Liam Sullivan's Ideas and Reflections
Title: The Shot Heard ‘Round the World
Release Date: July 11, 2001
Director: ?
Production Company: HBO Sports
Summary/Review:
This documentary goes back in time to when New York City was the capital of baseball. The Brooklyn Dodgers fans hated the New York Giants, and the Giants fans hated the Dodgers, and they both hated the Yankees. The 1951 season was pivotal in that the Dodgers took a huge lead in the National League and went on cruise control. Late in the season the Giants went on a hot streak and tied the Dodgers on the last day of the season, leading to a best-of-three playoff.
In addition to the heated rivalry among players and fans of the teams, the documentary focuses on the Giants’ elaborate plot to steal signs during home games in the latter half of the season. The jury is still out on how much this gamesmanship helped them catch the Dodgers since statistics show that their batting average dropped, pitching improved, and they won more games on the road than at home after it began.
The three game playoff is analyzed from several angles. Many involved seem to point to Dodgers’ manager Charlie Dressen as the real goat for his poor decisions in game. Special attention is given to the life stories and game experiences of the two pivotal figures of the final playoff game, Bobby Thompson who hit the pennant-winning “Shot Heard ‘Round the World,” and Ralph Branca, the Dodgers’ relief pitcher who surrendered the home run on his second pitch in the game.
Interviewees include ballplayers like Branca, Thompson, Willie Mays and Duke Snider as well as a number of fans including celebrities like Jerry Lewis and Larry King.
Rating: ***1/2
Hit Parade :: The Feat. Don’t Fail Me Now Edition
The history of the “featured artist” credit on number one singles.
To The Best of Our Knowledge :: Jeff Kripal at the Edge of Belief
Unconventional thoughts about religion, science, and the paranormal. Not that I necessarily endorse this, but it’s interesting to hear something outside of the typical.
Back Story :: Elementary, Mr. President
Robert Bork, Benjamin Spock, and Sherlock Holmes and their ties to American history.
Planet Money :: Yes in My Backyard
The radical and controversial solution to America’s housing crisis: building new housing in existing neighborhoods!
City Stories is a semi-regular feature where I write short expository pieces and vignettes inspired by cities I’ve lived in and visited in various places of the world. In previous stories we visited Brooklyn and Derry. Today we walk through Virginia Woolf’s London.
Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. Clarissa Dalloway’s familiarity with her route to the flower shop meant that she could perambulate Westminster while remembering her youth in the countryside, and pondering her choice of husband. For a pair of Americans who majored in English literature, however, we need a plan. To plot our route, I defer to Susan who read all of Virginia Woolf’s novels and has an additional graduate degree in English. She spends our flight from Logan to Heathrow highlighting passages from Mrs. Dalloway and charting a course on a map of London.
On our first full day in London in January 2004, we attempt to recreate the route that Clarissa followed eighty years and six months earlier. On our way to the residential area of Westminster where the Dalloways lived we pass the Houses of Parliament and a statue of Oliver Cromwell. Filled with the indignant rage of my Irish ancestry, I shake my fist at Cromwell, only to notice the closed circuit camera pointed right at me. I was now on the the United Kingdom’s list of dangerous people for threatening a statue of one of their leaders. But as we continue along we saw a large group protesting the war in Iraq holding pointed signs accusing Parliament of being “BABY KILLERS,” so maybe I’m low on that list.
We find the home suspected to be Woolf’s inspiration for the Dalloway’s house in a quiet residential area near the home once occupied by T.E. Lawrence. From there we set off on our walk, not to find flowers, but the delights of London. As the leaden circles of Big Ben’s chime dissolve in the air, we prepared to cross Victoria Street. Susan informs me that at this point Clarissa thought “Such fools we are!” while crossing the street and so we should as well. But as we start to cross a motor scooter zips by and nearly runs Susan over. That would be a foolish way to go.
Safely across Victoria Street we divert from Mrs. Dalloway’s route and into Westminster Abbey. Over time this church has accrued so much statuary and memorial plaques as to become something of an unofficial English Hall of Fame and Museum. The area around Geoffrey Chaucer’s grave is known as Poets’ Corner where there are burials and monumental plaques for over 100 English writers. An egregious absence from Poets’ Corner is Virginia Woolf.
