As is pretty well-known by now, even if you don't follow sports in the slight, Uruguayan soccer star Luis Suarez bit another player from Italy during their World Cup soccer match. I actually was watching the match at the time -- I didn't see the bite itself, but my timing was such that I walked into the room as I heard the announcers saying how unfortunate the incident was, and that it certainly looked like the Italian player was complaining he'd been bitten. They couldn't be sure from the replays, they said, but it looked possible. That's when I reversed the DVR a few seconds, watched the play and the replays and just laughed. "Boy, are you guys bending over backwards being polite," I thought to myself, "Of course that's a bite!!" -- especially considering that they were saying that Suarez had previously been suspended two other times for biting.
It was clearly obvious, and that was confirmed when the FIFA governing body suspended Suarez for four months for his third violation of biting. But what do you do when you have a soccer player who consistently bites other soccer players? Well, the funniest response I'm come across by far is this posting by...Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer! As far as I can tell, this is absolutely on the level, not an fake article being sent around. I say that because the article I read the article on Millan's own website, Cesar's Way. So, unless his site got hacked, this is the real deal. And it's pretty amusing. "If you're having problems with your players," Millan writes, he gives suggestions on what you can do to address the ongoing problem, Like the suggestion -- "You can reduce aggression by having your soccer player spayed or neutered. Many low and no cost options are available." You can read the whole article here -- and all the suggestions to do with your own soccer player problems, if you have one of your own...
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It's been a quiet week. The Whippets defeat the Holdingford Bulls in the rain on another long fly ball from Wayne Tommerdahl, Father Emil returns to Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility, garage sale season begins, and the Women's Bible Study Group goes skinny-dipping.
Also worth noting is that this weeks news comes from a performance at the Ravinia Music Festival in Highland Park, Illinois, which I've written about several times, most notably here. I worked at Ravinia for a couple summers, and it was a joy. The festival, which is the summer home of the Chicago Symphony, but also cover folk music, rock, jazz, chamber music, opera, theater, and dance, have grounds that are walking distance from where I grew up, and on a really clear night, you could sometimes hear the music off in the distance. It was a long way -- a mile-and-a-half, maybe -- along Green Bay Road, but much shorter if you cut through Turnbull Woods, which I did on occasion. (Going to a concert, or to work backstage once in a while -- not in the dark afterwards. You don't want to be caught by witches or gremlins, of course.) Just a quick reminder that Episode 3 of Almost Royal is on tonight on BBC America. In this evening's entry, the Carlton siblings, Poppy and George, visit Texas. It airs at 10 PM, West Coast time. If you didn't see my earlier posting on the new, fake-documentary series, where a couple of very amusing British comedians pretend to be aristocrats touring the United States, you can read more about it here. BBC America is repeating the series premiere (that took place in Los Angeles) after tonight's new episode, though the show is also available On Demand, where the'll have Episode 2 from Boston. Here are a couple of interviews. In this first on NPR with Scott Simon, and embedded below, the actors Ed Gamble and Amy Hogart switch between being themselves and having Georgie and Poppy participate. And this is a very funny interview on BBC America's Graham Norton Show. It was exclusive to BBC America, and didn't appear as part of his regular BBC show, I assume because Almost Royal only appears on BBC America and not in England, at least yet. Though I wanted to focus on the songs from Once Upon a Mattress when writing yesterday about Mary Rodgers, who passed away on Thursday, I thought it only proper to offer some of her other wonderful of her lesser-known material as a follow-up. So, here are a few selections. This first comes from the concept album Free to Be...You and Me, originally done in 1972, conceived by Marlo Thomas and then later animated as a TV special. The song here, "William's Doll," is an impressive collaboration. It has music by Mary Rodgers, with words by Sheldon Harnick, the lyricist of Fiddler on the Roof, among many other Broadway shows. And further, it's sung by Alan Alda -- and the woman who accompanies him is Marlo Thomas herself. One of the most off-beat things that Mary Rodgers wrote for was contributing to the 1966 hit off-Broadway revue, The MAD Show, based on -- yes, the magazine. (It ran for 871 performances, over two years.) Her song, "The Boy From..." was a parody written with lyricist Estaban Rio Nido of then-popular song "The Girl from Ipanema." This alternative number tells of a girl infatuated with a young man from a town that has an near-unpronounceable name, and who for personal reasons we slowly discern, doesn't return her affections, or seemingly those of any young woman. It's worth noting, to say the least, that the lyricist used a pen name, and was, in fact, long-time family friend Stephen Sondheim. The song here is performed by Linda Lavin, who later went on to star in the TV series, Alice. This last song comes from the stage revue Working, based on the non-fiction bestseller by Studs Terkel, a collection of interviews with people talking about their jobs. The show, conceived by Stephen Schwartz, began life at the Goodman Theater in Chicago in 1978, and later transferred to Broadway. It wasn't successful, though the show was later adapted for PBS, and has had a long life in school productions and elsewhere.
The score was written by a wide range of composers and lyricists. This song, "Nobody Tells Me How," written by Mary Rodgers along with lyricist Susan Birkenhead, is a lilting, tender, and ultimately heart-wrenching number sung by an older school teacher a bit lost after decades of work, trying to figure out the news way of the world of education. It's wonderfully performed by Bobo Lewis from the original Broadway cast. Though the point is always well-taken, sometimes TV spots about how we hold young girls back from science by focusing on the wrong things can come across as too forced. While the ultimate point is understood, too often the examples used to get there aren't as universal as they should be. This ad, though, I think, is one of those that get it right, through its subtlety of well-crafted, well-meaning language. Nothing being said is really inherently improper, but the problem is that it's all that is being said, which builds up over time, without balance. And the low-key, excellent performances help, too. It comes from, of all people, Verizon. This is a pretty funny video from last night's Cubs game against the Washington Nationals. I listened to the audio of the game (the Cubs won by the way, thanks for asking...), and the announcers were talking about the fog rolling in all night, but until watching the video later, I didn't get the full impact. The best thing about this video is how at the beginning the TV announcer Len Kasper makes a quip about how it's so foggy that he'd love to see the Cubs batter Luis Valbuena hit a pop-up home run to the second baseman, who'll lose the ball in the fog, as Valbuena simply circled the bases. On the very next pitch, he virtually gets his wish. As you'll see from the reaction of the outfielder, this is no doubt where they got the expression, "I don't have the foggiest idea..." |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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