Posts

Posted on

We Believe!

Thanks to Buffalo Hodgepodge for pointing out this wonderful Sports Illustrated article about Buffalo and the Sabres.

Weather was the last thing on our minds on Jan. 27, 1991. Not with paradise a mere 47 yards away in Tampa. I looked at the clock to preserve the moment: 9:37 p.m. Around town, similar scenes played out. Byron Brown, then the director of Equal Employment Opportunity for Erie County and now the mayor of Buffalo, was at a Super Bowl party at his mother-in-law’s house on Blaine Avenue in Hamlin Park. Mark Hutchinson, the chef and owner of Hutch’s, one of the city’s most popular eateries, watched with his pals above Casa Di Pizza on the Elmwood Strip. Finally, it was Buffalo’s time. Adam Lingner’s snap was pure, and when the ball arrived in the hands of backup quarterback Frank Reich, I felt a tug on my hand. Our group stood up as one and screamed. Scott Norwood gave it a ride.

You know the rest. SUPER HEARTBREAK The Buffalo News declared on its front page the next day. They wept at Byron Brown’s party. Hutch recalled how one of his friends kicked a table across the floor, stormed out of the restaurant, and locked himself inside his home for seven days. On Montrose Avenue, we were all numb. Barely anyone spoke a word after the kick as we headed out into the darkness, a journey that became all too familiar for Buffalonians in the 1990s.

Tell me about it. I do not doubt for one second that every year on January 27, late in the evening, if you venture out into the still of an wintry Iowa cornfield, and if you listen as hard as it’s possible to listen, you’ll still hear my scream of NOOOOOO!!! echoing across the icy prairie.

What began as a magic ride for an underdog last season has morphed into a collective confidence that hasn’t been felt among Buffalonians since the kickoff of Super Bowl XXV against the Giants. This season the Sabres clinched their first Presidents’ Trophy title and set a franchise record with 53 victories. They hold home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs.

But the euphoria surrounding this Sabres team comes from more than just the winning. It’s the manner in which they have won. In a league that now rewards skating over brawn, the Sabres are the fastest team on the ice. They play with flair and panache, traits normally not associated with rust-belt Buffalo. They win games by coming from behind — 10 times they have overcome a two-goal deficit — which plays to a city predisposed to the underdog role.

By unanimous accounts the locker room consists of character guys. (“They are the most accountable team I have ever been around,” says Buffalo News columnist Bucky Gleason. “And they don’t have much to be accountable for.”)

For seven consecutive months Buffalo has been the top-selling team on Shop.NHL.com. Sales of Sabres merchandise in March increased 657 percent compared with last year. In mid-December there was a 12-week waiting list for a Sabres jersey; the wait has now receded to eight weeks. All 41 home games this season were sold out (as is every playoff game), and 90 percent of the team’s season-ticket holders have already renewed for next year.

Let’s go Buffalo!

Share This Post

Posted on

Games as Art

I recall a while back reading Demosthenes take on Roger Ebert’s contention that video games may display a lot of craft, but they’re not art:

I am prepared to believe that video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful. But I believe the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art. To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers. That a game can aspire to artistic importance as a visual experience, I accept. But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic.

Demosthenes meditated on this here and here. I never weighed in myself because I just don’t know enough about games to make a coherent argument in their favor, although my sympathies lie in their favor.

But today Mary checked in with quite a wonderful post on game-as-art, although she doesn’t cast it as such. Here’s how her post starts:

Okay, I am not your average video game reviewer. Mostly because I suck at video games. It’s my total lack of hand-eye coordination and my low frustration-threshold that does it. So what I am, is a video game spectator.

But there’s only one game that I’ve ever asked someone to play just so I can watch. It’s called “Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.” And I want people who don’t play video games to know what game designers are capable of, these days.

Do read the whole thing. (I didn’t read the spoilers, but they’re minimal and don’t seem to impact the main point.)

(And I’ll bet Shamus has some thoughts on this whole thing! How about it, Shamus? Are games art?)

Share This Post

Posted on

Mahna Mahna!

Longtime readers will remember my unreasoning love of the Greatest Thing to Ever Feature Muppets Ever, the classic nonsense tune “Mahna Mahna!”. The Muppet Show version, as ever, can be seen here.

However, I always knew that the song was actually heard several years earlier, on Sesame Street, which in its elder days used to feature some niftily surreal stuff — i.e., the show wasn’t “All Elmo, All The Time”.

Here’s the original “Mahna Mahna”. I still prefer the Muppet Show version, as it distills the song down and shows off the significant growth in the understanding of “Muppet Body Language” that marks the greatest work of Jim Henson and company. But it’s still fascinating to see the original, no?

UPDATE: In comments, local blogger Derek Punaro levels the shocking accusation that the song was actually used originally in an Italian porn movie. This is, of course, a libelous statement of the worst kind, and to think that Derek would dare imply that Jim Henson, one of the finest purveyors of entertainment for the young at heart ever, would even think of using a song from an Italian porn movie is just so terrible as to…oh. Never mind, then.

Wow, the things you learn on Teh Internets!

Share This Post

Posted on

Passages

I see via Electronic Cerebrectomy that character actor Roscoe Lee Browne has died. He had a long and productive career on TV and in voiceover work; for me, his most memorable role was in an episode of Magnum, PI in which some eccentric and mean rich guy fakes his own death to find out which of his mansion staff is out to get him, or something like that; Browne played the butler. I first knew of Browne by his voice on, of all things, a record album called The Story of Star Wars. This was an album that told the tale of the film through bits of dialogue, sound effects, music, and Browne’s narration to tie the whole thing together.

