Before we dive into today's topic and you figure out why an April Morning Report has a summer title, I wanted to thank the readership for all the positive feedback on last Thursday's Whole Milk Marriage Report. This issue brought in record views to the blog and a huge amount of reader feedback and support, which meant a great deal to me.
But now, to this week's business. Though the title may not have given it away, the custom banner certainly did. Yesterday, along with being April Fools' Day and the day I finished Infinite Jest (Suck it, Otter 21!) was the opening day of the 2013 MLB season for most teams. The day was enjoyed by baseball fans across the country, though in some cities more than others, with Boston, DC, and Chicago among the cities briefly enjoying a 1.000 Winning Percentage.
While some readers likely find baseball boring to watch, it is my favorite sport to watch, either at a park or on TV. Physically going to a game is steeped in Americana and tradition in a way that no other sporting event can boast. And televised baseball can work to serve almost as a soundtrack to one's day, playing out in the background as life unfolds around it. Even though the first trip I ever went on as a wee baby was to Cooperstown, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, I can't speak as eloquently about it as true, long-term, full-time fans of the game could, but I can pull a quote that I think captures something about why I like the game so much: “The fundamental truth: a baseball game is nothing but a great slow contraption for getting you to pay attention to the cadence of a summer day." That, my favorite sentence from my least favorite book by my favorite author (Michael Chabon'sSummerland), captures it for me.
For other people, though, it's something else. For photographer Don Hamerman, it's the aesthetics of the ball. Others may be drawn to the history of the game's famous firsts. Still others the oddball trivia of old baseball cards. Some the poetry. Some the comedy. Some people even look to the game as religion, telling the story of how "In the big inning God created Heaven on Earth."
So, whether you subscribe to MLBtv to watch along at work, or you haven't seen a game in FOR-EV-ER, baseball is here. Even those who don't watch can look forward to the summer days it heralds.
Every year on this day, I wonder what I should do to properly
commemorate and reflect upon the events that took over morning news
reports and irrevocably and undeniably changed the world eleven years
ago. A flag pin is not my style. A Tweet or Facebook status update
seem too insincere, wedged between my latest snarky 140 characters or a
link to that video. (You know the one, where the [animal / toddler /
recently medicated person] [does / says] something [adorable / hilarious
/ incredible].) A vigil feels too public, a prayer, too private. I
need something that is a healthy medium between those two spheres of my
existence. Something shared, but something that is mine.
The answer I inevitably and invariably come to is the same one
reached by the editors at McSweeney's Internet Tendency. I read, share,
and reflect upon a piece by John Hodgman, titled
"Welcoming Remarks Made at a Literary Reading, 9/25/01."
Though you may not recognize his name, most, if not all of you would
recognize Mr. Hodgman were his photo presented with the article. He is
the tweed-attired, nerdy PC of the Mac vs PC ads that aired several
years ago. He is a frequent guest on
The Daily Show, where he
offers his "You're welcome"s for solving problems he has not actually
solved. He has written three books, each more funny and
self-referential than the last, each brilliantly humorous in their
ability to be opened to any page for a quick laugh, yet also intricate
in the overall narrative arc that weaves them together. His appearance
and voice, mild mannered, polite, and soft-spoken, offer a perfect
juxtaposition to his absurd and assertive statements, working to make
them all the more humorous. Imagine if Lewis Black or George Carlin
politely voiced their frustrations to undermine them. This is the humor
of John Hodgman. It is intelligent, quiet, polite, good, human. It is
therefore, not difficult to hear that voice reading those words, in
spite of the fact that I was likely doing homework for my 7th grade math
class, and not at a Literary Reading on September 25, 2001.
The piece (Have you
read it
yet? Do so before pressing onward.) deals with storytelling, which is
likely why I find myself so drawn to it year after year. Storytelling
is, for me, a fundamental piece of personal and human existence, the
lens through which I view the world. Events demarcate new tales and
chapters; characters enter, vanish, appear unexpectedly after long
absences, and subtly but profoundly change the narrator; settings shift;
themes, symbols, motifs become oddly apparent... I declare it in my
Facebook "About Me," (and where is there a more authoritative
declaration of my existence?) "Storytelling above all."
