New Years - New Title

Every year, I make a resolution and for the past few years I have actually been good at following them up. My resolution for 2009 was to read more. I now have participated in one book club and am in the process of starting one myself. The year before that I resolved to run more, did that. The year before that cook, ditto. So for new years 2010, I am resolving to write more. I think that there is a good writer in here somewhere, and I will use this blog as the vehicle. My ideal thing would be to write 5-6 days out of the week for 30 minutes at a time. An exercise that I did at UW writing and thoroughly enjoyed it

I am unsatisfied with the title of the blog currently. AMQA UK, Jr. is too long and convoluted. I once saw Norman Mailer on 60 Minutes or some such program and he said that he started each day by doing the NYTimes crossword, he said it was an exercise and called it "combing his brain". I liked that "combing my brain", I thought it not only brings to mind an amazing image of a Goody(R) passing through the gray matter, but an apt description of a mental exercise.

So maybe as a new name I can call the blog:
"Combing my Brain"; or
"Brain Combing"; or
"Literary calisthenics"; or
"calisthenics with commas"
"Shawn's Syllables" or
???

Any suggestion from my vast and loyal readership on this topic would be great.
A Safe, Happy and prosperious New Year to all.

Avatar and District 9 -

Seen a lot of movies in the last couple of days with the wife home from work, and the networks running nothing but “year end” and holidays specials and prempting new broadcasts of any of our shows.

This afternoon I saw Avatar, and last night I saw District 9. Both are science fiction films, and both have similar themes of oppression of the other, whether through segregation in ghettos (District 9) or genocidal land grabs (Avatar).
In Avatar humans go to another planet that is rich in valuable mineral Unobtainium (stupid name Cameron, Lucas help you with that one?). But finds that there is an aboriginal race (the Nav’i) on the planet that is similar to all aboriginals throughout human history. All of the actors playing the Nav’I are African Americans. They ride 6 legged horses and use bows and arrows like American Indians, and are so in tune with nature and their environment that they can actually link into it like a network.

In District 9, the aliens (the Prawns) come to Johannesberg, South Africa (of all places). Where they are placed into temporary camps that become and massive permanent slums.

In both movies humans cannot get along with the aliens, we either isolate and oppress at home, or try to systematically eliminate them abroad. Hmm…

Avatar was an amazing movie to see, and if you are going to see it, see in the theaters and with the 3-D glasses it is utterly amazing and thrilling visually. Avatar is more spectacle than movie, and should probably be seen with as many bells and whistles as possible, because the story itself is lacking, all the major points of the plot are telegraphed before hand. Yet I found myself so wrapped up in the movie, despite these flaws, archetypal characters.

In District 9, there was real tension, the finale and the conclusion are legitimately up in the doubt throughout. D9 employs the documentary style which is the cliché of the 00’s film and television, yet it does work. The fact that the setting is South Africa makes the Prawn ghetto allegory that much more powerful, and the documentary style makes it that much more hard hitting and thought provoking.

Both movies have similar protagonists both undergo a transformation, one willingly the other unwillingly, but yet each end up at opposite ends of the fortune spectrum too. Both are fighting against giant evil corporations with military power, whom they each once worked for. The military leaders in both films are the primary villains.

Ultimately District 9 is the better movie, but Avatar is something that absolutely needs to be seen on the big screen. I am beginning to wonder if this 3D thing maybe the thing to keep the theatres afloat for the next few decades because there is no real way to replicate the 3D experience at home, at least for now.

Lots of identity in both of these films, this person has a pretty good take on it:
http://io9.com/5422666/when-will-white-people-stop-making-movies-like-avatar?skyline=true&s=x?h

Restaurant Bores

Well I am completely behind on the TC Blog this week. It seems to have gotten off to a rather rocky start, I don’t know if anyone is paying attention or even reading this thing.
It doesn’t help that I am behind a flipping week on this thing. For that I apologize to all of my loyal readers. Today I was told that there is a difference between being lazy and being busy. Busy people are busy, while lazy people are lazy but insist that they are busy, so saying that on with last weeks recap that was so memoribal that I had to run to the Mac to memorilaze it on the blog.

The most memoriable thing about this episode was the quickfire. Teams were chosen by knive block. Jen-bot and Michael V. were the captains. Jen-Bot could’ve really messed things up by picking the other more boring Voltaggio brother. But instead she choose the Kevin and his beard with her first pick. It was the beginnig of very long episode for the cookbot 3000. In the quickfire each member of each time had to cook one dish in 30 minutes, relay style without talking to one another or seeing what happened before them. Jen bot called here dish “trout” when it was very obviously “black fish”. Her mentor Eric Ripert, would’ve Ripert’ed her a new one for that blunder. But “black fish” or no – Jenbot and Kevin from My Morning Jacket’s team did win. The winning team was offered 10 grand for the team, but turned it down for 10 grand a-piece with an elimination win, again another big mistake.

Onto the elimination Revolt and their bad name won. Jennbot screwed the pooch and broke her trout (this time it was trout) sauce. So this week’s episode is on.

Hot: Voltaggio Brothers

Strugg-el-lean: Jenbot, is her circuitry shorting out because of a love of Beard?

On Notice: Robin, it is over, enough already get packing.

Standings:
1. Anne and David: Bryan V. (5), Robin(2): 7
2. Marni and Heath: Kevin (5), Laurine: 5
3. Josh and Heather: Jennifer (4): 3
3. Shawn and Jessica: Michael V.(3), Michael I. :3
3. Brandy and Julia: Eli(3): 3

Here comes Wrangler, he's one tough customer...

