Last year, I spent Oscar night in San Diego. I was attending ETECH 2006. That was the year Brokeback Mountain lost to Crash. But you know, west coast time. I'm used to Oscars ending around midnight on the East Coast. But that's 9 PM West Coast. I was visiting Justin having dinner with him. And you figure a dinner's going to be like, what, 8 PM? So, by the time I'm done with dinner, it's like 9:30 and the Oscars are already over.
This year, I'm watching it with Ellen DeGeneres hosting. I have to say Ellen isn't exactly my favorite comedian, but she's done a pretty good job so far. What she does well is to make people feel pretty good about themselves. She's not mean, she doesn't have such strong zingers, but just slightly absurd.
I had thought Pan's Labyrinth which had been racking up the technical awards would win best foreign language picture. Alas, that went to Germany's The Lives of Others, which was about the only other film I had heard.
Right now, as I type this, they have given a special award to Ennio Morricone, the composer of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly among about 400 other pictures, making him one of the most prolific composers in the world. He continues to compose long after he has had to.
This year's nominations for best picture are bleh. No one is coming into this year being clear-cut favorite, like the years Titanic or Return of the King. Heck, Brokeback Mountain was considered something of a front-runner, and much like Saving Private Ryan appears to have lost out in the last few weeks heading into the awards.
Ennio is now giving his speech in Italian, with Clint Eastwood "translating". I had thought he'd give it in Italian leaving the audience wondering what was going on.
It's rather effective, I'd say.
I know most critics feel Oscar night tends to celebrate the wrong films, but then, this is a subjective award, and more than likely people are going to not like who was nominated or picked, and that some smaller film is more deserving. Still, I enjoy the spectacle of it all. And no, I don't particularly care about what the women are dressing.
We've yet to hit the really major awards, but I'm done writing this blog entry. Enjoy the Oscars.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Nothing Finer
Five games ago, Maryland looked like their season was over. Losses to Miami, Virginia Tech, two losses to Virginia, with North Carolina, Duke (twice!), looming. The past two seasons had seen Maryland sit at the precipice of being in the tournament, one game short, most experts had claimed, from being invited to the dance. Some of that had to do with the turmoil and aftermath of working with temperamental John Gilchrist, and perhaps that Nik Caner-Medley never quite became the big consistent star Maryland needed. Another season on the brink, and calls for Williams to move on were starting to make the rounds. This despite being only 6 years from a national championship.
But what a difference five games make. Duke was first on that list. Duke, too, was reeling, having lost three in a row, and whoever heard of Duke losing four in a row, but it started with a dominating start, and ended with victory. Then, two victories in a row on the road, against NC State, who was also struggling, and against Clemson, who had single handedly knocked Maryland out of the tourney despite two wins against Duke. Then, a win at home against Florida State, which was thought to be important because there would be three more games, one against fifth ranked UNC and playing at Duke after they recovered from four losses in a row.
So it wouldn't be so surprising if Maryland lost to UNC. After all, they are ranked fifth. Even so, Maryland must have been feeling good, especially playing at home, and managed to take a deficit and win a close one against UNC, thus locking up a bid to the NCAA tournament.
Now, the goal is go into the ACC tournament on a roll and head into March with momentum. What a difference a few games make. Has Maryland turned it around for real?
But what a difference five games make. Duke was first on that list. Duke, too, was reeling, having lost three in a row, and whoever heard of Duke losing four in a row, but it started with a dominating start, and ended with victory. Then, two victories in a row on the road, against NC State, who was also struggling, and against Clemson, who had single handedly knocked Maryland out of the tourney despite two wins against Duke. Then, a win at home against Florida State, which was thought to be important because there would be three more games, one against fifth ranked UNC and playing at Duke after they recovered from four losses in a row.
So it wouldn't be so surprising if Maryland lost to UNC. After all, they are ranked fifth. Even so, Maryland must have been feeling good, especially playing at home, and managed to take a deficit and win a close one against UNC, thus locking up a bid to the NCAA tournament.
Now, the goal is go into the ACC tournament on a roll and head into March with momentum. What a difference a few games make. Has Maryland turned it around for real?
You Snooze
I was reading an old Newsweek article about the discovery of Shawn Hornbeck. To quickly recount, Hornbeck was reported missing by his parents October 6, 2002, some five years ago. His parents had been distraught, even going on the Montel Williams show and having alleged psychic Sylvia Browne tell them he was not alive. They started a foundation for missing children, not ever knowing that he was still in the same city.
Shawn Hornbeck was found as a search was made for Ben Ownby. Both were found living with Michael Devlin, who apparently had spent most of his life working at a pizza place. Apparently, Devlin didn't consider it a problem when Hornbeck befriended Tony Douglas who often stayed over.
So why did this make news? Arguably, the reason was Shawn Hornbeck. He had disappeared several years earlier and was thought to be dead. Had Ownby been found by himself, the local papers may have pointed it out, but it wouldn't have made national news. What made this story so enticing that it played on Newsweek?
As you dig into a story like this, you realize that everyone's trying to find a story that grips a nation, if only for a few days. The first thought I had, and it seems that everyone else had it too, was "why didn't the kid try to escape?". Most accounts give "Stockholm syndrome" and state the boy was threatened with harm to his family, so he just went along with it.
The second thought, and it's funny that such thoughts almost immediately follow is, was Shawn molested? The suggestion is yes, this happened. Then, there are some snippets about how, upon being first captured, he was routinely awakened every 45 minutes. Newsweek pointed out that such actions are often taken by torturers. This begs the next question. Why would Devlin resort to means of torture? OK, given that he's probably not a well person because he'd kidnap someone, what's the reason he'd think that torture would serve him in getting Shawn's compliance?
And there's a simpler question. Why kidnap Shawn at all? What was the point? The fact that these questions were not answered suggest Newsweek had nearly no access to Devlin, nor the two kidnapped kids. They were faced with trying to get answers given no more information than anyone else. Indeed, it was Oprah who managed to get the parents on the air.
Newsweek's cover featured Shawn, Michael and Ben, and the cover makes you realize that the sensationalism that Newsweek resorted to. Shawn appears to have his picture taken since he was captured (he has some sort of lip ring?). Michael, the abductor, is centered, his picture likely made into black-and-white from some color image, and cropped on the edges to create that psychopathic look. Ben's picture has to have been from before the kidnapping since he was missing only four days. The picture tries to put two innocent looking children on either end side of their abductor, pictured somewhat like a crazed individual.
This imagery is meant to reach to the fears of parents. Again, with lack of access, Newsweek was then forced to recount kids that have been kidnapped of wide notoriety. The majority appear to be young girls, and they all appear to be white. I recall, many years ago, when JonBenet Ramsey was in the news, that some reporters lamented that the only reason her story was splashed across newspapers around the country was because she was the white daughter of rich white parents. That, and the fact she was some prepubscent beauty queen, and how her parents were so shallow as to try to enter her in these contests (one wonders if JonBenet had not happened, would there have been a Little Miss Sunshine?).
Kidnappings occur more often that we'd like, and yet only a handful make national news. Why? And why are the majority white? Is it to create white fear? Sure, poor inner city kids might get kidnapped, but what happens when it his rich families?
And why do magazines like Newsweek indulge it? Probably for the same reason I'm blogging about it. There's some morbid curiosity about what drives people to do the things they do, but not such a morbid curiosity to really figure out why. No newsmagazine, for example, wants to say that Devlin was justified in his way, or that Hornbeck's parents were more dysfunctional than was let on so that despite Devlin's act of kidnapping, perhaps Hornbeck was better off. But the reality appears to be that our gut instinct is right, that Devlin was a bad man, that Hornbeck's parents did what they could, that Shawn was scared to reach out to his parents.
It's this superficial information that leaves people wanting to find out more, and yet, for now, there is no more, so the news heads back to Iraq, to declining poll numbers, and other news. News has that flavor about it. It's quick to latch onto a story that appears to have legs, and just as quick to abandon it. Newsweek, like other news sources, had little time to report it, but probably had no real desire to follow up, again, due to lack of access.
That newsmagazines must stoop to tabloid-like sensationalism is a kind of sad commentary on modern news. It would say something if the US was more or less prone than other countries to have people do such things, and to determine why such things happen at all. We like to chalk it up to the evil that men do rather than to understand the causes, and to understand the aftermath. Ownby is likely to fare OK, a little shaken by the incident (it honestly depends on what happened the few days he was kidnapped), but Hornbeck lived like this for years. What happens to his education which was missing for years? What happens to his socialization? Is he messed up for life? If he recovers to lead a mostly healthy life, does that says something about the resilience of people?
Ultimately, such incidents leave more questions than answers, and some of those questions have little to do with what happened and why, and more to do with why it was covered, and why it was covered this way.
Shawn Hornbeck was found as a search was made for Ben Ownby. Both were found living with Michael Devlin, who apparently had spent most of his life working at a pizza place. Apparently, Devlin didn't consider it a problem when Hornbeck befriended Tony Douglas who often stayed over.
So why did this make news? Arguably, the reason was Shawn Hornbeck. He had disappeared several years earlier and was thought to be dead. Had Ownby been found by himself, the local papers may have pointed it out, but it wouldn't have made national news. What made this story so enticing that it played on Newsweek?
As you dig into a story like this, you realize that everyone's trying to find a story that grips a nation, if only for a few days. The first thought I had, and it seems that everyone else had it too, was "why didn't the kid try to escape?". Most accounts give "Stockholm syndrome" and state the boy was threatened with harm to his family, so he just went along with it.
The second thought, and it's funny that such thoughts almost immediately follow is, was Shawn molested? The suggestion is yes, this happened. Then, there are some snippets about how, upon being first captured, he was routinely awakened every 45 minutes. Newsweek pointed out that such actions are often taken by torturers. This begs the next question. Why would Devlin resort to means of torture? OK, given that he's probably not a well person because he'd kidnap someone, what's the reason he'd think that torture would serve him in getting Shawn's compliance?
And there's a simpler question. Why kidnap Shawn at all? What was the point? The fact that these questions were not answered suggest Newsweek had nearly no access to Devlin, nor the two kidnapped kids. They were faced with trying to get answers given no more information than anyone else. Indeed, it was Oprah who managed to get the parents on the air.
Newsweek's cover featured Shawn, Michael and Ben, and the cover makes you realize that the sensationalism that Newsweek resorted to. Shawn appears to have his picture taken since he was captured (he has some sort of lip ring?). Michael, the abductor, is centered, his picture likely made into black-and-white from some color image, and cropped on the edges to create that psychopathic look. Ben's picture has to have been from before the kidnapping since he was missing only four days. The picture tries to put two innocent looking children on either end side of their abductor, pictured somewhat like a crazed individual.
This imagery is meant to reach to the fears of parents. Again, with lack of access, Newsweek was then forced to recount kids that have been kidnapped of wide notoriety. The majority appear to be young girls, and they all appear to be white. I recall, many years ago, when JonBenet Ramsey was in the news, that some reporters lamented that the only reason her story was splashed across newspapers around the country was because she was the white daughter of rich white parents. That, and the fact she was some prepubscent beauty queen, and how her parents were so shallow as to try to enter her in these contests (one wonders if JonBenet had not happened, would there have been a Little Miss Sunshine?).
Kidnappings occur more often that we'd like, and yet only a handful make national news. Why? And why are the majority white? Is it to create white fear? Sure, poor inner city kids might get kidnapped, but what happens when it his rich families?
And why do magazines like Newsweek indulge it? Probably for the same reason I'm blogging about it. There's some morbid curiosity about what drives people to do the things they do, but not such a morbid curiosity to really figure out why. No newsmagazine, for example, wants to say that Devlin was justified in his way, or that Hornbeck's parents were more dysfunctional than was let on so that despite Devlin's act of kidnapping, perhaps Hornbeck was better off. But the reality appears to be that our gut instinct is right, that Devlin was a bad man, that Hornbeck's parents did what they could, that Shawn was scared to reach out to his parents.
It's this superficial information that leaves people wanting to find out more, and yet, for now, there is no more, so the news heads back to Iraq, to declining poll numbers, and other news. News has that flavor about it. It's quick to latch onto a story that appears to have legs, and just as quick to abandon it. Newsweek, like other news sources, had little time to report it, but probably had no real desire to follow up, again, due to lack of access.
That newsmagazines must stoop to tabloid-like sensationalism is a kind of sad commentary on modern news. It would say something if the US was more or less prone than other countries to have people do such things, and to determine why such things happen at all. We like to chalk it up to the evil that men do rather than to understand the causes, and to understand the aftermath. Ownby is likely to fare OK, a little shaken by the incident (it honestly depends on what happened the few days he was kidnapped), but Hornbeck lived like this for years. What happens to his education which was missing for years? What happens to his socialization? Is he messed up for life? If he recovers to lead a mostly healthy life, does that says something about the resilience of people?
Ultimately, such incidents leave more questions than answers, and some of those questions have little to do with what happened and why, and more to do with why it was covered, and why it was covered this way.
On the Political Divide
Sports fans can be rabid, but I get the sense, at least in the US, that they understand sports is still just a game. Red Sox fans hate Yankees, but mostly because Yankees fans are so smug, with the largest payroll in professional sports (in the US), and the seeming ability to get any talent they want. Even so, a Red Sox fan would have to admit that a Yankees fan is just a Yankees fan by dint of location (they live in New York, or somehow sympathize with a winning team like people rooted for Chicago because of Jordan). They're not likely to say Yankees fans are totally stupid (well, they might), and not be able to comprehend why Yankees fans are Yankees fans, and should be Red Sox fans instead. Somehow, Red Sox fans are content for Yankees fans to remain that way.
The point is, they can offer no real compelling reason for Yankees fans to become Red Sox fans nor argue why they happen to be Red Sox fans.
This is not so with American politics. Democrats can offer plenty of reasons why Republicans are idiots, just as Republicans can offer plenty of reasons why Democrats are idiots. Both sides are firmly convinced the other side is so unfathomably wrong that they don't even understand how a reasonable person could even support the other side.
Political manipulators like Karl Rove like it that way. Pick sides, and be profoundly on that side.
I recently though of this issue when doing something I rarely do, and that is discuss politics at work. There is a reason Americans avoid it. It creates arguments unless you are preaching to the choir, in which case, it's just a rant-fest with your best buddies. This one guy said he didn't like Kerry because he flipped-flopped. I would say, if I had pressed him on it, he couldn't easily name issues that Kerry flip-flopped on (maybe Iraq? what else?). But it shows that perception is more important than actual facts and that Bush is likely to flip-flop on issues too, just not the really big ones that seem to matter now (i.e., Iraq).
What this divide means is that people no longer think all that rationally about politics in the US, and that certain positions are held because their party says so. Here's an example. Most people are ready to bash Bush on his treatment of New Orleans, that he should have known Katrina was going to be a disaster, and done something sooner. Would Gore have handled it differently? There's some recent suggestions that Gore helped pay for airlifting some folks out of New Orleans during the unfolding days of the disaster, though he has kept it quiet, presumably because it would look bad for him to be so obviously trying to make the government look bad.
Point is, enough Democrats believe Bush and FEMA were completely incompetent, and unwilling to help those in need. The Republican stance, even if not entirely espoused by the direct leadership, was that New Orleans was likely to flood at some point, and therefore, people should not have been living there where a disaster is likely to loom, and it was their own d*mn fault for being there in the first place. Why should the rest of the nation have to support the stupid follies of ignorant people?
However, had the tables been reversed, had a President Gore failed to respond quickly, no doubt the criticism might have been somewhat less, but the Republicans might have hammered away at this too, because the point is to make the opposing party look bad. And comments such as not wanting to help the people in New Orleans might have been replaced with indignation at how a Democratic president was incompetent in the face of disaster.
In other words, how people react is being pushed forward by party leaders whose goal, it seems, is simply to make the other side look bad.
So, at one point, Republicans might have criticized Clinton for his involvement in former Yugoslavia or what-have-you, but then be 100% behind Bush's involvement in Iraq. It simply boils down to, our side is right, your side is wrong, regardless of how hypocritical it sounds.
Reddit, for instance, has become non-stop Bush bashing. The Republican spin machine is already starting to attack Obama for everything from his name to his religion and so forth. Why the attacks? To put simple ideas in people's heads and hope it sticks. Let's not actually debate the topics in well-reasoned ways. Get people to have a gut reaction and vote on that gut reaction.
I'd almost be happier with a third party candidate that spoke reasonably about the topics, but you know, Americans seem to require irrational support for their parties, and to avoid having to think too much. It's not so much how much you like your side, but how much you hate the other side.
Thus, I had this idea of voting out the guy you hate most, because no one's perfect anymore. No one can say their candidate actually has any good ideas. But they can sure paint the other guy as the bad guy, the incompetent guy, the guy who doesn't deserve to lead. And surely, this kind of politics is bad for America, because it creates politics of hate vs. a politics of hope. I know, even this little diatribe of mine sounds like some retread of a political speech.
By the way, I was reading/listening to Obama's speech where he talks about his faith. It's intriguing only because you should never read and listen to a speech at the same time. Obama apparently hadn't rehearsed his speech enough. You see points where he gets off track, or phrases things differently (which usually worked out, but occasionally he really botched it up).
Although it was an interesting speech, one discussing the role of faith in politics, where he straddles between saying it's important, but realizing, as a man who grew up with an atheist father and a skeptical mother, that he understands and appreciates how someone might not be religious, I felt that the speech didn't quite have a strong enough point. My sense was that he wanted to say Democrats need to be aware religion is important to many people, and it is a way to communicate to the people. To a lesser extent, he wanted to assuage fears by saying he still respects separation of church and state, saying the earliest folks to support the idea were indeed evangelicals.
