I've just upped the difficulty level in NCAA Football, and am re-learning the passing game as a result. I've been trying to slowly wean myself from the gunslinger mentality, in which I figure I can force the ball into the tiniest gaps, because I'm sweet like that.
I just threw an interception right at a linebacker I meant to throw the ball over. Why? I read the safeties wrong. Or, rather, I didn't put enough air under the ball because I thought the umpire was a safety, even though that guy was distracted by the three freaking wideouts I had to that side. Alas, it's now SMU ball, first and 10.
Um, also, I re-read Nick Flynn's Some Ether last week, lest you think I'm a mouthbreathing meathead, posting about video games while my co-blogger puts up essays about recapturing youth under Latin headlines and long treatises about dactylic hexameter.
Also, Seamus Heaney is the tits, I met him once, and I was very happy to see him show up on EDSBS. Which is also the tits.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Good luck with that
I don't know why this story hasn't caught on.
He may be a certified lame duck now, but President Bush and his truest believers are about to launch their final campaign - an eye-popping, half-billion-dollar drive for the Bush presidential library.Eager to begin refurbishing his tattered legacy, the President hopes to raise $500 million to build his library and a think tank at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Bush lived in Dallas until he was elected governor of Texas in 1995.
***
Bush loyalists have already identified wealthy heiresses, Arab nations and captains of industry as potential "mega" donors and are pressing for a formal site announcement - now expected early in the new year.
***
"It's a stretch," said another source briefed on the plans. "It's so much bigger than anything that's been tried before. But the more you have, the more influence [on history] you can exert."
The half-billion target is double what Bush raised for his 2004 reelection and dwarfs the funding of other presidential libraries. But Bush partisans are determined to have a massive pile of endowment cash to spread the gospel of a presidency that for now gets poor marks from many scholars and a majority of Americans.
The legacy-polishing centerpiece is an institute, which several Bush insiders called the Institute for Democracy. Patterned after Stanford University's Hoover Institution, Bush's institute will hire conservative scholars and "give them money to write papers and books favorable to the President's policies," one Bush insider said.
Pretty much summarizes what we've all come to expect.
Other targets of SMU fundraising:
- The Rosie O'Donnell Cocksmanship Foundation.
- The Ron Mexico Chair in Women's Studies.
- The Mel Gibson Judaica Center.
- Rumsfeld School of Human Rights Awareness.
- The Dahmer Culinary Institute.
- Lynyrd Skynyrd Aviation School.
- The NBC Endowment for Integrity in Notre Dame Reportage.
- The Dead Horse Center for the Study of Non-Redundant Amusements.
A book report about how Dido was the world's most spiteful girlfriend
I was assigned to read The Aeneid twice in college, and I read it both times. It seems like The Aeneid is the only epic poem that anybody likes and remembers. Nobody stays up late reading Homer.
On Virgil days the professors were in top form. A frat guy I was friends with wrote a play using Aeneas as a main character. Like the Inferno and Gatsby and As I Lay Dying, The Aeneid was one of those books that everybody seemed to like.
Comic book synopsis: Aeneas was a Trojan warrior who made his debut in The Iliad. About 800 years later, Virgil writes a sequel about how Aeneas founds the Roman empire. After the fall of Troy, Aeneas and has crew knock around the Mediterranean. They spend some time in Carthage, where Dido falls in love with him, and then kills herself when Aeneas leaves for Italy. Aeneas travels to the afterlife to talk to his dad and hear some prophecies. Then, Aeneas, his son Ascanius, and surviving crewmembers land on the western shore of Italy. They fight a bloody war with the locals, Aeneas kills his arch-rival, and the stage is set for the Roman empire. The end.
Aeneas is a great guy, much more vivid and real than what Homer cooked up. He works hard. He's a family man -- a good dad to Ascanius, and during the fall of Troy, he carries his own dad on his back until they get to safety. He's also a great friend: he was about to let his enemy Turnus live, when he remembered how Turnus killed his buddy Pallas: "Decked in the spoils you stripped from the one I loved -- escape my clutches?" Aeneas says. "Never -- Pallas strikes this blow, Pallas sacrifices you now, makes you pay the price with your own guilty blood!"
Aeneas was the first action hero, and all-around awesome.
I reread The Aeneid over Thanksgiving. I hadn't read it since fall of '98, and the new translation was a good excuse.
One thing I forgot: Dido was a lunatic. She was the queen of Carthage and a stone fox, what Elizabeth I would have been if she'd looked like Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee were a Trojan. Aeneas and his team are on the way to Italy when their ships land at Carthage. "His looks, his words, they pierce her heart and cling -- no peace, no rest for her body, love will give her none." After a few days: "Dido cares no more for appearances, nor for her reputation, either. She no longer thinks to keep the affair a secret, no, she calls it a marriage, using the word to cloak her sense of guilt."
Still, Aeneas needs to go found Rome. The gods feel worried, so they remind him not to hang out in Carthage too long. Aeneas doesn't tell her this yet, but Dido still goes crazy. "You're running away -- from me?" she says. "Thanks to you, my sense of honor is gone, my one and only pathway to the stars." She complains to Aeneas that, "thanks to you, the African tribes, Numidian warlords, hate me."
To be clear: Aeneas has done nothing wrong. His hometown has been destroyed and he's been at sea for years. He didn't lie to Dido. She looked at him, flipped out, then accosted him until he banged her. The whole relationship is summarized in The Hold Steady line, "Guys go for looks. Girls go for status." Aeneas explains to her that he's responsible for his son and his people, and that he'd love to stay in Carthage with Dido. Her measured response: "She breaks off in the midst of outbursts, desperate, flinging herself from the light of day, sweeping out of his sight, leaving him numb with doubt, with much to fear and much he means to say."
What does Dido do next? I bet you don't remember all of the details. She tells her sister Anna to build a fire, and tells Anna to burn all of Aeneas' clothes. After that, burn her bed! "I must obliterate every trace of the man, the curse, and the priestess shows the way!" says Dido, shrieking her psychotic little heart out.
