Wish I'd written that: How religion dies with a whimper

T

here was no fanaticism or intolerance in [Pastor] Lund. Like a long line of Lutheran ministers I had known before him, he was well-meaning if somewhat narrow in his views and comfortable in his faith without being smug. At the same time, it had always impressed me that in the hands of men like Lund, the strange, bloody, and wonderous Christian story inevitably turned rather drab.”

Siri Hustvedt, The Sorrows of an American

July 23 Notebook

Now That's a Watching Party.  The husband of a contestant on RTL's Press Your Luck 2019 (airing on ABC, produced by the German television network Radio Television Luxembourg) made some crazy tee-shirts for the viewing party when the episode she taped in May debuted.  Contestants of the ten-episode summer third revival of the 1977 Second Chance (ABC daytime) and 1983-86 Press Your Luck (CBS daytime) William A. Carruthers Company and 2002 Whammy! The All New Press Your Luck (GSN) production were told of their air dates afterwards, and a watch party was organised by the contestant's husband.

Ironically, the contestant's opponents ended up with red fur as both of her opponents were disqualified from the game for reaching the Chinese adage why elevators do not carry the number of a certain NASCAR Monster Energy Series champion that won his first race Sunday.  (It's used in Asian-themed cooking shows also why they assign certain number of servings they avoid that number of servings too!)

Is This the Future?  The controversy over the Women's World Cup National Football Team that won it all continues.  But meanwhile, as we see masculine failure around us, the question will arise as more "equal pay" and "equal use of venues" becomes the issue thanks to Title IX, and even research by groups.  In college, a student who was my classmate did his Senior Thesis paper on how Title IX abuse ran him out of his previous college, as he was a wrestler on scholarship and lost his scholarship and his admission to the school as a result of abusing the Patsy Mink Education Act of 1972.  I made a reference in 2012 to the consequences, but after women scored $3,000,000 in the last World Cup and men were BUST (as they say in RTL's Card Sharks bonus round, another classic game show revived for 2019, but I am not a fan of how slow the game is because Joel McHale doesn't do it the way Bob Eubanks and the late Bill Rafferty or Jim Perry did the game), the debate opens.

The controversy over the national football team will be a warning for parents of boys.  The feminine superiority and masculine failure wil lead to the advancement of ideals in high schools, as we see participation of sports by boys drop and girls rise in many states.  Friday Night Lights will soon be girls' high school futbol, with dance teams dancing at halftime.  Boys will soon be losing their entire extracurricular activities as Title IX activists will ensure only girls are allowed to have events, and boys will not.  Dance teams are replacing cheerleading at many schools because it is girls only while cheerleading is becoming coed in order to give boys who are proficient at gymnastics (which for men is a strength sport, as seen in high bars and rings) and want to be in CrossFit (gymnastics activities are required in those events) a chance to participate in strength activities.  In New York, we learned when new schools opened, only girls could have sport activities in the schools to meet Mink Act rules.  Will boys be subject to these heinous rules in new schools first as schools try to appease the wishes of these authorities working to eliminate masculinity?

You wonder what's next.

What Are You Teaching?  Visiting a church in the area after a long day out of town, there is a discipleship training class (which is an evening Bible study before church services).  As we went through Elijah's story of discouragement, somehow Mendelssohn's Elijah came back to my head after reading about "O Rest In the Lord" and "If With All Your Hearts".  Those songs were written from the oratorio based on the Bible.  Compare that to today's modern worship songs based on feelings of the writer, and not a single part from the Bible.  Go figure.  Why are we teaching feelings instead of objective Word?  That's part of the problem in our culture today.

Regietheater Run Rampant.  So MGM/UA and EON have decided James Bond is retiring and will be in Jamaica for the next film, while regietheater freaks have replaced him with . . . someone in the PC world.  This person fits all the checkmarks of the modern progressive movement.  What?

A Tribute.  The Take-No-Prisoners editor of The Washington Times, Wesley Pruden, died Wednesday at 83, hours after just another hard day of work for the legendary editor.  The man who was that newspaper from its 1982 founding all the way to the end of his life just hours after finishing up another day at the office leaves a legacy of a newspaper he edited and knew how to do things.  Sadly, Amazon, which indirectly owns the rival The Washington [BLEEP], left insults at Mr. Pruden's stepchildren that Media Research Network noted.

An appreciation of Wesley Pruden can be found here.

