August 8, 2021
It's another one of those weeks. You know like we just had a couple weeks ago, where I can't be arsed to post a recap blog in a timely fashion.
First, don't say I didn't warn you this might happen when summer started. And second, I feel like I have a valid excuse. Last weekend, I took a little trip to the Baltimore/D.C. area. Why? Why not. Maybe it's personal. Maybe I just wanted to live out the first track of the The Postal Service's first (and only) album, Give Up:
To catch up on a couple things:
Olympics recap: When not traveling, I did spend the majority of the last two weeks watching the Olympics. I am the reason why networks pay billions of dollars for broadcast rights. Does that make me culpable for the rampant corruption that accompanies pretty much every games? Like climate change, some things feel like an intractable problem. Shall I stop driving my car and start living in a yurt? That's not a completely facetious question by the way.
Every Olympics, you discover a batshit crazy sport that scrambles your mind. I mean we all know that Olympians run faster and jump higher than you or I. I can produce a simulacrum of what an Olympian does. Take what they do and multiply or divide by a factor of somewhere between 1.5 and 2 and generally you are in the realm of what a mortal can accomplish. But this year I discovered sport climbing, namely the speed climbing competition. Due to copyright, I cannot embed it here, but do yourself a favor and watch it. Each competitor is a Neo that has just figured out the Matrix.
My favorite team sport to watch at the Olympics is volleyball. I doubt there is room for a volleyball league in the saturated US market. The NCAA would just undercut it anyway, but it seems like that might not be for too much longer. Anyway, it's fast action with flying bodies on offense and defense. It's frenetic and fun to watch. Men's and women's is about equally entertaining to watch. Watching the women had the bonus of seeing the US women win gold for the first time.
The marathons were also pretty compelling. I'm not going to try and sell long distance running as a spectator sport. It has about the same appeal as car racing. It's all if the ending will have any excitement. In the women's marathon, I had a little allergy problem when Molly Seidel took bronze after I thought she had fallen out of contention. In men's, Eliud Kipchoge is a human wonder for all times. If you're going to run 26 miles at a pace of just over 4:30 per mile, you might as well do it with a smile, right?
Finally, apologies to Marcos Giron - American tennis player and Olympian. He may have fallen in the second round of the Olympics and at the Citi Open in D.C., but I was in the crowd (in D.C., not Tokyo) for his first round match against Ilya Marchenko and it was one of the more entertaining, gritty performances I've witnessed - rallying in both the second and third sets from being down a break to win in a match deciding third set tie-breaker. Drama!
Missouri News: The governor of Missouri pardoned these folks, but not these folks. Hmm... one of these things is not like the other. Thoughts from Chuck D?
I'm sorry if lobbing the incendiary lyrics of Chuck D and Flavor Flav is crossing a line, but this makes me so very... very... angry. Not that the McCloskey's got pardoned - I fully expected that to happen and, whatever... - but that innocent men still remain in prison.
Gov. Parson, if you have any questions about the details of the case that still leave you befuddled on the question of innocence, I'm just Erin Moriarty will be happy to take your call.
Moving on... let's first do 10 Iroquois twists to push the jive and bring in the love:
Now I'm ready to do the power rankings:
The CBS SUNDAY MORNING POWER RANKINGS
Excluded from consideration this week are Connor Knighton, Tracy Smith, and Faith Salie. Puppies are cute, George Clooney is Hollywood's greatest living raconteur, and I dislike the word team used in business settings as well.
The George Clooney segment was recut to downplay its original purpose to promote The Midnight Sky (I haven't seen it). If you haven't heard the flowbee story yet, go ahead and watch the Clooney segment. It's at the beginning. Tracy would have gotten a high spot because Clooney carries an interview like no other. I was trying to find clips of some of the best Clooney segments, like him handing out $20's to people who paid to see Batman and Robin. As much as he makes fun of that movie and as bad as it is, to me it was worth it for the Schwarzenegger drinking story.
