- Watching the opening ceremony with the boys was an incredible experience. We got out a map and identified each country as the athletes came in and I was completely blown away by how much geography Joseph and Caleb know. Like, I bet they'd beat about 75% of American adults on a geography quiz. They knew the continent of almost every country, and could easily identify New Zealand on the map, for example. How do they know all this? I'm not sure. They were also touched by all the right things. In the middle of the long and kind of boring speech by the organizer, Joseph was apparently inspired. "These athletes are great examples of working hard! If they got knocked down or hurt when they were training, they just got right back up again to keep working!!" he said. Uh, yep. (I suddenly feel like we are in a Proctor & Gamble commercial.)
- And the opening ceremony was so terrific! I loved the whales! I loved the Joni Mitchell wheat field number, and kd lang, and Sarah McClachlan! Not so keen on the punked-out fiddling tap dancers, but it did give some variety.
- Kim Yu-Na was so phenomenally good. The highlight of the whole thing.
- Rachel Flatt, bless her heart, skated well. But she really needs some costume advice and to match her tights to somewhere in the same universe as her skin tone. Holy distracting!!!
- Short track - most adrenalizing sport to watch ever! So fun!
- Lindsey Vonn - not ending the games as many peoples' sweetheart, I'm afraid.
- Ice dancing - too painful and embarrassing to even watch.
- Evan Lysacek deserves a second gold medal for handling all the post-winning baiting to talk badly about Plushenko with about as much grace and class as humanly possible.
- Shaun White - unbelievable. How can someone be so incredibly much better than every other top athlete in his sport?! Just amazing to watch.
- Hockey. Well, I enjoyed my half hour as a hockey fan as much as the rest of America, but it's probably best the Canadians won since they'll still care in a week.
- The best way to watch the coverage is definitely with the mute button nearby and a book in your hand to make the endless commercials bearable.
- One of the women on the Alpine ski team is from New Castle! Our little town of 3500 people! Her aunt is in my yoga class! Joseph's school made a big deal of her being there, and it is a big deal. She crashed out of her race, but still, very cool.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
The Olympics!!
I love the Olympics!! I love it even out of proportion to how much I actually enjoy it. A few thoughts about the past two weeks which you will probably find boring if you don't also really love the Olympics:
Presidents Day at Colorado National Monument
A few weeks ago, we all had Presidents Day free and thought we should do something fun. Sunday we drove down to Nephi's parents' home and spent the night with them. It was Valentine's Day and Grandma helped the boys make cute cards for us. Joseph was enamored with the ducks in their pond and had a good time trying (unsuccessfully) to sneak up on them. Monday we headed home through Grand Junction and the Colorado National Monument. It was cold out so we mostly drove through along a stunningly beautiful road. We did one short hike to Devil's Kitchen - a big sandstone outcropping. There was some snow and ice along the path, which made for some slipping, which made for some unhappy boys, but once we got there we had a good time climbing around and enjoying the view.
The exit to the Monument is right by the Dinosaur Journey museum in Grand Junction. We're members, so we stopped and spent about 45 minutes there, which is about right. It's a small place and the boys like it. Every time we go, however, I wish I remembered to bring my camera to take a picture to post on here of the last stunning display. It cracks me up every time. After the whole museum and accompanying video are very carefully non-bloody, this display shows a six-foot-tall theropod with the severed head of a sauropod hanging from its mouth. The sauropod's body is on the ground, and it's head is ripped off around mid-neck. And the head is still connected to the body by these stringy, dangling, ligamenty-looking things. The display animates, and the theropod shakes the head back and forth so the ligaments swing around looking bloody and gross. It is so off the wall, I just wish I had been in on the brainstorming sessions for that display. My kids don't seem to find it too disturbing, though, so there's that.
A nice day! I love my family!