Anyway, thought it could have been a better, more focused speech, but then it is a touchy subject, so he wanted to tread carefully.
Well, there, now I've ended on an awkward note.
The point is, they can offer no real compelling reason for Yankees fans to become Red Sox fans nor argue why they happen to be Red Sox fans.
This is not so with American politics. Democrats can offer plenty of reasons why Republicans are idiots, just as Republicans can offer plenty of reasons why Democrats are idiots. Both sides are firmly convinced the other side is so unfathomably wrong that they don't even understand how a reasonable person could even support the other side.
Political manipulators like Karl Rove like it that way. Pick sides, and be profoundly on that side.
I recently though of this issue when doing something I rarely do, and that is discuss politics at work. There is a reason Americans avoid it. It creates arguments unless you are preaching to the choir, in which case, it's just a rant-fest with your best buddies. This one guy said he didn't like Kerry because he flipped-flopped. I would say, if I had pressed him on it, he couldn't easily name issues that Kerry flip-flopped on (maybe Iraq? what else?). But it shows that perception is more important than actual facts and that Bush is likely to flip-flop on issues too, just not the really big ones that seem to matter now (i.e., Iraq).
What this divide means is that people no longer think all that rationally about politics in the US, and that certain positions are held because their party says so. Here's an example. Most people are ready to bash Bush on his treatment of New Orleans, that he should have known Katrina was going to be a disaster, and done something sooner. Would Gore have handled it differently? There's some recent suggestions that Gore helped pay for airlifting some folks out of New Orleans during the unfolding days of the disaster, though he has kept it quiet, presumably because it would look bad for him to be so obviously trying to make the government look bad.
Point is, enough Democrats believe Bush and FEMA were completely incompetent, and unwilling to help those in need. The Republican stance, even if not entirely espoused by the direct leadership, was that New Orleans was likely to flood at some point, and therefore, people should not have been living there where a disaster is likely to loom, and it was their own d*mn fault for being there in the first place. Why should the rest of the nation have to support the stupid follies of ignorant people?
However, had the tables been reversed, had a President Gore failed to respond quickly, no doubt the criticism might have been somewhat less, but the Republicans might have hammered away at this too, because the point is to make the opposing party look bad. And comments such as not wanting to help the people in New Orleans might have been replaced with indignation at how a Democratic president was incompetent in the face of disaster.
In other words, how people react is being pushed forward by party leaders whose goal, it seems, is simply to make the other side look bad.
So, at one point, Republicans might have criticized Clinton for his involvement in former Yugoslavia or what-have-you, but then be 100% behind Bush's involvement in Iraq. It simply boils down to, our side is right, your side is wrong, regardless of how hypocritical it sounds.
Reddit, for instance, has become non-stop Bush bashing. The Republican spin machine is already starting to attack Obama for everything from his name to his religion and so forth. Why the attacks? To put simple ideas in people's heads and hope it sticks. Let's not actually debate the topics in well-reasoned ways. Get people to have a gut reaction and vote on that gut reaction.
I'd almost be happier with a third party candidate that spoke reasonably about the topics, but you know, Americans seem to require irrational support for their parties, and to avoid having to think too much. It's not so much how much you like your side, but how much you hate the other side.
Thus, I had this idea of voting out the guy you hate most, because no one's perfect anymore. No one can say their candidate actually has any good ideas. But they can sure paint the other guy as the bad guy, the incompetent guy, the guy who doesn't deserve to lead. And surely, this kind of politics is bad for America, because it creates politics of hate vs. a politics of hope. I know, even this little diatribe of mine sounds like some retread of a political speech.
By the way, I was reading/listening to Obama's speech where he talks about his faith. It's intriguing only because you should never read and listen to a speech at the same time. Obama apparently hadn't rehearsed his speech enough. You see points where he gets off track, or phrases things differently (which usually worked out, but occasionally he really botched it up).
Although it was an interesting speech, one discussing the role of faith in politics, where he straddles between saying it's important, but realizing, as a man who grew up with an atheist father and a skeptical mother, that he understands and appreciates how someone might not be religious, I felt that the speech didn't quite have a strong enough point. My sense was that he wanted to say Democrats need to be aware religion is important to many people, and it is a way to communicate to the people. To a lesser extent, he wanted to assuage fears by saying he still respects separation of church and state, saying the earliest folks to support the idea were indeed evangelicals.
Anyway, thought it could have been a better, more focused speech, but then it is a touchy subject, so he wanted to tread carefully.
Well, there, now I've ended on an awkward note.
The Host
The most eagerly anticipated Korean film is arriving in US theaters starting March 9.
And what film would that exactly be?
The Host is Bong Joon-ho's latest. Bong directed a film called Memories of Murder about a serial killer that was never caught. Ostensibly about the incompetent country police and the smart city cop, it eventually delves into how fear grips the countryside, and how the police, unable to find the killer, start harassing anyone and everyone because of the need to have someone be responsible.
The Host would seem to be a completely different direction for Bong, who is making what amounts to be a monster movie a la Godzilla, served up Korean style. However, early reviews suggest that Bong may have created something worth watching.
We'll see how Bong's third effort (the second apparently didn't make it to the States) turns out.
And what film would that exactly be?
The Host is Bong Joon-ho's latest. Bong directed a film called Memories of Murder about a serial killer that was never caught. Ostensibly about the incompetent country police and the smart city cop, it eventually delves into how fear grips the countryside, and how the police, unable to find the killer, start harassing anyone and everyone because of the need to have someone be responsible.
The Host would seem to be a completely different direction for Bong, who is making what amounts to be a monster movie a la Godzilla, served up Korean style. However, early reviews suggest that Bong may have created something worth watching.
We'll see how Bong's third effort (the second apparently didn't make it to the States) turns out.
Sunshine
There's no denying that Danny Boyle is talented. The director of Trainspotting created a pulse-pounding, unnerving scene of heroin addiction with a baby doll that crawls on the ceiling of one Ewan MacGregor. Despite that success, Boyle has yet to make a film that has matched it, and some even argue that Trainspotting was a bit, shall we say, overrated.
So, he's decided to take his next story a little further. Sunshine is his latest film and images of the spaceship and the mission to reignite a dying sun resemble 2001: A Space Odyssey. However, as much as directors want to mimic the visual style of Kubrick, few are willing to do it the way Kubrick did it.
In particular, 2001 drained any interest in the characters. The astronauts are made out to be pretty bland individuals. The details of their lives are fairly unimportant. Kubrick, for the most part, doesn't care about these people as people. And yet, sequels like 2010, or movies like The Abyss which echo 2001, can't help but be drawn to make characters that have weight, characters you care about, doing important things.
It's just too hard to decide your characters aren't important, and the surrounding story will more than make up for it in its odd grandeur. This isn't to say the strategy is flawed. The Abyss is eminently watchable. But it does say that directors and perhaps producers and financiers too are too scared to make a movie where the characters are secondary.
So maybe Boyle will make us care about this adventure, maybe it will be gripping and entertaining, but it won't be because it's trying to evoke the same feelings as 2001, because really, those feelings were more of awe, and less of sympathy for its characters.
So, he's decided to take his next story a little further. Sunshine is his latest film and images of the spaceship and the mission to reignite a dying sun resemble 2001: A Space Odyssey. However, as much as directors want to mimic the visual style of Kubrick, few are willing to do it the way Kubrick did it.
In particular, 2001 drained any interest in the characters. The astronauts are made out to be pretty bland individuals. The details of their lives are fairly unimportant. Kubrick, for the most part, doesn't care about these people as people. And yet, sequels like 2010, or movies like The Abyss which echo 2001, can't help but be drawn to make characters that have weight, characters you care about, doing important things.
It's just too hard to decide your characters aren't important, and the surrounding story will more than make up for it in its odd grandeur. This isn't to say the strategy is flawed. The Abyss is eminently watchable. But it does say that directors and perhaps producers and financiers too are too scared to make a movie where the characters are secondary.
So maybe Boyle will make us care about this adventure, maybe it will be gripping and entertaining, but it won't be because it's trying to evoke the same feelings as 2001, because really, those feelings were more of awe, and less of sympathy for its characters.
Carruth Surfaces
A while back, I wondered what had happened to Shane Carruth. Who is Shane Carruth you might ask? In 2004, on a budget of a few thousand dollars, Carruth wrote, acted, directed, produced, well, you name it, and he probably did it, the low-budget SF film, Primer. Internet critic, Mike D'Angelo, proclaimed it the best film of the year.
Carruth did tons of interviews. It's at this point where the former software engineer was probably deciding on being a hired gun on other people's project, or running his own. Few people are like Steven Sodebergh or Darren Aronofsky or Christopher Nolan who start on small films and manage to parlay it into a major directorial career.
Basically, since 2005, there's been almost no mention of him anywhere. Carruth appears to have disappeared.
But apparently, he hasn't disappeared, except from the press. Here's the most recent article I've found about Carruth.
Seems like Carruth is still writing away. He had said he had wanted to write a romantic comedy. Recall a few years ago when the guys that made Blair Witch Project were hailed as the new masters of horror, spinning a tale that seemed like a real documentary. Yet, neither Daniel Myrick nor Eduardo Sanchez has been heard much since 1999, when the film debuted (apparently, Myrick is directing a few pics now).
It's folks like Carruth that I feel are worth following up on to find out what's new in his life and how life after fame has treated him. Presumably that heady experience of winning an award at Sundance must have felt like validation to quit his job and spend years working on his first film.
I can only hope that his current efforts lead him to some success.
Carruth did tons of interviews. It's at this point where the former software engineer was probably deciding on being a hired gun on other people's project, or running his own. Few people are like Steven Sodebergh or Darren Aronofsky or Christopher Nolan who start on small films and manage to parlay it into a major directorial career.
Basically, since 2005, there's been almost no mention of him anywhere. Carruth appears to have disappeared.
But apparently, he hasn't disappeared, except from the press. Here's the most recent article I've found about Carruth.
Seems like Carruth is still writing away. He had said he had wanted to write a romantic comedy. Recall a few years ago when the guys that made Blair Witch Project were hailed as the new masters of horror, spinning a tale that seemed like a real documentary. Yet, neither Daniel Myrick nor Eduardo Sanchez has been heard much since 1999, when the film debuted (apparently, Myrick is directing a few pics now).
It's folks like Carruth that I feel are worth following up on to find out what's new in his life and how life after fame has treated him. Presumably that heady experience of winning an award at Sundance must have felt like validation to quit his job and spend years working on his first film.
I can only hope that his current efforts lead him to some success.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Why We're Cheap
There are nicer words for it. Frugal. Economical. Cost-cutting. Fiscally responsible. But many people wear the word cheap as a badge of honor. Once a pejorative to those who refused to pay bucks for "quality", I've seen many a friend who call themselves cheap. Miserly is, of course, still far too mean-spirited, too bah-humbuggish for common use. But cheap suggests "I saved money, and sure it ain't great, but it's good enough".
However, despite the few out and proud cheap Americans, we don't have this notion ingrained in our bones like our fellow world citizens. My parents were in Taiwan and recounted a story of an all you can eat buffet. The cheap Taiwanese patrons were distressed that the restaurants would make money off them ("how dare they!") and would therefore make one final round to the buffet table, fill up on food, then leave it on the table, willing to waste the food so the restaurant would not take advantage of the cost of the buffet.
But the restaurant used their cheapness against the customers. They proclaimed that any additional food left at the table would be weighed, and the excess uneaten food would be charged a penalty. The previous system had no penalty, and so in the war to be cheap to the point of malice, the customer had some incentive to waste food. However, with the penalty in place, the customer's incentive was to eat as much food as possible (to make the most use of the money), and yet no more (to avoid the penalty).
Stores recently began charging Taiwanese for each plastic bag used at a store. This reduced the use by some 80 percent, again, perhaps appealing to the cheapness of people (in case you can't imagine what happened, a solution is to bring in your own bags, made of, say, burlap or such, and reuse that bag over and over, cleaning it as needed).
Indians, being a bartering society, tend to also be cheap, partly due to lack of income. Bartering and saving allows the relative poor to stretch their rupees (often called "bucks") over longer time. For example, tipping in India is rather uncommon. If a restaurant would require tipping, they would find themselves without customers, who go to another restaurant that doesn't require tipping. Pretty soon, tipping is practically unheard of.
Much like Brits who are flabbergasted that one has to tip for beer in the US, Indians are flabbergasted that there is an additional (optional!) surcharge for service in the US. Doesn't the cost of the food cover the payment for the wait staff? Why give even more money? Ridiculous! (In general, I concur, because it lacks any incentive to the waiter to do the job better).
When gas prices went up in the US, did we carpool more? Did we take public transport more? No. We went on driving as usual, grumbling that we had to pay more, but unwilling to sacrifice the convenience of getting to where we want in a reasonable amount of time. Thus, I'm not convince IKEA's strategy of charging five cents a plastic bag, clearly meant to encourage customers to use their own bags, will fly as well in the US.
I'm sure IKEA has done some research, and is likely to provide other incentives to convince Americans to try getting their own bags, but Americans are lazier more than they are cheap, and are willing to pay for that laziness. I used to use any ATM I could find, because I was too lazy to find a free one. But then I got even lazier and found a bank that would cover foreign ATM costs so I was willing to switch so I could continue my habit of going to any ATM to get money.
We Americans may say we're cheap, but honestly, it ain't even close.
However, despite the few out and proud cheap Americans, we don't have this notion ingrained in our bones like our fellow world citizens. My parents were in Taiwan and recounted a story of an all you can eat buffet. The cheap Taiwanese patrons were distressed that the restaurants would make money off them ("how dare they!") and would therefore make one final round to the buffet table, fill up on food, then leave it on the table, willing to waste the food so the restaurant would not take advantage of the cost of the buffet.
But the restaurant used their cheapness against the customers. They proclaimed that any additional food left at the table would be weighed, and the excess uneaten food would be charged a penalty. The previous system had no penalty, and so in the war to be cheap to the point of malice, the customer had some incentive to waste food. However, with the penalty in place, the customer's incentive was to eat as much food as possible (to make the most use of the money), and yet no more (to avoid the penalty).
Stores recently began charging Taiwanese for each plastic bag used at a store. This reduced the use by some 80 percent, again, perhaps appealing to the cheapness of people (in case you can't imagine what happened, a solution is to bring in your own bags, made of, say, burlap or such, and reuse that bag over and over, cleaning it as needed).
Indians, being a bartering society, tend to also be cheap, partly due to lack of income. Bartering and saving allows the relative poor to stretch their rupees (often called "bucks") over longer time. For example, tipping in India is rather uncommon. If a restaurant would require tipping, they would find themselves without customers, who go to another restaurant that doesn't require tipping. Pretty soon, tipping is practically unheard of.
Much like Brits who are flabbergasted that one has to tip for beer in the US, Indians are flabbergasted that there is an additional (optional!) surcharge for service in the US. Doesn't the cost of the food cover the payment for the wait staff? Why give even more money? Ridiculous! (In general, I concur, because it lacks any incentive to the waiter to do the job better).
When gas prices went up in the US, did we carpool more? Did we take public transport more? No. We went on driving as usual, grumbling that we had to pay more, but unwilling to sacrifice the convenience of getting to where we want in a reasonable amount of time. Thus, I'm not convince IKEA's strategy of charging five cents a plastic bag, clearly meant to encourage customers to use their own bags, will fly as well in the US.
I'm sure IKEA has done some research, and is likely to provide other incentives to convince Americans to try getting their own bags, but Americans are lazier more than they are cheap, and are willing to pay for that laziness. I used to use any ATM I could find, because I was too lazy to find a free one. But then I got even lazier and found a bank that would cover foreign ATM costs so I was willing to switch so I could continue my habit of going to any ATM to get money.
We Americans may say we're cheap, but honestly, it ain't even close.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Vieux Farka Toure
Once upon a time, I owned no CDs. And this wasn't when I was 10 or 15 or even 20, but closer to 30, and I don't mean I decided to get rid of my CDs, or that I decided to, you know, Torrent the stuff. No, not me.
My first CD was the soundtrack to Episode 1 by John Williams. My second CD was From Senegal to Setestal, a collaboration of a Norwegian folk singer and two Western African singers (I should locate it, because I loved that album).
Rather than jump into the current pop music of the time (this was the late 90s--what was even big then?), I decided to get more African music, or more precisely, Afropop. It doesn't take long before you discover Mali's Ali Farka Toure. Toure has been called Mali's John Lee Hooker, a bluesman I was unfamiliar with, but I much prefer his style of "blues" to real blues.
Toure passed away in early 2006. Little did I know, he had a song, Vieux. Despite Ali's expertise as a musician, he did not encourage his son to be a musician, and wanted him to be a soldier. Vieux's passion to be like his old man could not be denied, and he practiced in secret.
Well, it's as if Sean Lennon or Julian Lennon could crank out hits just like dear old dad, as if you couldn't believe it wasn't John that was writing that music. To be fair, Ali Farka's many albums tend to run into another, each sounding a lot like the next, although of uniformly good quality. Toure never seemed to feel the need to try new styles and do different music than what he was good at.
The younger Toure has picked up many of the riffs that Dad played, and really, you can almost not tell it isn't the elder playing. There are occasional songs that try something just a touch different that bring you to realize it's not exactly his dad. I can only hope that, over time, he will explore other ideas, and see where it leads him. If he does that, the Toure legacy will fare quite a bit better through his son than the Lennon legacy has through his sons.
My first CD was the soundtrack to Episode 1 by John Williams. My second CD was From Senegal to Setestal, a collaboration of a Norwegian folk singer and two Western African singers (I should locate it, because I loved that album).
