Blog Archives

This morning on the train a couple sat next to me with their toddler. When the father and the child got off, the doors closed and the mother stood up and looked out of the window and waved. I’m always interested in how people say goodbye to each other on the subway. Sometimes, you’ll see a couple kiss and even before one has left the train, they have both stopped looking at each other.

I always look.

When I was growing up, we had a dog who would chase our car whenever we left home. More than a few times, I’ve gotten off the train and said goodbye to my wife, and then run down the platform as a goof to crack her up. That’s my job, make the wife smile, keep her laughing. Or maybe it’s just the K-9 in me.

[Photo Credit: iphonegraphic from the flickr Subway Portraits gallery]

Last week, Emma and I were part of Gelf’s Varsity Letters Speaking Series. There were 15 speakers in all, and we were asked to give three minutes on a defining sports-related moment.

I spent a while thinking about what I would say, then worked on what I thought was a succinct essay. When I was satisfied with my draft, I read it aloud, and it was over seven minutes! So I cut it in half and then paired it down some more. Seven-hundred-and-twenty words and it still ran long, so I went back to work. It was a fun excercise, a good challenge, and I enjoyed preparing the speech. Had and an even better time listening to the other speakers.

Here’s my speech:

Emma followed me (and she’s bust-a-gut funny as is her wont):

Click here for the rest of the speakers, including Jeff Pearlman, Jason Fry and Will Leitch.

Over at The New York Review of Books, Daniel Mendelsohn tackles the “Mad Men” craze:

Since the summer of 2007, when Mad Men premiered on the cable station AMC, the world it purports to depict—a lushly reimagined Madison Avenue in the 1960s, where sleekly suited, chain-smoking, hard-drinking advertising executives dream up ingeniously intuitive campaigns for cigarettes and bras and airlines while effortlessly bedding beautiful young women or whisking their Grace Kelly–lookalike wives off to business trips in Rome—has itself become the object of a kind of madness. I’m not even referring to the critical reception both in the US and abroad, which has been delirious: a recent and not atypical reference in the Times of London called it “one of the…best television series of all time,” and the show has repeatedly won the Emmy, the Golden Globe, the Screen Actors Guild Award, the Writers Guild of America Award, and the Producers Guild of America Award for Best Drama Series. (A number of its cast members have been nominated in the various acting categories as well.) Rather, the way in which Mad Men has seemingly percolated into every corner of the popular culture—the children’s show Sesame Street has introduced a Mad Men parody, toned down, naturally, for its tender viewers—suggests that its appeal goes far beyond what dramatic satisfactions it might afford.

At first glance, this appeal seems to have a lot to do with the show’s much-discussed visual style—the crisp midcentury coolness of dress and decor. The clothing retailer Banana Republic, in partnership with the show’s creators, devised a nationwide window display campaign evoking the show’s distinctive 1960s look, and now offers a style guide to help consumers look more like the show’s characters. A nail polish company now offers a Mad Men–inspired line of colors; the toy maker Mattel has released dolls based on some of the show’s characters. Most intriguingly, to my mind, Brooks Brothers has partnered with the series’s costume designer to produce a limited edition Mad Men suit—which is, in turn, based on a Brooks Brothers design of the 1960s.

I’ve only seen a few episodes. I’ve talked to some people who say the show is spot-on; others say it is contrived.

What’s all the hubbub…bub?

Yesterday, a couple of people hipped me to this terrific site of Hy Peskin’s photography.

Go, you won’t be disappointed.

Here’s some Yankeeness for you fiends out there:

Over at River Avenue Blues, Joe P links to a Wallace Mathews piece on Kevin Long.

And at IATMS, here’s a note via Buster Olney that C.C. Sabathia has lost 30 lbs.

Joba Chamberlain, on the other hand, has reportedly put on some weight. Check out this great Yankee weigh-in by Steve Goldman. And while you are there, dig the Aceves Challenge by Jay Jaffe.

[Picture by Bags]

Here’s a good movie blog, Some Came Running, by Glenn Kenny. Check out this post about Martin Scorsese’s Vanishing New York.

