Frank Reich fired as head coach of hapless the Carolina Panthers. ESPN for the archive challenged.
The Panthers are currently 1-10. Which, by a curious coincidence, is also the number of games Frank Reich coached.
Well, that’s done.
November 27th, 2023Obit watch: November 26, 2023.
November 26th, 2023Betty Rollin, journalist and author.
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Readers’ response to “First You, Cry” was strong. “The letters I loved were from women who had it, sending me their cancer jokes,” Ms. Rollin told The Times in 1993, when the book was rereleased. “That kind of laughter is my favorite thing — it’s such a diffuser.”
She added: “Somebody once said that I was the first person to make cancer funny, which was the best compliment I ever had. I mean, cancer isn’t funny, but if you’ve got it and if you’re able to make jokes about it, I think that keeps you sane.”
Marty Krofft. THR. Thing I did not know: Sid and Marty got their start in the 1950s doing puppet shows…adult puppet shows.
Marty joined his brother full-time in 1958 after Sid’s assistant left, and they opened Les Poupees de Paris, an adults-only burlesque puppet show that played to sold-out crowds at a dinner theater in the San Fernando Valley.
“Les Poupees took us from an act, Sid’s act, to a business,” Marty said. Shirley MacLaine was there on opening night, and Richard Nixon came during his run for president.
Les Poupees went on the road and played world’s fairs in Seattle in 1962, New York in 1964 and San Antonio in 1968. It featured 240 puppets, mostly topless women, and Time magazine called it a “dirty puppet show.”
After that, it was so popular, “we couldn’t even get our own best friends in the theater,” Sid said. It drew an estimated 9.5 million viewers in its first decade of performances.
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Pufnstuf‘s psychedelic sets and costumes were a big hit with college kids, and The Beatles asked for a full set of episode tapes to be sent to them in England. The look of the show prompted many whispers that the brothers took drugs (pot for sure, maybe LSD as well?), something Marty denied.
“You can’t do a show stoned,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in January 2016.
The Kroffts followed Pufnstuf with The Bugaloos (1970-72), the Claymation series Lidsville (1971-73), Sigmund and the Sea Monsters (1973-75) and Land of the Lost (1974-76), which spawned an ill-fated Will Ferrell movie adaptation released in 2009. Those shows were wildly popular in syndication as well.
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In “Lost,” which premiered on NBC in 1974, a family plunges into another dimension populated by dinosaurs, primates called Pakuni and dangerous lizard-men called Sleestaks. Like “Pufnstuf,” the show was about the family’s attempts to get home while navigating their strange new surroundings.
Episodes were written by seasoned science fiction writers like Ben Bova, Larry Niven and Norman Spinrad, and a linguist developed a language of sorts for the Pakuni.
Question: is Land of the Lost the earliest TV show with a constructed language? (No, don’t say it: according to Wikipedia, development of the Klingon language didn’t begin until ST3, so LotL precedes.)
Firings watch.
November 26th, 2023Tom Allen out as head coach of Indiana. (“Sources say”)
Seven seasons, 33-49, and 18-43 in conference. Indiana lost their final three games and went 3-9 this season.
According to ESPN, Indiana will have to pay a $20.8 million buyout, since they fired Allen before December 1st of this year. If they had waited until next year, the buyout would have been only $8 million.
ESPN is reporting (“sources say”) that Dana Holgorsen is out at the University of Houston. I have been unable to find any backup for this on the HouChron website or the two local TV station websites I checked.
31-28 over five seasons. The buyout is estimated at $14.8 million, but there’s an offset clause if he gets another coaching job.
Edited to add: the Holgorsen firing seems official now. HouChron
Edited to add 2: Some additional firing updates I ran across on ESPN. I’m just going to cover them quickly:
Terry Bowden gone as head coach of Louisana-Monroe. 10-26, 5-10 in conference, and 2-10 this season.
Frank Cignetti Jr. out as offensive coordinator for Pitt.
Dana Dimel out as head coach of UT-El Paso. 20-49 in six seasons, one bowl appearance in 2021, but 3-9 this season.
TMQ Watch watch.
November 26th, 2023Well. Well well well. Well.
