danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

I confess that I do not know very much about the technical aspects of figure skating.  I cannot distinguish an axel from a salchow, or a toe loop from a lutz.  But I know what falling down looks like when I see it, and almost every pair skating in the finals last night fell down at some point, either in a jump or a throw. Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t do better.  But I’m not in the Olympics; they are.

I suppose that advances in the sport make every skater feel like he or she needs to do the hardest trick.  I admit is is impressive to watch when it’s done well.  But when it isn’t done well it looks like a disaster.  Yet, teams that fall or only double jumps that ought to be triples still win medals and teams that appear to do everything right wind up way down the score card.  That’s the part I really do not understand.

I don’t dispute that the gold- and silver-winning teams from last night’s pair skate skated exceedingly well.  But the third-place German team–who looked great the night before–fell all over themselves.  On the other hand, the team I liked, who didn’t fall at all, weren’t even in the top five.

I suppose someone who knows a lot about figure skating will say that it comes down to artistic presentation, or complex technical elements.  Again, I may be missing some fancy foot movements, or not realizing that a backwards lift is much more difficult than a forwards lift.  But no one can miss the falling down.

That said, there was some good music last night.  My favorite pair, Caydee Denney and Jeremy Barrett, skated to Scheherazade, which was a fine complement to the Firebird they chose the night before.  But, later in the program, another team skated to Scheherazade, and not as well, I thought.  Another team skated to Rachmaninoff.  I was most pleased last night, though, that someone chose to skate to Grofé’s Grand Canyon Suite.  That’s one of my favorite pieces of American music.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the figure skating.

Filed under: Current Events, Music, Sports on February 16th, 2010 | No Comments »

The pairs figure skating began this evening, and the first American team that skated was Caydee Denney and Jeremy Barrett.  Most figure skaters wear terrible outfits, and, while theirs were flamboyant, they weren’t awful.  In fact, his shirt had a phoenix figure on the back, and her leotard was red, like she was a firebird herself.  Before they began skating I said, “they had better skate to The Firebird“.  The music began, and, indeed, it was Stravinsky’s Firebird.  The announcers didn’t point out the connection, but if I were a judge I would give them extra points for that.

UPDATE: I found the great picture on the left at this website.  If that goes down, there is another.  It’s number ten of the twelve pictures in this gallery.

UPDATE: Later in the program, two Russian skaters, Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov, performed wearing outfits with bird designs in sequins – his white, hers black.  Before they began I wondered what other bird-themed music they could skate to.  It turned out to be, appropriately enough, “Le cygne” from Saint-Saëns’ Le carnaval des animaux!

Filed under: Current Events, Music, Sports on February 14th, 2010 | No Comments »

The death this morning of Georgian athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili on the luge track is a sad start for the Olympic Games beginning today in Vancouver.  It is always tragic when men are cut down in the prime of youth.  Nothing can diminish the sense of loss for his family and his country.  But I cannot help but respect the dignity and glory that belongs to those who die doing something they love.

Filed under: Current Events, Sports on February 12th, 2010 | No Comments »

Though my website fiasco has put me a week behind, you can rest assured that the Tonight Show debacle has me deeply depressed (as much as one can be for a television show).  As you might expect, I came out strongly for Team Coco.  As I wrote back in June, when O’Brien began what I expected to be a long career as the host of the flagship late-night talk show, I have been watching Conan since the mid-1990s, when he, Andy, and Max did the goofiest things on Late Night.  I was sad when Andy left that show to try his hand at sitcom fame.  I was sad again when one show after another was canceled after only a few months, leaving him off TV for years at a time, only to turn up in small roles on other soon-to-be-canceled shows, like Arrested Development.  So, when it was clear that Andy would be rejoining Conan for the Tonight Show, it seemed that all was right in the television world.  And, though the show got off to an awkward start, with Andy spending most of the time behind his podium off screen, by late autumn he was spending most of the show on the chair next to Conan, just like in the old days.  When Conan announced that he wouldn’t be moving the program to 12:05, my first thought was, “Poor Andy, he can’t keep a job for more than six months”.

While my heart wishes that Conan would have just taken the later time slot, I cannot blame him for standing up for his convictions.  The blame for all of this lies with the staggeringly incompetent NBC executives and Jay Leno.  I remember the Leno/Letterman feud back in the early-1990s, and while I certainly preferred Letterman to Leno even then, I felt that Leno did have a valid claim to take over for Johnny Carson.  And, while I recognize that Leno must have been bitter that NBC asked him to step aside in 2004, even as he was the top-rated late night show, that cannot excuse his conduct now.  As David Letterman explained, when the network does you wrong, walk.  If Jay resented losing the Tonight Show, he should have gone somewhere else.  And, when their ten o’clock experiment failed and NBC told him he was canceled, he should have said, “Thanks, guys, but that’s enough.  I’m out of here”.  But no.  He must really, really have been desperate to get back what he once had.  Nothing else can explain why he would have been willing to either a) force all the other late night programs back a half hour, or b) put Conan in the untenable situation of having to decide to go along with it or leave.

Once it was clear that Conan’s days were numbered, the shows became more poignant and even more hilarious.  The audiences were in a frenzy, and Conan was on fire.  It made it that much more heart-breaking when, last Friday, they played a montage of clips from the run of the show, including the fantastic bit that opened his first episode as host, when he ran from New York City to Hollywood.  It ended with the message “To Be Continued…”, but who knows what will happen.  Neil Young playing “Long May You Run”, Tom Hanks, and “Freebird” with an all-star band, ended the show on an epic high.

My greatest hope is that Conan took the forty million dollars, handed it out to his staff including Andy and Max, and told everyone, “Take this money, have an eight month vacation, and meet me in September.   We’re starting a new show”.  But, even if he gets an offer from Fox, I don’t know if Andy and Max will join him.  No matter the time slot, and no matter that Fox is the highest rated network, a new show will never be the Tonight Show.  If he doesn’t get an offer from Fox he’s sunk.  Cable would be an insult.

I was looking forward to spending the next decade watching The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.  But last Friday, that dream died.

Filed under: Current Events, Television on January 28th, 2010 | No Comments »

I don’t know what to say about the misery wrought by this terrible earthquake in Haiti.  But why must the worst things happen to the poorest people?

Filed under: Current Events, Geography on January 14th, 2010 | No Comments »