8/7/07
Dear blog,
I haven't written in so long, so very much to say.
It's been a whirlwind of a summer for me, and I've never been so sorry to see a season come to an end. As excited about the coming of football season (first meaningful games in 23 short days! Georgia Tech/Notre Dame! Wake Forest/Boston College! Oklahoma State/Georgia! Kansas State/Auburn! Tennessee/California! Florida State/Clemson - the Bowden Bowl! All on the first weekend!) as I am, this summer was such a bounty of good times that I'll be very sad to see it go. First, all of the baseball. I didn't get quite as many games in as I planned, I went to no shortage of them, and I still have a few to go to. But Cape Cod, AAA, Single A, and I will make a double A trip this year, as well. It was all so much fun. If you want to feel like an American (liberal as I am, I love being an American and being in America - primarily because we have such wonderful traditions as going out to a ball game on a warm summer's night), there is no better place to get that feeling than an evening in Chatham, or Cotuit, or Wareham, or Lowell, or Pawtucket, or Bowie, or Durham, or whatever minor-league or college town you can get to and taking in a ball game, not to cheer or boo, or live and die with each pitch - although the locals in these towns do just that, which makes the proceedings all the more entertaining for the rest of us - but just to watch the game being played. And knowing that some day some of these players are going to be big stars and you'll always be able to tell everyone that you saw "Player X" play back when he was a nobody on little more than a sandlot. And you saw that kid play and you said, "damn, this kid is going to be someone" (my exact words by the way, and I want you guys to take note of this so you know how dead on I was about these guys, when saw Orioles' first round draft pick Matt Weiters last summer in Orleans, and when I saw soon to be 2008 first round pick Connor Gillespie this summer in Falmouth).
Anyway, that was a alot of fun. But that's hardly all. July 4th was, as always, a great time. Nothing beat making up the barbeque sauce and marinade for the pork ribs we grilled for the cousins/aunts/uncles. I came across these recipies on the Internets a while ago, and it absolutely is remarkable. I think I might tinker with it a little next time, but so far the recipie works extremely well. The whole day was a grand spectacle, including wrapping it up by watching the Boston fireworks display on the folks' brand new High Defintion TV.
Oh, I don't think I've mentioned this beauty. My dad finally saw that the HD TV that all of his extensive research has concluded is the best buy happened to be on sale at BJs earlier this summer, so he went and got himself a 42' flat panel HDTV with a wall mount. It is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen. Comcast's On Demand has a HD channel called "Gallery Works", which is just still images - photographs of nature, or tourist attractions, or pets, or works of art by a famous painter, or by a not-so-famous painter - and you just sit there and stare, open-mouthed, at what is essentially a slideshow. Even more distressing, I now find that every single sport - except bowling, and that's probably because I won't let myself have a chance to watch it - is enjoyable, on some level, to watch. Even soccer, tennis, golf, and *gulp*, NASCAR. Of course, football and baseball are always on another level, basketball at a second, and hockey and MMA are also on the second-tier now that HDTV has drastically improved the enjoyment level of those two sports. Not to mention movies, which are so cool it's preposterous.
So, there is also that.
But that's not it, either. The Lowell Folk Fest was a couple of weekends ago (July 27-29). Musical acts from around the country - and a few international acts - got together for a three day concert/jam session. The highlights of the show for us were the Cajun bandfrom Louisiana (no suprise there), the Irish fiddler (actually from "County Bronx", as she said) from Riverdance (again, no suprise), and (suprise!) the bluegrass band from Fuckknowswhere, Virginia. That last act featured a powerhouse female lead with a glorious set of pipes.
And the food! Lowell folk fest is also an opportunity for the ethnic restaurants around the town to showcase items from their menu to entice potential customers, as well as for local ethnic groups, like the Hellenic-American PTA, or the NAACP (swear to God, I bought a slice of watermelon from them; by the way, is there a dumber stereotype than "black people love watermelon"? Of course they do! EVERYONE loves watermelon!), or, the fan favorites in the food category, the Phillipino congregation.