And here is Pruden's last column.

The Age of the Clueless White Guy

The current Hollywood crusade (well, one of them anyway) is inclusion and color-blind casting.

The live-action adaptation of Disney’s The Little Mermaid will feature an African American as Ariel; the new 007 will be a black female. Other characters originally established as one race and one gender have been played by those outside those groups in projects related to Harry Potter, Frozen, Marvel’s Thor, and nearly every other fictional construct introduced in times now rebuked as less enlightened.

As a result, though they would never dare say it aloud or post it on social media, actors cursed with the affliction of being Caucasian may wonder if there will now be fewer roles open to them.

But fear not – this shift in perspective has resulted in a new and flourishing growth segment in the lucrative field of television commercials: the clueless white guy.

If you choose to watch a few commercials instead of fast-forwarding past them, it won’t be long before you’ll spot one of the copious examples of this popular trope. Usually, the ad opens with our dim-witted protagonist saying or doing something no rational human being would ever dream of doing, until he is shown the error of his ways by a smarter, better-looking, and just plain cooler person of color.

I was going to list several examples, but watch TV for five minutes and you’re sure to spot one. Or check out this compilation that someone put together on YouTube.


To be clear, there have been clueless white guys in commercials dating back to the 1950s. Demonstrating the benefits of one product was frequently achieved by introducing some hapless soul still using ‘brand X,’ who has yet to realize what he’s been missing if he’d only switch.

But as everyone else in those commercials was also white, there was no association between his race and his obliviousness. Today these same scenarios play out with the same frequency, but when it comes to filling the role of the dumb sap, casting directors find themselves limited in their options. To have a white person explain to a person of color that the product they are using is wrong would clearly send an inappropriate message. Reversing the roles is the easiest way to avoid condemnation.

Is there anything wrong with this? I don’t know. If every role should be open to every actor, that should mean heroes and villains, geniuses and dullards, cool kids and nerds, can all be played as easily by a man from Hong Kong, Mexico City, or Somalia as they can by someone from Nebraska.

If this is penance for the stereotypes of decades past, then it’s apparently appropriate to right a wrong against one group by perpetrating it on another. Once everyone gets to be in the alpha class for a while, perhaps we’ll reconvene and figure out something else.

Either way, the Republic will survive. And as an observer of television I just find it interesting. If this writing gig doesn’t pan out, it’s good to know that I may have a future in commercials, as the guy who can’t figure out how kitchen appliances work.

Poetry Wednesday

I write this column just days before I sing in a choral production of Ralph Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem and Randall Thompson's The Testament of Freedom that these documents include crucial historical references from three major battles -- the Revolutionary War, the Crimean War, and the Civil War.  For the first time in ten years, I have the opportunity to sing with the husband and wife soloists of Michael (baritone) and Serena (soprano) LaRoche, which those who have known me enough understand Mrs. LaRoche taught me to sing, opening my musical horizons outside of the commercial pop church music and has sent me into Händel, Haydn, Beethoven, Fauré, and others where I've called out the bad Top 40 on KLVR after deeper analysis.

Mr. Williams was influenced by reading the poetry of Walt Whitman, especially his Civil War poetry, which most of us know from "O Captain! My Captain!," an elegy of President Lincoln.  The first of three which we sing, "Beat! Beat! Drums!," was written after he attended a Donizetti opera, and news spread that Fort Sumter had launched the Civil War, which this battle went to the Confederacy.

(Nota Bene:  We're singing both at the SOM Recital Hall in Columbia on June 28 at 7:30 PM and June 30 at 4 PM.  Today's Poetry Wednesday references Whitman's three poems that are war-inspired.)

Beat! Beat! Drums!
Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,
Into the school where the scholar is studying,
Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride,
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain,
So fierce you whirr and pound you drums—so shrill you bugles blow.

Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities—over the rumble of wheels in the streets;
Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? no sleepers must sleep in those beds,
No bargainers’ bargains by day—no brokers or speculators—would they continue?
Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?
Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?
Then rattle quicker, heavier drums—you bugles wilder blow.

Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley—stop for no expostulation,
Mind not the timid—mind not the weeper or prayer,
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,
Let not the child’s voice be heard, nor the mother’s entreaties,
Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses,
So strong you thump O terrible drums—so loud you bugles blow.

