Missing Icons

As a friend said to me this morning, "What are the chances of the #1 pop icon from the 70s and the #1 pop icon from the 80s both dying on the same day?"

I agree with his assessment of Michael in the 80s--no one was bigger, and Thriller was the biggest thing to come along, from the standpoint of taking over the whole nation and a big part of the world, in a loooong time. Has anything replicated it since?

As for Farrah, I can't say if she was #1 in the 70s. Mostly due to my poor memory of whatever else was going on. In terms of Charlie's Angels, I was more attracted to Kate Jackson's husky voice and Jaclyn Smith's syrupy sultriness than to Farrah--maybe because she was just so perfect and thus, unattainable.

I do remember, quite vividly, her famous poster. In fact, I had cut out a small picture of it from a magazine and was using it as a bookmark for a spell. One day it fell out right in front of my mother. Words cannot adequately capture her tirade. From that moment on, I never spoke to either parent about any girl again until I had to tell them I was getting married.

RIP, Farrah (and Michael). Whenever I look at my wife's picture from 7th grade with the side flipbacks, I will think of you.

Mary Poppins is a Beeyatch

I have seen Disney's 1964 film Mary Poppins probably a couple dozen times now, and every single time I've thought to myself, "Why is Julie Andrews playing her so MEAN?" I've also thought that LSD probably had a big role in the chimney sweep dance number, but that's a topic for another day.

Last week Alice's sister dropped off four of P.L. Travers's Mary Poppins books for Grace and whomever else to read. Between books, I picked up the first one and plowed through it in a couple of days. Very imaginative stuff, and very different from the movie. Such as:

• Jane and Michael aren't the only kids. There are twin babies, Barbara and John.
• Mrs. Banks is not a dancing, singing Suffragette.
• Bert only shows up once and it is obvious that Mary Poppins is more than smitten.
• No written job description and line of nanny candidates. Mary just appears one day.
• While the laughing/floating scene with Uncle Albert and the Bird Lady are in the book, the movie leaves out the compass trip around the world, talking John and Barbara, and the night visit to the zoo (which are great).
• The Banks don't seem to have much interest in their kids, but there is no Mary Poppins mission to get them to connect, culminating with "Let's Go Fly a Kite" in the park.

But believe it or not, another big difference is that Mary Poppins in the book is even MEANER than the Julie Andrews portrayal. Not a single nice word or smile the entire book. Other than the cool adventures, the kids should have been thrilled the West wind finally blew her away.

Chalk Up Another One for the Church

Somehow, I don't think this is what Jesus had in mind.

"Socially Horrifying"

I've never read any of Malcolm Gladwell's books, just the occasional article in The New Yorker, so I've never formed much an opinion one way or another. His recent article on underdogs, however, knocked my socks off. He looks around the corner and throughout history to see how Davids beat Goliaths--which they do almost 30% of the time--and whether there are any consistent patterns.

Turns out, there are. One is that underdogs simply work harder.

"We tell ourselves that skill is the precious resource and effort is the commodity. It's the other way around. Effort can trump ability--legs, in Saxe's formulation, can overpower arms--because relentless effort is in fact something rarer than the ability to engage in some finely tuned act of motor coordination."

The other consistent trait is that Davids often come from the "outside" and thus confront their superior adversaries using unconventional or unexpected methods. At one end of the spectrum, the adversaries mock these methods. At the other end, they find them "socially horrifying."

Gladwell weaves in stories of George Washington, Rick Pitino, Lawrence of Arabia, and a team of 7th-grade blonde-haired girls (among others) to make his point. Totally fascinating and somewhat inspiring.

I don't know if was intentional or not, but towards the end of the article, Gladwell begins using the terms "underdog" and "insurgent" interchangeably. It made me think the piece should be required reading for every member of the US military force in Iraq and Afghanistan.

How to Ruin Your House

Our town, like many around it, has undergone a pretty amazing transformation in the past 15 years. Little homes have either been renovated and greatly expanded or demolished to build massive new structures whose garage is bigger than the original house. Most of them have been beautifully designed with interesting roof lines, cool porches, etc.

