I am not a patient person. I'm efficient and competent at most things, but I'm really bad at cutting slack to people who aren't. Situations and machines that don't deliver as promised also make me crazy. Delinquent (or nonexistent) replies to email, incompetent drivers, having to follow up all the time even with businesses I'm paying for a service, tablemates who play blackjack ultra-slowly, the satellite or the Internet being "out," the complete inability of a book distributor to get anything right on the first try - it takes a conscious act of will to quell the swell of impatience these irritants provoke in me, and I don't even like to think about all the time and effort I've spent doing just that so as to contain tirades and maintain the outwardly even keel necessary to being considered a sane person.
As I fought back today's driver-induced red haze of impatience, though, it occurred to me that where air travel is concerned, I effortlessly maintain an unruffled serenity not usually seen without pharmaceutical aid. There is little in daily life more irritating than flying - from getting to the airport, to the person behind you in the security line who has to keep running into your rolling carry-on or, if you're traveling light, your feet, and the person in front of you whose laptop is buried at the bottom of the hugest possible carry-on and whose shoes seem to have a highly complicated removal mechanism, to hurrying up and waiting, to being sandwiched into airplanes designed in the apparent belief that Americans are getting thinner rather than fatter, to the terrible grammar in the standard announcements, etc., etc., etc. Traveling by air should by all rights make someone like me fit for a straightjacket. But it doesn't bother me a bit. I don't tell myself in advance to take it easy and remain calm. I don't seem to be in charge of my state of mind at all. An imperturbable placidity just settles over me from the moment I get up on a traveling day.
For a brief period in the 80s, I was afraid of flying. I could do it, I could even carry on a conversation if I was with someone else, but I spent the entire time preparing to die. It wasn't a fear of dying so much as a disinclination to die stupidly. My fear was of a mechanical origin: I figured the people who flew and maintained airplanes were probably as un-diligent as the people who did everything else. (And stories like this one made me sure I was right.) Years later, I read an article that said a lot of women in their early 30s with small kids experience fear of flying. The article suggested that the reason was control-related. Young mothers struggle so hard to control their complex lives that being in a position of utter lack of control is horrific to them. Maybe that's what was up with me. In any event, my fear went away after a few years. I realized a couple days in advance of some business trip that I wasn't apprehensive at all and I've been a calm flyer ever since.
I suspect I just gave up on the notion of being able to control anything, aviationally speaking. There's no percentage in resenting the lines, the fellow travelers, the silly security requirements, even the mis-tagged luggage. There's no percentage in doing anything but smiling sweetly and saying "Sure, no problem" when they ask if they can search your bag. There's no percentage in getting worked up over delays. I think I learned at some entirely unconscious level that I have no control whatsoever over the flying experience and the best way to deal with it is to relax and go utterly with the flow. It's not hard to extrapolate that lesson to other impatience triggers, but it's not a lesson I seem to be able to apply intentionally. As much as I enjoy my aeronautical tranquility, I'm apparently not willing to cede all control in the rest of my life.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Sunday, October 21, 2007
One for Humanity
My flight to Dallas on Friday restored my faith in the human race. Well, ok, that's a little strong, but my opinion of the kindness of strangers is back on terra firma at the top of the cliff, rather than halfway (or more) to the bottom. After the plane pulled back from the gate and taxied out to the runway and just before we hit the gas to speed up and take off, a passenger in first class was discovered to be "non-responsive." The flight attendant requested the help of any medical personnel on the plane and 5 people quickly responded. With only concern and none of that obvious "I'm cool" desire for personal glory evident on their faces, they made their way to the front of the plane. A bit later, the attendant asked if anyone was diabetic and willing to part with one of those sugar testing dealies. A sweet senior citizen came forward with that. We went back to the gate, where the official airport paramedics met the plane (the flight attendant having immediately made the necessary page). The stricken passenger, who had apparently had a seizure but was by then responsive, walked off with the paramedics, and a "clean-up crew" got on board to do their thing (a thing I and, I imagine, my fellow passengers tried not to think too hard about).
But here's what improved my opinion of humanity. During the delay, which all in all took an hour, not one person exhibited impatience. There was a general air of concern for the ill passenger and a general quiet on the plane. No restiveness, no grumbling. A few people took out their cell phones and calmly inquired about the possibility of rebooking their connecting flights. When it was all resolved and the flight attendants reappeared, all sorts of people congratulated them on their calm, compassionate competence.