Reconciliation
From the 1900 version of Leaves of Grass:

Word over all, beautiful as the sky! 
Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost; 
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil’d world:   
... For my enemy is dead—a man divine as myself is dead;   
I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin—I draw near;   
I bend down, and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.

Dirge for Two Veterans
From the 1891 version of the aforementioned book:

   The last sunbeam
Lightly falls from the finish'd Sabbath,
On the pavement here, and there beyond it is looking,
   Down a new-made double grave.

   Lo, the moon ascending,
Up from the east the silvery round moon,
Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon,
   Immense and silent moon.

   I see a sad procession,
And I hear the sound of coming full-key'd bugles,
All the channels of the city streets they're flooding,
   As with voices and with tears.

   I hear the great drums pounding,
And the small drums steady whirring,
And every blow of the great convulsive drums,
   Strikes me through and through.

   For the son is brought with the father,
(In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell,
Two veterans son and father dropt together,
   And the double grave awaits them.)

   Now nearer blow the bugles,
And the drums strike more convulsive,
And the daylight o'er the pavement quite has faded,
   And the strong dead-march enwraps me.

   In the eastern sky up-buoying,
The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumin'd,
('Tis some mother's large transparent face,
   In heaven brighter growing.)

   O strong dead-march you please me!
O moon immense with your silvery face you soothe me!
O my soldiers twain! O my veterans passing to burial!
   What I have I also give you.

   The moon gives you light,
And the bugles and the drums give you music,
And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans,
   My heart gives you love.

Those who forget history . . .

A recent ABC news release announced that of their two RTL Group television revivals, Press Your Luck with Elizabeth Banks will air after the Rose Ceremony final for The Bachelorette, a production of AT&T.

After noticing ABC's schedule, I found historically, the decision did not sound appropriate for a new generation to play the same games their grandparents played, and a show that many from my generation remembered watching in the 1984 and 1985 summers that was a revival of Bill Carruthers' Second Chance that increased the emphasis of the bonus board and changed how the question round was played.  It also launched the career of Savage Steve Holland, who later animated Eek! The Cat and eventually became known for two movie flops (Better Off Dead, One Crazy Summer) that gained exposure airing on HBO late nights, who animated the show's signature villain.

ABC should have inserted the Joel McHale-hosted revival of Card Sharks after the rose ceremony.  If you're not familiar with that, note the career path of The Bachelor's casting director, Lacey Pemberton.  Think of the connection and see why McHale, not Banks, should be after the rose.

Wish I'd written that: a warning for the future

V
on Tschammer und Osten said that all Roman Catholic and Protestant youth organizations are, like all Jewish organizations, to be expressly forbidden to pursue any sport. As far as the Nazis are concerned, people are going to have to make a choice between religion and sport. The point being that all sports training is to be done under Nazi auspices. He actually said that the Nazis are conducting a cultural war against the church.”

“He said that?”

“Any Catholic or Protestant athletes who don’t join Nazi sports clubs will lose their chance of representing Germany.”

I shrugged. “So let them. Who cares about a few idiots running around a track anyway?”

“You’re missing the point, Gunther. They’ve purged the police. Now they’re purging sports. If they succeed, there will be no aspect of German life in which they won’t be able to exert their authority. In all aspects of German society, Nazis will be preferred. If you want to get on in life, you will have to become a Nazi.”

- Philip Kerr, If the Dead Rise Not

Classic Sports Thursday: Doris Day edition

Frank Mirahmadi, the track announcer at Santa Anita (winter) and Monmouth Park (summer), once called the horses at Turf Paradise, which is the track where a legendary country sing was written after its writer visited the Arizona mile.

In memory of Doris Day, no less, this scene took place on her 89th birthday.  A horse carrying the same name as one of Day's well-known songs won, and Mirahmadi, known for his antics on more casual races, went crazy again, and the track's video page reacted too.

Retro TV Friday: GLOW and Card Sharks

With the announcement ABC is reviving Mark Goodson's Card Sharks (aka Play Your Cards Right in the UK and NZ) as a summer series with Joel McHale as host (?), this story came back to catch us.

The late Emily Dole, a star shot put athlete who was in the Olympic Trials twice, who played Mount Fiji on the original Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling "promotion," was involved in a 1988 episode of the Bob Eubanks version. Keep in mind Eubanks had just turned 50 and Dole was 31. (Dole died age 60 in 2018; Eubanks is now 81, and his son is a famous stuntman.) The ten GLOW actresses were asked how many could lift Mr. Eubanks over his head. Dole tried it -- and see for yourself what a shot put star could do trying to bodyslam a game show host.