And a surprisingly large percentage share a common color scheme. Pale yellow siding with maroon shutters. Other than displaying your rusty washing machine collection in your front yard, there is no better way to quickly and drastically reduce your home's value.

Doing Their Bit (at no charge)

Grace and some friends from school formed a club called Global Girls. Its mission is pretty loose, but involves little tasks like saving the world.

They had a meeting yesterday where they made dolls by stuffing socks with cotton balls and then drawing on hair and faces. The plan is to give them to sick children at the hospital to make them feel better. Apparently, some of the Global Girls didn't like the faces they had drawn and wanted to chuck their dolls, but were dissuaded by the others. "Kids with cancer and their hair falling out won't care if the doll's eyes are too big," said one.

After much discussion, the group decided not to charge the kids anything for the dolls.

"The Most Moral Army in the World"

Judge for yourself.

I've Been Coup'd!

On April 13--about a MONTH away, mind you--I will embark upon my 3rd season of coaching Charlie's soccer team. Yesterday I got the team roster and a reminder that there will be a coach's meeting on March 31 and then after that to contact your team about the schedule, what they need to bring, etc.

For my assistant coach, I was assigned my least favorite person in the whole program. This guy has been a loud problem in every 4 v. 4 game. Last night he emails me saying that if I want him to send out the team email, he'd be happy to. Then 5 minutes later, and before he got my response, he sends out the email--complete with his declarations about what snack he's going to bring for the first session and other symbols of power.

On the one hand, it's very nice of him to jump in and do this stuff. On the other hand, there are very clear delineations about what the head coach does and what the assistant does. I'm afraid it's going to be a very long season.

Nice Reminders

We're now in our 10th year of being vegetarians, and every once in a while it's nice to be reminded about all the positive outcomes of passing on meat. Like when you're eating a slice of fake bacon that looks an awful lot like a used band-aid.

For Christmas I got Green Living which has a nice list (see below), but never mentions the benefits to the animals themselves. Chief among them being not being killed and eaten.

• You'd save more water by not eating a single pound of California beef than you would by not showering for an entire year.
• Producing a single hamburger patty uses enough fuel to drive 20 miles. It also causes the loss of five times its weigh in topsoil.
• More than a THIRD of all raw materials and fossil fuels consumed in the US are used in animal production. [not wild about the term "production," frankly]
• Because of deforestation to create grazing land, each vegetarian saves an acre of trees per year.
• It takes 4.8 pounds of grain (fed to cattle) to produce one pound of beef.
• A pound of wheat can be grown with 60 pounds of water, whereas a pound of meat requires 2,500-6,000 pounds.
• Reducing meat production by just 10% in the US would free enough grain to feed 60 million people.
• US factory farms generated 1.4 billion tons of animal waste in 1996, which, the EPA reports, pollutes American waterways more than all other industrial sources combined.
• There are 20 billion head of livestock taking up space on the Earth, more than triple the number of people.

The Skimpy Outfits Hold No Sway

Charlie (along with Grace) has skated in the Hayden Ice Show, a pretty big deal in our town, the past 2 years. It's always held in May and features a couple dozen different groups made up of kids taking lessons at Hayden plus the world-ranked synchronized skating team, The Haydenettes, and one or two National Team skaters. Each group gets special costumes and has a choreographed routine. Super fun for the kids and mostly fun for the parents (until all the flesh in their bottoms gets smooshed away from sitting on bleachers for four hours).

The past two years he was in a group with other boys his age and had a blast. Two days ago, we found out that his group this year will include boys and girls. We wondered how he would take this news, but pretty much knew it wasn't going to be pretty.

Last night at dinner we broke it to him. The news was met with tears of outrage. Just about the funniest tears of outrage the other three of us had ever seen. I teased him saying there wouldn't be ANY boy-girl contact in the routine. Except maybe for that big kiss at the end. This prompted the following reaction: