A while back, we had some fun here examining the limits of pop culture in a post titled The Limits of Pop Culture. The impetus for that post was an anecdote concerning high school seniors (people born, roughly, in the early 1990s) who did not recognize the source of the words "Baby you can drive my car." If it took only 45 years for the Beatles to be somewhat forgotten, we wondered, what would happen in 1045 years?
Thanks to this impressive find, we no longer have to wonder.
[via Kottke]
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Paragraph of the Week
From Roger Ebert's blog post, Goodbye to All That:
I realize so clearly now that conversations are all about the flow, the timing, the music. Now that IBM's Big Blue has beaten a grandmaster at chess and promises to win at Jeopardy, I have a challenge that will grind it to a halt: I challenge Big Blue to tell a joke in a voice that has the tone and the timing, the words and the music, just right.
Friday, February 11, 2011
A Review of Sequitur: David Foster Wallace
The only thing I knew about Sequitur: David Foster Wallace before actually attending the performance of it last night at New York's Symphony Space was that it was some type of musical interpretation of some of the writings of David Foster Wallace. So here, in brief, is what this performance was: the reading of two short stories written by DFW accompanied by live music and, in one case, a complementary visual component.
First up was Everything is Green, based on the short story of the same name that is collected in Girl with Curious Hair. This performance was fairly straightforward, featuring a recorded reading of, to the best of my knowledge, the complete text of the story supplemented by the piano and what I'm pretty sure was a flute. The program guide states that the composer of the piece, Randall Woolf, was fascinated by the "outsider English" in which the story is written and that the music was meant to complement this argot.
By far the longer and more interesting portion of the evening was the night's second performance, Tri-Stan, based on the short story Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko, collected in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. Mary Nessinger was the highlight of this show, as she brilliantly sang selections from the source text, nicely matching her performance to the tone of the written word, cleverly coalescing instances of heightened drama with winking asides to the audience. The music had a fuller sound, as a full ten musicians huddled on the crowded stage along with Nessinger and the conductor, Paul Hostetter. A nice sized screen positioned above the performers' heads was used to project a range of images, from the text being read by Nessinger to publicity shots of the various real-life sitcoms mentioned in the story and, even, shadowed images of gyrating co-eds during certain relevant points.
I'll be honest: I'm fretfully unfit to judge the musical merits of each piece. My ear isn't refined enough to fairly do that. I much preferred the second presentation, though, precisely because of its non-strictly musical elements. For one, the difference between a live and a recorded reading of the source texts is just huge. The projected images helped me follow the action, as it was simply hard to hear, at times, the readings above the musical accompaniment. But, most important, Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko--a mythical retelling of the tragedy of TV executive working before and during the rise of cable--is perfectly suited for this type of musical performance. Where the music distracted at times from Everything is Green, Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko, in all its mock-epic glory, was enhanced by the live reading and the images and the music.
All in all, these are two creative interpretations of two perhaps lesser-known DFW stories. I feel that I better appreciate the stories after seeing them performed, which, for me, was much the point of the evening. Also, I learned that, apparently, I'll attend anything that has the name David Foster Wallace in the title.
First up was Everything is Green, based on the short story of the same name that is collected in Girl with Curious Hair. This performance was fairly straightforward, featuring a recorded reading of, to the best of my knowledge, the complete text of the story supplemented by the piano and what I'm pretty sure was a flute. The program guide states that the composer of the piece, Randall Woolf, was fascinated by the "outsider English" in which the story is written and that the music was meant to complement this argot.
By far the longer and more interesting portion of the evening was the night's second performance, Tri-Stan, based on the short story Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko, collected in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. Mary Nessinger was the highlight of this show, as she brilliantly sang selections from the source text, nicely matching her performance to the tone of the written word, cleverly coalescing instances of heightened drama with winking asides to the audience. The music had a fuller sound, as a full ten musicians huddled on the crowded stage along with Nessinger and the conductor, Paul Hostetter. A nice sized screen positioned above the performers' heads was used to project a range of images, from the text being read by Nessinger to publicity shots of the various real-life sitcoms mentioned in the story and, even, shadowed images of gyrating co-eds during certain relevant points.
I'll be honest: I'm fretfully unfit to judge the musical merits of each piece. My ear isn't refined enough to fairly do that. I much preferred the second presentation, though, precisely because of its non-strictly musical elements. For one, the difference between a live and a recorded reading of the source texts is just huge. The projected images helped me follow the action, as it was simply hard to hear, at times, the readings above the musical accompaniment. But, most important, Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko--a mythical retelling of the tragedy of TV executive working before and during the rise of cable--is perfectly suited for this type of musical performance. Where the music distracted at times from Everything is Green, Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko, in all its mock-epic glory, was enhanced by the live reading and the images and the music.