We were, as a matter of fact, sitting in church this morning, waiting for the service to start, when we received an email.
Someone who wishes to remain monogamous anonymous has gifted us a one-month subscription to Gregg Easterbrook’s Substack.
Our first reaction was: we’d really like to know who this person is. Perhaps they will out themselves in comments?
Our second reaction was: what a kind and thoughtful present to kick off the season of giving. Thank you, masked man!
Our third reaction was: how are we going to work this? At the very least, we feel an obligation to do a TMQ Watch for each new TMQ going forward. Should we go back and do the ones from earlier in the season? That’s doubtful, because the temptation to view them through the lens of hindsight is very high. Also, we currently have two major projects we’re working on for the Smith and Wesson Collector’s Association, so we don’t have as much time as we would like.
But we will promise to TMQ Watch TMQ, starting with this coming Tuesday’s entry. And, even though it is only a month subscription, we will promise to TMQ Watch TMQ through his post-Superb Owl column, which should wrap up the TMQ season. Even if we have to pay out of our own pocket. (That is not to say that we will not accept another gift subscription for another month, but even if that doesn’t happen, we’ll take on the assignment anyway.)
Obit watch: November 24, 2023.
November 24th, 2023Charles Peters, founder of the Washington Monthly. When I was young, I spent a lot of time in the high school library, which had a subscription to the WM under Peters. I remember the magazine’s habit of challenging conventional wisdom and orthodoxy: for example, an article arguing that abortion should remain legal…but should also be a rare event, and should be strongly discouraged under almost all circumstances.
Bob Contant, co-founder of the St. Mark’s Bookshop in NYC. I’m mostly noting this here because of the insight it provides into NYC bookselling:
After working as the manager of the 8th Street Bookshop in Greenwich Village, Mr. Contant, along with Mr. McCoy and two other colleagues, Tom Evans and Peter Dargis, opened the St. Mark’s Bookshop in November 1977 in a $345-a-month storefront at 13 St. Mark’s Place. (Today, apartments in the building sell for upward of $1.6 million, and the Thai-inspired dessert emporium on the ground floor offers Soku tangerine soju seltzer for $10 a can.)
As the East Village exploded with punk vibrancy and business boomed, the store moved to more spacious quarters at 12 St. Mark’s Place in 1987. Six years later, the two remaining partners, Mr. Contant and Mr. McCoy, were invited by the Cooper Union to relocate nearby to the institution’s new dormitory development at 31 Third Avenue, a sleek, award-winning space designed by Zivkovic Associates. They were able to do so thanks to a generous loan from Robert Rodale, a publisher of wellness books and magazines.
But the 2008 recession, combined with a proposed doubling of the store’s $20,000-a-month rent, made the space unaffordable, even after support from Salman Rushdie and Patti Smith, a crowdsourcing campaign that raised $24,000 and a concession by Cooper Union in 2011 to reduce the rent temporarily.
In 2014, the store moved to its fourth and final home, at 136 East Third Street, a side street, as a commercial tenant in a city housing project a half-mile southeast of the original location. Mr. Contant bought out Mr. McCoy for $1, and by the time he grudgingly shuttered the bookshop in its last incarnation in 2016, he owed the city something like $70,000 in back rent; he also owed hefty sums to publishers and wholesalers and some $35,000 in unpaid sales tax. Mr. Contant went bankrupt.
To be fair:
The store never invested in potential revenue add-ons like regular book fairs or readings, and it never sold used books, offered deep discounts or opened an in-store cafe.
Instead, it stubbornly stuck to its classic business model. It sold avant-garde literature, books from small independent presses on subjects like queer theory and anarchy, artisanal greeting cards, art monographs, photo albums of Russian prison tattoos and a selection of 2,000 magazines and underground newspapers, as well as booklets that hungry local writers delivered on consignment.
Firings watch.
November 24th, 2023Jack Del Rio out as defensive coordinator of the Washington NFL team.
The Commanders’ defense ranks last in points allowed and 29th in yards allowed — one year after ranking seventh and third, respectively, in those categories. The Commanders consistently gave up big plays and failed to make many of their own.
