Things That May Have Led To Castro’s Retirement
Declining Health
Years of Antipathy Between His Country And The World’s Foremost Power
Prostate Size of Guantanamo
Boredom
Addiction to American Idol
*Excuse the tardiness/scarcity of content this week. Been working late every night trying to get ready for Las Vegas this weekend, for the bachelor party of a Mr. Steve Moore. Blog returns Tuesday, my babies*
SportsCenter has based its legacy on a booming passion for sports. Here, we see it unchecked: Courtesy of Mr. Chris Berman.
When Katherine Heigl approached the podium to present an award during last night’s Academy Awards, her eyes inflated. I’m really nervous — I’m not good at this stuff, she admitted (or something very nearly like that). She then proceeded to stare at the teleprompter, muttering out words in a thin staccato, looking like somebody who was explaining to a teacher why she forgot her homework.
Now, speaking to an audience of a few thousand members of the of American royalty — not to mention an international viewership that Regis Philbin estimated probably a little generously at a billion people — provides legitimate cause for one’s voice to quiver and one’s resolve to wilt. Heigl is damn talented, too. But when she was up there, all that training seemed to slip away. She didn’t crumble, but you could sense the moment was glass.
So, the question is, if you were on stage at the Oscars, who would you focus on in the audience, and why? Also, if you had the ability to put anybody (or anything) in the audience for you to stare at while speaking, who/what would it be?
It’s snowing lumps today in New York, which is incredible, because to date, we’ve been almost entirely bypassed by the whiter side of precipitation. Now, my question for you dreamers, is if you could make one thing snow from the sky (frogs, toasters…snowflakes), what would it be?
At around 10:30 last night, we sat, watching flickering pixels on the television tell us that the lunar eclipse was still in sight. That we could catch it ‘at its peak’ if we went outside and stared hard enough through the film of clouds pouring over the lower part of Manhattan. The anchors told us that the next time we’ll get the chance to see an event of this astrological magnitude will be 2010.
The two-person consensus response: ‘well, if it’s gonna happen again in 2010…’
Interest in eclipses, especially lunar ones, appear to be fueled by dueling engines: first, a holdover from less scientific, more mystical and occult times; second, kindergarten.
The first solar eclipse ever recorded occured around 2134 BC (by some estimate), observed by the dynastic Chinese. Shu Ching records that ‘the sun and moon did not meet harmoniously,’ reflecting a certainty in a higher order — an intelligent and beautiful dance that could only mean for anomalies to signify disaster. This web site claims that common belief among the Chinese held that a solar eclipse was due to a giant, invisible dragon eating the sun. Ritual dictated that drums and trumpets be played to frighten away the dragon and restore sunlight. I’m inclined to believe that because it sounds awesome.
Later civilizations held eclipses with comparable wonder. The Greeks saw it — not so shockingly — as the astrological handiwork of Zeus. They were being punished for something, and much as a child has his favorite toy confiscated during time-out, the Greeks had the sun removed. Scary stuff.
Such was the terrible wonder at eclipses that two warring parties, the Lydians and the Medes, saw a solar eclipse on May 28 of 585 BC and ceased fighting because of it, an event corroborated by a number of sources, going back to Herotodus, regarded as one of the world’s first historians. Herotodus wrote that “day was all of a sudden changed into night. This event had been foretold by Thales, the Milesian, who forewarned the Ionians of it….. The Medes and Lydians, when they observed the change, ceased fighting, and were alike anxious to have terms of peace agreed on.”
The Bible uses its customary elevated language to describe the event. Amos 8:9, claims that `…on that day,’ says the Lord God, `I will make the Sun go down at noon, and darken the Earth in broad daylight’.” When it happened in Assyria, it was, as you can imagine, a pretty big deal.
Science, it seems, has only done so much to distill out the magic in an eclipse. Our ability to predict them, to the minute, has undermined the God-Did-This-Because-You-Were-Assholes theory. There appears to be nothing spontaneous about these things, working as they are in predictable harmony like magnets. The anomalies are as normal as the normalities.
But still, we can’t discount the power of young wonder in the immensely rare. Here’s where ‘kindergarten’ comes in. I remember, the day after we picked dandelions to make dandelion art, a few weeks into spring in kindergarten, an eclipse happened. To us, it was as if the world were supposed to come to an end — it just didn’t. And our teachers were somehow responsible. Somehow, our teachers were able to predict when THE SUN WOULD GO AWAY. That feeling still stays with me today, and although I have a bit more skepticism (yet no less respect) for the powers of those employed in education, that wonder still tugs.
