Walk-Off Balk


There’s this fun website Win Expectancy Finder that determines the likelihood that a baseball team with a lead of X in the Y inning is likely to win the game.

I discovered it in a conversation in salon about one game in which a team with a five-run lead in the sixth inning stole a base. The losing team seemed to think that this was somehow unsporting and (allegedly) threw at a subsequent batter. The WEF shows that a team with a one-run lead in the eighth inning was statistically more likely to win the game than the team in the first scenario, yet no one would chastise a team up 3-2 to try to pad its lead.
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I have a Google alert for Roger Green. What I get a lot of is the Brett Favre drama, with NFL commissioner ROGER Goodell arbitrating between Favre and the GREEN Bay Packers.
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I understand why teams play preseason football games. What I don’t know is why anyone WATCHES them, let alone thinks they’re significant. It’s August; football weather requires at least a sweater. At least when they play hockey in June – another anomaly in my mind – it means something.
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Synchronized librarians.
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I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m intrigued by this guy who you call up and he writes your life story. On a postcard. Any of you done this?
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We had an intern this summer, and she said that this website “captures the essence of Roger”. I think that’s good thing.
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It pains me, it really does, for tI used to ban the very mention of her name from this blog: I’ve begun to see Paris Hilton in a more positive light.
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The Psychology of Color.

ROG

ROG

Songs That Move Me, 20-11

20. Strawberry Letter #23 – Brothers Johnson
Starts off with circus music, then kicks a groove. That swirling sound at the bridge is extraordinary.
Feeling: loving.

19. Eleanore – the Turtles.
The story goes that their record company wanted another “Happy Together”, so the group gave them one. It has the same minor to major transition, very similar – though lovely – harmonies, and the like. So why is this song, rather than “Happy Together” on the list? Two reasons, really. One: HT was really overplayed. Two: the line “you’re my pride and joy, et cet’ra,” a throwaway line if ever I heard one. (It rhymes with “better” or more correctly, “betta”.) Love singing along.
Feeling: swell.

18. Drive My Car – Beatles.
I read once the intricacy of the chord structure. It’s the minor key feel of the verse and major chord feel of the chorus that grabbed me from first hearing. First song that Paul McCartney played in some 23008 concerts.
Feeling: ironic.

17. Isaac Hayes – Shaft
Even before the great vocal comes up, an orchestral delight, as the melody shifts from section to section.
Feeling: damn right.

16. Can We Still Be Friends – Todd Rundgren
The changing meter in the bridge makes it.
feeling: You know the answer is no.

15. Sly & The Family Stone – Hot Fun In The Summertime
Harmonies, shared vocals and an “ooo-Lord” worth waiting for.
Feeling: sweaty.

14. Jerks on the Loose – the Roches.
The album Keep On Doing was produced by Robert Fripp, so there are odd sonic twists and turns throughout. this song has one of my favorite (and used) couplets:
“You work too ard to take this abuse
Be on your guard jerks on the loose.
This 30-second taste (Track 11) hardly gives the full sense of how great this song is.
Feeling: on my guard.

13. (Just Like) Starting Over – John Lennon.
In the fall of 1980, when the single was released, there was a lot of anticipation about it and the forthcoming Double Fantasy album. I didn’t think it was a great song, but it was sort of fun, with that faux Elvis vocal in the beginning of the verse. Then John died, and the irony of the title – we waited five years and THAT had to happen? – made me tear up for months, if not years.
Feeling: still makes me very sad.

12. River – Joni Mitchell.
There’s a lot of Joni I could have picked, but this one, based on Jingle Bells, is just so beautiful. The piano variations at the end seal the deal.
Feeling: longing.

11. In My Room – the Beach Boys.
I liked being in my room when I was a kid. I could entertain myself for hours, reading, looking at my baseball cards and listening to the radio. Yet I was somehow supposed to feel guilty for doing so. Anyway, lives on the vocals, in this case – single voice, then two-part harmony, then full harmony; very effective.
Feeling: cloistered.

ROG

ROG

VIDEO REVIEW: Who Killed the Electric Car?


Back in March, I watched the video of the movie Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006) and have neglected to write about it because I found it so amazingly depressing and infuriating simultaneously. The film, narrated by The West Wing’s Martin Sheen, documented how the Ford Motor Company developed a viable electric vehicle in the mid-1990s, the EV1, that had a small but fervent fan base and was in the process of developing a significant infrastructure to fuel these cars, and then took it away. You’ll see how actors such as Tom Hanks, Ed Begley Jr., and especially Peter Horton of “thirtysomething” were huge advocates for the car, which required minimal maintenance.

Yet, for reasons that are still not clear to me, the car was removed from the marketplace. The people who wanted to keep the cars were unable to do so because the cars were leased to them, and if they didn’t return them to the company, they were threatened with arrest for grand theft auto. Not only were they unable to keep them, they had to stand by helplessly as Ford had these perfectly good cars destroyed. I’m not even a car guy, and I found it utterly painful.

The movie’s director Chris Paine suggests that the blame for the failure of electric cars lies with the car company, the petroleum industry, and the government, among others. He also blame the consumers, and I will take issue with this. For the “sales job” that Ford did on this vehicle was to point out all its deficiencies such as its limited range of miles traveled before refueling, rather than emphasizing the economic and ecological benefits. He gave a pass on the battery, which did have a 40- or 50-mile limit, because it was improved to double that; this information never got to the consumer.

