closed for the month

I have some stuff to do by the end of the month, so light bloggage for the next two weeks. Which is too bad, because I want to hold forth on the Chicago Film Festival offerings. In brief -- don't let knee-jerk reactions to Michael Moore prevent you from seeing Bowling for Columbine, regardless of your political stripe. And if a documentary called Tribute comes your way, jump all over it.

Okay, no doubt everyone has once hummed a song just before hearing it on the radio or somewhere public. Or have listened to an album somewhere and heard it later that night. But I never thought this common occurrence would happen with this one.

Some familiar faces in the Metrodome tonight. Dan Gladden is on the radio team, of course, and Frank Viola and Bert Blyleven had camera-range seats. We didn't get to see it, but Kent Hrbek was singing during the 7th-inning stretch. Tomorrow night Tim Laudner -- Boom-Boom Buck-Eighty himself-- will catch Sweetmusic's first pitch. I half expected to see Juan Berenguer on the mound in a trenchcoat.



One thing that was missing, though, was Kirby Puckett. Officially, Minnesota's most beloved sports figure has been keeping a low profile since news of domestic woes hit. But I'm not fooled. I figured out the real story.



Al Newman ate him.

I'm going to have to get closely acquainted with the Yahoo gameweb thingy. Games 1-3 of the Twins-A's series have 3 p.m. CT starts, and they're not on bradcast TV As I understand it, the start times were at the Twins' request, as they share a facility with two football teams. But the local ESPN station isn't joining the early games until 6:00, as it's more profitable to keep the drivetime yapfest on the air. Perhaps this will change now that the series outcome has become less predictable. Until then, I'll just follow the game on the web until 5 and sit in limbo for an hour, and pray nothing interesting happens. Like it did yesterday.

Some notes on the new TV season, or at least what I’ve seen of it.



New Buffy -- ehh. Giving Dawn something to do other than need rescuing is a good thing, I suppose. I don't care for or about her own little “Scrappy Gang.” And I’m not really thrilled with the back-to-high-school angle, but if getting these leftover high school tales out now means the Buffy Cartoon idea is DOA, then I’m all for it. I suppose with the exception of last season, where Buffy had to, y’know, come back from the dead and all --the season premieres have been kind of lackluster (Buffy vs. Dracula, anyone?) Odd to see such a seemingly inconsequential episode coming directly from Joss, though. With luck, that’s all part of the plan.



Firefly -- Jury’s still out on this one. I enjoyed much of the premiere, and I especially liked that they’re allowed to kill people for laughs. I hope FOX continues to let Joss keep plenty of anti in his antiheroes.



John Doe -- Hey, this was pretty damn good, I thought. Except for the voiceover in the premiere; that can go away. But I’ll be happy to keep the VCR running another hour on Fridays.



Twilight Zone-- Of course I have the most to say about the show I saw the least of. I watched a little over half of the new TZ Wednesday night. What people forget or overlook about the original Twilight Zone is that many of the episodes were, at their cores, morality plays. And heavyhanded ones at that. So, I dunno...points for sticking to the original spirit of the show, even if following that path will turn off viewers (including yours truly).

In the one segment I watched, a white guy, whose failure to assist a panicked black man in the street the night before led to the black man’s death at the hands of skinheads, gradually assumes the physical appearance of the dead man, and then of course runs into prejudices from his neighbors, wife and, of course, a meeting with the skinheads. This didn’t make me ruminate on society’s ills and what I can do, as an individual, to make this world a better place. It made me think of the brilliant National Lampoon Yearbook Parody, which includes a mock high school literary magazine in which the male drama flake writes a story about waking up in a world where whites are a substandard race persecuted at the hands of blacks. Oooh, edgy.



The other segment, with Shannon Elizabeth, lost me after about 5 minutes. I had a Sopranos tape to watch. I know it’s not fair to judge an anthology show after half an episode, but I’m sure there are a lot of good horror and SF --which is what people really love and expect from the Twilight Zone -- short stories out there. Why waste time with segments that are as obvious as the Vic Morrow episode from TZ-The Movie.



and speaking of The Sopranos -- We’re getting tapes from a work connection within a week of the episodes. The woman who replaced Fairuza Balk as “Danielle” - the undercover FBI agent sucking up to Adriana -- is pitch-perfect. And I like Fairuza.

ready for further injury

Just like in Blue Crush, only I'm a guy, I'm not hot, I'm a complete novice at the activity in question, and a host of other differences, I am preparing to get back on the proverbial horse after a sporting-related injury for the new curling season, which starts in late October. This week I actually sat down and tried to reconcile the possible schedule with a bunch of concerts and limited-run movies I wanted to check out.



Fortunately, the Chicago International Film Festival falls at the beginning of October, so I'm clear to try to hit some of that. A hazier situation is the Kurosawa/Mifune restrospective at the Music Box. In terms of concerts, I will flat-out miss Beck and the Flaming Lips (not only are the Lips opening for Beck, but they're his backing band -- VERY promising, and I envy anyone who's going, anywhere), but will be able to see both Sleater-Kinney and the Soft Boys. Not sure if I can hit The Residents or John Wesley Harding.



I still need to get some appropriate shoes. Maybe next weekend when I'm driving through Madison.

Michelle & Chris had their baby last night after a four-day -- yes, four day -- labor. Boy. Nine pounds, 14.5-inch head, which prompted some choice So I Married An Axe Murderer quotes.



We paid a visit today and he is astoundingly cute. I don't get gushy about kids other than the nephews, but this one really is gushworthy. None of that Winston Churchill look common to newborns. He looks like he's long past that phase; apparently a nurse said he looks like a one-month-old already.



Name TBD, though it's a good bet he won't need the last initial when starting kindergarten.