May 2, 2021
I know I said I was going to Australian animal rankings this week. But we're just going to jumpt straight into it. Also I go on about the Flaming Lips for awhile somewhere in there. That kind of feels like the intro had it come at the beginning.
The CBS SUNDAY MORNING POWER RANKINGS
1) David Pogue
Quality goes while quantity remains.
-Michel Gondry
Thus spake Michel Gondry in 2003 in the introduction to his music video compilation DVD. (What an obsolete sequence of words...) I don't know if David Pogue is a fan of Michel Gondry, but he's certainly heeded the wise (?) words of the French auteur.
(I mean he's not Truffaut or Godard, but he's definitely got a distinct cinamatic perspective. And shouldn't we just natural assume that all French directors, whether of stage, cinema, or music video, are auteurs? If not, why bother being French in the first place?)
I do believe Monsieur Pogue has been the most prolific Sunday Morning contributor since I start this blog, which also means he has the distinction of making the most appearances on the list without taking the top spot. It also means he's kept on taking his shot at top.
But now let's all raise a draught, Pogue's drought is over! Although lets be fair, it's not exactly like David has been waiting for this longer than certain Cleveland based sports franchises. So, what exactly put David over the top? This:
This breathtaking installation was created by MacArthur "genius" Sarah Sze and resides in the new terminal B of New York's LaGuardia Airport. The key to my heart is Sunday Morning art segment. I realize it can be hard to capture sculpture or painting in a static photo or even video. You lose the ability to get up close and get lost in the detail. Or to stand back and have the full effect of a work wash over you like a wave. However, there is shot in the segment where they move the camera around the circumference of Sze's "Shorter Than the Day", where you do catch a glimpse of it's full effect - seeing photos of the sun at various stages of the day from dawn to dusk as you walk around it. And it's spectacular.
There's also a short, but interesting discussion on the value of art. Is the installation worth however many millions of dollars when there are problems in the world? An argument as old as the Bible as Jesus rebuked Judas for chastising the woman who anointed Jesus. It's ok to have nice things sometimes.
Most people avoid LaGuardia Airport like the plague. Most people view airports only in terms of its function. There was a late 2019 (just as the before times were coming to an end) Sunday Monrning segment covering on airports, that touched on this as well as the LaGuardia renovation. (Man, is it jarring to see of packed airports and Gov. Cuomo from 18 months ago. Prior to 9/11, my Dad loved airports. He is an aviation junkie. He would always volunteer to pick someone up from the airport, arriving early so he could watch planes land from the observation area. I understand that we're not going back to those days with security being what it is now. When I have to fly somewhere, I'm usually timing out when is the latest I can leave and still catch the plane. It would be nice to reclaim some semblance of travel being fun again. Get there early, get a bite and a non-fast food place. Maybe wander around a bit, try to find a hidden gem before boarding.
When/if I ever have to travel to New York again, I'll have to fly into the maligned LaGuardia airport to check out the terminal B, traffic be damned.
2) Tracy Smith/Tiffany Haddish
Nominally, this Tracy Smith segment is an interview of Billy Crystal to promote his upcoming film Here Today which also directs. But his friend/co-star/force of nature Tiffany Haddish shows up and just like everything else in which she appears, she steals the show. I don't know if Tiffany Haddish is the funniest woman in Hollywood, but she's far and away the one that makes me smile the most. For someone who some rough times growing up, she exudes nonstop positivity. I haven't actually seen many of Haddish's movies, but I'll fondly recall her role on The Carmichael Show (before she was a super duper star) and she's one of the few celebrities who's talk show appearances are must see TV. I have but one wish for the year 2035 and that is to see Tiffany Haddish accepting The Mark Twain Prizez at the the Kennedy Center wearing that dress.
I feel maybe a little bad for completely glossing over actual Mark Twain Prize winner Billy Crystal. If you're the AMPAS, how many dump trucks do you back up to Billy Crystal's house asking him to host the Oscars again?
3) Faith Salie
I'm honestly a little surprised at how consistently highly Faith ranks when she appears on the show. Of course who doesn't like NPR? Of course, Faith almost has to do this segment given her background in radio. Her show was Fair Game with Faith Salie, and it was not an NPR production, but rather one of PRI, Public Radio International, which honestly sounds a generic knockoff brand of NPR. "PRI, the Big K Cola of public radio." Maybe not the tag line they were going for and probably not fair. PRI produced a fair number of high profile shows for public radio before merging with Public Radio Exchange or PRE. They just don't have the brand recognition of NPR.
I know I posted this the last time Salie appeared, and gave us 6 solid minutes on pockets, but I can't not repeat it since she's talking about the radio and it comes from her old radio show. I will never get tired Faith and Andrew's give to planet Earth:
"Fair Game" is a satirical news and entertainment, weekday evening program. Hosted by Faith Salie, possibly the only Rhodes Scholar who performs comedy intentionally, "Fair Game" covers the important stories of the day and features newsmaker and celebrity interviews, live music and regular appearances by the country's best comedians.