Shortly thereafter, Dido throws herself on one of Aeneas' old swords. She dies screeching.
You may think that I'm being too tough on Dido. I mean, I wish that was the case. I wish that she had redeeming qualities. But in Book Six, when Aeneas goes to the underworld, he runs into Dido. He sees her and feels terrible. He says a bunch of nice things and says that he feels bad that she died.
Imagine that you're a dead Carthaginian queen, and that you killed yourself because you lack self control and perspective. Now you're dead. The underworld is boring. Wouldn't you be excited for any company, let alone this guy you were, like, totally in love with?
No. After Aeneas says all of this great stuff, she refuses to speak to him. She glares, looks at the ground, and walks away.
I know this is not a fashionable spin on Dido's behavior. I remembered Dido as this really hot, sad queen that got shafted by Aeneas. That's probably how my professors taught the book. But that is not Dido, who was, in reality, the precursor to Coral from the Real World-Road Rules challenges.
How the hell could you not like The Aeneid? I just described 1 1/2 chapters of a 12-chapter book. Elsewhere in the poem, Euryalus and Nisus become the charter members of NAMBLA, Aeneas explains the Trojan Horse from the Trojan perspective, everybody badmouths Odysseus, and Virgil provides pages of splattered brains and split skulls.
And then Virgil throws in all the right details, like his sketch of the battlefield death of "Menoetes who, in his youth, detested war but war would be his fate. An Arcadian angler skilled at working the rivers of Lerna stocked with fish, his lodgings poor, a stranger to all the gifts of the great, and his father farmed his crops on rented land." And then you think to yourself, Shit, Aeneas is in this for the glory, but a guy like Menoetes, who only wanted to fish in his stream and lead a simple life, is the one who pays for it.
On Virgil days the professors were in top form. A frat guy I was friends with wrote a play using Aeneas as a main character. Like the Inferno and Gatsby and As I Lay Dying, The Aeneid was one of those books that everybody seemed to like.
Comic book synopsis: Aeneas was a Trojan warrior who made his debut in The Iliad. About 800 years later, Virgil writes a sequel about how Aeneas founds the Roman empire. After the fall of Troy, Aeneas and has crew knock around the Mediterranean. They spend some time in Carthage, where Dido falls in love with him, and then kills herself when Aeneas leaves for Italy. Aeneas travels to the afterlife to talk to his dad and hear some prophecies. Then, Aeneas, his son Ascanius, and surviving crewmembers land on the western shore of Italy. They fight a bloody war with the locals, Aeneas kills his arch-rival, and the stage is set for the Roman empire. The end.
Aeneas is a great guy, much more vivid and real than what Homer cooked up. He works hard. He's a family man -- a good dad to Ascanius, and during the fall of Troy, he carries his own dad on his back until they get to safety. He's also a great friend: he was about to let his enemy Turnus live, when he remembered how Turnus killed his buddy Pallas: "Decked in the spoils you stripped from the one I loved -- escape my clutches?" Aeneas says. "Never -- Pallas strikes this blow, Pallas sacrifices you now, makes you pay the price with your own guilty blood!"
Aeneas was the first action hero, and all-around awesome.
I reread The Aeneid over Thanksgiving. I hadn't read it since fall of '98, and the new translation was a good excuse.
One thing I forgot: Dido was a lunatic. She was the queen of Carthage and a stone fox, what Elizabeth I would have been if she'd looked like Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee were a Trojan. Aeneas and his team are on the way to Italy when their ships land at Carthage. "His looks, his words, they pierce her heart and cling -- no peace, no rest for her body, love will give her none." After a few days: "Dido cares no more for appearances, nor for her reputation, either. She no longer thinks to keep the affair a secret, no, she calls it a marriage, using the word to cloak her sense of guilt."
Still, Aeneas needs to go found Rome. The gods feel worried, so they remind him not to hang out in Carthage too long. Aeneas doesn't tell her this yet, but Dido still goes crazy. "You're running away -- from me?" she says. "Thanks to you, my sense of honor is gone, my one and only pathway to the stars." She complains to Aeneas that, "thanks to you, the African tribes, Numidian warlords, hate me."
To be clear: Aeneas has done nothing wrong. His hometown has been destroyed and he's been at sea for years. He didn't lie to Dido. She looked at him, flipped out, then accosted him until he banged her. The whole relationship is summarized in The Hold Steady line, "Guys go for looks. Girls go for status." Aeneas explains to her that he's responsible for his son and his people, and that he'd love to stay in Carthage with Dido. Her measured response: "She breaks off in the midst of outbursts, desperate, flinging herself from the light of day, sweeping out of his sight, leaving him numb with doubt, with much to fear and much he means to say."
What does Dido do next? I bet you don't remember all of the details. She tells her sister Anna to build a fire, and tells Anna to burn all of Aeneas' clothes. After that, burn her bed! "I must obliterate every trace of the man, the curse, and the priestess shows the way!" says Dido, shrieking her psychotic little heart out.
Shortly thereafter, Dido throws herself on one of Aeneas' old swords. She dies screeching.
You may think that I'm being too tough on Dido. I mean, I wish that was the case. I wish that she had redeeming qualities. But in Book Six, when Aeneas goes to the underworld, he runs into Dido. He sees her and feels terrible. He says a bunch of nice things and says that he feels bad that she died.
Imagine that you're a dead Carthaginian queen, and that you killed yourself because you lack self control and perspective. Now you're dead. The underworld is boring. Wouldn't you be excited for any company, let alone this guy you were, like, totally in love with?
No. After Aeneas says all of this great stuff, she refuses to speak to him. She glares, looks at the ground, and walks away.
I know this is not a fashionable spin on Dido's behavior. I remembered Dido as this really hot, sad queen that got shafted by Aeneas. That's probably how my professors taught the book. But that is not Dido, who was, in reality, the precursor to Coral from the Real World-Road Rules challenges.
How the hell could you not like The Aeneid? I just described 1 1/2 chapters of a 12-chapter book. Elsewhere in the poem, Euryalus and Nisus become the charter members of NAMBLA, Aeneas explains the Trojan Horse from the Trojan perspective, everybody badmouths Odysseus, and Virgil provides pages of splattered brains and split skulls.
And then Virgil throws in all the right details, like his sketch of the battlefield death of "Menoetes who, in his youth, detested war but war would be his fate. An Arcadian angler skilled at working the rivers of Lerna stocked with fish, his lodgings poor, a stranger to all the gifts of the great, and his father farmed his crops on rented land." And then you think to yourself, Shit, Aeneas is in this for the glory, but a guy like Menoetes, who only wanted to fish in his stream and lead a simple life, is the one who pays for it.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
In media res
I woke up Thanksgiving morning hungover on a friend's couch.
His parents whispered when they put a turkey into the oven. They didn't want to wake me.
Under my film of cigarette stink, I was reminded that I liked New York's smoking ban. It isn't just the cigarette smell, it's the way the odor corrupts your pores and reminds you of terrible hangovers from the past. Post-ban, I still wake up in my apartment hungover and some mornings my throat is dry from last night's Marlboro Lights, but there isn't the blanket of bar stench, a smell that I associate with the ripest hangovers from college.
It was a little after 8 a.m. I heard the sounds of small kids upstairs. It was time to find my parents' car.
The dad arrived. For a middle-aged man called at 4 a.m. to pick up his adult daughter and four strange, drunk guys, he was pretty nice about it.
My parents live far outside of town. It would have taken 20 minutes for them, round trip. Hence, I would crash at Jeff's parents' house.
Earlier in the night, Mike, Jeff and I visited a girl we went to high school with. Wendy was one of the prettiest girls in our class -- she's still striking. Girls here look different than they do in New York. Most are worse for the wear, but the pretty ones seem cleaner and unaffected. Wendy's married now and lives near Detroit. She had her three-year-old son with her. We were at her parents' house. Her mom didn't recognize me at first.
I incited Wendy's kid. That's what I do. If a kid walks out with a ball, other people say to the little kid, "Wow! Where did you get that ball?" I say, "Cool ball, dude. Throw it at Grandma's head." Within 30 minutes the kid and I were throwing an inflated ball around the living room and knocking over candles.
Wendy talked about being a mom; her mom gave us cans of Labatt; her dad gave graphic descriptions of a recent check-up; Mike and I discussed buying investment property. Mike's real job involves the healthcare industry. He said something about how it seems like a lot of people in this town come down with cancer, and it's true, there seemed to be a lot of random death and illness here, more than I'm used to or hear about from other people. Growing up, there were too many fatal and near-fatal car accidents, and Mike's observation was right, there is a lot of cancer, although it's tough to guess whether it's something in the environment or just the side-effect of a region where there's not a lot of money and a low priority on healthy living.
People here get older faster. Most look older younger. They marry younger. They have young kids. They have a different kind of stress. It's stuff that shows up in peripheral vision, like the same game is playing out with different clocks, a dwindling number of us knocking around in prolonged adolescence while other people settled into premature maturity.
Wendy's dad talked about the burglary at a bar he used to own. Wendy talked about stealing liquor from that bar when she was 16.
It was getting late, and it seemed like her kid would have to go to sleep soon.
So we left that house at 11, with about five hours still to carry on.
His parents whispered when they put a turkey into the oven. They didn't want to wake me.
Under my film of cigarette stink, I was reminded that I liked New York's smoking ban. It isn't just the cigarette smell, it's the way the odor corrupts your pores and reminds you of terrible hangovers from the past. Post-ban, I still wake up in my apartment hungover and some mornings my throat is dry from last night's Marlboro Lights, but there isn't the blanket of bar stench, a smell that I associate with the ripest hangovers from college.
It was a little after 8 a.m. I heard the sounds of small kids upstairs. It was time to find my parents' car.
* * *
I take competition seriously, even when it's beer pong. Mike and I went 3-0 in beer pong at an afterbar, which played out in the basement of some guy who must have been 21 or 22. I hadn't played much beer pong since college, but Mike and I dominated. On game three everyone was running out of steam. It turned into one of those matches where you need 30 tries to finish off the final two cups, which we eventually did to close the night undefeated.
It was late. We were bombed in a basement full of strangers almost a decade younger than us, in a house in the redneck town where we grew up.
"I want you to go back to New York and carry a message to [Flop]," my friend Jeff said as we left this afterbar. "I want you to tell him that he could never cut it here."
"No way, dude," I said. "[Flop] sees weirder shit than this before lunch. If [Flop] were here, he'd be humping a fat girl in the corner of that basement."
Jeff and I have a running argument about whether, in a hypothetical fight between me and his younger brother, he would side with me. He insists that he would take his brother's side. I don't like this, so I tackled him. Catching him offguard, he landed in the front lawn before quickly regaining the upper hand.
"That's fine," I said. "You win."
I wanted breakfast. It was 4 a.m. We walked to a Coney Island place rumored to be open 24 hours. It was closed for Thanksgiving.
There were five of us. We were too drunk to drive. It was too far for any of us to walk home.
There's a girl in her mid-20s who grew up in this town and now lives in Williamsburg. She was with us. A few weeks earlier, some of us had met up for beers and dinner at Zum Schneider on Avenue C -- normal enough, but then I consider that growing up we perceived any town with a movie theater to be a major city, and Zum Schneider seems like a small victory.
"I'll call my dad," she said. "He'll take everybody home."
Waiting for her dad, we cajoled some of the restaurant's departing employees to give us cigarettes. I begged them to make me poached eggs. They politely declined.
It was late. We were bombed in a basement full of strangers almost a decade younger than us, in a house in the redneck town where we grew up.