Wish I'd written that: how tough was it?

I wouldn’t say we lived in a tough neighborhood, but when I was growing up we still called a story with a happy ending an alibi.”

- Philip Kerr, If the Dead Rise Not

Twenty-Five Years Later. 0817 CET

Outside the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, outside the Variante Tamburello chicane, is a statue where many flowers and Brazilian flags are placed every year, but none more prevalent day than May 1.  It was 1417 CET (8:17 AM EDT) when it happened, twenty-five years ago today.

Thomas Grønvold's archive of that day:



Autosport:


A review of the site.

Newly inducted Class of 2019 Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame inductee Bob Jenkins that afternoon offered a tribute during the broadcast of the Alabama 500 (clip of opening the tribute of silence, which was interrupted by the second Big One). It also includes the Earnhardt interview.


BBC Interview of the booth:

Opera Wednesday

Victor Borge, the Great Dane, offers us a little opera comedy - and, let's be honest, who among us couldn't use a little laughter nowadays? The brave Marilyn Mulvey accompanies him.

Wish I'd written that: reflections on Earth Day

The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate. This gives to the typically Christian pleasure in this earth a strange touch of lightness that is almost frivolity. Nature was a solemn mother to the worshipers of Isis and Cybele. Nature was a solemn mother to Wordsworth or to Emerson. But Nature is not solemn to Francis of Assisi or to George Herbert. To St. Francis, Nature is a sister, and even a younger sister: a little, dancing sister, to be laughed at as well as loved.”

- G.K. Chesterton

He Is Risen

Good Friday with Bishop Sheen, 1956

I often make the point on these pages of how much things have changed over the years, not only in television but culture in general.

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen's Life Is Worth Living ran on DuMont, ABC and in syndication from the early 1950s through the late 1960s.  Blessed with a sharp mind, a whimsical sense of humor and a gift of gab, Bishop Sheen brought his ecumenical message to millions of viewers each week; as Brooks and Marsh put it in their Complete Guide to Prime Time Programming, the word "homily" would be strong for the friendly, accessible talks from the good Bishop.

A half-hour of religious programming in prime time on a national broadcast network would be unthinkable today - that pretty much goes without saying.  And while that is one measure of the change in television between then and now, it's actually another point that I'm thinking of: the idea of a "talking head" as entertainment programming.

There were no fancy graphics, no special effects, on Life is Worth Living; the closest thing being the invisible "angel" (actually a stagehand) responsible for erasing the blackboard Sheen used to illustrate his points.  People watched and enjoyed that, week after week.  As someone wrote not long ago about the Dick Cavett shows, it hearkens back to a day when conversation was actually considered entertainment - and by that I mean actual, you know, talking, rather than shouting, interrupting, declaiming, insulting, offending, and what have you. Of all the changes we've seen in television over the years, I think this is one of the most underrated and underappreciated.

What we have here is either from Good Friday, 1956; It was sponsored (as I recall from the version I have) by Progresso, and presented without commercial interruption.

Unplanned thoughts

The author with Abby Johnson, 2012 Pro-Life Dinner at SC March for Life

The recent release of Pure Flix's Unplanned, about Abby Johnson's departure from Planned Parenthood, was a box office hit despite mainstream media attempts to sabotage the film.  But as I watched it myself on a Sunday, having to drive 55 miles near Shaw Air Force Base as we don't have a movie theatre for 45 miles, and the ones closest to me were owned by Chinese Communist interests (which for a New Taipei City native legally can have you in trouble over the wants of the Communist Party), I found a screen not owned by Wanda (if you've seen their ads in football, their running series, or triathlons, you'll understand) to watch the movie.

The story starts innocently as Abby and Doug Johnson are at home, and Abby leaves for work after she greets her daughter. The title of the movie is not shown, except for the fact it is built around an eponymous book. The shocking details of the Planned Parenthood of Bryan, TX director being asked to observe an abortion and assist in it starts what is the legitimate reason the movie was handed an R rating, as it depicts children being murdered in a gruesome manner, as the murder takes place.