There is nothing quite like a Phillipino cooking party. And every party, by the way, is a cooking party, when your ethnicity has hit cooking the right way. Like the French, the Italians, the Greeks, the Chinese, and the Phillipinos. I went to a Phillipino birthday party once - and when I say a Phillipino Party, I mean it. Dan, Mark, and I came as guests of one of the hosts, our friend Kristine. And, along with Kristine's boyfriend, we were the only white people there. It was awesome. They made so much food you didn't feel like a pig going in for seconds, which is important, when the entres are this good. Phillipino food is a mixture of Spanish food and Asian food, and it works perfectly.
Anyway, the local Phillipino church group up here makes it out to the Folk Fest every summer to cook to raise money, and every year the line outside of their booth gets bigger and bigger. It is the worst-kept secret in Lowell. People don't mind the lines - they have literally been waiting all year for this opportunity to come again. That they don't have a restaurant is a crime. The day after the folk fest must be like Christmas to those kids.
And if it is, they deserve it. These kids are worked by the adults. Everyone pitches in, doing exactly what they are old enough to do. The operation is so huge, and so animated - everywhere somebody doing something, some little kid running around with food or with an important message - that standing in line watching all of the commotion makes the wait worthwhile.
So, that was a lot of fun.
If all of that weren't enough, the book and movie world through out some of the real heavy hitters. As you'll recall, the last time I went to a theater was when I saw Pirates 3. It wasn't a particularly fantastic movie, but I gave it a passing grade anyway, in large part because it compared favorably with the absolute stinker of a movie that Spiderman 3 was.
But I haven't been dissapointed since. First, Harry Potter 5 came out, and I gotta tell you kids, this is easily the best movie so far (heh, at least until they get to movie 7...) in the series. This is not the Harry Potter you saw go after the Sorcerer's Stone. This cat is older, he is wiser, he's very pissed off, and he's about to explode with sexual tension. And he's dealing with some grown-up problems. Voldemort isn't just some phantom out there, waiting to reappear. He has reappeared, and he's coming - coming for Harry, but really after the whole population. And the government, which is supposed to protect him, is instead pretending he doesn't exist, and charging anyone with treason who doesn't toe their line. So Harry needs to form an underground society to prepare to take on the Big Badass, but he'd better not get caught. If that sounds to you anything like a kid's movie, then I seriously want to know exactly what it is that you watched when you were a kid. 3 1/2 stars.
It wasn't just Harry making a triumphant return to the big screen. For the second straight summer, Matt Damon finds himself in the best movie of the season. This year, it's The Bourne Ultimatum, a thriller that rivals, if not tops, its first two counterparts. I was worried about this one; the Spiderman movies had also given us a second movie that topped the first one, but they had crapped the bed with the third movie in the trilogy. Of course, that is a tradition that goes all the way back to the Godfather series, and even pokes its head into the Star Wars movies - for Jedi, which was not a bad movie, by any means, was certainly the weakest of the three and somewhat of a let down after Empire managed to improve on the original.
Anyway, with the Bourne series, the rarest thing in film has occured - the series acutally has improved with each installment. And that is certainly saying something, given how incredible the first one was. I really don't want to tell you what happens, because there is so little exposition involved that any discussion of the plot would basically reveal the whole movie, but I wil tell you it is a high-suspense thrill ride that doesn't let off the gas for one second. A powerhouse of a movie. 4 stars.
And, of course, it wasn't just movies. The Harry Potter book came out - the final one, ever. I felt sad as I completed the book, knowing that we won't be returning to Rowling's mythical land to observe any more new adventures for these characters - who were so roundly-developed you practically knew them. But what a powerhouse of a finish - and yes, I know I'm using the word powerhouse over and over again this post. That's what kind of a summer it was. This book took you on a roller-coaster from page 1. And when you get to the end, you feel like a dumbass for not making the connections that seem so obvious in hindsight (for the sake of tradition, I won't talk about what those connections are, although I have to figure that, if you want to read the book, you've probably read it by now). The Harry Potter series has reached a level that only occurs when the public sees a true work of art for what it is. JK Rowling is as big as the Beatles were right now, and you know what? She fucking deserves it. Never heard of someone who deserves it more, in fact.
Ok, that'll do for now. Tomorrow I'll be writing on the Bill Maher's brilliant recent special from Boston in the politics blog. Till then...
