Yesterday in Morristown was a
double header. A junior division bout preceded the adult match.
First up was the home NJRD Small
Stars vs. the visiting Jersey Jr. Roller Derby. Junior division bouts often are
surprisingly hard-fought and competitive, and that proved to be the case last
night. The Jersey Jrs jumped to an early lead with a very fast #5 Julia Goulia
putting 18 on the board in the first jam, a prelude to similar performances by
her throughout the game. Other Jr jammers, including #222 Susie Sparkles and
#20 Dirty Dan, assisted by good blocking tactics by their teammates also proved
adept. The Small Stars kept in the game, however, as blocking stiffened and points
were gained by their own jammers including #15 Fast n Furious and #10 Mia Slam.
At halftime the score was a very competitive 95 - 133 in favor of the Jrs. The
second half began with an exceptional multipass jam by Jr skater #9 Wild One.
Both teams skated hard, but the Jrs built on their lead. The Jersey Jrs took
the match with a final score of 215 – 330.
MVPs:
For Small Stars – #377 Crush n Skulls
as blocker, #10 Mia Slam as jammer
For Jersey Jrs – #666 Psycho Si as
blocker, #5 Julia Ghoulia as jammer
** **
In the adult bout the home New Jersey
Roller Derby (NJRD) hosted the Jersey Shore Roller Girls. The Jersey Shore repeatedly
has skated against both Morristown derby leagues over the past several years
with mixed results, so there was no safe way to predict the outcome of this
match.
The NJRD got off to a portentous start
with #11 Tuff Crust Pizza scoring 25 points in the first jam. Assisted by good
tactical blocking #100 Tkatch Money and #1793 Queen Guillotine for NJRD also
made repeated multi-passes through the pack throughout the match. The NJRD has
built up a depth of effective jammers in the past few seasons and the results
are showing. Jersey Shore remained in the game, more than once overcoming stiff
blocking with star passes to #1732 BlackEye Betty and making the most of power
jams, including a strong one by #42 Veruca S. Salt. #570 Slammabelle Lee was
able to force her way through opposition walls. On this occasion though, it
wasn’t enough. Final score was 251 – 86
in favor of NJRD.
MVPs:
For Jersey Shore – #33 Stoli as
blocker, #570 Slammabelle Lee as jammer
For NJRD – #100 Tkatch Money as
blocker, #11 Tuff Crust Pizza as jammer
Anniversaries are nostalgic at 10,
worrisome at 20 and bonechilling at 50. I remember my dad’s response to the various
anniversaries of D-Day (he was there in ’44) as the number crept upward. The 50th
made him just shake his head in disbelief. I find myself shaking my own head these
days, though none of my anniversaries are as noteworthy as that one. I was
reminded of one today when a bit of clumsiness dislodged my one and only blue
ribbon from a horse show. I see that it has been 50 (!) years. It was won in a
hackney category on a 15 hand (1 hand = 4 inches) white and tan paint gelding
named Goblin. I don’t have any pics of that show, but I do have one of me on
Goblin a year earlier; he is the fourth horse from the left. I suppose my
philosophy (though it wasn’t conscious) was “quit while you’re ahead.” That was
the last formal show I ever entered, though I’ve continued to ride informally ever
since, some years more than others.
On Goblin (4th horse) 1966
Horses never have been central to
my life. I don’t live for them the way so many equestrians do – not just
professionals but a great many pleasure horse owners also. I do not own any. There have been entire years when I have not gotten
on a horse at all. Yet, they often were in the background and more than once
tipped the balance in key life decisions. Late in the summer of 1964 (again: !)
when I was 11 years old my mom gave me the options of prep school or public
school for the upcoming September. I picked prep (St. Bernard’s, nowadays
called Gill/St. Bernard’s) for no other reason than that horseback riding was
offered as part of the sports program. (My sister picked public school for no other
reason than boys – most private schools weren’t coed back then.) That decision
had lasting consequences in ways large and small. [See Horse
Sense for the tale of my most dramatic spill off a horse in ’66.]
