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Four things meme and football

Tagged by a blogger improbably named Kinesthesis Breakthrough.

Four Jobs You’ve Had

1. Foot messenger
2. Restaurant cleaner
3. Pizza delivery guy
4. Legal proofreader/ word processor

Four Movies You Could Watch Over and Over

1. Chinatown
2. Spinal Tap
3. Memento (that’s a joke, son)
4. Mulholland Drive (no, not King Kong—the other Naomi Watts meta-movie)

Four Places You’ve Lived

1. Flushing, Queens
2. Silver Spring, Maryland
3. Charlottesville, Virginia
4. Champaign, Illinois

Four TV Shows You Love to Watch

1. I do not know what a “TV show” is.  Does hockey count?
2. Oh yeah, The Daily Show
3.
4.

Four Places You’ve Been on Vacation

1. Seillans, France
2. Siena, Italy
3. Rangeley, Maine
4. Rodanthe, North Carolina

Four Blogs You Visit Daily

1. Hullabaloo
2. AmericaBlog
3. The Poor Man
4. Kevin Drum (Political Animal)

Four of Your Favorite Foods

1. Grilled Ahi, very rare
2. Sausage and Peppers
3. Lobster rolls
4. New Haven pizza.  Modern, Sally’s, or Pepe’s.

Four Places You’d Rather Be

1. New York
2. Pittsburgh
3. Montréal
4. Under the sea in an octopus’s garden in the shade

Four Albums You Can’t Live Without

1. This Year’s Model – Elvis Costello
2. It’s a Shame About Ray – Lemonheads
3. (About two-thirds of) Mingus Ah Um – Charles Mingus
4. Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks – Brian Eno

Four Vehicles You’ve Owned

1. 1998 Subaru Outback, 2000- ?
2. 1990 Mercury Tracer wagon, 1991-2000
3. 1975 Ford Grenada, 1987-88
4. Used moped purchased in August 1984 and stolen in October 1984

Four Taggees

1. Quod She
2. Lance Mannion
3. Gavin M.
4. Shakes’s Sis

My apologies if any of you have already been tagged, like, in the past eight months.

As for football: sorry I didn’t get around to posting my predictions for the Orange and Rose Bowls.  Anyway, I predict that both games will be decided by 3 points; that Penn State will prevail in triple overtime after narrowly missing a great chance to dispose of the Seminoles in regulation (congrats to JoePa and the crew for a spectacular year); and that Texas will come back from a double-digit deficit to pull off a stunning upset of the University of Screenwriting and Cinematography.  You would have heard it here first—if not for all that pesky MLA stuff.

In the pros: Bucs over Vile Racist Slurs by 10; Jags over Patriots (please oh please) by 4; Panthers, alas, over Giants by 6; Bengals over Steelers in OT.

And oh yeah, today’s my second blogging anniversary.

Posted by on 01/07 at 12:32 PM

  1. Oddly enough, this is also my two millionth comment here!

    Happy anniversary, Michael. Long may you wave.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  01/07  at  02:16 PM

  2. Sorry to hear about that moped being stolen and the Grenada not being stolen. Happy Anniversary. May others with a different first name shower you with gifts.

    Posted by  on  01/07  at  02:42 PM

  3. Congratulations on the second anniversary!  I understand that the first five years are the hardest.

    Posted by Sean  on  01/07  at  02:52 PM

  4. Clams Casino at Modern or White Clam at Pepe’s.
    I prefer My Aim is True and Another Green World, but I concur on Ah Um!

    Posted by  on  01/07  at  04:02 PM

  5. Happy 2nd anniversary!  Hey, I’ve been to Siena, Italy on vacation too, but I don’t remember seeing you there, so how do I know you’re not fibbing?

    Posted by Scrivener  on  01/07  at  04:34 PM

  6. I’m surprised you saw my tag. I think I did this meme on my first blogging anniversary.

    BTW, I lived in Charlottesville from ‘86 to ‘90.