A lot of the evidence of daily life seems to suggest that people have become utterly self-centered with no consideration at all for their fellow human beings. But here was a plane full of people who behaved, despite the delay, as if they had no thought whatsoever other than compassion for a stranger. The all-for-one mood lasted, too. Without being asked, those of us staying in Dallas stood aside and let the people trying to make connections disembark first. The connecting people were demonstrably grateful and still not pushy. Nearly everyone thanked the flight crew warmly on their way out. It was the best example I've seen in a long time of people putting themselves in someone else's shoes, gaining perspective, and realizing that some things are more important than others. Really quite uplifting. Reassuring, too.
But here's what improved my opinion of humanity. During the delay, which all in all took an hour, not one person exhibited impatience. There was a general air of concern for the ill passenger and a general quiet on the plane. No restiveness, no grumbling. A few people took out their cell phones and calmly inquired about the possibility of rebooking their connecting flights. When it was all resolved and the flight attendants reappeared, all sorts of people congratulated them on their calm, compassionate competence.
A lot of the evidence of daily life seems to suggest that people have become utterly self-centered with no consideration at all for their fellow human beings. But here was a plane full of people who behaved, despite the delay, as if they had no thought whatsoever other than compassion for a stranger. The all-for-one mood lasted, too. Without being asked, those of us staying in Dallas stood aside and let the people trying to make connections disembark first. The connecting people were demonstrably grateful and still not pushy. Nearly everyone thanked the flight crew warmly on their way out. It was the best example I've seen in a long time of people putting themselves in someone else's shoes, gaining perspective, and realizing that some things are more important than others. Really quite uplifting. Reassuring, too.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Insult to Injury
There's been an alarming trend in TV broadcasting over recent years toward programming designed for simpletons with no emotional maturity, no self-censoring capabilities, limited vocabulary and, apparently, no ability to take in information and keep track of it for more than a minute or two. Nowhere is this more evident than in football coverage.
Where once we tuned into football games, now we tune into circuses of inane frenzy, complete with glitzy, seizure-inducing graphics, music of the kind that made for a great sound gag in Broadcast News circa 1987, celebrities of various stripes and species (read on), and announcers who run the gamut from depressed-sounding drones to kewpie dolls on speed. Once, we watched football games interrupted only by commercials (easily bypassed with TiVo or, before TiVo, trips to the kitchen for snacks). Now, we watch little morsels of football games, their flow interrupted by kitschy announcer bits, updates "from New York," asinine sideline reports, and those redundant game summaries interspersed frequently and annoyingly into the game we're actually trying to watch.
I feel obliged to digress long enough to note the routine mangling of the English language that infects on-air commentary like a medieval plague. Perhaps this game was lost as soon as these people were dubbed "commentators," but in my opinion, their speech should be free from ludicrously misused words ("after their pulsating victory last week") and such gems of oratorical ignorance as "the coach told them they have to take it personal," "he should have went down the field," and "between you and I" (a moronic thing to say into a live microphone even if you say it correctly). I don't expect all the illustrious journalists and ex-jocks to have actually learned proper English somewhere along their educational paths, but you'd think the networks could hire some head case like me to set out a few basics and coach the on-air folks to avoid particularly grating errors.
It would also be nice if broadcasters knew the rules of the game they were covering, so during those interminable official reviews we wouldn't have to listen to hyped-up discussions about the quarterback's apparent intent as the officials decide whether it was a fumble or an incomplete forward pass (for any of you non-football fans still reading this post, intent is irrelevant to this determination) or about what should happen following a fumble into the end zone. Demonstrating relevant expertise is evidently not one of the hiring criteria for these jokers. With very few exceptions (I love you, John Madden), they're all too busy trying to be colorful and fabricating "human interest" crap that's, first, of little interest and, second, about as likely to be true as their scary hair colors (male & female). The words and anecdotes they put into players' and coaches' mouths would embarrass even the sensitive hero guys in those diamond commercials.
Anyway, last night's game featured a new low. Celebrities have been slipping into football coverage for a while, as if network bosses are worried that without some additional draw people won't tune in. Whole chunks of games have gone un-broadcast and un-commented on while the announcers "interviewed" Spike Lee or Archie Manning about the horrors of Hurricane Katrina, drooled over Geena Davis or Christian Slater as they promoted their new stuff, or let such luminaries as Jim Belushi try to talk about football. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his governor of California role, waxed hilariously enthusiastic last year about what a great team the Raiders were as they ineptly fumbled the ball on the actual field of play (shown to us on a split screen so small the action was barely discernible).
