OK, so let me get this straight. World #1 Stacy Lewis was making one of her soon-to-be-patented Sunday charges at the Kia Classic, with 3 birdies in a row over her 1st 4 holes and another on the 10th to get her to -11, but she finished 3 shots out of the playoff between Beatriz Recari and In-Kyung Kim?! IK herself was -11 with 8 holes to play, bogeyed 3 holes in a row, then offset her 2 birdies in a row with a walkoff bogey and still had a chance to win the tournament? Recari was having a bad day, with bogeys on the par 3s 6 and 11 to fall back to single digits under par for the week, but fought back to match Kim's birdie on 16--and then also bogeyed 18? What the heck was going on today on Aviara's back 9?
Yup, Stacy Lewis doubled 11 to fall to -9, bogeyed the par-3 14th to fall to -8, then needed a birdie to have a chance and instead doubled it. Pornanong Phatlum had a chance to put pressure on the leaders and finish at -10 with a birdie and -9 with a par, so of course she bogeyed it. Karrie Webb needed a birdie on it to post -9--she bogeyed it, too. Others did their self-destructive thing a bit earlier in the round. Mo Martin birdied 5 of her 1st 12 holes to get to -10, but immediately went bogey-par-bogey-bogey, so that her birdie on 17 left her 1 shot out of the playoff. It was a double on 11 that knocked Cristie Kerr back from -9 to -7 and even though she fought back with a birdie on 16, it was still too little, too late. Paula Creamer was by no means out of it when she birdied the 10th to get to -8, but she was after she had finished bogeying her next 5 holes in a row. Lizette Salas and Jane Park were still at -8 pretty late in the day, but moved 1 shot in the wrong direction. Even Haeji Kang, Suzann Pettersen, and Azahara Munoz had their chances--Kang birdied 5 of her 1st 11 holes to get to -7, but a double bogey-bogey-eagle run left her at -6 for the tournament, while Pettersen had birdied 3 of her 1st 10 holes to fight to -7, but a bogey on 12 and a double on 14 ended her chances and for Munoz, who was also -7 well into the back, it was a double on 13 and a walkoff bogey with made her birdies on 14 and 16 moot. Even Giulia Sergas, who matched Phatlum's and Kang's 68s for low round of the day, bogeyed a couple of holes midway through the back 9.
This one sounds like it would have been fun to watch, with more cliffhangers than a 15-minute Japanese morning soap opera and more crashes than my '90s-era Macs. So somebody who saw it, please tell me: how did Recari find a way to win this thing?!
Showing posts with label guilty pleasures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guilty pleasures. Show all posts
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Blazing Saddles and Transatlantic Postmodernism
[Note to my regular readers who come here for women's golf coverage: I'm airing Mel Brooks's 1974 film Blazing Saddles tonight as part of SUNY Fredonia's American Studies film series "Myths of the American West," so decided to share a draft of my opening comments here at Mostly Harmless (which is, after all, "for fun"). I'm aware of the 5-car collision that has lead to my favorite golfer Ai Miyazato withdrawing from this week's LPGA event (and onechan's favorite Paula Creamer being a likely WD candidate) and obviously wish them and everyone else involved in it a full and speedy recovery.]
[Note to my non-regular readers who are coming here after watching Blazing Saddles (or missing it): Hope you enjoy this post and are curious enough after reading it to browse around for other posts here that you may find interesting!]
I was four years old when Blazing Saddles was first released in American theaters and until Shannon McRae--the director of American Studies at SUNY Fredonia and organizer of the program's film series "Myths of the American West"--took seriously my half-joking suggestion to include it in the series and invited me to introduce it, I had never seen it in its entirety until this month. In a semester when I'm teaching American Identities, Introduction to African American Literature and Culture, and Critical Reading, I'm particularly pleased to take Shannon up on her kind offer, and offer a few comments as a new viewer of a movie that's been well-known (even to me) for decades, comments that will hopefully be as useful to students in my classes this semester as everyone else who braved the rains to make it out here tonight.
Growing up, I put Blazing Saddles in the mental category of comedies too raw for me to watch, a remarkably capacious category that in the '70s and too far into the '80s included everything from Monty Python to Mad magazine to Saturday Night Live to just about every famous stand-up comedian of the time. If this reference helps people place where I was at, probably Benny Hill was the rawest thing I got access to before graduate school. Yes, I grew up in a small town in central NY and failed to take advantage of 2nd grade in Palo Alto and 7th grade in Chapel Hill. Nevertheless, I was obsessed with everything comical and comics-al. In high school I started a cartoon series called The Gray Area that, despite its being far too derivative of The Far Side, was seen, nay loved, by regular readers of the Pennysaver and other fine local publications for far too many weeks. Me, I loved everything from Gilligan's Island to Scooby Doo, from Diff'rent Strokes to The Facts of Life, from Benson to Newhart, from Doctor Who to The Greatest American Hero, from Airplane! to Ghostbusters, from The Muppet Show to The Tracey Ullman Show, from Tom and Jerry to Rocky and Bullwinkle (in reruns, duh) to Calvin and Hobbes to Mork and Mindy, from any DC comic Ambush Bug appeared in (even though I was almost exclusively a Marvel fan) to the animated version of The Tick. Sure, I hated the Smurfs and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but otherwise I was pretty easy to please. And I was a fan of The Simpsons before The Simpsons was The Simpsons, man! (It goes without saying from the title of this blog what my favorite was, though!)
