Blog Archives

Ted Berg is now at USA Today and he’s  still funny.

Food 52 Says: Eat Your Beans.

Uh-huh.

[Photo Credit: Jared Wickenham/Getty Images]

Flavorwire has links to 10 Oscar-Winning Short Films.

Nice piece on Larry Merchant by Stan Hochman:

When Merchant was 50 years younger, he was sports editor of the Philadelphia Daily News. He was taking names and kicking ass, surrounded by a posse he had hired, hard-driving guys with similar inclinations.

He’d yanked me out of San Bernardino, Calif., and told me where to park near Connie Mack Stadium so I’d find my hubcaps intact after games. And then he told me what we owed our readers.

“Inform ’em, entertain ’em, and every so often surprise ’em,” Merchant said. He wrote incisive essays about pro football. He called his column “Fun and Games” as a stark contrast to life and death. And he’d open his occasional notes columns with “Some questions answered, some answers questioned.”

Merchant informed, entertained, shocked. We were tabloid and proud of it. Not that everyone loved our swagger, our persistence.

There was that night in 1962 on the Phillies’ charter flight, Merchant in an aisle seat, typing away. The catcher, Sammy White, peered over Larry’s shoulder, unhappy with what he read.

“He yanked at the copy paper,” Merchant recalled, “and it stuck. He wound up throwing my Olivetti [typewriter] down the aisle. I went to get it and some of the keys were twisted and some vital parts scattered.

“That night, I dictated a story that said it was the best throw he’d made all season. About a month later, the Phillies sent me an invoice, paying for a replacement and indicating it had been deducted from White’s salary.”

“Manhattan of the Mind” by Becky Cooper.

Painting by Mark Rothko.

I was alone, I took a ride…

[Picture by Bags]

Blogging will be light today what with the holiday and all.

Meanwhile, Chad Jennings has the recap of Derek Jeter’s first press conference of the spring. As well as some notes on Mark Teixeira and the WBC.

[Photo Credit: Charlie Riedel/AP via It’s a Long Season]

“Please Make Up Your Mind”–Hank

[Photo Via: MPD]

“Imagine My Surprise” Fats Waller

[Photo Credit: Fiona Osborne]

When I worked as an intern on Ken Burns’ Baseball documentary I had the occasion to drive to New Hampshire one day with him. Just the two of us. I played him a few songs I wanted him to hear–from the Pharcyde, I think it was–and then he said, “I want to play you something special.”

He put a cassette in the tape deck and turned me on to Marvin Gaye’s version of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” performed thirty years ago at the NBA All-Star game.

Over at Grantland, Pete Croatto explains why it stands alone.

Go here to read some of the Good Doctor’s writing.

Here’s Wright Thompson’s big piece on MJ at 50.

Food 52 shows us how to make Harissa at home.

There’s a slightly surreal quality to a subway station during the day when the light from outside falls inside–through a grate, or in this picture by our man Bags, through the stairwell.

Youk talks to Mark Feinsand. I like his candor though it won’t endear him to Yankee fans. You know what will? Him not sucking.

More Yankee notes from the intrepid Chad Jennings, here and here.

[Picture by Joe Martz via It’s a Long Season]

Richard Diebenkorn. Early Fifties.

 
Great use of this song in the movie, Shoot the Moon.

[Images Via: Daniel Stolle and Le Parfum de la dame en noir]

Through this weekend the entire Criterion Collection can be seen for free at Hulu. Don’t sleep.