After examining every nook and cranny of the Abbey, we emerge outdoors and enter into St. James Park. There is no airplane skywriting over the park but it is a quiet respite with “the slow-swimming happy ducks; the pouched birds waddling” in the Lake. Additional birds cavorting around the lake include pigeons, geese, and most exotic to Americans, coots. Unlike other water birds, coots do not have webbed feet but instead have long toes with lobes of skin. A bird that’s completely out of place in London is the pelican, but the lake is also home to a flock of pelicans descended from those donated by a 17th-century Russian ambassador. One pelican has its back to the government offices, just like Hugh Whitbread whom Clarissa meets in the park. So we decide this pelican’s name is Hugh and carry on.
We march up Whitehall past the Cenotaph and Horse Guards. No backfiring cars startle us, but we once again diverge from Clarissa Dalloway’s route and make our way to Trafalgar Square. We visit the cheery crypt of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields where we enjoy a delicious late lunch. Above, in the nave of St. Martins-in-the-Fields, we listen to a soprano and counter-tenor rehearse for that night’s performance.
In Trafalgar Square, we pick up on the route of Peter Walsh, Clarissa’s old friend and potential suitor. Here Peter pondered “strangeness of standing alone, alive, unknown, at half-past eleven.” It is much later in the day for us and as we were also unknown we join the crowds of tourists clambering up the Nelson monument to visit the cuddly lions. We help a fellow American up behind us, but then she promptly falls on her face. Luckily there are no injuries. Nearby a pair of young women sit looking at the South Africa house because they say it’s helping with their homesickness. The South Africans are traveling across Europe, visiting 11 cities in 12 days with a focus on dancing at the top nightclubs in every city. No wonder they look exhausted.
We notice a bird of prey with a tether on its leg circling overhead and an the absence of Trafalgar Square’s famed pigeons and wonder if the two our connected. We see two men wearing vests that read Heritage Guardians and approach them with our questions.
“Excuse me, what kind of bird is that?”
“It’s an ‘arris ‘awk.”
“Does it keep the pigeon population down?”
“The ‘awk keeps the pigeon population moving. It’s the boys with the shovels on Sunday morning that keep the pigeon population down.” He makes his meaning clear by using his hands to make the international gesture for braining a pigeon with a shovel.
Susan remembers that Peter Walsh looked up to a statue of Gordon, an historical figure he’d worshipped, but we can’t find the statue anywhere. We return to the Heritage Guards with another question.
“Do you know where the Statue of Gordon is?”
“Gordon of Khartoum?” replies one with a mix of surprise and confusion.
“No, not a cartoon!” says Susan with greater confusion. Clearing up the difference between cartoon and Khartoum, they have further questions.
“Does he ride a horse?” asks one.
“Does he wear a fez?” asks the other.
We don’t know the answers to any of these questions. One of the guards thinks that the statue was moved from Trafalgar Square just after the Second World War, and directs us to the Embankment by the Thames.
“There’s a statue there, might as well be ‘im!”
Susan has an Ahab-like obsession to stand under the Gordon statue like Peter Walsh and leads us down Northumberland Avenue to a park along the Embankment. There are in fact two statues in this park, but the problem is that they’re behind a fence and the gates are locked. After trying to find a way into the park or verify the statues’ identity from afar, we realize that the sun is setting and our stroll should come to an end.*
We determine the nearest Tube station for a line that will take us to meet up with our host Sarah is across the Thames at Waterloo Station. We bounce across the Hungerford Footbridge to the tune of “Take Five.” At the far end of the bridge a blonde woman busks on her saxophone.
For there she was.
* NOTE: With the help of Google Streetview, I’ve been able to locate the Charles George Gordon Statue in a park on the Victoria Embankment just one block up the Thames from where we were looking. Not only that, but the park has no enclosure so we totally could’ve stood under the Gordon statue. Other Woolfheads, take note!
Author: Kate Orman
Title: Set Piece
Publication Info: London Bridge (1995)
Summary/Review:
This is Kate Orman’s second contribution to the New Adventures line and much like The Left-Handed Hummingbird she puts the Doctor and his companions in torturous scenarios that push them to their limits, physically and psychologically. An organic vessel known only as The Ship is exploiting a Time Rift to abduct starliner passengers with the help of robotic Ants and harvest their minds for The Ship’s systems. The Doctor and Ace make a plan to get themselves captured by The Ship to find out what’s happening and stop the abductions. But when Bernice comes to rescue them the Time Rift throws them into three different eras.
