Kool Thing(s) of the Week #1

This is a test run of a new feature designed to break up the monotony of posting nothing but blog essays full of words. It will also hopefully provide a minor diversion from the drag that Mondays often are. The "kool things" presented here will often be music related, but not exclusively so. The scope will be broader to include amusing video clips, humorous pictures of cats, and entertaining articles found on the Information Superhighway. So, off we go.

Animal Collective: "Today's Supernatural"

On September 4, the 'saviors of American indie music' better known as Animal Collective will release a new album, Centipede Hz-- their first since 2009's 'breakthrough' Merriweather Post Pavilion. "Today's Supernatural" is the lead-off single from Centipede Hz, and it sounds unquestionably like Animal Collective. The song incorporates a lot of the more swirling, unhinged qualities that the band reveled in during the pre-Merriweather days. Bizarre sounds emerge seemingly at random, and the melody continuously shifts, which keeps the song engaging for the duration. Hopefully the new album will follow suit. 

Tame Impala: "Elephant"

Technically, this song came out last week, but since this is the first edition of "Kool Thing," I thought I'd add it anyway. Tame Impala are a psych-rock band from Australia who put out a stellar LP (Innerspeaker) back in 2010. This track will be on their forthcoming album Lonerism, which is due out in early October. "Elephant" is anchored by a steady, dense groove that is tonally heavy and hazy. Even my guitar-hating, lyric-loathing roommate likes this song, so that's probably a good sign. 

Oldies Corner

Pavement: "Fillmore Jive" (Live in Deutschland, 1994)

I ran across this live version of the closing track from Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain a couple of years ago, but it managed to find its way back into my life in the last week. This may be my favorite live version of any Pavement song, which is really saying something. It begins with a portion of "Dark Ages" (a rare number which appeared on the CR, CR reiusse), then weaves into a perfectly imperfect rendition of the song that best captures how the band could be so funny and forlorn and frustrated all at the same time. Scott "Spiral Stairs" Kannberg's awkward screaming and Stephen Malkmus's closing whisper of the word "peppermint" from behind his guitar are added bonuses. 

Let’s Talk About the Olympics

We’ve all been there. You’re on your way to a Pokémon convention in a faraway town, riding down the elevator to the hotel ballroom with a gray-haired man who looks like he’s headed to a talk on new developments in the field of accountancy. Then, suddenly, the earth shakes, the lights flicker, and the lift rattles to a stop. And now you’re trapped, potentially for many excruciating hours, with a stranger who doesn’t know the first thing about ‘catching them all.’ Okay. So maybe this isn’t the best example. But there are plenty of instances in which you are forced to (or want to) make small talk with the person nearest you. You may find yourself on a first date with someone you met on OK-Cupid when your delightful description of how you can fit all six of your cats into one flower pot falls flat, or maybe you’re sitting in a crowded waiting room of the dentist’s office and you don’t feel up to perusing last month’s issue of Good Housekeeping for a third time. What can you talk about? The weather, especially at this point in a heat wave without end, is played out (“Can you believe how hot it is?”). And just as your mother advised, you should probably leave the politics and religion at home.

Instead, for the next three weeks, why not talk about the upcoming Summer Olympics? The quadrennial event, which officially kicks off Friday evening (27 July), brings everyone on the planet together (at least, theoretically and temporarily), so it should be a topic that just about any citizen of the world can chime in on. If you’re like me, you’ve spent the last few weeks tracking American qualifying events in swimming, overloading your brain on BBC America programming, and ‘picking up the pace’ while you jog around the neighborhood envisioning yourself on the way to a podium and a blaring “Star-Spangled Banner.”  But if you’re not as into the Games as I am, fear not. Just drop some of these fun Olympic facts into a conversation and you’ll be able to make fast friends (or lovers) with whomever you converse. (Results may vary):