* * *
"I want you to go back to New York and carry a message to [Flop]," my friend Jeff said as we left this afterbar. "I want you to tell him that he could never cut it here."
"No way, dude," I said. "[Flop] sees weirder shit than this before lunch. If [Flop] were here, he'd be humping a fat girl in the corner of that basement."
Jeff and I have a running argument about whether, in a hypothetical fight between me and his younger brother, he would side with me. He insists that he would take his brother's side. I don't like this, so I tackled him. Catching him offguard, he landed in the front lawn before quickly regaining the upper hand.
"That's fine," I said. "You win."
I wanted breakfast. It was 4 a.m. We walked to a Coney Island place rumored to be open 24 hours. It was closed for Thanksgiving.
There were five of us. We were too drunk to drive. It was too far for any of us to walk home.
There's a girl in her mid-20s who grew up in this town and now lives in Williamsburg. She was with us. A few weeks earlier, some of us had met up for beers and dinner at Zum Schneider on Avenue C -- normal enough, but then I consider that growing up we perceived any town with a movie theater to be a major city, and Zum Schneider seems like a small victory.
"I'll call my dad," she said. "He'll take everybody home."
Waiting for her dad, we cajoled some of the restaurant's departing employees to give us cigarettes. I begged them to make me poached eggs. They politely declined.
The dad arrived. For a middle-aged man called at 4 a.m. to pick up his adult daughter and four strange, drunk guys, he was pretty nice about it.
My parents live far outside of town. It would have taken 20 minutes for them, round trip. Hence, I would crash at Jeff's parents' house.
* * *
As Mike observed, it used to be that when you came back to town and went to a bar, you couldn't walk 10 feet without running into someone who would buy you a drink. Wednesday was not one of those nights. There were three of us in the ballpark of 30 years old, in a bar full of 21- and 22-year-olds. There were no stray friends, and few younger siblings of friends. The generations had transitioned.
It was an ego blow that no one I spoke to had heard of me.
"Hi," said the beefcat. "I give great head. What do you do?"
The beefcat was 22 or 23. She was subtle, a little shy.
She directed her charms to several of us, not just me personally. After she established her bona fides (she graduated from a competitive private university in the mid-Atlantic, was a fan of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and was studying for a Ph.D) the situation seemed less dangerous. Certain girls -- hardcore rural girls, who live in the area their whole lives, coping with all kinds of meanness, worn out and begging for attention -- who show up on townie nights get drunk and get angry. They are a threat. This girl was being funny.
"Hell, I'll let all three of you fuck me," she said.
I moved a few feet to buy a round. When I came back, Mike had driven her away.
"What the hell did you do that for?"
"She was annoying as hell," Mike said.
"Dude, it was funny," I said. "She likes Sir Gawain. Besides, compared to everyone else here, you're fucking old. You should be flattered that she was even interested."
It was an ego blow that no one I spoke to had heard of me.
"Hi," said the beefcat. "I give great head. What do you do?"
The beefcat was 22 or 23. She was subtle, a little shy.
She directed her charms to several of us, not just me personally. After she established her bona fides (she graduated from a competitive private university in the mid-Atlantic, was a fan of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and was studying for a Ph.D) the situation seemed less dangerous. Certain girls -- hardcore rural girls, who live in the area their whole lives, coping with all kinds of meanness, worn out and begging for attention -- who show up on townie nights get drunk and get angry. They are a threat. This girl was being funny.
"Hell, I'll let all three of you fuck me," she said.
I moved a few feet to buy a round. When I came back, Mike had driven her away.
"What the hell did you do that for?"
"She was annoying as hell," Mike said.
"Dude, it was funny," I said. "She likes Sir Gawain. Besides, compared to everyone else here, you're fucking old. You should be flattered that she was even interested."
* * *
Earlier in the night, Mike, Jeff and I visited a girl we went to high school with. Wendy was one of the prettiest girls in our class -- she's still striking. Girls here look different than they do in New York. Most are worse for the wear, but the pretty ones seem cleaner and unaffected. Wendy's married now and lives near Detroit. She had her three-year-old son with her. We were at her parents' house. Her mom didn't recognize me at first.
I incited Wendy's kid. That's what I do. If a kid walks out with a ball, other people say to the little kid, "Wow! Where did you get that ball?" I say, "Cool ball, dude. Throw it at Grandma's head." Within 30 minutes the kid and I were throwing an inflated ball around the living room and knocking over candles.
Wendy talked about being a mom; her mom gave us cans of Labatt; her dad gave graphic descriptions of a recent check-up; Mike and I discussed buying investment property. Mike's real job involves the healthcare industry. He said something about how it seems like a lot of people in this town come down with cancer, and it's true, there seemed to be a lot of random death and illness here, more than I'm used to or hear about from other people. Growing up, there were too many fatal and near-fatal car accidents, and Mike's observation was right, there is a lot of cancer, although it's tough to guess whether it's something in the environment or just the side-effect of a region where there's not a lot of money and a low priority on healthy living.
People here get older faster. Most look older younger. They marry younger. They have young kids. They have a different kind of stress. It's stuff that shows up in peripheral vision, like the same game is playing out with different clocks, a dwindling number of us knocking around in prolonged adolescence while other people settled into premature maturity.
Wendy's dad talked about the burglary at a bar he used to own. Wendy talked about stealing liquor from that bar when she was 16.
It was getting late, and it seemed like her kid would have to go to sleep soon.
So we left that house at 11, with about five hours still to carry on.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Thanks
In the spirit of the Thursday holiday, I'm writing this quick thanks to everybody who's been reading and linking to us lately. It's flattering to be read by strangers.
This isn't any kind of set-up. It's nice to get e-mails and links from people we don't know. I mean that.
No, I'm not being sarcastic. Why do you think I'm being sarcastic every time I say something nice? Thanks for reading, and indulging the occasional arbitrary interest and inside joke. Whenever I'm tempted to hold back a little, it occurs to me that the fun of reading someone's blog is enjoying their idiosyncracies.
