Category Archives: Movies, Television and Radio

February 24, 2011 · 8:35 am

Château de prétense

I take some risks in raising today’s topic.

First, I fear I may offend readers who take their wine language seriously. Second, I may reveal too much about how little I really know about it.

I enjoy wine. I have a fairly sharp palate that can distinguish among varietals and detect flavors to a reasonable degree. I know what I like and what I don’t and, generally, which wines go well with what foods.

This said, I tread lightly into the language of wine. This might be because I have not been exposed to the business of wine.

I’ve never set foot in a vineyard, never taken a winery tour. I went to a tasting once. In 1982.

Restaurant tasting menus are a rare indulgence, as much for the dining as for the descriptions of the wine pairings. I trust a sommelier and find the pairings are always suitable. The real entertainment, though, comes in his or her descriptions of the wine. Keeping a straight face during the performance is always a challenge. I almost had to excuse myself at Babbo in New York when the sommelier assured us that the wine wouldn’t bully our mushrooms.

Once I was having dinner with a friend at Zaytinya, which had just opened in Washington, D.C. The server had recommended a wine to go with our meal. She said, “I think you’ll find it approachable.” I had to turn my head so that I could roll my eyes.

We ordered this approachable wine and, when the server began to open it, the cork broke off in the bottle. My friend said, “I guess it’s not so approachable.” Our server was not amused.

Call me a bumpkin or call me a cynic, but call me up to here with ridiculous wine descriptions.

One of my favorite pokes at pretension comes from the movie Sideways. On a trip to Napa Valley with a friend, wine aficionado Miles, played by Paul Giamatti, sips, closes his eyes, plugs one ear and observes, “There’s the faintest soupçon of asparagus and just a flutter of Edam cheese.” (Impressive. I’d need at least 20 minutes to detect asparagus in my wine.)

Coco Krumme wrote a piece for Slate this week, separating expensive wines from inexpensive ones based on the language used to describe them. This sent me on an oenophilic cyber-journey, where I tried—honestly I did—to gain an understanding and appreciation of wine language.

But I stumbled upon a host of nouns and adjectives that I found a little hard to swallow.

I understand tannins. I understand finish. I’m willing to accept personality. But, while asparagus and Edam cheese, I hope, are satirical, any food stuffs beyond fruit or maybe chocolate are just silly. Tones of underbrush, animal or briar? Not particularly approachable.

Then, there are the adjectives. In an effort to be an earnest student, I consulted E. Robert Parker’s wine glossary.

Angular?  A wine that lacks roundness. Duuuuh.

Chewy, brawny and spiny? I think not.

Care to decant your favorite bogus wine descriptions?

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February 21, 2011 · 9:38 am

Forefather festivities

Today Americans are observing Presidents’ Day. How will you celebrate?

I cannot tell a lie. I baked a cherry pie last night. Whether or not the father of our country ever cut down a cherry tree and owned up to it isn’t really known, but it served as a good lesson for school children about the importance of telling the truth. And a darn good excuse to make cherry pie.

I imagine tours of the nation’s Presidential libraries are full today, and there are events going on here in the nation’s capital to mark the holiday.

A Facebook friend put out an invitation for favorite presidential quotes.

The Huffington Post posted 22 Ridiculous things You Didn’t Know About U.S. Presidents and The 10 Funniest Presidential Impressions.

Morning news programs ran interesting pieces about presidents, including one on the discovery of a collection of books belonging to Thomas Jefferson.

One might say that presidents, dead and alive, are doing their part to stimulate the U.S. economy. Clearance sales of everything from mattress sets to Jeep Grand Cherokees are happening all across our proud land.

Suddenly I have an urge make a rudimentary cherry tree out of red, green and brown construction paper and have cherry pie for breakfast.

Happy Presidents’ Day. Now express your patriotism and go buy a mattress.