Rather than jump into the current pop music of the time (this was the late 90s--what was even big then?), I decided to get more African music, or more precisely, Afropop. It doesn't take long before you discover Mali's Ali Farka Toure. Toure has been called Mali's John Lee Hooker, a bluesman I was unfamiliar with, but I much prefer his style of "blues" to real blues.
Toure passed away in early 2006. Little did I know, he had a song, Vieux. Despite Ali's expertise as a musician, he did not encourage his son to be a musician, and wanted him to be a soldier. Vieux's passion to be like his old man could not be denied, and he practiced in secret.
Well, it's as if Sean Lennon or Julian Lennon could crank out hits just like dear old dad, as if you couldn't believe it wasn't John that was writing that music. To be fair, Ali Farka's many albums tend to run into another, each sounding a lot like the next, although of uniformly good quality. Toure never seemed to feel the need to try new styles and do different music than what he was good at.
The younger Toure has picked up many of the riffs that Dad played, and really, you can almost not tell it isn't the elder playing. There are occasional songs that try something just a touch different that bring you to realize it's not exactly his dad. I can only hope that, over time, he will explore other ideas, and see where it leads him. If he does that, the Toure legacy will fare quite a bit better through his son than the Lennon legacy has through his sons.
Madam, He's Adam
I'm not sure what motivates people to blog. I've heard that the number of blogs grows by leaps and bounds each day. I don't follow any particular blog with any regularity these days, but some border on incomprehensibility.
My motivation is simply to write, and practice writing. I hope, over time, to get better at it, but it's much like getting better at chess by playing speed chess. There's probably something more to be learned by being deliberate about chess, studying its strategy, and then using that to help you play chess better under time constraints.
I read the writings of Tony Kornheiser (though not much, since he hardly writes for the Post anymore) and Michael Wilbon, the PTI guys, and Wilbon seems the far better writer, and even then, if I were to dig around and find the top sportswriters, I'd find someone, I'm sure more eloquent. Kornheiser is, for my money, far more interesting as a radio personality than as a writer, even if he claims writing is his first passion. As sportswriters, they've learned to write on short deadlines. Wilbon, in particular, might watch a game as it ends around midnight, and have to finish his column in the next half hour. At the very least, he can feel that sportswriters face deadlines much stricter than "real" news reporters.
I had therefore assumed that my buddy Adam would consider writing as a kind of passion, one that was swayed towards computers, when that became a more practical alternative, and eventually something that was given up due to RSI. I'm not sure why I drew that conclusion other than its tragic magnificence of it all. Was this a budding J.K. Rowling, but for the disgrace of God?
It may be, that in our society that crowns excellence as the be-all and end-all of life, that most people don't strive to make our hobbies into our lives. We may love music, but we don't seek to be musicians. We may love cooking, but we don't want to be cooks. There are things we enjoy in small amounts, and at a level that doesn't begin to approximate excellence. For most of us, realistically, it's too much to ask.
Not all of us are Caron Butler, who found prison, especially solitary confinement, to be an awakening moment, an epiphany, that made him reject his "friends" who ran afoul of the law. He could channel his passion to basketball instead of committing crimes that lead to numerous arrests as a teen. He completely turning around his life and it culminated in his selection as an all-star for the NBA All Star weekend.
Instead, we do what we can. We enjoy what we do, and really, it's generally good enough. I used live with another Adam, and he really liked to cook, but probably has few allusions or desires to be a professional cook.
For myself, I'd like to be a better writer, but I don't have any particular way to become better other than to write a lot. As I'm sure I've said before, a bit of criticism from those who write better would serve me well. In the meanwhile, I'm content to blog and be happy there is some means out there to let me write and publish for free.
My motivation is simply to write, and practice writing. I hope, over time, to get better at it, but it's much like getting better at chess by playing speed chess. There's probably something more to be learned by being deliberate about chess, studying its strategy, and then using that to help you play chess better under time constraints.
I read the writings of Tony Kornheiser (though not much, since he hardly writes for the Post anymore) and Michael Wilbon, the PTI guys, and Wilbon seems the far better writer, and even then, if I were to dig around and find the top sportswriters, I'd find someone, I'm sure more eloquent. Kornheiser is, for my money, far more interesting as a radio personality than as a writer, even if he claims writing is his first passion. As sportswriters, they've learned to write on short deadlines. Wilbon, in particular, might watch a game as it ends around midnight, and have to finish his column in the next half hour. At the very least, he can feel that sportswriters face deadlines much stricter than "real" news reporters.
I had therefore assumed that my buddy Adam would consider writing as a kind of passion, one that was swayed towards computers, when that became a more practical alternative, and eventually something that was given up due to RSI. I'm not sure why I drew that conclusion other than its tragic magnificence of it all. Was this a budding J.K. Rowling, but for the disgrace of God?
It may be, that in our society that crowns excellence as the be-all and end-all of life, that most people don't strive to make our hobbies into our lives. We may love music, but we don't seek to be musicians. We may love cooking, but we don't want to be cooks. There are things we enjoy in small amounts, and at a level that doesn't begin to approximate excellence. For most of us, realistically, it's too much to ask.
Not all of us are Caron Butler, who found prison, especially solitary confinement, to be an awakening moment, an epiphany, that made him reject his "friends" who ran afoul of the law. He could channel his passion to basketball instead of committing crimes that lead to numerous arrests as a teen. He completely turning around his life and it culminated in his selection as an all-star for the NBA All Star weekend.
Instead, we do what we can. We enjoy what we do, and really, it's generally good enough. I used live with another Adam, and he really liked to cook, but probably has few allusions or desires to be a professional cook.
For myself, I'd like to be a better writer, but I don't have any particular way to become better other than to write a lot. As I'm sure I've said before, a bit of criticism from those who write better would serve me well. In the meanwhile, I'm content to blog and be happy there is some means out there to let me write and publish for free.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Opportunity Knocks
Steve Jobs recently criticized the American education system along with Michael Dell. Sure, why not? Education is easy to take pot-shots at. He basically said education wouldn't get better unless we could fire bad teachers.
The problem is that this is utterly subjective. What if there's a teacher that's way too easy? Fire him/her for being too easy? Or what about too tough? Besides, that's not the point. The point is that we're not exactly (I imagine, anyway) awash with too many good teachers, mixed with bad teachers who are taking valuable spots.
Indeed, most schools are looking for someone--anyone--qualified. When a teacher's salary can be half that of a software engineer, can you imagine why computer science majors laugh at the idea of teaching for a living? Of course, given the bureaucracy of public school teaching, innovative teaching may not be encouraged.
Apple, for example, succeeds because they promote themselves very well, and make it desirable for the best talent to work at Apple. But because companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft hoard the best talent, the vast majority of software firms do with average coders who wouldn't even be given a chance (i.e., they'd be fired) at these mega-companies.
And the student-teacher ratio can be abysmal, making it hard for teachers to give individual attention to students. And let's face it, some students don't live in the best households. They live with abusive parents or neglectful parents that don't stress the importance of education. Teachers aren't also social workers, but perhaps to do their jobs, they need to talk to parents who may not be receptive to being told that they don't care about education.
I understand that Steve Jobs and Michael Dell are passionate about education because if the average American can be better educated, Jobs and Dell have a better chance of getting highly skilled workers. But to peg it down to being unable to fire "bad" teachers? It's arguable that it's easier to make the tech breakthroughs that Apple does than to encourage kids to learn. And there are far more teachers than Apple employees, which means that most teachers do lack a deep insight into the problem they have.
The fact is, it's just easier to fire teachers than to fire parents for not living up to their parental role of making sure their kids get the best education they can, and to support it.
We do have a problem with education, but the answer isn't simply firing bad teachers.
The problem is that this is utterly subjective. What if there's a teacher that's way too easy? Fire him/her for being too easy? Or what about too tough? Besides, that's not the point. The point is that we're not exactly (I imagine, anyway) awash with too many good teachers, mixed with bad teachers who are taking valuable spots.
Indeed, most schools are looking for someone--anyone--qualified. When a teacher's salary can be half that of a software engineer, can you imagine why computer science majors laugh at the idea of teaching for a living? Of course, given the bureaucracy of public school teaching, innovative teaching may not be encouraged.
Apple, for example, succeeds because they promote themselves very well, and make it desirable for the best talent to work at Apple. But because companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft hoard the best talent, the vast majority of software firms do with average coders who wouldn't even be given a chance (i.e., they'd be fired) at these mega-companies.
And the student-teacher ratio can be abysmal, making it hard for teachers to give individual attention to students. And let's face it, some students don't live in the best households. They live with abusive parents or neglectful parents that don't stress the importance of education. Teachers aren't also social workers, but perhaps to do their jobs, they need to talk to parents who may not be receptive to being told that they don't care about education.
I understand that Steve Jobs and Michael Dell are passionate about education because if the average American can be better educated, Jobs and Dell have a better chance of getting highly skilled workers. But to peg it down to being unable to fire "bad" teachers? It's arguable that it's easier to make the tech breakthroughs that Apple does than to encourage kids to learn. And there are far more teachers than Apple employees, which means that most teachers do lack a deep insight into the problem they have.
The fact is, it's just easier to fire teachers than to fire parents for not living up to their parental role of making sure their kids get the best education they can, and to support it.
We do have a problem with education, but the answer isn't simply firing bad teachers.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Pay Per View
I'd have to imagine the NFL is more successful than the NBA for at least one reason that seems silly, but shows the commercialism of the sport. For the most part, you can watch your local team over-the-air. You don't need cable TV. As long as you can get CBS, ABC, NBC, and Fox, you're set. Every round of the NFL playoffs is on one of these channels (well, only two have deals with the NFL).
But the NBA? If you don't have cable, you miss a lot of games. The playoffs? You can't watch most of it without TNT. Only the finals are televised on one of the four channels. To be fair, the NBA playoffs last a long time, nearly two months, and to have prime time TV disrupted by playoffs for two months of the year, although great for exposure, it's not something the big four networks are prepared to do.
I haven't had cable in I don't know how long. A few years at least. I had cable from about 1991-1996. From then until about 2001, I didn't have cable. Then I had a year of it, then none since then. Of the fifteen years I've been in Maryland, I've had cable maybe 7 years, and the rest none. This means I rarely watch the NBA. Heck, it's not just the NBA, it's college ball too. You can hardly get that on local channels either. For some reason, NFL has managed to keep itself on free TV.
I used to think, due to the popularity of the NBA with African Americans, that this would cause an uproar. But, no, all this meant was that African Americans, like much of the public, shells out money for cable. Indeed, those who avoid cable often are highly educated folks who would prefer to read or watch DVDs or what-have-you. The average Joe is addicted to cable.
To be fair, educated folks do like specialty cable shows like The Discovery Channel, Food Network, Bravo, and so forth, even if the education level of some of these are somewhat marginal. For example, no station is prepared to dish out calculus and heavy physics. They have to aim at the armchair scientist/historian who is interested in the topics, but not so interested as to devote their attention and brainpower to it.
I know. The All-Star Game is one filled with offensive pyrotechnics. How else do you explain a half-time score like 79-59? I mean, that's almost a final score (well, circa the early 90s). But I suppose it has something more intriguing to watch than say the Pro Bowl for the NFL.
In any case, I find it odd that the NBA puts so much of its content on cable. Can't say I care for it.
But the NBA? If you don't have cable, you miss a lot of games. The playoffs? You can't watch most of it without TNT. Only the finals are televised on one of the four channels. To be fair, the NBA playoffs last a long time, nearly two months, and to have prime time TV disrupted by playoffs for two months of the year, although great for exposure, it's not something the big four networks are prepared to do.
I haven't had cable in I don't know how long. A few years at least. I had cable from about 1991-1996. From then until about 2001, I didn't have cable. Then I had a year of it, then none since then. Of the fifteen years I've been in Maryland, I've had cable maybe 7 years, and the rest none. This means I rarely watch the NBA. Heck, it's not just the NBA, it's college ball too. You can hardly get that on local channels either. For some reason, NFL has managed to keep itself on free TV.
I used to think, due to the popularity of the NBA with African Americans, that this would cause an uproar. But, no, all this meant was that African Americans, like much of the public, shells out money for cable. Indeed, those who avoid cable often are highly educated folks who would prefer to read or watch DVDs or what-have-you. The average Joe is addicted to cable.
To be fair, educated folks do like specialty cable shows like The Discovery Channel, Food Network, Bravo, and so forth, even if the education level of some of these are somewhat marginal. For example, no station is prepared to dish out calculus and heavy physics. They have to aim at the armchair scientist/historian who is interested in the topics, but not so interested as to devote their attention and brainpower to it.
I know. The All-Star Game is one filled with offensive pyrotechnics. How else do you explain a half-time score like 79-59? I mean, that's almost a final score (well, circa the early 90s). But I suppose it has something more intriguing to watch than say the Pro Bowl for the NFL.
In any case, I find it odd that the NBA puts so much of its content on cable. Can't say I care for it.
The Skandies
For a long time, I'd look at the scoring system for the Skandies, named after Canadian cinephile, Skander Halim, and mutter at its abstruse scoring system. I could neither make head or tails of what it was doing, due, in most part, to its lack of explanation.
But this year, I finally (sadly) figured it out. The part I did know (somewhat) was the each voter had something like 100 points to allocate for each category (which includes best picture, director, actor, actress, supporting roles, screenplay, and scene). If you really, really like one role, you can give it more points. Say, you want to give 40 points to Helen Mirren, and 20 points to Meryl Streep, and 10 points to Uma Thurman, and 10 more points to Judi Dench.
The awards are then ranked from 1 to 20. But the scores are listed something like 80/5, which suggests some fraction. I realized, looking at the latest awards, that the number in the denominator doesn't matter. It's the number of voters (presumably) that gave points to that particular "award". Thus, the Skandies are a straight out, who got the most points, sorted in order. The denominator ought to play a role, but it would make it more complicated to understand the scoring.
The voters in the Skandies are a bunch of cinephiles who watch beaucoup movies. At one point, this fella in Canada tallied the results and gave out interesting stats. But that looked like a work of obsession plus compulsion, and perhaps he worked it out of his system. In the meanwhile, Mike D'Angelo has taken over that role and puts it in his "blog".
Finally happy to have figured it out and unhappy that I was so dense about it for so long.
But this year, I finally (sadly) figured it out. The part I did know (somewhat) was the each voter had something like 100 points to allocate for each category (which includes best picture, director, actor, actress, supporting roles, screenplay, and scene). If you really, really like one role, you can give it more points. Say, you want to give 40 points to Helen Mirren, and 20 points to Meryl Streep, and 10 points to Uma Thurman, and 10 more points to Judi Dench.
The awards are then ranked from 1 to 20. But the scores are listed something like 80/5, which suggests some fraction. I realized, looking at the latest awards, that the number in the denominator doesn't matter. It's the number of voters (presumably) that gave points to that particular "award". Thus, the Skandies are a straight out, who got the most points, sorted in order. The denominator ought to play a role, but it would make it more complicated to understand the scoring.
The voters in the Skandies are a bunch of cinephiles who watch beaucoup movies. At one point, this fella in Canada tallied the results and gave out interesting stats. But that looked like a work of obsession plus compulsion, and perhaps he worked it out of his system. In the meanwhile, Mike D'Angelo has taken over that role and puts it in his "blog".
Finally happy to have figured it out and unhappy that I was so dense about it for so long.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Generation Gap
There used to be this term, generation gap, which described how one generation didn't understand the next generation. Perhaps the biggest gap in the US (of recent years) occurred between those who had their formative years in the 40s and those who had them in the 60s.
The 60s, as a response to a war that seemed interminable and was, for the first time, letting reporters move with basically unfettered abandon, bringing images back to the US that had, for a long time, been greatly sanitized for the viewing public. This was a shattering of innocence of sorts and lead to the youth of American to rebel against war. They saw evil in the government, and sought alternatives to the stereotypical law and order society.
This meant communal living, drug use, free love. To be sure, only a small number actually experimented this way, but certainly not insignificant. And the parents, who were only just removed from the "greatest generation" were baffled. The kids wanted to grow their hair long, experiment with Hinduism, and hallucinogenics.
Even as subsequent generations have gone by, parents have often not understood their kids so well, their music, and so forth.
But I wonder if that's not changing some. In particular, the 90s ushered in an era of hip, of referential comments ("You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!") where clever writers sought to show how in tune they were in society by slipping phrases of topical concern ("wardrobe malfunction").
The first time I became aware of this phenomenon was listening to my boy, Tony Kornheiser. Kornheiser used to have a local DC area sports talk show. He went off the air so he could co-host Monday Night Football. Once a prize gig, the ABC team opted to switch the venerable MNF to Sunday night and swap it with their affiliate ESPN who took over Monday night.
But when his show was on the air, he, Andy Pollin, Nigel, and the other guy (strange how I can never remember the other guy) would entertain many a folk crawling on the Beltway, headed to work. He'd talk about American Idol, and be familiar with a few folks in the hip hop generation, even as he himself favored "Old Man Radio" (and Tony's knowledge of music from his era bordered on encyclopedic). Here was a guy, either through his son, or though hip pal, Mike Wilbon, that was, at the very least, trying to keep up with today's youth culture.
The most recent time I recognized this was a few days ago when I was chatting with Chris. Chris is, hmm, maybe twenty years my junior, enough that he's still a bit baby-faced, despite standing some six feet tall. A few weeks back, he told me about his adventures in getting a burr grinder. Ah, it warms the heart strings when you see a budding bobo, even as he lacks the actual income for one of the "bos".