So if you think I'm being sarcastic, that reflects more on your insecurities than any attitude I've had in the past. I know I'm sarcastic, but I keep it in check. Really, I'm just trying to say something nice to you, but you're resisting. It speaks ill to your sense of self-worth -- you don't think you're worthy of compliments. I've told you before that I'm not out to get you.
I'm so grateful to be read that I'm leaving you with my favorite Thanksgiving knock-knock joke. It's my own adaptation of the celebrated Interrupting Cow cycle. It only makes sense if you tell all three parts in rapid succession.
This isn't any kind of set-up. It's nice to get e-mails and links from people we don't know. I mean that.
No, I'm not being sarcastic. Why do you think I'm being sarcastic every time I say something nice? Thanks for reading, and indulging the occasional arbitrary interest and inside joke. Whenever I'm tempted to hold back a little, it occurs to me that the fun of reading someone's blog is enjoying their idiosyncracies.
So if you think I'm being sarcastic, that reflects more on your insecurities than any attitude I've had in the past. I know I'm sarcastic, but I keep it in check. Really, I'm just trying to say something nice to you, but you're resisting. It speaks ill to your sense of self-worth -- you don't think you're worthy of compliments. I've told you before that I'm not out to get you.
I'm so grateful to be read that I'm leaving you with my favorite Thanksgiving knock-knock joke. It's my own adaptation of the celebrated Interrupting Cow cycle. It only makes sense if you tell all three parts in rapid succession.
Me: Knock knock.
You: Who's there?
Me: Interrupting turkey.
You: Interrupting turkey wh-
Me: GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE.
Me: Knock knock.
You: Who's there?
Me: Interrupting Indian.
You: Interrupting Indi-
Me: STOP STEALING MY LAND!
Me: Knock knock.
You: Who's there?
Me: Interrupting corn.
You: Interrupting corn who?
[Stand motionless with hands at side in imitation of a cornstalk. Sway softly, as if blown by a gentle breeze.]
Monday, November 20, 2006
Home for the holidays
I'm en route to my parents' house today. It used to be that when I went back for Thanksgiving or Christmas, I expected a quiet few days of reading and napping, with some civilized beers with high school friends thrown into the mix.
That has changed in recent years.
Oh, sure, I'm carrying the new translation of The Aeneid, and I have every intention of getting some work done. My good intentions will be held prisoner by reality.
Take last Christmas. A night out at the bar segued into an afterparty at the empty home of some guy several years younger than the rest of us. The night ended with a mounted bass smashed to smithereens and a raid on the kitchen of our gullible host, who promptly flipped out and screamed for everyone to leave his house. That same trip, my sister's two dogs trashed my parents' bedroom: they shredded a mattress and boxsprings and nearly murdered three cats. My mother, who has watched Babe a few too many times, expressed dismay that the cats and dogs couldn't learn to get along.
A couple years earlier I assumed afterparty responsiblities. I brought a crew home for some 2 a.m. ice skating, waking my future brother-in-law by jumping on his bed, and then rousing my sister with a chorus of taunts shouted from the living room.
My father was not amused, but none of our fathers are amused. Earlier this century there was an infamous hot tub party at a friend's house that precipitated another pissed-off dad to come downstairs and throw everyone out.
On quiet nights, we have bicycle thievery, snowball fighting, and a flirtatious hillbilly psychic who tries to read palms. One evening, 30 of us showed up in a redneck bar to enjoy some fiddling. We shut the place down. Another morning I woke up on a couch with my wristwatch torn apart.
People will hook up with former classmates. Married girls will hit on single boys. Housepets will run wild. Fathers will storm and mothers will weep.
It should be an interesting week.
That has changed in recent years.
Oh, sure, I'm carrying the new translation of The Aeneid, and I have every intention of getting some work done. My good intentions will be held prisoner by reality.
Take last Christmas. A night out at the bar segued into an afterparty at the empty home of some guy several years younger than the rest of us. The night ended with a mounted bass smashed to smithereens and a raid on the kitchen of our gullible host, who promptly flipped out and screamed for everyone to leave his house. That same trip, my sister's two dogs trashed my parents' bedroom: they shredded a mattress and boxsprings and nearly murdered three cats. My mother, who has watched Babe a few too many times, expressed dismay that the cats and dogs couldn't learn to get along.
A couple years earlier I assumed afterparty responsiblities. I brought a crew home for some 2 a.m. ice skating, waking my future brother-in-law by jumping on his bed, and then rousing my sister with a chorus of taunts shouted from the living room.
My father was not amused, but none of our fathers are amused. Earlier this century there was an infamous hot tub party at a friend's house that precipitated another pissed-off dad to come downstairs and throw everyone out.
On quiet nights, we have bicycle thievery, snowball fighting, and a flirtatious hillbilly psychic who tries to read palms. One evening, 30 of us showed up in a redneck bar to enjoy some fiddling. We shut the place down. Another morning I woke up on a couch with my wristwatch torn apart.
People will hook up with former classmates. Married girls will hit on single boys. Housepets will run wild. Fathers will storm and mothers will weep.
It should be an interesting week.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Ohio State 42, Michigan 39
I don't know where I'm goin'.
But I sure know where I've been.
Hanging on the promises in songs of yesterday.
And I've made up my mind.
I ain't wasting no more time.
But here I go again.
Here I go again.
But I sure know where I've been.
Hanging on the promises in songs of yesterday.
And I've made up my mind.
I ain't wasting no more time.
But here I go again.
Here I go again.
Whitesnake, "Here I Go Again"
We lost, and sure, that sucks. But almost every second of today's game was pure pleasure. It would have made Bo proud.
I'm looking forward to the re-match in Glendale.
Friday, November 17, 2006
1929-2006
"Bo Schembechler reduces me to tears."
-My throwaway line in a post from Monday.
On the day of Michigan's win against Penn State in 1997, I had what would, in other circumstances, be known as a come-to-Jesus moment. Like a lost soul who wandered into a revival tent, I immediately converted. We shouted in the Law Library and packed into the president's house. We got drunk at the Brown Jug and went home happy.
I still had time at Michigan. Enough to celebrate the 1997 Ohio State win and spend that night wandering Ann Arbor. Enough to be there on that night in November '97 when a friend -- a freshman at the time -- made a poorly timed jump, cut his head, and went to the hospital for stitches.
Enough to get season tickets for the next year.
That first year away, one of my roommates was a college friend. On game days she would cook up huge breakfasts and we would spend the afternoon watching football. That first fall, I looked forward to every Saturday, because I knew that it would remind me of what it was like in Ann Arbor.
This is part of why I hate to talk trash about other teams or other schools. You don't want to step on something that might mean as much to them as it does to you.
I'm not going to get too maudlin about what happened three days later, but I remember thinking about how we'd all been on cross-country flights right before it happened. I promised that I'd abstain from my favorite post-Michigan loss outburst -- "I hate my life!" -- and that I'd take these things less seriously.
None of that happened, of course. Shortly thereafter we had the Spartan Bob game, an event so agonizing that twice that week I woke up with nightmares about that last second. Michigan football never felt so good.
But I also grew up in a Michigan family. A now-deceased great uncle was a fan. He wore Michigan ballcaps. Sometimes we watched games at his house.
A cousin 13 years older than me went to Michigan and got an engineering degree. I must have been 9 or 10 when I made my first trips to Ann Arbor for his graduation and later to go to his wedding at a church on campus. (When I was in college, I probably walked past that church on the corner of State and William more than a thousand times.)
It was all enough influence that, as a little kid, I liked Michigan the way that I liked the Tigers, even though I didn't understand either. I remember crying in rage before a Rose Bowl -- the Michigan-UCLA game in 1983 -- because the pre-game pundits predicted a Michigan loss.
And I knew about Bo Schembechler. I knew that Bo coached Michigan football and was to be taken seriously. People talked about him like they knew him, and it's funny when I think about it now, but I always had this vague assumption that my grandparents and people of their generation were friends with the famous people their age. Later, I wore a shirt that had a cartoon Bo face on the front and assorted Michigan bragging rights on the back.
What did I know about Bo? You know what you know about any distant authority figure. From roughly age three to nine, he was as omnipresent and respected as the president or Sparky Anderson. You didn't know anything about him, but you knew enough to venerate.
Still, the games are different now. I work a brutal job. I don't congratulate myself when things go right because I don't want to get lazy; I don't worry when something goes wrong because, like a relief pitcher or a quarterback, chastising yourself over screw-ups will take you someplace bad. I'm not going to get emotional over work, so it comes out in these games instead. I can celebrate without being self-conscious, or brood without worrying that it's going to carry over tomorrow.
He'd had a scare like this about a month ago. Really, it was a miracle that he lived this long. Famously, at age 40, he had a heart attack on the eve of Michigan's 1970 Rose Bowl game.
With the upcoming Michigan-Ohio State game, he'd been in the media all this week. Every quote was fierce and principled. At a Monday press conference, he brought up an incident two years ago when Buckeye security -- under the guise of anti-terrorism precautions -- inspected the Michigan team's bags: "If they embarrass the Michigan team like they did two years ago, somebody ought to do something about it," Schembechler said. "They didn't do it to any other team, and they haven't done it to any other team this year. By God, they better not do it to Michigan -- and you can take that back to them."
I savored every quote from him this week. This was my man. My chest and my eyes swelled with pride. He was the living embodiment of the University of Michigan; he was sport itself.
He was dead by noon today.
It didn't feel as much like losing a beloved coach as it did like losing the patriarch. It was the passing of generations: of being a little kid who didn't know any better, of the pre-ESPN, regional, parochial sports world, where the post-War generation of Bear and Woody and Bo never had to worry about sportstalk radio or vile message boards.
I closed the door to my office and left it that way most of the day because I found myself choking up at odd moments. Nobody needed to see that.
Walking down the street to pick up a sandwich for lunch, I passed a stranger my age in a Michigan cap. "Go Blue!" I said to him. A few steps later, I turned around and said, "Did you hear Bo died this morning?"
Bo dying on the eve of this year's Michigan-Ohio State game: the best comparison I could think of was John Adams and Thomas Jefferson dying on July 4, 1826.
What happens tomorrow changed completely.
Before, I would have been content with an 11-1 season. A victory would have been a nice ending to a miraculous year. This old-fashioned team -- this Bo-like team -- with its sturdy, relentless running game and a defense that leaves shattered quarterbacks in its wake had given me so much joy that I couldn't feel disappointed.
I don't care about the BCS or any other ranking.
I don't care about being undefeated for the sake of being undefeated.
All I want is this last win -- for Bo and for everything else.
-My throwaway line in a post from Monday.
Some of my friends occasionally point out that I didn't care very much about Michigan football until after I left college. It always stings a little.
On the day of Michigan's win against Penn State in 1997, I had what would, in other circumstances, be known as a come-to-Jesus moment. Like a lost soul who wandered into a revival tent, I immediately converted. We shouted in the Law Library and packed into the president's house. We got drunk at the Brown Jug and went home happy.
I still had time at Michigan. Enough to celebrate the 1997 Ohio State win and spend that night wandering Ann Arbor. Enough to be there on that night in November '97 when a friend -- a freshman at the time -- made a poorly timed jump, cut his head, and went to the hospital for stitches.
Enough to get season tickets for the next year.
"I debated it, as you know, longer than I thought I would, and I came to the conclusion, that there are things that are more important to me, and one of them's Michigan. With that in mind I'm staying where I belong, right here"When I left Ann Arbor it started to mean something different. I lived in a city that I didn't like. A few good friends were around, but I was away from Ann Arbor and everything I loved so much. Unlike college, the Michigan games weren't just about scores. Instead, you knew that everyone you missed, all over the country, was sitting in bars with strangers doing the same thing that you were. It stopped being a game and became a touchstone.