All of which is to say that when I go to grad school in the early 1990s I was perfectly primed to understand and appreciate what many still misunderstand and denigrate even today as a French theoretical import: postmodernism. As someone who saw The Simpsons parody of the end of The Graduate long before I ever saw The Graduate, who loved it when Beavis and Butt-head were watching a Johnny Cash video and decided it was gangsta rap, and who came of age in a hip hop culture rife with allusion and remixing and pastiche, I didn't have to think twice about Jean-Francois Lyotard's notion of "incredulity toward metanarratives" as a core characteristic of postmodernism.
So it's all too easy and obvious now for me to look back at Blazing Saddles and see it as yet another exemplar of American postmodernism. It's certainly not an original point to make, as a quick google search will show you (I recommend posts by Mark Bourne and Mike Sutton on this aspect of the movie). But what is originality, anyway? Just another stinkin' metanarrative--right, JFL? Perhaps it's slightly more original to claim that Mel Brooks and Monty Python were engaged in a transatlantic comedic one-ups-man-ship that was perfectly postmodern. In the same way that Brooks and his co-writers, including Richard Pryor, were playing with myths of the American west and poking fun at founding narratives of the modern United States, Monty Python was taking on English legends of the Holy Grail and western icons of Christianity--and at roughly the same time. Check me on this. And, as you watch Blazing Saddles tonight, consider some of the debates over postmodernism that occupied so many western intellectuals in the last third of the 20th century: is postmodernism all sound and fury, signifying nothing? is it, in the final analysis, the laugh track of late capitalism? are its politics of race and gender and sexuality and [fill in the blank] reactionary, liberatory, laughable, nostalgic, or what? is postmodernism a thing of the past, and if so, how do we react to it today (and what comes after that post-?) if not, if we are still living in and with postmodernism, what does Blazing Saddles compare to in contemporary and recent culture?
There's so much more to be said--about what light Blazing Saddles may shed on black-Jewish relations in the late civil rights era, for instance--but I think it ought to wait until after the movie. Don't you?
[Note to my non-regular readers who are coming here after watching Blazing Saddles (or missing it): Hope you enjoy this post and are curious enough after reading it to browse around for other posts here that you may find interesting!]
I was four years old when Blazing Saddles was first released in American theaters and until Shannon McRae--the director of American Studies at SUNY Fredonia and organizer of the program's film series "Myths of the American West"--took seriously my half-joking suggestion to include it in the series and invited me to introduce it, I had never seen it in its entirety until this month. In a semester when I'm teaching American Identities, Introduction to African American Literature and Culture, and Critical Reading, I'm particularly pleased to take Shannon up on her kind offer, and offer a few comments as a new viewer of a movie that's been well-known (even to me) for decades, comments that will hopefully be as useful to students in my classes this semester as everyone else who braved the rains to make it out here tonight.
Growing up, I put Blazing Saddles in the mental category of comedies too raw for me to watch, a remarkably capacious category that in the '70s and too far into the '80s included everything from Monty Python to Mad magazine to Saturday Night Live to just about every famous stand-up comedian of the time. If this reference helps people place where I was at, probably Benny Hill was the rawest thing I got access to before graduate school. Yes, I grew up in a small town in central NY and failed to take advantage of 2nd grade in Palo Alto and 7th grade in Chapel Hill. Nevertheless, I was obsessed with everything comical and comics-al. In high school I started a cartoon series called The Gray Area that, despite its being far too derivative of The Far Side, was seen, nay loved, by regular readers of the Pennysaver and other fine local publications for far too many weeks. Me, I loved everything from Gilligan's Island to Scooby Doo, from Diff'rent Strokes to The Facts of Life, from Benson to Newhart, from Doctor Who to The Greatest American Hero, from Airplane! to Ghostbusters, from The Muppet Show to The Tracey Ullman Show, from Tom and Jerry to Rocky and Bullwinkle (in reruns, duh) to Calvin and Hobbes to Mork and Mindy, from any DC comic Ambush Bug appeared in (even though I was almost exclusively a Marvel fan) to the animated version of The Tick. Sure, I hated the Smurfs and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but otherwise I was pretty easy to please. And I was a fan of The Simpsons before The Simpsons was The Simpsons, man! (It goes without saying from the title of this blog what my favorite was, though!)
All of which is to say that when I go to grad school in the early 1990s I was perfectly primed to understand and appreciate what many still misunderstand and denigrate even today as a French theoretical import: postmodernism. As someone who saw The Simpsons parody of the end of The Graduate long before I ever saw The Graduate, who loved it when Beavis and Butt-head were watching a Johnny Cash video and decided it was gangsta rap, and who came of age in a hip hop culture rife with allusion and remixing and pastiche, I didn't have to think twice about Jean-Francois Lyotard's notion of "incredulity toward metanarratives" as a core characteristic of postmodernism.