Last night I watched the ESPN documentary on the USFL “Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL?” I really enjoyed it, as I am one of the few people I know who has any real memory of the league, and the only person I have ever met who has been to a USFL game.
I lived in Phoenix for only one school year (1982-83), but for being such a long time ago, and being so young I still have lots of memories of it.
One of them was attending a USFL game at Sun Devil Stadium between the Boston Breakers and the Arizona Wranglers. The Breakers were a good team and the Wranglers were not. The stadium was half full, but the Wranglers were still popular since Phoenix was just burgeoning as a major metropolitian area, and were sports crazy. The only other sports team in the area was the NBA’s Suns, so getting a pro football, any team meant that the town was going places.
One of my classmates, JV invited to go with him and his family to a game. JV’s family was little odd, I remember being at his house and the only thing that was allowed to be on their tv was Christan Evangelicals. I would go over there and his mom, who was pretty and nice and her boyfriend, who was quiet and weird, would be sitting in front of it, as if they were enjoying it, if that is possible.
I remember one time being at JV’s house after school and we had just finished playing Intellivision and were watching Mtv, a new channels that was super-awesome. Intellivison was probably the only thing that JV and I had in common and probably the only reason we were friends since we were the only two kids who had the system rather than the dominant Atari. When JV heard his mom’s car pull he quickly changed the channel from the Mtv to the 24/7 Evangelical channel, before hustling us off to his room to go with play with Star Wars guys or something. This was before the Jim and Tammy Baker scandal hit, so this kind of thing on cable was dominant. I remember thinking that was weird. JV would also take me to an Awana meeting, which freaked me out, and to which I never returned but that is another story.
Part of the appeal of the USFL was that it was the “fun” league, it was the league without strikes and without penalties for spiking the ball. The league prided itself on being fan-friendly at the Wranglers game there was a rock band behind one of the endzones who would crank up middle of the road hits during time outs and breaks in the action. “Rockin’ Robin” must have been played three or four times, and that is the first time that I had ever become aware of the tune. I liked it. The game wasn’t very good, as Boston was a good team and Arizona was not. The Wranglers were just getting dominated all game and in the first half were down 24-0. Apparently at all Wranglers game a new car was given away at halftime to “some lucky Wranglers fan”. At our game the lucky winnere was introduced at half to the crowd, near the Wrnagler band and given the keys to her new car, when the MC asked the winner where she was from she replied sheepishly “Boston, Massachusetts”. Boos rained down from the stands.
We left the game early, which I didn't like, and the Wranglers went on to lose 44-23.

Gladwell: Football Could ?Wither? Like Boxing, Dogfighting - NFL - Yahoo! Sports

Yahoo's take on Gladwell's PTI appearance and New Yorker article.
Gladwell: Football Could ?Wither? Like Boxing, Dogfighting - NFL - Yahoo! Sports

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Football, Dog Fighting, People Fighting

I tend not to read the New Yorker. Maybe I am not intellectual enough, or maybe I just hate all of those annoying cartoons, or maybe it is my personal West Coast bias, which is simply a reaction to the East coast bias,that I couldn’t bring myself to read a magazine with such a title. But apparently there is a lot of good writing in it, I know my boy David Sedaris routinely publishes in there so maybe I should look at it more often.

However I do watch ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption, damn near everyday. The guest this Friday was author Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell has a couple of books on my ever increasing, rarely diminishing “Books I Want to Read” list. In his appearance Gladwell talked his New Yorker piece about the increasingly troubling incidents of brain damage, Alzheimer’s and dementia in former football players. Host Mike Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser seemed to be a little shaken by a good piece of writing, that indicts the football machine and as well as it’s fans.

Gladwell likens football to dog fighting an analogy that Wilbon and Kornheiser avoided, and for good reason. After the Vick episode, it has been universal accepted that dog fighting is cruel, and its participants (handlers and breeders) as well as its spectators are culpable in this inhumane criminal activity. Since this appeared on “world wide leader”, likening the football fan audience to red-necks, mouth-breathing yokels at a dog fight, would kill completely overshadow the evidence Gladwell presents which is disturbing.

There maybe a kernel of truth in the analogy though. I often compare football to Gladiatorial games. Stating that I like to eat chicken wings because "eating meat off the bone while watching football makes it extra Roman”. Watching a decadent game in a dying empire is one thing, but watching two dumb animals tear themselves apart is quite another. But I think that the appeal of both “sports” rests in a part of the brain that we are uncomfortable with embracing, and probably for good reason.

Is this the end of football? Unlikely, but is it the beginning of the end? Possibly, as the camera panned out, Wilbon turned to his co-host and said “I tell who isn’t going to play football, Matthew Wilbon” (his 2 year old son). If more and more people like Wilbon, a man who has made his living writing about athletes, then the fewer kids will be going out for football, and the game could wither, maybe becoming like boxing, an analogy that was also made on the show. But while boxing has withered, the more brutal Mixed Martial Arts seems to have taken its place. Boxing withered because the sport was seen as corrupt, crooked, and exploitive, not because people were concerned about brain injuries, Mohammed Ali is a cautionary tale though. But even the “Greatest of All Time” hasn’t stopped the rising popularity of people fighting one another in steel cages. I don’t think have steel cages in dog fighting, do they?

Football, dogfighting, and brain damage: newyorker.com

Amazing piece in the New Yorker about concussions and football by the writer du jour Malcom Gladwell.
I will blog on this later.
Football, dogfighting, and brain damage: newyorker.com

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