All in all, these are two creative interpretations of two perhaps lesser-known DFW stories. I feel that I better appreciate the stories after seeing them performed, which, for me, was much the point of the evening. Also, I learned that, apparently, I'll attend anything that has the name David Foster Wallace in the title.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
McBain's Action Movie
Making the internet rounds this morning is a video some have called an Easter Egg from the early years of The Simpsons. Remember McBain, the Schwarzenegger caricature? Some have claimed that the short snippets of his movies depicted in the show--watched by various members of the Simpson family--are all part of a larger McBain action movie in which the hero hunts down a corrupt senator and avenges his partner's death.
Problem is, these scenes aren't portrayed in chronological order. For example, the closing scene of this purported action movie below is actually from McBain's second-ever appearance, in the season 2 episode "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" This changes this compilation from an extremely clever hidden in-joke told by multiple generations of The Simpsons writers to just a slick editing job by the fine folks at College Humor.
Video is still worth watching, though.
Problem is, these scenes aren't portrayed in chronological order. For example, the closing scene of this purported action movie below is actually from McBain's second-ever appearance, in the season 2 episode "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" This changes this compilation from an extremely clever hidden in-joke told by multiple generations of The Simpsons writers to just a slick editing job by the fine folks at College Humor.
Video is still worth watching, though.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Bob and his Burgers
I don't quite understand TV's insistence on saving all new episodes of virtually all new shows for certain months of the year. If even a few new episodes of decent shows were broadcast in, say, July or December, there's a good chance I would watch them instead of what I usually watch during television's calendric dead spots, namely, old episodes of The Simpsons (seasons 1-9 only). The last week of January, though, is a good time for TV watching. Just about everything is new.
The last two weeks have witnessed the airing of at least one new episode of, by my count, seven shows that I like watching, ranging from loyalty projects (The Simpsons, now in season 22) to programs that I find legitimately entertaining and funny (Parks and Rec). But the program I have most looked forward to watching over this time is Bob's Burgers, which the great Alan Sepinwall has called "a demented, funny little show."
The writing is good and funny, but the show shines most brightly because of its cast. H. Jon Benjamin has maybe the best voice in the world, one that is somehow perfectly suited for roles as diverse as a spy and a sad-sack burger joint owner. Best of all, though, is Kristen Schaal. I've had a crush on her for a while now, but I've laughed more at her Louise, a precocious middle-schooler who always wears a pink rabbit hat, in three episodes than I did at FotC's Mel in two seasons. Mostly because she's allowed to yell a lot. (Schaal is a hilarious yeller.) The Louise character lies with no regard for who may be harmed by her tall tales and is savvy enough to realize that Foot Feta-ish is a better name for a cheese-topped burger than Never Been Feta. And yet she's also a kid who sometimes just likes to draw with crayons. The balance is something fun to watch.
The aired episodes are available on Hulu, but I'm also embedding here a 12-minute interview (NSFW language) with Schaal, Eugene Mirman, and John Roberts in which the three cast members ignore completely the poor interviewer's questions. This might be why the show is so much fun: these people may actually be crazy.
The last two weeks have witnessed the airing of at least one new episode of, by my count, seven shows that I like watching, ranging from loyalty projects (The Simpsons, now in season 22) to programs that I find legitimately entertaining and funny (Parks and Rec). But the program I have most looked forward to watching over this time is Bob's Burgers, which the great Alan Sepinwall has called "a demented, funny little show."
The writing is good and funny, but the show shines most brightly because of its cast. H. Jon Benjamin has maybe the best voice in the world, one that is somehow perfectly suited for roles as diverse as a spy and a sad-sack burger joint owner. Best of all, though, is Kristen Schaal. I've had a crush on her for a while now, but I've laughed more at her Louise, a precocious middle-schooler who always wears a pink rabbit hat, in three episodes than I did at FotC's Mel in two seasons. Mostly because she's allowed to yell a lot. (Schaal is a hilarious yeller.) The Louise character lies with no regard for who may be harmed by her tall tales and is savvy enough to realize that Foot Feta-ish is a better name for a cheese-topped burger than Never Been Feta. And yet she's also a kid who sometimes just likes to draw with crayons. The balance is something fun to watch.
The aired episodes are available on Hulu, but I'm also embedding here a 12-minute interview (NSFW language) with Schaal, Eugene Mirman, and John Roberts in which the three cast members ignore completely the poor interviewer's questions. This might be why the show is so much fun: these people may actually be crazy.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
The NFL's Relationship with Rules
NFL rules dictate that overtime games will be decided by way of the sudden death system. This means that the first team to score wins the game. Whether by touchdown, field goal or safety--how cool would it be for an overtime game to end via safety?--the game automatically ends when the first points are scored. This system has raised serious questions of fairness from a host of critics. And these critics have a point. According to research done by Advanced NFL Stats, from 2000 to 2007, the team to win the overtime coin toss has won the game 60% of the time. Games are designed to measure talent, some combination of skill and effort. The better team should win most of the time. Why should a simple coin toss--the very definition of randomness--determine to such an extent the winner of a football game?
