Men and Sports

I've been pondering a mystery that many women, at one time or another, have pondered:

What is it with men and sports?

Example: Last week I met a guy I'll call--since I don't use real names on this blog--"HB" (short for "Hot Businessman").

[Digression: most of my girlfriends and I give every guy we meet little names that we use instead of their real names: "The Irishman", "The Cop", "Soccer Guy". They only get their real names used if they reach boyfriend status. Is this a universal among women? Maybe this post should be called "Women and Nicknames."]

In any case, HB and I were chatting it up. After a few minutes we settled on college football as a mutually discussable topic. Not only did this work well, but as our opinions about the field differed (ah, there's always conversation to be had about what REALLY should constitute national championship status, as well as who's overrated, etc.) , there was opportunity for a) sparks to fly, and b) conversation to continue.

Why is sports (nearly) a universal among men? I know a lot of women who like sports "okay", and a few who are rabid fans, but even men who aren't big fans seem to have a grasp on a wide variety of sports, as if it were a natural gift.

Maybe it's part of male socialization--it's expected that you know sports, at least enough to converse with. They also seem to grasp sports in a different way--in a very statistical, technical way. My pre-adolescent brothers could give me breakdowns of games won or lost before they were born. I have a college football and a national baseball team that I follow, but even though I've been watching those sports for years, I still don't understand all the rules or penalties, and I know very few statistics (last time the Cubs won the World Series? 1908.).

I guess I watch sports for the human drama and for following my teams, whom I love (the Cubs tested me sorely this year, though). I like to watch the game of baseball no matter who is playing--I know many find it boring, but to me baseball is relaxing, graceful, intellectual, and strategic. It's the game of a long thinker. I've heard men wax eloquent about baseball in particular (think George Will) but not so much about other sports, so i'm still left wondering: what makes them love sports so much, and love them the way they do (as opposed to the way I do)?

It's like Churchill on the Soviet Union: "It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."

24 Hour Party People

On principle, I'm not what you'd call a supporter of big business, though I do most of my shopping at Target. I patronize the locally owned grocery chain, however, and try to avoid corporate synergy and marketing as much as I can without getting silly about it.

But I have to be honest: I love Starbucks. More than I ought.

I realize that they are marketing an "experience", that they are trying to appeal to the middle-class-social-climbing-snob in me, that it is a BoBo (bohemian bourgeois) paradise. People say their coffee is over-priced (yeah, kind of) and doesn't taste good (I disagree: Sumatra and Gold Coast and Sidamo are nectar of the gods. Verona is, however, a brew of Satan.).

But Starbucks is also an oasis of sanity in a mad world. Their greedy corporate reach adds several joys to my life:

1. Because it is a corporation, the coffee quality is always the same. I know exactly what I'm getting. If I'm bothering to buy coffee while I'm out and about, I don't want to wonder if it's going to be good enough to justify the cost, and I want to know exactly what it's going to taste like. Starbucks delivers on this.

2. Because they are so large and well-known, they've reached into markets whose highest quality joe previous to Starbucks was the instant machine at Burger King. I am not a coffee snob (I generally drink Folger's at home), but I cannot drink it below a certain standard. If I wanted brown hot water, I'd drink tea. (Actually, I like tea, too, but not when I'm expecting coffee.)

3. People are so addicted to Starbucks that now there is a market for 24-hour locations. TWENTY-FOUR HOURS! This is brilliant. There is one not a mile from where I live.

I just got back late at night from a trip where my only coffee opportunity for 3 hours was a 24-hour Starbucks in the middle of nowhere. I was so tired I barely made it there, but was wide-awake the rest of the trip.

Of course, 24-hour caffeine availability does have its drawbacks. Like trying to get to sleep tonight.

Better Late than Never?

This story of sibilings reunited after 65 years (!) made me cry:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14896842/?GT1=8506

Ours Not To Reason Why

My mother sent me the most astonishing link today. It's a sound recording (on an Edison wax cylinder) of a man who was at the Charge of the Light Brigade, playing the bugle call from that charge, on a bugle that was also used at the Battle of Waterloo.

Just the idea of this is arresting, but hearing him speak and hearing the bugle is incredibly moving:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/10204

Occasionally one comes across those moments where there is a great leap backward in time, with only one or two degrees of separation. My great-grandmother (whom my mother vividly remembers) was alive when that recording was made, and the man who made it was performing on a bugle from at least 1815.

It puts me in mind of recordings of the last castrato singer (eerie, to say the least):

http://www.amazon.com/Moreschi-Last-Castrato-Alessandro/dp/B000000WYS

or the last few remaining veterans of the Great War (which is a subject of endless fascination for me, and more immediate in my imagination than many events within my living memory), or that (possibly) 250-year-old tortoise who died earlier this year:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adwaitya

Two hundred and fifty years! A creature that was alive before the Revolutionary War! Unbelievable!

What is it that makes us want to literally touch the past? When I visited the British Museum I was able to walk right up to the Rosetta Stone. Sneaking a glance around to see if there were any guards, I reached out and touched it. I touched the ancient Rosetta Stone, key to the Egyptian hieroglyphics. I remembered learning about it in eight grade history...and there it was. (Apparently it's under glass now, after a late 1990s restoration. Bummer.)

A fragment of what might or might not be a quotation is bumping around my brain--I feel like it's Shakespeare, but am coming up with nothing. It's a banal quote alone, but I can't find it anywhere: "The past is present."

Here is a quote about the past that suits my mood (from Bartleby.com):

"The past is only the present become invisible and mute; and because it is invisible and mute, its memoried glances and its murmurs are infinitely precious. We are tomorrow’s past."

Mary Webb (1881–1927), British author. Precious Bane, foreword (1924).

I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General

Wow. Sometimes life (read: my job) gets in the way of my blog. What's that all about? Where are my priorities? :-)

Anyway, brief entry today, just to keep my hand in: a dear friend of mine (let us call her Lulu) just sent me a CD of Gilbert and Sullivan selections. My G&S knowledge is not more than the average over-educated person would have, but I know I always enjoy them, and it was a very clever thing for Lulu to do.

G&S are rather like P.G. Wodehouse, I think: fun for word-lovers, and quite funny. I've only ever seen one production: a high-school (! very ambitious for this particular school--I was impressed by the fact that they even tried, though not particularly impressed with the quality) production of Pirates of Penzance. Penzance has my favorite G&S song, which I chose for the title of my blog today. You can find the lyrics here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_General

"For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General. "

Not Just Another Pretty Face

Well, if my three-year-old nephew won't marry me, there's always George Clooney.

Apart from the obvious reasons for which nearly all women love George, I love that he's got a serious mind (as well as a great sense of humor, a double-entendre voice, beautiful eyes, can rival Cary Grant in charm, and is the walking epitome of "masculine")...

Back to the serious mind.

Today I saw him and his father, Nick Clooney (another handsome charmer with beautiful eyes and excellent voice) being interviewed by the BBC. Apart from the fact that it was extremely distracting to have both of them sitting there (my friend Sara recently saw Ocean's Eleven for the first time and said, "It's just not right to have so many fine men in one movie"--shout out to Matt Damon and Don Cheadle!), I thought it was really excellent how they were working on this ongoing and un-dealt-with issue. The genocide in Darfur first came to my attention two years ago, and this is the second time that George Clooney has used what he calls his "celebrity credit card" to focus media attention on an issue that needs it.

Sometimes it's annoying to have celebrities talk about politics and "issues", because many of those celebrities are so fatuous. Apart from the fact that I'm pretty biased in favor of George, though, I like it in him. For one thing, he's up front about using his fame to focus on things that matter. For another thing, he's classy about it: he usually doesn't dog other people specifically, and when he does, it's really funny. He actually seems to think about the issues he talks about. He tries to argue reasonably and get people to pay attention to serious questions that are not easily compressed into sound bites.

I watched George's recent "political" movies, Good Night, and Good Luck, and Syriana, and loved both. Funnily enough, I'm not generally on George's side of the political spectrum. But I respect him when he talks about politics, because he's talking about issues, not people. I also respect his father, who is a journalist. Both men give the impression of thinking before speaking. That's something that doesn't happen all that often these days--especially in politics.

George Clooney on Darfur (if you want the video, click the button above the article):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5347660.stm

The Children's Hour

I saw my three-year-old nephew not too long ago. After showing me how he can almost spell his little sister's name (he got it all but the silent "e" on the end, and though I tried to explain the concept of "silent e", he just looked at me like "Crazy grownup!" and kept repeating: "Eh-eh-eh. E says Eh." at me, like I'd gone mad. Bloody educational toys.), he showed me his 50 States puzzle, and showed me states where various family members lived, etc. I could tell he'd gone over this with Mom several times.

He is such a dear baby. I used to watch him once a week for nearly a year, and I really bonded with him then. He is "my" baby, of all the nieces and nephews (all of whom are, of course, Perfect Children). But I moved away a little over a year ago, and now I don't get to see him often. Every time I see him he's taller, he talks more clearly (he's already so articulate, it's astonishing), and he's more self-assured. Three-year-old logic is a fearsome and wondrous thing.

Case in point: After we'd journeyed through the U.S. by puzzle, I turned to him. "What do you think about you and me getting married sometime?"

Deadly serious, he looks at me, then squints his eyes and shakes his head. "No," he says. Pause. "I want to be a fireman."

I tried not to burst out laughing. "Well, you can be a fireman and still be married."

By this time he's started playing with the puzzle and is clearly only tolerating my nonsense. "No, I can't get married. I want to be a fireman."

"But lots of firemen are married."

He looks at me, shakes his head at his pitiable aunt, and says, "No, I want to be a FIREMAN." (Like I didn't hear the word clearly the first time.) At my look of confusion, he says, "I want to blow out fires. I'm going to be a fireman."

["Blow out fires"--is that like blowing out birthday candles? Or maybe he hasn't ever heard the phrase "put out fires."]

"Oh," I said. "Well, if you ever change your mind, let me know."

"Okay," he said, going on with his play.

It's all so clear, isn't it?

Psychic Friends Network

I saw an interesting "odd news" article today. A man at Trinity College, Cambridge, did a study to see if people had "telephone telepathy", where you think about someone and then they call you:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060905/
od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_britain_telepathy

His results are less than perfect (surprise, surprise), but they are interesting. I'm not sure how it works, but I've definitely experienced this before.

I also (very frequently) know what people are going to say before they say it, both in real life and in film and TV. How it usually works is that I sense a particular word is coming, and then it does. Sometimes, of course, this can be attributed to context, but oftentimes the word is two sentences away and there's no way I'd know otherwise.

The other thing that happens to me most often is that I will have a song in my head and then turn on the radio and that song is playing. If they were popular, constantly-played songs, I'd attribute the explanation to the fact that they're just around a lot. However, I don't listen to pop radio very much, and I rarely know the current hits. Sometimes I wonder if I have a radio receiver in my head.

Perhaps the word phenomenon can be attributed to emotional intelligence coupled with high verbal skills--I sense what's coming just like a chess player can plan several moves ahead. With the radio thing, my extremely unscientific conclusion is that some people's brains sometimes tune into radio waves and that's where the song comes from.

It does make me wonder what else is going on in my brain that I don't know about.

The Music Fact Rap is Fun to Sing

I am very pleased with myself: my first attempt at posting something other than text or a link is successful! (See below the comments.)

This quiz was okay--it had quite a few good bands, but not all the ones I would want. However, I think that the results are fairly accurate. I didn't realize quite how much I like R&B and hip-hop, because I'm also a big jazz, bluegrass, and NPR listener. NPR and hip-hop? Seemingly a weird combination.

However, I think that all of the types of music I like to listen to (with the exception of pop, really, and 90s alternative, which is sort of an aberration that works because a) it's mostly acoustic, and b) it was when I was in college, and one's college music has long staying power) have one thing in common: soul. Jazz, hip-hop, R&B, and (dare I say it?) bluegrass all have soul. I also like very old-school blues: that Bessie Smith, scratchy-record, twangy guitar, 1930s Mississipi delta sound--the kind of songs with a repetitive tune and three stanzas, the first two of which are the same. You know the kind. I could listen to those for hours.

(Of course I loved O Brother Where Art Thou, for the music, as well as George Clooney.)

I'm always open to learning more about music. I love classical and movie soundtracks and some musicals (particularly Stephen Sondheim), but I have a strange avant-garde/eccentric streak, too: John Adams and Philip Glass and weird dissonant things, folk music from faraway places in Africa and Scandinavia and places along the Silk Road. When music is genuine instead of cynically (is that the word I want?) designed to sell, I can connect with it. Particularly with instrumental music (whether classical, electronica, or whatever) I close my eyes and feel it wash over me, and I almost physically feel like I am swimming in it.

Your Taste in Music:

80's Pop: High Influence 90's R&B: High Influence Old School Hip Hop: High Influence 90's Alternative: Medium Influence 90's Pop: Medium Influence

How's Your Taste in Music?

Crocodile Hunter: Rest In Peace

Okay, so I was trying to decide what to post today, when I swung over to Yahoo!. There I see a headline that says that Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, was killed by a stingray while filming a marine documentary:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060904/
people_nm/australia_irwin_dc

I've always thought the man was quite mad to run around with dangerous animals like he does, but I guess I figured he had some sort of immunity. Which is totally illogical, of course.

I'm sad. The Croc Hunter drove me sort of crazy, but he was a cultural icon. My youngest siblings are going to be sad about this.

Crikey.

Back from the War

Well. It's been about two weeks since I last posted, which is far more time than I ever intended to let pass. The good news is, things are starting to settle a bit, so I should be back in the swing of things.

I've been re-reading the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I like to revisit books I read as a child, especially in times of stress. They take me to a calmer place mentally, into a world much safer and simpler than my own, both in reading and in remembering.

However, many children's books have quite a bit of interest for adults, beyond just retreating to childhood. Beverly Cleary's Ramona series has a whole layer of wry humor that is invisible to the eye of an eight-year-old. In the Little House books, small clues about culture and the adult world are tucked here and there like little treats, waiting to be discovered.

For instance:

In Little House in the Big Woods: " '[Laura's Uncle] George is wild, since he came back from the war,' Pa had said, shaking his head as if he were sorry, but it couldn't be helped. Uncle George had run away to be a drummer boy in the army, when he was fourteen years old." (p. 137)

"The war" was the Civil War. By "wild", of course, Pa could simply mean that George did as he pleased and didn't care what others thought. But George still wears his blue uniform coat (with brass buttons) and frequently blows his bugle--strange behavior several years after the war is over. Might Uncle George have suffered post-traumatic stress disorder? A drummer boy would see battle action just like a regular soldier, and a fourteen-year-old boy fresh off the farm probably would not have all the coping skills he'd need to deal with what he saw.

In Little House on the Prairie: The family contracts malaria, and are cared for by a black doctor. "Then the doctor came. And he was the black man [Laura had seen in her delirium]. Laura had never seen a black man before and she could not take her eyes off Dr. Tan. He was so very black. She would have been afraid of him if she had not liked him so much....Dr. Tan was a doctor with the Indians." (p. 191-192)

According to the Little House on the Prairie website (http://www.littlehouseontheprairie.com/web/facts1.htm), Dr. George Tann was a real person who is buried nearby (the webpage has a picture of his headstone). This website has more on Dr. Tann: http://webpages.marshall.edu/~irby1/laura/tann.html .

Also, of course, throughout the early books in the series, there are many run-ins with the Indians living nearby, discussions of politics related to land ownership, and instances of financial hardship. Reading the books now, I am curious to know more about Laura's real life, as opposed to the fictionalized version.

For the series is fictionalized, edited, and cleaned up (which, of course, makes it a better and more comprehensible story for children). If you read On the Way Home, Laura's diary of their move from Minnesota to Missouri, you get a grittier, less polished, adult account. I like this particular voice of Laura's, and want to read more. I haven't done any searching yet, so I don't know what's out there, but feel free to reply with suggestions, if you have any.

Also (hanging my head in cybernetic shame) I can't figure out how to make a link to a website instead of copying and pasting the whole thing, so if you know how, please let me know.