Month: April 2012

Jackie Robinson Day

My rooting interest came from geography, my father’s from history.

Jackie Robinson Day is an annual “event…in Major League Baseball, commemorating and honoring the day Jackie Robinson made his major league debut, in 1947. Initiated for the first time on April 15, 2004, Jackie Robinson Day is celebrated each year on that day.” The uniform number 42 has been retired by every team since 1997, though any player wearing it at the time was able to keep it until he retired, e.g. Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees. From 2007 on , though, one or more players on each team (and sometimes the WHOLE team) wear number 42 on April 15. Check out I Am 42.

As I noted way back here and contrary to reports like this one, Robinson was NOT the “first African-American player in Major League Baseball.” But since there was such a gap, because of racist players such as Cap Anson, who refused to play with blacks, Robinson’s accomplishments are in no way diminished.

My father was a lifelong Dodgers fan because of Jackie, while I rooted for the Yankees, one of the last two teams, along with the Boston Red Sox, to have a black player in the modern era. My rooting interest came from geography, my father’s from history.

Titanic- that sinking feeling

Back to Titanic contains a mixture of previously unreleased recordings and newly-recorded performances of the songs in the film.


On the 14th of April, 1912, Titanic struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage and quickly sank. Many people were lost due to insufficient lifeboats. Yes, I know; everybody knows. Is there a non-war-related historical event more familiar than this? Not many.

Amazing what a little 1997 film can help to do. (Not that Titanic was the ONLY film on the topic, but was clearly the most successful.) It “achieved critical and commercial success. It equaled records with fourteen Academy Award nominations and eleven wins, receiving the prizes for Best Picture and Best Director. With a worldwide gross of over $1.8 billion, it was the first film to reach the billion-dollar mark, remaining the highest-grossing film of all time for twelve years.” And it was just re-released in 3D, which Roger Ebert reviewed.

I think it succeeded because it was a kitchen sink film that appealed to a lot of people. There was this love story that touched some, not so much for me. There were the class issues, which I found more interesting. There was the hubris of the boat builders, applicable in other settings. And then there was the disaster itself, which, if you didn’t think too much about the ACTUAL PEOPLE WHO DIED, was rather spectacular. (SamuaiFrog revisits the film.)

Another issue was the music. I have the original soundtrack, composed, orchestrated, and conducted by James Horner, and I found it a bit too much of the same feel. But, I also have Back to Titanic, “which contains a mixture of previously unreleased recordings and newly-recorded performances of the songs in the film…Horner created a new suite of music, comprising light and dark sections from the score, which represents the ‘soul’ of his music for the film.

“In addition, several of the source numbers from the film were included into this second album. From ‘Nearer my God to Thee’ to the raucous pipe and drum rhythms heard in the Irish folk music played in the lower decks, these selections recreate the most poignant moments in the life and death of the great ship. ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’ was played on the deck by Wallace Hartley’s small orchestra and lifted spirits as the ship settled, lights blazing, into black oblivion. And ‘Come Josephine, in my Flying Machine’, which Jack Dawson briefly sings for Rose DeWitt Bukater and Rose sings when she is waiting to be rescued in the freezing seas. The song was a top hit song the year before the sinking.”

The second album, to my ear, is vastly better than the first, because it’s more eclectic, and frankly, more representative sonically of the film as a whole. Though I can avoid the bit when Celine Dion’s huge hit ‘My Heart Will Go On’ is interspersed with movie dialogue; that’s the reason for the skip button on the CD player.

See what Neil deGrasse Tyson got James Cameron to fix for the re-release of Titanic.
Then watch the video, which has nothing to do with Titanic, but a lot to do with my own growing up.

Pretty much everything you need to know about the Titanic.

Stupid Design

The problem with the new machine is that one really cannot load the silverware without taking out the silverware holder, since it is attached to the inside door of the dishwasher.

Despite my claim of being a Luddite, I do recognize and appreciate when things work well. I love, e.g., the whisk with which to mix things; never had one until I was an adult, always stirring with a wooden spoon or whatnot. The whisk aerates the mixture in a wonderful way.

When I first had my own apartment in college, I was forever turning on the wrong burner on the stove. That wasn’t me being stupid; it was bad design. There would be two knobs on the left of the oven knob, which was in the middle, then two knobs to the right, and they were different positions from the stove I grew up with. Was the leftmost knob the front or the back of the left half of the stove? Finally, stove designers started putting words or symbols indicating which knob controlled which burner, and the threat of me burning down the apartment were lessened.