With these questions in mind, the NFL has decided to change the overtime rules for the playoffs. Thanks to Jason Kirk of SB Nation Atlanta for this quick summary of the changes:
We're now one weekend--four games of varying excitement levels--into the 2011 NFL Playoffs. There has not, as of yet, been a game that required extra time to decide a winner. This in itself is not surprising: over the last five years, only six out of the fifty-five playoff contents went to overtime. Consequences are magnified in the playoffs, though. The staging of even one overtime playoff game a year means that the standard sixty minutes of football proved insufficient to determine a winner between two really good teams. A slight change in the basic rules of play may have a disproportionate effect on the outcome of an entire season. In 2007, the Chicago Bears defeated the Seahawks in overtime. The Bears progressed all the way to the Super Bowl. The next year, The New York Giants prevailed over the Packers in the NFC Championship Game. Thanks in part to the stickiest helmet in the world, the Giants won the Super Bowl. And last year, the New Orleans Saints needed overtime to defeat the Vikings in the NFC Championship Game before going on to defeat the Colts in the Super Bowl. Besides for the obvious lesson--Brett Favre sure does throw a bunch of interceptions in NFC Championship Games--it's important to realize that overtime has determined a Super Bowl participant in three out of the last four years.
I'm not saying that the playoff overtime rule is fairer than the regular season rule. I think there are issues with both systems. I just find it fascinating that the NFL would innovate in the very rules and strategy of the game but would limit such innovation to the playoffs. If the playoff rule is better, why not use this system for the regular season? If the regular-season rule is better, why bother changing it for the playoffs? Moreover, why would the NFL institute this change without testing it? (For a good example of a sport testing out its rules, see the NHL.)
Yahoo's Chris Chase describes the problem nicely, focusing on the potential benefits of the team that wins the toss deciding to kick off in order to know at the start of the possession which type of score is needed:
Compare this to football. Football referees are tasked with both observing the events on the field and interpreting the meaning of these events. Here, for example, is the key line in the NFL's pass interference guideline:
What does it mean to significantly hinder the progress of a football player? Further complicating matters is the stipulation that the rule only applies when there is "[c]ontact by a defender who is not playing the ball and such contact restricts the receiver’s opportunity to make the catch." How can a referee know with any degree of certainty when the defender is playing the ball or not playing the ball? And, of course, there's the old discussion on what constitutes a football move.
It is the need for such interpretation that inspired Richard Deitsch, Sports Illustrated's wonderful sports media analyst, to name Mike Pereira the Sports Media Person of the Year. Pereira is the former NFL Vice President of Officiating who now works for FOX, offering commentary on the officials. Here's Deitsch explaining his pick:
With these questions in mind, the NFL has decided to change the overtime rules for the playoffs. Thanks to Jason Kirk of SB Nation Atlanta for this quick summary of the changes:
The rules are designed to prevent the team winning the coin flip from getting a couple decent plays and kicking a field goal without the other team having a chance at the ball. The new rules:
- Each team gets to receive a kickoff at least once, unless the team receiving the ball first gets a touchdown on its first drive. A touchdown ends it.
- If the team that gets ball first scores a field goal, the other team gets to receive a kickoff. A touchdown on that drive ends it.
- Once each team has received one kickoff, the next score wins, whether it's a field goal, touchdown, or what have you.
- If the game is tied after 15 minutes, another period will begin, with the next score ending the game.
We're now one weekend--four games of varying excitement levels--into the 2011 NFL Playoffs. There has not, as of yet, been a game that required extra time to decide a winner. This in itself is not surprising: over the last five years, only six out of the fifty-five playoff contents went to overtime. Consequences are magnified in the playoffs, though. The staging of even one overtime playoff game a year means that the standard sixty minutes of football proved insufficient to determine a winner between two really good teams. A slight change in the basic rules of play may have a disproportionate effect on the outcome of an entire season. In 2007, the Chicago Bears defeated the Seahawks in overtime. The Bears progressed all the way to the Super Bowl. The next year, The New York Giants prevailed over the Packers in the NFC Championship Game. Thanks in part to the stickiest helmet in the world, the Giants won the Super Bowl. And last year, the New Orleans Saints needed overtime to defeat the Vikings in the NFC Championship Game before going on to defeat the Colts in the Super Bowl. Besides for the obvious lesson--Brett Favre sure does throw a bunch of interceptions in NFC Championship Games--it's important to realize that overtime has determined a Super Bowl participant in three out of the last four years.
I'm not saying that the playoff overtime rule is fairer than the regular season rule. I think there are issues with both systems. I just find it fascinating that the NFL would innovate in the very rules and strategy of the game but would limit such innovation to the playoffs. If the playoff rule is better, why not use this system for the regular season? If the regular-season rule is better, why bother changing it for the playoffs? Moreover, why would the NFL institute this change without testing it? (For a good example of a sport testing out its rules, see the NHL.)