So it's all too easy and obvious now for me to look back at Blazing Saddles and see it as yet another exemplar of American postmodernism. It's certainly not an original point to make, as a quick google search will show you (I recommend posts by Mark Bourne and Mike Sutton on this aspect of the movie). But what is originality, anyway? Just another stinkin' metanarrative--right, JFL? Perhaps it's slightly more original to claim that Mel Brooks and Monty Python were engaged in a transatlantic comedic one-ups-man-ship that was perfectly postmodern. In the same way that Brooks and his co-writers, including Richard Pryor, were playing with myths of the American west and poking fun at founding narratives of the modern United States, Monty Python was taking on English legends of the Holy Grail and western icons of Christianity--and at roughly the same time. Check me on this. And, as you watch Blazing Saddles tonight, consider some of the debates over postmodernism that occupied so many western intellectuals in the last third of the 20th century: is postmodernism all sound and fury, signifying nothing? is it, in the final analysis, the laugh track of late capitalism? are its politics of race and gender and sexuality and [fill in the blank] reactionary, liberatory, laughable, nostalgic, or what? is postmodernism a thing of the past, and if so, how do we react to it today (and what comes after that post-?) if not, if we are still living in and with postmodernism, what does Blazing Saddles compare to in contemporary and recent culture?
There's so much more to be said--about what light Blazing Saddles may shed on black-Jewish relations in the late civil rights era, for instance--but I think it ought to wait until after the movie. Don't you?
Monday, January 31, 2011
Golf Channel, Here I Come!
Today in history, the Constructivist family entered the 21st century. We've had high-speed internet since we got back from Japan but now we have it with Verizon, whose triple play deal means that we also have DirectTV (with a sweet HD DVR) and a home phone (VTec, of course!), plus we went in for a Sony Blu-Ray player (connected to our new 42" plasma Panasonic with the scariest of Monster HDMI cables) to supplement our old Sony DVD-VCR player. Golf Channel, here I come!
Now, some of you may be wondering, "Constructivist, how can you afford your rock and roll lifestyle?" Well, I'm happy to report that I'm starting a serious product placement initiative here at Mostly Harmless (see above). Other than that, I don't have a clue. Anyone out there in Blogaramaville got any ideas?
Now, some of you may be wondering, "Constructivist, how can you afford your rock and roll lifestyle?" Well, I'm happy to report that I'm starting a serious product placement initiative here at Mostly Harmless (see above). Other than that, I don't have a clue. Anyone out there in Blogaramaville got any ideas?
Thursday, July 8, 2010
How Low Can the AP Go?
I haven't made the effort to identify who's responsible for the latest U.S. Women's Open preview from the Associated Press, but talk about using old talking points! The title: "Americans No Longer Dominate U.S. Women's Open." The theme: how badly Americans have been doing lately against international competition on women's golf's biggest stage.
The problems:
(1) Even Beth Ann Baldry, who's not the best-informed writer on women's golf in the world, knows that Cristie Kerr is the favorite to survive and maybe even tame Oakmont. Yet our anonymous AP writer takes 5 seconds on LPGA.com's stats page and decides that because she "doesn't rank among the LPGA's Top 10 in driving distance, accuracy or putting," the fact that she's #1 in scoring average and putts per green in regulation, #2 in wins, winnings, Player of the Year points, rounds in the 60s, and rounds under par, #4 in birdies per round, and #5 in greens in regulation (72.2%) and top-10-finish rate--oh, and by the way, is averaging almost 257 yards off the tee, hitting 72.4% of her fairways, and averaging 28.68 putts per round--just doesn't matter. 2 wins in the last 3 events? Pshaw. A 2-tournament winning streak in her last 2 events entered? Not even worth mentioning.
And when he (I'll betcha anything a guy wrote this!) tries to praise Kerr, he even gets the storyline wrong:
Um, dude, Kerr had chances to win 2 majors last year and let them slip through her fingers. Nobody stepped up to challenge her in the LPGA Championship for any serious length of time. Kerr still has to prove she's a closer in majors. That and the fact that she won at Locust Hill with a leaky driver--something that Oakmont will penalize much more severely--are the doubts that any knowledgable writer should be emphasizing about Kerr's chances to get her 2nd Open, 3rd major, and 15th career victory on the LPGA. Read Mike Dudurich or Randall Mell or Tim Maitland if you want to understand where Cristie Kerr is this season. Not this hack.
(2) So when most writers (and even Seouls Sisters fans like bangkokbobby) are focusing on how important for the tour and how inspiring for other American golfers Kerr's dominating victory at the LPGA Championship has been--do you think it's a coincidence that Christina Kim almost followed Kerr's formula (change putters, get focused mentally, and bring it on) to the letter last week and moved from 73rd to 59th in the Rolex Rankings with her playoff loss to Na Yeon Choi in the process?--our dogged correspondent decides to dig even deeper. What has he discovered?
I have 2 responses. 1st, how is this news? The supposed lack of American dominance has been going on for 15 years! But 2nd, is it really fair to American golfers to hold them to a higher standard than the golfers of every other nation? Read that paragraph again: Americans have won the Open more time than golfers from any other nation in the world! We're still #1, baby! w00t!!
Let's break this down further. Of the 8 players last year with the best chance to win, 4 were American (including naturalized citizen Candie Kung). Even with Inbee Park winning by a comparatively large margin in 2008, 3 Americans were among the 9 in the mix at some point on that Sunday. Yeah, Cristie Kerr basically carried the flag alone when she won in 2007, but the year before that 4 Americans were challenging Annika Sorenstam (who beat Pat Hurst in a playoff) and Se Ri Pak among those few players less than 7 shots off Sorenstam's and Hurst's pace. In 2005, Birdie Kim beat 2 promising American amateurs, Morgan Pressel and Brittany Lang (who have since developed into elite professionals), by 2 shots with her miraculous walkoff hole-out from the bunker, and Natalie Gulbis made it 3 Americans in the top 5. My point in bringing up all this not-so-ancient history is that Americans have disproportionately been in the mix in the Open, even in the last few years when the women's game's globalization has intensified exponentially.
Yes, I know there's a big difference between being in contention and winning. My point is that expecting American domination on the LPGA is incredibly out-of-date, just as it would be to expect Korean domination, or Japanese domination, or Spanish domination--or, for that matter, any single country's domination. The world of women's golf is by no means flat, and its center of gravity may well have shifted to Asia sometime last decade, but that's all the more reason to face reality with something less than jaw-on-the-ground stupefaction and incredulity.
(3) The U.S. Women's Open has actually been the staging ground for a lot of American cinderellas in recent years, from Michelle Wie to Stacy Lewis to Alexis Thompson to Jean Reynolds. And as Stuart Hall points out, it's become the locus of a debate about attending college vs. turning pro for teenagers of all nationalities. It's pretty significant that long-heralded, big-hitting Hawaii native Kimberly Kim turned pro at about the same time that just-shy-of-Hall of Famer Meg Mallon announced her retirement, eh? And that, as David Shefter and Rhonda Glenn point out, there are plenty of great stories from other new pros and top amateurs--including Americans Jennifer Song (ok, she had dual citizenship with South Korea, so both countries get to claim her) and Tiffany Joh (who's made the Open for the 1st time in her life!).
(4) Finally, it's not like I'm loving the new flavor of the week--how gosh ding dang tough the USGA can make an already over-the-top Oakmont--but at least that one's a case of lowering casual viewer/reader expectations scoring-wise (when it's not an excuse for having fun with a damsels in distress storyline). Americans having just a slightly better chance of winning this Open than golfers from any other single country is just "dog bites man" these days.
Look, it's not that I'm expecting Pulitzer-prize winning material from the AP when it comes to covering the LPGA. I'd accept just basic competence, thank you very much. That, and this Stephanie Wei interview with Paige Mackenzie edited down into a short article and sent around to every newspaper in the country!
The problems:
(1) Even Beth Ann Baldry, who's not the best-informed writer on women's golf in the world, knows that Cristie Kerr is the favorite to survive and maybe even tame Oakmont. Yet our anonymous AP writer takes 5 seconds on LPGA.com's stats page and decides that because she "doesn't rank among the LPGA's Top 10 in driving distance, accuracy or putting," the fact that she's #1 in scoring average and putts per green in regulation, #2 in wins, winnings, Player of the Year points, rounds in the 60s, and rounds under par, #4 in birdies per round, and #5 in greens in regulation (72.2%) and top-10-finish rate--oh, and by the way, is averaging almost 257 yards off the tee, hitting 72.4% of her fairways, and averaging 28.68 putts per round--just doesn't matter. 2 wins in the last 3 events? Pshaw. A 2-tournament winning streak in her last 2 events entered? Not even worth mentioning.
And when he (I'll betcha anything a guy wrote this!) tries to praise Kerr, he even gets the storyline wrong:
Give her the 36- or 54-hole lead, like she owned last year at cross-state Saucon Valley before losing out to Ji, and it may be difficult to get it back.
Um, dude, Kerr had chances to win 2 majors last year and let them slip through her fingers. Nobody stepped up to challenge her in the LPGA Championship for any serious length of time. Kerr still has to prove she's a closer in majors. That and the fact that she won at Locust Hill with a leaky driver--something that Oakmont will penalize much more severely--are the doubts that any knowledgable writer should be emphasizing about Kerr's chances to get her 2nd Open, 3rd major, and 15th career victory on the LPGA. Read Mike Dudurich or Randall Mell or Tim Maitland if you want to understand where Cristie Kerr is this season. Not this hack.
(2) So when most writers (and even Seouls Sisters fans like bangkokbobby) are focusing on how important for the tour and how inspiring for other American golfers Kerr's dominating victory at the LPGA Championship has been--do you think it's a coincidence that Christina Kim almost followed Kerr's formula (change putters, get focused mentally, and bring it on) to the letter last week and moved from 73rd to 59th in the Rolex Rankings with her playoff loss to Na Yeon Choi in the process?--our dogged correspondent decides to dig even deeper. What has he discovered?
An American victory in its national championship, once all but a certainty, now would be a surprise. Cristie Kerr is the only American to win in the last five years and, since 1995, there have been nearly as many South Korean champions (4) as U.S. winners (5). By comparison, Americans won all but five Women's Opens from 1946-1994.
I have 2 responses. 1st, how is this news? The supposed lack of American dominance has been going on for 15 years! But 2nd, is it really fair to American golfers to hold them to a higher standard than the golfers of every other nation? Read that paragraph again: Americans have won the Open more time than golfers from any other nation in the world! We're still #1, baby! w00t!!
Let's break this down further. Of the 8 players last year with the best chance to win, 4 were American (including naturalized citizen Candie Kung). Even with Inbee Park winning by a comparatively large margin in 2008, 3 Americans were among the 9 in the mix at some point on that Sunday. Yeah, Cristie Kerr basically carried the flag alone when she won in 2007, but the year before that 4 Americans were challenging Annika Sorenstam (who beat Pat Hurst in a playoff) and Se Ri Pak among those few players less than 7 shots off Sorenstam's and Hurst's pace. In 2005, Birdie Kim beat 2 promising American amateurs, Morgan Pressel and Brittany Lang (who have since developed into elite professionals), by 2 shots with her miraculous walkoff hole-out from the bunker, and Natalie Gulbis made it 3 Americans in the top 5. My point in bringing up all this not-so-ancient history is that Americans have disproportionately been in the mix in the Open, even in the last few years when the women's game's globalization has intensified exponentially.
Yes, I know there's a big difference between being in contention and winning. My point is that expecting American domination on the LPGA is incredibly out-of-date, just as it would be to expect Korean domination, or Japanese domination, or Spanish domination--or, for that matter, any single country's domination. The world of women's golf is by no means flat, and its center of gravity may well have shifted to Asia sometime last decade, but that's all the more reason to face reality with something less than jaw-on-the-ground stupefaction and incredulity.
(3) The U.S. Women's Open has actually been the staging ground for a lot of American cinderellas in recent years, from Michelle Wie to Stacy Lewis to Alexis Thompson to Jean Reynolds. And as Stuart Hall points out, it's become the locus of a debate about attending college vs. turning pro for teenagers of all nationalities. It's pretty significant that long-heralded, big-hitting Hawaii native Kimberly Kim turned pro at about the same time that just-shy-of-Hall of Famer Meg Mallon announced her retirement, eh? And that, as David Shefter and Rhonda Glenn point out, there are plenty of great stories from other new pros and top amateurs--including Americans Jennifer Song (ok, she had dual citizenship with South Korea, so both countries get to claim her) and Tiffany Joh (who's made the Open for the 1st time in her life!).
(4) Finally, it's not like I'm loving the new flavor of the week--how gosh ding dang tough the USGA can make an already over-the-top Oakmont--but at least that one's a case of lowering casual viewer/reader expectations scoring-wise (when it's not an excuse for having fun with a damsels in distress storyline). Americans having just a slightly better chance of winning this Open than golfers from any other single country is just "dog bites man" these days.
Look, it's not that I'm expecting Pulitzer-prize winning material from the AP when it comes to covering the LPGA. I'd accept just basic competence, thank you very much. That, and this Stephanie Wei interview with Paige Mackenzie edited down into a short article and sent around to every newspaper in the country!
Friday, October 3, 2008
Venice Friday: This Is it!
We already have our 1st bubble girls at the Venice sectional Q-School qualifier. Jenna Pearson shot a 71 to get to T26 so far at +2. One stroke behind her but T33 right now are Tiffany Tavee (70), Jessica Carafiello (72), and Christi Cano (72). Get your Maalox ready, everyone. It's going to be a long day.
[Update 1 (1:50 pm): New bubble girl: Angela Oh (75, +5, 30th place).]
[Update 2 (4:14 pm): Hound Dog comments on the final results, helpfully highlighting who helped themselves out in a big way today. The cut ended up being about as high as I originally expected--+6 this time, compared to +5 at Mission Hills. Even though Beatriz Recari stayed under par every round, she got beat by 1 shot by Chella Choi, whose 69 brought her to -9 for the tournament, and caught by Nontaya Srisawang, who also shot a 69 today. Joining Recari, Choi, and Srisawang as the only golfers in the field not to go over par in a single round was amateur Jaclyn Sweeney (72, -7, 4th), although unlike them she only broke 70 once. So watch for these 4 to have a decent chance to hang with the top half of the Mission Hills field that they couldn't hang with then. The other 28 players have a lot of work to do to even get within the top 40, given the quality of competition about to face them in early December. Anything over 75 is going to be fatal then, at least without several sub-70 rounds to make up for it.]
[Update 3 (10/5/08, 1:37 am): Here's Brent Kelley's reaction to Friday's results.]
[Update 1 (1:50 pm): New bubble girl: Angela Oh (75, +5, 30th place).]
[Update 2 (4:14 pm): Hound Dog comments on the final results, helpfully highlighting who helped themselves out in a big way today. The cut ended up being about as high as I originally expected--+6 this time, compared to +5 at Mission Hills. Even though Beatriz Recari stayed under par every round, she got beat by 1 shot by Chella Choi, whose 69 brought her to -9 for the tournament, and caught by Nontaya Srisawang, who also shot a 69 today. Joining Recari, Choi, and Srisawang as the only golfers in the field not to go over par in a single round was amateur Jaclyn Sweeney (72, -7, 4th), although unlike them she only broke 70 once. So watch for these 4 to have a decent chance to hang with the top half of the Mission Hills field that they couldn't hang with then. The other 28 players have a lot of work to do to even get within the top 40, given the quality of competition about to face them in early December. Anything over 75 is going to be fatal then, at least without several sub-70 rounds to make up for it.]
[Update 3 (10/5/08, 1:37 am): Here's Brent Kelley's reaction to Friday's results.]
