "ornithology" must be repeated a hundred times in the film.
There is an odd British detachment to the affair. There's a sense that the narrators are trying to accurately catalog what has happened, but they don't seem to care one way or another that there is an apparent disaster. This allows characters to recite nonsense words, or utter lists of things (name all birds that begin with "L").
Greenaway has a fascination with lists, which he says is a reminder to the audience that he is exploring patterns (though not exactly why we should care). Thus, each of the 92 people have a musical interlude as their name and the order they appear in the list are shown (this is typical Michael Nyman music that appears throughout much of Greenaway's work). Fortunately about 20 of the names are mistakes or involve people unwilling to show up.
So, what exactly is the point of this film? My first impression was that it was making fun of British documentaries. There is a seriousness, however, about this fake event that doesn't jibe with what is seen on the screen. Why birds?
I think part of the fascination with birds is the ornithology itself. What's the goal of ornithology? Apparently, to catalog birds. To describe each and every bird, its plumage, its song. Ornithologists and bird watchers are fascinated by this endeavor. Greenaway appears to be applying the same principle to people.
Through the many biographies, we get a sense of how birds have meaning to humans. Not the least of which is the desire of humans to fly. One of the people lists out movies with birds as themes. Others list out bird species. We begin to see some relation of people to birds. But it makes Greenaway seem awfully obsessive compulsive. For example, he has to invent fake languages, a laundry list of illnesses that people have, relations between people.
Greenaway often repeats things to emphasize some commonality. For example, at least three folks like to drive in circles, one on a beach, one on a plane that's grounded, one on a circular road. Several like to list out things. Some sing. Repeated use of black and white photographs. Repeated mention of VUE. Repeated mention of immortality. Repeated use of French and presumably Dutch.
The Falls has to be one of Greenaway's least accessible films, especially since it insists on this odd form of biography. Still, it gives themes to films he makes later on.
Even though it looks rather dated (having been made right around 1980), there are things that suggest ideas that he comes back to as well as things that seem rather modern.
The Falls is unusual compared to most of the rest of his work, which have more of a plot, and typically quite a bit more nudity. But they do share some themes such as calligraphy and lists. For example, Drowning by Numbers involves the numbers 1 through 100 being spoken. A Zed and Two Noughts has a child listing animals beginning with each letter of the alphabet. A Draughtman's Contract has the draughtman drawing a series of pictures with a list of requirements he wants before he draws it. Pillow Book involves a list of parts of stories.
I'm not sure why I watch Greenaway. Certainly, there are more accessible filmmakers. I suppose if I can watch his stuff, I can watch pretty much anything. I've been watching his films since The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, Her Lover came out around 1989. These days, it's somewhat easier to get a hold of his films. The hardest one to get a hold of is Baby of Macon, which was considered controversial and never had a proper US release. The Tulse Luper Suitecases which is a trilogy has also been challenging to find. Presumably, it will become available soon.
There has been a release of The Falls and Peter Greenaway Short Films to round out his early career.
Structured as a documentary (one might even say, mocking the British documentary), you learn something of the individuals that were afflicted with VUE, as well as themes Greenaway would come back to explore over and again.
Although it sounds like science fiction, the plot is more like "what would happen if a 'disaster' occurred, and no one noticed". Indeed, life outside these characters goes on as usual. There are no alarms, no alerts. People afflicted with VUE seem to progress on as normal, with a few odd exceptions.
In particular, those afflicted begin to invent new languages, as well as have their body slowly transmorgified to bird like qualities while picking up bird like maladies. There is a fascination with birds that follows.
The Falls has to be the chattiest film ever. The phrase VUE, "violent unexplained event", "ornithology" must be repeated a hundred times in the film.
There is an odd British detachment to the affair. There's a sense that the narrators are trying to accurately catalog what has happened, but they don't seem to care one way or another that there is an apparent disaster. This allows characters to recite nonsense words, or utter lists of things (name all birds that begin with "L").
Greenaway has a fascination with lists, which he says is a reminder to the audience that he is exploring patterns (though not exactly why we should care). Thus, each of the 92 people have a musical interlude as their name and the order they appear in the list are shown (this is typical Michael Nyman music that appears throughout much of Greenaway's work). Fortunately about 20 of the names are mistakes or involve people unwilling to show up.
So, what exactly is the point of this film? My first impression was that it was making fun of British documentaries. There is a seriousness, however, about this fake event that doesn't jibe with what is seen on the screen. Why birds?
I think part of the fascination with birds is the ornithology itself. What's the goal of ornithology? Apparently, to catalog birds. To describe each and every bird, its plumage, its song. Ornithologists and bird watchers are fascinated by this endeavor. Greenaway appears to be applying the same principle to people.
Through the many biographies, we get a sense of how birds have meaning to humans. Not the least of which is the desire of humans to fly. One of the people lists out movies with birds as themes. Others list out bird species. We begin to see some relation of people to birds. But it makes Greenaway seem awfully obsessive compulsive. For example, he has to invent fake languages, a laundry list of illnesses that people have, relations between people.