They have been a factor in romance as well. At least half the dates in my life involved
horses – including the one that led to my brief ill-fated marriage, which in
turn had major financial consequences. Right up through the 2000s, “Let’s go
horseback riding” was a surprisingly effective pick-up line.
On the trails with friends 1997
I know NJ does not have a reputation
as horse country, but much of it is. The US Equestrian Team is HQ’d here
and there are lots of stables, facilities, and trails. There are also lots of
horse shows, but since ’67 I’ve never been of a mind to compete in any of them –
nor am I really well schooled enough to do so if I were. For me, the appeal is
mental relaxation. There is something about a horse on a wooded trail that
eases the mind better than Xanax ever can. Deserts too. My most pleasant ride,
for which I needed a compass to get back, was in the desert near Fallon NV out
of sight of anything but scrub, hills, and sand. (I’m sure the horse had a
name, but I didn’t know what it was.) I decided it was time to turn back toward
the direction of Fallon when I came upon a sign seemingly in the middle of
nowhere that said, “US Naval Bombing Range.”
Last Friday afternoon I found
myself in sight of a movie theater with a couple of hours to pass. The solution
was obvious.
Quick review:
Unforgettable (2017) – in theaters
Some movies are intended to
be trash. In cinema (and several other arts) that is not the same as garbage.
When indie cult film director John Waters says that American culture is trash
culture, he takes pains to add that he doesn’t mean it as an insult. Something
doesn’t have to be high art still to have its own integrity, just as a good
hamburger can be as satisfying in its own way as a fine steak. John didn’t
direct Unforgettable. Denise Di Nobi
did. Nonetheless, and somewhat surprisingly given her previous work as a
producer for films such as Edward
Scissorhands and Crazy, Stupid, Love,
her feature film directorial debut is trash. I don’t mean that as an insult,
for it is satisfying in its own way. The title begs us to comment that the film
is entirely forgettable, and so it is, but it nonetheless has the elements for
a guilty pleasure.
Julia (Rosario Dawson) is a
writer whose former boyfriend was horrifically abusive, but now she has a
fabulous fiancé David (Geoff Stults): handsome, kind, and affectionate with his
own craft beer business. Well, there is his perfectly groomed ex-wife Tessa
(Katherine Heigl) with whom he shares custody of their young daughter Lily, but
everyone has baggage, right? Julia decides to move in with David in his upscale
small town and to work from home. She soon discovers, however, that Tessa is “psycho
Barbie.” Tessa wants Julia gone. Julia has no social media pages due to earlier
stalking issues, but Tessa opens a Facebook page in Julia’s name and initiates
contact with her old obsessive and abusive boyfriend. Troubles multiply. David,
as is typical of husbands/beaus in this type of movie, is well-meaning but
clueless: utterly unable to see when he is being manipulated.
Dawson works her part well,
but Heigl proves to be perfectly cast. Apparently Heigl has been miscast in her
good girl roles all these years – a possibility of which we caught a glimpse in
Home Sweet Hell (2015). She makes a perfect
ruthless villain.
This movie will win no
Oscars, but Thumbs mildly Up as entertainment.
Another exciting derby bout
took place in Morristown last night as the home Jerzey Derby Brigade (JDB) met
the visiting Hudson Valley Horrors.
The teams appeared closely
matched throughout the first half with a very slight advantage to the Horrors.
Blocking was energetic and well organized on both sides forcing jammers to work
hard for their points. JDB’s #8 Lil Mo Peep in particular received repeated
rough handling by Horrors blockers but still managed to work her way through
the pack. At 15 minutes into the bout the score stood 37-39 in favor of the
Horrors. The Horrors slowly added to their lead with #4 Black Cherry having
especial success. At the end of the first half JDB trailed by a substantial 63
– 88.