To recount a bit, a few years back, I and an Indian friend would drink coffee at the university. Initially, we bought coffee ground at the local supermarket. Then, we realized that these grounds, much like pepper, lost their punch if they sat in the air too long (and they get particularly nasty if they sit years in the air). So, we got ourselves a cheap blade grinder, the kind you can buy for twenty bucks. From then on, freshly ground coffee.
But these grinders make a bit of a racket, and worse still, they cause an uneven grind. At least, so sayeth the experts. It made some sense. They were blades after all, and essentially they chopped beans every which way, so some were bound to be big, while others tinier. You want a coarse grind for every day coffee and a fine grind for, say, espresso (not EX-presso).
A few years ago, I did a little research on the Internet (god bless the Internet!), which of course is to say, I used a search engine that did a great job of indexing terms to relevant websites, and through this I obtained the information I wanted (the key being the indexing and something to index, whereby the Internet serves as the "information superhighway" by which I get this content in something short of driving to a library), or, in short, doing research on the Internet.
The reviews suggested that a burr grinder made by Solis (the "Maestro") was the one to get. But to give you an idea of dollar difference. A blade grinder is maybe twenty bucks. A typical burr grinder goes for about 40-80 dollars. A good burr grinder, at least, the one I was eyeing, goes for 150 dollars. So, clearly, for a long time, I did not buy one. However, one day, I was being impulsive, and there was the web, which not only made searching easy, it really makes impulse buying even easier, and all of a sudden, I had a burr grinder in my office.
And I also bought a portable filter, and a insulated container (Nissan or Zojirushi, I can't recall which) and a hot water heater and I was ready to make my own coffee. Indeed, the only step missing was actually finding high quality coffee beans which, sadly, at the time, I didn't even consider. But really, worse still, this stuff stayed in my office. And stayed. And stayed. And I moved out, and some of it moved with me to my house. And it stayed. And stayed. Then, a few months ago, mere years after I bought the grinder, my housemate, whose girlfriend enjoys a good cup of Joe, opened it up and started using it.
And that's where we get back to Chris, who apparently didn't go through this phase of waiting, had been getting his own coffee from Costa Rica, and his portable filter, and his hot water heater, and so forth, retracing the steps I had prepared up to, but never followed through.
But, then Chris is a precocious fella.
Flash forward to a day or two ago, and Chris was lamenting that Sufjan Stevens was performing at the Kennedy Center for free, and he had completely missed the event. Now, I have to say, I discovered Sufjan Stevens first, dammit, purely by accident. While searching for music on Amazon, I bumped into Sufjan, and said that sounds good, I'll get a CD. Then, another. Then, another. OK, to be fair, that was 2005, and at the time, Sufjan's album, Illinois was basically off the charts. Well, for an indie album. I'm sure fans of Jay-Zee and Fifty Cents probably never heard of the guy. I mean, for chrissakes (should that not be pronounced Chris' sakes?) the guy plays a banjo!
So here I am discussing music with a guy twenty years my junior, mostly because I'm listening to "bleeding edge" indie music. And perhaps a pop form of that to boot. (Meaning, I'm not heading to local clubs finding even more obscure music, like say, Seattle's Sea Navy).
I'm not saying there isn't still a generation gap, or possibly even a simple people gap. After all, Chris has his peeps, and I have my...laptop. The twain generally don't meet. Part of that is likely to be generational, though certainly, part of it could simply be different crowds, established crowds, and so forth (meaning, that if you have hung around a particular crowd for years, then it's hard for any newcomer to easily join that crowd--there's far too much history and inside knowledge for that to be ever comfortable).
But my point, if I can ever make it, is that with the web, with the desire (and ability) to keep up -to-date on everything that is new and happening, it's becoming increasingly likely that the older generation will at least fathom more of what the younger generation goes through, and possibly even partake in some of it themselves.
Each generation seeks to run away from the previous one. But the previous one is increasingly capable of keeping up, rather than stare agape at a receding view of their children with stunned disbelief, wondering where they're heading.
The 60s, as a response to a war that seemed interminable and was, for the first time, letting reporters move with basically unfettered abandon, bringing images back to the US that had, for a long time, been greatly sanitized for the viewing public. This was a shattering of innocence of sorts and lead to the youth of American to rebel against war. They saw evil in the government, and sought alternatives to the stereotypical law and order society.
This meant communal living, drug use, free love. To be sure, only a small number actually experimented this way, but certainly not insignificant. And the parents, who were only just removed from the "greatest generation" were baffled. The kids wanted to grow their hair long, experiment with Hinduism, and hallucinogenics.
Even as subsequent generations have gone by, parents have often not understood their kids so well, their music, and so forth.
But I wonder if that's not changing some. In particular, the 90s ushered in an era of hip, of referential comments ("You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!") where clever writers sought to show how in tune they were in society by slipping phrases of topical concern ("wardrobe malfunction").
The first time I became aware of this phenomenon was listening to my boy, Tony Kornheiser. Kornheiser used to have a local DC area sports talk show. He went off the air so he could co-host Monday Night Football. Once a prize gig, the ABC team opted to switch the venerable MNF to Sunday night and swap it with their affiliate ESPN who took over Monday night.
But when his show was on the air, he, Andy Pollin, Nigel, and the other guy (strange how I can never remember the other guy) would entertain many a folk crawling on the Beltway, headed to work. He'd talk about American Idol, and be familiar with a few folks in the hip hop generation, even as he himself favored "Old Man Radio" (and Tony's knowledge of music from his era bordered on encyclopedic). Here was a guy, either through his son, or though hip pal, Mike Wilbon, that was, at the very least, trying to keep up with today's youth culture.
The most recent time I recognized this was a few days ago when I was chatting with Chris. Chris is, hmm, maybe twenty years my junior, enough that he's still a bit baby-faced, despite standing some six feet tall. A few weeks back, he told me about his adventures in getting a burr grinder. Ah, it warms the heart strings when you see a budding bobo, even as he lacks the actual income for one of the "bos".
To recount a bit, a few years back, I and an Indian friend would drink coffee at the university. Initially, we bought coffee ground at the local supermarket. Then, we realized that these grounds, much like pepper, lost their punch if they sat in the air too long (and they get particularly nasty if they sit years in the air). So, we got ourselves a cheap blade grinder, the kind you can buy for twenty bucks. From then on, freshly ground coffee.
But these grinders make a bit of a racket, and worse still, they cause an uneven grind. At least, so sayeth the experts. It made some sense. They were blades after all, and essentially they chopped beans every which way, so some were bound to be big, while others tinier. You want a coarse grind for every day coffee and a fine grind for, say, espresso (not EX-presso).
A few years ago, I did a little research on the Internet (god bless the Internet!), which of course is to say, I used a search engine that did a great job of indexing terms to relevant websites, and through this I obtained the information I wanted (the key being the indexing and something to index, whereby the Internet serves as the "information superhighway" by which I get this content in something short of driving to a library), or, in short, doing research on the Internet.
The reviews suggested that a burr grinder made by Solis (the "Maestro") was the one to get. But to give you an idea of dollar difference. A blade grinder is maybe twenty bucks. A typical burr grinder goes for about 40-80 dollars. A good burr grinder, at least, the one I was eyeing, goes for 150 dollars. So, clearly, for a long time, I did not buy one. However, one day, I was being impulsive, and there was the web, which not only made searching easy, it really makes impulse buying even easier, and all of a sudden, I had a burr grinder in my office.
And I also bought a portable filter, and a insulated container (Nissan or Zojirushi, I can't recall which) and a hot water heater and I was ready to make my own coffee. Indeed, the only step missing was actually finding high quality coffee beans which, sadly, at the time, I didn't even consider. But really, worse still, this stuff stayed in my office. And stayed. And stayed. And I moved out, and some of it moved with me to my house. And it stayed. And stayed. Then, a few months ago, mere years after I bought the grinder, my housemate, whose girlfriend enjoys a good cup of Joe, opened it up and started using it.
And that's where we get back to Chris, who apparently didn't go through this phase of waiting, had been getting his own coffee from Costa Rica, and his portable filter, and his hot water heater, and so forth, retracing the steps I had prepared up to, but never followed through.
But, then Chris is a precocious fella.
Flash forward to a day or two ago, and Chris was lamenting that Sufjan Stevens was performing at the Kennedy Center for free, and he had completely missed the event. Now, I have to say, I discovered Sufjan Stevens first, dammit, purely by accident. While searching for music on Amazon, I bumped into Sufjan, and said that sounds good, I'll get a CD. Then, another. Then, another. OK, to be fair, that was 2005, and at the time, Sufjan's album, Illinois was basically off the charts. Well, for an indie album. I'm sure fans of Jay-Zee and Fifty Cents probably never heard of the guy. I mean, for chrissakes (should that not be pronounced Chris' sakes?) the guy plays a banjo!
So here I am discussing music with a guy twenty years my junior, mostly because I'm listening to "bleeding edge" indie music. And perhaps a pop form of that to boot. (Meaning, I'm not heading to local clubs finding even more obscure music, like say, Seattle's Sea Navy).
I'm not saying there isn't still a generation gap, or possibly even a simple people gap. After all, Chris has his peeps, and I have my...laptop. The twain generally don't meet. Part of that is likely to be generational, though certainly, part of it could simply be different crowds, established crowds, and so forth (meaning, that if you have hung around a particular crowd for years, then it's hard for any newcomer to easily join that crowd--there's far too much history and inside knowledge for that to be ever comfortable).
But my point, if I can ever make it, is that with the web, with the desire (and ability) to keep up -to-date on everything that is new and happening, it's becoming increasingly likely that the older generation will at least fathom more of what the younger generation goes through, and possibly even partake in some of it themselves.
Each generation seeks to run away from the previous one. But the previous one is increasingly capable of keeping up, rather than stare agape at a receding view of their children with stunned disbelief, wondering where they're heading.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Hard and Away
Perhaps this story didn't really have legs. Gay rights was an issue that came into public view in the late 60s. The 70s became an era where some out gays lead a kind of free sex lifestyle. The 80s were about AIDS. Athletes, such as Martina Navratilova, were known to be gay as early as 1980. Gay marriages were performed in 2004. And let's face it, no one much knows John Amaechi.
So maybe his book wouldn't make a dent. It would be commented a day or two, and then it would be gone, to be replaced by talks of T.O., or Kobe, or Barry Bonds, or the controversy of the day.
But thank you Tim Hardaway! You shot your mouth off in an interview. You said you hate gays. You didn't want them on your team. There shouldn't be any of them in the US or in the world. John Amaechi said that he was, in some sense, relieved that Hardaway said this because he put in words what many players were dancing around. He said it raw as could be.
And people wrote in saying they supported Hardaway, and this was how they felt too. Imagine if you put "African American" in place of "gays" how that sounds. This feeling is often justified by pointing to the Bible, by referring to passages that back up an innate dislike of gays. Yet, there are passages that permit stoning of daughters, that claim those who work on the Sabbath may be stoned, and all sorts of painful admonitions that the religious public ignores, because well, it simply doesn't make sense to follow those pesky parts of the Bible. Just follow the ones that match up well with your prejudices. You know, the Bible also supported forms of slavery too. Want to go back to that?
When Esera Tuaolo came out after retiring from the NFL, fellow athletes said that he could never have come out in the NFL. Players would have to answer questions that they did not have to answer before. The African American community, perhaps due to the strength of the church, perhaps due to some need for machismo, has perhaps disdained homosexuality more per capita than other groups (although I suspect Latinos, being mostly Catholic, may give them a run for their money).
As one sports commentator points out, athletes can admit they beat their wives, that they use illicit drugs, but to admit to being gay? That's too much. The reaction show in the play Take Me Out was almost too good to be true. It assumed no one on the team really cared about the bright star player being gay, and no one in the public cared either. Ultimately, it was because the play wasn't really about how a gay player would be treated in the public, but instead, how a fan felt about the game of baseball (embodied by the nebbish but flamboyant, Mason Marzac) and ultimately not really about being a gay athlete nor really about how baseball is really like.
In many ways, except for his lack of fame, John Amaechi may be as noble a first person to come out gay as one would hope. He's interested in many things outside the NBA and hardly represents the video game playing, entourage needy, bling bling, hip hop stereotype of modern NBA players. He shows one of the many facets the NBA likes to project. International, erudite, and, oh yeah, plays a little ball too.
Is he Jackie Robinson? Robinson did indeed face hatred from fans, opponents, and yes, even teammates, but he also required someone willing to go to bat for him (so to speak) to make him a Dodger. He could not have crossed this barrier himself. There are no gay leagues that are producing players of comparable quality to the NBA that are being left out. But since being gay is not a visible manifestation, Amaechi could enter the league based on his own merits, a good journeyman player, though hardly outstanding. To make it to the NBA already says something significant about your skills.
And while Cuban claimed any player that came out would have plenty of endorsements, Amaechi wasn't so good a player that he could guarantee that this would happen. In fact, we'll see whether the endorsements do come? After this incident, it's likely to happen, perhaps because Amaechi seems like an ideal spokesperson. Not everyone wanted to be associated with Martina. Maybe if she looked like Sharapova, but she didn't. Eventually, her longevity helped win fans over.
On the other hand, how many people do you know that are out and have huge visibility because of their sexual orientation? Not so many, I think. Advertisers worry about backlash. I'm really interested in seeing what happens.
My feeling is if the NBA cared about this, they would start to make commercials with Amaechi, and see if the NBA is willing to take a stance despite the consequences. Already, Hardaway has been booted from the All-Star game. Is the NBA ready to take the next step?
So maybe his book wouldn't make a dent. It would be commented a day or two, and then it would be gone, to be replaced by talks of T.O., or Kobe, or Barry Bonds, or the controversy of the day.
But thank you Tim Hardaway! You shot your mouth off in an interview. You said you hate gays. You didn't want them on your team. There shouldn't be any of them in the US or in the world. John Amaechi said that he was, in some sense, relieved that Hardaway said this because he put in words what many players were dancing around. He said it raw as could be.
And people wrote in saying they supported Hardaway, and this was how they felt too. Imagine if you put "African American" in place of "gays" how that sounds. This feeling is often justified by pointing to the Bible, by referring to passages that back up an innate dislike of gays. Yet, there are passages that permit stoning of daughters, that claim those who work on the Sabbath may be stoned, and all sorts of painful admonitions that the religious public ignores, because well, it simply doesn't make sense to follow those pesky parts of the Bible. Just follow the ones that match up well with your prejudices. You know, the Bible also supported forms of slavery too. Want to go back to that?
When Esera Tuaolo came out after retiring from the NFL, fellow athletes said that he could never have come out in the NFL. Players would have to answer questions that they did not have to answer before. The African American community, perhaps due to the strength of the church, perhaps due to some need for machismo, has perhaps disdained homosexuality more per capita than other groups (although I suspect Latinos, being mostly Catholic, may give them a run for their money).
As one sports commentator points out, athletes can admit they beat their wives, that they use illicit drugs, but to admit to being gay? That's too much. The reaction show in the play Take Me Out was almost too good to be true. It assumed no one on the team really cared about the bright star player being gay, and no one in the public cared either. Ultimately, it was because the play wasn't really about how a gay player would be treated in the public, but instead, how a fan felt about the game of baseball (embodied by the nebbish but flamboyant, Mason Marzac) and ultimately not really about being a gay athlete nor really about how baseball is really like.
In many ways, except for his lack of fame, John Amaechi may be as noble a first person to come out gay as one would hope. He's interested in many things outside the NBA and hardly represents the video game playing, entourage needy, bling bling, hip hop stereotype of modern NBA players. He shows one of the many facets the NBA likes to project. International, erudite, and, oh yeah, plays a little ball too.
Is he Jackie Robinson? Robinson did indeed face hatred from fans, opponents, and yes, even teammates, but he also required someone willing to go to bat for him (so to speak) to make him a Dodger. He could not have crossed this barrier himself. There are no gay leagues that are producing players of comparable quality to the NBA that are being left out. But since being gay is not a visible manifestation, Amaechi could enter the league based on his own merits, a good journeyman player, though hardly outstanding. To make it to the NBA already says something significant about your skills.
And while Cuban claimed any player that came out would have plenty of endorsements, Amaechi wasn't so good a player that he could guarantee that this would happen. In fact, we'll see whether the endorsements do come? After this incident, it's likely to happen, perhaps because Amaechi seems like an ideal spokesperson. Not everyone wanted to be associated with Martina. Maybe if she looked like Sharapova, but she didn't. Eventually, her longevity helped win fans over.
On the other hand, how many people do you know that are out and have huge visibility because of their sexual orientation? Not so many, I think. Advertisers worry about backlash. I'm really interested in seeing what happens.
My feeling is if the NBA cared about this, they would start to make commercials with Amaechi, and see if the NBA is willing to take a stance despite the consequences. Already, Hardaway has been booted from the All-Star game. Is the NBA ready to take the next step?
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Valentine's Day and Sports Radio
You know it's a slow day in sports radio when a great deal of time is spent on Valentine's Day. As it is, sports radio is not so much about news, as it is about commentary, and partly because of that, opinions spill out. For example, sports commentators, unlike news broadcasters, are much more likely to talk about who's hot and who's not, i.e., women celebrities they find attractive.
Today I was listening to the radio, and on one show they wanted listeners to call in and describe the most embarrassing thing they had ever done on Valentine's Day (or a friend), and by that, they meant something inappropriate, such as a guy buying a car for a woman who wasn't all that interested in them.
This topic, though somewhat deplorable, had a few nuggets of interest. First, it's always OK for the guy to look or act like a fool, because guys don't really believe they are the fools. To get a sense of this, notice they never ask women to call in and ask what silly thing they tried to do for their boyfriends or husbands. There's already some kind of deep-seated feeling that women are, in some way, inferior.
