Archive for the ‘Clippings’ Category

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Clippings.

Friday, August 25th, 2023

Two things that popped up in my reading that I thought were worth sharing.

1. CrimeReads has a fairly good piece by Keith Roysdon (generally one of their less pretentious writers): “To Film and Thrive in L.A.: Three Lesser-Praised Friedkin Films Are Classics“.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen “To Live and Die in L.A.” and I’d kind of like to see it again. My feelings about “Sorcerer” are well known. I’ve never seen “Cruising” but I do want to as part of my “watch all of Friedkin’s films” project.

2. “Facts of Life: For Outdoorsmen and Ordinary Gentlemen” by Richard (The Scout Rifle Study) Mann.

I think there’s some pretty sound advice here. You should interpret that as “it agrees with my prejudices”. For example:

17: The greatest outdoor book ever written was The Old Man and the Boy. It was published in 1957 and written by Robert Ruark. If it does not make you feel something you’re broken.

And:

10: Never confuse a politician with a patriot, they’re not the same thing. Patriots will risk their life for their country and folks they don’t know. Politicians risk the lives of those they don’t know and then tax them for the privilege.

Posted in Clippings, Movies, Ruark | Comments Closed

Frank Mansfield, call your office, please.

Wednesday, January 18th, 2023

According to some rooster men, the game fowl, or fighting chicken, was almost chosen to be the national bird of America. “And it should’ve,” a breeder once told me. “An eagle ain’t nothing more than a glorified buzzard.” Such game-fowl lore and sentiment abound: George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were devoted rooster fighters. Union and Confederate soldiers put aside their differences on Sundays during the Civil War to pit their chickens against one another. Abraham Lincoln was given the nickname Honest Abe after he displayed impartiality as a cockfighting judge. Whatever the (dubious) historical merit of claims like these, they are meant to establish the deeply American identity of game fowl. “They fought them right out on the White House lawn,” says David Thurston, president of the United Gamefowl Breeders Association, a national nonprofit dedicated to the birds’ preservation.

(Alternative link for the NYT challenged.)

(Title reference explained.)

Posted in Birds, Clippings | Comments Closed

Here’s a Christmas story for you.

Tuesday, December 27th, 2022

By way of my beloved and indulgent sister: a man and his wife are planning to celebrate the holiday holed up in their house. In Buffalo.

Then, on Friday at 2 p.m., with the storm already swirling and snow rapidly piling up, making roads impassable, there was a knock at the door. Two men, part of a group of nine tourists from South Korea that was traveling to Niagara Falls, asked for shovels to dig their passenger van out of a ditch.

Cutting to the chase, instead of digging the van out (these people weren’t going anywhere in that snow) they invited the travelers in.

The visitors — seven women and three men — filled the three-bedroom house, sleeping on couches, sleeping bags, an air mattress and in the home’s guest bedroom. The other travelers included parents with their daughter, an Indiana college student, and two college-age friends from Seoul. Three of them spoke English proficiently.
They spent the weekend swapping stories, watching the Buffalo Bills defeat the Chicago Bears on Christmas Eve and sharing delicious Korean home-cooked meals prepared by the guests, like jeyuk bokkeum, a spicy stir-fried pork dish, and dakdori tang, a chicken stew laced with fiery red pepper. To the surprise and glee of the Korean guests, Mr. Campagna and his wife, who are both fans of Korean food, had all the necessary condiments on hand: mirin, soy sauce, Korean red pepper paste, sesame oil and chili flakes. There was also kimchi and a rice cooker.

…

Had they been stranded for another night, they had been thinking bulgogi — Korean grilled beef — for Christmas dinner.

Really, the only downside to this story from my point of view is that the Buffalo Bills won. The rest of the tale warms the cockles of my heart.

Posted in Christmas, Clippings | 4 Comments »

Noted.

Thursday, December 22nd, 2022

This story is a couple of days old, but I only got around to reading it this morning. When Rod Dreher says the NYT got a story about religion right, you should probably pay attention.

“The Miraculous Life and Afterlife of Charlene Richard“, about a Cajun farm girl who died in 1959 and the lengthy effort to make her a saint.

This is long, but I think it repays the effort. There’s a lot of discussion in the article about the specifics of the canonization process (including the relatively recent changes) and the internal Church politics involved in making someone a saint. If this isn’t the kind of thing that makes your eyes glaze over, I commend this article to your attention.

Posted in Clippings, Religion | Comments Closed

Leonard, part II.

Sunday, October 23rd, 2022

Neat profile in the Detroit Free Press of Gregg Sutter. Alt link.

“Who?” For many years, he was what the Freep refers to as “Elmore Leonard’s leg man”.

He also operates ElmoreLeonard.com and oversees a Leonard Facebook page, lends periodic expertise to the archivists handling Leonard’s papers at the University of South Carolina, and leads the push to put Leonard on a 100th anniversary postage stamp.
Actually, he is the push. His idea, his research into the postal service’s Literary Arts series, his three-page nominating letter that will, according to the Oct. 6 response, “be submitted for review and consideration before the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee at their next meeting.”

Damn skippy Leonard deserves a stamp.

In early October, he stumbled across the unveiling of Mama Cass Elliot’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, with Stephen Stills and the Monkees’ Mickey Dolenz in attendance, and it reminded him of a disappointment.
“I have inquired about getting Elmore a star on Hollywood Boulevard,” he said, “but that costs $55,000,” and the appetite for a deceased author and screenwriter seems slight.

Kickstarter or one of the other funding services. (Not GoFundMe, because GoFarkThem.) I’d throw a few dollars in the direction of the Elmore Leonard Hollywood Boulevard Star. I bet you could get at least a few more out of the producers of “Justified” and “Justified: City Primeval”.

Mr. Sutter is also writing a memoir about his time with Leonard.

The library hopes to build an event around Leonard’s 100th birthday in 2025, she said, with exhibits, a movie or two, and presentations by Sutter and Leonard’s authorized biographer, C.M. Kushins, who has written books about rockers John Bonham and Warren Zevon.
That will require Sutter to finish his memoir. He says he will, in plenty of time.

I’ll be looking forward to both these books.

Posted in Bagatelle, Books, Clippings | Comments Closed

Noteworthy II.

Thursday, February 3rd, 2022

I used to pay a lot of attention to the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship awards (the “genius grant). I don’t pay as much attention these days, because reasons.

However, I did know that Josh Miele, who I have written about before, was one of last year’s recipients.

Here’s a pretty cool profile of Mr. Miele and what he’s doing now. In brief, he’s working for Amazon on accessibility.

For example, when Miele joined Lab126, the group was working on Show and Tell, an Alexa feature for Echo Show devices that uses the camera and voice interface to help people who are blind identify products. Employing advanced computer vision and machine learning models for object recognition, Show and Tell can be a vital tool in the kitchen of a customer who is blind or has low vision. A person holds up an object and asks, “Alexa, what am I holding?” and gets an immediate answer.

…

Miele helped the team understand that they needed only to provide useful context, even just a word or two, for a person who is blind or visually impaired to identify the product. The team focused on kitchen and pantry items — things that come in cans, boxes, bottles, and tubes. The goal: Recognize items in Amazon’s vast product catalogue, or if that wasn’t possible, recognize brands and logos that could give the customer enough information to know what they held in their hand.
“If I touch a can of something, I know it’s a can,” Miele explained, “but I don’t know if it’s a can of black beans or pineapple. So, if I’m making chili, and I open a can of pineapple, I’m going to be pretty irritated.”

…

“I realized that the work I was doing in accessibility was both rewarding to me and something that not many people could do at the level I was able to do it,” he recalled. “I thought, ‘There are plenty of people who could be great planetary scientists but there were not a lot of people who could design cool stuff for blind people and meet the needs of the people who were going to use it.’”

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Quote of the day.

Thursday, August 26th, 2021

(Technically, this popped up last night.)

It’s more like trying to pick up someone who doesn’t speak your language out of a crowd. At a f–king death metal concert at Madison Square Garden.
And it’s at triple capacity.
And only one door is open.
And the place is on fire.
I’m not a religious person, but the word that comes to mind is “biblical.” It’s like Hurricane Katrina meets Dien Bien Phu.

Posted in Clippings, History | 2 Comments »

Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh…

Friday, July 23rd, 2021

…here I am at Camp Granada Quinebarge.

The rustic overnight camp abruptly shut down earlier this month after just six days. Camp directors informed parents, who had shelled out $3,400 for two weeks, that they needed to pick up their children the next morning, following a “summer of challenges” capped off by delays from the camp’s food supplier that made continuing untenable.
The decision to close the 85-year-old camp in Moultonborough, N.H., in the middle of the summer left campers bereft, counselors stewing, and some parents furious. Soon, stories began to circulate of problems that went much deeper than late deliveries: counselors hired just days before camp and lacking basic training; a counselor punched in the face by a child and a camper later hit in the head by the same child; dirty dishes provided at multiple meals; at least four campers vomiting and getting quarantined, while some parents said they weren’t informed; and staff quitting and being fired in high numbers.

…

“We have been in tears, bored, and devastated the whole day. [The camp director] is lying to you all,” the camper wrote. “You have to trust us. You have to. We are not joking and we are not having fun. So many things are wrong with this place.” The boy’s father, who found the note folded in his son’s pocket days after camp closed and provided it to the Globe, requested anonymity to protect his son’s privacy.

In the kitchen, the commercial dishwasher was broken, which meant unclean dishes were provided to kids during meals, according to Caliban Chesterfield, a counselor known as “Dodger” who worked in food prep. Chesterfield also said in the week leading up to camp, a staffer’s child was served a mostly raw meatball during a meal; the cook was subsequently dismissed. (The Globe confirmed this account with another staffer.) Carlson disputed that account, saying the dishwasher had an issue for one meal and that the dishes were always properly washed.

I had to post this for two reasons. One is that I can’t pass up a good Fyre Festival reference. And the other? I also can’t pass up a good classical reference.

Posted in Clippings | Comments Closed

Headline of the day.

Wednesday, June 16th, 2021

This is the first time that I’ve ever found a story with a headline that I wanted to link, but I don’t even want to mention the headline here for reasons.

So I’m just going to put a link right here. I’m not going to tell you what the headline is, though I will tell you it is from the NYPost. Click at your own risk. You have been warned.

One hint: it involves a famous and controversial musician. Think “Chappelle’s Show”. Not Prince.

Posted in Bagatelle, Clippings, Music | Comments Closed

Planet Failure.

Sunday, June 13th, 2021

This popped up on Hacker News, and, while I have reservations about linking to Esquire for anything but drinks, it did entertain me: “The Rise and Fall of Planet Hollywood“.

I never went to a Planet Hollywood: when it first opened, it struck me as a cynical cash grab, and nothing in this article convinces me otherwise.

Some relevant quotes:

The ax Jack Nicholson wielded in The Shining, still caked in fake blood, was buried in the back of the garden shed of a guy who worked on the film.
“We asked what he wanted for it,” Todd told the Los Angeles Times in 1995, “and he said, ‘Well, I’ll need another ax.’ That was an easy deal.”

…

In interviews at the time, it was promised that Schwarzenegger would be in the kitchen cooking Wiener schnitzel. But when the three chiseled men did press for the restaurant, it seemed clear how much the menu was an afterthought. “The day they can reduce a meal to a pill, I’ll be happy,” Stallone said with a smirk in a 1992 interview with British talk-show host Michael Aspel. “I guess it’s from doing a great deal of training or whatever. Maybe it’s just genetic; I’m just not prone to chew a lot. It doesn’t go with my personality.”

…

“I don’t remember it ever having a lot of class,” says Hay. “I just remember the food got worse and worse and worse and worse until it really became inedible. And if you were going to go there for an event, you ate before, because you knew you couldn’t eat anything.”

…

“It was incredibly monotonous for us, because there was a hierarchy like there is at any other job,” says actress Natalie Zea, who worked as a hostess at the Manhattan Planet Hollywood in 1994. “The servers were superior to us, because they’re the ones who got to interact on the occasion when somebody [famous] would come in. There was no real behind-the-scenes. It was just so rote.”

…

“My only real memory of [stars coming in] is this blurry vision of a very tall man being kind of swept through as I stand behind the podium thinking, Oh, he’ll see me and be like, ‘You, hostess, there. Let me put you in a movie,’ ” Zea says. “Which, to be honest, is the only reason any of us worked there.”

(For those who don’t recognize Natalie Zea’s name, she did get discovered eventually. She was “Raylan Givens” ex-wife/current girlfriend on “Justified”, and was “Wade Felton”‘s (Walton Goggins) girlfriend on “The Unicorn” before that got cancelled.)

Copycat restaurants were popping up all around. There was Country Star with Reba McEntire, Clint Black, Vince Gill, and Wynonna Judd. Fashion Cafe, with models Naomi Campbell, Elle Macpherson, and Claudia Schiffer, opened in Rockefeller Center just down the street from the Manhattan Planet Hollywood. Steven Spielberg had Dive!, an underwater-themed restaurant with, yes, gourmet submarine sandwiches. Hulk Hogan had Pastamania! Earl launched his own spin-offs to help with growth when Planet Hollywood ran out of places to open Planet Hollywoods. There was a sports offshoot, the Official All Star Cafe, with Shaquille O’Neal, Andre Agassi, and Joe Montana. When Tiger Woods made his first public appearance after winning the Masters in 1997, it was at the opening of Myrtle Beach’s All Star Cafe. There was also an ice cream chain, Cool Planet, with Whoopi Goldberg. Any cool factor associated with Planet Hollywood was melting. The stock value plummeted, and people just weren’t going back to eat. In 1999, Los Angeles magazine reported that same-store sales—a critical factor in a restaurant’s long-term success—fell by 18 percent the previous year. And the food only seemed to be getting worse.

