Monthly Archives: June 2010

Painting of Lemons, By Kate Douvan (date unknown)

…Aw, hell, and there’s this too (second verse, “lemonade”):

Squeeze me.

Can’t mess with a theme, man…

And while we’re on the topic of lemons…

Check out this recipe for creamy lemon gelato.

[Photo Credit: bell’ alimento]

In one of Burt Lancaster’s finest roles he had the misfortune, and then the great fortune, to go head-to-head for the audience’s affection with Susan Sarandon’s lemons.

Louis Malle’s Atlantic City (1980) traces the decay and rebirth of a city and a man as Lou (Burt Lancaster), an aged one-bit-hood who’s sniffed but never tasted a life of crime, bumbles his way into his beautiful neighbor’s screwed-up life. That neighbor is Sally (Susan Sarandon), and her daily work in a casino oyster bar leads to the ritual cleansing of her bare breasts and arms with lemon juice each night. Watching the painstakingly thorough application of said juice through Sally’s kitchen window, we share a voyeur’s perch with Lou from his darkened room next door. Thus begins our identification with Lou–through our common depravity.

The first fifteen minutes spread out silently, setting the plot and place like a gentle ocean wave lapping the shoreline. Such sustained quiet in a film is striking in its own right, but all the more unlikely when you realize it was written by a playwright. This is John Guare’s only attempt at conceiving a project explicitly for the silver screen, and you wonder if he just got bored with the medium because it came so naturally to him.

Louis Malle has juxtaposed much of the opening action with scenes of demolished and decayed buildings. Old Atlantic City was razed and rebuilt with the legalization of gambling in 1976, a metamorphosis etched in the lines of Lou’s rumpled suits. Gone is the city’s axis of organized crime, replaced by the glitz of the legal jackpot and the free-for-all drug trade. Lou is just another decrepit structure, waiting for the wrecking ball. Watching Lou running numbers through the poverty stricken parts of town, or trying to hock a shamefully stolen cigarette case, he seems outside of time–like a guy selling Christmas trees in May.

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With Father’s Day fast-approaching, consider Will Leitch’s smoothly-written memoir, Are We Winning? It’s a brisk and funny read. Will is really in his element here, flourishing. Ya heard?

And while we’re talking fathers and sons, do yourself a favor and check out this post by Glenn Stout:

Most of my memories of my father are somehow wrapped around a baseball – playing catch, him taking me to games or watching me pitch. It was the one way we really connected. But in high school I tore my rotator cuff and had to stop playing. We didn’t have as much to talk about after that.

Almost twenty years later my shoulder healed and I joined an adult league, one in Boston and later, another in Worcester County, where I then lived. For three or four years I was in both leagues and played fifty, sixty games each summer, usually pitching and playing first or third.

I’d call home every week and for the first time since I was a kid my conversations with my father were wrapped around baseball again. I sent him the ball after I won my first game since I was sixteen years old, and a t-shirt I got for making the league all-star team. I was as proud of each as of any book I’ve ever written, and so was he.

Fine work by Glenn, as usual.

Yes, I just used a Counting Crows lyric for the post title. It was the ’90s, I was very young, and this is like the 149th time the Yankees have played the Orioles this year — sue me.

C.C. Sabathia started out a little shaky, throwing too many balls in the early going and allowing too many hits by a team whose best hitter to this point is, probably, Ty Wigginton. This would be no big deal, except that C.C. Sabathia has been shaky a bit more than usual this year… but it hasn’t stopped him from beating the Orioles three times already in 2010, and it didn’t stop him from doing so again tonight. He eventually found his happy place, got a bit of support from his offense, and pitched 7 solid innings for a 4-2 win over Baltimore. I feel I’ve called the O’s”hapless” too often already since April, so tonight instead I will describe them as unpromising, unhappy and ill-starred.

By the end of the third inning, Baltimore had taken a two-run lead, on RBI singles from Garrett Atkins and Adam Jones; they’d hold it for five innings, the longest they’ve held any sort of lead since May 25, which, yikes. In the fourth inning Robinson Cano singled (this was his third straight game with three hits, bringing his average back up to .376 — and over .500 against the Orioles), then advanced on a throwing error and groundout and scored on Curtis Granderson’s sac fly. Two innings later, his bouncing single knocked in Mark Teixeira and tied the game at 2-2. In what was not exactly a powerful offensive explosion, Alex Rodriguez then scored on a Jorge Posada force out, but the Yanks had the lead and, by that time, C.C. Sabathia was in his mental cave communing with his Power Animal. After several strong innings he got into a tough spot in the seventh – bases loaded thanks to two singles and walk, with two out – and extricated himself by striking out Luke Scott. His final line: 7 IP, 9 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 8 K.

New York’s one extra run came in the 8th, when Gardner pinch ran for Posada, stole second even though everyone in the building knew he was about to try and steal second, and scored on a sharp single by Francisco Cervelli. Joba Chamberlain had a relatively non-terrifying eighth inning (let’s get that ERA below 5!) and Mariano Rivera notched his 14th save with a perfect ninth, just because.