    Posted by dr m(mmm)  on  01/07  at  04:35 PM

  7. A second year anniversary and i was so hoping i would find some commentary regarding the NFL’s banning (and then lifting the ban) of persons over the age of “young, good-looking, mostly white, preferably female” to run onto the SuperBowl halftime field to “jump up and down” to the Rolling Stones.  Between that and MediaCitizen’s discussion of the exposing of breasts of female news anchors and the attempts by Katrina Vanden Heuval and Maureen Dowd to appear alluring and erotic, i was so needing a critical eye.  I will settle for the NFL predictions.  But hoping the Pats lose in Boston with a windchill in the single digits isn’t wasting good wishes.

    Posted by  on  01/07  at  05:28 PM

  8. Tarnation, Bérubé, I was going to tag you first, but Blogger wonkiness prevented me!  Now who’s left?!

    Weird parallel universe moment:  in the year 1987-88 I was also driving a 1975 Ford Grenada (it belonged to my mother).  Was yours silver with a burgandy vinyl interior?

    Happy blogoversary!  Today I did my 100th post and now I will do my 101st with this meme!

    Posted by Dr. Virago  on  01/07  at  07:03 PM

  9. Four reasons to root for the Patriots:

    1.  Belichick is a liberal
    2.  Brady never refers to himself in the third person
    3.  We’re the only team who can beat the Colts, and end the Manning love-in (come on, who doesn’t want to see him in tears again?)
    4.  I do, and I’m really a very nice guy.

    Posted by  on  01/07  at  07:20 PM

  10. OK, done.  I even managed to work in the word “pwned.”

    Posted by Dr. Virago  on  01/07  at  08:13 PM

  11. 4 vehicles ah’ve owned

    1. 65’ corvair, the one which began to lift wing- like at about 80 mph.

    2. 76’ Chevy Luv until wrecked in unrecalled DUI

    3. 82’ Tercel. Tight nipponese ride. I- 80 in blizzard near Rock Springs WY passing the yokels schtuck in their Ford 150s

    4. 92’ Jimmy. Got some snatch out of ‘er.

    Posted by 818  on  01/07  at  08:21 PM

  12. Happy anniversary, Michael.  Two years I have been reading htis and enjoying every minute of it.
    I will add two.
    Movies to watch over and over.
    1 La Crime de M. L’Ange.
    2 tokyo Story
    3 Vertigo
    4 Sherlock Junior
    Recordings to listen to over and over
    1 Revolver
    2 Highway 61 Revisited
    3 Mingus Ah UM (YES!!!)
    4 KIng of America

    Posted by  on  01/07  at  10:26 PM

  13. Wait, which bits of Mingus Ah Um are expendable?

    Posted by  on  01/07  at  11:54 PM

  14. 818 is well-known under another name, I fear. He doesn’t deign to hate me, because I don’t have enough traffic. He won’t sully his blade with villains and canaille.

    What’s with having 11 teams in the Big Ten, and which is the extra team?

    Posted by John Emerson  on  01/08  at  12:08 AM

  15. oooh, I’ll bet that 818 is the Troll of Sorrow!  Sounds a smidge undermedicated tonight…

    Posted by  on  01/08  at  12:12 AM

  16. Happy anniversary from just down the road from your old haunt Silver Spring (please note that it is singular...must not have lived there too long! *smile*), MD.

    Go Vile Racist Slurs!

    MK

    Posted by  on  01/08  at  12:24 AM

  17. Nice you gave Modern a shoutout.  It’s not unsung, but undersung; I might characterize it as the Guy Lapointe to Sally and Pepe’s Savard and Robinson.

    Posted by Delicious Pundit  on  01/08  at  04:34 AM

  18. which bits of Mingus Ah Um are expendable?

    You could take “Self-Portrait in Three Colors,” much of “Open Letter to Duke,” and “Pussy Cat Dues,” and I wouldn’t miss ‘em.  But I have to have the unedited “Boogie Stop Shuffle” and “Bird Calls” from the CD release.

    I’ve been to Siena, Italy on vacation too, but I don’t remember seeing you there

    Damn!  I saw you, though.  At the Palio—what an insane thing that is, huh?

    your old haunt Silver Spring (please note that it is singular...must not have lived there too long!