I was watching the news for the past several weeks, and there’s conversation about a new viable electric car, but it seems that the industry wasted the last decade in continuing to be dependent on foreign oil. The argument in the 1990s was that everyone charging their cars wouldn’t work because it’d blow the energy grid. But if people were charging overnight, when demand is less, this argument doesn’t hold water (or gasoline). In any case, a tragedy.

ROG

ROG

EW’s Best 100 books/last 25 years

I almost said, “Why bother?” since I just don’t read that many novels. I read mostly non-fiction – way too much Bob Woodward, and quite a bit of religious material – and older stuff and this list is mostly fiction. But what the heck.

*I read it

1. The Road , Cormac McCarthy (2006)
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000) – my wife started reading Harry Potter just this year. My 17-year-old niece devours them in a day or two. I haven’t read a single page. (I did see the first movie.)
*3. Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987) – quite moving.
4. The Liars’ Club, Mary Karr (1995)
5. American Pastoral, Philip Roth (1997) – I’ve read Roth, but not this.
6. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane (2001) – didn’t see the movie, either.
*7. Maus, Art Spiegelman (1986/1991) – transcendent.
8. Selected Stories, Alice Munro (1996) – I’ve read some of this.
9. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (1997) – no and didn’t see the movie either, though I have the soundtrack.
10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1997)
11. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1997) – my wife owns this; have read some.
12. Blindness, José Saramago (1998)
*13. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1986-87) – quite good.
14. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates (1992). Have read Oates, but not this.
15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers (2000)
*16. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood (1986) – I belonged to a book club in the 1980s and early 1990s. Read 10 books a year in different categories. That’s the only reason I got to read this, which I found quite engrossing, in a depressing ay.
17. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez (1988)
18. Rabbit at Rest, John Updike (1990). Read Updike, not this.
19. On Beauty, Zadie Smith (2005)
20. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding (1998) – saw the movie.
21. On Writing, Stephen King (2000). Actually have never read Stephen King (except various columns, such as the one in EW.)
22. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz (2007)
23. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker (1996)
24. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (1985) – saw the miniseries. Read something of his.
25. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan (1989) – my wife owns the book; saw the movie.
26. Neuromancer, William Gibson (1984)
27. Possession, A.S. Byatt (1990)
28. Naked, David Sedaris (1997)
29. Bel Canto, Anne Patchett (2001)
30. Case Histories, Kate Atkinson (2004)
31. The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien (1990)
32. Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch (1988)
33. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion (2005)
34. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (2002)
35. The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst (2004)
*36. Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt (1996) – AND saw the movie. Bleak.
*37. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (2003) – will see the movie.
38. Birds of America, Lorrie Moore (1998)
39. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri (2000)
40. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (1995-2000)
41. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (1984)
42. LaBrava, Elmore Leonard (1983)
43. Borrowed Time, Paul Monette (1988)
44. Praying for Sheetrock, Melissa Fay Greene (1991)
45. Eva Luna, Isabel Allende (1988)
*46. Sandman, Neil Gaiman (1988-1996) – well, at least big chunks of it.
47. World’s Fair, E.L. Doctorow (1985) – read Ragtime, but not this.
48. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (1998) – started this.
49. Clockers, Richard Price (1992)
50. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen (2001)
51. The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcom (1990)
52. Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan (1992) – read excerpts of it; saw the movie.
53. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon (2000) – borrowed this book THREE years ago, started, got busy, never got back to it.
54. Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware (2000)
55. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls (2006)
56. The Night Manager, John le Carré (1993)
57. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe (1987) – I start LOTS of books.
58. Drop City, TC Boyle (2003)
59. Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat (1995)
60. Nickel & Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich (2001) – had meant to read.
61. Money, Martin Amis (1985)
62. Last Train To Memphis, Peter Guralnick (1994) – this I should read.
63. Pastoralia, George Saunders (2000)
64. Underworld, Don DeLillo (1997)
65. The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993)
66. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace (1997)
67. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (2003) – my wife saw the movie.
68. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (2006)
69. Secret History, Donna Tartt (1992)
70. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (2004)
71. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Ann Fadiman (1997)
72. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon (2003)
73. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving (1989)
74. Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger (1990)
75. Cathedral, Raymond Carver (1983)
76. A Sight for Sore Eyes, Ruth Rendell (1998)
77. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989) – saw the movie.
78. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert (2006)
79. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell (2000) – read some of this
80. Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney (1984)
81. Backlash, Susan Faludi (1991)
82. Atonement, Ian McEwan (2002) – saw the movie
83. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields (1994)
84. Holes, Louis Sachar (1998) – saw the movie.
85. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (2004)
86. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts (1987) – read chunks of this.
87. The Ruins, Scott Smith (2006)
88. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby (1995) – saw the movie.
89. Close Range, Annie Proulx (1999) – read some of this.
*90. Comfort Me With Apples, Ruth Reichl (2001) – only because my wife was reading.
91. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2003)
92. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow (1987) – saw the movie
93. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (1991) – started this.
94. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (2001) – started this.
95. Kaaterskill Falls, Allegra Goodman (1998)
96. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (2003) and didn’t see the movie, either.
97. Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson (1992)
98. The Predators’ Ball, Connie Bruck (1988)
99. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman (1995)
100. America (the Book), Jon Stewart/Daily Show (2004) – own this, have read parts of it.

So what ought I read first from this list?
ROG

ROG
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