NCAA Tournament and beer. That was Friday afternoon, sitting around at the drinking club, watching my alma mater, Notre Dame, take a beating from a Winthrop team that should've been seeded much higher. ND came back from a 20-point deficit, but they did it at the price of fouls and energy. They ended up losing by ten.
Happy St. Patrick's Day. In commemoration, I'm attending three children theater plays without complaining. My sister-in-law runs the operation. She does a nice job with it and my kids love it. Each play's humor is (appropriately) geared toward children. I'm always amused (and to be honest, a bit sinfully annoyed, though I rebuke myself for it) at the adults who bust a gut at the childish humor. One of the children will deliver an entertaining line, deserving of a smile and a polite chuckle, and there will be a few people in the audience of 50 or so doubling over. Humor is a tricky thing and after five-plus years of attending these plays, I still haven't been able to determine whether the gut-busters in the audience (i) are being polite and trying to liven things up, (ii) are laughing at lines delivered by their children and grandchildren because everything their little Andres do is oh so captivating, or (iii) suffer from a sense of humor that stopped developing in third grade. If anyone has any insight, let me know. I can't really give any more details because I have successfully resisted the urge all these years to turn my head and see who's dying in the audience, for fear that the puzzlement will show on my face.
Another Brew You Can Use, in partial compensation for my lame offering yesterday: The ancient Greeks . . . were making wine nearly 6,500 years ago, according to a new study that describes what could be the world's earliest evidence of crushed grapes. Recorded history goes back to about 5,000 BC, so this discovery pretty much gets love of fermentation back to the dawn of history. I wonder if the first prohibitionist group started up 6,499 years ago.
Amish Girls Gone Wild. This story covers the phenomenon, and though I can't vouch for all its details, the general premise is true: Young Amish adults are encouraged to sow their wild oats for a few years before making their final commitment to the Amish way of life. I live in a community with a large Amish population (second largest in the world, I'm told, smaller only than the Amish of Pennsylvania). I have Amish acquaintances and Amish clients and they've confirmed that young Amish adults who haven't yet married are encouraged to enjoy worldly ways. I helped apprehend two Amish shoplifting teenagers while working at K-Mart and I've heard first-hand stories of drunk buggy-driving incidents and other wild living that's reminiscent of Weird Al's Amish Paradise. I've even heard stories of wild sexual forays, but none of those allegations came from reputable sources, so I'm pretty sure they're grossly exaggerated or simply fabricated (many evangelicals around my hometown hate the Amish, for whatever reason).
Great drawing from that site:
Kinda gross, kinda funny, kinda sad, kinda fitting: A German belly dancer has been awarded £12,000 compensation after a plastic surgeon accidentally sucked away one of her buttocks.
Great theory about the most notorious part of American Idol: the public humiliation of the musically untalented:
Time and time again, contestants in the early episodes of this year's season whine obviously off key and then insist they are highly talented – in spite of the judges' protestations. Most of those kids have not learned how to sing, but they have mastered the self-esteem and 'attitude' so valued in our culture. The persistent dynamic of these episodes is expertise putting down untalented braggadocio.
Is the slap-down of the untalented a reaction against the self-esteem hokum that has pervaded American life, especially public school education? Could be. I think it's a great theory.