• The 2012 Summer Olympic Games are based in London, which is a city in England, which is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which is located to the northwest of the European Continent. Athletes from this nation will be identified as representing only “Great Britain” when competing, but don’t let that fool you—a few Northern Irish folks may be mixed in there as well.
• This Olympiad will be the third hosted by London (the others being in 1908 and 1948), making the English capital the first city to hold three modern Games. (Take that, Athens).
• Speaking of Greece, they actually came up with the idea for this whole thing, long before the modern Olympics began in 1896. The first real Olympiad is said to have taken place in 776 B.C. at Olympia (and appear to have continued there until 394 A.D. when Christian rulers grew weary of all the pagan-loving going on). There were three other Pan-Hellenic sporting contests (the Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian Games), but the Games at Olympia were the most important on the calendar, which is why they were the basis for the modern games when they were resurrected in the late 19^th century. Much of the new formulation of the Olympics hearkened back to the idea of opposing city-states (later, countries), laying down arms, peacefully competing against each other in athletic pursuits.
• There is no evidence that beach volleyball was part of the program during the ancient Games. The majority of the early events were foot races of different lengths, though sports like wrestling and boxing were later added.
• A leaked music playlist for Friday’s Opening Ceremony includes The Beatles, The Stones, Bowie, Queen, Zeppelin, The Who, Duran Duran, Oasis, Adele, MIA, and Coldplay, which appears to be the United Kingdom’s way of telling the world, “You may beat us on the track and in the pool, but you will never beat us in music that gets overplayed on the radio.”

• In the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the United States took home the most medals overall (110), while host country China won the most gold medals (51). The total medal count should once again be tight between these two countries, which will hopefully not sour Sino-American relations (apparently they make a lot of our stuff).
• At these Games, more than 10,000 athletes will represent 205 countries, which is actually a figure more than there are members of the United Nations (193).
• Newly formed South Sudan has not yet established a National Olympic Committee (understandable), so its lone athlete will compete in track and field independently under the Olympic flag.
• For an ‘off-beat’ course for your conversation, look to handball, BMX biking, judo, trampoline, women’s boxing (first-time event), or the original ‘alt’-est sport of all, Table Tennis (aka “Ping Pong”).
• While the International Olympic Committee has yet to include American Football (shame) and it has recently eliminated baseball from its program, you can still cheer on American professional athletes like LeBron, Kobe, and Kevin Durant as the U.S. Men’s Basketball team looks to take gold once again, so long as they don’t get tripped up by Spain or Argentina. Some are saying this squad might be as impressive of a collection of talent as the 1992 Dream Team. I’m not holding my breath—just call me when they beat somebody by more than 68 points.
• Sixteen-time medalist Michael Phelps will be likely finishing up his Olympic swimming career at these Games, but he should be pushed by fellow American Ryan Lochte to take home buckets of gold yet again. The two will swim head-to-head (not literally, it’s more like arm-to-arm, or lane-to-lane?) in the 200-meter and 400-meter individual medleys. “Even the water won’t be able to cool off this heated rivalry,” says some terrible television commentator sometime in the next two weeks.
• Women’s soccer (football to the rest of the world) also looks to be a bright spot for the U.S., as the squad will attempt to capture its third straight Olympic gold medal, making the fact that the men’s team couldn’t even qualify for the Games even more pathetic.
• On the track, Usain Bolt of Jamaica will attempt to win both the 100- and 200-meter races for the second time, and retain his title as ‘the fastest man in the world.’ I have no jokes to add; this guy is just ridiculously fast.

So, there you have it. If you want to know more, there are plenty of resources out there to provide the ins-and-outs of archery and synchronized swimming (this font of knowledge can only be so deep). But remember, if you get stuck unable to recall any of these facts to strike up a conversation, revert to a timeless joke about the quality of British cuisine (blood sausage, anyone?). Or just talk in a British accent and everything will be fine.  Everyone loves a British accent. 