Greenaway often repeats things to emphasize some commonality. For example, at least three folks like to drive in circles, one on a beach, one on a plane that's grounded, one on a circular road. Several like to list out things. Some sing. Repeated use of black and white photographs. Repeated mention of VUE. Repeated mention of immortality. Repeated use of French and presumably Dutch.
The Falls has to be one of Greenaway's least accessible films, especially since it insists on this odd form of biography. Still, it gives themes to films he makes later on.
Even though it looks rather dated (having been made right around 1980), there are things that suggest ideas that he comes back to as well as things that seem rather modern.
The Falls is unusual compared to most of the rest of his work, which have more of a plot, and typically quite a bit more nudity. But they do share some themes such as calligraphy and lists. For example, Drowning by Numbers involves the numbers 1 through 100 being spoken. A Zed and Two Noughts has a child listing animals beginning with each letter of the alphabet. A Draughtman's Contract has the draughtman drawing a series of pictures with a list of requirements he wants before he draws it. Pillow Book involves a list of parts of stories.
I'm not sure why I watch Greenaway. Certainly, there are more accessible filmmakers. I suppose if I can watch his stuff, I can watch pretty much anything. I've been watching his films since The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, Her Lover came out around 1989. These days, it's somewhat easier to get a hold of his films. The hardest one to get a hold of is Baby of Macon, which was considered controversial and never had a proper US release. The Tulse Luper Suitecases which is a trilogy has also been challenging to find. Presumably, it will become available soon.
There has been a release of The Falls and Peter Greenaway Short Films to round out his early career.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Richard and Dick
I've seen previews for A Scanner Darkly for a while now. Linklater uses the technique that worked in Waking Life, a kind of modern retake on rotoscoping. Rotoscoping was somewhat popular in the 70s as a way of making cartooning more realistic.
Essentially, it involves doing live filming with real actors, then taking that, and tracing out the movements. The result was a bit odd. While the outlines moved like real people, since they were traced from real people, the interiors were as flat as Saturday morning cartoons, and about as expertly drawn. They lacked the kind of care that you find in a decent Disney (or Don Bluth) cartoon (which is becoming increasingly rare in wake of extremely popular Pixar films).
The kind of rotoscoping used in Linklater's films have a dreamy like quality. The goal isn't to produce extremely accurate reproductions of people (otherwise, why bother going through this laborious process)? There is a "floaty" quality about the drawings, as if body parts are not quite fixed onto the body. Eyes and eyebrows float in a sea.
The graphics for A Scanner Darkly are much crisper, more detailed than in Waking Life.
When I watched the previews, at first I thought it might be a kind of thriller, something dealing with mind-readers, and a kind of Big Brother society. You know, typical sci-fi post-apocalyptic kind of stuff. As more previews came out, there seemed to be less of this, and more of the dazed discussions that Linklater is more known for, but it seemed rather stupid.
The result is neither heavy sci-fi, nor stupid discussions.
This made made me think that most science fiction falls in a few categories. There are the space adventure kinds of film, mostly inspired by Star Wars. There are space horror films, mostly inspired by Alien. There are post-apocalyptic films, like, say, Mad Max or Planet of the Apes. There are utopia/dystopias of the future, like Logan's Run or even the Matrix.
Hard science fiction tends to explore issues like time dilation, faster than light speed travel, and so forth. Some science fiction almost doesn't quite qualify. In the early 90s, some SF writers were writing about alternate histories. What would happen if the Library of Alexandria survived, or if the difference engine were made practical.
Among science fiction writers, Philip K. Dick is a strange one. Apparently, never that successful when he was living, he's become quite a bit more popular since he's passed away. The first really "successful" Dick film was Blade Runner based on a short story called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
While this didn't lead to a deluge of Dick films, they did trickle in over the years. Total Recall, Paycheck, Minority Report and some lesser known movies were based on Dick stories, though often rather loosely based.
I can't say I've read much Dick. The only thing I read recently was a short story of a man in the future who's been told that he's a replicant, i.e., a robot duplicate of a human being. Since we're reading from the perspective of the person, we're sure that he's human. Dick often likes to play with the reader, making you wonder whether the narrator is indeed accurate. Indeed, this story was compelling enough to have been made into a film with Gary Sinise (one I had not heard of when it came out). Star Trek: Deep Space Nine did a take on this where O'Brien was being pursued by crewmates, and he was wondering why they were going after him. The story is essentially the same.
Dick worries about reality and identity. At the time, this probably seemed awfully strange to people reading his work. With films that approximate his world view, people have begun to find Dick is not nearly as strange as he first seemed to be.
A Scanner Darkly is mainly science fiction because of one thing, and that's the scramble suit, which causes the wearer to appear like many different individuals. It's not entirely clear why the suit is even used except to hide the identity of the wearer, except it's so obvious that it isn't a person, that you'd think people would notice.
