Month: November 2002

Memo to Tom Golisano:

Stunts like this do not lend credence to you as a man of Gubernatorial timber. I don’t much care whether or not you run, or if it inconveniences the Democrats in New York — they’re the ones who nominated a lackluster candidate and watched as he ran a half-assed campaign against a popular and generally decent Republican governor, after all — but lord, this “I’ve got a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT! and that BIG ANNOUNCEMENT is: See you on Tuesday!” stuff is just plain lame. It’s almost as bad as Perot’s infamous “I’m dropping out because George Bush had his former CIA minions try to disrupt my daughter’s wedding” bit from 1992.

And speaking of Golisano, I have to note that I generally find “independent” candidates dull and uninteresting. That Golisano built a company in New York that generated a good number of jobs is a laudable accomplishment, but I’m tired of the standard “Independent Businessman Candidate” claim: I created jobs, so I’m the right choice for Governor / President / Congressman / Coroner / Whatever. So your company did well; that’s all well and good. But that’s not enough: I need to see some evidence that you’re also an expert on the public policy needed to create jobs. It’s a different animal, so stop telling me that one equals the other. I’d also be glad to see one of these “independents” actually admit after the election that they got clobbered, and that running was basically a waste of time. The whole meme of “I got three percent of the vote, but that’s a victory because it sends a clear message that we don’t want business as usual!” is really rather tiresome. It’s the political equivalent of the NFL-coach-on-a-rebuilding-team: “Yeah, we lost 44-3, but we showed some improvement on special teams and our punter had a career day.” I’d like, just once, to see the political equivalent of Jim Mora after a loss (when Mora would occasionally shout “We SUCK!” into the microphone at the post-game press conference).

I’m also noticing more of those political signs — the ones that show up on busy street-corners, or in peoples’ yards — that don’t even mention what office the candidate named on the sign is running for. This is just one more indicator that politics is about branding. Pataki is no longer a candidate for Governor, but a product. His signs consist of his name and, in smaller print at the bottom, the URL of his website. Not “Pataki for Governor”, not “Re-elect Governor Pataki”, not even “Four more years”. Just “Pataki”. We’ve reduced politics to advertising shorthand.

Share This Post

Well, now that the first Sunday in November is done, all I have to say is: Can I have October back? Anyhow, some sports notes:

:: I’ll take Reality Checks for $500, Alex!!

That resounding thud heard yesterday resonating through the Lower Great Lakes region was the Buffalo Bills in their first meeting of the year with the defending Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots. (I could barely force my fingers to type those last six words….) A lot of Bills fans were set for a possible “changing of the guard” type of victory yesterday: the Bills were 5-3, they were on a three-game winning streak, their defense had performed well in those three games, they were at home with their new star quarterback facing the team that dumped him last year for the first time, the Patriots were reeling, they had lost four in a row, yada yada yada. Insert the voice of Chris Berman here: “That’s why they play the games.”

On Friday I predicted a Pats victory in yesterday’s game, because I figured they needed it more and they were still, position for position, more talented than the Bills. Plus, while I’ve made no secret that I don’t regard Bill Belichick as the next incarnation of George Halas, I do think that he is a more experienced and more wily coach than Gregg Williams, so he was more likely to have his team ready for what they were to face than Williams. Nevertheless, I predicted the game to be a squeaker. Instead, the Pats jumped out quickly and in the end turned it into a blow-out. Ugh.

What did not surprise me about yesterday’s loss was the fact that the Bills’ defense got riddled. Their recent success came against young teams starting inexperienced quarterbacks (Houston/Carr, Miami/Lucas (in place of regular starter Jay Fielder), Detroit/Harrington), so they were able to use a combination of blitzes and shifting coverages and misdirections to gain the upper hand in those games. That strategy didn’t figure to work against a more experienced, battle-ready opponent like the Pats, and it didn’t work at all. The Pats knew what the Bills would try on defense, so they came in with a game-plan full of screens and dump-offs and junk plays, almost all of which worked. At one point, those plays were being so effective that the color guy on CBS, Phil Simms, actually said something like “I guarantee that in the next three plays the Patriots will run a screen pass”….which they went on to do. Add to that some generally bad tackling by the Bills and their characteristic pass rush (which produced the staggering total of one sack of Tom Brady), and you pretty much have a defensive melt-down. So, the Bills’ only real hope was to turn this sucker into a shoot-out.