Monday, March 31, 2008
J-Drama Update: Bara no nai Hanaya
As spring break ends, I thought I'd recommend another J-Drama that the Full Metal Archivist and I have gotten into on Veoh: Bara no nai Hanaya, or The Flower Shop Has No Roses. This one is not nearly as funny and self-consciously postmodern as Hottie Paradise (or rather, Hanazakari no Kimitachi e); no, it's much more Dickensian in the convolutions of its plot and Hawthornesque or even Morrisonesque in its exploration of the risks and costs of love and revenge. For a glimpse of the show's different strands, check out what its fans have been putting up on YouTube:
Trust me when I say go to Veoh as often as you can the next few nights and catch up on the first 10 episodes--the final episode's fansub should go up in the next few days. You can be the first kid on your block to experience in almost real-time what prime-time audiences in Japan did on Monday nights this season. And yes, there's a SMAP connection--how could there not be when it's a) super-popular in Japan, and b) something found by the Full Metal Archivist online?
Trust me when I say go to Veoh as often as you can the next few nights and catch up on the first 10 episodes--the final episode's fansub should go up in the next few days. You can be the first kid on your block to experience in almost real-time what prime-time audiences in Japan did on Monday nights this season. And yes, there's a SMAP connection--how could there not be when it's a) super-popular in Japan, and b) something found by the Full Metal Archivist online?
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Hottie Paradise
That's one translation of the title of a smash hit on Japanese tv. Hanazakari no Kimitachi e is apparently already popular internationally, as witness this clip from the first episode subbed en espanol:
For more, go to Veoh.com, search for the Japanese title, and look for the episodes fansubbed in English (the Full Metal Archivist and I are in the middle of the fifth).
What's the show's hook? More ikemen per frame than any other J-drama. "Hottie" would be one translation of ikemen, but "teen idol" works better for me. The show is a naked ratings grab--meant to appeal to everyone from the teenage audience it represents to moms and grandmas who like a little eye candy. In case you couldn't tell from the clip, it's adapted from a popular manga series. But here's what makes it interesting to me: rather than a parody of daytime drama conventions or a sitcom like, say, Bosom Buddies, it's really a pure melodrama. That is, all the ridiculous exaggerations of setting, plot, characterization, and acting--all the self-consciously artificial/meta aspects of the show--completely fail to subvert the emotional impact of the core relationships among the main characters, even on me. The show combines ironic distance and emotional intimacy in a way I've never seen before. The closest I can come to it is Daria (the Beavis and Butt-head spin-off I got hooked on way back when), although I suppose if I had gotten into Beverly Hills 90210 instead of hating it with a passion from afar, I might not have to stretch so far to find a comparison. Although so far it doesn't seem like any romantic comedy I've ever seen, maybe the best comparison is to a movie like Tootsie?
Uncharacteristically, I complained to the tsuma between episodes that the entire premise of the show is completely unrealistic--really, how could a barely teenage Japanese girl living in America be so moved by the struggles of a Japanese high school high jumper (who gave up the sport after sustaining an injury that she holds herself responsible for) that she would run away from home, apply to an all-male high school in Japan that selects its student body by appearance only, and successfully cross-dress her way into his social circle so she could motivate him to return to his sport?! She replied that it was psychologically realistic: many Japanese girls, she claims, develop intense, idealized crushes on boys or men they want to save, not least because this is a popular narrative in Japanese popular culture. I won't report the trump card she dropped to convince me of this here, but suffice to say it worked.
So I'm curious about reactions to this show from Blogoramaville. Did you like it? What does it remind you of from American tv? Could you see yourself getting addicted to it? Why or why not? Could it become massively popular in the U.S. the way it is in Japan? Or could it at best only become a cult classic? What do you think it reveals about gendering in Japan? And, by your response to it, in your home country?
For more, go to Veoh.com, search for the Japanese title, and look for the episodes fansubbed in English (the Full Metal Archivist and I are in the middle of the fifth).
What's the show's hook? More ikemen per frame than any other J-drama. "Hottie" would be one translation of ikemen, but "teen idol" works better for me. The show is a naked ratings grab--meant to appeal to everyone from the teenage audience it represents to moms and grandmas who like a little eye candy. In case you couldn't tell from the clip, it's adapted from a popular manga series. But here's what makes it interesting to me: rather than a parody of daytime drama conventions or a sitcom like, say, Bosom Buddies, it's really a pure melodrama. That is, all the ridiculous exaggerations of setting, plot, characterization, and acting--all the self-consciously artificial/meta aspects of the show--completely fail to subvert the emotional impact of the core relationships among the main characters, even on me. The show combines ironic distance and emotional intimacy in a way I've never seen before. The closest I can come to it is Daria (the Beavis and Butt-head spin-off I got hooked on way back when), although I suppose if I had gotten into Beverly Hills 90210 instead of hating it with a passion from afar, I might not have to stretch so far to find a comparison. Although so far it doesn't seem like any romantic comedy I've ever seen, maybe the best comparison is to a movie like Tootsie?
Uncharacteristically, I complained to the tsuma between episodes that the entire premise of the show is completely unrealistic--really, how could a barely teenage Japanese girl living in America be so moved by the struggles of a Japanese high school high jumper (who gave up the sport after sustaining an injury that she holds herself responsible for) that she would run away from home, apply to an all-male high school in Japan that selects its student body by appearance only, and successfully cross-dress her way into his social circle so she could motivate him to return to his sport?! She replied that it was psychologically realistic: many Japanese girls, she claims, develop intense, idealized crushes on boys or men they want to save, not least because this is a popular narrative in Japanese popular culture. I won't report the trump card she dropped to convince me of this here, but suffice to say it worked.