--Bo, when offered a then-unprecedented $1 million contract from Texas A&M.
That first year away, one of my roommates was a college friend. On game days she would cook up huge breakfasts and we would spend the afternoon watching football. That first fall, I looked forward to every Saturday, because I knew that it would remind me of what it was like in Ann Arbor.
This is part of why I hate to talk trash about other teams or other schools. You don't want to step on something that might mean as much to them as it does to you.
On September 8, 2001, I was in Seattle with about 15 of my college friends. We were there to watch Michigan lose to Washington. We had great seats, low and near mid-field. Lee Bollinger was president of Michigan at the time. He walked past us and said hello. For my friend Erin and I, it was like a brush with celebrity.Well, you could be one of those people who went to Tufts or Bryn Mawr or Williams or something. And tonight you'd feed the baby, pay some bills, maybe watch some TV, and then spend your Saturday shopping or running errands or maybe getting in some crocheting.Instead, there's revenge in your heart and blood in your eyes. Sure, this isn't easier, but it lets you know you're alive.
--An e-mail that co-blogger "Flop" wrote to a friend earlier this week
I'm not going to get too maudlin about what happened three days later, but I remember thinking about how we'd all been on cross-country flights right before it happened. I promised that I'd abstain from my favorite post-Michigan loss outburst -- "I hate my life!" -- and that I'd take these things less seriously.
None of that happened, of course. Shortly thereafter we had the Spartan Bob game, an event so agonizing that twice that week I woke up with nightmares about that last second. Michigan football never felt so good.
Think of all the glorious victories this team has given us (and the defeats, too). Then think of all the people you shared those moments with over the course of your lifetimes.....It's true that, in college, I didn't spend a lot of time on football. There were approximately 8,456 other things that I loved. It's possible that if I started my years in Ann Arbor as a football nut, that list would be shorter, and that my life would be blander. That's not an overstatement.
I think it's safe to say that without Bo, Michigan football would have been "less than." As a result, our lives would have somehow been "less than."
Thanks, Bo...just... thanks for everything, I guess....
--Comment left on MGoBlog
But I also grew up in a Michigan family. A now-deceased great uncle was a fan. He wore Michigan ballcaps. Sometimes we watched games at his house.
A cousin 13 years older than me went to Michigan and got an engineering degree. I must have been 9 or 10 when I made my first trips to Ann Arbor for his graduation and later to go to his wedding at a church on campus. (When I was in college, I probably walked past that church on the corner of State and William more than a thousand times.)
It was all enough influence that, as a little kid, I liked Michigan the way that I liked the Tigers, even though I didn't understand either. I remember crying in rage before a Rose Bowl -- the Michigan-UCLA game in 1983 -- because the pre-game pundits predicted a Michigan loss.
And I knew about Bo Schembechler. I knew that Bo coached Michigan football and was to be taken seriously. People talked about him like they knew him, and it's funny when I think about it now, but I always had this vague assumption that my grandparents and people of their generation were friends with the famous people their age. Later, I wore a shirt that had a cartoon Bo face on the front and assorted Michigan bragging rights on the back.
What did I know about Bo? You know what you know about any distant authority figure. From roughly age three to nine, he was as omnipresent and respected as the president or Sparky Anderson. You didn't know anything about him, but you knew enough to venerate.
When your team is winning, be ready to be tough, because winning can make you soft. On the other hand, when your team is losing, stick by them. Keep believing.I ended up in New York at least in part because so many of my college friends live here. Now I watch the games with people I've known for 10 years. There's still the fondness of knowing that my parents are sitting in a house on a lake watching the game, or driving around Michigan with the game on the radio. I think about friends in Ann Arbor, Chicago and L.A., and like the idea that they're all doing the same thing that I am.
-Bo Schembechler
Still, the games are different now. I work a brutal job. I don't congratulate myself when things go right because I don't want to get lazy; I don't worry when something goes wrong because, like a relief pitcher or a quarterback, chastising yourself over screw-ups will take you someplace bad. I'm not going to get emotional over work, so it comes out in these games instead. I can celebrate without being self-conscious, or brood without worrying that it's going to carry over tomorrow.
It occurs that at some point the Michigan program acquired the traits you hold dear -- loyalty, honesty, tradition, victory. And you wonder: if you were a different person who valued other things would you care so much? It occurs that at some point the Michigan program acquired other traits you share but do not hold particularly dear -- cantankerousness, stubbornness, an inability to suffer fools gladly. And you wonder: do I like Michigan because of the way I am, or am I the way I am because I like Michigan?I was in the office this morning when news came that Bo had been rushed to the hospital because he collapsed before a television interview.
The answer seems clear.
Now the man who took that rudderless program and gave it -- gave you -- all the things you like and don't like is dead. In 1969, it all started with a victory over #1 Ohio State.
--Brian from MGoBlog
He'd had a scare like this about a month ago. Really, it was a miracle that he lived this long. Famously, at age 40, he had a heart attack on the eve of Michigan's 1970 Rose Bowl game.
With the upcoming Michigan-Ohio State game, he'd been in the media all this week. Every quote was fierce and principled. At a Monday press conference, he brought up an incident two years ago when Buckeye security -- under the guise of anti-terrorism precautions -- inspected the Michigan team's bags: "If they embarrass the Michigan team like they did two years ago, somebody ought to do something about it," Schembechler said. "They didn't do it to any other team, and they haven't done it to any other team this year. By God, they better not do it to Michigan -- and you can take that back to them."
I savored every quote from him this week. This was my man. My chest and my eyes swelled with pride. He was the living embodiment of the University of Michigan; he was sport itself.
He was dead by noon today.