And that’s where the actual surprise of yesterday’s game happened. The Bills were in the Red Zone at least five times that I can remember, and they came away with exactly seven points. That’s it. They moved the ball well; Drew Bledsoe threw for three hundred yards, with his only interception coming midway through the fourth quarter when the game’s outcome was no longer in doubt; Travis Henry averaged 4.8 yards per carry, although the running game fell by the wayside as the Bills fell behind; Peerless Price had nine catches, et cetera. But they couldn’t score, which is the first time we’ve seen the Bills have that particular problem all year. It didn’t help, of course, that kicker Mike Hollis missed all three of his field goal attempts, but the Bills’ inability to get the ball in the end zone yesterday was shocking.

This game, then, really exposed the status of the Buffalo Bills: they are a good team in the making, but they are at least a year away and they are in need of some serious defensive upgrading before they can be considered any kind of real contender. Next week the Bills are off, and then after that they start the tough part of their schedule: in their last seven games, they have to play road games at Kansas City, the Jets, New England, and Green Bay. Of course, they won’t lose the rest of their games: they close the season against the Bengals.

:: The AFC East race is, as usual, tightening up. The Dolphins appear to be starting their annual swoon (although this year’s edition is a bit more cruel, resulting from injury to Jay Fiedler). The Patriots are at .500 and a game behind the Bills, but their remaining schedule is not as hard as Buffalo’s. Look out.

:: The Raiders’ defensive players are probably the most exhausted people in the United States today. Between the 49ers’ final drive in the fourth quarter (which ended in a missed field goal as time expired) and their game-winning drive in overtime (after they won the coin toss and received the kickoff), the Raiders’ defense was on the field for thirty-five consecutive plays. Wow.

:: My picks for the Super Bowl both won yesterday, and both are leading their respective divisions. The Steelers came back to beat the Browns and are now a solid 5-3, threatening to pull away from the rest of the AFC North. They also appear safe as far as home-field advantage goes: they won’t have it, which bodes well for them to get to the Super Bowl. The Eagles also won at Chicago (well, at Champaign against Chicago). Home-field advantage is actually important in the NFC, and the Eagles are in a log-jam at the top of the conference. But they’re solidly in front of their division, with a two-game lead on their nearest competitors.

:: In two of the Cowboys’ last three games, it’s turned out that scoring consisting of three field goals was enough to beat them. Considering that the Bills’ Mike Hollis missed three field goals yesterday, I guess it’s a good thing that the ‘Boys aren’t on the Bills’ 2002 schedule. (In Hollis’s defense, one of those kicks was a fifty-yarder, and another involved an odd snap so that the ball wasn’t planted very well by the time his foot contacted pigskin.)

:: The most oft-repeated words in Cincinnati yesterday: “Thank God for expansion!”

:: If you’re going to wear green jerseys for a game, at least pick a nice, dark shade of green. Say, hunter green, like the Philly Eagles. Bright green, grass-green, just doesn’t work. Just ask Notre Dame. (Oh, and thanks, Boston College! You’ve saved us all!)

