Category Archives: Entertainment

That Cold Blood Moon

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It was too cold this morning to drag myself outside and document the snow clinging to the April grass and trees. Why bother anyway? It looked more-or-less like this.

Actually a little less snow coated the ground this time than seven years ago, at least as recorded by my pictures. There wasn’t quite as much sticking to the branches, and none on the street. In any case, except for shadowy spots, all the snow vanished in the afternoon sun, pale and weak as it was.

Missed the early morning Blood Moon, as some headline writers seem to be calling the latest lunar eclipse. They’re nice to see, but not worth getting up at 3 in the morning, especially when it was snowing when you went to bed a few hours earlier. It’s a hard enough sell when it’s merely cold outside, as it also was this morning.

I didn’t miss the season opener of Mad Men, which apparently got low ratings. As a casual viewer of TV, the last thing I care about is ratings, especially for a show that’s going to end on a schedule anyway. It was a decent episode, neither the best nor the worst of the series, and as usual seemed to inspire a lot of commentary, so I won’t really add to that total, even in my small way.

Writing about television in general seems to inspire a body of ridiculous, or at least pointless, writing. Not long ago I saw a headline something like this: “Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead Occupy the Same Universe.” The only reasonable reaction to that is, who cares?

Winter Strikes Back: Sorry!

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Here on our small patch of North American earth, we have a few hardy flowers, some buds, and a little green in the grass, along with a few bugs. Saturday proved to be as warm as advertised (70s F.), cloudy sometimes, sunny at other times. Yuriko and I took a pleasant walk at the Spring Valley Nature Preserve.

On Sunday, the warm air held the promise of rain all day, but it held off long enough to allow me to replace a dodgy hinge on our wooden gate and do other things around the back yard, such as pick up the wintertime debris that collects here and there. Lilly and I sat around on the deck for a while, and I could feel the air cooling down. In the span of about half an hour, we lost 10 degrees.

Today, cold and snow. So cold that it stuck, as of the early evening.

On Saturday evening, Ann wanted to play a board game. She plays more video games than any other kind of game, so I thought it was a good idea to oblige her. We don’t have that many games, though, and decided that Monopoly and Risk would involve more time than we wanted to commit. So we played Sorry! Lilly and a friend of hers played, too. Not the most engaging board game in the world, but it has its moments.

BoardGameGeek (“gaming unplugged since 2000”) mentions a Sorry! alternate that sounds interesting: “Sorry! can be made more of a strategic game (and more appealing to adults) by dealing five cards to each player at the start of the game and allowing the player to choose which card he/she will play each turn. In this version, at the end of each turn, a new card is drawn from the deck to replace the card that was played, so that each player is always working from five cards.”

Someday I need to teach Ann and Lilly the rudiments of Risk. Maybe they’ll never play it, but maybe they will. Once or twice a year in the late ’70s and early ’80s, I played Risk with some of my high school friends, and I have fond memories of the games. Eventually, we got to know each other’s strategic thinking pretty well, such as the fact that one of us (and he knows who he is) inevitably took the offense. That is, attack! Outnumbered? Attack! Surrounded? Attack! Just do it! Sometimes it worked out for him, usually not.

Centuries Come, Centuries Go

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Last week I took note of some of the monumental items at the Oriental Institute Museum, but of course the museum is home to a lot more artifacts, and most of them were more modest in size. But no less interesting for it. Such as some dice from Roman Egypt.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERACool. Especially since anyone alive now, two millennia after they were made, could look at them and know exactly what they’re for, even if the games of chance aren’t quite the same. Even cooler is that dice were ancient even then, so much so that their origin is obscure.

Also on display were some knucklebones, an alternative to dice that are probably just as old, if not older (and the ancestor of modern playing jacks?). According the museum, “knucklebones of sheep or oxen were used to determine the number of moves on game boards. The four sides of each bone are distinctive, and each was assigned a specific number. They were normally thrown in pairs, allowing for ten possible combinations.”

The museum also sported plenty of figurines.

Eygptian figurines 1Still charming after all these centuries. Thought to come from a tomb of a courtier named Nykauinpu at Giza, made of limestone and dating from the Old Kingdom, Dynasty 5 of the 25th century BC. So by the time of Julius Caesar, this statue was already older than anything from the time of Julius Caesar is now. Even on a human scale (not to mention geological or cosmological), time’s mind-boggling.