The Yankees will play the Orioles again on Thursday, and also, I assume, the day after, and the day after that, and the day after that, and every single day Michael Kay will discuss the declining attendance at Camden Yards, every day, oh god it will never end, never, not ever!

[Sob]

Ahem… deep breaths… A.J. Burnett starts next time out for the Yanks. I’m fine. I SAID I’M FINE.

It is supposed to rain and rain and rain some more in Baltimore tonight. Here’s hoping they get the game in. If’ ‘n’ they do, you know how we do: Let’s Go Yan-Kees.

[Photo Credit: WeatherCurrent.com]

Personal Values, By Rene Magritte (1952)

Here’s a couple of cool shots by Bags, the Banter’s own picture-making whiz. Bags tools around town in his free time and takes photographs with a variety of cameras–just not digital cameras. His work has been gracing this space for the past month and will continue to be featured here for as long as he wants.

We’re lucky to have him.

Over at The Harball Times, Alex Eisenberg takes a look at the Trouble in Birdland.

Further Proof that Rock Will Never Die:

This one is a must for all you loose-tea nyerds out there.

 A most excellent product.

[Photo Credit: cooking.com]

Flipping Reality The Bird

I probably shouldn’t admit this given that I consider myself relatively well versed in classic cinema, but I’ve seen alarmingly few Burt Lancaster films. In fact, out of the 86 titles listed on his IMDb page, I’ve seen exactly two, and one of them is Field of Dreams. Not that Lancaster’s performance in that flick was unworthy, his Moonlight Graham was the most fully realized character in that film, but by that point Lancaster was 76 and in his final theatrical release.

The other Lancaster film I’ve seen came after my wife and I visited a friend in San Francisco and hit the usual tourist traps including the dormant island prison of Alcatraz. When we got back home, we watched Clint Eastwood’s Escape from Alcatraz (which is exactly what it sounds like, was filmed on location, and matched the description of the real-life events we were given while touring the prison) and Lancaster’s Birdman of Alcatraz, which was shot on stage sets and could more accurately be said to have been “inspired by” rather than “based on” the life of the titular character.

The actual Birdman of Alcatraz was Robert Stroud, a teenage runaway who became a pimp in Alaska and, ten days shy of his 18th birthday in 1909, shot another pimp during a scuffle and was convicted of manslaughter. Various incidents during Stroud’s incarceration, including the murder of a guard, increased his sentence, ultimately to death, but in 1920, his mother appealed to President Woodrow Wilson for a stay of execution and was given one. Stroud instead spent the next 23 years in solitary confinement at Leavenworth Federal Penitentary before being moved to Alcatraz. While at Leavenworth, Stroud took an interest in some injured birds in the courtyard and, over the years, turned himself into one of the leading ornithological minds in the world and the author of the classic text, Stroud’s Digest on the Diseases of Birds, among other titles.

The film, released in 1962, a year before Stroud’s death, is a fictionalization of Stroud’s story with Lancaster playing a stoic, heroic version of the brilliant psychopath who wasn’t actually allowed to keep birds after being transferred to Alcatraz in 1943. As biography, it’s bunk. As a tale of rehabilitation and self-motivation, it’s inspirational, thanks largely to the quiet dignity of Lancaster’s performance.

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Boitday, that is. Join me in raising a mug to our own Diane Firstman. Then smash that mug on the floor and rock out to this:

I never do this, but last night I didn’t watch the Yankee game despite the fact that I knew I’d have to write it up in this space. You know why. I was watching Stephen Strasburg strike out 14 men in a major league debut that did the impossible by living up to all of the hype that preceded it. I clearly made the right choice, not because the Yankees lost (they didn’t), but because the opening game of their three-game set in Baltimore was yet another of those ugly, high-scoring affairs that made up in aggravation what it lacked in suspense.

The game was almost over before it begun as Derek Jeter led off by drawing a five-pitch walk and Nick Swisher sent Kevin Millwood’s sixth pitch over the center-field wall for a two-run homer. With two out in the third, Curtis Granderson inflated the Yankee lead to 6-0 with the second grand slam of his career. Phil Hughes let the O’s cut that in half with two runs in the fourth and one in the fifth, but though he allowed nine hits and struck out just four in his six innings of work, all of the hits were singles and he walked no one.

With Hughes likely out of the game after 102 pitches, the Yankees put the game away with a six-run top of the seventh against relievers Matt Hendrickson and Matt Albers, the key hit being a bases-clearing, bases-loaded double by first-inning hero Nick Swisher off Albers which was immediately followed by a solo homer by Mark Teixeira, just his second tater since May 15.

The aggravating part came in the final two frames as, after a solid inning from David Robertson, Chad Gaudin, in to mop up with a 12-3 lead, coughed up two runs in the eighth on a walk and an Adam Jones homer, and two more in the ninth to the first three batters he faced to bring the Orioles within 12-7. Gaudin managed to finish things off before Joe Girardi had to go to the big guns, but the O’s hadn’t scored more than five runs since May 20 (when they also lost, 13-7), and there was no reason to let them break in their hitting shoes in a route.

