When people complain that baseball games are too long I am reminded of the story about the woman who was diagnosed with a fatal disease and told by her doctor that she only had a year to live.
"Is there nothing I can do?" she asked the doctor.
"Well," the doctor said, "you could marry an economist and move to Iowa."
"Would that make me live longer?"
"No," the doctor said, "but it will seem longer."
People who go to ball games in person usually do not think the game is too long; there is just too much to look at on the field, with nine players, two coaches and four umpires all moving around. And even when they are not moving there is much beauty in the quiet anticipatory moments between pitches, rather like the moment between steps in a Balanchine ballet or between notes in a Mozart concerto. But when games are shown on TV they seem much longer because there is so little to look at, basically the pitcher and the catcher and the ads behind them, shot with a distorting telephoto lens. The games also seem longer because they start late, especially in the post-season, and therefore end long after one has gone, or should have gone, to bed. In addition there are incessant ads between innings and during pitching changes, adding an hour or more to the games, and constant delays by the pitcher and the batter. Let the umpires at least enforce the rules: twelve seconds between pitches and no stepping out of the batter's box "without a good reason" (not including adjusting batting gloves!).
Announcers are also a problem. Instead of telling you what you are already looking at -- what's going on between the pitcher and the batter -- they could tell you what is going on that you can't see, with the base runners, the umpires and the fielders. Howie Rose and Josh Lewin, the radio announcers for the Mets, do an excellent job of describing what is going on, and one can "see" more of a Mets game on the radio than on TV.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Lee Child's Personal
The martial type of character can be bred without war. Strenuous honor and disinterestedness abound everywhere.
William James, The Moral Equivalent of War, 1910
I don't forgive and I don't forget.
Jack Reacher, Personal (Lee Child, Delacorte, 2014)
It was one of my father's regrets, that neither of his sons served in the armed forces, the army during WWII having been the highlight of his own life. Occasionally I could see the appeal --when I watched Sgt. Bilko or listened to Jean Shepherd's wonderful army stories -- but I was lucky enough to get number 350 in the Shirley-Jackson-lottery of people's lives during the Vietnam war. No doubt we are better off without the George-Orwell-like "selective service" but the all-volunteer army has been at quite a price for those without other choices in their lives. In rejecting the involuntary servitude of the draft, however, are we neglecting certain positive attitudes? Lee Child thinks so, and his character Jack Reacher, formerly an MP, has been shown (in nineteen books) to have many positive attributes, particularly morality and austerity. Reacher travels somewhat randomly around the country, carrying little more than a toothbrush but always ready to lend a helping, and often violent, hand. In Personal he is in Paris and London in an attempt to thwart an assassination by a violent sniper who is out of prison, having been put there by Reacher 15 years before. The plot is complicated but Reacher uses his usual combination of physical and mental strength to solve the problem and the Army general behind it. He doesn't sleep with his female assistant and leaves quietly on the next bus, rather like a Western hero, always aware, as he says, "You can leave the army but the army doesn't leave you. Not always. Not completely."
William James, The Moral Equivalent of War, 1910
I don't forgive and I don't forget.
Jack Reacher, Personal (Lee Child, Delacorte, 2014)
It was one of my father's regrets, that neither of his sons served in the armed forces, the army during WWII having been the highlight of his own life. Occasionally I could see the appeal --when I watched Sgt. Bilko or listened to Jean Shepherd's wonderful army stories -- but I was lucky enough to get number 350 in the Shirley-Jackson-lottery of people's lives during the Vietnam war. No doubt we are better off without the George-Orwell-like "selective service" but the all-volunteer army has been at quite a price for those without other choices in their lives. In rejecting the involuntary servitude of the draft, however, are we neglecting certain positive attitudes? Lee Child thinks so, and his character Jack Reacher, formerly an MP, has been shown (in nineteen books) to have many positive attributes, particularly morality and austerity. Reacher travels somewhat randomly around the country, carrying little more than a toothbrush but always ready to lend a helping, and often violent, hand. In Personal he is in Paris and London in an attempt to thwart an assassination by a violent sniper who is out of prison, having been put there by Reacher 15 years before. The plot is complicated but Reacher uses his usual combination of physical and mental strength to solve the problem and the Army general behind it. He doesn't sleep with his female assistant and leaves quietly on the next bus, rather like a Western hero, always aware, as he says, "You can leave the army but the army doesn't leave you. Not always. Not completely."