And last night, Street Sense - yeah, the horse that won the Kentucky Derby - introduced the Louisville players. I'm not kidding: a picture of Street Sense appeared above the pictures of the players while some jocular voice pretended to be said thoroughbred, yukking it up with equine humor and even offering to race one of the Louisville speedsters. I thought it was bad when Ashley Judd introduced Kentucky's players or John Grisham introduced Mississippi's or maybe Mississippi State's, but Street Sense?? I shouldn't be complaining, though. I was too appalled to listen carefully, but I think the horse spoke without any grammatical errors or ignorant malaproprisms. Maybe he could work with John Madden.
Where once we tuned into football games, now we tune into circuses of inane frenzy, complete with glitzy, seizure-inducing graphics, music of the kind that made for a great sound gag in Broadcast News circa 1987, celebrities of various stripes and species (read on), and announcers who run the gamut from depressed-sounding drones to kewpie dolls on speed. Once, we watched football games interrupted only by commercials (easily bypassed with TiVo or, before TiVo, trips to the kitchen for snacks). Now, we watch little morsels of football games, their flow interrupted by kitschy announcer bits, updates "from New York," asinine sideline reports, and those redundant game summaries interspersed frequently and annoyingly into the game we're actually trying to watch.
I feel obliged to digress long enough to note the routine mangling of the English language that infects on-air commentary like a medieval plague. Perhaps this game was lost as soon as these people were dubbed "commentators," but in my opinion, their speech should be free from ludicrously misused words ("after their pulsating victory last week") and such gems of oratorical ignorance as "the coach told them they have to take it personal," "he should have went down the field," and "between you and I" (a moronic thing to say into a live microphone even if you say it correctly). I don't expect all the illustrious journalists and ex-jocks to have actually learned proper English somewhere along their educational paths, but you'd think the networks could hire some head case like me to set out a few basics and coach the on-air folks to avoid particularly grating errors.
It would also be nice if broadcasters knew the rules of the game they were covering, so during those interminable official reviews we wouldn't have to listen to hyped-up discussions about the quarterback's apparent intent as the officials decide whether it was a fumble or an incomplete forward pass (for any of you non-football fans still reading this post, intent is irrelevant to this determination) or about what should happen following a fumble into the end zone. Demonstrating relevant expertise is evidently not one of the hiring criteria for these jokers. With very few exceptions (I love you, John Madden), they're all too busy trying to be colorful and fabricating "human interest" crap that's, first, of little interest and, second, about as likely to be true as their scary hair colors (male & female). The words and anecdotes they put into players' and coaches' mouths would embarrass even the sensitive hero guys in those diamond commercials.
Anyway, last night's game featured a new low. Celebrities have been slipping into football coverage for a while, as if network bosses are worried that without some additional draw people won't tune in. Whole chunks of games have gone un-broadcast and un-commented on while the announcers "interviewed" Spike Lee or Archie Manning about the horrors of Hurricane Katrina, drooled over Geena Davis or Christian Slater as they promoted their new stuff, or let such luminaries as Jim Belushi try to talk about football. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his governor of California role, waxed hilariously enthusiastic last year about what a great team the Raiders were as they ineptly fumbled the ball on the actual field of play (shown to us on a split screen so small the action was barely discernible).
And last night, Street Sense - yeah, the horse that won the Kentucky Derby - introduced the Louisville players. I'm not kidding: a picture of Street Sense appeared above the pictures of the players while some jocular voice pretended to be said thoroughbred, yukking it up with equine humor and even offering to race one of the Louisville speedsters. I thought it was bad when Ashley Judd introduced Kentucky's players or John Grisham introduced Mississippi's or maybe Mississippi State's, but Street Sense?? I shouldn't be complaining, though. I was too appalled to listen carefully, but I think the horse spoke without any grammatical errors or ignorant malaproprisms. Maybe he could work with John Madden.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Attention, Sports Fans
Check out this new sports blog. I can promise that the writing will be crisp and pointed, the opinions will be strong, and the whole shebang will reflect a female perspective rather than the male perspective more typically available in sports commentary. And the female writer in question is also an athlete, which lends her additional credibility, as well as someone extremely special to me whose commentary I've been agreeing with, arguing with, and otherwise enjoying for years.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
My Left Ear [sic]
Ever since I gave up the hearing in my left ear (the 2005 price of curing an inner ear disorder that produced debilitating attacks of vertigo), I've heard music differently. It's not just that I'm no longer stereo, a hearing difference I don't really perceive. Some music sounds flatter than I recall, and lyrics are harder for me to make out, but the fact that all sound now comes to me from the right is a fact I have to take in intellectually, not one I actually experience.