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February 17, 2011 · 8:14 am

Cool, calm and collected computer

Last night, after a two-month build-up, Watson, IBM’s newest supercomputer, competed against two top champions on Jeopardy! and won.

I don’t know if Watson was favored to win the IBM Challenge. When I wrote about the tournament in December, the 89 comments I received represented a diverse mix of opinions and forecasts.

At the end of the final match, Watson had won $77,147, beating former champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, who racked up $24,000 $21,600, respectively. Because it was a special event, these amounts were jacked up to nice round numbers and donated to charity.

The reason this competition piqued my interest in the first place was the project’s aim to enable a computer to recognize, interpret and respond to language subtleties, including irony and sarcasm. In the end, Watson did fairly well with these. I was impressed.

Some have said that Watson had a competitive advantage because a computer can hit the buzzer more quickly than humanly possible. I’d add that, as was pointed out on the first night, Watson knows what it knows and what it doesn’t know, perhaps better, or with more certainly than humans do.

I know nothing about supercomputing technology but, as a human, I do know a little about human nature. If I had to add one more advantage Watson might have had over his human competitors, I might say lack of nerves. It might be argued that Watson has nerves a-plenty in the artificial neural networks running through 90 IBM POWER 750 servers. But not human nerves. Not the kind of nerves that cause rapid heart rate, sweaty palms and ringing in the ears and, ultimately, affect the retrieval of data.

Even though Jennings and Rutter have proven themselves accustomed to functioning well under pressure, they are human.

I don’t know about you, but whether it’s taking an important exam or speaking to a room full of people, I can be as prepared as anyone, having read, studied, tested myself, drilled, practiced and rehearsed in front of a mirror. When the moment comes and the pressure is on, those nerves kick in, the rooms starts to spin and I can draw a complete blank.

Watson didn’t have to take deep breaths or do positive visualizations or whatever else nervous people do to overcome stage fright. Or did he?

Maybe he was picturing Alex Trebek in his underwear.

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February 16, 2011 · 8:58 am

Save the subplot

Among the season’s sitcoms debuting recently is one I will keep my eye on with high hope.

You already know how I feel about sitcoms—that good ones are a dying breed, and the best ones can provide enough laughter therapy to last through the week.

I can’t say just yet that Mad Love will fulfill my therapeutic requirement, but I do know there’s a gleam of potential. The premise isn’t anything special. However, in addition to a strong lead cast and some mildly decent writing, the creators have also written in a character who is prone to mutilating common words and expressions. What’s especially funny is that her gaffes are corrected boldly by the one character who seems least likely to know enough to do so.

Dim-witted characters aren’t uncommon sitcom material. However, I can’t readily recall any having this particular trait. There are so many ways the writers could go with Erin. They could shape her into a modern day Mrs. Malaprop, which would be hilarious. Haven’t we all worked with one person who just couldn’t seem to get straight a simple figure of speech? I’m tempted to send in a few real-life ideas.

The problem is, it looks as though Erin’s character could be short-lived, as she was dumped by her boyfriend, one of the main characters, in the first episode. I can only hope they at least remain colleagues at the law firm in which the story takes place.

It seems that Chicago Sun-Times TV critic Paige Wiser agrees with me. In fact, her review took the words right out of my mouth: “The other bright spot is Ben’s ex-girlfriend Erin, played by Alexandra Breckenridge. She’s given to mangled expressions like “taken for granite” and “an escape goat,” and I hope to God that Ben’s new relationship doesn’t mean we’ve seen the last of her. Come back, Erin. Please.”

Erin’s calling a fabric swatch a “snatch” was just a tease.

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February 14, 2011 · 7:55 am

Storyboard land

All right, I admit it, I am doing this Valentine’s Day thing to death. Just one more, I promise.

Trend Hunter, which had all those zany gift ideas I told you about on Saturday, is offering a dozen or so ideas—storyboards, actually—for proposing marriage to your sweetheart today.