But nearly everything else, from cars to surveillance to cell phones is stuff that could happen right now. Essentially, the film is about the paranoid effects of a drug called Substance D. The government is waging a war on drugs, and has an undercover operative named Officer Fred, who has been asked to spy on Robert Arctor, a guy who might be linked heavily to drugs.
Fred wears a scramble suit so not even his colleagues know his true identity. This must be the case since Fred and Arctor are the same person so he's asked to spy on himself. Fred/Arctor has been taking Substance D himself as part of his duties, and so he's not doing so well.
Arctor lives with two other guys played by Woody Harrelson and Robert Downey, Jr. who are paranoid due to their drug intake, and also is dating a character played by Winona Ryder, who is believed to have links to people of greater importance.
Like much of Linklater's work, there isn't a particularly strong plot, though this one is somewhat more focused than usual, which is about both the effects of drugs on people (mainly, making them paranoid) and the cops who try to stop them (though not as much on them).
I must say, while I was watching it, I was intrigued about the depth of view I was getting, creating a somewhat realer than real effect. There is a little bit of nudity, and there is thought about whether the actors get nude, or it's something the rotoscopers do afterwards.
The film never gets really scary, nor suspenseful. Even the paranoia seems very much a problem of the characters on screen, and not something that's totally immersive as an experience.
In addition, I've been watching Peter Greenaway's The Falls. I had expected, with a title like that, that it was about, well, waterfalls. But it's not.
This is one of Greenaway's earliest films, from the late 70s. It's also one of his most British films. As with any Greenaway film, it takes some getting used to. It too has a science fiction like premise. 19 million people have been affected by the VUE, the violent unknown event.
The title is drawn from the subset of the 19 million who's surname begin with the word "Fall". Thus, some 70 or so individuals are described.
From this, you see Greenaway's fascination with lists, and some burgeoning interest in nudity, and some issues with language.
Mostly, it seems like a documentary. What happens in a Greenaway world where 19 million people have been afflicted? Not much. Everyone seems to go about their own business, and no one seems to care the affliction has even occurred. The effects are, apparently, some illnesses (these are rattled off in lists, and it seems Greenaway has at least taken the pains to find real afflictions, as some of them sounded familiar to me), a fascination with birds (almost suggesting the people are becoming birds, though the film makes no attempt to have characters sprout wings or feathers), and characters inventing new languages.
For example, there is the story of two twin brothers (Greenaway seems fascinated by that as well) who were as close as brothers could be that are afflicted by the VUE and each begins to speak two different languages until they can no longer communicate.
There is a sense that this is making fun of British documentaries, especially in oddly fastidious details (so-and-so is the brother of blah, has a fascination with sparrows, occasionally complains of fever, etc). These elongated sentences are typical of the entire film.
This is certainly the most atypical of Greenaway films, as it uses a documentary style to present the storyline, where most of his films try to tell a story (of sorts, since both plot and character are often not that fascinating to Greenaway--he's often more interested in visuals, and the contrast of prim and proper with things that are baser, like death, love, etc).
I've also been watching a series of short films called Boys Life 2. These are all gay-themed. Each story is about two minutes.
Must Be The Music is about four friends that head to a gay dance club. There isn't much of a story, but the characters seem interesting enough. One guy is talky and aggressive. One guy is closeted. The main character sees the cutest guy at the club, and hopes to meet up with him, but the talky one looks to muscle in. If this short works, it's mostly because it evokes the kind of personalities (I'd imagine) that one would really find in real life.
Indeed, with only twenty minutes to work, simple stuff like plot may have to be thrown out, as you try quickly to establish character, provide personality, and possibly throw in a conflict.
Nunzio's Second Cousin is the only one of the four to have someone approaching famous, and that's Vincent D'Onofrio. (Actually, Seth Green has a bit part in the short too). Eileen Brennan seems familiar. D'Onofrio plays a gay cop who dates a black leatherman. A group of guys decides they want to do some gay-bashing, but Randozza (D'Onofrio) is having none of that. He forces the kids to apologize, and tells the leader of the group to come to what seems to be his house, or be subject to more punishment.
It ends up being the house of his very Italian-American mother, who apparently, hasn't been informed of his son's proclivity.
The film seems like it's taking a somewhat positive view. A kid who's gay-bashed sees that even a cop has a mother, but it ends rather bizarrely, with the cop telling the kid and saying that he may gay-bash, but it won't prevent him from being gay, and then kissing the kid before sending him on his way. Of the four, it comes closest to having a conventional plot.
Alkali, Iowa is the weakest of the four. It depicts life in the midwest as a gay son discovers his dad (what happens to him is not clear) was also gay. Mostly, this short tries to convey a sense of living in farm land in the midwest.