The second half couldn’t have
been more different from the first. JDB skaters took to the track with
determination. 30 point jam by JDB skater #3684 Californikate put the JDB in
the lead 97 – 90. Despite spirited jams by Horrors skaters and strong blocking
by #1134 Surly Trample and #666 Rxy Ramalotte among others, the JDB
increasingly dominated the scoreboard. Lil Mo Peep, 00 Mental Block, and #64
Madeleine Alfight jammed with repeated success. In the final jam #4 Black
Cherry did what she could for the Horrors in a power jam against stiff
blocking, notably by #221 Det. Sure-Block Holmes, but the JDB lead by that
point was secure.
Final score: 228-135 in favor of JDB.
MVPs: #4 Black Cherry
(jammer) & #666 Rxy Ramalotte (blocker) for Hudson Valley Horrors; 00 Mental
Block (jammer) & #221 Det. Sure-Block Holmes (blocker) for JDB.
From hard experience I
learned that I am single at heart, a phrase borrowed from Bella DePaulo,
professor at UCSB, author of several books on singlehood, and author of the
column Living
Single at Psychology Today.
I would have spared myself much grief (and perhaps one or two others some grief)
had I learned it sooner, but better late than never. Much as I enjoy company, I
also enjoy that, unlike a cohabiter, company leaves. It’s important to my peace
of mind to be able to get drunk and crank up the stereo at 3 a.m. (I have no
close neighbors either) without having to negotiate it ahead of time or explain
it afterward to someone else. I don’t actually do that very often (the day
after isn’t worth it) but the freedom to be able to do so without consequences
(other than a hangover) matters. That example is, of course, a stand-in for every
other aspect of normal daily life: no negotiation or accommodation required.
Very relaxing. Once again, I’m not a hermit or misanthrope (well, maybe a
little of the latter); company is great, just so long as it is less frequent
than solitude.
There are nonstandard
practices that tend to creep into a single person’s life, and some of them
involve food. Meals tend to be haphazard and at any time of the day or night.
The first meal of the day (whenever that might be) could be a Stromboli and the
last pancakes. You never know. It depends on what is in the fridge, which is
not stocked to accommodate anyone else. Once or twice a week, though, I
actually go out to breakfast: typically with a friend (again, not a hermit) and
most often at The
Minuteman, a reasonably priced local spot with good food
including a variety of baked-in-house pies. (Someone there must be a fan of the
2007 movie Waitress.) Because of my
nonstandard breakfasts on the other 5 or 6 days of the week, the menu always
raises the question of why these particular foods are regarded as breakfast
foods. Yes, many diners offer “all day breakfasts” but “breakfast” is still right
there in the description with the implication that ordering one off-hours is
somehow bending the rules. The question arose this morning when I ordered the “Breakfast
Brigade” which has several of the usual items: pancake, French toast, hash
browns, eggs, and bacon.
The answer to the question,
of course, is habit. We grow up with certain foods for breakfast and it just
seems natural to have them in the morning. Yet, their initial arrival on the
menu is not so very far rooted in the past. Many have written of the bizarre
origins of corn flakes as a health food in Kellogg’s sanatorium. Sylvester Graham
(as in Graham cracker) was also a fan of cereals and strict vegetarianism,
which he thought would prevent masturbation. (You can’t make this stuff up.) Waffles
and pancakes, previously as likely a dessert as breakfast food, fit into the whole
grain prescription for breakfast. A counterattack on grains didn’t take long. Eggs
and bacon along with other meats long had been common on the farm, but they
became an urban breakfast staple as part a deliberate campaign in the 1920s.
Faced with a surplus of
bacon, the Beech-Nut Packing Company hired Edward Bernays. Sigmund Freud’s
nephew, Bernays is regarded as the founder of modern public relations and
advertising techniques. His 1928 book Propaganda
is still worth a read; he was in favor of propaganda because he thought common
folk were unable to think for themselves and needed to persuaded by those who
knew better. He managed to find 5000 doctors to say the high protein farmer’s
diet was right all along and included this “study” in advertisements. Bacon and
sausage sales took off. (He also helped tobacco companies sell to women by
associating cigarettes with suffragists, but that is another story.) Fruit
companies similarly promoted the health benefits of vitamin C in orange juice.