The exit to the Monument is right by the Dinosaur Journey museum in Grand Junction. We're members, so we stopped and spent about 45 minutes there, which is about right. It's a small place and the boys like it. Every time we go, however, I wish I remembered to bring my camera to take a picture to post on here of the last stunning display. It cracks me up every time. After the whole museum and accompanying video are very carefully non-bloody, this display shows a six-foot-tall theropod with the severed head of a sauropod hanging from its mouth. The sauropod's body is on the ground, and it's head is ripped off around mid-neck. And the head is still connected to the body by these stringy, dangling, ligamenty-looking things. The display animates, and the theropod shakes the head back and forth so the ligaments swing around looking bloody and gross. It is so off the wall, I just wish I had been in on the brainstorming sessions for that display. My kids don't seem to find it too disturbing, though, so there's that.
A nice day! I love my family!
Monday, February 01, 2010
January Reading Roundup
Bombingham by Anthony Grooms (3 stars)
This book really puts in your face the reality of living in the Jim Crow south in the sixties through the eyes of a child. I think it's easy as a white person living in the 2000s to sometimes think lunch counters, water fountains, blah blah. To just kind of gloss over it. But there was no glossing over it for the people who lived it and had to somehow explain to themselves and their children the hundred ways they were belittled and dehumanized every day. It's harrowing to think this happened in our own country only fifty years ago. Reflecting on times like this, and how many people were willing to accept the status quo and justify it to themselves, it's motivating to be sure we're on the right side of truth and justice in our own lives. Because history will judge each of us.
The writing, however, seemed a little... inexperienced. A little too much telling and not showing, a few too many conversations overheard through a window. I thought the ending was surprisingly strong, though. The boy who grew up in Birmingham is now fighting in Vietnam, and the way violence and injustice and loss has scarred and shaped him, and continue to haunt him, come together just in the nick of time. To save the book, but not him.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (2 stars)
The language is quite lovely - its a very sparse, poetic read, and I enjoyed that. Especially the imagery of the desert and the grazing sheep. But it's just bursting out all over the place with self-importance and little life lessons. The sort of thing I would have made a list of deep quotes from when I was 13. But now it just sort of bugs. I find myself especially turned off by new-agey, deep-indigenous-wisdom sorts of things lately, so it just wasn't the right time for me and this book to meet up, I guess.
The Giver by Lois Lowry (4 stars)
The perennial favorite of Relief Society book clubs strikes again. I read it a few years ago, and was pleasantly surprised rereading it that it's really quite good. There are lots of interesting ideas explored - social responsibility, individual freedom, institutional memory, protecting a people from pain, commitment to honesty, loyalty, the price of love, the use of language to control thought and discussion, the meaning of family. It is interesting as an adult, and would blow the minds of a class of seventh graders.
A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder by Michael Pollan (3 stars)
Hey, it's Michael Pollan talking about something other than food?! Cool! I really like Michael Pollan, and I'm with him on the food thing, but still it was refreshing. I liked reading about his ordeal building a little writing house for himself in the woods, and all the Thoreau references made me want to reread Walden. I totally identified with his motivation for doing something like this - to tear himself away from ideas and words and computer screens and actually make something tangible with his hands. I laughed a lot about how he went about choosing the site for the house. But the project went on for two years, and the book lost a little steam for me. Also, it started to seem a bit ridiculous to be spending so much money for this little hands-on experience. But still, there were some interesting ruminations about architecture and wood and craftsmanship, and I enjoyed it.
Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays by David Foster Wallace (4 stars)
And with this I believe I am formally a DFW groupie. I love his voice and his thoughts. And he is so funny and so clever. I'm very much looking forward to tackling Infinite Jest.
This essays in this book cover all kinds of territory - the porn industry, John McCain, 9-11, grammar, Dostoyevsky, a hilarious scathing dismantling of Updike, right-wing talk radio, the ethics of eating lobster. I think I enjoyed the essay about the porn industry the most - very funny, and horrifying in a not-self-righteous sort of way. (Although be forewarned that given the subject matter it is at times shockingly vulgar and crass.) I also especially liked the article about his week on the road with the Straight Talk Express during the 2000 primaries, which happened to be the week that the push-polling by Bush people in South Carolina brought everything to a hasty end. His reflection on our cynicism about politics, and how badly people wanted to believe in McCain, and the impossible position that put McCain in were very interesting to me, especially in relation to my involvement with the Obama campaign. (Also, it was just flabbergasting to read about the cutting edge technology that the press were all using on the road a mere ten years ago and how incredibly ancient it seems now. Modems and fax machines beeping, people hooking up their laptops to their cell phones to send stories off, the novelty of fast-forwarding digital video and having things go all blocky...)