I’m not sure when the last time was that I saw Browne in something, but that’s the point of good character acting, I suppose. Filmed entertainment would grind to a halt if not for all the “Hey, it’s that guy!” or “Hey, it’s that lady!” actors, many of whom I sometimes suspect are actually more talented than the top-billed “stars”.

Share This Post

Posted on

Sixteen more wins!

It seems that the Buffalo Sabres are pretty good. Lots of people seem to think that this might be their year.

Seriously, this is the most excited I’ve seen Buffalo about a sports team ever. I can’t really compare this level of excitement to the Bills’ run of four straight Super Bowl appearances, because for the first three of those, I wasn’t in Buffalo during the playoff runs. I was in college, in Iowa. So the Super Bowl run was a big deal for me, but in a different way; the Bills at that point were my main reminder of home, the way I “spiritually” kept in touch with Western New York. Those teams are special to me for that very reason. For three years I would watch the Bills play at Rich Stadium and say, “That’s my home.”

(I was back in the area for the last of the Super Bowl runs, but by that time the excitement didn’t quite seem as real. I’m not sure that anybody really expected the Bills to be able to beat Dallas in that game; we were happy just to get back for the fourth time in a row, something nobody else has ever done. The iconic image of the fourth time was the guys at the stadium who brought the sign reading, “We’re Back! Deal with it, America”.)

So I can’t say that the excitement surrounding the Sabres this year is similar to the Bills’ run. Maybe it’s more exciting, maybe it’s the same. I suspect that it’s most like the 1990 Bills run, which was the first of the Super Bowl appearances — that was when it most felt like they were on the cusp of winning it all. And that’s the feeling right now, that this is it, and that when this set of games is over, we’ll all know what it feels like to live where the local team really has won it all. Let me tell you, folks: I personally have never felt this pervasive a sense of optimism around these parts, about anything. That means something. We Buffalonians are a hearty bunch, but optimism doesn’t tend to be our strong suit. We tend to be the chip-on-our-shoulders types, the ones who find it advisable to give The Fates the finger before they give us the shaft.

But right now? None of that applies. It’s a new season, and the team that wins sixteen games wins the Stanley Cup. So go Sabres, and get those sixteen W’s. And to everyone else watching, this is the city of chicken wings, beef-on-weck, Sahlen’s hot dogs, and Labatt’s beer. When they win that Cup, we’re going to throw a party for the Ages. The kind of party that Homer would have composed a 6,000 line poem about.

Go Sabres!

Share This Post

Posted on

Vonnegut

Of all the authors out there whose work I have to admit to never having read at all, Kurt Vonnegut is probably the one of whom I’m most embarrassed to say that I’ve never read. And when I say I’ve never read him, I mean it — not a single word, to the best of my knowledge. This bothers me because plenty of people whose judgment I trust on such topics speak very highly of Vonnegut.

So I’ll read him, OK? Someday.

Share This Post

Posted on

Paging Dr. Wertham

Apparently there’s some kind of discussion going on about a “Blogger’s Code of Conduct” somewhere. I didn’t know about it because I didn’t hear about it until John Scalzi wrote about it in a response that basically boils down to “Yeah, whatever.” (Like the title of his blog!)

Anyhow, my take is pretty much the same as his: this is my blog, and I’ll make the rules here. (Which, by the way, can be found here.)

Share This Post

Posted on

Sentential Links #94 (the Aaron Schobel Edition)

Yup, we’re at #94 in Sentential Links, thus arriving at the number currently worn by Bills defensive end Aaron Schobel. Yes, you care.

:: Not to wish ill on anybody but this is the kind of headline that would lead to hours of one-liners in a sitcom writing room.

:: Instead, I’ll just note that the dude died at his drawing board. That’s hardcore.

:: It’s magical, this Surge; no matter what happens, the evidence demonstrates that the Surge is working. It can’t fail! Any behavior taken by anyone in Iraq is a positive by-product of the Surge.

:: As we move through Holy Week I’ve thought a lot about scars….

:: Prediction? The lawsuits fail, but they drain so much money from the plan that they’ll have to scrap the pretty replica of the 19th century buildings and we’ll get a big box after all. How’d that be for karmic irony?

:: What the world really needs is more space opera. (Amen! And why is Joss Whedon doing a Buffy comic book, when the world needs more Firefly? Aieee!)

:: I love Howard the Duck. There, now it’s out there. I love it.

:: This review sort of sums up the very essence of the debate with Halo zealots that I’ve witnessed over the years, and perfectly distills the very nature of the exchange.

More next week, as always. They just keep coming….

Share This Post

Posted on

Sunday Burst of Weirdness

Probably the weirdest thing ever:

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Whether one believes or not, that whole thing certainly fits the definition of “weirdness”. Either one believes, in which case the Son of God came back from the dead; or one does not, in which case a man claiming to be the Son of God did not come back from the dead but still inspired billions of people over two thousand years to believe that he did.

What do I believe? I just don’t know yet. I may not figure it out in this lifetime.

Anyway, Happy Easter, everyone.

Share This Post

Posted on

Easter follies

I was charged with the task of acquiring candy for The Daughter’s Easter basket, which was easy enough — a box of those awful Peeps things, an egg-shaped plastic doodad filled with Hershey Kisses, and some jelly beans.

But not just any jelly beans, mind you. No, I had to indulge her enjoyment of All Things Harry Potter and get her the box of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, which according to the box contain beans of flavors like grass, soap, bacon, rotten egg, vomit, and booger. “Never fear!” thought I. “I’m sure those are fake names for beans that taste like normal old jelly beans.”

Not so.

“Alas, ear wax!” Dumbledore said once when trying a bean. Alas, ear wax, indeed.

Share This Post

ForgottenStars.net

The official site of Kelly Sedinger: Reader, writer, photographer, and dreamer

Skip to content ↓