The heart of the story focuses on Ace, as this is her farewell story, putting her in a situation where she has a long time to think about her travels with the Doctor, accept that they may be forever separated, and begin to use how she’s learned and grown to continue on her own. Ace finds herself in Ancient Egypt, and unwilling to accept the cultural norms for women at the time, tries to prove herself as a soldier and a bodyguard. She even tries to overthrow the tyrannical reign of the pharaoh Akhenaten, as you do.
Meanwhile, Berenice ends up in France in 1798 and ends up befriending the Egyptologist Vivant Denon and traveling with Napoleon’s army to Egypt. The Doctor also ends up in Paris but in 1871 during the Paris Commune, suffering PSTD from his experience on The Ship and slowly recovering under the care of a mysterious frenemy Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart. It’s no spoiler that the three of them do find a way to get back together, but this book is more of a study of characterization and relationships in extreme situations than plotting.
This is the type of story that would be unimaginable in the original run of the television program, and although the New Adventures strongly influenced the revised series, I can’t see it done there as well. It’s certainly difficult to imagine Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred in these parts as I read the book. Not that they were not fine actors who could certainly give it a go, just that the characterizations of tv have evolved so much over the course of the New Adventures, so this is a satisfying farewell for book Ace that seems inexplicable for TV Ace.
While I’ve been enjoying going back and reading these books from the 90s to revisit an overlooked but transformative period in Doctor Who, it’s also frustrating how much continuity there is within the New Adventures. Set Piece is the 35th of 61 novels and there is no way I’m going to find time to read them all (especially the one’s I’ve been told are not worth reading). This is full of references to previous adventures and Kadiatu enters the story with no explanation of who she is or her significance, having previously appeared in the 10th book Transit. I’m griping a bit too much, but I am grateful that I’m reading these in the time of Wikipedia, otherwise I’d be lost.
Rating: ***1/2
Previously Reviewed:
Performer: Janelle Monáe
Venue: Blue Hills Bank Pavilion
Date: July 21, 2018
Opening Act: St. Beauty
First thing, the unwritten rule that one cannot wear a concert tour t-shirt while at that very concert is now null and void. Following one of her costume changes while performing at Blue Hills Bank Pavilion in Boston, Janelle Monáe stepped onstage wearing an official Janelle Monáe Dirty Computer 2018 concert tour t-shirt. One might think of it as product placement, but in the broad themes of acceptance, inclusion, and love expressed at this concert, I think it was another way for Monáe to say be yourself, wear what makes you comfortable, especially is it’s a shirt with a picture of your own face.
Among the crowd of adoring fans there was quite a bit of expression in fashion of clothing that was sparkly, had bold colors, and/or stated brave political messages. I had the thought before leaving for the concert, “What should I wear to a Janelle Monáe concert?” Not knowing the answer I settled on something like what I always wear, a short-sleeve, button-down shirt with vertical stripes. Ironically, some hip young people complimented me on this shirt, saying that they liked the colors.
It was a very accepting audience, and the most diverse crowd I’d ever seen for anything in Boston. All ages, races, and gender expressions were in attendance. Any fears that I would be too old, white, straight, and cisgender were allayed by the fact there was also an even older white, married couple sitting right in front of us.
Janelle Monáe’s concert was visually striking with Monáe generally performing on stepped pedestal. Her costumes were black and white patterns with flashes of red. Scenes from the “emotion picture” of Dirty Computer as well as archival footage and more abstract patterns were projected behind the stage.
Monáe was accompanied by a five-piece band which included a stunningly-talented guitarist and drummer and synthesizer players who doubled on the horns, depending on the song. I cannot find the band members’ names anywhere online, but I suspect they are members of the Wondaland Arts Society and have recordings of their own. If you know there names let me know in the comments! Monáe also performed with a quartet of dancers. I hesitate to call them “back-up dancers” because they’re dancing was integral to the performance, and if anything it looked as if Monáe and the four dancers were a group of friends hanging out and partying.
Highlights of the concert include “Screwed” which became an audience sing-a-long with help from the video projection. Taking a page from Morris Day of The Time, Monáe glanced at her new outfit in a full-length mirror and ascended the podium to a throne to perform “Django Jane.” The ballad “Primetime” concluded with a stunning guitar solo that I felt was the closest I ever will be to seeing Prince perform live in concert.