I think there is no one essay that is of long term consequence here, however. I just really, really like the way the guy writes.
This book really puts in your face the reality of living in the Jim Crow south in the sixties through the eyes of a child. I think it's easy as a white person living in the 2000s to sometimes think lunch counters, water fountains, blah blah. To just kind of gloss over it. But there was no glossing over it for the people who lived it and had to somehow explain to themselves and their children the hundred ways they were belittled and dehumanized every day. It's harrowing to think this happened in our own country only fifty years ago. Reflecting on times like this, and how many people were willing to accept the status quo and justify it to themselves, it's motivating to be sure we're on the right side of truth and justice in our own lives. Because history will judge each of us.
The writing, however, seemed a little... inexperienced. A little too much telling and not showing, a few too many conversations overheard through a window. I thought the ending was surprisingly strong, though. The boy who grew up in Birmingham is now fighting in Vietnam, and the way violence and injustice and loss has scarred and shaped him, and continue to haunt him, come together just in the nick of time. To save the book, but not him.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (2 stars)
The language is quite lovely - its a very sparse, poetic read, and I enjoyed that. Especially the imagery of the desert and the grazing sheep. But it's just bursting out all over the place with self-importance and little life lessons. The sort of thing I would have made a list of deep quotes from when I was 13. But now it just sort of bugs. I find myself especially turned off by new-agey, deep-indigenous-wisdom sorts of things lately, so it just wasn't the right time for me and this book to meet up, I guess.
The Giver by Lois Lowry (4 stars)
The perennial favorite of Relief Society book clubs strikes again. I read it a few years ago, and was pleasantly surprised rereading it that it's really quite good. There are lots of interesting ideas explored - social responsibility, individual freedom, institutional memory, protecting a people from pain, commitment to honesty, loyalty, the price of love, the use of language to control thought and discussion, the meaning of family. It is interesting as an adult, and would blow the minds of a class of seventh graders.
A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder by Michael Pollan (3 stars)
Hey, it's Michael Pollan talking about something other than food?! Cool! I really like Michael Pollan, and I'm with him on the food thing, but still it was refreshing. I liked reading about his ordeal building a little writing house for himself in the woods, and all the Thoreau references made me want to reread Walden. I totally identified with his motivation for doing something like this - to tear himself away from ideas and words and computer screens and actually make something tangible with his hands. I laughed a lot about how he went about choosing the site for the house. But the project went on for two years, and the book lost a little steam for me. Also, it started to seem a bit ridiculous to be spending so much money for this little hands-on experience. But still, there were some interesting ruminations about architecture and wood and craftsmanship, and I enjoyed it.
Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays by David Foster Wallace (4 stars)
And with this I believe I am formally a DFW groupie. I love his voice and his thoughts. And he is so funny and so clever. I'm very much looking forward to tackling Infinite Jest.
This essays in this book cover all kinds of territory - the porn industry, John McCain, 9-11, grammar, Dostoyevsky, a hilarious scathing dismantling of Updike, right-wing talk radio, the ethics of eating lobster. I think I enjoyed the essay about the porn industry the most - very funny, and horrifying in a not-self-righteous sort of way. (Although be forewarned that given the subject matter it is at times shockingly vulgar and crass.) I also especially liked the article about his week on the road with the Straight Talk Express during the 2000 primaries, which happened to be the week that the push-polling by Bush people in South Carolina brought everything to a hasty end. His reflection on our cynicism about politics, and how badly people wanted to believe in McCain, and the impossible position that put McCain in were very interesting to me, especially in relation to my involvement with the Obama campaign. (Also, it was just flabbergasting to read about the cutting edge technology that the press were all using on the road a mere ten years ago and how incredibly ancient it seems now. Modems and fax machines beeping, people hooking up their laptops to their cell phones to send stories off, the novelty of fast-forwarding digital video and having things go all blocky...)
I think there is no one essay that is of long term consequence here, however. I just really, really like the way the guy writes.
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