5.31.2001

Two expressions my grandfather apparently used:

- To describe New England weather: "Ten months of winter, two months of mighty poor sledding."
- When he was served left-overs for dinner: "Ahh, old friend!"
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5.30.2001

I played with Legos a lot when I was growing up. I didn't do it to the exclusion of playing baseball or watching TV or the other things kids do, but I played with Legos a lot.

At some point early on in my childhood development, I swore an allegiance to Legos. I picked up a lone Lego*, stared into its plastic Lego-stamped eyes and said, "Lego, I will not forsake you for another. I will not dally with other building blocks. I will forever ignore the GI Joe action figures in the local Zayres. Playmobil? Never heard of it."

But now, dear, sweet Legos, I have a confession to make: I was in the Concord Toy Shop killing some time yesterday and, after looking at the Playmobil display, I thought: "Playmobil stuff is really cool."

Someday, Legos, I hope you can forgive me.

____________________________
*I'm having some issues with the Lego/Legos singular/plural thing. Is "Legos" plural? Can I say "Lego" to describe one piece?
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5.29.2001

All of this Kaycee Nicole stuff has reminded me of the excellent Baffler pieces by Paul Maliszewski. Read them if you haven't already; they are very good.
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5.28.2001

I've seen this Gatorade commercial on television a couple of times. It's narrated by Michael Jordan and has a montage of images of athletes and kids playing sports. Here's the text:

It's not where you come from,
It's where you're going.

It's not what you drive,
It's what drives you.

It's not what's on you,
It's what's in you.

Gatorade. Is it in you?

Every time I see this commercial (and I've seen it maybe five times -- it's on a lot during sporting events), I have the same thought. The commercial is rolling happily along through its world of make-everything-right-through-kicking-a-soccer-ball until I get to the "it's not what's on you" line. Michael Jordan says "it's not what's on you" and, at the same time, there's the image of the guy on the right and I become convinced, every single time, that the next line is going to be: "It's what you're on." You know, the guy does look like he's taking steroids. Gatorade: It's what you're on!
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5.25.2001

Andy Richter is my favorite television (or ex-television) personality. He's just very funny.

From an NBC chat (5/23/2000):

Question: What was your most frightening moment on "Late Night?"

Andy Richter: It would have to be during an animal segment because Conan is terrible with animals. He thinks they are toys or something. He taunts cobras and teases lions and someday he is going to lose an eye or get bitten or something. When you see me backing away during those segments, it's not an act. I really am horrified and cringing.

A Feed article about Richter from right before he left Late Night:

Until Richter came along, the joke was that moving from a talk-show sidekick to the Publishers Clearing House spokesperson counted as a promotion. It was, to say the least, not one of network television's more illustrious perches: McMahon's you-are-correct-sir pandering slid effortlessly into Paul Shaffer's cloying meta-showbiz act, which probably would have slid into Branford Marsalis's act if you could remember what the act was. (All of which coalesced in Hank "Hey Now" Kingsley's needy, airhead role on Larry Sanders.) You could fairly say that Richter wrestled with the demons of McMahon's precedent for his duration on Late Night, and that wrestling generated some of the darkest and best material on the show. In one segment from the mid-nineties, Richter goes to the MTV Music Video Awards with a reel of hideously remixed music videos featuring him lip-synching to the hits of the day. Richter shows his "reinterpretations" to a motley assortment of celebs, asking for advice about breaking into the music business. Halfway through the segment, B-52s frontman Fred Schneider listens to Richter's story, and then consoles him, "The talk-show business isn't treating you so well." Richter just nods his head glumly.

And from a 1994 interview:

Interviewer: Who is your favorite comedian right now?

Richter: Standupwise, it's slightly foreign to me. It's like Communism, a great idea in its conept, but in its function, it's kinda gross, you know? Actingwise, Chris Elliott. Working with him was kind of like working with DeNiro, in a way. He's deliciously mean. Pee-Wee Herman is astoundingly funny. I like the "Kids in the Hall" a lot. I met Dave Foley and Scott Thompson and I love them both. Probably because they're on Canadian TV, they're more risque and dangerous.

Seinfeld doesn't really grab me. Observational humour is turning into the most dead of wit forces. "The Simpsons" is the only fucking TV show where I suspend my disbelief and actually think of the characters as real, have concern for them and think they actually exist somewhere. But the serendipitous ending is getting a litle tired, and the "spot the reference" thing is wearing out too. "Animaniacs" is a pretty cool and crazy show. I watched the "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" and that fuckin' show is so corny and so dumb. I watch it with the same kind of puzzled expression I watch "Martin" with, like, "Where is this coming from?"