So I'm curious about reactions to this show from Blogoramaville. Did you like it? What does it remind you of from American tv? Could you see yourself getting addicted to it? Why or why not? Could it become massively popular in the U.S. the way it is in Japan? Or could it at best only become a cult classic? What do you think it reveals about gendering in Japan? And, by your response to it, in your home country?
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
The Full Metal Archivist Blogs!
In Japanese! Check out SMAP Watcher when you get a chance. Maybe someday she'll rethink her "no videos" position. Until then, you can review the Mostly Harmless SMAP archives and do that Google blog search you've always wanted to do but never took the time.... Or learn to read Japanese.
On a side note, the U2bes has lots of Inai Inai Ba, Pitagora Suichi, and Juppon Anime video up lately. If you like cute kids, Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions, or ten sticks doing funny things, they're for you. Here's one to whet your appetite:
This one's subbed, but it's just as fun w/o translation.
On a side note, the U2bes has lots of Inai Inai Ba, Pitagora Suichi, and Juppon Anime video up lately. If you like cute kids, Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions, or ten sticks doing funny things, they're for you. Here's one to whet your appetite:
This one's subbed, but it's just as fun w/o translation.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Monday, October 29, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
You Hate It! You Really Hate It!
It doesn't take much to generate some guesses as to the reasons for the deafening silence meeting this inaugural Take Your Blog to the Course carnival--besides the fact that no one reads this blog and I haven't had time to drop many bread crumbs at blogs people do read. While the purpose of TYBttC is no doubt laudable--to draw attention to women's professional golf by encouraging those who don't normally golf blog to try blogging the U.S. Women's Open between 6/25 and 7/1--I can see why people may have political, aesthetic, and personal reasons for not taking part in it. I'll run these down in hopes of inspiring at least one "Why I Hate/Don't Care About Golf" post from someone.
Political: Let's face it, golf's image--and far too often, its reality--sucks. The sport seems to be associated in most people's minds with the worst kinds of privileges/exclusions--by class/race/gender/religion, for a start. When most people think "golf," they think country clubs and corporate outings. They think of the backlash against Martha Burk's quixotic quest to put pressure on Augusta to admit a female member. They think of all the jokes about how the LPGA was the lesbian's professional golf association and of all the efforts since those jokes started to promote women's golf through pinup girls and moms. They remember how difficult it was for Karrie Webb when she was outed. Or how the "yellow peril" never seems to be far from people's minds when they talk about how many South Korean golfers there are on the LPGA.
Aesthetic: "Golf's not a sport," people who never tried to play it say. "It's less interesting to watch than wet paint," others add. "And the clothes--don't get me started!" chime in the fashionistas. "Ojin ksai!" the tsuma agrees. "I just can't understand why you're into golf," even my most sympathetic friends confess, "much less blog about it so often."
Personal: Maybe there's a trauma in your past--an accident with a golf cart, getting hit by a golf ball, or, as in the tsuma's case, damaging your front teeth as a six-year-old when trying to hit a golf ball with an iron too big for you. Or maybe someone in your life--a dad, a boyfriend--got obsessed/addicted and you feel it poisoned your relationship or stressed your mom out.
So what's your excuse for not taking your blog to the course this week? Even if you don't have a blog, feel free to leave a comment here or email me at the[underscore]constructivist18[at]yahoo[dot]com!
Political: Let's face it, golf's image--and far too often, its reality--sucks. The sport seems to be associated in most people's minds with the worst kinds of privileges/exclusions--by class/race/gender/religion, for a start. When most people think "golf," they think country clubs and corporate outings. They think of the backlash against Martha Burk's quixotic quest to put pressure on Augusta to admit a female member. They think of all the jokes about how the LPGA was the lesbian's professional golf association and of all the efforts since those jokes started to promote women's golf through pinup girls and moms. They remember how difficult it was for Karrie Webb when she was outed. Or how the "yellow peril" never seems to be far from people's minds when they talk about how many South Korean golfers there are on the LPGA.
Aesthetic: "Golf's not a sport," people who never tried to play it say. "It's less interesting to watch than wet paint," others add. "And the clothes--don't get me started!" chime in the fashionistas. "Ojin ksai!" the tsuma agrees. "I just can't understand why you're into golf," even my most sympathetic friends confess, "much less blog about it so often."
Personal: Maybe there's a trauma in your past--an accident with a golf cart, getting hit by a golf ball, or, as in the tsuma's case, damaging your front teeth as a six-year-old when trying to hit a golf ball with an iron too big for you. Or maybe someone in your life--a dad, a boyfriend--got obsessed/addicted and you feel it poisoned your relationship or stressed your mom out.
So what's your excuse for not taking your blog to the course this week? Even if you don't have a blog, feel free to leave a comment here or email me at the[underscore]constructivist18[at]yahoo[dot]com!
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
YouTubeocalypse: For the "Japan is..." Crowd
This one is for zuzu, who unfunnied an anemic post by d--far below their usual standards. It's also for everyone who hopped on the Japanese Self-Defense Forces' manga logo meme bandwagon and who participates in the burgeoning "Japan is weird" bloggy genre.