Yahoo's Chris Chase describes the problem nicely, focusing on the potential benefits of the team that wins the toss deciding to kick off in order to know at the start of the possession which type of score is needed:
I think the comparison to baseball is a helpful one. Chase is correct in anticipating the outrage a similar rule change in baseball would elicit. But more interesting are the two sports' relationships with rules and officiating in general. Baseball's rules are very clear. The runner is safe if he touches the base before the baseball touches him. The ball is foul if it lands on this side of a white line and its fair if it lands on the other side (or, on the line itself). Baseball officiating is, consequently, very clear as well. The umpire's job is to determine the facts of the play. Umpires are positioned around the field of play in order to observe as best they can what happened.How would a team even know whether deferring is a good idea? It's not like any coach has ever been in a game situation involving these rules. Like or hate the new overtime rules, the fact that they're getting its trial run during the playoffs is insane. Whenever the rule comes into play, it will be the first time any NFL coach has ever dealt with it. What better time to test something out than in the biggest stage in the sport? Roger Goodell thinks ending a Super Bowl with a field goal on the first possession is bad? How about ending a Super Bowl with a new rule that nobody in football has ever had to deal with before?Let's take a step back and think about this for a minute: A new format that fundamentally changes the game is being instituted before the playoffs without any testing. Only the NFL could get away with that. Can you imagine if Bud Selig tried to do this in baseball. Maybe before the playoffs he issued a decree that a team has to win by two runs in extra innings. He'd be mocked in every sports column and on every sports station in America. The NFL does it and nobody bats an eyelid. Flippantly changing a rule that's been in use for 40 years and giving it no trial period? Sure, why not!
Compare this to football. Football referees are tasked with both observing the events on the field and interpreting the meaning of these events. Here, for example, is the key line in the NFL's pass interference guideline:
It is pass interference by either team when any player movement beyond the line of scrimmage significantly hinders the progress of an eligible player of such player’s opportunity to catch the ball.
What does it mean to significantly hinder the progress of a football player? Further complicating matters is the stipulation that the rule only applies when there is "[c]ontact by a defender who is not playing the ball and such contact restricts the receiver’s opportunity to make the catch." How can a referee know with any degree of certainty when the defender is playing the ball or not playing the ball? And, of course, there's the old discussion on what constitutes a football move.
It is the need for such interpretation that inspired Richard Deitsch, Sports Illustrated's wonderful sports media analyst, to name Mike Pereira the Sports Media Person of the Year. Pereira is the former NFL Vice President of Officiating who now works for FOX, offering commentary on the officials. Here's Deitsch explaining his pick:
Revolutions in sports television sometimes come with little fanfare. Fox initially thought Pereira, the former vice president of officiating for the NFL, would make his biggest impact on the web. But the opening week of the NFL season featured one of the more controversial plays of the year -- Lions wide receiver Calvin Johnson's apparent game-winning catch against the Bears, and Pereira's insight on the play proved invaluable. "Most people thought it was a touchdown but when they came out of replay, I predicted they would leave it as an incomplete pass and they did," said Pereira, who works out of Fox's NFL studios in Los Angeles. "That play generated more talk than I could have imagined and I think Fox recognized the value of addressing this immediately on television."
Viewers have longed for broadcasters to provide accurate explanations from the NFL's byzantine rule book, and Pereira, thankfully, has taken the burden off ex-jocks and announcers, who can come off as befuddled as fans. He has correctly predicted the outcome of 49 of 50 replay challenges this season (he disagreed with the judgment of the refs on a Jeremy Maclin reception that was ruled a catch and fumble; Pereira predicted the refs would overturn a play to an incomplete pass), but more importantly, he has imbued viewers with added knowledge.
Paragraph of the Week
From David Segal's article, "Is Law School a Losing Game?," published in the January 8, 2011 edition of The New York Times:
It is an open secret, Professor Henderson and others say, that schools finesse survey information in dozens of ways. And the survey’s guidelines, which are established not by U.S. News but by the American Bar Association, in conjunction with an organization called the National Association for Law Placement, all but invite trimming.David Simon should probably write a TV series about the stat juking going on here.
A law grad, for instance, counts as “employed after nine months” even if he or she has a job that doesn’t require a law degree. Waiting tables at Applebee’s? You’re employed. Stocking aisles at Home Depot? You’re working, too.
Number-fudging games are endemic, professors and deans say, because the fortunes of law schools rise and fall on rankings, with reputations and huge sums of money hanging in the balance. You may think of law schools as training grounds for new lawyers, but that is just part of it.
They are also cash cows.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Video Essay of the Week
Matt Zoller Seitz reviewed the ten best movie scenes of the year for Salon. Here is his take on a particularly great scene from Toy Story 3. (Note: Please don't watch this if you haven't seen the movie yet.)
Also great is his take on the rowing scene in The Social Network.
Also great is his take on the rowing scene in The Social Network.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
My Year in Media and Cities, 2010
Still inspired by Jason over at Kottke.org, I'm continuing my practice of cataloging some of the things I've done and the places I've been over the past year. You can find 2008's and 2009's lists by clicking on the numbers.
Here we go with 2010.
