47 thoughts on “July 14, 2012: All Those Strikeouts”

  1. Last night was an entertaining game. Not the best baseball was played because it looked like some players still had some rust from the ASB, but at least one could watch the game to the 9th inning and still had hop for a win.

    2. It sucked to lose a game with the kind of performances they got from Liriano and Willingham, but it may have been the best thing in the long run. Liriano probably greatly boosted his trade value while the Twins still lost to prevent much thought of another second-half comeback from happening, so TR will not be tempted to keep him in hopes of a playoff run.

  2. Artists - you gotta love 'em.

    WSJ Interview with Yayoi Kusama on her oeuvre:

    WSJ: What do you think of when you are in the process of making your paintings and sculptures?

    YK: I do not think anything particular.

      1. Frankly, it's a kind of a lazy question--like something a high school journo might ask. This is a woman that has been making art for nearly 70 years. I'd imagine the art making process is as natural as breathing to someone of Kusama's stature. Creating art is what she does. (Also, does process mean from germination of idea to completion, or just the actual time in the studio?) My stock response response to someone who asks, "How long did it take to do that?" is: "My whole life."

        I won't claim to know what any other artist is "thinking" while they're working, but from my own experience, when things are rolling and you are in a groove, the time just zips by. It's almost like being in a trance. 6, 7, 8 hours gone and my only concrete thoughts might have been something as simple as, "I'm gonna need more Cobalt Blue," or "I love this album," or maybe, "I'm hungry." In other words, "I do not think anything particular."

        What say you, meat?

        1. As a fellow artist (loosely define, maybe), I can agree with that. The inspiration to create came way before the actual creation.

          1. The inspiration to create came way before the actual creation.

            This. It's what I tried to say with a hundred and fifty words. 😉

            1. Yep, I agree too. For me, a work feels like a found object, much as Stephen King says in On Writing. By the time I start writing, I'm not creating...I'm just unearthing it.

              I had no idea that the artist above was a master of seventy years, however. That makes a potentially frivolous question seem that much lamer.

        2. At first blush the quote sent me into a bit of a rage, but then I began to think about how I am when I'm making serious progress on my work. I really don't notice what's happening around me, and my focus is so laser intense that I don't second guess myself. If I find myself thinking while making then I know I'm in trouble. This is a much more brief response than I intended, but still without intertubes and typing from a phone isnt going to get this thought out right.

    1. Interesting to see how this birth of an Indian middle class and their developing social and political awareness is shaped by media (and social media). Probably not a whole lot different than America in the 1940's & 50's?

  5. Rick Reilly, writing perhaps the most honest thing he ever wrote:

    In 1986, I spent a week in State College, Pa., researching a 10-page Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year piece on Joe Paterno.

    It was supposed to be a secret, but one night the phone in my hotel room rang. It was a Penn State professor, calling out of the blue.

    "Are you here to take part in hagiography?" he said.

    "What's hagiography?" I asked.

    "The study of saints," he said. "You're going to be just like the rest, aren't you? You're going to make Paterno out to be a saint. You don't know him. He'll do anything to win. What you media are doing is dangerous."

    Jealous egghead, I figured.

    What an idiot I was.

    You know what's really idiotic? The fact that our country places such import on sports that a football coach can basically run a state university and the administration will back down to his wishes. I say that the correct response is not to put Penn State on probation or even give them the death sentence (although I'm totally in favor of that). The correct response is to uncouple our universities from the sports industry. Fuck a college football playoff. Screw the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. End it all.

    If there's an appetite for sporting events on a grand stage, and there is, pay the players. Professional sports has its problems. There are bad actors there, too. But, at least they are not infecting our institutions of higher learning.

    Big time college sports is a cesspool. It is an American embarrassment. It's time we get rid of it.

    1. Preach it!

      One question, though. Are we talking all college sports or just "big time" college sports? I would say if a particular sport has a viable pro league, then it could be gone. Force the NFL/NBA (etc.) to create a solid minor league, instead.

        2. Well, college sports wouldn't need to collapse without the revenue-generating sports if they just followed the lead of D2/D3 athletics and focused on modest budgets and regional competition. Which is probably more in line with what college athletics should be anyway.

          I'm all about getting rid of million-dollar coaches and the TV revenue and all the hoopla, but I hope we don't lose the baby with the bathwater.

          2. I will point to Ultimate everywhere and rugby (e.g., at Cal) as models for the way forward. Club sports, founded on a shoestring but built up through dedicated participants and alums.