The Dadshuttle is the strongest of the four and shows savvy in its twenty minutes. Rather than having a real plot, it deals with a dad and his son, as he drives to drop him off at the train. Dad likes to tell stuff about mom and so forth. As time goes by, you discover that the two dance around the son's gayness. Dad just doesn't want to discuss it, so he tries to talk about other things.
There's something highly observed about this. Even the son changes the focus of the talk to what Dad wants to talk about. The son says he has a "friend" who he wants to invite back for Christmas. Dad says he has to ask Mom since she makes those decisions. The son says his friend is sick, and it's implied though never said, that his friend has AIDS. The son says he feels fine, though clearly the son isn't so sure, and neither is his dad.
The best short films often have a much smaller point to make, and thus, the short form is well-suited to this. It would be harder for this film to run even an hour and a half without more of a plot. To capture the essense of a conversation is something a short is particularly good for.
I've always thought that there theaters should support more shorts. For example, you pay a ticket and can watch three shorts, while these shorts show for twenty minutes break for ten, and then back for another twenty.
Although gay/lesbian films are a kind of genre, in a sense, they also aren't. Films about gay and lesbians are often like films set in other countries. They depict stories very much like "straight" stories, such as romantic comedies. Therefore, it's possible to combine genres with gay themes. Thus, Brokeback Mountain was the "gay Western" (and a rather revisionist Western, too). (Obviously, this doesn't preclude other genre combinations like SF Western, a la Serenity).
I'd like to see more genre mashups. For example, it was said, at one point, that Rupert Everett might play a gay James Bond character. That would be cool, if for no other reason, I'd like to see Everett play that role. He has a certain cool that would suit a James Bond role.
I'm hoping to catch up with one of Greenaway's latest, which is The Tulse Luper Suitcases. The name Tulse Luper is, in fact, mentioned quite a lot in The Falls.
Essentially, it involves doing live filming with real actors, then taking that, and tracing out the movements. The result was a bit odd. While the outlines moved like real people, since they were traced from real people, the interiors were as flat as Saturday morning cartoons, and about as expertly drawn. They lacked the kind of care that you find in a decent Disney (or Don Bluth) cartoon (which is becoming increasingly rare in wake of extremely popular Pixar films).
The kind of rotoscoping used in Linklater's films have a dreamy like quality. The goal isn't to produce extremely accurate reproductions of people (otherwise, why bother going through this laborious process)? There is a "floaty" quality about the drawings, as if body parts are not quite fixed onto the body. Eyes and eyebrows float in a sea.
The graphics for A Scanner Darkly are much crisper, more detailed than in Waking Life.
When I watched the previews, at first I thought it might be a kind of thriller, something dealing with mind-readers, and a kind of Big Brother society. You know, typical sci-fi post-apocalyptic kind of stuff. As more previews came out, there seemed to be less of this, and more of the dazed discussions that Linklater is more known for, but it seemed rather stupid.
The result is neither heavy sci-fi, nor stupid discussions.
This made made me think that most science fiction falls in a few categories. There are the space adventure kinds of film, mostly inspired by Star Wars. There are space horror films, mostly inspired by Alien. There are post-apocalyptic films, like, say, Mad Max or Planet of the Apes. There are utopia/dystopias of the future, like Logan's Run or even the Matrix.
Hard science fiction tends to explore issues like time dilation, faster than light speed travel, and so forth. Some science fiction almost doesn't quite qualify. In the early 90s, some SF writers were writing about alternate histories. What would happen if the Library of Alexandria survived, or if the difference engine were made practical.
Among science fiction writers, Philip K. Dick is a strange one. Apparently, never that successful when he was living, he's become quite a bit more popular since he's passed away. The first really "successful" Dick film was Blade Runner based on a short story called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
While this didn't lead to a deluge of Dick films, they did trickle in over the years. Total Recall, Paycheck, Minority Report and some lesser known movies were based on Dick stories, though often rather loosely based.
I can't say I've read much Dick. The only thing I read recently was a short story of a man in the future who's been told that he's a replicant, i.e., a robot duplicate of a human being. Since we're reading from the perspective of the person, we're sure that he's human. Dick often likes to play with the reader, making you wonder whether the narrator is indeed accurate. Indeed, this story was compelling enough to have been made into a film with Gary Sinise (one I had not heard of when it came out). Star Trek: Deep Space Nine did a take on this where O'Brien was being pursued by crewmates, and he was wondering why they were going after him. The story is essentially the same.
Dick worries about reality and identity. At the time, this probably seemed awfully strange to people reading his work. With films that approximate his world view, people have begun to find Dick is not nearly as strange as he first seemed to be.
A Scanner Darkly is mainly science fiction because of one thing, and that's the scramble suit, which causes the wearer to appear like many different individuals. It's not entirely clear why the suit is even used except to hide the identity of the wearer, except it's so obvious that it isn't a person, that you'd think people would notice.