Cities I've attended, spending at least a day and a night in each locale
Alon Shvut, Israel
Jerusalem, Israel
Manhattan, New York
West Orange, New Jersey
Teaneck, New Jersey
Lake George, New York
Edison, New Jersey
Woodmere, New York
Honesdale, Pennsylvania
Spring Lake, New Jersey
Brooklyn, New York
Kiryat Arba, Israel
Hewlett, New York
Movies I've seen on the big screen
Sherlock Holmes
Crazy Heart
Hot Tub Time Machine
How to Train Your Dragon
Death at a Funeral
Iron Man 2
Shrek Forever After
Toy Story 3
Annie Hall
Inception
Despicable Me
The Social Network
The Town
Jackass 3D
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
Tron: Legacy
The Iron Giant
True Grit
Movies I've seen on the little screen
Young @ Heart
The Botany of Desire
Adaptation
Inglourious Basterds
Best in Show
Do the Right Thing
Winning Time
Big Fan
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
June 17, 1994
A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy
Futurama: Bender’s Game
Cyrus
X-Men
Pulp Fiction
Fargo
Get Smart
Futurama: Bender’s Big Score
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs
Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder
Zombieland
Little Shop of Horrors
Books I've read
How Fiction Works
Eating the Dinosaur
Anathem
Killing Yourself to Live
The Mystery Guest
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
The Art of a Beautiful Game
Persepolis
2666
Here is New York
Although of course you end up becoming yourself
A Sense of Where You Are
Cardboard Gods
Blankets
Netherland
Baseball Prospectus 2010
Loose Balls
Best American Non-Required Reading 2009
Baseball Between the Numbers
Into the Wild
Kafka on the Shore
The Book of Basketball
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
My Losing Season
Levels of the Game
The Human Stain
Freedom
FreeDarko’s The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History
Cooking for Geeks
The Case of the Gilded Fly
Missing
TV I've watched
The Simpsons
Seasons 6-8, 13
Mad Men
Season 4
Party Down
Seasons 1-2
Futurama
Seasons 1-4
Archer
Season 1
The Wire
Season 1
The Walking Dead
Season 1
Louie
Season 1
Each new episode of:
The Simpsons
Futurama
30 Rock
Parks and Rec
Community
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Modern Family
Sporting events I've attended
Monday, January 18
New York Knicks 99, Detroit Pistons 91
Madison Square Garden
Tuesday, February 9
Sacramento Kings 118, New York Knicks 114 (OT)
Madison Square Garden
Saturday, February 20
Oklahoma City Thunder 121, New York Knicks 118 (OT)
Madison Square Garden
Wednesday, March 3
New York Knicks 128, Detroit Pistons 104
Madison Square Garden
Monday, April 12
New York Knicks 114, Washington Wizards 103
Madison Square Garden
Wednesday, May 5
New York Yankees 7, Baltimore Orioles 5
Yankee Stadium
Monday, August 9
Boston Red Sox 2, New York Yankees 1
Yankee Stadium
Tuesday, August 10
New York Mets 1, Colorado Rockies 0
Citi Field
Tuesday, August 17
New York Yankees 6, Detroit Tigers 2
Yankee Stadium
Tuesday, September 7
Fernando Verdasco defeats David Ferrer
Louis Armstrong Stadium
US Open
Saturday, October 9
New York Yankees 6, Minnesota Twins 1
Yankee Stadium
Monday, October 18
Texas Rangers 8, New York Yankees 0
Yankee Stadium
Tuesday, November 23
New York Knicks 110, Charlotte Bobcats 107
Madison Square Garden
Wednesday, December 15
Boston Celtics 118, New York Knicks 116
Madison Square Garden
Plays I've attended
Tuesday, February 23
Rock of Ages
Brooks Atkinson Theater
Sunday, March 7
The Tempest
BAM’s Harvey Theater
Wednesday, June 23
The 39 Steps
New World Stages
Saturday, July 31
Twelfth Night
Divine Park, Spring Lake, New Jersey
Music concerts I've attended
Steve Earle with Allison Moore and Greg Trooper
City Winery
Saturday, November 13
The Baltimore Symphony
Carnegie Hall
So, on average, I've:
Here we go with 2010.