By the end of the 1920s breakfast menus were what they still are today.
However they got on the menu,
I like standard breakfast fare in the morning. So, I’m sure I’ll continue to
order it once or twice per week. If the mood should strike for a pepperoni and
onion breakfast pizza though, I can order one the night before and heat it up
in the morning. There is no one to whom to explain it.
(Yes, I’m consciously
stealing from a classic WB cartoon title.)
The whole universe?
Space opera is back. On the
screen it never entirely left. When I was a youngster the Flash Gordon and Buck
Rogers serials from the 1930s still played on Saturday morning TV. My friends
and I knew they were ridiculous and we laughed at the special effects including
the model rockets with sparklers. (Side note: My mom later in the decade commented
that 1960s women’s fashions – notably miniskirts and boots – were exactly what appeared
in 1930s/40s scifi comics and serials; she was sure one had inspired the other.)
We didn’t mind the cheese though. Hey, the serials still were high adventure in
outer space with alien civilizations, evil emperors, daring princesses, dogfighting rocket ships, and hand-to-hand derring-do. They satisfied my
10-year-old soul, but the times they were a-changing. With Star Trek and 2001: A Space
Odyssey scifi became consciously higher concept. While this was a very good
thing overall, Star Wars showed there
was still a place for rousing old-fashioned space opera, too, this time with
stunning fx.
The printed word was another
matter. By the 1960s the big name authors had more than just adventure on their
minds. Asimov, Herbert, Heinlein and others had messages. Their protagonists
still zipped around the galaxy on occasion, but they tended to leave space
battles and evil emperors on alien planets to lesser lights. Scifi definitely
benefited from this and the authors’ messages often were thoughtful, e.g as a
random example Frank Herbert’s The Dosadi
Experiment, which painlessly encapsulates much of Machiavelli and
Nietzsche. In recent years, however, a number of topflight scifi authors have
returned to space opera with an entirely good conscience. It’s not all they do,
but they don’t outright avoid it. It is hard to argue that the results are often
deep, but they are generally entertaining and the quality of the writing
certainly helps. Two examples worth a scifi fan’s time are Revenger and The Collapsing
Empire.
**** ****
Revenger by Alastair Reynolds
As an author, Reynolds
somehow manages to be imaginative, literate, and prolific all at once.
Published in 2016, Revenger is a
solid addition to his impressive bibliography.
The setting is unspecified
thousands of years hence. The solar system has been abandoned and reoccupied
many times. Presumably it is this solar system; this is not definitively
stated, but there are references to the original sun, which would seem to
indicate the Sun. Civilizations have come and gone. The current one exists
mostly on terraformed asteroids (there are answers to the reader’s technical
objections to that) but the ruins of the earlier civilizations are scattered
everywhere. The central characters are the sisters Adrana and Arafura Ness, who
despite their father’s objections joined the crew of Monetta’s Mourn, a salvage space ship designed to exploit those
ruins.
It’s a tough universe out
there, however. The ship is attacked by a raider captained by the legendarily
ruthless Bosa Sennen. Bosa orders a massacre of the Monetta’s Mourn crew except for Adrana whose talents she can use.
Arafura escapes by hiding in the bulkhead and surviving until rescued by
another salvager. The rest of the novel is Arafura’s quest to recover her
sister and take revenge on Bosa. In the process she develops from innocence to
harshness. Her chances of success depend on tapping into darkness within
herself.
It’s not a typical heroine’s journey:
though Arafura develops the character and skills she needs to do what she has
to do, she clearly loses much in the process. Her pre-revenge self was less
impressive but much more likable.
**** ****
The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi
Scalzi is one of my favorite contemporary
scifi writers, and he doesn’t disappoint in The
Collapsing Empire, which was released earlier this year. Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series should be on the
shelf of any serious scifi fan, but his new novel has an entirely new setting
and milieu.