So much of our lives derive from first experiences. The first glance at the biggest, brightest baseball diamond you’ve ever seen. The first kiss. The first time you read that book, be it by Salinger or Tolstoy, Fitzgerald or Seuss. The first time you saw that movie or heard that band. Hell, the first burrito. These things all dictate, to a certain extent, the trajectories of our lives. If only for their rareness in a sea of imitators, they stand out.
And I’m convinced, absolutely sure, that inside of us, we refuse to let that wonder wander off. Whether it’s remembering how those chords fired into our minds and stayed there forever or remembering, looking up at the sky as a shadow passed over something that we thought was as constant and unchanging as your birthday, we don’t want to let it go.
So, even if this is an ad for the beer that tastes most like shame, Carlsberg, it’s a pretty cool ad.
Courtesy of Mr. Quinn Duffy.
Consumer Goods Based on Celebrities or the Otherwise Famous, In Descending Order of Popularity
Miley’s Sirens
Paul GoKartneys
Tom’s French Bradys
Donald’s Caribbean Rumsfeld
Tyra’s Investment Banks
Britney’s Spears & Brooke’s Shields (The battle pack!)
Randy’s Moss & Amanda’s Peat (For aggressive lawners)
Tom’s Cruises
Katie’s Homes
Anne’s Franks
Michael Rappaport’s Disposable Dog Enemas
The New York Post reported today that Roger Clemens’ lawyers are looking to procure a presidential pardon from Clemens’ buddy George W. Now, given that bringing this case before Congress has appeared to be a general destruction of time and resources, would it be a good thing if Bush intervened?
Yesterday, I had this portable Burger King concoction called ‘potato snacks.’ They were flavored like ketchup and french fries, and tasted like chinese won-ton noodles covered in ketchup crystals.
What, exactly, would be the finest food or food/drink combination to press into potato snacks?
Of the two sport-related investigations currently consuming chunks of Congress — the Clemens steroid scandal and the Belichick Spygate charade — neither one appears at first to have any real bearing on day-to-day American life. Athletes, many seem to argue, exist in a different sphere; sports, their own world. Entertainment should not come before Congress. These investigations, many say, are giant wastes of time and money.
But here, I have a few issues.
First, Sport has assumed a spot at or near the top flight of American business. According to the Sports Business Journal, the sports business industry’s size was estimated at $213 billion in 2007 — more than twice the size of the automobile industry and seven times the size of the film industry. At such a level, it becomes in the American legislature’s best interests to keep a close eye on and, if need be, intervene.
I’ve argued before that steroids signified athletes. But in this case, truth is at stake. Congress isn’t after Clemens because he took steroids (if he did). Congressmen are after him to ensure he’s telling the truth about it, to hold the business accountable. Clemens is one of the more recognizable figures in baseball, akin to higher-level management. Thus, this isn’t as much of a witch hunt as it is your average business case, along the same lines as simple embezzlement or fraud.
We shouldn’t let our businesses get away with lying to their stockholders. Sarbannes-Oxley is making sure that we don’t, reducing the chance for another Enron/Worldcom event. Perhaps we should expect the same accountability from our athletes, the ones whose salaries we pay through ticket sales and $11 beers.
That same argument holds for Arlen Specter’s examination into the Patriots’ Spygate. Although I feel like this is a matter that could have ended with Roger Goodell’s $500,000 fine and removal of two Pats draft picks, Specter’s intervention sends a good, we-won’t-tolerate-this-stuff signal.
In my high school, kids used to get in fights because they would get punished by the school and only by the school. This sent the message that if they were on school grounds, the school and its penalties — suspension being pretty much the maximum punishment — had the only jurisdiction. Thus, fights used to happen all the time (which was sweet), because there was never the sense that a higher governing body was watching over. My senior year, though, the school decided to turn fights over the police. Assault and battery charges followed scuffles, same way as they would have had they happened in public. Fights went away almost immediately.
Sports, for all of their simulated reality and hyperbolic metaphor, now signify a significant fraction of the American economy. And without the right policing, things could get ugly.
That said, are these issues that should involve Congress? Or can we expect the business, the individual teams or leagues, to police themselves?
New York Times Top-10 E-Mailed Distillation of a city’s pulse: Events
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