Seabiscuit in Motion
I watched the American Experience episode on Seabiscuit last night (we Tivo'ed it, which accounts for the 1 day lag). For me, the book was a bit too long, but the TV program left me wanting more (perhaps another 30 minutes or so?). I'm glad they left out some of the (what I thought were) extraneous details, such as Charles Howard's beginnings in San Francisco and the shitpile and brothel in Tijuana, but I wanted more on how Seabiscuit was trained, ridden, and raced. I think for Al it was perfect, because he filled in some of the gaps with info he remembered me reading/paraphrasing to him from the book (for example, when he watched the footage of the match race with War Admiral, he said, "Oh, is that the homemade bell you were telling me about?") without having to have slogged through all the book's deep background.
Having said that, the broadcast was a great companion to the book, and is worth watching for the commentary by Norah Christianson (daughter of jockey Red Pollard) and for the still photos and film footage of Seabiscuit and his entourage. As to the former, I have no idea why Christianson was so compelling, but she's what stuck with me after the fact. Perhaps it was the emotion with which she related her parts of the story. Regarding the visuals, for all the extra info that the book had, what I missed most was more photos, and the documentary (of course) serves them up. I remembered Meg using the phrase "such a Seabiscuit look!" in one of her blog entries, but what struck me wasn't so much the expressions of the horse as the expressions of the jockey. You can tell Red Pollard has a stretchy, twinkle-in-the-eye face from the few photos in the book, but you really get a sense of the guy when you see him moving.
As a side note, in between reading the book and watching American Experience, Al and I went to the track this weekend. I spent an entire spring at Golden Gate Fields during a personal depression a few years back, but I'd only been to Bay Meadows once, for a company picnic in the infield. The place took on more significance when we realized how long it had been around, and that Seabiscuit had raced there many years ago. I had suspected that Tanforan had once been a racetrack based on the racehorses on its signage, but I didn't know for sure until I read Seabiscuit. Neither of us would have guessed that Bay Meadows and Tanforan both existed at the same time and had such illustrious histories. This connection to the past made spending a Sunday at Bay Meadows very appealing, no depression required.
Anyway, we had a lovely day watching the horses run and attempting to pick the winners. I tend to go for the exotic bets, so while I occasionally guessed right (getting two out of three horses for a Trifecta in one race, and one half of a Quinella in a couple others), I didn't win any money. Al, being a hedger, won a few times by betting on a horse to place or show. The nice thing about betting on horses is that you don't get that icky feeling you do when you lose money in a casino. The horses are so beautiful and powerful and cool, and the outdoor track is so completely the opposite of the cavelike, smoke-choked casinos that you can't but feel happy—even when you've left $50 behind.
Mornings with Martha
As my friend Hoche reflected the other night, it's easier to shift your schedule later (as in, get up later in the morning, stay up later at night) than it is to shift it earlier. It's so true: as much as I love early mornings, when no one else is up except the birds and the first rays of sun, I am finding it hard to drag myself out of bed before 8:30 these days (and sometimes I dally and doze until well after 9). This is due more to work than late-night hockey games; I've been staying up past midnight (and earlier this week, past 3am) most nights trying to get on top of my buglist.
The benefit that I've found in getting up later in the mornings is that I'm still in the house (usually getting dressed and putting on makeup) when Martha Stewart Living is on. She's a little over-the-top for me, but that just means that I can actually continue with my morning routine while she raves about "very, very delicious" peach cobbers and "absolutely stunning" flower arrangements instead of just standing there glued to the TV. I bustle while she gushes, and occasionally I run back to the bedroom to get a recipe or a gardening tip.
Yesterday I just listened from the bathroom to the recipes for fruit sherbet and homemade ice cream cones (courtesy of guest Alice Waters), and this morning I got some tips on what to do with those scary green leaves sprouting up relentlessly in one corner of our garden (use them to frame a rhododendron arrangement). I tuned out the rose-pruning demonstration, since Al does the rose pruning at our (only) house, but I made sure to note the instructions for making fresh chicken tacos at home, in case we ever move away from California and have to make our own Mexican food. I can't wait for tomorrow's "Cookie of the Week" segment; lemon sandwich cookies aren't my favorite, but I love to bake, so I'm a sucker for cookie recipes of all kinds.
Alas, there have been no segments recently on how to make ham sandwiches.
Fire That Guy
Who thought a show about wife swapping would be a good idea?
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Yes, I know, I've been away for a while. I'll be posting next week with a synopsis of what I've been up to during my absence, but in the meantime I'll be sending a few updates from San Francisco, where I am this week.
