Monday, February 22, 2010

Ohno Oops?

   I had to laugh last week after NBC's coverage of Shaun White's snowboarding competition.  I clearly heard the excited exchange between White and one of his coaches after his gold medal was a done deal but before his second run which was going to be essentially a victory lap.
   The next day I read that NBC was apologizing for obscene content that should not have been heard on the air.  I thought darn I must have missed that.  So I read the transcript.  It was the same conversation I had witnessed.  Yes, the S word was uttered.  Obscene?  I don't think so.  Even at the time it seemed normal. And it certainly seemed very normal snowboard speak to be sure, and even super normal what did you expect half pipe talk.  C'mon people!
   All I do know is that if any of my family ever wins an Olympic gold medal NBC had better kill the mic because one of us will no doubt use the F bomb on the air 'cause winning a gold medal is f---ing fantastic!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Olympic Observation

      Plushenko and Lysacek were brilliant in the men's figure skating short program with Lysacek winning the fashion week who are you wearing question answering Vera Wang.  But the Most Entertaining gold is a tie and goes to Johnny Weir - outrageously exciting AND he's good - and Takahiko Kozuka for the best music - Jimi Hendrix's "Bold as Love." (Stravinsky is magnificent, of course, but an electric guitar is just more fun.)

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Positive Potatoes

   Last week I had supper with my friend Bo.  We were due at a meeting at 6:30 and she got home at 6 o'clock.  So we had about fifteen minutes to eat a meal.  We poured a glass of wine but instead of cheese and crackers or a quick sandwich, she decided to cook.
   Bo became my friend because she is from Connecticut.  Finding someone from Connecticut in a small Midwestern town is like discovering diamonds in a corn field.  We both may be from The East (Big Bad East to the Midwesterners) but our worlds weren't exactly adjacent.  She is a frugal Scottish Connecticut Yankee and I am from New Jersey.  She lived outside the gravitational pull of NYC while I was in the thick of it but still, yes loyal Midwesterners, out in "the country."  Midwesterners know intellectually that there are rural parts of the East but in their hearts they want to believe it's one big piece of asphalt. But back to the supper.
   Bo decided to cook a farmer's omelet.  She peeled and sliced potatoes and chopped a Vidalia onion. (She lives alone but buys them in bulk from Georgia. Some kind of a fundraiser.) The veggies went into the cast iron frying pan with a little olive oil and started to cook, fast she hoped, on high heat.  But the onions were caramelizing way too fast (in other words they were burning) and we had to slow it down.
   She chopped some ham and beat a few eggs and the omelet was on its way.  The meal needed to be done in five minutes but that wasn't going to happen. Bo said we have to eat now.  I said but Bo the potatoes aren't cooked yet (one of those Emperor's New Clothes moments.) Bo said that's OK, we'll eat them al dente.
   Al dente.  Brilliant! Now THAT is a true positive attitude.   I can learn so much from Bo.  She has turned many a lemon into lemonade and now her raw potatoes are a gourmet treat. The potatoes were a little crunchy but the omelet was delicious.  And, oh yes, we got to our meeting on time.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Complicated Cohen

   I was excited when they gave a Lifetime Achievement Award to Leonard Cohen at the Grammys last week.  I have loved this Quebecois since Judy Collins sang his "Suzanne" way back when, although I didn't know too much about him.
   About fifteen years later in an old gym in southwest Minnesota I was watching a performance of a group of Norwegian gymnasts.  They were not doing gymnastics as we know it but some sort of group exercise invented by the Chinese (probably) and it was done to music.  One of the songs was beautiful.  I had no clue what it was but the tune became etched into my brain.  And in those pre-Internet times it was not as easy as it is today to track things down.  In fact, it was almost impossible.
   But several years later, I was watching  figure skating on TV. Canadians were skating. In fact, I think it was ice dancing and they were skating to none other than The Song!  The commentators mentioned its nameIt was "Take This Waltz" and it was by Leonard Cohen, the famous Canadian recluse who spent years in a Zen Buddhist monastery near LA.
   Cohen and Bob Dylan are probably the greatest songwriters ever.  They are poets to be sure.  But sometimes, I think Cohen is, well, misunderstood.
   For instance, his "Hallelujah" has been used on hundreds of TV shows.  They usually  play it in some sad situation or when the character has just seen the light. I think it often comes in times of "redemption."  But have you ever read the words?  OK "Your faith was strong but you needed proof, You saw her bathing on the roof, Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you. She tied you to a kitchen chair, she broke your throne and she cut your hair..." Huh? And it gets "better."  
   I think the situation is this. The music is so damn pretty and moving that nobody cares what the words are.  I mean the words are fine poetry and and a lot of metaphor, religious references, etc. But in many instances but they just don't always fit the scene, if you know what I mean.
  For example, "Take This Waltz."  The ice skaters were dancing to these words.  "Oh I want you I want you I want you, On a chair with a dead magazine."  It continues with "This waltz this waltz this waltz, with its very own breath of brandy and death, dragging its tail in the sea."
   It's OK with me 'cause I love art but some of these lyrics could make children run screaming.  Advice to teachers out there.  Don't put Cohen music behind the kindergarten video. You might be in for a law suit.
   The man is great but he takes me out of my comfort zone time and time again.  Let's face it. There's only so much I want to know about what went on with him (and Janis Joplin, they say) in the Chelsea Hotel. But you have to love a guy whose first band was called The Buckskin Boys.
  

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Blond Ambition

   My mother thought that everyone looks better with blond hair.  I'm not kidding. She really believed this and it was pointless to argue with her. My rational (I thought) response, "But Mom, I really don't think Japanese women look better as blonds," fell like a ton of cement in front of an open door when she said "Yes they do."
   My blond journey started early.  My mother was thrilled that her little girl had golden tresses and during those blissful blond times she was determined to keep it that way.  She'd mix a potion called Blondex and rinse my hair with it after every shampoo.  The product was supposed to brighten and preserve blond locks and it did for a while.
   But when I was ten or so my blond started browning and to my mother  it seemed like a terrible downhill spiral.  The color slid from golden blond to dirty blond to dishwater blond to light brown, ending in a miserable mousy brown.  The semantics suggest that  blond is beautiful and brown is quite second rate.
   Five plain brown years later my mother insisted on Clairol as she had insisted on Revlon and I was on the road to being first rate again.  
   I was in high school at the time and my hair was getting lighter and lighter.  Sister Elizabeth mentioned it and I said I had been out in the sun a lot.  Then the principal said I was a bad influence on the other girls.  I told Sister Irene it was my mother's doing but nobody ever took her to task.  We got away with it and by the time I graduated my hair was really, really blond.
   I went to college and hit the harder stuff right away.  Two process at home (or in the dorm smoker) lightening is time consuming not to mention very tricky.  One time my platinum was decidedly green and another time it was blue.  Not old lady bluish but a rather impressive steel blue, if you can picture it.  I had a beautiful blue suit which matched my hair until I corrected the situation.
   Blisters on my scalp from pros in New Jersey and burning white hot breakage from pros in Europe had me recuperating in brunette for years but the blond urge has returned even without my mother's influence.  We're doing blond again and doing fine. We're on our way to platinum, in fact! After all, aren't blonds supposed to have more fun?