02.28.05
Salon sports columnist King Kaufman discusses the Oscars (he justifies this by pointing out that “Million Dollar Baby” involves boxing, and that February is a slow sports month) and, as usual, comes up with some pithy observations. He pleads for a return to the days of “sloppy excess” in today’s column, excerpted below:
Sunday’s Oscars ceremony was the shortest since 1994. Congratulations. “Well, that wasn’t worth watching, Mother, but at least we get to hit the hay on time.”
For that, we got the spectacle of Cate Blanchett and Jeremy Irons wandering around in the audience like ushers, and the winners of the various best whatever Oscars that got this treatment taking the statuette handoff, then padding down the aisle a few feet to a microphone, looking for all the world like someone about to ask Oprah’s guest a question.
If you’re in the movie business you spend your whole life dreaming of that moment when you’ll get to make that walk, climb those stairs, kiss some movie star and stare out at a sea of faces that looks like one of those pizza-parlor murals, the ones with all the Hollywood royalty from Charlie Chaplin to, oh, those usually end around a youngish Woody Allen and Burt Reynolds, but you know the ones I mean.
Then you finally win one and the experience is a little like getting up to tell the City Council that your neighborhood has quite enough liquor licenses already, only a little less satisfying.
But that’s nothing compared to the Academy playing the “Scram, we’ve got to get to the late local news!” music on the big shots. It’s one thing to play the multiple winners of the most neatly typed screenplay Oscar off the stage. A mean, boorish, classless thing, but only one thing. It’s quite another to make Clint Eastwood walk Spanish.
The orchestra played a single staccato note as Swank took a breath while rattling off the names of various people nobody’s ever heard of, a musical “Shut up, we have to get to the best foreign film!” She wagged her finger — just like Dikembe Mutombo, this being a sports column — and said, “Uh-uh, you can’t do that because I haven’t gotten to Clint yet. I saved him for last.”
Good for her. A few years ago Adrian Brody shut up the band by saying, “Cut it out, let me finish. I’ve got one shot at this,” and the audience applauded.
Eastwood was one of three producers who accepted the best picture award for “Million Dollar Baby.” Before the third of them, Tom Rosenberg, began talking, the orchestra struck up. He started in on his thank yous anyway. Eastwood leaned in and said, “Keep talking. Don’t let ‘em run you off.”
Exactly. Can we get back to sloppy excess, please? Can we get back to hideous, over-the-top dresses and inappropriate political blathering? I’m talking about sports again here. I don’t just mean more Cher and less Gwyneth Paltrow, I mean more crazy Randy Moss and less polished Alex Rodriguez. Can we stay up past our damn bedtime once in a while? Isn’t that still OK?
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02.28.05
from CNN: Iraq Suicide Bomb Kills At Least 125. Sigh.
In other news, the Northeast is preparing for a huge snowstorm today. I just discovered a nice Firefox extension: Forecast Fox adds a little weather icon to your browser window. Kind of like weatherbug, but without the bundled adware.
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02.27.05
In my first live-blogging event, I’m going to update this post throughout the Oscar broadcast tonight. Please feel free to pipe in with comments during the show to share the experience.
7:38: Babs cryfest check-in: a promo for an ABC show called “Grey’s Anatomy” uses “Such Great Heights,” by The Postal Service, as background music. Apparently, somone at ABC has good taste.
7:46: Promohthree is also doing some live blogging.
7:57: Am I really watching Barbara Walters sway her shoulders to Jaime Fox’s hip-hop stylings? God save us all.
8:05: My lord, Halle Berry is beautiful. If only she could act.
8:08: I haven’t seen Kinsey, but Laura Linney put in one of my favorite performances ever in You Can Count On Me. If you haven’t seen it, you must, you must.
8:20: Yo Spike! This dude wants his fez back!
8:26: Tom Hanks wins ABC’s poll for “Best Acceptance Speech” for the words he spoke after winning for “Philadelphia.” I guess all the fag-hating Bush voters forgot to call in…
8:34: Chris Rock says “asses” two seconds into the broadcast. Where are the indecency police?
8:40: Chris Rock doing some serious Bush bashing. Watch out for the sharpshooter in the left balcony, Chris.
9:05: I had no idea Beyoncé spoke French. That accounts for that é in her name, though. Viens ici, ma petite cherie.
9:15: Who does the dresses for the Sci/Tech awards? Oh wait, there are only tuxes at the Sci/Tech awards.
9:18: It looks like they’re bringing nominees for the non-marquee awards (fashion design, art direction, etc.) out onto the stage before they announce the winner. Not only are they saying, “we don’t want to waste time waiting for you to make your way to the stage,” they’re also saying, “you have no dignity, and we will all laugh at you as you are publicly shamed.”
9:22: Sophie Okonedo is so cute. what dimples!
9:30: Can I, as a straight man, say that Kirsten Dunst’s dress is fabulous? Just checking.
9:43: Who wrote this Chris Rock/Adam Sandler dialogue? It’s about as funny as Little Nicky.
10:04: Grand piano alert. Schlock ahead.
10:05: Andrew Lloyd Webber alert. Insane schlock ahead.
10:06: Did I just see a statue of a monkey holding cymbals? My God, has it really come to this?
10:09: Chris Rock introduces Jeremy Irons as a “Comedy Superstar. ” He was hilarious in Dead Ringers.
10:15: Robert Richardson leans in for a second kiss with Kate Winslet. She says, under her breath, “oh, that’s two.” That’s right, dolly, you’ve just been been double-smootched by the silver-maned cinematographer of LOOOOVE!
10:28: Antonio Banderas sings in spanish! Where the hell is JLo?
10:30: Carlos Santana–do you have enough gum to share with everyone in the audience, young man?
10:38: Chris Rock says that next year they’ll give out Oscars in the parking lot.
10:42: Why does Johnny Depp look like he just walked off the set of Captain Kangaroo?
10:43: Wow–those reels of film crumbling into dust make me want to cry. Hold on–those were just Star Jones’ rouge tins.
10:50: I had no idea that Five Easy Pieces, one of my favorite movies, was co-written by a woman (Carole Eastman, who died this year). Sort of throws the criticism those who accuse it of being misogynist into a different–or at least more complex–light.
10:58: Don’t even think about macking on Beyoncé, Josh Grobin. Jay-Z’s in the audience, and he’ll fuck your perm up!
11:17: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind wins best screenplay. Charlie Kaufman wins for Best Hair.
11:21: Commercial for Their Eyes Were Watching God: was soft-core porn what Zora Neale Hurston really had in mind?
11:23: Go Don Cheadle!
11:26: Jaime Fox wins. Who, besides Mike Tyson, gets a tribal tattoo on his head?
11:26: How many fezzes can YOU find in the audience?
11:33: Clint Eastwood wins Best Director. Poor Martin Scorcese. Clint’s mother looks very happy, though.
11:35: Thanks for sharing the Oscars with me. In closing, I’d like to join Julia Roberts in wishing Marva a very happy birthday.
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note: In the spirit of live-blogging (well, really because I don’t have Tivo), I have tried not to gussy this up too much the next morning–cosmetic edits only.
Check out Liveblogging.org for other live blogs of the Oscars. Especially fun were Gothamist and Defamer.
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02.27.05
Yes, you’ve looked at them a thousand times, but you haven’t seen them like this. Check out these photos from Jake of Bluejake, who is also one of the editors of the excellent Gothamist. Enjoy.
Gates 6 (my favorite set)
Gates 5 (my second-favorite set)
Gates 4
Gates 3
Gates 2
Gates 1
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02.27.05
One of the tough things about being a web designer (in case you don’t know, I’m a grad student who does web design and programming on the side to pay the bills) is that once you get comfortable with a certain technology, you find that it has become outdated. And you have no choice but to keep up, especially if you teach web design, as I do–you don’t want to instruct students in methods that are already out of date. But it’s tough to force yourself to discard familiar ways of doing things and to plunge, once again, into a new sea of knowledge; you know that you’re likely to wind up on the sand, coughing out water and gasping for air, before you learn how to float.
I’m in the midst of a such a shake-up right now. I’m trying to learn how to use CSS positioning, instead of tables and spacer gifs, to lay out my pages. I love formatting text and images with CSS, but laying out pages with it makes me a little anxious. Once I get the hang of it, though, I’m looking forward to getting rid of the default Kubrick template that I’ve been using for this blog and designing a new interface.
In case anyone else out there is struggling with the same issues, I wanted to pass on some links that are making this transition a little easier. Thanks to my friend Zach of Cast Iron Coding for many of these links.
I’d love to hear from other people who have moved from table-based layout to CSS positioning. And if you have other useful links, please pass them on in the comments.
Also, I know that these kinds of learning experiences are not limited to web design–what was the hardest new technology you ever had to learn to do for your job, and how did you get through the experience?
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02.25.05
Temple has suspended men’s basketball coach John Chaney for the rest of the regular season.
Chaney richly deserves this fate. Earlier this week, in a game against friendly hometown rival St. Joe’s, Chaney sent bench-warming behemoth Nehemiah Ingram into the game for the sole purpose of committing hard fouls. Ingram is 6′8″, 250 pounds; he wouldn’t look out of place on a football field.
Chaney was upset because he thought that the St. Joe’s team was setting moving screens. At one point, Ingram pulled back from an opportunity to commit a hard foul; Chaney called him to the sideline and yelled at him. Soon after, Ingram responded with his fifth and final foul–he knocked one of St. Joe’s best players, John Bryant, to the floor as Bryant was driving for a layup. According to some sources, Temple fans cheered and spit as Bryant lay on the court. (Dragonballyee has some photos from the game on his site, if you’re interested).
Under Chaney’s prodding, Ingram committed five fouls in four minutes, and was out of the game. John Bryant–a senior and a co-captain of his team–wasn’t so lucky. He is out for the season with a fractured arm, and his basketball career is over.
In his post-game press conference, Chaney called his own player a “goon,” and admitted that he had sent him in there because he was angry with the calls on the court. He had these kind words to say about Bryant’s injury:
“That’s what happens,” he said. “I’m a mean, ornery, son of a bitch. You understand? When I see something wrong, I try to right it.”
The day after the game, Chaney gave himself a one-game suspension, and expressed regret for his actions. Today, the president of Temple University, thinking that Chaney might not be the best person to “right it,” imposed a suspension of his own. I guess he decided that the spectacle of a seventy-three year-old, ornery son-of-a-bitch using nineteen year-old thugs to vent his aggression was not the image he wanted to present of his school, no matter how many shiny arenas Chaney had helped build.
Chaney may be a Hall of Fame coach, but he had this one coming–anything less would have been an outrage.
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02.24.05
When formulating their battle strategies, the leaders of the Democratic Party should ask themselves a simple question: if the circumstances were reversed, what would the Republicans do?
Case in point: Conservative interest groups filed suits on Tuesday to stop the creation of the stem cell research institute that California voters approved in November. The suits aim to invalidate the proposition through minor technicalities.
What would the Republicans do if liberal groups filed suits to stop an initiative that had been approved by an overwhelming 59% of voters?
They would say that liberals were using lawyers to circumvent the will of the people
They would call the Democrats obstructionists for blocking the will of the people
They would describe the groups trying to overturn the initiative as extremist liberals seeking to overturn the will of the people through nitpicking lawsuits
They would sneer every time they mentioned the words “lawyers,” “lawsuits,” and “liberals”
They would say that Democrats were just sore losers who couldn’t accept the fact that their side lost the election
And, with the terms reversed, that’s how Democrats should be speaking about these efforts to block the stem cell institute.
As a type-1 diabetic, this issue is extremely important to me–stem cell research holds out the best possibility for a cure, and I’m tired of seeing the issue co-opted by religious nuts who don’t even have a grasp of the issues involved. Many people, for instance, don’t seem to realize that if they weren’t used for stem-cell research, the embryos involved would be discarded by the clinics that use them for in-vitro fertilizaton. As the parents of Katie Zucker, a fellow diabetic, put it:
“Should we be throwing them out as medical waste or should we be using them to create cures? For our family that isn’t a difficult decision,” says Katie’s father Jerry Zucker.
And defending the will of the people in California shouldn’t be a difficult decision for Democrats, either.
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02.24.05
Philly sports fans woke to the surprising news that we have another superstar in our midst: Chris Webber is now a Sixer.
Along with Karl, PSFS, promohthree, and Attytood, I give props to Billy King for finally making a good trade. Even better, he unloaded Kenny Thomas’ bloated contract and didn’t give up any of the young players that the Sixers need, such as Samuel Dalembert.
As the Sixers website reminds us, Webber is a five-time all-star who is having a great year so far.
So why were the Kings willing to give him up for so little?
Marc Stein of ESPN.com thinks that it was simply a rare mistake by Kings GM Geoff Petrie. But Stein also points out one of the things that has me a little worried about Webber:
There are undoubtedly benefits to trading Webber, who has three years and more than $60 million left on his contract. Although he continues to play at an All-Star level, it’s clear to anyone who watches Webber that, besides turning 32 next week, he’s essentially playing on one leg after serious knee surgery.
Webber has broken down little by little over the past three years. As Stein wonders, does Petrie know something we don’t?
Sports Illustrated recently compared Webber’s return from injury with Allan Houston’s rehabilitation. Houston came back from surgery too quickly, and ended up mangling his knee for good. Webber took his time with the rehab while facing criticism from fans, and he is playing better than ever this year.
I have always liked Webber, despite the legal and ethical troubles he has had in the past. But I’m wary of embracing him as the savior of the Sixers. He is not Terrell Owens, an athlete in such good condition that his body seems five years younger than it is.
Do you see what’s happening to me? Only three years in Philly, and I’ve already adopted the tone of defeatist pessimism that affects so many sports fans in this city.
Having said that, I’ll try to hope for the best. With Donovan, T.O., A.I., CWebb, and Jim Thome, Philly has assembled a collection of superstars that rivals any sports city in America. Any time you’ve got more than one athlete in your city who is recognized by his initials alone, you’re in pretty good shape.
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02.23.05
Many thanks to the Spinsters over at All-Spin Zone for reviewing this site and listing it among the “Philly Blog Mafia” alongside some pretty illustrious luminaries. That All-Spin Zone is one of the best blogs out there goes without saying; but if you’re the kind of skeptical person who likes to see proof, just check out its place as a finalist for “Best Blog” in the 2004 Koufax Awards. And then start reading it–you’ll find yourself quickly hooked.
I help edit Philly Future, which strives to bring together Philly bloggers. Almost every day, we find out about another great blog that has its roots in this city. It’s striking that four out of nine sites nominated for best blog in the Koufax Awards are based in Philly.
Maybe it’s something in the water?
Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that we in Philly stand at a slight remove from New York, close enough hear the clamor of its mainstream media, but unable or unwilling to respond in the same channels. So we turn to the internet, that great, leveling medium that allows all of us to sound our voices in the vast echo chamber.
As I mentioned in a previous post, James Wolcott, who is probably my single favorite blogger, recently derided “the enveloping racket of the increasingly ego-berserk blogosphere.” He later referred to Digby as “a drowning man in a sea of rising blather.”
Putting aside the fact that no blog that prominently features a caricature of its author should be decrying the egotism of other bloggers, Wolcott neglects to mention that the “enveloping racket” of political blogging developed mainly in response to the idiotic cacophony of televised journalism. That’s surprising, because Wolcott does an exemplary job of skewering the talking heads on his own blog.
Just Between Strangers points us to what I think is a more responsible characterization of blogging, from Peggy Noonan, of all people. Noonan defends bloggers on many points, such as this one:
Someone is going to address the “bloggers are untrained journalists” question by looking at exactly what “training,” what education in the art/science/craft/profession of journalism, the reporters and editors of the MSM have had in the past 60 years or so. It has seemed to me the best of them never went to J-school but bumped into journalism along the way–walked into a radio station or newspaper one day and found their calling. Bloggers signify a welcome return to that old style. In journalism you learn by doing, which is what a lot of bloggers are doing.
If you had told me a month ago that I’d be more approving of a Peggy Noonan quote than a Wolcott quote, I would not have believed you. But I couldn’t agree more with Noonan’s remarks, and I find Wolcott’s deprecations of the blogosphere both disconcerting and disappointing. Maybe he doesn’t realize how vital blogs can be to those of us without contracts to major magazines.
Noonan also discusses the freedom bloggers have to publish what they want outside of the influence of editors or publishers:
Bloggers, unlike reporters at elite newspapers and magazines, are independent operators. They are not, and do not have to be, governed by mainstream thinking. Nor do they have to accept the directives of an editor pushing an ideology or a publisher protecting his friends. Bloggers have the freedom to decide on their own when a story stops being a story. They get to decide when the search for facts is over. They also decide on their own when the search for facts begins. It was a blogger at the World Economic Forum, as we all know, who first reported the Eason Jordan story. It was bloggers, as we all know, who pursued it. Matt Drudge runs a news site and is not a blogger, but what was true of him at his beginning (the Monica Lewinsky story, he decided, is a story) is true of bloggers: It’s a story if they say it is. This is a public service.
Blogs are valuable not only because they can serve as watchdogs of the MSM; they also have the potential to bring together communities, and it is this quality that I love most about them. Just take a look at a site like Eschaton, on which hundreds of people comment on open threads. Through links, comments, and trackbacks, through sites like Philly Future, we establish a web of connections that tie together local and remote, real and virtual, communities.
The promise that I see in blogs reminds me of Walt Whitman–one of my favorite ego-berserk, blathering loudmouths–who was surely the world’s first blogger. In technological advances such as the trans-Atlantic cable, the Suez Canal, and the transcontinental railroad, Whitman saw a world becoming increasingly connected. Outside of the trips he took in his imagination, Whitman was not a great traveler; but he looked forward to a day when it would be easy for people on different continents to communicate with one another. In “Passage to India,” he described the joy that this newly interconnected world gave him:
Passage–immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins!
Away, O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!
Cut the hawsers–haul out–shake out every sail!
Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough?
Have we not grovell’d here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes?
Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with books long enough?
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
Let’s head for the deep waters. Blogs will take us there.
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