Cities I've attended, spending at least a day and a night in each locale
Alon Shvut, Israel
Jerusalem, Israel
Manhattan, New York
West Orange, New Jersey
Teaneck, New Jersey
Lake George, New York
Edison, New Jersey
Woodmere, New York
Honesdale, Pennsylvania
Spring Lake, New Jersey
Brooklyn, New York
Kiryat Arba, Israel
Hewlett, New York
Movies I've seen on the big screen
Sherlock Holmes
Crazy Heart
Hot Tub Time Machine
How to Train Your Dragon
Death at a Funeral
Iron Man 2
Shrek Forever After
Toy Story 3
Annie Hall
Inception
Despicable Me
The Social Network
The Town
Jackass 3D
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
Tron: Legacy
The Iron Giant
True Grit
Movies I've seen on the little screen
Young @ Heart
The Botany of Desire
Adaptation
Inglourious Basterds
Best in Show
Do the Right Thing
Winning Time
Big Fan
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
June 17, 1994
A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy
Futurama: Bender’s Game
Cyrus
X-Men
Pulp Fiction
Fargo
Get Smart
Futurama: Bender’s Big Score
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs
Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder
Zombieland
Little Shop of Horrors
Books I've read
How Fiction Works
Eating the Dinosaur
Anathem
Killing Yourself to Live
The Mystery Guest
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
The Art of a Beautiful Game
Persepolis
2666
Here is New York
Although of course you end up becoming yourself
A Sense of Where You Are
Cardboard Gods
Blankets
Netherland
Baseball Prospectus 2010
Loose Balls
Best American Non-Required Reading 2009
Baseball Between the Numbers
Into the Wild
Kafka on the Shore
The Book of Basketball
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
My Losing Season
Levels of the Game
The Human Stain
Freedom
FreeDarko’s The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History
Cooking for Geeks
The Case of the Gilded Fly
Missing
TV I've watched
The Simpsons
Seasons 6-8, 13
Mad Men
Season 4
Party Down
Seasons 1-2
Futurama
Seasons 1-4
Archer
Season 1
The Wire
Season 1
The Walking Dead
Season 1
Louie
Season 1
Each new episode of:
The Simpsons
Futurama
30 Rock
Parks and Rec
Community
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Modern Family
Sporting events I've attended
Monday, January 18
New York Knicks 99, Detroit Pistons 91
Madison Square Garden
Tuesday, February 9
Sacramento Kings 118, New York Knicks 114 (OT)
Madison Square Garden
Saturday, February 20
Oklahoma City Thunder 121, New York Knicks 118 (OT)
Madison Square Garden
Wednesday, March 3
New York Knicks 128, Detroit Pistons 104
Madison Square Garden
Monday, April 12
New York Knicks 114, Washington Wizards 103
Madison Square Garden
Wednesday, May 5
New York Yankees 7, Baltimore Orioles 5
Yankee Stadium
Monday, August 9
Boston Red Sox 2, New York Yankees 1
Yankee Stadium
Tuesday, August 10
New York Mets 1, Colorado Rockies 0
Citi Field
Tuesday, August 17
New York Yankees 6, Detroit Tigers 2
Yankee Stadium
Tuesday, September 7
Fernando Verdasco defeats David Ferrer
Louis Armstrong Stadium
US Open
Saturday, October 9
New York Yankees 6, Minnesota Twins 1
Yankee Stadium
Monday, October 18
Texas Rangers 8, New York Yankees 0
Yankee Stadium
Tuesday, November 23
New York Knicks 110, Charlotte Bobcats 107
Madison Square Garden
Wednesday, December 15
Boston Celtics 118, New York Knicks 116
Madison Square Garden
Plays I've attended
Tuesday, February 23
Rock of Ages
Brooks Atkinson Theater
Sunday, March 7
The Tempest
BAM’s Harvey Theater
Wednesday, June 23
The 39 Steps
New World Stages
Saturday, July 31
Twelfth Night
Divine Park, Spring Lake, New Jersey
Music concerts I've attended
Steve Earle with Allison Moore and Greg Trooper
City Winery
Saturday, November 13
The Baltimore Symphony
Carnegie Hall
So, on average, I've:
- visited a new place every ~28 days;
- seen a movie on the big screen every ~20 days;
- seen a movie on the little screen every ~16 days;
- read a book every ~12 days;
- attended a live sporting event every ~26 days;
- watched a season of TV every ~24 days (not including all the partial seasons);
- attended a play once every three months;
- attended a concert once every six months;
- and composed a blog post (including this one) once every ~3.5 days.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Paragraph of the Week
James L. Brooks, interviewed in the January 2011 edition of Esquire:
I had an argument years and years ago with another comedy writer. Jack Nicholson and Dustin Hoffman were biggest guns at the time--long may they wave--and we had ad argument about which one was number one. I took Jack, and I finally won the argument by saying he could play either role in The Odd Couple.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
An Important Announcement Regarding Beans
The recipe for white bean and garlic soup in Jeff Potter's Cooking for Geeks calls for soaking the white beans for several hours before bringing them a boil and simmering for fifteen minutes. The recipe is great and--as it turns out--informative. Mr. Potter notes:
You can read more about phytohaemagglutinin here. So please, folks, soak and boil your beans.
Don't skip soaking and boiling the beans. Really. One type of protein present in beans--phytohaemagglutinin--causes extreme intestinal distress. The beans to be boiled to denature this protein; cooking them in a slow cooker or sous vide setup will not denature this protein and actually make things worse. If you're in a rush, use canned white beans; they'll already been cooked.
You can read more about phytohaemagglutinin here. So please, folks, soak and boil your beans.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
A Portrait of the Artest as a Young Man
A small art gallery in Toronto recently devoted a night to Ron Artest. The results were fantastic. Here's a slideshow of the works on display.