Homemade Nutella from David Lebovitz.

Yes, please.

M’enfin.

According to Rob Neyer…

There has been a huge buzz about a long New Yorker profile on Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology. Here’s the piece, written by Lawrence Wright,  and  here is a transcript of an interview with Wright on the Terry Gross Show over at NPR.

One last word on football. If you’ve got the time, do yourself a favor and check out Scott Price’s excellent bonus piece on Aliquippa, P.A.

[Photo Credit: LIFE]

From Matt B…

Pitchers and catchers don’t officially report for a few days still, but Russell Martin and Jesus Montero are already working out in Florida. Here’s John Harper, writing in the Daily News about the kid Montero:

Baseball America editor Jim Callis, who ranks minor-league prospects based on seeing them himself and talking to more scouts and minor-league evaluators than just about anyone, says he would have a hard time dealing Montero.

“To me he’s the best all-around hitter in the minor leagues,” Callis said recently. “He might be another Mike Piazza, the way he hits for average and power. I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t have a great career as a hitter.”

…But can Montero catch? Callis says the answer might be a matter of how much a team is willing to sacrifice defense for offense at the position.

“It’s not like he’s a total butcher back there,” Callis said. “He has a strong arm, but his transfer when he throws is slow, and he’s not the best receiver in the world. He’s not real athletic, but he has worked hard to become more flexible behind the plate.

“Overall he’s a little below average defensively, and I’m not sold that in five years Montero will be a catcher.

Yeah, the Yanks have issues with their starting rotation but there is plenty to be excited about and it starts with the Jesus.

Hua Hsu on audio cassettes:

There is nothing magic about a cassette, nothing bewitching about an object that can be taken apart and reassembled or fixed with a pencil. A small rectangular box of plastic in which magnetized tape moves back and forth between miniature spools, it is, from today’s vantage, a hopelessly antiquated format. At a time when most of us listen to music that exists only as data, on soundless players that cannot be pried open, the cassette displays its modest mechanics all too transparently. Peer inside the deck as you slide in a tape in, and you see a tiny, busy factory world of belts, wires, and interlocking gears. Press play, and even before the first track begins, you hear a series of hisses and squeals and the faint whir of the motor. When the side ends: a harsh click. Even in the 1980s, when the cassette tape represented the apex of consumer technology, its advances—the workmanlike auto-reverse button; various gradations of Dolby; “IEC Type II High (CrO₂) Position,” whatever that means—seemed puny, stopgaps to tide us over until we could engineer more elegant solutions.

Given that the cassette is widely regarded as a nostalgic curio today, few people were surprised when Sony discontinued production of the Walkman, their once-iconic portable cassette player, last April. The greater shock, for many, was the realization that Sony was still manufacturing Walkmen at all. While we mourn the player’s death and await the iPhone 5, it would be a mistake to dismiss the cassette as merely a transitional technology. Rather, it offered its user a previously unimaginable degree of autonomy, a freedom that is today familiar to us, and was the first music format to raise thorny questions about the concept of fair use and about what it means to own a piece of music.

The L.A. Times Magazine has a photo gallery of the 50 most beautiful women in film:

Plenty of hits and misses in there.

Where are these lovelies?

Over at the New York Times, Jordan Michelman asks, “Who makes the best Vietnamese banh mi sandwich in America?”

Peep, don’t sleep.

[Photo Credit: Plate of the Day]

The 8th Wonder of the World…

Bow down.

I get nervous when I see someone reading their iPad on the subway. I have to fight the urge to tell them, “Put that thing away, don’t you know you could get mugged for carrying that around?” Maybe I’m still living in the ’70s and ’80s when being shook was a daily operation riding the trains (yeah, I was a kid then but the city felt lawless then too). Maybe you have nothing to worry about. But I am cautious about using my iPhone. Change the song, put it back in my pocket. 

Old habits die hard.

Over at PB, Jay Jaffe takes a look at what BP’s PECOTA means for the back of the Yankee rotation.

And while you are there, check out Cliff’s take on Eric Chavez, and Steve Goldman on Jose “Can You See” Cruz.