The real difference is that when I listen to music in my car I now hear the harmony rather than the melody. This has something to do, I presume, with how the speakers in my car work. The difference is especially pronounced when I'm in the passenger seat. On our recent trip to Arizona, a few times I couldn't tell what song we were listening to until we got to the chorus - even when the songs were ones I've known by heart since I was in college.
I love to sing; I was a singer in high school and I'm an alto. This hearing anomaly would have come in mighty handy back then as I, along with all the other altos, struggled to sing harmony while high-pitched sopranos shrieked well-known melodies in our ears. Now, in my car, I happily belt the harmony, almost undistracted by the melody when I'm driving and completely undistracted by it when I'm in the front passenger seat. It's wonderful. Harmonies are so interesting and unexpected; they have a minor-key sort of mystery to them that I've always enjoyed, but never found easy to hear and follow the way I do now.
Could I have taught myself to hear this selectively before it was my only option? I suppose so. Had I continued to take voice lessons or tried to sing professionally in some way, I would have had to become a more reliable alto - not one who, like many, occasionally and furtively slipped into singing the melody. But tuning out the melody and singing a harmonious, but different tune is hard, especially when the melody is one you know and like. Literally and metaphorically speaking. How cool that a so-called disability has given me an ability I lacked. Makes me wonder what other skills I could develop by experiencing things differently.
The real difference is that when I listen to music in my car I now hear the harmony rather than the melody. This has something to do, I presume, with how the speakers in my car work. The difference is especially pronounced when I'm in the passenger seat. On our recent trip to Arizona, a few times I couldn't tell what song we were listening to until we got to the chorus - even when the songs were ones I've known by heart since I was in college.
I love to sing; I was a singer in high school and I'm an alto. This hearing anomaly would have come in mighty handy back then as I, along with all the other altos, struggled to sing harmony while high-pitched sopranos shrieked well-known melodies in our ears. Now, in my car, I happily belt the harmony, almost undistracted by the melody when I'm driving and completely undistracted by it when I'm in the front passenger seat. It's wonderful. Harmonies are so interesting and unexpected; they have a minor-key sort of mystery to them that I've always enjoyed, but never found easy to hear and follow the way I do now.
Could I have taught myself to hear this selectively before it was my only option? I suppose so. Had I continued to take voice lessons or tried to sing professionally in some way, I would have had to become a more reliable alto - not one who, like many, occasionally and furtively slipped into singing the melody. But tuning out the melody and singing a harmonious, but different tune is hard, especially when the melody is one you know and like. Literally and metaphorically speaking. How cool that a so-called disability has given me an ability I lacked. Makes me wonder what other skills I could develop by experiencing things differently.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Dining with Children
I've been in a couple restaurants lately that featured uncontrolled children in addition to the standard menu items. In Scottsdale a couple weeks ago, a toddler toddled around a very high end breakfast place; her father was standing near her empty high chair keeping his eye on her, while her seated mother happily and apparently obliviously chowed down. We waited behind the hostess who was trying to seat us as she waited for the toddler to get out of the path to our table. This morning, a gaggle of the under-5 set engaged in various under-5 set behaviors, including shrieking, throwing food, squealing and whining in that annoying "you're not paying enough attention to me" way. Since I left Chicago, I've spent very little time tolerating kids in restaurants. Vegas isn't really a kid place and I rarely go out to anything but dinner, which we eat late. The obvious lesson from the recent experiences is that I should stop going out to breakfast altogether.
But it seems to me there's another lesson, too. The me-first entitlement mentality that seems to pervade our culture more with every passing year could, I think, be one of the long-term effects of children who are not taught socially acceptable behaviors early. I'm all for letting children's creativity develop, but I don't think budding creativity is so fragile that it can't coexist with courtesy and consideration for other people. Pointing out to a child, even a toddler, that grown-ups don't run around in restaurants and that they use their inside voices (most of the time, anyway) isn't likely to stifle the child in any important way. It is far more likely to help the child learn to become an adult that other people can stand to be around.
So much of adult life is a matter of figuring out how to manage your natural instincts and reactions within the context of other people's rules and how to change the behaviors that aren't getting you what you want - at work, in relationships, even in all your little daily interactions with strangers at the grocery store or on the expressway. If you aren't expected to manage yourself appropriately in a restaurant (or, presumably, anywhere else) as a toddler, how are you ever going to do so effectively as you grow up?
But it seems to me there's another lesson, too. The me-first entitlement mentality that seems to pervade our culture more with every passing year could, I think, be one of the long-term effects of children who are not taught socially acceptable behaviors early. I'm all for letting children's creativity develop, but I don't think budding creativity is so fragile that it can't coexist with courtesy and consideration for other people. Pointing out to a child, even a toddler, that grown-ups don't run around in restaurants and that they use their inside voices (most of the time, anyway) isn't likely to stifle the child in any important way. It is far more likely to help the child learn to become an adult that other people can stand to be around.
So much of adult life is a matter of figuring out how to manage your natural instincts and reactions within the context of other people's rules and how to change the behaviors that aren't getting you what you want - at work, in relationships, even in all your little daily interactions with strangers at the grocery store or on the expressway. If you aren't expected to manage yourself appropriately in a restaurant (or, presumably, anywhere else) as a toddler, how are you ever going to do so effectively as you grow up?
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Personal Responsibility, Anyone?
I read an article yesterday about a guy in China who collapsed and died, apparently of exhaustion, after playing online games in an internet cafe for three days straight. Sad and bizarre, I thought. I can certainly understand getting obsessed with an internet game - I used to be something of a Tetris addict and my rehab after knee surgery consisted mainly of conquering Super Mario Brothers 1, 2 and 3 (to the delight of my children and their friends). But three days straight? That must have been one compelling game.
When I read these odd news stories, I try to avoid looking at the commentary people post underneath them. The posts are always depressingly ungrammatical and mean-spirited; often, they're horribly racist and/or misogynistic, too. But sometimes I can't resist. When I glanced at the commentary under the dead player story, I was appalled to find that the common theme was that the internet cafe "should have" kicked the guy out or made him take breaks every couple hours or imposed some other fail-safe mechanism to have prevented his death. Huh? Is no one personally responsible for anything any more?
It's beyond my ability to comprehend how anyone but player-guy could have borne any responsibility whatsoever for monitoring the amount of time he spent playing internet games. If he'd been a child, his parents should have been paying attention to him, but, as an adult, he's on his own. In fact, I bet those selfsame self-righteous commenters would be the first to have a fit if "someone" monitored the way they spent their time. So why are they always looking for ways to make someone else responsible for their catastrophes, minor and major? Too careless to secure your hot coffee before you drive away? No problem - sue McDonald's when you stupidly spill it all over yourself. Can't be bothered to keep a calendar for your commitments? No problem - just make it necessary for meeting and event organizers to send you (and everyone else) inbox-clogging reminders. Can't afford the stuff you want? No problem - max out your credit cards and buy it all anyway, then complain about crushing credit card debt when you can't pay.
Seems to me that freedom is highly desirable. Self-direction, too. As adults, we should be free to do as we please with our lives and our time. But the price for freedom and self-direction is personal responsibility. It isn't anyone else's fault or responsibility when the actions we take have negative consequences - and it's childish (not to mention disgusting) to look around for someone to blame.
When I read these odd news stories, I try to avoid looking at the commentary people post underneath them. The posts are always depressingly ungrammatical and mean-spirited; often, they're horribly racist and/or misogynistic, too. But sometimes I can't resist. When I glanced at the commentary under the dead player story, I was appalled to find that the common theme was that the internet cafe "should have" kicked the guy out or made him take breaks every couple hours or imposed some other fail-safe mechanism to have prevented his death. Huh? Is no one personally responsible for anything any more?