Math is Hard
Al and I are watching that new show Numbers right now—or at least, Al is. I'm only half-listening to it and mocking it periodically while I write a blog post on breast milk. I'd had high hopes for the show, but Al reminded me that it was on CBS, home of CSI (which practically destroyed my longtime fascination with forensic science). I should have listened to him and lowered my expectations... though I'm not sure I could have gotten them low enough. This show is freakin' awful.
From B-Movie to B-School
Al and I started watching the third season of Project Greenlight tonight. I know Matt Damon is mad about having to make a shit movie, but I'd like to say to Matt and everyone else: This show isn't about making a good movie. It's about interoffice politics, decisionmaking, communicating, resolving conflicts. You could do a whole B-school class around this show. In fact, I think someone *should* do a whole B-school class around this show.
I know I learned a ton about how to communicate more effectively in meetings and how I'm perceived by my colleagues at work from last season's Project Greenlight. It was absolutely brilliant—and incredibly educational—to both show the project participants in meetings and to interview them one-on-one about what they thought they said or planned to say. It was shocking how many times someone said, "Yeah, I think everybody understood that what I wanted was X" and couldn't have been more wrong.
I can already see that this season is likely to be just as educational. Whoever's doing the camerawork or the directing on this show is brilliant; he or she managed to capture every relevant facial expression in the room during the writer and director interviews. And, as ever, every person involved with the project has different interests (and therefore different motives for behaving the way they do). It's iimportant in business to understand that even people who have a common goal have different priorities, and that one's background and area of expertise influence what skills and resources one values most. That principle is on display in abundance on a project like this one, which involves studio executives, writers, producers, casting directors, actors, and others—each with a different vested interest.
It's fascinating stuff. Survivor and The Apprentice can teach you a lot about working together as a group and managing interpersonal relationships, but you can't beat Project Greenlight as a case study in business communication. Even though I'm not working full-time right now, I'll be taking notes.
Vignettes of Enjoyment
Things I'm enjoying but don't have time to write individual posts about:
John Adams, by David McCullough
Honeymoon With My Brother hadn't come in yet at the library, and I was in the mood for more Revolutionary generation reading anyway after finishing Founding Brothers, so I picked this up at the branch library off Rittenhouse Square (called the Philadelphia City Institute branch, not Rittenhouse, strangely enough) last week. I was a bit worried by its size, and that it might be as dry as the Benjamin Franklin biography I tried to read for six months in 2003-2004, but it's so wonderful that I can't wait to get in bed every night to read. It got me on the first page, and it's been just as absorbing since.
Fage Total 2% Yogurt
Man, this stuff is fabulous, especially with a spoonful of strawberry jam. At $1.69 (a whole $1 more than regular yogurt), it's more of a weekly treat than a daily indulgence, though I'd consider trading a Starbucks coffee for the smooth texture and incredibly fresh taste of this yogurt.
Iron Chef America
All the drama (and most of the kitsch) of the original, plus incredible food facts and breathless foodie enthusiasm from host Alton Brown. This second try at an American version of Iron Chef really hits the mark, managing to impress, inspire, and inform while whetting the appetite. (And thankfully, William Shatner is nowhere to be found.)
MT-Moderate
I've pretty much vanquished comment spam on all my blogs with a combination of moderation and MT-Blacklist... which means that the spammers have turned to trackbacks to propagate their filthy casino, porn, and pill URLs. I went to Jay Allen's blog to see if there was any news on the trackback spam front, and I found a post where he mentioned MT-Moderate. It overlaps with the built-in MT comment moderation, but since it's possible to remove the comment moderation module and only use the trackback moderation module, it turned out to be exactly what I was looking for. And it plays nicely with MT-Blacklist. There's probably some unneeded rebuilding of entries (since the trackbacks that MT-Blacklist would normally remove from an entry never made it there), but all in all, a good, easy-to-use solution for managing trackback spam.
Apprentice, The Long Version
I wish it didn't take me longer to read the Television Without Pity synopses of The Apprentice than it does to watch the show, because I like the synopses better.
Oh, He's Out There, Alright
Representative Ralph Regula (R, Ohio), quoted in a Boston Globe article about proposed cuts to Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding, regarding PBS and NPR supporters:
"They've got a bigger megaphone than I do," he said. "They'll trot out Elmo and Mickey Mouse and Lord knows who else, and I'll be out there kind of by myself."
What we'll be trotting out is certainly not Mickey Mouse (who's a registered trademark, I believe, among other things, of the Walt Disney Company), but the programming we depend upon—and support with both our tax dollars and regular donations—such as Morning Edition, NewsHour, Between the Lions, and yes, the show that my son refers to as "Elmo".
You can have your tax cut back—really! I never asked for one anyway—if it means we can't pay for Sesame Street. Somehow, however, I don't think that's the case. It's hard to believe that CPB is the reason for our huge federal deficits, and that it's really a choice between "giving a little more money to handicapped children versus providing appropriations for public broadcasting." It's about not even making a drop in the bucket when it comes to reducing the size of government while taking out what you perceive to be a bastion of liberal bias. Dorkwad.