Washington has allowed a league-high 49 pass plays of 20 yards or more. The Commanders haven’t intercepted a pass in the past six games or caused a turnover in the past three.
Washington lost 45-10 to Dallas yesterday, is 4-8 this season, has lost three games in a row and eight out of the last 10.
Happy Thanksgiving!
November 22nd, 2023You know, I always say “It’s just not Thanksgiving until the Detroit Lions lose.”
But this year, the Lions are 8-2. And they are favored by a good margin over Green Bay. While I am generally sympathetic to the Packers because of their unusual structure (as you know, Bob) they are 4-6 this year, and I kind of resent the way the team is being run.
Plus, pigpen51.
So I find myself in the unusual position this year, in terms of rooting for laundry, of actually hoping that..the Detroit Lions win.
What mad universe is this, anyway?
Entertainment news.
November 22nd, 2023Another interesting story by way of Hacker News:
Carl Erik Rinsch is a director. He has one feature length credit in IMDB: “47 Ronin”, the Keanu Reeves movie. It apparently did not do well, and he allegedly fought with the producers.
However, in 2018, Neflix signed a deal with him to produce a SF series called “White Horse” (later “Conquest”). They’ve put $55 million into the series.
And they have nothing to show for it.
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Relevant to Lawrence‘s interests:
(Non-archive NYT link. You may be able to read this if you use incognito mode.)
Obit watch: November 22, 2023.
November 22nd, 2023Willie Hernández, relief pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. ESPN.
The left-handed Hernández had a 13-year career but is mostly known for his role as the closer on one of the most dominant teams in the past 40 years. The 1984 Tigers, led by Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker and Jack Morris, opened 35-5 and cruised to the AL East title with a 104-58 mark before sweeping Kansas City in the AL Championship Series and beating San Diego in a five-games World Series.
Hernández had a 9-3 record and 32 saves in 33 chances in 1984, with a 1.92 ERA over 80 games and 140⅓ innings. He is among just 11 pitchers to win the Cy Young and MVP in the same year, edging Kansas City’s Dan Quisenberry for Cy Young in 1984 and Minnesota’s Kent Hrbek for MVP.
(Thanks to pigpen51 for the tip.)
Herbert Gold, novelist.
Carlton Pearson. I had not heard of him previously, but I find his story interesting. He was a prominent evangelist who ran a megachurch in Tulsa. He was a board member of Oral Roberts University. And then…
While watching a TV report in the 1990s on children starving during the Rwanda genocide, Bishop Pearson had an epiphany. He could not believe that God would consign innocent souls to hell who had not accepted Jesus Christ as savior before their deaths. He concluded that hell does not exist, except as earthly misery created by human beings; that God loves all mankind; and that everyone is already saved.
It was a view he shared in interviews and preached at his church, the Higher Dimensions Family Church, which he co-founded in 1981 and which grew into one of the largest in Tulsa, known for its multiracial pews in a city and a faith, evangelical Christianity, that was largely segregated.
“I believe that most people on planet Earth will go to heaven, because of Calvary, because of the unconditional love of God and the redemptive work of the cross, which is already accomplished,” Bishop Pearson told The Tulsa World in 2002, adding that he included Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists among the loved. “I’m re-evaluating everything,” he said.
This led to him being branded a heretic, leaving the denomination he’d been ordained in, and losing his megachurch.
Mr. Bogle, Bishop Pearson’s agent, said he often asked him about whether he regretted the loss of prestige, income and worshipers that followed his turning away from Pentecostal Christian orthodoxy.
“I said, ‘You’ve lost a lot of money, don’t you think you should have just shut up?’” Mr. Bogle said. “He would always say, ‘No, I don’t believe I made a mistake.’”
Blame Canada! Blame Canada!
November 21st, 2023Matt Canada out as offensive coordinator of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Non-archive link, extremely aggressive about turning off your ad blocker. Archive link, which may not work for some people. ESPN, which will probably work for almost everyone.
Obit watch: November 20, 2023.
November 20th, 2023Rosalynn Carter obit roundup: NYT (archived). WP (archived).
