Tomorrow begins yet another long weekend for Loudoun County Public Schools. Monday is Diwali, and Franklin and I are celebrating on today’s episode of Math and Musings with, among other things, some Diwali-themed trivia.
(Pause for effect.)
By the way, neither one of us has any idea what Diwali is or really anything about it.
Enjoy.
‘Round these parts the “weekend” is just ending, so here still on Wednesday I’m reveling in what was a great few days for D.C. sports. Sunday evening, hours before my hometown NFL team–that would be the Washington Commanders–pulled off an improbably victory against Philadelphia, my hometown NWSL team–that would be the Washington Spirit–pulled off an expected victory against the Chicago Stars. Expected because, well, unlike the Commanders, the Spirit are good.
And yeah, spirit in a broad sense was alive and well at Audi Field, home of both men’s and women’s professional soccer in the DMV. The venue is in the same neighborhood as Nationals Park, and I’ll note that the atmosphere Sunday evening eclipsed anything I’d ever seen for baseball. Having a winning team helps (take note, men’s teams), as my local women’s teams for soccer and basketball have overshadowed those of the United and Wizards. (To be fair the Wiz are just now beginning, but their recent track record makes me nervous.) In general my metric for “enthusiasm” is ticket prices, and I did note that this week it was cheaper to see a United game than its Spirit counterpart. (Funny that even a cheapskate like me went for the expensive one.) Like the Mystics, are they victims of their own success? From the team’s perspective I guess you’ve got to say job well done.
Spirit’s first playoff game is this Sunday and, for better or worse, once again they’re fighting for attention with those on the gridiron.
I’ve got much more confidence in the Spirit.
Daylight Savings Time has come to a close, and once again political parties of all stripes across this fruited plain have missed my golden offer: undying devotion to the group that either gets rid of it forever, or never lets it end once started.
Tomorrow, for those of you under rocks, is Election Day, so important we close the schools around here to allow a dozen or so people to come in and vote. I couldn’t even name any of the people that appeared on my ballot this year, though I did note that there were five of those yes or no questions on which citizens can play legislator. (I guess that’s what legislators do too… they just get paid to do it.)
I never really read those yes and no questions. They’re always phrased in confusing ways, like if you put two opposing viewpoints into an AI program to make something sound “neutral” but really it just sounded bad from both sides. My general policy is to automatically assume “no” should be the answer on these things. If a law were useful they would just do it, right? If the government has to ask my permission about something, my kneejerk reaction is no way. Many of these questions involve spending for public projects, and even if it’s something I’m literally a part of (public schools!) my thought is, I bet they could do this with less money. I’m part of spenders here too, not just the receivers. (I watch the top and the bottom of the fraction.)
I’m glad I’m in a position now to watch these things from sidelines and not worry too much about the outcomes of any of them. One thing’s for sure, my TV’s going to have a lot fewer political ads come Wednesday, thank God.
It would be weird not to say anything about this year’s World Series, right? Kind of a classic, not that it went down to a final game or whatever but that nearly every game itself was riveting. The Milwaukee Brewers were the better team, I thought, and yeah, it was no surprise they won, but I never found the action uninteresting or dull.
Banana Ball hasn’t killed this sport yet.
Today on Math and Musings you will not hear me and Franklin talk about any of this, choosing instead to go the intellectual route and discuss some contemporary literature. The new Diary of a Wimpy Kid offering, Fight or Flight, reached bookstores (yes, they still have those) on October 20, and Franklin and I had the entire book read before the end of the 21st. I’ve written about the Wimpy Kid series before and called its author, Jeff Kinney, the greatest social critic of our time. I think I’m calling him the Shakespeare of our time as well because dang, this guy is prolific. A book a year and they’re all gems, worthy of inclusion in your home library.
And a podcast.
Enjoy.
This past Sunday night I was at Capital One Arena for the second time in a month, once again paying witness to a band I’d admired for decades but had never seen in person.
As Paul Rudd says in I Love You, Man, I was prepared to get Rush-ified.
Tell anyone in the crowd Sunday you’ve been a Rush fan for 20 years and probably the most polite reaction you’d get is some kind of eye roll and/or exasperated sigh. This is the band’s “Fifty-Something Tour,” and yeah, there were people there I’m sure who’ve been following the Holy Triumverate for more than five decades.
I found Rush when I was in college. Like most libertarian students hiding in progressive universities I completed the usual rites of passage: read Atlas Shrugged, listen to Rush. Rush was cool without being flashy, mainstream without being too commercial, and what I’d call actual music rather than mindless pop. Girls didn’t get it, and that’s why every party I went to in college was a bunch of dudes. Fast-forward a quarter century and yeah, Sunday night… a bunch of dudes. No matter. Rush and Rush fans lean into this; it’s actually a plot point of the aforementioned movie, I Love You, Man. Luckily I’m not here to meet girls. I’m here to listen to music. Music that is kind of amazing. Hockey, maple syrup, Rush: these are things Canadians do well.
I’ve written before about Neil Peart, Rush’s legendary drummer who passed away in 2020. I actually was a fan of Neil’s writing before getting into his drumming; he has a series of travelogues that include his musings on life and philosophy not unlike my own that go back to the 1990s. A Rush show on this current tour (the first in 50 years without Peart) spends much time paying tribute to its late drummer, and the adoring crowd certainly appreciates it. Neil can never really be replaced, but listen to 43-year-old German maestro Anika Niles and you’d swear you were listening to the ghost of Neil Peart deftly cascading across a percussive landscape. (Sorry for the over-the-top analogy, but calling it a “drum set” or “playing the drums” just doesn’t do it justice.) Niles is worthy of the Neil Peart chair.
I knew it was going to be great… and it was. There wasn’t one moment that stood out for me Sunday night. There were about 50.
Fifty-something.
In the summer of 1998, shortly after the death of one Francis Albert Sinatra, the late singer’s record companies unabashedly released a deluge of his old recordings, trying to cash in no doubt on this next wave of Sinatramania. I was one of those buyers as a newly initiated Sinatraphile, and the first “original” album I purchased (not a compilation) was Sinatra at the Sands, a prized CD I still own nearly 30 years later. I’m pretty sure the number of times I’ve listened to that disc is into the thousands, and of course I know every word, every note, and just about any time someone in the audience so much as coughs.
Memorizing every note and nuance is important to part two of the story, in which six decades after they were recorded some previously unreleased material from those ’66 Sands shows with Basie hit the open market of Spotify last week.
My first thought was, why the hell have these been sitting in someone’s basement for the last 60 years?
Second thought: I know what I’m doing for the next five hours.
It’s one of those projects that only devotees can enjoy, finding the slightest differences in words and music–Sinatra famously altering phrasings from show to show that would baffle today’s pop singers (and pop audiences). The mixes are a little different too (or maybe my own equipment is better now), and this provides a little puzzle as well, noting said differences. I had to listen to the piano (I assume it’s Bill Miller, not Basie) on “It Was a Very Good Year” about six times in a row because it’s just that good, so present and so sparse yet dense at the same time (listen and that paradox will make sense).
As with nearly everything Sinatra touched in this era, this is a masterpiece. Add in 21st-century technology and it’s absolutely without modern comparison. Kudos to the team that has put this together, and please, keep digging for more.
Please tell me the vaults are not empty yet.
Today on Math and Musings Franklin and I discuss a not-so-recent trip to upstate New York, during which time I recorded my latest musical offering. The record is called Mike O’Connell’s 45, and unlike my previous records this one is actually going to be a… record. Like, an actual vinyl record.
The process of record manufacture (you know, actually melting the wax and cutting the grooves and such) takes time, but putting the tracks on Spotify takes, like, no time at all. So for now enjoy some digital tunes, then watch for the bat signal when you can buy some wax.
And enjoy our discussion!
My hometown NBA team (that would be the Washington Wizards) begins its season tonight with a game at home against the Milwaukee Bucks. For the first time in several years I’m actually looking forward to following the team this year, its mix of veterans and younger players intriguing and hopefully serviceable. Not guaranteeing 50 wins or anything, but they’ve gotta be better than they’ve been the past three seasons, during which time they’ve won 50 games total.
Unlike their WNBA counterparts, one can see these games in person at a reasonable price, benefit I suppose of a team that’s, well, not so great.
Hasn’t been great, recently, but I’m ready to go full Charlie Brown kicking the football on this one.
Might even see ’em live.
At least it’ll be affordable.
For now.
Like many this weekend who witnessed Nathan Fielder’s new movie, You Can See Everything, my reaction was something like wtf? (That’s actually an exact quote from the guy sitting next to me, though he didn’t use the initialism.)
Like other Fielder offerings (the Nathan for You finale comes to mind immediately)… it was riveting. It’s not easy to keep someone on the edge of his seat for three hours, but there I was. I didn’t move or blink or breathe or anything silly like that for nearly twice as long as I usually am willing to sit through a movie. Sure, it didn’t need to be that long, but its length never made it any less enjoyable.
It was awkward, it was funny, it was intense, it was though-provoking. There’s no great reveal, no smoking gun… but that’s kind of the point. You leave not knowing what to think about the Elizabeth Holmes saga, or Holmes herself or the people around her. I know that the people around me, a hundred or so at the Alamo Drafthouse (totally packed, by the way), had the same reaction. Just kind of stunned after going on this journey together. I’m glad I saw it in a theater, not that I needed to see it on a giant screen but that I got to be part of a community. A community of people on a long, strange trip.
Kudos, Nathan Fielder and company, as always. I’m already waiting for the next strange trip.
You knew this was coming. On today’s episode of Math and Musings Franklin and I discuss our recent trip to Nationals Park to see the world famous Savannah Bananas compete in the first ever Banana Bowl.
Yeah, it was Bananas.
Enjoy.