Having said this, I need to backtrack a bit. Men can insult themselves on radio, and often do. But they do so realizing there are no real negative stereotypes for white males, and the few that exist, white males can live with.
Have you ever noticed that no woman calls herself stupid or idiotic on the radio. Why not? Because even as men praise women, there's been subliminal suggestions that women aren't as strong, as bright, or as self reliant as males. Even if this is partly false, and even as males deny it, there must be some belief this is true, otherwise why do so few women insult themselves? They already feel some pressure to provide credibility because society is as likely to think they caught a break simply be being a woman.
Similar, African American commentators are also unlikely to say they were stupid (though probably more likely than African American women), again, because there is a perception (fortunately less than once upon a time) that African Americans are "stupid", and to then say that, would be to reinforce negative stereotypes, where as a white male, even if he claims he's stupid, somehow does not reinforce a stereotype of dumb males. Heck, former athletes can also call themselves stupid, and even with a dumb jock stereotype, they don't seem to have any problems.
But beyond that, there's the notion (though it seems quite true) that women find Valentine's Day a holiday they enjoy more, mostly because they take it more seriously than men, and that men are expected to expend as much effort. I was listening to Garrison Keillor, whose radio show, Prarie Home Companion (A), talks about Lake Wobegon, a fictional town.
The radio show is somewhat anachronistic, taking its cue from radio shows of the 1940s (most notably from the inflection which the speakers speak) combined with more recent events. Thus, they introduce a guy who has spent all of two minutes getting a gift for his woman, while his woman has spent weeks doing the same for him. She eventually leaves him and winds up on Oprah telling her sob story. The joke is Oprah keeps giving everyone a car in the audience. Of course, the problem with getting an Oprah impersonator is that Oprah doesn't sound stereotypically black (though to be fair, she doesn't sound stereotypically white--she just sounds like, well, Oprah), yet the person they have doing Oprah does sound that way.
Again, point is that the story tells about how men are the fools, and only women care about Valentine's Day. I ain't saying it isn't mostly true, but that this is almost the attitude that is taken. It may reflect a male perspective, that to get into all the sentimentality and romance would make it too mushy, and would probably make an excellent episode on Oprah (men who are romantic on Valentine's Day).
But what I really want to discuss is how Valentine's Day tends to reinforce heterosexual (and capitalist) ideas of romance. Occasionally, people are good as mention significant others. Heck, John Riggins did this on his own show where he recounts some incident in a steam room where some oversized guy ends up shaving in the steam room (and he mutters "that ain't cool"). When did SO become used? And when did John Riggins pick it up?
I first read about this in the venerable and mostly defunct newsgroup, alt.sex, where SO was the politically correct term instead of wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, where a certain gender preference (or living arrangement) was implied. SO, antiseptic as it is, implied that it was someone in some reasonable relationship. To be fair, it kinda excluded relationships that involve three or more people, but I suppose that's rare enough to be acceptably excluded.
Sports radio doesn't seem ready to hear about those same-sex Valentine's Day, or to talk about the lonely hearts (and maybe they aren't all that lonely) on this holiday, which, despite having some historical basis, has always seemed as artificial as White Day.
Ah White Day. In Japan, where there's still of, well, if not machismo, then male-dominated society, it's the women that give gifts to men. The retail industry has pushed for a holiday called White Day celebrated on March 14, where men are supposed to give gifts to women. Heck, there's even the Korean, Black Day, the following month for people not in a relationship, but want to give gifts for their friends, i.e., for the rest of you, you can have gifts now.
There's always been something odd about Valentine's Day, where women (again, stereotypically) feel they deserve something special on this day, and men scramble to provide it to them. And they do so because of...well, yes, sex. If men weren't so beholden to sex and their fear that the women in their lives may leave and deprive them of this, then they may not have to broker agreements with their women about what they're willing to put up with, and what women are willing to put up with. Heck, were it not for sex, men would, in general, find more to do with men.
Of course, because of sex and such, men are compelled to deal with wants and needs that are potentially significantly different from theirs, especially if they are a sports nut. The metrosexual male who loves to cook, get manicures, wear fashionable clothing, and so forth have far more in common with women (what's the metrosexual equivalent for women? A topic rarely broached) and therefore may not have to do as much compromising. A chap such as Mike Greenberg might not only be thrilled to join his wife in her shopping travails but may actually have advice she's willing to listen to!
So while Valentine's Day hasn't left me depressed in the traditional lonely hearts way, it does leave me depressed because it dredges up the same stereotypes of stupid males (it's always so male-centric...what about her needs?), and it takes the always surprising John Riggins to actually use the PC term SO. Way to go, Riggo!
Today I was listening to the radio, and on one show they wanted listeners to call in and describe the most embarrassing thing they had ever done on Valentine's Day (or a friend), and by that, they meant something inappropriate, such as a guy buying a car for a woman who wasn't all that interested in them.
This topic, though somewhat deplorable, had a few nuggets of interest. First, it's always OK for the guy to look or act like a fool, because guys don't really believe they are the fools. To get a sense of this, notice they never ask women to call in and ask what silly thing they tried to do for their boyfriends or husbands. There's already some kind of deep-seated feeling that women are, in some way, inferior.
Having said this, I need to backtrack a bit. Men can insult themselves on radio, and often do. But they do so realizing there are no real negative stereotypes for white males, and the few that exist, white males can live with.
Have you ever noticed that no woman calls herself stupid or idiotic on the radio. Why not? Because even as men praise women, there's been subliminal suggestions that women aren't as strong, as bright, or as self reliant as males. Even if this is partly false, and even as males deny it, there must be some belief this is true, otherwise why do so few women insult themselves? They already feel some pressure to provide credibility because society is as likely to think they caught a break simply be being a woman.
Similar, African American commentators are also unlikely to say they were stupid (though probably more likely than African American women), again, because there is a perception (fortunately less than once upon a time) that African Americans are "stupid", and to then say that, would be to reinforce negative stereotypes, where as a white male, even if he claims he's stupid, somehow does not reinforce a stereotype of dumb males. Heck, former athletes can also call themselves stupid, and even with a dumb jock stereotype, they don't seem to have any problems.
But beyond that, there's the notion (though it seems quite true) that women find Valentine's Day a holiday they enjoy more, mostly because they take it more seriously than men, and that men are expected to expend as much effort. I was listening to Garrison Keillor, whose radio show, Prarie Home Companion (A), talks about Lake Wobegon, a fictional town.
The radio show is somewhat anachronistic, taking its cue from radio shows of the 1940s (most notably from the inflection which the speakers speak) combined with more recent events. Thus, they introduce a guy who has spent all of two minutes getting a gift for his woman, while his woman has spent weeks doing the same for him. She eventually leaves him and winds up on Oprah telling her sob story. The joke is Oprah keeps giving everyone a car in the audience. Of course, the problem with getting an Oprah impersonator is that Oprah doesn't sound stereotypically black (though to be fair, she doesn't sound stereotypically white--she just sounds like, well, Oprah), yet the person they have doing Oprah does sound that way.
Again, point is that the story tells about how men are the fools, and only women care about Valentine's Day. I ain't saying it isn't mostly true, but that this is almost the attitude that is taken. It may reflect a male perspective, that to get into all the sentimentality and romance would make it too mushy, and would probably make an excellent episode on Oprah (men who are romantic on Valentine's Day).
But what I really want to discuss is how Valentine's Day tends to reinforce heterosexual (and capitalist) ideas of romance. Occasionally, people are good as mention significant others. Heck, John Riggins did this on his own show where he recounts some incident in a steam room where some oversized guy ends up shaving in the steam room (and he mutters "that ain't cool"). When did SO become used? And when did John Riggins pick it up?
I first read about this in the venerable and mostly defunct newsgroup, alt.sex, where SO was the politically correct term instead of wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, where a certain gender preference (or living arrangement) was implied. SO, antiseptic as it is, implied that it was someone in some reasonable relationship. To be fair, it kinda excluded relationships that involve three or more people, but I suppose that's rare enough to be acceptably excluded.
Sports radio doesn't seem ready to hear about those same-sex Valentine's Day, or to talk about the lonely hearts (and maybe they aren't all that lonely) on this holiday, which, despite having some historical basis, has always seemed as artificial as White Day.
Ah White Day. In Japan, where there's still of, well, if not machismo, then male-dominated society, it's the women that give gifts to men. The retail industry has pushed for a holiday called White Day celebrated on March 14, where men are supposed to give gifts to women. Heck, there's even the Korean, Black Day, the following month for people not in a relationship, but want to give gifts for their friends, i.e., for the rest of you, you can have gifts now.
There's always been something odd about Valentine's Day, where women (again, stereotypically) feel they deserve something special on this day, and men scramble to provide it to them. And they do so because of...well, yes, sex. If men weren't so beholden to sex and their fear that the women in their lives may leave and deprive them of this, then they may not have to broker agreements with their women about what they're willing to put up with, and what women are willing to put up with. Heck, were it not for sex, men would, in general, find more to do with men.
Of course, because of sex and such, men are compelled to deal with wants and needs that are potentially significantly different from theirs, especially if they are a sports nut. The metrosexual male who loves to cook, get manicures, wear fashionable clothing, and so forth have far more in common with women (what's the metrosexual equivalent for women? A topic rarely broached) and therefore may not have to do as much compromising. A chap such as Mike Greenberg might not only be thrilled to join his wife in her shopping travails but may actually have advice she's willing to listen to!
So while Valentine's Day hasn't left me depressed in the traditional lonely hearts way, it does leave me depressed because it dredges up the same stereotypes of stupid males (it's always so male-centric...what about her needs?), and it takes the always surprising John Riggins to actually use the PC term SO. Way to go, Riggo!
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Dan Patrick and John Amaechi
Tomorrow, John Amaechi's book, Man in the Middle will come out. And in this book, so will John Amaechi. John has become the first player in the NBA to declare publicly that he is gay. This has not create that much of a stir, partly because hardly anyone knows who Amaechi is. He was not a star player like Magic Johnson.
What is more remarkable is that he is the first NBA player to have come out, when football players have come out many years ago (though not many). It's still a huge stigma for athletes to declare their homosexuality, that no active player in any of the major American team sports has ever come out.
This was the topic of Dan Patrick's radio show. And what did Dan Patrick do? He had a straw man, of sorts. He decided to compare John Amaechi's outing to Jackie Robinson. Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, when whites and blacks were segregated into separate leagues. To do this meant enduring "fans" who insulted him, wished him dead, and generally had no fear of hiding their hatred.
Jackie Robinson was picked because he was a calm man, instructed to not fight back, to not yell. He was also expected to succeed, so that it was shown a black man could compete in a white world.
Clearly, what he faced then was nowhere near what Amaechi faces today. Given the gay rights movement has been around nearly forty years or so, that players have come out in other sports, that gay marriages were performed, it seems almost quaint how backwards sports has become.
But rather than discuss those issues, Dan Patrick decided to compare Amaechi's situation to Robinson, and thus, talk mostly about Robinson, his favorite athlete. Look Dan Patrick, Amaechi had no illusions that what he did made him this generations Jackie Robinson, so why are you bringing it up?
One thing Jackie Robinson could say, as a man who was visibly African American, was that he could marry an African American and raise a family. They might be harassed, which is hardly a picnic, but they would have each other. And baseball had some luxuries. Although it's a team sport, it's about as individual as a team sport gets. And there's no real physical contact.
In particular, this means that he might not get it from other players, who might either physically attack him, or let him vulnerable to injury in a sport. This could happen, for example, in football, where there is a modest amount of decorum preventing players from getting seriously hurt (and they already get hurt as it is). Maybe someone wants to exercise a harder foul than usual. Who knows?
Unlike being black, people can hide being gay, which is a double edge sword. On the one hand, you can avoid other players's scrutiny by pretending to fit in. On the other, you live a lie. At least Jackie Robinson could say that he could live life a certain way, and didn't have to hide. Ultimately, it's this ability to hide that makes it more insidious because it makes people want to lie, and this is something most people are raised not to do. Jackie may have also been able to depend on support from his teammates (I don't know his history, so I can't say for sure).
Amaechi may indeed suffer more discrimination from the players themselves than from fans who may be far more willing to embrace him. It took other players like Martina Navratilova to put a face on gay/lesbian athletes. Once upon a time, Martina could not win an endorsement. Not only did she not have Chris Evert's girl-next-door look, she was also a lesbian!
Indeed, Dan Patrick should have used the segment to raise the issue of Rene Portland, women's coach for Penn State, who has a "no lesbian" policy. Despite protests and warnings, Portland continues to discriminate against lesbian athletes. Use the opportunity of Amaechi's announcement to talk about Rene Portland and what fans think of this.
Instead, Patrick took the safe way out. He talked about Jackie Robinson, and let fans who cared about civil rights crow away, rather than to deal with the issue of gay discrimination now. Perhaps Patrick finds the topic difficult to discuss. Maybe he feels that people should not make a big deal, so he points out that Robinson had it worse.
There was a theory that other nearby places (Jamaica and the like) ended slavery sooner because the slaveowners were less considerate than American slaveowners. Yet, few people would claim that slavery in the US was any less insidious. So what if Amaechi doesn't feel the outward hatred of the public. The fact of the matter is he waited until he retired to come out. You'd think, in a day and age like this, someone would come out as a pro athlete, and yet, they haven't.
The fact is, civil rights may have given more freedoms and privileges to African Americans, but they haven't been terribly willing to embrace gay and lesbian rights, partly because of the influence of the church, and partly because of a greater sense of homophobia. If African Americans were really ready to embrace civil rights, in all forms, the NBA would have been the first to have a gay player come out.
This would have lead to a far more provocative discussion, that African Americans, once the source of discrimination, would be dishing it out subliminally (to be fair, along with whites, and others) to other groups, when they, most of all, should set an example.
If the NBA really wants to take advantage of this situation, they should start putting up ads supporting John Amaechi about gay players in basketball, and perhaps create a slogan of "That's not my NBA" (commercial would have film from the early days of basketball where people didn't want blacks and a modern player say "That's not my NBA" and then flash forward to not wanting gay players and again "That's not my NBA".
But you know, this is all about business, all about not offending the fan base who may have prejudices, the kinds that Rene Portland actively has, and perhaps other coaches and players privately has.
So Dan Patrick, you had your chance to talk about this topic in a meaningful way, and chose a cheap way out, so you didn't have to deal with it.
What is more remarkable is that he is the first NBA player to have come out, when football players have come out many years ago (though not many). It's still a huge stigma for athletes to declare their homosexuality, that no active player in any of the major American team sports has ever come out.
This was the topic of Dan Patrick's radio show. And what did Dan Patrick do? He had a straw man, of sorts. He decided to compare John Amaechi's outing to Jackie Robinson. Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, when whites and blacks were segregated into separate leagues. To do this meant enduring "fans" who insulted him, wished him dead, and generally had no fear of hiding their hatred.
Jackie Robinson was picked because he was a calm man, instructed to not fight back, to not yell. He was also expected to succeed, so that it was shown a black man could compete in a white world.
Clearly, what he faced then was nowhere near what Amaechi faces today. Given the gay rights movement has been around nearly forty years or so, that players have come out in other sports, that gay marriages were performed, it seems almost quaint how backwards sports has become.
But rather than discuss those issues, Dan Patrick decided to compare Amaechi's situation to Robinson, and thus, talk mostly about Robinson, his favorite athlete. Look Dan Patrick, Amaechi had no illusions that what he did made him this generations Jackie Robinson, so why are you bringing it up?
One thing Jackie Robinson could say, as a man who was visibly African American, was that he could marry an African American and raise a family. They might be harassed, which is hardly a picnic, but they would have each other. And baseball had some luxuries. Although it's a team sport, it's about as individual as a team sport gets. And there's no real physical contact.
In particular, this means that he might not get it from other players, who might either physically attack him, or let him vulnerable to injury in a sport. This could happen, for example, in football, where there is a modest amount of decorum preventing players from getting seriously hurt (and they already get hurt as it is). Maybe someone wants to exercise a harder foul than usual. Who knows?
Unlike being black, people can hide being gay, which is a double edge sword. On the one hand, you can avoid other players's scrutiny by pretending to fit in. On the other, you live a lie. At least Jackie Robinson could say that he could live life a certain way, and didn't have to hide. Ultimately, it's this ability to hide that makes it more insidious because it makes people want to lie, and this is something most people are raised not to do. Jackie may have also been able to depend on support from his teammates (I don't know his history, so I can't say for sure).
Amaechi may indeed suffer more discrimination from the players themselves than from fans who may be far more willing to embrace him. It took other players like Martina Navratilova to put a face on gay/lesbian athletes. Once upon a time, Martina could not win an endorsement. Not only did she not have Chris Evert's girl-next-door look, she was also a lesbian!
Indeed, Dan Patrick should have used the segment to raise the issue of Rene Portland, women's coach for Penn State, who has a "no lesbian" policy. Despite protests and warnings, Portland continues to discriminate against lesbian athletes. Use the opportunity of Amaechi's announcement to talk about Rene Portland and what fans think of this.
Instead, Patrick took the safe way out. He talked about Jackie Robinson, and let fans who cared about civil rights crow away, rather than to deal with the issue of gay discrimination now. Perhaps Patrick finds the topic difficult to discuss. Maybe he feels that people should not make a big deal, so he points out that Robinson had it worse.
There was a theory that other nearby places (Jamaica and the like) ended slavery sooner because the slaveowners were less considerate than American slaveowners. Yet, few people would claim that slavery in the US was any less insidious. So what if Amaechi doesn't feel the outward hatred of the public. The fact of the matter is he waited until he retired to come out. You'd think, in a day and age like this, someone would come out as a pro athlete, and yet, they haven't.
