Evening Gazette---Good Girls Blogging Edition

Good girls blog.  They blog about sports:

Among her many other talents, virtues, and noble qualities of mind and spirt, Our Girl in Chicago, it turns out, is also a baseball fan.  I'm not certain, but she appears to be a Tigers fan, which makes her a pathetic baseball fan, but still a baseball fan.  The other day she was watching Detroit play the White Sox and, unfortunately for her, living in Chicago as she does (That's why she's Our Girl in Chicago), she had to watch it on the White Sox station.   All teams' announcers are homers, but the best of them keep their inner fan in check.  I can't stand to listen to obvious homers even when they and I are rooting for the same team.  I want them to tell me about the game not when to get excited and about what.  The White Sox announcers are worse than homers.  They're cheerleaders and aspiring groupies, apparently.

The play-by-play guys for the Sox are driving me crazy, though. In what seems to me an insincere display of folksy familiarity, they call all the Chicago players by their first names, adding a "y" whenever plausible, never mind felicitous: Pauly (Konerko), Scotty (Podsednik), Hermy (I don't know who this refers to, but I'm sure I heard them say it). For one thing, "Konerko" is a great, spiky name that it's a shame to squander. That's bad enough. What's really objectionable, though, is the attempt to manufacture a chummy, affectionate bond between fans and players that should spring up organically or, if it doesn't, be left alone. Maybe that is the case here, but to me it sounds like they're pushing it.

These yutzes were harder to bear for Our Girl because she knows what great announcing sounds like,  She grew up listening to one of the greatest baseball announcers of all time.

Ernie Harwell, whose relative formality didn't preclude a definite down-home appeal. Harwell, of course, had that gently cadenced southern purr going for him, making it sound like politesse and respect but not stiffness when, say, he called opposing players "Mr." Like anyone in his line of work, he had the trademark phrases that never fully escape becoming a bit of a schtick: the most theatrical and probably my least favorite was the home run call, "it's looooooong gone"—though, gosh, it was a pretty little tune—and the one I most delighted in was his standing strikeout call, "He stood there like the house by the side of the road and let that one go by," stresses in all the right places. But the best thing about Harwell's work was everything he didn't say, his modesty and his economy. You got from him crisp accounts of the action, frequent reminders of the score, and the occasional well-placed anecdote—but mostly you got what what you needed to know.

But most annoying of all was that while Our Girl was watching a close game with the Tigers in it every step of the way, the White Sox announcers seemed to be watching, with uncontained glee, a laugher with about as much suspense as a game between the Sox and a Little League team.

Go enjoy her outrage.  The righteous indignation of a knowledgeable fan brings joy to every heart in Mudville.

Good girls blog about literature.

When I was a kid making that transition from Hardy Boys books to "grown-up" books, I loved Jules Verne.  I read every novel of his in our school library and I owned a beautiful edition of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.  I can still bring to mind in detail the many pen and ink illustrations, and the names Ned Land and Captain Nemo fill me a longing for adventure.  But my real hero was Phileas Fogg, the punctillious and proper hero of Around the World in Eighty Days, although I identified more strongly with his valet Passepartout.   I've never had the urge to read either book again, though.  I have peeked into The Mysterious Island a couple of times because I know I read it back then but for the life of me can't remember a thing about it.  Same for Journey to the Center of the Earth.   I think their memories got swallowed up in my memories of the movies, which I didn't like at all, despite Ray Harryhausen's special effects for Mysterious Island.

But according to the news from Maud Newton, I might want to reconsider re-reading Verne.  I won't find less there than I remember, Maud says, I'll find more.   That is, if I can get hold of the right translations.

This year marks the centenary of Jules Verne's death. In the current Smithsonian, Doug Stewart lays blame at Hollywood's doorstep for Verne's U.S. reputation "as a lightweight." Poor translations and a formula-happy editor also helped pigeonhole him as a writer of simplistic sci-fi...

Maud goes on to quote from the Smithsonian article, which argues that as a science fiction writer, Verne had a satirical and dystopian streak that sounds to me as if it may have made him as much a precurser of Philip K. Dick as Arthur C. Clarke and which, sadly, has been completely lost on the road to Hollywood and the children's section of Barnes and Noble.

Maud also posts a spirited defense of H.G. Wells written by Mr Maud and reveals that her favorite ride at Disney World was the late and lamented trip aboard the Nautilis.  Mine too.  In spirt anyway, when I was a kid.  I didn't make it to Disney World until I was in grad school when the blonde in an act of lunacy moved to Florida.  Something about a job...

When I got there I was surprised that I liked the Haunted House and Pirates of the Carribbean and even Peter Pan's Flight over London (also now defunct) better.  I was disappointed by the Nautilis ride.  Maybe if they'd had real mermaids.  Oh well.  We gave the 11 year old his own copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as a gift for his moving up day and he's thrilled with it.

For his graduation form 8th grade we'll give him Around the World in Eighty Days.

Good girls blog about movies.

Since I loved Around the World and Phileas Fogg was one of my boyhood heroes, you can guess that I wasn't too happy with the recent Disney adaptation.  I didn't mind that they turned Fogg into a virginal and priggish version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's Carractacus Potts.  I didn't mind that they turned the movie into a vehicle for Jackie Chan.  Chan is great and Passepartout is my favorite character anyway.  Stories that feature wily servants inevitably turn out to be more about the wily servant than about the upright hero.  Just ask Mr Pickwick about Sam Weller or Don Quixote about Sancho Panza.

I didn't even mind that Steve Coogan wasn't up to the job as stand in for Hugh Grant who reportedly was signed to play Fogg and who would have been nearly perfect (David Niven was perfect.) and who probably quit when he read the script and it turned out that the Fogg of the book wasn't going to be the Fogg of the movie.

I minded that they turned the book, which is a comedy, into a farce and then forgot to make it funny.

Owen and Luke Wilson as the Wright Brothers is an amusing idea on paper, but on screen there has to be more of a humor factor than "Oh look, honey, it's Owen and Luke Wilson!  Real brothers playing brothers!  What will they think of next?"

By the way, the best real brothers as brothers movie is The Fabulous Baker Boys, but a close second is The Long Riders with the Keach Brothers as Frank and Jesse James and the Carradine Brothers as the Youngers.  The Quaid Brothers and the Guest Brothers also star.

But speaking of Carractacus Potts and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  The Siren watched the movie again recently and pronounced it Goofy but Great.

One of the things she liked about it was the children.

One aspect of movies that has improved over the years is children's performances. So many times you watch an old movie like The Women and want to strangle the mugging little brat you're supposed to feel sorry for. And remember Bonnie in Gone with the Wind? When she broke her neck jumping that fence I swear I felt sorrier for the pony.

The children in Chitty are peppy and enjoyable without causing tooth decay. As a little girl, I thought Jemima had the edge, and I still do. She has fire and initiative, and a mouth on her too, as when she calls Baroness Bomburst "VERY UGLY." The ever-helpful IMDB tells me that Heather Ripley, who played Jemima, never made another movie, but is now an "eco-warrior" protesting things like nuclear plants. Somehow it seems very fitting that Jemima would grow up to be a fighter.

The Siren's going to wait before she watches his with her own kids.  She doesn't think they're old enough yet to handle The Childcatcher!

Our guys are old enough.  They've faced down Sauran and Darth Sidious, Ga'oulds, Klingons, and, as of today, the Scarecrow.  So we'll be making Chitty Chitty Bang Bang the feature for family movie night soon.  The Siren was right about The Court Jester, after all.  That was a big hit here Saturday night.  The 11 year old took himself off to bed singing Never Outfox the Fox and the 9 year old cracked himself up all day yesterday doing his own variations on the Pellet with Poison's in the Vessel with the Pestle.

Good girls blog about dating.

About dating advice, anyway.  Amanda Marcotte does one of her patented deconstructions of advice to the lovelorn, tearing it to pieces by simply translating it from cliche into plain English.

This time she takes on Match.com/MSN's advice to men who want to learn how never to be dumped with the line "Let's just be friends.   Sez she:

  I think I have a pretty good take on this burning question.  There are two effective ways to avoid hearing those words.

1) Be such a massive asshole that no one wants to be in the same room with you, much less let you down gently. You won't be asked to be someone's friend if she's telling you to get the fuck out of her face.

2) Develop mind-reading skills so you can only ask out women who you know for a fact want to rip your clothes off right this minute.

Or of course you could realize occasional rejection is part of life--a strategy that will definitely result in more naked face time than the first one for sure and one that's more within reach than the second.

But Match.com's readers presumably don't want realistic advice.  Here's a piece of the wisdom Match.com offers instead:

Be her opposite. Having tons in common with a woman may make her feel you're simpatico, but having too much in common is another sure way to get viewed as a friend. "Women want a guy that completes them—yet challenges them at the same time," says June Newland from Vero Beach, FL. To pull that off, think of what trait defines who you're with, then tap into being slightly the opposite. "If she's shy, try to come off more bold and outspoken. If she's somewhat high-strung, act very laid-back. If she's cerebral, be artistic," June recommends.

And here's Amanda's distillation of that advice:

So, when you meet a woman you like that you have a lot in common with, your options are to a) turn into an entirely different person or b) lie to her.

Well, it worked for me, but not everybody would enjoy the same sort of love life of high adventure, intrigue, fisticuffs, gunplay, and dueling attorneys as I enjoyed.  Best then you go read all of Amanda's post.

Good girls blog about really annoying Republicans.