That solo gave a Monáe and the dancers the time change into the famous “vagina pants” for a performance of “Pynk.” The enthusiastic crowd even cheered the appearance of Tessa Thompson in the video background. The feeling of inclusion, acceptance, and love was heightened during the performance of “I Like That” when Monáe took the opportunity to compliment the things she liked about several members of the audience.
Perhaps the stand out performance in a night of excellent music, choreography, and stagecraft came during “Make Me Feel.” The song began with an extended dance break with backlit Monáe dancing in silhouette. The song ended with Monáe singing “baby, baby, baby” while the horns played “I Got the Feelin'” In one song that’s already the Prince-iest of all of her songs, Janelle Monáe managed to also pay homage to Michael and Janet Jackson, and James Brown, while confidently expressing her own identity.
The party continued with “I Got the Juice” that turned into a dance-off among Monáe and the dancers. Then she invited members of the audience to come up a “dance as if there lives depended on it.” For the young folk who made it on the stage it was clear that this was the greatest moment of their lives. They took turns dancing to wide acclaim, and Monáe assured each of them that “you’ve got the juice.” Monáe closed out the main set with two songs from her Archandroid album, “Cold War,” and a breathtaking performance of “Tightrope.”
For the encore, Monáe returned to the stage to sing a “love letter to America” in “So Afraid” as images of civil rights and Black Lives Matter protests and civil disturbances. This transitioned into “Americans,” a positive affirmation of the American identity of people often denied that.
Due to MBTA construction and a long wait to get in we missed much of the opening set by St. Beauty, a duo from Atlanta who are part of the Wondaland collective, but I like what I heard and will check them out.
Full Set List
Dirty Computer (the recording of this song from the album, complete with Brian Wilson’s harmonies, played as entrance music)
Crazy, Classic, Life
Take a Byte
Screwed
Django Jane
Q.U.E.E.N.
Electric Lady
PrimeTime
Pynk
Yoga
I Like That
Don’t Judge Me
Make Me Feel
I Got the Juice
Cold War
Tightrope
Encore:
So Afraid
Americans
Reviews:
Related Posts:
Lately I’ve been seeing some fatigue from among those of us fighting for American democracy against Trump, the Republicans, and those who support them. It feels like that somehow they outnumber us and they always win.
I think it’s important for people to remember that the population of the United States is currently around 328 million. Fewer than 63 million people voted for Trump. That’s less than 20% of the US population. Some of the people who voted for Trump are people who always vote Republican, some hated Clinton, some were angry and wanted to stir shit up. None of these things are particularly defensible reasons to vote for Trump, but the point is that there is a portion of the Trump vote that did not come from Trump devotees. Two years later, a portion of the people who were actually favorable to the idea of Trump as someone they’d actually like as President now feel betrayed and regret their point. Some of them regret their votes now that they’ve seen Trump in action. Thus, the number of people who are devoted supporters of Trump is less than that 20% and getting smaller. Trump supporters are outnumbered 4 to 1, at the least.
Now obviously, there’s a large portion of that 80% + that cannot vote: children under 18, non-naturalized immigrants, & people disenfranchised by incarceration, even after they’ve served their time. But if there’s anything we’ve seen in the last 2 years it’s that those three groups – children, immigrants, and communities most affected by felony disenfranchisement – who have provided some of our most powerful leaders and activists. So if you’re feeling hopeless right now remember this: it’s not going to be easy but the numbers are GREATLY in our favor! Don’t give up, we need each and every one of you!
Hit Parade :: The Deadbeat Club, Part 2
This examination of the late 80s output of the two great bands of Athens, GA – R.E.M. and B-52s – fills me with painful nostalgia.
Have You Heard? :: The Problem with Fear-Based School Reform
Do schools work better when they’re “run like a business” and teachers and administrators are forced to work in a culture of fear where they’re expected to get results or else? Or do we recognize the nurturing mission of schools and support reforms lead by educators who know the children best? And how much of so-called “education reform” is rooted in anti-labor sentiment anyway? These questions and more are discussed on “Have You Heard?”
WBUR News :: Faneuil Hall, School Assignments
Boston’s ongoing history of inequality and racism are addressed in two current stories about Faneuil Hall, a building named for a slaveholder, and the lack of quality education for the city’s most vulnerable communities.
Stories of assimilation of immigrants, Native Americans, and hyphenated-Americans throughout our history.