    Nope, just four months in 1967.  But thanks for the edit!  The spring is all fixed now.

    Posted by Michael  on  01/08  at  10:05 AM

  19. Films:

    1. The Third Man
    2. 2001-A Space Odyssey
    3. A Christmas Story
    4. Wild Strawberries

    Albums:

    1. Kathleen Battle--Mozart Arias
    2. Andras Schiff--Bach Keyboard Partitas
    3. Richard Goode--Late Beethoven Sonatas
    4. Mathias Goerne--Winterreise

    Posted by  on  01/08  at  02:46 PM

  20. ... 3. Rangeley, Maine heh?
    We’ll be on the alert for any evidence of subtle Reichian influence.

    I find it amusing/alarming that orgone somehow made it into the Scrabble dictionary:
    orgone orgones \ n pl. -S a postulated energy pervading the universe

    utter BS \ n pl. FOX NEWS a postulated substance pervading the conservative movement

    Posted by  on  01/08  at  03:16 PM

  21. Happy blogging anniversary. 

    I have to admit that I share Stuart’s enthusaism for the Pats (unless the Falcons could ever get their act together) and for similar reasons.

    Five years in Indiana and four years in Teneessee has left me sick and tired of all things Manning.

    Posted by Chuck  on  01/08  at  04:50 PM

  22. Oops...that should say “...have left me sick and tired of all things Manning.”

    Posted by Chuck  on  01/08  at  04:51 PM

  23. Films:
    1.  The Maltese Falcon
    2.  Pillow Talk
    3.  North by Northwest
    4.  Groundhog Day

    Posted by  on  01/08  at  05:40 PM

  24. Happy bloggiversary, Michael!

    Oh man, I can’t believe I missed my own Bowl. After what I spent on the naming rights, you’d think they could have reminded me about the game.

    Posted by Orange  on  01/09  at  12:40 AM

  25. Are you the famous FedEx Orange?  If so, I think the naming rights are already yours!

    Posted by Michael  on  01/09  at  01:12 AM

  26. Right, that’s me. Of course the naming rights are mine; have been for years, even before I married dEx (as I call him). But the bastards are coasting on my fine reputation and can’t be bothered to send me a postcard to let me know when they’re splashing my name all over television screens across the land? I thought we had something special. *sniffle*

    Posted by Orange  on  01/09  at  01:21 AM

  27. Any thoughts about the Penn State coaching scandal mentioned on AMERICAblog, http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/01/why-is-penn-state-supporting-rape-and.html

    Posted by  on  01/09  at  09:10 AM

  28. Not to denigrate Penn State as the “11th team”, but they were the most recent addition to the Big Ten.  If you’ll notice, the logo makes it clear that the Big Ten is actually the “Big (11) Ten”.  They snuck the “11” in so that it brackets the “T”.

    big10-04-top-03.gif

    And I would say that, in any given year, the “11th team” varies.  Lately, in football, it’s been Illinois, with Indiana close behind.

    Posted by  on  01/09  at  11:13 AM

  29. Stan, my thoughts are pretty much the same as Rob W’s in AmericaBlog’s comments (I tried to link directly to them, without success).  Unfortunately, the AmericaBlog headline is, shall we say, a bit irresponsible.  Did Joe’s remark “support rape”?  Of course not.  He got a question about an FSU player being benched for an alleged sexual assault:  “Coach, Florida State had to send A.J. Nicholson, their leading tackler, home. You’ve been in that position with kids before. What effect can that have on a team in a game like this?”—a question to which the best answer was probably something like “it’s hard to say, and I don’t know enough about the Nicholson situation to comment, anyway.” Alas, he didn’t go for that answer.  (Scott Berkowitz, president of the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, offers a diplomatic take here.) However.  Does Rene Portland discriminate against lesbian ballplayers?  By many accounts, yes.  And I honestly don’t see where any coach, in any sport, should have any business whatsoever with the sexual orientation of his or her players.

