Raise a Glass of Canadian Club

And toast Dario Franchitti. What a season he's having! Just one question. What's a Scotsman doing promoting a Canadian whisky?

Ah racing. It's a funny old game.

Hi There. I Want To Talk To You About Ducts.

Do you know what the most terrifying thing is about Terry Gilliam's Brazil? It was released 22 years ago and it may be more relevant today than it was in 1985. Gilliam's dystopia is an urban hell where the divide between rich and poor is more stark than ever, government has extended it's tentacled reach into every room and crawlspace of our lives, and terrorism is part of the dull routine of daily existence.

Jonathan Pryce plays Sam Lowry, a man who works as an unimportant government bureaucrat and lives in his dreams as a romantic hero. He is being pressured to move up to a "better" job, but Sam knows that up just means deeper into the machine. He is content to live his waking hours in his low stress little job and spending the rest of his life battling monsters and saving the girl of his dreams.

This Orwellian world is filled with its own kind of monsters. Cruelty hides behind every euphemism. The mechanism of the police state is justified by terrorism. Random terror is common, but no one seems to have ever seen a terrorist -- the only real rebel is someone who would dare fix your air conditioning without the proper paperwork.

So what's a little guy to do? Fight it, and be crushed? Join it, and destroy your own humanity? Or escape like Sam and his co-workers in the Department of Records, into the fantasy of dreams and movies? Escape by any means possible. Is that, in the end, the best we can do? Brazil, I think, says yes. I, I think, agree.

Second Biggest Cow I've Ever Seen

While I was on the road last week I had the chance to take in a minor league baseball game. You just gotta love minor league ball. The quality of game isn't as good, but they're trying hard and sometimes you get to see nice play or two. It's not just the game that makes it great. It's all the goofy stuff they do between innings. I was at beautiful Clipper Magazine Stadium to watch the Lancaster Barnstormers take on the Camden Riversharks (what the hell is a rivershark anyway?). Along with baseball I saw a trivia contest, a rock-paper-scissors championship, kids running the bases for prizes, frisbees thrown into the crowd, and all kinds of nonsense. But the capper, the one that made my week, was the giant cow.

Late in the game they rolled a giant inflated cow into the outfield. It had the Turkey Hill logo on both sides, which is a locally popular chain of convenience stores and a pretty good ice cream. They got some guy out of the crowd, blindfolded him, spun him around, and had him try to find the cow. With the help of us fools in the seats yelling directions, he found it and, with one mighty push, tipped it over. Giant inflatable cow tipping! Where else can you get that much value for your entertainment dollar?

The home team lost, by the way. Not that it matters. I had a good time and I have the T-Shirt to prove it.

Me in NYC

I had a couple of stopovers in New York City last week and I found it to be . . . interesting. It was loud. It was crowded. Parts of it smelled bad. It was old and it was new. It was trashy and it was flashy.


It was big.


It was vulgar.

It was interesting.

I expected people there to be rude and wasn't entirely disappointed. At one place I ordered a sandwich and a beer. The woman working the counter told me she needed to see my ID. I reached for it and she snapped "Cash only!" Well duh. She realized that I was showing her my ID while handing her cash and looked a little chagrined, but no less rude.

On the other hand the lady at the Nathan's Hot Dogs stand was very nice and wished me a good trip. That, and the hot dog was very good. And I met a guy on the train who was all right, despite being a Yankees fan. He pointed out some of the sights and regaled me with dirty jokes. Good guy.

So then, what about New York? There's probably a whole lot of it yet to see. Perhaps I'll drop in again someday when I have more time to look around.

Eek.

I was waiting for a streetcar the other day when a rat leapt from behind a rail, skittered across the platform, by my feet, and under a trash can. After the initial shock a thought occurred to me -- Y'know that new Disney movie, the one about a rat in a kitchen? That might not be such a good idea after all.

It Followed Me Home! Can I Keep It?

Just a quick little bird-spotting note here. Last week I took a couple of eight hour rides on Amtrak. Passing through some pretty country in Rhode Island I saw a few herons standing out in some shallow water. Pretty neat. Not a bird I see in my own neighborhood. This afternoon Da Queen and I took a walk to the grocery store. Guess what flew by us at rooftop level? Yup.

Home Again

I've been on the road for a while. Now I'm back. And very tired. I'll tell you about it later. Going to sleep now.

D + 63 Years

63 years ago today Allied forces under the command of General Eisenhower landed on the beaches of Normandy and began the invasion of Europe. Despite heavy losses they pressed on, moved inland, and set western Europe free.

If today's journalists had reported on this event they would certainly point out that the invasion had no clear exit strategy. True enough, as U.S. forces continue to occupy Germany to this day. I would like to know when the Germans will be capable of defending themselves and when we can bring the troops home.