It didn't feel as much like losing a beloved coach as it did like losing the patriarch. It was the passing of generations: of being a little kid who didn't know any better, of the pre-ESPN, regional, parochial sports world, where the post-War generation of Bear and Woody and Bo never had to worry about sportstalk radio or vile message boards.
I closed the door to my office and left it that way most of the day because I found myself choking up at odd moments. Nobody needed to see that.
Walking down the street to pick up a sandwich for lunch, I passed a stranger my age in a Michigan cap. "Go Blue!" I said to him. A few steps later, I turned around and said, "Did you hear Bo died this morning?"
Bo dying on the eve of this year's Michigan-Ohio State game: the best comparison I could think of was John Adams and Thomas Jefferson dying on July 4, 1826.
What happens tomorrow changed completely.
Before, I would have been content with an 11-1 season. A victory would have been a nice ending to a miraculous year. This old-fashioned team -- this Bo-like team -- with its sturdy, relentless running game and a defense that leaves shattered quarterbacks in its wake had given me so much joy that I couldn't feel disappointed.
I don't care about the BCS or any other ranking.
I don't care about being undefeated for the sake of being undefeated.
All I want is this last win -- for Bo and for everything else.
24 hours until kickoff: A restrained Woo!
Desmond says: Let's win it for Bo, guys.
I was originally going to post something about Ohio State fans tendency to either run around bellowing about the concept of ownership like a confused, yet precocious, seventh-grader who just read The Fountainhead. But then it occurred to me that trying to reason with Ohio State fans always makes me feel like Tim Canterbury whenever he had to interact with Gareth. So instead, I'll just offer my most fervent hopes that we can put Ohio State's stapler in the jelly.
LaMarr Woodley: Office prankster.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
We got wars going down in the Middle West
We got douchelords comin' 'round the back in the sweater vest ...
Perhaps you've heard of this game happening Saturday? It's always been big to me, but not for the reasons you might think.
I grew up in Cleveland. And I was obsessed with football. But only pro football. And it pretty much stayed that way until I actually became a student at Michigan.
I owned an actual Cleveland Browns helmet. I thought Brian Sipe was the best football player who ever lived. Saturdays were for cartoons; Sundays were for football. I was dimly aware that there was college football, too. But I lived for Sunday.
And I never liked Ohio State.
I think it started when I'd turn the TV knob to channel 3 on Sunday mornings, looking for the pre-pregame show, and come across Earle Bruce burping up excuses after a loss to to Purdue or Minnesota. BOR-ring! I just wanted my NFL films recap, bitch.
My Saturdays were spent actually outside, actually playing football, pretending to be Reggie Rucker, Rickey Feacher or Matt Bahr until it got dark and cold out. The sight of college football on TV just made me want it to be Sunday that much more.
I only watched Michigan-Ohio State every year because my mom went to Michigan. Between that and stupid ol' Earle, guess which team I supported.
My childhood college football experience as a kid consisted almost entirely of watching Michigan play Ohio State every year, then watching Michigan play in the Rose Bowl.
But ever since I became a student, it's become a much bigger deal. A big reason for all the passion in college football is because so many fans have such an intimate connection with their team. It's more than a shared city or state. It's our own identity.
So yeah, this is big. I'd love to go on and on for thousands of words here about all that, but I'm too excited to think straight.
This week has been draining. The slightest provocation makes me think of the game. I watch DVR-ed episodes of "Scrubs" and wonder if Dr. Cox would be a Michigan fan because he wears a Red Wings jersey.
I'm sure I'm not alone. I've been explaining to my non-college-football-fan friends that this game, in this rivalry, is like waiting for Christmas, only there's a decent chance that Santa comes down the chimney with a flame-thrower. It's like getting ready for your wedding, at which it's possible your beloved will run off with your worst enemy.
I've always enjoyed beating Ohio State, but I can't imagine circumstances in which I'd enjoy beating them more.
Awesomeness awaits us. And possibly hooting.
I grew up in Cleveland. And I was obsessed with football. But only pro football. And it pretty much stayed that way until I actually became a student at Michigan.
I owned an actual Cleveland Browns helmet. I thought Brian Sipe was the best football player who ever lived. Saturdays were for cartoons; Sundays were for football. I was dimly aware that there was college football, too. But I lived for Sunday.
And I never liked Ohio State.
I think it started when I'd turn the TV knob to channel 3 on Sunday mornings, looking for the pre-pregame show, and come across Earle Bruce burping up excuses after a loss to to Purdue or Minnesota. BOR-ring! I just wanted my NFL films recap, bitch.
My Saturdays were spent actually outside, actually playing football, pretending to be Reggie Rucker, Rickey Feacher or Matt Bahr until it got dark and cold out. The sight of college football on TV just made me want it to be Sunday that much more.
I only watched Michigan-Ohio State every year because my mom went to Michigan. Between that and stupid ol' Earle, guess which team I supported.
My childhood college football experience as a kid consisted almost entirely of watching Michigan play Ohio State every year, then watching Michigan play in the Rose Bowl.
But ever since I became a student, it's become a much bigger deal. A big reason for all the passion in college football is because so many fans have such an intimate connection with their team. It's more than a shared city or state. It's our own identity.
So yeah, this is big. I'd love to go on and on for thousands of words here about all that, but I'm too excited to think straight.
This week has been draining. The slightest provocation makes me think of the game. I watch DVR-ed episodes of "Scrubs" and wonder if Dr. Cox would be a Michigan fan because he wears a Red Wings jersey.
I'm sure I'm not alone. I've been explaining to my non-college-football-fan friends that this game, in this rivalry, is like waiting for Christmas, only there's a decent chance that Santa comes down the chimney with a flame-thrower. It's like getting ready for your wedding, at which it's possible your beloved will run off with your worst enemy.
I've always enjoyed beating Ohio State, but I can't imagine circumstances in which I'd enjoy beating them more.
Awesomeness awaits us. And possibly hooting.
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