The fact is, civil rights may have given more freedoms and privileges to African Americans, but they haven't been terribly willing to embrace gay and lesbian rights, partly because of the influence of the church, and partly because of a greater sense of homophobia. If African Americans were really ready to embrace civil rights, in all forms, the NBA would have been the first to have a gay player come out.
This would have lead to a far more provocative discussion, that African Americans, once the source of discrimination, would be dishing it out subliminally (to be fair, along with whites, and others) to other groups, when they, most of all, should set an example.
If the NBA really wants to take advantage of this situation, they should start putting up ads supporting John Amaechi about gay players in basketball, and perhaps create a slogan of "That's not my NBA" (commercial would have film from the early days of basketball where people didn't want blacks and a modern player say "That's not my NBA" and then flash forward to not wanting gay players and again "That's not my NBA".
But you know, this is all about business, all about not offending the fan base who may have prejudices, the kinds that Rene Portland actively has, and perhaps other coaches and players privately has.
So Dan Patrick, you had your chance to talk about this topic in a meaningful way, and chose a cheap way out, so you didn't have to deal with it.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Resume Wisdom
Resumes are an odd beast. That standard first look a company gets at someone seeking employment seems to attract many a person giving advice.
But it doesn't make sense to me.
For example, let's go through a few standard pieces of advice. Spell everything correctly. Keep the resume to one page. Don't be too fancy with the presentation. Sometimes you get a piece of advice out of the mainstream, such as, don't put an objective, as most people put it incorrectly and it doesn't help.
People use heuristics to determine the worth of a resume such as spelling, etc., rather than based on anything actually meaningful. Why? Because resumes often don't distinguish themselves readily. This is especially true for students right out of college. Recent grads take the same courses, do the same projects. It's hard to stand out.
Indeed, the biggest problem is giving a resume its just due when you have hundreds of them. You begin to get rid of resumes on superficial things because you simply lack the time. Does this even make sense? Yet, look at how smug resume advice givers are. "If you can't be bothered to spell correctly, I can't be bothered to read your resume". The appropriate response is "If you can't be bothered to read beyond misspellings, then you deserve the quality of employees you get".
The fact of the matter is resumes don't do a good enough job of making someone stand out. What HR folks would like to do is find someway to determine how good you are. If they could make you take an exam, maybe they would!
Yet, everyone expects the standard resume and cover letter. In the software industry, a good essay based on questions provided by the employer might give a better sense of the person's ability. Of course, outside the constraints of a proctored setting, you would be able to receive assistance from anyone. But maybe that's not so bad, if it can get you past the general blandness of most resumes.
All I'm saying is there has to be a better way.
But it doesn't make sense to me.
For example, let's go through a few standard pieces of advice. Spell everything correctly. Keep the resume to one page. Don't be too fancy with the presentation. Sometimes you get a piece of advice out of the mainstream, such as, don't put an objective, as most people put it incorrectly and it doesn't help.
People use heuristics to determine the worth of a resume such as spelling, etc., rather than based on anything actually meaningful. Why? Because resumes often don't distinguish themselves readily. This is especially true for students right out of college. Recent grads take the same courses, do the same projects. It's hard to stand out.
Indeed, the biggest problem is giving a resume its just due when you have hundreds of them. You begin to get rid of resumes on superficial things because you simply lack the time. Does this even make sense? Yet, look at how smug resume advice givers are. "If you can't be bothered to spell correctly, I can't be bothered to read your resume". The appropriate response is "If you can't be bothered to read beyond misspellings, then you deserve the quality of employees you get".
The fact of the matter is resumes don't do a good enough job of making someone stand out. What HR folks would like to do is find someway to determine how good you are. If they could make you take an exam, maybe they would!
Yet, everyone expects the standard resume and cover letter. In the software industry, a good essay based on questions provided by the employer might give a better sense of the person's ability. Of course, outside the constraints of a proctored setting, you would be able to receive assistance from anyone. But maybe that's not so bad, if it can get you past the general blandness of most resumes.
All I'm saying is there has to be a better way.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Brace Yourself
Last week, I got braces put on. My teeth have always been something of a mess. My two front teeth obscure the two teeth next to it. Unfortunately, my parents didn't like the idea of spending what was probably two thousand dollars then to have my teeth straightened. I had been meaning to do it once I started earning money, but when I started teaching, it took up so much time, I didn't have time to think about my teeth.
A few months ago, practically last summer, I decided I needed to head to a dentist. I asked some friends to see if they had someone they could recommend. I went to the dentist, and suggested I wanted to get my teeth straightened. He agreed it would be a good idea, as it was making it difficult to keep my teeth clean. However, due to the workload, I never got around to meeting the orthodontist until January, nearly four months after meeting the dentist.
I thought braces would hurt after having them on, but they don't, provided I don't eat. I know. I have to eat. However, it's nice to know that when I don't eat, they don't hurt.
Here are my observations on braces. First, although I'm sure there have been some advances with braces, they still look pretty much the way they did many years ago. Worse still, flossing is a complete pain with braces. I've practically given up it's that hard.
To deal with this problem, I've decided to get a Water Pik. Well, not the Water Pik. Turns out Water Pik was never all that great. They make a loud racket. They spill everywhere. And now, they aren't even that solidly built. Here's a company that apparently has done next to no real engineering to improve the product.
You'd think 20 years of innovation would lead them to the coolest device ever.
You'd be wrong. Somehow, without any substantive competition, they've decided not to make the motor quieter, not to prevent spilling, not to come up with any innovation since it first came out. You'd think someone would try to compete against them.
Someone sorta has. Oral-B/Braun makes an oral irrigator (i.e., something that jets water in the mouth), and the reviews are good, but it's frickin expensive. Even so, if it helps keep my teeth clean so I don't have to floss, it will be worth it. Panasonic also makes an oral irrigator, but it's battery powered, and they only have one frickin model.
I found one that basically attaches to your faucet, much like those water purifiers. That seems cool, but I don't know if I'll buy it or not.
Honestly, here's one product that really should have many more competitors than it does.
I've only got the braces on my top row of teeth for now. In hindsight, that seems the better way to go. I could have had it all done at once, but it's nice that I can, at the very least, still floss the bottom row of teeth. It also gives me time before this oral irrigator comes (it's scheduled 1-3 weeks to arrive, and it's already been a week).
Eating is a bit of a challenge. Since my teeth weren't all that great to begin with, I'd generally use my back teeth to chew, but the initial chew still came with my front teeth. Now that's really quite challenging, so I've taken to eating softer foods like yogurt, pudding, mashed potatoes, and so forth.
The big benefit is that eating these tiny things have helped me lose some weight. It's true I'm hungrier more often, but not ravenously so. I've lost maybe 3 pounds since getting the braces on just about a week ago. I'd like it if I could lose another 10 pounds, so I'm right around 150. We'll see if this brace thing still helps or not (it's obviously not the braces themselves, but the kind of diet I'm forced to be on to eat with braces).
Anyhoo, it's up to two more years of this before it comes off. I'll see how that all turns out.
A few months ago, practically last summer, I decided I needed to head to a dentist. I asked some friends to see if they had someone they could recommend. I went to the dentist, and suggested I wanted to get my teeth straightened. He agreed it would be a good idea, as it was making it difficult to keep my teeth clean. However, due to the workload, I never got around to meeting the orthodontist until January, nearly four months after meeting the dentist.
I thought braces would hurt after having them on, but they don't, provided I don't eat. I know. I have to eat. However, it's nice to know that when I don't eat, they don't hurt.
Here are my observations on braces. First, although I'm sure there have been some advances with braces, they still look pretty much the way they did many years ago. Worse still, flossing is a complete pain with braces. I've practically given up it's that hard.
To deal with this problem, I've decided to get a Water Pik. Well, not the Water Pik. Turns out Water Pik was never all that great. They make a loud racket. They spill everywhere. And now, they aren't even that solidly built. Here's a company that apparently has done next to no real engineering to improve the product.
You'd think 20 years of innovation would lead them to the coolest device ever.
You'd be wrong. Somehow, without any substantive competition, they've decided not to make the motor quieter, not to prevent spilling, not to come up with any innovation since it first came out. You'd think someone would try to compete against them.
Someone sorta has. Oral-B/Braun makes an oral irrigator (i.e., something that jets water in the mouth), and the reviews are good, but it's frickin expensive. Even so, if it helps keep my teeth clean so I don't have to floss, it will be worth it. Panasonic also makes an oral irrigator, but it's battery powered, and they only have one frickin model.
I found one that basically attaches to your faucet, much like those water purifiers. That seems cool, but I don't know if I'll buy it or not.
Honestly, here's one product that really should have many more competitors than it does.
I've only got the braces on my top row of teeth for now. In hindsight, that seems the better way to go. I could have had it all done at once, but it's nice that I can, at the very least, still floss the bottom row of teeth. It also gives me time before this oral irrigator comes (it's scheduled 1-3 weeks to arrive, and it's already been a week).
Eating is a bit of a challenge. Since my teeth weren't all that great to begin with, I'd generally use my back teeth to chew, but the initial chew still came with my front teeth. Now that's really quite challenging, so I've taken to eating softer foods like yogurt, pudding, mashed potatoes, and so forth.
The big benefit is that eating these tiny things have helped me lose some weight. It's true I'm hungrier more often, but not ravenously so. I've lost maybe 3 pounds since getting the braces on just about a week ago. I'd like it if I could lose another 10 pounds, so I'm right around 150. We'll see if this brace thing still helps or not (it's obviously not the braces themselves, but the kind of diet I'm forced to be on to eat with braces).
Anyhoo, it's up to two more years of this before it comes off. I'll see how that all turns out.
Dog Days
Sounding more like a Linux distro than a restaurant and decorated more like a furniture store, Red Dog Cafe, in Silver Spring sure looks like a bunch of similar restaurants of its ilk. I asked Dave about it, and he said "meh". It was OK.
This was restaurant week in Silver Spring. That usually means restaurants have a bargain for people who want to eat. But as the Washingtonian Online points out, a 12 dollar lunch or a 30 dollar dinner is not nearly the bargain in Silver Spring as it would be elsewhere. Indeed, the restaurants may make more money with restaurant week.
Red Dog reminds me a bit of Cosi. The cooks cook in front of you (well, not quite in front, more like a pizzeria). Such restaurants seem to imitate other "cool" restaurants, from the way they stack their liquor and condiments in an attempt to show how fresh they are, to the meaningless mini-woks hanging as a kind of cooking equipment as decoration.
I arrived at 11:30 figuring that's when lunch started, at least, that was the impression I got from their webpage. Not true. Turns out it's at noon, so I had to sit about half an hour (probably less). Fortunately, they also serve breakfast, so the restaurant was open.
I ordered coffee, then a frothy orange (they make freshly squeezed fruit and veggie juices--a bit pricey, but to be expected) which is made from orange juice and apple juice. It was maybe 8 ounces. I added some creatine. This has some popularity for weight loss and such.
The special for restaurant week was a turkey sandwich in a pita bread. It was more like chicken salad, with large chunks of turkey in some mayo and a touch of curry sauce. It was meh. The place looked nice and it's the kind of food you might see being made on Food Network, that is, a bit nice to look at, but does it taste good.
Due to my newly acquired braces, I ate the sandwich (more like a huge soft taco) using a fork, as biting into bread was something a bit too much for me.
I sat by an Indian family, husband, wife, two kids (daughter and son). As with many Indian families, they've adopted some American ways, in particular, the wife, who was wearing a sweatjacket and pants, rather than something more traditional. Some of that clothing makes more sense in the US where it gets chilly.
Dunno if I'll head there again anytime soon, but it was right next to the place I bought my bike. Indeed, as I went to their, I said, hey, isn't that where I bought my bike (the bike I've never ridden, btw)? Yes, it is. I took a peek inside, but there wasn't anything I really wanted to get. I noticed some Hincapie jackets. I presume Lance Armstrong's teammate, George Hincapie now has a clothing line?
Anyway, I chose not to eat all of the turkey pita sandwich, not so much because I didn't care for it (it was OK), but because there was just too much of it. It's so hard, at a restaurant, to tell yourself, don't eat everything. The money you pay is not for the food, it's for everything else (service, ambience, etc). Especially since I've been losing weight due to braces forcing me to eat soft foods, etc.
I'll write more on that later.
This was restaurant week in Silver Spring. That usually means restaurants have a bargain for people who want to eat. But as the Washingtonian Online points out, a 12 dollar lunch or a 30 dollar dinner is not nearly the bargain in Silver Spring as it would be elsewhere. Indeed, the restaurants may make more money with restaurant week.
Red Dog reminds me a bit of Cosi. The cooks cook in front of you (well, not quite in front, more like a pizzeria). Such restaurants seem to imitate other "cool" restaurants, from the way they stack their liquor and condiments in an attempt to show how fresh they are, to the meaningless mini-woks hanging as a kind of cooking equipment as decoration.
I arrived at 11:30 figuring that's when lunch started, at least, that was the impression I got from their webpage. Not true. Turns out it's at noon, so I had to sit about half an hour (probably less). Fortunately, they also serve breakfast, so the restaurant was open.
I ordered coffee, then a frothy orange (they make freshly squeezed fruit and veggie juices--a bit pricey, but to be expected) which is made from orange juice and apple juice. It was maybe 8 ounces. I added some creatine. This has some popularity for weight loss and such.
The special for restaurant week was a turkey sandwich in a pita bread. It was more like chicken salad, with large chunks of turkey in some mayo and a touch of curry sauce. It was meh. The place looked nice and it's the kind of food you might see being made on Food Network, that is, a bit nice to look at, but does it taste good.
Due to my newly acquired braces, I ate the sandwich (more like a huge soft taco) using a fork, as biting into bread was something a bit too much for me.
I sat by an Indian family, husband, wife, two kids (daughter and son). As with many Indian families, they've adopted some American ways, in particular, the wife, who was wearing a sweatjacket and pants, rather than something more traditional. Some of that clothing makes more sense in the US where it gets chilly.
Dunno if I'll head there again anytime soon, but it was right next to the place I bought my bike. Indeed, as I went to their, I said, hey, isn't that where I bought my bike (the bike I've never ridden, btw)? Yes, it is. I took a peek inside, but there wasn't anything I really wanted to get. I noticed some Hincapie jackets. I presume Lance Armstrong's teammate, George Hincapie now has a clothing line?
Anyway, I chose not to eat all of the turkey pita sandwich, not so much because I didn't care for it (it was OK), but because there was just too much of it. It's so hard, at a restaurant, to tell yourself, don't eat everything. The money you pay is not for the food, it's for everything else (service, ambience, etc). Especially since I've been losing weight due to braces forcing me to eat soft foods, etc.
I'll write more on that later.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Slip of the Tongue
We want our politicians to be perfect. They have to purer than the average American. They have to be so safe that they are told by their handlers not to say anything stupid. George Allen made a slip and called one S.R. Sidarth, a political science major from Virginia, "macaca", a particular odd slur, that seems only offensive if you are from the Belgian Congo. Strange that Allen would use that, that you almost believe he really did make it up, and yet, given it's context, it seemed like a slur, made up or not.
This slur was enough to derail the Allen campaign, because it seemed like Allen wanted to bond with what he must have perceived as white trash, who wanted a little insult to someone with brown skin to make him seem like a good old boy. And Democrats were perfectly happy to have him slip up, even if one might prefer that Allen simply lose because people don't like his political stances.
Justin realized that such incidents make it tough for politicians to say what's on their mind, because every word is scrutinized, observed, and telecast in the blogosphere, in the Web 2.0 world via YouTube and other video sources.
We let our politicians be defined by others so that we don't have to think too hard. To do the research to find out about such-and-such is tough. Mind you, this is why we have political parties, so that the party affiliation can serve as a shorthand to describe someone, because political handlers note that the electorate is generally stupid, or as least, lack the time to really assess candidates in any meaningful way.
Barack Obama just threw his hat in the ring. He's ready to run for office with a mere four years of senatorial experience. Yet, he has one thing that works in his favor. No, not that's he's the most acceptable brown skin candidate to run in, well, ever. It's his ability to craft words. In this soundbite nation, where any thought rambling more than ten seconds is dropped from a politician's rhetoric, Obama's skill at speaking may draw inspiration.
Whether this translates to political success or not, we'll see.
Justin figures this is Al Gore's time. Al Gore came out with An Inconvenient Truth and has stayed out of the limelight for a bit since then. He can afford to wait, even join in at the last moment, depending on how Obama fares.
Democrats might be willing to give Gore a second chance, some twenty years after Gore first ran. He lacks the strong negatives of Hillary. He has the experience Obama lacks. And if he runs with Obama as his VP, he'll have the kind of one-two punch that he sorely lacked with Lieberman who has suddenly become a Republican in action, if not in name. The Republicans, at this point, seem to lack a credible opponent.
McCain, the maverick that tried to detail Bush with his campaign finance reform, was instead sucked into the Republican machinery made to do what the Bush campaign wanted him to do so that he would be the anointed one, the Lebron James of the Republican world, the Anakin Skywalker, and like poor Ani, he seems destined to have his legs cut from underneath him (ah, isn't it great to invoke Star Wars?).
Campaigns are all about the talk, aren't they? It's words that get people elected (that and hate campaigns).
Oh, oh, I've been reading about this instant runoff voting where you rank candidates from 1 to N, and then toss out the loser at each round, until a majority is formed. Given the nature of hate ads, I say that we do something different, which is to vote against the person we don't want. Given that most candidates are hum-drum, this is what voting seems to have been reduced to. Thus, people who vote ABB (anyone but Bush) instead of feeling passionate about their candidate (e.g., Kerry).