    But if you’re curious about why so many Penn State people feel kinda protective about Joe, keep in mind that it’s not just about football.  The guy is justly famous for running a clean program with record-high graduation rates, and quite apart from endowing two faculty chairs here (cough, cough), he led the campaign to double the size of the library.  Here’s another of Joe’s off-the-cuff remarks:  “I’ve said it a hundred times, a great library is the heart of a great university, and if we want to remain a big league university, we’ve got to have a big league library.” This was accompanied by a quarter-million dollar gift (part of a $14 million campaign) to what is now known as the Paterno Library.  Just saying.

    And actually, this has everything to do with Penn State joining the Big Ten Eleven.  Joe (among others) knew perfectly well that Penn State was now going to have to compete academically against places like Michigan and Northwestern, so Penn State put a heap of money into the library, into senior faculty hiring, and into graduate student fellowship support.  And those three initiatives, of course, have everything to do with my being here.

    Orange, FedEx doesn’t do postcards very well.  Just not their strong suit. 

    Posted by  on  01/09  at  11:37 AM

  30. Re:  Eno.  “Apollo” over “Another Green World”?  Hmmm.  To iTunes I must go!

    Posted by  on  01/09  at  02:11 PM

  31. I forgot to note Michael’s comments regarding JoPa.  This may be the first recorded instance of a professor at any university, even universities belonging to numerically challenged large Midwestern conferences with one Eastern interloper, defending the football coach.

    Posted by  on  01/09  at  02:17 PM

  32. My first, cursory read of the four jobs led me to think #1 was “Foot Massager. I was all set to ask if you were the fuckin’ foot master.  Alas.

    Posted by  on  01/09  at  04:02 PM

  33. Alek, I have my technique down, man.  I don’t tickle or nothin’.

    This may be the first recorded instance of a professor at any university, even universities belonging to numerically challenged large Midwestern conferences with one Eastern interloper, defending the football coach.

    Well, Charles, name me another football coach who led the fundraising for the library and endowed a pair of faculty chairs, one in the library and one in English.  For that matter, name me another football coach whose favorite poet is Virgil—and who sent Leslie Fiedler a photo and a fan note after completing his M.A. in American literature.

    And those of you who were interested, earlier in the year, in his remarks on race in football might want to take a look at this 1996 interview.

    As for Eno:  Another Green World is deservedly a classic.  But Apollo is just otherworldly, appropriately enough.  “Ascent” is especially stunning.

    Posted by Michael  on  01/09  at  05:06 PM

  34. Hey Prof, I was going to write in anyway, but now I have two reasons. First, why is Pittsburgh #2 on your list (ahead of Montreal, no less)? I’m just curious, because I’m not aware of any connection you have here, and I’ve never seen you mention it before.

    The original note was an update on one of the Hansons, in an article in the Pgh City Paper. He’s running a university-affiliated hockey complex!

    http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/archive.cfm?type=Misc. Stories&action=getComplete&ref=5508

    PS - My wife was at UVA in the late 80s, and knew you at least in passing. I believe that she has lurked here, but she’s in blogging denial - doesn’t comment.

    Posted by JRoth  on  01/09  at  05:37 PM

  35. Bah, bad linking. Try <a href="http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/archive.cfm?type=Misc. Stories&action=getComplete&ref=5508">this</a>.

    No? Hmm. Well, there’s always cut & paste, especially for those of you who want to know Dave Hanson’s take on Roller Derby.

    Posted by JRoth  on  01/09  at  05:40 PM

  36. I didn’t say and didn’t mean to imply that the defense of JoePa was undeserved.  Quite the contrary; my assumption was that if JoePa was being defended on this blog then the defense has merit.  I’m writing from Minnesota, where the football coach just got a contract extension for running a program that, while clean, loses to the Penn and Ohio States far more often than it wins.  He also got a raise to the point where his salary now exceeds the salary of the Governor, the Chief Justice, the University President, and about any other ten faculty people, combined, and there is no chance that he will be endowing any chairs or helping to fund a library.  And he probably thinks Virgil is the name of the dad of one of his players.