That's amazing. Not only is a humble brag - Faith is a Rhodes Scholar - but it simultaneously burns all other Rhodes Scholars! And hard. But maybe as someone who was formerly a high achieving academic, I enjoyed the burn because I'm just jealous. "I coulda been a Rhodes Scholar, I just didn't wanna."
Back to NPR, I'm trying to think of a good reason that I haven't become a regular listener of Wait... Wait... Don't Tell Me. My sister has recommended it for years and seeing clips of Sunday Morning regulars Rocca, Burbank, and Salie only reinforce that I am probably missing out on something.
4) Jane Pauley
Can we talk about Jane's outfit today for one second? Was it screen tested?
Show of hands: who else thought Jane had decided to go for the "jacket only" look? The wonderful thing about Jane is that if she had decided to go for the plunging neckline look of a pop star 40-50 years her junior, by god, she'll pull it off. Jane can wear whatever she wants. It may seem superficial to focus on the outfits the host wears, but it the host's wardrobe does add a little variety to things. I'm not entirely convinced there is such a thing as male fashion. Or at least "old white guy" fashion. So as the first woman to host the show, she bring something that Kuralt and Osgood simply did not have in their repertoire: style. I guess Osgood, did have his bowties.
Mmm, no they're not.
In case anyone was wondering about Jane's modesty, I did finally figure out at the end of the show that she was wearing something under the jacket. The shirt just happened to exactly match her skin tone.
5) Bluebonnets (and bees) of Mason County
Were you afraid of bees as a kid? I think I was. I remember going to high school football games and they had to put bee traps up because so many used to swarm around the concession area. Nowadays, I hardly see bees around any more. Maybe there just aren't enough flowers to be pollinated near where I live, but there's something fishy happening in nature. I don't know if our EM radiation is messing with bees or if our use of pesticides has caught up to us, but colony collapse disorder and we depend on pollinators like bees for our planets survival so don't be afraid of a cute little, fuzzy bee. Warning coloration be damned. When was the last time you actually got stung?
I know the flowers were supposed to be the star of the nature segment, but I'm very pro bee. I'm also pro lightning bug. Whatever happened to backyards full of lightning bugs? Their disappearance leaves me distraught. I miss the late 80's.
6) Nancy Giles
Controversial take: I am not a dog person. Despite the musings of Ron Swanson, I don't like the barking and I don't like the licking. I get along with cats just fine. This is my excuse as to why Giles's story about Stella, the talking dog, does not rank higher considering how much of a sucker I am for cute animals. And objectively speaking, Stella,
Susan Spencer talks to folk about returning, or not returning to the office. Full disclosure: I returned almost a year ago now. It's not that I'm some COVID truther, but the office I work at has about 1000 square feet space per person working there, so distancing was not an issue. And given the equipment I need access to, working from home could only be sustained for so long.
Highlight of the story: a professor from Harvard business school is self-aware. As he advocates for the necessity to return to the office, insisting that the creative spark required for innovation requires face to face interaction (kind sounds like BS to me...) he concedes, "I can't imagine anybody who wants a Harvard professor to rule the world... That's just so far away from my conception of reality." Quality self burn.
I also enjoyed this exchange:
Psychologist Ellen Hendrickson: So the 1% of people that just cannot identify with social anxiety at all are actually psychopaths.
Spencer: (laughs) So the best way to come through the pandemic would have been as a psychopath.
Hendrickson: (laughing) As a psychopath, yes.
Spencer: (laughing) Oh, great...
Anyway, Spencer stories always have an air of cromulence about them. The committee already gave her her shining moment at the top and to get there again, she'll have to earn it.
8) Luke Burbank
Sorry, this is going to go for awhile. It's what happens when you delve into things that touch my past self.
In my intro last week, I randomly commented on the Flaming Lips album Transmissions From the Satellite Heart. Low and behold one week later, there is a segment about the Flaming Lips. Am I psychic? Am I some kind of hypnotist?
As a young person, I was so very into the Flaming Lips. How into them? I once shelled over $25 to buy Zaireeka. An album where the constituent parts of the songs were on 4 different CDs that were intended to be played simultaneously on four different CD players. The idea, born out of Coyne's Parking Lot Experiments is that the players to not actually play back in a uniformly. They may lead or lag so that over the course of the album, the CDs will get out of sync creating a different sonic experience each time you listen it. It's also just a bit wild to hear music coming out of 8 different speakers. I think I've only listened to it twice my life. But I have to admit that at $12.50 a listen it was a pretty cool experience. In one of the songs there is a scream and with the setup I had during one of the two listening experiences, the CD players got out of sync just perfectly the scream started at the back of the room and works its towards me in a crescendo like a crashing wave. Anyway, I think the idea was that you were supposed to have listening parties with other Lips fans, but even if I could find other Lips fans to with whom I could listen to Zaireeka, do any of us own CD players anymore? Foiled by inevitable march of technology, the Lips would later start making 5.1 surround sound DVD versions of their albums to simulate the multispeaker setups Coyne had envisioned in the mid 90s.