Once again we are in a
distant future. This time civilization spans the galaxy in a particularly
hodge-podge way. This has to do with the Flow, which is a natural phenomenon
that exists outside of normal space and effectively permits faster than light
travel. The Flow, a kind of web shaped by the (gravitational?) features of the
galaxy, doesn’t extend everywhere, so most of the galaxy remains inaccessible. Ships
cannot travel FTL without the Flow. Even the most far flung star systems are
reachable, however, if the Flow happens to pass near them.
The youthful Cardenia
Wu-Patrick becomes the new Emperox when her brother is killed in an accident
that might not have been an accident. It is not an elevation she expected or
wanted. She has to deal with a council of oligopolistic Merchant Houses who form
a nobility. (Future interstellar empires nearly always have medieval politics.)
Cardenia learns a frightening secret: the Flow’s shape is not permanent. The
galaxy changes and the Flow changes, too, and soon will strand populated star
systems and fracture the empire. Meantime one of the Merchant Houses has caught
wind that something is up with the Flow and is betting that a currently
unimportant distant mudball of a planet will be the center of a reshaped web.
Throw in ruthless traders, space pirates, and ambitious suitors of the new
emperox and we have elements for intrigue and action. Scalzi’s prose is both
literary and effortless to read, which is a rare combination.
**** ****
We all like to escape now and
then, and both books are fine escapist fare: fun without being simplistic. And,
hey, they are high adventure in outer space. They satisfy the soul of the
10-year-old boy inside this…um…somewhat older fellow.
I’m sittin’ by the dock of
the bay – a garage bay at the local lube center. My Chevy Cruze is inside getting an
oil change. The car’s dashboard display started nagging me about it a few days
ago. (Fortunately, no home AI yet tells me when to clean the carpets or mow the
lawn, but that must be arriving soon.) I don’t carry around laptops or tablets
for waiting times such as these – or even a phone with an internet connection –
so I’m jotting in a pocket notebook (the paper kind) with a mechanical pencil. Later
I’ll type this up on a home computer and add whatever info from online seems
appropriate.
One time-passer I do have
besides the notebook is coffee in a carry cup. I’ll almost certainly have a
second cup in a mug when I get back home. I’ve written about the history
of coffee before so I won’t repeat it. Here I merely mention the drink
as one of the simple pleasures in life and as one of the few mind-altering
drugs that carries little or no social disapprobation.
I didn’t take to coffee readily.
Like most kids (I think), I didn’t understand the attraction. My early experimental
sips of the stuff made me wonder if it was just warmed up muddy water scooped
up from a dirt driveway pothole after a rain. In fairness, the coffee I sampled
at home probably did taste like that. During World War 2, instant coffee,
originally developed as an easy to carry and prepare beverage for troops, was extraordinarily
popular with civilians as well. My parents were WW2 generation and they continued
to make instant coffee at home well into the 1990s. Let’s just say gourmet it
wasn’t. Nonetheless, whether at home or in diners, by my senior year of high
school I was willing to tolerate coffee provided it contained enough cream and
sugar – both of which mask the underlying flavor. Irish coffee wasn’t bad
either. It wasn’t until my final year of college that I not only found myself
liking coffee but started taking it black, which is still the way I prefer it.
Tastes evolve – or perhaps I just started buying better coffee. Besides,
leaving out the cream and sugar allows more calories for something else, like a
donut. (Anyone who calls that “empty calories” has no proper appreciation for
donuts.)
By no means am I a coffee
connoisseur. I don’t buy expensive blends or grind beans myself, though I
understand those who do. I can taste the difference: just not enough to make me
willing to pay $6 for a cup of coffee. I usually buy Colombian blend, though I’m
not wedded to a brand. The Folgers in the pic was on sale. There have been
claims of correlation
between personality and coffee preferences, but I wouldn’t take them too
seriously. The only thing the list of “black coffee drinker” attributes got
right in my case was (sort of) the coffee mug.
Anyway, I see a fellow waving
a bill at me, so my car is ready. With luck I can go a few thousand miles
before the vehicle scolds me again. I’m ready to head back home for a second
cup of coffee.