This brings me to the stupid design of our relatively new dishwasher. You may recall that we needed to buy a new one, because the old one – which was not so very old – was failing to clean many of the dishes, and we found ourselves needing to rewash by hand about half of the items. The problem with the new machine is that one really cannot load the silverware without taking out the silverware holder, since it is attached to the inside door of the dishwasher. OK, but then the removed silverware holder cannot stand on its own, like our previous one could, so we have to wedge it between the kitchen faucet and the wall behind it, lest it tips over when we load and unload it. As a result of this, I have run the dishwasher at least thrice while neglecting to replace the damn silverware holder in the dishwasher. So we’ll have clean plates and bowls, but a dearth of clean flatware. I thought it was just me, but my wife has now done the same thing twice. We’ve had to leave a note on the machine, composed by the Daughter, to avoid this.

Other flaws: the slots designed to actually hold the silverware are often too narrow for the base of the forks and some spoons; the knives will fit, pointed side down, which is contrary to the cleaning instructions, but in keeping with my safety habits, especially for the serrated ones. Moreover, the silverware holder has occasionally sprung open, dumping the clean silverware all over the floor.

BAD design. Hate it.

The Small House of Uncle Thomas

Things on the cast album that seemed pedestrian suddenly made sense.

Many bloggers, including this one, will start a blog post and then move on to something else, leaving it in incomplete draft form.

Such was the case of this piece about the two musicals my wife, my daughter and I saw, both in June 2011, at the Mac-Hadyn Theater in Chatham, NY, about a 40-minute drive from our house in Albany.

The first show we viewed was Annie. I’d seen TV productions of it, I’m sure; certainly the one with Carol Burnett as Miss Hannigan. But the stage performance made it more real than I remembered.

So my wife asked if I wanted to go see The King and I. She could hear the ambivalence in my response.

You see, I thought I knew the story well enough that I didn’t need to. I remember seeing the movie, or at least segments of the movie. Moreover, I own the 1977 Broadway cast album, even though I had never seen the musical. And while the hits Hello, Young Lovers, and Getting to Know You and Shall We Dance? are strong, the totality of the listening experience of this Rodgers & Hammerstein piece was lacking; this was, to swipe a phrase, “a puzzlement.”

Yet seeing the performance in person brought this chestnut to life for me. Things on the cast album that seemed pedestrian suddenly made sense. In particular, the reprise of I Have Dreamed was a real revelation.

And there is this whole long section in the second act not even hinted at on the cast album: the narrated dance “The Small House of Uncle Thomas.” From Wikipedia: “Hammerstein found his ‘door in’ to the play in [author Margaret] Landon’s account of a slave in Siam writing about Abraham Lincoln.” At some level, that rewrite of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, with its revisionist happy ending, is the core value of the whole musical.

So maybe I only viewed scenes from the movie. Regardless, seeing this production was a revelation. Glad I saw it.

Not a villainous bone in my body

The real problem is that I think about this far too literally. I might want to have the power of Galactus, but the notion that I could consume whole worlds, and the souls therein is so awful to contemplate.

Hi, Chris-

Recently came across your blog, and I really have been enjoying it, especially your Holy Week post, which was sacrilegious, but funny. I added the blog to my blogroll, which, BTW, was my old blog for five years. (Oh, and to others who might want to be added – please let me know.)

I’ve enjoyed the fact that you’ve been going to other blogs I enjoy, such as Byzantium Shores, even when I disagree with you.

But I am having a bear of a time answering your questions:

Can we do another one?

Well, theoretically, yes.

How about what VILLAIN would you most like to be? Or bad guy, evil spirit, etc. Also, what’s the coolest villain, etc.? (Might not be the same; they’re definitely not for me.)

So the real problem is that I think about this far too literally. I might want to have the power of Galactus, but the notion that I could consume whole worlds, and the souls therein is so awful to contemplate. I believe I thought Goldfinger was COOL when I was a kid, but then later felt that suffocation is a lousy way to die.

The only “villains” I ever was drawn to were either silly and not all that harmful, such as Superman’s foe, Mister Mxyzptlk, or the ones that aren’t really evil (Robin Hood, Zorro), or ones who are conflicted (the Hulk, Batman’s Two-Face).

That said, I always was interested in Loki, Thor’s half-brother, at least from the period I was reading comic books, through 1994; I mention this only because characters evolve and I haven’t kept track of him in almost two decades. I think it’s the family dynamic as much as the villain himself that intrigued me.

The Green Goblin, Spider-Man’s arch-rival, as a villain, didn’t interest me as much as the fact that Norman, and then later Harry Osborn were known to Peter Parker, even if Peter didn’t know the man behind the mask at the time.

So, villainy doesn’t interest me that much, except in context. That’s as good as I can answer this question, I’m afraid.

Hey, maybe YOU can answer this question in YOUR blog, Chris. Or anyone else can, for that matter.

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