Speak now, or forever hold your peace.
This slur was enough to derail the Allen campaign, because it seemed like Allen wanted to bond with what he must have perceived as white trash, who wanted a little insult to someone with brown skin to make him seem like a good old boy. And Democrats were perfectly happy to have him slip up, even if one might prefer that Allen simply lose because people don't like his political stances.
Justin realized that such incidents make it tough for politicians to say what's on their mind, because every word is scrutinized, observed, and telecast in the blogosphere, in the Web 2.0 world via YouTube and other video sources.
We let our politicians be defined by others so that we don't have to think too hard. To do the research to find out about such-and-such is tough. Mind you, this is why we have political parties, so that the party affiliation can serve as a shorthand to describe someone, because political handlers note that the electorate is generally stupid, or as least, lack the time to really assess candidates in any meaningful way.
Barack Obama just threw his hat in the ring. He's ready to run for office with a mere four years of senatorial experience. Yet, he has one thing that works in his favor. No, not that's he's the most acceptable brown skin candidate to run in, well, ever. It's his ability to craft words. In this soundbite nation, where any thought rambling more than ten seconds is dropped from a politician's rhetoric, Obama's skill at speaking may draw inspiration.
Whether this translates to political success or not, we'll see.
Justin figures this is Al Gore's time. Al Gore came out with An Inconvenient Truth and has stayed out of the limelight for a bit since then. He can afford to wait, even join in at the last moment, depending on how Obama fares.
Democrats might be willing to give Gore a second chance, some twenty years after Gore first ran. He lacks the strong negatives of Hillary. He has the experience Obama lacks. And if he runs with Obama as his VP, he'll have the kind of one-two punch that he sorely lacked with Lieberman who has suddenly become a Republican in action, if not in name. The Republicans, at this point, seem to lack a credible opponent.
McCain, the maverick that tried to detail Bush with his campaign finance reform, was instead sucked into the Republican machinery made to do what the Bush campaign wanted him to do so that he would be the anointed one, the Lebron James of the Republican world, the Anakin Skywalker, and like poor Ani, he seems destined to have his legs cut from underneath him (ah, isn't it great to invoke Star Wars?).
Campaigns are all about the talk, aren't they? It's words that get people elected (that and hate campaigns).
Oh, oh, I've been reading about this instant runoff voting where you rank candidates from 1 to N, and then toss out the loser at each round, until a majority is formed. Given the nature of hate ads, I say that we do something different, which is to vote against the person we don't want. Given that most candidates are hum-drum, this is what voting seems to have been reduced to. Thus, people who vote ABB (anyone but Bush) instead of feeling passionate about their candidate (e.g., Kerry).
Speak now, or forever hold your peace.
Go North, Young Man
The Motorola Razr was all the craze once. It was slim. It was sexy. It was a bit pricey. Then, it became ubiquitous. People stopped ooh-ing and ah-ing and they looked for the next big thing. There's nothing like making your colleagues jealous in this age of conspicuous consumption.
Clothing is similar, though it seems to last a few years before it dies out. When I was growing up in the 80s, several brands stuck out. Nike shoes. Ocean Pacific shirts. Members Only jackets. Donnie Darko, one part odd SF and one part homage to the 80s, realized these trends though it was totally overshadowed by the main SF storyline.
Today, as wintry blasts have the country in a chill, jackets by The North Face have come out in droves. This is perhaps year three of their popularity. And it costs too. Prices seem to start at two hundred dollars and work their way up. I've been told they're nice and light (their website isn't that enlightening) and use some space age stuff (if we were doing that much in space, that is).
Point is, they're the "it" clothing of the winter, presumably migrating from the ski shops to the department stores, and like many ski paraphernalia, quite expensive.
This has to be an advertiser's dream, at least for a few years, while the getting is still good. To have a desired commodity, and today's kids and adults clamoring for the expensive stuff to wear, and to be classy.
I admit I was tempted too, but really, two hundred dollars? I'll have my discount PGA tour jacket I bought on sale at the airport (really!) for thirty bucks, thank you. I know, why does the PGA need to make winter jackets, right? Winter? Golf? Do the two really go together? Still, they don't want something too cheap, right? After all, it's the frickin' P-G-A!. Tiger Woods! Vijay Singh! Ernie Els! Phil Mickelson! Did I say Tiger Woods?
So shell out those bucks, my friends, for what's the fashion today, because you know, in a few years from now, you'll shell out even more bucks for the new style, the one you have to keep up with. I know. You're savvier now, right? It's not just the name, right? Some superior technology, right?
Baby, it's cold outside.
Clothing is similar, though it seems to last a few years before it dies out. When I was growing up in the 80s, several brands stuck out. Nike shoes. Ocean Pacific shirts. Members Only jackets. Donnie Darko, one part odd SF and one part homage to the 80s, realized these trends though it was totally overshadowed by the main SF storyline.
Today, as wintry blasts have the country in a chill, jackets by The North Face have come out in droves. This is perhaps year three of their popularity. And it costs too. Prices seem to start at two hundred dollars and work their way up. I've been told they're nice and light (their website isn't that enlightening) and use some space age stuff (if we were doing that much in space, that is).
Point is, they're the "it" clothing of the winter, presumably migrating from the ski shops to the department stores, and like many ski paraphernalia, quite expensive.
This has to be an advertiser's dream, at least for a few years, while the getting is still good. To have a desired commodity, and today's kids and adults clamoring for the expensive stuff to wear, and to be classy.
I admit I was tempted too, but really, two hundred dollars? I'll have my discount PGA tour jacket I bought on sale at the airport (really!) for thirty bucks, thank you. I know, why does the PGA need to make winter jackets, right? Winter? Golf? Do the two really go together? Still, they don't want something too cheap, right? After all, it's the frickin' P-G-A!. Tiger Woods! Vijay Singh! Ernie Els! Phil Mickelson! Did I say Tiger Woods?
So shell out those bucks, my friends, for what's the fashion today, because you know, in a few years from now, you'll shell out even more bucks for the new style, the one you have to keep up with. I know. You're savvier now, right? It's not just the name, right? Some superior technology, right?
Baby, it's cold outside.
Center of Attention
John Amaechi, former NBA player, is about to have a book published where he discusses his sexual orientation. Were he straight, this might not merit much discussion. However, he's the first NBA player to come out as gay.
To date, no NBA, NFL, or MLB player has come out of the closet while they have been an active player. It's happened in individual sports, most notably tennis (interesting how you never hear of openly gay athletes), especially Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King, but to a lesser extent, Amelie Mauresmo and Gigi Fernandez. Notice that it's women's tennis. Despite the individual nature of tennis, there hasn't been any prominent out male professional player. The most well-known gay in men's tennis was Big Bill Tilden, and that was from an era gone by.
Even as society in general has become more tolerant of gays (although religious conservatives use it as a wedge issue to make conservatives come out to the polls and vote), athletes have generally been more conservative. Part of it is the rather intimate nature of team sports, where patting guys on the butt, and showering with other men hint at Roman-style hedonism and Greek-style amour.
Worse still, African American males probably suffer more from fear of homosexuality than whites, combining two attitudes that often seem at odds: the desire to be strong, and the fear of being weak. Thus, intimidation is used to hide insecurity.
As players go, John Amaechi is not only practically unknown, but also practically European. Although he lived in the US, he was raised in Britain as a youth, before moving, and has kept some British mannerisms, so anything approaching "gay" could be chalked up to being European, which many Americans are willing to admit are practically gay anyway (metrosexual being the closest equivalent).
Amaechi hardly fits the atheletic stereotype, preferring tea, museums, poetry, and a touch of classical music.
His story always raises the question: who will be the first athlete to come out gay in one of the major American sports? The media would love it to be a big time name, like Derek Jeter in baseball, or Tim Duncan in basketball, or Peyton Manning in football. The likelihood is that it's going to be someone like Amaechi, if for no other reason, than stats show that maybe 1-5% of the population would consider themselves gay (and perhaps another 5% is receptive to the idea were less stigma associated with it). The odds seem against a top athlete being gay (though one could argue that without the distractions of a relationship, one could concentrate on sports).
I can only think of a few top athletes that are gay. Greg Louganis is perhaps the most prominent, as he was the best diver in the world at one point. It's all the more amazing that he focused so well on diving given that he was involved in an abusive relationship. Martina, of course, was number 1 for a while. Mauresmo was also number 1 (but these days, any non-American player is hardly known in the US).
The last prominent announcement by a former athlete was Esera Tuaolo, and he had to go to some lengths to hide his sexuality, to the point he'd surround himself with women. It's not clear Amaechi did anything of the sort, and so it says something either about basketball or Amaechi or progress that Amaechi did not have to do what Tuaolo felt he had to to avoid questions.
What will be interesting is to hear how sports commentary deals with it. Either they will ignore it if they oppose the idea, or they will support Tuaolo. The folks who say they're uncomfortable and so forth are likely not to air their opinions.
It's ultimately surprising how attitudes, although evolving, still have not changed as fast as one would hope.
To date, no NBA, NFL, or MLB player has come out of the closet while they have been an active player. It's happened in individual sports, most notably tennis (interesting how you never hear of openly gay athletes), especially Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King, but to a lesser extent, Amelie Mauresmo and Gigi Fernandez. Notice that it's women's tennis. Despite the individual nature of tennis, there hasn't been any prominent out male professional player. The most well-known gay in men's tennis was Big Bill Tilden, and that was from an era gone by.
Even as society in general has become more tolerant of gays (although religious conservatives use it as a wedge issue to make conservatives come out to the polls and vote), athletes have generally been more conservative. Part of it is the rather intimate nature of team sports, where patting guys on the butt, and showering with other men hint at Roman-style hedonism and Greek-style amour.
Worse still, African American males probably suffer more from fear of homosexuality than whites, combining two attitudes that often seem at odds: the desire to be strong, and the fear of being weak. Thus, intimidation is used to hide insecurity.
As players go, John Amaechi is not only practically unknown, but also practically European. Although he lived in the US, he was raised in Britain as a youth, before moving, and has kept some British mannerisms, so anything approaching "gay" could be chalked up to being European, which many Americans are willing to admit are practically gay anyway (metrosexual being the closest equivalent).
Amaechi hardly fits the atheletic stereotype, preferring tea, museums, poetry, and a touch of classical music.
His story always raises the question: who will be the first athlete to come out gay in one of the major American sports? The media would love it to be a big time name, like Derek Jeter in baseball, or Tim Duncan in basketball, or Peyton Manning in football. The likelihood is that it's going to be someone like Amaechi, if for no other reason, than stats show that maybe 1-5% of the population would consider themselves gay (and perhaps another 5% is receptive to the idea were less stigma associated with it). The odds seem against a top athlete being gay (though one could argue that without the distractions of a relationship, one could concentrate on sports).
I can only think of a few top athletes that are gay. Greg Louganis is perhaps the most prominent, as he was the best diver in the world at one point. It's all the more amazing that he focused so well on diving given that he was involved in an abusive relationship. Martina, of course, was number 1 for a while. Mauresmo was also number 1 (but these days, any non-American player is hardly known in the US).
The last prominent announcement by a former athlete was Esera Tuaolo, and he had to go to some lengths to hide his sexuality, to the point he'd surround himself with women. It's not clear Amaechi did anything of the sort, and so it says something either about basketball or Amaechi or progress that Amaechi did not have to do what Tuaolo felt he had to to avoid questions.
What will be interesting is to hear how sports commentary deals with it. Either they will ignore it if they oppose the idea, or they will support Tuaolo. The folks who say they're uncomfortable and so forth are likely not to air their opinions.
It's ultimately surprising how attitudes, although evolving, still have not changed as fast as one would hope.
Flags of our Fathers
Clint Eastwood filmed two movies about Iwo Jima. The first was Flags of our Fathers, based on a book of the same title, chronicling the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. The second covers the same battle from the perspective of the Japanese.
Although there is a kind of symmetry between the two films, the structure and tone are quite different. Letters from Iwo Jima restricts most of the story to what happened leading up to the battle, flashing back to the past to show how people ended up on the island. Since most of the Japanese soldiers were killed or committed seppuku, there weren't as many follow ups.
I ended up seeing Letters first. I read reviews of the film which favored that film over Flags. Thus I went into Flags with lowered expectations. I wasn't expecting it to be all that good. Just as I was expecting Letters to be very good.
I've begun to realize that how much one enjoys a film is partly determined by how much one hopes the film will be good.
In many ways, Flags of our Fathers is not really Eastwood's Saving Private Ryan. While that told a presumably fictional tale within a way, Flags is based on a real event and has constraints on how the story is told.
Spielberg shows the war from the immediate perspective of the men, and indeed wonders what kind of men go to war, from the reluctant hero (Hanks) to those petrified during the heat of the action, to gung-ho (alas, an Asian sounding term) soldiers. He wants to show that there were times spent merely waiting, trying to capture the day to day interactions.
What SPR does not do is to tell you the war from the perspective of the military leaders, nor try to tell you what's happening in the US at the time. Spielberg's preference is to focus on the immediacy of the war and raise some philosophical issues about fighting and the people who fight.
Eastwood's film is, on the other hand, more political. The actors picked to play the roles seem more "authentic" looking, a bit like Mayberry brought to Iwo Jima. This is not the story of the day-to-day happenings of the war, but chooses to survey it from the way the public saw war heroes and how the government manipulates them to get what it needs (in this case, war bonds).
Technically, I found this to be a better film than Letters, though emotionally, Letters is the stronger picture. I recall, a few years ago, there was some criticism of JFK. Teens, it was claimed, who had only seen JFK might not realize that the film is fictionalized and doesn't accurately convey what most people believe, but gives rise to conspiracy theories. The point was that teens are likely to learn history from films, not books, such is the power of movies.
Yet, it's true. I did not have any particular desire to learn about Iwo Jima. My knowledge of the battle was rudimentary at best. There was the famous flag raising, and there was a bloody battle. That was as much as I knew about this battle.
I had no idea that one of the guys was a Native American. Indeed, the film focuses on the discrimination that Ira felt as people called him "Chief", refused to serve him. There is an iconic scene in the film where Ira, giving speeches around the country to Americans to raise war bonds, eventually speaks to an audience of American Indians. He talks about how proud he is to be part of a powerful people.
The screen then shows the audience. Every one of the Indian is dressed in a full Westernized suit. Then, it pans back to Ira, who is also in a suit.
Its impact is not nearly as powerful as I'm sure Eastwood was hoping. But think about what you're seeing. The Native Americans were, over many years, taken over by the West, and eventually co-opted into a society that didn't always give them their just due. Films about cowboys and Indians were popular, and the Indians were invariably the bad guys. Yet, here was a "hero", or at the very least, a volunteer in the military, who was willing to give his life to the white man. Eastwood must have thought this to be an odd irony, of a conquered people who went to serve the conquerors to defeat another enemy.
Unlike SPR, Flags is really about how the perception of war rarely matches reality, and that's an intriguing take. It's about creating imagery to sell to the public, to make war palatable. In many ways, it points out how naive the public was. These days, such propaganda would be much harder to sell. We're more likely to be sympathetic to victims of disaster. Witness the outpour of support for the tsunami victims in Southeast Asia, or the victims of Katrina. However, at this point, during an unpopular war (which has yet to draft anyone), there's no attempt to raise funds from the public, no push to consider it the patriotic duty of every American to reach in their pockets and contribute.
How's the acting? Not bad. The actors seem instructed to act in the style of films from the era even as the story is a modern one. Rene Gagnon is the guy who serves as kind of the lead of the three men who survived Iwo Jima and raised the flag. Jesse Bradford has him perpetually smirking throughout. One decision Eastwood made, which is particularly odd, but shows the need to focus on the three men, was to pretty much ignore Gagnon's wife, who pretty much appears to be a trophy wife. Indeed, many of the women in the film are left to rather thankless roles. (By the way, the real Gagnon was actually rather stunningly good looking, where the actor was good looking, but a bit dorky too).
More time is spent on Ira Hayes story, the Native American, since his story is the most compelling. The least time is spent on John "Doc" Bradley (even though it's his son that wrote the book which the movie is based) who serves as doctors. Indeed, as much time as you spend with these three characters, you only get a true sense of Ira. The remainder of the time is really spent on how they were made into reluctant heroes then trotted to the public.
Indeed, the opening scene, which makes you think that the men are heading into battle, ends up being a set piece in the middle of a football field, and the bombs in the air are actually fireworks. The immediate reaction is to think of it as a trick. We've been tricked into seeing this as a battle. And then to criticize Eastwood for doing that.
But really, Eastwood is rather clever, because that's exactly the point that's made. The fireworks, which we traditionally think of as celebrations, is really a stylized bomb. It is a creative play on how we perceive reality, made more palatable, more enjoyable, after being dressed up some. It's exactly the same situation for these soldiers deemed to be heroes. The impact, like that of Ira speaking to the Indians, ought to be immensely powerful, but people don't react to the power of irony as they do the power of heroism or loss. These are emotions that are one level deeper than people feel immediately.
Indeed, Eastwood criss-crosses time, going between the present, the time after the war, and the war itself, perhaps as skillfully as he's ever done, and yet, it's not a film about heroism or the attempt to be heroic, and so it resonates less than Spielberg, who realizes emotionally, there's more impact in people questioning why they are at war, and what it means to give one's life, than to talk about how meaningless some of the actions were, and how many horrors were hidden and sanitized (much like the fireworks sanitize battles) to present to a public who wasn't ready to know what this violence was truly like.