It's beyond my ability to comprehend how anyone but player-guy could have borne any responsibility whatsoever for monitoring the amount of time he spent playing internet games. If he'd been a child, his parents should have been paying attention to him, but, as an adult, he's on his own. In fact, I bet those selfsame self-righteous commenters would be the first to have a fit if "someone" monitored the way they spent their time. So why are they always looking for ways to make someone else responsible for their catastrophes, minor and major? Too careless to secure your hot coffee before you drive away? No problem - sue McDonald's when you stupidly spill it all over yourself. Can't be bothered to keep a calendar for your commitments? No problem - just make it necessary for meeting and event organizers to send you (and everyone else) inbox-clogging reminders. Can't afford the stuff you want? No problem - max out your credit cards and buy it all anyway, then complain about crushing credit card debt when you can't pay.
Seems to me that freedom is highly desirable. Self-direction, too. As adults, we should be free to do as we please with our lives and our time. But the price for freedom and self-direction is personal responsibility. It isn't anyone else's fault or responsibility when the actions we take have negative consequences - and it's childish (not to mention disgusting) to look around for someone to blame.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
A Perfect Day
Yesterday was a perfect day. We drove back from Scottsdale, where we'd gone on Friday. Why would someone who lives in Las Vegas go to Scottsdale? For a haircut - there is now a Ouidad salon in Scottsdale, which saves me the trouble of going all the way to Florida to get my hair cut. (If you have curly hair, and maybe even if you don't, you understand the critical importance of a good haircut.) Driving trips are easy and fun, and it continues to amaze us that a 4-5-hour drive now takes us to Phoenix or the Grand Canyon or L.A. or Salt Lake City rather than to Ann Arbor or Door County or Minneapolis.
You can drive from Las Vegas to Phoenix and back via Hoover Dam, which really is a modern marvel, or you can avoid the Dam traffic by heading west to Bullhead City, which takes you parallel to the California border and features some of the best high desert landscapes and mountain vistas imaginable. The drive is incredible pretty much all the way - no cities, very little in the way of signs of human habitation, kind of what the moon might look like if it were warm and red instead of cold and silver. There are mountain ranges of varying sizes and shapes everywhere, including a stretch of weird and beautiful mountains-in-formation (I'm guessing) composed of what look like stuck-together piles of huge rocks, some of their boulder-y edges cantilevered improbably in seeming defiance of gravity. These look as if they couldn't possibly be natural, as if instead some crazed giant child stacked them up for his or our amusement. They cluster around the southern Mojave County line, about 75 miles south of Kingman, AZ. They're also warmly lunar, but very strange; you wouldn't be surprised if they suddenly stood up and started lumbering in a science-fiction rock monster sort of way.
The drive is also full of lush desert landscapes. I used to think the desert in bloom was too subtle to call lush, but two and a half years of living in a desert have evidently trained my eye to see differently. Forests in the desert are nothing like forests in Alaska or the Midwest. Here, there is plenty of space between trees, all of which are in a constant battle for their share of what little water there is. And everything is dwarfed by the surrounding mountains and enormous sky; desert forests don't even begin to block out the sunlight. Their density is a whole different thing. But along the Joshua Forest Parkway, there are thousands of Joshua trees, their shape stunted, even tortured, but still arching and graceful, their bursts of whitish leaves looking like a frost of flowers on the tips of their many crooked branches. Further south, there are forests of saguaro cacti - surely the coolest plant in the world. Some just stalks, others with multiple arms, all pinstriped with prickles, the saguaro stand like beacons waving hello or goodbye as we drive by. I love knowing that they swell up when it rains, hoarding the water for months to come and slowly deflating as they use it up. Unlike our part of Nevada, where the mountains are mostly bare rock, Arizona's mountains and hills are covered in shrubs and cacti and flowering clumps of plants. This looks messy to me after the peaceful, pristine rock that I love, but it's also beautiful and it puts me in mind of how weird plant life is: plants accomplish nothing but survival and growth. Beauty, too, I suppose, but that's of no import to them.
As we drove, it was easy to avoid any preview of what was happening in the Michigan game being TiVo'd at home. The chances of running into a TV along the way were virtually nil and I'd warned the kids that I wanted no relevant texts. Our eyes full of nature's beauty and my hair springing in perfectly cut curls around my face, we arrived home unsullied by any news, football or other. I had a good feeling about the game - the day was so perfect it just didn't seem that old Blue would ruin it. Sure enough, the Wolverines came through.
You can drive from Las Vegas to Phoenix and back via Hoover Dam, which really is a modern marvel, or you can avoid the Dam traffic by heading west to Bullhead City, which takes you parallel to the California border and features some of the best high desert landscapes and mountain vistas imaginable. The drive is incredible pretty much all the way - no cities, very little in the way of signs of human habitation, kind of what the moon might look like if it were warm and red instead of cold and silver. There are mountain ranges of varying sizes and shapes everywhere, including a stretch of weird and beautiful mountains-in-formation (I'm guessing) composed of what look like stuck-together piles of huge rocks, some of their boulder-y edges cantilevered improbably in seeming defiance of gravity. These look as if they couldn't possibly be natural, as if instead some crazed giant child stacked them up for his or our amusement. They cluster around the southern Mojave County line, about 75 miles south of Kingman, AZ. They're also warmly lunar, but very strange; you wouldn't be surprised if they suddenly stood up and started lumbering in a science-fiction rock monster sort of way.
The drive is also full of lush desert landscapes. I used to think the desert in bloom was too subtle to call lush, but two and a half years of living in a desert have evidently trained my eye to see differently. Forests in the desert are nothing like forests in Alaska or the Midwest. Here, there is plenty of space between trees, all of which are in a constant battle for their share of what little water there is. And everything is dwarfed by the surrounding mountains and enormous sky; desert forests don't even begin to block out the sunlight. Their density is a whole different thing. But along the Joshua Forest Parkway, there are thousands of Joshua trees, their shape stunted, even tortured, but still arching and graceful, their bursts of whitish leaves looking like a frost of flowers on the tips of their many crooked branches. Further south, there are forests of saguaro cacti - surely the coolest plant in the world. Some just stalks, others with multiple arms, all pinstriped with prickles, the saguaro stand like beacons waving hello or goodbye as we drive by. I love knowing that they swell up when it rains, hoarding the water for months to come and slowly deflating as they use it up. Unlike our part of Nevada, where the mountains are mostly bare rock, Arizona's mountains and hills are covered in shrubs and cacti and flowering clumps of plants. This looks messy to me after the peaceful, pristine rock that I love, but it's also beautiful and it puts me in mind of how weird plant life is: plants accomplish nothing but survival and growth. Beauty, too, I suppose, but that's of no import to them.
As we drove, it was easy to avoid any preview of what was happening in the Michigan game being TiVo'd at home. The chances of running into a TV along the way were virtually nil and I'd warned the kids that I wanted no relevant texts. Our eyes full of nature's beauty and my hair springing in perfectly cut curls around my face, we arrived home unsullied by any news, football or other. I had a good feeling about the game - the day was so perfect it just didn't seem that old Blue would ruin it. Sure enough, the Wolverines came through.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
It Must Be So Because It's Always Been So
So apparently preseason football rankings are kind of like figure skating seeding - the judges decide who's going to win and then do just about everything in their power to make their predictions come true. All a devoted Michigan fan can say today is that it's too bad football outcomes aren't as subjective as figure skating outcomes. To win a game, we obviously need the same kind of help that robbed figure skater Paul Wylie of his much deserved gold medal a decade or so ago (the last time I paid much attention to figure skating).
The real question isn't how a Division 1-A powerhouse could have lost to Appalachian State last week (a team, by the way, I don't want to take anything away from; I love it when underdogs win so long as it's not Michigan they're beating). The real question is how this particular Division 1-A powerhouse could ever have been ranked #5 in the nation. Was the defense that's been completely absent in the last 5 games (don't forget that Ball State game we nearly lost just before the OSU game last year) somehow in evidence during the practices viewed by the rankings voters? Or, more likely, did they put the hapless Wolverines up top in the preseason poll because that's where they always reside preseason?
No wonder change is so hard to come by. Here's yet another example of "let's ignore the facts and go with the status quo" thinking. Michigan must be a powerhouse because it's always a powerhouse, right? Well, these "stunning losses" are going to prove pretty hard to ignore - or are they? If there's one thing I've learned from my years in the business world and as a sports fan, it's that the status quo wields inexplicable and virtually (but, fortunately, not totally) unstoppable power.
The real question isn't how a Division 1-A powerhouse could have lost to Appalachian State last week (a team, by the way, I don't want to take anything away from; I love it when underdogs win so long as it's not Michigan they're beating). The real question is how this particular Division 1-A powerhouse could ever have been ranked #5 in the nation. Was the defense that's been completely absent in the last 5 games (don't forget that Ball State game we nearly lost just before the OSU game last year) somehow in evidence during the practices viewed by the rankings voters? Or, more likely, did they put the hapless Wolverines up top in the preseason poll because that's where they always reside preseason?