The story is about the Lips' bubble concerts in Oklahoma City last year. Their way of doing live shows in a COVID safe (?) manner. Coyne's be playing around with inflatable bubbles since Coachella '05. From the tone of the segment and some of the deep cut references, it certainly seems like Burbank is a real fan of the Lips. Why doesn't the segment rank higher? Did it not make me feel like I was 22, lying to a professor about needing to take a Calculus exam early to go to a wedding, when in fact I needed to drive to Columbus and see a Beck and the Flaming Lips concert? (I was actually 18, not 22, but... you know.) Beck was touring his mournful Sea Change at the time and he did a little solo bit before the Lips came out provided as a serviceable backing band for his Odelay/Midnite Vultures oeuvre. It was less than the sum of its parts. But still, it was the first big concert I atttended and I can say I was there, man.
Unfortunately, (?) I've fallen out with the Lips in the last 15 years. Don't get me wrong, if I'd had a ticket to the bubble show, I would have gone in a heartbeat, but I think I listened to At War With the Mystics once and decided it wasn't for me. Maybe The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi don't necessarily hold up as well as I'd hoped. Also there was a thing between him and his drummer involving cultural appropriation. Coyne went through a divorce, and though he denies claims of adultery, he was dating someone else (whom he later married) at the time of the split. It's probably my own hangups that caused these tabloid-esque stories to give me a more jaded view of Coyne. ("I thought you were different, man...") In interviews he always seems like a cool, well reasoned, and likable guy. But the salaciousness of some of those stories sort of play into the idea that he may just be a little self important.
Coyne may be one of the most creative people in America. And even if all the worst things said about him are true, it's not like he got "#MeToo"-ed or something of that nature. He doesn't present himself as perfect and admits he's made mistakes, so I shouldn't be so judgemental. Perhaps I should afford him the ability to have a little privacy and simply wish him happiness as he would probably do to me. But when the drummer with a vendetta came out against Wayne, before both sides could say their piece, I gotta say, I was not pro-Coyne at that moment. The initial defense of the headdress was... not good. Also, Wayne may be creative, but he is not the most talented of musicians. My guitar skills never advanced beyond beginner, but I'm not sure there is a Lips song that I couldn't pick up in 5-10 minutes. That's a stupid dig though. That balance between simplicity and creative energy is what makes rock, rock, you know.
I'm not sure I can love Wayne Coyne and Flaming Lips the way I did as a young adult. But we'll always have Transmissions. Also, he wrote a song in 1999 that may have just been about working on a COVID vaccine. Is Wayne psychic?
9) Steve Hartman / Jim Gaffigan (tie)
Steve Hartman's segment was delightful per usual, but sometimes it's just a crowded field. All glory to Neil Kreiger for inventing the word "orbisculate", i.e. when a citrus fruit squirts you in the eye. I often have an orange with lunch and henceforth will always be on the lookout for any orbisculation. It's hard to make a word that sounds like something, but really is just well disguised nonsense. And Neil knocked orbiscualte out of the park. For all you people who think the pandemic is a hoax, Neil passed away from COVID last year. However, the turn of human triumph which must come with all Hartman stories is that Neil's kids, Jonathan and Hilary, are campaigning to turn their father's wonderful shenanigans into a real word. I'm actually very tempted to purchase some orbisculate merch.
___
I may have mentioned this before, but every time Gaffigan does a segment about his kids, I wonder if their participation is voluntary. Do they kick out of being on TV or do they annoyed that dad filming them again. Mining those awkward pre- to mid- teenage years for content. I'm a little surprised the eldest daughter consents to this. Although, she seems super game to join in when the family dresses up in costumes. I could just be projecting, but she reminds me of niece. The oldest and de facto most mature. However much her younger brothers may annoy her, I can tell she enjoys spending time with her family regardless of how cool or uncool that is. It seriously makes me wonder if disaffected youth was strictly a 90's phenomenon.
Anyway, there's a bit of his standup routine. And lest anyone forget Gaffigan is a great standup. Case in point: "Big family's are like waterbed stores. They used to be really popular, but now their just weird."
The culmination of the bit is that his favorite child is the dog. Lot of dogs in this episode.
Actually, no not really.
10) Martha Teichner
Ted Koppel, I love you, but what are you doing here? Have I not already ridiculed the idea of cancel culture in this blog. I really don't have anything to say because I don't watch to Sunday Morning to be agitated. I watch to relax. It is my Sunday zen time. If you angry up the blood, I've got to work it out with some exercise. Running, bike riding, etc. But that's, like, work and stuff. Sometimes I just want to have a lazy day and groove on a Sunday Afternoon with the Sunday Morning crew... and Dino Danelli, Felix Cavaliere, Eddie Brigati and Gene Cornish.
Teichner? I've never gotten angry watching a Teichner segment, but I may have gotten closer to achieving enlightenment.
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