:: New York City is bidding to host both a Super Bowl and the 2012 Summer Olympics. I seriously doubt they’ll get a Super Bowl, since the NFL is loath to hold the game in a northern city unless that city has a domed stadium. There have been thirty-six (or, in NFL parlance, XXXVI) Super Bowls, only two of which have taken place in northern cities (XVI in Detroit, and XXVI in Minneapolis). As far as NYC’s Olympic bid is concerned, I don’t know what cities around the world are in the running, but I wonder where they’d build an Olympic Stadium and an Olympic Village. (I’m genuinely curious here. I don’t know NYC’s geography very well at all.) Perhaps, if NYC wins the bid, this could be how Steinbrenner finally gets his new stadium — if NYC does what Atlanta did after its Olympics and converts the Olympic Stadium into the new ballpark. Of course, that’s assuming that Steinbrenner is willing to wait until after another ten years have passed before he gets his mits on a new park.

:: NBA weirdness: Karl Malone was held scoreless yesterday by the Sonics. He’s played for eighteen years and is a lock for the Hall of Fame, and yet he was shut out for probably the first time in his life yesterday. I don’t pay a lot of attention to the NBA — well, to basketball in general — but Malone being held scoreless is worthy of a visit by Agents Mulder and Scully.

Share This Post

I’ve added a permalink under “Other Journeys” to a pretty good left-leaning blog by William Burton, provocatively titled….”William Burton”. Interestingly, every post Burton has ever written appears on the main page. He does not appear to have an archive set up.

Share This Post

Steven Den Beste is back on the air, with an interesting article on gambling. I don’t much enjoy gambling; if I’m going to spend money on a vacation, I would like to at least get something — the memory of a show, or a fun ride, or the like. And if I’m going to spend money on a machine that flashes neat lights at me, I’d rather it be a vintage 1980s video game, like “Ms. Pac-Man” or “Marble Madness” or “Defender” (surely the goofiest set of game controls ever). I’ve been to Casino Niagara, the big casino in Niagara Falls, Ontario. It’s a gorgeous facility, and the constant tinkling of coins falling loudly into the tray of the slots is addictive, as are all the attractive lights and bells and such, but spending a few hours there — while enjoyable — leaves one with a very unfulfilled sensation. “So, that’s it?” was my overwhelming feeling upon my departure from the place. (I only played slots; I steered well clear of blackjack because I am an amazingly bad card player. Of course, I suspect that blackjack is not a game that requires skill in the way that poker or 500 do, but I’ve developed something of a card-phobia over the years, so bad at cards am I.)

What also struck me about Casino Niagara was the escalator ride from the smoking floor down to the non-smoking floor. You know that line of faint haze that forms in a room where the air is still and you’re burning incense? Imagine that line of haze, much thicker, as your head drops beneath it when the escalator carries you down to the non-smoking floor. And people were spending hours in that haze, happy as clams. Yeesh.

Share This Post

SF author Charles Sheffield passed away yesterday. To my knowledge I have not read any of his writing, but it is still sad to note the passing of a member of the community that I’m working to enter.

Share This Post

One nice thing about film score collecting that appears to be going by the wayside is the fact that it was a sufficiently small market to avoid some of the more irritating tactics that surround film franchise merchandising — there would be a single release of a film’s score, but that’s pretty much it. This has started to change in recent years, though. For instance, the soundtrack release of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones was fairly irritating. The score CDs featured four different covers, which was fine by me, as I don’t care much about such things. But then different releases of the score, sold at different outlets, included different “extras” on the disc. If you bought the thing at Wal-Mart, you got a screensaver or some such thing; however, if you bought it at Target, you got an extra track of music. (For me, music’s the thing, so that’s the version I got.) Another example was the score release for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, in which the “normal” releases also had multiple covers (I got Saruman, simply because that’s all the store had the night I bought the thing), as well as a “special” release in a leather-backed case that came with some other goodies (I don’t know what), but no extra music.

And now the same sort of thing is going to be the case with The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, with a normal release and a “deluxe” release and then a “limited” release only available online. What’s particularly galling in this case is that the more expensive versions will include the extra track of music, but not the “normal” release — but of course, the running time of the normal release will be the same as the other releases minus the “bonus track”. Asking score collectors to pony up an extra $10.00 just to get that extra track is, well, kind of mean. I’ll be getting the “normal” release. (Info on the various releases of The Two Towers can be found here.)

