Reading: John Milton, Paradise Lost

Moving: walked1.5 miles

Watching: the Olympics

Listening: Eddie Vedder has a cover of the Beatles' "Hide Your Love Away" on the "I Am Sam" soundtrack. I like it!

9 February 2002: Olympics

Last night's opening ceremonies were so beautiful. I expected to find them cheesy and overdone because--as I said this to Nisou this morning, we finished together--"because they're American." But they weren't. There were a couple of bits I didn't like, but overall, spectacular. The marionettes of the moose, bison, and horses, oh, the horses; the skaters as foxes, golden eagles, and panthers; the all-volunteer dancing pioneers and settlers of Utah; the driving of the golden spike. The representation of the five major American Indian tribes in Utah especially (except I wonder if there really are conveniently five or if the numbers were fudged to coincide with the Olympic rings). The Olympic flag bearers, what a crowd: Desmond Tutu for Africa; Lech Walesa for Europe; Cathy Freemantle for Oceania; John Glenn for the Americas; and I'm sure Asia has done something more notable than a 1998 gold medalist. The single New York City police officer singing "God Bless America" was more beautiful than the entire Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing "The Star-Spangled Banner," but possibly the latter's acoustics were bad. It's easier to train a mike on a soloist than on a choir.

I read that there was some controversy about including the U.S. flag that was flying in the World Trade Center complex on Sept. 11, because the Olympics are supposed to be free of politics (which must be why the United States boycotted Moscow's summer games in 1980 and the Soviet Union ours in 1984). I think having the president declare the games open is more political than including a flag that represents an entire nation. If I believed him honestly elected, honest, or less of a dunderhead, I might not mind. Anyway, what I do not understand is why the flag was displayed upside down. It wasn't an upside down camera angle; the flag was on its face. If that was explained, I missed it (because that's when I started watching). Because it's torn? Being retired? Is a flag always held that way before it's folded all ritualistically? I dunno, and haven't been able to find an answer at NBC or the Olympics site.

10 February 2002: Oh. Of course. It's that union always in the upper left thing. When it was carried in, stretcher-style, the union was in the upper left in the direction of travel. Fine. I still need to find the source or logic of the rule for the union being in the upper left instead of the flag always being oriented the same way.

And I hope Russia didn't take it as a slap in the face that the 1980 men's hockey team lit the torch.

Overall less cheesy than the Sydney opening ceremony, whose aerial dreamscape was pretty but not meaningful. I suppose if I weren't Usan last night's iconography mightn't've been meaningful either.

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I am so glad of Tivo. I'll watch everything the next evening, fast-forwarding through all the commercials and cheese and filler and mess. Love the Tivo. My mainline Olympics habit will be much purer and less tainted this time. (In "Blow," I learned that you test how much your cocaine has been cut by melting it: the purer, the hotter. Street grade is 120 or 140 degrees, I forget; this blow exceeded the 180 degrees a buyer expected. The movie was about the one man who started cocaine in this country. He says if you bought coke in the '70s or early '80s, you had an 85% chance of its being supplied by him. I hope he's proud of himself.)

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I called Nisou this morning. She is dealing with all the stresses of late-term pregnancy and it was good to talk to her. I knew her parents were going soon after the birth, but they'll have another visitor as well. Recently SPG answered the phone and passed it to Nisou when he heard the caller was Usan. She said "Hi, I'm SEM's girlfriend and I'm sending you SEM." Nisou said, "Nice to meet you!" So we like her already. Years ago SEM and I talked about going together to France when Nisou had a baby, and I'm glad one of us is keeping his promise. They all three might come home in June, so that's when I'd go home too this year.

She wanted to know quiz answers so I told her. Then I said about how it doesn't matter that she didn't do well, that neither did RPR or ABW and it doesn't matter, because the only person who got 100% besides me and RDC was Septum.
"What?" she screeched. "I didn't know you were still in touch with him!"
"I'm not. It was PLT. Who freely admits he is a weasel."
"What an evil sense of humor he has."
Yeah.

When I mentioned Prodigal Summer, she merped, because everyone's been recommending it. I hope I remember to ask BJWL about it. I would be so pleased if she read it.

10 February. Nope. But she's reading The Red Tent.

I should have a newling by Thursday.

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I only just started Paradise Lost, but in the editor's introduction I thought of my first parallel to The Golden Compass. Asking a question of the alethiometer and interpreting its answer depends on holding in your mind the multiple possible meanings of its different symbols. The editor points out that when Milton writes "fruit," he doesn't just mean that one specific troublesome apple but also anything that might come to fruition and so on and so forth. Yep, I'm reading Milton to get more out of Philip Pullman.

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I just saw on the local news in a story about wildlife "encroaching" into the metropolitan area--I would more reverse the subject and object of that clause--a woman, into whose backyard a fox had the temerity to set paw, say she was "surprised" to learn that a fox is a predator.

What the fuck did she think they eat, Jello?

About the convoluted the last-but-one sentence--I've been reading the end of Mansfield Park.

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I was just about to stop but one last thing--Blake had been hiding in his brown paper lunch sack and singing when I sneezed. He startled, but there's no room to flap inside a bag. The sound reminded me of the sound of chicken pieces being dredged in a bag of (my mother's homemade version of) Shake-n-Bake. My own little poultry boy.