Letters, on the other hand, focuses on the individuals, and their history. Its story is purer, and simpler. The Japanese believe more keenly in their honor, even if not everyone buys into it. There isn't the same kind of cynical attitude of the Japanese government, and so we're more immediately drawn into the day to day action. So, this becomes, I'd say, Eastwood's complement to SPR, even as Spielberg could never make a film from, say, the German perspective. (Indeed, although Amon Goeth is a memorable baddie, the other Nazis are made out to be cartoonish).
The closest Spielberg has come to making a film that is critical of Jews (or Israelis in particular) is Munich (haven't seen it though), which tells the story of how Israel sought to get revenge on those who killed the Israeli athletes in Munich, and how, over time, it meant less that the "right" people were being killed, than someone was being killed who could serve that role.
I think, in hindsight, people will see Flags as a very technically proficient film and Letters the better film. Both have its flaws, especially, prodigious underlining of obvious points (e.g., in Flags, how the heroes weren't really heroes but did it for their buddies. This line is said out loud, but the film doesn't have the time to really develop friendships in a way where it would be shown to us. In Letters, there's the general feeling of how Japanese are people too, how some of them really did like the US (note: there's no equivalent of Americans liking Japanese culture), even though, practically speaking, hardly anyone should have known. In particular, the scene with the Oklahoma soldier who's captured and talks to the Japanese Olympian.)
So why did I enjoy Flags better? I have to admit it's partly because I didn't think I would like it. I learned something about the war. I liked how Eastwood works all the various timelines together. Yet, in hindsight, I have to say, even though I was not as enamored with Letters, the characterization was far stronger in that film. You never got a sense if the three guys even liked each other, and even if they didn't (after all, war throws you in), it makes for a less compelling film because of it.
So, two flawed, but compelling films.
Although there is a kind of symmetry between the two films, the structure and tone are quite different. Letters from Iwo Jima restricts most of the story to what happened leading up to the battle, flashing back to the past to show how people ended up on the island. Since most of the Japanese soldiers were killed or committed seppuku, there weren't as many follow ups.
I ended up seeing Letters first. I read reviews of the film which favored that film over Flags. Thus I went into Flags with lowered expectations. I wasn't expecting it to be all that good. Just as I was expecting Letters to be very good.
I've begun to realize that how much one enjoys a film is partly determined by how much one hopes the film will be good.
In many ways, Flags of our Fathers is not really Eastwood's Saving Private Ryan. While that told a presumably fictional tale within a way, Flags is based on a real event and has constraints on how the story is told.
Spielberg shows the war from the immediate perspective of the men, and indeed wonders what kind of men go to war, from the reluctant hero (Hanks) to those petrified during the heat of the action, to gung-ho (alas, an Asian sounding term) soldiers. He wants to show that there were times spent merely waiting, trying to capture the day to day interactions.
What SPR does not do is to tell you the war from the perspective of the military leaders, nor try to tell you what's happening in the US at the time. Spielberg's preference is to focus on the immediacy of the war and raise some philosophical issues about fighting and the people who fight.
Eastwood's film is, on the other hand, more political. The actors picked to play the roles seem more "authentic" looking, a bit like Mayberry brought to Iwo Jima. This is not the story of the day-to-day happenings of the war, but chooses to survey it from the way the public saw war heroes and how the government manipulates them to get what it needs (in this case, war bonds).
Technically, I found this to be a better film than Letters, though emotionally, Letters is the stronger picture. I recall, a few years ago, there was some criticism of JFK. Teens, it was claimed, who had only seen JFK might not realize that the film is fictionalized and doesn't accurately convey what most people believe, but gives rise to conspiracy theories. The point was that teens are likely to learn history from films, not books, such is the power of movies.
Yet, it's true. I did not have any particular desire to learn about Iwo Jima. My knowledge of the battle was rudimentary at best. There was the famous flag raising, and there was a bloody battle. That was as much as I knew about this battle.
I had no idea that one of the guys was a Native American. Indeed, the film focuses on the discrimination that Ira felt as people called him "Chief", refused to serve him. There is an iconic scene in the film where Ira, giving speeches around the country to Americans to raise war bonds, eventually speaks to an audience of American Indians. He talks about how proud he is to be part of a powerful people.
The screen then shows the audience. Every one of the Indian is dressed in a full Westernized suit. Then, it pans back to Ira, who is also in a suit.
Its impact is not nearly as powerful as I'm sure Eastwood was hoping. But think about what you're seeing. The Native Americans were, over many years, taken over by the West, and eventually co-opted into a society that didn't always give them their just due. Films about cowboys and Indians were popular, and the Indians were invariably the bad guys. Yet, here was a "hero", or at the very least, a volunteer in the military, who was willing to give his life to the white man. Eastwood must have thought this to be an odd irony, of a conquered people who went to serve the conquerors to defeat another enemy.
Unlike SPR, Flags is really about how the perception of war rarely matches reality, and that's an intriguing take. It's about creating imagery to sell to the public, to make war palatable. In many ways, it points out how naive the public was. These days, such propaganda would be much harder to sell. We're more likely to be sympathetic to victims of disaster. Witness the outpour of support for the tsunami victims in Southeast Asia, or the victims of Katrina. However, at this point, during an unpopular war (which has yet to draft anyone), there's no attempt to raise funds from the public, no push to consider it the patriotic duty of every American to reach in their pockets and contribute.
How's the acting? Not bad. The actors seem instructed to act in the style of films from the era even as the story is a modern one. Rene Gagnon is the guy who serves as kind of the lead of the three men who survived Iwo Jima and raised the flag. Jesse Bradford has him perpetually smirking throughout. One decision Eastwood made, which is particularly odd, but shows the need to focus on the three men, was to pretty much ignore Gagnon's wife, who pretty much appears to be a trophy wife. Indeed, many of the women in the film are left to rather thankless roles. (By the way, the real Gagnon was actually rather stunningly good looking, where the actor was good looking, but a bit dorky too).
More time is spent on Ira Hayes story, the Native American, since his story is the most compelling. The least time is spent on John "Doc" Bradley (even though it's his son that wrote the book which the movie is based) who serves as doctors. Indeed, as much time as you spend with these three characters, you only get a true sense of Ira. The remainder of the time is really spent on how they were made into reluctant heroes then trotted to the public.
Indeed, the opening scene, which makes you think that the men are heading into battle, ends up being a set piece in the middle of a football field, and the bombs in the air are actually fireworks. The immediate reaction is to think of it as a trick. We've been tricked into seeing this as a battle. And then to criticize Eastwood for doing that.
But really, Eastwood is rather clever, because that's exactly the point that's made. The fireworks, which we traditionally think of as celebrations, is really a stylized bomb. It is a creative play on how we perceive reality, made more palatable, more enjoyable, after being dressed up some. It's exactly the same situation for these soldiers deemed to be heroes. The impact, like that of Ira speaking to the Indians, ought to be immensely powerful, but people don't react to the power of irony as they do the power of heroism or loss. These are emotions that are one level deeper than people feel immediately.
Indeed, Eastwood criss-crosses time, going between the present, the time after the war, and the war itself, perhaps as skillfully as he's ever done, and yet, it's not a film about heroism or the attempt to be heroic, and so it resonates less than Spielberg, who realizes emotionally, there's more impact in people questioning why they are at war, and what it means to give one's life, than to talk about how meaningless some of the actions were, and how many horrors were hidden and sanitized (much like the fireworks sanitize battles) to present to a public who wasn't ready to know what this violence was truly like.
Letters, on the other hand, focuses on the individuals, and their history. Its story is purer, and simpler. The Japanese believe more keenly in their honor, even if not everyone buys into it. There isn't the same kind of cynical attitude of the Japanese government, and so we're more immediately drawn into the day to day action. So, this becomes, I'd say, Eastwood's complement to SPR, even as Spielberg could never make a film from, say, the German perspective. (Indeed, although Amon Goeth is a memorable baddie, the other Nazis are made out to be cartoonish).
The closest Spielberg has come to making a film that is critical of Jews (or Israelis in particular) is Munich (haven't seen it though), which tells the story of how Israel sought to get revenge on those who killed the Israeli athletes in Munich, and how, over time, it meant less that the "right" people were being killed, than someone was being killed who could serve that role.
I think, in hindsight, people will see Flags as a very technically proficient film and Letters the better film. Both have its flaws, especially, prodigious underlining of obvious points (e.g., in Flags, how the heroes weren't really heroes but did it for their buddies. This line is said out loud, but the film doesn't have the time to really develop friendships in a way where it would be shown to us. In Letters, there's the general feeling of how Japanese are people too, how some of them really did like the US (note: there's no equivalent of Americans liking Japanese culture), even though, practically speaking, hardly anyone should have known. In particular, the scene with the Oklahoma soldier who's captured and talks to the Japanese Olympian.)
So why did I enjoy Flags better? I have to admit it's partly because I didn't think I would like it. I learned something about the war. I liked how Eastwood works all the various timelines together. Yet, in hindsight, I have to say, even though I was not as enamored with Letters, the characterization was far stronger in that film. You never got a sense if the three guys even liked each other, and even if they didn't (after all, war throws you in), it makes for a less compelling film because of it.
So, two flawed, but compelling films.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Moving
Hurry up. Come on now. Technology is marching forward, and if you're not moving forward with it, then you're falling behind, and if you're falling behind, you're becoming irrelevant. Pick up a book. Read about what's relevant now, and do it now, because it won't be relevant five minutes from now.
Five minutes from now, you'll need to figure what's new, read about it, understand it, digest it. But five minutes from now won't make sense, won't have context, if you don't know what's going on now. And if you learn X right now, then you're not learning Y right now, so you have to figure out whether to learn X now or learn Y, or learn both, but even if you learn both, you can't learn Z, and even if you could, there's A, there's B, there's C. How can you possibly ever keep up?
But if you don't at least try, you've given up. History recedes ever further back. The future comes ever close. We're on a treadmill that's just accelerated, and what was a walk, became a jog, and what was a jog, has become a sprint, and the sprint is just becoming a full mad dash to keep on or to be flung back.
Why are we living this way? Why does the rat race consume us? Technology has made us better racers, but hasn't taken us away, or has it? Has this rush made us do more, even as we don't do enough? Has it brought more meaning, more fun, more stress, or has it given us less?
Once upon a time, we didn't have cars, couldn't fly across the country, chose to live only miles from where we born, and our world was much smaller, and now, even if we choose not to move, the world comes to us, through the compute, though the Internet, though the millions and millions that have found a voice, a way to communicate, to put this pantheon of information and data all for us to see.
And now we must sift through it all, try to make sense of this new world, full of information, full of data, full of just plain old stuff. This is not your grandma's radio. It's not your dad's TV. It's the most participative form of technology we've ever assembled, and it makes us feel more inadequate, even as it gives us better tools, makes us feel we know more than our parents did, even as we know there's so much more.
Take a chance to breathe, to walk, to talk to people, real people, really in front of you, to stare, to sigh, to converse, to smell. Take the time to stare at the sky, the leaves, the trees, the grass, the lake. Let the icy air whip your face, causing an icy burn. Breathe out the humid air and see it chill. Then, rush on inside where the heat burns again, and wrap yourself up, done with reality for a little bit, and get hooked into the Internet, for no one can tell you what it is.
You must experience it yourself.
Five minutes from now, you'll need to figure what's new, read about it, understand it, digest it. But five minutes from now won't make sense, won't have context, if you don't know what's going on now. And if you learn X right now, then you're not learning Y right now, so you have to figure out whether to learn X now or learn Y, or learn both, but even if you learn both, you can't learn Z, and even if you could, there's A, there's B, there's C. How can you possibly ever keep up?
But if you don't at least try, you've given up. History recedes ever further back. The future comes ever close. We're on a treadmill that's just accelerated, and what was a walk, became a jog, and what was a jog, has become a sprint, and the sprint is just becoming a full mad dash to keep on or to be flung back.
Why are we living this way? Why does the rat race consume us? Technology has made us better racers, but hasn't taken us away, or has it? Has this rush made us do more, even as we don't do enough? Has it brought more meaning, more fun, more stress, or has it given us less?
Once upon a time, we didn't have cars, couldn't fly across the country, chose to live only miles from where we born, and our world was much smaller, and now, even if we choose not to move, the world comes to us, through the compute, though the Internet, though the millions and millions that have found a voice, a way to communicate, to put this pantheon of information and data all for us to see.
And now we must sift through it all, try to make sense of this new world, full of information, full of data, full of just plain old stuff. This is not your grandma's radio. It's not your dad's TV. It's the most participative form of technology we've ever assembled, and it makes us feel more inadequate, even as it gives us better tools, makes us feel we know more than our parents did, even as we know there's so much more.
Take a chance to breathe, to walk, to talk to people, real people, really in front of you, to stare, to sigh, to converse, to smell. Take the time to stare at the sky, the leaves, the trees, the grass, the lake. Let the icy air whip your face, causing an icy burn. Breathe out the humid air and see it chill. Then, rush on inside where the heat burns again, and wrap yourself up, done with reality for a little bit, and get hooked into the Internet, for no one can tell you what it is.
You must experience it yourself.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Labor of Love
I was at IKEA yesterday, getting their cheap breakfast. 99 cents for eggs, bacon, and potatoes. 99 cents more for a cinnamon bun. 99 cents more for essentially crepes. Coffee free with the meal if you go early enough.
And the coffee. Well, it had run out, and there was someone to refill it. There was a container underneath with coffee filters with coffee grounds already pre-measured. All the person had to do was put it in the container, press the button, and more coffee would be made.
Except.
Except the container had a label "Decaff", or something like it. This made me think it contained decaffeinated coffee. Which would be fine were he refilling the decaf coffee. But he was not. He was filling the regular coffee.
Now assuming I simply didn't misread what was happening, I had to ask why. One possibility was that he didn't drink coffee. Moreover, despite not drinking coffee, he also didn't particularly know the difference between decaf and regular. Coffee's coffee, right? Just stick it in, and turn it on.
To be fair, this would be a colossal error, one borne of knowing very little about the products you serve. I recall, for example, asking for something at a place called Atlanta Bread Company, and the person had no idea what I was talking about when I wanted some kind of muffin or somesuch.
Many such places hire people who've never eaten or drank the product. They know very little of what they are serving. Others are much better. For example, I'm sure Starbucks employees are trained to know the various kinds of coffees. Sure, they're not going to be as expert as someone who's a professional coffee taster, but I suppose it happens.
The issue is expense. If you want to get someone cheap, you're probably also going to get someone whose knowledge is barely enough to do what's needed. This could be basic cleaning or serving. To get more than that, you'd need to find people who know more, and that probably costs you some money.
But I wonder if this is common or not. You think you're getting X, but not really. I know, when I used to get food at drive-throughs, that I would get the wrong order as often as 1 out of every 4 times. You would think keeping track of orders would be easy, but the umpteenth time a customer goes by, and you can't remember which order went with whom.
I recall this horrendous drive-through at McDonald's where the window was on the passenger side. I kid you not. You had to reach across the seat to get the meal. And, then, often you'd be in line, and they wouldn't have even started getting the order until you reached the window. So what was the point of being in a drive-through if you haven't fetched the food to make it orderly?
We have exams that test proficiency of math, science, literature, but it would be interesting to have a three hour test to see the proficiency of people doing their duties at a fast food restaurant. Perhaps that should be required before hiring, I don't know.
What I do know is that if you love what you're doing (or at least, care about what you're doing), you're far more likely to get it done correctly.
And the coffee. Well, it had run out, and there was someone to refill it. There was a container underneath with coffee filters with coffee grounds already pre-measured. All the person had to do was put it in the container, press the button, and more coffee would be made.
Except.
Except the container had a label "Decaff", or something like it. This made me think it contained decaffeinated coffee. Which would be fine were he refilling the decaf coffee. But he was not. He was filling the regular coffee.
Now assuming I simply didn't misread what was happening, I had to ask why. One possibility was that he didn't drink coffee. Moreover, despite not drinking coffee, he also didn't particularly know the difference between decaf and regular. Coffee's coffee, right? Just stick it in, and turn it on.
To be fair, this would be a colossal error, one borne of knowing very little about the products you serve. I recall, for example, asking for something at a place called Atlanta Bread Company, and the person had no idea what I was talking about when I wanted some kind of muffin or somesuch.
Many such places hire people who've never eaten or drank the product. They know very little of what they are serving. Others are much better. For example, I'm sure Starbucks employees are trained to know the various kinds of coffees. Sure, they're not going to be as expert as someone who's a professional coffee taster, but I suppose it happens.
The issue is expense. If you want to get someone cheap, you're probably also going to get someone whose knowledge is barely enough to do what's needed. This could be basic cleaning or serving. To get more than that, you'd need to find people who know more, and that probably costs you some money.
But I wonder if this is common or not. You think you're getting X, but not really. I know, when I used to get food at drive-throughs, that I would get the wrong order as often as 1 out of every 4 times. You would think keeping track of orders would be easy, but the umpteenth time a customer goes by, and you can't remember which order went with whom.
I recall this horrendous drive-through at McDonald's where the window was on the passenger side. I kid you not. You had to reach across the seat to get the meal. And, then, often you'd be in line, and they wouldn't have even started getting the order until you reached the window. So what was the point of being in a drive-through if you haven't fetched the food to make it orderly?
We have exams that test proficiency of math, science, literature, but it would be interesting to have a three hour test to see the proficiency of people doing their duties at a fast food restaurant. Perhaps that should be required before hiring, I don't know.
What I do know is that if you love what you're doing (or at least, care about what you're doing), you're far more likely to get it done correctly.
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