Nancy Nall gets in a two-fer, knocking around Edward Klein, author of the new soft-core porn novel, The Truth About Hillary, whole gangs of College Republicans, not just the crew that met in an orgy of self-congratulation and dancing on the graves of dead American soldiers and Marines, but a gang of scam artists who once worked Ft Wayne, Indiana, bilking honest little old lady Republicans out of their life savings:

...a couple years ago...the College Republicans targeted an old lady in Fort Wayne, sending her daily fundraising letters warning that liberals were about to take over Washington, so please please please send more money! She sent tens of thousands of dollars -- she had senile dementia, by the way -- and they pleaded for more.

I've been after Nance to devote a whole post to this story.  She has more details up her sleeve.  Maybe if you all encouraged her.

The ringleader of those con men is not in jail, by the way.  He's the newly elected president of the College Republican National Committee.

And good girls blog about absent friends.

This one's by Shakespeare's Sister. She's writing about an old friend of her family.  I can't do this one justice by excerpting from it.  Just go read it.

Good girls blog about everything under the sun, of course.

But that's all I have time for here.

Comments

[Linkmeister]

"Hi everybody, and a very pleasant evening to you, wherever you may be."

Best baseball announcer ever.

[Linkmeister]

"Hi everybody, and a very pleasant evening to you, wherever you may be."

Best baseball announcer ever.

[Linkmeister]

Grr. Typepad is becoming annoying.

[Exiled in NJ]

One of the downsides of the Dish is being able to tune in the superstations WGN and the one in Atlanta. The only way to watch the Sox is to turn off the sound; these guys blather through triple plays, no hitters etc. I want to see the Sox go in the tank so bad, just to shut them up.

By the way, the pair that do the Cubbies also are sickening with 'Aramis', 'Corey' 'Kerry' and company. It says something about the station that last year's pair, Steve Stone and ?, were replaced because they did not die true blue Cubs and made some not-so-nice comments as the boys from Wrigley blew the wild card in September.

The Atlanta guys are pretty good because even if they have a slight southern tilt, they are quiet about it unlike Hawk Harrelson and company. Even though we are 60 miles from Philly, we only get the Mets and not the wonderful voice of Harry Kalas, in my mind a very objective announcher, if a little overdramatic at times. I have taken a liking to Healy & Seaver. They love their home team, but Seaver, especially, cringes when he sees bad baseball and makes no bones about it.

We did not have Harwell in Philly, but the original Mr. Malaprop, Byrum Saam. Byrum just rolled along, oblivious to everything. His signature phrase was 'right you are.' The story is told that doing an All-Star game, he was introuced by old mush mouth, Mel Allen. "And now to take over the broadcast, here is the amiable, affable, knowledgable By Saam." "Right you are, Mel."

[Chiburb]

OGIC nails it (Sox announcers)! Unlike her, I AM a Sox fan and must turn down/mute the tv while watching. What lovely writing and perception, thanks for the link.

[Linkmeister]

In case anyone was wondering to whom I was referring, here's a serendipitous article about him:

http://tinyurl.com/bu8rw

[Campaspe]

hee hee! Well, the Siren's kids are only two years old and just now starting to move past the Baby Einstein stage. I didn't see the Disney "80 Days," but the original is a lot of fun. I still can't believe they cast Shirley Maclaine as an Indian.

The Long Riders is great! May I remind you of a brother/sister real-reel movie? "Yankee Doodle Dandy." James Cagney's sister played Josie Cohan. Easily my favorite flag-waving picture.

[KathyF]

Funny you should mention...I just now got back from seeing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang performed on stage. Very very cool show, especially with actual British accents.

[Campaspe]

Poor Dick Van Dyke, he's never going to live down the accent thing, is he? I read that he admitted in later years that he never really bothered to practice Cockney before "Mary Poppins," which is why he sounds like he was born in Weirdsville instead of within hearing distance of Bow Bells. How was the Childcatcher in the show? Helpmann was the best thing in the movie, I think.

[mac macgillicuddy]

Since this post doesn't seem to be about anything in particular, I'll use it to give an opinion of Steven Spielberg's remake of War of the Worlds (the post does, after all, mention H.G. Wells). We saw it tonight, and give it a mixed thumbs up/thumbs down.

I thought it was scary, even though it basically had no dialogue and nothing but special effects and weird sounds. My wife thought it incoherent, but said she liked it for something to make fun of.

We think the fact that Tom Cruise is a noted Scientologist may have been the real reason I was so afraid.

[Exiled in NJ]

I keep my copy of "Long Riders" under lock and key and treasure the performance of Pamela Reed as Belle Starr, the music of Ry Cooder, and scenes like the wedding reception [compare it to Cimino's dances of elephants in Heaven's Gate, or the god-awful long wedding that begins Deer Hunter]. My only reservation with Long Riders is the almost aura that Hill puts around Jessie in the final third of the film.

[KathyF]

The Childcatcher was met with loud boos, which is the highest form of praise.

When he met his end, in a net that flew high overhead to the roof, there was cheering all round.

If I were a child, I think I'd have been afraid. Very afraid.