Category Archives: Media

Tennis, Anyone? (Part Two)

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As I wrote in my last post, my love of tennis has returned and much of that is due to a young woman from Australia named Samantha Stosur. Oh, and in case you hadn’t heard, she defeated Serena Williams handily in the U.S. Open final yesterday, 6-2, 6-3. Sam became the first Australian woman since Margaret Court in 1973 to win the U.S. Open. While this is great cause for celebration for Australia and Australian tennis, it’s great for anyone who values champions with class.

There was some controversy at the beginning of the second set that almost tilted the momentum to Serena Williams. The umpire deemed Serena’s celebratory scream after she struck a ball before the point was over as as a violation of the Hindrance Rule and awarded Sam the point, which gave her the game. Serena then behaved like a petulant brat and unfortunately the crowd started pulling for her.

This situation reminded me just how much I dislike the idea of rooting for someone simply because he or she is from your country. I support a player because I like him or her not because he or she is an American. An acquaintance on Twitter took offense at my characterization of the crowd as jingoistic yet she basically admitted that she was rooting for Serena simply because of her citizenship. This is not the Olympics or the World Cup where supporting your country is natural and appropriate.

Add to this mix the emotions of the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 and this could have gotten really ugly. Luckily for Stosur and for the game of tennis, she remained composed and let her playing do the talking for her. I hope that when people look back on this match, they’ll give Stosur the credit she deserves for her high-quality play and her grace under pressure. What we don’t need is any whining about a bad call (which it was not) or excuses for Serena’s lackluster performance. Serena Williams is an incredibly talented player who will go down as one of the greatest to have ever played. On Sunday, however, a 27 year-old from Down Under was better.

What’s the Big Idea?

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In this article by Neal Gabler in the August 13, 2011 New York Times, the author discusses his belief that ideas just aren’t what they used to be. In fact, he states,

 

“In effect, we are living in an increasingly post-idea world –
a world in which big, thought-provoking ideas that can’t
instantly be monetized are of so little intrinsic value that
fewer people are generating them and fewer outlets are
disseminating them, the Internet, notwithstanding.
Bold ideas are almost passé.”

I think Gabler is onto something here. Just take a look at television programming. Now, I’m not about to get on some high-brow horse and lament the decline of television because of reality shows, blowhard pundits and the like. There have always been clowns on television, literally and figuratively. What we used to see more of, however, was programming that also appealed to the intellect. Even with the hundreds of channels available today, how much intellectual stimulation do you find around the dial?

As a pre-teen, in addition to heavy doses of reruns of Monty Python’s Flying Circus on PBS, I was often riveted to Firing Line. (Yes, I was a precocious child.) For any of you too young to remember it, Firing Line was hosted by conservative writer and thinker William F. Buckley, Jr., and it featured Buckley debating the issues of the day with leading intellectuals, politicians and other public figures. The pace was slow, the atmosphere, polite. Listening to, let alone reading Buckley, virtually required doing so with a dictionary in your hands.

Yes, I realize that Firing Line was on PBS and not network television, but still, I don’t believe it would even work on PBS today. No one in the public sphere seems to be interested in discussion and dissemination of ideas. Civility seems to be like some outdated Victorian notion. It’s all about the sound bite and one-upsmanship. Watch any news show anywhere on television tonight and listen for the raised voices, the constant interruption of one speaker by another, and the vitriol.

The Information Age has given us access to endless amounts of data, but that doesn’t translate into necessarily understanding that data. In essence, we possess trivia that makes for useful cocktail party conversation or 140 character tweet-sized bites. This isn’t inherently bad, mind you; it’s just ultimately unsatisfying if that’s where the inquiry end. It’s fast food information.

Don’t get me wrong. I love social media and I love that when some inane trivia question wakes me up in the middle of the night (Don’t laugh. This happens.), I’m almost 100% certain that with a few keystrokes, I can find the answer. But, aside from helping me go back to sleep, did learning the answer to that question add any tangible value to my life? Most likely, the answer is “no”. As Gabler concludes,

“What the future portends is more and more information –
Everests of it. There won’t be anything we won’t know. But
       there will be no one thinking about it. Think about that.”

I intend to think about it. What about you?