OK. We're done. I like Andy Richter.
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5.24.2001

Today I am as a self-help infomercial. I desire to make myself better, richer, stronger, faster, more attractive and fun. I will settle, however, for a free soda from a vending machine. Anyone?
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5.22.2001

When I was in New York last weekend, I stayed one night at a friend's house while he stayed with his girlfriend a couple of blocks away. I woke up, took a shower, got dressed and started to thumb through a Charles Simic poetry book he had lying around. I re-found this pretty famous Simic poem and liked especially that it felt right for the moment I read it:

Poem, by Charles Simic

Every morning I forget how it is.
I watch the smoke mount
In great strides above the city.
I belong to no one.

Then, I remember my shoes,
How I have to put them on,
How bending over to tie them
I will look into the earth.

It's everyday coincidences like this that energize me. I've always thought that serendipity was too over-blown a concept, a word: too much of an attempt to make the ordinary sound extraordinary. I'll stick with coincidence and say, if prompted, "Yeah, it was a little odd but nice, you know?"

Charles Simic on writing poetry:

When you start putting words on the page, an associative process takes over. And, all of sudden, there are surprises. All of a sud-den, you say to yourself "My God, how did this come into your head? Why is this on the page?" I'm delighted when this happens. And I do not resist it; I just simply go where it takes me. Let me give you an example. I have a poem I've been working on today. The speaker of the poem takes a walk after midnight in lower Manhattan. Dark streets, almost a desire to experience danger, the fear of the dark. He walks these deserted blocks in lower Manhattan on a cool winter night. When I started the poem, I had certain ideas of what he would find along the way. I saw him coming down Broadway to go to Canal Street. But, as I work on the poem, totally surprising turns take place. I mean, his walk takes surprising turns. Surprising sights pop into my mind. Then words on the page make love; they are attracted to one another. Also, my handwriting is so bad that some-times I misread my own writing and I think "Oh it's this," and then I say "No it's not," and something else comes to my mind. And the poem gets more interesting as a result. This is how these things happen. It's the sheer adventure of seeing where it's going to take you, of what will happen.

And, from another interview: "Language constantly fails me. That's why I continue writing. I'm completely convinced that language cannot convey adequately the deepest of our experiences, but that's no reason one shouldn't keep trying."
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5.20.2001

The Acela is pretty slick. They announced when we reached the top speed of 150 miles per hour. I think they were lying, though. It didn't feel like 150 MPH. Apparently, I'm not a very precise spedometer.

New York was great. I had a couple of really good meals. I went to see *gasp* The Mummy Returns at a midnight showing in Brooklyn Heights. The movie was, you know, bad, but it was a notable experience in that there were two six year-olds sitting behind me. Six year-olds at a midnight show. Imagine, if you will, now an extended rant on this as a sure sign of the decay of our civilization.

I went to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, Brooklyn Museum and the Guggenheim for the new Gehry exhibit. Someone once told me that most of Gehry's buildings couldn't be built before computer modelling was available to architects, the structural engineering is just way too complicated. That sounds right.
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5.18.2001

I'm going to New York City this weekend on the train. I'm going to take the super-fast Acela, about which I'm very excited. I'm exhausted after a really long week of work, so I'm going to probably sleep the whole way down. I packed last night at two in the morning and forgot to bring a book (not that it makes much difference as I'm going to sleep the whole way down anyway).

I don't like to be bored, though, so I just went out and bought a book. I bought Roger Angell's new book A Pitcher's Story: Innings with David Cone (I touched on the book a little below).

I got back from the bookstore and there was an Amazon box waiting for me by the door. You can probably see where this is going. Sometime during my hazy, sleep-deprived Monday, I'd ordered a copy of Roger Angell's new book A Pitcher's Story: Innings with David Cone. Do I remember doing this now? No. Do I feel stupid about it? Yes. Without further ado,

Introducing the First (and, knock on wood, the Last) Stupidity-/Amnesia-Driven Book Giveaway:

Would you like a copy of Roger Angell's new book A Pitcher's Story: Innings with David Cone? If so, send me an e-mail with your address and it's yours. First come, first served.