I haven't written in so long, so very much to say.
It's been a whirlwind of a summer for me, and I've never been so sorry to see a season come to an end. As excited about the coming of football season (first meaningful games in 23 short days! Georgia Tech/Notre Dame! Wake Forest/Boston College! Oklahoma State/Georgia! Kansas State/Auburn! Tennessee/California! Florida State/Clemson - the Bowden Bowl! All on the first weekend!) as I am, this summer was such a bounty of good times that I'll be very sad to see it go. First, all of the baseball. I didn't get quite as many games in as I planned, I went to no shortage of them, and I still have a few to go to. But Cape Cod, AAA, Single A, and I will make a double A trip this year, as well. It was all so much fun. If you want to feel like an American (liberal as I am, I love being an American and being in America - primarily because we have such wonderful traditions as going out to a ball game on a warm summer's night), there is no better place to get that feeling than an evening in Chatham, or Cotuit, or Wareham, or Lowell, or Pawtucket, or Bowie, or Durham, or whatever minor-league or college town you can get to and taking in a ball game, not to cheer or boo, or live and die with each pitch - although the locals in these towns do just that, which makes the proceedings all the more entertaining for the rest of us - but just to watch the game being played. And knowing that some day some of these players are going to be big stars and you'll always be able to tell everyone that you saw "Player X" play back when he was a nobody on little more than a sandlot. And you saw that kid play and you said, "damn, this kid is going to be someone" (my exact words by the way, and I want you guys to take note of this so you know how dead on I was about these guys, when saw Orioles' first round draft pick Matt Weiters last summer in Orleans, and when I saw soon to be 2008 first round pick Connor Gillespie this summer in Falmouth).
Anyway, that was a alot of fun. But that's hardly all. July 4th was, as always, a great time. Nothing beat making up the barbeque sauce and marinade for the pork ribs we grilled for the cousins/aunts/uncles. I came across these recipies on the Internets a while ago, and it absolutely is remarkable. I think I might tinker with it a little next time, but so far the recipie works extremely well. The whole day was a grand spectacle, including wrapping it up by watching the Boston fireworks display on the folks' brand new High Defintion TV.
Oh, I don't think I've mentioned this beauty. My dad finally saw that the HD TV that all of his extensive research has concluded is the best buy happened to be on sale at BJs earlier this summer, so he went and got himself a 42' flat panel HDTV with a wall mount. It is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen. Comcast's On Demand has a HD channel called "Gallery Works", which is just still images - photographs of nature, or tourist attractions, or pets, or works of art by a famous painter, or by a not-so-famous painter - and you just sit there and stare, open-mouthed, at what is essentially a slideshow. Even more distressing, I now find that every single sport - except bowling, and that's probably because I won't let myself have a chance to watch it - is enjoyable, on some level, to watch. Even soccer, tennis, golf, and *gulp*, NASCAR. Of course, football and baseball are always on another level, basketball at a second, and hockey and MMA are also on the second-tier now that HDTV has drastically improved the enjoyment level of those two sports. Not to mention movies, which are so cool it's preposterous.
So, there is also that.
But that's not it, either. The Lowell Folk Fest was a couple of weekends ago (July 27-29). Musical acts from around the country - and a few international acts - got together for a three day concert/jam session. The highlights of the show for us were the Cajun bandfrom Louisiana (no suprise there), the Irish fiddler (actually from "County Bronx", as she said) from Riverdance (again, no suprise), and (suprise!) the bluegrass band from Fuckknowswhere, Virginia. That last act featured a powerhouse female lead with a glorious set of pipes.
And the food! Lowell folk fest is also an opportunity for the ethnic restaurants around the town to showcase items from their menu to entice potential customers, as well as for local ethnic groups, like the Hellenic-American PTA, or the NAACP (swear to God, I bought a slice of watermelon from them; by the way, is there a dumber stereotype than "black people love watermelon"? Of course they do! EVERYONE loves watermelon!), or, the fan favorites in the food category, the Phillipino congregation.