I trust that, if you were going to pop the question on Valentine’s Day, you would have planned it by now. But perhaps you’re impulsive and need the right creative inspiration for how to do it. If that’s the case, you’ll find everything from a talking engagement ring to saying it with sneakers to creative deployment of social media.

One thing these ideas have in common is that it’s all about the storyboard, even if it’s illustrated in one’s mind rather than physically laid out on cardboard or in a graphic design program. How will you stage the ultimate ask (don’t you hate “ask” as a noun?), what effects will help you build up to the big moment and, most important, what steps will you take to ensure the desired response?

I was proposed to on Valentine’s Day. Allow me to share the storyboard.

First, you must know a couple of things about us. One, he was, is and always will be a big fan of the N.C. State Wolfpack (remember, it’s college basketball season). Two, he and I were big fans of the then-popular sitcom, Newhart, in which that week’s episode featured the exchange of Valentine’s gifts.

If I recall correctly (it’s been 26 years), loveable but slightly dimwitted handyman George Utley, played by the avuncular Tom Poston, was advising one of the characters on how to make sure his sweetheart liked her Valentine’s gift.

George suggested, “First give her a box of coconut candy,” to which the man responded, “But she hates coconut candy.” George said, “I know, but then, when you give her the real gift, she’ll be happy,” or something to that effect.

That’s how it played out. Guy gives gal coconut candy. Gal says, “Thanks, but I hate coconut candy.” Guy says, “I know, that’s why I got you this,” gives her the second gift and she loves it.

Back to the storyboard. On February 14, 1985, he invited me over for a Valentine dinner. Even though the Wolfpack was playing, when I got to his apartment, the television wasn’t even on. Instead a Linda Ronstadt album of love songs—might have been Lush Life—was spinning on the turntable.

We ate spiced shrimp and drank champagne. After dinner, we exchanged gifts. I gave him a coffee mug. He gave me a bag of Mounds bars.

I said, “Thanks, but you keep it. I don’t like coconut candy.”

He said, “I know, and that’s why I got you this.”

I unwrapped the box and found inside a diamond engagement ring.

Great storyboard, superb execution, happy ending. 

I wonder if the ’pack is playing tonight.

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February 8, 2011 · 9:01 am

Fill in the blank pages

Last fall, the electronic news organization Politico started a little parlor game in which people take turns predicting sentences from yet-to-be-released books. It started with Bob Woodward’s Obama’s Wars. At lunch one day, a table of Washington insiders took guesses at what snip-its about Administration officials might appear in the soon-to-be released book.

Vanity Fair joined the fun and put the question out to its online readers. Hilarity ensued. One reader submitted: “Biden had ducked behind the oversized leather chair where Bo had curled up to sleep. He rubbed the dog behind his ears as he put a manila folder in his mouth.”

Yesterday, crediting the game Politico had started, Vanity Fair kicked off another round, this time inviting readers to guess what sentences might appear in the forthcoming memoir by 20-year-old Bristol Palin, set to hit shelves in June.

Comments put forth so far include: “Going through something like that always makes me think of an old expression: ‘That was really hard—really hard—but I’m so much more of an adult now’” and my personal favorite,  “I was like, ‘Levi,’ and then he was like, ‘What?’”

That a 20-year-old would have lived enough life to fill 300 pages of memoir confounds me. Even having a mother making a controversial splash in the national spotlight, becoming a mother herself at 18, having an ex-boyfriend who posed for Playgirl and competing on Dancing with the Stars, that still leaves a couple of hundred pages to fill. For gosh sakes, I have sweaters older than Bristol Palin.

Amazon has just begun taking pre-orders for the book that is for now named “Untitled Bristol Palin Memoir.”

Use your imaginations and guess what might be in it. You can follow the comments Vanity Fair’s readers submit and contribute your own comments there. Otherwise, if you’d prefer to scratch your creative itch before a more limited audience, feel free to do it here. What sentences would you expect to read in the memoir?