UPDATE: The lucky (erm?) winner of the F(a,kow,tL)S-/A-DBG is Jason L. Gohlke, proprietor of Gohlkus Maximus. Congratulations!
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5.17.2001

MeFi-O. It's like Bloggo, only more confusing.
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Roger Angell on David Cone from the August 21 & 28, 2000 New Yorker (the following has probably snuck into Angell's new book on Cone in some form or another):

Cone's early difficulties [during the 2000 season] appeared to elate some of my friends who are not baseball fans. They found it almost funny that a famous athlete with such a long record of success couldn't win anything or defend himself better. "It's all over with him, isn't it?" they said cheerfully. "He's old. He looks terrible out there." He was no longer beyond them, and they seemed relieved and released by this change. More recently, though, these same unfans have oddly changed their tone. While David's sufferings have continued, they have begun to notice the man out there, rather than the sports celebrity. "I can hardly bear to watch anymore," a television producer said the other day. "The guy is killing me."

I understand the feeling, and, after another bad stretch, in late June and July, when David surrendered nine home runs in sixteen innings, I found myself running his games together in my mind, blurring their pain, even while he himself continued to see them separately and to look for gleams of hope in a little run of outs here, or a tough batter there, put away on a splitter in a perilous situation.

"This long, hard dry spell is beating me down," he confessed to me once. "I've been overcreative at times. I experiment too much and lose my way--too much young Tom Edison. Or else I get caught up in trying to throw the perfect pitch, which is an invitation to long innings and a whole lot of people on base."

Cone pitches today for the Red Sox in his first start of the year. Roger Angell on writing about baseball:

"And I am a baseball writer now. I really have learned a lot about the game after all this time. I don't know everything. But I know a few things. I know what to look for. It's a great game for writers because it's just the right pace. You can watch the game and keep score and look around and take notes. Now and then you even have time to have an idea, which in many sports you don't have room for.

"The stuff about the connection between baseball and American life, the 'Field of Dreams' thing, gives me a pain. I hated that movie. It's mostly fake. You look back into the meaning of old-time baseball, and really in the early days it was full of roughnecks and drunks. They beat up the umpires and played near saloons. In 'Fields of Dreams' there's a line at the end that says the game of baseball was good when America was good, and they're talking about the time of the biggest race riots in the country and Prohibition. What is that? That dreaminess, I really hated that."

I've been reading Angell's The Summer Game for a while now. It's remarkable to me because it's mostly just a book about baseball. Angell notices (better than any other sports writer) how small changes can have small conseqences. He doesn't map out a new universe, but he does describe perfectly a part of a universe which you thought you knew already.
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5.15.2001

I think that it is, on occasion, important to clear the air. To let people know what you really think. I'm going to try to do that here. The following, good people, is what I believe:

- Our future is tied to that of our children
- For these children to truly lead us, education is very important
- Self-confidence and pride are also important; children must be shown their inner beauty
- We can only truly be reminded of the joy in our own lives through the laughter of children
- Children need role models
- I decided long ago never to walk in anyone's shadow
- If I fail, if I succeed, at least I live as I believe
- No matter what they take from me, they can't take away my dignity

(Here's the point where I break into song. What are you, made of stone?)
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OK, this is pretty much the strangest thing I've ever seen. Is it for real? (Hint: No.)
..:.:10:54 PM:.:..

Things that have recently been made clear to me (at the expense of my ego):

- The first name of the former president of the Phillipines is Joseph, not Erik.
- Philippines is spelled with two "p"s and one "l". (Thanks Lia.)
- Manhattan Beach is not in New York.
- Some alarm clocks, including my own, know the difference between AM and PM.
- I, apparently, do not know the difference between AM and PM.
- Mother's Day is a popular night to go out to eat. Reservations are a good idea.
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5.11.2001

Did you know that Super Dave Osbourne is Albert Brooks' brother? No. Me neither.

(from Playboy interview with Albert Brooks. Link stolen from metascene.)
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5.10.2001

We are not ever to speak of the statistics exam. Agreed?
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5.9.2001

My sister is proctoring an exam for a Statistics graduate level exam this afternoon. She is responsible for assigning a number to each student and then writing that number on their tests. This way, when the professor grades the exams, he won't know whose exam is which. No bias, etc. Then my sister will be given the tests back and match the grade with the student.

I'm going to swing by my sister's apartment on my way home from work and pick up a copy of the test. The test will be numbered like all the rest and will be graded by the professor.

I have bet my sister that I, knowing nothing about statistics whatsoever, can do passably well on the exam. I will spend all night tonight learning statistics.