I’ve had one person complain to me that they can’t access archive.is links, and I’ve seen reports of this on Hacker News as well. The problem from what I’ve read is a DNS issue between archive.is and CloudFlare, and I don’t know how to tell folks to resolve it. I would love to be able to use another archiving service, but I’m not aware of another one. I feel like my choice is: knowingly post paywalled links (which has gotten me griped at in the past) or post archived links and take the complaints on that. If someone knows of another archiving service, please leave me a comment or drop me a line, and I’ll try switching to that as an alternative.
And I’m not linking to the Atlanta newspaper because, you guessed it, they’re excessively aggressive about ad blockers.
Bobby Ussery, jockey. Mostly noted here because I don’t get to use the “horses” tag as often as I would like, but he did win the 1967 Kentucky Derby (on Proud Clarion, a 30-1 shot). He won a total of 3,611 races between 1951 and 1974.
Joss Ackland, actor. Other credits include “K-19: The Widowmaker”, “The Hunt for Red October”, and “The Apple“.
Obit watch: November 19, 2023.
November 19th, 2023I’m aware of Rosalynn Carter, but I think it’d be better to wait until tomorrow to post an obit roundup.
Captain Don Walsh (USN – retired). Regular readers of this blog might recall the name. For everyone else: on January 23, 1960, Lt. Walsh and Jacques Piccard descended in the bathyscaph Trieste seven miles under the ocean, to the very bottom of the Mariana Trench, into the Challenger Deep.
Late in life, Dr. Walsh began to revisit his pioneering dive site. In 2012, at age 80, he advised the filmmaker James Cameron when he became the first person since Dr. Walsh and Mr. Piccard to make a dive into the Challenger Deep. “I feel so fortunate,” Dr. Walsh said at the time. “Dudes my age are mostly sitting in rockers passing around snapshots of grandkids and great-grandkids.”
He also advised the undersea explorer Victor L. Vescovo when he dived into the Challenger Deep in 2019. The next year, Mr. Vescovo once again made the dive; this time, he took Dr. Walsh’s son, Kelly, as a passenger. The two men spent four hours exploring the planet’s deepest spot.
He was 92. According to his son, he died “sitting in his favorite chair”.
Viktor Belenko passed away on September 24th, but his death was not widely reported back then. Mr. Belenko was the Soviet pilot who defected to Japan in his MIG-25 in 1976.
The MiG-25 turned out to be a paper eagle. Its giant wingspan was not for maneuverability but simply to lift the plane and its 15 tons of fuel off the ground. It couldn’t even do its job: Though it flew fast, it was no match for the American aircraft it was meant to take down.
Of great value, though, was what Lieutenant Belenko told the Americans about conditions and morale within the Soviet armed forces.
American officials had long believed that Soviet military personnel were chiseled supermen. Lieutenant Belenko revealed that they were often half-starved and beaten down, forced into cramped living spaces and subject to sadistic punishment at the tiniest infraction.
During a visit to a U.S. aircraft carrier, he was astonished that sailors were allowed unlimited amounts of food, at no cost. He once bought a can of cat food at a grocery store, not knowing it was for pets; when someone pointed out his error, he shrugged and said it still tasted better than the food sold for human consumption in the Soviet Union.
John Barron’s book MIG Pilot: The Final Escape of Lt. Belenko is available in a Kindle edition.
David Del Tredici, composer. I remember hearing the name a lot in the 80s and 90s when I was buying music, but I don’t think I ever owned a Tredici recording.
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But his fascination with Lewis Carroll’s “Alice” books led him toward the lushness of a neo-Romanticism that erupted with full force in “Final Alice” (1975), a 70-minute score for soprano and a huge orchestra that was packed with hummable melodies, as well as just enough chaotic brashness to keep its late-20th-century provenance clear.
Some atonalists regarded “Final Alice” as a betrayal. But a PBS broadcast and a recording by the soprano Barbara Hendricks, with Georg Solti conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (which had commissioned the work), brought “Final Alice” to a large audience that embraced it enthusiastically — as did many musicians.
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Suzanne Shepherd, actress. Other credits include the LawnOrder trifecta (original recipe, “Criminal Intent”, Sport Utility Vehicle), “Uncle Buck”, and “Requiem for a Dream”.