There is nothing quite like a Phillipino cooking party. And every party, by the way, is a cooking party, when your ethnicity has hit cooking the right way. Like the French, the Italians, the Greeks, the Chinese, and the Phillipinos. I went to a Phillipino birthday party once - and when I say a Phillipino Party, I mean it. Dan, Mark, and I came as guests of one of the hosts, our friend Kristine. And, along with Kristine's boyfriend, we were the only white people there. It was awesome. They made so much food you didn't feel like a pig going in for seconds, which is important, when the entres are this good. Phillipino food is a mixture of Spanish food and Asian food, and it works perfectly.
Anyway, the local Phillipino church group up here makes it out to the Folk Fest every summer to cook to raise money, and every year the line outside of their booth gets bigger and bigger. It is the worst-kept secret in Lowell. People don't mind the lines - they have literally been waiting all year for this opportunity to come again. That they don't have a restaurant is a crime. The day after the folk fest must be like Christmas to those kids.
And if it is, they deserve it. These kids are worked by the adults. Everyone pitches in, doing exactly what they are old enough to do. The operation is so huge, and so animated - everywhere somebody doing something, some little kid running around with food or with an important message - that standing in line watching all of the commotion makes the wait worthwhile.
So, that was a lot of fun.
If all of that weren't enough, the book and movie world through out some of the real heavy hitters. As you'll recall, the last time I went to a theater was when I saw Pirates 3. It wasn't a particularly fantastic movie, but I gave it a passing grade anyway, in large part because it compared favorably with the absolute stinker of a movie that Spiderman 3 was.
But I haven't been dissapointed since. First, Harry Potter 5 came out, and I gotta tell you kids, this is easily the best movie so far (heh, at least until they get to movie 7...) in the series. This is not the Harry Potter you saw go after the Sorcerer's Stone. This cat is older, he is wiser, he's very pissed off, and he's about to explode with sexual tension. And he's dealing with some grown-up problems. Voldemort isn't just some phantom out there, waiting to reappear. He has reappeared, and he's coming - coming for Harry, but really after the whole population. And the government, which is supposed to protect him, is instead pretending he doesn't exist, and charging anyone with treason who doesn't toe their line. So Harry needs to form an underground society to prepare to take on the Big Badass, but he'd better not get caught. If that sounds to you anything like a kid's movie, then I seriously want to know exactly what it is that you watched when you were a kid. 3 1/2 stars.
It wasn't just Harry making a triumphant return to the big screen. For the second straight summer, Matt Damon finds himself in the best movie of the season. This year, it's The Bourne Ultimatum, a thriller that rivals, if not tops, its first two counterparts. I was worried about this one; the Spiderman movies had also given us a second movie that topped the first one, but they had crapped the bed with the third movie in the trilogy. Of course, that is a tradition that goes all the way back to the Godfather series, and even pokes its head into the Star Wars movies - for Jedi, which was not a bad movie, by any means, was certainly the weakest of the three and somewhat of a let down after Empire managed to improve on the original.
Anyway, with the Bourne series, the rarest thing in film has occured - the series acutally has improved with each installment. And that is certainly saying something, given how incredible the first one was. I really don't want to tell you what happens, because there is so little exposition involved that any discussion of the plot would basically reveal the whole movie, but I wil tell you it is a high-suspense thrill ride that doesn't let off the gas for one second. A powerhouse of a movie. 4 stars.
And, of course, it wasn't just movies. The Harry Potter book came out - the final one, ever. I felt sad as I completed the book, knowing that we won't be returning to Rowling's mythical land to observe any more new adventures for these characters - who were so roundly-developed you practically knew them. But what a powerhouse of a finish - and yes, I know I'm using the word powerhouse over and over again this post. That's what kind of a summer it was. This book took you on a roller-coaster from page 1. And when you get to the end, you feel like a dumbass for not making the connections that seem so obvious in hindsight (for the sake of tradition, I won't talk about what those connections are, although I have to figure that, if you want to read the book, you've probably read it by now). The Harry Potter series has reached a level that only occurs when the public sees a true work of art for what it is. JK Rowling is as big as the Beatles were right now, and you know what? She fucking deserves it. Never heard of someone who deserves it more, in fact.
Ok, that'll do for now. Tomorrow I'll be writing on the Bill Maher's brilliant recent special from Boston in the politics blog. Till then...
posted by k - L - g | 6:54 AM
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