On a sign describing another man-and-woman set of Egyptian figurines, I noted these lines, referring to the way the woman was dressed (emphasis added): “This style of dress was popular for the entire 3,000 years of pharaonic history.” I’ll say one thing about the ancient Egyptians — they found something they liked and stuck with it.

Flashback Within a Flashback

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In March 1987, I’d just moved to Chicago; a year earlier, I still lived in Nashville, but made a number of forays north for recreation.

March 17, 1987

Today I saw the green, green Chicago River and watched the downtown St. Patrick’s Day parade on Dearborn St., which was crowded and mildly boisterous. I’m glad I’m fairly tall. Visibility must be poor along crowded parade routes for shorter people – at least those interested in who’s parading by.

It was a lively parade. Not so many Shriners in little cars, as I saw in Nashville. But a lot of high school marching bands and politicos. Pretty sure I saw Fast Eddie Vrdolyak go by. [Best known as the anti-Harold Washington faction leader in the Chicago City Council, but by 1987 near the end of his political career; just a few years ago, he went to prison for a short spell.]

About a year ago, Nancy & Wendy & Kim & Susie & I all went to Chicago on $25 Southwest Air tickets – an introductory price the airline was offering on its brand-new Nashville to Chicago route. It was as spontaneous a trip as these long weekends get. Stayed with Rich while the others stayed elsewhere, but we’d meet periodically to do things.

Saw Rap Master Ronnie at the Theatre Building, ate Romanian food at Little Bucharest, where the portions are enormous. Rich introduced us to Erin W. over a Swedish breakfast that was actually dinner at Ann Sather, and we got into a long discussion over whether the equinox was the first day of spring or not. I took the opposing view, pointing out that it was nearly freezing outside.

The larger group gathered Saturday night and we went to Neo and danced [remarkably, still there]. Later, we tried to get into Medusa, but couldn’t [it seems to survive as a nightclub in Elgin, but at this time it was in the city]. Nate nearly got into a fight with the bouncer, but fortunately didn’t. Good thing we didn’t get in, anyway, because it was nearly 3 a.m. and for my own part I wanted to sleep. As we drove away from Medusa, Kim claimed that she was still up for something else, going somewhere else, but in mid-sentence fell asleep. Luckily as a back-seat passenger, not the driver.

Untimely Demises

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Woke up from a dream this morning with the notion that Ed Asner had died. That was a little odd, considering that I seldom dream about well-known people. For a moment I wondered, did that happen? No, I dreamed it. I wish Mr. Asner well, and hope he has more years yet.

Guess it would have been really strange if I’d dreamed about Harold Ramis, whose passing made me wonder, for a moment, what his colleague – co-conspirator – Douglas Kenney would have done if he’d lived as long. Probably not too much on-camera work, though he had a single, memorable line in Animal House, which he co-wrote.

Speaking of untimely death, not long ago I got around to seeing a Smithsonian Channel documentary, The Day Kennedy Died, which first aired in November. Narrated by Kevin Spacey and directed by British documentary filmmaker Leslie Woodhead, it’s a first-rate bit of work. A lot of the material’s familiar, of course, but it also included less-familiar aspects of the story, along with lesser-known images, deftly woven into a strong narrative that eschews the conspiracy speculation that’s encrusted the event.

Also worth watching: a short documentary about the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, vintage 1984 and posted on a YouTube channel called Rare Educational and Entertaining Videos. Until I watched the video about the eruption the other day, I hadn’t realized that there’s a children’s song about Mt. St. Helens. But I knew about stubborn old Harry Truman and some of the intrepid scientists who died trying to gather information about the volcano.

Thursday Bagatelle

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I drove through thick fog early this evening. Remarkably, the fog disappeared in about 10 minutes as I was driving along – blown away by the strong winds entering the Chicago area that are still gusting outside, and which are supposed to last into tomorrow.

While writing about small-nation participants in the Olympics last week, my thoughts naturally turned to Sealand. (Whose wouldn’t?) Besides no status as an actual country, Sealand has no Olympic committee, either. But it’s always entertaining to read about the place.