And it just so happens that I agree with all of Mr. Hodgman's
assessments about storytelling. Maybe he was the one who shaped my own
assessments in the first place. It's hard to say. First, that it is an
oral tradition. Your ear is reading this more than your eye. But more
importantly, that it serves three functions: "to inform, as in relay
news and record history; to instruct, as in pass down a set of moral
guidelines; and to entertain." When I write or tell stories,
particularly for children, I aim to juggle all three of these functions
at once. Sometimes the juggling leads to imbalance, and the moral
guidelines are hammered home in heavy-handed fashion at the journey's
end, or the entertainment is an abundance of puns, or a narrator must
intercede to spell out the information. But in general, I am for all
three, and I like to think I do pretty well. Rarely, though, do I think
of that fourth function, that function that served early storytellers
and listeners as they "desperately needed distraction, and reassurance
that they were not alone."
I believe that is why I turn to this piece every year, rather than
returning to stark images of the day's events or replayed footage on
CNN. This piece allows me to remember, but also to distract myself with
a reflection on storytelling. To distract myself from the fact that
eleven years ago, my story, the story of all Americans, the story of all
the world, changed suddenly. Some of the stories, those we remember
with the greatest solemnity and sorrow, ended that day, far earlier than
the narrative conventions we, as a society had established suggested
that they should. Those of us whose lives were not taken found not a
single, tragic period at the end of the sentence that morning, but an
ellipsis, leading us into our next uncertain chapter.
As a world, as a nation, and, if I may be so bold as to speak to
this level, as individuals, we have since entered new chapters, but no
event has so dramatically changed the collective landscape we share as
storytellers. (And we are all storytellers.) Narrative conventions of
security and comfort shifted. New characters were introduced, and the
character of old characters changed. The unwavering voice we once used
to tell our stories proved prone to cracking, to breaking, to being
utterly at a loss for words.
Eleven years later, the storytelling atmosphere has, erratic and
mutable as it is, changed again. Stories of that day and the days that
follow are now told to serve Hodgman's first three functions. Novels,
films, plays, television specials, all exist now that examine that day,
and all of them serve to represent the change that occurred in the way
we tell our collective story. The stories are all different, but, even
without having read/heard/seen all, or even most of them, I can speak to
one common element they share. These stories, like all stories, work
to show that stories, like storytelling, like the presence of and need
for storytellers, lives on.
So today, as we reflect on our own stories, perhaps focused on those
"I was _______ when I heard," moments, leading into the great ellipsis
of our time, we should share them with each other. Share them not
necessarily to inform, to instruct, or to entertain. Share them so that
"we may gather and distract one another, take comfort in our proximity,
and know that we are, at this moment, safe."
I am, like John Hodgman, only humbled: to be here, to be alive.
Yesterday I drew attention to Mufasa as a great father in the animal kingdom. Shortly thereafter, I learned of a McSweeney's piece that throws that viewpoint into question. Here, an antelope wonders why he was invited to the celebration of Simba's birth. And you know, he's totally right. Mufasa, the life lessons and self-sacrifice for your son (if that is a spoiler for any reader, shame on you and go watch this movie right now), all that's great, but your leadership skills could use some work. I get it, he's the prince, these are your subjects, I suppose many royal families through history have had similar ceremonies celebrating the arrival in the world of a new future leader. But you know what, most of those royal families weren't bringing together a bunch of subjects that ate each other! This peaceful gathering of animals is not at all standard behavior in the Circle of Life, and that, Mufasa, moves us all. Your big party here that brings together all the creatures under the sun (rolling high, through the sapphire sky) is screwing with the path unwinding, and it's not cool. The antelope is right to be anxious, and I'm surprised he can be so eloquent about it, given that there's far too much to take in here.
As long as we're re-evaluating how we view certain classic films, check out this series of behind-the-scenes photos that argues it will do just that. Hitchcock, too, seems content to upset the natural order of the wild kingdom by giving direction to his own Mufasa in the final photo, which is well worth scrolling past that bug-eyed Harrison Ford, who appears in 25% of the films presented in the list. Actually, Ford is in my favorite photo from the series, the low-budget Ark of the Covenant. No wonder it was Lost... It's flat!
And finally, to challenge your view on the smooth sounds of Morgan Freeman, here are some smooth stylings by Morgan Freeman. Out of sight, indeed. "When I itches, I scratches, when I'm bored, I read matches." I would love to see a mash-up where Easy Reader stops by Andy's library in Shawshank... But really, it's no surprise that someone with such an affinity for reading should become a world-class narrator.
Feel free to do nothing all day without feeling bad; you'd just be observing the 1978 debut of Garfield, the widely syndicated comic about a lazy cat, and the only comic I know that's infinitely funnier without its title character. Or, if you just feel like not speaking all day, that's fine, too. Do it because Paul Dano did it because of Friedrich Nietzsche... Far out. (And because Paul turns 28 today... Someone get that man a milkshake! Though he might prefer something "a la modie.")