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Baseball Playoffs 2014
The first round of the playoffs is over; the next round, for the league pennants, starts tomorrow, with the Orioles vs. the Royals and the Cardinals vs. the Giants. I do think having 10 teams in the playoffs dilutes the daily pleasures of the season and ends up making the World Series often rather anti-climatic and tedious; the beauty of the game is getting lost in the shuffle of who wins and who loses.
About the playoffs:
1. The games start and finish too late and go on too long, most of the games ending at one or two in the morning. The various networks are simply too busy avoiding conflicts with football to give baseball the care and attention it deserves. At least, one would think, week-end games could be played during the day and commercials and promos could be limited, though of course that would mean limiting revenue. My radical suggestion is to start football, hockey and basketball only after the baseball season is completed.
2. The networks have stated repeatedly that showing too much of the game on the field is boring. So we see endless shots of the crowds, the executives, the dugouts, as well as conversations with the players and the managers while the game is going on! They at least could show the whole field occasionally, though showing just the distorted images of the pitcher and the batter through telephoto lenses maximizes revenue, with advertising images shown behind them.
3. What is the function of the mushmouths and illiterates hired for both TV and radio? When they are not mangling the English language and being as comatose as Cal Ripken (who was repeatedly asked about his career by Ron Darling and usually replied "I don't remember.") they have little to add. Their inability to give the score or the count or tell us who is on base has necessitated little boxes on the screen, so they are free to do what? Tell us statistics even they don't understand and can't usually explain? The radio announcers could do the kind of job Vin Scully but few others do: paint a picture and evoke a feeling. But the radio announcers don't even do the minimum -- such as tell us whether a player is batting right-handed or left-handed -- to allow us to visualize what is happening
About the playoffs:
1. The games start and finish too late and go on too long, most of the games ending at one or two in the morning. The various networks are simply too busy avoiding conflicts with football to give baseball the care and attention it deserves. At least, one would think, week-end games could be played during the day and commercials and promos could be limited, though of course that would mean limiting revenue. My radical suggestion is to start football, hockey and basketball only after the baseball season is completed.
2. The networks have stated repeatedly that showing too much of the game on the field is boring. So we see endless shots of the crowds, the executives, the dugouts, as well as conversations with the players and the managers while the game is going on! They at least could show the whole field occasionally, though showing just the distorted images of the pitcher and the batter through telephoto lenses maximizes revenue, with advertising images shown behind them.
3. What is the function of the mushmouths and illiterates hired for both TV and radio? When they are not mangling the English language and being as comatose as Cal Ripken (who was repeatedly asked about his career by Ron Darling and usually replied "I don't remember.") they have little to add. Their inability to give the score or the count or tell us who is on base has necessitated little boxes on the screen, so they are free to do what? Tell us statistics even they don't understand and can't usually explain? The radio announcers could do the kind of job Vin Scully but few others do: paint a picture and evoke a feeling. But the radio announcers don't even do the minimum -- such as tell us whether a player is batting right-handed or left-handed -- to allow us to visualize what is happening
John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps
"It was one of those days," a friend said, "when the only thing to do is read John Buchan."
John Keegan, introduction to The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (Penguin, 1915).
Does anyone read John Buchan today? He was once well-regarded (Raymond Chandler was an admirer) but I think he does not date well. The Thirty-Nine Steps is certainly paranoid enough for our time, with conspirators everywhere on the eve of WWI, but the book is mostly about Richard Hannay hiding in Scotland and being helped by all its eccentric inhabitants (chapters include "The Adventure of the Radical Candidate," "The Dry-Fly Fisherman," etc.). The book is full of delightful descriptions of the landscape (Buchan was Scottish) -- I first saw the pale blue sky through a net of heather, than a big shoulder of hill, and then my own boots place neatly in a blaeberry [blueberry] bush-- but otherwise too contrived even for the "thriller" genre.