Share This Post

I watched Casablanca last night.

I used to watch Casablanca much more frequently than I do these days. One year, during college, I watched the film every Sunday afternoon for six consecutive weeks. Doing so has ingrained upon me a preferred way of watching the film, that is almost a ritual. I love to watch the film on an early winter evening, starting it around 5:00 or so, while it is still light out and with no lights on in the room. Then, as the film progresses, it becomes dark outside and as the light in the room diminishes, the light from the television — from Casablanca — takes over until it is the only light at all. It’s odd, the rituals we create in our lives and the objects we use to create them. I’m sure there are better ways to watch Casablanca. In a theater, perhaps. But this is my way of watching it. And you know what? I just may watch it again today, transporting myself to the heat and desperation of North Africa in World War II, even as the snow falls outside in Upstate New York.

Some thoughts on Casablanca:

:: If there has ever been a film with better dialogue, I’ve not seen it. This film is a study, a virtual clinic, in how to construct dialogue. It isn’t merely that the film is loaded with some of the most famous lines in film history, except one (do I really need to tell you that “Play it again, Sam” is not a line in this movie?). What amazed me so about the dialogue last night as I listened to it is the way the dialogue flows. The conversations in the film all follow a logical progression. So many film conversations sound like characters talking past one another, with lines that don’t seem to follow from the context of what’s been said, and we sometimes wonder: “Now why did he say that? Where did her line just now come from?” That doesn’t happen here. These characters are really talking to one another: exchanging information and viewpoints, feeling out each other’s emotions, seeking out weaknesses or strengths.

:: I read somewhere — I think it was in Robert Silverberg’s book Science Fiction 101 — that Islamic carpet weavers will purposely introduce a flaw into the pattern of their magnificent rugs, on the theory that to fashion perfection by the hand of man would be an act of heresy toward God. I wonder if the same might be true in Casablanca‘s script, because there are only two false-sounding lines in the entire script. Both come from Ilsa Lund, during the Paris sequence. Once, when she tosses Rick a coin and says, “Franc for your thoughts”; and then a bit later, when the Nazis are coming and she says, “Kiss me as if it were the last time….” There isn’t another false note in the entire screenplay, which would be amazing enough by itself. It seems almost miraculous, though, in light of the famous fact that the script wasn’t even finished while the picture was shooting.

:: Max Steiner’s score is absolutely wonderful. Three main motifs work their way through the score: “La Marseillaise”, “As Time Goes By”, and a darker theme, characterized by low brass, low strings, and deep timpani rolls. Of course, “As Time Goes By” is totally associated with this film. Fittingly, that melody does not appear in the score until the moment when Ilsa requests that Sam play it, but from then on it is woven into the score with amazing subtlety — sometimes at the same time as the dark German music, sometimes forming a segue into “La Marseillaise”. Max Steiner was one of the greats of film music’s Golden Age, and Casablanca shows why. (The quality of his music is even more incredible when one considers that Steiner hated “As Time Goes By, and he was very nearly successful in his lobbying for the song to be dropped in favor of an original song he had written. Only the fact that Ingrid Bergman had moved on to another film and cut her hair for the new role, which made reshooting the necessary scenes impossible, saved “As Time Goes By”.)

:: Have there ever been more great close-ups in a movie than in Casablanca? Witness the very long closeup on Ingrid Bergman, as Ilsa listens to Sam singing “As Time Goes By”. I can’t think of any actors or actresses today who could pull off such a long closeup.

:: A sometime-quoted rule of writing is “Always leave them wanting more”. I hold Casablanca as a counterexample to that theory. At the end of this film, I do not want more. I don’t want to know what Rick and Louis go on to do when they get to Brazzaville. I don’t want to know about Victor Laszlo’s work in the resistance once he escapes. I don’t want to know if Ilsa and Victor have children after the war, and I don’t want to know if Ilsa grows old and wonders about the life with Rick that she passed up. Casablanca does not leave me wanting more. It leaves me satisfied.