…

A rep for Stallone says, “Contrary to the assertion by Robert Earl, Mr. Stallone is no longer involved with Planet Hollywood.” (Stallone and Willis, who were effusive in their enthusiasm for Planet Hollywood throughout the nineties and during the Vegas opening in 2007, declined to be interviewed for this piece. A rep for Willis never responded to my inquiry about the actor’s current involvement with the brand. A rep for Schwarzenegger didn’t respond to multiple inquiries.)

Bonus: I was sort of on the fence about using this. But in the end, it told me something I didn’t know, and the presenter isn’t quite as grating as some of those other “abandoned thing” guys.

Did you know there was a Hard Rock theme park? It opened in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in April of 2008. The plan was for it to be the first of a chain of Hard Rock theme parks.

It closed in September of 2008. The parent company filed for Chapter 11, and the park was sold off. It reopened in May of 2009 as “Freestyle Music Park“, with the Hard Rock branding removed. Freestyle’s parent company was sued multiple times by various entities for various reasons, and the park closed again at the end of the 2009 season. It never reopened and remains abandoned today.

(I’ve been to Myrtle Beach once or twice, but it was when we lived in Virginia, so about 50 years ago, long before Hard Rock Park. My most vivid memory of those trips was us going to some other amusement park, and being upset that I was too short for the bumper cars. I do know people in the North Carolina area, but I’m not sure if any of them ever made the trip down to Hard Rock Park.)

Posted in Clippings, Travel, TV | Comments Closed

I’m sorry. I have to do this.

Thursday, June 10th, 2021

Washington Square Park looked more like Madison Square Garden recently, as unsanctioned boxers duked it out in underground fights against the backdrop of the space’s famous arch, wild videos show.

…

The park pugilists touch gloves before each fight and square off under the watchful eye of a referee, but appear to wear little in the way of protective gear and are ringed only by the dozens of hollering spectators, who at points have to back away from the fray, the videos show.

Posted in Bagatelle, Clippings | Comments Closed

Higher education.

Monday, December 28th, 2020

Today’s NYT has a long piece on how the pandemic is impacting Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

I have a personal interest in IUP. But there’s something noteworthy about this story: it’s all the Republican’s fault.

After years of Republican-led pressure to reduce state spending, Pennsylvania gives nearly 34 percent less support per pupil now than it did in 2008, forcing students to pay a growing amount of tuition. This has further discouraged enrollment, causing a downward financial spiral, experts say. Now the pandemic has jolted the system.

Except:

Before there was an outbreak of Covid-19 at I.U.P., there had been an outbreak of Steinway pianos.
Ninety uprights, grands and other Steinways started showing up in rehearsal rooms and recital halls after a 2006 agreement between the school and the piano maker. Cost: $2.6 million.
Around the same time, nearly $250 million was invested in new dorms. “Suite-style housing — that’s what college students of today are looking for,” said Tony Atwater, the university’s president at the time. I.U.P. also broke ground on the 148,500-square-foot Kovalchick Convention and Athletic Complex, which cost more than $50 million.

…

To some at the college, the investments were ill-advised because enrollment trends seemed poised to fall, partly because of falling birthrates years before. That meant resources would become more precious.
“The faculty was yelling up and down, ‘This is not a good idea,’” said Jamie Martin, a professor of criminology at I.U.P. and the head of the union representing the faculty for all 14 schools in the state system. “You could see the demographics coming.”

But it’s the Republican’s fault:

When the 2008 recession hit, many states decimated the budgets for regional campuses of state schools. From that point through 2018, Pennsylvania’s funding per student for higher education fell 33.8 percent, among the steepest declines in the country. In inflation-adjusted terms, the state gives these schools about $220 million less annually than it did in 2000-1.

…

In a nutshell, the burden for supporting the system shifted sharply — from the state to the student. In the 1980s, the state paid 75 percent of a student’s load. Now the student pays nearly 75 percent.

But:

Tuition is only about half the cost of attending one of the system’s 14 schools. At I.U.P., the new dorms led to a stiff hike for residents; the old dorms in 2007-8 cost a student $1,670 per semester, while the new suites ranged in cost from $3,000 to nearly $4,000 per semester.
By last year, the cost for the least-expensive living situation, least-expensive meal plan and tuition exceeded $21,000 a year.

But:

The budget numbers tell a complex story. By some measures, the system is not particularly unhealthy.
For 2019, the last fiscal year available, the entire system lost just $1 million, out of $1.6 billion in expenses. Depending on the accounting method used, I.U.P. itself might have made money, according to a union official.

There’s more to the story, of course, and I’m just hitting the high points. I’d suggest you go check it out for yourself.

Posted in Clippings | 1 Comment »

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