Archive for January 30th, 2014

This day in history.

Thursday, January 30th, 2014

Our great and good friend Borepatch has a post up about all the folks who died on January 30th, including Gandhi, Sir Everard Digby, and that guy who crossed the 47 Ronin.

Borepatch’s post, and an email from Chartwell Booksellers, reminded me: Winston Churchill died on January 24th, 1965, but his funeral was today er, on this date in 1965.

A couple of years ago, I read John Keegan’s Winston Churchill: A Life, and there was something in it that I found striking and moving:

Queen Elizabeth II attended his funeral.

I know that sounds like something you’d expect for Churchill, and I doubt there was any question about her going. But the royal family almost never attends the funeral of a commoner: they only go to funerals of other members of the royal family. I have this mental image of Elizabeth arguing with her people: “I’m going. I don’t care about tradition. He won the war, you…” Well, I doubt Elizabeth would say “assholes” but she might think it. I know it is fashionable to sniff at England and wonder what they need with the royal family, but it does seem like Elizabeth II is the class act of the bunch.

(And he got a state funeral, too. According to Keegan, the last commoner to get one of those was the Duke Of Wellington. In 1852.)

While I was working on this post, I found that the BBC has a nice archive devoted to remembering Churchill. I haven’t had time to go through it all yet, but I’m bookmarking it here.

Posted in Bookmarks, Books, Clippings, History | 2 Comments »

Quick random stuff.

Thursday, January 30th, 2014

The NYT has a feature on the “industrial musical”.

The 1956 Chevy show cost $3 million, while “My Fair Lady” opened on Broadway with a budget of $500,000. Big budgets attracted top-drawer talent. “Go Fly a Kite” was written by John Kander and Fred Ebb, the team behind “Cabaret” and “Chicago.” Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock wrote “Ford-i-fy Your Future” for the tractor and implement division of Ford, as well as the songs for “Fiorello!” and “Fiddler on the Roof.” Bob Fosse was already at work on “The Pajama Game” when he toured with “The Mighty ‘O’,” a 1953 Oldsmobile show.

$3 million in 1956 money works out to about $25,700,000 in 2013 money. Or about a third of the cost of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark”. The NYT piece seems to be mostly promotion for a new book: Everything’s Coming Up Profits: The Golden Age of Industrial Musicals. But I’ll admit: I’m intrigued by the book, and will probably purchase it at Half-Price when it shows up there.

Apparently, there was a serious proposal last year to add bass fishing to the list of high school sports which are approved and regulated by the Texas University Interscholastic League. It did not pass. And honestly, I’m a little weirded out by the idea; where would students practice? How? How often? In boats or from the shore? Can you practice bass fishing in Midland? What would the bass fishing championship look like? Would it be televised on one of cable’s many outdoor channels?

(Not making fun of bass fishermen at all. I realize there’s an active bass tournament scene, and if that’s your thing, God bless you. I just think the logistics of doing this at the high school level are strange. Especially since if you’re a high school bass fisherman, you can probably compete in professional tournaments for real money; it isn’t like professional bass fishing is subject to the same sort of size and weight issue that high school football is.)

Posted in Books, Clippings, Music, Sports, Theatre | Comments Closed

TMQ Watch: the votes are in…

Thursday, January 30th, 2014

…and Richard Sherman is your 2013 Tuesday Morning Quarterback Non-QB Non-RB MVP.

Mike the Musicologist made a good point to us last night, in reference to TMQ’s (and, we think, specifically Tony Dungy’s) comments about America needing more time away from football: the NFL is a profession. They call it “pro football” for a reason.

Our bosses would never say to us, “you need some time away from security. Take three or six months and go do something else.” And if we did decide we needed some time away from security, we wouldn’t expect to get paid – or for that matter to have a job when we came back. (Yes, there are some professions where you can take a sabbatical or a leave of absence, but not every year.)

So why do football players need “time away from football”, other than the usual rest, recuperation, and vacation you get in most other professions? What’s special about the NFL? Maybe the physical demands of the job, but we suspect that’s built into the training and off-season expectations of NFL teams.

As far as needing “time off from football” as a society, we already feel there’s a pretty long gap from February to August. The attention of society during those months is pretty much devoted to basketball and baseball; we don’t see a lot of football coverage during this period (major events excepted). Indeed, if we wanted “time off a sport”, our pick would be basketball: the 2012 NBA season ended on June 20th, 2013. The first preseason game of the 2013 season was October 5th. So that’s basically what, three months with no basketball compared to the NFL’s six months with no football?

“But don’t you agree college players need time away?” No, we pretty much agree with MtM’s other point: college is just the minor leagues for the NFL, and college players are every bit as much professionals as NFL players.

When you get down to high school and lower levels, yes, we’d agree that time away is needed. But we’re not sure that kids aren’t getting that; we’re still trying to figure out the UIL regulations, but so far we’ve determined that junior high kids can’t start practicing before the first day of school. (When do they have to stop? Good question. Any UIL rulebook experts out there? Feel free to comment.)

Posted in NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

Get. Off. My. Lawn.

Thursday, January 30th, 2014

The Killing Fields is 30 years old? Damn, I’m old.

(I may have to pick up the 30th Anniversary Blu-ray, though I’d like to know if it has any extras. The Amazon page is not helpful.)

Posted in Clippings, Movies | Comments Closed