But nearly everything else, from cars to surveillance to cell phones is stuff that could happen right now. Essentially, the film is about the paranoid effects of a drug called Substance D. The government is waging a war on drugs, and has an undercover operative named Officer Fred, who has been asked to spy on Robert Arctor, a guy who might be linked heavily to drugs.
Fred wears a scramble suit so not even his colleagues know his true identity. This must be the case since Fred and Arctor are the same person so he's asked to spy on himself. Fred/Arctor has been taking Substance D himself as part of his duties, and so he's not doing so well.
Arctor lives with two other guys played by Woody Harrelson and Robert Downey, Jr. who are paranoid due to their drug intake, and also is dating a character played by Winona Ryder, who is believed to have links to people of greater importance.
Like much of Linklater's work, there isn't a particularly strong plot, though this one is somewhat more focused than usual, which is about both the effects of drugs on people (mainly, making them paranoid) and the cops who try to stop them (though not as much on them).
I must say, while I was watching it, I was intrigued about the depth of view I was getting, creating a somewhat realer than real effect. There is a little bit of nudity, and there is thought about whether the actors get nude, or it's something the rotoscopers do afterwards.
The film never gets really scary, nor suspenseful. Even the paranoia seems very much a problem of the characters on screen, and not something that's totally immersive as an experience.
In addition, I've been watching Peter Greenaway's The Falls. I had expected, with a title like that, that it was about, well, waterfalls. But it's not.
This is one of Greenaway's earliest films, from the late 70s. It's also one of his most British films. As with any Greenaway film, it takes some getting used to. It too has a science fiction like premise. 19 million people have been affected by the VUE, the violent unknown event.
The title is drawn from the subset of the 19 million who's surname begin with the word "Fall". Thus, some 70 or so individuals are described.
From this, you see Greenaway's fascination with lists, and some burgeoning interest in nudity, and some issues with language.
Mostly, it seems like a documentary. What happens in a Greenaway world where 19 million people have been afflicted? Not much. Everyone seems to go about their own business, and no one seems to care the affliction has even occurred. The effects are, apparently, some illnesses (these are rattled off in lists, and it seems Greenaway has at least taken the pains to find real afflictions, as some of them sounded familiar to me), a fascination with birds (almost suggesting the people are becoming birds, though the film makes no attempt to have characters sprout wings or feathers), and characters inventing new languages.
For example, there is the story of two twin brothers (Greenaway seems fascinated by that as well) who were as close as brothers could be that are afflicted by the VUE and each begins to speak two different languages until they can no longer communicate.
There is a sense that this is making fun of British documentaries, especially in oddly fastidious details (so-and-so is the brother of blah, has a fascination with sparrows, occasionally complains of fever, etc). These elongated sentences are typical of the entire film.
This is certainly the most atypical of Greenaway films, as it uses a documentary style to present the storyline, where most of his films try to tell a story (of sorts, since both plot and character are often not that fascinating to Greenaway--he's often more interested in visuals, and the contrast of prim and proper with things that are baser, like death, love, etc).
I've also been watching a series of short films called Boys Life 2. These are all gay-themed. Each story is about two minutes.
Must Be The Music is about four friends that head to a gay dance club. There isn't much of a story, but the characters seem interesting enough. One guy is talky and aggressive. One guy is closeted. The main character sees the cutest guy at the club, and hopes to meet up with him, but the talky one looks to muscle in. If this short works, it's mostly because it evokes the kind of personalities (I'd imagine) that one would really find in real life.
Indeed, with only twenty minutes to work, simple stuff like plot may have to be thrown out, as you try quickly to establish character, provide personality, and possibly throw in a conflict.
Nunzio's Second Cousin is the only one of the four to have someone approaching famous, and that's Vincent D'Onofrio. (Actually, Seth Green has a bit part in the short too). Eileen Brennan seems familiar. D'Onofrio plays a gay cop who dates a black leatherman. A group of guys decides they want to do some gay-bashing, but Randozza (D'Onofrio) is having none of that. He forces the kids to apologize, and tells the leader of the group to come to what seems to be his house, or be subject to more punishment.
It ends up being the house of his very Italian-American mother, who apparently, hasn't been informed of his son's proclivity.
The film seems like it's taking a somewhat positive view. A kid who's gay-bashed sees that even a cop has a mother, but it ends rather bizarrely, with the cop telling the kid and saying that he may gay-bash, but it won't prevent him from being gay, and then kissing the kid before sending him on his way. Of the four, it comes closest to having a conventional plot.
Alkali, Iowa is the weakest of the four. It depicts life in the midwest as a gay son discovers his dad (what happens to him is not clear) was also gay. Mostly, this short tries to convey a sense of living in farm land in the midwest.
The Dadshuttle is the strongest of the four and shows savvy in its twenty minutes. Rather than having a real plot, it deals with a dad and his son, as he drives to drop him off at the train. Dad likes to tell stuff about mom and so forth. As time goes by, you discover that the two dance around the son's gayness. Dad just doesn't want to discuss it, so he tries to talk about other things.