I do not have enough going on in my life.
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5.8.2001

Check this out. Due to the double-magic of slo-mo instant replay and my TiVo, I recorded Rob Blake of the Colorado Avalanche taking a slap-shot (left to right, top to bottom):





Can you imagine being the goaltender when that thing is fired. Look at how much his stick bends. Have you ever tried to bend a hockey stick? It's hard.





Yikes! If I were the goalie, I'd be in the second row ordering a hot dog.
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5.7.2001

I'm now officially sick of the word "schadenfreude." I'm hoping the economy will perk up just so I don't have to hear that word again. (Of course, maybe people will then use it to describe their glee at the downfall of everyone who is now getting rich shorting Amazon and Intel. Those bastards, I hope they go down.)
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5.6.2001

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5.5.2001

Is it just me or does a lot of life come down to the desire to have other people see something in you that you don't see in yourself?
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5.4.2001

Eudora 5.0 tells you your e-mailing statistics: number of e-mails sent and received -- daily, weekly, monthly.

My average daily # of sent e-mails: 32 (including Saturday and Sunday when I send no e-mail from work)
My Friday average # of sent e-mails: 6

Who says we don't have a four-day work week?
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I've admitted this to several people privately, but I feel like I should come clean publicly:

When I first saw the preview for Blow, I thought Paul Reubens was Edward Norton.

There, I've said it. (Update: Wow, am I ever feeble. I was thinking that "There, I've said it," sounded familiar. Apparently, my mind is not enough developed for original thought.)

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5.3.2001

Why I don't ever want to be a fact-checker, first in a series:

This week's New Yorker has a piece in the Talk of the Town section about how the upcoming writer's strike is affecting the Hollywood/LA restaurant business. In a move to cut costs, International Creative Management (ICM) froze the expense accounts of its agents -- no more free lunches for clients. Here's the part that makes me want not ever to be a fact-checker:

At ICM, some say that even the in-house refreshments have been scaled back. "They've switched the Evian to Crystal Geyser," one agent complained. (An ICM spokesman denied that the water policy had changed.)

Me: Hello, I'm a fact-checker with the New Yorker, I just want to cofirm a couple of details for an upcoming story.
ICM spokesman: Sure, go ahead.
Me: There's a report that ICM has switched from Evian to Crystal Geyser. Can you confirm this?
ICM spokesman: No, that's not right. Who told you that?
Me: It's the New Yorker's policy not to divulge sources. [mutters under breath] I'll never talk, copper, see?
ICM spokesman: What was that? It sounded like you mumbled something. Is there anything else?
Me: Oh, nothing, sorry. Umm, you're not hiring are you? [dial tone] Hello, hello.
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5.2.2001

Box Score Line of the Week:

This week's award...goes to Anaheim reliever Mike Holtz for his perplexing line April 29 against Toronto when the Angels brought the lefty in to face left-handed hitting catcher Darrin Fletcher. The Blue Jays countered by pinch-hitting right-handed hitting rookie Luis Lopez. Rather than face the lefty-righty matchup, the Angels had Holtz walk Lopez intentionally to get to Jeff Frye and brought in Shigetoshi Hasegawa to relieve Holtz. Because pitches in an intentional walk are not counted in official pitch totals, Holtz wound up with this perplexing line:

0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 0 K, zero pitches.

Lopez, by the way, was making his big-league debut. He is the first major leaguer to be intentionally walked in his debut since 1989. "It's kind of embarrassing when they walk a guy making his first major league at-bat to get to me," Frye told reporters.

Ha.
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5.1.2001

My new absolute favorite album is Tom Russell's new CD, Borderland. It's great. Funny and witty and moving. Did I mention funny? It's a great album.

My favorite song on the album now is "Touch of Evil" (these things change, so it may not be my favorite song for long. I find that there's usually a song I really, really like the first couple of times I listen to an album, but after a couple of more listens I get sick of it. That's happened enough with me that it's probably not just a coincidence. Know what I'm talking about? No. OK.) "Touch of Evil" is both a love song and a song about the movie "Touch of Evil." A sample of the lyrics:

The night my baby left me, I crossed the bridge to Juarez Avenue.
Like that movie "Touch of Evil," I've got the Orson Welles-Marlene Dietrich Blues,
Where Orson walks into the whorehouse and Marlene says, "You look like hell."
And Orson's chewing on a chocolate bar as the lights go on in the old Blue Star Hotel.
"Read my future," says old Orson, "down inside the tea leaves of your cup."
She says, "You ain't got no future, Hank, I believe your future's all used up."

Plus, the album is produced by Gurf Morlix, and how can that be bad?
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mark@markand.com
aim: mdanderson45