The Blogg

December 29, 2008

Yet Another Eagles Post

Filed under: Personal — chadhogg @ 12:32 am

I can’t watch NBC 10′s “Football Night In Philly” since I am currently in a Baltimore-market home and it does not seem to be available streaming over the ‘Net, so I’ll write about the Iggles instead. What a day! I was driving, listening to the pregame show on WYSP as highlights came in from Giants-Vikings, Texans-Bears, and most importantly Buccaneers-Raiders. No one, myself included, expected the Raiders to win. (In order for the Eagles to make the playoffs, they needed to win, Tampa Bay needed to lose, and either Minnesota or Chicago needed to lose.) As I parked the car at the location where we would be watching the game, the official word came that Tampa Bay and Chicago were out, and I went in for kickoff in a fever of renewed hope. The game itself was ridiculously awesome, with the team firing on all cylinders and every break going there way.

I am as happy about the win and upcoming playoffs as anyone, but on WYSP’s postgame show I heard Kevin Riley say something close to “this win whitewashes all of that” referring to the team’s struggles the previous week and before and calls for players and coaches to lose their job. This game was great, but it did not tell me anything I did not already know. The Eagles are an immensely talented team; that has never been in doubt. They are also a maddeningly inconsistent team. When your team can come out as poorly as last week and as dominantly as they did today, you never know who is going to show up on game day. Today’s win does not negate that inconsistency, and it does need to be addressed during the offseason somehow.

Actually, the same can be said of Donovan McNabb. I would take him, playing at his best, against Manning or Brady or Brees playing their best games any day. All of those other quarterbacks, however, play well on a regular basis. McNabb’s numbers look good because he has great games and terrible games, and thankfully more of the former. The Eagles are not going to find another quarterback with the same ceiling that McNabb does, but if Kolb or someone else can play consistently at 75% McNabb’s best, it would be an improvement for this team.

The offensive playcalling today was good, and both Westbrook and Buckhalter got their carries. (Although it was the absurdly good/lucky defense that made this a blowout.) I still have a reason to be angry at Andy Reid, however. Only a few minutes into the third quarter, we pretty much had the game wrapped up. For the next three or four drives we had Westbrook pounding the ball and McNabb dropping back. There was absolutely no reason for that. How would we do in Minnesota if Westbrook had broken his leg?

My father-in-law’s Dolphins also completed a remarkable turnaround from last year’s 1-15 record to win their division today. I’m looking for a Philadelphia-Miami Super Bowl in which we can crush them. Let’s see it.

December 21, 2008

Run The *&^%$#@ Ball!

Filed under: Personal — chadhogg @ 8:08 pm

I lost track of how many times I screamed this at the television this afternoon. McNabb and the receivers played poorly, but the fault for this loss and the effective end of the season lies entirely with the play-calling. After the mid-season losses I wrote “Until we commit to running the ball early and often, we will not have success running when we need to later in the game and defenses will be able to sell out against the pass.” After we actually did so for two games, I commented “What made the difference? First and foremost, we ran the ball. In the first quarter there were a lot of runs for 0-3 yards, which you generally consider a failure. But because we kept at it, by the end of the game we were ripping off long gains and had a stranglehold on the clock. Furthermore, the passing game was helped by the defense having to actually defend the run. Was this a result of a long-term change of heart for Reid or Mornhinweg? That remains to be seen.” Well, I guess we have seen now.

Unless my memory is wrong, after the field goal we went with 12 consecutive passing attempts. Most of them were incomplete, and none of them went for a first down. You CAN NOT win in the NFL without running the ball in the best of conditions. With two of your receivers out of the game, another playing injured, and swirling winds you might think this would be especially obvious. I’ve gone back and forth on it as the Eagles season waxed and waned, but I’m done. I can’t take another year of Reid. It’s time to clean house.

After one dropped pass my wife asks why I am not yelling “Catch the ball!” just as loudly. Not catching the ball is a failure of talent, and while frustrating I can deal with that. Stubbornly refusing to call workable plays is not a failure of talent or execution; it is stupidity, plain and simple. That is unacceptable.

December 19, 2008

Oh, The Weather Outside Is Frightfully Awesome

Filed under: Personal — chadhogg @ 11:47 am

In contrast to many people, my wife included, I love snow. Maybe it is a case of lingering excitement from a time when it meant a day off of school or an extra hour of sleep. Perhaps it is because some of my fondest childhood memories are of sledding or building snow forts or hiking through a snow-covered forest. Maybe it is just because it makes all the world so beautiful. Maybe I just like the sense, even though it is no longer true of me, that the whole world puts aside their day-to-day worries and enjoys the holiday.

I get (partially) why people hate the snow. It took me twice as long to get to work today, and the drive was more stressful than usual. When I depended on on-street parking it was always a war to protect your shoveled-out spot while you were gone. People who do not know how to drive in the snow will cause minor accidents, and some cherished activities may be canceled. I understand all of this, and I even share your disdain for sleet, hail, freezing rain, and “wintry mixes”. The snow, however, is too pleasant to dislike.

For any readers who still share my childlike joy and wonderment at the weather today, “let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!” As for you grinches, you get your way 350 days out of the year.

December 18, 2008

What Makes A Good Book?

Filed under: Books,Personal — chadhogg @ 4:54 pm

I think there are four characteristics. A good work of fiction does not need to be a shining example of all four, but the best will excel in at least three categories. I should note that “good” in this context is primarily a measure of how much I enjoy reading it. Professional critics and academics may have very different metrics.