There's something highly observed about this. Even the son changes the focus of the talk to what Dad wants to talk about. The son says he has a "friend" who he wants to invite back for Christmas. Dad says he has to ask Mom since she makes those decisions. The son says his friend is sick, and it's implied though never said, that his friend has AIDS. The son says he feels fine, though clearly the son isn't so sure, and neither is his dad.
The best short films often have a much smaller point to make, and thus, the short form is well-suited to this. It would be harder for this film to run even an hour and a half without more of a plot. To capture the essense of a conversation is something a short is particularly good for.
I've always thought that there theaters should support more shorts. For example, you pay a ticket and can watch three shorts, while these shorts show for twenty minutes break for ten, and then back for another twenty.
Although gay/lesbian films are a kind of genre, in a sense, they also aren't. Films about gay and lesbians are often like films set in other countries. They depict stories very much like "straight" stories, such as romantic comedies. Therefore, it's possible to combine genres with gay themes. Thus, Brokeback Mountain was the "gay Western" (and a rather revisionist Western, too). (Obviously, this doesn't preclude other genre combinations like SF Western, a la Serenity).
I'd like to see more genre mashups. For example, it was said, at one point, that Rupert Everett might play a gay James Bond character. That would be cool, if for no other reason, I'd like to see Everett play that role. He has a certain cool that would suit a James Bond role.
I'm hoping to catch up with one of Greenaway's latest, which is The Tulse Luper Suitcases. The name Tulse Luper is, in fact, mentioned quite a lot in The Falls.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Federer and Borg
Roger Federer played a familiar foe in Rafael Nadal. Federer's appearance in the final was expected. Nadal's was not. Nadal started off the first set much as he did in the French. He lost 6-0. However, he kept the second set quite close, just like the French.
Had he managed to knot the match at one set apiece, we would have really had an opportunity to see if Federer could mentally stay on top of Nadal. Unlike the French, Nadal found it hard to keep his shots under control. On a surface that should have greatly favored Federer, Nadal hung pretty tough.
He took sets 2 and 3 to tiebreaks, lost set 2 and won set 3, before bowing out meekly in the fourth.
After watching this match, I think Nadal has what it takes to give Federer trouble, even on grass. Had he not made some wild out-of-control shots, I could see Nadal contending for Wimbledon. Nadal even had some decent volleys, though neither player came to net much, which is sad, given the state of men's tennis.
And this wasn't the ace-fest of most Wimbledons. They've slowed it enough that players have a chance to return many shots. Federer still served up a few, but really, Nadal had his chances.
I find that I no longer pay full attention when watching tennis. I end up surfing and blogging while I watch. I miss a lot, but I don't seem to mind.
Had he managed to knot the match at one set apiece, we would have really had an opportunity to see if Federer could mentally stay on top of Nadal. Unlike the French, Nadal found it hard to keep his shots under control. On a surface that should have greatly favored Federer, Nadal hung pretty tough.
He took sets 2 and 3 to tiebreaks, lost set 2 and won set 3, before bowing out meekly in the fourth.
After watching this match, I think Nadal has what it takes to give Federer trouble, even on grass. Had he not made some wild out-of-control shots, I could see Nadal contending for Wimbledon. Nadal even had some decent volleys, though neither player came to net much, which is sad, given the state of men's tennis.
And this wasn't the ace-fest of most Wimbledons. They've slowed it enough that players have a chance to return many shots. Federer still served up a few, but really, Nadal had his chances.
I find that I no longer pay full attention when watching tennis. I end up surfing and blogging while I watch. I miss a lot, but I don't seem to mind.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Pirates and Khan
I recently bought two DVDs that I recall watching in the theaters now some twenty years ago. For that reason, they were moderately cheap. The two DVDs were Star Trek; The Wrath of Khan and Dragonslayer.
For my money, still the best of the Star Trek movies is the second one. Jaime favors Star Trek 6, but that has a bit too much political intrigue, and Kim Cattrall as Valeris is too annoying for words (Nicholas Meyer wanted to get Kirstie Alley to reprise her role as Saavik, which would have really punched up the drama--but really, even her replacement Robin Curtis would have been far better than Cattrall).
Star Trek 2 tells a revenge plot and is based on an episode in the original series, Space Seed. In it, Khan and his followers have left Earth circa late 1990s, when there was a eugenics war, and Khan had attempted to take over the Earth and failed. He fled to space in suspended animation with his crew. He gets revived by Kirk and the Enterprise, and then proceeds to take over the ship. Eventually, they regain control and put him on a planet where he can do as he pleases.
Star Trek 2 takes place twenty years later. The planet, Ceti Alpha 5, which had been something of a paradise is now inhospitable. A nearby planet had exploded, shifted the orbit, and the crew simply surviving, hoping against hope that someone would find them. As it turns out, Chekhov is part of a new crew looking to find a dead planet to terraform and find this planet, not realizing that Khan is on the planet.