Commenters at Feministe veered between participation in and critique of zuzu's "Japan Is Slightly Terrifying" title for a promo shot of Hello Kitty Airline (a Taiwanese outfit, as was pointed out, part of a Taiwanese multinational consortium, as wasn't). Disney came up a bit, of course--it's not like America isn't brimming with cutesy and completely corporatized cartoon characters. In fact, Disney recently bought Studio Ghibli (that's why there was that Miyazaki marathon on A&E last year). Kind of a metaphor for or just plain old example of something--but what?
But I digress. I don't claim to be a big expert on Japan or anything. I didn't even hear of this band called SMAP, which is the biggest band in the history of Japan and the biggest boy band in the history of the world (despite no longer being close to even having been boys) until She-Who-Will-Not-Be-Mentioned-on-Blogs revealed to me the heights and depth of her fandom a few years ago. (Which is not at all about being an otaku, she emphasizes--otaku are so into things few others care about they'll only talk about their obsessions, not that she has anything against otaku, having married one, she hastened to add.) OK, so SMAP is bigger than the Beatles. They've taken over Japanese media of all kinds. Kimura Takuya, Kimutaku as his fans call him, is the undisputed heavyweight of the group (although SWWNBMOB has decided she's transferring her affections to some other guy in the group, not that I would ever admit to feeling jealous of a pop icon). Which is one way of setting up this little clip, Kimutaka's version of the "para para" dance thing that was popular seven or eight years ago in Japan.
Analyze Critique Mock Beat this!
Yup, Mostly Harmless is out to start a YouTubeocalypse. (Calling all Benzons....) [YouTube publishes the embedding code to the right of the video; you just have to copy it into your post, as I did above--BB] Laughter may now commence over myscrewing up the code Adrian gave us for needing help making those cute windows show up (I used ' instead of ", for crying out loud!).
Commenters at Feministe veered between participation in and critique of zuzu's "Japan Is Slightly Terrifying" title for a promo shot of Hello Kitty Airline (a Taiwanese outfit, as was pointed out, part of a Taiwanese multinational consortium, as wasn't). Disney came up a bit, of course--it's not like America isn't brimming with cutesy and completely corporatized cartoon characters. In fact, Disney recently bought Studio Ghibli (that's why there was that Miyazaki marathon on A&E last year). Kind of a metaphor for or just plain old example of something--but what?
But I digress. I don't claim to be a big expert on Japan or anything. I didn't even hear of this band called SMAP, which is the biggest band in the history of Japan and the biggest boy band in the history of the world (despite no longer being close to even having been boys) until She-Who-Will-Not-Be-Mentioned-on-Blogs revealed to me the heights and depth of her fandom a few years ago. (Which is not at all about being an otaku, she emphasizes--otaku are so into things few others care about they'll only talk about their obsessions, not that she has anything against otaku, having married one, she hastened to add.) OK, so SMAP is bigger than the Beatles. They've taken over Japanese media of all kinds. Kimura Takuya, Kimutaku as his fans call him, is the undisputed heavyweight of the group (although SWWNBMOB has decided she's transferring her affections to some other guy in the group, not that I would ever admit to feeling jealous of a pop icon). Which is one way of setting up this little clip, Kimutaka's version of the "para para" dance thing that was popular seven or eight years ago in Japan.
Yup, Mostly Harmless is out to start a YouTubeocalypse. (Calling all Benzons....) [YouTube publishes the embedding code to the right of the video; you just have to copy it into your post, as I did above--BB] Laughter may now commence over my
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
On Lucas and Card
OK, so I told myself I was going to sit back and see what the new Mostly Harmless Authors did with my last post besides (bo-ring!) comment on it, but this is too good to pass up: via Kung Fu Monkey, Keith Martin's rather clever reinterpretation of the original Star Wars movie (which my younger brother and I saw in California a total of about 20 times--him more than me--when it first came out) in light of the last three (or, for those keeping count, how IV looks when viewed after I-III). Makes me think of Card's Ender's Saga--as unpopular as Card is in Left Blogistan these days--and how the Shadow sequels make you rethink what you thought was going on in the original Speaker series. Don't know why--probably because I loved the originals when I first saw/read them (just like I was exactly the right age for Airplane! when it came out--does that date me or what?) and have to work hard not to be a wee bit embarrassed by them (ok, a lot bit embarrassed when it comes to Lucas's--the acting, people, the acting!). Reading Martin's piece almost makes me want to do what he must have subjected himself to and watch the first four Star Wars movies in a row. Almost. My youngest daughter is only 9 months old, so I have at least 6 years I can wait before whatever technology for viewing the movies allows me to start imposing my childhood pop culture canon on them. Or is that bad?
[Update 1/24/07: Oh no, I checked out the comments on the KFM piece I tipped the hat to above and found a link to this brilliant close reading of the end of IV. Stop me before I link again!]
[Update 1/28/07: Any writers from The Daily Show lurking here? Unlikely, probably KFM inspired this bit that Pharyngula kindly provides us with.]
[Update 1/24/07: Oh no, I checked out the comments on the KFM piece I tipped the hat to above and found a link to this brilliant close reading of the end of IV. Stop me before I link again!]
[Update 1/28/07: Any writers from The Daily Show lurking here? Unlikely, probably KFM inspired this bit that Pharyngula kindly provides us with.]
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