Pi Guy

I’ve always been fascinated by stories that are told from the point of view of someone whose grip on reality is a bit shaky. The literature or cinema of madness touches on elements of fantasy and horror. The reader or viewer is forced to navigate through the work without a reliable guide and must decide what is real and what exists only in the mind of the protagonist. What can I say, I like a challenge.

Pi (1998) is just such a challenge. Directed and co-written by Darren Aronofsky, it is the story of obsessive mathematician Max Cohen. Max’s world is a black-and-white one. Not the standard black-and-white we usually see on the screen, which is mostly shades of gray, but a stark black-and-white that signals to the viewer that this world view will be different from our own.

Max believes all that is in nature can be expressed in numbers. He says that if he can graph those numbers patterns emerge. Therefore, there are patterns everywhere in nature. He is looking for those patterns. He studies the stock market, which he sees as a type of organism that represents the global economy and as such is influenced by the actions of billions of minds. He thinks that he will be able to program his computer to predict the market and thereby be closer to understanding the patterns of nature.

Gosh, a movie about math. Sounds pretty exciting, right? Actually, this is less about math and more about obsession, mind, and the human spirit. It is, in fact, something of a thriller. Max is being followed by a group of suits who think that his work could give them the key to getting very rich. He is also being followed by a group of Kabbalists who believe that his research could give them the key to the secrets of the universe. Meanwhile his friend and mentor Sol is telling him that the path he is on can lead only to madness, and it looks like Sol may be right. Max suffers hallucinations, migraines, and blackouts. He increasingly shuts out human contact and has turned his apartment into a sort of supercomputer with himself as a component. The pace of the movie gets faster as Max reaches for enlightenment while spiraling into insanity.

As I said, Pi is a challenge. It’s not one of those movies that lets you relax and watch the pretty pictures. It requires and rewards engaged and thoughtful viewing.

Oh, by the way, the secret to the universe is 88450962738635927503375196794306759962173159040169
41344340076296835915743375167911976157334751953759
20401694343151239621353184932676605800621596380716
39950137145995438750765589253387561875035402998115
2863950711207613.

And here you thought it was 42.

Tough Day at the Milwaukee Mile

I think of the Indy Racing League season as being a thing in three parts. The first few races are sort of a pre-season with everyone getting themselves and their cars figured out. I say "sort of" because all the races count. The next part is Indy itself. The rest of the season is the race for the championship. That started today with the A.J. Foyt 225 at the unforgiving Milwaukee Mile. Here are some random thoughts about the first race of the summer season.

Way To Go TK!
It was a good race indeed for Tony and for the AGR team. Speaking of which . . .

AGR is Back!
This was the second straight win for AGR, the third of six this season. This is shaping up to be a great year, with one exception.

Sophomore Slump?
What's up with Marco Andretti this year? Last year's rookie of the year has finished only one race this season. He had a spectacular crash at Indy and put it into the wall today. Is it bad luck? Does he have a case of the yips? Who knows? My prediction -- look for Marco to get this thing figured out before the end of the season.

Danica Drives
After her team goofed and didn't get her car ready to qualify well, Danica started the race in 17th and worked her way up to contention pretty quickly. Then Dan Weldon drove into her right front tire, throwing her into a spin and messing up her steering. How she managed to avoid a crash I don't know. She's one heck of a driver. And that reminds me . . .

Weldon
I don't usually like to get personal about this, but I have to admit, I don't really like Dan Weldon. All that blather earlier this year about wanting to "dominate" the IRL struck me as childish, and today his driving was, at best, sloppy. At worst it was aggressive to the point of dangerousness.

Penske Perfect?
Speaking of dangerous, what the heck happened to Team Penske? As mechanical failures go suddenly having your rear wing snap is pretty spectacular. Having both cars have the same failure is amazing. For it to happen to Penske is positively stunning.

That's it. I'm all out of thoughts, random or otherwise.

UPDATE 6/4/07: Check out these clips from the race.

Holy Quote of the Day!

Let's take a moment on this Sunday to remember one of history's most contentious churchmen, Peter Abelard, who wrote one of my favorite quotes:

By doubting we are led to enquiry, and by enquiry we discern the truth.

It was just that sort of thinking that got him convicted of heresy by a court led by Bernard of Clairvaux, 867 years ago today. As a fellow heretic I'll stand with Brother Peter, but I can't bring myself to feel too sorry for him. He was kind of a jerk and an intellectual bully. Seriously, read The Letters of Abelard and Heloiseand see what I mean.

On the other hand I've always felt bad for Heloise. One could say that her marriage wasn't all that it was cut out to be.