Still, it was a successful night of baseball. Strasburg dominated. The Yankees won, and I didn’t miss anything by opting to watch the former.

In other news, Josh Paul is up to serve as the bullpen coach with Mike Harkey subbing for Dave Eiland who is taking a leave of absence from the team for personal reasons. Paul is the manager of the short-season Staten Island Yankees, who have yet to begin play this year, and is best remembered as  the catcher on the controversial “dropped third strike” call on A.J. Pierzynski in the 2005 ALCS. Paul is also three years younger than Chad Moeller and owns a comparable major league batting line (Paul: .244/.303/.341 in 797 plate appearances, Moeller: .226/.287/.352 in 1,533 PA). Is it a bad sign when your bullpen coach is as qualified to be your backup catcher as your backup catcher is?

In other catching news, Jorge Posada has started working behind the plate, though there remains no timetable for him to return to catching in games.

The Yankees are 8-1 against the Orioles this year, and the O’s have scored an average of just 2.2 runs in those nine games. The Yankees swept the O’s last week in the Bronx, part of a ten-game Orioles’ losing streak during which the O’s scored an average of 1.6 runs per game against their opponent’s 6.6. That streak was snapped on Sunday as the O’s pulled out a 4-3, 11-inning victory over the Red Sox.

The only change the O’s have made since leaving the Bronx is that they finally fired manager Dave Trembley, replacing him with third-base coach Juan Samuel on an interim basis. I always thought the knock on Trembley’s predecessor Sam Perlozzo was that his team would lie down on him late in the season, but that trend continued under Trembley. This year they never stood up despite being expected to finally show some signs of life. It’s wasn’t Trembley’s fault that the only members of the lineup who are hitting are 32-year-olds Ty Wigginton and Luke Scott or that Brian Roberts got hurt, but then there’s nothing to credit Trembley with either. Trembley’s winning percentage had dropped in each of his three seasons despite the perception that the team was improving its talent level. It was time to make a change, but don’t expect the team to rally around Samuel, who had been coaching third-base for the O’s since 2006.

When the Yankees began their current stretch of patsy opponents, commenter OldYanksFan suggested that the Yankees should really aim to win 12 of their 16 games against the Indians, Orioles, Blue Jays, and Astros. Thus far they are 7-3, but I think it’s entirely within reason to expect them to take five of their next six against Baltimore and Houston and not out of the question to expect them to sweep their way through the weekend, particularly given that they won’t be facing Roy Oswalt when the Astros come to town. That work begins tonight as Phil Hughes, who aced his last two starts, the last coming against the O’s, looks to keep hard-luck Kevin Millwood winless on the season.

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Self-Portrait, By Lucian Freud (1985)

Stephen Strasburg makes his Major League debut tonight. Over at SI.com, Joe Posnanski tells us what it all means while Cliff analyzes the debuts of some other hyped phenoms.

I remember this one:

Dwight Gooden
Team: New York Mets
Opponent: Houston Astros
Date: April 7, 1984
Line: 5 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 HR, 2 BB, 5 K, W

The fifth-overall pick in the 1982 draft out of Tampa’s Hillsborough High School, Gooden struck out 300 men in 191 innings in A-ball in his full-season debut in 1983, and in 1984, he broke camp with the Mets as a 19-year-old who had never pitched as high as Double-A. Gooden was sharp in his debut and, after a hiccup in his second start (3 1/3 IP, seven hits and six runs, all earned, while taking the loss against the Cubs), he went on to enjoy one of the best starts to a pitching career in major league history. In 1984, Gooden won the Rookie of the Year award on the strength of a 17-9 record, 2.60 ERA, and a league-leading 276 strikeouts (in 218 innings!). In 1985, he won the NL Cy Young award and the major league pitching triple crown, leading the majors in wins (24 against just four losses), ERA (1.53, second only to Bob Gibson’s 1.12 in 1968 since the arrival of the live-ball era in 1920) and strikeouts (268). Things went downhill from there, in part because of the 744 2/3 innings Gooden threw over three seasons prior to his 22nd birthday, but also because they couldn’t go up. The impossibly high expectations Gooden created for himself led to a vicious cycle of self-destructive behavior including alcohol and drug addictions which continue to disrupt his life to this day.

My mom has always loved music. She loves to sing and whistle (and even hum). Ma is game, too. She’ll listen to rock n roll, soul music, funk, jazz, and her “classic music.” But she’s never been a big record-buyer. When I was growing up, she had some Judy Collins records and Simon and Garfunkel lps, and of course, her Jacques Brel albums. Oh, how she looooved Jacques Brel. And we had an Edith Piaf record, too.

Most French-speaking peoples of my mom’s generation revered Edith Piaf.

I always think of Edith Piaf–of my mom singing in French, of Nuke Laloosh mistaking Piaf for a “crazy Spanish singer” in “Bull Durham”–whenever I hear Rice Pilaf. Edith Pilaf?

Sounds good, tastes good. Sometimes the French know what they are doing…

[Photo Credit: Janet is Hungry]