The Basketball Jones, an NBA podcast and blog, sent an intrepid reporter to check out the scene. Stick around for the end: Artest shows up.
TBJ: Ron Artest crashes Ron Artest exhibit from The Basketball Jones on Vimeo.
The Basketball Jones, an NBA podcast and blog, sent an intrepid reporter to check out the scene. Stick around for the end: Artest shows up.
TBJ: Ron Artest crashes Ron Artest exhibit from The Basketball Jones on Vimeo.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Hand Models: Creepy or Creepiest?
Ran across this interview with Ellen Sirot, hand model. Haven't been able to get these three minutes of weird goodness out of my head since.
Jason Kottke hit the nail on the head: "Sirot is constantly performing with her hands but it's also like she hasn't got any hands, not functional ones anyway."
Zoolander wasn't that far off...
Movie Videos & Movie Scenes at MOVIECLIPS.com
Jason Kottke hit the nail on the head: "Sirot is constantly performing with her hands but it's also like she hasn't got any hands, not functional ones anyway."
Zoolander wasn't that far off...
Movie Videos & Movie Scenes at MOVIECLIPS.com
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Paragraph of the Week
What made Wallace’s work so phenomenally powerful for so many readers, I would argue, has to do with its ability to connect three consistent impulses in contemporary fiction in a way that no other writer has managed quite so well. In Wallace’s work, we repeatedly see wed high-modern/postmodern experimental pyrotechnics not only with an incisive cultural critique but also with a deeply personal concern for quotidian human suffering. That is to say that Wallace’s fiction combines rich investments in form, in ideas, and in emotion. Any number of writers of the last fifty years can be read as bringing together two of these strains in contemporary fiction, but hardly anyone else has managed all three in a way that feels to the reader not simply sincere but unflinchingly honest. And it’s these three factors together, I would argue, that have something to do with the degree of connection that readers have felt with Wallace’s writing: not only is that writing serious enough to make the reader work non-trivially in its apprehension, and not only does the writing cause the reader to think seriously about the world in which she lives, but it also helps the reader, on some too often devalued level, to understand herself within that world.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Inconspicuous Consumption Key to Romance Novels
I love this. Romance e-books are flying off the virtual shelves at an unprecedented level.
Dominique Raccah, the publisher and chief executive of Sourcebooks, an independent publisher in Naperville, Ill., said her romance e-book sales had grown exponentially this year, outpacing any other category. In the first quarter 8 percent of total romance sales at Sourcebooks were from e-book sales. By the third quarter that number had gone up to 27 percent. (Major trade publishers say e-books now make up about 9 to 10 percent of overall sales.) “You’re seeing the real development of a market,” Ms. Raccah said.Why? Some romance readers are embarrassed by the books' covers. But with the advent of dedicated e-readers that do not display book covers--or even let others know what book is being read--bashful romance readers are free to read away, without fear of being noticed by people you know.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Blog-iversary, 2010
Well, it's that time of year again. It's my blog-iversary.
Since we last celebrated together I've become something of a professional blogger, by which I mean that I get paid money to write on the internet. It's something of a dream come true, because I had been doing this for free. I've been fortunate enough to publish something in the neighborhood of 160 posts for Ifbyphone and PMI since January 2010. And yet this year has managed to be the busiest yet for The Daily Snowman, with more than 100 posts published since my last blog-iversary. As always, I'm surprised and grateful that many thousands of you decided to come visit (or, I suppose, a few or you visited many thousands of times), to read what I have to say. I truly appreciate your support.
My advice to anyone hoping to be paid to write is this: just start writing. My paid gigs are a direct result of this humble blog, even though I never would have predicted the path from a blog about snowmen to multiple paying blogs about phones. Writing begets writing. Just choose a topic and start writing. You never know who'll be reading.
Let's go now to this year's edition of the Snowies. (Any resemblance to any of these Urban Dictionary definitions of the word "snowy" is mostly accidental.)
Snowiest Embedded Videos
and
Snowiest Series
Snowiest Update on a Multi-Year Series
Snowiest Recognition of TDS
Snowiest 2666 Posts
Snowiest Weekly Paragraphs
From Pat Conroy's My Losing Season:
Snowiest Video Essays
and
Snowiest Movie Reviews
Snowiest Books/Reading Posts
Lastly, I'd like to wish a happy blog-iversary to my blog-brother, Ariel at Troubled Souls Unite, now in its second incarnation. He's essential reading if you love music or if you would like to understand the ways in which the love of music is expressed in America in 2010.
Since we last celebrated together I've become something of a professional blogger, by which I mean that I get paid money to write on the internet. It's something of a dream come true, because I had been doing this for free. I've been fortunate enough to publish something in the neighborhood of 160 posts for Ifbyphone and PMI since January 2010. And yet this year has managed to be the busiest yet for The Daily Snowman, with more than 100 posts published since my last blog-iversary. As always, I'm surprised and grateful that many thousands of you decided to come visit (or, I suppose, a few or you visited many thousands of times), to read what I have to say. I truly appreciate your support.