The Buchan book is very much in the shadow of Hitchcock's film version, made in 1935. As Claude Chabrol and Eric Rohmer say in their excellent book on Hitchcock(Hitchcock: the First Forty-Four Films, translated by Stanley Hochman, Frederick Ungar, 1979): "Numerous changes were made and they were all good ones," including a female character to whom Hannay is handcuffed while trying to avoid the police and the conspirators. Fritz Lang's Man Hunt (1941) is closer to Buchan's book than Hitchcock's film is, though it is based on Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male.
John Keegan, introduction to The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (Penguin, 1915).
Does anyone read John Buchan today? He was once well-regarded (Raymond Chandler was an admirer) but I think he does not date well. The Thirty-Nine Steps is certainly paranoid enough for our time, with conspirators everywhere on the eve of WWI, but the book is mostly about Richard Hannay hiding in Scotland and being helped by all its eccentric inhabitants (chapters include "The Adventure of the Radical Candidate," "The Dry-Fly Fisherman," etc.). The book is full of delightful descriptions of the landscape (Buchan was Scottish) -- I first saw the pale blue sky through a net of heather, than a big shoulder of hill, and then my own boots place neatly in a blaeberry [blueberry] bush-- but otherwise too contrived even for the "thriller" genre.
The Buchan book is very much in the shadow of Hitchcock's film version, made in 1935. As Claude Chabrol and Eric Rohmer say in their excellent book on Hitchcock(Hitchcock: the First Forty-Four Films, translated by Stanley Hochman, Frederick Ungar, 1979): "Numerous changes were made and they were all good ones," including a female character to whom Hannay is handcuffed while trying to avoid the police and the conspirators. Fritz Lang's Man Hunt (1941) is closer to Buchan's book than Hitchcock's film is, though it is based on Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Turner Classic Movies in October
I wrote yesterday about Edgar Ulmer and his theme of the outsider this month on TCM. There are a number of other excellent movies this month about outsiders, those who struggle to fit in, sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing.
George B. Seitz's The Vanishing American (1925) is about the dilemma of the Native American, whether to fight to keep his heritage or become a part of the society that has, in some ways, rejected him.
John Ford's The Searchers (1956). John Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, who struggles to find a place in a society that has changed immensely while he was off fighting in the Civil War.
Fritz Lang's Moonfleet (1955). An orphan tries to find a place in 18th C, society.
Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place (1950). About the self-destructiveness of a screenwriter who can't sell a screenplay.
Leo McCarey's Make Way for Tomorrow (1937). A moving and beautiful film about what to do with one's parents when they get old.
Gordon Douglas's I Was a Communist for the FBI (1951). Loyalty to one's country or to one's comrades; each choice has a price.
Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not To Be (1942). A bleakly funny comedy about a Polish theatre troupe fighting back against the Nazis.
George B. Seitz's The Vanishing American (1925) is about the dilemma of the Native American, whether to fight to keep his heritage or become a part of the society that has, in some ways, rejected him.
John Ford's The Searchers (1956). John Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, who struggles to find a place in a society that has changed immensely while he was off fighting in the Civil War.
Fritz Lang's Moonfleet (1955). An orphan tries to find a place in 18th C, society.
Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place (1950). About the self-destructiveness of a screenwriter who can't sell a screenplay.
Leo McCarey's Make Way for Tomorrow (1937). A moving and beautiful film about what to do with one's parents when they get old.
Gordon Douglas's I Was a Communist for the FBI (1951). Loyalty to one's country or to one's comrades; each choice has a price.
Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not To Be (1942). A bleakly funny comedy about a Polish theatre troupe fighting back against the Nazis.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
New York City Ballet, Sept. 28, 2014
I am happy to report that Peter Martins is currently keeping the Balanchine repertory in pretty good shape, which has not always been the case. Perhaps Martins has come to realize that the artistic failure of most post-Balanchine works has made it necessary to keep the Balanchine ballets at a high artistic level, if only to keep an audience while we wait for the next great choreographer, who is not likely to be Martins or Wheeldon or Ratmansky. Sunday's performance of four Balanchine works was a delight, even if I have a slight quibble with an all-Tchaikovsky program, with too many predictable tours jetes and chaine turns.
The sisterhood of the corps in Serenade, which has expanded through the years as Balanchine expanded the choreography, is in its anonymity one of the most moving images we have in all ballet.