The Art of the Matter

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     I’m going to this exhibition today and I’m very excited. I’m a big fan of the Dutch Masters (and I’m not talking the cigars). I don’t claim to know anything about art, but I know what I like. Basically, I like trees that look like trees, people who look like people, etc. I like subtle use of light and shadow. This is the main reason that I like artists like Johannes Vermeer. And it’s a main reason why I don’t like modern art. I mean, if a painting looks like either:

 

 

(a) something that a kid in kindergarten could do with finger paints (Mark Rothko – “Number 9”)

or

 

 

(b) something one of my cats threw up (Jackson Pollock – “Number 4”), I don’t see it as art. Sorry, I just don’t.

 

 

 

 

 

    The most modern I get are the Impressionists. I like the colors and you can still discern what the shapes are in the paintings. As is the case with this work by Claude Monet:

 

“Le Grenoillere” (1869)

 

 

 

     Picasso, I don’t get at all. I know there’s symbolism and all that but nobody can convince me that the craftsmanship in this:

 

 

“Woman With a Flower” (1932)

(There’s a woman? There’s a flower? I’m lost.)

is comparable to this famous Vermeer painting:

 

 

 

 

“Girl With a Pearl Earring” (1665)

 

 

 

 

     Maybe they’re not supposed to be compared? Like comparing punk to classical is a pointless musical exercise? I don’t know.

     I want to be open-minded, I really do. For example, I used to deride soccer as “hockey on grass” and claim that it was boring. Now, that I’m understanding it a bit more and following the Wolverhampton Wanderers, I now appreciate the “beautiful game”. Will this happen for me with modern art? I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll take a chance and go to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art one of these days. But, alas, today is not that day. Today I get to remain in my comfort zone and gaze at the artistry of works like this by Jan van der Heyden:

 

“View of the Westerkerk, Amsterdam” (1667-70)

(Courtesy of the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection).

 

 

 

      Ah, very nice.

Love At First Type

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“Do you believe in love at first sight?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Do you believe in love before that?”

These two lines sum up the question at the heart of Attachments, the debut novel by Rainbow Rowell. It’s set in 1999 at a Midwestern newspaper in the midst of the Y2K madness. Co-workers Beth and Jennifer spend good portions of their day sending each other messages about very personal details of their lives despite knowing that their email is being monitored. The person monitoring their email is Lincoln, and he doesn’t have the heart to send them a warning.

You see, through their messages, Lincoln has come to enjoy Beth and Jennifer’s interactions immensely. Before he realizes it, he has fallen for Beth but can’t imagine how he would ever introduce himself. Quite a dilemma, isn’t it?

I discovered Attachments after seeing it chosen for the Barnes & Noble Summer 2011 Discover Great New Writers program and the subject matter really resonated with me. Why, you may ask? Well, I’m a veteran of falling for someone online. The most important relationships I’ve had began by reading someone’s words and being drawn to them and the person behind those words. When you love words and feel comfortable using them, I think it’s natural to fall for someone via the written word. If you’ve ever written or received a love letter, you know how powerful it can be to share intense emotions through language. You keep those letters and re-read them over and over and the feelings that get stirred up don’t diminish with each reading. They grow.

If you’re getting to know someone online, it’s easy to put your best foot forward, as it were. You can take time to say exactly what you want to say. There is no stuttering or fumbling over words. You aren’t distracted by the physical presence of the person with whom you’re talking. All you have are your words.

Can this be problematic? Certainly. For example, I know that I can come across much more self-assured online than I normally do in real life. This doesn’t mean that I’m lying about who I am. It just means that I’m presenting my best self, who I am internally, and who I want to be more of, externally.

I must confess that I don’t read much fiction anymore. I don’t know exactly why or when this happened but if you looked at my bookshelves, you’d find mainly nonfiction: biographies, how-to books, philosophy, etc. So, for a book of fiction to grab me, it must be something special.

The subject matter of Attachments may have lured me in, but it was (big surprise), the words that kept me reading. Rainbow Rowell fills her novel with pop culture references to songs, movies and my personal favorite, “Dungeons and Dragons”. (I was a devoted D&D geek in the mid-to-late 1980s). But the quality that most impresses me is her dialogue. Rowell’s dialogue is crisp and punchy, much like the best movie or television dialogue you’ve ever heard.

So I highly recommend Attachments to anyone who loves snappy dialogue and a captivating and unconventional love story. Despite the fact that my previous forays into online love haven’t led to “happily ever after”, I’m not discouraged. To answer the questions that began this post, I not only believe in love at first sight. I believe in love at first type.