    Posted by  on  01/09  at  06:19 PM

  37. At the U of C, we built our library right on top of the football field.

    Posted by  on  01/09  at  10:15 PM

  38. e built our library right on top of the football field.

    Worst. Starship cover. Ever.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  01/09  at  11:14 PM

  39. And I was just listening to Elvis Costello’s cover of “Ship of Fools.”

    Posted by  on  01/10  at  08:32 AM

  40. Chris Clarke: It could be a great song! We built this library, we built this library on top of the football field, which in turn is built on top of the site of the first controlled nuclear chain reaction!

    Posted by  on  01/10  at  11:59 AM

  41. Fermi slows the neutrons, active like the radio, don’t you remember?

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  01/10  at  12:32 PM

  42. My first, cursory read of the four jobs led me to think #1 was “Foot Massager. I was all set to ask if you were the fuckin’ foot master.  Alas.
    Posted by Alek Hidell on 01/09 at 03:02 PM

    Alek, I have my technique down, man.  I don’t tickle or nothin’.

    Alek—me too!

    Michael/Jules—But would you give a guy a foot massage?

    Posted by Dr. Virago  on  01/10  at  12:51 PM

  43. Look, just because I wouldn’t give no man a foot massage don’t make it right for oudemia to build a library on top of a motherfuckin’ football field.  That shit ain’t right.

    Posted by  on  01/10  at  05:13 PM

  44. Also, you know what they call a Regenstein in Paris?

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  01/10  at  06:21 PM

  45. Jules: I dunno, *the bomb* is pretty fuckin’ butch. That’s about as butch as we Maroons get.

    CC: ??

    Posted by  on  01/10  at  06:53 PM

  46. Bibliothèque with cheese.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  01/10  at  07:03 PM

  47. CC: You just made me spit Chablis on my laptop. Clearly, I am not in the Reg right now. Bad girl!

    Posted by  on  01/10  at  07:16 PM

  48. Congrats on the blogging anniversary, Michael.

    Thanks for the link to the Paterno interview. My respect for the guy just tripled.

    Inspired by your post I listened to It’s a shame about Ray again today, after years. For some reason I’d never thought of it as a great record. You’re right, it is pretty darn good.

    Just got back in Nawlins. Rough, pretty rough. I’ll post some pictures soon.

    Posted by Idelber  on  01/10  at  07:44 PM

  49. Goodbye Porkpie Hat.

    The rest is just commentary.

    Posted by  on  01/10  at  11:09 PM

  50. Goodbye Porkpie Hat is brilliant, yes; that one verse in John Handy’s solo, with Handy’s tremulous fluttering and Mingus’s way-high thirty-second notes, makes me gasp and think, those can’t be mere humans doing that.  But let’s not sell short on “Better Git it in Your Soul,” “Boogie Stop Shuffle,” and “Bird Calls.” If you don’t have the CD rerelease, you’ve never quite heard those last two.  (Thanks to Nick for buying this for Father’s Day a few years back.)

    And Idelber, don’t get me wron—It’s a Shame About Ray is not a great album.  It’s not among the world’s best four, or even the world’s best 400, and it’s not nearly the kind of achievement Mingus Ah Um is.  It’s just one of those minor little things I couldn’t live without.  It occupies a bizarre pocket of early-1990s nostalgia for me, and bespeaks a kind of cheeky optimism that poor Evan Dando never followed up on.  And then, of course, Kurt Cobain blew his brains out, and modern rock defaulted to Pearl Jam, who begat Creed, who begat heaps of sludge with gravelly vocals and no goddamn sense of humor.

    But the title song is a little melodic gem (and catch the enjambment on “I’ll know tomorrow not to leave my feelings out to display").  “Hannah and Gabi” is a gorgeous tune as well, and I’m very fond of “Kitchen,” “Buddy,” and “Ceiling Fan in My Spoon,” too.  “Alison’s Starting to Happen” I could do without

    Posted by Michael  on  01/11  at  12:13 AM

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