My advice to anyone hoping to be paid to write is this: just start writing. My paid gigs are a direct result of this humble blog, even though I never would have predicted the path from a blog about snowmen to multiple paying blogs about phones. Writing begets writing. Just choose a topic and start writing. You never know who'll be reading.
Let's go now to this year's edition of the Snowies. (Any resemblance to any of these Urban Dictionary definitions of the word "snowy" is mostly accidental.)
Snowiest Embedded Videos
and
Snowiest Series
Snowiest Update on a Multi-Year Series
Snowiest Recognition of TDS
Snowiest 2666 Posts
Snowiest Weekly Paragraphs
From Pat Conroy's My Losing Season:
As a boy, I had constructed a shell for myself so impenetrable that I have been trying to write my way out of it for over thirty years, and even now I fear I have barely cracked its veneer. It is as rouged and polished and burnished as the specialized glass of telescopes, and it kept me hidden from the appraising eyes of the outside world long into manhood. But most of all it kept me hidden and safe from myself. No outsider I have ever met has struck me with the strangeness I encounter when I try to discover the deepest mysteries of the boy I once was. Several times in my life I have gone crazy, and I could not even begin to tell you why. The sadness collapses me from the inside out, and I have to follow the thing through until it finishes with me. It never happened to me when I was playing basketball because basketball was the only thing that granted me a complete and sublime congruence and oneness with the world. I found a joy, unrecapturable beyond the realm of speech or language, and I lost myself in the pure, dazzling majesty of my sweet, swift game.And the great Will Leitch on LeBron's decision:
No, tonight, it felt like everyone involved — LeBron, ESPN, Bing, the University of Phoenix, Stuart Scott, the man who once chastised fans for having the audacity to boo, Jim freaking Gray — treated the millions of people watching like stupid, mindless consumers, empty lemmings ready to follow Sport into the abyss. Here, here are the Boys & Girls Club props. Here, here is your search engine. Here, here is your online college, Here, here is your Athletic Hero. Eat. Eat. Consume. You like it. You love it. You'll always come back for more.Snowiest Posts About Ivy League Schools
They're surely right, of course. But never has it been laid more bare, and never did it feel so empty. It felt like a break, the moment when the tide crested, when we looked at the games, and their players, and ourselves, and wondered: Why in the world are we watching these awful people? It was a question impossible to answer.
Snowiest Video Essays
and
Snowiest Movie Reviews
Snowiest Books/Reading Posts
- How We Remember Sports: FreeDarko's Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History
- Helplessness of the Self: James Wood on David Foster Wallace
Lastly, I'd like to wish a happy blog-iversary to my blog-brother, Ariel at Troubled Souls Unite, now in its second incarnation. He's essential reading if you love music or if you would like to understand the ways in which the love of music is expressed in America in 2010.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Happy Repeal Day
Call it coincidence or call it an expression of the zeitgeist, but sometimes the media output of a single year focuses heavily on a surprising subject. For example, two biographies of Pistol Pete Maravich were released in 2007. And when historians look back on 2011, they will remember it as the year which witnessed the release of two movies focused on superheros with the word Green in their names.
For some reason, people focused on Prohibition in 2010. Dan Okrent's book Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition was named to The New York Times' list of 100 notable books of 2010 and the HBO's Boardwalk Empire proved to be one of the most discussed shows on TV.
Again, I'm not sure what motivated this sudden interest in a thirteen year stretch of history that concluded in 1933, but I'd like to think that the invention of Repeal Day had something to do with it. Repeal Day was started by Jeffrey Morgenthaler, a bar manager and blogger living in Eugene, Oregon. His initial Repeal Day post was published in November of 2006; maybe it just took a few years for the popular culture to catch on.
Repeal Day, of course, commemorates the ratification--on December 5th, 1933--of the 21st Amendment, repealing Prohibition. To learn more about it, visit Morgenthaler's Repeal Day site or, if reading is too hard, watch this video:
So remember, remember, the fifth of December, and celebrate by enjoying your constitutional right to have a drink.
[Newsreel video via @winemakerguy]
For some reason, people focused on Prohibition in 2010. Dan Okrent's book Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition was named to The New York Times' list of 100 notable books of 2010 and the HBO's Boardwalk Empire proved to be one of the most discussed shows on TV.
Again, I'm not sure what motivated this sudden interest in a thirteen year stretch of history that concluded in 1933, but I'd like to think that the invention of Repeal Day had something to do with it. Repeal Day was started by Jeffrey Morgenthaler, a bar manager and blogger living in Eugene, Oregon. His initial Repeal Day post was published in November of 2006; maybe it just took a few years for the popular culture to catch on.
Repeal Day, of course, commemorates the ratification--on December 5th, 1933--of the 21st Amendment, repealing Prohibition. To learn more about it, visit Morgenthaler's Repeal Day site or, if reading is too hard, watch this video:
So remember, remember, the fifth of December, and celebrate by enjoying your constitutional right to have a drink.
[Newsreel video via @winemakerguy]
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