This leads to Khan getting off the planet and deciding to take revenge on Kirk, using the terraforming device known as Genesis as his weapon.
Khan makes revenge his sole motive, even as he can presumably live life as a free man, he must find vengeance. That simple tale, and of course, the sacrifice of Spock at the end, gave the film a kind of emotional heft that the chilly first Star Trek film lacked (though, for my money, it's perhaps the second or third best film, despite a tone that's more 2001 than Star Trek).
Indeed, the Star Trek franchise was really hurt by Star Trek 4. As fun as that was, the producers of Trek felt they needed to add humor and Star Trek 5 was godawful. Shatner claims better special effects would have helped. No, a better storyline would have helped. Star Trek 6 moved in a better direction, but Cattrall makes the film unbearable, and its Klingon as Gorbachev Russia just didn't work for me.
I bought the director's cut, so we'll see if Meyer did much different with this than the original.
Back in the day, there were movie trailers, but they were far less prevalent as they are now. You used to see three or four trailers before a film. Now, it's not unusual to see 8 or 10 trailers. People who make trailers are copycats. They use the same style over and over until they get tired of that, and move to another style.
For example, if you watch the trailer for Dirty Harry, you see scenes from the film that are minutes long. No trailer these days sticks to any scene for more than about 10-15 seconds. Three minute dialogues are out. By the time trailers are made for Star Trek 2 (and even through Star Wars), the voiceover is king.
Typically, you hear a guy telling you about the film in voiceover. The Star Wars and Star Trek trailer have a fair bit of voiceover.
These are gone in modern trailers. Look at, say, the trailer for Superman Returns. It's typical of modern trailers. In particular, you see short snippets, then black, then a short snippet, then black. It's always black, fade into a scene and repeat. There are short pieces of dialog, and lots of music, as the director of the trailer tries to create a wall of sound and emotion.
If there's need for dialog, it's done in words. Most famous for this is the trailer to Brokeback Mountain. Brokeback is unusual because unlike, say, Superman, they only ever made one trailer for the film. Superman has at least three. But it's so distinctive that it's been parodied to death. The text that is used "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." and then some text about Ang Lee and so forth. Its simple melody and its famous line "I wish I could quit you" have to make this one of the most effective trailers ever.
Last night, I watched the sequel, Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest. To be honest, I don't remember a whole lot from the original, though I did recall enjoying it.
Everyone's already pointed out the plot for this film is rather labyrinthine. There's Jack Sparrow (Depp) who owes Davy Jones, an octopus like man-beast, his soul. There's Will Turner (Bloom) who needs Jack's special compass to free his true love, Elizabeth. There's Bill Turner (Stellan Skarsgard) who is Will's father and part of Davy Jones's cursed crew, and still cares for his son.
The film is really, however, a bunch of set pieces played for comic effect, wrapped up in part mystery, part mythic task common in fantasies like Lord of the Rings. Thus, we have Depp being treated as the sacrificial king of a cannibalistic tribe, a sword sequence on a waterwheel, two ships battling each other, a Kraken creature (first mentioned in Clash of the Titans, which came out about the same time as Dragonslayer).
Perhaps the two pieces that serve as a kind of emotional core are Will Turner's relation to his father, and whether Elizabeth might not care as much for Will as we thought she did, and possibly have some emotions for Jack.
For whatever reason, late night dinner with the largest magarita I've ever had (fortunately, two others to share it with) or a two plus hour running length or maybe it's just the film isn't all that, but I found it tough to stay completely engaged in this film. Depp isn't nearly as good in this film, and seems a touch bored or puzzled throughout. I couldn't get into all the action sequences that didn't mean that much to me.
Even though Cars was predictable, its special effects really gave a sense of awe and power, and created very likeable characters. John Lasseter just seems to have that much better of a grasp of what makes a good story go. I don't mind that PotC makes its plot hard to follow. It makes for some good discussion afterwards. For example, I really enjoyed the first Mission Impossible movie better than all the others. It has a plot I still haven't figured out (and frankly don't care to), but enjoy much better anyway.
Pirates, like Empire, ends on a cliffhanger. Davy Jones's heart has been stolen from Jack, who appears as if he's been killed by the Kraken. They're back at the voodoo woman's place.
I'll probably watch the third part, but the second one (this one) wasn't so inspiring.
For my money, still the best of the Star Trek movies is the second one. Jaime favors Star Trek 6, but that has a bit too much political intrigue, and Kim Cattrall as Valeris is too annoying for words (Nicholas Meyer wanted to get Kirstie Alley to reprise her role as Saavik, which would have really punched up the drama--but really, even her replacement Robin Curtis would have been far better than Cattrall).