I’ll start. “One morning I shot a caribou in my pajamas.” What he was doing in my pajamas I’ll never know.

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January 31, 2011 · 9:41 am

Angular momentum

This post could be considered a part two of last week’s post about light bulbs going off. I heard something last night that reminded me of another commonly misused metaphor and thought it might be worth reviewing.

During the Screen Actors Guild Awards program, veteran comedic actor Tim Conway introduced SAG’s Lifetime Achievement Award, given to Ernest Borgnine, who has performed in some 160 films over his 60-year television and movie career.

In an awkward moment, Conway appeared to have trouble reading the teleprompter and winged the introduction. At first I thought he might be doing one of his classic bits. I don’t know whether he was able to access the prepared script or had to make it up on the fly. And unfortunately, I can’t find an exact quote of what he said. But what I heard was a misused geometric figure of speech.

In reviewing Borgnine’s acting career, Conway cited Borgnine’s first film or two and then said that his career took “a 360-degree turn.”

Now a 360-degree turn is quite likely; but it is a full turn. What it means is that there was no change in direction.

I’m sure you’ve heard it. Someone might say, “He was headed down the wrong road, but his life took a 360-degree turn.” Think about it. If that’s true, he is right back where he started.

The correct metaphor for a 100 percent change in direction is a 180-degree turn, a U-turn, if you will.

The point of this lesson is not to make fun of Tim Conway. He happens to be one of the most quick-witted actors on television. I’ve laughed with him since he co-starred with Borgnine in McHale’s Navy, during his many appearances on The Carol Burnett Show, a few years ago on Yes, Dear and now, on Hot in Cleveland. In another 12 years, he might just be the Betty White of his gender.

Maybe the SAG Award’s writers provided a lousy script, but he’s smart; he could have caught and corrected the angular reference. Or maybe he was just doing the gig as Mr. Tudball.

The lesson is:  If you find yourself about to use the wrong angular figure of speech and describe a complete change as a 360-degree turn, do a one-eighty.

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January 18, 2011 · 10:12 am

Best in class

It might be irreverent to say it in this movie awards season, and I might just be a minority of one, but I wish they’d bring back the American Comedy Awards.

Everything that can be said about Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards has been said, by those far more in the know than I. To prove how out of touch I am, my favorite movies (drama and comedy) of the last two years didn’t receive significant mention; this is shaping up to be the third. Gran Torino in 2008 and Pirate Radio in 2009 went un-hyped. This year, one of my faves, Get Low, which featured one of Robert Duvall’s best acting performances to date, hasn’t really even been mentioned. Maybe Oscar will take notice.

What really baffles me about the Golden Globes is the make-up of their “Musical or Comedy” category and, specifically, why The Kids Are All Right was deemed a comedy. I watched it yesterday and didn’t laugh once, and wondered if there was simply a shortage of comedies and musicals and it just got stuffed in there for balance. I liked the movie well enough, and agreed that both Annette Bening and Julianne Moore deserved nominations for their acting, but can’t for the life of me understand the comedy designation.

Comedies don’t typically get serious nods during award season anyway. They’re often too raunchy for serious consideration. It seems that good comedies are rarer each year. Perhaps, rather than lump them in awkwardly with movies like The Kids Are Alright, comedies should have awards all their own. The question is: are there enough good ones?

I’d think that anyone with a bit of smarts and a working funny bone would enjoy two hours in a theater laughing until the tears flow—without toilet jokes,  off-color ethnic jabs or in-your-face genital humor.

In 2001, the year in which the American Comedy Awards were last held, Best in Show, perhaps the best of director Christopher Guest’s mockumentaries, took Funniest Motion Picture, Funniest Supporting Actor (Fred Willard) and Funniest Supporting Actress (Catherine O’Hara). It’s hard to find better comedy than that.

Word has it that MTV and Comedy Central are starting new comedy awards to air this April. I hear many comedic greats are involved, including Phil Rosenthal of Everybody Loves Raymond. This gives me hope that a void will be filled.