The founder of Sealand died only in 2012, which I hadn’t heard. I also didn’t realize that Sealandic coins have been minted, but here they are. Somewhere out in the wide world, there’s a numismatist whose specialty is micronations. There has to be.

I watched the first part of the first episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon today – watched it the modern way, on demand, not when it was first broadcast. It’s been a good many years since I watched much of The Tonight Show. Briefly, just before Lilly was born, we’d watch Jay Leno, but I never took to him. In the mid-70s, I watched Johnny Carson regularly for a few years, which might have been unusual for someone in his early teens, but lost interest later.

I hadn’t seen much of Fallon before. Seems like an amiable fellow, and talented enough for the job. Still, I have the ridiculous feeling that the host of The Tonight Show ought to be older than me. Just to look at him, Fallon reminds me of a young assistant high school principal or a young insurance agent.

At a post office the other day – they say the USPS is losing money, but there’s always a line at my closest one – I saw an ad for replica Inverted Jenny stamps. Turns out they’ve been for sale for some months, with a $2 denomination. If they’d asked me, I would have suggested they be a postcard denomination (lately 34 cents). Sticking even a replica Inverted Jenny on a casual postcard would be fun.

Hadn’t thought about those stamps in a long time. Philately wasn’t ever as interesting for me as numismatics, but everyone ought to know about the Inverted Jenny. I made sure to tell Lilly about it. “That much for a stamp?” she said when I told her they sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s the bizarre world of collectibles for you.

Anna Maria Alberghetti in a Wintry Mix, Honey

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Another day above freezing. That’s a good thing, except for the current forecast. The following is direct from the National Weather Service, which is worthy of respect for its accuracy, but also the fact that it doesn’t fix cute names to winter storms. The NWS put out this “Special Statement” for my part of the country early this evening.

RAIN AND EVEN SOME THUNDERSTORMS WILL DEVELOP ACROSS NORTHERN ILLINOIS LATER TONIGHT. HOWEVER… TEMPERATURES ACROSS FAR NORTHERN ILLINOIS… MAINLY ALONG AND NORTH OF INTERSTATE 88… [we’re north of I-88 by a few miles] MAY REMAIN COLD ENOUGH TONIGHT FOR THIS PRECIPITATION TO BEGIN AS A WINTRY MIX OF SNOW… SLEET OR FREEZING RAIN BEFORE MUCH WARMER TEMPERATURES ARRIVE THURSDAY MORNING.

DUE TO THE FACT THAT THE PRECIPITATION COULD FALL AT A HEAVY RATE LATE TONIGHT…THIS COULD RESULT IN SOME SNOW OR ICE ACCUMULATIONS ACROSS PORTIONS OF THE AREA BY DAYBREAK THURSDAY… POSSIBLY IMPACTING THE MORNING COMMUTE.

CURRENTLY IT APPEARS THAT A COUPLE INCHES INCHES OF SNOW MAY ACCUMULATE BEFORE THE WINTRY MIX CHANGES TO ALL RAIN EARLY THURSDAY MORNING.

Odd forecast. Deuced odd, it is.

Speaking of odd, it took me nearly 40 years to get the following knock-knock joke, as told by Ted Baxter during the Sept. 13, 1975, episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, “Edie Gets Married.”

Not that I’ve been puzzling over it for 40 years. I’d forgotten all about it until today, walking around in the fairly pleasant afternoon air, when I thought, What did that joke about Anna Maria Alberghetti mean? Memory works in mysterious ways.

Just as unlikely, I remembered to look it up when I got home, connecting the joke to “Darktown Strutters’ Ball,” which I’d heard before – but (much) more recently than 1975. It was clearly a joke for grownups back then, back when sitcom writers actually wrote jokes for grownups.

A lot of singers have done the song. Fats Domino’s version is here.

Despite Everything, Spectacle

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It’s a little unusual these days when we sit down to watch the same thing at the same time on TV, but it happened on Friday, when we saw a fair amount of NBC’s chopped up, dumbed down coverage of the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Despite the coverage, there was no denying the spectacle of the thing. Tsar Vladimir wanted spectacle, so there was spectacle, and hang the cost.