Arlene Croce
Serenade, originally done in 1935, looks as fresh and modern as ever. Balanchine reversed the order of the last two movements, making an emotionally complex work, the narrative of which lies elusively just beyond reach (true of many Balanchine ballets). The roles for men are relatively simple, but elegant, and one can identify with their emotional intensity.
Mozartiana is a world in a bubble....But it will always be Suzanne Farrell's ballet.
Arlene Croce.
Maria Kowroski was wonderful in Mozartiana and it certainly not her fault that she is not Suzanne Farrell. Those of us who were fortunate enough to see Farrell in this last major work that Balanchine did for her will never forget it, especially the audacious off-balance turns that were a Farrell specialty. As I have mentioned before, no doubt Balanchine would have adapted the choreography for different dancers, as he often did.
Tchaikovsky's melancholy is always accounted for, not only as the pervasive mood of his Andantes and Elegies but as a persistent aura edging even his brightest moments.
Arlene Croce.
This is an appropriate insight into Tchaikovsky Suite # 3, where life (both Tchaikovsky's and Balanchine's) are transferred into art. The melancholy of the first three movements may be about the women in Tchaikovsky's life -- his mother, who died when he was young; his sister and her two children, his disastrous marriage to Antonia Milyukova -- but also about the four women Balanchine married and the one, Suzanne Farrell, who he did not wed. But as the scrim is removed from the stage and Theme and Variations starts it is clear we are out of the realm of fantasy and ghosts and into a thrilling ballroom of love and partners that can, at least temporarily, overcome melancholy. When Joaquin De Luz does his tours en l'air, followed by multiple pirouettes, happiness reigns.
.
Sunday's performance also included Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, a short piece to an original part of the Swan Lake score, which demonstrates how Balanchine saw men and women: as equal partners who can thrive together and individually. The entire day's performance was conducted by Clotilde Otranto, who had the orchestra sounding quite lovely.
The sisterhood of the corps in Serenade, which has expanded through the years as Balanchine expanded the choreography, is in its anonymity one of the most moving images we have in all ballet.
Arlene Croce
Serenade, originally done in 1935, looks as fresh and modern as ever. Balanchine reversed the order of the last two movements, making an emotionally complex work, the narrative of which lies elusively just beyond reach (true of many Balanchine ballets). The roles for men are relatively simple, but elegant, and one can identify with their emotional intensity.
Mozartiana is a world in a bubble....But it will always be Suzanne Farrell's ballet.
Arlene Croce.
Maria Kowroski was wonderful in Mozartiana and it certainly not her fault that she is not Suzanne Farrell. Those of us who were fortunate enough to see Farrell in this last major work that Balanchine did for her will never forget it, especially the audacious off-balance turns that were a Farrell specialty. As I have mentioned before, no doubt Balanchine would have adapted the choreography for different dancers, as he often did.
Tchaikovsky's melancholy is always accounted for, not only as the pervasive mood of his Andantes and Elegies but as a persistent aura edging even his brightest moments.
Arlene Croce.
This is an appropriate insight into Tchaikovsky Suite # 3, where life (both Tchaikovsky's and Balanchine's) are transferred into art. The melancholy of the first three movements may be about the women in Tchaikovsky's life -- his mother, who died when he was young; his sister and her two children, his disastrous marriage to Antonia Milyukova -- but also about the four women Balanchine married and the one, Suzanne Farrell, who he did not wed. But as the scrim is removed from the stage and Theme and Variations starts it is clear we are out of the realm of fantasy and ghosts and into a thrilling ballroom of love and partners that can, at least temporarily, overcome melancholy. When Joaquin De Luz does his tours en l'air, followed by multiple pirouettes, happiness reigns.
.
Sunday's performance also included Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, a short piece to an original part of the Swan Lake score, which demonstrates how Balanchine saw men and women: as equal partners who can thrive together and individually. The entire day's performance was conducted by Clotilde Otranto, who had the orchestra sounding quite lovely.
Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins by Noah Isenberg
This month Turner Classic Movies is showing five films by Edgar Ulmer and Noah Isenberg's book (University of California Press, 2014) is a useful companion. Ulmer was born in Vienna in 1904 and was always an outsider, making Yiddish and African-American films and spending most his career at Poverty-Row studio PRC (Producers Releasing Company), followed (after the demise of the B-picture) by years of wandering and exile. For those of us who care relatively little about production values and so-called "star" actors Ulmer is an impressive and passionate director who made bleak films under difficult circumstances and produced an impressive body of personal work, often about those on the margins of society. The films on Turner are:
Her Sister's Secret (1946). Isenberg quotes Jan-Christopher Horak, in a survey of German exile cinema: For a B-picture the film demonstrated an unusual sensitivity for the complexity of human emotions, for the giddiness of great love affairs, for the difficulty of motherhood and for the barely repressed jealousy of siblings. The film is beautiful and moving.
Carnegie Hall (1947). Isenberg writes: Ulmer captured not merely the spirit of the hall and its evocative grandeur but the international spirit of American musical culture of the late 19th and early 20th century. There are 18 performers in the film, of which only two were born in the U.S., and there are wonderful performances by Rise Stevens and Jascha Heifetz, among many others. One might consider the framing story corny (it is, somewhat) but the music is glorious.
Murder is My Beat (1955). Isenberg says, about this film (and it could also be said about a number of other Ulmer films): The film exudes an air of rawness, its players and settings notably gruff and downtrodden, a relatively accurate reflection of the bargain-basement production.
Detour (1945). This is simply one of the great films noir. It was made for PRC with basically two actors and some back projection and captures the mood of America when the war ends, as well as Ulmer's fatalistic views. As Isenberg says: Indeed, the tawdry confined nature of the film is reflected in the characterization of its protagonists.
The Amazing Transparent Man (1960). Isenberg writes: Underpinning the larger drama that ensues in the act of becoming invisible -- and the break-in at a local power plant made possible only because of the invisibility -- is the gathering threat of nuclear disaster.
My other favorite Ulmer films, which I hope TCM will show soon, include Ruthless (1948) a low-budget answer to Citizen Kane, and Naked Dawn (1955), a bizarre and beautiful Western. One can read more about Ulmer in John Belton's Howard Hawks, Frank Borzage, Edgar Ulmer (The Tantivy Press, 1974), and Peter Bogdanovitch's Who the Devil Made It (Knopf,1997) includes a long and fascinating interview with Ulmer.
Her Sister's Secret (1946). Isenberg quotes Jan-Christopher Horak, in a survey of German exile cinema: For a B-picture the film demonstrated an unusual sensitivity for the complexity of human emotions, for the giddiness of great love affairs, for the difficulty of motherhood and for the barely repressed jealousy of siblings. The film is beautiful and moving.
Carnegie Hall (1947). Isenberg writes: Ulmer captured not merely the spirit of the hall and its evocative grandeur but the international spirit of American musical culture of the late 19th and early 20th century. There are 18 performers in the film, of which only two were born in the U.S., and there are wonderful performances by Rise Stevens and Jascha Heifetz, among many others. One might consider the framing story corny (it is, somewhat) but the music is glorious.
Murder is My Beat (1955). Isenberg says, about this film (and it could also be said about a number of other Ulmer films): The film exudes an air of rawness, its players and settings notably gruff and downtrodden, a relatively accurate reflection of the bargain-basement production.
Detour (1945). This is simply one of the great films noir. It was made for PRC with basically two actors and some back projection and captures the mood of America when the war ends, as well as Ulmer's fatalistic views. As Isenberg says: Indeed, the tawdry confined nature of the film is reflected in the characterization of its protagonists.
The Amazing Transparent Man (1960). Isenberg writes: Underpinning the larger drama that ensues in the act of becoming invisible -- and the break-in at a local power plant made possible only because of the invisibility -- is the gathering threat of nuclear disaster.
My other favorite Ulmer films, which I hope TCM will show soon, include Ruthless (1948) a low-budget answer to Citizen Kane, and Naked Dawn (1955), a bizarre and beautiful Western. One can read more about Ulmer in John Belton's Howard Hawks, Frank Borzage, Edgar Ulmer (The Tantivy Press, 1974), and Peter Bogdanovitch's Who the Devil Made It (Knopf,1997) includes a long and fascinating interview with Ulmer.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)