  • The first requirement is a compelling story to tell. This encompasses plot, setting, and characters. A story need not include thrilling life-or-death situations, exotic locales, and dashing heroes, but there should be something to keep me turning the pages to find out what happens next.
  • The second is that a novel should be well written. By this I mean that the language should convey the precise meaning intended by the author. The structure and style of the writing should not distract from the story being told. Ideally, they should actually enhance the meaning of the content.
  • Third, a work should effectively use literary devices. By this a mean symbolism, allusion, juxtaposition, irony, and the other sort of things that you are supposed to learn to care about in high school English classes. As you can probably tell, I find this to be the least important category. Use of these devices on a level that I will understand them can be very effective, but I often tend to miss them entirely. This is what I suppose separates literature from commercial writing in the minds of those who would make such a distinction.
  • Finally, a fictional work should provide some insight into the human condition. In other words, a good book of fiction will contain “Truth with a capital ‘T’”.

Mass-market paperbacks generally contain an excellent example of (1) and are at least decent with respect to (2), while ignoring (3) entirely and giving only a passing glance to (4). In spite of their shortcomings in some areas, I have read and enjoyed many works by Clancy, Grisham, Crighton, and the like. Most science fiction and fantasy also fall into this category, although the best in the genre do a better job of (4).

Other works can be quite poor in (1) yet remain enjoyable based on (2), (3), and (4). I am currently reading D. H. Lawrence’s “Sons And Lovers”, which lacks any sort of interesting plot. Thusfar, it has centered on the uneventful lives of a very ordinary lower-class family living in the UK during the early 20th Century. Although very little happens, the characters’ relationships reveal some universal truths. Actually, I have been having some difficulty with the book because these “truths” do not ring true to my own experiences.

Very rarely one finds a work that excels in all of these areas. The last thing I read, Koestler’s “Darkness At Noon”, is such a book. The setting is fascinating, the writing beautiful, the religious allusions and symbolism recognizable, and a small chip of what it means to be human in the modern world is explored.

What would your criteria be?

Christmas (and other) Music

Filed under: Music,Personal,Religion — chadhogg @ 2:47 pm

Another blog that I read recently asked Who is the best singer of Christmas songs?. I’ll repeat the comment that I made there:

I love Christmas music, but I can’t think of any professional recordings of it that do not make me cringe. To me Christmas music is a congregation and pipe organ in a church, or family and friends standing around the piano at a party, or a group of carolers wandering the streets, or a cold busker on a street corner. For some reason, the recordings you have listed above just turn me off.

That is not to say that there are no recordings of Christmas music that I enjoy. The Trans-Siberian Orchestra has done some great work in that area, and Chicago released an album of mostly interesting arrangements of carols. My mother has an instrumental recording called (I think) A Celtic Christmas that is fairly enjoyable. The kind of music that gets endless repetition at shopping malls and on the worst excuses for radio stations this time of year, however, drives me up the wall.

I’ve been thinking about it, and there are several reasons for this. First, anything played that often is bound to be ad nauseum. Second, much recorded Christmas music has the kind of sickeningly sweet, overly melodramatic production that I hate in all cases. Third, the commercialization of what had traditionally been sacred hymns bothers me. (Who votes for Santa Claus visiting on the winter solstice? But that’s another topic.) I think there are two other more over-arching reasons as well that are probably more significant:

Fourth, all of the positive examples of Christmas music that I gave were live performances, a manifestation of a significant preference that I have for live music over recordings. Recorded music is a great technology, allowing me to listen in my office, automobile, and apartment for relatively minor fees. Furthermore, some amazing things can be (and have been) done in the recording studio that could never be reproduced live. Still, I would take the energy of a live performance over the perfection of a record any day.

Finally, three of the four positive examples that I gave were of participatory music, and the remaining one is of an amateur. I love listening to fantastically talented musicians practicing their craft, and the world would be darker without the exceptional work of these virtuosos. I feel, however, that making music is too often made the domain of the professional. It is one thing to attend a concert and listen to great music, but another experience entirely to be a small part of making less than great music. Perhaps I am especially musically inclined, but I think that most people would agree with this, even if the extent of their participation is singing in the shower or drumming on the steering wheel.

I am part of the music team at the church I attend, and we typically play a postlude immediately after the service concludes that is thematically related to the message of the day but not explicitly Christian. A few weeks ago our theme was environmental stewardship, so we did “Share The Land” by The Guess Who. Last week we had been approaching advent from the perspective of Mary, so we closed with “Let It Be” by The Beatles and “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” by John Lennon. This has become my favorite part of the morning because as some people leave, others come over and form a circle around the team, singing along. Someone picks up a drum that was sitting idle and starts tapping out a beat, while someone else shakes a tambourine. The congregation participates in the usual music during the worship service as well, of course, but this is different. No one suggested that people come back and join us, just the love of music and of making music draws them in. It is a very organic, inclusive, and exciting experience.

In some age long past, this must be what people would have done if they wanted to experience music. The age of easily available professional recorded music has cheapened that experience, and sometimes I wonder if it has all been worth the cost.

December 12, 2008

Book Review: Darkness At Noon

Filed under: Books — chadhogg @ 5:56 pm

Any novel about a defendant in the Moscow Show Trials would be interesting based on the unusual setting alone. What makes Darkness At Noon fantastic, however, is the characterization and attention to detail. The way Koestler describes Rubashov’s pacing, communication, and physical tics puts the reader in the mindset of a prisoner nervously awaiting the inevitable sentence. The conflicts in Rubashov’s mind about his past treatment of Richard, Little Loewy, and Arlova and the ethics of revolution and government make him real. The repeated image of the less sun-damaged rectangles where the picture of the Old Guard had hung before they were renounced as traitors symbolizes the bleakness of dissent against autocracy more sharply than anything in Orwell’s literature. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of the 20th century or human nature.

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