Otherwise, with no serious award to strive for, what’s the incentive to make a good comedy any more, except to entertain a country and a world in desperate need of intelligent humor?

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January 12, 2011 · 9:48 am

Winning words

Somehow I missed the news splash—perhaps you did too—but last Friday, the American Dialect Society announced its 2010 Word of the Year: “app.”

Apparently, the Word of the Year doesn’t have to be a new word, nor does it have to be a single word; it can be a phrase. It does have to be newly prominent or notable in the past year, much like Time magazine’s Person of the Year.

The Society wants to assure us that, in voting in these words or phrases, its linguists, lexicographers, etymologists, grammarians, historians, researchers, writers, authors, editors, professors, university students and independent scholars are not inducting new words into the English language. Its announcement states that they are simply highlighting the fact that changes in language are normal, ongoing and entertaining.

“App” beat out runners up “trend” as a verb, “junk,” “Wikileaks” as a proper noun and one I hadn’t heard: “nom,” an onomatopoetic word connoting eating, especially pleasurably.

There was a category for most useful words, my favorite of which was “fatfinger,” a verb meaning to make typos by hitting two keys with one finger on a keypad.

There was a list of words that dominated events, such as “vuvuzela,” as well as portmanteaus that emerged from cultural phenomena–including “Gleek,” “Twihard” and “Belieber.” “Enhanced pat-down” ranked in the top four in the Most Euphemistic category.

The Society also voted on the 2010 Name of the Year: Who could forget “Eyafjalljökul?”

Read more about it and, if there are words you believe the Dialect Society overlooked, feel free to send them as comments to Word Nymph and we’ll confer our own award.

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January 7, 2011 · 9:56 am

Like the corners of my mind

Actress Marilu Henner has been getting a lot of air time lately for a rare skill—some are calling it a diagnosis—known as Superior Autobiographical Memory. Henner is one of only six people in the world who are confirmed to have this gift.

She has talked about her gift for years and has recently written a book about it. The book is due out this Spring.

Henner appeared on the Today show yesterday, and maybe some other programs, in follow up to a more in-depth piece that ran on 60 Minutes last month.

I was struck in a deeply personal way upon hearing both of these accounts. I may not have Superior Autobiographical Memory, but I dare say I have something similar. Let’s call mine Excellent Autobiographical Memory. My friends tease me about the details I remember about specific days of specific years—what happened when, what day of the week an occasion fell on, what I was wearing, what song topped the charts and what was going on in the world.

The autobiographical part might seem a bit ego-centric but, as Henner does, I also recall details about other people, conversations we had long ago, what they were wearing (including in many cases, a fragrance) and, often, something about music. I can hear almost any popular song dating back to 1960 and tell you the year it came out. This isn’t superior, maybe not even excellent. But it is my thing.

I don’t know about people with Superior Autobiographical Memory, but I know the birthdays of all my friends and family, without having them written down anywhere. I know my credit card numbers and expiration dates by heart (too much online shopping perhaps?). I even remember the phone number we had when I was six (CL6-2808).

In this blog, I have shared a number of childhood memories that my family members barely remember. Often the memory is as clear as the day it happened, though it’s my memory, and not always 100 percent historically accurate. Usually I’m pretty close.

This is not to say that I have a great memory. I’ve been known to put my car keys in the medicine cabinet. I can be in mid-sentence and forget the simplest of nouns. (Humorist Dave Barry claims the nouns are the first to go.) The day before yesterday, I started out for Jazzercise and ended up at the grocery store on autopilot. Sadly, the names of rivers, mountain ranges, poets and playwrights appearing in crossword puzzles will forever elude me.

Yesterday I wrote about how dancing is considered to have a positive impact on memory. I’m dancing like crazy to keep my wallet out of the refrigerator, while my life’s DVD plays in my hotwired head.

Now where did I leave that crossword puzzle?

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