Welcome to Bizarro World

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In my never-ending quest to not just entertain, but to enlighten you, I came across this interesting article today. Apparently, British theoretical physicists are attempting to find evidence of multiple alternative universes, aka, “multiverses”. You science fiction and comic book readers are very familiar with the idea of a multiverse. (See DC Comics Infinite Crisis and 52, for just two examples.)

In essence, the thought is that we live in a multiverse in which new universes form each time they collide with each other. What really piqued my interest was the theory that these universes could possibly not adhere to the laws of nature with which we’re familiar. For example, time could move backward instead of forward. Freaky, right?

This is just like Bizarro World. For the uninitiated, Bizarro World, aka, Htrae, is a fictional planet in the DC Comics universe. In Bizarro World, society lives by the Bizarro Code in which everything is done the opposite way it’s done on Earth. I had a dream that I woke up in Bizarro World.

Someone named “Snooki” who inhabits Jersey Shore, supposedly makes $100,000 an episode. According to a website called PayScale, high school teachers in New Jersey earn between $35,269 – $73,705 per year. Snooki must be doing something really impressive.

Then, I hear a creepy disembodied voice talking to me. I’ve heard it before but I have a hard time placing it at first. I realize that it’s Michele Bachmann.

Suddenly, I wake up shaking and covered in sweat.

“Good thing that world isn’t real,” I mumble. But then, I turn on the television and see:

“No, no, no!” I scream. “This can’t be happening. It must be Bizarro World!”

I hear another voice, this time emanating from inside my own head. The voice says, “Kelly, this is your world, for better or worse. Just because it’s not Bizarro World doesn’t mean it’s not bizarre.”

You Play to Win the Game

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Back in 2002 when he was the head coach of the New York Jets, Herman Edwards uttered this line and his sentiment really resonated with me in light of the coverage of the defeat of the U.S. Women’s National Team in the World Cup Final. I was puzzled and annoyed by the coverage of their loss mainly because it seemed patronizing. The fact that the U.S. team failed to capitalize on multiple scoring opportunities in the first half, lost a lead twice, committed sloppy errors that led to Japan’s scores and totally broke down during penalty kicks was absent in the coverage. It was all hearts and flowers about their wins over Brazil and France. Don’t get me wrong. Those were great wins and there is no doubt that the U.S. team did wonders for women’s sports, especially soccer, here in the U.S. All you have to do is look at the ratings.

But, if the goal of playing is winning, they failed. Why are people so afraid to say that? I think it’s because no one, especially men, wants to be accused of being a sexist. The fastest, easiest way to shut down debate is to call someone either (a) racist, (b) homophobic, or (c) sexist. By pointing out that they failed to win the game doesn’t mean that they are failures as human beings or that their run in the tournament was a failure. Anyone with common sense knows that. Are female athletes so fragile that they need protection from criticism? Hardly. Female athletes are strong in body, mind and spirit, just like their male counterparts and they deserve to be praised and criticized by the same standards.

Finally, someone said just this very thing. On the July 19, 2011 episode of Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel, host Bryant Gumbel delivered a spot-on commentary. I don’t always agree with Mr. Gumbel, but he said everything I was thinking after the World Cup Final. I applaud him for facing the slings and arrows he’s sure to receive for daring not to parrot the politically correct party line.

Nutella It Like It Is

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Every once in awhile, a commercial comes along that annoys me beyond words. Well, maybe not beyond words, since I’m now blogging about it. But, you get the idea. This Nutella commercial is the current target of my advertising angst. We see a harried Mom of three oozing gratitude that Nutella came into her life. Now she can give her family “a breakfast they’ll want to eat” and she can feel good “that they’re ready to tackle the day”. Really? You popped toast in the toaster, slathered chocolate and hazelnut on it and threw it in front of your kids. Wow, you are SO getting the mother of the year award!

I don’t have kids and have no idea how difficult it is to get them fed, clothed and out the door every day. But, still, is this what we’ve devolved into? I can tell you this, if my mother had sent me out the door with toast and a spread for my “nutritious” breakfast, the neighbors would have called Child Protective Services.

But, you know, maybe I need to not take things so seriously. It’s just a commercial after all. I should look for the lighter side of life. Like this. Ah, parody always makes me feel so much better.