That scene will repeat itself later as they flash back to her trip to a volunteerism day while in college, introduced deceptively to Planned Parenthood. But what I initially observe is a huge mistake in the movie, as access to the parking lot of that venue is blocked, despite federal law (FACE) signed by the Clinton Administration. The Pure Flix producers also use the inappropriate stereotypes for pro-life folks around the murder mill, and we see the first signs of a product placement (40 Days for Life) being rampant in the movie. I've known Pure Flix has made product placement crucial in their movies, often ruining the message by running advertisements. They flash back to her first failed marriage and her trip to that very same baby murder mill, as a patient, told to consume mifepristone (better known as Rousell Uclaf-486), a drug legalised by the Clinton Administration, to kill her first child. The drug was used to escape the bad marriage in the film, and the horrific bleeding and death of the child could have become two deaths as a result of that scene. It was horrific, and allowed people to see how deceptive the marketers were in pushing the drug (which should be banned, if you saw the consequences).

After the failed marriage, she found love again, a marriage that continues to this day. They also attend church for the first time together, which brings to light a second disturbing scene and product placement. In my 22 years of volunteering with the state chapter of National Right to Life, which I continue to this day as a member of the local chapter, I've met Mrs. Johnson at the Clover Wolf Memorial Pro-Life Weekend in 2012 (the name was added in 2018 following the death of the current state director's mother). I understand they are Catholic, and over Christmas Day itself, I visited my Citizens for Life friends at their Catholic cathedral to observe their services (though not permitted to take communion because of being a Protestant, I deliberately carried my Bible to the service). When the scene notes the Johnsons attending church, instead of a vast cathedral in the College Station area being shown, we are shown an auditorium similar to what you see in a high school, a rock band, and a "minister". In observing the closing credits of the film, we are told the minister in the film is a minister at the notoriously heretic Bethel Church of Redding, California. There is no way a rock band and this type of minister would be at the church the Johnsons attended, as Bethel is a cult, with events such as the "Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry" (see this article or details), and the "Kundalini movement" inside that church. Sadly, the movie's music also comes from Bethel, which should be a warning as many churches today have adopted Bethel, along with its "Jesus Culture" and "Bethel Music" brands, into their churches, not knowing royalties support them.

Scenes of pro-life prayer warriors (around the campus of the baby murder mill where she was working) being sprayed by the sprinkler system have an eerie reference to the civil rights rallies in Birmingham, Alabama, of the 1960's, complete with notorious police chief Eugene "Bull" Connor's use of fire hydrants to spray those pushing for desegregation. Abby is then named the director of the Bryan area Planned Parenthood, followed by her award as director of the year, and plans for a larger facility are announced.  We also learn her parents have prayed for her because of the troubling position she heads—she has only thought the organization was for women's health care (but it was not).

The crucial turning point of the movie take place after we see her awards. There is an innocent time where Doug and Abby have date night at a local cantina, and the television news screens show the death of Kansas baby murderer George Tiller. The prosecuting attorney going after Mr. Tiller was Phill Kline (now having been been part of Citizens for Life these years), who would later lose his law licence when the Governess (who later became the Obama Administration's HHS Secretary, advancing new regulations that we call Obamacare), stripped him for political gain because of his prosecution of Mr. Tiller. He also had previously spoken at a March for Life. After that, Abby is more open and we see how killed children must be reassembled prior to disposal. The children are placed in a barrel and a Prayer for the Dead (though initially I thought it resembled Mormonism's baptism for the dead) are conducted. After that, we return to the opening scene of the film where Abby is called to an abortion examination room and after that breaks down after seeing the child die. She is in the bathroom and broke down, then counseling to the pro-life counselors that were around the room.

As we know now, with the gruesome truth exposed, Johnson quits Planned Parenthood. Their lawyers taunt her, as you might expect, and after finding an attorney that actively is pro-life, she wins her case. She now works on the other side, and we see one expecting mother choose life instead after Abby explains the story. The movie ends with Executive Producer Mike Lindell driving a tractor and pulling down the Planned Parenthood sign as the clinic closed.

My concern was was Bethel's product placement too rampant to push their heresy?

We don’t deserve Notre Dame

Like millions around the world, I watched the images of Notre Dame engulfed in flames. As a Christian, though not a Catholic, it was devastating.

I’ve been to Paris twice, and both times a visit to the cathedral was essential. One cannot help but gaze in astonishment at its overwhelming beauty and majesty. I did not attend services there, which I regret now, but the first time I entered I had the pleasure to witness a wedding taking place within its hallowed walls. That made the moment even more special.

