Mardi Gras

1) I love this song but would it be a hit now? It is more than a little creepy.



Speaking of creepy in a violence against women way, did you see what Chris Brown's opening line on his Rihanna re-mix. Gawker has a post about it.

He is so very classy. His Twitter feed is awesome. His beef with Andy Levy is even better.

2) FAU has complained about The Hunger Games visibility in the past and I am going to complain about another pop culture phenomena that is over exposed: Downton Abbey.

Vulture (which I love) has a piece a day, and yesterday's piece was "Why It Doesn't Matter That the Second Season of Downton Abbey Was Mediocre" but they are still going to talk about why this soap opera (which I did try to embrace) is wonderful.

No. It is not. Objectively, it is bad art. I am not saying that the people who enjoy it are lesser for it (out loud) but I am saying that the people who wholeheartedly support it (loudly) are missing something. (Looking at you, Most Media Bloggers!)

This is not a cause for me, nor am I doing this as a way to slag the fans of the show...I just do not understand it and the love for it.

When even the Guardian was saying after the second series (and it is series, not season. STOP DOING THAT!) that it was awful, why did the nattering and chattering classes (especially here) still love this show?

3) It is a quite a week for birthdays. Yesterday would have been Kurdt Cobain's forty fifth birthday and today would have been David Foster Wallace's fiftieth.

In honor of DFW's 50th, The Awl has provided 46 Things to Read and See for DFW's 50th Birthday. I have read and seen most of these and I do have to make the suggestion that if you have not read DFW, you take the time to do it. He will, if not change your life, challenge your suppositions, which is what an author is supposed to do. (See what I did there?)

I think I may spend the evening listening to Nevermind and reading a collection of DFW's short non-fiction.

4) Did you watch Maddow last night?

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Did you see the stuff about Frank VanderSloot? Amazing, was it not?

It does make me think of someone saying, "Pay no attention to the man behind the money curtain. Pay not attention! I will use my attorneys if you pay attention!"

5) It is Mardi Gras!

Here are your beads!

You know what to do!

(It's okay. It really is okay. You will have all of Lent to feel guilty about it.)

An aside:

Last week, I was on the bus headed east on Western Avenue, and the two high school aged people sitting behind me were having a loud conversation.

(Passing a Lutheran Church)

She: What is Ash Wednesday?
He: (Authoritatively) It has something to do with the Jews.
Me: (weeps silently)

Monday Afternoon

1) This was the song of the weekend, at least for me.



You know that you want to sing along. This may be the only good thing to come out of Red Sox Nation.

2) NOW With Alex Wagner is a lot more watchable when Alex is off*. However, having Ana Marie Cox (Twitter) on the panel makes everything a look better.

*When Alex was the weekend AM host, she was awesome. She was fun, and there was a certain quality about her that lent itself to Saturday and Sunday mornings. During the week, I just find myself becoming more annoyed.

3) I tried the burger at the Brown Bag in Troy.

It was very good and I did enjoy it. (I also inhaled it.) However, I am beginning to think that everyone's relationship with a burger (some people swear that McDonald's is good, while I think that it is acceptable on the road or if there is not going to be chance to have a hot meal.) is like their relationship with G*d; complicated, based not on fact but faith, and personal.

4) Did you watch The Walking Dead last night? Apart from the various "let us move the story forward" plot points, what did you think of the extended face eating scene (friends on Facebook thought it was too much) and the introduction of Sean(?) and the ripping of the impaled leg of the fence post? If they continue along the soap opera-esque "who is the baby's father" plot line much longer, I will stop watching...or at least I will complain more as I am watching. If I wanted to watch a soap opera, I would be watching Cougarton Abbey.



5) Name two.

10/25/86

Game 6, Shea Stadium, Queens, New York

Notes from a Friday Afternoon

1) Tim Wakefield has retired.



I love this clip, even though it is from the Onion.

But look at him warming up, that movement is...weird.



Yet another reason for me to only pay attention to the Red Sox this year in order to knowledgeably mock their fans.

2) Speaking of baseball, I have been falling asleep to Ken Burns' Baseball. This has created interesting dreams including dreams where a friend is talking as if she were Doris Kearns Goodwin. This is interesting for a couple of reasons. Largely, it is interesting because I love this friend and I loathe DKG. (Allowing for my soft spot for Wait Till Next Year which as a memoir and not a piece of scholarship stands up to scrutiny.)

3) Still on baseball, I realized that I had never read The Bad Guys Won fully. I had read excerpts and did own a paper copy of it but that was given to someone. When Gary Carter passed yesterday after a long battle with cancer, I thought back to '86 and the Mets and when my love of baseball was cemented. One of my brother's childhood friends had an autographed photo of Roger Clemens and Gary Carter standing together from the '86 series and I still covet it. Reading this book, and the often boorish behavior of these players that I looked up to is a compelling read for any baseball fan.

4) I have heard Whitney Houston's rendition of The Star Spangled Banner often over the past week and while I do admit that it was a supremely good performance, the patriotic song that makes me the most...proud to be an American while being stunned by the beauty of the performance, I choose this one.



5) Troy's reputation for crassness and down market lifestyle was fully cemented in my mind last night. If you are an adult female, and you say that you are "madddd angry" after you get bounced from a bar for starting a fight, then complaining about losing the money you spent on your drink, you have an interesting priority set.

RIP Kid

God Speed, Gary Carter!

Thank you for helping make me a Mets fan.

Condolences to the Carter family.