:: Only a film as good as Casablanca could have me overlooking the fact that the “Letters of transit” make absolutely no sense.

Share This Post

I haven’t been making regular predictions of the Bills’ games this year, because I’m not terribly good at the predicting business. But I’ll make an exception this week, just for kicks.

While I think that the Bills may be better than I gave them credit for initially — I had forecast a 6-10 season, and they’re 5-3 already — I think that the Patriots are still the defending Super Bowl champions (despite my feeling that their title last year owes more to the sacrifice of ninety-nine chickens in some kind of weird ritual than anything else), and while the Bills are playing quite well with their defense especially showing improvement in their last two games, this game simply means more to the Patriots. If they lose this one, their season is effectively done; they would be 3-5 and have to go at least 7-1 (and maybe 8-0) the rest of the year just to make it back to the playoffs. I think the Bills will be tough, and I think Drew Bledsoe will have a good game, but I think the Patriots will win it in something of a squeaker. So, my pick is Patriots 30, Bills 27.

Share This Post

What do you do when you are a former member of one of the most renowned comedy troupes in history? If you’re John Cleese, you move on to various writing and acting endeavours, including taking over for Desmond Llewelyn as Q in the Bond films. If you’re Terry Gilliam, you direct movies….really offbeat, strange movies. And if you’re Michael Palin, you become a world traveler and film your exploits for the BBC and PBS. Check out his site; it’s wonderful for the photography alone.

(crossposted to Collaboratory.)

Share This Post

Today recorded the first snowfall of 2002 in the Syracuse region, resulting from that most wonderful (or hated, as the case may be) fact of climate and geography: the lake effect. For those who have better things to do than watch the Weather Channel, the “lake effect” happens when cold air blows across the surface of a warmer body of water, picking up a substantial amount of moisture as it does so. Then, when that now-moisture-laden air moves over land again, the moisture comes out as precipitation — generally, snow, and lots of it. How much snow falls, and where, is determined by the direction of the winds as they cross over the water onto land. Lake effect snow tends to set up in narrow “bands” of intense snowfall, so one can be in the middle of a blizzard in one spot while someone else, just miles away, can be experiencing no snowfall whatsoever. And even weirder is if one is outside the band where the snow is currently falling, one can actually see the band of clouds during the day — there will actually be this long, dark stretch of threatening-looking clouds to the south or north.

The gigantic snowfall that paralyzed Buffalo last December was a lake-effect storm. In that case, the winds traveled up the entire length of Lake Erie, picking up pretty much the maximum possible amount of moisture before encountering the first bit of land at the lake’s opposite end — which just happens to be where Buffalo sits. Ergo, gigantic blizzard in the city and the south and eastern suburbs, but nothing in the northern suburbs and little in “ski country”, which is about thirty-five miles south of Buffalo.

Now that I’m living in Syracuse, though, the operative lake is no longer Lake Erie but Lake Ontario. The key difference now, the “unknown factor” as it were (unknown to me, that is; I’m sure the locals know all about it) is that Lake Ontario, being much deeper than Lake Erie, does not freeze over during the winter. This means that lake-effect snow is a constant possibility all through the winter. In Buffalo, though, once Lake Erie freezes over during the winter — Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes — the lake-effect “snow machine” stops, and for the most part Buffalo stops recording snowfall.

Another key difference is that Buffalo is far enough inland that the infamous Nor’easters do not affect it, unless the Nor’easter in question is positively gigantic. (The “Storm of the Century” in 1993 is a prime example.) Syracuse, on the other hand, appears to be poised to catch the westernmost cusp of the Nor’easters as they make their Baltimore-Philly-New York-Boston-Portland trek. Thus, in short: I am bracing myself for a lot of snow this year.

Share This Post