          3. counter-point: where did "big-time" college sports come from? Well, they came from small-time college sports. They grew rather organically into the monsters that we know today, out of the self-interests of participants who wanted to winwinwin.

            The only reason that the system is so dependent on revenue sports is because of the way Title IX has been implemented -- sucking off the tit of football and men's basketball. (and I am a major supporter of Title IX). As ubes rightly points out, there are other models, namely the D3 (I don't include D2 -- that division is mostly DI wannabees) level and the club sport movement.

              1. those bastards should get the death penalty. Except that that would cost other schools too many wins.

                1. I'm pretty sure they won a conference soccer game back in 2008 for the first time in years. I only remember because they beat Cal Lutheran (the year after my brother graduated after having played for four years) and he was calling all of his buddies in shame.

            2. I would propose that "big-time" college athletics really stem from the self-interests of college alumni who want to brag to their buddies that their laundry outperformed someone else's laundry. I don't think it's really the participants that drove the system to become a monster, it's the people in the stands, which became people watching on TV, which led to be TV contracts, etc. Truth be told, I'm not really sure how to address that problem, but I do think it's a problem for college athletics.

              My thinking on Title IX has come around to the position that there are just too many football scholarships. I don't care how many specialized positions you want to create in the sport, if they limited football teams to 11 full scholarships per school (hell, even 22), then there would be a lot more scholarships to go around for other male athletes. (Lowering college tuition wouldn't hurt, either.)

              I think the NCAA should just create a toxic environment for the "student" athletes that aren't really there to be students. Make it a requirement that to hold an athletic scholarship, you have to be in the top half of your class, and actually enforce some academic standards. Require them to take independent third-party tests at the end of the year to keep their scholarships if you need to. If a lot of talented NFL/NBA prospects can't even get on the field/court, then it forces the NFL and NBA to make some real choices about whether they should pay for their own minor league system.

              It also wouldn't hurt if there were some cost controls on coaching salaries. Hell, maybe there should be term limits on head coaching jobs. That would actually seem to be a pretty natural consequence of this whole Paterno fiasco. If coaches are leaving the university every four years, then they wouldn't have the sort of unchecked power that Paterno seemed to have. Sure, the level of coaching would suffer somewhat, but it could be a worthwhile price to pay. Having term limits on coaching jobs could also restore some parity to college football and basketball. Even with good recruits, a bad coach can sink a team. Boosters might even be less willing to shell out money under the table (money which makes it hard to consider CFB or CBB an even playing field) if they don't have a coach they can trust.

  6. a little brag time: this teaser trailer (and the short film on which it is based) was filmed, edited, partly written by the Boy (in collaboration with a film studies friend of his)

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyMZn23MFas

    1. Cool. Unrelated to the video - when does he start school and will there be time for a mini-caucus? assuming you're helping him move...

      1. We will be in the Vaterland over Labor Day weekend, but the timing is unfortunately very tight. Prolly will be ensconced with the family when not dumping his stuff on the sidewalk shedding tears on campus.

        That said, I will see whether I can leverage a couple of hours out on sunday, sept. 2 for a mini, in case others might be interested.

  7. In anticipation of this, how about we go back to the beginning?
    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRgfipzWmo0#!

    1. I was at my favorite used book store yesterday and ran across Bill the Wonder Boy, a comic book bio of Milton "Bill" Finger. It was very, uh, uncomplimentary of Bob Keane/Kane, the guy who reaped most of the financial gains from "creating" Batman.

      The comic book industry was one sleazy business back in the day. Like so many other creative businesses (e.g., music).

      2. Yesterday in H-ford there was some kind of comic book event going on (I think at the Civic Center). Many younglings walking around downtown dressed in costumes, blue hair, etc.

      1. I know it's been beaten to death around here, but it bears repeating.

        Joe Mauer has been getting on base more than any other American League player in 2012.

        What in the hell is everyone's problem??

        1. The problem here is that Tom Verducci had to put together some second half projection videos for each team and he doesn't know shit about the Twins.

        2. re: nibbish's first comment in the thread. The Oaktown squawkers got into the act tonight, making comments about how he's a good hitter and all, but oh! that contract and lack of HRs and ribeyes.

    2. I was going to turn it off when I saw "Verducci", but I at least watched until the Pluff comment.

  9. In something completely unrelated, how about them Knickerbockers?

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