Here's a clip of Clooney handcuffed to David Letterman as Letterman interviews Tom Waits:
The why's and wherefore's of why this happened do not matter. It is just cosmic evidence that Clooney's the best. Remember when Charlie Sheen was "winning"? Well, Clooney already won about 10 years ago.
Statues from antiquity were actually painted. And since the Roman Empire spanned the Middle East, North Africa and Europe, the range of vibrant colors of both dress and skin tone of those depicted would have been quite diverse. When the Renaissance came along, the paint on the ancient statues they based their work on had long faded or been washed away, leading them to leave their marble creations unadorned, inadvertently giving rise to the idea of whiteness as an artistic ideal.
Martha asks if art historians owe museum goers an apology. When an art historian answers no:
I want my apology from an art historian.
As always, Martha on art is the best.
2) Mo Rocca
Almost as good is Mo's enthusiasm for
3) Luke Burbank
So thing 12,192 to do on my Sunday Morning inspired bucket list is to see a concert at Red Rocks. Can't say I'm a fan of The String Cheese Incident or jam bands in general. I think some EDM under the sky would be cool, but I'm too old to be a raver at this point. Just play something suitably trippy and let me look at the sky. Maybe some Super Furry Animals? I know I just poo-pooed the electronic music idea, but The Chemical Brothers would be perfect.
Brief aside, I was watching the segment while eating breakfast - a regular occurrence each and every Sunday morning. Anyway, I paused it to go get more orange juice and could only laugh at the image on which it was unintentionally paused:
The icing on the cake is that when I went back to grab the screenshot the shot synced up exactly with Luke saying, "the most incredible vista ever for your vinyasa." Yes, I know he's talking about the surroundings and not the butts, but tell me someone didn't have a little fun cutting that together?
4) Jane Pauley
I'm gonna be a little sad in a month once we blow past labor day and Jane retires her summer whites from the wardrobe. Also, they introduced something called "Agenda" which seems to be a reboot of the "Calendar" segment they had stopped doing. It's not the long missing segment I've been clamoring to get back (*cough-Almanac-cough*) but it's something. It's less whimsical and more newsy than the old "Calendar" segment. I suspect this was just filler for an episode that was running short, so I'd be a little surprised if it's still there once "The New Season" rolls around.
Here fishy fishy fishy. Also, I did confirm that in the full episodes available online the nature segment does run longer than the broadcast version. I always knew they ran longer if you streamed just the nature segment. But no, the only episode gets the full Zack Snyder extended cut treatment apparently.
6) Ben Tracy
Some Italian sinks crates of wine in the ocean to age them faster. I do think the sea creatures that have attached themselves do make the bottles themselves a work of art, but I don't think they are sold with encrusted with crustaceans. Maybe I'd be more likely to pony up the $300 for a bottle if they did. I've never spent more than $50 on a bottle at a restaurant and never more than $20 at a store. I have my concerns about the environmental impact. "Here ze ocean is teaming with life, but everywhere zere are signs of man's encroachment."
7) David Pogue
We're running out of space in space. Remember that Chinese rocket that almost hit the Maldives? Or the plot of Dead Like Me? It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Since it's cited in the segment, I found this article about the misunderstood history of the The Tragedy of the Commons enlightening. Maybe I'll invite an economist on to discuss it sometime.
Once upon a time, I bought the a Doors box set through BMG. Remember BMG and Columbia House? Anyway, I needed something to get the 11 CD initial order and the Doors boxed set counted for four. I thought I liked the Doors, but in reality, I just liked the songs I knew. The once that would comprise their greatest hits and feature prominently in this story. Everything else was kind of meandering and pointless. Listen to the entirety of "The End" and tell me it is worthwhile outside the context of Apocalypse Now. I won't believe you. Anyway, I experienced Doors backlash and came to view Morrison as a pretentious addict who was mistaken for genius. Maybe if he hadn't died, he could have been the west coast version of Lou Reed. Maybe the Doors relied on the keyboard solo too much. Maybe I knew an annoying guy in college who was a little too into the Doors. Maybe it's all of the above.
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