Author: Jon Springer
Title: Once Upon a Team: The Epic Rise and Historic Fall of Baseball’s Wilmington Quicksteps
Publication Info: Sports Publishing (2018)
Previously Read by the Same Author: Mets By the Numbers
Summary/Review:
Generally, I would not be prone to pick up a book about 19th-century baseball in Wilmington, Delaware, but I know the author, and I appreciate his writing on baseball. Jon Springer uses a wealth of primary documents to provide a lot of detail and quotes about the rough and tumble early era of professional baseball. It’s common to think that “baseball as a business” is a recent phenomenon, but in these pages are stories of players jumping from team to team for better contracts, teams moving to new cities hoping for more profits, and snarky sportswriters covering it all.
With a preamble on the history of amateur and professional baseball clubs in Wilmington, the heart of the book focuses on the 1884 season of the newly formed Wilmington Quicksteps. 1884 is a year where professional baseball supersaturated America’s cities. The National League and their rival American Association were joined by the upstart Union Association. The new league set out to challenge the reserve clause, the means by which teams retained rights to players after their contracts expired, keeping players in a state of indentured servitude. Nevertheless, the Union Association found it difficult to lure away talented players from the two existing leagues.
The Wilmington Quicksteps began 1884 as part of the Eastern League, a minor league that was a forerunner of today’s International League. Lead by colorful characters like Oyster Burns and The Only Nolan, the Quicksteps dominated the rest of the teams in the league. The downside to this is that the team was so far ahead they had trouble drawing spectators and found themselves in a financial pickle. The Quicksteps played exhibition games against major league teams passing through Wilmington in order to bring in spectators and money, and often played competitive games.
By August, with clubs in the Union Association folding, and the Quicksteps seemingly too good for the Eastern League and in need of a financial boost, it seemed like a natural decision for Wilmington to join the Union Association as a replacement team. But fortune was not on Wilmington’s side. They played only 18 games in the Union Association and won only 2 of them. The experience brought the Quicksteps to their demise, and the Union Association was unable to return for the 1885 season.
This well-researched book is an engaging read and will be of interest to anyone curious about baseball history.
Recommended books: A Game of Brawl by Bill Felber, Ed Delahanty in the Emerald Age of Baseball by Jerrold Casway, and Connecticut Baseball: The Best of the Nutmeg State by Don Harrison
Rating: ***1/2
Author: Human Nature
Title: Paul Cornell
Publication Info: London : BBC Books, 2015 (originally published May 1995)
Summary/Review:
In this novel, the Doctor has himself genetically modified so he can experience life as a human. Forgetting his real identity, the Doctor believes he is a Scottish teacher named John Smith at a boy’s school in rural England in 1914. If this sounds familiar to Doctor Who tv viewers, it’s because Cornell adapted this book as the two-part episode “Human Nature/Family of Blood” in Series 3 with David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor/John Smith. It’s best not to think of the television adaptation while reading the book as the stories differ in many ways.
Cornell’s basic idea was to have a story featuring the Doctor in a romantic relationship with a fellow teacher, Joan Redfern. Again, in the present day we’ve seen the Doctor fall in love with Rose, snog Madame Pompadour, and marry River Song, so the elaborate plot of making the Doctor a human for him to experience romance would be excessive. Apart from the love story, this book is a good exploration of being human and the Doctor’s character.
On the one hand this is a brutal and gory story. The villainous alien Aubertides are merciless in slaughtering (and eating) anyone who gets in their way. In response, the leaders of the school are willing to mobilize the boys into a military unit to fight back. There’s even a disturbing scene early in the book where the school boys murder one of their own.
On the other hand, John Smith, while still in a human guise is able to determine a better way. To throw away the guns, lead the children to safety, attempt diplomacy, and then win through guile. The willingness of the human characters in this book to support and sacrifice for one another shows our species at it’s best.
Like many Virgin New Adventures, there’s a surplus of side characters and interwoven sideplots that could be excised to make a tighter, more focused adventure. But it’s still a gripping read and Doctor Who at it’s best.
Favorite Passages:
“I can see why Rocastle thinks that way. It’s attractive. Imagine, never having to make any decisions. Because of honor. And etiquette. And patriotism. You could live like a river flowing downhill, hopping from one standard response to the other. Honour this. Defend that.”
“‘Isn’t it odd,’ opined Alexander, ‘how close masculinity is to melodrama?'”
Rating: ****
Previously Reviewed:
Panorama of the Mountains 