And now much of it is gone.

A cause will be identified for the fire, while people of faith will debate whether its destruction was a simple accident, or if there is some deeper meaning to be found in its loss. How could an 800 year-old structure that survived a bloody revolution and two world wars be gutted by an extreme makeover?

We should always be cautious to ascribe earthly tragedies to divine intervention. But somehow it seems a little harder to dismiss this time.

Governments throughout the civilized world sanction the murder of millions of unborn children, and applaud (not just figuratively but literally) legislation that makes it easier, not more difficult to expand these grim statistics. We take legal action against memorials and monuments with a religious connotation. We mock those who pray after tragedy, expel God from schools and cheer every time the popular culture takes another step away from grace and civility.

And while secular society ceaselessly strives to eradicate any reference to faith from our culture, the perversions and prevarication of far too many who represent the Catholic Church have hastened its path to obsolescence, and only made it easier for its enemies to advance their agendas.

In times like these, in Easter week, how could one not see a message being sent by the destruction of this magnificent, holy edifice? How can we not draw a conclusion from the loss of a place that symbolized reverence for the divine, and for life, and for beauty? Our world may finally have become too ugly to sustain such treasures.

President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to rebuild. That’s good. But in today’s France, where 5% of Catholics attend Mass, and atheism is more popular than Jerry Lewis, the loss of a cathedral carries no more meaning than the loss of a theme park attraction. Oh, well, now the tourists will just have an extra hour to visit Disneyland Paris.

Retro TV Friday

First off, before we start, Charles van Doren, RIP.  His intelligence was the subject of a major scandal when "Twenty-One" was rigged, as he admitted in Washington, leading to the major quiz show scandals taking down its biggest name.

But we go off to a Retro TV Friday that reflects on game shows, as you might expect.  This week, singer Julianna Emanski made a social media post that would have been worthy of being a blooper on the short-lived Jay Wolpert produced Bud Austin game "Whew!" that aired in 1979, as the object of the game was to correct the bloopers read by Jim Narz (aka Tom Kennedy, used a stage name to prevent people from confusing him with his brother Jack, also a well known game show host.

I've made her post into a "Whew!" blooper as if it was on the show.  Can you solve it?  (She corrected it;  I've edited it to make it resemble a question on the game.)

“The vast majority of pop music and lyrics is written by Mark Martin and Lukas Gottwald?”

(NOTE:  The original post that she posted:  “This is super interesting. Popular music today is a product designed to sell, not to inspire. Did you know that the vast majority of pop music and lyrics is written by Mark Martin and Lukas’s Gottwald!??? Just two people??? Watch this vid, y’all.”  It was since corrected.)

Here's the game reference (courtesy Wink Martindale):

Wish I'd written that: what happens when the grid breaks down

All those signal grids, evenly beating in the night sky. Think what would happen if we didn’t fill the grids. People. Pause and think. If the grids break down. Think how empty it would be. Suddenly nothing. Would be dark. Would be bleak. All the words that end in the letter k. What is out there? Who are we? Would be infinite winter in our rooms.

-Don DeLillo, Valparaiso

Opera Wednesday

L
isette Oropesa was named the winner of the 2019 Richard Tucker Award. The soprano has already become a major headliner worldwide, including the Royal Theater of Madrid and the Royal Opera House as Lucia de Lammermoor. The award, named for an American singer, is awarded to a rising American soprano.

And while thinking about it, she fits two categories that your humble writer fits -- the Southeastern Conference alum, and Marathoner!

Oropesa shows this video of her running in Lausanne, set to her performance in Ambroise Thomas' operatic version of Hamlet that she was performing at the time, Act IV, "La mort d’Ophélie" (The Death of Ophelia).


This happened in 2013 at the NYC Runs Brooklyn Marathon.  Yes, the National Anthem singer is in running gear and a bib.


Congratulations, Lisette!

Wish I'd written that: on entertainment as pain

I’d been to public entertainments before, of course; I’d been to the cinema and the pantomime and to see my mother sing in the chorus of the White Horse Inn at the Town Hall. But that was different. The audiences I had hitherto been a part of had paid to have a good time, and though occasionally one might spot a fidgety child or a yawning adult, I hadn’t ever noticed faces contorted by rage or despair or frustration. Entertainment as pain was an idea entirely new to me, and it seemed to be something I’d been waiting for.

- Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch