NOTES FROM A SATURDAY AFTERNOON
brewing the coffee of my
mind.
For your consideration: another curious collection
of thoughts, reactions, and observations that didn't make it into a full-length
post this week (and that didn't even make it to their regular Friday
destination). So they're sort of like a bunch of passengers who stepped off a
long-delayed flight, only to discover that their connecting flight took off
without them. They're tired, they're cranky, and they just want to get where
they're going...
• If you didn't realize that this week's headlines brought one of the greatest liberations of the last half century, don't feel bad. I missed it too. Until, that is, someone directed me to Michael Jackson's official web site, where the King of Pop (or is that the Prince of Pederasty?) likened his acquittal to the release of Nelson Mandela and the fall of the Berlin Wall. I know the amount of news coverage was roughly equivalent, but still...
• ...it seems a little extreme. After all, it's not like he was as stressed or oppressed as the Runaway Bride. Perhaps next week, during her wide-eyed, well-paid, public flagellation with Katie Couric, she'll compare her homecoming to the return of MacArthur. Or the return of Nixon. Or the return of the Jedi.
• Senator Doctor Bill Frist, on the Senate Floor, March 17th: That footage, to me, depicted something very different than a persistent vegetative state...she certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli...Based on the footage provided me, which were part of the facts of the case, she does respond. Senator Doctor Bill Frist, on the Today Show, June 16th: I never said that. I never said she responded. Funny how three months, two faces, and one autopsy can trigger such seeming (and unseemly) contradictions.
• Faithful TWM readers will remember a once-regular, now-retired Saturday feature called Idiot Letter of the Week, in which I would dutifully report and gleefully dissect the week's most laughable letter to the editor. In the kind and giving spirit of the Christmas holiday season, I discontinued the practice, and, despite much rich fodder these past few months, never got around to resurrecting it. Though I'm still not planning to bring it back (like Douglas MacArthur, or Jennifer Wilbanks), the confluence of today's Saturday notes column and yesterday's idiot (or is that ignorant?) letter in the Post-Gazette Sports Mailbag was too much to resist. And so, for your head-shaking, belly-laughing amusement, I submit the sixth missive on the page, from one John Krizan of Bell Acres, who seems not to have realized that this year's Pirates' marketing slogan, "Come Hungry," wants you to appreciate a team of young, hard-working players striving for success. Mr. Krizan, ever the literalist, seems to think it wants you to come to the ballpark and buy a lot of concessions. Really. Consider: Are the Pirates now in the sports-theme restaurant business and giving up on baseball altogether? Can you imagine the cost of a family of four going to a Pirates game and having dinner there with parking included...Yeah, come hungry and go home broke. I couldn't invent this stuff if I tried. Even if I were really, um, hungry for a good post.
• Note to Mr. Krizan, should Googling ever lead him here: That last sentence was meant to be taken figuratively; I do not make a habit of eating parts of my blog or pieces of lumber.
• I had the pleasure of attending the Liberty Elementary Fifth Grade Promotion Ceremony -- bonus points to the Pittsburgh Public Schools for not calling it a graduation -- this past Thursday morning, justifiably proud but still firmly keeping in perspective Adam's elementary school efforts and achievements. Not so, many of his classmates' parents, who seemed to treat the occasion as part-prom, part-high-school-graduation. Maybe they're afraid their kids won't actually make it to either of those events. Or maybe they just like to get worked into a whooping, frothing frenzy over the dubious successes of ascending to sixth grade. Or maybe they're just the victims of a bankrupt culture of instant gratification and over-glorification that, striving to elevate almost any mundane moment, merely succeeds in enervating most of its minor, and even a few of its major, triumphs. At the risk of sounding old and crotchety -- or is that older and crotchetier? -- I remember fondly the days when finishing fifth grade was met with a ruckus considerably less than that of a Steelers' Super Bowl victory or a child molester's acquittal.
• And I suppose that's why Wendy and I were not among the dozens of parents clutching dozens of roses, or half-dozens of balloons reading CONGRATS, GRAD!, while we waited for the nice, simple ceremony to begin. We'll save those for a time when they're actually appropriate.
• Ooh. Nice. A little industrial-strength iTunes shuffle-up now playing as I write: Nine Inch Nails' Only.
• For my Pittsburgh readers, or for anyone living or visiting near one of its many midwest locations, I highly recommend the Claddagh Irish Pub. One of the newest additions to the SouthSide Works site, Claddagh offers a warm, charming atmosphere (with high ceilings, lots of natural wood, and an almost alarming abundance of works by Eden Phillpotts on the book shelves), an excellent selection of beers and whiskeys, and good food served in heaping, pyramidic portions. I can personally vouch for the subtle, succulent flavors of the "Bangers and Mashed" entree; I can't say I've ever had better, non-home-cooked servings of sausages or garlic mashed potatoes.
• Saw Batman Begins last night, and, though I plan to write many words on the film later this week, I'll stick to just one today: outstanding.
• Okay. Couldn't resist. Here are a few more: it's the Batman movie I've been waiting for my whole life. It wasn't perfect, but it was absolutely excellent. Almost excellent enough, in fact, to make me forget the two precious hours of my life I squandered sixteen years ago this month at the midnight premiere of that god-awful Tim Burton train wreck.
• The most disturbing thing I saw last night that was not on screen: the couple who brought all five of their children -- none older than seven, including twins who couldn't have been more than three months old -- to the movie, which, for its many dark moments and often intense action, richly deserves every letter and number of its PG-13 rating.
• Note to those two, and to all the self-absorbed, me-first types just like them: If you can't get or find or afford a babysitter, you don't go to the movie.
• The older I get, and the more I see, the more I think that parenting ought to require intense training, rigorous licensing, and federal regulation.
• Unless, of course, someone like Bill Frist happens to be doing the regulating.
• If you didn't realize that this week's headlines brought one of the greatest liberations of the last half century, don't feel bad. I missed it too. Until, that is, someone directed me to Michael Jackson's official web site, where the King of Pop (or is that the Prince of Pederasty?) likened his acquittal to the release of Nelson Mandela and the fall of the Berlin Wall. I know the amount of news coverage was roughly equivalent, but still...
• ...it seems a little extreme. After all, it's not like he was as stressed or oppressed as the Runaway Bride. Perhaps next week, during her wide-eyed, well-paid, public flagellation with Katie Couric, she'll compare her homecoming to the return of MacArthur. Or the return of Nixon. Or the return of the Jedi.
• Senator Doctor Bill Frist, on the Senate Floor, March 17th: That footage, to me, depicted something very different than a persistent vegetative state...she certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli...Based on the footage provided me, which were part of the facts of the case, she does respond. Senator Doctor Bill Frist, on the Today Show, June 16th: I never said that. I never said she responded. Funny how three months, two faces, and one autopsy can trigger such seeming (and unseemly) contradictions.
• Faithful TWM readers will remember a once-regular, now-retired Saturday feature called Idiot Letter of the Week, in which I would dutifully report and gleefully dissect the week's most laughable letter to the editor. In the kind and giving spirit of the Christmas holiday season, I discontinued the practice, and, despite much rich fodder these past few months, never got around to resurrecting it. Though I'm still not planning to bring it back (like Douglas MacArthur, or Jennifer Wilbanks), the confluence of today's Saturday notes column and yesterday's idiot (or is that ignorant?) letter in the Post-Gazette Sports Mailbag was too much to resist. And so, for your head-shaking, belly-laughing amusement, I submit the sixth missive on the page, from one John Krizan of Bell Acres, who seems not to have realized that this year's Pirates' marketing slogan, "Come Hungry," wants you to appreciate a team of young, hard-working players striving for success. Mr. Krizan, ever the literalist, seems to think it wants you to come to the ballpark and buy a lot of concessions. Really. Consider: Are the Pirates now in the sports-theme restaurant business and giving up on baseball altogether? Can you imagine the cost of a family of four going to a Pirates game and having dinner there with parking included...Yeah, come hungry and go home broke. I couldn't invent this stuff if I tried. Even if I were really, um, hungry for a good post.
• Note to Mr. Krizan, should Googling ever lead him here: That last sentence was meant to be taken figuratively; I do not make a habit of eating parts of my blog or pieces of lumber.
• I had the pleasure of attending the Liberty Elementary Fifth Grade Promotion Ceremony -- bonus points to the Pittsburgh Public Schools for not calling it a graduation -- this past Thursday morning, justifiably proud but still firmly keeping in perspective Adam's elementary school efforts and achievements. Not so, many of his classmates' parents, who seemed to treat the occasion as part-prom, part-high-school-graduation. Maybe they're afraid their kids won't actually make it to either of those events. Or maybe they just like to get worked into a whooping, frothing frenzy over the dubious successes of ascending to sixth grade. Or maybe they're just the victims of a bankrupt culture of instant gratification and over-glorification that, striving to elevate almost any mundane moment, merely succeeds in enervating most of its minor, and even a few of its major, triumphs. At the risk of sounding old and crotchety -- or is that older and crotchetier? -- I remember fondly the days when finishing fifth grade was met with a ruckus considerably less than that of a Steelers' Super Bowl victory or a child molester's acquittal.
• And I suppose that's why Wendy and I were not among the dozens of parents clutching dozens of roses, or half-dozens of balloons reading CONGRATS, GRAD!, while we waited for the nice, simple ceremony to begin. We'll save those for a time when they're actually appropriate.
• Ooh. Nice. A little industrial-strength iTunes shuffle-up now playing as I write: Nine Inch Nails' Only.
• For my Pittsburgh readers, or for anyone living or visiting near one of its many midwest locations, I highly recommend the Claddagh Irish Pub. One of the newest additions to the SouthSide Works site, Claddagh offers a warm, charming atmosphere (with high ceilings, lots of natural wood, and an almost alarming abundance of works by Eden Phillpotts on the book shelves), an excellent selection of beers and whiskeys, and good food served in heaping, pyramidic portions. I can personally vouch for the subtle, succulent flavors of the "Bangers and Mashed" entree; I can't say I've ever had better, non-home-cooked servings of sausages or garlic mashed potatoes.
• Saw Batman Begins last night, and, though I plan to write many words on the film later this week, I'll stick to just one today: outstanding.
• Okay. Couldn't resist. Here are a few more: it's the Batman movie I've been waiting for my whole life. It wasn't perfect, but it was absolutely excellent. Almost excellent enough, in fact, to make me forget the two precious hours of my life I squandered sixteen years ago this month at the midnight premiere of that god-awful Tim Burton train wreck.
• The most disturbing thing I saw last night that was not on screen: the couple who brought all five of their children -- none older than seven, including twins who couldn't have been more than three months old -- to the movie, which, for its many dark moments and often intense action, richly deserves every letter and number of its PG-13 rating.
• Note to those two, and to all the self-absorbed, me-first types just like them: If you can't get or find or afford a babysitter, you don't go to the movie.
• The older I get, and the more I see, the more I think that parenting ought to require intense training, rigorous licensing, and federal regulation.
• Unless, of course, someone like Bill Frist happens to be doing the regulating.
Posted: Sat - June 18, 2005 at 03:22 PM
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Published On: Aug 28, 2008 10:24 PM
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Published On: Aug 28, 2008 10:24 PM