Here’s a few: What if the train stopped and this became like an episode of “Survivor”? Who would take charge? Who would be the Alphas, who would be the trouble makers, who would crack first?
Who would I bone, and in what order? There’s lots of variations of this game, of course, like “Which beautiful women are lousy in bed,” and “Which regular-looking girls are tigers?”
Who is carrying a concealed weapon?
I used to play, “Who could I beat up?” but I’ve given up on that one.
Another favorite is guessing what stop people will get off.
Asked Wednesday morning for his impression of Chamberlain, General Manager Brian Cashman said: “He’s heavier. Let’s just leave it at that.”
Told that Chamberlain has said he packed on muscle, Cashman said: “He’s obviously heavier. That’s as much as I’ll say.”
…“You think about it as a manager, you think about what it says,” Manager Joe Girardi said. “As I said, Joba is going to be pretty much evaluated on how he pitches. That’s the bottom line. We’ve been very pleased in what we’ve seen so far.”
What I really wanted to hear, of course, was what the Dodgers thought about folks just walking into their house and hanging out in the middle of the day, so I phoned club spokesman Josh Rawitch with the news.
“I want to tell you about my favorite place to have lunch,” I said.
“Top of the park at Dodger Stadium, right?” he said.
“How did you know?” I said.
“You’re not the only one,” he said.
It turns out, other folks are aware of this place, and the Dodgers tolerate it for the good of the town.
“There are a lot of fans who refer to the top of the park as the best-kept secret lunch spot in Los Angeles, and it’s hard to argue with them,” Rawitch said. “While we don’t openly encourage it, the fact that it has become known this way is a reminder of just how special Dodger Stadium is to our fans, even when it’s empty.”
You may recall that last month, I was thrilled when the Yankees claimed reliever Brian Schlitter from the Cubs. Alas, our favorite awesome headline generator was designated for assignment on Monday, to make room for Andruw Jones on the 40-man roster, and yesterday he was claimed off waivers by the Phillies. Those greedy bastards – they snap up all the great starting pitchers and then they have to go and take the great names, too?
My old man believed in calling ’em like he saw them, especially when it came to compliments. If we were on a street corner with him, waiting for the light to change, and an attractive woman happened to be standing there, he’d think nothing of telling her, “My sons and I can’t help but notice what a beautiful woman you are and thought you might like to know as much.”
The woman would smile, sometimes unnerved, not knowing if it was a come on or what. Sometimes, if she was an assured New Yorker, she’d wink at my brother and me. It wasn’t a pick-up line, the Old Man just believed in expressing himself. Take it or leave it, honey. The man had charm to burn and no lack of chutzpah.
Fischer’s remarkable life and personality will surely produce countless more books, and probably movies and doctoral theses as well. But there is little doubt that none of the authors of those future works will be more qualified to write on Bobby Fischer than Frank Brady. A close acquaintance of the young Fischer, a “chess person,” as we call them, himself, as well as an experienced biographer, Brady also wrote the first and only substantive biographical book on him, Bobby Fischer: Profile of a Prodigy (1965, revised edition 1973).
It is hard to imagine a more difficult subject than Bobby Fischer to present in an accurate and evenhanded fashion. He was a loner who trusted no one. His charisma attracted both starry-eyed sycophants and spiteful critics. Fischer had strong opinions of the kind that tend to create equally categorical sentiments in those who knew him—and in those who didn’t. He had a very small family and both his mother, Regina Fischer, and his only sibling—older sister Joan Targ—have passed away. Fischer’s general inaccessibility also led to countless rumors and outright lies about him, making the biographer’s task a challenge.
With all that in mind, Brady’s book is an impressive balancing act and a great accomplishment. Before even picking up the book there is no reason to doubt that Brady liked Bobby Fischer and that he has a friend’s as well as a fan’s rooting interest for the American chess hero. But there are few obvious traces of that in Endgame, which does not shy away from presenting the darker sides of Fischer’s character even while it does not attempt to judge or diagnose it. What results is a chance for the reader to weigh up the evidence and come to his own conclusions—or skip judgments completely and simply enjoy reading a rise-and-fall story that has more than a few affinities with Greek tragedy.
This is a lengthy piece but worth the time. Fascinating stuff.
I’ve heard of meyer lemons but until last Friday, never tried one, at least not that I can remember. Not long ago, I saw a simple salad dressing that called for meyer lemons, olive oil and garlic. Sure enough, I found meyer lemons at a market in Manhattan. I haven’t made the dressing yet, but used it in another dressing, and on an avocado. They are sweeter than regular lemons, and while they weren’t cheap (fifty cents a pop), they sure are lovely.
“Last year it really hit me how important I am to this team,” Burnett said yesterday on the way out of George M. Steinbrenner Field.
“I am not saying that we didn’t win the World Series because of me, but I know if I had been right, it would have been a lot easier chore. I never knew how important I was to a team. That’s not being cocky or arrogant, it’s the way it is. I mean, what did I do to help?”
It’s become something of a cliche to say that the romantic comedy is a dying genre, but I think it might at least be on a ventilator. What was the last really good one? The last romantic comedy as good as Broadcast News, let alone, say, His Girl Friday?
My favorite movie of the modern era that might be called a relationship movie is not really a romantic comedy – although it’s very funny in many places, in that kind of laugh-to-keep-from-crying way – and it is, indeed, set on Valentine’s Day. It’s mostly about a relationship, but it’s also about the human mind and storytelling. And depending on your mood and your general feelings about love at the moment, it can be read as either hopeful or depressing. I think it’s both – or anyway, it’s about as hopeful as a movie can be while still recognizing certain depressing realities. Yep, I’m talking about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
When I first saw it, at Brooklyn Heights Cinemas, I was not in a good place, romantically speaking, and while I loved it immensely I also thought it was incredibly sad. Now, while I certainly won’t claim it’s an inspiring cupful of cheer, I take a less bleak view. Not so much that love will triumph (the odds are against it, in this film) but that love is worth it. Or, okay, at the very least inevitable. It’s one of those movies that’s a bit of a Rorschach blot. And beyond the central story of Joel (Jim Carry the last time he was good) and Clementine (a fantastic Kate Winslet), there’s a fairly spectacular subplot featuring mind-twisting sci-fi, Mark Ruffalo, Kirstin Dunst, the great Tom Wilkinson, and Elijah Woods in the role he was born to play, a whiny creep. The structure is complex and twisty but always somehow comprehensible in a way that’s pretty much brilliant and explains why I will always have nothing but love for screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, and his darker and more intellectual style bounces perfectly off Michel Gondry’s whimsical and less tightly-wound direction. And did I mention the soundtrack is fantastic too? The trailer really doesn’t do this movie credit:
The wife says to me yesterday, “I don’t want you to bring me flowers tomorrow. I’m serious. I don’t want you spending a fortune.”
She thinks Valentine’s Day is a trumped-up, commercial holiday, and she’s right. I bring her flowers all the time, just cause, and I don’t need a holiday to tell her that she’s the love of my life, though I’ll probably say it again today…jut cause. The emmis is the emmis, am I right?
In the meantime, I hope you guys all have a good day, whether you are married, single, in a relationship, or newly divorced. You can swing by the Banter for the love and a cyber hug. We’ll be here.