Spectacle is nothing new for Russia. It’s the country that gave us the Potemkin village, after all. (Spectacle, pseudo-spectacle, what’s the difference, as long as the tsar is pleased?) And who can forget those May Day parades with their ICBMs on wheels? That pleased the red tsars.

Note some of these pictures from the Sporting News, especially the shots of unfinished or poorly built Sochi toilets. Funny to see in photos, not so funny to find in your hotel room. Just carping by Westerners, no doubt. We have spectacle to put on, don’t bother Russia about plumbing details! It reminds me of the Hermitage. A spectacular building indeed, with a spectacular art collection. But – at least when I was there in 1994 – dank, crummy, hard-to-find bathrooms.

Why did NBC leave this out? It was part of the pre-ceremony festivities, but easy to include, since everything was on tape anyway. Maybe it was considered too surreal for mainstream tastes.

I enjoyed the Parade of Nations, especially the athletes walking over maps of their nations, projected somehow or other onto the floor of the stadium. Now that’s a great special effect. Glad to see minuscule Euro-nations in the Games, too — Andorra, Liechtenstein, even tiny San Marino (but it turns out that country’s been in the Winter Games since 1976). No one from the Vatican City, but I guess it would be hard to scare up an Olympic-class athlete from its 800-odd residents.

Also glad to see Togo in the parade. Go Togo! I cheer the sporting aspirations of Togo. One athlete, Alessia Afi Dipol, will be competing in two events for the country, women’s giant slalom and women’s slalom, while another athlete, Mathilde-Amivi Petitjean, will compete in the women’s 10 km classic cross-country skiing event.

Since Friday, I haven’t watched any of the coverage. For one thing, I’m not that excited about winter sports, but I also know how NBC will cover the Games: first, figure skating. Then some more figure skating. After that, a little speed skating, and hockey (if Team USA is in the medal rounds), and then some highlights from figure skating, even though that event is over, plus interviews with Team USA figure skaters, complete with more highlights of the event. With occasional coverage of death-defying sports, such as luge and skeleton, but not without constant yackety-yak commentary.

Thursday Orts

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No falling snow today, just real cold air. Of course I had to be out in it for a while, including a period spent figuring out why the garage door wasn’t closing. Once I figured it out, it was all too obvious. A chunk of snow had attached itself to the bottom of the door, and when it passed in front of the electric eye, it stopped the door.

Until I thought to visit the Coca-Cola web site itself, I couldn’t find a list of all the seven languages used in the “America the Beautiful” commercial aired during the Super Bowl. The descriptions I saw simply mentioned that most of the languages weren’t English, which seems to have fueled a short-lived tempest in a teapot. I didn’t see the commercial live, or any of the commercials during the game, or the game either.

I caught it on YouTube the next day (the commercial, not the game). A pretty piece of work, even considering that at its heart, its goal is to sell sugar water (or more likely around here, corn syrup water). Where’s that street at 0:35? Looks like a Chinatown, but I can’t tell where. I want to go there and get some noodles.

The languages are English and Spanish, naturally, but the others were impossible for me to pin down just listening: Tagalog, Hebrew, Hindi, Keres (spoken by the Keres Pueblo people), and Senegalese-French. Interesting selection. It didn’t take long before some jokesters created a parody that included the likes of Klingon and Dothraki – which I’d never heard of before, since I’ve missed Game of Thrones entirely.

Another thing I didn’t know, but just found out: as a child, Charles Nelson Reilly attended the circus in Hartford, Conn., on July 6, 1944, the day the big top caught fire and killed over 160 people. As an old man doing his one-man show, Reilly described his escape. Separately, another fellow described his escape.

Yooper Snow

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More snow again last night. What is this, the Upper Peninsula? Which brings to mind a song by Da Yoopers.

My car didn’t actually get stuck today, but I can appreciate the line, “I shovel and I shovel and I shovel that snow.”

Da Yoopers bill themselves as “the #1 hunting, fishing, beer drinking comedy show in America.” They also operate a spot call Da Tourist Trap in Ishpeming, Michigan, up in the UP. If ever I’m there, and it’s a distinct possibility, I’ll buy some postcards or something just to support regional comedy.

Something I didn’t know till I looked it up today: Anatomy of a Murder was filmed in Ishpeming and surrounding area in 1959.