No wonder change is so hard to come by. Here's yet another example of "let's ignore the facts and go with the status quo" thinking. Michigan must be a powerhouse because it's always a powerhouse, right? Well, these "stunning losses" are going to prove pretty hard to ignore - or are they? If there's one thing I've learned from my years in the business world and as a sports fan, it's that the status quo wields inexplicable and virtually (but, fortunately, not totally) unstoppable power.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Fandom
I love football. It's full of intricacy and athleticism, strategy and spirit. It's beautiful. Most of the time, the difference between winning and losing is wholly a matter of executing well against a well-conceived game plan. Too bad all outcomes aren't as appropriate and straightforward.
But along with the good comes what sometimes seems like more bad than is bearable. Who knew there were as-yet-unplumbed depths of humiliation available to us Michigan fans? Who could even imagine? Wasn't it enough to fall short year after year despite consistently being touted as great pre-season? To have "the best recruiting classes in college football," but somehow continually play stodgy, unimaginative offense (then, bizarrely, have one of your stodgiest and least imaginative quarterbacks transform into the Tom Brady who plays for the Patriots)? To outsize nearly every opponent, but still fail to blow anybody out - ever? Did we really have to add being on the wrong end of the worst upset in college football history? Was it necessary to prove so spectacularly that we haven't mastered one of football's fundamental rules: that the whole point of scheduling a cream-puff on opening day is to kick the crap out of them? Sigh. Another season shot to hell. With any luck, this go-round will at least have a silver lining; this latest disaster should at long last drive the final nail into the coffin of Lloyd Carr's once luminous coaching career.
And that's not all. It looks as if we're off to another season of refereeing miscalls - nice way to hand the game to Auburn, refs. And in both college and the NFL, the head coaching ranks work like corporate America's executive suites. For the most part, we recycle tired old white guys. (I didn't know Norv Turner was even still alive. Glad he is, but it's a mystery how a great team that for some reason decided Marty Schottenheimer couldn't do the trick came to the conclusion that Norv Turner can.) Unsuccessful with one team/company (or more)? No problem - we'd love to have you come head up our shop! It's as if having once achieved the exec suite is the only prerequisite for achieving it again - regardless of how you did there. And, of course, when the new bigshot is brought in from outside, the highly talented offensive and defensive coordinators who didn't get the job leave the team altogether and go to work for competitors. Sound familiar, corporate executive suite watchers?
Another sigh. But I'm still awfully happy that it's September and we're underway. The only thing more difficult than football season is the off season.
But along with the good comes what sometimes seems like more bad than is bearable. Who knew there were as-yet-unplumbed depths of humiliation available to us Michigan fans? Who could even imagine? Wasn't it enough to fall short year after year despite consistently being touted as great pre-season? To have "the best recruiting classes in college football," but somehow continually play stodgy, unimaginative offense (then, bizarrely, have one of your stodgiest and least imaginative quarterbacks transform into the Tom Brady who plays for the Patriots)? To outsize nearly every opponent, but still fail to blow anybody out - ever? Did we really have to add being on the wrong end of the worst upset in college football history? Was it necessary to prove so spectacularly that we haven't mastered one of football's fundamental rules: that the whole point of scheduling a cream-puff on opening day is to kick the crap out of them? Sigh. Another season shot to hell. With any luck, this go-round will at least have a silver lining; this latest disaster should at long last drive the final nail into the coffin of Lloyd Carr's once luminous coaching career.
And that's not all. It looks as if we're off to another season of refereeing miscalls - nice way to hand the game to Auburn, refs. And in both college and the NFL, the head coaching ranks work like corporate America's executive suites. For the most part, we recycle tired old white guys. (I didn't know Norv Turner was even still alive. Glad he is, but it's a mystery how a great team that for some reason decided Marty Schottenheimer couldn't do the trick came to the conclusion that Norv Turner can.) Unsuccessful with one team/company (or more)? No problem - we'd love to have you come head up our shop! It's as if having once achieved the exec suite is the only prerequisite for achieving it again - regardless of how you did there. And, of course, when the new bigshot is brought in from outside, the highly talented offensive and defensive coordinators who didn't get the job leave the team altogether and go to work for competitors. Sound familiar, corporate executive suite watchers?
Another sigh. But I'm still awfully happy that it's September and we're underway. The only thing more difficult than football season is the off season.
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