O Feeny, Where Art Thou: Revisiting "Boy Meets World"

In the song “No Sentiment” from the (quite excellent) 2012 Cloud Nothings album Attack on Memory, lead singer Dylan Baldi wails: “No nostalgia/No sentiment/We’re over it now/We were over it then.” While I can’t profess to know exactly what Baldi seems so frustrated about, the lyrics can be taken as an apt indictment of the obsession the so-called 'Millennial Generation' has with all things nostalgia. Whether it’s old school Nickelodeon cartoons or the mimicry of falsely remembered synthetic soundscapes from the 1980s, there is a never-ending strain to reach back to halcyon days in which the main concern was getting permission to stay up an thirty extra minutes. This obsessive rumination is not at all unique to this generation, nor is it a surprising characteristic for humans to want to reminisce about better days—especially given the current economic crisis and impending Mayan Apocalypse. But the new ways in which we have access to the trinkets of our past makes our age categorically different. Somewhere out there, you can find any movie, TV show, or song that you've ever heard (usually without much effort) and take yourself back to those times when you first experienced it.

I have spent the better part of the last three months watching every single episode of the show Boy Meets World. And I can’t say exactly why, other than I must possess the same strings that pull me towards the warm glow of the 1990s as the rest of my Millennial brethren. Boy Meets World, which initially aired Friday nights on ABC from September 24, 1993, to May 5, 2000, amassed 158 episodes over seven seasons, which is an impressive run for just about any TV show.  The storyline centered around protagonist Cory Matthews (“Boy”), a very average suburban kid, as he entered “World,” juggling friendships (Shawn), romance (Topanga), siblings (Eric and Morgan), parents (Alan and Amy), and teachers (basically just Mr. Feeny) from 6^th grade until his sophomore year of college. Other shows that have been dug up lately like Saved by the Bell (which ran from 1989 to 1993) and Full House (1987 to 1995) were mainstays around my house for much of the ‘90s, yet I was too young to experience the entirety of these series when they first appeared. I eventually saw every episode of those shows in syndication, but I don’t have the same feelings towards them because I wasn’t growing up alongside them. Boy Meets World feels different because I remember when it began and I remember when it ended. I can think of no other television show that spanned most of my adolescence and always remained in the background for a lot of my ‘growing up.’

So, I wasn’t sure what to expect from full immersion in a series that had left my life a decade ago. Would it be as good as I had remembered it? Would watching this show force my mind to revert back to its 11-year-old iteration?  During the course of my viewing (thanks to DVR), I was able to know the original air date for each episode, which prompted my mind to postulate what I was doing when these episodes first aired. Truthfully, I have lost most concrete memories of exactly what I was up to when these episodes came on, but I did remember a lot of the plots and I generally was aware of where I was when I watched them (at home in the throes of middle school angst, no doubt). So while the experience didn’t bring back a lot of flashbacks, it did reignite a lot of the feelings associated with those times. Mostly I remember how it felt stay up on a Friday night (TGIF) and not have to worry about going to school the next day. I remember getting to eat pizza and chicken nuggets. In my world of schedules and control administered by grown-ups, Friday night television provided a small feeling of freedom that I relished in, even if I was just sitting at home watching television.

Since I have (somewhat) matured since these episodes originally aired, my evaluation of the show itself is different than it once was. I still think it’s pretty fantastic, particularly the first four seasons. It never felt forced, it was consistently funny, and it created engaging dynamics between the protagonist and the other people in his world. It was, in my estimation, a portrayal of growing up that struck a skillful balance between realism and idealization. Sure, it wasn’t like watching a videotape of my own life, but there was enough truth there to create a universe that I could relate to and laugh at in the safe confines of my own home.

There was no struggle on my part to watch the first four seasons—in fact, it was difficult to get me to stop watching. But then came season five (which livened things up by throwing one of Joey Lawrence’s younger brothers into the mix), in which the show began to display obvious signs of strain. In particular, the episode “No Guts, No Cory,” which first aired on November 7, 1997, felt like the show’s ‘jump the shark’ moment. While there certainly had been elements of implausibility and fantasy on the show before (like the episode where Cory kind of turns into a werewolf), the show had previously been based in something that felt wholly bounded in reality. This episode abandons that principle entirely, as we are greeted by Salem the Cat from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Why Salem is here, on the wrong show, I cannot say, but this talking cat decides to transport the entire cast to the 1940s in the midst of World War II. The plot is muddled, but it predictably revolves around Cory doing something to get back with Topanga. After this episode, things start to hit the proverbial fan and the show’s writers noticeably begin to throw everything at the wall to see what would stick. For example:

·         Previously ‘chill’ older brother Eric, turns into an insufferable, brainless dolt (who also happens to be an expert in art history for an episode, then later gets fat for comic effect);

·         There is a murder mystery episode, modeled after Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer featuring Jennifer Love Hewitt (who apparently dated Will Friedle (Eric) at the time);

·          Once he is discovered as a great actor, Eric gets his own TV show in Hollywood (self-referentially titled “Kid Gets Acquainted With Universe”);

·          The main characters conveniently graduate high school two years earlier than they should have so we can go ahead and move on to the bigger, better world of college;

·         Shawn’s father dies and returns in several episodes as a ghost in order to provide guidance to his son;

·         There is the time-honored tradition of adding a baby to save a struggling show when Amy gets pregnant (which she seems to neglect for the remainder of the series); also, there’s the addition of red-headed Rachel for the final two seasons for no real reason; and

·         Yet another visit to the 1940s occurs when Topanga gets sucked through a time portal in the closet into a Casablanca-esque piano bar (no, really).

One scenario, in particular, serves as a fitting microcosm of the trouble with the latter days of Boy Meets World. In “Road Trip” from season six, Shawn, in an attempt to cope with his father’s death, takes Cory along in his family’s motor home where he reveals to his best friend that he is going away for good. Because I care about these characters and because this course of events is important to the overall story, I am engaged in how this occurrence will play out. But then, out of nowhere, we are introduced to a desperate band of singing ladies called Nobody’s Angel (a real group, it turns out). They perform a full song and dance that goes on forever while Cory and Shawn sit mouths agape in awe of this out-of-nowhere discovery of musical genius. There is no irony here and the whole episode feels awkward and off-putting. I could barely watch. Moments like this one, along with the shameless efforts to incorporate timely pop culture references (Eric can do all the South Park voices!), really made the last few seasons a chore to watch. By the final seasons, the show and its characters were  like houseguests, once welcome, who now just wouldn’t leave.

There is no denying that Boy Meets World, even in its dying days, had some great moments. The finale, in particular, adequately captured the emotion behind saying goodbye and provided a sense of closure (even if the characters were only moving 70 miles away under somewhat dubious circumstances). During its run, the show managed to be humorous and morally grounded without pandering to more base interests (at least initially). Mr. Feeny really did provide some great advice that never felt like a public service announcement. My attachment to the show arose mostly from the characters, since seeing a group of people once a week for seven years makes you feel like you know them personally (this explains why I still watch The Office).  Knowing people often makes it hard to walk away, no matter how shoddy the scripts become. I felt pangs of sadness when I hit the “Delete” button on the final episode and banished Boy Meets World once again. But I must acknowledge that many moments, especially at the end, were not easy to enjoy.

Thus, this experience taught me that there is a time and a place for looking back. We can learn from nostalgia, but only so much. Just because something happened in the past and makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside when we think about it does not necessarily make it good or worthy of spending all of our time fawning over it. Eventually you have to let go and move on. At least, I think that’s what Mr. Feeny would recommend.

Endless Cycle: Watching the Post-Armstrong Tour de France

On Wednesday, July 11, the popular television sports network known as ESPN held its 20^th annual ESPY Awards (Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly) at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. This event was purposefully scheduled on this date to fill the void on one of the very few days of the year in which the professional playing fields of the United States are left entirely fallow. No major American professional sports league held any contests on this day, due in part to the fact that Major League Baseball was in the midst of its annual All-Star Break. (Major League Soccer did in fact sponsor one match, as Toronto FC defeated the Vancouver Whitecaps, but this, of course, took place in Canada).  Holding the ESPYs on a sports-less day makes good sense, as it ensures that superstars of the sporting world will be available to receive their awards in person (and smile on camera above an ESPN logo), and it guarantees the fans who would otherwise be watching the Astros and Cubs battle it out will be available to tune in. While this event may not yet possess the same cachet as the Oscars, the athletes in attendance show that it is indeed a legitimate big-time affair and a fitting occasion for Americans to take a step back and reflect on what has transpired in sports over the past year.

Half a world away, just hours before the kickoff of this grand fête of sport-soaked retrospection, 33-year-old Thomas Voeckler won Stage 10 in the 99^th edition of the Tour de France in impressive fashion. Voeckler, a Frenchman and member of Team Europcar, took the day with a finishing time of 4 hours, 46 minutes and 26 seconds, besting the day’s runner-up by nearly three minutes. While many Americans were busy lamenting the fact there were ‘no sports’ to watch on July 11, 2012, 175 cyclists made the nearly 195-kilometer trek from the city of Mâcon, up the towering Col du Grand Colombier in the Jura Mountains, and into the placid commune of Bellegarde-sur-Valserine.

In the grand scheme of things, Stage 10 will not go down as an especially memorable stretch of the 2012 Tour. It lacked the excitement of crowning a new overall race leader, as British rider Bradley Wiggins maintained the yellow jersey for yet another day. It lacked the chaotic drama of Stage 14, in which some ‘hooligans’ tossed tacks onto the road, wreaking havoc on rubber tires and leaving last year’s winner, Cadel Evans, desperately searching for new wheels in the middle of the race. Yet, the juxtaposition of cycling’s only name-brand event against America’s ‘day off’ from sports underlies the fact that Americans seem increasingly divorced from the Tour de France, even when it may be one of the most engaging sporting events in the world.

American interest in cycling, while never in danger of dampening the nation’s economic productivity level, has certainly seen better days, due almost exclusively to the absence of seven-time Tour champion Lance Armstrong. Armstrong occupied a unique space in American sport at his prime—he had survived a harrowing battle with cancer, launched an ultra-successful brand in Livestrong, and was romantically involved with Sheryl Crow. The fact that he completely dominated his sport didn’t hurt either. Armstrong temporarily retired after his 2005 Tour victory, returning again in 2009 (finishing third overall) and 2010 (finishing 23^rd) before leaving the sport for good. While there was a ratings boon in the U.S. when Armstrong was around, it has been difficult in the wake of his retirement to get many American TV sets on the Tour, especially without another homegrown star ready to take his place. While American Tejay Van Garderen has remained in the overall top 10 since the early stages of this year’s Tour (and may take home the white jersey as ‘best young rider’), he has a long way to go before his name reaches ‘household’ status. Accusations of and positive tests for doping also have not helped the stature of the sport on this side of the pond. Americans are exhausted from the airing of dirty laundry from baseball’s steroid era, so it’s understandable that they wouldn’t want to get too attached to a sport where similar drug-related issues have recently run rampant. Just a couple of days ago, in fact, one of the sport’s ‘stars’ from Luxembourg, Frank Schleck, (who was 12^th overall at the time) was forced to withdraw from the Tour after testing positive for a banned diuretic. As a result of these kinds of occurrences, a dark cloud will likely linger over the sport for years to come.

Even with these challenges and the absence of notable American interest, the Tour is still an incredible and unique event on the sporting calendar. This year’s edition began in Liège, Belgium and will end, as it usually does, at the Champs-Elysées in Paris this Sunday. When they finish, the riders will have covered a total of 3,496.9 kilometers (2,173 miles)—a distance equivalent to driving from Wilmington, NC to Flagstaff, Arizona. It’s an incredible feat of physical prowess just to finish the course, putting your body through the hell of hours of competitive cycling, up mountains and down mountains, day in and day out for three weeks. Those who can do it better than anyone else should be lauded as members of a very elite class of athletes in the world (so long as they weren’t cheating).

Thanks to the NBC Sports Network, American viewers have had the opportunity to watch live footage of each day’s stage every morning (or they can come back later for one of the countless repeats featured throughout the day). Watching the Tour is unlike seeing any other sporting event, largely because of the extreme emphasis on natural landscape in its coverage. While other sports—read: golf—have idyllic vistas and prominently feature natural scenery as part of the experience (think of iconic settings at Augusta National and Pebble Beach), no televised sporting event spends more time zooming out to take in pastures, mountains, brooks, and coastlines than the Tour de France. Some of the most breathtaking moments of the event have nothing to do with people or bicycles, but viewing the world from above, looking down on a medieval church or out to an endless expanse of wheat fields, or to a quaint French village. While the Goodyear Blimp may provide a stunning view of downtown Nashville during a Titans game, this hardly compares to the sight of the crystal blue Mediterranean as cyclists approach Cap d’Agde in the South of France, as they did in this year’s 13^th stage.

Fan interaction is another point of interest in the Tour, an element that often rides the line between Pacers-Pistons ‘Malice at the Palace’ fan involvement and a typically staid golf crowd. The streets of France (as well as the stretches in Belgium and Switzerland) are lined with boisterous spectators wielding signs and flags, donning animal costumes and crazy hats. While some can be spotted perched upon mountain tops or hanging out of windows, fans are mostly right on top of the riders. In some stretches, people are mere inches from the athletes they cheer for, clapping violently in the cyclists’ faces as they pass or running alongside a particular rider until their legs give out. Part of the lore of the Tour is built around tales of spectators colliding with riders (intentional or not), throwing them off bikes and directly altering the outcome of the event. The aforementioned tacking of the roads and ensuing melee in this year’s Tour demonstrates how much spectator interaction can impact a race. The close proximity of fans, along with the ways in which rain and wind can affect the course, gives the Tour an unpredictability that many other sports lack. Sure, the favorites may still come out on top in the end, but a lot of interesting stuff can happen along the way.

It seems unlikely that Americans will ever truly love cycling, no matter how good Tejay Van Garderen turns out to be. There are idiosyncrasies that may make it hard to follow (a complicated jersey color classification system, wtf is a ‘peloton,’ etc.) and it’s never easy to motivate large numbers of people to watch a live sporting event before they head out the door for work on a Monday morning. Nevertheless, the Tour de France is more than worthy of a few minutes of our time, especially in the steamy, drowsy daze of July. At least it will give you something to do while you wait for NFL training camp to start.

Fighting Problems with Bigger Problems: An Introduction

Hello, Reader. This is a blog. I know all too well how awkward introductions can sometimes be, so I’ll try to make this as painless as possible.

Reader, meet blog. Blog, reader.

There, now that we’re superficially acquainted and had the requisite firm handshake, we can get down to the ‘deep’ stuff. This blog has arisen from the charred remains of another blog, which died sometime in 2008 but has been exhumed infrequently since that time, usually just to post year-end album lists. While alive, the blog served its purpose as an outlet for navel-gazing and quizzical thoughts, but it eventually grew stale. I felt this new effort warranted a fresh start and an opportunity to form new first impressions.

The purpose of this blog is no more complex than to give me a public venue to write, which I’ve been doing on the daily for the last few years, resulting in numerous folders on my perpetually dying laptop’s hard drive, as well as mounds of frayed notebooks buried underneath dirty laundry in my closet. Writing has always been an escape for me, a cave of solace where I could get away from school and problems and people and the demands of living life in contemporary society. There, I could order the universe and paint antlered beasts on clay walls without judgment, without having to expose them to the light of day. But I’ve come to see that writing only for the drawer amounts to very little in the end. Eventually one must move from the shadows of the cave and create forms. Eventually one must expose them to light to see what they’re all about.

My intent for this blog is merely to provide an examination and analysis of the things that make the world interesting—ranging from music, sports, and popular culture to politics and big ‘life’ questions. These topics will be covered in a thoughtful, serious/not serious manner that should provide greater illumination than a 140-character thesis could. This concept will be centered on the interaction between the individual and the outside world, so it will contain a mix of first-person perspective and more objective evaluation. Clearly this isn’t a lot to go on, but hopefully it will all work out in the end. I plan to incorporate contributions from some of my talented friends on this blog, since several voices will be significantly more engaging than just my own. I cannot say with certainty how often new items will be posted, but expect them to appear more frequently than once a month but less frequently than once a day.

It may take a while for my eyes to adjust to the light, but hopefully in time these crude cave drawings will transform into something worth seeing.