Star Trek 2 tells a revenge plot and is based on an episode in the original series, Space Seed. In it, Khan and his followers have left Earth circa late 1990s, when there was a eugenics war, and Khan had attempted to take over the Earth and failed. He fled to space in suspended animation with his crew. He gets revived by Kirk and the Enterprise, and then proceeds to take over the ship. Eventually, they regain control and put him on a planet where he can do as he pleases.
Star Trek 2 takes place twenty years later. The planet, Ceti Alpha 5, which had been something of a paradise is now inhospitable. A nearby planet had exploded, shifted the orbit, and the crew simply surviving, hoping against hope that someone would find them. As it turns out, Chekhov is part of a new crew looking to find a dead planet to terraform and find this planet, not realizing that Khan is on the planet.
This leads to Khan getting off the planet and deciding to take revenge on Kirk, using the terraforming device known as Genesis as his weapon.
Khan makes revenge his sole motive, even as he can presumably live life as a free man, he must find vengeance. That simple tale, and of course, the sacrifice of Spock at the end, gave the film a kind of emotional heft that the chilly first Star Trek film lacked (though, for my money, it's perhaps the second or third best film, despite a tone that's more 2001 than Star Trek).
Indeed, the Star Trek franchise was really hurt by Star Trek 4. As fun as that was, the producers of Trek felt they needed to add humor and Star Trek 5 was godawful. Shatner claims better special effects would have helped. No, a better storyline would have helped. Star Trek 6 moved in a better direction, but Cattrall makes the film unbearable, and its Klingon as Gorbachev Russia just didn't work for me.
I bought the director's cut, so we'll see if Meyer did much different with this than the original.
Back in the day, there were movie trailers, but they were far less prevalent as they are now. You used to see three or four trailers before a film. Now, it's not unusual to see 8 or 10 trailers. People who make trailers are copycats. They use the same style over and over until they get tired of that, and move to another style.
For example, if you watch the trailer for Dirty Harry, you see scenes from the film that are minutes long. No trailer these days sticks to any scene for more than about 10-15 seconds. Three minute dialogues are out. By the time trailers are made for Star Trek 2 (and even through Star Wars), the voiceover is king.
Typically, you hear a guy telling you about the film in voiceover. The Star Wars and Star Trek trailer have a fair bit of voiceover.
These are gone in modern trailers. Look at, say, the trailer for Superman Returns. It's typical of modern trailers. In particular, you see short snippets, then black, then a short snippet, then black. It's always black, fade into a scene and repeat. There are short pieces of dialog, and lots of music, as the director of the trailer tries to create a wall of sound and emotion.
If there's need for dialog, it's done in words. Most famous for this is the trailer to Brokeback Mountain. Brokeback is unusual because unlike, say, Superman, they only ever made one trailer for the film. Superman has at least three. But it's so distinctive that it's been parodied to death. The text that is used "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." and then some text about Ang Lee and so forth. Its simple melody and its famous line "I wish I could quit you" have to make this one of the most effective trailers ever.
Last night, I watched the sequel, Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest. To be honest, I don't remember a whole lot from the original, though I did recall enjoying it.
Everyone's already pointed out the plot for this film is rather labyrinthine. There's Jack Sparrow (Depp) who owes Davy Jones, an octopus like man-beast, his soul. There's Will Turner (Bloom) who needs Jack's special compass to free his true love, Elizabeth. There's Bill Turner (Stellan Skarsgard) who is Will's father and part of Davy Jones's cursed crew, and still cares for his son.
The film is really, however, a bunch of set pieces played for comic effect, wrapped up in part mystery, part mythic task common in fantasies like Lord of the Rings. Thus, we have Depp being treated as the sacrificial king of a cannibalistic tribe, a sword sequence on a waterwheel, two ships battling each other, a Kraken creature (first mentioned in Clash of the Titans, which came out about the same time as Dragonslayer).
Perhaps the two pieces that serve as a kind of emotional core are Will Turner's relation to his father, and whether Elizabeth might not care as much for Will as we thought she did, and possibly have some emotions for Jack.
For whatever reason, late night dinner with the largest magarita I've ever had (fortunately, two others to share it with) or a two plus hour running length or maybe it's just the film isn't all that, but I found it tough to stay completely engaged in this film. Depp isn't nearly as good in this film, and seems a touch bored or puzzled throughout. I couldn't get into all the action sequences that didn't mean that much to me.
Even though Cars was predictable, its special effects really gave a sense of awe and power, and created very likeable characters. John Lasseter just seems to have that much better of a grasp of what makes a good story go. I don't mind that PotC makes its plot hard to follow. It makes for some good discussion afterwards. For example, I really enjoyed the first Mission Impossible movie better than all the others. It has a plot I still haven't figured out (and frankly don't care to), but enjoy much better anyway.
Pirates, like Empire, ends on a cliffhanger. Davy Jones's heart has been stolen from Jack, who appears as if he's been killed by the Kraken. They're back at the voodoo woman's place.
I'll probably watch the third part, but the second one (this one) wasn't so inspiring.
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