That one's on the house.
Apologies for the brief hiatus, things have been busy at the FAA. The industry is abuzz as Rainn Wilson's In-Flight Magazine article created stirs last week. His idea of a Skymall only birthday party sounds like a great time, and his observation on airline movies is spot-on. (I never would have seen The Talented Mr. Ripley
if it hadn't been literally unavoidable, projected before me on the
screen immediately in front of me, years before I should ever have seen
someone bludgeoned to death. Sorry, Spoilers.) And I've been fielding
important calls from fashion designers all week to weigh-in on the
history of in-flight uniforms.
Troubling news yesterday morning from abroad on my phone-news,
though, as an alarming kidnapping hits Poland and news of a sad death
comes from Russia. First, I was informed that
seven endangered monkeys were stolen
from a Polish zoo. While the article is quick to suggest a motive
(thanks, Krzysztof Kazanowski), it tragically lacks pictures... Perhaps
because including images of these hilariously mustachioed monkeys
would have diminished the levity of their kidnapping. We can only hope
that some equally adorable tamarin-san launches a rescue of Monkey-Miyagi. Tail-sweep the leg!
In other tragic news, a man who forever changed the course of
viral-video history passed away yesterday after suffering a stroke in
early April.
Eduard Khil, also known as Mr. Trololo,
has, as the article regrettably puts it, sung his final note. The
resurgence of his video made him an internet phenomenon, and led to some
great parodies. My personal favorite came following the Oscars last
year, and featured Best Supporting Actor winner Christoph Waltz
reflecting on his early role in the cult classic experimental film "Der Humpink."
(Toss some headphones on for that one if you're viewing at work, things
get a little racy. Of course, your silly giggling may give you away.)
And let's give a big, invisible hand to economist Adam Smith, who
turns 289 today. (And no coincidence, he shares a birthday with
American financial wiz Suze Orman... Let's hope Suze does something nice
for her big day. She can afford it.)
Like Rainn Wilson, I wish you well, dear reader, on your journey.
I'm thrilled to be writing two days in a row, if only because it
means that I'm not stuck "in another fucking mtg." following these Ten Commandments.
Seriously, though, so many completely pointless meetings this week...
I've been all about Commandment 2, while meeting coordinators and
presenters seem to be tending toward 4 more and more. And there I am,
stuck coffee-coveting and doodling, knowing that I could be back at my
desk producing important aviation documentation. (People must know to beware of the linen trousers!)
Or I could be back here, continuing to develop an overwhelming
backlog of adorable animal photography. You know what? It's been a
long week, let's unload some of this. You all deserve it. Yesterday's
Wild Things, though cute in their own way, just can't compare to good
old fashioned
monkey-dog bonding.
While monkeys carrying dogs and monkeys using dogs for transportation
make up the majority of the pictures, the monkey-dog hugs (especially
17) and the classic "Sir, no touching the dog, please" of number 7 are
my favorites. Maybe the monkey would have more luck protecting the dog
from unwanted human contact if he created a force shield around him.
One of these animals can help. And, when he has successfully mastered the techniques of the force, that monkey will have every right to feel just as proud as these animals.
Only, he should try not to show it. Nothing's more douchey than an
animal that's all like "Do you know who I am? I'm kind of a big
deal..." Well, except maybe a human that's all like "Do you know who I
am? I'm kind of a big deal."
And one final item to get you through your Thursday: Lately, the
weather when I leave for work has been a bit rainy, but when I arrive at
my office, it clears for the next nine hours, until it is time for me
to head home, and the clouds and rains roll in again. So I've
frequently found myself thinking, "If only there was a way for me to
enjoy the great outdoors from the comfort of my desk." Well, the good
people at the National Endowment for the Arts must have heard my cry,
because they are providing funding for the development of a
Walden video game.
And really, is there any text more deserving of a video game? Just
imagine playing out Chapter 12 of Henry David Thoreau's classic book:
"You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the
woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit
themselves to you by turns." Just put the controller down and watch
people and creatures pass by. A video game is the most obvious way to
live through Thoreau's most famous line: "I went to the woods because I
wished to live deliberately, to front
only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it
had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not
lived." Because hey, no pressure! In the game environment, when you
come to die, if you discover you had not lived, you don't need to worry
about it; you've probably got four more lives anyway! Depends how you
did foraging for 1-Up mushrooms.
It's Mother's Day in Mexico! Wish the madres in your life un día bueno!