Dark Side and Dark Circles
I think I'd be worn out from yesterday's migraine anyway, even if I hadn't stayed up until almost midnight for the past two nights to watch a Frontline on Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, and the way the intelligence communities (not to mention a Secretary of State) were used and abused between 9/11 and the runup to the invasion of Iraq. I did stay up to watch that documentary, however, and now I'm exhausted—and fascinated.
I'm one of the few among my friends and acquaintences to have strongly disliked (nay, hated) Farenheight 9/11. It wasn't the subject matter so much as the way the movie was strung together with hyperbole, innuendo, overwrought emotion, and, in many spots, what looked to my narrowed eyes like half-truths. I'm not as well-read as many on the inner workings of the Bush administration and the war on terror, but I have done some reading, and I would have preferred to see a documentary that spoke to my head rather than trying to inflame my heart.
Frontline's The Dark Side was just what I was looking for. From a Boston Globe review of the episode, forwarded to me from Al this morning:
To many, Cheney is the dark side of the Bush administration, and this program will only cement that judgment. "Frontline" chronicles the brutal campaign by two consummate political in-fighters -- Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld -- to decimate the CIA, politically emasculate Secretary of State Colin Powell, and construct a near-limitless concept of executive power during war. While many of these strands are familiar, they have not been assembled as effectively before on television to present a coherent picture of what happened after 9/11.
I highly recommend both the full Globe review and the Frontline documentary, which will be available for viewing on the Frontline website at 5pm today.
Yes, Captain
As a kid, I was NOT a fan of Star Trek. I WAS a fan of Star Wars, and it used to bug me royally when people would confuse the two or mistake me for a Trekkie. After I married Al, however, Star Trek started to grow on me a little. It's still probably not a show I'd ever watch on my own, but I enjoy watching it with Al, who explains all the relationships between the characters and the significance of the plots, the gadgets, and the locations to me as we're watching. I like that he likes it, and that I can understand each episode without having to watch every other episode. His enthusiasm for it is contagious, at least for the duration of an episode.
So all that's by way of saying, if I'd come across this quiz on ratphooey's blog before I met Al, I would have just moved on to the next blog in my RSS reader. But because I read it today, after almost 4 years of marriage to Al and a good number of Star Trek episodes from each generation, I clicked the link to take the quiz. Here are the results:
You are Jean-Luc Picard
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A lover of Shakespeare and other fine literature. You have a decisive mind and a firm hand in dealing with others.
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Interestingly, the first time I took it, it came up as a tie between completely expendable redshirt guy and Jean Luc Picard, but for some reason redshirt trumped Picard, and I only got to see the description of Mr. Expendable. After reading the description, however, I figured out which factor to adjust*, and I knocked it down a notch to get the Picard description, which actually sounds a bit more like me. :)
*I'd put ABSOLUTELY YES for "Do you often go unnoticed?", which was probably a stretch. My reason for doing so was that people often bump into me—physically bump into me—and then seem startled, like they hadn't seen me walking down the street toward them until they ran right into me. However, I think it's not an ABSOLUTELY YES situation, since there are probably ten times as many people who *do* notice me as who slam into me as if I were invisible. Thus I think the Picard designation is probably the right one, and Expendable Guy probably shouldn't even be ranked as high as he is.
A Victory For the Red Sox Nation
Those of us with cable (as opposed to satellite) will still be able to follow the Red Sox around the country this baseball season, thanks to a last-minute deal between iN Demand and MLB. Thanks also to Senator John Kerry (from Mass., natch) for the "whoa, wait a minute there" when the exclusive deal with DirecTV was announced a few weeks ago. Full story here: Baseball Keeps 'Extra Innings' on Cable.
Yo Gabba Gabba!
I've been working on a long post for days now, and it's holding back a flood of smaller items. I've decided just to let loose with the small stuff, and get the longer post up as soon as I can.
As I write this the Beaner is downstairs watching Yo Gabba Gabba!, by request. Sarah had mentioned that her son LOVED it, but I didn't get around to trying it out on the Beaner until Sunday night. His reaction was somewhat lukewarm; he danced to one segment in the middle almost involuntarily, but he stubbornly refused to dance or sing or follow any of the other prompts.
About half an hour ago he started talking about watching Wonder Pets (which I also screened for the first time on Sunday night) and Yo Gabba Gabba! He then said, "maybe we could watch Yo Gabba Gabba! first. The naptime one. You know, the one about naptime and sleeping. THAT ONE." So I found it on OnDemand, and as soon as the bit about the getting your wiggles out came on, he was wiggling like a maniac. He's hooked.